Most wasted ad spend doesn’t come from bad luck. It comes from the same dozen mistakes, repeated by different businesses every week. Here’s the checklist.
- Using the Boost Post button instead of Ads Manager. Optimises for likes and comments, not leads.
- Choosing Traffic or Engagement as the objective when what you actually want is Leads or Calls.
- Leaving the location setting on “people living in or recently in” the area by default, without checking it matches how you actually want to target.
- Setting too big a budget on day one, then panic-editing the campaign during the learning phase — which resets it and makes results worse, not better.
- Using stock photos, or the same tired photo for months. Real, local job photos outperform stock every time.
- Running “more volume” lead forms with only name and email — you’ll get junk leads and blame the platform.
- Leaving the phone number question off the form. If you want to call people back, ask for a number.
- No notification set up, so leads sit rotting in the Leads Centre until someone happens to check.
- Calling leads back two days later. By then they’ve already booked someone who called back in an hour.
- No target cost-per-lead agreed before launch, so there’s no way to know if the campaign is actually working or just spending.
- Mentioning finance in ad copy without declaring the required special ad category — this can get an ad rejected or a page restricted.
- Claiming accreditations you don’t hold. It’s an easy thing to get caught out on, and it undermines everything else in the ad.
Most of these cost nothing to fix — they’re settings and habits, not budget. Before spending another pound on ads, it’s worth checking a campaign against this list rather than assuming the platform is the problem.
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