🎯 Small Budget? Big Results

Hi folks, 

I’m back to talk about something close to my heart - marketing on a budget. 

If you’re anything like me, you listen to the thought leader podcasts and follow all of the latest tactics when it comes to DTC media buying and advertising. 

The problem is, a lot of that stuff only applies at scale. Big or fast-growing companies can do stuff like “test 50 creatives a week” or “conduct a holdout test” because they are spending 7 or 8 figures on Meta, have big teams, and work with expensive agencies. 

If you’re smaller or newer, that doesn’t apply. In this post, I’m diving into how to market effectively when every dollar counts.

This week:

💰 The Tactics  - How to make your own ads (cheaply) 

🎯 The Strategy - A simple but effective Meta ad account structure

📈 The Framework - Understanding your full funnel (without going broke)

🧰 The Tools - Stuff you can use that won’t break the bank

Tactics

How to make your own ads (for cheap)

One thing you can’t do when you’re smaller is hire a fancy agency or vendor to make super pro ad creative for you. You also can’t go out and spend $20k on a photoshoot. 

Here’s how we built an asset library at RV SnapPad when we had literally no money:

1. Take your own photos

2. UGC from influencer seeding and early advocates

Parking lots, gardens, parks, even muddy paths. Our first assets came from finding a spot, plopping the product down, and using a phone or camera. For “pro” product shots, we grabbed a small lightbox online for a couple hundred bucks. 

Then we followed up with 5-star reviewers and seeded our product with micro-influencers to add some UGC to the mix.  

Voila - you have an asset library. Next up, make some ugly ads.  

Now by "ugly" I don’t mean “bad.” 

I mean authentic, native-looking content that doesn't scream "I'M AN AD!" 

According to digital marketing expert Barry Hott, these authentic-feeling ads consistently outperform polished, professional content, especially when it comes to Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. 

Here's why it works: Social platforms actually penalize you when people skip your ads or mark them as something they don’t want to see. The more "ad-like" your content, the more likely this happens, resulting in higher CPMs and wasted budget. 

Also, content that feels like part of the feed will naturally get more engagement and more organic lift relative to the really salesy stuff. 

The key is to study what your target audience is already watching online. If your creative matches the style of the platform in question, it will perform better. 

Oh yeah, and ugly ads are cheap to make. Grab your phone, go down to your garage or warehouse, and get direct and candid. Make it feel real, behind-the-scenes, like you’re sharing something. 

An example: one of our best-performing ads in the early going was a picture of a big pile of SnapPads we took during a tour through the manufacturing facility. No RVs, no models, no idyllic mountain scenery. 

Just a big, ugly pile of pads.

Strategy

The "Broke Brand" Meta Ads Setup

When every dollar counts, complexity is your enemy. You can’t afford to split your budget across different campaigns, ad sets, objectives, and settings. 

The most efficient setup we've found is beautifully simple: one Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) with broad targeting and just two to three ad sets, set to a “conversions” objective. 

One ad set for your proven winners, while one or two others are dedicated to testing new concepts. I spent over $500k on Meta last year for SnapPad with this setup.

This structure forces efficiency because your test ads have to compete with your winners for budget.

Many marketers worry that test ads won't get enough exposure in this setup. But that's actually the point - if a test can't compete with your winners for budget, it probably isn't worth scaling anyway. Just be sure to give tests enough time before shutting them down.

Now, for your testing ad sets, focus on batching similar concepts together. 

For instance, if you're testing customer testimonials, put all your testimonial variants in one ad set. This gives the algorithm a fair chance to compare similar approaches and find what works best. 

Meanwhile, your product unboxing vids should go in a separate test set. 

This methodical approach helps you identify winning concepts more clearly than mixing different types of content in the same set.

If you opt for Google ads

I’ll just link you to some helpful resources for now:

👉 Here’s a complete guide to Google Ads

👉 And here’s one for Responsive Search Ads. They take the headache out of your hands and let the algorithm find the best headline - description combinations for you.

Framework

Balance Your Funnel (Without Breaking The Bank)

The biggest trap in small-budget marketing is relentlessly chasing ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). Everyone wants to be efficient when it comes to ad spend these days, but that’s especially true for smaller brands because you don’t have the cash to burn. 

But a “ROAS-only” mindset can lead to a kind of doom spiral if you aren’t careful. 

The trap is only running bottom-funnel ads because they show better ROAS. Sure, your numbers look great...until your audience shrinks and frequency skyrockets. 

If your marketing isn’t also creating awareness and pushing more people “in market” for your product, you’ll end up advertising to the same small (and shrinking) pool of people.

You'll find this same trap in Google Search ads too. 

Branded search terms (people searching specifically for your company name) often show the highest ROAS of any campaign. But most of these sales are non-incremental - they would have happened anyway because these customers were already looking specifically for you.

This is another benefit of the single, CBO ad account setup in Meta. If you make sure to have a mix of top-of-funnel and middle-to-bottom funnel-oriented creative, it will report your blended ROAS and CPA as a single number, which makes your performance easier to understand. 

Just remember that you need ads with a mix of high reach, low frequency (prospecting ads), and some high frequency, lower reach (retargeting to aware and interested audiences).

Insiders Note → Video format creatives tend to be better at the top of the funnel, whereas static ads tend to perform in the middle or bottom.

The Tools

Canva - A graphic design platform even non-designers can use. Canva is way cheaper than Photoshop and intuitive enough that anyone can make stuff with it. Our first Facebook ads were made by me on Canva. 

Creative OS - Low cost monthly subscription where you can search, save, and download top-performing static ad designs from other brands. 

Konstant Kreative - If you really do need some graphic design help, this “design as a service” agency has a great reputation and one of the most reasonable price points I’ve seen.

Foreplay - Like Creative OS, Foreplay lets you search and save great ads that are performing in the wild. Except 

Claude AI - Don’t forget about the copy part of ad creation. A subscription to Claude can help you supercharge your copywriting, especially if you feed it with your website copy, product descriptions, and best reviews.

Everyone knows about ChatGPT, but Claude tends to be better when it comes to copywriting. 

Takeaway

✅ Build your own asset library w/ your camera, phone, and UGC 

✅ Create authentic ads that feel native to each platform

✅ Use a simple CBO structure to test efficiently

✅ Balance your funnel instead of chasing just ROAS

You don't need millions to market effectively. Which is good, because most of us don’t have millions. 

Also: recognize that your early customers aren't just buyers - they're potentially your best marketers. Early adopters tend to have authentic enthusiasm for your product and that can be worth more than any polished commercial could ever be.

Make your first assets yourself. Study what content your target audience already consumes. Create ads that feel natural in that environment. Test consistently but efficiently. And never forget that building awareness is just as important as driving conversions, even if the numbers don't always show it right away.

This is basically how we went from spending $5 per day to $500k per year on Meta. 

If I can do it, so can you. 

With ❤️,

Kent

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