Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! It's a really common situation to be in, especially with a new store. It’s easy to feel a bit lost with all the conflicting advice out there. I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and a bit of guidance based on what you've shared. The short answer to your question "should I stop my ads" is yes, but not for the reason you think. It's not about waiting 3 or 7 days; your metrics after just 48 hours are already telling a pretty clear story about some foundational issues we need to address first.
TLDR;
- Your instinct is right to be concerned, but the problem isn't the 48-hour runtime; it's the campaign's foundations. Pause the current campaign to avoid wasting more money.
- The "Below Average" Quality Ranking is a major red flag. Meta is telling you the ad isn't resonating, which is why your costs are high and you're not seeing sales. This is often a creative or an offer problem.
- Relying on Advantage+ with a brand new pixel and website is a gamble. You need to guide the algorithm by starting with well-researched Detailed Targeting (interests) to find your initial customer base.
- No sales after spending ~£60 with a £1.09 CPC points to a problem beyond the ad itself. We need to look at the entire customer journey, especially your website's trustworthiness and product pages.
- This letter includes an interactive calculator to help you understand your target cost per purchase and a flowchart outlining a better audience testing strategy for new stores.
We'll need to look at your offer... it's more than just a product
Before we even get into the ads, lets talk about the offer. This is the number one reason I see campaigns fail, especially for new stores. You're selling items for £12.95. On the surface, that seems like a nice impulse-buy price point. But for a brand new website that no one's ever heard of, it's a big ask. People aren't just buying a product; they're taking a risk on you.
Your offer has to overcome that initial distrust. Why should someone buy this specific product, from your unknown store, right now, instead of just going to Amazon or a brand they already know? The offer isn't just the product and its price. It’s the entire package: the perceived value, the story behind the brand, the shipping policy, the return policy, and the social proof (or lack thereof).
I remember one eCommerce client selling cleaning products. They had a great product, but sales were flat. We realised their "offer" was weak. They were just another cleaning product. We helped them reframe it. They weren't selling a bottle of cleaner; they were selling a "Home Detox Kit" for health-conscious families. They bundled products, created a compelling story around non-toxic living, and offered a money-back guarantee. Sales shot up because the offer became irresistible to a very specific audience. It solved an urgent problem for them. For you, we need to figure out what that deeper value is. What problem is your £12.95 product really solving?
I'd say your ads are telling you something important...
Okay, let's break down the numbers you shared. They're not just stats; they're feedback from the market. They're telling us a story.
CTR (Click-Through Rate) at 0.77%: This is on the low side for eCommerce. It suggests that of all the people seeing your ad, not many are interested enough to even click. This points directly to the creative (the image/video) and the ad copy. It's not grabbing attention in the newsfeed or it isn't resonating with the audience Meta is showing it to.
Quality Ranking (Below Average - 35%): This is probably the most significant warning sign here. Meta is literally telling you that your ad is performing in the bottom 35% of ads competing for the same audience. A low quality score directly leads to a higher CPM (cost to reach 1000 people) and means Meta will show your ad less often. You're essentially being penalised. This usually happens when the ad has negative feedback (people hiding it), low engagement, or the post-click experience on your website is poor (e.g., slow loading times).
CPC (Cost Per Click) at £1.09: When your product is only £12.95, a £1.09 cost per click is a very dangerous place to be. It puts immense pressure on your website's conversion rate. You'd need roughly 1 in every 12 visitors to buy just to break even on ad spend, and that doesn't even account for your product costs, shipping, or other business expenses. That's an 8% conversion rate, which is extremely high for a brand new, untrusted store.
Let's play with some numbers. This calculator will show you how sensitive your profitability is to your CPC and website conversion rate. You'll quicky see why a £1.09 CPC for a £12.95 product is a massive uphill battle.
You probably should rethink your audience targeting
You mentioned using Advantage+ audience. Now, Advantage+ can be incredibly powerful, but it has a weakness: it needs data to work its magic. When you have a brand new pixel on a brand new website, it has very little data to go on. It doesn't know who your buyers are, what they look like, or what their habits are. So when you let it run, it's essentially taking a massive guess, showing your ads to a very broad audience and hoping something sticks. This is likely contributing to your low CTR and high CPC. You're showing your ads to a lot of the wrong people.
For a new account, you have to be the brains of the operation. You need to feed the algorithm good, clean data by telling it exactly who to target first. The best way to do this is by using Detailed Targeting. This is where your customer research comes in.
Think about your ideal customer. What magazines do they read? What celebrities or influencers do they follow? What other brands do they buy from? What are their hobbies? For example, if you're selling handcrafted jewellery, you wouldn't just target "Jewellery." That's way too broad. You might target interests like "Etsy", "Not On The High Street", specific independent jewellery designers, or magazines like "Mollie Makes". You're looking for interests that a potential customer is much more likely to have than the general population.
