Running Facebook ads in 2015 versus today feels like two different jobs

Back in 2015, I used to set up a campaign in about 15 minutes. You picked a few interests, wrote some text, and hit publish. Now I spend around 2 hours just on audience testing before I even create the ad. The targeting got way more detailed after the iOS 14 update in 2021. I actually miss the simpler days when you could guess who your customer was and the algorithm would just find them. Does anyone else feel like the platform got harder without getting better results?

2 comments

2 Comments

wyatt_green11d ago

Spend more time tweaking, get worse results. Classic Facebook magic.

dixon.willow10d ago

Gotta push back on @wyatt_green here, ngl. I feel you on the frustration, but the platform didn't get "harder without better results" for everyone. The real issue is people are still running 2015 tactics on a 2024 system. Like, I used to stack three broad interests and call it targeting. Now I test one core audience against a lookalike and let the algorithm do the heavy lifting. Results are actually better for me, but the setup takes way longer because you're building custom conversions and cleaning up pixel data. It's more work, sure, but the floor for bad ads is way lower now. You just can't slap something together and pray anymore.