Ad and Mobile Performance

🔥 I burned ₹10 lakhs testing campaign structures on Meta Ads—here’s what I learned (and what actually works). Over the past 3 months, I’ve tested multiple campaign structures on Meta Ads. Call it “testing” or “wasting” – but it taught me one game-changing lesson. Here’s What I Tested: 1️⃣ Broad Campaign with Advantage+ Audience Enabled ▪️ Ad sets by creative theme. ▪️Concerned that spend might favor engaged audiences (e.g., website visitors), I moved to the test#2. 2️⃣ Broad Campaign with Original Audience (No Advantage+) ▪️ Ad sets by creative theme. ▪️ Outcome: Spend distribution across engaged audiences was the same as in Point 1. ▪️Hence, no delta benefit. 3️⃣ Advantage+ Shopping Campaign (ASC) + Broad Campaign ▪️ Idea: Identify winners in the broad campaign and scale them in ASC. ▪️ Reality: Marginally better performance with ASC but lower scalability due to a lack of creative freshness in ASC at scale. 4️⃣ Broad Campaign (Interests + Lookalikes) ▪️Hypothesis: Interests and LAL might perform better. ▪️Outcome: No significant performance improvement, even at scale. 5️⃣ Broad Campaign (Excluding Website Visitors) + Dedicated Website Visitors Campaign ▪️Hypothesis: This structure would improve efficiency. ▪️Outcome: Performance tanked. Meta’s machine learning thrives on frequency for conversions. The result? Nothing. No significant difference. Here’s what actually matters: ✅ Your creatives. Instead of overcomplicating campaign structures: ✅ Keep it simple. ✅ Focus 80% of your energy on testing creatives (hooks, angles, messaging). ✅ Use ASC only for catalogs or specific setups. ✅ Launch creatives by theme in a single broad campaign with ad sets aligned. ✅ Avoid remarketing campaigns unless you have a specific offer/messaging to hammer home. Summary: Stop chasing the perfect campaign structure. Start obsessing over creative quality. Note: - This learning applies to direct purchase campaigns on the web. - I’ll share separate insights for app campaigns in another post. What’s your take on this? 👇 #performancemarketing #metaads #fbads #campaignstructure

Your ads are promising something your sales process cannot deliver. A lot of performance issues get blamed on targeting, creative or budget when the real problem sits further down the line. The ad says fast. The sales call feels slow. The onboarding says one thing and the account experience says another. That gap kills momentum. If your ads sell speed and certainty, your process has to feel fast and certain too. Not just at the first touch, but all the way through to onboarding. Otherwise you create friction at the exact point people are deciding whether to trust you. Campaign metrics may look fine on the surface, but the system underneath is leaking confidence. I often come back to a simple three-step check. What does the ad promise? What does the sales script reinforce? What does onboarding actually deliver in the first few days? If those three things do not line up, performance stalls because the buyer feels the disconnect before the dashboard does. It is a bit like watching a strong first leg in a relay race and then dropping the baton on the handover. The team had the speed. The result still falls apart. In marketing, that dropped baton is usually the space between lead generation and operational delivery. Better performance is not always about pushing harder at the top of the funnel. Sometimes it comes from making sure the promise survives contact with reality. How often do you audit the gap between what your ads say and what your sales process actually feels like? #DigitalMarketing #B2B #leadership #saas #future

More Ad Spend ≠ More Sales Scaling is a trap that no one talks about. Most marketers think scaling is simple: Increase ad spend → Get more customers → Grow revenue. But that’s not how it works. In fact, blindly increasing budget is one of the fastest ways to kill your ad performance. Here’s why: 1. Rising CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) – More budget means entering higher-cost auctions and reaching less-qualified audiences. If your targeting, creatives, and funnel aren’t optimized, you’re just paying more for worse results. 2. Creative Fatigue – Scaling too fast with the same ad creatives leads to audience burnout. People stop engaging, CTR drops, and suddenly, your winning ad becomes a money pit. 3. Lack of Offer Optimization – If your offer doesn’t convert at a small scale, spending more won’t fix it. It's the classic problem of a poor product/service cannot be fixed with great performance marketing strategy. 4. Misleading ROAS Metrics – A campaign might look profitable at ₹ 10000/day but break down at ₹50000/day due to diminishing returns. If you’re not tracking LTV and profitability, you could be scaling unprofitably. So what should you do instead? 1. Test Before You Scale – Validate your offer, audience, and creatives before increasing spend. 2. Scale in Stages – Increase budget incrementally while monitoring CAC and conversion rates. 3. Optimize Your Funnel First – If your website, checkout process, or backend conversion flow isn’t solid, no amount of ad spend will save you. Scaling isn’t just about spending more. It’s about spending smarter. Have you seen this happen before?

Pro tip from a PPC expert: 🎯 ❌ No clear account structure = wasted budget ❌ No winning strategy = clicks don’t convert ❌ No optimization & tracking = flying blind Master these 3 pillars and turn campaigns into cash. 💸🚀 ✅ Structure your account for clarity ✅ Define a focused strategy for growth ✅ Optimize & track every click for insights Here’s a quick deep-dive into those three pillars—with a mini case to bring it to life: 1. Crystal-Clear Account Structure✅ What it is: Organizing campaigns → ad-groups → keywords so your ads serve the right message to the right audience. 👉 Why it matters: Keeps budgets separate, makes performance easy to diagnose, and prevents irrelevant traffic. 👉Example: A footwear brand splits its “Running Shoes” campaign into two ad-groups—“Men’s Running Shoes” and “Women’s Running Shoes”—each with tailored headlines and keywords. This way, female shoppers only see “Women’s Running Shoes” ads, boosting relevancy and Quality Score. 2. Focused Strategy✅ What it is: Defining clear goals (e.g., maximize ROAS, boost sign-ups) and matching bids, placements, and ad copy to those goals. 👉Why it matters: Stops you from spending on low-value clicks and aligns every dollar with your business objective. 👉Example: If your goal is to drive trial sign-ups, you bid aggressively on “free trial + [your product]” keywords and use ad copy like “Start Your Free 14-Day Trial Today,” rather than generic “buy now” language. 3. Continuous Optimization & Tracking ✅ What it is: Installing conversion tracking, monitoring key metrics (CTR, CPC, CPA, ROAS), and iterating—testing new headlines, adjusting bids, pausing under-performers. 👉Why it matters: Without data, you’re flying blind; with it, you can cut wasted spend and double down on winners. 👉 Example: After 2 weeks, the brand notices “Women’s Running Shoes” ads have a 3% CTR vs. “Men’s” at 1.2%. They shift more budget to the higher-CTR group and test a new headline (“Shop Top Women’s Running Styles”)—CTR jumps to 4%. ✅Bottom Line: Structure → Strategy → Optimization: nail these in order, and you turn random clicks into reliable revenue. Follow Kautilya Roshan for more insight 😊 #GoogleAds #PPC #DigitalMarketing #GrowthHacking

"Set it and forget it" doesn't work on any platform – let alone LinkedIn Ads. Here's what you need to do regularly 👇 Why? Because seasonality, trends, and traffic patterns change. So, here's what you need to be doing: 1. 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀: Daily spend can go up to 50% over what you set. Always plan for this buffer to avoid budgeting surprises. 2. 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗶𝗱𝘀: Are you bidding too high and overpaying? Are you bidding too low and cutting off traffic? Iterate to find the sweet spot, but monitor - because monthly & seasonal traffic patterns can throw a wrench in prices. 3. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘂𝗽 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: As your campaign runs, you'll see the companies, sizes, and job titles reached. Often some not-ideal-fits, competitors, or current customers sneak through. Monitor and exclude them to cut the fat on your campaigns.     4. 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Identify which campaigns & ads are driving results. Understand the trends. Pause down lower performers, and shift to better performers.     5. 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗱 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲: Once a person sees the same ad a few times, "ad blindness" begins to set in, and they'll scroll by assuming they've already seen it before. Refresh your layouts, your brand templates, and say things in new ways to break through. This is how you really hone-in an ad campaign over time.

PSA: If your performance marketer is running PPC campaigns based on category or brand structures, they may not be delivering true ROI. Why? It’s simple. When products with mixed margins are bundled into a category or brand structure (on platforms like Google or Meta Advantage Plus), the platforms treat all products equally, regardless of their profitability. This allows them to optimise for their shareholders (Google and Meta), not for your actual margins or true ROI. Here’s an example: Product A: A Nike Sneaker with a 30% gross profit margin ($30) Product B: An On Running Sneaker with a 20% gross profit margin ($20) Let’s say you sell $100,000 of sneakers from this ad budget. In the first scenario, if Google and Meta are optimising for volume, they may allocate 80% of the budget to Product B (lower margin), and only 20% to Product A (higher margin). As a result, you end up with a $22,000 gross profit. But what if you allocate 80% of the budget to Product A and 20% to Product B? Now, the ad platforms are focused on maximising profit, not just volume. This shift leads to a $28,000 gross profit, a $6,000 difference simply by adjusting where the budget goes. The takeaway? If you're not aligning your ad spend with your product margins, you're likely leaving money on the table. If you're ad manager is resistant to changing campaign structure to boost profitability, a tough conversation needs to be had imo 👀

20,000 products. One campaign. No structure. We reviewed a home & garden retailer earlier this year with a massive catalogue of over 20,000 SKUs. Their Shopping setup? One PMax campaign. No segmentation. No product grouping. No prioritisation. Everything was lumped into a single pot and left to automate. The assumption was that Google will figure it out. It can see what is converting and what not, and it will naturally prioritise ad spend on the products most likely to drive sales. What happened? > High-spend products with weak returns >No clarity on what was actually being purchased >85% of the catalogue had nothad a single click for the past 3 months Smart Shopping isn’t a strategy. It’s a setting. Here’s what we changed: > Campaigns split by margin, stock levels and competitiveness > Feed rules to exclude low-volume, unprofitable SKUs > Tiered campaign structure built around commercial priorities Within 3 months: > Non-brand ROAS up 42%. > Wasted spend cut by £6K. > And finally, a clear view of which products were driving performance. If you're running a large catalogue without structure, you’re flying blind.

We recently audited a 9-figure DTC brand's Google Ad account. We found 1 setting quietly inflating their CPA. Fixing this took 5 minutes and moved their CPA from $425.77 to $24.77. By default, every Google Ads campaign you launch uses the "account default" conversion setting. And depending on how you set up your account, this can include more than just purchase. Almost nobody opens that menu, so they never realize that their campaigns are optimizing for purchase, add-to-cart, and page view all at once. These all count as primary conversions. If you don’t tell Google to differentiate between a purchase and an add-to-cart, it optimizes for the easiest one it can acquire (that’s add-to-cart, every time). Add-to-cart carries a conversion value, so your cost per conversion, ROAS, and everything on your dashboard looks great. But revenue is telling you a different story. To fix this: 1. Go to your account's conversion settings and look at which actions are tagged as “primary”. If add-to-cart or page view are set to primary, change them to secondary. This is where the problem actually starts, and most people never open this menu. 2. Then go into each campaign, open the conversion settings, and check if it's set to "account default." If it is, that campaign is optimizing for every primary conversion you have stacked up there. Switch it to campaign-specific and select purchase only. If you want us to audit your account and find what else might be hiding in there, DM me.

The other day, a colleague shared a cautionary tale. He switched to a new agency for his Meta ads because of their strong creative focus because, in his words, "I was lead to believe creative is all that matters to make Meta ads successful." But things went south—fast. The creative was polished, but the agency overlooked everything else. Performance plummeted because they ignored two other critical pillars: leveraging data and thinking beyond the click. This is why I believe in the Three-Legged Stool Framework for Meta advertising success. Here’s the breakdown: 🪑 Leg 1: Leveraging Data (The Base Stability) Data, including signal fidelity, proper media buying and measurement, provides the foundation. Without it, campaigns wobble. It’s like building a stool without measuring—it’s bound to collapse. Data signal is key for Meta ad success and also shows you what works, what doesn’t, and where to adjust. 🎨 Leg 2: Building Impactful Creative (The Craftsmanship) Creative attracts, engages, and drives action. But flashy creative alone isn’t enough. Just like a poorly constructed stool can’t support weight, creative that doesn’t align with performance goals will fall flat. 🔗 Leg 3: Thinking Beyond the Click (The Strength) What happens after the click matters. Conversions, leads, and meaningful outcomes rely on the strength of your post-click experience—like landing pages or nurturing funnels. This ensures your stool can bear the weight of your growth goals. Advertising success requires balance. That’s why testing, learning, and refining each pillar is essential. Adjust targeting, iterate creative, and optimize the post-click journey to keep your campaigns sturdy and resilient. If any one of these legs is weak or missing, the whole structure collapses.

I used to think most Meta Ads campaigns failed because of weak creatives. Bad videos. Poor copy. Average design. Then I started auditing more ad accounts. And I noticed something surprising. Many campaigns had great creatives. The real problem was the structure. A single campaign was trying to do everything: • Generate awareness • Drive traffic • Capture leads • Generate sales All at the same time. The result? Meta had no idea what success actually looked like. Budget got diluted. Reporting became messy. Optimization slowed down. So I adopted a much simpler framework. One Goal = One Campaign Instead of mixing objectives, I separate them: 🔹 Campaign 1 → Brand Awareness 🔹 Campaign 2 → Traffic 🔹 Campaign 3 → Lead Generation 🔹 Campaign 4 → Sales / Conversions Inside each campaign, I test different audience segments through separate ad sets: ✅ Broad Audience ✅ Interest-Based Audience ✅ Lookalike Audience ✅ Retargeting Audience And within each ad set, I keep testing simple: • 1–2 creatives only • Image Ads • Video Ads • Carousel Ads Nothing complicated. No unnecessary layers. No creative overload. Just a clean structure that helps Meta learn faster and makes it easier to identify winners. Over time, this has helped me: ✔ Optimize campaigns faster ✔ Read performance data more clearly ✔ Scale winning audiences with confidence ✔ Reduce wasted spend The biggest lesson? Most advertisers spend hours changing creatives while ignoring the foundation they’re building on. And sometimes, the foundation is the actual problem. How do you structure your Meta campaigns? Do you separate objectives or combine them under a single campaign? 👇 Curious to hear different approaches. #MetaAds #FacebookAds #PerformanceMarketing #DigitalMarketing #PaidMedia #MediaBuying #GrowthMarketing #LeadGeneration #ConversionOptimization #MarketingStrategy #MetaAdvertising #FacebookMarketing #PPC #Advertising #EcommerceMarketing #DemandGeneration #MarketingTips #DigitalAdvertising #MarketingInsights #SocialMediaMarketing