Solved: Best Ad Campaign for Instagram Shoe Sales?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your situation. It's great that you've got a business running through Instagram, but you've hit on a really common problem when it comes to advertising it. The short answer is that you're using the wrong type of campaigns, but the real issue is a bit deeper than that. I'll walk you through the immediate fix, and then the more important long-term solution that will actually let you build a proper, scalable business.

You're telling Facebook to find window shoppers, not buyers...

Right, let's get straight to the point. The reason your current approach isn't working as well as it could is because you are literally telling Meta's algorithm to do the wrong job. You're running 'Traffic' and 'Engagement' campaigns. So, what does Meta do? It goes out and finds the people within your target audience who are most likely to click a link or like a post. These are often two very different groups of people from those who are likely to actually buy something.

Think about it. We all know people who scroll through Instagram liking hundreds of posts a day but rarely buy anything. They're 'engagers'. Then there are people who click on ads out of curiosity but have no intention of purchasing. They're 'clickers'. By choosing those campaign objectives, you're specifically asking the algorithm to find these people because they are the cheapest to reach for that specific action. You're paying to get your profile in front of people who are, by definition, less likely to become customers.

I've seen this mistake so many times. It's an uncomfortable truth, but when you run an awareness or traffic campaign, you are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you the worst possible audience for your product. Awareness is a byproduct of making sales and having a great product, not a prerequisite for it. For a business like yours, every single pound spent on advertising needs to be aimed at generating a sale. Anything else is just burning cash for vanity metrics that don't pay the bills.

The immediate fix is to change your campaign objective. You want sales, so you should be using the 'Sales' or 'Leads' objective. Within those, you can often select 'Messages' as the conversion location. This tells Meta: "Don't just find me people who like shoe pictures. Find me people who are likely to slide into the DMs and ask 'How much for these in a size 9?'". This is a much better instruction to give the algorithm and it should improve the quality of the interactions you get. It's a step in the right direction, but honestly, it's like putting a plaster on a much bigger wound.

But honestly, selling in DMs is a business nightmare...

While switching to a 'Messages' campaign is better than what you're doing now, you need to understand that the entire foundation of your sales process – selling via Instagram DMs – is fundamentally broken for scaling with paid ads. It's holding you back in ways you probably haven't even considered yet, and it's where almost all of your future problems will come from.

Here’s why it's such a massive bottleneck:

1. You have zero real tracking. This is the single biggest issue. The Meta Pixel is a piece of code that you put on a website. It tracks everything a user does: when they view a product, when they add it to their basket, and when they complete a purchase. This data is the lifeblood of a successful ad campaign. It tells the algorithm exactly what a 'buyer' looks like, so it can go and find more people just like them. When a sale happens in your DMs, the Pixel sees nothing. It's a complete black hole. You can't track which ad led to which sale. You can't calculate your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). You are flying completely blind, and so is Meta's algorithm. You can't optimise what you can't measure, and right now, you can't measure anything that truly matters.

2. It’s completely unscalable. It might feel manageable now, but what happens when your ads start working? Can you handle 50 DM conversations at once? 100? Each one requires manual back-and-forth, checking stock, taking payment details (which is a security risk in itself), and confirming shipping info. It's an incredible amount of work for one sale. A proper eCommerce store automates all of this. A customer can buy a pair of shoes at 3 AM without you having to lift a finger. Your current setup makes growth your enemy, because every new sale adds a disproportionate amount of manual labour.

3. It creates a terrible customer experience. In a world of Amazon one-click-ordering, you're asking a customer to enter a manual, slow, high-friction process. They have to ask for a price, wait for you to reply, ask about sizes, wait for you to reply, figure out how to pay... at any one of these steps, you can lose them. A competitor with a simple "Add to Cart" button will win every single time. It also can feel a bit unprofessional or even untrustworthy to some buyers, which will definetly hurt your conversion rate before a conversation even starts.

You're not just selling shoes; you're selling a buying experience. And right now, the experience you're offering is working against you. To seriously grow with paid advertising, you need to fix this foundation first.

You need a proper sales engine, not just a social profile...

The solution to all of this is to build a proper home for your business online: an eCommerce website. Platforms like Shopify have made this incredibly easy and affordable. This isn't just a "nice to have"; for a business that wants to use paid ads effectively, it is an absolute necessity. It's the difference between having a market stall and having a flagship store on the high street.

A dedicated website immediately solves the huge problems we just discussed:

• It enables tracking. You can install the Meta Pixel (and Google Analytics) and see the entire customer journey. You'll know which ads are driving sales, which products are most popular, and where customers are dropping off in the buying process. This data is gold. It's what allows us to scale campaigns for our clients from a few sales a day to hundreds.
• It automates the sales process. Customers browse, add to cart, and check out using secure payment gateways like Stripe or PayPal. The order comes through to you, ready to be fulfilled. Your time is freed up to focus on what matters: sourcing great shoes, creating great ads, and providing customer service.
• It builds trust and credibility. A professional, well-designed website shows that you are a legitimate business. You can have an 'About Us' page, customer reviews, clear return policies, and professional product photography. I've seen countless businesses struggle with ads, and when I look at their site, it's immediately obvious why people wouldn't feel comfortable ordering. Things like high-quality photos (maybe on a model or in a lifestyle setting, not just on a white background), detailed product descriptions, and trust signals like customer testimonials are not optional. They are vital for converting ad clicks into customers.

Without seeing your products, I can already give some general advice based on hundreds of eCommerce stores I've reviewed. The start page shouldn't be cluttered. It needs to load fast. The product images need to be sharp and show the shoes from multiple angles. You need clear, persuasive descriptions for each product – don't just list the material, sell the style, the comfort, the feeling someone gets when they wear them. Your current process on Instagram probably skips alot of this important stuff.

Building the website is step one. It's your new foundation. Once that's in place, and only then, can you start to build a truly effective and scalable advertising strategy on top of it.

Once your store is built, this is how you'll advertise...

Okay, imagine you now have a shiny new Shopify store with the Meta Pixel correctly installed. Now we can finally stop messing around and start advertising properly. The strategy we'd typically implement is a full-funnel approach. This means we have different campaigns designed to speak to people at different stages of their buying journey.

We usually structure this into three parts: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu).

1. Top of Funnel (ToFu): Finding New Customers

This is your prospecting campaign. The goal here is to reach people who have never heard of you before but who are likely to be interested in your shoes. The campaign objective will be 'Sales', and you'll optimise for the 'Purchase' event.

For targeting, you'll start with detailed targeting based on interests. You need to think about your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). -> What other brands do they like? (e.g., Nike, Adidas, Allbirds, Dr. Martens) -> What magazines or influencers do they follow? (e.g., Hypebeast, Sneaker Freaker, fashion influencers) -> What are their related interests? (e.g., "streetwear", "sneaker collecting", "fashion accessories")

You'd create different ad sets, each testing a different theme of related interests. For instance, one ad set for competitor brands, one for streetwear interests, one for general fashion. The key is to be specific. Targeting a broad interest like "Shopping" is useless. Targeting "Admins of a Facebook page about sneaker collecting" is much, much better. Your creative here is everything. You need eye-catching images and videos that stop the scroll and showcase your shoes in the best possible light.

2. Middle and Bottom of Funnel (MoFu/BoFu): Retargeting

This is where the magic of the Pixel comes in, and it's often the most profitable part of any ad account. These campaigns target people who have already interacted with your brand in some way but haven't bought yet. They are 'warm' audiences. Again, your objective is 'Sales' optimised for 'Purchase'.

Here are the audiences you absolutely must be retargeting, in order of priority:

• Added to Cart / Initiated Checkout (in the last 7-14 days): These people were *so* close to buying. They are your hottest prospects. You can hit them with an ad that reminds them what they left behind, maybe even with a small discount code like "COMEBACK10" to nudge them over the line.
• Viewed Products (in the last 30 days): They showed interest in specific shoes but didn't add to cart. You can use Dynamic Product Ads here, which automatically show them the exact shoes they were looking at. It's incredibly powerful and feels very personal.
• All Website Visitors (in the last 30-60 days): A broader audience, but still warmer than a cold prospect. You can show them ads featuring your bestsellers, customer testimonials, or new arrivals to entice them back.
• Video Viewers / Instagram Engagers: People who watched a significant portion of your video ads or engaged with your posts. They know who you are, so the next step is to get them to the site.

By splitting your campaigns this way, you can tailor your message perfectly. You wouldn't speak to a total stranger (ToFu) the same way you'd speak to someone who has a pair of your shoes sitting in their online basket (BoFu). This structure gives you control and allows the algorithm to work its magic on distinct audience pools.

Let's talk numbers: What this actually costs and what you can expect...

So, what kind of results can you expect? This is the million-dollar question, and the honest answer is: it varies. It depends massively on your shoes, your pricing, your website's conversion rate, and how good your ads are. But I can give you some realistic ballpark figures based on the hundreds of eCommerce campaigns we've run.

For eCommerce stores selling in developed countries (like the UK, US, etc.), you might see these kinds of numbers:

• Cost Per Click (CPC): Anything from £0.50 to £1.50 is pretty standard. This is how much you pay every time someone clicks your ad.
• Website Conversion Rate (CR): A typical eCommerce store converts between 2-5% of its visitors into buyers. Let's be conservative and say you start at 2%. This means for every 100 visitors to your site, 2 will make a purchase.

Now we can do some simple maths to figure out your estimated Cost Per Purchase (CPP).
If your CPC is £1.00 and your conversion rate is 2%, you need 50 clicks to get one sale (100 visitors / 2 sales = 50 visitors per sale).
Therefore, your Cost Per Purchase would be 50 clicks * £1.00/click = £50.

If your shoes sell for £100 and cost you £30 to make, your profit per pair is £70. If it costs you £50 to acquire that customer, you've made £20 profit. That's a sustainable business. But if it costs you £80 to acquire them, you're losing money on every sale. This is why knowing your numbers is so important. The real metric you need to obsess over isn't CPP, it's Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). If you spend £100 on ads and generate £400 in revenue, your ROAS is 4x. This is the ultimate measure of success for any eCommerce business.

The goal is to constantly work on improving these numbers. Better ad creative and targeting will lower your CPC. A better website, better product photos, and more persuasive descriptions will increase your conversion rate. A 1% improvement in your conversion rate (from 2% to 3%) would drop your Cost Per Purchase from £50 to just £33 in the example above. That's a huge difference to your bottom line.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

I know this is alot of information, so I've broken it down into a clear, actionable plan. This is the exact path I would take you on if you were a client, moving from a fragile DM-based system to a robust, scalable eCommerce business driven by profitable advertising.

As you can see, this is a journey. It takes time and expertise to get right. You can definetly try to do all of this yourself, but the learning curve can be steep and costly mistakes are common. Getting professional help can massively speed up the process and help you avoid burning through your budget while you figure things out.

I'm reminded of a women's apparel brand we worked with. They were in a similar position, struggling to make their ads profitable. By implementing the kind of robust, data-driven strategy I've outlined, we generated a 691% return on their ad spend. We've seen similar or even better results for other eCommerce clients, with some achieving an 8x or even 10x return.

If you're serious about turning your Instagram page into a real business, I'd suggest we have a chat. We offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can talk through your specific situation in more detail and give you a clearer picture of the potential.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh