Solved: Clicks Don't Matter, Getting Noticed Does

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your question. You're asking how to make your ads more competitive and get people to click them over someone else's. It's a good question, but I think the focus on "creative execution" might be looking at the problem from the wrong end. Tbh, the world's most beautiful ad will fail miserably if the core message and the offer behind it are wrong for the audience.

The real secret to making an ad that stands out isn’t about being louder or flashier; it's about being more relevant. It's about understanding your ideal customer so deeply that your ad feels less like an interruption and more like a solution that's arrived at the perfect moment. Let's unpack what that actually means.

We'll need to look at why 'more creative' isn't the answer...

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a slicker video or a punchier headline is the key to sucess. And while good creative helps, it's really just the vehicle. The engine driving the whole thing is your offer, and the fuel is the demand from your audience. I see so many businesses burn through cash trying to perfect the vehicle without first checking if the engine is powerful enough or if there's any fuel in the tank.

The number one reason ad campaigns fail is a weak offer, or an offer aimed at an audience that doesn't feel a burning need for it. It's a fundamental lack of demand. I’ve seen founders spend years developing a product with loads of features, only to launch to the sound of crickets because nobody actually had the problem they were trying to solve.

A truly 'competitive' ad is simply a reflection of a competitive offer. Think about it this way: a company selling "brand films" is competing with every other video production company. It's a commodity. But a company that sells a "1-Day Filming Process" to help talented B2B firms who are struggling to build a customer base is selling a solution to a deep frustration. They've identified a specific audience (talented but struggling firms), an urgent problem (can't get customers), and packaged their service into a clear, tangible offer that feels less risky to buy. The ad almost writes itself at that point because it's speaking directly to a real pain.

Before you spend another pound on ads, you have to get brutally honest about your offer. Is it solving a genuine, urgent problem for a very specific group of people? If not, no amount of creative polish will save it. The best form of 'brand awareness' isn't making people remember your logo; it's when a competitor's customer switches to your product and raves about it. That only happens through conversion, and conversion only happens with a killer offer.

I'd say you need to define your customer by their pain, not their profile...

This brings me to the next point, which is probably the most important shift in thinking you can make. You need to forget the sterile, demographic-based customer profile your last marketing hire made. "Companies in the finance sector with 50-200 employees" tells you absolutely nothing of value. It leads to generic ads that speak to everyone and therefore, no one.

To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. You must become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state.

Let's make this real. Your Head of Engineering client isn't just a job title; she's a leader terrified that her best developers are about to quit out of sheer frustration with a broken, inefficient workflow. I remember one campaign for a medical job-matching platform we worked on; for them, the nightmare wasn't just 'needing to fill shifts'—it was 'a hospital's critical care unit being understaffed on a holiday weekend, risking patient safety and facing massive overtime costs.' See the difference? One is a feature, the other is a gut-wrenching fear.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, everything else becomes clear. You can find where these people hang out online. What niche podcasts do they listen to on their commute, like 'Acquired'? What industry newsletters do they actually open and read, like 'Stratechery'? What SaaS tools are they already paying for, like HubSpot or Salesforce? Are they members of the 'SaaS Growth Hacks' Facebook group? Who do they follow on Twitter, people like Jason Lemkin?

This intelligence isn't just data; it's the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. You stop targeting broad interests like "software" on Facebook and start targeting people who like specific, niche tools that your ideal customers use. On Google Ads, you stop bidding on broad terms like "project management tool" and start targeting long-tail keywords that signal real intent, like "software for agile engineering teams." This is how you pre-qualify your audience before they even see your ad. You're showing up where they already are, speaking their language about a problem they are desperate to solve. Do this work first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads.

You probably should craft a message that agitates their problem...

Once you know the nightmare, your ad's job is to reflect it back to them so clearly they feel like you've been reading their mind. This is where creative execution comes in, but it's about messaging strategy, not just pretty pictures. There are a few battle-tested frameworks that work incredibly well for this.

1. Problem-Agitate-Solve (P-A-S)

This is perfect for high-touch services. You don't sell the service; you sell the relief from the problem.
-> Problem: State the nightmare directly. "Are your cash flow projections just a shot in the dark?"
-> Agitate: Pour a little salt in the wound. Make them feel the consequences. "Are you one bad month away from a payroll crisis while your competitors are confidently raising their next round?"
-> Solve: Present your offer as the clear, obvious solution. "Get expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. We build dashboards that turn uncertainty into predictable growth."

2. Before-After-Bridge (B-A-B)

This works wonders for B2B SaaS products. You sell the transformation.
-> Before: Paint a picture of their current, painful reality. "Your AWS bill just arrived. It’s 30% higher than last month, and your engineers have no idea why. Another fire to put out."
-> After: Describe the dream scenario, the feeling of relief. "Imagine opening your cloud bill and smiling. You see where every dollar is going and waste is automatically eliminated."
-> Bridge: Position your product as the bridge that connects the 'before' to the 'after'. "Our platform is the bridge that gets you there. Start a free trial and find your first £1,000 in savings today."

3. Feature -> Consequence

This is for high-ticket physical products where specs often dominate the conversation. Don't just state the feature; state why it matters to them.
-> The Feature-Obsessed Way: "Our new mass spectrometer has a 0.001% margin of error."
-> The Consequence-Driven Way: "Our new mass spectrometer has a 0.001% margin of error. So what? So your lab can publish results with unshakeable confidence, securing more funding and attracting top talent that other labs can only dream of."

Notice that none of these are about "telling a story" in a vague sense. They are direct, empathetic, and focused entirely on the customer's world, not yours. Your ad becomes competitive because it's the only one in their feed that truly seems to understand their specific, costly problem.

You'll need an offer that delivers instant value...

Now we arrive at what is perhaps the most common failure point in all of B2B advertising: the offer itself. The "Request a Demo" button is probably the most arrogant Call to Action ever conceived. It presumes that your prospect, who is likely a busy decision-maker, has nothing better to do with their time than book a meeting to sit through a sales pitch. It's incredibly high-friction and provides zero immediate value. It instantly positions you as just another commodity vendor fighting for their time.

Your offer's only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution before they ever speak to a salesperson. You have to solve a small, real problem for them for free to earn the right to solve their big problem for money.

If you're a SaaS founder, this is your biggest advantage. The gold standard is a completely free trial (with no credit card details required) or a generous freemium plan. Let them get their hands on the actual product. Let them experience the transformation firsthand. When the product itself proves its value, the sale becomes a formality. You're not generating Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) for a sales team to chase down; you are creating Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) who are already convinced and coming to you.

If you're not a SaaS company, you're not off the hook. You must package your expertise into a tool, a piece of content, or an asset that provides instant value.
-> For a marketing agency, this could be a free, automated SEO audit that instantly shows them their top 3 keyword opportunities.
-> For a data analytics platform, it could be a free 'Data Health Check' that scans their database and flags the top 5 data integrity issues.
-> For a corporate training company, it could be a free 15-minute interactive video module on 'Handling Difficult Conversations' for new managers.
-> For us, as a B2B advertising consultancy, it's a 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns completely free and provide actionable advice.

This approach fundamentally changes the dynamic. You're no longer a salesperson asking for their time; you're an expert giving them value. This builds trust and makes the next step—a proper sales conversation—a natural and welcome progression.

You'll also need to know your numbers...

Once you have a powerful offer and a message that resonates, there's one final piece of the puzzle. The real question you should be asking isn't "How low can my Cost Per Click go?" but rather "How high a Cost Per Lead can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer to that question is found in its counterpart: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

Knowing your LTV is what separates amateur advertisers from professionals. It's the metric that frees you from the tyranny of chasing cheap, low-quality leads and gives you the confidence to invest aggressively in acquiring the right customers. Let's break down how to calculate it.

Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you typically make from a single customer, per month?
Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after accounting for the cost of goods sold or service delivery?
Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of your customers do you lose each month, on average?

The calculation is simple: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

So, let's say your ARPA is £500, your Gross Margin is 80%, and your Monthly Churn is 4%.
LTV = (£500 * 0.80) / 0.04
LTV = £400 / 0.04 = £10,000

In this example, each customer you acquire is worth £10,000 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. This is the truth. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means with a £10,000 LTV, you can afford to spend up to £3,333 to acquire a single new customer and still have a very profitable business. If your sales process converts 1 in every 10 qualified leads into a paying customer, you can afford to pay up to £333 for a single qualified lead.

Suddenly, that £250 lead from a perfectly targeted LinkedIn campaign for a CTO doesn't seem expensive, does it? It looks like an absolute bargain. This is the maths that unlocks intelligent, aggressive growth.

This is the main advice I have for you:

To wrap this all up, making your ads 'stand out' is the end result of a solid strategy, not the starting point. It’s about being ruthlessly focused on who you serve, what deep-seated problem you solve for them, and how you can prove your value before asking for the sale. Going through this process is more difficult than just making a few new creatives, but it's the only path to building a scalable, profitable advertising machine. It will require some proper work to get it right and implemented.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below in a table to give you a clear, actionable path forward.

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a very different way of thinking about advertising than most people are used to. It's a shift from tactics to strategy. Executing this properly—from conducting the customer research to building the right value-first offer and configuring campaigns to measure the right metrics—is where our expertise really makes a difference.

Getting this framework right is the difference between an ad budget that feels like a cost centre and one that is a predictable, scalable engine for growth. If you'd like to chat through how these principles could be applied specifically to your business, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a look at what you're currently doing and give you some concrete, actionable advice on the spot.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh