Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out. I reviewed your site, and I can see why you'd be frustrated. Spending over $400 without a single sale is a tough pill to swallow, especially when you can see people are getting so close to buying.
I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and guidance. The short version is this: I don't think your ads are the main culprit here. Your real problem lies on your website, specifically in the final moments before a customer is supposed to give you their money. You're getting them to the finish line and then something is scaring them away. Let's break down what that might be.
Let's forget the ads for a moment... your real problem is trust and friction
Honestly, everyone gets obsessed with ad metrics like CTR and CPC. Yours aren't perfect, but they're not a disaster either. A 1.90% CTR means the ads are grabbing some attention. A $1.25 CPC is within a normal range for a market like the US. The $24 CPM is a bit high, which we'll come back to, but it's not the reason you have zero sales.
The most important piece of data you have is this: 8 people went through the entire personalisation process, uploaded a photo, tweaked the settings, saw the final product, and added it to their cart. That is a massive signal of intent. These weren't casual browsers. They were ready to buy. And then, every single one of them vanished.
This isn't an ad targeting problem. This is a checkout problem. It's caused by two things: friction and a lack of trust.
Friction is anything that makes the buying process difficult or annoying. I looked at your product page, and the biggest red flag for me is the delivery time. It states 2-3 weeks. For an emotional, often impulsive purchase like a custom pet portrait, that is an eternity. In an age of Amazon Prime, people are impatient. They see "2-3 weeks" and all the excitement from creating their print just evaporates. They're thinking, "I have to wait almost a month for this?". It's a huge conversion killer.
You need to ask yourself if there's any way to shorten this. Can you offer a paid express option? Even if most people don't take it, just seeing a "5-7 day express delivery" option makes the standard time feel more like a choice and less like a mandatory long wait. Another bit of friction could be unexpected costs. Are you surprising them with a high shipping fee on the very last page? That's one of the top reasons for cart abandonment. You need to be upfront about all costs.
Trust is the other, even bigger, issue. Your site needs to feel like a legitimate, professional business that can be trusted with someone's money and, more importantly, the memory of their pet. Right now, it feels a bit generic. You need to build a fortress of trust signals around your product.
Some thoughts on that:
-> Real Reviews & Photos: You need customer testimonials with photos of the actual finished canvases in their homes. Not just star ratings, but real text from happy customers. Even better, pictures of them holding the art, or the art hanging on a wall next to the pet it's based on. This is the single most powerful trust signal you can have.
-> An "About Us" Story: Who are you? Are you a faceless AI-art company, or are you a team of pet lovers who wanted to create something special? People connect with stories, not with corporate entities. A simple page with a picture of you and your own pet, explaining why you started this business, can make a huge difference.
-> Be Easy to Contact: A physical address (even a PO Box), a phone number, a professional email address – these things matter. It shows there's a real person to talk to if something goes wrong.
-> Policies and Guarantees: Do you have a clear, easy-to-find returns policy? What if someone isn't happy with the artwork? A "satisfaction guarantee" can reduce the perceived risk for a first-time buyer.
My overall impression is that your store doesn't look all that trustworthy yet, which means I probably wouldn't feel completely comfortable ordering from you. You have to remember, you're a brand new store asking for money online. You have to go above and beyond to make people feel safe.
We'll need to look at your offer... it's not just a canvas, it's an emotional solution
Building on the trust issue, we need to think about what you're really selling. The number one reason I see campaigns fail is a weak offer, or a good offer presented poorly. You're not selling a printed canvas with a pet on it. That's a commodity.
You're selling a solution to a deep, emotional need for a very specific type of person: someone who loves their pet so much they want to immortalise them as a piece of art. They are celebrating a member of their family. Your entire website, from the homepage copy to the product description, needs to reflect this deep emotional connection.
Right now, your copy is very functional. It describes the product. Instead, it needs to sell the feeling. It needs to speak directly to that pet owner's heart. This is about transforming their beloved companion into a "timeless masterpiece" that "captures their unique personality". It's about creating a "daily reminder of the joy they bring to your life". This kind of emotional language is what drives action for a product like this.
You should turn your service into a clearly defined, high-value offer. It's not just "upload a photo and we'll print it". It's a "Personalised Pet Portrait Experience". This makes it feel special and bespoke, not like a generic print-on-demand service. This reframing is subtle but it makes a huge psychological difference and helps justify the price and the wait time.
You have to make your entire website an ode to pets and the people who adore them. The current design is clean, but it's also sterile. It could be selling any product. It needs more soul, more personality. It needs to feel like it was made by pet lovers, for pet lovers. This emotional context is what will give people the final push they need to overcome any hesitation and click "Complete Purchase".
I'd say you need a much smarter retargeting strategy... those 8 people are gold
Okay, let's talk about those 8 people who added to cart. These people are not a failure; they are a goldmine. They are your warmest audience. They've told you they want your product. For whatever reason – the delivery time, a distraction, a last-minute doubt – they didn't finish. Your job now is to gently remind them and make it easy for them to come back.
You need a dedicated retargeting campaign on Meta (Facebook/Instagram) aimed only at these people. This is classic Bottom-of-Funnel (BoFu) advertising. Based on my experience, this is often the most profitable part of any eCommerce ad account.
| Campaign Component | Setup Details |
|---|---|
| Campaign Objective | Conversions (Purchase) |
| Audience | Custom Audience: People who 'Added to Cart' in the last 7-14 days. Important: Exclude people who have 'Purchased' in the last 180 days. You don't want to annoy new customers. |
| Budget | Small. Start with just $5-$10 per day. This audience will be tiny at first. |
| Ad Creative | Use a Carousel ad showing off your best-looking example prints. Or a simple image ad that's visually striking. |
The copy for these ads is critical. It needs to be direct and helpful. Don't be shy. You can test a few angles:
Ad Copy Idea 1 (The Gentle Reminder):
Headline: Still thinking about it?
Body: Your beautiful custom pet portrait is waiting for you! We've saved your design so you can pick up right where you left off. Don't let your masterpiece get away. Complete your order now.
Ad Copy Idea 2 (The Scarcity/Offer Angle):
Headline: Your Cart is About to Expire...
Body: Did you forget something? Your custom pet art is still in your cart. To help you make up your mind, here's 10% off your entire order, just for you. Use code COMEBACK10 at checkout. This offer is only good for 48 hours!
Sometimes, all people need is a small nudge or a little incentive to get them over the line. A targeted offer just for cart abandoners can work wonders and is a standard tactic for succesful eCommerce stores. Running ads without a proper retargeting strategy like this is like letting money walk out the door.
You probably should look at your numbers properly... let's calculate what you can actually afford to spend
This is the part of the conversation that can be a bit brutal, but it's essential. We need to look at your business maths. The real question isn't "Why aren't my ads working?" but "What can I actually afford to pay for a customer and still make a profit?". The answer lies in your Lifetime Value (LTV).
For a business like yours where a customer likely only buys once, we can simplify this to the profit on a single sale. Let's make some assumptions.
| Example Unit Economics Calculation | |
|---|---|
| Average Order Value (AOV) | Let's say your canvas sells for $49.99. We'll round to $50. |
| Gross Margin % | This is your profit after the cost of the canvas, printing, and shipping. For print-on-demand, let's be generous and say it's 50%. |
| Customer Value (Profit per sale) | $50 (AOV) * 50% (Margin) = $25 |
So, you make $25 in gross profit for every sale. This is the absolute maximum you can spend to acquire a customer (your Customer Acquisition Cost, or CPA) just to break even on ad spend. A healthy business would aim for a 3:1 ratio, meaning you'd want your CPA to be around $8-$9.
Now let's look at your current ad performance. Your CPC is $1.25. A typical eCommerce conversion rate is between 2-5%. Let's be optimistic and say you can get your website converting at 2%. Your expected CPA would be:
$1.25 (CPC) / 2% (Conversion Rate) = $62.50 CPA
Do you see the problem? Your business model dictates you need an $8 CPA, but the ads are on track to deliver a $62.50 CPA. You're set to lose $37.50 on every single sale. This is why you haven't scaled and why you're burning cash. Your current strategy is simply not financially viable.
The only way to fix this is to dramatically improve your website's conversion rate (as we've discussed) and/or dramatically lower your cost per click by improving your ad targeting and creative.
You'll need to fix the ads too... but only after the website is sorted
Once you've fixed the friction and trust issues on your site, you can turn your attention back to the ads. That high $24 CPM suggests your audience might be too broad or you're facing a lot of competition. Running a "Broad Purchase Campaign" can work, but only once Meta's algorithm has thousands of data points to learn from. You're not there yet.
You need to be much more specific. I've found that you must stop targeting "pet owners" and start targeting the right kind of pet owners. Forget demographics. You need to target a mindset. In my experience, your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't just someone with a dog; it's a "dog mum" who has an Instagram account for her poodle. It's someone who buys premium, grain-free dog food. It's someone who follows influencers like 'The Dogist' or brands like 'BarkBox' and 'Chewy'.
You need to build ad sets around these specific, high-intent interests. Layering them can also work. For example, people who like "Golden Retrievers" AND are interested in "Etsy". This way, you're telling Meta to find you people who not only love their pets but are also predisposed to buying unique, customised products online. This is how you pre-qualify your audience before they even click.
I would structure your top-of-funnel (ToFu) prospecting campaigns like this to start:
| Campaign 1: Prospecting - Test Group A (Competitors & Marketplaces) |
|---|
| Ad Set 1: Interests like Etsy, Crown & Paw, West & Willow, Not On The High Street. Ad Set 2: Interests in pet subscription boxes like BarkBox, KitNipBox. Ad Set 3: Lookalike Audience of all Website Visitors (once you have 1,000+). |
| Campaign 2: Prospecting - Test Group B (Pet Lifestyle & Media) |
| Ad Set 1: Interests in high-end pet food brands like The Farmer's Dog, Orijen. Ad Set 2: Interests in pet media/influencers like The Dodo, The Dogist, WeRateDogs. Ad Set 3: Lookalike Audience of people who have watched 50% of your video ads. |
You would run these alongside your BoFu retargeting campaign. By testing specific, themed interest groups, you will quickly learn which pockets of the internet contain your most profitable customers, which will in turn lower your CPM and CPC, getting your CPA closer to that target of $8.
This is the main advice I have for you:
I know this is a lot to take in. The key takeaway is that you don't have an "ad problem", you have a "funnel problem". You need a systematic approach to fix it. I've summarised my main recommendations for you below.
| The Problem | My Recommendation | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| High drop-off after Add to Cart. | Address the 2-3 week delivery time head-on. Offer a paid express option. Ensure all shipping costs are displayed upfront, not as a final surprise. | You're losing your most motivated buyers at the last second due to friction. This is the easiest and most important leak to plug in your funnel. |
| Low trust and generic site. | Aggressively add trust signals: real customer reviews with photos, an 'About Us' story, clear contact info, and a satisfaction guarantee. | People are buying an emotional keepsake, not a widget. They need to trust the people behind the website before they'll hand over their money. |
| No strategy for abandoned carts. | Immediately launch a BoFu retargeting campaign for cart abandoners (last 7 days) with specific reminder/offer-based ad copy. | These 8 people are your warmest leads. It is far cheaper and easier to convert them than it is to constantly find new, cold customers. |
| Unprofitable ad strategy. | Pause broad targeting. Test specific, high-intent interest groups (e.g., competitor brands, premium pet products). Structure campaigns by funnel stage (ToFu, BoFu). | Your unit economics show your current ad costs are unsustainable. You MUST find more targeted, cheaper audiences to build a profitable business. |
As you can probably see, fixing this isn't just about tweaking a few settings in Ads Manager. It requires a holistic view of your entire customer journey, from the first ad they see to the moment they finalise their purchase. It's about psychology, maths, and methodical testing.
Getting this right can be the difference between a failed project that burns through cash and a thriving, scalable eCommerce business. It often helps to have an expert pair of eyes to guide the process, spot opportunities, and implement these kinds of complex strategies effectively.
If you'd like to discuss this further, we offer a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session where we can audit your ad account and website together in more detail. It might help you get some clarity on the best way forward.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
