Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! I've had a look at your situation with the Teespring store and the Instagram ads. It’s a really common problem for people just starting out, so don't worry, you're not alone. It sounds like you're trying to figure out how to make the ads 'work' better, but from my experience, the problem usually isn't just the ad itself. It's often a bit deeper than that.
I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance based on what we've seen work for hundreds of campaigns, especially in eCommerce. We'll need to look at the whole picture, from your audience and offer right through to your campaign setup. Let's get this sorted.
TLDR;
- Your ads aren't working because you're likely targeting the wrong people with the wrong message. Boosting posts or letting Instagram pick the audience is a recipe for burning cash.
- The problem is rarely just the ad; it's usually the offer or a broken sales funnel. You need to diagnose where people are dropping off, from the click to the checkout.
- Stop using the "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" objectives. You MUST use the "Conversions" objective optimised for "Purchases" to tell Meta's algorithm to find you buyers, not just viewers.
- You need a proper campaign structure, even with a small budget. At a minimum, this means one campaign for finding new customers (prospecting) and another for bringing back website visitors (retargeting).
- This letter includes an interactive ROAS calculator to help you understand your numbers and a flowchart to help you diagnose your customer journey.
I'd say you're paying to find non-customers...
Here's the brutally honest truth that most people don't want to hear. When you're new, and you let Instagram 'choose the audience' for you, or you run campaigns for likes and views, you are giving the algorithm a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price."
The algorithm, being a very literal machine, does exactly what you asked. It seeks out the users inside your targeting who are least likely to click, least likely to engage in a meaningful way, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever buy anything. Why? Because those users are not in demand. Their attention is cheap. You are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you the worst possible audience for your product. One or two clicks from a hundred views tells me this is probably what's happening.
The goal isn't 'ad functionality' or getting more likes. The only goal is sales. Likes don't pay the bills. The best form of brand awareness for a small store is a customer making a purchase and telling their friends about it. That only happens through conversion. So, from now on, every ad you run MUST be optimised for conversions, specifically for purchases. This one change is huge, but it won't fix everything if the other pieces aren't in place.
We'll need to look at your sales funnel first...
Before you spend another pound on ads, you have to think like a detective and investigate your customer journey. An ad is just the front door. If people walk in and the house is a mess, they'll leave immediately. We need to figure out where they're leaving. For any eCommerce store, the journey looks something like this:
Your data (2 clicks from 100+ views) suggests the leak is right at the beginning. Your Click-Through Rate (CTR) is very low. This almost always means one of three things (or a combination):
1. Your Targeting is Wrong: You're showing the ad to people who have zero interest in art or unique products.
2. Your Creative is Weak: The image or video of your product isn't grabbing attention. For Teespring, this means your mockups need to be excellent. A flat image of a t-shirt on a white background won't cut it. You need lifestyle mockups, people actually using the 'essential items'.
3. Your Copy is Uninspired: The text of your ad doesn't create any desire or solve a problem for the viewer.
Before you even think about scaling your budget, you need to fix this first stage. You should be aiming for a CTR of at least 1%. I remember we've run many eCommerce campaigns, for everything from apparel to cleaning products, and the ones that succeed all have strong creatives that lead to a healthy CTR. It's the first sign that you're onto something.
You probably should build a message they can't ignore...
People don't buy products; they buy better versions of themselves. They buy solutions to problems. Your product is "art on essentials". So what? What problem does that solve? This is where good marketing starts.
Forget listing features. You need to use a simple but powerful copywriting framework like Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).
- Problem: State the customer's pain point. (e.g., "Tired of the same mass-produced, boring phone cases/tote bags/mugs everyone else has?")
- Agitate: Poke the wound. Make them feel the problem. (e.g., "Your style is unique, but your accessories are screaming 'generic'. It's hard to stand out when everything looks the same.")
- Solve: Introduce your product as the perfect solution. (e.g., "Turn your daily essentials into a statement piece. Our limited-edition designs by independent artists ensure your gear is as original as you are. Shop the collection.")
This approach transforms your ad from "buy my stuff" to "I understand your frustration, and I have the answer". It connects on an emotional level. I remember one campaign we worked on for a subscription box company where changing the copy to focus on the 'problem' of boring weekends resulted in a 1000% Return On Ad Spend. The product didn't change, but the message did.
Here’s how that might look in a simple ad structure:
Example Ad Copy Structure
| Ad Component | Example Content (for an art-based phone case) |
|---|---|
| Hook (First Line) | Tired of your phone looking like everyone else's? (Problem) |
| Body Copy | That generic case isn't doing your style any justice. You're unique, your phone should be too. (Agitate) |
| Solution/Offer | Introducing our new collection of artist-designed cases. Protect your phone and express yourself. (Solve) |
| Call to Action (CTA) | Shop The Collection Now & Get 10% Off Your First Order. |
You'll need to get your targeting right...
