Facebook Awareness Campaigns Are a Scam (And You’re the Victim)

Hey, do you want to burn some money today?”

That’s exactly what Facebook is asking you when they recommend an awareness campaign for your local business.

And if you say yes? Well… congratulations! You’ve just paid Facebook to show your ad to a bunch of people who will never buy from you.

Why “Brand Awareness” Is a Fancy Way to Say “Wasted Budget”

There’s a little trick that big ad platforms love to play on business owners. They know that we all want more customers, so they dangle a shiny little campaign type in front of us called “Brand Awareness.”

It sounds good, right? People will know about your business! Your logo will be everywhere! Your name will be famous!

But here’s the problem…

Awareness doesn’t pay the bills.

No local business has ever survived on “awareness.” You need sales. You need real, paying customers walking through your door or calling your number.

And guess what? Facebook doesn’t care about that.

They just want you to spend more.

Facebook Awareness = Renting Attention (And It’s Expensive)

Imagine you’re standing on a street corner, handing out flyers.

Now imagine you only give those flyers to people who look the other way, drop them on the ground, or use them to wipe their coffee spill.

That’s what an awareness campaign does.

It shows your ad to people who will never take action.

Not because they hate your business, but because Facebook literally optimizes these ads to show them to people who never click on anything.

That’s right. Facebook’s algorithm knows which users engage and which ones scroll past everything like zombies.

And when you choose “awareness,” you’re telling Facebook to prioritize the zombies.

How to Actually Make Money with Facebook Ads

So if awareness campaigns are useless, what should you do instead?

Easy: Optimize for actions, not eyeballs.

Traffic campaigns (so people actually visit your website)

Lead generation ads (so you can get real phone numbers and emails)

Purchase conversion campaigns (so Facebook finds people who actually buy)

You need Facebook working for you, not against you. That means picking campaign types that actually lead to sales.

Because at the end of the day, you don’t need awareness—you need customers.

Now go make some money.

—Mladen

P.S. If you’re tired of throwing money into Facebook’s awareness scam, let’s talk. Fill out the form on the main page, and one of my team members will show you how to run ads that actually bring in business