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A client of mine reached out a few weeks ago and said something I hear quite regularly.
“Jayne, I think we should stop the ads.”
The reason she wanted to stop them wasn’t because they weren’t generating leads. In fact, the ads were doing a really good job. We were getting leads into her funnel for around $1.50 each. The problem was that the funnel wasn’t profitable. There were sales coming through, just not enough of them. So her natural conclusion was, “the ads aren’t working.”
Before we switched anything off, I asked if we could jump on a call and go through the numbers together. Because if your ads aren’t producing the results you want, it’s very often something beyond the ads that’s causing the problem. This client turned out to be a perfect example of that.
A funnel is a series of small conversions, not one
Her funnel was actually very simple. People clicked on the ad. They registered for a pre-recorded training. The training then led into a $197 course. On the surface, everything looked reasonable. The cost per lead was great. Sales were happening. But they weren’t happening often enough to make the ads profitable.
So instead of asking “should we turn the ads off,” we asked a much better question. Where are people dropping off? Where are we losing them throughout the funnel journey?
A funnel isn’t one conversion. It’s a series of small conversions. Someone has to click your ad, register, open your emails, click through to your training, watch your training, stay until the offer, visit your sales page, and then purchase. Every one of those steps matters. If one of them isn’t performing adequately, the entire funnel becomes less profitable.
Where we actually found the bottleneck
The first thing we checked was the opt-in page. Was that the problem? No. The landing page was converting at 45%, which is fantastic, so we knew we didn’t need to touch that.
Next we looked at the sales page. Again, no real issues there either. The sales page was converting at around 11%, a really solid conversion rate for this type of offer.
So we had two parts of the funnel working well. The ads were bringing in affordable leads. The landing page was converting. The sales page was converting. So why wasn’t the funnel making money?
That’s when we looked at what was happening in between. Not enough people were actually watching the training, and even fewer were watching it all the way through to the offer. Which meant not enough people were ever reaching the sales page in the first place. The problem wasn’t getting people into the funnel. The problem was getting people through the funnel.
Fixing the weakest link, not the whole funnel
Once we understood that, the solution became much clearer. Instead of rebuilding the whole funnel, we focused on improving the weakest link.
The client shortened the training. She tightened up the content and removed sections that weren’t essential. She added a bonus resource right at the end of the training, as a genuine incentive for people to stay until the end, because the more people who reached the offer, the more opportunities there were to generate sales.
We also reviewed the emails. The first few emails after registration were rewritten to create more curiosity and give people stronger reasons to watch the training. Then we looked at the sales emails and asked whether they could do a better job of encouraging people to visit the sales page, whether the messaging could be clearer, and whether we could strengthen the call to action. We made those improvements too.
Then we turned the ads back on. At the time of recording, the funnel is now sitting at around a 3x return on ad spend. The ads didn’t suddenly become better. We didn’t make any changes to the ads at all. The targeting didn’t change. The budget didn’t increase. We simply improved what happened after someone clicked.
Imagine if we’d done what my client originally suggested and switched the ads off. We would have lost a funnel with huge potential, not because the ads weren’t working, but because we hadn’t yet found the real bottleneck.
Why one metric never tells the whole story
I think this is where so many business owners get stuck. They look at one number, usually cost per lead or return on ad spend, and make decisions based on that one metric. But one number never tells the whole story. You need to look at the entire journey and ask yourself where people are stopping, where they’re losing momentum, and where they’re deciding not to continue. Every answer gives you another opportunity to improve your funnel.
Here’s something worth remembering. The purpose of your ads isn’t to make sales. I know that probably sounds strange coming from someone who manages Meta™ Ads every day, but it’s true. Your ads have one job, and that’s to move someone to the next step. If the next step is a landing page, your ads need to get quality people to the landing page. If the next step is watching a training, your emails need to get people to watch it. If the next step is visiting a sales page, your training needs to motivate people to click through. Every part of the funnel has its own job. When one piece isn’t doing its job, the whole funnel feels broken, but that doesn’t mean every piece is broken.
Final thoughts
If you’re looking at your own ads this week and wondering whether you should turn them off because they’re not producing enough sales, pause before making that decision. Look at your funnel from beginning to end. Where are people dropping off? What does the data tell you? Is the problem really your ads, or is there another part of the funnel limiting your results?
Often, one small improvement in the right place can completely change the profitability of your entire funnel, and that’s exactly what happened with this client. When every step is working together, that’s when ads become incredibly powerful.
If you’d like help identifying where your own funnel could be improved, that’s exactly the kind of thing we work through inside Abundant Ads Academy
I would love to hear your thoughts...