Paid social media is noisy and has very few price regulations. That means the default setting is waste, with an overspend of time and budget. This guide cuts through the fluff to help you stop donating your budget to social ad platforms and instead generate predictable returns.

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How much should I budget?

Short answer: more than feels comfortable. Think of this budget as funding learning velocity. Leads or sales are the byproduct of these lessons; the more spend you put towards this channel, the sooner your socials will develop into true money makers.

To avoid overspending, just keep this in mind: spend should not outpace testing. Every dollar of spend should be connected to a well-planned and documented test. Once you’re happy with your return on ad spend (ROAS), then you can ease off testing and coast.

Running lean? That’s manageable. Socials let you buy attention at any scale. A smaller budget will take longer but can still ramp up to a truly profitable account.

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What are normal prices on Meta?

Pricing depends on your niche, industry, and creative quality. Here’s a quick estimate of some common KPIs, from least to most important:

• CPM (cost per thousand impressions): $8–$25 for most industries. This is mostly a vanity statistic, don’t spend too much time here.
• CPC (cost per click): $0.25 – $3.00. If a product has a wow factor and broad appeal, this cost can go looow. This is extremely dependent on the service or product being sold.
• CPA (cost per acquisition): Anywhere from $20 to $250+, depending on your offer and funnel. Note: cost per action is technically different, though it shares the same acronym.
• ROAS (return on ad spend): The minimum ROAS to aim for is a 4x and an excellent ROAS would be over 10x. This is the most important metric to build social strategy around. ROAS goals are similar between most industries, with consumer packaged goods (CPG) as the exception. CPG brands can expect to see half the ROAS of other industries.

Social platforms trade USD for the currency of attention, and your creative quality determines your exchange rate. If your ads look like everyone else’s, you will pay premiums for mid-tier results.

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How to measure success?

Measuring success is simple: how much revenue can you directly connect to your social ads? ROAS alone will tell you 80% of what you need to know. Keep the following in mind when refining your setup:

Ignore impressions. They’re inflated by every device update, algorithm tweak, and platform revision. Focus only on metrics tied to real human action: clicks, comments, calls, form fills, and purchases.

Watch your lead quality. This will occasionally outweigh ROI. Monitor conversion rates to make sure lead count isn’t overworking your sales team for only a handful of conversions. For high-ticket services or pricier products, this matters a lot; for ecom products, not as much.

Measure like a pro. Track your percentage of new customers and their lifetime value (LTV). Most advertisers skip this (it’s extra work), but that’s also where a big chunk of the profit is. This applies doubly to CPG brands since a huge portion of revenue comes from repeat customers.

Impressions are vanity, conversions are sanity, and retention buys the beach house.

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How to reduce CPA?

Check over your marketing funnel like a lifeboat with a leak. Where are customers slipping out, and how can you patch those holes?

• Top of Funnel: If your click through rate or form fill rate is low, the issue is here. Test new hooks, try new voices in the text, or simplify your forms.
• Middle of Funnel: Look here when the clicks/leads are high but sales are low. Review a selection of leads. If lead quality is the issue, an audit of the platform and lead process will be needed. A common issue comes from using a native form fill since scrollers can autofill and submit a native form with one accidental click.
• Bottom of Funnel: If customers don’t return, leave reviews, or upgrade, the issue needs fixing in-house. Check loyalty touchpoints and buyer experiences for insights on where to improve.

Once the marketing funnel is mapped, attack from both ends. Make the top more grabby with better creative and the bottom more efficient with a better conversion path.

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How often should I refresh ads?

Every few weeks. That killer ad from last month? They’ve already seen it five times and stopped caring after the second. Follow the phases outlined below to give yourself direction and keep your account agile.

• Week 1-4 will be for broad strategy testing. Try humor vs emotional recommendations vs educational podcasts. The successful strategy should be confirmed at least once before being locked in for the next phases. 
• Week 5-8 is to focus on structure. Set a test between different hooks, calls to action, and formats. Keep individual tests between 2 alternatives. Confirm your findings.
• Week 9-12 tests the minutia. Outdoors or indoors? Low production quality or high? Does Doug or Stacey’s voice convert better? Why did the video with a plunger outperform everything else and can we replicate it by putting an unaddressed plunger in the background of every video?

Bounce back to a previous phase frequently and redo testing in new areas. After a couple of rounds of this, nobody will be able to compete against your knowledge of this social audience and what makes them tick.

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Lookalike audiences or interest targeting?

If you’ve got clean data, feed it to lookalikes (based on purchases, leads, or engagers).
Alternatively, Interest targeting shines when you’re building initial volume or your data is thin.

As of 2026, Meta’s Advantage+ and broad targeting are smarter than most advertisers give credit for, and often the best strategy is just letting the machine do its job.

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What other things to avoid?

Here’s a rapid fire of the usual suspects:

• Native form fills: Lead volume looks great on these, but lead quality is abysmal.
• Clickbait headlines: Cheap dopamine gets you cheap leads.
• Overlapping audiences: Fighting against yourself = higher costs.
• Ignoring frequency: Repetition kills performance and brand trust.
• Native data reporting: If your ads look good in Meta Ads Manager but your CRM disagrees, trust the CRM.

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While platforms keep changing, the formula stays the same: test, track, refine, repeat. Nail your system and let everyone else buy hope instead of data. If you would like to bypass the training wheels and testing, our experience means we skip straight to the revenue when working with our clients. Email us at info@bighorn.marketing to share what your experience has been on paid social media or to get our take on your current ads.