Solved: Facebook Ads High CTR But No Ebook Sales

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! I had a look over the situation you described with your ebook ads, and it's a classic problem I see all the time. It's frustrating as hell, I know. You see good numbers like a high click-through rate and think you're on the right track, but then the sales just don't follow. It feels like you're burning money.

The good news is, this is almost always fixable. The fact you're getting clicks is actually a positive sign – it means your ad creative is grabbing attention. The problem isn't the ad itself, but what happens *after* the click. We just need to figure out where the leak is in your bucket. I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and a bit of guidance on how I'd approach this. It boils down to making sure you're talking to the right people, with the right message, on a page that actually convinces them to buy.

We'll need to look at the metrics that actually matter...

Right, let's get this out of the way first. That 6.4% CTR... it's a vanity metric. It feels good, but in this context, it's telling you the wrong story. It's like having a shop on the high street with hundreds of people walking in, looking around for a minute, and then walking straight out without buying anything. You've got footfall, sure, but you've got no customers. You're not in the business of getting clicks; you're in the business of selling ebooks.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth, and something a lot of people get wrong. When you run a campaign on Meta and don't explicitly tell its algorithm to find you buyers, it will do the exact opposite. If you've set your campaign objective to "Traffic" or "Engagement," you have literally commanded one of the world's most powerful advertising machines to "find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price who will click a link."

And the algorithm is brilliant at its job. It goes out and finds all the people inside your audience who have a history of clicking on things but never buying anything. Why? Because their attention is cheap. Nobody else is bidding for them. You are actively paying to attract window shoppers. I've seen it time and time again. I remember one client selling an online course who came to us with amazing CTRs and reach figures, but their sales were flat. We switched one thing – the campaign objective – and while their CTR dropped a bit and their cost per click went up, they generated over $115k in revenue in the next six weeks. The clicks were more expensive, but they were from the *right* people.

So, the very first thing you need to do, before you touch anything else, is go into your Ads Manager and ensure your campaign objective is set to 'Sales' (it used to be called 'Conversions'). This changes the instruction you give to Meta. Instead of "find me clicks," it becomes "find me people who are likely to perform the purchase action on my website." This is the single most important change you can make, and you need to do it now. It will feel scary at first because your cost per click will likely rise, but you have to stop optimising for cheap clicks and start optimising for profitable sales.

I'd say you need to define your customer's nightmare...

Okay, so we've told Facebook to find buyers. But who are they? This is where the second, and arguably most critical, piece of the puzzle comes in. Most business owners, especially when they're starting out, define their customer with sterile, useless demographics. "Men aged 25-40 who are interested in marketing." That tells you absolutely nothing of value and leads to generic ads that speak to no one.

You need to forget demographics and start defining your customer by their pain. By their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state.

Let's imagine your ebook is about "how to use AI for content marketing." Your ICP isn't "marketers." It's "Sarah, a 32-year-old content manager at a mid-sized tech company. She's completely overwhelmed. Her boss wants more content, better SEO rankings, and higher engagement, but her team is small and her budget is frozen. She lies awake at night terrified that she's falling behind, that some 22-year-old who understands AI is going to come in and take her job. She's not looking for 'AI tips'; she's looking for a lifeline to save her career."

See the difference? When you understand Sarah's nightmare, you can write ad copy and landing page copy that speaks directly to her soul. You're not selling an ebook; you're selling her peace of mind, job security, and the feeling of being competent and in control again.

So, do this exercise right now. Who is your ebook *really* for? What is the deep, emotional pain they are in before they read it? What is the transformed, relieved, successful state they're in after they've implemented your advice? Once you know that, you have the blueprint for your entire marketing message.

You probably should fix your offer and landing page...

Once you have the right campaign objective and you deeply understand your customer's pain, we need to look at the place where the sale actually happens: your product page. This is almost certainly your biggest problem area. Clicks dont mean anything if the page they land on doesn't do its job.

Your landing page has one job and one job only: to convince the right person that your ebook is the solution to their nightmare, and to make it feel safe and easy to buy it. Most product pages I see fail at this spectacularly.

Here’s a brutal checklist. Be honest with yourself as you go through it:

1. The Message (The Offer): Does the headline on your page instantly connect with the customer's pain? Or does it just state the title of the ebook? A headline like "The Content AI Blueprint" is weak. A headline like "Stop Wasting Hours Writing Blog Posts: Here's How to Create a Month's Worth of High-Ranking Content with AI in One Afternoon" is an offer. It promises a specific, desirable outcome.

2. The Copywriting: After the headline, does your page use the Problem-Agitate-Solve formula?
-> Problem: State their nightmare back to them so they know you understand them. ("Are you tired of staring at a blank page, overwhelmed by content demands?")
-> Agitate: Poke the bruise. Remind them why this problem is so painful. ("Your competitors are pumping out content daily, leaving you in the dust. Every day you delay is another day you're falling further behind.")
-> Solve: Introduce your ebook as the clear, simple, direct solution. ("This ebook isn't theory. It's a step-by-step system to...").

3. Trust and Credibility: This is huge. Why should anyone trust you? A random person on the internet is asking for their credit card details. You need to build trust instantly.
-> Testimonials: Do you have quotes (ideally with photos) from people who have read the ebook and gotten results? If you don't have any yet, give it away to a few people in your target market for free in exchange for an honest review. No testimonials is a massive red flag for a potential buyer.
-> Author Bio: Who are you? Why are you qualified to write this book? A small section with your picture and a brief story about your expertise makes a world of difference.
-> A Guarantee: A 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee removes all the risk for the buyer. If you believe in your product, you should have no problem offering this. It shows confidence and can significantly boost conversions.

Your page needs to look professional. If it looks like it was thrown together in five minutes, people will assume the ebook was too. This doesn't mean it needs to be complicated. In fact, simpler is better. But it needs to be clean, easy to read, with high-quality images (like a nice mockup of the ebook cover). I've seen some terribly cluttered stores before, slow to load, no product descriptions... it just screams untrustworthy. You wouldn't feel comfortable ordering from a site like that, and neither will your customers.

You'll need to understand the numbers that drive growth...

Once you've got your campaign objective, ICP, and landing page sorted, you need to think like a professional advertiser. That means understanding the basic maths of customer acquisition. You're frustrated you spent $30 and got no sales. I get it. But you need to shift your perspective.

The real question isn't "How cheap can I get a click?" but "How much can I afford to pay to get a customer and still be profitable?"

Let's look at some typical numbers. For an eCommerce product like an ebook, a decent conversion rate on your landing page would be somewhere between 2% and 5%. That means for every 100 visitors who are the *right* kind of people, you can expect 2 to 5 of them to buy. In developed countries like the US or UK, a qualified click from a 'Sales' campaign might cost you anywhere from £0.50 to £1.50.

Let's do the maths on that:

Worst Case Scenario: Your cost per click (CPC) is £1.50 and your conversion rate is 2%.
To get 100 visitors, you spend 100 x £1.50 = £150.
From those 100 visitors, 2 people buy.
Your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is £150 / 2 = £75.

Best Case Scenario: Your CPC is £0.50 and your conversion rate is 5%.
To get 100 visitors, you spend 100 x £0.50 = £50.
From those 100 visitors, 5 people buy.
Your CPA is £50 / 5 = £10.

So, a realistic cost to acquire one customer for your ebook could be anywhere between £10 and £75. This is why spending $30 (£24) and getting no sales is completely normal, especially if your landing page isn't optimised. You simply haven't spent enough to get a statistically significant result yet. If your ebook costs £20, a £75 CPA is a disaster. If your ebook costs £99, a £75 CPA is a win. You need to know your numbers.

The goal is to get your CPA as low as possible by improving your ad relevance (which comes from knowing your ICP) and improving your landing page conversion rate (which comes from building trust and having a great offer). It's a constant process of optimisation. I remember one campaign we worked on for a medical job matching SaaS, their initial CPA was over £100. By relentlessly testing audiences and improving their funnel, we managed to bring it down to just £7. It's possible, but it takes a systematic approach.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Alright, that was a lot of information to take in. It's not as simple as just "posting a Facebook ad." To succeed, you need a proper system. To make it easier, I've broken down my advice into a clear action plan. Work through these steps methodically and you will start to see a change. Don't skip steps. Each one builds on the last.

This is the exact process we'd follow. It's about building a solid foundation first. A great ad pointed at the wrong person or a broken landing page will always fail. A decent ad pointed at the perfect person with a landing page that speaks their language and builds trust has a real chance of success.

I know this can seem overwhelming. You started this to sell an ebook, not to become a full-time digital marketing analyst. This stuff is complex, and making a mistake at any of these stages can be the difference between a profitable campaign and a money pit. The reason our clients work with us is because we've made all the mistakes already and have spent years building and refining these systems for hundreds of campaigns, from software that got 5,082 trial signups to subscription boxes with a 1000% return on ad spend.

You can absolutely implement all of this yourself, and I genuinely hope this detailed breakdown helps you get those first sales. If, however, you'd rather have an expert take a direct look at your specific setup and give you a tailored strategy, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can jump on a quick call, share screens, and I can give you some direct feedback on your page and campaigns. It's often the fastest way to spot the biggest opportunities for improvement.

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck with it.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh