After having worked with Meta ads for a few years, I’ve come to understand what’s possible and what isn’t. In this episode, I’ll take you through some use cases when ads might be a good idea, and a few reasons I suggest holding back.
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Transcript:
Hello, hello, and welcome. I’m so glad you found this podcast, and if you’re returning, thank you for being here. Today I want to talk about Meta ads. That’s Facebook and Instagram ads. That’s what I mean when I’m referring to Meta ads.
So I get the sense that you may be interested in using Meta ads because most likely you’re a business and you either want to get more sales of your product or you have some kind of service where people come in for appointments and you’d like to get more customers there. In any case, Meta, Facebook, Instagram, this is a place where a business owner might go if they want to try and get their business out there and attract more people. In this episode, I’m going to talk about some reasons when you could use Meta ads and some situations when you probably shouldn’t.
Don’t worry, this won’t be techy!
So before you skip this, thinking ads are for me or to techie or I’ve tried them before and nothing happened, please spare with me. This isn’t a sales pitch for paid advertising, and as I’ve discussed in prior episodes, I don’t actually offer ads management as a service right now. So what I can do is I can advise. I can give you directions and I can point you in the direction of people who can help and I can advise whether it’s a good idea for you or not, but otherwise, I don’t provide that service.
So let’s take a little look at when Meta ads (Facebook ads) are a good idea and when they’re not.
And I want you to hear this because I want you to make confident informed decisions.
And I want you to avoid wasting money on something that isn’t actually right for your business right now.
Like, I mean, it’s your money, spend it how you want to put them. I just don’t, if I can help you avoid being disappointed by listening to this, then I say good idea that you listen to it.
Using Facebook ads to grow
So if you’re a service provider, consultant, somebody who’s juggling everything yourself, maybe you’ve been told or thought that you should be running ads. Maybe you’ve been made to feel like you’re left behind or the only way to grow, the only way to move from where you are now, to just throw some money behind a post and see what happens. And I get it. It’s overwhelming, especially if you’ve never done this before.
You might be wondering, will it even work?
What should I advertise?
How much will it cost me?
And what if I do it wrong?
This episode won’t cover the full mechanics of how to run ads, but it will help you get clarity on when ads make sense and what they’re actually good for. Because if done right, Meta ads can be incredibly effective, but they need to be used for the right reasons.
So let’s talk about seven great reasons, specific reasons to use Meta ads, especially if you’re a service-based business.
Reason to use ads #1: To break the seal
Number one, to break the seal. And what do I mean by this, the seal? Well, it could be that you’re in a situation where you’ve reached everyone that you possibly can in your natural circle around you. All the people who you can tap on the shoulder, all the people who you got and have peers with, your friends and family, they all already know about you.
And those networks aren’t growing, but maybe you’ve reached the extent of all the people you can reach around you. Well, what you can do with Meta ads is that it can help you reach people beyond that bubble. It’s widening your network, but with purpose.
So when you’re creating ads that are targeted at a new audience, people outside the people who already know you, you have to create your ads with this in mind: That you are being seen, you’re showing your stuff or whatever you do to people who don’t know you yet. So this is not the point in time to ask them necessarily to buy something from you. Just bear in mind, how would be appropriate to present to a stranger, to someone who’s meeting you for the first time? And think about how you can translate that into the content of your ad.
Reason to use ads #2: Grow your audience by promoting a free resource
So the second good reason to use some Meta ads is to promote a free resource; One that you’ve created to help someone who isn’t quite ready for your services, to just get a little taste of how you work and what sort of solutions you provide.
So if you created something valuable like a quiz or maybe a short video series explaining how to do something, Meta ads can help get it in front of the right people so they can join your email list.
This is a gentle, non-pushing way to build trust with new potential clients. So even though you might really want your ad to lead to sales, what you might have to do with people, especially when there’s trust involved in actually getting someone to work with you and invest some money, promoting a free item is a good gentle way to draw someone a little bit more closer. So you may not immediately see dollars back from people downloading this free item, but you definitely will get value in adding people to your email database.
Reason to use ads #3: Expand your podcast audience
Now number three reason to use ads is to grow your podcast audience and of course this only applies to you if you have a podcast or maybe a video series on YouTube and it is one of the situations where maybe it’s reaching the limit of the people that you can reach organically just by talking to people that you know. So what you can do with your ad campaign is drive targeted audiences to a specific episode that maybe connects to a common problem that people are having. So maybe you’re aware that people in your audience have this thing and you’ve got an episode in your podcast that specifically deals with that thing. You can point them to that.
And again, this might not lead directly to people making a purchase, but those people who get to know you a little bit more, get to trust you a little bit more, may decide later down the road to actually spend some money with you.
Reason to use ads #4: Amplify a piece of content that people already love
So the number four reason on my list is to amplify something that’s already working. And what do I mean by this? So this application is when you’ve got something on Instagram, maybe maybe you’ve got a video that you may just on a whim and it’s actually getting good engagement. It’s actually getting a huge amount of comments.
People are having nice conversations, people are saving it and sharing it and you’ve got stats to back that up. It’s a sign that your audience really loves this. And so what you can do with that is you can boost that post to a similar audience because if that post has gotten some proof that people like it, then yeah, that’s a good sign that someone who maybe doesn’t follow you might also like that piece of content. The inverse situation to this would be if you’ve got a post that isn’t getting interest from the people who already follow you, that is an indicator that maybe that piece of content is a bit of a dud. And so it would not really be a wise idea to boost a post that hasn’t performed well just to get it to catch up to the others. That’s not really the way it works.
Generally speaking, people come to websites and apps like Instagram to be entertained. And if they weren’t interested or amused by a post, then spending money to send that post to more people just isn’t going to work the way you think it is.
Reason to use ads #5: Be seen more by people who already know you
All right. So number five is a little bit different. And my reason number five is to get in front of people who already know you.
So we in the [digital marketing] industry call this retargeting or remarketing. They both generally mean the same thing.
But retargeting lets you show your ads to people who’ve previously visited your website or maybe they’ve take to look at your Instagram profile. So they’ve already seen you. A retargeting ad just gives them a little nudge like, “Hey, I’m still here and I can still help.” These retargeting ads are a bit like when you go to a retail website. And then all of a sudden when you go to a blog or a news website, you see ads for the products that you previously viewed and maybe add into your cart but didn’t buy. So it’s a bit like that. But you can basically use that, yeah, for people who’ve visited your website, just give them a reminder that you’re around and you can help.
Reason to use ads #6: Promote your time-sensitive event
So number six reason to use Meta ads is to promote an event.
So a live workshop or a webinar or a limited time offer. You can use ads to build awareness and drive registrations, especially when a time is limited.
Reason to use ads #7: Promote something that is already selling
And number seven is to scale something that’s already working.
So this is an overall key thing when it comes to using ads online. If you’ve got a product or an offer that already sells like hotcakes without ads, then that’s evidence that if you put this product in front of more people, then maybe they’re likely to buy it. So if that’s the case, that is a good reason to use Meta ads.
And if you’ve got something that’s proven to sell, you’re not testing your scaling what’s already proven.
Alright, so now let’s talk about three reasons when you absolutely shouldn’t use ads.
Don’t use ads if… #1: You’re desperate for sales
Number one is when you’re desperate for sales.
And I know how this might feel…
Businesses slow, the inquiries have dried up and you’re hoping ads will be the lifeline.
So if you don’t have evidence that something is selling very well, let’s say you’ve got a product with zero sales.
What happens when you put some advertising budget behind this product that has zero sales is that the ads will act like a multiplier. So if your sales is zero and you spend tender as a day on ads, well zero multiplied by 10 is zero. Zero multiplied by any number is zero.
Check the % of website visitors who actually buy
We sometimes look at the fraction or the ratio of people who visit your website and those who visit versus those who make a sale is the conversion rate. And if that number is very low, a healthy rate could be somewhere between two and ten percent depending on what sort of thing you sell. If it’s anywhere below two percent and you try to amplify or multiply that by your ads budget in the hope that you’ll get more sales. Unfortunately, you’ll just keep getting more of what you already got, except now you’ll be spending money to bring people to it.
So if that rate of sales is quite low or you’re not sure about it, it’s probably a sign that you should hold off from running some ads.
If you are making sales through your website, but they’re not as much as that you think they could be, there’s several different avenues to look down rather than desperately saying, oh I got to get more, I got to spend some ads.
Other reasons why people aren’t buying or booking via your website
There’s other avenues you can look down such as whether it’s a seasonal trend, something some kind of issue with the product or the service. Maybe there’s some negative press about it or maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s something to do with your website. Maybe it’s fine on a computer, but not on a mobile or vice versa. Maybe it works pretty good on a mobile, but computers are not having a good time. It could be something as simple as a payment option is not being supported or you might not deliver to a certain area, but people are visiting from that area and getting disappointed to find out that you don’t deliver to them.
There’s a whole host of reasons and it is worthwhile exploring all those different areas as to why your products or your service might not be selling. I have unfortunately seen this quite a lot in my career.
Often one of the first things I notice is somebody may be desperate for some more sales, so they want to spend money on ads, but the rate of people, the percentage of people who visit the website and actually complete a purchase isn’t as high as what they’d like it to be or what it should be. So I would definitely encourage you to explore those reasons why your thing isn’t selling as much as it should be before you decide to spend some money on ads. Because those ads, as I said, they’ll keep giving you more of what you’re already getting! Except then you’ll be spending money to bring people to your website.
Don’t use ads if… #2: Just because marketing expert said so
So the second situation where I would say, hang on a minute, let’s pause before going ahead, before doing some ads is when, so you’re listening to someone who you think is a marketing expert and they say something like, “Wow, this is the best time to be on Instagram ads right now. You all have to be doing this right now, all of you!” And it sounds like really excited and they’re talking it up a lot; Whether it’s Instagram or Facebook, YouTube or something else… And by not doing so, you feel like you may be missing out.
But here’s the thing, that person is most likely hyping up that platform because it’s getting results for them, or in some situations maybe they want to sell you a course that they’re selling. So it may not necessarily be the right thing exactly for you, or your stage of business. It may be that they’re just selling the idea that you could make a ton of money by investing in that platform.
Is it too good to be true?
So anytime you hear somebody raving like, oh, this is the time to be on such and such platform, this is the exact method you should use, just cut and paste this. I take that with a pinch of salt, and if there are some scenarios where I’ve consulted with business owners and they said, oh, so and so I said I had to do it this way, but I don’t know how it fits in my business. Well, yeah, that’s the sign that you don’t necessarily have to do it exactly the way that person prescribed. There’s more than one way to go about these things.
And oftentimes I find that your business is unique, your way of introducing yourself to people is unique. So if a certain person’s methodology doesn’t feel exactly right to you, then you don’t have to do it. So don’t worry about missing out if someone’s especially hyping about a specific platform. Maybe there are some scenarios and business types where that strategy is good, but these things are not usually one-size-fits-all. So consider the nuance of your situation, your unique business, and consider maybe adapting or augmenting rather than using the playbook exactly as that person prescribed.
If someone’s telling you to run ads without asking you about your goals, your audience, or your capacity to make these sales, I’d be wary. There isn’t really a one-size-fits-all solution.
Don’t use ads if… #3: Just because other people similar to you are doing it
Now the third reason that you shouldn’t run ads is just because everyone else is doing it.
The thing with this is that you might see your competitors ads and think, oh yeah, if they’re doing it, it must be working, but you don’t know. How do you know they’re not wasting their money on the ads that you’re seeing?
You don’t see what’s going on behind the scenes of your competitors, the testing, the fail campaigns.
How are you meant to know?
Just because you’re seeing someone all over the place doesn’t necessarily mean that their ads are successful. So in other words, run ads when you’re ready, not because you’re worried about falling behind.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Seven thoughtful strategic reasons to use Meta ads and three honest reasons to maybe pause and think about it a little bit.
Meta ads aren’t a magic bullet, but when used with the right intention, they can be a useful tool to support your growth and scale what’s already working.
Now just to clarify, again, I don’t offer Meta ads set up and I don’t offer Meta ads management as a service. In 2025, I have stepped away from that work and yeah, at this stage, I only really give advice or directions and I can point you towards people or resources that I can trust if you want to know more or if you really get some help. I am here for you if you want some advice or some direction pointing that’s totally okay and just do a reminder that you don’t have to do everything alone and you don’t have to make every decision under pressure or being worried about missing out.
Anyway, thank you all for being here and I look forward to the next time we meet again.
Hey, this is Lou Kozlevcar. I’m a digital business consultant and I help allied health professionals, mental health professionals and service providers grow online with smart and ethical digital marketing.
Until next time, take care and keep showing up.
