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As a Meta ads agency owner, there comes a time when you start thinking about scaling. You may want to bring on more clients, grow your existing accounts, or do both, and the excitement of what’s possible is undeniable. But before you jump in, it’s important to ask yourself: Are you truly ready for this step?
In this article, we’ll walk you through scaling on two levels: first, evaluating how you can scale your business in a sustainable way, and second, optimizing your ads to save you time on repetitive tasks while improving results.
Both approaches are key to scaling your business because they give you the freedom to either focus on new clients or strengthen your relationships with those you already work with.
How much work are you handling right now, and how much could you take on with your current resources? You need to know what your breakpoint is. It’s the first thing to figure out because it will help you see if you have room to bring in new clients or take on bigger projects with your existing Meta clients.
Use a time tracking tool to see how much time you and your team are spending on each client. And don’t just track the hours; add tags or notes to each record so you know whether that time is going to admin tasks, client communication, or actual work in Meta tools.
It might take a little effort upfront, but it’s worth it. You’ll get a clearer picture of your bandwidth, spot any time-sucking bottlenecks, and find ways to streamline your workflow so you can take on more client work.
Do you have the budget to invest in scaling? More importantly, is your income steady, or does it fluctuate a lot?
Not every campaign will be a winner right away, so having a financial cushion is key. If a few clients left, would your agency still be in a good place? Before going all in, take a step back and optimize your finances. Look at your tools, processes, and expenses—cut anything that’s not pulling its weight. The goal is to be clear on your financial runway.
Things won’t always go as planned, and that’s okay. What matters is having a solid financial foundation so you can adjust when needed. The more prepared you are, the smoother scaling will be.
Scaling your Meta ads agency means more customers, projects, communication, and likely more team members to manage. Ask yourself: if your workload doubled overnight, would your current processes still work? Or would you have to start addressing the inefficiencies as they appear, when things get busy?
Large agencies didn't get where they are by having every SOP pat down from the beginning. They adjusted—and adapted—along the way, part by part. Optimizing your workflow might mean automating repetitive tasks or better training your team to improve efficiency. For example, if you’re spending too much time creating ad visuals or struggling to get access to client ad accounts, those are clear opportunities for improvement.
Before you scale, make sure your processes are solid. Without tested, efficient systems in place, you’ll end up managing chaos instead of growth.
As you can see, the inability to use your resources efficiently – like staff, time, knowledge, and cash flow – can be the biggest barrier to scaling.
Spotting and removing bottlenecks, whether from unnecessary manual work or costly tools, can free up valuable time and resources, which you could redirect to focus on scaling.
We also know from experience that a lot of agencies and freelancers have problems with getting access to clients’ ad accounts, which hinders scaling. Reasons vary from not knowing who the admin is, to technical glitches and confusion over permission levels and roles. Not to mention, clients sometimes miss your request entirely, leaving your agency hanging in limbo. This issue alone can make scaling your marketing agency nearly impossible.
You can avoid all of these scenarios with Leadsie. Our access automation tool lets you create and send a unique link to your new clients. All they have to do is log into their Meta accounts and confirm access.
Now that we’ve discussed how you can prepare your agency for growth, let’s look at a couple of practices you can use to optimize and scale your Meta ad campaigns.
Using the right exclusions isn’t just about optimizing your budget, it’s also essential for campaign effectiveness. Without exclusions, your ads may keep targeting the same people, limiting your reach and wasting opportunities to attract new customers.
If you create an ad set with no exclusions or use Advantage+ without them, Meta will prioritize warm audiences, i.e., people who have already interacted with your brand. This happens because Meta is designed to get you the lowest cost per purchase or lead, and warm audiences are more likely to convert. While this can drive quick wins, it also creates a cycle where your ads are repeatedly shown to the same group instead of reaching new prospects.
One simple way to check if this is happening is by monitoring your ad frequency. If an ad set has a frequency of 2x or more, your ads aren’t being delivered to new audiences, they’re just circulating among the same people.
Important update: Starting March 31, 2025, detailed targeting exclusions will no longer be available. Meta states that advertisers who don’t use them see, on average, a 22.6% lower conversion cost. However, you can still refine your targeting using custom audience exclusions and audience controls in your Advertising settings.
Here are the exclusions you can still select from:
To stop your ads from targeting existing customers, you can exclude them in two ways:
For the best results, use both methods to ensure your ads focus on reaching new potential customers rather than those who have already converted.
You’ll also want to exclude past visitors to keep your ads focused on fresh audiences. You can set exclusions for 30, 90, or even 180 days (the maximum allowed).
A 30-day exclusion is a common choice, but some advertisers prefer a longer window. It depends on your strategy and how often you want to re-engage past visitors versus reaching entirely new prospects.
If you want Meta to focus just on new audiences, exclude engagement. This prevents ads from showing to people who have already interacted with your brand, whether through ads or organic content.
To set this up, go to Audience Manager in Meta and create exclusions for:
In your ad sets, add these exclusions to keep prospecting efforts strong. Meanwhile, your bottom-of-funnel campaigns can retarget engaged users separately. With proper tracking, you’ll ensure a steady flow of new traffic, which is essential for scaling successfully.
In your funnel, Top of Funnel (TOFU) targets new people who have never heard of your brand. Bottom of Funnel (BOFU) focuses on those who've interacted with your brand, like past visitors or purchasers.
To scale effectively, allocate around 60% of your budget to TOFU and the remaining 40% to BOFU. You can adjust this depending on your strategy (e.g., up to 80% for TOFU during peak times like Black Friday).
This budget split works best if you have the right exclusions in place to prevent Meta from showing too many ads to users already in the BOFU stage.
This is a separate subset of exclusions you can set if you use Custom Audiences for your Facebook and Instagram ads. There are plenty of exclusion rules, including:
These exclusion rules can be very detailed and adjusted to the different campaign strategies you’ve set for clients, like:
Automated Ads make advertising on Facebook and Instagram much easier by taking the guesswork out of the equation. Just tell the system what’s important to your business, and it will suggest personalized ads to help you hit your goals. As your ads run, the system learns what works best and will offer suggestions to improve your results.
With these automated features, you can save time and get better results from your Facebook and Instagram ads.
Automated rules help you manage your Facebook and Instagram ads by taking action on underperforming ads, so they don’t keep eating up your budget. With automation, you can set up rules that take care of tasks you would normally do manually, making your ad management much easier.
Here’s how it works:
When you create an automated rule, you’ll decide:
Automated rules are super helpful when you're managing multiple ads at once. Think about the tasks you do frequently in Ads Manager and automate them. For example:
By setting up these automated rules, you can keep your campaigns running smoothly without needing to keep a constant eye on them!
Before you scale your business, it's important to make sure you're truly ready. But if you're feeling confident and ready to take the next step, one hurdle you'll probably face – just like many other Meta ad agency owners – is getting access to your clients' ad accounts.
A simple and hassle-free way to handle this is by using Leadsie for access requests. With Leadsie, your clients get a personalized link that lets them easily grant you the exact access you need to get started working on their behalf. And voilà! You’re now ready to start working without any unnecessary back and forth.
See how it works for yourself with a free 14-day trial! No credit card needed, and you get to keep the connections you've made during the trial, too!
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Kasia and Anna from Contentki are a content duo working with tech and SaaS brands from all over the world. With experience in sales, marketing, and product, they create content that’s packed with insights and practical tips. Their goal is to help brands share their expertise and build trust while keeping things engaging and approachable.
Clients struggling to share access to their
accounts? Get the access you need in minutes with a free trial of Leadsie.
Approved by Meta, Google & Tiktok
Keep access to accounts if you cancel
Secure & 100% GDPR compliant
