5 Costly Mistakes Killing Your Meta & Google Profits 💸

Welcome to your latest edition of Welcome Tomorrow Insights, your go-to source for the latest in growth marketing strategies and impactful industry updates.

TL;DR:

Scaling ads isn’t just about pouring more money into campaigns and crossing your fingers. 💸 If you rush, skip testing, or ignore that people get tired of seeing the same ads, you’re just burning cash. 🔥 As Brian says, growth comes from really understanding your customer and crafting messages that actually speak to them. 🎯 The trick? Test fast, learn faster, and keep adjusting. Smart strategy beats big budgets every time. 🚀

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After analysing millions of dollars spent on Meta and Google ads, one truth stands out loud and clear to us:

💸 Most brands are quietly leaving money on the table.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a DTC brand hustling in Lagos 🇳🇬, a SaaS startup making waves in Cape Town 🇿🇦, or an e-commerce business scaling fast in Nairobi 🇰🇪 , these same challenges keep popping up.

But here’s the good news: knowing the common pitfalls is half the battle. ✅

In this post, we’re breaking down the five biggest mistakes we’ve seen and how you can fix them to scale your brand profitably. 🚀

1. Prioritising Pretty over Performance 🎨❌

The mistake: Relying on polished visuals without a clear creative strategy.

The reality: Ad creative isn’t just a design element anymore, it’s the engine behind how Meta and Google decide who to show your ads to. If you’re not creating content that speaks directly to your customer’s needs or mindset, the algorithm has nothing solid to work with.

What to do:

✅ Define your customer and identify their key objections or questions

✅ Map your product benefits to those concerns

✅ Create ads that bridge the two, message first, visuals second

✅ Adjust messaging by funnel stage: concept at the top, product at the bottom

✅ Track performance and optimise regularly

2. Scaling Too Fast Without Expanding Your Audience

The mistake: Increasing spend without refreshing your top-of-funnel strategy.

You’re ready to grow. You increase budgets. But results stall or worse, decline. What’s happening? The algorithm’s showing your ads to the same people repeatedly, and your CPMs are quietly creeping up.

🚩The red flag: High CPMU (cost to reach 1,000 unique users).

What to do:

✅ Launch awareness campaigns to broaden reach

✅ On Meta: optimise for video views or engagement not conversions

✅ Test new channels (YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Pinterest) to diversify exposure

✅ Monitor blended CAC (total cost per customer across all channels) instead of judging each platform in isolation

🧠 Note: These top-of-funnel campaigns aren’t meant to convert immediately. They fill your funnel with fresh prospects to nurture later.

3. Buying Low-Quality Traffic

The mistake: Running “traffic” campaigns just to get clicks without considering who’s clicking.

Why it hurts: The algorithm delivers exactly what you ask for, clicks. But clicks don’t always mean buyers. If you optimise for clicks, you risk attracting “click-happy” users who don’t convert.

What to do:

✅ Optimise directly for conversion events like add-to-cart or purchases

✅ Accept fewer clicks if they’re better quality

✅ Track conversion rate, not just traffic volume

4. Filling Leaky Buckets

The mistake: Spending heavily on retargeting or brand campaigns that only capture users already committed to buying.

Why it’s a problem: You might see great ROAS on these campaigns, but your actual growth stalls because you’re not bringing in enough new customers.

Common traps:

• Buying your own brand name on Google (converting leads you already have)

• Overdoing retargeting on Meta, causing ad fatigue (performance drops after 4-7 impressions/week)

What to do:

✅ Cap budgets on these campaigns. They’re useful but shouldn’t dominate

✅ Monitor ad frequency carefully

✅ Focus on new customer acquisition as a priority

✅ Measure true incremental growth, not just reported ROAS

5. Poor Campaign Segmentation

The mistake: Mixing acquisition and retargeting campaigns, or branded and non-branded search terms.

Why it matters: This can inflate your reported conversion numbers and hide poor acquisition performance.

Common slip-ups:

• Leaving default Meta options that let the algorithm go outside your target

• Mixing branded and non-branded keywords on Google campaigns

• Forgetting to exclude existing customers from acquisition campaigns

What to do:

✅ On Google: Separate brand vs non-brand campaigns, exclude brand terms from Performance Max

✅ On Meta: Exclude recent purchasers and visitors from acquisition campaigns

✅ Double-check targeting settings to keep campaigns focused

✅ Create distinct campaigns for acquisition and retargeting

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The Bottom Line 💡

Ad spend alone won’t grow your business🚫 .It’s how you spend it and how well you avoid these common traps ⚠️ that determines profitability 📈 and real growth 🌱.

Fix these five mistakes ✅, and you’ll stop losing money on ads and start scaling your brand the right way 🚀🔥.

This space is all about learning together 🙌🏾 drop a comment to share your own lessons, mistakes, or anything new you’ve picked up from this post. Got a question for the Welcome Tomorrow team or something you’re eager to try? We’re here and ready to jump in 😊

Brian’s Hot Take 🔥

Throwing more money at ads won’t grow your business .That’s marketing myth #1.

Growth isn’t about budget size, it’s about how you use that budget. If you’re just cranking up spend without a sharp strategy, you’re basically burning cash and hoping for a miracle. Spoiler: miracles don’t happen in marketing.

Real growth comes from understanding who your customer really is, what keeps them up at night, and how your product solves that problem better than anyone else. It’s about crafting messages that actually talk to those needs, and relentlessly testing what works.

If you’re not willing to fail fast, learn faster, and adjust on the fly, you’re just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks.

The winners? They treat every dollar like it’s on the line because it is.

Brian Abel, Head of Growth at Welcome Tomorrow

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