The Facebook Ad Agency Myth: What They Don't Want You to Know

Facebook ad agencies love to show off their highlight reel. You've seen it - jaw-dropping case studies with insane returns on ad spend. Here's the thing. Those results are often outliers.

I've been running ads for my businesses for a long while and helping others do the same. The reality that agencies paint is not real.

What They're Hiding

Agencies showcase their best results, boasting about a 5x return on ad spend for a client, but conveniently forget to mention the dozens who didn't see similar results.

I've hired agencies and run my own campaigns. The returns I got from using an agency were similar to what I could achieve myself. The real issue? Paying them on top of my ad spend drastically lowered my overall return.

ROAS Reality

Let's talk about the obsession with high return on ad spend (ROAS). People get hung up on anything less than a 2x return being a failure. But the truth is, for a business with recurring revenue, like a Skool group, even a 0.3x can be profitable in the long run.

Agencies exploit our pursuit of big numbers to sell services, setting unrealistic expectations that can hurt advertising for solid businesses and Skool groups.

Ad performance fluctuates in The Ads Lab. Matt and I have seen days with 20 signups and days with zero. We've had 2-3x ROAS and times at 0.3x.

This variation is built-in. Zoom out and look at the bigger picture. Day-to-day, week-to-week, even month-to-month fluctuations are normal. What matters is the long-term trend.

Let's not forget seasonality. Summer buying habits differ from winter, and natural cycles in consumer behavior affect ad performance. January is tough for many, but that doesn't mean your ads are ineffective.

Embrace the Learning Curve

It’s better to run your own ads than rely on an agency. In the trenches, you gain firsthand insights about your business that a secondhand report doesn’t give you.

You see how changes in your Skool group affect your ad performance. You understand which creative approaches resonate with your audience. You start to know when to push and when to pull back.

It is daunting at first. But anyone can learn to run Facebook ads. You might need help with graphic design or video creation, but deploying the ads, analyzing the results, and making decisions? That's something you can (and should) do yourself.

Don't let fear of wasting money or ad platform complexity hold you back.

Start small.

Spend $5 a day for a few days. If it's not working, turn it off. If it is, scale it up. You'll learn more from spending $100 on your own ads than from an agency report.

The goal is to get on base consistently, rather than hitting home runs every time. A 0.5x return might not sound sexy, but if it's bringing new members into your Skool group month after month, that's a win. Couple that with retention efforts and you're set.

Don’t focus on hiring an agency early on. Instead, set aside time this week to set up your first Facebook ad campaign.

Test, learn, iterate. You've got this.