Why Most Advertising Fails (And How You Can Succeed)

Here's the brutal truth: Most people are going to take these ads, make all these cool pictures, do all these videos and say, "Hey Facebook, take all my money, spend all my money, and throw it at the wall and nothing will stick."

Then you're going to shut them off and never run ads again and say how bad and awful ads are.

Well, you're probably doing them wrong.

Most people that I work with come to me after a few failed attempts or working with agencies that do ads all wrong. If your agency is only spending all your money on one platform, you need to be doing ads that actually work and don't waste your money.

I'm Brad Smith, owner of Automation Links. Been doing this marketing for 10 years, worked with over 2,500 brands. Today I'm going to share my screen, break it down, simplify it so you can copy and paste it and use it for yourself.

Step 1: Choose Your Business Type for Advertising

The first step is to decide what type of business you have. You're going to choose your type of business - marketing agency, e-commerce, coaching, whatever it is.

What this does is figure out your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) and the average numbers it takes to advertise successfully in your industry.

Step 2: Select the Right Advertising Platforms

This is the key: Where are your ideal customers actually hanging out? And where are they hanging out as a second source? And where are they at on the third source?

You don't want to run ads just on one thing. You want to cross-populate on all the different channels.

What we recommend is showing ads 24 times on three different channels. That's the new follow-up.

Think about it:

• Your customers aren't just on Twitter? Don't you think they'd be on Twitter talking about politics and posting memes?
• Your ideal customers aren't on Facebook? Don't they have family, kids, grandkids, parents they want to check up on?
• If you're B2B, maybe they're on LinkedIn for business, Facebook for family, and TikTok for entertainment.

If you want to be a huge scaling business, choose them all. If somebody sees you everywhere, that's the key.

Step 3: Calculate Your Investment and ROI

You want to estimate:

• How many website visitors you get each month
• What your average order value is per customer
• How much you make per month from that person

This helps calculate what you actually are going to see on a true return on your investment.

Here's what we're looking at: Spending about $2,800 a month across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, X, and LinkedIn. We spread that out on all the different channels.

These estimates are pretty accurate. We spend about $2-3,000 a month on our ads and get about 4-6 sales from this.

Step 4: Use the 50/30/20 Budget Allocation Rule

This is critical: You don't want to spend all the money on one platform or all on one type of ad.

Here's how to separate your spend:

Top of Funnel (50% of budget): People who've never heard of you

• Put most of your budget here to bring your ideal customer in
• Be super strategic on keywords (like "AI SEO experts" or "advertising retargeting experts")
• Once they're in Facebook, Google, and other platforms, you can retarget them easily

Middle of Funnel (30% of budget): People who've heard of you 2-3 times

• They're starting to recognize you but don't fully trust you yet

Bottom of Funnel (20% of budget): People who've seen you 3-5+ times

• They're either going to buy and schedule or they're not

Step 5: Plan for 3-Month Growth Projections

Here's the reality: If you spend all this money, you're probably not going to get sales up front.

It takes a while to build relationships with these leads, especially from top-of-funnel leads. It's going to take a month or two for them to trust you. Remember: 24 times on three platforms.

• Month 1: Maybe zero conversions, maybe 3. I've had customers get 15, I've had customers get zero. It depends on targeting and ad setup.
  
• Month 2: You'll start seeing people respond, show interest, start seeing your middle and bottom funnel ads.
  
• Month 3: This is usually where we see the magic happen. I had somebody say "This isn't working" for the first two months. Month 3, he got a bunch of sales, paid for everything.

Budget accordingly. Maybe put your ads on a credit card or work with an agency with a payment plan, because your leads aren't going to start buying until month 3.

Step 6: Create the Right Ads for Each Funnel Stage

Top of Funnel Ads:

• Don't try to get them to click to your website
• Show them something of value, give them education, give them something free
• The biggest mistake: "Hey, this ad is awesome, my business is awesome, you don't know me yet, but go buy."
• Instead: Educate and provide value, get that pixel triggered, hopefully get them to follow or DM you.
  

Middle of Funnel Ads:

• Send them to educational blog posts that teach something without asking them to buy
• Run YouTube ads so they can learn from you and subscribe
• Ask them to leave comments: "Hey, leave a comment below, introduce yourself, let's chat."
  

Bottom of Funnel Ads:

• Now it's time to say, "Hey, now it's time to buy, now it's time to click."
• Send them to a landing page with a free offer
• "I've seen you a couple of times. Go to my site, and I'm going to give you this entire thing for free, just give me your name and email."

Step 7: Track Everything with Proper Attribution

You need to track attribution, or you won't know what's working.

We install software called DataShopper on our site. It tracks every website visitor, which pages they were on, and where they came from.

For me: YouTube 41 leads, LinkedIn 39, Twitter 39, Reddit 36, Google 34.

You can see where they came from, what page, how many times they're on your site, if they converted, if they're interested. You can even see where they're located, how much money they make.

Anyone who hits the site will then see retargeting ads so they don't forget about you.

The Foundation: Your Business Must Be Solid First

Ads aren't going to work if your business sucks and if you suck.

If you're a bad business owner, if you don't follow up, if you don't answer your phone, if you don't email back, if your team doesn't do the work you promise, if you have a bad product, your ads aren't going to work.

Focus on that first. Once you have that figured out and start having a real business, set aside 5-10% of your revenue towards marketing and ads.

Why This System Works (When Others Fail)

Most people expect customers to buy the first time they hear about them. That's not how human psychology works.

You need to:

• Show up consistently across multiple platforms
• Provide value before asking for anything
• Build relationships over 90 days, not 9 days
• Track everything so you know what's actually working

The magic happens when someone sees you everywhere, learns from you consistently, and trusts you enough to buy when they're ready.

Ready to Stop Wasting Money on Ads?

I've given you the complete system that's worked for 2,500+ brands over 10 years. But here's the thing - most people won't implement this.

They'll go back to throwing money at Facebook and hoping something sticks.

Don't be like most people.

If you want the exact tool I showed you in this guide - the one that calculates your budget, shows you which platforms to use, and gives you the step-by-step setup - comment "TOOL" below and my team will send it over.

This isn't some generic calculator. It's the same tool we use with clients who pay us $5,000-$10,000 per month to manage their advertising.

You can have it for free.



But only if you're serious about implementing it. Because the businesses that follow this system are the ones getting 4-6 sales from $2,800 in ad spend while their competitors are burning money with no results.

Your choice: Keep wasting money on ads that don't work, or start building a system that actually generates ROI.

Comment "TOOL" below, and let's get you set up properly.

P.S. - If you're currently working with an agency that's only running Google PMAX campaigns and burning your budget, send them this guide. If they don't immediately change their strategy, find someone who actually knows what they're doing.