Likes don't pay the bills

The brand was boosting posts on Instagram and Facebook and judging them on likes. There was no way to tell which spend led to sales.

Why it matters: a boosted post asks Meta for engagement, so Meta shows it to people who like posts, not people who buy. Changing the campaign objective changes who sees the ad.

Four campaigns, one for each stage of the funnel, so each is judged on its own job:

• Awareness: reach new people who match the customer profile.
• Traffic: send interested people to product pages.
• Leads: collect emails from people not ready to buy.
• Purchases: convert people who already visited.

I set up Pixel tracking and audiences, produced and tested the creative, moved budget toward what drove purchases, and reported to the client in plain language.

The client finished with a working account, tested creative, and a simple report showing what each campaign cost and returned. For the first time they could see which spend led to sales.

What I would change

• Retarget the email leads as their own audience sooner. They were the warmest people in the account.
• Shift budget to the purchase campaign as soon as it was clearly working.