PSA: I stopped guessing on ad spend and started tracking with a $20 spreadsheet

For two years I was just throwing money at Facebook ads and hoping something stuck... I had no idea which campaigns were actually making sales. Last month I sat down and built a simple tracker that logs every dollar spent against every order that came in. Turns out I was blowing like $400 a month on ads that brought in maybe $50 in profit. Has anyone else had a moment where the numbers totally surprised you?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_elizabeth1d ago

Idk I feel like this whole thing with tracking numbers in business is kind of the same as how people track their calories or steps or whatever. Like my friend was convinced she was eating healthy until she actually wrote down everything for a week and found out her "healthy" granola had as much sugar as a candy bar. It's that moment where you realize your gut feeling is totally off and the data just shows you something different. I think we all have these blind spots where we assume something is working because we want it to work, but the numbers tell a different story. It's kind of humbling honestly.

kevin_west1d ago

Wait, you tracked for a full month and that $400 spend only brought in $50 profit? What exactly were you counting as "profit" there? Were you looking at gross revenue from those ads or did you actually factor in the cost of goods, your time, and all the other stuff that eats into margin? Because that math seems brutal even for a bad month. Also, did you check if any of those orders came back and bought again later, or was it just one-and-done customers? Because if the return customers aren't showing up in your tracker then you might be killing campaigns that actually work long term. I'm curious what that spreadsheet looks like now that you've got it set up.

the_tessa1d ago

Honestly Kevin I think my definition of profit was a little too optimistic at first. I was basically just looking at the revenue from the ad and subtracting the ad spend, completely ignoring the $12 cost of goods on those $25 products. So yeah that $50 was more like negative $150 once I factored in product costs and the 6 hours I spent tweaking those terrible creatives. That spreadsheet now has about 17 different columns and a red tab that says "ouch" at the bottom.