The 4 Hidden Facebook Ad Mistakes That Quietly Kill Performance

Hey friend,

We spend all day inside Facebook ad accounts for brands, and while every brand is different, there are certain mistakes we see again and again that hold performance back, even for strong offers and great creative.

Here’s what’s worth a quick audit this week:

1. Limiting the platform’s dynamic features

Facebook’s delivery system is smarter than most advertisers give it credit for.
But when you start manually forcing your own targeting, narrowing placements, or excluding key areas, you choke the algorithm’s ability to learn.

• Over-targeting: Layering in detailed interests, too many lookalikes, or niche behavior targeting can make your audience too small to exit learning.

• Limiting Placements: Unless you have hard creative limitations, don’t restrict placements. Facebook can find cheaper wins in places you might not expect.

Things have changed a TON over the last years (and even months). Meta is getting extremely skilled at being efficient and serving your ads to the right people.

Realize that the more you tell Meta what to do, the less efficient it becomes and often the more you get charged.

Quick fix: Run things on broad targeting with all placements. Let the system find the cheapest, highest-quality conversions.

2. No separation between testing and scaling

Meta themselves recommend sandboxing your testing campaigns, so new ads have room to get out of learning without competing with your proven winners.

What happens when you mix them?

• Testing ads often get buried by better-performing existing ads

• Scaling budget gets pulled into unproven ads too early

Quick fix:

• Testing Campaign: Isolate new creative, copy, or offers here with modest budgets. Stress test ads here and then move winners to your scaling campaign.

• Scaling Campaign: Only move proven winners here for consistent ROAS.

3. Missing audience definitions

One of the biggest blind spots we see: brands not defining existing vs. engaged vs. new audiences in Ads Manager.

Without these, you can’t tell:

• How much budget is actually going to new people vs. engaged audiences vs. past purchasers

• Whether existing customers are driving your ROAS (and giving a false sense of growth)

Quick fix:

• Go to Audience Segments here.

• Define and label:

  • Existing: Past purchasers

  • Engaged: Site visitors

• Check breakdowns weekly to make sure spend aligns with your goals

4. Relying too much on one creative type

Some brands live and die by a single format, whether it’s all images or all videos, but Meta’s algorithm thrives on variety.

If all your ads are one style, you’re capping your reach and leaving easy wins on the table.

• Not everyone watches videos (some scroll fast, some mute)

• Static images and carousels often convert cheaper in certain placements

• Meta can’t optimize across formats if you only give it one option

Quick fix:

• Run a mix of videos, statics, and carousels in your ad account.

• Give Meta different hooks, styles, and placements to work with so it can find more cheap wins.

Have a winning video? Turn it into a static ad, have someone else record the same video, etc. This quickly gives Meta more to work with and gives you a higher chance of being able to scale.

Bottom line:
Meta’s system wants flexibility. The brands scaling fastest in 2025 are:

• Giving the algorithm room to work

• Separating testing from scaling

• Tracking where budget really goes

• Feeding it variety so it can hunt for conversions across every possible angle

Fix these, and you’ll see the difference in your delivery and efficiency, without even touching your budget.

That’s it for now!

Back in your inbox next week.

- Tony

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