Solved: Purchase Rate Dropped 50% on Meta Campaigns

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

I’ve had a look at your situation, and that 50% drop in purchase rate since late October is a familiar story. My immediate thought is that focusing only on refreshing your creatives might be looking at the symptom, not the cause. It's rarely just one thing, and the timing you mentioned is a massive clue.

When perfomance suddenly tanks like that, especially at that specific time of year, it's almost always due to a major shift in the advertising auction itself. You're heading straight into the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas shopping season. It’s the most competative and expensive time of year to advertise, full stop. Everyone and their dog is throwing money at Meta, which means costs (CPMs) go through the roof, and the algorithm has to work much harder to find you buyers.

So, while new creatives might help, the real fix is likely deeper. We need to make your entire advertising system more resilient and efficient to compete in this tougher environment. Let's break down how I'd approach this.

We'll need to look at your entire funnel, not just the ads...

Before you change a single image or headline, you have to play detective. The question is: where exactly in the journey are people dropping off now that they weren't before? Your overall purchase rate has dropped, but that's the final step. The leak could be happening anywhere along the way.

You need to dissect your key metrics from the moment someone sees your ad to the moment they buy. Here’s the typical path:

• CTR (Click-Through Rate): Are people still clicking your ads at the same rate? If this has dropped, then yes, your ads might be tired and failing to grab attention against the holiday noise. This is 'ad fatigue'.
• Link Clicks to Landing Page Views: Of the people who click, are they actually waiting for your page to load? A drop here could mean your site is too slow, which is a killer when user patience is thin.
• Landing Page Views to Adds to Cart: Are people landing on your product pages but not adding anything to their basket? This points to a problem with the offer itself. Your pricing, product photos, descriptions, or trust signals might not be compelling enough anymore, especially when customers are seeing dozens of other offers every day.
• Adds to Cart to Initiated Checkout: A drop-off here often signals friction in the cart process. Unexpected shipping costs are the number one culprit.
• Initiated Checkout to Purchase: If people are starting to pay but not finishing, it could be a technical issue, a lack of payment options, or just last-minute hesitation.

Analysing this sequence will tell you exactly where to focus your energy. If your CTR is fine but your 'Add to Cart' rate has halved, then no amount of new ad creative will fix it. The problem is on your website. I've put together a simple flowchart to visualise this diagnostic process. You can follow it step-by-step to identify your weakest link.

I'd say you need to priortise your audiences...

The second big area to look at is who you're actually targeting. When competition increases, Meta's algorithm has to spread your budget thinner. It might start showing your ads to people within your target audience who are less likely to buy, simply because they are cheaper to reach. You might be getting clicks, but they are lower quality clicks.

This is why you need to get ruthless with your audience prioritisation. You want to force Meta to focus your spend on the people most likely to convert, even if they cost a bit more to reach. I structure campaigns for eCommerce clients like yours into a clear funnel:

• Top of Funnel (ToFu) - Cold Audiences: These are people who don't know you. You'll use interest-based targeting (e.g., people interested in 'home organisation', 'eco-friendly products', competitor brands) and Lookalike audiences. For Lookalikes, you want to prioritise quality. A Lookalike of your past purchasers is infinitely more valuable than a Lookalike of all website visitors.
• Middle of Funnel (MoFu) - Warm Audiences: These are people who've shown some interest but haven't taken a key action. This includes people who have watched your video ads, engaged with your Instagram page, or visited your website but didn't add to cart. You retarget them with a slightly different message, maybe showcasing reviews or different product benefits.
• Bottom of Funnel (BoFu) - Hot Audiences: This is your goldmine. These are people who have added products to their cart or started the checkout process but didn't buy. They are so close. You should hit them with specific retargeting ads showing them the exact product they abandoned, maybe with a small incentive like free shipping to get them over the line. They usually provide the highest Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

Since October, your BoFu audiences are probably seeing more competitor ads than ever. You need to make sure you're staying in front of them and not letting a competitor swoop in and steal the sale. Many businesses with unstable performance are spending way too much on broad, cold audiences and not enough on nurturing and converting their hot audiences.

You probably should focus on what you're offering them...

Okay, so let's say your targeting is tightened up. The next piece of the puzzle is your offer. In a quiet market, a good product at a fair price is often enough. In the loud, crowded Q4 market, it's not. Your offer needs to be irresistible to cut through the noise.

This doesn't always mean discounting. For household products, you could try:

• Bundles: Create a "Kitchen Starter Kit" or a "Deep Clean Bundle" that offers better value than buying items individually. This increases your Average Order Value (AOV), which is critical. If you can make more money per transaction, you can afford the higher ad costs and still be profitable.
• Tiered Offers: "Spend £50, get free shipping. Spend £75, get a free cleaning cloth." This encourages customers to add more to their cart to unlock a reward.
• Exclusivity: Create a limited-edition "Winter Scent" of one of your popular products. Urgency and scarcity are powerful motivators, especially during the gift-giving season.

To understand just how much you can afford to spend, you need to know your numbers inside and out. Specifically, your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Most businesses only focus on the profit from the first sale, but you sell household products—items people buy repeatedly. Knowing what a customer is worth over six months, a year, or two years completely changes the game. It tells you how much you can really afford to pay to acquire them in the first place.

I've built a simple calculator below. Play around with your own numbers. You might be surprised to find that a 'high' cost per purchase today is actually a bargain when you look at the long-term value that customer brings.

You'll need a proper creative testing system...

And now, finally, we get to the creatives. Yes, you absolutely need to refresh them, especially if they've been running for a while. But don't just 'refresh' them. You need to build a system for continuously testing new ideas.

We've had great success with eCommerce clients in similar niches. For instance, one campaign for a cleaning products brand generated a 633% return on Meta Ads. Often, success comes from moving away from sterile product shots and towards more relatable, problem-solving creative. Instead of just showing a bottle of your product, show the result. Show the shiny surface, the happy family in a clean home, the satisfying before-and-after shot.

You need to test different angles, messages, and formats:

• Angles: Test a 'problem-focused' ad (e.g., "Hate scrubbing tiles? So did we.") against a 'benefit-focused' ad (e.g., "Get a sparkling bathroom in half the time.").
• Formats: Test static images vs. short, snappy videos (like User-Generated Content style) vs. carousels that show multiple products or use cases. Video is often dominant now, but you never know what will work for your audience until you test it.
• Copy: Test short, punchy headlines against longer, more story-driven copy.

The key is to be methodical. Change one thing at a time. Test two different headlines with the same image. Test two different images with the same headline. This is how you learn what actually resonates with your audience, so your next batch of creatives is even better. I've detailed my main recommendations for you below, putting this all together into an actionable plan.

This is the main advice I have for you:

This table summarises the step-by-step plan I'd implement to not only recover your purchase rate but build a stronger, more profitable advertising system for the long run.

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's certainly more complex than just uploading a few new pictures. Running paid ads, especially for eCommerce during Q4, is a full-time job of analysing data, managing budgets, and constantly testing to stay ahead. Doing this all correctly requires expertise and a significant time investment.

This is where working with a specialist can make a huge difference. We live and breathe this stuff every single day, and we've navigated these exact challenges for many other brands. We can accelerate this entire process for you, implement proven strategies from day one, and help you avoid the costly trial-and-error that can drain your budget.

If you'd like to chat through your specific numbers and have us take a look at your ad account, we offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session. It's a chance for you to get some expert eyes on your campaigns and come away with a clear, actionable plan. Feel free to book one in if you think that would be helpful.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh