Hot take: My ad spend dropped 40% after I stopped guessing and started using a simple spreadsheet

I used to just throw money at Facebook ads and hope for the best, checking the dashboard once a week. Then about 3 months ago I started logging every campaign with just the date, budget, and cost per click in a Google Sheet. It took me like 10 minutes a week but I could finally see what was actually working. For example I cut $50 from a campaign that was burning cash on repeat clicks from the same 5 people. Anyone else track numbers manually instead of relying on the platform's reports?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_wilson183d ago

.. and then I started tracking what time of day I posted and realized midnight posts got zero traction.

blake6913d ago

Wait, so you're telling me my 3am "inspiration" posts aren't getting traction? Shocking. Next you'll say that blasting the budget on a Tuesday at 2pm got way better numbers. I had a campaign where I was spending like crazy on "retargeting" and it took me three spreadsheets to realize I was just serving ads to my own mom who kept clicking them out of pity. Manual tracking is great because it forces you to face the truth that you're basically just paying Facebook to run experiments on yourself.