Solved: Ad+ Audience CTR Plummeting After Initial Success

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out about the issues with your Advantage+ campaign. I've had a look at what you described and it's something I see all the time, so don't worry, it's a common problem. It's frustrating when you see great initial results like a 7x ROAS, only for it to fall off a cliff a week later. Cutting the budget is a natural reaction, but it doesn't really fix the root cause.

I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and a bit of guidance on what's likely happening and what you should probably do about it. The short answer is that you've likely exhausted the low-hanging fruit and now you need to give the algorithm a much clearer map to find your next customers. It's about moving from letting Meta guess, to telling it exactly who to look for and what to say to them.

We'll need to look at the Advantage+ Audience Trap...

Right, let's get straight to it. That initial success you saw? That was Meta's algorithm doing what it does best: finding the easiest, most obvious conversions available. Think of it like this: you gave it a few 'hints', and it sprinted off and scooped up all the people who were practically waiting to buy from you anyway. They were already warm, already considering a purchase, and your ad was just the final nudge they needed. This is why you saw that great 4% CTR and 7x ROAS.

But here's the uncomfortable truth about Advantage+ when used like this: it's a trap for the unwary. People see those initial amazing results and think they've found a magic bullet. They crank up the spend, sit back, and expect the good times to keep rolling. They won't.

What you're seeing now is what always happens next. The algorithm has exhausted that small, hyper-receptive pocket of users. To keep spending your budget, it now has to go exploring. It's being 'adventurous'. It starts showing your ads to broader, less relevant audiences based on looser connections to your initial hints. These people are colder. They're not actively looking to buy. They're not as interested. And so, your CTR crashes, your costs go up, and your sales dry up. The algorithm is now essentially paying to find you non-customers, because you told it to just go find 'sales' and it's run out of the easy ones.

Your action of cutting the budget by 30% was understandable, but it's like putting a plaster on a broken leg. You're just telling the algorithm to be less adventurous with less money, but you haven't solved the core problem: it doesn't have a good map for where to go next. You've lost control. The key now isn't to timidly reduce spend on a failing campaign, but to build a robust campaign structure that gives you back that control and creates a sustainable system for finding new customers, not just a one-week wonder.

I'd say you need to stop guessing and start structuring...

The solution here isn't to make 'significant edits' to your existing Advantage+ campaign. Tbh, I'd probably kill it, or at least pause it and keep it as a reminder. The real solution is to build a proper, structured advertising funnel with seperate campaigns and ad sets. This sounds more complicated, but it's how you get consistent, scalable results instead of just catching lightning in a bottle for a few days.

Forget the idea that 'the algorithm knows best'. It only knows what you feed it. If you feed it garbage, you get garbage results. If you feed it high-quality, targeted data and clear instructions, it becomes an unbelievably powerful tool. Your job is to be the brains of the operation, not just a passenger.

This means breaking down your audiences into different stages of awareness and intent. In simple terms, you have three main groups of people:

1. Cold Audiences (Top of Funnel - ToFu): These are people who've likely never heard of you. You need to grab their attention and make them problem-aware. This is where you'll use interest and lookalike targeting.

2. Warm Audiences (Middle of Funnel - MoFu): These people have shown some interest. They've visited your website, watched a video, or engaged with your page. They know who you are, but they're not ready to buy yet. You need to build trust and desire.

3. Hot Audiences (Bottom of Funnel - BoFu): These are your hottest prospects. They've added a product to their cart, initiated checkout, or are on your email list. They are on the verge of buying. You just need to give them that final push and close the deal.

Your Advantage+ campaign was lumping all these people together and letting the algorithm figure it out. It found the BoFu people first, then failed when it tried to talk to the ToFu audience with the same ad. By building seperate campaigns for each stage, you can tailor your message, your offer, and your budget to exactly where that person is in their buying journey. This is how you regain control and build a predictable sales machine.

You probably should obsess over your audience priority...

Okay, so how do you actually implement this? You start by meticulously testing audiences, but not just randomly. You need to test them in order of priority. I always tell my clients that the further down the funnel an audience is, the more valuable they are and the better they will perform. Your highest ROAS will almost always come from your hottest audiences.

For a new account, you have to start with detailed targeting (interests, behaviours) to gather data. As soon as you have enough conversions (you need at least 100 in a custom audience to make a lookalike, but tbh you want more for it to be any good), you can start building out the rest of your funnel. A mistake I see all the time is people testing lookalikes that are too broad or based on low-intent actions like 'page views'. You want lookalikes of your best customers and your most valuable conversion events.

Here's the priority I'd generally follow for an eCommerce business. You can adapt this for pretty much any buisness model.

You need to be ruthless here. Test, test, test. Set up a ToFu campaign with multiple ad sets, each testing a different high-potential lookalike or interest group. Run it for a few days. If an ad set has spent 2-3x your target cost per purchase and has no sales, kill it. It's not working. Double down on the winners. Then do the same for your MoFu and BoFu campaigns with tailored creative for each. This constant process of testing and optimising is the actual job, not just setting up a campaign and hoping for the best.

And for your interest targeting, you have to be so specific. If you sell high-end coffee beans, targeting 'Coffee' is a waste of money. You'll reach millions of people who drink instant coffee from the supermarket. You need to target interests like 'James Hoffmann', 'Fellow Products', 'Specialty Coffee Association', or followers of specific roasteries. You need to find the interests that your ideal customer has, that the average person does not. That's the secret.

You'll need a message that actually works...

Even with the perfect audience structure, your campaigns will fail if your ad creative is rubbish. The drop in your CTR from 4% to 2.6% isn't just because the audience got worse; it's also because the ad that worked for the hot audience doesn't work for a colder one. This is called creative fatigue, and it's your other big enemy.

You need a system for constantly creating and testing new ads. Different angles, different hooks, different formats. Your hot BoFu audience might just need a simple reminder with a discount code: "Still thinking about it? Here's 10% off to help you decide." But your cold ToFu audience knows nothing about you. You need to stop them scrolling and make them care.

The best way to do this is to stop selling your product, and start selling the solution to their problem. Speak directly to their pain points. Here are a couple of frameworks we use that just work:

1. Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS): You state a problem they recognise, you pour salt on the wound by describing how bad that problem feels, and then you present your product as the perfect solution.

Example for a sleep aid product: "(Problem) Can't switch off at night? Tossing and turning for hours? (Agitate) You know you'll be a zombie tomorrow, struggling through meetings and missing out on family time. (Solve) Our blend helps you drift off naturally in 20 minutes. Wake up feeling refreshed, not groggy."

2. Before-After-Bridge (BAB): You paint a picture of their current frustrating world (Before). Then you show them the amazing world they could be living in (After). Your product is the Bridge that gets them there.

Example for a project management tool: "(Before) Your team's projects are a mess of missed deadlines, lost files, and endless email chains. (After) Imagine every project running on time, everyone on the same page, and a feeling of calm control. (Bridge) Our platform is the bridge. See how in a 2-minute demo."

You need to be testing these different angles constantly. Test static images against videos. Test user-generated content (UGC) style videos against polished ads. Test long copy vs short copy. I remember one client selling womens apparel, we saw a massive 691% return simply by switching from standard product shots to more relatable, UGC-style images and videos. The creative is your single biggest lever for performance once your targeting is solid. Your current situation, with CTRs crashing, is a massive signal that your current creative has run its course and you need fresh blood.

Finally, you need to know what a customer is actually worth...

This might seem a bit advanced, but it's probably the most important shift in mindset you can make. You're focused on ROAS, which is good. But the real question isn't "what was my ROAS today?", it's "how much can I afford to pay to acquire a customer and still be wildly profitable?". The answer is your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

If you only focus on short-term ROAS, you'll always be scared to spend. You'll cut budgets at the first sign of trouble, just like you did. But if you know that every customer you acquire will, on average, spend £500 with you over the next two years, you can make much smarter decisions. Suddenly, paying £50 or even £100 to get that customer doesn't seem so expensive, does it?

Calculating a basic LTV isn't as hard as it sounds. You just need a few numbers:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average amount a customer spends with you per month (or year)?

2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue?

3. Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month?

Here's the simple calculation:

LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Let's run a quick example. Let's say you sell a subscription box:

• ARPA = £30/month
• Gross Margin = 60% (0.60)
• Monthly Churn = 10% (0.10)

LTV = (£30 * 0.60) / 0.10
LTV = £18 / 0.10 = £180

In this case, every new subscriber is worth £180 in gross margin to your business. A common rule of thumb is to aim for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £60 to acquire a new customer (£180 / 3). Knowing this number is liberating. It means when your cold prospecting campaigns are getting you customers for £55, you know you're still making a fantastic investment, even if the immediate ROAS isn't 7x. It allows you to scale confidently.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, so I've broken down the main recommendations into a clearer plan for you to follow. This is the process we'd use to fix a situation like yours and build something sustainable.

Following this framework is a lot more work than just hitting 'publish' on an Advantage+ campaign, there's no doubt about that. But this is the difference between amateur advertising and professional, strategic media buying. It's the path to predictable, scalable growth.

Executing this consistently—the constant audience research, the creative production, the daily performance analysis, the ruthless optimisation—is where the real challenge lies. It takes time, expertise, and a very specific skillset to do it well. This is often where businesses decide to bring in an expert pair of hands, not just to set things up, but to manage the entire ongoing process.

Hope this helps give you a clearer picture of what to do next. It's definitly a solvable problem. If you'd like to chat further and have us take a look at your ad account to give you some more specific pointers, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We could walk through your setup together and identify the biggest opportunities.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh