AI Facebook / Instagram Ads Con

In recent months there has been a huge increase in Facebook & Instagram adverts for companies in the aesthetics / cosmetics industries. You will probably see many similar adverts every day, promoting a specific cosmetic treatment or a course of aesthetics training lessons, all following a very similar layout and style. In my course of work I’ve been given access to the Meta accounts running a number of these ads, and I’ve seen that there is a catch.

What is the catch?

The companies that run these adverts get the client hooked by delivering a healthy number of sales / leads within the first few weeks. They do this by overspending on the campaign, basically displaying the advert to everyone they possibly can, which is bound to get a number of enquiries from the advert. But in reality, it is completely unrealistic to continue getting the same level of sales / leads, without maintaining an extremely high budget.

Admin control of Meta accounts

After the customer has been suitably impressed by the initial number of sales / leads they can achieve, the marketing company then demands total administrator access to the customer’s Meta account. This gives them absolute control of the accounts, credit cards, Facebook pages and Instagram accounts. So, if the customer later decided to leave the marketing company, they are completely powerless to do so.

Ponzi Scheme style scam

What I also witnessed in the back-end of these campaigns, is that the marketing companies run generic ads for a large number of companies. Say for example, for laser hair removal treatments. They try to get as many clinics or salons on board to run a UK wide advertising campaign. Then any leads that come through the advert get delivered to the clinic or salon that is geographically closest to the customer making the enquiry.

In theory this is quite a good idea. They can spend a lot of money on a single campaign to cover a large number of clinics. But in the background, I noticed that they remove all visibility from the client to see where their money is being spent. And I’ve seen a number of customers getting large chunks of money taken from their credit card, to pay for someone else’s campaign. They are basically using your money to pay for completely unrelated adverts. Or they use a customer’s credit card to overspend on a new customer’s campaign, to start the scam all over again.

Using the AI buzzwords

To further impress the prospective clients, these marketing companies drop in the “AI” buzzwords, as if they are experts in utilising artificial intelligence, and many clients are impressed by this. But they are basically using the Meta Advantage Plus system which uses AI to optimise campaigns, yet these companies are claiming that they are somehow experts in AI.

In reality, anyone can use Meta Advantage Plus. With a little tech knowledge, anyone can create an extremely effective campaign themselves, which I would highly recommend – instead of giving these dodgy marketing companies total control of your accounts. What this does is ties you to these companies forever, and they have a huge amount of leverage if you did want to stop using their services.