Solved: Organic Reach Dropped After Running Ads

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

I've had a look over the situation you described with your organic reach and the advice you got from ChatGPT. It's a really common problem people run into when they start dipping their toes into paid ads, and honestly, the advice you recieved is a classic example of being technically right for the completely wrong reasons. I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and a bit of guidance on how I'd approach this. The short answer is that you need to fundamentally rethink who you're talking to with your ads and why.

Why ChatGPT gets it half-right, but dangerously wrong...

Right, let's get straight into it. The idea that the platform is specifically penalising your organic reach *because* you're running an ad to your followers is a massive oversimplification and, frankly, misleading. It's not some switch that gets flipped in the algorithm saying "this person is paying, so let's throttle their free stuff". The reality is a lot more human and logical, and it's all about something we call 'audience fatigue'.

Think about it from your follower's perspective. They scroll through their feed and see your organic post. They either like it, comment, or scroll past. A bit later, they're scrolling again and boom, the same content appears, but this time it has a 'Sponsored' tag on it. What's their reaction going to be? They've already seen it. They're not going to engage a second time. More likely, they'll just ignore it completely. They might even get a bit annoyed, feeling like you're spamming them. This repeated, ignored exposure teaches the algorithm a very simple lesson: "My followers are no longer interested in this person's content".

The algorithm's entire job is to keep users on the platform by showing them things they find interesting. When it sees that your own dedicated followers are starting to ignore your posts (both organic and paid), it concludes that your content quality is dropping. As a result, it stops showing your organic posts to as many of them. It's not a punishment; it's a direct reaction to the behaviour you've inadvertently created. You're essentialy training your audience to ignore you, and the algorithm is just reflecting that reality.

Here's a simple way to visualise the cycle you've created:

So, is ChatGPT right that you should use a lookalike audience? Yes, absolutely. But the reason isn't to fix your organic reach. The reason is that the entire purpose of paid advertising, especially at the top of the funnel, should be to reach new people who haven't heard of you before. You have 100k followers; that's your organic audience. Paid ads are your tool to go out and find the next 100k.

You're targeting Followers, but you should be targeting Problems...

This brings us to a much more fundamental point. You're thinking about your audience in terms of 'followers' and 'non-followers'. As a paid advertising expert, I can tell you that this is the first mistake many people make. A 'follower' is a vague demographic. Some might be superfans, some might be casual followers, some might have followed you years ago and forgotten why. It's not a reliable indicator of a potential customer.

To run ads that actually work, you need to stop thinking about demographics and start thinking about nightmares. What is the specific, urgent, expensive problem that your ideal customer is facing? Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. They are lying awake at 3 AM worrying about something that you can solve.

For example, let's imagine you're a nutritionist. Your ICP isn't "women aged 25-40 who follow me". It's "a 35-year-old working mum who is terrified she's one bad month away from total burnout, feels guilty for feeding her kids processed food because she has no time to cook, and has seen her own health decline." That is a nightmare. Your newsletter, your content, and your ads need to be the solution to that specific nightmare.

Once you've defined that problem, your targeting becomes much clearer. Instead of just "my followers," you can start thinking about where this person hangs out online.

• -> What other accounts do they follow (e.g., parenting blogs, time-management experts)?
• -> What podcasts do they listen to on their commute?
• -> What specific tools or products do they already use (e.g., meal-kit delivery services)?
• -> What Facebook groups are they members of?

This is the intelligence that fuels a real targeting strategy. Targeting "followers" is lazy; it assumes your work is done. Targeting a "problem state" is how you build a campaign that feels like a mind-reading exercise to your perfect customer. Your ad should show up in their feed and make them think, "How did they know I was struggling with exactly this?" That's when you get a click, and more importantly, a high-quality newsletter sign-up from someone who genuinely needs what you're offering. They are pre-qualified not by who they follow, but by the pain they are experiencing.

We'll need to look at your Campaign Objectives...

Now, let's talk about the mechanics of your ad campaign. You mentioned the ad is doing well to get newsletter sign-ups, which is great. But you're also worried about the drop in likes. This tells me you might be mentally trying to achieve two goals with one ad: engagement (likes) and conversions (sign-ups). This is another common pitfall.

There is an uncomfortable truth about social media advertising, particularly on Meta (Facebook/Instagram). When you set your campaign objective to something like "Reach", "Brand Awareness", or "Engagement", you are giving the algorithm a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price who are likely to perform this low-value action".

The algorithm does exactly what you asked. It seeks out users inside your targeting who are chronic 'likers' but are least likely to ever click a link, leave the platform, or pull out a credit card. Why? Because those users are not in demand by serious advertisers. Their attention is cheap. By optimising for a vanity metric like likes, you are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you the worst possible audience for your actual business goal, which is getting valuable newsletter subscribers.

You MUST align your campaign objective with your business objective. Your goal is newsletter sign-ups. Therefore, your campaign objective must be set to 'Conversions' (or 'Leads'). When you do this, you're telling the algorithm: "I don't care about likes, comments, or shares. I don't even care about cheap clicks. I will pay you to find me the specific type of person who is most likely to go to my landing page and type in their email address."

This is a more expensive instruction to give the algorithm, so your cost per thousand impressions (CPM) will be higher. But the quality of the action you get will be infinitly better. You'll get fewer likes, for sure. But you'll get sign-ups. And a single sign-up from someone with a real problem you can solve is worth more than a thousand likes from people who will never buy from you. The best form of 'brand awareness' is a new subscriber who finds so much value in your newsletter that they tell their friends about it. That only happens through conversion, not through shallow engagement.

I'd say you need a proper Funnel Structure...

So, how do we put all this together? We stop thinking in terms of one-off ads and start thinking in terms of a customer journey, or what we call a funnel. A potential customer goes from being a complete stranger to a loyal subscriber. You need different messages and different targeting for each stage of that journey. A simplified way to look at this is ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu.

ToFu: Top of Funnel (Finding Strangers)

This is your acquisition stage. The goal here is to introduce your brand to people who have the 'nightmare' we defined earlier but have never heard of you. This is where your lookalike audiences and interest-based targeting come in.

• -> Lookalike Audiences: This is your most powerful tool. You take your existing newsletter list (your source of truth for what a good subscriber looks like) and ask the platform to go and find millions of other people who share similar characteristics, behaviours, and interests. This is exactly what ChatGPT suggested, and it's the core of any good ToFu strategy. For instance, I remember one app growth campaign we worked on in the eLearning space. By building lookalike audiences from their best existing users, we were able to generate over 45,000 new signups at under £2 each. It’s a testament to how effective this strategy is for finding new people who are a perfect fit for your offer.
• -> Interest Targeting: This is where your ICP research pays off. You'll build audiences based on the specific interests, pages, and tools your ideal customer engages with. The messaging here needs to be problem-focused, using a framework like Problem-Agitate-Solve to grab their attention and present your newsletter as the solution.

MoFu: Middle of Funnel (Warming Up Visitors)

Not everyone who clicks your ToFu ad will sign up immediately. They might visit your landing page, get distracted, and leave. This is where MoFu, or retargeting, comes in. You create audiences of people who have shown some interest but haven't converted yet.

• -> Website Visitors (Excluding Subscribers): Anyone who landed on your sign-up page but didn't complete the form.
• -> Video Viewers: People who watched a significant portion of your video ad but didn't click.
• -> Ad Engagers: People who saved your ad or engaged in some other way without clicking through.

BoFu: Bottom of Funnel (Engaging Your Core Audience)

This is the smallest, warmest part of your audience. This includes your existing newsletter subscribers and, yes, your most engaged followers. Should you run ads to them? Sometimes, but never with the same offer you're using for cold traffic. They've already signed up for the newsletter! Showing them an ad to do it again is what causes fatigue. Instead, you use BoFu ads for specific, high-value actions:

• -> Announcing a new product or service.
• -> Promoting a limited-time offer.
• -> Inviting them to an exclusive webinar or event.

You probably should calculate your Subscriber Lifetime Value...

The final, and perhaps most important, mindset shift is to stop thinking about 'likes' and start thinking about value. A like costs you nothing and gives you nothing in return. A newsletter subscriber, however, is a genuine business asset. But how much is that asset worth?

The real question isn't "How low can I get my cost per sign-up?" but "How high a cost per sign-up can I afford to acquire a truly great subscriber?" The answer lies in calculating the Lifetime Value (LTV) of a subscriber. This sounds complex, but it's a simple bit of maths that will change the way you view your ad spend.

We need three numbers:

1. Average Monthly Revenue Per Subscriber (ARPS): How much money does one subscriber generate for you each month, on average? This could be from them buying your products, clicking affiliate links, etc.
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue? For digital products or affiliate income, this can be very high, maybe 80-95%.
3. Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of your subscribers unsubscribe each month?

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

Let's say you estimate each subscriber generates £1 in revenue per month, your margin is 90%, and you lose 4% of your list each month.
LTV = (£1 * 0.90) / 0.04
LTV = £0.90 / 0.04 = £22.50

Suddenly, you know that each subscriber you acquire is worth £22.50 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. Now, does paying £2, £3, or even £5 for a highly-qualified subscriber from a lookalike campaign seem expensive? No, it looks like an incredible bargain. This is the maths that unlocks intelligent, scalable growth. It frees you from the tyranny of cheap likes and allows you to invest confidently in acquiring real assets.

To make this easier, I've built a simple interactive calculator for you below. Play around with the numbers to get a feel for what your subscribers might be worth.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

To pull this all together, here is a clear, actionable plan that I would recommend you implement. This moves away from the confusing advice and focuses on a proven structure for growth.

Following this plan will represent a fundamental shift in your approach. You'll move from a reactive state of worrying about organic metrics to a proactive state of systematically building a larger, more valuable audience of potential customers. The world of paid advertising can feel complex, and navigating these strategic nuances is precisely where expert help becomes invaluable. It's about more than just pressing the 'boost post' button; it's about building a predictable engine for growth.

I hope this detailed breakdown has been helpful and provided some clarity. It's a lot to take in, but getting this foundation right is the difference between burning cash and building a real business asset. If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your accounts together and map out a more tailored strategy.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh