When people think about Facebook and Instagram advertising, they usually think about businesses trying to sell something. Perhaps it’s an online retailer promoting its latest products, a restaurant encouraging customers to make a booking or a local business trying to generate more enquiries. And while Meta Ads can be incredibly effective for those purposes, there’s another side to social media advertising that doesn’t always receive as much attention.
Sometimes, the objective isn’t to sell something. It’s to help people understand something.
That’s exactly what we set out to achieve with a series of Meta advertising campaigns focused on raising awareness of MCT8 deficiency, a rare genetic condition.
The campaigns were designed to reach two very different audiences: healthcare providers and carers, and patients and their families. Rather than delivering the same message to everybody, we tailored the advertising to the people seeing it, encouraging them to visit a dedicated website and learn more about the condition from their own perspective.
Across the campaigns shown in our Meta Ads reporting, the activity generated hundreds of thousands of video plays, tens of thousands of website link clicks and extensive reach, demonstrating how targeted social media advertising can help important information reach a much wider audience.
In this case study, we’ll explain the thinking behind the campaigns, the approach we took to targeting and content, and what the results tell us about using Meta Ads for awareness campaigns.
Understanding the Objective: Awareness Rather Than Sales
MCT8 deficiency, also known as Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome (AHDS), is a rare genetic condition associated with impaired thyroid hormone transport and significant neurological and developmental difficulties.
As with many rare conditions, awareness is particularly important. Patients and families may be searching for information, while healthcare professionals and carers need access to resources that help them better understand the condition and the people affected by it.
Our objective was to use Facebook and Instagram advertising to help more people discover information about MCT8 deficiency, particularly around World MCT8-AHDS Day and other relevant awareness initiatives.
This wasn’t a traditional lead generation campaign. We weren’t trying to persuade somebody to buy a product or complete a sales enquiry form. We wanted to introduce people to information that could be relevant to them and encourage them to learn more.
That distinction is important because it changes how you approach almost every aspect of a Meta Ads campaign.
The creative content, audience targeting, calls to action and performance metrics all need to reflect what you’re actually trying to achieve.
For this campaign, success meant reaching relevant audiences, encouraging engagement with educational content and driving people towards further information.
Two Audiences, Two Different Perspectives
One of the most important elements of the campaign was recognising that the people we wanted to reach weren’t all looking for the same information.
We worked with two broad audience groups: healthcare providers and carers, and patients and their families.
Although both audiences had an interest in MCT8 deficiency, their reasons for wanting to learn more could be very different.
Healthcare professionals might be interested in clinical information, symptoms, diagnosis and the implications of the condition for patient care. Carers could be looking for practical information to help them understand the needs of somebody living with MCT8 deficiency.
Patients and families, meanwhile, might be approaching the subject from a much more personal perspective. They could be looking for accessible explanations, information about the condition or resources that help them feel better informed.
This meant we couldn’t simply create one advert and assume it would communicate equally effectively with everybody.
The message needed to reflect the audience receiving it.
By tailoring our advertising creative and messaging to these different groups, we could make the content more relevant to the people seeing it and encourage them to explore information suited to their interests.
This is an approach we regularly recommend when managing Meta advertising campaigns for businesses. Different customers often have different motivations, concerns and levels of familiarity with a product, service or subject.
Understanding those differences gives you a much stronger foundation for creating effective advertising.
Why Audience-Specific Messaging Matters
Imagine you’re promoting a service that appeals to both experienced professionals and complete beginners.
Would you explain it to both groups in exactly the same way?
Probably not.
Someone who already understands the subject might want more detailed information. Someone encountering it for the first time might need a simpler introduction before they’re ready to explore further.
The same principle applied to our MCT8 deficiency awareness campaigns.
We wanted the adverts to feel relevant to the people encountering them, rather than relying on one generic message.
For healthcare providers and carers, the advertising could speak to their professional or caring responsibilities. For patients and families, the messaging needed to acknowledge a different perspective and encourage them towards information intended for their needs.
The destination was equally important.
The purpose wasn’t simply to get somebody to click an advert. It was to encourage them to visit the website and continue learning.
That meant the advert needed to establish a clear connection between the audience, the information being presented and what they could expect to find after clicking.
This is a useful lesson for almost any small business considering Facebook and Instagram advertising.
Good targeting isn’t only about deciding who sees your advert. It’s also about making sure the message makes sense to them.
Using World MCT8-AHDS Day to Build Awareness
Awareness days can provide valuable opportunities for organisations working in healthcare, charities and other specialist sectors.
They give campaigns a timely reason to reach people, create opportunities for discussion and help bring attention to subjects that might otherwise receive limited visibility.
World MCT8-AHDS Day provided an important focus for our advertising activity.
Rather than treating the occasion as an opportunity to publish a single social media post and hope people noticed it, paid advertising allowed us to extend the reach of awareness content beyond an organisation’s existing followers.
This is one of the biggest advantages of Meta Ads.
Organic social media content can be excellent for building relationships with an existing audience, but you’re often relying on the platform to distribute that content naturally.
Paid advertising gives you more control over who you’re attempting to reach and how much budget you’re allocating towards that objective.
For an awareness campaign focused on a rare condition, that ability to reach beyond an existing community can be particularly valuable.
The Results: What Our Meta Ads Campaigns Achieved
The Meta Ads Manager screenshot shows a series of campaigns associated with MCT8 deficiency and relevant awareness days, including activity from 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Across the 11 campaigns displayed, the reporting dashboard shows total advertising expenditure of £3,875.01, with 1,963,175 impressions and a reported 759,840 in combined reach.
It’s important to note that the reach figure is an aggregate from the reporting dashboard, rather than a verified count of unique people reached across all campaigns. Some individuals may have seen adverts from more than one campaign.
The results also include a mixture of campaign objectives, including website traffic, video views and awareness. That means the results should be considered in the context of what each campaign was designed to achieve.
Website Traffic Campaigns
Several campaigns focused on encouraging people to click through to the website and learn more about MCT8 deficiency.
The main MCT8 Traffic campaign generated 25,179 link clicks at an average cost of £0.06 per link click, with £1,481.31 spent. The campaign delivered 404,007 impressions and reached 197,807 accounts.
The World MCT8 Day 2024 Traffic campaign generated a further 2,785 link clicks at approximately £0.14 per click, with £399.95 spent. It delivered 342,971 impressions and reached 113,888 accounts.
Additional awareness-day traffic activity also performed well. The World Thyroid Day 2024 campaign generated 2,071 link clicks at approximately £0.12 per click, while the Rare Disease Day 2024 campaign generated 2,936 link clicks at approximately £0.09 per click.
Combined, these four traffic campaigns generated 32,971 link clicks.
That’s a substantial volume of people taking an additional action after seeing an advert, rather than simply scrolling past it.
Of course, a link click doesn’t automatically mean somebody read every page of the website or developed a deeper understanding of the condition. That would require additional website engagement data to establish.
But encouraging nearly 33,000 clicks towards educational resources represents a meaningful outcome for campaigns designed to help people discover further information.
Video Awareness Campaigns
Video was another important part of the advertising activity.
The MCT8: Real Stories video campaign generated 159,902 ThruPlays at an average reported cost of approximately £0.01 per ThruPlay, with £1,089.46 spent.
The campaign delivered 844,990 impressions and reached 329,088 accounts.
For clarity, a Meta ThruPlay generally records a video watched to completion if it’s shorter than 15 seconds, or watched for at least 15 seconds if it’s longer.
That means the campaign generated a substantial volume of measurable video viewing activity, rather than simply counting every impression as a meaningful video view.
Video can be especially useful for awareness campaigns because it allows organisations to communicate information in a format that’s accessible, engaging and capable of capturing attention quickly.
The campaign results show how effectively paid social media can distribute video content to a much wider audience.
World MCT8-AHDS Day 2025
The World MCT8-AHDS Day 2025 #ShareYourRare campaign provides another useful example of the approach.
This campaign generated 1,353 landing page views at an average cost of approximately £0.22 per landing page view, with £299.08 spent.
It delivered 112,791 impressions and reached 83,000 accounts.
Landing page views are particularly useful to monitor because they indicate that people didn’t simply click the advert. Meta also recorded the destination page loading.
For campaigns intended to encourage people to visit an educational website, this is an important distinction.
A link click is useful, but a recorded landing page view gives us a stronger indication that somebody actually reached the intended destination.
A Snapshot of the Campaign Performance
| Campaign | Primary result | Cost per result | Spend |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCT8 Traffic | 25,179 link clicks | £0.06 | £1,481.31 |
| MCT8: Real Stories | 159,902 ThruPlays | £0.01 | £1,089.46 |
| World MCT8 Day 2024 | 2,785 link clicks | £0.14 | £399.95 |
| World Thyroid Day 2024 | 2,071 link clicks | £0.12 | £250.00 |
| Rare Disease Day 2024 | 2,936 link clicks | £0.09 | £250.00 |
| World MCT8-AHDS Day 2025 | 1,353 landing page views | £0.22 | £299.08 |
These results demonstrate the different ways Meta Ads can contribute to an awareness campaign. Some adverts were designed to encourage website visits, while others focused on reaching people through video or building awareness.
Rather than measuring every advert against the same result, we looked at performance in relation to the objective of each campaign.
Why Video Was Valuable for This Campaign
When you’re trying to raise awareness of a relatively unfamiliar subject, you have an important challenge.
You need to capture somebody’s attention and give them a reason to care.
Social media users are constantly scrolling past photographs, videos, news stories, advertisements and updates from friends and family.
An educational advert needs to compete for attention within that environment.
Video can be a particularly useful format because it allows information to be communicated through movement, sound, visuals and storytelling.
For a rare disease awareness campaign, video also creates opportunities to move beyond purely technical explanations and help audiences engage with the subject in a more accessible way.
The performance of the MCT8: Real Stories campaign illustrates the potential reach of this approach.
Generating almost 160,000 ThruPlays demonstrates that the video advertising achieved significant viewing activity.
However, video views alone shouldn’t be confused with proof of increased medical understanding. They tell us that the content was viewed, not precisely what each viewer learned or remembered.
That’s why video performance should be considered alongside other objectives, including website traffic and engagement with further educational resources.
Why Low-Cost Website Traffic Was Particularly Encouraging
One of the standout results from the reporting is the main MCT8 Traffic campaign, which generated 25,179 link clicks at approximately 6p per click.
For an awareness campaign, this meant the advertising budget was able to encourage a large volume of people to take the next step towards educational information.
That matters because paid social media budgets are rarely unlimited.
Every pound needs to work towards the campaign’s objective.
The lower the cost of generating a relevant website visit or engagement, the more activity a campaign can potentially achieve within its available budget.
Of course, the cheapest click isn’t automatically the best click.
If a campaign generates thousands of visits from people who have no interest in the subject, the low cost becomes much less impressive.
That’s why we placed importance on tailoring the advertising to the intended audiences rather than simply trying to generate the largest possible numbers.
The goal was to combine efficient advertising performance with relevant messaging and appropriate website destinations.
Different Campaign Objectives Require Different Metrics
One of the most important lessons from this case study is that Meta advertising performance can’t be judged using one metric alone.
For example, the MCT8: Real Stories campaign generated almost 160,000 ThruPlays. The main traffic campaign generated more than 25,000 link clicks. The 2025 World MCT8-AHDS Day campaign generated 1,353 landing page views.
Those are three different outcomes.
It wouldn’t make sense to declare one campaign better simply because its result number was larger.
The video campaign was designed to encourage viewing activity.
The traffic campaigns were designed to encourage people to visit further information.
And awareness-focused activity can be evaluated using measures such as reach and impressions.
This is something we regularly explain to businesses considering Meta Ads.
Before launching a campaign, you need to understand what you’re asking the advertising to achieve.
