Doesn't matter if it's ads, budget, targeting, creatives, or whatever is giving you a headache. Let's talk about it. I'll do my best to help.
In its latest update, Facebook has removed the Page Likes / Followers campaign objective.
Once this update rolls out to all ad accounts, advertisers will no longer be able to run direct follower campaigns for their Facebook Pages.
Just like Instagram, marketers will now need to run Profile Visit campaigns instead. People will visit your Facebook Page profile first, and if they like the page, they’ll choose to follow it by clicking the Follow button.
A lot of Page Like campaigns used to bring low-intent followers who never engaged with content anyway. Now the actual page experience matters more than ever.
If your page looks weak, outdated, inactive, or spammy, profile visit campaigns probably won’t convert well.
But strong brands with good content may actually end up getting higher-quality followers than before.
Anyone else already seeing this update in their ad account?
I’ve been talking to a few restaurant owners lately and honestly everyone seems frustrated with marketing right now.
Some say Meta ads are dead.
Some swear Google Maps is all they need.
Others are dumping money into TikTok hoping something goes viral.
So I’m genuinely curious:
If you own or manage a restaurant ,what’s ACTUALLY bringing customers through the door right now?
Not likes.
Not views.
Real paying customers.
I mainly work around Meta ads, and one thing I keep noticing is most restaurants don’t really have a marketing system. They boost random food photos, run ads to everyone in the city, then wonder why nothing converts.
One restaurant I looked at recently changed almost nothing except:
And suddenly their reservations started picking up.
Made me realize the platform might matter less than HOW restaurants are using it.
So what’s working for you guys right now?
Meta? Google? TikTok? Influencers? Delivery apps? Email/SMS?
And what ended up being a complete waste of money?
After 7 years of running paid ads for dropshipping stores, managing over $1M in ad spend and generating $2M+ in revenue, I built a formula I actually use before committing to any product. Before clients set up a store. Before the client makes creatives. Before I spend a dollar on ads.
Here it is.
First, understand what a winning product actually is:
A winning product is not just something that sells. Anything can sell once if you throw enough money at ads.
A winning product sells profitably and consistently. It has room for ad spend, fulfillment costs, and still leaves real profit. It has creative potential, meaning you can make compelling content about it. And it has staying power, meaning it's not a 2-week viral spike that dies before you even launch.
Keep that definition in mind as you read through this.
1. It solves a specific problem
Not a vague benefit. A specific, real, relatable problem that a large number of people deal with regularly.
The best products have an obvious before and after. The customer can clearly articulate what they were struggling with and how the product fixed it. That's what makes great ad creative, when the problem writes the script for you.
2. It has at least a 3x to 5x markup
You need a minimum 60% gross margin. This is not negotiable.
If the product costs you $10 you need to be able to sell it for $30 to $50. That margin has to cover your ad spend, your payment processing fees, your fulfillment, your returns, and still leave you with actual profit.
3. It is lightweight and easy to ship
Under 2 pounds ideally. Durable enough that it survives shipping without expensive packaging.
4. It is not sitting on the shelf at Walmart or Amazon
If someone can drive five minutes and buy it locally, why would they wait for it to ship to them?
Winning dropshipping products are things people cannot easily find in local retail. Unique items. Innovative designs. Products that solve a problem in a new way. This is what drives online purchase behaviour and reduces the price comparison mentality that kills conversion rates.
5. It has a wow factor
This one is hard to define but easy to feel.
When you see the product for the first time you should have a reaction. Either "I need that" or "oh that's clever" or "I've never seen anything like that." Something that makes people stop scrolling.
6. It sits in the $20 to $80 price range
This is the impulse buy zone.
Below $20 and your margins are almost impossible to maintain with paid ads. Above $80 and the purchase consideration time goes up dramatically,people want to think about it, research it, compare options. That consideration time kills conversion rates.
7. It looks good on camera
This matters more in 2026 than it ever has.
TikTok and Instagram Reels are visual-first platforms. Your product needs to photograph and video well.
8. It is trending upward for at least 6 to 12 months
Not a fad. Not a one week viral moment.
A genuine upward trend on Google Trends, TikTok search volume, and social media engagement over at least 6 months tells you there is sustained and growing demand. That's the window you want to enter
9. It appeals to a broad audience
The bigger the potential audience the more room you have to scale.
