But there’s no other choice really.
Just like in any job, there are days that are really disruptive. And if the disruption isn’t a value added activity, it hurts.
Last Sunday was one of those days.
To give some background, I run Meta ads in IG as my primary form of advertising. The Outstation target market in Malaysia tends to live there.
On Tiktok, I don’t run any ads, because this customer base is one that still needs to mature slightly. I simply have an @outstationboots presence there, to make sure there is brand awareness on the platform.
However, there will be a time when I need to run Tiktok ads, as the audience on that platform are likely a future target customer.
It’s a timing topic, directly related to market and customer maturity for a product such as mine. I’d mentioned this elsewhere in the journal at some point.
Meta ads manager isn’t all bad.
So, last Sunday was going just fine until it wasn’t.
I should have spotted the signs earlier. They were quite clear actually.
I’d been noticing that a) my IG ads were getting fewer link clicks, and b) my new follower trend was declining.
I monitor my ads by doing performance review normally once or twice a month, but during the interim, I take mental notes based on daily activity.
That is, by opening the IG inbox at 11.00am each day and seeing the amount of new messages and followers accumulated overnight.
To give you some context on why this is important, all of my lead generation is through IG. I’m don’t advertise, list or transact on any other e-commerce websites.
And when I run ads, the ad link a customer clicks sends a DM to me. Usually they click on pre-prepared questions that I’ve setup, which sends a pre-prepared answer back to the customers inbox.
From that, I can see in my inbox every day how many people have clicked on the link, the question that they’ve clicked on, and the auto-response sent back to them (with the related answer).
Running ads results in followers too.
My follower count is also directly related to my ad spend. People see the ads, don’t necessarily click on them, but follow the Outstation socials instead. This group of individuals are collected as indirect leads to be targeted in the future.
Anyway, that isn’t the point. The point is that when I’d checked IG last Sunday morning, there were no new DMs or followers.
Luckily by this point in running the business, I already knew what that meant.
Something had gone wrong with the billing in Meta ads manager. Again.
Unexplainable really.
For those of you who use Meta ads manager, you know it can be a little temperamental.
Performance instability, confusing UI, and don’t even talk about the algo always changing.
The latest change when setting up an ad is; Meta trying to sneak AI into everything. Surprise, surprise. If you’re not observant, it’ll put in around 10-12 different AI adjustments. And hide them in menus so it’s not easy to a) realize it’s happened, b) find them, and c) turn them off.
AI rant aside, if I run into bugs or a platform related problem, my solution is just hope that the problem is so large that Meta fixes it sooner rather than later. A P1 ticket so to say.
But forget about trying to raise that ticket, you may as well send it down a black hole instead.
It’s not me, it’s you.
Over the last year or so of running the business, my credit card (which was linked for payment in the billing settings) suddenly didn’t autopay my invoice anymore.
Apparently Meta couldn’t put a hold on it due to insufficient funds. So, ads stopped running. Which made ad link clicks and new followers fall to zero.
See. Cause, and effect.
And after I’d ‘talked’ to the AI chatbot, read the help file and whatever other material Meta had, the solution was ‘call your bank’. As expected.
I called the bank. No problems with my card. They could see that I was spending on ads, and it was already setup to allow the flow of automated transactions from Meta to take funds.
I had already enabled this some time ago, because when I first connected Meta to my credit card, the bank had blocked Meta from taking funds, afraid of a scam transaction. This is fair.
It wasn’t a credit card limit issue either. My weekly invoice is capped at a few hundred ringgit in ad spend. My card limit is in the thousands. Nothing had changed there.
So with the bank saying there was no problem, and me not being able to talk to a human at Meta, I found a workaround. Living in a developing country makes you level up in such ‘problem solving’ very fast.
Even if the problem shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
My workaround was to link another credit card in the billing settings. Then, Meta could take funds from it, effectively replacing my original credit card.
Why can’t things just work?
Weeks later, with this alternative card, the same problem happened again.
Workaround mode enabled. Switch back to my original card, still saved in the platform. When re-linked, Meta had no problems putting a hold on it to deduct funds.