If you want people to visit your website, measure website traffic.
If you want people to watch a video, examine video performance.
If you want enquiries, measure leads and their quality.
And if you’re trying to raise awareness of an important subject, consider how effectively you’re reaching relevant people and encouraging them to engage with the information.
The campaign objective should influence the strategy from the beginning.
What Small Businesses Can Learn From This Campaign
Although this campaign focused on a rare medical condition, there are several lessons that apply directly to small business social media advertising.
The first is the importance of understanding your audience.
Many businesses assume that because they offer one product or service, they only need one advertising message.
But customers often approach the same business with very different needs.
Imagine a company offering driving lessons. A teenager learning to drive for the first time will probably respond to different messaging from a parent researching lessons for their child.
A personal trainer might need different advertising for somebody looking to improve general fitness and somebody preparing for a particular sporting event.
A business offering home improvements could tailor its messaging to homeowners interested in energy efficiency, security or appearance.
The product or service might be the same, but the motivation is different.
Understanding those motivations helps you create advertising that feels more relevant to the people seeing it.
The second lesson is that paid advertising can be useful even when you’re not directly selling something.
Perhaps you’re launching a new business and want more local people to recognise your name. Maybe you’re introducing a service that customers don’t fully understand. Perhaps you’ve created an educational resource that would be valuable to potential customers.
Meta Ads can help you reach people beyond your existing followers and introduce them to that information.
The third lesson is the importance of matching the advert to the destination.
If your advertising encourages somebody to learn more about a particular subject, the page they reach should provide the information they’re expecting.
The advert creates interest.
The website needs to satisfy it.
And finally, the results demonstrate why campaign reporting needs to focus on meaningful objectives rather than simply celebrating large numbers.
Views, clicks, landing page visits and reach all tell us different things.
Understanding those differences is essential when deciding whether a campaign is working.
Meta Ads Can Be About More Than Generating Sales
We spend a lot of time discussing how Facebook and Instagram advertising can help businesses generate enquiries, attract customers and increase sales.
And rightly so.
For many small businesses, those are the primary reasons for investing in paid social media.
But this campaign demonstrates another valuable use of the platforms.
Meta Ads can help important information reach people who might otherwise never encounter it.
For an organisation raising awareness of a rare medical condition, the objective can be to educate, inform and encourage people towards resources that help them understand a subject more clearly.
The ability to tailor messaging to different audiences makes that particularly useful.
Rather than publishing one message and hoping it reaches everybody, campaigns can be structured around the different groups an organisation wants to communicate with.
And by reviewing the results, it’s possible to understand how the budget has been spent, which campaign objectives generated measurable activity and where future improvements might be made.
That’s the value of having a clear strategy behind your social media advertising.
Reaching the Right People With the Right Message
The MCT8 deficiency campaigns are a good example of how targeted social media advertising can support an important awareness objective.
Across the activity shown in Meta Ads Manager, the campaigns delivered almost two million impressions, generated substantial video viewing activity and encouraged tens of thousands of clicks towards further information.
The main traffic campaign achieved more than 25,000 link clicks at approximately 6p each, while the Real Stories video campaign generated almost 160,000 ThruPlays.
Those are encouraging results for advertising designed to help people discover and engage with educational content.
But perhaps the most important element of the strategy was recognising that different audiences needed different messages.
By considering the perspectives of healthcare providers and carers alongside those of patients and families, the advertising could be tailored to the people it was intended to reach.
That’s a principle that applies to almost every successful marketing campaign.
You need to understand who you’re talking to, what matters to them and what you want them to do next.
At SMR Social, we’re a family of social media managers helping businesses and organisations develop effective social media strategies, create engaging content and manage targeted Meta advertising campaigns.
Whether the objective is raising awareness, increasing website traffic, generating enquiries or attracting new customers, we focus on creating campaigns with clear objectives, relevant messaging and measurable results.
Because successful social media advertising isn’t simply about reaching as many people as possible.
It’s about reaching the right people with information that matters to them.