Why Your Meta Ads Didn't Work With Your Last Agency (And Whether to Try Again)

If you've worked with an agency before and your Meta ads didn't perform the way you hoped, it's easy to write off advertising altogether. But before you do, it's worth taking a proper look at why things didn't work, because more often than not, it's fixable.

Was the agency actually a good fit?

This is the most common culprit. Not every agency is right for every business. Maybe their approach didn't align with your goals, maybe they didn't have genuine experience in eCommerce, or maybe they were simply running a templated strategy that didn't suit your product or audience. A bad fit doesn't mean ads don't work for you. It means that agency wasn't the right one.

What were they actually spending, and how?

Meta advertising requires sufficient budget to work properly. If the agency wasn't investing enough to reach a meaningful audience, the results were always going to be limited regardless of how good the strategy was on paper.

The flip side is also worth considering. If you were in the early stages of business and spending heavily before the algorithm had enough data to work with, you may have been pushing too hard too soon for where you were at.

Did you have any track record going in?

If you were a new business with little existing data when you started working with the agency, that's a real factor. Meta's algorithm learns from your pixel data and past campaign performance. Without much to work with, ads take longer to find their feet and cost more in the process. This is why we generally recommend having a go at running your own ads first, even imperfectly, before bringing in an agency.

Did you actually review the results properly?

It's worth going back and looking at the reporting from that period with fresh eyes. Were the ads reaching the right people? Was the creative doing its job? Were the audiences well defined? Sometimes poor results come down to one specific thing that could have been fixed relatively easily, and knowing what that was helps you avoid repeating it.

Was the targeting and testing given enough time?

Meta advertising is not a set and forget exercise. Finding the right audience and creative combination takes testing, and testing takes time. If the agency wasn't running structured tests and iterating based on results, that's a red flag. If they were but you pulled the pin before things had time to develop, that's a different conversation.

What does the account history actually show?

This is a handy one. You can look back through your Meta Ads Manager account history to see exactly what activity was taken on your account and when. You would be genuinely horrified at how often we take on clients whose previous agency hadn't touched their ads in two months or more while still collecting a retainer. The activity log doesn't lie.

Was the budget to retainer ratio right?

If you were spending more on management fees than on actual ad spend, the maths was always going to be difficult. As a general rule of thumb, your ad budget should exceed your agency retainer. There are exceptions, but if a large chunk of your marketing spend was going to fees rather than reaching customers, that's worth factoring into your assessment of the results.

So should you try again?

In most cases, yes. Poor results with one agency don't mean Meta ads can't work for your business. They usually mean something specific went wrong, whether that's the fit, the budget, the strategy, or simply the timing. Understanding what that was puts you in a much better position to get it right next time.

Ready to have an honest conversation about what happened and whether we might be a good fit? Book a free strategy session and we can work through it together.