Ok, strange, but whatever. Problem solved.
Until it wasn’t. It happened once more some weeks later. I de-linked the original card, tried to link the alternative card again. But now Meta couldn’t put a hold on that one.
Workaround. Add a third card.
You see where this is going now.
I woke up last Sunday, No new link clicks, no new followers. I knew the problem had happened again.
I don’t have time for this shit.
Now I know what you’re thinking, no big deal, just rotate the three credit cards around.
And you’re right, it’s not necessarily a huge issue. But it’s a recurring one with no solution that I can action and solve.
Meta certainly won’t solve it; I can’t even find a person to speak to. The only way I find out is by noticing a slow down in link clicks, DMs and new follower growth. It’s post-fact problem solving.
But nobody wants to problem solve like that.
It’s like putting an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff. It’s already too late by then.
What you really want is a fence on the top of the cliff, so the idiot doesn’t fall off.
Apparently in this case, I’m the idiot.
You know that time is money, right?
The point here is that all of this is disruptive.
With three cards now stored in Meta ads manager, I have no idea which one at what random time Meta will decide they have a problem with and stop running my ads.
Adding more cards isn’t an option because I have no more cards.
And in general, I shouldn’t have to go down that infinite workaround route.
It’d start becoming a little ridiculous linking more and more credit cards just because the Meta ads platform seems to have an issue.
I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m always right though. Maybe there isn’t a technical issue. Maybe I’m the issue, but just don’t know it.
But then the real issue rears its head. Trying to find someone to tell me what the problem is.
Ok rant over for now. I guess I should just be thankful that I have a system to throw money at and run ads.
I don’t actually believe that David ever beat Goliath.
Meta ads platform is a bank.
So my third credit card now had a problem. The final workaround was summoned.
I deposited funds from my bank account into Meta ads manager.
So Meta (who apparently is now a deposit taking institution), takes my deposit and deducts my ad spend from it periodically. Previously, using a credit card, I would simply be charged when I reached the Meta assigned credit limit.
But you see, this fourth workaround now starts to cost me. Not simply time anymore, but money.
From a financial perspective, this is an opportunity cost. I don’t want to park money with Meta where I earn no interest or have no liquidity. It’s not a real bank.
Financial concepts dictate that I should park as little money there as possible, and only deposit more when I need it. But again, this is disruptive.
If I put a low amount in there, I need to deposit more often. If I put a high amount in there, there’s no notification if deposited funds are running low.
Not to mention the opportunity cost of this money sitting with Meta. Instead of being put to use in the business.
Anyway, for now, the problem was solved. I deposited an amount of funds, enabled my ads, and things went back to normal again. I monitored the next few days to ensure that ads were running and my trend of link clicks and new follower continued to flow as usual.
Did I say that time is money?
Solving the problem last Sunday took time.
All in, around 2-3 hours from end to end. Realising that my link clicks and new follower growth had disappeared, then checking the billing settings, trying the various credit cards, releasing the operating cash to deposit into Meta ads manager.
It’s just time that could have been spent doing other, more value adding tasks.
It took 2-3 hours away from patternmaking, a task that really needs a flow state in order to execute properly. You’ve likely already read in another journal entry what goes wrong otherwise.
It meant that the 4-5 hour block on Sunday morning allocated for patternmaking was completely thrown upside down. 2-3 hours of wasted time with Meta meant that the remaining 1-2 hours had to be killed with something else.
In the end I used the time doing bits of pieces of work that I saved for when I knew I would have a ‘wasted’ time block to fill.
Small changes to socials, tidying the storeroom, fiddling with my sewing machine. Odds and ends like this.
This is business life, not bootmaking life.
I can imagine that you’re thinking today’s journal entry is quite boring. And you’d be right.
It’s a great indication of what a typical day can be. Dealing with the uncontrollable unexpected, taking away time from real value adding tasks.
Now if such activities are only one off, ok, this is maybe acceptable. But if they’re recurring and can’t be solved, this is really wasted time.
Being a one man show means I have to be as efficient as possible with my time. I try to be. But I can only control what I can control.
And Meta ads manager is clearly not one of those.
