December 9, 2025
4 mins
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If it feels like Meta has been a rollercoaster for your brand campaigns lately, that’s because it has.
In the last six months alone, advertisers have dealt with:
And layered on top of all of this?
Meta is in the middle of the biggest AI arms race in its history.
The company now employs over 78,400 people - an 8% increase year-over-year - with much of that growth concentrated in AI and compute infrastructure. These hires support Meta’s aggressive push to build an engine that will supposedly “automatically find you new customers.”
But let’s be honest for a moment: those AI ambitions come at a cost and it’s not unreasonable to suggest that part of this cost is now being pushed back onto advertisers.
As marketers are tasked with trying to plan growth strategies for 2026, it’s perhaps time we stop whispering quietly about the problem and say it plainly:
Meta is no longer predictable, controllable, or stable enough to be your primary source of new customers.
The old story used to be: “Meta is frustrating, but reliable.”
Today’s story is: “Meta is powerful, but chaotic and increasingly expensive.”
Meta’s AI is getting bigger, hungrier, and more deeply embedded in every part of Ads Manager. The more Meta invests in AI to “find your next customer,” the more it pushes advertisers into AI-first campaign types like Advantage+ regardless of
whether they perform reliably for you.
That’s why you’re seeing erratic delivery, unpredictable CPAs, and campaign decisions that seem to come out of nowhere.
The platform you once understood is now being rebuilt around automated optimisation, and not all of that optimisation goes in your favour.
A recent report from attribution platform Wicked Reports, based on over 55,000 Meta campaigns, shows this same pattern emerging in the numbers.
Their findings included:
These insights reinforce what brands have been experiencing: Meta’s automated systems are becoming more expensive, less transparent, and less aligned with genuine new customer acquisition.
Wicked Reports also highlight that Advantage+ optimises heavily for last-click conversions, which naturally prioritises repeat buyers - not new audiences. That misalignment helps explain why prospecting budgets often bleed into retargeting, even when advertisers don’t intend them to.
As Wicked Reports CEO Scott Desgrosseilliers puts it:
“Advertisers in 2026 are going to continue to pay the ‘Meta Ignorance Tax’: paying again and again for their existing customers to be retargeted - unless they take the necessary technical actions to reclaim their New Customer Acquisition budget.”
Even if you optimise your data signals, the ecosystem itself remains unpredictable.
Meta still behaves like a channel where the rules change weekly.
It’s not a question of whether large brands will continue to spend budget on Meta (they will), but whether planning growth around Meta alone is becoming a risk that brands can no longer afford?
That’s why marketers are actively looking for stability somewhere else in their channel mix.
For brands looking to reach new families at scale, Your Baby Club provides exactly that.
Not as a dramatic “quit Meta” move, but as the stable counterweight every marketing plan now needs.
We already get through all the hard work by recruiting new parents at scale every month, giving brands access to a continually refreshed, high-intent audience. And because we own and understand our niche, we offer:
Where Meta is unpredictable, we’re consistent.
Where Meta raises costs, we stabilise them.
Where Meta hides the mechanics, we show you the process.
You can use attribution platforms to make your Meta spend smarter. Use a trusted partner like Your Baby Club to make your acquisition mix stronger.
Together, you get something Meta hasn’t delivered consistently in years: Clarity, control and genuine predictability.
To see what’s really happening inside your Meta campaigns, explore: https://www.wickedreports.com/demos
And to reach UK, US or Canadian families at scale - without having to brace yourself before checking Ads Manager - just click the button below:
We're experts at scaling brands across multiple channels by connecting them to our engaged communities.
We don't do empty promises. Just quality connections.
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