Solved: Low CTR After Day 1 with Broad Targeting

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

That pattern you're seeing with your CTR dropping off after the first day is something I see all the time, so you're definitely not alone. It's one of the most common things that trips people up when they're new to running ads. It's frustrating, makes you think you've done something wrong, and it can feel like you're just burning cash.

The good news is, it's usually not the disaster it seems. The bad news is, it's often a symptom of a much bigger problem with how the campaign is structured from the ground up. I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts on what's likely going on and, more importantly, what you should be doing instead. It's less about fixing the CTR drop and more about building a campaign that actually makes you money, regardless of what the CTR does on day two.

Why your CTR is tanking (and why it's not the real problem)

Okay, so let's get this out of the way first. That 8% CTR on day one, followed by a nosedive to 2%, is completely normal. It happens on almost every new campaign, especially with broad targeting.

Think of it like this: when you launch a campaign, Meta's algorithm is smart, but it doesn't know who your best customers are yet. So, it starts with a calculated guess. It takes your ad and shows it to a small pocket of people within your massive broad audience that it thinks are most likely to click on *anything*. These are the low-hanging fruit—the people who are active, always clicking, always engaging. They give you that lovely, but completly misleading, initial spike in CTR.

But the algorithm's job isn't just to get cheap clicks. It's job is to learn. So, after that first day, it says "Right, that was easy, but are these people actually going to buy?". It then starts showing your ad to a much wider, more diverse set of people. It's exploring. It's testing the waters. These people are more sceptical, less click-happy. Your CTR naturally drops and settles at a more realistic baseline. This is called the 'learning phase'. The biggest mistake you can make is seeing this drop, panicking, and turning the campaign off. You're killing it before it's even had a chance to find your actual customers.

But here's the brutally honest truth: you're asking the wrong question. It's not "why is my CTR dropping?". The real question you need to be asking is, "Am I even reaching people who will buy from me?". A 10% CTR from a million people who will never buy anything is worthless. A 1% CTR from a small group of people who become loyal customers is a goldmine. You're obsessing over a vanity metric while the real issues are probably your targeting, your offer, and your message.

We'll need to look at your targeting... Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Demographic

You mentioned you're using "broad targeting". I have to be blunt, this is probably the core of your problem. When you tell Meta to go "broad" without giving it a history of thousands of conversions to learn from, you are giving it a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price."

And the algorithm does exactly what you asked. It seeks out the users inside your targeting who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever pull out a credit card. 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. Awareness is a byproduct of sales, not the other way around.

To stop burning cash, you have to get specific. Forget the sterile, demographic-based profile your last marketing hire made. "Women aged 25-40 who live in London" tells you nothing of value and leads to generic ads that speak to no one. You need to define your customer by their pain. You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive nightmare.

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. For an eCommerse brand selling high-end sustainable yoga wear, the nightmare isn't 'needing new leggings'. It's 'feeling guilty about fast fashion's environmental impact but being frustrated by poor quality eco-brands that don't perform during a workout.' See the difference? One is a demographic, the other is a deep-seated frustration.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, you can find them. What podcasts do they listen to? What influencers do they follow? What magazines do they read? What other brands do they buy from? This intelligence isn't just data; it's the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. Do this work first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads.

I'd say you need a proper campaign structure...

Once you know *who* you're talking to, you need to structure your campaigns to talk to them in the right way at the right time. Just throwing one ad at a broad audience and hoping for sales is like walking into a crowded room, shouting "BUY MY STUFF!", and expecting people to line up. It just doesn't work.

You need a funnel. In paid ads, we call this a ToFu/MoFu/BoFu structure. It sounds like jargon but its dead simple:

• ToFu (Top of Funnel): This is your cold audience. People who have never heard of you before. This is where you use your detailed, pain-point-based interest targeting that we just talked about. Your goal here isn't always an immediate sale; it's to introduce your brand and get them to your website or to watch a video.
• MoFu (Middle of Funnel): This is your warm audience. People who have shown some interest. They've visited your website, watched 50% of your video ad, or engaged with your Instagram page. You retarget these people with a different message, maybe showing them testimonials, reviews, or different product benefits. You're building trust.
• BoFu (Bottom of Funnel): This is your hot audience. They are on the verge of buying. They've added a product to their cart but didn't check out, or they've viewed a specific product page multiple times. You hit these people with ads designed to overcome their final objections—a reminder, a limited-time offer, a shipping discount. This is where you close the sale.

When I audit new client accounts, almost none of them have this structure. They're just lumping everyone together. By separating your audiences like this, you can tailor your message, control your budget more effectively, and guide people on a journey. It's the only way to build a sustainable, scalable ad account. The further down the funnel, the better the audience performs, because they already know and trust you to some degree. For instance, one campaign we managed for a cleaning products company achieved a 633% return and a 190% increase in revenue. That doesn't happen by accident; it's the result of a solid, strategic structure.

