Conversion Rate Optimization: Why Are My Ads Not Converting?

Speaking with a founder of a supplement startup company, he explained he had spent a few hundred dollars on Meta and TikTok ads, but had very little to show for it. He was asking if I could take a look at his ads and landing page and offer some feedback.

With ads, there are essentially 4 variables:

Ad creative
Offer
Audience
Budget

So if you are not acheiving the desired result, it could be your messaging is unclear (not sure how your product solves my problem – what’s at stake if I don’t have your product) or your ad creative isn’t captivating enough. Does the image alone match your offering, is it specific enough, is it clear at first glance what problem you are solving and for which customer? If not, there may be some more experimentation that can be done here.

Second is offer – perhaps your product is just too expensive, or not price appropriately. If you are offering a discount, perhaps it isn’t appealing (especially compared to substitutes). So much goes into pricing a product appropriately.

Next, are you even speaking to the right audience? Targeting is a tricky thing not just within the ads platform, but from a positioning standpoint. You may think your audience is one type of group and make all sorts of assumptions about what will influence them, but you could be way off, or relying on stereotypes, generalizations, and guessing.

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Third thing to be mindful of is your budget – it is likely too small to target enough people with enough frequency. A couple hundred dollars is not an adequate budget. Ads take a long time to test and exit the “learning phase“. So everything could be perfect and you don’t need to change a thing, except your campaigns ended before liftoff. I would stick to one platform, and hyperfocus your targeting to one city or neighbourhood in that city. This will allow your ads to run more frequently to the same audience. They may not click on the first sight of your ad, but 10 viewings they may become curious.

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Of course, there are other things such as landing page, packaging, social proof or trust, ad optimization (time of day, retargeting, campaign setup, frequency, headlines, CTAs, etc.).

A common issue with a lot of startups is that they feel they have this new and unique solution to a problem, but it often solves a problem people don’t know they have. We call this an uneducated consumer, or they are “problem unaware”. In other words, is there a strong enough demand for your product? You can look at the market leader in your space and see the ads and landing pages they are running. Maybe there is some insight there. You can try:

a UGC style video and talk about the problem and solution
Show a morning routine of them taking your supplements
Do a fun skit where you’re not sure you’re watching an ad until the end

You may want to try running campaigns with one message (instead of three, as was this founder’s case). His ads were saying, “Supports liver health” + “Great for relaxation” + “Improve digestion”. I would focus on one of those for each campaign – the ad copy and creative would then be all about why this is one thing is important. Then do a separate campaign for relaxation and why that’s important. Each of these are going to speak to different pains people are having. Perhaps there are few people that have all three issues, and that’s why it’s missing it’s mark.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, are you talking to actual buyers or consumers?

I’d be curious to know what the feedback is. If you have their emails, perhaps reach out to them with a survey or schedule some 1:1 time with them and ask:

Why do you like this?
What attracted you to this initially?
How often do you use this?
What benefits, if any, are you seeing?
Have you considered an substitutes, what was your experience?
What one thing could we remove that would make your stop buying the product?
What one thing could we improve to make your tell 10 of your friends?

Community Building for Brands

How do you make your brand stand out?

The answer lies in the age-old art of storytelling. Just as a perfect ball game keeps fans on the edge of their seats, a well-told story can captivate your audience, create emotional connections, and ultimately drive action.

The following was taken from the book, Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama, by David Mamet

What do we wish for in the perfect ballgame? Do we wish for our team to take the field and thrash the opposition from the first moment, rolling up a walkover score at the final gun?

No. We wish for a closely fought match that contains many satisfying reversals, but many of which can be seen retroactively to have always tended toward a satisfying and inevitable conclusion.

Continue Reading: The Perfect Ball Game: How We Can Use Drama in our Storytelling Marketing