If you ever run Facebook ads, you might’ve wondered…

How the F*CK Meta algorithm works?

And when you started running FB ads you were wondering how to build an account from zero?

You might’ve heard CBO/ABO/BID CAP but you had no idea what the hell that is.

And it’s not your fault.

I can’t blame you. I’ve been in the same spot…

And I know this stuff is complicated…

But not in the way you think.

The good news is you don’t have to know how it exactly works.

You don’t have to know all those stats such as CTR, CPM, CPC…

It's all irrelevant.

These stats were invented back in the manual days when a bunch of nerds were trying to “daytrade” in the ad accounts.

Nowadays things are being held by an AI.

And it’s a good thing. For you.

Because It will do as you wish.

Want the Lowest Cost? You got it! Ai will get you the cheapest conversions.

(There are tricks to tweak the system here, and we'll talk about it later).

The way Meta's algorithm works is simply by feedback through the pixel or CAPI (conversion API).

It gets your ad, analyzes it, reads the text, watches the video, and gets millions of data points from the creative.

Now it'll try to aim for a certain audience (this is based on what the AI analyzed in the ad.

NOT on what you've selected in the adset targeting!

Now it'll spend $100 and get zero sales. Ok, it's time for the algorithm to change direction and look for a different audience.

After a couple of days, it'll find a better audience that resonates with the ad and will give you more sales.

And once this happens, it’ll go out and try to find more and more people like that.

That’s where machine learning happens.

And ideally, you’d want 50+ conversions per ad set per week to feed the algorithm with enough data.

But in reality, if you’re running at a low budget, you don’t have to hit that.

You might have some days without sales, and some days with more sales.

That’s why at my agency, we only look at the data weekly or even bi-weekly.

And when something goes wrong, we don’t go and make a hundred changes…

We check if this could be just a bad day or a bad week…

And let’s say you get a decent CPA. A CPA where you’re breakeven…

And you want to scale…

And as you increase the budget, it might run out of audience and it'll either rerun to the same audience (daily frequency would get closer to 1.5+) or look for the new audience…

And that new audience might not be as “hot” or it might be more expensive…

So say you were getting a $40 CPA at a $100/day budget. When you scale it to $3,000/day, CPA might go up to $50-60.

And if this CPA is not sustainable for you… you can scale the budget down...

But you need to give it 7-10 days before you make any changes when it works!!!

Or when it’s closer to the CPA you want.

When you just launch a new campaign, give it 7-10 days minimum.

I’ve been making this mistake for years and once got fired for making too many changes.

You need to give the algorithm more time.

Sometimes when you hit a creative that works, you can leave the budget as it is and ride it out(we have clients who run for 3-4 months with the same 2-3 ads on $5K/day).

Yes, they keep paying us as we've taken them from $500/day to this point.

And a day will come when they'll need to find a new creative at lower CPA with a new landing page. And that’s exactly what we do for our clients.

Make sure you tracking works. Because when you don’t you might lose thousands of dollars in profits.

If you launch a campaign without proper tracking and make a nice profit so you'd think it's ok to keep the campaign live till you sort it out and that's a huge mistake. Your new campaign is aiming for a certain audience, probably the best one at first, that might be a $10M profit audience. Now your pixel tells Meta "This audience doesn't convert" and Meta would keep looking for new opportunities while missing out on the greatest one just because of your tracking issue

The ad does, the targeting in 95% of cases.

The targeting on the ad set level still works but it’s not remotely as powerful as it was pre 2020.

RE: ABO/CBO.

Always use CBO when in doubt.

This is the structure we use at Adsora:

One CBO per offer/audience combination.

3-4 adsets with different massive audiences targeting 3-5M+ size.

We don’t do any retargeting.

How do we scale ads?

Every week if the CPA holds at the level we like, we double the budget until it reaches $1k/day.

Then we’d scale it by 20-30% every week.

The right way to use cost caps

Meta wants to help you make money so you can make people happy and spend more money on ads.

They have a special thing called Cost Cap. It's like telling Meta, "I want to spend this much money, no more."

But if you tell Meta to always spend the same amount, it stops learning new things. It's like if you keep reading the same book over and over. You won't learn anything new.

But, if you've already spent a lot of money and learned a lot, then telling Meta to spend a certain amount can work really well, especially if you're trying to reach a lot of people without spending too much money.

Remember, if you have an ad that's working well, don't stop it when you try a new one.

But there's a not-so-good way to use Cost Cap too. If you start a brand new ad and tell Meta to spend a certain amount, it's kind of guessing because it doesn't know much yet.

I'll look at what worked for other people's ads, but that might not be the best for you. It's like if you wear someone else's glasses. They might not help you see better.

Some people try to find the best ad by making lots and lots of ads and seeing which ones do well.

They might make 10 or 20 ads and see which ones people like the most, then spend more money on those ads.

This can work, but it's like trying to hit a pinata while blindfolded. You might hit it, but it's mostly luck.

Priorities when it comes to scaling on Meta

Here's a rewrite in simple, 3rd grade language with short, easy-to-understand sentences:

I promised to talk about how to make more money, so now we're talking about the most important part of any online business. Everything I've said before doesn't matter if you ignore this part. This is what makes your marketing really work well.

We've talked today about adding more fuel to the fire, now let's talk about how to start a fire.

When we get a new client, we usually don't start running their ads right away.

As I said, you want to use Meta (Facebook/Instagram ads) the right way. The right way is to think of it as fuel for the fire, just like advertisers used to think of TV or radio ads in the past.

I know there are lots of advertisers with bad offers who try to "crack the code" on Meta to sell their low-value products that don't convert well. But that's not the game I want you to play (they're wasting their time because they could make more money doing other things).

We use Meta because we understand its potential and we know it can turn our little fire into a huge celebration.

We want to build a strong engine first, and here's what you should focus on first: We want to build a strong engine first and here's what you should focus on first:

Super good offer:

Make a deal that's too good for people to say no to.

Awesome website page:

Make a page on your website that looks really good and works well for people who click on your ad.

Make more money from each customer:

Try to earn more money from each person who buys something, so you can afford to spend a bit more on ads.

Sometimes, when people sell something for $50, they end up spending $70 to get someone to buy it. Then, they think it's too much and stop advertising.

But the smart sellers figure out how to still make money, even when they spend $70 to get a sale, without making the thing they're selling more expensive.

Let's go over how they do it:

Offer -

Alright, imagine you're selling the coolest sneakers around. But what's your knock-out offer? How about "Buy one pair, get a second pair half-off"? Or for every pair sold, you plant a tree?

Maybe they're the first sneakers that glow in the dark, perfect for night runs?

Or what if you bundle the sneakers with a free pair of comfy socks, a sneaker cleaning kit, and free shipping anywhere?

Your offer needs to be irresistible. Really think it through, because the right offer can make your business take off.

We often brainstorm for weeks to find that perfect deal that's a game-changer for our clients.

Landing page -

You can't just snag someone's interest with an ad then send them to a generic "one-size-fits-all" webpage. Let's say you're selling gardening gloves designed for green thumbs.

You've got to tailor a special webpage just for gardeners. Sprinkle in gardening lingo, offer them a sweet deal, or team up with a gardening club for an exclusive offer.

How about sharing stories from real gardeners who swear by your gloves, showing photos of them tending their gardens, or a video where they share why your gloves are a cut above the rest?

Nail this, and you position your gardening gloves as the top choice, charging more than the average gloves you'd find in a store, because your customers deserve the best.

Just a heads-up, though! Make sure you're not targeting such a tiny niche that you're boxing yourself into a corner with only a small potential profit.

Aim for the sweet spot where your unique approach still hits a wide enough audience.

LTV -

Somehow, through sheer skill or maybe a little bit of luck, you were able to find winning ads ads and come out on top.

You did more than just grab their attention; you convinced them to buy your product.

That's no small win, and it deserves a round of applause!

Now, it's time to make the most of it.

Now you need to increase the LTV, but how?

You should keep offering your customers new products through emails or texts. Imagine you've made a new friend named Mike.

Mike has given you permission to message them because they're genuinely interested in what you have to say.

But instead of reaching out, you hesitate, worried you might bother Mike or that they might not want to hear from you.

However, think about it differently. Mike has shown interest in your conversations and is likely waiting to hear more from you.

If you don't send those messages, you miss the opportunity to deepen that connection.

The truth is, customers who have already bought from you are usually open to hearing more from you.

They've shown they like what you offer, so why not introduce them to more? It's rare for people to unsubscribe as long as you're offering them value.

So, go ahead, share more deals, products, and special offers. You're actually doing them a service by giving them more of what they enjoy.

Waiting for people to come back for more can be a bit like waiting for paint to dry.

So, if you're selling something for $40 plus $5.4 for shipping, you gotta keep that deal going.

But here's where you can get clever with upsells and extra goodies to make more money without changing the initial price.

Keep an eye on how much you spend to get sales. If you're dropping $60 to get someone to buy, just adding a little extra to make your average order value (AOV) go from $40 to $45 isn't going to cut it.

Imagine offering something extra for $50, and only 1 out of 10 people go for it. That's not going to do much for you.

You want to aim for making three times what you're charging upfront. We're not mega-corporations that can wait years to see a profit. We want to see our bank accounts happy within a month.

Think about creating a super deal, maybe something that's $140, but it's so tempting that 80% of people grab it.

Get creative! Check out forums, social media, and see what people who buy your product might also like. Amazon's "frequently bought together" is a goldmine for ideas.

And remember, testing is your best friend. You've got to try out different things to see what sticks. There's no crystal ball in marketing, just good, old-fashioned experimentation.

What ads are best to run:

And there we go, the spark's been lit, everything's ready; now it's time to fuel the flames with ads.

We've got the basics down, right? Ads find our audience for us.

Now, let's dive deeper into what makes an ad irresistible. Think about the perfect ad that'll get our dream customer, the one who's going to support our business, to take out their wallet.

Can an image sell a new product?

Is it likely for someone who's never heard of your product to buy it just because it's half off?

The chances are slim. So why did my banner ad shouting "50% OFF" attract some buyers before it stopped working? It's similar to how Cost Caps function. The ad essentially reached people who had left items in their shopping carts at other stores, tempting them back with a deal.

Hope you enjoyed the read. Now go ahead and kill it with FB ads. And let me know what other questions you have!

If you want us to run ads for you, check out Adsora.com.

Facebook Ads Secrets