The World of Meta

I've had some success with Facebook and Instagram ads as well as post boosting, enough to know I need to keep at it. Need to in spite of how difficult Meta/FB makes doing so.

The following is a summary of the latest challenges, and now that you know what this post is about, skip it if you haven't and/or are not writing a book; it won't be on the test.

Required reading for those of you planning to or who are currently writing a book.

I've been working my way through the Click Testing for Authors (CTA) course, and was ready over a week ago to launch the first of six separate tests to guide ad creation and audience selection for FB and IG ads. Very helpful stuff, I'm learning a lot.

Each test requires ten variants of what is being tested. For example, in test one, ten ad taglines. CTA walks you through the steps to do this using FB's ad creation process.

I completed and was ready to publish the first test when I noticed a vague error message. Something to do with incorrect settings.

(For those of you planning to do FB/IG ads, most all messages you get in the ad set-up user interface will be vague.)

CTA did their best to help me through the problem before saying I should check to see if my domain was Meta "verified".  It wasn't, I had no idea it needed to be since I had run a few test ads without issue.

I located a list of steps to get it verified, some I would do others my partner in this project, Paula Johnson, would need to do (she handles the under the hood technical website stuff along with so much more.)

We did as requested, hit the "Verify" button, nothing.

I finally tracked down some additional things we could try. I also granted Paula full access to everything having to do with my FB/IG/Meta accounts.

Make that, I tried to give Paula full access. The Meta response when Paula, who received my permission to access everything directly from Meta, tried to access my account, was:

"Something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can. You may be able to try again." 

I may be able to try again?

Things still not working this morning, I contacted Meta support in a chat. You can do that, but good luck finding how you do it. Contact me if you want to know, it's too complicated to go into here.

Over an hour in the chat with the support person taking time to research the issue, it came down to this. Try it again.

Not after she/he had done something that may work, just try it again.

Conclusion:

If you are writing or have written a book, FG and IG ads are an important marketing tool. However, regardless of whether or not you are an experienced FB/IG user, do not assume that navigating their ad user interface, and the Meta Business Portfolio, will go smoothly. It is a completely different world and there is no one at Meta to call for help.

You can do as I initially did and run a few ads using Meta's "let us do it for you" suggestions, but don't do that. You need to tailor your spending to your book, which isn't necessarily what is required for my book or anyone else's. 

When it comes to book marketing online, one size definitely does not fit all.

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