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Shakawat Hridoy

Meta Ads

A Meta Ads specialist for ecommerce brands, without the hype

Facebook and Instagram ads interrupt people who were not looking for you. That makes them powerful for discovery and unforgiving of weak creative, because on Meta, the creative is the targeting.

Get in touchHow I approach it
Meta Ads manager dashboard showing reach, link clicks and conversions beside a phone previewing a Facebook product ad

Built in

  • Meta Ads Manager
  • Conversions API
  • Shopify
  • Meta Pixel
  • GA4

Is this you?

Any of these sound familiar

Most accounts I audit have one of these, and the first two are usually measurement rather than creative.

  • Meta says it works, your bank does not

    Reported return on ad spend and actual revenue disagree, and nobody can explain the gap.

  • You concluded Meta does not work

    Without the Conversions API the pixel misses a meaningful share of conversions, so you cannot see what it did.

  • Every test teaches you nothing

    Six ads launched at once with different images, headlines and audiences, no way to tell which variable moved.

  • A working campaign broke when you scaled

    Budget went up too fast and performance fell off a cliff.

My approach

What changed, and what still works

Meta advertising works differently than it did five years ago. Anyone still running the 2019 playbook of narrow interest stacking is fighting the system rather than using it.

The creative is the targeting now

Meta’s algorithm finds the audience far better than manual interest targeting does, but it can only find people the creative actually speaks to. A video that opens with a real problem gets shown to people with that problem. This is why creative testing, not audience tinkering, is where the leverage sits today.

Fix measurement before scaling

Since iOS privacy changes, the pixel alone misses a meaningful share of conversions. That means the Conversions API sending server-side events, domain verification, and prioritized events configured properly. Without it you are optimizing on partial data and will usually conclude that Meta does not work for you, when the truth is you cannot see what it did.

Test one question at a time

Launching six ads with different images, headlines, and audiences at once teaches you nothing, because you cannot tell which variable moved the number. I test in a structure that isolates one question per test, hook, format, or offer, so each round produces a real answer that informs the next.

Judge blended numbers, not just the dashboard

Meta’s reported return on ad spend and your actual business results rarely match, and both are partly right. What matters is total revenue against total ad spend across all channels. I would rather report a modest number you can trust than a dashboard figure that looks excellent while the bank balance says otherwise.

That is the whole approachAsk about your account →

How I work

The process, and how long it takes

Meta work is more iterative than the other services here. The first month is about building a creative testing rhythm.

1of 5 · Week 1

  1. Week 1

    Fix the plumbing

    Pixel and Conversions API, domain verification, event priority, catalog if you are running product ads. Boring, and everything downstream depends on it.

  2. Week 1–2

    Audit creative and offer

    What has run before, what worked, and honestly whether the offer is compelling to a stranger. Meta amplifies whatever you give it, it cannot rescue an offer nobody wants.

  3. Week 2–3

    Build the testing structure

    A clean account structure separating prospecting from retargeting, with a testing campaign designed so each round answers one question rather than producing an unreadable mess.

  4. Weeks 3–8

    Test, cut, scale what survives

    Rounds of creative tests, killing losers quickly and giving winners more budget carefully. Scaling too fast is the most common way a working campaign gets broken.

  5. Ongoing

    Report on blended performance

    Platform numbers next to what your store actually recorded, with the gap explained rather than hidden. Plus what we learned about your customers, often the most valuable output.

What you end up with

  • Pixel and Conversions API configured, domain verified, events prioritized
  • Account structure separating prospecting from retargeting
  • Creative testing framework with one variable per round
  • Product catalog set up for dynamic ads where relevant
  • Blended reporting: platform numbers against real store revenue
  • A documented record of what worked and what did not

Brands I have worked with

  • LMNLIFE Nutrition
  • Michael’s Vacations
  • The Kortley Group
  • Lion Crown Enterprise
  • Neon Gurl
  • Modern Cook’s Digest
  • Filthy Fizz
  • Four Points Construction
  • Crafted Exterior Services
  • CASA of the Eastern Panhandle
  • SC Marketing
  • Grafton
  • Ciao Pasta
  • Custom Homes
  • Property Pivot
  • Terminal 203
  • Gute Insulation
  • A Hand In Need
  • Swing Daddy
  • Juwelier Keller
  • Personal Best
  • CurveOn
  • Celestial Hope Book Nook
  • Igor & James
  • Hey Luna

Work in this area

Where I have done this

Paid social for ecommerce brands and direct-to-consumer stores.

Ask about similar work

Certified in

  • Google Ads Search
  • Meta Digital Advertising
  • Google Analytics

Common questions

What people ask before hiring me

Still unanswered? Send me a message. I read every one myself.

Do Facebook and Instagram ads still work for ecommerce?

Yes, but they are less forgiving than they were. Costs rose and measurement got harder after the iOS privacy changes, so weak creative and a mediocre offer no longer get carried by cheap reach. Brands with a genuinely good product, clear creative, and correct measurement still do well. Brands hoping ads will fix a product nobody wants do not.

How much creative do I need to start?

Enough to answer a few questions, which usually means three to five distinct concepts rather than five versions of the same image. Different hooks, different formats, ideally a mix of polished and plain. User-generated-style video often beats studio production on Meta, which is good news for budgets.

What does a Meta Ads specialist do about the iOS tracking problem?

Set up the Conversions API so conversions are sent server-side rather than relying only on the browser pixel, verify your domain, and configure event priority. That recovers a good share of what the pixel alone misses. It does not restore perfect attribution, nothing does, so I also report blended numbers against actual store revenue.

What is a realistic return on ad spend?

It depends so heavily on margin, price point, and repeat-purchase behavior that a benchmark from someone else’s store is close to meaningless. A store with high margins and repeat customers can profit at a number that would bankrupt a low-margin store. The right target comes from your own contribution margin, and working that out is part of the setup.

Should I run Advantage+ shopping campaigns?

They are worth testing for most ecommerce accounts and often perform well, particularly once you have conversion history. The caution is the same as with any automation: it needs clean event data to optimize against, and it gives you less visibility into why something worked. Test it against a structured campaign rather than assuming either is better.

Can you run Meta ads and Google Ads together?

Yes, and they complement each other well. Google captures people already searching; Meta creates demand among people who were not looking. Running both means the demand Meta creates gets captured when those people later search your brand name, which is also why judging either channel in isolation misleads you.

How long before we know whether it is working?

Four to eight weeks for a fair read. The first weeks go on fixing measurement and running initial creative tests, and early results swing widely on small numbers. Anyone drawing conclusions from the first week is reading noise.

Ads running but the numbers are murky?

Send me access and I will look at your measurement setup first, in most accounts I audit, that is where the confusion starts.

Get in touch

The other four things I do