Meta ads · Melbourne
Instagram and Facebook ads, run quietly.
Nobody searches for the thing you make. They find it, and then they want it. That is what Instagram and Facebook are for, and it is a different craft to being found on Google. I set the campaigns up, wire the measurement so you can tell what actually happened, and hand you the account.
I'm Eric, and The Quiet Engine is a one-person studio in Preston. Most of the businesses I work with sell something you have to see: ceramics, prints, jewellery, clothing, furniture. Nobody wakes up and types "handmade stoneware Melbourne" into Google. There is no queue of people already looking for your work, which is exactly why search alone will only ever take you so far.
Meta is the other half of that. Instagram and Facebook put the work in front of people who did not know they wanted it, and let them buy it before the feeling passes. It rewards good images and a clear offer, which happens to be the thing you already have and most businesses do not.
What I bring to it that an ads person usually cannot: I build the shop the ad points at. Most people who run your campaigns never touch your product page, your checkout or your speed on a phone. They hand you a report about the click and stop there. I have spent years on the other side of that click, and that is where most ad money is quietly lost. Here you get both halves from one person, which is the only way they ever get fixed together.
What I do
Account and pixel setup
Business Manager, ad account, the Meta pixel and the Conversions API wired to your site or your Shopify store, so what the ads report and what actually happened stay close to each other.
Campaign structure
The campaigns, the budgets and the audiences built the way Meta actually works now: broad, letting the creative do the targeting, instead of the narrow interest-stacking that stopped working years ago.
Creative, from your work
The images and video you already make, cut into ads that hold a thumb: the hook in the first second, the work as the subject, the offer plain. Enough genuinely different angles to give the system something to choose from, not one ad you are precious about.
The offer, before the ad
Most ads that fail are fine ads pointing at a page that does not close. I look at what happens after the click first, because that is usually where the money is going.
Measurement you can read
A straight answer to “did this work”: what came in, what it cost, what to do next. No dashboard you have to learn and no report designed to look impressive.
Handover
The ad account, the pixel and the campaigns are in your name from day one. You can run it yourself afterwards, hand it to someone else, or ask me to keep an eye on it. Your call, not a condition.
Google Ads, when it fits
If people genuinely are searching for what you sell, a service, a repair, a booking, then Search is the better place and I will set that up instead. I would rather point you at the right one than sell you both.
When ads are worth it, and when they are not
- You have a shop that already takes orders, and the checkout works. Ads make an existing engine turn faster; they do not fix a broken one.
- You make something visual, and you already have photos or video of it that you are proud of.
- You can afford to spend money for a few weeks before you know whether it worked. Ads need a learning period, and stopping early tells you nothing.
- You are launching a collection, a season or a sale, and the moment matters more than the search ranking.
- Not yet, if you sell one-off commissions at high prices to a handful of people a year. Outreach and word of mouth will beat ads for you, and I will say so.
- Not yet, if your margin cannot survive the cost of a sale. We can work that out on the call in about ten minutes.
How I actually run it
Before a dollar goes to Meta, we look at what the click lands on: the product page, the price, the shipping, the first-time-buyer experience. If that is leaking, ads only make the leak more expensive.
Pixel, Conversions API and the events that matter to you, tested and confirmed working. If you cannot trust the numbers, everything after this is guesswork dressed up as strategy.
Three or four genuinely different ways of saying why your work matters, running against each other. Not three versions of the same ad with the button moved.
Meta needs a stretch of undisturbed data before its results mean anything. The hardest part of this job is not touching it while it learns, and I will ask you not to either.
Then we look at what happened in plain numbers: this angle worked, this one did not, this is what a sale costs you, and this is what to put the budget behind next. You will always know where your money went and what it bought.
In that order, every time. No dashboard theatre, no metrics that look impressive and mean nothing.
What it costs
One-time setup, quoted in writing before anything starts. Your ad budget is paid to Meta directly and is never handled by me. Full pricing.
Common questions
How much do Instagram ads cost?
There are two separate numbers and they get confused constantly. The first is what you pay Meta, which you set yourself, you can change any day, and it goes straight to Meta from your own card. The second is what you pay me to build and run the thing, quoted to the scope of the work. What a sale ends up costing you depends on your product, your price and your photos, and anyone who quotes you that figure before seeing your shop is guessing.
Is this a monthly retainer?
Only if you ask for it. The setup is a one-time job and the account is yours at the end of it, so you can run it alone from there. If you would rather I kept a hand on it, that is month to month, cancel whenever, no fine print. It is a thing you can choose, never a condition of working with me.
Do you do Google Ads as well?
Yes, and sometimes it is the better choice. Search works when people are already looking for what you sell, like a service, a repair or a booking. Meta works when they have to see the thing to want it, which covers most design-led and handmade work. Tell me what you sell and I will tell you which one I would put your money behind first.
Will ads work for handmade or artist work?
They can, and the reason is the thing you already have: your work photographs well and it is unlike anything else in the feed. What decides it is whether the maths holds: what a customer is worth to you against what it costs to reach one. That is a twenty-minute conversation, and it is worth having before you spend anything.
How long before I know if it is working?
Longer than feels comfortable. Meta's delivery needs a stretch of uninterrupted data before the results mean anything, and turning campaigns off and on during that window is the most common way people waste money on ads. Plan on a few weeks of honest testing rather than a verdict after the first weekend.
Will I own the ad account?
Yes, the same way you own everything else I build. Business Manager, the ad account, the pixel and the creative are in your name from day one. If you walk away tomorrow, the campaigns keep running and you take the lot with you.
Can you do the ads for a shop you did not build?
Yes. I will look at the store first and tell you honestly whether it is ready to receive paid traffic. If something on the product page or the checkout is going to swallow the spend, fixing that comes first, and that might be a smaller job than the ads.
Not sure ads are your next move?
Tell me what you sell, what it costs you to make, and where you sell it now. I will give you a straight read on whether paid ads are worth your money yet, and say so plainly if they are not.
Get in touch