Solved: High CPR Despite Solid CTR – Lowering Costs

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your situation. A solid CTR with a high CPR is a classic problem, and honestly, it’s a good problem to have. It tells me your ads are grabbing attention, which is half the battle. But it also tells me there’s a serious disconnect somewhere between that initial click and the final conversion. People are knocking on the door, but they're not coming inside.

The solution isn't about tweaking a single campaign setting. It's about systematically auditing your entire process, from the core of your offer right through to the button they're supposed to click. I've mapped out my thoughts below on how I'd approach diagnosing and fixing this. It's not a quick fix, but it's the right way to build a campaign that doesn't just get clicks, but actually makes you money.

We'll need to look at your offer first, because that’s almost certainly the problem...

Right, let's be brutally honest. The number one reason paid campaigns fail isn't the ad creative, the targeting, or the bidding strategy. It's the offer. I've seen countless founders and marketing teams burn through thousands of pounds optimising for a 0.1% increase in CTR while completely ignoring the fact that what they're asking people to do is fundamentally unappealing.

A high CTR coupled with a high CPR is a massive red flag that points directly to this issue. It means your ad headline is catchy, or your image is eye-catching. People are curious. They click. And then... nothing. They arrive on your landing page, see what you're actually offering, and immediately lose interest. The value exchange isn't there. You've made a promise with the ad that the offer on your landing page doesn't keep.

I see people chasing these grand ideas, building products with dozens of features, spending months, sometimes years, perfecting something, only to find that nobody really cares. They struggle to get any traction because there’s no real, urgent demand for what they’ve built. Your campaign is just exposing this lack of demand faster.

So, what does a successful offer look like? It's not about being clever; it's about being clear and solving a genuine problem.

1. It focuses on a specific, narrow audience. You can't sell to everyone. An offer for "small businesses" is weak. An offer for "Shopify stores doing £10k-£50k MRR who are struggling with abandoned carts" is strong. It's specific, it speaks to a particular group, and it makes your message incredibly relevant.

2. It solves an urgent, expensive problem. People don't buy "features"; they buy solutions to pain. They don't buy "brand film services"; they buy a solution to the frustration of being a talented company that can't get customers. This emotional hook is what makes people act. If your offer solves a "nice-to-have" problem, your CPR will always be high because there's no urgency.

3. It's packaged clearly and simply. A great offer feels tangible and low-risk. Instead of "consulting services," it's a "30-Day Growth Sprint." It has a name, a clear timeline, and defined deliverables. This turns a complex, scary purchase into something simple and easy to say yes to. For one of our B2B software clients, they didn't get traction until they stopped selling a complex system and started offering a simple "30-day free trial, find your first £1,000 in savings." The offer did the selling for them.

The "Request a Demo" button is the epitome of a bad offer. It's arrogant. It assumes your prospect has the time and inclination to sit through a sales pitch. It’s high friction and offers zero immediate value. You are asking them for their time (their most valuable asset) in exchange for the *possibility* of value later. It’s no wonder people are bouncing. You need to flip the script. Your offer's only job is to provide an "aha!" moment of undeniable value, for free, as quickly as possible. Solve a small problem for them upfront to earn the right to solve the big one.

I'd say you need to define your customer by their nightmare, not their demographics...

Now, a great offer only works if it's put in front of the right person. Your high CTR suggests you're getting in front of *a lot* of people, but the high CPR suggests they're not the *right* people. This is where most audience targeting goes completely off the rails.

Forget the generic, demographic-based buyer persona. "Marketing Manager at a B2B SaaS company with 50-200 employees" is utterly useless. It tells you nothing about their motivations, their fears, or their problems. It leads to bland, generic ads that get ignored or clicked out of mild curiosity by people who will never, ever buy.

To stop burning cash, you have to define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) by their pain. By their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. Your customer isn't a job title; they are in a *problem state*. Your job is to become the world's leading expert on that problem state.

Let's make this real.

• A Head of Sales isn't just a "decision maker." He's a leader who's terrified of missing his quarterly target and having to explain it to the board. His nightmare is his top performers leaving for a competitor because the CRM is a mess and their pipeline is full of junk leads.
• For a legal tech company, the ICP's nightmare isn't "needing better document management." It's a senior partner waking up in a cold sweat because they might have missed a critical filing deadline, exposing the entire firm to a multi-million-pound malpractice lawsuit.

When you understand their world this deeply, targeting becomes easy. Where does this person go to solve their problems?

• -> What niche podcasts do they listen to on their commute? (e.g., 'Acquired', 'SaaStr')
• -> What industry newsletters do they actually read? (e.g., 'Stratechery', ' Lenny's Newsletter')
• -> What software tools do they already use and pay for? (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, Gong)
• -> What online communities are they a part of? (e.g., 'SaaS Growth Hacks' on Facebook, specific subreddits)
• -> Who do they follow on LinkedIn or Twitter for advice? (e.g., Jason Lemkin, April Dunford)

This isn't just data. This is the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy on platforms like Meta and LinkedIn. You stop targeting broad interests like "Business" and start targeting the very specific pages, tools, and influencers that only your true ICP would follow. This ensures that when someone clicks your ad, they're not just curious; they're pre-qualified by their own behaviour. They are experiencing the exact nightmare your offer is designed to solve. Do this work first, or you have no business spending another pound on ads.

You probably should rethink your ad's message to reflect their pain...

Once you know their nightmare, your ad's job is simple: hold up a mirror to their pain and show them the way out. Your high CTR tells me you're getting their attention, but your message isn't connecting deeply enough to make them feel understood. It’s probably too focused on you, your product, your features.

You need to switch to a battle-tested copywriting framework that puts their problem front and center.

For a high-touch B2B service, use Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS). You don't sell "fractional CFO services"; you sell a good night's sleep.

• Problem: "Are your cash flow projections just a shot in the dark?"
• Agitate: "Are you one bad month away from a payroll crisis while your competitors are confidently raising their next round?"
• Solve: "Get an expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. We build the dashboards that turn uncertainty into predictable growth."

For a B2B SaaS product, use the Before-After-Bridge (BAB). You don't sell a "FinOps platform"; you sell the feeling of relief.

• Before: "Your AWS bill just landed. It’s 30% higher than last month, and your engineers have no idea why. Another fire to put out."
• After: "Imagine opening your cloud bill and actually smiling. You see exactly where every dollar is going, and waste is automatically flagged and eliminated."
• Bridge: "Our platform is the bridge that gets you there. Start a free trial and find your first £1,000 in savings today."

See the difference? We're not leading with features. We're leading with their reality. The click you get from an ad like this is fundamentally different. It's not a click of curiosity; it's a click of desperation and hope. That's the click that converts. That's the click that drives your CPR down.

I remember one B2B software client selling to recruitment agencies. Their CPA was stuck at over £100. Their ads were all about their "AI-powered matching algorithm." We rewrote their ads to focus on the recruiter's nightmare: "Tired of spending your entire day sifting through irrelevant CVs while your commissions slip away?" The CPA dropped to £7. Same product, same audience. Different message.

You'll need to sort out your audience targeting to find buyers, not clickers...

This is where the rubber meets the road. Your current targeting is likely attracting an audience that is cheap to reach but has low purchase intent. This is a classic trap on platforms like Meta.

Here’s a truth that most advertisers don't want to hear: if you run a campaign with a "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" objective, you are literally paying Facebook to find the worst possible audience for your product. You're telling the algorithm, "Find me the most people for the least amount of money." The algorithm obediently finds users who are never targeted by conversion campaigns because they don't click, don't engage, and definitely don't buy. Their attention is cheap for a reason. You are paying to be shown to non-customers.

To fix your high CPR, you must always, always optimise for a conversion event that is as close to the money as possible (e.g., Lead, Purchase, Schedule a Call). This forces the algorithm to find people who have a history of taking that specific action.

Beyond the campaign objective, your audience structure is probably too broad. You need a prioritised, full-funnel approach. This is how we structure campaigns for pretty much every client, from eCommerce stores to B2B SaaS.

Your highest converting audiences will always be at the bottom of the funnel (BoFu). These are people who have already shown significant interest – they’ve added a product to their cart, started a checkout process, or spent time on your pricing page. You should have dedicated campaigns just for them. These audiences are small but mighty, and they should be your first priority.

Next is the middle of the funnel (MoFu). These are people who have visited your website, watched one of your videos, or engaged with your social media page. They know who you are but haven't taken that next step. You need to retarget them with ads that overcome objections, showcase testimonials, or present the offer in a new way.

Only once you have maxed out your BoFu and MoFu audiences should you focus heavily on the top of the funnel (ToFu). This is your cold traffic. This is where your deep research into your ICP's 'nightmare' pays off. You build audiences based on the specific interests, behaviours, and lookalikes that align with that pain state. For a new account, we always start here by testing very specific, niche interests. Broad targeting should only be used once your pixel has thousands of conversion events and can reliably find customers on its own.

By structuring your account this way, you ensure your budget is spent on the people most likely to convert first. This will have an immediate and direct impact on lowering your CPR.

I'd say you need to understand your numbers properly...

Finally, let's talk about the CPR itself. Is it actually "high"? Or does it just *feel* high? The real question isn't "how low can my CPR go?" but "how high a CPR can I afford to pay to acquire a great customer?" The answer is found in your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

Without knowing your LTV, you're flying blind. You're making decisions based on gut feel rather than cold, hard maths. Let's calculate it. You'll need three numbers:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average amount a customer pays you per month?
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue? (Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold).
3. Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of customers do you lose each month?

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

Let's run an example. Say you have a SaaS product. ARPA is £200. Gross Margin is 85%. Monthly Churn is 5%.
LTV = (£200 * 0.85) / 0.05
LTV = £170 / 0.05 = £3,400

In this scenario, each customer is worth £3,400 in gross margin over their lifetime. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is typically 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £1,133 (£3,400 / 3) to acquire a single new customer. Suddenly that "high" CPR of £100 or £200 doesn't look so bad, does it? It looks like a bargain.

This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent scaling. It frees you from the tyranny of chasing cheap leads and allows you to focus on acquiring high-value customers, even if they cost more upfront.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Okay, that was a lot to take in. The core issue isn't a simple tweak. It's a strategic problem that requires you to work backwards from your customer. Here are the main actionable steps I'd recommend you focus on.

Working through these steps methodically is how you build a truly effective advertising machine, not just a click-generating one. It’s complex, and each of these areas has its own depth. Getting the offer right involves testing, understanding customer psychology, and strong copywriting. Nailing the audience requires constant research and iteration. It's a full-time job.

This is where expert help can make a significant diference. We've run these kinds of turnarounds for dozens of businesses, from B2B SaaS companies where we've slashed CPAs from £100 down to £7, to eCommerce brands where we've generated over £100k in revenue at a 6x return on ad spend. We've seen these problems before and have playbooks to fix them quickly.

If you'd like to have a chat and walk through your account together, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a look at your campaigns, your landing pages, and your offer and give you a concrete plan of action. It's often the most valuable 20 minutes a founder can spend on their marketing.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh