My ad gets plenty of clicks but hardly anyone buys: what do the numbers reveal about where the problem is?

The ad and the page are two separate stages

A buyer's path from an ad has two stages. The first runs from impression to click and is measured by CTR: did the ad catch attention? The second runs from click to order and is measured by conversion rate: did what the visitor found after clicking persuade them? CPA rolls both stages into one number, so when it rises it cannot tell you where the leak is. The two separate rates can.

Example: this campaign against an earlier one

Enter this campaign's figures, then those of an earlier campaign for the same product that you know sold. Both were shown 8,000 times for a spend of 720 AED.

The new ad brought more than twice the clicks at well under half the cost per click, so it won its stage. But fewer than one in every 200 visitors bought, against 4 in 100 last time. CPA quadrupled even though the ad is better. That is the signature of a problem after the click.

What to check after the click

• Does the ad promise something the page does not deliver? A discount in the ad that is missing at checkout, or a colour in the photo that is out of stock.
• Does the page load quickly on a phone, and are the price and buy button visible without long scrolling?
• Do shipping costs or delivery times appear only at checkout?
• Does the link land on the product itself, or on the home page?
• Is the audience clicking the audience that buys, or is the ad attracting curious people with no intent to buy?

These are possibilities for you to check. The calculator cannot see your page or know the cause, but it tells you where to look.

The steps

1. Enter this campaign in the Campaign performance calculator and press 'Copy result'.
2. Enter an earlier campaign for the same product that sold, and compare CTR and conversion rate one at a time.
3. If CTR is the same or higher and conversion rate far lower, start with the page and the offer, not the ad.

Always compare with your own campaigns rather than numbers people pass around about what a good CTR is, since every product, audience and platform has its own. To make sure orders are credited to the right campaign, tag the link with the UTM campaign link builder, then check whether the remaining orders cover the spend in the ROAS calculator.