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If your Meta™ ads used to perform brilliantly and now feel flat, you are not imagining it.
I hear it all the time.
“My ads were crushing it last year. Same offer, same audience, same strategy. Now I am getting nothing.”
Or, “I used to get $3 leads. Now I am paying $10-$20. Did Facebook™ change something”
Sometimes the platform does change. Targeting shifts. Features move. Set up best practices evolve.
However, there is another piece most people overlook.
Your messaging has an expiration date.
What worked in 2025 will not always work in 2026. Not because your offer has suddenly become bad, or because Facebook™ is out to get you, but because your market has evolved.
If your messaging has not evolved with it, your ads will slow down or stop.
In this post, I want to walk you through why that happens, how to know if your messaging has “expired”, and how to refresh it without burning your whole offer to the ground.
Why messaging “expires” over time
There is a concept in marketing called audience awareness levels. Put simply, your audience becomes more informed and more sceptical over time.
Think about where your people were 18 months ago.
They knew they had a problem. They might have tried a few obvious things that did not work. However, they had not yet seen dozens of coaches, service providers and course creators all promising the same kind of result.
At that stage, they were mainly problem aware. They understood the pain, but they were not yet familiar with your specific kind of solution.
So when you came in with a clear promise, it felt fresh.
“Want to hit consistent 10k months”
“Want to get $3 leads on autopilot”
Those messages cut through, because your audience was hearing them for the first time.
Fast forward 12 to 18 months.
Your dream clients have seen a lot. They have downloaded guides. They have watched webinars. They have tried a few courses. They have heard the same headline promises again and again.
Now they are solution aware. They know options exist. They have tried some of them. They are more cautious.
The promise that once felt fresh has become common. And common messaging in a crowded feed gets ignored.
Signs your messaging has expired
How do you know if “expired messaging” is the real issue
Here are three big signs to look for.
1. Your cost per lead has crept up over time
If you used to pay around $3 for a lead and now you are sitting at $15-$20 for the same audience and a similar structure, something has shifted. Often, it is that your message no longer stands out to the people you want to reach.
2. Your engagement has dropped
Maybe your ads used to get comments, shares and saves. Now they get very little reaction. People are scrolling past because they feel like they have seen it all before.
3. Your leads are not converting like they used to
You might still be getting leads at an acceptable cost, but fewer people are showing up to your webinars, opening your emails or buying your offers. This often means your messaging is attracting people who are curious, not committed. The copy is too surface level for where your audience is now.
If you recognise yourself in any of these, it is time to refresh your messaging. The good news is that you do not need to start again.
How to refresh your messaging without changing your offer
Here is the framework I use with clients when their ads used to work and have now stalled.
Step 1: Audit your current messaging
Look back at your ads and launch copy from 12 to 18 months ago.
- What promises were you making
- What phrases kept showing up
- What hooks did you rely on
Then ask yourself honestly. Is any of this still unique in my market?
If you can Google your headline or scroll your feed and see five other people using almost the same message, your copy has become commoditised. It is not necessarily wrong. It is just no longer distinct.
Step 2: Identify where your audience is now
Your people have moved on. Your messaging needs to meet them where they are today, not where they were a year and a half ago.
Ask questions like:
- What have they already tried that did not work
- What are they sceptical about now
- What new problems have emerged for them
- What words are they actually using in your DMs, on calls and in your community
This is where the gold lives. The phrases they use now are the ones you want to bring into your ads, emails and landing pages.
Step 3: Shift from “what” to “why”
When your audience was less aware, leading with what you do was enough.
“I help entrepreneurs scale to six figures.”
“I help women lose weight without restrictive dieting.”
Now they want to know why your approach is different.
So instead of, “I help entrepreneurs scale to six figures,” you might say, “Why most scaling strategies burn you out, and what to focus on instead.”
You have not changed your core offer. You have changed the angle to match a more sophisticated, slightly jaded audience who has heard the basic promise many times before.
Step 4: Address their current objections
18 months ago, a big objection might have been, “Is this even possible for me”
Now it might sound more like, “I have tried this before and it did not work. Why would this be any different”
Your messaging needs to acknowledge that shift.
For example:
“If you have tried three different courses and still do not have consistent clients, here is what is really going on and what to do next.”
You are stepping into the conversation they are already having in their head. That instantly separates you from everyone still talking at a surface level.
Step 5: Test and iterate
You will not land the perfect new message in one go.
Refreshing your messaging is a process. Start small. Try new angles in your organic content. Pay attention to which posts get saves, replies and quality comments. Use that as input for your ad copy and your funnel.
Then test new hooks and angles in your ads. Give each one enough spend and time to be fair, then read the data and refine. Double down on what cuts through. Retire what has clearly become invisible.
A quick client example
One of my clients is a mindset coach for female entrepreneurs.
A while ago, her ads were all about “overcoming limiting beliefs” and “stepping into your power”. They worked well at first. She was getting leads for around $4 to $5.
Over time, her cost per lead climbed to $18-$20 and her conversions dropped.
When we audited her messaging, we noticed that almost everyone in her niche was using the same phrases. Her audience had heard “limiting beliefs” so many times that it no longer meant anything.
We spoke to her audience and paid attention to their words. They were talking about decision fatigue, confusion from conflicting advice and frustration with “doing the inner work” without seeing any change in their numbers.
So we kept the same offer, but shifted the message.
Instead of, “Overcome your limiting beliefs,” we led with, “Why more inner work is not growing your business, and what will.”
Her cost per lead dropped back to around $5. Her conversion rate doubled. Nothing changed in the structure of the offer. We simply updated the messaging to meet a more sophisticated audience.
Bringing it all together
If your ads worked last year and have fallen away this year, do not rush to assume your offer is broken or that Meta™ ads are “over”.
Start by assuming this. Your market has evolved. Your messaging needs to evolve with it.
Audit what you have been saying. Listen closely to how your audience talks now. Shift from what you do to why your approach is different. Address the objections they have today, not the ones they had two years ago.
Then test, refine and repeat.
If you want more support with this, this is exactly the kind of work we do inside Abundant Ads Academy. We build messaging that matches where your market actually is, and we keep it current as platforms and behaviours change, so your ads are not stuck in last year while your audience has moved on.
I would love to hear your thoughts...