Scalify Review:  Run, Analyze, Automate,
and Scale Your Ads on a Single Platform

A few of you know, I haven’t been exactly supportive of a platform like Scalify for a long time because you can do most of what it does in Facebook’s native Ads manager.

But recently a brilliant eComm/Shopify agency owner whom I HIGHLY respect (Alex Stiehl) told me he’s been using it because of their rules/automation. So that piqued my interest and got me to take a second look at Scalify while diving a lot deeper this time.

My main arguments from before against Scalify:

👉  Facebook Ads Manager is CONSTANTLY changing because they’re A/B testing different features on different accounts, and at the same time finding ways to improve ad performance and attribution. Businesses running ads on 3rd party platforms using Facebook Ads API will have a hard time keeping up with the changes.

👉  If you are a newbie and you want to get into Facebook ads, I will always recommend you to first familiarise yourself with the native ads manager. Because if a 3rd party platform like Scalify closes down (I’m NOT saying they will), you won’t even know where to start in Ads Manager because it can get complex very quickly.

HOWEVER, I tried to really use Scalify with an open mind this time and so here are my findings.

I won’t be going into detail on every point since that will take too long to read or write, but I will run through the Pros & Cons of each defining feature of Scalify.

Launch – Includes 4 Sub-Categories

👉  Targeting – Create Interest-based adsets/ads

👉  Retargeting – Target people who have taken certain actions on your site, page, and videos

👉  Retention – Target people who have previously bought from you (LTV extension)

👉  Scale – Target LLAs (How is this scaling though?)

PROS:

👉  [Good] You can create a new campaign or use an existing campaign (created in Facebook Ads Manager). Some other 3rd party platforms only allow you to create campaigns on their platform, but not pull existing campaigns/adsets/ads from Ads Manager

👉  [Good] Most campaign-level options (Objectives, Bid Strategy, Special Ad Categories etc) are available except the “Store Traffic” and “Catalog Sales” campaign objectives

👉  [Good] You can choose how to split your ads for granular control – (1) multiple ads duplicated in multiple adsets to test audiences or (2) single ads in multiple adsets to test creatives (you can control spend individual ad creative budget distribution better with option 2)

👉  [Great!] You can easily and quickly create audience and ad variations to save some time.

👉  [Great!] When you create an ad, the ad can be edited inside Facebook ads manager later on so you don’t get stuck if Scalify’s servers ever go down.

👉  [Great!] The retargeting module is well thought out and the best part is you don’t have to create custom audiences and then apply it into the adset in a 2-step process – you can just select the options and Scalify creates the CA for you.

👉  [Great!] You can easily and quickly create LLAs and Custom Audiences directly in Scalify.

👉  [Great!] Ad creatives can be easily extracted from other campaigns – easily duplicate your creatives to save some time.

👉  [Good] There is a “Review” page where you can double check all the options before launching.

👉  [Great!] Naming your adsets and ads is an automatic process.

CONS:

👉  [Major] Can’t create your own UTM parameters – Super important. You have to use GA’s prebuilt UTM parameters which means you HAVE to create a GA account for yourself or your client – NOT ideal when you want to set something up quickly and easily or if you already have your own templated flows running.

👉 [Minor] Adsets and Ad creatives are created in a “conversational form” style where only a couple of options are seen at once. While this is somewhat good to prevent newbies from being overwhelmed, it sucks for people who already know what they are doing. There should be a “Simplified” and “Expert” view where Simplified is what it currently is, and Expert should show all the options on one page like in Ads Manager.

👉  [Minor] You can’t see potential audience updating as you run through the different option tabs – it only shows on the “Targeting Audience” (Interests) tab.

👉  [Minor] Can’t implement LLAs (Look Alike Audiences) unless you use the “Scale” option. This is super weird because LLAs also need to be tested and shouldn’t be listed under “Scale”. I still don’t know why Scale is there, when scaling is really just about vertical scaling (increasing 20% of budget every 24 hours) or horizontal scaling (duplicating adsets/campaigns).

👉  [Major] Can’t create DCOs (Dynamic Creative Optimization) except in DPA campaigns.

👉  [Major] Can’t optimise newly uploaded ad creatives for 9:16 & 1.91:1 aspect ratio.

👉  [Major] Can’t exclude audiences.

Analyse Data from Multiple Sources 

Plus have Scalify run Revenue, Profit, and COGS calculations for you in a single dashboard.

PROS:

👉  [Great!] Can see overview of everything because it pulls in data from Facebook, Google Analytics, and other eComm platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and SquareSpace.

👉  [Great!] Scalify does the heavy lifting to help you calculate your ROI, Revenue, Profit.

👉  [Great!] Dashboard is super customisable (Can probably replace Oviond in some cases) since you can add on as many widgets as you want.

👉  [Good] Can start/pause ads in their inhouse ads manager.

👉  [Great!] Side by side comparisons between campaigns, adsets, and other metrics like audience performance.

👉  [Great!] Can select which metrics to compare, and even select your key metrics so you know which is the winning audience/creative.

👉  [Good] Very comprehensive split test metrics for audience testing: Targeting Audiences, Locations, Age, Gender, Audiences, and Placements.

👉  [Good] Same as above for Creative testing: Ad Texts, Images/Videos, Headlines, Call to Actions, and URLs.

CONS:

👉  [Extremely Major] Can’t display our custom UTM parameters – MUST use GA/Scalify’s UTMs.

👉  [Personal Request] Should integrate with HockeyStack to pull cookieless tracking data or have own cookieless tracking system.

👉  [Minor] Can’t duplicate campaigns/adsets in their inhouse ads manager.

👉  [Major] For some weird reason I can cross view data from multiple Shopify stores/Google Analytics and Facebook Ad Accounts. I.E. Store A + Ad Account B. This can cause some confusion and misunderstandings to happen. We should be allowed to lock in the ad account and the store/domain so that doesn’t happen.

👉  [Major] Can’t sort/filter by selection and other options

Automate – Basically Revealbot but With Way Higher Limits

PROS:

👉  [Good] Can create your own custom rules/automation from scratch.

👉  [Great!] 15mins – 72 hours automation trigger intervals- Same as Revealbot (15mins) and 15mins faster than Facebook Ads Manager (30mins).

👉  [Great!] Can templatize your rules/automation – and export the rule to another ad account without having to recreate the rules there (mind blown).

👉  [Great!] Can name and add descriptions to your own templates – HUGE if you’re constantly hiring new media buyers, but often overlooked.

👉  [Great!] Can change or add to the name of ad e.g. “Winning Ad”.

👉  [Good] Have Increase/decrease manual bidding actions.

👉  [Great!] Have duplicate adset actions.

👉  [Great!] Folders have already been implemented. Small but essential feature!

👉  [Good] Have all the actions you will ever need to scale for eComm like rules based vertical/horizontal scaling (IMHO the automation/rules feature is the TRUE “Scale” feature in Scalify).

👉  [Great!] Can use their pre-built templates – all pretty comprehensive and comes with proper descriptions/documentation.

CONS:

👉  [Major] No time-based triggers: If> time is 00:00, > start campaign/adset/ad (or at least conditionless actions).

👉  [Major] No custom schedules e.g. monday – friday 9am – 12midnight.

👉  [Major] A huge chunk of triggers are missing. Guess this will take some time while they slowly add it in (there are A LOT to add in).

👉  [Minor] Need a lot more notification channels (maybe via Zapier/Integromat/Pabbly/Integrately?). Just Slack and Email isn’t enough.

Some Extra Things to Take Note About Scalify:

✅  [Pro] You can add unlimited team members per sub-account.

✅  [Pro] Subaccount holders are in a completely different workspace – even the master account holder can’t view what you’re doing in there. This is very good for privacy and helps to prevent account hacking.

✅   [Pro] You can easily assign budgets to different subaccounts.

✅  [Pro] Can connect multiple Facebook profiles/Business managers/ad accounts to 1 subaccount.

✅  [Pro] There is a history you can view to see exactly what is being done in that sub-account.

✅  [Pro] They have very good video guides/walkthroughs throughout the process.

❌   [Con] Documentation needs to be more comprehensive.

❌  [Con] Help Center button on the bottom right doesn’t work. You have to click the ? symbol at the top right to reach the help center. Even then, it’s difficult to find the live chat support button.

👉  [Good To Know] As long as your account is connected, the budget limits will be used up even if you don’t do anything on Scalify.

Conclusion

LAUNCH: 7/10
ANALYZE: 8/10
AUTOMATE: 9/10
OVERALL: 8/10

If you’re heavily into Rules/Automation, this tool is a no-brainer. This could replace a couple of tools like Oviond, Revealbot, and Facebook Ads Manager if given some time to develop.

I hear Google ads is on their roadmap too. Last, I want to reinforce my belief that newbies/beginners should master the native ads manager first before coming to a platform like Scalify.