How I got into Ads

I studied communication science and dived into the role of a social media manager in different companies.
I knew that you can boost your posts on Facebook to reach some more people, which I did in my past job, but I never knew what power and strategic thinking was behing all of that. When I came to ASF and we started our last campaign against EDEKA, our campaign manager asked me if I could imagine running our ads and becoming our ads experts with the help of Matej. I didn't know how much work that would be and naive as I was I said yes sure :D
Matej began to teach me everything about META ads and it took us several meetings, countless hours and a lot of nerves actually on both sides, to get me on track (Thank you matej). Then I was ready to take over the campaign ads and I made good progress in understanding them. BUT I wasn't able to give advice on budgeting or strategy, but luckily I had Matej as a consultant to take over everytime I couldn't answer. And to be honest still to this day I would never say I am an expert and I still consult Matej a lot and honeytly I think it's like learning a new language: Once you stop practicing for a while you forget most of it :D So this is just a reminder that we are all human AND of course that it is even better to have this community to learn from each other and consult eachother! 

So what did I quickly learn:

Ads are not just marketing. Ads are a system of:

• strategy

• testing

• data

• constant optimisation

• constant learning and practicing and adapting 

Where do Ads actually start?

Ads do not start in Meta Ads Manager.

They start here:

Campaign Strategy → Communication Strategy → Ads

How do we decide the budget?

Common question: How much money should we invest in ads?

We usually work backwards from the goal.

What do we want to achieve?
If we want to get 200 new leads we look at other similar campaigns we did to get some orientation on the average price per new lead. Then we take this to calculate how much we would need to meet the goal.

Key factors:

• acceptable cost per donor

• campaign duration

• platform (LinkedIn ads are higher than META)

Of course it heavily depends on how much budget the organisation has for ad campaigns too.

We almost always set a limitation on ads:
2€ as a max. : we will run our best creatives and new ones for the Ausbildungsmesse so it probably will not go over 2 € → ALWAYS check the CPR, check in every week → IMPORTANT: Cost per result is new lead NOT signup. COST PER NEW LEAD should not go over 2€. 

This gives us a good overview on when to turn off the ads or when to put some more money in to very good working ads. 

When do we actually decide to run Ads?

Ads make sense when:

• the goal is measurable

• the content is strong

• we want to reach new audiences

• organic reach is not enough

Having a list of all the ads you want to create

It helps to have a list of pictures and videos you want to create and test with different titles and graphics, so when you are preparing the ads, you only have to go through the list without thinking too much about what you want to do because it is already there. 

Example: 

Timeline is helpful

It also helps to have a timeline to know when you want to start with your ads (boosts of organics content and dark posts).
Note here:  Always stay flexible with ads

The most important thing during the campaign: reporting table

In our reporting table we track:

• budget invested

• donations generated

• cost per donor

• return on investment

• links to the ads
  
  

Example results:

• average cost per donor: ~71 €

• ROI: around 1.35

This means: Ads generated more money than they cost

What it most important to look at? 

1. Cost per result (for example cost per donor)

2. Number of donors

3. ROI

If i have - 1 donor - with a good price - with a GREAT roi - its worse than having 100 donors - with a good price - with OKAY roi 

During the campaign:

One person needs to look at the results at least once a day and keep track of how the ads are working and fill in the reporting list. It is their job to report to other teammembers and to decide which ad is not working well and needs to be turned off, which ad is working well so it needs a little more money or what is working but maybe has been on for too long and we need to create another similar content piece. 

Campaigning: where Ads become powerful

Ads become especially important in campaigning.

Goals in campaigns often include:

• raising awareness

• collecting petition signatures

• building public pressure

• mobilising supporters
  
  

Organic reach alone is often not enough.

Ads help to:

• scale the message

• reach new audiences

• create momentum

Again: It is very important to have the campaign strategy and the communication manual first!
You always need to know: What is our goal with our ads. Then you can ask: How can we achieve it. 

Excursion EDEKA Campaing: 

While our EDEKA cmapaign for example we had two different goals with ads. 

1. We wanted to get signatures to our pleadge 

2. We wanted to get new leads

3. We wanted to make the executives of EDEKA scared of us and our campaign 

What did we do? 

While goal 1 und 2 were easy to combine, we needed a different stategy for goal 3. 

So we ran META ads on FB and IG with the goal of signatures AND we ran geotargeted ads in LinkedIn for people with high positions in EDEKA with the goal of views. 

KPIs signtatures:

• Primary: 10,000 appell signatures from Social Media in general (including Ads)

• Secondary:

  • Cost per signature around 4 Euros

  • Ideally third of the signatures would be new leads (around 3.300)

  • We analyse the results of the ads in time and adjust them if needed (key metric are the results based on utm-parameters, not views or clicks in Meta )

KPIs for Evaluation:

• Response from Edeka to ASF (dialogue attempts, legal threats, internal leaks)

• Impressions

Challenges: 

While we could clearly track how many signatures the ads got us and how many new leads we got, we couldn't really track whether or not the EDEKA executives and employees saw our content. That is why we needed to trust our skills and could only measure the total impressions and if there was a response from EDEKA to our content. 

