Every year, I hear some version of the same thing:
“Ads don’t work anymore.”
“Meta is dead.”
“We tried marketing and it was a waste of money.”

In most cases, that isn’t true.

I work with solo and small law firms, and what I consistently see is this: marketing doesn’t fail because of the platform; it fails because of how the campaign is planned, tested, and supported on the backend.

This post isn’t about hacks or trends. It’s about the fundamentals that are still working in 2026, and the mistakes that quietly drain marketing budgets without anyone realizing why.

You’re Not Running Ads — You’re Testing

Most firms approach ads as if they’re flipping a switch.
They launch a campaign, wait a week or two, and decide whether “ads work.”

That’s not how this works.

Early-stage campaigns are tests. The goal isn’t scale, it’s learning.

Effective testing means:

• Changing one variable at a time (creative or audience or offer)

• Giving the platform enough time to collect real data

• Accepting that some tests won’t perform, and that’s part of the process

Small budgets are fine if expectations are realistic. A $1,000 test budget isn’t meant to produce predictable ROI, it’s meant to tell you what messaging, targeting, or offer might work next.

The irony is that the ads that win are usually boring. Clear problem. Clear solution. No clever copy. No branding poetry.

I’ve seen firms shut off good campaigns simply because the ads didn’t “feel right,” even though the data said otherwise.

Budget Discipline Matters More Than Spend Size

One of the fastest ways to kill a campaign is emotional spending.

Before you launch anything, you should already know:

• How much you’re willing to spend just to learn

• How long you’ll let a test run before making decisions

• What metric actually matters to you

If every dollar feels painful, you’ll interfere constantly, pausing ads early, rewriting copy daily, switching audiences too fast. That behavior creates noise, not clarity.

More spend does not fix weak conversion.
More spend only amplifies what’s already broken.

Daily budgets and clear limits beat aggressive scaling every time, especially early on. And trying to test multiple platforms at once usually just slows everything down. One platform, long enough to get signal, is the better move.

Ads reward patience. They punish indecision.

Clarity Before You Launch (Most Campaigns Skip This)

A surprising number of campaigns launch without a clear definition of success.

Before ads go live, you should be able to answer:

• What exactly do I want from this campaign?

• Calls? Form fills? Consults booked? Signed cases?

• What is an acceptable cost for that outcome?

Trying to optimize for everything at once usually results in nothing working well.

Strong campaigns focus on one offer, one service, and one clear next step. Broad messaging feels safe, but it rarely converts.

In 2026, tight geography often outperforms clever interest targeting. People searching for legal help care about proximity and availability more than nuanced audience layering.

If you can’t explain your campaign in one sentence, neither can the algorithm.

Speed to Contact Is Non-Negotiable

This is where many good campaigns quietly fail.

You can have solid ads, decent targeting, and reasonable costs and still lose most leads simply because no one follows up fast enough.

The first few minutes matter more than your headline.

Firms that win:

• Call quickly

• Text quickly

• Acknowledge the lead immediately

If you’re missing calls or returning them hours later, ads aren’t the problem, they’re just exposing the problem.

Automations help with acknowledgment, but they don’t replace human follow-up. Someone still needs to pick up the phone.

I’ve seen firms increase ad spend and actually get worse results because response time never changed.

Reporting Back to Meta Is the Quiet Advantage

Almost no small firms do this well and it matters more now than it used to.

Meta needs feedback. If you don’t tell it what turns into qualified leads or signed cases, it fills in the blanks itself.

That usually means:

• Optimizing for low-quality form fills

• Sending you more of the wrong people

• Campaign performance stalling over time

Even basic offline conversion tracking makes a difference. Feeding Meta information about which leads were qualified, contacted, or converted helps the system learn faster.

This doesn’t require complex dashboards or perfect attribution. Simple, consistent weekly reporting beats sophisticated systems that never get used.

The firms that win aren’t doing anything exotic, they’re just closing the loop.