Solved: Single Product Carousel Ads vs Catalogue & Video

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some of my initial thoughts on your question about single-product carousel ads.

It’s a good question and you're right to think about optimising the path to purchase. A lot of people just throw traffic at a collection page and hope for the best. But while the tactic you're describing might seem like a neat trick, I'd argue it's focusing on the wrong part of the problem. The choice between a carousel, a video, or a catalogue ad is usually the last thing you should be worrying about. The real wins come from understanding your customer's journey, nailing your audience targeting, and giving them a message they actually care about. Let's break down what's probably going on and how you can fix it properly.

We'll need to look at your customer journey, not just the click...

You've suggested that driving traffic directly to a product page gets people "closer to checkout faster." On the surface, that makes sense. Fewer clicks, right? But it's a massive assumption. It assumes the person clicking the ad is ready to buy that *specific* product, right now. For cold traffic, that's rarely true. You might be sending them to the right church, but the wrong pew.

What if they're interested in your brand, but not that exact colour? Or they want to see what else you sell? By forcing them down a single path, you can actually increase your bounce rate and lose a potential customer who might have bought something else if they'd just landed on a well-organised collection page or homepage.

Before you start horizontally scaling with dozens of single-product ad sets (which sounds like a management nightmare, btw), you need to act like a detective. You have to look at your performance metrics to understand where people are actually dropping off. It's almost never about the ad format itself, but what the ad format is causing (or failing to cause) in the next step of the funnel.

So, where's the leak in your bucket?

-> Do you have a really low Click-Through Rate (CTR) and high Cost Per Click (CPC)? If people aren't even clicking, it doesn't matter where the link goes. This is an ad problem. Your image, video, or copy isn't compelling enough to stop the scroll. Your message is boring, your visuals are weak, or you're showing it to the wrong people. A carousel of static product images is unlikely to fix this; in fact, it can often look less engaging than a single, stunning lifestyle image or a dynamic video.

-> Do you get visitors to your site, but very few of them ever view a product page? This points to a disconnect between your ad and your landing page (be it the homepage or a collection page). The ad promised one thing, but the site delivered something else. Or maybe your targeting is just way off, and you're bringing in people who have zero interest in your products in the first place. You're getting the wrong type of traffic.

-> Do you get lots of product page views but almost no 'Add to Carts'? Okay, NOW we're at the problem you *think* you're solving. If people land on the product page and leave, this is a *product page* problem, not a traffic problem. Sending more people there won't fix it. The issue is likely your product photos, a lack of a good description, confusing pricing, bad reviews (or no reviews), or shipping costs that are a nasty surprise. A special offer or a sense of urgency could help here. It could also be that they're just not ready to buy yet and need to be retargeted over a longer period.

Here's a simple way to think about diagnosing the issue. Instead of guessing, follow the data.

I'd say you need to rethink your ad formats...

Since you asked specifically about formats, let's compare them. But remember, the format is a tool, not the strategy. A hammer is great for a nail, but useless for a screw. You need to pick the right tool for the job you've identified in the step above.

Single-Product Carousel Ads (What you're proposing):
-> Use Case: Good for showing multiple angles, features, or use cases of a *single* product. Think of a piece of furniture you can show in different room settings, or a dress shown on different models.
-> Pros: Can be more engaging than a single static image if done creatively. Allows you to tell a mini-story across the cards.
-> Cons: A pain to set up and manage at scale. You have to create each one manually. Performance is heavily reliant on having great photography for every angle. Can easily be ignored if it just looks like a bunch of boring product-on-white-background shots. Honestly, it's a lot of effort for what is often a marginal gain.

Catalogue Ads / Dynamic Product Ads (DPA):
-> Use Case: The absolute workhorse for any serious eCommerce business. It connects your Shopify product catalogue directly to Meta's ad platform.
-> Pros: Massively scalable and automated. For retargeting (BoFu), it's unbeatable – it can show people the *exact* products they viewed, added to their cart, and then abandoned. For prospecting (ToFu), Meta can show products from your catalogue that it thinks new users will be interested in. It's personalised advertising at scale. You set it up once, and it runs itself. This is what the big brands use.
-> Cons: Requires a properly configured product feed (which Shopify does pretty well automatically). The creative can sometimes feel a bit generic if you don't customise the overlays, but the sheer relevance of the targeting often makes up for it.

Video Ads:
-> Use Case: The best format for grabbing attention and telling a story. Ideal for top-of-funnel (ToFu) campaigns where you need to introduce your brand or a new product to people who've never heard of you.
-> Pros: Motion stops the scroll. You can demonstrate a product in action, show customer testimonials, or create an emotional connection in a way static images can't. We've had several SaaS clients see really good results with UGC videos, and the same principle applies to eCommerce. An unboxing video or a customer showing off your product can be incredibly powerful.
-> Cons: Can be more expensive and time-consuming to produce than static images. A bad video is worse than no video at all.

I've worked on numerous eCommerce campaigns, from women's apparel where we got a 691% return, to cleaning products with a 633% return. In almost all of these successful accounts, the strategy relied on a combination of formats used at different stages of the funnel. A typical winning structure looks something like this:

• ToFu (Top of Funnel - Prospecting): Engaging video ads or stunning single lifestyle images to capture the attention of a broad or interest-based audience. The goal is education and awareness.
• MoFu/BoFu (Middle/Bottom of Funnel - Retargeting): Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs) targeting website visitors, 'add to cart' abandoners, etc. The goal is to remind them what they looked at and push for the conversion.

Your idea of a single-product carousel fits somewhere in the middle, but it's trying to do the job of a DPA without the automation and personalisation, and the job of a video ad without the motion and storytelling. It often ends up being the worst of both worlds.

You probably should focus on who you're talking to...

This is, without a doubt, the most important part. You can have the best product page and the most beautiful ad in the world, but if you show it to people who don't care, you've wasted your money. Forget the ad format for a second and ask yourself: who am I actually trying to sell to?

And I don't mean "women aged 25-40 who like fashion." That's a demographic, not a customer. It tells you nothing useful. You need to get into their head. What's their specific, urgent, or expensive problem? Or what is the deep desire they are trying to fulfill? Your product is just a bridge from their current "before" state to their desired "after" state.

Your ideal customer profile isn't a person; it's a problem state. For an eCommerce store selling outdoor equipment, the problem isn't "I need a tent." It's "I'm terrified my cheap tent will leak and ruin my festival weekend," or "I want to impress my friends with my professional-grade gear on our next camping trip." Your ads need to speak to that nightmare or that dream, not the tent's specifications.

Once you know who you're talking to, you can build your Meta ad campaigns with a logical structure that mirrors the customer journey. I almost always structure client accounts this way, prioritising the audiences that are most likely to convert first.

META ADS AUDIENCE PRIORITISATION

This is how you should think about your campaigns, from the hottest audiences to the coldest:

1. BoFu (Bottom of Funnel - The "Almost" Customers)
These people are your top priority. They know who you are and have shown strong interest. Your only job is to get them over the finish line. This is where DPA ads shine.
-> Audiences: Added to Cart (last 7-14 days), Initiated Checkout (last 7-14 days), Viewed Content/Product Page (last 7-14 days). You should always exclude recent purchasers.

2. MoFu (Middle of Funnel - The "Interested")
These people have engaged with your brand but haven't visited a product page yet. They need a bit more convincing.
-> Audiences: Engaged with your Instagram/Facebook Page (last 30-60 days), Watched 50%+ of your video ads (last 30-60 days), All website visitors (last 30 days, excluding BoFu audiences).

3. ToFu (Top of Funnel - The Strangers)
This is your cold traffic. You're trying to find new customers. This is where you test and scale.
-> Audiences:
-> -> Lookalike Audiences: This is your best bet for prospecting. You ask Meta to find new people who are similar to your existing best customers. You should test these in order of value: Lookalike of Purchasers (start with 1%), Lookalike of Add to Cart, Lookalike of All Website Visitors. You need at least 100 people in the source audience, but honestly, it works much better when you have 1,000+.
-> -> Detailed Targeting: This is where you use interests, behaviours, and demographics. The key here, as I said, is to be specific. If you sell high-end coffee beans, don't target "coffee." Target followers of specific roasters, magazines like "Standart," or brands of expensive espresso machines. Find the interests that your ideal customer has, but the average person does not.

If you have a small budget, you can combine MoFu and BoFu into a single "Retargeting" ad set. But you should always keep your prospecting (ToFu) seperate from your retargeting. They are two different jobs and require different messaging and ads.

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

Once you have your funnel diagnosed and your audience defined, *now* you can think about the creative. Your ad's only job is to get the right person to stop scrolling and click. It needs to speak directly to the problem or desire you identified earlier.

Stop selling features. Nobody cares that your handbag is made from "ethically sourced vegan leather." They care that it makes them look stylish and put-together for their important work meeting. Sell the consequence, not the spec. Use the Before-After-Bridge framework.

Before: Your prospect's current, frustrating reality.
After: The desirable future your product enables.
Bridge: Your product is the thing that gets them from Before to After.

