# Meta Ads 14 Hacker News commenters recommended Meta Ads and 28 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Advertisers report strong sales and beat alternatives for mass-market buyers. Common caveat: buggy ad manager, misleading AI-written copy, and hard-to-appeal account bans. ## Why people recommend it - Outperforms alternatives for purchase conversions (4 comments): "atrociously buggy, AI shoved everywhere, money draining with questionable results. And yet it still outperforms the alternatives" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46854985)) "Meta is the best (and fastest-learning) platform for mass-market purchase conversions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46425773)) "Meta is just way, way better than any alternative right now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428392)) - Strong revenue results for advertisers (4 comments): "it was so successful she was at 3x revenue over the previous client base in 2 years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49724280)) "We have a customer who's seeing ~30k in monthly revenue driven by their meta ads." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49667630)) "I spent $16 doing that this month and got $940 in revenue from those customers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48390584)) - Effective for certain audiences and businesses (2 comments): "The surprising effectiveness of Meta Ads for certain audiences as counter-intuitive as it seems is one example." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47093983)) "pretty good specifically if you're a business owner who wants to advertise his product" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47881537)) - Steady results over time (2 comments): "I'm running Meta ads... That's worked well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46414569)) "it worked well for a long time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49668114)) ## What people warn about - Buggy, confusing ad manager (4 comments): "atrociously buggy, AI shoved everywhere, money draining with questionable results. And yet it still outperforms the alternatives" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46854985)) "their ads dashboard is so totally broken that these mystical ads that ran are nowhere to be found" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46425637)) "many aspects of the ad manager UI will activate settings that had previously been disabled" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46425154)) - AI-generated copy can mislead (3 comments): "some of the AI-generated creatives and copy that Meta has suggested to me actually misleads or flat-out lies about what is being advertised" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46426090)) "just think of how much money Meta could make by slopping fetish-bait over your brand and charging you for every click" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46425039)) "Meta's generated text can in some cases mislead or flat-out lie about what is actually being sold." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428191)) - Account bans with hard appeals (3 comments): "even getting a legitimate ad that doesn’t break any rules through review can be an exercise in frustration" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46455401)) "I've seen businesses lose their ad account and have their fb page banned with no recovery options." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47937341)) "Ran meta ads for about a week, account shutdown. asked to verify ID. Jumped through the hoops." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47735207)) - Privacy and settings changed without consent (3 comments): "As far as I'm concerned they had no business telling a creepy company like Meta who I bank with." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50144520)) "Meta automatically switched those toggles to "on," even when they'd explicitly turned them off" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46425024)) "Despite this being an obvious antipattern to security it is very much by design for meta." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47098253)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Google Ads](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-ads.md): 25 recommend - [Instagram ads](https://hackerapproved.com/p/instagram-ads.md): 12 recommend - [Google AdSense](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-adsense.md): 11 recommend - [Facebook Ads](https://hackerapproved.com/p/facebook-ads.md): 7 recommend - [LinkedIn Ads](https://hackerapproved.com/p/linkedin-ads.md): 7 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.facebook.com/business/ads) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Meta Ads", https://hackerapproved.com/p/meta-ads/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).