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It’s not expert versus amateur
An agency and a business owner use the same Ads Manager, and the same Meta AI decides who sees the ads. The real differences are who makes the decisions, how often things change, and what the results are measured against.
So the useful question isn’t “who knows more about Meta?” It’s “who will run this account against my numbers, every week, without fiddling?”
What running it yourself takes
A one-off setup of 2–3 hours. Your business portfolio and ad account, your Facebook Page and Instagram connected, the pixel and Conversions API through your website platform’s own integration, domain verification, and your verified advertiser for Australia. Do it once, properly, and most tracking problems never start.
About 30 minutes a week. At the same time each week:
- Check three numbers against your targets.
- Stop and keep: switch off ads past your stop rule. Leave everything else alone.
- Add new ads on a set rhythm, from a shot list and hook bank.
- Read replies and log lead quality.
Online stores add an hour every second week making new ads, because stores need fresh creative more often than most businesses.
Rules decided in advance. A target cost per result from your own numbers, a stop rule (for example, switch off an ad that has spent twice your target with no result), and a scale rule (7 days under target, then raise the budget 20%). Rules stop you reacting to one bad day.
Less fiddling is a feature, not a shortcut. Significant edits can send an ad set back into learning, so a light weekly touch often beats daily attention.
What an agency gives you
- Someone else does the work: building, watching and changing your campaigns, and reporting back.
- A monthly management fee, set by the agency, on top of your ad spend.
- A contract, with terms set by the agency.
- Their process, built from your briefing.
For some businesses that’s exactly right. The rest of this guide is about making either choice work.
Seven questions to ask any agency, or yourself
- Who owns the account? Use your own business portfolio and give the agency partner access to your Page, Instagram, ad account and pixel, rather than handing over logins. To run ads they need ad access on the Page and Instagram, campaign management on the ad account, and use of the pixel.
- What are results judged on? Your sales against total ad spend, your covers, or your won jobs. Not likes, and not cost per lead alone.
- How are Meta’s recommendations handled? The Opportunity score rises as recommendations are applied, and Meta says it doesn’t measure performance. Ask whether auto-apply is on. More on the score.
- Which event is the account optimised for, and can the budget buy at least about 10 of it a week?
- How many campaigns and ad sets, and can each one learn on its share of the budget? One campaign or many?
- How often does it change? Batched weekly, or edited whenever someone looks?
- What creative is made, and how often?
The answers matter more than who gives them.
Who should hire an agency
- You can’t spare 30 minutes a week, in any week.
- You want new creative made for you, at volume.
- Your budget is well beyond A$5,000 a month, with many campaigns, markets and tests running at once.
Who should run their own
- You want control of your account, your spend and your decisions.
- You can spare half an hour a week and follow a routine.
- You spend roughly A$500–5,000 a month on Meta, where a written plan and a short routine cover what the account needs.
The middle path: a plan built from your numbers
That’s what Off Retainer is. A free 3-minute quiz gives you a diagnosis. If you want the full plan, it’s A$149 incl. GST: campaigns, ads, audiences, a 30-minute week and the rules for your industry, built from your margin or customer value, budget and goal. You run it yourself. We never need access to your ad account. There’s a plan for each of our industries, from online stores to restaurants and cafés and builders.
Already running Meta ads? The plan + account audit (A$399 incl. GST) adds a check of your live numbers from your Ads Manager exports, a dated fix list and a re-audit after 30 days. An optional monthly action list keeps your setup current as Meta changes things. Pause or cancel it any time. See pricing.
Start with the free 3-minute quiz, or check your break-even ROAS if you sell online.