What I’ve Learned After Spending $2.5M on Meta Ads in 2025

What's up, Marketers! This is Aazar.

This newsletter is about leveling up your paid growth marketing skills by analyzing the best brands' paid strategy, tactics, positioning, and value props.

This newsletter is divided into:

• Sharing what I've learned (this issue)

• Sometimes sharing some other performance marketers’ lessons with you

• And I analyze & compare the best ads on the internet

BEST LINKS OF THE WEEK (on popular demand)

My favorite finds

• If you advertise on Meta and you sell vitamins, minerals, supplements, personal care, or anything REMOTELY tied to "health & wellness" READ THIS NOW! 🚨

• Quality Static AI Image Ads

• This is suddenly has become my favorite community to jam on ads with psychology

My Favorite AI Creative Strategy Tool

If you’ve been reading my newsletter, you know I’m a huge fan of Atria AI. It helped me grow from 6-figure agency to 7-figure without all the manual work.

It has everything you need: 1. Swipe File 2. Discovery Inspiration Ads Board 3. Competitor tracking 4. Analytics and Reporting 5. Asset Manager 6. Video Editing Feedback tool 7. AI Creative Strategy Recommendation

Check the real use-cases how I use it day-to-day.

It has been 5 months in 2025, and Meta ads have been a constant source of stress. 

I’m learning that it will only get harder. This means we need to continue investing in better ideas.

That’s the purpose of this newsletter.

Anyway, I wanted to share my key lessons after managing $500K/month in Meta ad spend.

This post is relevant if you have D2C, Apps or Lead Gen businesses as clients.

1. AI Workflows Update

I’ve tried AI UGC but authentic ads are still outperforming comparatively.

I’ve tried AI images but native ads are still outperforming comparatively.

I’ve realized it’s the mind behind AI ads that are more valuable than AI output itself.

Next week, we’ll show you exactly how to use AI ads in your workflow.

You’d be surprised how differently we’re using compared to “other gurus”. Subscribe here to stay update.

2. THIS dropped CAC in half

One of my clients had an influencer who wanted to promote her book. We bought 250+ books so she did Instagram Live with us. She had 1mn+ followers. She also went to Jimmy Fallon’s show to promote her book too. 

I’ve stressed about message testing but damn this woman cut our CPA in half. 

I didn’t do much, just edited the video properly. Her video basically vouching for our brand.

Influence whitelisting with partner ads is crushing still. Don’t sleep on it. 

Full guide on this topic here.

3. If you sell leads

I serve D2C, health and education mostly, but I have started diversifying in lead gen for a couple of clients. Education is mostly lead gen too.

This is what worked this year for lead generation businesses.:

• Your hook has to be a qualifier

• The video needs to call attention aligned with the services you sell

• Image ads bring a lot of bot traffic, try only running on feed + stories + reels

• SMS verification is a life-saver

• Retargeting helps with increasing trust and credibility

• Run both landing page + Meta forms but be ready to have duplicates

4. Ecommerce is brutal

I know for most of you this will be I know it. So, I now own a stake in a D2C brand. I work as a marketing director.

We helped the brand grow from $15K/month to $50K/month so far, planning to reach $1mn by the year end.

Here’s what I learned so far:

• Margins are razor-thin

• Good creatives increased the conversions from 1% to 2.5% 

• 3 CRO tactics worked

  • Adding winning ad creatives benefits to the hero

  • Adding money back guarantee in the hero CTA

  • Add relevant testimonial that speaks to the one concept that’s always winning in the ads

Even after all that, profit margins are not great. So, we’re raising pricing (COGS drop wasn’t possible). I’ll keep you posted with the results.

5. Meta Volatility 

Meta Volatility and tariff killed many businesses this year.

Meta was updating UX in March and April for “better ad performance”. 

THIS single-handedly brought our fees down since for some brands we charge a % of the budget.

Here’s how we dealt with:

• One client is doubling down on influencer army

• One client is doubling down on TikTok organic virality

• One client is doubling down on affiliates

Pick at least one of these strategies and implement it immediately.

Eventually, all of these will help with ads for us eventually. 

6. For App Clients

I burned thousands testing Meta’s “recommended” ASC campaigns for an iOS education app.

The result? Every metric tanked.

Meta reps insisted ASC-only was the future for iOS. “Trust us,” they said. So I did. Big mistake. And here’s what happened:

• CPA shot up

• Free trials became worthless

• New user costs spiked

• All key metrics declined

This wasn’t a small dip. It was a total failure of Meta’s “expert” advice.

The truth: Meta reps push internal agendas, not strategies that work for your app.

Here’s what I’ve learned after years of media buying:

Manual campaigns often beat ASC for iOS

ASC might scale 1 out of 10 ads

Manual gives you 3–4 winners out of 10

That difference is everything for growth.

ASC usually finds one scalable ad and kills the rest. That bottlenecks your potential.

For iOS apps, especially in education—this matters. The data is clear.

Real expertise still wins. Always test for yourself. Question every recommendation, even from the platform.

Your business needs results, not corporate sales pitches.

7. I changed my mind about creative volume

We adopted creative volume was hyped as the next big thing. 

One ad concept, multiple variations, sometimes  10-12 per concept.

I learned that what used to take 2–3 days now takes much longer. 

So, we’ve decided to make only max 5-6 variations per concept to find winners faster.

Clients don’t have time or budget to wait this long for a winner.

And speaking of winners, this is my favorite thing clients say.

Book a strategy call if you want such results.

Thanks to our partners who support this newsletter.

Happy Growing with Paid Social,

Aazar Shad

Since this newsletter is free, I do it to follow my curiosity. But I’d love it if you could leave some feedback so I know if I am helping you or not.

Two ways I can help you, whenever you are ready:

• Work with me to get you growth from paid marketing. Book a call here. I’m open to more clients now.

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