Target Audiences

Target Audiences that worked well in the past for us for signatures and donations: 

• supporter list 

• Animal Welfare (interest) 

• Animal Welfare - 30+ 

• Big Cities 

• Lifestyle - Foodies (EDEKA campaign) 

Target Audiences we might want to test based on a Civey poll:

• West Germany (Animal Welfare is slighty more important to people from West Germany based on the results of the poll)

• Women (overall engagement is higher to women based on the results of the poll)

• Under 30 for donations (surprisingly the under 30 people showed more willingness to donate) 

Best performing Ads year end fundraiser 2025: 

Key insights from top performers:

• Urgency creatives dominated: The "fewdays" variants combined brought 36 donors. Urgency + deadline messaging works, especially the creatives at the very end of the fundraiser got the lowest price per donation.

• 1-Euro-Wunder had lowest cost: At 16 EUR/donor it was the most efficient, but note that average gift amounts were lower due to the 1 EUR messaging.

• Video content performed well: video2 (36 EUR/donor) and video3 (23 EUR/donor) both outperformed most static graphics but they were combined with urgency messaging, so it is recommended to use both static and video for the next campaign.

• Sponsored organic posts delivered: Boosting existing posts (classicvideo_fb, post8_fb) was usually cost-effective. It is recommended for the next campaign to use both dark posts and sponsored organic posts.

• Instead of Donate Now Button we always had Learn More Button

Underperforming Ads year end fundraiser 2025: 

Why these creatives failed:

• Influencer video can be a hit or miss: while we can’t judge using influencers in videos just from one creative, usually they are a hit or miss, making them a risk in campaign and should not be used alone without the evergreen functional content

• Even evergreen content can fail without social proof or urgency: all 3 creatives: ad grafik10_v2, ad grafik11_v1 and ad video1_frontback are using what is usually working - emotions, pictures of suffering animals, but didn’t resonate. This further proves that urgency combined with social proof are the real drivers of lowering the cost per donor

• Insufficient testing budget: Some creatives got less than 2x target cost (200 EUR) in spend (double the amount of the target price per donor is recommended testing budget per creative), making it hard to judge their true potential.

Patterns: What worked

1. Urgency + Social Proof Combination

Creatives that combined deadline pressure ("Only a few days left!") with social proof ("625+ supporters already joined") consistently outperformed single-message creatives. The urgency bar visual element proved particularly effective.

2. Close-Up Emotional Imagery

Images focusing on a single chicken's face or body creates strong emotional response.

3. Low-Barrier Entry (with caveats)

The "1-Euro-Wunder" creative achieved the lowest cost per donor (16 EUR). However, it also lowered the average monthly gift. This is a strategic trade-off: more donors at lower individual value. Consider this approach when volume is the priority, but be aware of the impact on overall revenue.

4. Video Content

Video creatives (video2, video3) achieved some of the best cost-per-donor results (23-36 EUR). Video allows for storytelling and emotional build-up that static images cannot achieve. However, urgency played a big role in their success.

5. Sponsored Organic Posts

Boosting organic posts that already had engagement (classicvideo_fb, post8_fb) sometimes outperformed pure ad creatives. Social proof from existing likes/comments may have contributed to credibility.

What helps with influencer outreach

Things that help:

1️⃣ Engage with their content first (because nobody wants to help an organisation that didn't show interest in the person they want the help from right?)

• comment

• react to stories

• build visibility

2️⃣ Ask early

Influencers often plan content weeks ahead.

3️⃣ Follow up

Many collaborations happen after the second or third message.

PLUS: Don't limit yourself to Instagram DMs. Write E-Mails to their manager also. 

Influencer challenge we faced

In one collaboration video with several influencers we had a problem: One influencer refused to share the video.

Reason: They didn’t want to collaborate with another influencer in the video.

Lesson: Influencer campaigns are not just marketing.

They are also relationship management. 

Do your research, be transparent who you are working with if you can (as this was a collaboration reel with many influencers we didn't know who was on board until they really send us their video), be flexible to adapt quickly. 

Key learnings

My biggest learnings from ads, influencers and campaigning:

1️⃣ Ads start with strategy
2️⃣ Campaigns need structure
3️⃣ Emotion drives engagement
4️⃣ Testing is essential
5️⃣ Flexibility is key

PLUS: one day you think you are good at ads and then everything changes and you need to start again :D
Happened to me when recently LinkedIn Marketing changed their interface and I was completely lost. So: never stop learning and don't think you know it all.