10. It has a low return risk
Returns kill dropshipping margins.
Durable products. Simple functionality. Products where the listing description can accurately represent what arrives,these have naturally low return rates.
In next post i will give The 10-step validation checklist so that you can check yourself and find out that you should go with this product or not.
Client came to me with a health product. Genuinely unique. Solves a real everyday problem people deal with. Not a supplement, not something obviously medical — but health adjacent enough that you had to be very careful with how you advertised it.
He had stores set up across Europe. Italy, Spain, Denmark, few other markets. Different language setups for each country which was already a good sign. Store looked clean. Shipping was fast. The product itself was solid.
Meta is extramely sensitive with health related product.TikTok is slightly more forgiving but has its own content policies around health claims. And the audience behaviour is completely different.
So the entire strategy had to be built around showing the product solving a real everyday problem, not making health claims. Showing the transformation.
🔝 TOF — Cold audiences
My goal at the top of funnel was simple. Find which creative angle resonates with which market. Don't scale anything until you know what works.
I tested five-seven core creative angles:
First was problem-first. The creative opens with the problem. No product in the first three seconds. Just showing the frustration or discomfort in a real relatable way. People who have that problem self-identify and keep watching.
Second was transformation. Showing the before and after visually without making any direct claim.
this way 5-7 creatives total.
Targeting setup TOF:
Ad Group 1 → Interest 1 → 2 creatives
Ad Group 2 → Interest 2 → 2 creatives
Ad Group 3 → Interest 3 → 2 creatives
Ad Group 4 → Broad no interests → 2 creatives
Ad Group 5 → Behaviour based → 2 creatives
After the first 3 to 4 days I looked at CTR, cost per click, video watch time, and add to cart rate. Not ROAS yet, too early. I wanted to know what was making people stop and engage before I worried about conversion.
Killed the underperformers. Kept the winners running another week then looked at full conversion data.
TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns:
I also ran TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns alongside the manual structure. For this product specifically Smart Ads performed surprisingly well in Italy and Spain
One important thing with Smart Ads, creative quality matters even more. The algorithm does the targeting work but it can only work with what you give it. Bad creative in Smart Ads still performs badly. Good creative in Smart Ads often performs better than in manual campaigns.
🎯 MOF — Middle of Funnel (Warm Audiences)
Once the TOF campaigns had been running 2–3 weeks and purchase data was flowing we built custom audiences and started MOF.
Custom audiences built:
— Video viewers 75% and 95%
— Profile visitors last 30 days
— Link clickers last 14 days
— Initiated checkout but didn't purchase
— Add to cart last 7 days
MOF creative strategy was different from TOF. These people had already seen the product.
🎁 BOF — Retargeting
Retargeting campaign targeting three audiences:
Checkout initiated but not completed — highest priority, these people were closest to buying
Add to cart last 3 days
Product page visitors last 7 days
BOF ads were short and direct. 15 to 20 seconds maximum. These people know what the product is. They don't need educating. They need one last push
The 20%+ repeat purchase rate
This is the number I'm most proud of honestly.
For most eCommerce products a 5 to 8% repeat purchase rate is considered decent.
We hit above 20%.
More than 1 in 5 customers who bought once came back and purchased again. Without any new ad spend to bring them back.
This happened because the product worked. A health product that genuinely solves the problem creates loyal customers. They come back because it helped them. They recommend it to people they know.
💻 META ADS — Andromeda-Based Structure
Meta was harder. Health product restrictions meant constant creative iteration to stay within policy while still communicating the value clearly. Several ads got rejected in the early phase. Had to learn what language worked and what triggered flags.
Once we found the creative framing that passed policy consistently, we built the entire Meta structure around Andromeda.
Meta Campaign Structure:
Separate CBO campaign per market. Italy, Spain, Denmark each had their own campaign with their own budget. Different language creative for each. Different angles tailored slightly for each market's culture and communication style.
Inside each campaign:
5 broad adsets. No interests. Age range and location only.
Each adset had a completely different emotional angle:
Adset 1 → Problem awareness — for people who know they have this problem and are frustrated
Adset 2 → Solution discovery — for people actively looking for something that works
Adset 3 → Social proof — testimonial and review based creative
Adset 4 → Lifestyle transformation — showing life after using the product
Adset 5 → Direct offer — product, price, reason to buy now
3 creatives per adset. Each with a different hook for the same angle.
