During the holidays ads increase ten fold. 

It is understandable that companies want to run ads and want to get noticed during the busiest time of the year. As a marketer (or small business owner) you have to be careful about how you are using your ad budget. 

Social platforms work to make it easier to run ad campaigns. The problem is it’s also easier to waste your money on ads that do not work. 

Here are the 5 biggest mistakes I have seen this year in ad accounts. 

First, Want help with your Meta Ads? Book a free discovery call. 

1. Testing too many items in one ad

It is hard not to test everything at once. Marketing moves fast. Everyone wants leads and sales right away. 

But, patience will help you win in the long run. A campaign should only have one difference between each ad set. I usually start with the audience. Test your variant and once that test is complete move on to testing something new. 

To help you out here is what I normally test 

• Audience
• Media (image, video, carousel)
• Copy
• Placement
• Landing page

This is an extremely simplified list. Make sure you test what is more important to you. Each test should be run for a minimum of a week (I prefer two weeks to a month). 

Let’s talk about Meta Audiences

How you build audiences has changed drastically in 2025. With the introduction of more privacy settings it has gotten harder to track and get clear data from the platforms. However, platforms like Meta have over 20 years of data on you. 

You used to try and use interests and demographics to get as close to your ideal audience as possible. This has shifted. We are now seeing better ad success when you leave the targeting to Meta. 

It is advised to use one or two suggestions like an interest, age, or gender option and allow the system to learn. Place more emphasis on your creative and give Meta as much room as possible 

What To Do if You Don’t Have Much Time to Test

Time can be an important factor when running social ads. If your campaign does not have the time to test then pick what works best for you on social and commit to it. Don’t make changes (unless your ads are tanking). 

Get your ad out of learning as fast as you can! 

2. Not letting your ads run long enough

Stop making changes (I am the worst for this mistake). Let your ads run. They need time to learn what they are doing and who they are looking for. Give them at least 3 or 4 days before making a large change. 

It can be difficult to leave them alone when you are spending your own money or have someone that needs immediate results. Results on social media can be immediate, if you have put in the time to test what your audience wants.

You can’t expect your first ad campaign to work right away. You also can’t expect your first ad in over a year to do what your old ads were doing.

The ads need time to learn. Let them learn and they will perform better for you. Constantly changing them can put you in a constant state of learning and this mistake can be costly. 

3. Using a small budget (or spreading your budget too thin)

If you have a budget under $100 to run a campaign on social media it may be best to boost posts that are already doing well (Through the Ads Manager!).

Using a thin budget can also cause your ads to overspend with low results. If your budget is small choose one ad and focus on it. Too many ads or campaigns will spread your budget and not allow it to perform at its best. 

When you are budgeting for your ad campaigns ask yourself… If I could pay for a lead today how much is it worth for me? A small ticket item may only be a dollar but a large service could be $100 or more. 

If your product or service costs $1,000 then it is not crazy to spend $50 per lead. That company should not run ads for $75 a month and expect more than two leads to start. 

Budget your ads based on how much your lead is worth and set your expectations to match. 

4. Allowing ads to run in all placement sections

Your ad does not need to run on every platform and in every position. Your ad may not be formatted correctly. 

Choose where your ad will perform best (Reels, Facebook Feed, Stories, etc) then expand once you have tested your messaging and media. And remember that each placement has different size and safe areas requirements.

For example, a 9:16 ad creative might be displayed fully on stories, but when it’s displayed on Reels, there is a huge section on the lower part for captions, account handles, music, likes, comments, etc.

When talking about placements, it goes beyond reels, feed, stories. Meta placements have tons of different options, and depending on your business you’re not going to need most of them. Yes, you read that right. Most of them are not suitable for everyone. Let’s take Messenger as an example, when was the last time you clicked or saw an ad in your messenger app? I honestly can’t recall, maybe I have seen them (and clearly don’t remember) but I have never clicked on an ad there. I go, answer a market place message and close it for two weeks.

5. Focusing on cost per lead instead of earnings per lead

In number 3 we talked about how to budget your ads based on what a lead is worth to you. It is also important to focus on more than just cost per lead. If you have a CRM system, break down what your revenue per lead is. That will help you determine how much a lead is worth to you. 

Your revenue per lead is: 

New revenue from lead source / total sales qualified leads from that lead source

For example if Facebook brought in $10,000 from 100 leads your revenue per lead is $100. Don’t forget to subtract your marketing spend in total revenue. 

Now that you know your revenue per lead you can better define your budget. Spending 10% of your revenue on marketing is common. 

Final Thoughts

These are the learnings from my 11 years of experience with the type of clients I work with. Every account is different, and every marketer is different. Test your theories and allow your ideas the time to work and grow. The holidays are busy, start with enough time to test, have patience and you will outperform your competitors. 

Want help with your Meta Ads? Book a free discovery call.