Solved: Zero Conversions After First Day - Need Help!

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and guidance based on what you've described. It's a common situation to find yourself in, especially with a new ad account, so don't worry too much.

What you're seeing with conversions on day one and then a sharp drop is really typical of how Meta's algorithm works. It tries to find the 'quick wins' or the lowest-hanging fruit first – people in its vast user base who are already primed to convert based on their recent behaviour. Once that small, easy-to-reach group has been exhausted, the algorithm has to work harder, and that's when you see performance dip and costs can rise. It's the point where the real work of paid advertising begins.

Your question about using a traffic or engagement campaign is a good one, and it's a suggestion I see come up a lot, often from AI tools or more generic marketing advice. Tbh, while it sounds logical on the surface, it's a strategy I'd be very, very careful with. Let me explain why.

I'd say you need to be careful with Traffic & Engagement campaigns...

The first thing to understand is that the Meta ads algorithm is incredibly literal. It does exactly what you tell it to do. If you set your campaign objective to 'Traffic', you are telling Meta: "Please go and find me the people in my target audience who are most likely to click on a link." And it will do that very well. It will find the 'click-happy' users. Similarly, if you ask for 'Engagement', it will find people who are prone to liking, commenting, and sharing posts.

The problem is, the person who is most likely to click a link or like a post is very often not the person who is most likely to pull out their credit card and spend $120 on a new smart home product. These are often completely different user behaviours and, therefore, completely different pools of people within your broader audience. I've audited so many accounts over the years where a client has spent a good chunk of their budget on traffic campaigns, built up an audience of thousands of website visitors, but then seen almost no sales from that group. It's because they've trained their pixel with the wrong kind of data.

By running a traffic campaign, you're essentially populating your pixel with data from low-intent users. When you then try to run a conversion campaign later, or build a lookalike audience from those website visitors, the algorithm is working from a flawed dataset. It's trying to find people similar to 'people who click' rather than people similar to 'people who buy'. It pollutes your data right from the start, which can make it much more difficult and expensive to find actual customers down the line. For a new ad account, your initial data is precious, and you want to keep it as clean and high-quality as possible. You want your pixel to learn exclusively about the kind of person who buys your product, not just visits your site.

So, in short, while the idea of 'warming up' a cold audience is sound in principle, using a traffic or engagement campaign to do it is usually not the most effective or efficient way. It can feel like you're getting cheaper clicks and more activity, but it's often a false economy. You're better off spending a bit more per click to get the right click from the very beginning.

You probably should stick with a Conversion objective...

So what's the alternative? My advice would be to stick with the 'Sales' or 'Conversions' objective. I know it's frustrating seeing the performance drop after day one, but that's part of the process. The goal isn't to find a magic bullet that works instantly, but to build a sustainable system of testing that allows you to consistently find pockets of customers.

When you use the Conversions objective, you're telling Meta to find people who will perform a specific action – in your case, 'Purchase'. The algorithm will use every data point it has to find those users, even if it means showing your ad to fewer people and getting a higher Cost Per Click (CPC). That higher CPC is worth it if the person clicking is 10 times more likely to buy.

The key here is patience and methodical testing. A new campaign needs time to exit the 'Learning Phase'. During this period, the algorithm is actively experimenting, showing your ad to different types of people within your audience to learn who responds. Performance will be volatile. It might spend a whole day's budget and get you nothing, then get two sales in an hour. You need to give it enough time and conversions (Meta recommends 50 in a 7-day period, though that's not always feasible with a new account and smaller budget) to stabilise. Pulling the plug too early, or making drastic changes based on one or two days of data, is one of the biggest mistakes I see. You need to let the system do its job.

Instead of changing your campaign objective, the focus should be on what you're testing within your conversion campaign. The levers you need to be pulling are your targeting and your creative. This is where you'll find your long-term, scalable success.

We'll need to look at your audience strategy...

This is probably the most important part of getting a campaign to work long-term. When I audit client accounts, the most common issue is an audience strategy that isn't structured or prioritised correctly. People either go way too broad too soon, or they test random interests that don't really align with their ideal customer.

Here's how I'd approach it for your smart home product, in order of priority:

1. Start with Detailed Targeting (Top of Funnel - ToFu)

This is your starting point for a new account. You need to build a hypothesis about your ideal customer and test it. For a smart home product, don't just target a broad interest like "Technology". That's millions of people, most of whom aren't your customer. You need to get more specific. Think about it:

-> What brands do they like? Target interests for other smart home brands (e.g., Philips Hue, Google Nest, Ring, Wyze). People interested in one smart home product are often interested in others.

-> What media do they consume? Target followers of tech publications and blogs that review these kinds of products (e.g., The Verge, TechCrunch, Wired, specific YouTube tech reviewers if they're available as an interest).

-> What are their related hobbies/interests? Think about 'Home Automation', 'DIY Electronics', or even interests related to high-end home improvement or modern architecture.

I would create seperate ad sets for each theme of interests. For example, one ad set for competitor brands, one for tech media, and one for related hobbies. Let them run against each other with the same ads. This way, you're not just testing one interest, but a whole angle. After a few days, or once each ad set has spent enough for you to make a decision (a common rule of thumb is to let it spend at least 1-2x your target Cost Per Acquisition), you can see which theme is performing best and reallocate your budget there.

2. Move to Retargeting (Middle/Bottom of Funnel - MoFu/BoFu)

As soon as you start getting traffic from your detailed targeting campaigns (even if they don't buy), you need to set up retargeting. This is your warmest audience. These people have already visited your site, so they have some level of interest. You need a seperate campaign for them.

Your retargeting audiences should be tiered:

-> High Intent (BoFu): People who added your product to their cart or initiated checkout but didn't buy. This is your most valuable audience. Hit them with ads that overcome potential objections. Maybe offer a small discount, remind them of a key benefit, or show a customer testimonial.

-> Medium Intent (MoFu): People who viewed your product page but didn't add to cart, or people who watched a significant portion of your video ad.

-> Low Intent: All other website visitors.

For a new account with a small budget, you might need to group all these audiences together into one 'All Website Visitors in last 30 days (excluding purchasers)' ad set just to have enough people to target. As you scale, you can break them out into more specific segments.

3. Introduce Lookalike Audiences (Future ToFu)

Once you have enough conversion data, this is where you can really scale. A Lookalike Audience is when you ask Meta to find new people who are statistically similar to a 'source' audience you provide. The quality of your lookalike depends entirely on the quality of your source.

You should build lookalikes in this order of priority, as soon as you have enough data (you need a minimum of 100 people in the source audience from a single country, but tbh it works much better with 500-1,000+):

1. Lookalike of your Purchasers
2. Lookalike of your Initiated Checkouts
3. Lookalike of your Add to Carts
4. Lookalike of your Website Visitors

A 1% lookalike of your buyers will almost always outperform a 1% lookalike of your general website visitors. It's a much more potent signal. Starting with this structured approach to audience testing is far more likely to yield results than just running a traffic campaign to build a generic 'warm' audience.

You'll need a solid creative testing plan...

Even with the best targeting in the world, your ads won't work if the creative (the image/video and text) is poor. This is the other major lever you need to be pulling constantly.

For a $120 smart home product, you need to build trust and clearly demonstrate value. Static images can work, but for a product like yours, video is likely to be much more powerful. People need to see it in action to understand what it does and how it can fit into their lives.

-> Test Different Formats: Don't just run one ad. In one ad set, you should be testing multiple creatives against each other. Try a high-quality lifestyle image, a short video demonstrating the main feature, and maybe a carousel ad that walks through 3-4 key benefits.

-> Embrace Video: You don't necessarily need a high-budget production. Sometimes, a simple, authentic-looking video shot on a smartphone showing the product being unboxed and set up can work wonders. This is often called User-Generated Content (UGC) style creative, and it's incredibly effective because it feels more like a real review than a slick advert. We've had several B2B SaaS clients see amazing results with UGC, and it's even more powerful for consumer products.

-> Test Different Hooks & Angles: Your ad copy is just as important. Are you selling convenience? Security? Energy savings? The 'cool' factor of having a futuristic home? Try writing 2-3 different versions of your primary text, each focused on a different core benefit. Let Meta's algorithm test them and see which one resonates most with your audience. Your first sentence (the 'hook') is the most important part. It needs to stop them scrolling.

Creative fatigue is a real thing. An ad that works brilliantly for two weeks can suddenly stop performing. You need to have a pipeline of new creative ideas ready to test so you can swap out tired ads and keep your campaigns fresh.

I'd say you should set realistic expectations...

This is really important. A $120 product isn't an impulse buy for most people. It's a considered purchase. That means you shouldn't expect a 10x Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) from day one. You need to understand the numbers and what a 'good' result actually looks like for your business.

Based on my experience, here's a rough idea of the maths. For eCommerce in developed countries like the UK or US, you might expect the following:

-> Cost Per Click (CPC): £0.50 - £1.50 (let's use GBP as a base)

-> eCommerce Conversion Rate (from click to purchase): A good store might see 2-5%. A new, less-established store will likely be lower, maybe 1-2%.

Let's build a small table to see what that means for your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA):

As you can see, your CPA could be anywhere from £10 to £150 or even higher, especially at the start. Your AOV is about £95 ($120), so a CPA of £50 might not be profitable once you factor in the cost of the goods. This is why optimising every part of the process is so vital. The difference between a 1% and a 2% conversion rate is the difference between losing money and making a profit.

It's not to scare you, but to be realistic. I remember one campaign we ran for a subscription box that hit a 1000% ROAS on Meta Ads, but that came after a lot of testing and optimisation. You need to be prepared to invest in finding the right combination of audience and creative, and understand that your initial goal is to acquire data and customers at a breakeven cost, not to make huge profits immediately.

We'll need to look at your website conversion flow...

The final, and perhaps most important, piece of the puzzle is your website. You can have the best ads in the world, but if they send people to a website that is slow, untrustworthy, or confusing, you will not get sales. No amount of ad optimisation can fix a leaky bucket.

Since I can't see your site, here are the key things you must have dialled in for a $120 product from a new brand:

-> Trust, Trust, Trust: This is everything. Why should a stranger give you their credit card details? You need social proof. Customer reviews (even if you have to ask your first few customers personally for them), testimonials, trust badges (like secure payment logos), a clear 'About Us' story, and an easy-to-find contact page with an address and phone number are non-negotiable.

-> Professional Product Showcase: Your product photos and videos must be excellent. For a smart home device, this means high-resolution images from multiple angles, and lifestyle shots showing it in a real, attractive home setting. A video of it in use is almost mandatory.

-> Benefit-Driven Copy: Don't just list the technical specs. Your product descriptions need to sell the dream. How does this product make my life easier, safer, or more enjoyable? Translate features into benefits.

-> A Frictionless Checkout: How many clicks from the product page to a completed order? It should be as few as possible. Remove any unnecessary fields in the checkout form. Offer guest checkout. Be upfront about shipping costs – unexpected fees are the number one cause of cart abandonment.

-> Mobile Experience: The vast majority of your ad traffic will be on mobile. Your site must be fast and easy to navigate on a small screen. If it's not, you're throwing money away.

Before spending a lot more on ads, be brutally honest with yourself about your website. Get a friend who has never seen it before to try and make a purchase and watch where they struggle.

This is the main advice I have for you:

To pull this all together, here's a summary of the approach I would recommend you take. It’s a process of methodical testing and optimisation, not looking for a single quick fix.

I know this is a lot to take in. Running paid advertising effectively is a full-time job, and it involves juggling a lot of moving parts. The process I've outlined is a simplified version of the methodology we use for our clients, and it requires constant monitoring, testing, and iteration.

This is where getting professional help can make a huge difference. An experienced eye can spot opportunities and problems much faster, saving you from wasting time and money on strategies that won't work. We can help you build this entire structure, from the audience research and creative strategy to the ongoing campaign management and optimisation, letting you focus on running your business.

If you'd like, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can take a proper look at your ad account and website together. We could discuss your specific product and goals in more detail and give you a more concrete plan of action. Feel free to let me know if that's something you'd be interested in.

Either way, I hope this detailed breakdown has been helpful and gives you a clearer path forward.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh