Solved: Social proof missing from Instagram ads in Meta

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your question. Straight away, I can tell you that you're focusing on something that feels important but, in the grand scheme of things, is probably holding you back. It's a common trap to fall into, so don't worry. The issue isn't really about getting likes to show up on an ad; it's about fundamentally misunderstanding what makes ads work in the first place. Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at why you're really running ads...

So, you're trying to get the social proof from your Instagram posts to carry over to your ads. I get it. It looks good, feels validating, and you think it'll make more people click. But honestly, it's a vanity metric. Likes, comments, and shares feel great, but they don't pay the bills. I've seen countless accounts with massively popular posts that generate absolutly zero real business results. They get a dopamine hit from the notifications, but their bank account doesn't notice a thing.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: when you focus on things like social proof, you're telling the Meta algorithm to find you people who like and comment. You are not telling it to find you people who buy. And believe me, those are two very, very different groups of people. I've seen this happen over and over again. A client comes to us with ads getting tons of engagement but no sales, wondering why they're burning cash. It's because they've trained the algorithm to find them time-wasters, not customers.

There's a reason for this. When you set your campaign objective to something soft like "Reach" or "Brand Awareness," you're giving the algorithm a command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price." The algorithm is brilliant at this. It goes out and finds all the users in your target audience who are least likely to click, least likely to engage meaningfully, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever buy anything. Why? Because those users aren't in demand. Their attention is cheap. You are literally paying Facebook to find you the worst possible audience for your product. It's a quick way to go broke.

Real social proof isn't a number on a post. It's a customer who was so happy with your product that they tell their friends. It's a positive review. It's a repeat purchase. That kind of proof is a byproduct of having a great product and a great ad campaign, not a prerequisite for making a sale. You should always, always be optimising for a conversion objective – a sale, a lead, a booking, whatever it is that actually moves your business forward. Anything else is just a distraction. I remember one client selling courses, and their initial ads had lovely engagement. We switched the whole thing to a conversion campaign, ignored the likes, and generated $115k in revenue in a month and a half. The focus has to be on the result, not the applause.

As for the technical issue, it's a known quirk with Meta. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You can try creating the ad from scratch in Ads Manager using the same creative, which sometimes fixes it. But I'd urge you not to waste another minute on it. It's the wrong problem to be solving. Your time and energy would be much better spent on what we're going to discuss next.

I'd say you need to define who you're actually talking to...

Before you spend another pound on ads, you have to get brutally honest about who your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is. And I don't mean the generic, useless demographic profile that most people create. "Women aged 25-45 who live in London and like yoga" tells you nothing. That could be millions of people with completly different motivations.

You need to forget demographics and define your customer by their pain. Their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. That's what they're trying to solve. Your product is just the tool to do it. Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. Let me give you an example. Say you sell a project management tool. Your ICP isn't "SMEs with 50-100 employees." That's lazy. Your real ICP is the Head of Operations who lies awake at 3 AM terrified that a crucial project deadline is about to be missed, costing the company a major client and possibly her job. She's not looking for "software"; she's looking for "certainty" and "control". See the difference? One is a feature, the other is an emotional-state transformation.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, you can figure out where these people actually live online. Not just "on Instagram." Where exactly? What niche podcasts do they listen to on their commute? What industry newsletters do they actually open and read, instead of instantly deleting? What specific SaaS tools do they already pay for? Are they in a particular, private Facebook group? Who are the top 3 influencers they follow on Twitter or LinkedIn for industry advice?

This intelligence is the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. For a B2B client, we found their ideal customers were all listening to a specific podcast and following two specific industry leaders on LinkedIn. We stopped wasting money on broad targeting and focused our entire budget there. We started getting leads for $22 from senior decision-makers, because we were speaking their language in a place they already trusted. If you don't do this work first, you have no business running ads. You're just shouting into the void and hoping someone who cares happens to walk by.

Think about it: the social proof you're chasing on your post... who is it from? Is it from your actual ideal customers, or is it from random people, friends, or bots who just happen to like the picture? Social proof from the wrong audience is not just useless, it's actively harmful because it gives you a false sense of security that you're on the right track.

You probably should rethink your offer...

The number one reason ad campaigns fail, above creative, above targeting, is the offer. Your offer has to be so good, so valuable, and so easy to say yes to that it makes the prospect feel stupid for ignoring it. Most offers are terrible. They're high-friction and low-value.

The worst offender in B2B is the "Request a Demo" button. It's the most arrogant Call to Action in marketing. It presumes your prospect, a busy and important person, has nothing better to do than schedule a meeting to be sold to. It screams, "I want to take up an hour of your time to talk about myself." It's an instant turn-off.

Your offer's only job is to deliver an "aha!" moment. A moment of undeniable value that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You have to give them a taste of the transformation for free to earn the right to ask for their money.

If you're a SaaS company, this is your superpower. The gold standard is a free trial or a freemium plan, with no credit card details required. Let them use the actual product. Let them experience the relief of their problem being solved. When the product itself proves its value, the sale is easy. We've worked on many SaaS campaigns, and the ones that fly are the ones with a frictionless entry point. We got one B2B software client 1,535 trials by focusing the entire campaign on a "start your free trial, no card needed" offer. Another, as mentioned, got 4,622 registrations for the same reason. You're not trying to generate Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) for a sales team to chase; you're trying to create Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) who are already convinced.

If you're not a SaaS company, you're not off the hook. You have to bottle your expertise into something tangible that provides instant value.
-> If you're a marketing agency, offer a free, automated website audit that shows their top 3 SEO opportunities.
-> If you're a corporate trainer, offer a free 15-minute interactive video module on a common pain point.
-> If you're an eCommerce store, your offer might be a compelling discount, a free gift with purchase, or a quiz that helps them find the perfect product.

For our agency, our offer is a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad accounts. We solve a small, real problem for free to demonstrate our value. You must do the same. You need to shift from "what can I get from this customer?" to "what can I give them first?".

You'll need a message they can't ignore...

Once you know their pain and have an irresistible offer, you need to craft a message that stops them scrolling and speaks directly to their soul. Your ad copy and creative are not there to look pretty; they are there to articulate the prospect's problem better than they could themselves.

Forget listing features. Nobody cares about features. They care about the outcome of those features. The transformation. A great way to structure this is using one of two proven copywriting frameworks.

1. Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS)

This is perfect for services or high-consideration products. You state the problem, you poke the bruise to make them feel the pain more acutely, and then you present your solution as the ultimate relief.

Example for a fractional CFO service:
Problem: "Are your cash flow projections just a shot in the dark?"
Agitate: "Are you one bad month away from a payroll crisis while your competitors are confidently raising their next round?"
Solve: "Get expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. We build dashboards that turn uncertainty into predictable growth."

2. Before-After-Bridge (BAB)

This is brilliant for SaaS or any product that delivers a clear transformation. You paint a picture of their current, painful "Before" state, show them the desirable "After" state, and position your product as the bridge to get them there.

Example for a FinOps platform:
Before: "Your AWS bill just arrived. It’s 30% higher than last month, and your engineers have no idea why. Another fire to put out."
After: "Imagine opening your cloud bill and smiling. You see where every dollar is going and waste is automatically eliminated."
Bridge: "Our platform is the bridge that gets you there. Start a free trial and find your first £1,000 in savings today."

Here's a small table to illustrate the BAB framework, which you should apply to your own business:

A message built on these foundations is a thousand times more powerful than an ad with a million likes. It creates a connection. It shows you understand. And that's what gets people to act.

We'll need to look at your campaign structure...

Okay, so let's assume you've nailed your ICP, offer, and messaging. Now you need to structure your campaigns properly. Just throwing a bunch of ads into one campaign and hoping for the best is a recipe for disaster. You need to think like a marketer and guide people through a journey.

The classic way to think about this is a funnel: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu). Your campaigns should mirror this.

Top of Funnel (ToFu): Prospecting
This is where you reach cold audiences who have never heard of you. Your goal here is to identify potential customers based on the ICP work you did. -> Audiences: This is where you test your detailed targeting (interests, behaviours) and lookalike audiences. For a new account, start with detailed targeting. If you sell high-end cameras, you'd target interests like "Leica," "Photography Magazines," and "Professional Photographers," not just "Photography." Be specific. Once you have data, you can build lookalikes of your best customers.

Middle of Funnel (MoFu): Nurturing
This is for people who have shown some interest but aren't ready to buy. They've visited your website, watched a video, or engaged with a post. Your job is to build trust and keep your brand top of mind. -> Audiences: Retargeting is your friend here. You'll target people who have visited a landing page, viewed a product, or watched 50% of your video ad. You exclude anyone who has already purchased or reached the final checkout pages.

Bottom of Funnel (BoFu): Closing
This is for the hottest prospects. They are on the verge of converting. They've added a product to their cart or started the checkout process but didn't finish. Your job is to give them a final nudge. -> Audiences: This is your high-intent retargeting. You'll target people who have "Added to Cart," "Initiated Checkout," or "Added Payment Info." These people are moments away from giving you money. Often a simple reminder ad or an offer for free shipping is all it takes.

You should have seperate, long-term campaigns for each stage of this funnel. Don't mix them up. A ToFu ad shown to a BoFu audience will fail, and vice versa. This structure allows you to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. For one eCom client selling women's apparel, this structured approach was part of a strategy that delivered a 691% return on ad spend. It's about being systematic, not just creative.

I'd say you need to understand your numbers...

Finally, let's talk about the metric that actually matters more than any other: how much you can afford to spend to acquire a customer. Chasing low-cost clicks or cheap likes is a fool's errand. The real question isn't "How low can my Cost Per Lead go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?"

To answer that, you need to calculate your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This is the total profit you can expect to make from a single customer over the entire course of their relationship with your business. Here’s a simple way to calculate it:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per customer, per month/year? Let's say it's £200/month.
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue? Let's say it's 75%.
3. Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? Let's say it's 5%.

Now, the calculation is simple:
LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
LTV = (£200 * 0.75) / 0.05
LTV = £150 / 0.05 = £3,000

In this example, each customer is worth £3,000 in gross margin to your business. Now you have the truth. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £1,000 to acquire a single customer who is worth £3,000. Suddenly, a £50 lead from a highly targeted campaign doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth and frees you from the tyranny of cheap, low-quality engagement.

Knowing this number changes everything. I remember one medical SaaS client whose initial Cost Per Acquisition was around £100. They thought it was too high. After we refined their targeting and funnels, we got it down to £7. But the initial point is they were scared of a £100 cost without even knowing what a customer was actually worth to them. You need this data to make informed decisions.

To give you some ballpark figures from our experience, costs can vary widly, but this should give you a general idea.

*These are rough estimates and your results will vary based on your industry, offer, creative, and targeting.*

The goal isn't just to be within these ranges; it's to build a system so efficient that you can afford to pay at the top end of the range, because you know every customer you acquire is profitable in the long run. That's the difference between just 'doing ads' and building a proper growth engine.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, especially when you started with what seemed like a simple question. But fixing the small technical glitch without fixing the underlying strategy is like putting a plaster on a broken leg. I've detailed my main recommendations for you below in a table to summarise.

As you can see, effective advertising is a deeply strategic process. It's not about finding a clever hack to get likes to show up. It's about building a systematic, repeatable machine that turns strangers into profitable customers. It requires expertise not just in the ad platform, but in strategy, psychology, and finance.

Getting this right can be the difference between a business that struggles and one that scales predictably. If you'd like to go over how these principles could be applied specifically to your business, we offer a complimentary, no-obligation strategy session where we can take a look at what you're doing and give you some actionable advice.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh