Five things to fix before you spend a rand on ads

Ads are a tap. They pour people onto your page. Before you open it, make sure the page is ready for them.

1. Know what you want people to do. Buy, book, call or send a WhatsApp. Pick one and make it obvious.
2. Set up tracking. If you can’t see what the spend brings in, you’re guessing. Tracking should be the first thing set up, before a single ad runs.
3. Check your landing page on a phone. Most of your clicks will come from one. Is the button easy to tap? Does the page load quickly?
4. Make sure your social profiles look alive. People check your Instagram before they trust an ad. An empty feed costs you sales.
5. Set a test budget and a time frame. Run it, learn from it, then adjust. The first month is for learning, not for judging.

A quick word on budgets

Ad spend is paid directly to Google and Meta, separate from what you pay someone to manage the ads. Start small, prove it works, then grow the budget behind what’s working.

Ads don’t fix a leaky page. They just make the leak more expensive.