Are You Overpaying Your Media Buyer?

Most ad problems aren’t creative, offer, or budget issues.

They’re structure problems—especially for small business owners trying to make every dollar count.

If your ads look good, your product sells, and your budget is solid—but you're still not profitable—then the issue isn’t what you’re selling or how.

It’s how your media buying goals are set—and whether they’re aligned with your business objectives.

Because if the person running your ad account is judged on the wrong metrics, they’re incentivized to spend more, not make more.

Even if they’re technically “doing their job.”

Let’s break this down 👇

The 3 Most Common Misaligned Goals for SMBs and Ad Agencies

1. Optimizing for ROAS instead of actual profit 

ROAS is the easiest metric to manipulate.

Here is the formula: Cut spend. Retarget loyal customers. Look like a hero.

But for a small business trying to grow, that’s not progress. 

You're not building a pipeline for growth—you’re milking your past buyers.

I wrote about how ROAS can be a misleading metric to be following when you try to scale. Read DAS #10-Why Facebook Ads ROAS is a Misleading Metric.

2. Agencies getting paid based on ad spend

This is like paying a chef based on how much salt they use. More spend = more fees, so of course they’ll keep pushing “scale,” even when it crushes efficiency.

That’s exactly why I prefer working on a fixed fee or results-based commission—you align incentives with outcomes, not volume.

Especially for SMBs, every extra dollar of “scale” should come with a clear path to profit—not just higher agency fees.

3. Internal teams judge on vanity metrics (CPC, CTR, CPM) 

If your team celebrates a lower CPC while your profit is dropping, you don’t have a media problem—you have a dashboard problem.

Create a unified reporting view—ideally a blended P&L of paid channels—so everyone sees the same numbers and makes decisions from the same source of truth.

It’s the only way small businesses can make fast, confident decisions without second-guessing their data.

How to Fix It (Without Burning It All Down)

✅ Shift performance focus to profit-based metrics

Forget ROAS as your north star.

Instead, use Total Profit Volume (TPV) and Gross Profit Margin (GPM) to track whether your ads are actually making money.

If you missed it, check out DAS #59 - 2 Metrics That Reveal If Your Meta Ads Are Failing for a full guide on how to create and use these custom metrics inside Meta Ads Manager.

Bonus: CAC and New CAC are great indicators of how efficiently you're acquiring new customers—not just retargeting warm leads. You need data from your CRM or Google Analytics to see new customer/revenue data.

✅ Define your minimum acceptable profit floor

Set clear boundaries for acceptable performance.

For example: “Keep GPM for X product/category at Y% while scaling.”

That gives your team or media buyer room to optimize within profit margins.

✅ Build a shared dashboard with your internal team, the client or CFO

If your media buyer and your CFO are using different dashboards, you’re misaligned.

Create a unified reporting view—ideally a blended P&L of paid channels—so everyone sees the same numbers and makes decisions from the same source of truth.

Bottom Line

If you're paying someone to chase the wrong metric, you’ll get the wrong results.

And if that metric isn’t tied to real business outcomes like profit, your ad budget isn’t growth capital—it’s overhead.

🍿 Snackable Challenge

How do you evaluate ad performance—ROAS or real revenue metrics?

📩 Hit reply or send me a DM on X or LinkedIn—I’m always up for your ideas.