Should you run Facebook ads yourself or hire a service? (2026)

One of the questions we frequently receive from business owners is: “Should I hire an agency to run my Facebook and Instagram ads, or should I self-learn and manage them?” There is no absolute answer for everyone. The appropriate choice depends entirely on your business model, resources, and even your personality.

In the process of working with hundreds of businesses, we have seen many shop owners start by self-learning ad operations, but after only a short time, they realize they don’t truly enjoy campaign optimization, or simply do not have enough time. Conversely, there are brands that hastily hire an agency when they are not ready, leading to wasted budget, unmet expectations, and missed growth opportunities. So, ultimately, which direction should you choose? Before making a decision, carefully consider these three important factors:

Is your business financially capable of hiring an agency yet?

• Do you have enough time to self-learn, monitor, and optimize ads daily?
• Are you interested in analyzing data, A/B testing, and optimizing performance?
• Let Optimal Agency answer the question in detail in this article!

Should you run Facebook ads yourself or hire a service? The 2026 trend

Although we are a provider of account rental services and marketing solutions, we often tell customers that there is no exact answer to this question, but Optimal can help you make a more sound choice by relying on the actual context, resources, and development goals of your business. Below is a “strategic guidance” that allows you to self-evaluate and choose the most suitable path.

When to self-learn and run ads?

If you are operating a small business or are just starting to scale your business activities, self-learning how to run ads can be a perfectly reasonable choice. We often suggest this for those with budget constraints or who want to deeply understand how Facebook operates. Some scenarios where we find self-management yields better results:

• Current revenue is under $20,000 USD/month, and you are not sufficiently affluent to hire an agency without creating cash flow pressure.
• You can dedicate 5–10 hours per week to learning, A/B testing, monitoring metrics, and optimizing campaigns.
• You like to control everything yourself, from creative testing, analyzing CPM, and CPC to monitoring the conversion funnel.
• Example: Many individuals selling POD (Print on Demand) or dropshipping in the initial phase often run their own ads to understand the market before outsourcing.

Self-running helps you gain deep insights into customers, advertising costs, and how Facebook distributes, which not every agency explains in detail.

When to hire a professional service or agency?

Conversely, there are businesses for which we always recommend hiring an agency immediately. These are usually fast-growing brands with strict requirements for results and cannot tolerate errors during the testing process. You should hire an agency if:

• The business has reached the threshold of over $20,000 USD/month, and you can fully afford the service fees while ensuring stable cash flow.
• You do not have the time to spend hours analyzing advertising data, writing multiple content versions, and monitoring campaigns daily.
• You want to focus on other strengths, such as product development, optimizing operational processes, or building creative content.

A cosmetics brand we partnered with grew from $30,000 USD/month to $120,000 USD/month in just 4 months after switching to an agency, because the business owner dedicated all their time to investing in product R&D instead of manually adjusting each ad set. Hiring an agency also creates a significant advantage in optimization speed, troubleshooting capabilities, and experience with various ad accounts. If you need powerful campaign scaling support with a system of high-trust and diverse accounts, please contact Optimal.

With over 11 years of experience in providing resources and renting Facebook ad accounts, we have become one of the leading reputable entities in the market. Optimal Agency’s Facebook Ads experts are all profoundly knowledgeable about the algorithm, possessing extensive practical experience across many projects in diverse industries and markets.

Based on these strong available resources, Optimal Agency has built a system of high-quality Agency ad accounts, diverse in time zones and currency units to meet all customer needs. We are always committed to delivering the best service experience with competitive pricing, dedicated support policies, and a clear and transparent warranty regime.

Clients share risks and challenges of self-managing Facebook ads

When working with many advertisers and business owners, we observe a commonality: running Facebook ads yourself offers a sense of proactiveness, but it also comes with countless risks that not everyone foresees. Many individuals run their own ads merely to save on agency fees, but after a few weeks or months, the result is often higher spending, more stress, and still failing to optimize campaigns as expected. Below are the most common difficulties that customers have shared with us during their self-management of advertising.

Data limitation

When self-running, any new advertiser relies only on small data from their own fan page and website. This limits the analysis of customer behavior.

Example: A customer of ours selling cosmetics only had 40–50 conversions per month. With such a small amount of data, the Facebook algorithm finds it very difficult to identify behavioral patterns for optimization, leading to high cost per order and unstable results.

Meanwhile, at agencies, we have Big Data from hundreds of different industries, helping the system learn faster, distribute to the correct audience, and predict trends more accurately. This is very difficult to achieve when running alone.

