Subscribe Now: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
One of the most common questions business owners ask when they want to grow with Meta™ Ads is “Should I be running my own ads, or should I be hiring someone to do it for me?”
It sounds like a simple question, but there are actually a few different paths you can take. You might do it yourself. You might bring in a VA. You might hire a freelancer. You might work with an agency.
The right answer depends on where you are in your business right now and how much time you have available.
In this post, I want to walk you through those options clearly so you can work out which one makes the most sense for your stage, your budget and your goals.
Option one: DIY
For a lot of coaches, consultants and course creators, especially those who are earlier in business, doing your own ads is actually a really smart place to start.
DIY makes sense when the cost of outsourcing does not stack up yet. Agency fees and freelancer retainers are a real investment on top of your ad spend. If your revenue is not yet at a point where that makes financial sense, keeping this part of your marketing in-house is often the right call.
DIY also makes sense when you want to understand your own marketing. It is incredibly valuable for business owners to know their ads from the inside out. When you understand what is working, why it is working and what the numbers are telling you, that knowledge is powerful in helping you optimise and improve all of your marketing.
And DIY makes sense when you have the time to do it properly.
Because running ads well is not just about launching them. It is also about monitoring, testing, reviewing data, improving creative and tightening the wider funnel that affects performance. If you have that capacity, DIY can be a very strong option.
Some business owners also choose a hybrid model here. They keep the strategy in-house and have a VA support with uploading, reporting and day-to-day admin. That can work extremely well too as long as you are confident that the VA is implementing and optimising correctly.
Option two: hire help
The second option is outsourcing to a freelancer or agency.
This makes sense when you do not have the time to manage ads yourself and you have no real desire to learn them in depth. You want to hand that part over to someone who works in this space every day and put your own focus elsewhere in the business.
That is a completely valid choice.
Time is your most valuable resource. If ads are not where you want to spend it, outsourcing can be the right move.
But this is where context really matters.
Agencies and experienced freelancers do not come cheap, and so they shouldn’t. Good people charge well for their expertise. Their fees sit on top of your ad spend, so your business needs to be at a stage where you can absorb both and still have a healthy return.
As a general guide, if you are not yet at a point where paying both management fees and a meaningful ad budget feels comfortable, it may make more sense to learn the foundations first before outsourcing.
And if you do decide to hire help, do your due diligence.
Ask:
- Have they worked with businesses like mine before?
- What results have they achieved?
- What is included in their service?
- How will they communicate results to me?
- Can they provide referrals from other business owners?
If you are going to pay someone to manage a very important part of your business you want to ensure that they have the expertise to do it properly.
The non-negotiable, no matter which option you choose
This is the part I feel most strongly about.
No matter which path you take, every business owner running Meta™ Ads should have at least a general understanding of how ads work, what strategies are currently performing and how to read their own numbers.
Because if you outsource your ads and have no idea what good looks like, you have no way of knowing whether the person or agency you hired is actually doing a good job.
I have seen this happen too many times.
A business owner pays a retainer month after month, results are mediocre, but they do not know enough to ask the right questions or challenge the strategy. They feel like they have to trust blindly because they don’t have the knowledge to assess what they are being told.
That is a vulnerable position to be in when your marketing budget is involved.
Even a basic understanding will give you an advantage. When you know which campaign objectives match which goals, what your key metrics should roughly look like and what questions to ask, you become an informed client.
That puts you in a much stronger position, whether you DIY or outsource.
The third option: done-with-you
There is a third option, and honestly, I think this is the best fit for a lot of business owners.
That is a done-with-you model.
This is exactly why I created Abundant Ads Academy to cover this gap in the industry.
Done-with-you means you are not left alone inside a course trying to figure everything out by yourself, but you are also not completely hands-off and dependent on someone else to run your marketing for you.
Instead, you are learning how to run your ads properly with expert guidance beside you.
You get:
- the knowledge
- the strategy
- the implementation support
- expert eyes on your actual campaigns
That means you build real capability inside your business.
You understand what is happening in your account.
You can make informed decisions.
And over time, you are not totally dependent on someone else to manage this area for you.
This model also works really well if you want your VA involved.
Inside Abundant Ads Academy, your VA gets access too. That means if you want them handling the day-to-day uploading, reporting and monitoring, they can be trained inside the same framework you are using.
You get the strategic overview.
They get the practical skills.
And you both stay aligned.
So how do you decide?
Here is the simplest way I would think about it.
If you are earlier in business and working with a tighter budget, DIY with done-with-you support is usually the best path. You build the skill, keep control of your marketing and avoid adding agency fees before the revenue is ready to support them.
If your revenue is solid, your time is stretched and you can comfortably absorb both management fees and ad spend, hiring help may be the right move, provided you still know enough to be an informed client.
And if you are somewhere in between, where you want support but also want to understand what is happening, a done-with-you model is often the best fit.
The position I would avoid at all costs is running ads with no strategy, no support and no idea what the numbers are telling you.
That is where ad spend turns into frustration very quickly.
Final thoughts
There is no one right answer to whether you should DIY your ads or hire help.
It depends on your revenue, your capacity, your goals and how involved you want to be in your own marketing.
But whatever path you choose, I strongly believe every business owner should have at least a foundational understanding of how Meta™ Ads work.
That knowledge protects you.
It empowers you.
And it helps every dollar you spend work harder.
If you want expert support while also building real capability inside your business, that is exactly what Abundant Ads Academy is designed for.
I would love to hear your thoughts...