Look, I get it, I do. There's something deeply seductive about paid ads. You write a few lines of ad copy, add a chic picture of a person smiling in a blazer, throw $500 behind it and wait for the conversions to roll on in. It's performance marketing, baby! The promise is in the name: performance.
But there's an inconvenient truth my colleague and strategy wizard shared with me this morning: no amount of ad spend will fix a weak offer. You can't scale what's broken. If people aren't biting, it's likely not because you forgot to use the word "limited."
It's because your offer needs work, babes.
So, before you boost, promote, optimise, A/B test, or pour your entire freaking Q3 budget into Instagram Reels, take a step BACK. Put the keyboard DOWN, and ask yourself: is my offer actually any good?
Performance campaigns are designed to drive action: clicks, purchases, sign-ups, downloads. But people don't take action just because you batted your lashes and asked nicely (although in some cases this does work, imo.)
But no, they take action because they understand what you're offering. They want it, and believe it's worth the trade: time, money, email address, soul, etc.
If your ad isn't converting, it might not be the targeting. It might be the value proposition. Think of your offer as the core promise you're making to your audience. If that promise is fuzzy, boring, confusing, or way too inside-baseball, even the best ad won't save you.
You're not selling your thing. You're selling what your thing does for people. And yes, there is a huge difference.
And he's on the money there. One of the easiest ways to spot a weak offer is to remove yourself from it. You, the founder/marketer/agency, are too close. You've spent weeks (months? years?) in the Google Doc trenches. You know all the features, benefits, acronyms, and use cases. But that doesn't mean anyone else does...or should.
Would my sister get what this is?
Would a complete stranger stop scrolling for this?
If you have to explain it in five follow-up sentences, it's not clear enough. If you have to say "it's kind of like X, but not really," it's not compelling enough. If you start talking about "robust integrations," I'm already asleep. Zzzzzz.
Let's do a little self-audit. Your offer might be the problem if:
You're getting clicks but no conversions
You keep dropping price to compensate
You're attracting the wrong audience entirely
Your most engaged comment is "what is this?"
Your best pitch lives in a 35-slide deck no one reads
This is not a campaign problem. This is a clarity problem.
Make it stupid clear: Say what it is, who it's for, and why they should care. In plain language. No buzzwords, no jargon, no freaking "solutioning."
Show the transformation: People don't want your product. They want the after photo. So spell it out. What changes after they buy, click, sign up?
Find the friction: What's stopping someone from saying yes? Price? Trust? Confusion? Laziness? Answer those objections upfront.
Add urgency that's actually believable: Scarcity and time-limits still work, but not if they feel fake. "Only 2 spots left!" when you just launched? Girl, please.
Pressure test with real humans: Send your pitch to someone NOT IN THE INDUSTRY. If they get it immediately and show interest, you're on the right track. If they say "sounds cool!" and never follow up, back to the drawing board.
Highlight the trade off: Frame it in terms of what they'll lose if they don't take action. FOMO isn't manipulative, it's motivational.
When your offer is strong, your cost-per-click goes down. Your conversion rates go up. Your comments become "omg I need this" instead of "wtf is this." Paid ads amplify what's already there. So, make sure what's there is worth shouting about.
And remember, performance marketing doesn't start when the campaign launches. It starts the moment someone reads your headline and thinks, "Wait. I actually want that."
Clarity, not budget, is your best performance lever.
-Sophie Randell, Writer