Lack of automated and professional tools

We observe that most individuals who run their own ads only use basic tools like the Ads Manager or pixel. But for powerful optimization, agencies often use more in-depth systems such as:

• Real-time bidding automation tools
• Cross-channel behavior analysis systems
• Multi-layer remarketing tools
• Specialized tracking software

A client running livestream ads for fashion could not distinguish between genuine views and ad-driven performance, leading to the decision to increase the budget at the wrong time and lose nearly 10 million VND in just 2 days. A lack of tools means you have to do a lot of manual work, and the effectiveness is usually not equal to that of an experienced team.

Slow decision-making speed

Analyzing data, reading metrics, and making optimization decisions requires speed. However, when data is limited and tools are scarce, individuals often spend a lot of time on:

• Audience testing
• Content testing
• Budget adjustment
• Sales funnel optimization

This makes the scaling or optimization process much slower. Some advertisers spend up to 2 weeks just to test 5 different audience groups, whereas with a large data system and standard procedures, we only need about 2–3 days to identify the most potential audience.

Other common risks

In addition to major obstacles regarding data and tools, self-running clients face many other issues:

• Targeting the wrong audience leads to budget “burn” without generating orders
• Easily violating advertising policies and having accounts flagged
• Spending a lot of time on A/B testing, with results remaining unstable
• Failing to grasp the changing trends of the Facebook algorithm

When aggregating all these risks, many customers realize that the cost of running ads themselves is often much higher than hiring a professional team.

Advice on hiring Facebook advertising services from Agencies

Before you, especially new advertisers, decide to hire an Agency to run Facebook ads, we want to share some very important experiences. These are insights drawn from many years of working with businesses large and small, from small online shops to brands investing hundreds of millions monthly. Understanding this correctly from the beginning will help you avoid budget waste, choose a reputable partner, and achieve real business effectiveness.

High engagement does not mean more orders

Many individuals, when working with Agencies, are often persuaded by vanity metrics like likes, comments, or large reach. However, we want to emphasize that high engagement does not equate to high revenue. Engagement only shows that viewers like the content, but it does not necessarily mean they have the intent to purchase.

A video that is simply funny or beautiful can achieve thousands of comments and shares, but brings in no orders. Therefore, when setting KPIs, you should set realistic goals such as the number of orders, Cost Per Conversion, or profit. If a campaign only has clicks and engagement but no conversions, that campaign essentially holds no business value.

Only hire Agencies whose capabilities you clearly understand

Before you entrust your budget to any Agency, ensure you know clearly where their strengths lie. A reputable Agency will not just speak well but must have tangible results to prove it. We suggest a few simple but effective ways to verify an Agency’s capability:

• Ask what projects they have run, what the budget was, and what the results were.
• Ask directly if they have ever failed, why they failed, and what lessons they learned.
• Propose a short trial period to test compatibility.

Only trust when there is a clear basis

One of the most common mistakes you easily encounter is believing in “sweet promises” such as guaranteed sales, assured orders, or extremely rapid growth. We advise you only to trust when that Agency truly has clear evidence. See if they have achieved similar KPIs before, or have specific case studies. Additionally, during collaboration, you need to ensure control:

• Always retain the highest authority over your ad accounts and digital assets.
• Never share Fanpage Administrator access. Many businesses have lost their Fanpages simply by sharing the wrong access level.
• Demand complete reports, data, and transparency in spending.

If the Agency is not transparent or avoids reporting, it is best to cease cooperation immediately.

Self-learn Facebook advertising to avoid dependence

Finally, the most important advice we want to send to you is: be proactive in learning Facebook advertising. Whether you run ads yourself or hire an Agency, understanding the fundamentals will help you:

• Read reports correctly and avoid being “fooled.”
• Accurately evaluate the quality of the Agency’s work.
• Optimize campaigns yourself when necessary.
• Avoid dependence or being led astray.

Nowadays, you can completely learn through online courses, free materials, or by running small budgets for experience. A business owner who understands advertising always achieves better results than one who delegates everything to others.

The choice to run Facebook ads yourself or hire a service still depends on the goals, resources, and readiness level of each business. If you have the time to learn, enjoy data analysis, and want to control every detail, self-running ads will help you both save costs and gain a deeper understanding of marketing operations. Conversely, if you prioritize speed, professionalism, and want to focus on business operations, hiring a reputable agency will deliver more stable and less risky results. Whichever path you choose, the most important thing is to understand the nature of Facebook advertising and clearly monitor effectiveness to optimize resources, avoid waste, and achieve more sustainable growth in 2025.