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Paid
social ads.

// SOC // Meta + LinkedIn

I run paid social advertising on Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and LinkedIn for Australian businesses. The work covers campaign setup, audience targeting, ad copy, conversion tracking, optimisation, and monthly reporting in language that says whether the spend worked.

The honest framing: paid social isn't paid search. People aren't actively looking for what you sell — they're scrolling. Social ads work when the offer is good, the targeting matches a real audience, the creative earns attention, and the conversion path is clean. They fail when any of those four breaks. Most failed Meta campaigns I audit fail on the creative or the offer, not the targeting.

// Platforms

Platforms I work with.

Meta (Facebook + Instagram) for broad-reach prospecting and lookalike targeting. LinkedIn for sharper B2B targeting by job title, seniority, and company. Both run with proper conversion tracking and creative testing — no boosted-post guesswork.

// Platforms

Meta (Facebook + Instagram) for broad-reach + lookalike targeting, LinkedIn for sharper B2B job-title and seniority targeting.

// Included _ 01

What's
included.

01

Account audit and structural setup

Campaign architecture, ad-set separation, Meta Pixel and Conversions API health check, LinkedIn Insight Tag verification.

02

Audience targeting

Interest, behaviour, lookalike, and custom-audience strategy on Meta; industry, role, company, and account-based targeting on LinkedIn.

03

Ad copywriting

Headline, primary text, and CTA copy for each ad variant. Tested and iterated based on performance.

04

Conversion tracking setup

Meta Pixel plus Conversions API — a backup tracking layer that survives iPhone privacy changes; LinkedIn Insight Tag and conversion events. Verified end-to-end before campaigns go live. Set up via the SEO & Analytics base pack — the same shared tracking layer every other paid channel reports into.

05

Campaign management

Bid strategy, budget pacing, ad rotation, audience exhaustion monitoring, frequency capping where it matters.

06

Monthly performance reports

Plain English: spend, reach, leads or conversions, cost per result, what changed, what's planned.

07

Ongoing optimisation

Fortnightly to monthly tweaks based on actual results. Pause underperforming variants, scale winners, prompt creative-refresh decisions early.

08

Audience-list management

Where relevant — uploading customer or lead lists for retargeting and lookalike seeding, with privacy and consent handled properly.

// What I don't do _ 02

What I'm
not.

Honest scope sells better than over-promised scope.

// Audience _ 03

Who this
is for.

  • //B2C and B2B businesses where the audience is genuinely on Meta or LinkedIn and the offer is concrete enough to convert from a scroll.
  • //Businesses launching a new product, service, or event that needs paid awareness alongside whatever organic reach is already in place.
  • //B2B companies where decision-makers are LinkedIn-active and the average contract value justifies the higher cost-per-lead.
  • //Existing campaigns that are running but no-one is sure why the numbers look the way they do.

// Pricing _ 04

What it
costs.

  • Meta Ads: effective minimum spend $1,000/month to gather enough data for sensible optimisation. Below that, results are statistically noisy.
  • LinkedIn Ads: $2,000+/month to be worthwhile, honestly. In my experience, LinkedIn's ad costs (the per-thousand-impression and per-click prices) run noticeably higher than Meta's, and sub-$2k campaigns rarely produce enough leads to justify the management overhead. If your budget is under $2k/month, LinkedIn probably isn't the right channel — and I'll say so.

Both numbers reflect what actually works rather than what would generate fees. Management fee is flat monthly, separate from ad spend. Ad spend is paid by you directly to Meta or LinkedIn — never bundled into my fee. See Looked After for monthly management ranges.

// ACNC charities: 25% off — single ABN-lookup verification at intake

// Timeline _ 05

How long
it takes.

  1. /01

    Setup — 1–2 weeks.

    Account audit, Pixel + Conversions API health check, audience strategy, first campaign build.

  2. /02

    Meta — 2–3 weeks to optimise.

    Meta campaigns typically need 2–3 weeks for the algorithm to exit its documented learning phase and start optimising from a fresh start, assuming conversion volume is sufficient. In my experience, creative fatigue sets in earlier than most clients expect — often 3–4 weeks for a single creative.

  3. /03

    LinkedIn — 4–6 weeks to read.

    In my experience LinkedIn moves slower; meaningful performance patterns take longer to emerge. From there, ongoing management under Looked After.

// Reporting _ 06

How I
report.

Each month you get a plain-English report covering how much you spent, how many leads or sales it brought in, what each one cost, what's working, what isn't, and what I'm changing next. No numbers without context. If tracking breaks, campaigns pause until it's fixed.

// For the technically curious — what's actually in the report
  • //Spend, reach, impressions, frequency.
  • //Cost per lead or cost per conversion — the numbers that matter most for B2C lead-gen and B2B respectively.
  • //Cost per click and click-through rate, as context, not the headline.
  • //Audience saturation signals — frequency creep, declining CTR over time per audience.
  • //Top and bottom performing ad creative variants.
  • //What I changed in the account and why. What I'm planning to test next month.

// What I don't report: vanity metrics. No reach without conversion context, no 'likes-and-comments rate' as a primary success metric (likes don't pay invoices), no video-view counts without conversion attribution. If Pixel, Conversions API, or Insight Tag tracking breaks, campaigns pause until it's fixed.

// Journey _ 07

What comes
next.

Most paid-social projects start with a Digital Health Check (Stage 1) — a free audit that checks Pixel and Conversions API health and surfaces what's working, wasting, or missing. The Digital Health Check shows whether paid social is the right next move. Sometimes it isn't — a B2B service with a $50 average contract value won't support LinkedIn cost-per-lead; a niche B2C product with no clear lookalike seed audience needs SEO and content first.

If paid social is the right move, the next step is either straight into a setup project (Build & Launch) or a Strategic Roadmap upgrade inside the Health Check first, when paid social is part of a broader plan that includes paid search or SEO.

Once setup is live, Stage 03 — Looked After covers ongoing management — monthly optimisation, reporting, creative-refresh prompting, account hygiene.

// FAQ _ 08

Common
questions.

What's the minimum ad spend for Meta and LinkedIn?
Meta: $1,000/month minimum to gather enough data for sensible optimisation. LinkedIn: $2,000+/month, honestly — sub-$2k LinkedIn campaigns rarely produce enough leads to justify the management overhead. If your budget is under $2k/month, LinkedIn probably isn't the right channel — and I'll say so.
Do you produce ad creative?
No — and this is the most common scoping conversation, so saying it upfront avoids surprises. I don't design graphics, shoot or edit video, or produce static ad creative. Bring existing brand creative, photographer-supplied assets, or stock; I'll source stock if needed but creative production from scratch is out of scope.
Do you run organic social media?
No. I don't write posts, schedule content, reply to DMs, or run brand accounts. It's a content treadmill that doesn't scale solo and doesn't fit how I work. Refer elsewhere if that's what you need.
What about TikTok, Pinterest, X, Snapchat, or Reddit ads?
Not currently offered. Each platform has its own optimisation patterns, and I'd rather do two platforms (Meta and LinkedIn) well than five badly.
How long until results show up?
Meta campaigns typically need 2–3 weeks for the algorithm to optimise from a fresh start, assuming conversion volume is sufficient. LinkedIn moves slower — 4–6 weeks for meaningful patterns to emerge. Creative fatigue sets in earlier on Meta than most clients expect (often 3–4 weeks for a single creative); plan creative-refresh cadence into the project.

// Start _ 09

Get
started.

Want a clear-eyed look at your existing paid social? Book a free 45-minute intro call — I'll do a free Digital Health Check on your account as part of it.

Book a free intro call

// 45 min · Google Meet · No obligation

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// Last updated: April 2026