Let Go of the Excuses

One of the things I’ve tried to repeat and reinforce is that many advertisers focus on the wrong things. They’re not getting good results, so they look for a new hack, a new campaign construction, or a new guaranteed guru strategy.

They may have been getting good results at one time, and then it all stops. That element is critical. Since they were able to get good results at one time, they have an unearned confidence. Once things stop working and they’ve tried every hack, they’re frustrated. They know the problem isn’t them. So it’s easy, even natural, to blame someone else. You know what you’re doing, so it can’t be you.

And honestly, maybe a critical personality trait that’s required to be an effective Meta advertiser is something that’s often overlooked: humility. Because if you’re not willing to look internally, and the problem is always something or someone else, you’re going to be constantly frustrated.

This is actually part of why I think new advertisers have a big advantage over those of us who have been doing this for ten or more years. I’ve seen this exact same story play out more times than I can count. They’ll start by saying they’ve been doing this for a decade, they’ve spent millions in ad dollars, and they know what they’re doing. They know the problem’s not them. And because the problem’s not them, let’s complain about how Meta is broken right now.

But look — the problem is them. They probably haven’t evolved with the changes. They probably still try to run ads the way they did five or ten years ago, when it always worked that way. They probably complain about the way ads work now and all the automations and lack of control.

A new advertiser gets into this not knowing what they’re doing or how things work. They don’t start with an assumption of control. And if they’re lucky, they won’t get polluted advice from those experienced advertisers about how they should do things.

Getting good, predictable results is hard, but it starts with you. The problem starts with you, and the first step is recognizing that. But the solution also starts with you.

For anyone worried about losing control or Meta automating too many things, I have good news for you. You still have an important role in getting good results. But you need to get out of your own way. Stop trying to control things that can’t be controlled and start focusing on what actually matters.

You openly fight Meta’s automations, Andromeda, and talk about outages and updates because they’re easy to blame. They’re easy targets for excuses that take responsibility off of you. But it’s you. The responsibility is yours, and there’s power in that if you’ll accept it.

You’ve got to ask: why aren’t people acting on your ads? It’s not Meta’s algorithmic targeting or the automated, AI-generated enhancements that you hate so much. Your ads just aren’t good enough. They can always be better. And that’s a good thing.

If you want to be in a perpetual state of frustration, if you want to keep spinning your wheels without making progress, if you want to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, fine — keep doing what you’re doing. Blame Meta. Blame the algorithm. Blame the enhancements. Find any number of excuses that shift the blame from you.

Otherwise, take some responsibility. Are you getting bad leads? Learn why they’re bad and make adjustments to your ad or form. Learn why bad leads can happen in the first place and what you can do about it.

Or take a closer look at your sales outreach that converts those leads into customers. Maybe they weren’t bad leads after all. Maybe your process was bad.

Are you unable to turn a profit on your e-commerce ads? Then ask yourself why they aren’t converting better. Why aren’t more people clicking your ad? Why aren’t more people completing the purchase? What are the things within your control that could be making things more difficult than they need to be?

Here’s the bottom of the glass: Getting good results is hard, but see it as a challenge. Resist the urge to find someone else to blame. Look internally, because the quickest and easiest solution starts there.

Blaming others is not productive, because I can guarantee you — despite what those Reddit forums say — not everyone is getting bad results. When they get good results, they just don’t complain about it. They have some humility. They take responsibility for their own performance. And they just get stuff done.