What Should You Do When Your Ads Aren't Working?

Experienced advertisers who've spent millions often blame Meta when results tank, but they're missing something crucial. Jon explains why humility might be the most overlooked trait in advertising and why new advertisers often have an advantage over veterans.

When ads stop working, most advertisers tweak targeting or try new campaign structures. But there's a static list of things that actually matter, and it never changes. Jon walks through the exact troubleshooting process you should follow, starting with why complexity is your enemy.

Advertisers resist every Meta automation because they want control over targeting, budget distribution, and creative enhancements. But this resistance isn't just about performance. Jon explains why clinging to control will make you obsolete and what you need to embrace instead.

Adding a new ad is supposed to restart the learning phase, but Jon discovered it doesn't always happen. This revelation has him rethinking everything about what the learning phase actually means and why advertisers fear it unnecessarily.

Social media is full of advertisers blaming Meta when their results tank, creating what Jon calls the "bottomless pit of despair." They try every tactic and strategy except examining the things that actually matter. Jon explains how to escape this pit and what you should focus on instead.

Remarketing used to be 90% of Jon's budget, but it's mostly unnecessary now. However, there's one very specific business model where remarketing still makes perfect sense. Jon explains this exception and exactly how to set it up without falling into the usual remarketing traps.

Meta says performance drops 45% when frequency hits 4, but advertisers obsess over this metric without understanding the context. Jon explains why frequency isn't the villain you think it is and when a high frequency might actually help your campaigns.

The Meta ad auction isn't just about who bids the most. It's a complex system weighing three critical elements that determine which ads get shown and at what cost. Jon breaks down how the auction really works and why obsessing over bids is missing the point entirely.

Meta now offers two types of attribution: standard and incremental. With machine learning models predicting which conversions were actually caused by your ads, this sounds great in theory. Jon explains what incremental attribution really means and whether you should actually use it for optimization.

Meta keeps talking about "creative diversification" as the new key to advertising success, replacing the old focus on targeting. Jon breaks down what this actually means with Andromeda's launch and why you need to abandon the 6-ad limit mindset for something much bigger.