Why does scaling ad spend stop working and burn money?
Increasing the advertising budget often causes unpredictable performance swings where profitable campaigns suddenly tank or burn money. This extreme volatility prevents businesses from reliably scaling up sales volume and makes the platform unviable as a main revenue channel.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Checking what share of conversions came from first-time viewers to find a second pool of buyersDid this help you?
- 2Focusing on email marketing or other channels that convert better rather than chasing new onesDid this help you?
- 3Diversifying ad spend across multiple platforms like Google Shopping, Meta, and PinterestDid this help you?
- 4Experimenting with organic channels like TikTok organicDid this help you?
- 5Splitting marketing budgets across different percentages for various platformsDid this help you?
- 6Iterating and testing new creativesDid this help you?
- 7Asking for peer diagnosis and advice on targeting, budget, and account setupDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“My meta ads have been performing extremely poorly, I have been iterating and testing creatives, and have gotten extremely high CPM's on a majority of them, 120+, I'm a wellness supplement brand.”source ↗
“I currently utilise Meta Ads however the volatility in performance is rendering it unviable main/only advertising platform.”source ↗
“meta ads been same for me, one week it prints money next week nothing. like the algorithm just forgets what to do”source ↗
“Every time I’ve tried it’s been burning money for me.”source ↗
“What would doing more even entail? How do I get this to three sales a day?”source ↗
“Increasing budget doens't help.”source ↗
“I feel like the harder part isn’t launching ads. It’s knowing when you’ve seen enough to confidently put more money behind them.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2How to tell if your ad campaigns are actually working
- 7How do you know if a marketing agency is actually working?
- 4Why is ROAS on alternative ad platforms lower than Meta?
- 5Why does posting daily on social media not bring in customers?
- 2How to make one reusable HubSpot workflow for multiple Meta lead ads
- 3Is a 10 percent raise enough for a promotion?