Your campaigns are live. Now your job changes: you're not building anymore, you're maintaining. Every day, for every client, you spend 15 minutes reading the data and making decisions. No guessing. No feelings. Just numbers → rules → action. This is where you earn your retainer.
This is the same routine every day. No thinking about what to do — just follow the steps. Set a timer if you have to. 15 minutes, no more.
🖥️SHOW ON SCREEN: Open Ads Manager. Walk through each step of the routine in real time with Tony's Pizza as the example. Students need to see this takes 15 minutes, not 2 hours.
0:00 – 3:00
👀 SCAN
Open Ads Manager. Look at yesterday's numbers. What changed? Any big spikes or drops? Just observe — don't touch anything yet.
3:00 – 7:00
🎯 DECIDE
Go ad by ad. Apply the decision rules (Section 3). Label each one: KILL, WATCH, SCALE, or REFRESH. Write it down.
7:00 – 12:00
⚡ EXECUTE
Now make the changes. Kill losers. Bump winner budgets 20%. Add new creatives if frequency is high. Only do what you decided — nothing extra.
12:00 – 15:00
📝 LOG
Write down what you changed and why. Keep a simple note — date, what you did, reason. This becomes your weekly client report.
The #1 beginner mistake: spending 2 hours "optimizing" and making things worse. The learning phase needs ~50 conversions per week to stabilize. Every time you change something, it resets. Do LESS. Only change what the rules tell you to change.
📊 2. The 4 Metrics That Matter
Ads Manager shows you 50+ columns. Most of them are noise. These 4 are the only ones you check every day. Click each one to see the benchmarks:
CPL
Cost Per Lead
⭐ Your north star
CTR
Click-Through Rate
Creative quality
CPM
Cost Per 1,000
Delivery cost
FREQ
Frequency
Fatigue detector
🖥️SHOW ON SCREEN: In Ads Manager → Columns → Customize Columns. Add: Cost per result, CTR, CPM, Frequency. Remove everything else. Save as "Daily Check" preset. Show them this removes the noise.
🍕 Example: Tony's Pizza — Day 7 Check
Ad Name
Spend
CPL
CTR
CPM
Freq
Decision
Family Dinner - Video
$42
$7
3.2%
$8
1.4
SCALE
Late Night Deal - Static
$38
$9.50
1.8%
$11
1.8
SCALE
Lunch Special - Carousel
$35
$17.50
1.1%
$14
2.1
WATCH
Party Catering - Video
$45
$45
0.4%
$22
1.6
KILL
Grand Opening - Static
$52
$10.40
1.6%
$9
3.2
REFRESH
Tony's target CPL: $10. Family Dinner is crushing it at $7 → scale budget +20%. Party Catering spent $45 for 1 lead → 4.5x target → kill immediately. Grand Opening has great CPL but frequency 3.2 → people seeing it too often → add new creatives.
🎯 3. The 4 Decision Rules
Every ad gets ONE of four labels. No "maybe." No "let me think about it." These rules remove emotion from your decisions:
KILL
CPA is 3x+ your target
This ad is bleeding money. Turn it off immediately. Don't hope it gets better — it won't. You need at least 2-3x your target CPA in spend before judging (so the data is real).
Target $10 → Kill at $30+
WATCH
CPA is 1.5x-3x your target
Not great, not terrible. Give it 2-3 more days of data. If it doesn't improve → kill. If it drops below target → scale.
Target $10 → Watch at $15-30
SCALE
CPA is at or below target
Winner. Increase budget by 20-30%. Don't double it overnight — gradual scaling prevents the learning phase from resetting.
Target $10 → Scale at ≤$10
REFRESH
Frequency hits 3.0+
People are seeing the same ad too many times. Performance will drop soon. Add 3-5 new creatives to the ad set. Don't pause the old ones yet — let Meta redistribute.
Freq 3.0+ → Add creatives
Print these rules. Stick them next to your monitor. When you're tempted to make a "gut feeling" change — look at the rules. If the data doesn't say to change it, don't change it. The algorithm is smarter than your gut. Always.
📋 4. Your Daily Tracking Sheet
Every day, after your 15-minute check, you log the numbers. This is how you track trends, spot problems early, and build your weekly client report. We built you a tracker — use it or copy the structure into Google Sheets.
🖥️SHOW ON SCREEN: Open the Google Sheet template. Show the Tony's Pizza example tab with color-coded CPL and decisions. Then show how to make a copy (File → Make a copy) and duplicate tabs for new clients.
Tony's Pizza with 9 days of real data, weekly summary, and all formulas
📋
Tab 2: Blank Template
Duplicate this tab for each new client. CPL formula pre-loaded.
📖
Tab 3: How To Use
Step-by-step instructions + decision rules reference.
What You Log Every Day
Date
When
Spend + Leads
CPL auto-calcs
CTR + CPM + Freq
Health metrics
Decision
KILL/WATCH/SCALE
Notes
What you changed
🚫 5. The 5 Optimization Killers
These mistakes will cost your clients money and reset the learning phase. Every beginner makes at least one of these. Don't be that person:
1
Changing things during learning phase
Meta's algorithm needs ~50 conversions per week to figure out who to show your ads to. If you edit budget, targeting, or creative before that — it resets to zero and starts learning all over again. Wait.
2
Doubling budget overnight
$15/day → $30/day = learning phase resets. The algorithm panics when you change too much at once. Scale 20-30% at a time: $15 → $18 → $22 → $27. Be patient.
3
Panic-killing ads after 24 hours
Day 1 data means nothing. You need the ad to spend at least 2-3x your target CPA before judging. If target CPL is $10, let the ad spend at least $20-30 before you decide it's a loser.
4
Editing the winning ad
An ad is performing well → "let me tweak the copy to make it even better" → you just killed it. NEVER edit a winner. If you want to test a variation, create a NEW ad. Leave the winner completely alone.
5
Optimizing based on feelings
"I don't like this ad" doesn't matter. "This ad has 3x CPA after $30 spend" matters. You are not the target audience. Your client is not the target audience. Only the data decides what stays and what goes.
📈 6. The Scaling Ladder
When an ad is winning (CPA at or below target for 3+ days), scale it gradually. Never jump more than 20-30% at a time:
🖥️SHOW ON SCREEN: In Ads Manager, click on a campaign budget. Show how to edit it. Change $15 → $18. Explain why you're not going to $30.
$15
Start
→
$18
+20%
→
$22
+22%
→
$27
+23%
→
$33
+22%
→
$40
+21%
Wait 2-3 days between each step. Only increase if CPA stays at or below target. If CPA spikes after a bump → go back to the previous budget immediately.
📋 7. The Weekly Client Report
Every week, send your client a simple update. Not a 10-page document — just the numbers that matter and what you did. Copy this template:
📋 Weekly Report Template
Hey [Client Name]! Here's your weekly ads update:
📊 THIS WEEK'S NUMBERS
• Total Spend: $___
• Total Leads: ___
• Cost Per Lead: $___
• Best Performing Ad: [name] — $[CPL]
🟢 WHAT'S WORKING
• [Top ad and WHY it's winning — angle, creative type]
• [Any trends you noticed]
🔴 WHAT WE CHANGED
• Paused [X] underperforming ads (too expensive)
• Increased budget on [Y] — best performer
• Added [Z] new creatives to keep things fresh
📅 NEXT WEEK'S PLAN
• [What you'll do next — new creatives, scaling, etc.]
Questions? Let me know!
Send this every Monday. Clients don't care about CPM or CTR — they care about "how many leads did I get and how much did it cost?" Keep it simple. This one message keeps clients happy and paying every month.