You probably should fix your offer...

Even with the best targeting and a perfect funnel structure, your campaigns will fail if your offer is weak. The number one reason campaigns fail is a bad offer. People build a product they think is great, but nobody actually wants or needs it. There's no demand.

A great offer does three things:

1. It focuses on a specific audience. You can't be everything to everyone.
2. It identifies an urgent, painful problem that audience has. People buy painkillers, not vitamins.
3. It presents a clear, tangible solution. It makes a complex service feel simple and less risky to buy.

Let's say you sell subscription boxes. A weak offer is "Get a monthly box of goodies". A strong offer is "Tired of the same old G&T? Discover rare, small-batch gins from around the UK, delivered to your door monthly. Become the gin expert among your friends." The first is generic. The second targets a specific person (a gin enthusiast), identifies a problem (boredom with mainstream options), and offers a clear, desirable solution (exclusivity and social status).

We worked with a subscription box client and helped them achieve a 1000% Return On Ad Spend. A result like that is only possible when the offer in the ads has been relentlessly tested and refined until it resonates perfectly with the target audience. Before you spend another penny on ads, you need to be brutally honest with yourself: is my offer genuinely solving a painful problem for a specific group of people?

You'll need a message they can't ignore...

Once your targeting, structure, and offer are sorted, you can finally think about the ad itself. Your ad copy and creative needs to stop the scroll and speak directly to the pain point you identified earlier.

A great framework for this, especially for eCommerce, is the Before-After-Bridge.

• Before: Describe their current world. A world filled with the problem you solve. Paint a picture of their frustration.
• After: Describe the new world they can have with your product. A world where their problem is gone. Paint a picture of relief, happiness, or success.
• Bridge: Position your product as the simple, easy bridge to get them from 'Before' to 'After'.

Here's an example for a company selling high-quality leather bags:

(Ad Image: A stylish woman looking frustrated as the strap on her cheap bag has clearly just broken, spilling contents on the pavement.)

Headline: That "bargain" bag just cost you your afternoon.

Body Text:
(Before) You're tired of fast-fashion bags that fall apart after one season. Broken straps, stuck zips, and that sinking feeling when you realise your 'investment piece' was anything but.
(After) Imagine a bag that gets better with age. A timeless leather carryall that handles your daily commute with ease, earns you compliments, and becomes a trusted companion for years to come.
(Bridge) Our full-grain leather totes are the bridge. Handcrafted to last a lifetime, not just a season. Shop the collection and invest in quality that endures.

This approach connects emotionally. It doesn't just list features; it sells a transformation. This is what gets people to click, and more importantly, to buy.

Let's talk about what success actually looks like...

So, if CTR isn't the goal, what is? Profitable customer acquisition. The real question isn't "How low can my Cost Per Click go?" but "How high a Cost Per Lead can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer lies in its counterpart: Lifetime Value (LTV).

You need to know your numbers. If you don't know how much a customer is worth to you over their lifetime, you're flying blind. You can't make smart decisions about your ad spend.

Here's the basic maths:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per customer, on average per order or per month?
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue?
• Monthly Churn Rate (for subscriptions) or Repeat Purchase Rate (for eCommerce): How often do customers leave or come back?

Let's run an example. Say you sell products online. Your average order value is £80, your gross margin is 60%, and on average, a customer buys from you 3 times.

LTV = (Average Order Value * Gross Margin %) * Number of Repeat Purchases
LTV = (£80 * 0.60) * 3
LTV = £48 * 3 = £144

In this example, each customer is worth £144 in gross margin to your business. A healthy business model aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £48 to acquire a single new customer (£144 / 3).

Suddenly, that £1 click doesn't seem so bad if it converts, does it? This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth and frees you from the tyranny of cheap clicks and misleading CTRs. Use the calculator below to get a feel for your own numbers.

So, what should you do next?

That was a lot of information, I know. It's a fundamental shift from just "running ads" to building a proper customer acquisition system. It takes more work up front, but it's the only way to get consistent, profitable results that you can actually scale.

I've detailed my main recomendations for you below in a table to make it a bit clearer:

Implementing all of this correctly is a complex and time-consuming process. It's not just about flipping a few switches; it's about deep research, strategic planning, constant testing, and careful analysis. This is where getting expert help can make a huge difference. An experienced eye can help you avoid the common pitfalls, accelerate your learning curve, and start seeing a return on your investment much faster than going it alone.

If you'd like a professional to review your ad account and help you build a proper strategy based on these principles, we offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session. We can take a look at what you've been doing and give you a clear, actionable plan to move forward.

Hope that helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh