Solved: Facebook Ads Clicks, But Little Sales

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

It sounds like you're running into one of the most common and frustrating problems in paid advertising: getting traffic but no sales. It's a classic sign that something's breaking down between the ad and the checkout, and I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts on what might be going wrong and how to fix it. It's almost never about people just being bored and clicking for fun; there's usually a much more specific reason you can fix.

Let's get into it.

Your Ads Aren't the Problem. What Happens *After* the Click Is.

The first thing to get your head around is that clicks mean very little on their own. You said it yourself, "clicks but little sales". This is the classic symptom of a broken customer journey. Your ad is doing its job—it's grabbing attention and getting someone interested enough to tap their screen. But the moment they land on your site, that interest evaporates. The question isn't "why are people clicking?", it's "why are they leaving?".

People get obsessed with tweaking ad copy, images, and targeting, thinking that's where the magic is. It's not. The real work starts once they arrive. A click is just the start of a conversation. It's a visitor raising their hand and asking, "Alright, you got my attention. Now convince me." If your website is slow, confusing, untrustworthy, or the product just isn't what they expected, they're gone in seconds. They're not just "bored and looking"; they were genuinely curious, and your website failed to turn that curiosity into a sale.

We need to stop blaming the ad and start looking at the entire path from click to conversion. I've put together a simple flowchart to help you diagnose where things are going wrong. Look at your own ad metrics and website analytics and follow the path. It'll tell you exactly where to focus your effort.

I'd bet your "Trust Score" is Dangerously Low

Let's be brutally honest. A random stranger clicks an ad and lands on a store they've never heard of. Why on earth should they give you their credit card details? They won't, unless you give them every possible reason to trust you. Most small eCommerce stores fail miserably at this. Their sites look amateurish, the photos are poor, and there's no social proof. It screams "scam" or, at best, "unprofessional".

Looking at campaigns for stores that struggle, I see the same mistakes over and over.

-> Poor product photography. Grainy phone pictures taken in bad lighting just won't cut it. You need clean, professional shots, ideally on a model or in a lifestyle context, that make the product look desirable. For instance, a campaign we managed for a women's apparel client achieved a 691% return on ad spend.

-> No product descriptions. If you don't bother to write a compelling description explaining the benefits, materials, and why it's special, why should anyone bother to buy it?

-> No reviews or testimonials. This is the single biggest trust signal. People want to see that other real people have bought from you and were happy. No reviews is a massive red flag.

-> Hidden contact information. If I can't easily find a physical address (even a PO box), a phone number, or a professional email address, I'm not buying. It feels like you have something to hide.

All these little things add up to a general feeling of untrustworthiness. Let's see how your store stacks up. Use this little calculator to get a rough idea of your "Trust Score". Be honest with your answers.

You're Paying Facebook to Find Window Shoppers, Not Buyers

Here's an uncomfortable truth. If your campaign objective is set to "Traffic" or "Brand Awareness," you are actively telling Facebook's algorithm to find you the worst possible audience. You're commanding the most powerful advertising machine on the planet to find people who are cheap to reach precisely because they *never buy anything*. The algorithm is incredibly good at its job. You ask for cheap clicks, it finds people who click on everything but open their wallet for nothing.

Awareness is a byproduct of making sales and having a great product, not the other way around. You don't need "brand awareness"; you need cash in the bank. For an eCommerce store, especially a smaller one, you should almost always be using the 'Conversions' objective, optimised for 'Purchase'. This tells the algorithm: "I don't care about clicks. I don't care about impressions. Go and find me people who are most likely to actually *buy* my product, and I'll pay you for that."

Yes, the cost per click (CPC) might be higher. But the quality of that click is infinitely better. Would you rather have 100 clicks at £0.20 each that result in zero sales, or 10 clicks at £1.50 each that result in one sale worth £50? It's a no-brainer. Stop paying to attract window shoppers.

You Don't Know Your Numbers, So You're Flying Blind

The final peice of the puzzle is maths. If you don't know what a customer is actually worth to you over their lifetime, you have no idea what you can afford to spend to get one. You're just guessing, and probably aiming way too low, which forces you to look for cheap, low-quality traffic.

The metric you need to understand is Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This tells you the total profit you can expect to make from an average customer. Once you know this, you can work backwards to figure out a sensible Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

For an eCommerce store, a simple LTV calculation looks something like this:
LTV = (Average Order Value x Purchase Frequency x Customer Lifetime) x Gross Margin %

Let's say:

• Your average order is £50.
• A good customer buys from you 3 times a year.
• They remain a customer for 2 years on average.
• Your gross margin (after cost of goods) is 60%.

LTV = (£50 x 3 x 2) * 0.60 = £300 * 0.60 = £180

This means each customer you acquire is worth £180 in profit. A healthy LTV to CAC ratio is often cited as 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £60 to acquire that customer (£180 / 3). Suddenly, paying £1.50 for a high-quality click that has a real chance of converting doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a smart investment.

Use the calculator below to plug in your own numbers and see what you can truly afford to spend. This single calculation will change how you think about your ad spend forever.

Your Action Plan: Stop Guessing, Start Fixing

Alright, that was a lot of information. The key thing is not to get overwhelmed, but to work through the problems systematically. You don't need to do everything at once. Focus on the biggest leaky bucket first. Here are the steps I'd recommend you take, in order.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Getting This Right Isn't Easy

I know this is a tonne to take in. Moving from "getting clicks" to building a profitable, scalable advertising system is a huge leap. It involves understanding data, psychology, web design, and the ever-changing ad platforms. It's not something you can just "set and forget".

We've spent years honing this process for eCommerce clients, from subscription boxes achieving a 1000% ROAS to niche brands generating over $71k in revenue with an 8x return. The difference is having the experience to know exactly which levers to pull and in what order, and how to interpret the data to make smart decisions rather than emotional guesses.

If you'd like an expert pair of eyes on your specific setup, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a look at your website and ad account together and give you a more detailed, personalised action plan. Sometimes just a 20-minute chat is enough to uncover the one or two critical issues that are holding you back.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh