Lessons Learned

Key takeaways

Setting up a Meta ad account isn't as simple as it looks. My first attempt hit a wall because the account had been created under my personal profile with no payment history, and Meta won't let you move an account like that into a Business Portfolio. Had to create a fresh ad account directly inside the Portfolio to fix it — worth knowing before you start, not after.
Instagram permissions aren't inherited automatically. Even after connecting my Instagram to the Facebook Page, the ad still couldn't use it until I separately linked the Instagram account to the ad account itself. Two different permission layers, easy to miss.
Almost shipped the campaign without UTM parameters on the Meta ad. Caught it before publishing, but it was a good reminder that "not required to launch" isn't the same as "doesn't matter" — without it, GA4 would've lumped all my Meta traffic into "direct" or "unassigned," and I'd have had no real way to compare Meta vs Google performance.

<aside> 💡

No single platform tells the whole truth. Meta's dashboard, Google Ads, GA4, and Shopify all reported slightly different numbers for the same campaign — different attribution windows, different logic. Shopify itself even disagreed with its own reports (Attribution report vs. the simpler referrer chart). Had to cross-check all four before I trusted any single number. </aside>

[ ] Would an Instagram-only placement outperform the mixed Facebook + Instagram setup? Facebook drove 14 sessions and zero orders, while Instagram converted — worth isolating placements next time to confirm.
[ ] Would a higher price point actually improve ROAS, or just kill conversion volume? ₹49 was chosen deliberately to generate data, not profit, but I'd like to test where that tradeoff line actually sits.
[ ] How much does adding a Klaviyo abandoned-checkout flow change completed purchases, given the funnel currently drops from 31 reached-checkout to 13 completed?

Always build the Meta ad account inside the Business Portfolio from day one — don't start in a personal account and try to migrate later.
Add UTM parameters to ad URLs before publishing, as a standard pre-launch checklist item, not something to circle back to.
When connecting Instagram to a campaign, check both the Page connection and the ad-account-level asset permission — don't assume one covers the other.
Before trusting any single dashboard's numbers, pull the same metric from at least one other source. If they don't match, that's information, not a bug to ignore.

<aside> ⚠️

Personal Meta ad accounts with no payment history can't be added to a Business Portfolio — this can quietly block campaign launch if you don't catch it early. </aside>
Attribution mismatches between platforms can make performance look worse (or better) than it actually is if you only check one dashboard — risk of drawing the wrong conclusion from incomplete data.
Small test budgets (₹500-1000) mean thin data — a couple of unusual sessions or one platform quirk can swing conversion rate numbers more than they would at scale. Worth remembering when interpreting results, not just reporting them.

First time taking a campaign fully end-to-end — setup, tracking, live spend, real orders, reconciled reporting. The troubleshooting turned out to be as valuable as the results themselves.