06/05/2025
If you've ever screamed this into the void... or at your agency/into your wine glass... you're not alone.
Your webinar is solid. Your offer is juicy. Your ad budget? Not tiny.
So, why are your leads crap?
Just a bunch of tyre-kickers and time-wasters who've forgotten who you are before they've even hit *submit* on your lead form.
Ready for the sucker punch? 🥊
Bad ads are rarely just bad ads.
Sometimes it’s your funnel.
Sometimes it’s your creative.
Sometimes it's your messaging.
Sometimes it's all of the above.
After running Facebook and Insta ads for 10+ years and having managed millions $£€s in ad budget...
I've put together a no-BS checklist 👇to figure out where your ads might be falling flat and what to check (in order) because “tweak the headline colour” won’t save you if your funnel’s leaking leads like a colander.
Buckle up, we're going in (and the louder you scream, the faster we go)...
STEP 1: CHECK YOUR OFFER
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Tough love: If your offer isn’t a no-brainer, no ad is saving it.
◻ Is the transformation clear, specific, and urgent?
◻ Is it priced right for your audience and the level of trust they have?
◻ Are people actually converting anywhere in your business?
🚩 Red flag: “I promoted this in a bunch of Facebook groups and on my page a few times, but no one bit (let alone bought)." We can use ads to test demand (fastest way, tbh), but it will cost you in actual money (but if time is worth more than money right now, it's an option).
STEP 2: CHECK YOUR FUNNEL
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Before you yell at your ad manager, check what happens after someone clicks.
◻ Does the landing page match the promise in the ad? (Be honest.)
◻ Is the page converting at minimum 20–30% for lead gen?
◻ Are your emails showing up? Do they suck? Do they SELL?
◻ Is anything in the funnel broken? I can't tell you how many times we've checked a funnel before hitting publish on an ad and found the bloody buttons didn’t even work.
🚩 Red flag: “My ad CTR is great but no one’s opting in.” That’s usually an offer or funnel issue and not the ad itself.
STEP 3: CHECK YOUR AUDIENCE (But Not How You Think)
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It’s not 2017. You don’t need to stalk your ideal client’s Spotify playlists to get targeting right anymore.
Thanks to Meta’s suspiciously smart algorithm, broad targeting often outperforms your 28-layer interest stack.
A better approach is to consider...
◻ Are you giving the algorithm enough data to work with?
◻ Are you spending enough daily to exit the “guess and hope” learning phase?
◻ Are your warm audiences actually warm?
🚩 Red flag: High CPM? It’s not a death sentence just a breadcrumb. Could be small audience, high demand... or your ads are just crap.
STEP 4A: CHECK THE VISUAL CREATIVES
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Are you images or videos scroll-stoppingly good?
◻ Does your creative 'hit home' within 0.3 seconds?
◻ Are you using real humans, bold colour, eye-catching imagery, or just another Canva graphic that screams “template #17”
◻ Does it visually signal the pain or the payoff at a glance?
🚩 Red flag: "My CTRs are really low. No one is even stopping and looking at my ad." Pretty often doesn’t convert. Punchy does. If it fits your brand - get weird, get loud, get noticed. Beige doesn’t convert (unless you're Mulberry and it's the 1990s).
STEP 4B: CHECK YOUR COPYWRITING
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Are you sparking curiosity or putting them to sleep?
◻ Are you opening with a hook that makes them go “oof, that’s me”?
◻ Are you teasing transformation, or explaining features like it’s a Haynes manual?
◻ Is your CTA irresistible and clear? (“Learn more” is not a CTA. It’s a polite 'aherm' cough.)
🚩 Red flag: "My CTRs are high, people are clicking on my ad, they're just not clicking through" You've got them intrigued, but the copy doesn't deliver on the promise.
STEP 5: SENSE CHECK THE STRATEGY (yes, you need one)
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OK, gone are the days you needed a PhD in cartography just to sell a bloody workshop. No more needing Google maps and a sherpa to lead you through all the twists and turns.
Remember saying, ‘At this point they've seen the landing page, it’s a full moon, Mercury is in retrograde, and if they also whisper their email into a seashell and sacrifice a goat we can then retarget them with the offer."
The strategy piece is simpler these days, and Meta does a lot of the heavy lifting.
Ask yourself -
◻ What’s your objective? (And don’t say “more clients.” That’s not an ad objective.)
◻ Are you nurturing leads? Or expecting strangers to hand over their card 15 seconds after seeing your face?
◻ Do your campaigns build trust before asking for time or money?
◻ Are you asking too much of your ads? You wouldn’t train a puppy by asking it to sit, stand, roll over, bark, and blow kisses to Simon Cowell all at once.
🚩 Red flag: If you can’t explain your funnel in one sentence to a tipsy friend, it’s not strategy it’s a confusion spiral or an M.C. Escher sketch.
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STILL STUCK?
Hey, I know this is a lot to take in. It might not be you. It might be your strategy. Or your agency. Or that recycled funnel from 2019 that’s giving "pandemic pivot vibes."
(Oh Jesus, if I heard the word "pivot" one more time there would've been bodies under the patio 🤣)
Either way, you don’t have to guess.
We work inside our clients’ businesses (think: funnel whisperers, offer surgeons, ad strategy nerds, creative brain trust).
If you’re done guessing and ready to actually know what’s working (and what’s sabotaging your results) DM me ‘WTF’ and I’ll take a look.