I've personally managed Meta Ads for hundreds of brands big and small
Acquiring buyers is pointless without supply, and the balance shifts every month. That's a strategy problem before it's a media problem.
Work withMarketplace accounts carry a problem that single sided businesses never face, and most media buying advice ignores it entirely.
Buyer acquisition is working beautifully and people are arriving to find nothing worth buying, so you are paying to disappoint them.
Supply and demand campaigns compete for the same budget with no agreed rule for who wins when things tighten.
The platform is liquid in two categories and empty in six, but spend is allocated as though it were one uniform business.
Both sides get the same advertising, despite wanting completely different things from you.
The media buying is straightforward. Deciding where the money should go is the actual work.
At any moment one side is limiting growth. Pouring budget into the abundant side makes the imbalance worse and the experience poorer. That means the split between supply and demand needs revisiting regularly against real liquidity data, not set once during planning and left alone for a year.
A seller wants income, reach and low hassle. A buyer wants selection, price and confidence. Those are different products with different objections, and they deserve different creative, different landing experiences and separate measurement. Running them as one campaign structure guarantees both perform moderately.
Platform wide averages hide everything that matters. A marketplace is really a collection of small markets by category and often by geography, each with its own liquidity. Advertising a category that cannot fulfil demand burns money and reputation at the same time, so I would rather spend narrowly where the experience is good.
A registered user on either side is worth nothing until they transact. Optimising toward registrations fills the database and flatters the reporting. The events worth sending back to Meta are the ones that represent actual liquidity: a listing that sells, a buyer who returns.
I've personally managed Meta Ads for hundreds of brands big and small
Both sides of the account, plus a read on where liquidity is genuinely strong and where advertising is currently writing cheques the platform cannot cash.
Agree how budget shifts between supply and demand as conditions change, so the decision is made deliberately rather than argued about monthly.
Distinct creative, structure and measurement for each side, built around what that side actually wants.
Grow where liquidity supports it, category by category, rather than raising budgets uniformly and hoping the experience holds.
What founders say about working with John on Meta campaigns
We'd been told our category was too niche for Meta to work properly. John rebuilt our creative approach around who actually buys from us, and the difference was obvious within weeks. No jargon, no endless meetings, just work.
Jason GrimaFounder, Swallow Co.
John does the work himself, which after three agencies felt almost strange. He found problems in our account nobody had mentioned in two years, fixed them quickly, and explained every decision in plain English. Our creative output has never been stronger.
Giles HumphriesFounder, Mindful Chef
Whichever is constraining growth right now, which will change. The useful discipline is deciding in advance what evidence would move budget from one side to the other, so the conversation is about data rather than about whose team shouts loudest.
Supply first, almost always, because arriving buyers need something to buy. Geographic launches are also where small audiences and fast fatigue bite hardest, so expect to need more creative variation per market than you would for a national campaign.
One person seeing both sides is a genuine advantage here, because the interesting decisions happen at the boundary between them. Splitting supply and demand across two agencies is how you end up with two campaigns that are individually optimised and collectively unbalanced.
That depends entirely on repeat behaviour. If a buyer transacts once, probably not. If they return monthly for years, the maths changes completely. Working out that number properly is the first thing I would do, because it determines whether paid acquisition is viable at all.
Tell me which side is constraining you, where liquidity is strongest and what you're spending. I'll come back with an honest view on whether I can help.