When a client tells us their Meta Ads “stopped working”, the fix is rarely a new audience. In most accounts we audit, the cost per order is high for three boring reasons: weak creatives, broken tracking and an offer that gives people no reason to buy today. Here is the checklist we run before we touch the budget.
1. Fix your tracking first
Meta’s algorithm optimises toward the signals you send it. If your Pixel fires twice, misses mobile purchases or never receives the real order value, the algorithm learns from bad data and spends on the wrong people.
- Install the Conversions API alongside the Pixel, so events still arrive when browsers block cookies.
- Check Events Manager for duplicate Purchase events and a healthy event match quality.
- If you sell with cash on delivery, send a separate event for confirmed orders. Optimising for confirmed orders instead of raw form submissions often cuts wasted spend on fake or unreachable leads.
2. Let creative do the targeting
Broad audiences work well today because the creative itself tells Meta who to show the ad to. A video that opens with “Moms in Casablanca who hate ironing” finds that person faster than any interest list.
- Launch 3 to 5 new creatives every week and kill the losers after a fair test.
- Change the angle, not just the colour: price, problem, social proof, demo, comparison.
- Put the hook in the first 2 seconds. Most people decide to keep watching before your logo appears.
3. Make the offer impossible to ignore
A good ad cannot save a weak offer. Bundles, free delivery above a threshold, a clear guarantee or a limited launch price give people a reason to act now instead of “later”, which usually means never.
4. Speed up the page after the click
Every second of loading time on mobile costs you buyers you already paid to bring. Compress images, remove apps you don’t use and keep the order form above the fold. Test your page on a mid-range Android phone over 4G, because that is what most of your customers use.
5. Scale slowly, and cut fast
When an ad set is profitable, raise its budget by about 20% every two or three days instead of doubling it overnight. Big jumps push the campaign back into learning and your costs jump with it. When something stops working, turn it off quickly and move the money to what is still winning.
Rule of thumb: before you change the audience, change the creative. Before you change the creative, check the tracking.
Want us to audit your ad account? Book a free audit and we will send you a short video walkthrough of what we would fix first.