3 things 5 years of Facebook ads have taught me

Read on my website.

August 20, 2026

I've spent the past five years running Facebook ads.

For myself, for artists, for labels, for creators—and more.

And in that time, across hundreds of millions of ad impressions, I've seen the same three patterns emerge.

Most people equate running ads with budget allocation, optimization, return on ad spend, and CPM. Those things matter.

But the true power of advertising—and marketing in general—lies in how you think about the layers beneath what goes up when you hit publish on a campaign.

The competition isn't who you think it is

Most creators and artists tend to think of social media as a game of attention wherein we're all competing with one another for the same eyeballs.

And while that's true to a certain extent, the real competition isn't everyone else making videos on Instagram or uploading songs to Spotify.

Your biggest competitors are the platforms themselves.

Instagram, TikTok, Spotify—all of them.

Because you're not trying to keep people on your videos instead of someone else's.

If you're trying to build a business, your goal should be to get people off of Instagram entirely.

Because Instagram’s goal is to keep you scrolling.

But your goal is to turn your audience into customers.

To do that, you need to have a way to nurture those relationships outside of “the algorithm.”

In short: email.

Renting vs. owning attention

We all love the numbers, myself included.

It feels great to see a video take off and the positive comments start to roll in, but the more powerful numbers are the ones the world doesn't see.

Building social proof on social media is an important part of the process, but you have to convert at least some of that proof into relationships if you want to build and scale a business from your work.

Because for every 10,000 people who see your content, 1,000 might engage by watching, liking, or sharing.

Of those 1,000 who engage, 100 might choose to follow you.

And of those 100 who follow, 10 might subscribe to your email list, download your lead magnet, or enter into a conversation with you.

And then one might buy.

It's a game of numbers, but you have to make sure the numbers are flowing in the right direction instead of sitting on Instagram with nowhere to go.

Become a brand

The best artists and creators don't think of themselves just as people—they think of themselves as brands.

Corporate culture uses the term "personal brand" to describe someone whose online voice is separate from the business behind them—think founders, CEOs, that kind of thing.

But when you're a solo creator or artist, most of the time, the business literally is you.

So it can be tough to tell where you, the person, stop and where you, the brand, start.

But it's important to distinguish between the two.

A person is a multivariate human being who loves all kinds of different things and does even more in their spare time.

A brand has a singular mission and a voice to match.

If you want to turn your creative work into income, you have to get focused on what you're trying to achieve.

You have to become a brand.

Putting it all together

No one said building a business from your creative work was easy.

It's not.

But if you want to turn your passion into profit—and scale it with ads—it helps to know who you're actually competing with, what you're trying to achieve, and what kind of vehicle gets you there.

So remember:

You're competing with the platforms, not your fellow creators.

Leads are the lifeblood of every business. Earn them.

Become a brand. It's the only way any of this scales.

P.S. If you want to go even deeper into the process behind these lessons, check out this week's YouTube video if you missed it.