Running Meta Ads for our DTC skincare brand has me tearing my hair out. Small team of two founders, one still working outside. We tried an agency for two months late last year - disappointing. They needed constant direction on what to test or change. Good executors but no real strategy or creative direction.
Joined a community course that advised: 'Run ASC broad, feed creatives.' So we run one ASC campaign, broad targeting, lots of creative testing. Spend around $100-150 daily, testing 10-15 creatives at a time. Early on, conversion rate hovered around three percent. But May's been brutal. Some creatives hit insane CTRs - 20 to 30 percent - yet conversion collapses below one percent. Audience age suddenly skewed 65+ even though creatives were variations of previous winners.
That CTR spike with low conversion usually means the creative pulls curiosity clicks, not buyers. Meta then optimises for that behaviour, which explains the older audience skew. Testing 10-15 creatives at once at that spend spreads data too thin. Better to test fewer, go deeper on one or two angles, with more intent-driven messaging - price, who it's for, use case - even if CTR drops. Also ensure landing page properly matches the ad.
I can't tell if the issue is creative angles, offer positioning, ASC structure, traffic quality, landing page mismatch, or creative fatigue. Every day I'm analysing old winners, making iterations, testing founder UGC, statics, testimonials, AI clones. Feels like guesswork.
For those further along: at our stage, hire another agency? Or keep learning ourselves, get a one-time audit, simplify testing, and iterate internally? What actually helped you break through this messy phase?
