It’s been a while since sending out my last newsletter. I’ve been learning a lot, and I’ve been writing some, but I haven’t published much.

So, in an effort to stop that, here’s a little rant about CTR, thumb stops, CPMs, and other metrics.

The common denominator? They’re all useless to evaluate your Meta ads.

I have a background in data science. Let me explain why they're all useless and what I think you should do instead:

First of all, there is no proven correlation between any of the metrics and sales.

Meta tested this across many ads and many advertisers. They didn't find any correlation.

In layman's terms: you can't use CTR to predict whether your ad will sell or not.

Just look at your own behavior. How much of the things you click on Meta do you buy? Very, very little, right?

There are simply too many things that produce a click, e.g., clickbait, but don't sell anything.

The same goes for the other metrics.

Second, CTR, thumb stop, and all the other metrics are not inputs to your ads; they're outcomes. They're a RESULT of your text and image/video.

So, by trying to predict sales using, for example, CTR, you're attempting to map one outcome (CTR) to another outcome (sales).

It's pointless. You want to learn how to create ads that sell, not what predicts sales AFTER the ad is launched.

To do that, you need to quantify the actual input, the ad, and look for correlations between those inputs and outputs (sales).

It's extremely difficult, but inputs could be:

• What angle are you using?

• Who's in the video?

• What emotions are you hitting?

• What problem are you solving?

These things are actually controllable INPUTS to your ad, not just a RESULT of your ad. So if you find a pattern, you can, controllably, leverage those inputs in new iterations of your ads.

Maybe, if you really want to track something easy, you should probably just track volume metrics:

• How many ads are you launching per week

• How many angles are you testing

• How many images/videos are you testing

Make volume your goal, and you'll find gold at some point no matter the CTR, thumb stop, etc.

This is also why cost controls are so powerful.

They create an environment where you can throw things at the wall and only spend a meaningful amount of money when it sticks.

Because of this, you don't need a perfect mapping of inputs to outputs. There's very little risk.

Stop your site from wasting your marketing money

Your site is important. It’s the final destination for all your marketing traffic.

Unfortunately, most themes are designed to be pretty, not to sell. That makes your site the bottleneck of all your marketing. It doesn’t matter how good your ads are if your site doesn’t convert the traffic into a sale.

With my Online Store Blueprint, you learn how to design your online store to sell the most, not just be pretty. In it, you learn 88 design guidelines for designing a top-selling online store.

Start with my seven favourite, no-code quick wins. Just implement one per day for seven days, and you’ll sell 10% more by day eight.