The goal is to build a few different "themed" audiences in separate ad sets and test them against each other. Once you start getting sales, the pixel gets smarter. After you have 100+ purchases, you can then start building powerful Lookalike audiences and eventually let Advantage+ take over with much better results. You have to walk before you can run. Here’s a visual guide to how we typically structure audience testing for a new store.
You'll need to fix the entire customer journey
The fact that you've had 55 clicks (£60 spend / £1.09 CPC) and zero purchases strongly suggests the problem isn't just the ad. There's a leak somewhere in your funnel, and it's most likely on your website. When a potential customer clicks your ad, they are cautiously optimistic. Your website's job is to convert that caution into confidence and then into a purchase.
For a new store, trust is everything. Your website needs to scream "professional and trustworthy." Here are the common drop-off points I see:
- Product Pages: Are your product photos high-quality? Do you show the product from multiple angles, or even better, in use? Is there a detailed, persuasive product description that answers questions and highlights benefits, not just features? For £12.95, people still want to know what they're getting.
- Lack of Social Proof: A new site has no reviews. This is a huge hurdle. Can you add a section for testimonials? Even getting a few from friends or family to start can help. Do you have links to social media profiles that look active and professional?
- Hidden Surprises: The number one reason for abandoned carts is unexpected shipping costs. Is your shipping policy clear and up-front? Or do people only find out about a £5.99 shipping fee at the very end of the checkout? That's a conversion killer for a low-priced item.
- A Clunky Checkout: Is the checkout process simple? Do you offer multiple payment options like PayPal, Shop Pay, Google Pay? Every extra step or field someone has to fill in is another chance for them to leave.
People are incredibly sensitive to these things on a new site. Any little thing that feels 'off' or unprofessional can make them close the tab. You've got to look at your store through the eyes of a skeptical first-time visitor. Would you feel comfortable putting your credit card details in? Here’s what a typical conversion journey looks like for an eCommerce store. You can see how quickly the numbers drop off at each stage.
You'll need a structured plan to move forward
So, what do you do now? Running the ad for longer won't fix these underlying problems. You'd just be spending more money to confirm what we already know. The correct approach is to pause, fix the foundations, and relaunch with a proper testing strategy.
The goal isn't just to get sales; it's to build a profitable, repeatable system. That takes a bit more structure than just turning on an Advantage+ campaign and hoping for the best. It involves testing audiences, testing creatives, and optimising your website. All these things work together. One campaign we managed for a women's apparel brand achieved a 691% return, but it started with this exact kind of foundational work and structured testing. We had to get the basics right before it could scale.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below in a table. Think of this as a checklist to get you back on the right track.
| Step | Action Required | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Pause Campaign | Immediately pause your current ad campaign. | You're spending money on a broken funnel. The data is clear enough. Pausing stops the bleeding and lets you reallocate resources to fixing the real problems. |
| 2. Website Audit | Critically review your website for trust signals. Add customer reviews (even from friends), high-quality product photos/videos, detailed descriptions, and ensure your shipping/return policies are crystal clear. | A £1.09 CPC means the website has to do all the heavy lifting. Without trust and clarity, your conversion rate will remain near zero, making ads unprofitable. |
| 3. Audience Research | Brainstorm 2-3 distinct customer 'personas'. For each, list potential interests on Meta (brands they like, magazines they read, influencers they follow). Group these into themed ad sets. | Advantage+ is ineffective without data. You need to manually guide the algorithm by targeting specific, relevant interests first to find your initial customers. |
| 4. Relaunch with a Test | Create a new Purchase conversion campaign. Inside it, create 2-3 ad sets, one for each of your themed interest groups. In each ad set, test 2 different ad creatives. | This structure allows you to identify which audiences and which creatives actually work, instead of lumping them all together. It's how you find your winning combinations. |
| 5. Analyse & Optimise | After 3-4 days, check your key metrics. Look for ad sets with a higher CTR and lower CPC. Look at your Shopify analytics to see if any ad set is driving more 'Add to Carts'. Turn off what's clearly not working and give more budget to what is. | This is active management. The goal is to systematically find profitable pockets and cut wasted spend, improving your overall return over time. |
I know this can seem like a lot, and it highlights that running profitable ads is rarely a "set it and forget it" activity, especially at the start. It's a process of continuous testing, learning, and optimising based on what the data tells you. Trying to figure all this out on your own while also running a business can be a real challenge.
If you'd like to go through your specific website and ad setup together, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We could spend 20-30 minutes on a screen share, and I could give you some more tailored feedback and a clearer path forward. Sometimes having an expert second pair of eyes can make all the difference.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
