Your ads get clicks. The leads don't come. Here's where they leak.
Clicks without leads usually isn't a targeting problem. Five places paid traffic leaks between the ad and the form, and how to check each one this week.
ReadShort answerRun every ad through four questions before launch: Will it stop the right person? Does it say one thing? Is the next step obvious? Does the landing page keep its promise? The 12 checks below break those down.
Most ads don't fail because of one big mistake. They fail because of four small ones nobody caught before launch. This checklist is the short review we run on every ad before it gets a budget.
Will it stop the right person?
- 1. The first moment names a real pain or desire. Not your brand name, not a generic greeting. Something the buyer already feels.
- 2. It would not work for a competitor. Cover your logo. If the ad still fits any company in your category, it's not specific enough.
- 3. It looks native to the feed. On social, polished studio ads often read as "skip." Real faces, real places and clear text tend to feel more like content.
Does it say one thing?
- 4. One message per ad. If you can't summarize the ad in one short sentence, the viewer can't either.
- 5. Benefit before feature. Lead with what changes for the customer, then show how.
- 6. Proof is real and specific. A real review, a real number you can stand behind, a real before-and-after. Never invented.
If the ad needs a paragraph to explain itself, it hasn't found its message yet.
Does the visual work for the message?
- 7. Readable on a phone at arm's length. Big type, high contrast, few words on the image.
- 8. Works with the sound off. For video, captions carry the story. Many people watch without sound for at least part of the time.
- 9. The eye has one path. One focal point, then the message, then the action. Clutter competes with itself.
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- 10. One call to action that matches how warm the viewer is.
- 11. The landing page repeats the ad's promise in its headline, in the same words.
- 12. The form or checkout works on a phone, tested by you, this week.
A note for Google search ads
Search is different: the person already told you what they want. The job of the ad is to show you understood the search, not to interrupt a scroll. Put the searcher's words in the headline, make the offer concrete, and send them to a page about that exact search, not to your home page.
How to use this list
Print it. Run every new ad through it before it gets a budget. Score each check yes or no. Anything below ten yeses goes back for one more round. It takes ten minutes and saves weeks of paying to learn the same lesson.
Want us to run this review on your live ads? The adzFIX Session starts with exactly this: a review of your ads and pages before the call, then an hour of decisions.
The money is already going out. Let’s make it come back.
One 60-minute session on Zoom. We review your ads and pages before the call, then spend the hour on decisions. $390, no retainer.
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