15 ads total per campaign. All broad. All letting Andromeda match each creative to the right person
Retargeting on Meta
Separate campaign completely. Custom audiences from page visitors, video viewers 75%, add to cart, initiate checkout.
Happy to answer any questions on the TikTok funnel, Meta structure or about dropshipping.
Last year a client came to me. He had an eCommerce store selling a genuinely unique product, something that solved a real everyday problem. Not another generic dropshipping item. A real product with real demand.
He was selling across Europe. Italy. Spain. Denmark. Few other markets. The store looked great. Fast shipping. He had different language setups for different countries which already showed he was serious about it.
He needed someone to run his TikTok Ads and Meta Ads. We agreed on $1,500 per month.
I got to work.
The product was good but the ads weren't doing it justice. First thing I did was sit down and actually understand the product, what problem it solved, who it solved it for, what made someone stop scrolling and pay attention.
Then I built the creative strategy around that.
Different angles for different markets. Italian audiences respond differently to Spanish audiences. What works as a hook in Denmark doesn't always land in southern Europe. I had to think about this carefully not just translate ads but actually localise the angle, the emotion, the trigger.
I ran TikTok and meta Ads feeding the top of funnel. Meta Ads handling the middle and retargeting. Structured it so they worked together — not separately.
The product sold well when the messaging was right. And once I found the angles that worked I scaled them carefully. Didn't blow the budget chasing scale. Built it steady.
Over 12 to 15 months the store did close to $1M in sales. Around 30% profit margin consistently. That's real money. Real results. Not vanity metrics.
He was happy. Business was growing. I thought we had something good going.
Then things started shifting.
Payments started coming late. I let it slide because the results were still there and I genuinely believed he would sort it out. He was making good profit
I kept working. Because that's what I do.
Last two months, results were decent. Not as strong as the peak but still profitable. Not a disaster by any measure. But he started blaming me. Said results had dropped. Treated the dip like I had personally sabotaged his business.
Those who run meta ads know about this. But he didn't want to hear that.
He cut contact. Blocked communication. Didn't pay the last $3,000 owed.
Today i learned that he sold the business .
A business that went from struggling to nearly $1M in annual sales while I was managing the ads. A business that looked attractive to a buyer partly because of those numbers.
He sold it. Got his money. And I'm sitting here $3,000 short .
If you take any project, better get the contract in writing. Every single time. No matter how much you trust someone or how good the relationship feels early on.
A guy reached out. He had a Shopify dropshipping store, decent product, real demand. He spend already more than $1800+ on ads . got only few orders but not in near profitable. he was losing money in both ads in shipping products.
He knocked me. looked like he was confused as people were clicking, but sales were not coming.
I asked him to give me the screenshot of the store URL, then I asked for access.
Spent a couple of hours finding out where the problem is.
The first thing I noticed — he was running three campaigns at the same time all targeting the same product.
Three separate campaigns. Three separate budgets. All competing against each other in the same auction.
They were literally bidding against themselves. Splitting the budget so thin that none of the campaigns had enough spend to get through the learning phase properly. The algorithm was confused. Nothing had enough data to actually optimize.
When you're running on a tight budget and you fragment it across three campaigns — you're not testing three things. You're just running three half-dead campaigns that never learn.
I killed all of them immediately.
Second thing —
He had only 3 creatives. all are in same angle just hook are changed. in andromeda this was not gonna work so i talked to him and make a stragey 1st .then I built five new creatives with completely different angles and hooks. Not the same video with a different intro — genuinely different approaches. One led with the problem, one showed the result, one was more UGC style, one was direct offer focused.
Gave the algorithm real variety to test with.
in meantime i also did run Remarketing ads.
Third thing — the landing page was doing him no favours.
He was sending cold traffic directly to the Shopify product page. Which was fine design-wise but the reviews were buried, the page loaded slow on mobile, and there was no strong hook above the fold.
First impression on mobile was basically just the product image and a price. Nothing that built desire or trust before asking for money.
Fixed the page structure. Got the strongest review above the fold. Tightened the headline. Made the CTA more visible.
What happened after:
First two weeks — still finding its feet. A few sales coming in but not profitable yet. He was patient which helped.
Week three — the pixel had enough data now. Purchases started coming in more consistently. The algorithm had found an audience that actually converted.
Week four to six — hit profitable ROAS. Scaled the daily budget slowly. also in meantime launched others campaing too.
He went from spending money with almost nothing to show for it to running a profitable campaign within about 5–6 weeks.
None of this is secret knowledge. But most people running their own ads for the first time don't know what to look for. They assume if the ad is spending it must be working. It's not always the case.
If your dropshipping ads are spending but not converting — go through these things before you change anything else. The answer is usually in there.
Lately on Reddit, I keep seeing the same type of posts again and again—people saying Meta ads are dead, nothing converts, costs are too high, everything is broken. But if you take a step back and actually look at what’s happening, the story doesn’t really match that narrative. Meta Platforms just reported their Q1 2026 numbers, and revenue jumped to $56.31 billion, up 33% year-over-year. That kind of growth doesn’t happen if advertisers are losing money and quitting. It happens when more people are spending, not less.
Even if you ignore the numbers and just open the Meta Ads Library for a minute, you’ll see it yourself. In almost any niche, there are thousands of ads running right now. Not just random tests, but ads that have clearly been running for weeks or months. That alone should tell you something simple—Meta ads are still working. Just not for everyone.
Recently, yes, performance has been a bit unpredictable. Some days campaigns perform really well, other days they don’t. But instead of accepting that as part of the system, most of us start overthinking everything. We jump into fixing technical things—changing campaign structures, testing new targeting, duplicating ad sets, trying different “strategies.” The problem is, while we’re busy doing all that, we often ignore the most important part.
Content.
In paid media, we get so focused on the technical side that we forget what actually makes someone stop, pay attention, and take action. You can have the best targeting, the cleanest setup, the most optimized funnel—but if your content doesn’t connect with the person seeing it, none of it really matters.
And content isn’t just a photo or a video. Its job is much deeper than that. It has to explain why the product matters, why someone should care, how it relates to their situation, and most importantly, why they should trust you. If that part is missing, no “hack” or setup will fix the results.
At the end of the day, ads don’t sell anything on their own. They just put your message in front of people. It’s the content that does the selling. That’s why instead of constantly chasing new tricks or blaming the platform, it makes more sense to focus on understanding people better—what they feel, what they want, what makes them stop scrolling.
Meta ads aren’t perfect right now, and they probably never will be. But this isn’t the real problem. The real issue is that we’re trying to fix performance from the outside, while the actual problem is often inside the message itself.
I tested a lot of Meta ad setups after Andromeda across different client accounts, with around $100K–$200K total ad spend.
Many people will say the funnel is not needed now. just creative need, but that's wrong, the funnel is still there, just you need to know which one needs to run and which one is called which funnel.
For fresh stores or new products, I stopped launching full funnels from day one.
This is what everyone is running and trying to scale, and thinking this is the BOFU. Yes, you can think of BOFU, but for me, it's BOFU and TOFU both if you don't have any pixel data.
Most of the advertisers run these ads and see for 5-7 days if no result comes, then kill the creatives, add new creatives if some results come, trying to scale, but this is wrong for me. The pixel is a new pixel, doesn't have 50 conversion per week to get scaling.
That's why I let these ads run for 1-2 weeks (in here I also run some page likes and PPE campaign) so that the pixel can gather data, whether a purchase comes or not. ( if you're running ecom). If VC, ATC etc coming, that's enough.
Once the data starts building, I expand gradually:
After that, I move into retention + scaling.
When all this campaign running all at once, the result you will see in your eyes. But most of the people don't run remarketing, BOFU, or retention. They just launched the CBO with 1 Adset with 5-7 Creatives, let it run if no results come, they just kill, they don't analyse other data, they don't make that other data useful for future campaigns.
If the account already has 30-50 per week purchase data, I don’t wait.
I launch the full funnel immediately:
Because the pixel already understands the audience, performance stabilizes faster.
The main rule I follow is simple:
Don’t scale random ads.
Only scale ads that have already proved themselves for a few days.
Also, I don’t touch budgets every few days anymore. That used to mess things up. I give the system some space and only increase slowly when the ad is stable.
This setup is not fancy, but it worked better for me than other campaign structures.
Curious if anyone else is using a similar 2-path setup after Andromeda?
*I am not here for marketing, just shared what worked for me*