I don't mean to be rude- but you can't actually run ads yourself as a small business owner.

But I can just do it myself!

As a business owner, you've probably sat there looking at a quote for Google Ads or Meta Ads management and wondered, perhaps found yourself deliciously tempted by the question "Should I manage Google Ads myself or hire an agency?"

I'm going to stop you right there and say that you are technically able to, but you will waste your money.

It's not an insult, it's being honest

Look. At the end of the day, we all have our lanes. You wouldn't jump in to doing your accountant's job just because you could theoretically login to Xero the same way.

But business owners do this so often that it's become a little in-joke between marketers. They try to DIY Ads, they don't work and then they claim that they're a waste of money.

Check online if you don't believe me

Go on any small business space and search "Facebook ads don't work." You'll find hundreds of threads. Business owners absolutely certain the platform is a scam. Convinced Meta is stealing from them. Swearing they tried everything.

Typically, they ran one campaign with broad targeting. Sent traffic to their homepage. Spent £200 and got nothing.

That's not a failed ad. That's a failed strategy. You are competing in a marketplace where everyone else is a paid marketing specialist. Why would you suddenly ace it with no experience?

What's actually missing when you run ads yourself

• The first gap is strategy. Most owners skip straight to the campaign setup without answering the basic questions: Who exactly am I targeting? What do I want them to do? What does the page they land on say? Is the offer clear? Is the creative doing any work? You cannot buy your way past bad answers to those questions.
• The second is technical execution. Ad platforms are not simple. Facebook Ads Manager has more settings than most owners realise: audience layering, exclusions, bid strategies, placement options, pixel events, campaign objectives. Picking the wrong options is very, very expensive.

Ad Platforms Still Make Money when you Fail

Do you know the reason all Ad platforms keep trying to get you to auto-accept "optimisations"? It's because then they can serve your ads wherever they like- knowing that they won't actually convert. It's to get permission to tank your results and boost their numbers.

If you don't believe me, look at Google's revenue figures. Last time I checked roughly 75% of them came from Ads.

Whereas a Pro Saves You Money and Gets Results

This is the bit most owners don't want to hear.

A decent freelance ads manager in the UK will charge somewhere between £500 - £1k a month depending on the account size and scope. An agency will charge even more.

But a professional will typically tighten targeting, write better copy, set up proper conversion tracking, and run actual tests and get you results.

I had a client come over after running their own campaigns for three months. They hadn't driven a single lead. By the end of the month we had 100+ at an average cost-per-lead of £9 (on a service with an average order value of nearly £1k)

There's two paths for you

Either accept that you're going to spend money learning. That's not stupid, plenty of skills are worth learning the hard way. But you'll have to spend time, energy and money that may be better spent on other jobs.

Or hand it to someone who already knows what they're doing. Pay for the expertise up front and get results faster. Your call.

If you want to know what proper ad management actually looks like, have a look at my Get More Customers package.