07 Aug The #1 CPAS Ads Mistake: All Retargeting, No New Customers
CPAS — Collaborative Ads for marketplaces like Shopee and Lazada — gets people genuinely excited, and for good reason. Suddenly you can retarget with real precision using your product catalog. But that excitement is exactly where the most common mistake I see starts.
The mistake: falling in love with retargeting and forgetting the top
Once advertisers discover what CPAS retargeting can do, a lot of them go all-in on it. Different retargeting strategies, layered audiences, increasingly sophisticated setups — and somewhere in that process, they forget the most basic requirement of any funnel: you need new people coming in at the top.
It doesn’t matter how good your retargeting strategy is. If you’re only retargeting, you’re working a fixed, shrinking pool of people rather than a pool that’s constantly being replenished. Retargeting can be excellent at converting intent — it can’t manufacture intent out of nowhere. That has to come from somewhere else.
Even within CPAS, you need a top-of-funnel ad set
Here’s the part that trips people up specifically: even if you’re already running ads on the Shopee or Lazada platform itself to bring in fresh traffic, that’s not automatically covering this gap. Within your CPAS ads specifically, you still need a dedicated ad set built for bringing in new people — not just retargeting existing engagement or catalog interaction.
It’s the same funnel logic that applies everywhere else in Meta advertising: the more you put in at the top, the more the whole structure has to work with. A CPAS setup that’s 100% retargeting isn’t a lean, efficient funnel — it’s a funnel with nothing feeding it.
How common this actually is
Across a large base of Facebook, Shopee, and CPAS advertisers, roughly half of CPAS advertisers are still not generating new customers — purely because of this blind spot. It’s not usually a strategic choice; it’s what happens when someone gets deep into optimizing the sophisticated part (retargeting) and loses sight of the basic part (acquisition) that makes the sophisticated part worth anything.
What a healthy CPAS funnel actually looks like
Nothing exotic — the same shape as any healthy funnel elsewhere in Meta advertising. A consistent flow of new people entering at the top through a dedicated prospecting ad set, and retargeting working the people who’ve shown interest but haven’t converted yet. Neither side substitutes for the other. The healthier and more consistent the top-of-funnel flow, the more sustainable the entire CPAS structure becomes — including the retargeting results everyone got excited about in the first place.
A quick self-check on your own CPAS setup
- Do I have a dedicated top-of-funnel ad set within my CPAS structure, or am I only running retargeting ad sets?
- Am I assuming traffic from elsewhere (Shopee/Lazada platform ads) covers this gap? It doesn’t automatically — CPAS prospecting needs its own setup.
- Is my retargeting audience shrinking or stagnant over time? That’s a sign the top of the funnel isn’t feeding it.
- Have I gotten so focused on retargeting sophistication that I’ve stopped checking new customer numbers entirely?
This breakdown is written by Jason Gan, a Meta Certified Professional and Badged Meta Business Partner who has personally audited over 1,000 advertiser accounts since 2010. You can see real account breakdowns on the Jason Gan YouTube channel.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common mistake advertisers make with CPAS ads? Running retargeting only, and forgetting to bring in new customers. CPAS makes retargeting powerful and easy to get excited about, but a campaign that only retargets is working a shrinking pool of the same people rather than growing the funnel that feeds it.
Can CPAS ads bring in new customers, or are they only for retargeting? CPAS can absolutely bring in new customers — it just requires a dedicated top-of-funnel ad set built for that purpose, separate from your retargeting ad sets. Running traffic to your Shopee or Lazada storefront elsewhere isn’t a substitute for this; within CPAS itself, prospecting needs its own deliberate setup.
How common is this mistake among CPAS advertisers? Very common. Roughly half of the CPAS advertisers seen across a large base of clients are still not generating new customers, purely because of this blind spot — getting so focused on retargeting mechanics that top-of-funnel acquisition gets forgotten entirely.
What does a healthy CPAS funnel actually look like? The same shape as any healthy funnel: a steady flow of new people entering at the top, and retargeting working the people who’ve already shown interest but haven’t converted yet. The more consistently new people are fed in, the healthier and more sustainable the whole structure becomes.
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