Example for a skincare brand:
Headline: Tired of hiding your skin behind filters?
Body Copy: (Before) Waking up to another breakout is frustrating. You spend ages with concealer, feeling self-conscious all day. (After) Imagine feeling so confident in your clear, glowing skin that you can't wait to post a #nofilter selfie. (Bridge) Our new Vitamin C serum is the bridge that gets you there. See visible results in just 14 days.

Example for the Outdoor Equipment store:
Headline: Don't Let Rain Ruin Your Festival.
Body Copy: (Before) There's nothing worse than waking up in a soggy tent with all your gear soaked. Your epic weekend is a washout. (After) Picture this: it's pouring outside, but you're warm, dry, and laughing with your mates inside your tent, which has become the go-to hangout spot. (Bridge) Our StormGuard 2 tent is the bridge. 100% waterproof guaranteed, so you can focus on the music, not the weather.

See how that works? It's not about the tent's hydrostatic head rating. It's about saving the festival experience. This is what gets the click. Your proposed carousel of static images can't easily tell this story. A video or a well-chosen lifestyle image can.

Let's talk numbers: What to expect and how to measure it...

So, how much should this all cost? It's the million-dollar question, and the honest answer is "it depends." It depends on your country, your industry, your pricing, and how well you execute everything we've just discussed. However, we can establish some rough benchmarks.

For eCommerce in developed countries (UK, US, CAN, AUS), you can expect Cost Per Click (CPC) to be in the £0.50 - £1.50 range. A decent eCommerce conversion rate is typically 2-5%. Let's do the maths:

• Best Case Scenario: £0.50 CPC / 5% Conversion Rate = £10 Cost Per Purchase (CPA)
• Worst Case Scenario: £1.50 CPC / 2% Conversion Rate = £75 Cost Per Purchase (CPA)

Your actual CPA will likely fall somewhere in between. The key is knowing whether that CPA is profitable for you. This is where most people get it wrong. They obsess over CPA without knowing the two most important metrics in their entire business: Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and Lifetime Value (LTV).

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is simple. For every pound you put into ads, how many pounds in revenue do you get back? If you spend £100 and make £400 in revenue, your ROAS is 4x. This is the primary metric you should be optimising your campaigns for.

But ROAS only tells part of the story. The truly game-changing metric is Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). How much is a customer worth to you over their entire relationship with your business, not just their first purchase? If you sell products that people buy again and again, your LTV could be very high.

Calculating LTV lets you know how much you can *afford* to spend to acquire a customer in the first place. This is the math that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth.

Let's say your:
- Average Order Value (AOV) is £75.
- Your customers purchase, on average, 4 times a year.
- Your average customer stays with you for 2 years.
- Your Gross Margin is 60%.

LTV = (AOV * Purchases Per Year * Avg. Customer Lifespan) * Gross Margin
LTV = (£75 * 4 * 2) * 0.60
LTV = £600 * 0.60 = £360

In this example, each new customer you acquire is worth £360 in gross profit to you. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £120 to acquire a single customer and still have a very profitable business. Suddenly that £75 CPA from our "worst case" scenario earlier doesn't look so bad, does it? It looks like a bargain.

Putting it all together: Your Action Plan...

So, to bring this all back to your original question: should you use single-product carousel ads? My answer is probably not, at least not as your primary strategy. It's a low-leverage tactic that distracts from the things that actually move the needle.

Instead of spending your time building dozens of manual ad sets, you should be investing that time in understanding your business at a much deeper level. One campaign we worked on for an outdoor equipment brand drove 18,000 website visitors, not because we used a magic ad format, but because we meticulously tested audiences and creative to find the winning combination. It's the strategy, not the tactic, that gets results.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below. This is the framework we use to build profitable, scalable eCommerce ad accounts.

As you can see, this is a lot more involved than just deciding on an ad format. Running paid ads effectively is a professional skill that involves strategy, data analysis, copywriting, and constant testing. It's not just about pushing a few buttons in Ads Manager.

If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by all this, that's completely normal. Getting this right takes time, experience, and a deep understanding of how these platforms work. Trying to figure it all out yourself through trial and error can be an incredibly expensive and frustrating process.

This is where expert help can make a huge difference. An experienced consultant or agency has already made the mistakes, run the tests, and learned the lessons on other people's budgets. We can audit your existing setup, implement a professional structure like the one above, and start optimising for what really matters—your bottom line.

We offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can take a look at your account together and give you some specific, actionable advice. It's a great way to get a second pair of expert eyes on your strategy and see if we might be a good fit to help you grow.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh