Stop Tinkering with Things That Don't Matter

Why is that a problem?

There’s a common trait I’ve spotted among advertisers who love to tinker with their campaigns. Maybe they won’t admit it, but I get the sense they struggle with the current state of advertising because of the lack of control.

So they’ll fixate on very specific things that bother them. Sometimes they’re completely random and potentially inconsequential.

They’ll say, “Meta is only showing this ad, but not these other two.” Or “Meta is showing my ads too much on Instagram Reels.” Or “Meta is showing my ads to too many people under the age of 30.” Or “Meta keeps turning on these terrible enhancements.”

Or it could be some variation of this where the focus is on delivery or enhancements and they just don’t like it.

But these complaints miss two very important details. I’ll often sit there, patiently, waiting for these words to follow.

What is it about this that you do not like? Do you just not think the ad Meta chose is the better one? Do you just assume people under 30 won’t convert? Do you just assume that potential customers couldn’t possibly be influenced by ads on Instagram Reels?

Why, specifically, is this a problem? And does it actually matter?

In so many cases, I never hear that the results are actually bad. If your results are good, why do these things matter to you so much?

But having bad results might not even be relevant.

Can you actually tie your bad results to Meta’s refusal to show these ads? To showing ads on Instagram Reels? To showing ads to people under 30? To those enhancements that you hate?

Because if you can’t, it’s not worth obsessing over. It’s just become something for you to fixate on.

It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t worry about the details of delivery. Problems absolutely can happen that might impact your results. You just need to know when to separate inconsequential delivery quirks from consequential ones.

I encourage you to let go a bit.

You no longer have the control you once did. Meta is often smarter and more efficient than you would be trying to micromanage everything yourself. That doesn’t make Meta’s optimizations perfect.

But we often have assumptions of what’s good or bad or how ads should be delivered that aren’t backed in reality. They’re based on our gut and our biases.

We obsess over the minor details of delivery and panic when something seems off for 12 hours or a day or two days. Even if you’re getting bad results, the length of time you’re getting them matters.

You cannot hang on every minute and hour, waiting for the conversions to come in, and assuming something is wrong. Just stop it.

The problem with this obsession over the small stuff is that it almost always leads to unproductive tinkering.

Meta’s not showing this ad, so I need to turn the other one off or create a separate ad set for it or use the new push delivery feature. Meta’s using this placement that doesn’t feel like the ideal place to convert, so I’m going to remove it. Meta’s showing my ads to these people by age or gender who don’t feel like my ideal customer, so I’m going to restrict by these groups.

So they tinker, and change, and relaunch day after day after day. And they’re confused why they just can’t find any consistency.

Here’s the bottom of the glass.

Meta’s delivery isn’t perfect, but don’t be your own worst enemy. You don’t have full control anymore, and you shouldn’t want that control.

At some point, you need to step back and let Meta do what it’s going to do.

Meta’s your employee. Give it some room and autonomy. It doesn’t work well with you breathing down its neck.

Always know that problems can happen, but how you detect those problems is important.

Are you getting bad results in aggregate, and can you tie those bad results to this weird quirk in delivery? Or can you make this reasonably confident connection?

Because if you can’t, it’s not worth your time and energy.