A $90 aged account vs a fresh BM I burned

A $90 aged account vs a fresh BM I burned

Facebook killed three fresh business managers in a week. Here's what the spreadsheet actually said.

— The setup: nutra offer, cloaked landing, two fresh BMs spun up the same day, $250 prepaid card each.
— The move: both got banned inside 36 hours — one before spending $20. I bought one aged personal account with a warmed BM off a vendor for $90 and ran the exact same creative and cloak through it.
— The numbers: fresh BMs spent a combined $260 and returned $0 (banned pre-conversion). The aged account ran four days, spent $480, returned $710. ROI on that account: +48%. But subtract the two dead BMs and the real picture for the week was $740 spend, $710 back — break-even minus a hair.

— The lesson: the cost of a campaign isn't the ad spend, it's the spend plus the graveyard of accounts you torched getting there. I now price every test at spend + (account cost / expected survival rate).

What I'd do differently: Start on the aged account, not finish on it. The $260 I lit on fire in fresh BMs would've doubled my profitable days. Figures illustrative; the account-graveyard math is exactly how I budget now.