This is the other massive piece of the puzzle. You mentioned you manually chose an audience for the last ad, which is a step in the right direction, but *who* you choose is everything. "Art" is way too broad. You need to get much more specific.
For a new store, you should start by testing detailed targeting based on interests. Think about your Ideal Customer Persona (ICP). Who is this person? What do they like? Where do they shop online? What artists do they follow?
I'd structure my testing into themed ad sets. For example:
- -> Competitor Audience: Target people interested in pages like Society6, Redbubble, Etsy, Displate. These people are already conditioned to buy art-based products online.
- -> Art Style Audience: If your art has a specific style (e.g., Abstract, Pop Art, Surrealism), target interests related to that style or famous artists known for it (e.g., Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí).
- -> Museum & Gallery Audience: Target people interested in places like the Tate Modern, MoMA, The Louvre. This finds people with a demonstrated interest in art.
- -> Design Publications Audience: Target followers of design blogs and magazines like Creative Bloq, It's Nice That, Behance.
You run these as seperate ad sets within a single campaign, all with the same ads. Give each one a small daily budget (£5-£10). After a few days, you'll see which audience is giving you the cheapest clicks and, hopefully, adds-to-cart. Then you turn off the losers and give more budget to the winner. This is the foundation of split testing. It's not about wasting money; it's about spending a little to find out where to spend a lot.
We'll need to look at your numbers (and what to expect)...
Running ads without knowing your numbers is like flying a plane without instruments. You need to know what a good result looks like. The most important metric for eCommerce is Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). It simply means: for every £1 you put into ads, how many pounds in revenue do you get back?
A ROAS of 1x means you're breaking even (on the ad spend, not accounting for product costs). A ROAS of 2x means you made £2 for every £1 spent. A good target to aim for is 3x or 4x+, but when you're starting, even getting to 2x is a great sign.
Use this calculator to get familiar with the concept. As you start making sales, this will become your north star.
To give you a rough idea, for eCommerce stores in developed countries, the cost per purchase can be anywhere from £10 to £75, or even more for high-ticket items. So with your small budgets, you may not even get one sale. That's why it is so important to get the fundamentals right first, so you're not just throwing money away. You need to give the campaign enough budget and time to get out of the 'learning phase' and find you buyers.
This is the main advice I have for you:
I know this is a lot to take in, especially when you're new to all this. The world of paid advertising can feel overwhelming. To make it easier, I've broken down my main recommendations into an action plan for you.
| Area of Focus | The Problem You're Facing | Recommended Action |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign Objective | You're getting likes and views, but no clicks or sales. Your current setup is telling Meta to find viewers, not buyers. | Stop boosting posts. Create all ads in Meta Ads Manager. Use the 'Sales' campaign objective and choose 'Purchases' as your conversion event. |
| Ad Creative & Copy | Your ads aren't grabbing attention, leading to a very low Click-Through Rate (CTR). | Use high-quality lifestyle mockups, not just flat product images. Rewrite your ad copy using the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. Make it about the customer, not the product. |
| Audience Targeting | Using automatic audiences or overly broad interests is showing your ads to irrelevant people. | Start by testing 3-4 specific, themed interest audiences (e.g., competitors like Etsy, art styles, museums). Put each in a seperate ad set to see which performs best. |
| Website & Funnel | Even if you fix the ads, issues on your Teespring store (poor descriptions, lack of trust, confusing layout) will prevent sales. | Review your store. Are product descriptions compelling? Are images high-quality? Is it easy to navigate and buy? Add trust signals like reviews or an 'About the Artist' section. |
| Budget & Testing | Your budget is small, and you're afraid of wasting it without a clear testing methodology. | Allocate a small daily budget (£5-£10) to each test audience. Let them run for 3-4 days. Analyse the data (CTR, Cost per Add to Cart) to decide which audiences to cut and which to scale. |
Getting paid advertising right is a process of systematic testing and optimisation. It’s not about finding one magic button, but about building a solid foundation and then improving each part piece by piece. It takes time, expertise, and a clear understanding of the data to turn a small budget into a profitable sales machine.
This is where working with a specialist can make a massive difference. Instead of spending months and wasting money trying to figure it all out yourself, you can lean on the experience of someone who has managed millions in ad spend and knows what levers to pull. We can help you diagnose the real issues in your funnel, build a scalable campaign structure, and write copy that converts, letting you focus on your art and your products.
If you'd like to go over this in more detail and have us take a look at your specific setup, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can review your strategy together and give you a concrete plan of action.
Hope that helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
