Why Paid Ads Fail: Conversion Secrets — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:02] paid ads on Google, Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat to get a few clicks and visits to your website or online store and make a profit, but nobody tells the truth. Google, Meta, and TikTok don't care whether your ads are actually profitable for you or not. In 2024, Google generated over

[00:19] you or not. In 2024, Google generated over $260 billion, and most of that money came from people who had never profited from ads before. These figures are roughly the same as Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat. Imagine that eight out of ten marketers do n't make any real profit; in fact, they incur

[00:35] significant losses from paid ads across all advertising platforms. Currently, one in ten makes a profit, but it's a small one. Only one in ten manages to generate substantial profits from paid ads—that's just 10% of

[00:50] advertisers. So, if your ads aren't performing well, even if they're being managed by marketing agencies, you're not getting any results. Electronic, I want to tell you that you're not alone. I understand the frustration you might be feeling. You've followed all the steps, done everything right, exactly as the book says:

[01:05] precise targeting, a great landing page design, strong ads (the creative ones), a compelling offer, and all the best practices you hear about and read about, but still nothing is working. Nothing seems to be delivering the results you want. So you start changing the

[01:20] headline, the image, the creative, modifying the button color or the text, lowering the price, rewriting the copy of your ads or landing pages, changing your audience, and wasting hours in the sponsored ad dashboard

[01:33] on advertising platforms trying to adjust and improve, but still nothing works. You can't seem to achieve the result you know you should. But listen, this doesn't mean you're bad at marketing. It means that no one working with you—whether your marketing team or the

[01:48] digital marketing agencies you've dealt with—is truly understanding. With them, I truly understand what makes sponsored ads profitable [laughs] because that's the goal. The truth is, if you're missing the essential part that actually generates profit, all these superficial modifications won't make any significant difference. It's like trying to

[02:05] all these superficial modifications won't make any significant difference. It's like trying to decor, you won't benefit at all. I'm Yasser Selim, and I founded one of the largest digital advertising agencies in the Arab world. We have more than 50 employees and manage

[02:20] advertising budgets exceeding $10 million. We work with everyone from small business owners to large companies in various fields and across the Arab world and beyond. I can confidently tell you that the major difference between

[02:35] successful and losing advertising campaigns has nothing to do with ad settings or even media pinging. The problem isn't targeting, keywords, or the targeting, keywords, or the

[02:50] type of search terms you're targeting. The real problem with the bidding you're using happens in the first eight seconds after a customer clicks on your ad. In this video, I'll explain the hidden system that separates advertising campaigns that actually generate significant profits from those that

[03:04] significant profits from those that burn money, and how to build this system so that all advertising platforms work in your favor and become a real engine for your business's growth. So pay close attention because the next few points will truly change your business. Let's begin. Imagine

[03:19] you own a shop right now, and people enter your shop, take a quick look, and then leave immediately after a few seconds. Not because they're not interested, but because the place is cluttered, the lighting is unpleasant, and there's no one to greet them. This is what's happening on your website right now. The page your customer

[03:34] lands on after clicking on your ad, which we call the landing page, has an average conversion rate of 2%. This is if we're talking about an online store page that sells tangible products like clothes and accessories. Electronics, perfumes, and other products... Think about it for a second. If you're

[03:49] perfumes, and other products... Think about it for a second. If you're paying $1 per visit and only 2% of those people convert into customers, then you're paying $50 to gain just one customer. If your average profit per order is $10, $20, or even $30, you're losing a lot of money

[04:04] even $30, you're losing a lot of money with every sale. That means 97% of your advertising budget is going to visitors who just look at the page and leave immediately. It's like 97% of every 100 people who enter your store leave without buying anything, without even looking. If

[04:20] any regular store had numbers like that, it would lose money. In fact, it would be a disaster, literally. 97% of the people who enter your store leave in seconds without even looking at what you're offering. But, my friend, when most people see these numbers, they start

[04:36] thinking this way: "My targeting is definitely wrong. Maybe I need to change my strategy." Words or keywords for my ad. Okay, I'll try raising the bid a little above my competitors. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Your ads have already done their job well. They've brought in

[04:51] interested people who visited your page. If they weren't interested, they wouldn't have clicked on the ad. The problem arises in the first eight seconds after the customer reaches the page. In our agency, we've studied landing pages that achieve In our agency, we've studied landing pages that achieve conversion rates of 7% to 12% and 15% from the same

[05:07] traffic, the same ads, the same targeting, the same products. The only difference is the user experience on the site. Let me tell you the numbers: What's the scenario? One click for $1, conversion rate 2%, cost of acquiring the customer here would be $50. And the scenario with the same click or click for

[05:23] $1, conversion rate 10%, which equals the cost of the customer being $10. That means the scenario gains a customer at a 77% lower cost. And that's not a small difference; it's the difference between your project being profitable or going bankrupt. Most of our clients who couldn't

[05:40] generate profits from The paid ads were falling into the same trap: excellent targeting, an attractive ad, and genuinely interested traffic, but the landing page was reducing conversions. People were ready to buy, but the website couldn't close the sale. It couldn't be the savvy salesperson that closes

[05:57] at least 10% of visits and converts them into customers. But be aware that the landing page isn't the only problem. Even if you have a good conversion rate and your campaigns aren't profitable, there's a good chance you're using incorrect data. This is because the measurement method itself is flawed. When you start making decisions

[06:14] based on incorrect data, you not only stop good campaigns, but you could also destroy your entire project without realizing it. To illustrate, let's imagine this scenario: you run an ad, someone clicks on it, visits your website, but doesn't buy anything on their first visit. So, your

[06:32] that click as wasted money. But the truth is, this person saw your brand name, visited your website, maybe even added something to their cart, and then left. Three days later, they go to Google and type your company name. He bought something, then two weeks later he bought something again, and a month later he recommended you to a friend who turned out to be one of

[06:49] your biggest clients. But the advertising platform's reports, whether it's Google, Meta, or others, are counting this person's click as a loss, meaning he's not counted as a client. In this case, your advertising platform is training with incorrect data and therefore

[07:06] producing incorrect results. We studied thousands of customer journeys in different projects and found one clear thing: the most profitable customers don't buy on their first visit. The average customer encounters your brand

[07:18] six to twenty times before making a purchase decision. But most marketers give credit to the last click, like giving all the credit to the player who scored the goal and

[07:30] ignoring all the other players who helped get the ball into the net. So what happens when you or the person managing your advertising accounts checks your Google Ads, Meta, or Snapchat accounts and sees the campaigns Advertising isn't working; only 2% of those who click actually

[07:45] buy. But the truth is, these ads can be the reason for a large part of your advertising revenue, be the reason for a large part of your advertising revenue, but you're not connecting the dots. That's why some companies can pay $5, $10, or even $50 or more per click. It's

[08:02] not because they have a lot of money, as you might think, but because they understand the true value of each click in the long run. You're measuring a short sprint, while they're thinking about the marathon. Have you ever gone into a supermarket to buy one thing and left with ten? That's not a

[08:16] coincidence. The entire customer experience is designed to happen that way. The same thing happens on Amazon. You go in to buy a phone case and find yourself leaving with a charger, screen protector, and tripod. This is what we call screen protector, and tripod. This is what we call Funnel Economics or Average Order Value.

[08:30] These companies don't just pay for visits; they design the experience after the initial click to multiply the customer's value. Let's see how this happens. How does Business A follow the traditional approach? They send traffic directly from ads on the product page and have a

[08:45] simple checkout page with no follow-up for non-payers, and their conversion rate is barely 2%. Business B, on the other hand, has a professionally designed funnel where visitors go through steps that include data collection, lead capture, emails sent to non-payers with

[09:01] upsell and cross-sell offers, and multiple payment methods to help them complete the purchase. The result? Business B help them complete the purchase. The result? Business B achieves an 8% conversion rate or more. Same traffic cost, same audience, same niche, but the profits are in a league of their own. Business A pays $1 per

[09:15] click and has a 2% conversion rate, meaning they spend about $50 to acquire one customer. But Business B, in our example, has the same click rate of $1, but their site same click rate of $1, but their site converts at an 8% rate, meaning the cost of acquiring a

[09:30] customer is only about $12. In short, Business B It brings in a customer with the same traffic but at a Business B It brings in a customer with the same traffic but at a 75% lower cost. Not only that, but Business B also engineers its customer journey and uses modern tools to present the customer with

[09:44] suitable upselling and crossselling offers. As a result, its average order value is three times higher than Business What. Do you understand the difference? Business B thus achieves sales 10 times greater in value than Business What, with the differences we mentioned, and with the same advertising costs, same

[10:00] industry, same products, same prices, same magic. This also means that Business B can place a higher bid than Business What, meaning it can grow faster, and with the same budget, it can reinvest profits in further expansion. A business built with an engineered approach doesn't just make money, it dominates the

[10:18] market. When you decipher the conversion code, which is the conversion rate (the conversion of a visitor to a customer with the visitor to a customer with the highest possible purchase value for each customer), your advertising transforms from a headache into an easy battle. You're no longer chasing clicks. Cheaper, you know how to

[10:32] get more value from every click you get, and that's a completely different kind of game. But let me take you a step further. If conversion rate engineering is really the real factor that creates profit, then the real question is how can we design a strong conversion experience

[10:47] from the beginning? Do you know that we can predict whether a business's sponsored ads sponsored ads will be profitable or not before we run any ad, without seeing any data, just by looking at the website, landing pages, and

[11:02] art? We actually did a study on 2000 marketers who run sponsored ads, and we didn't ask them about their tools or budgets. We only asked them one question: Are your sponsored ad campaigns profitable? Then we divided the people into two groups: winners and losers, and we started analyzing in detail what the

[11:19] winners do. The results are different, and you'll be surprised by them. The people who win don't have a magic bidding strategy or a keyword tool (keywords) or super-targeting. They simply apply specific elements to their website that systematically increase conversions. These were the most

[11:36] important results, in order: Number one, the people who win have more than one payment method. Personally, when I added PayPal to the payment page of my training program, the conversion rate increased by 18% in just one night. Other companies

[11:50] we worked with, when we added cash-on-delivery methods, tripled their conversion rate in the same day. Every obstacle you remove from the payment process converts more people to the advertisers' clients. The winning advertisers have automated email marketing campaigns targeting those who haven't bought yet, encouraging them to buy

[12:05] those who haven't bought yet, encouraging them to buy time, but if you get their email address, you can contact them later to encourage them to buy. Smart marketers don't rely on luck or trial and error; they build a system.

[12:19] Engineered to bring back the same customer and achieve the highest conversion rate. Marketers who can generate profits use multi-step checkouts. I know you might say fewer steps equal higher conversions, but that's not always true. When you have the user perform simple, consecutive steps, they complete the process more often. This is

[12:36] When you have the user perform simple, consecutive steps, they complete the process more often. This is Simply put, your checkout page, when it has a first step where you enter your email, name, and phone number, and then a second step where you add the rest of your information and pay, usually

[12:51] achieves a higher conversion rate. Firstly, because you get the customer's data, especially their email, in the first step, even if they don't buy. Secondly, there's the psychological factor we discussed, which makes someone who starts one or two steps want to complete the final step. Advertisers

[13:06] want to complete the final step. Advertisers who profit write content tailored to specific individuals or personalities; they don't target everyone interested in the same marketing message. Instead, they create a page for startups and another for other purposes. interested in the same marketing message. Instead, they create a page for startups and another for other purposes.

[13:21] different experiences. Advertisers who are making profits use retargeting. Free marketing targets people who left the cart and did not complete the purchase process. They do not just return to display the same ad. They prepare the audience according to the behavior of those who added products to the cart but did not complete and did not

[13:37] buy them. Those who left the site before adding anything to the cart are sent special messages that can bring them back to complete the purchase process. 26% of marketers who make profits put a video on the landing page. Video builds trust faster, explains

[13:53] landing page. Video builds trust faster, explains the product more easily, and adds a much stronger human element than a picture, especially on a mobile phone. 21% of successful marketers use long, detailed landing pages. Not everyone buys on the first try; some people need to read,

[14:08] understand, compare, and be convinced. These long pages give the curious buyer everything he needs give the curious buyer everything he needs to make his decision with confidence. 17% of advertisers who generate profits use content from influencers or real customers. It's simple:

[14:22] people trust people more than brands, even if the influencer is small or it's just a customer video ( UGC user-generated content). We call this borrowed trust, and it drives

[14:34] customer decisions, especially in high-demand markets. When we put all these factors together, we discovered something strange: most of the advertising campaigns that failed implemented only one or two of these elements, while most of the successful campaigns that generated significant profits implemented

[14:48] five to seven of them. So, success isn't about mastering one thing, but about removing obstacles and increasing value at every step of the customer experience. Do you know the difference between knowing what successful people do and understanding why

[15:03] those strategies work? Understanding is what allows you to piece together the puzzle until the picture is complete. Because then you're no longer imitating; you're building systems that work. In any

[15:15] product, any offer, and any field, let's explain the science behind what we said. Number one, fans. Fans work because they increase the customer's value, but the psychology behind them is called value and incore, or value fixation. That is, when someone buys a product for $20 and is offered an upgrade

[15:32] for $40, his brain compares it to the first price, so the second offer appears to have a higher value, or at least that it is a very good offer. Add to that a little impulse, which means the immediate purchase motive, meaning that you create urgency in the customer so that he acts and buys immediately and does not postpone the decision. Number two,

[15:49] multiple payment methods, we call this the choice architecture. When you offer the customer only one payment method, you will frustrate him. You will create an obstacle for him. His mind will start to ask, "If I don't want to use my card, is this site even secure?" and he will start to investigate. But when you give him Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, and maybe even

[16:06] cash on delivery, you have removed all the doubts he had before you even started, and consequently, the conversion will increase. Number three: Email campaigns for people who haven't bought yet work because of a phenomenon called the Exposure Effect. Research says that a person needs 6 to 20 interactions with a

[16:23] brand to trust it. The first ad was the first interaction, the second ad was the second interaction, the first interaction, the second ad was the second interaction, the first email was the third interaction, and so on. So when it comes time to buy, you're the customer's natural choice because the relationship has already been built between

[16:37] this customer and your brand. Number four: Multiple checkout steps work because of something called Commitment Escalation. When the customer enters their name and email in the first step, they've made a small decision, and their mind says, "Okay, I've started. Now I'll continue." The mind tries to complete what it started, even if it's

[16:54] difficult. Number five: Writing content tailored to each persona. This works because of tailored to each persona. This works because of identity. You're not just selling a product; you're speaking directly to the customer's identity. So when the founder of a startup reads a sentence that says "quick solutions for

[17:10] fast-growing companies," they feel that they are the intended target, and this opens the door. The sixth gateway to trust and purchase is smart remarketing for the shopping carts of the open and card system. This is based on the Relevance Framework. General advertising no longer works in a world where every digital experience is almost

[17:26] designed specifically for the user. What does that mean? It means when someone leaves the product in the shopping cart and sees an ad that responds to them with words like, "Do you still want that product that you were going to buy?" At that moment, they feel that you are

[17:38] talking to them by name, not just an ad, and that is what makes them come back and complete the process. Number seven, UGC or User Generated Content videos work because of something called Trust Transfer Mechanism. People don't believe marketing talk, but they believe people, especially if

[17:53] these people are like them, their voices are like them, and their problems are similar to what they are going through, and that is what UGC offers . Number eight landing pages are long and detailed, and they work because not all customers make decisions quickly. Some people need to read and see comparisons, frequently asked questions, advantages and

[18:08] details. All this is to reassure them before they buy and finalize the decision in their minds. Number nine finalize the decision in their minds. Number nine influencer content is advertising with influencers, even the small ones, and this simply works on social proof. People tend to believe those who have

[18:23] tried it before, even if it's a small influence. Their words can be much more powerful than the brand's own voice, especially in crowded environments. This trust is called "borrowed trust," and sometimes it's the deciding factor in a

[18:35] customer's decision. The point here is that these strategies aren't just random best practices; they're these strategies aren't just random best practices; they're decisions. So, when you apply them sequentially and stop guessing why conversions aren't working, you're

[18:53] building a real conversion system, step by step. Now you know what works and why it works. You can implement it yourself or delegate it to us by booking a meeting with my team through the link on this page. Now, let me tell you

[19:08] exactly how we'll implement it, step by step, and how we'll make your paid ads start earning real money. The first stage, which is the foundation, takes place in the first two weeks. The first step is to

[19:20] activate Multiple payment options: Most e-commerce platforms now allow you to add PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay in less than an hour, resulting in a conversion rate increase of resulting in a conversion rate increase of approximately 15-25%. The second step involves activating

[19:34] approximately 15-25%. The second step involves activating methods to capture visitors to your site as soon as they visit (lead capture). This can be done in several ways depending on your business. For example, if it's an online store, we can add a pop-up ad with an exclusive discount. The important thing here is to

[19:49] give the visitor a compelling reason to provide their email address. Then, we can follow up with further marketing messages and offers via email markup. Therefore, in this step, your online store or website is linked to a smart email marketing system to

[20:05] automatically send emails and ensure they reach the customer's inbox. At this stage, the email content is also written and fully prepared to ensure everything is ready and fully functional. The second stage involves optimizing landing pages and creating the fan interface, which is done weekly. In

[20:22] the third and fourth weeks, depending on your field, we begin working on transforming landing pages into pages that guarantee the highest possible conversion rate. This is achieved by adding numerous elements to the page content itself, along with improving page loading speed and optimizing it to display perfectly on all

[20:38] devices, especially mobile phones. For example, we transform a page like this into one like this. Then, depending on the nature of the business, we add upselling and cross-selling to create a upselling and cross-selling to create a complete sales funnel that ensures the highest purchase value and

[20:53] conversion rate. The third stage involves creating ads, specifically creative creations. This takes place in the fifth and sixth weeks. In this stage, based on extensive research and data from previous clients, we begin creating the creative ads themselves, using

[21:09] images and videos. We create ads that suit each stage of the client's journey, as we discussed earlier. This is where the significant role of artificial intelligence becomes apparent. Unlike other digital marketing agencies, we not only know how to use AI tools, but we have also created...

[21:24] Our proprietary tool is SodaMarketing AI. Using SodaMarketing AI and other tools, we'll create video and image ads that align with current trends and ensure you reach the largest number of visitors at the lowest possible cost. This includes prospecting

[21:39] ads, which target interested customers on social media and Google, and retargeting ads, which are divided into several types: targeted ads for people who viewed the content but didn't buy, targeted ads for people who added a

[21:54] product to their cart but didn't complete the purchase, and targeted ads for people who registered their email but didn't take any action, and so on. This is implemented according to the nature of your business, whether you sell services, tangible products, digital products, etc. The fourth stage is actually running the ads

[22:08] on the advertising platforms. This takes place between the sixth and first week. This is the stage where we first set up your advertising accounts and link them correctly to the advertising platforms. We ensure that the data running on these advertising platforms is

[22:23] accurate, then we start running the ads themselves. These are the prospecting ads, followed immediately by the retargeting ads with all their variations that we discussed. We start with the lowest possible daily budget and gradually increase it until we reach your monthly advertising budget by the end of the

[22:39] fourth week of running your advertising campaigns. Here, you'll start to see very strong results—sales you've never seen before, God willing. But what's coming next will make it even stronger: increasing the conversion rate (

[22:53] CRO). This is the stage where we start adding things that increase the conversion rate, but they are added sequentially so that with each change we can accurately test its impact on the conversion rate. In

[23:05] this stage, we follow the steps I will tell you: dividing your takeout page or lead form capture into a number of pages or steps. For example, if you are requesting more than six or eight pieces of data from the customer on one page... We divide it, for example, page one

[23:20] where we take the name and email, page two for payment and shipping details, and so on. The fourth step is social proof, creating UGC videos (User- Generated Content), contacting and contracting with influencers suitable for your business so they can start

[23:36] advertising your products or services. We also work in this stage on running engagement advertising campaigns and creating and publishing strong content on your social media pages to attract interaction, views, and followers to these pages, because this is part

[23:54] of social proof. Put yourself in the customer's shoes: if you were to buy any product, would you still buy it from the brand with 100 followers or the brand with 100,000 followers? After that, we help you get three to five videos from your real customers, and we add these videos

[24:09] to the landing page, before the payment button, or on the payment page itself. But this is done carefully and gradually to ensure that they are in the right place and at the right time. The customer is scattered, and more scale and more social proof are achieved. This takes place from week 14 to week 18. Here,

[24:25] we begin to gradually increase the advertising budget to reach the highest possible sales volume per month while maintaining the highest possible return and conversion rate. This is done while continuously

[24:37] increasing social proof, as it supports scale and, God willing, ensures success during the advanced scale phase. The goal here is to achieve the highest possible profitability and sales for your business. This involves everything mentioned above,

[24:54] in addition to very advanced things such as creating landing pages and customized ads for each targeted persona or segment, if your business allows for it. It also involves creating strong and accurate segmentation of

[25:06] the data we obtained in the previous period, analyzing it, and tailoring appropriate marketing messages via email and ads to each persona and each segment of our customers. This is all done while continuing, of course, to

[25:24] My business is still new and just starting out. If your business is completely new, we add a first phase called online setup. This phase precedes all the others and lasts between three and four weeks. During this time, we prepare your business to have a

[25:40] strong online presence. Then we proceed with all the other phases we discussed. Executing these phases professionally and in the order we outlined will, God willing, transform any business from one that is losing money or barely making a profit into a highly profitable one. Thank you

[25:55] very much, and we look forward to working with you to achieve remarkable successes, God willing. This is Yasser Selim signing off. Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you. God willing. This is Yasser Selim signing off. Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.