During COVID I started an ecommerce division at my wholesale meat company. Eager to get business, we tried a lot of ways to let customers know we were ready to ship them some delicious meats, right to their front door.

We spent a lot of ad money those first years to get orders, and we continue to fine-tune our ad spending based on what’s actually getting us orders. We’ve found some things that work and some things that don’t. One thing that doesn’t work well for us back then (or now) is the Facebook/Meta ads we placed. Not only was our ROI very poor on Meta, but many of our ads for meat products were unjustifiably denied by Meta. Common rejection emails said, “Your item was rejected because it doesn't comply with our Policies. This item is not live in your shop” and then this:

Commerce Policy violations

Listings may not promote the buying or selling of animals.
Listings must comply with our Commerce Policies.

Meta’s commerce policy regarding meats reads, “Listings may not promote the buying or selling of animals or animal parts, or land in ecological conservation areas. Some products from animals intended for consumption, such as raw fish, meat, or eggs.”

A member of our digital marketing team called Meta and asked why some of our ads for meat products make it through and get published, but most get rejected. The Meta employee informed us that they are “not a meat-friendly company.” Some ads may get through their anti-meat filters, but even though we aren’t selling live animals, the promotion of the parts of processed animals simply does not align with their values.

Have any of you had this experience?

This makes me wonder; why in the world would any meat company, non-profit check-off promotion organization, or other affiliated ag associations continue to support Meta and Instagram in any way? Are we their “suckers?” They’ve obviously bought into the narrative that meat is bad for our health and bad for the planet and are actively fighting against us. I wonder how many employees at Meta and Instagram are actually vegans or vegetarians? That would be some interesting data, but none of us would be surprised with the results.

Very often I’m at an ag meeting, and the media team, executive director or other staffer is reporting on the results of the past year’s social media outreach. This occurred most recently at a Colorado Ag producers meeting, but over the years, this experience has been common. The staffer shows slides on all the ‘likes’ generated from a Meta or Instagram campaign. Thus, the justification for the spending of hundreds or thousands of dollars on ads annually to promote the messages. The premise is that the money is well spent, and people’s minds are being influenced positively for the ag group that is spending the dough on the ads. But ‘likes’ do not really prove influence.

The problem I have with this way of measuring ROI is two-fold: First, these non-profit ag promotion entities are not actually selling products, so they have no way to measure the actual results of the ad costs compared to sales made. Compare this to an ecommerce meat company and their ability to directly measure the ROI in terms of sales. ‘Likes’ do not equate to profit.

Second, the brilliant minds at Meta and Instagram know exactly how to route our promoted ads through their highly manipulated echo chamber to get us the ‘likes’ we so desperately crave. We then use all these ‘likes’ to justify the costs to our boards, members, and ag producers. But these ‘likes’ mean next-to-nothing in the real world.

I’d like to hear from you about your results buying ads on Meta and Instagram but based on my experiences and thousands of dollars spent on Meta ads, I’d say we are all being duped.

What are your experiences with Meta and other social media platforms? Do you think buying ads on Meta and Instagram is a good spend by ag promotion entities, like the various check-off groups and industry associations?

Facebook/Meta’s anti-meat agenda

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