I spent $3,000 on Facebook ads and made $200. What went wrong?

By Dan BartleyUpdated 11 October 20263 minute read

The short answer

Usually one of four things: the campaign was set up to get clicks or likes rather than sales, purchases were not being tracked, the ads did not catch the right people's attention, or people clicked and the product page, price or delivery cost put them off. Your Ads Manager and Shopify numbers can tell you which, before you spend another dollar.

How do I find where the ad money went?

Follow a shopper's path and see where most people stopped. Between them, Ads Manager and Shopify show how many people saw the ad, clicked, added to cart, started checkout and bought.

Where shoppers stop, and what it usually means

Where people stopped	What it usually means	Where to look
Few clicks	The ad did not interest the people who saw it	The picture, the first line and the offer
Clicks, but few added to cart	The product page or price did not convince them	Photos, price, reviews and delivery details
Added to cart, but no checkout	A surprise at the cart	Delivery cost, delivery time and payment options
Sales in Shopify that Meta does not show	Purchases are not being tracked	Events Manager and your Shopify sales channel

Did I choose the wrong campaign type?

Possibly, and it is a common first mistake. A campaign set to traffic or engagement, or a boosted post, finds people who click or like; for an online store, choose the Sales objective and optimise for purchases, so Meta looks for people who buy.

The objective is the first choice you make when creating a campaign in Ads Manager. Open each campaign you ran and check which one it used, because a traffic campaign can report thousands of cheap clicks and almost no sales.

How do I know if my sales were being tracked?

Check that purchases appear in Meta's Events Manager and match the orders in Shopify for the same days. If Meta recorded no purchases, it had nothing to learn from and could not find more buyers like the ones you had.

On Shopify, connecting the Facebook and Instagram sales channel sends purchases to Meta. Place a small test order after setting it up and confirm it arrives in Events Manager.

Was $3,000 enough to learn anything?

It can be, if it went into one campaign and a few ads. Spread across many ad sets, audiences and boosted posts, it gives Meta too few sales in any one place: Meta's system usually settles after about 50 results in a week for each ad set.

That is why one sales campaign with broad targeting usually does better on a small budget than many small ones. Every sale lands in the same place, and the system learns faster.

What if people clicked but did not buy?

Then the ad did its job and the store did not finish it. Look at your product page on your phone the way a stranger would: are the photos clear, are the price and delivery cost obvious, and is there a reason to trust you?

Photos that show the product clearly, in use and to scale
Price, delivery cost and delivery time visible before checkout
Reviews or other signs that real people have bought it
A page that loads quickly on a phone
An ad that matches the page it sends people to

There is a full walk-through in how to build a product page that converts.

What should I fix before spending more on ads?

Fix the biggest drop-off first, then restart small with one sales campaign and a few clearly different ads.

Confirm purchases are tracking in Events Manager
Fix the point where most people dropped out
Run one Sales campaign with broad targeting
Launch three to five ads that look clearly different from each other
Give it a week before changing anything

Sources

Meta Business Help Centre: about the learning phase

Dan Bartley

Founder, Bartley Studio

Dan runs Bartley Studio. He has spent eight years in design, creative direction and paid ads, and now directs the imagery, video and Meta ad accounts the studio delivers for e-commerce brands in Australia and New Zealand.