Puppies Make Me Happy | Paid Social Strategist + Meta Ads

Role: Meta Ads Manager + Creative Ad Specialist Company: Puppies Make Me Happy Overview

Puppies Make Me Happy brought me in after experiencing consistent month-over-month losses in Meta advertising. Despite steady spend, campaigns were inefficient, audiences were underperforming, and revenue was not scaling. My role was to audit the account, identify the causes of wasted spend, and create a clear optimization plan to return the account to profitability.

Rising daily ad spend without proportional revenue growth

Overreliance on Meta Advantage+, increasing costs during unnecessary learning phases

Weak audience signals due to small seed audiences

Missed revenue from unoptimized retargeting

Broad targeting inflating costs without improving conversions

Advantage+ Misuse The account was using Advantage+ campaigns despite already having historical audience data. Because Advantage+ relies on extended learning to identify audiences, it was driving higher costs without incremental performance gains.

Corrupted Lookalike Audiences Custom and lookalike audiences were built from seed sizes below 1,000 users. This weakened Meta’s optimization signals, resulting in inefficient spend and poor delivery.

Untapped Retargeting Demand Over 5,000 users had abandoned carts, yet retargeting efforts were underdeveloped. This represented immediate, high-intent revenue that was not being captured.

Inefficient Age Targeting Campaigns were running with broad age ranges (18–65), but performance data showed that buyers consistently fell within the 25–44 range. Younger and older users were consuming budget through clicks without converting.

Recommended discontinuing Advantage+ campaigns to reduce learning-phase costs

Reallocated spend toward structured prospecting and retargeting campaigns

Paused underperforming lookalike audiences built on low seed sizes

Proposed rebuilding audiences using engagement-based signals (site visitors, social engagement, and cart activity) once full account access was available

Prioritized retargeting campaigns targeting cart abandoners and recent site visitors

Positioned retargeting as a core driver for Black Friday and seasonal sales

Shifted focus away from new product launches

Concentrated spend on proven best sellers, specifically “Good Boy Gets Treats” tank tops

Introduced hoodies only as upsells after initial conversion

Narrowed primary audience targeting to ages 25–44 to reduce wasted spend

Designed prospecting campaigns specifically for this high-converting segment

Recommended lifestyle-first creatives with product overlays

Mixed solo and group visuals featuring both men and women

Optimized creative formats to keep users within Facebook and Instagram, where conversion costs were lowest

Recommended Instagram-only placements for new prospecting campaigns targeting 25–44

Used broader placements for secondary creative testing

Incorporated engagement data from Reels, posts, and email performance to guide creative and retargeting decisions

Identified and eliminated key drivers of inefficient spend

Built a clear, data-backed roadmap for profitable scaling

Established a repeatable framework for audience, creative, and budget optimization

This project demonstrates my ability to diagnose failing Meta ad accounts, identify hidden inefficiencies, and implement strategic optimizations that prioritize profitability, audience quality, and creative performance over raw spend.