When results start to soften, the instinct is to blame the ads.
The creative is tired. The copy needs work. Maybe a new campaign. And sometimes that’s true. But more often than not, when we dig into what’s actually going on, the ads aren’t the problem. The audience is.
We ran into this recently with a tourism client we’d been working with for over two years. Strong offering, great reviews, good booking flow. For a long time, everything worked exactly as it should.
Then it didn’t.
Not a big drop. Just small signals. Bookings slightly down on the same time the year before. Ad performance starting to go flat. The kind of shift that’s easy to miss, but usually means something is changing underneath.
When we looked closer, the issue was simple. We were showing ads to the same people over and over. The audience wasn’t growing. The system was going around in circles instead of reaching new people.
So instead of changing the ads, we changed the strategy.
We ran a giveaway. Win the experience for two, tag a friend you’d bring. Simple, but it worked. It’s a fast way to get new, relevant people seeing your brand, especially when the business has great visuals to work with. We’d done something similar for another tourism client and seen it pay off.
The response was immediate. Thousands of people tagging friends who would actually love the experience. Real interest from people who had never heard of the brand before.
The ads hadn’t changed. The audience had. And that made all the difference.
The takeaway
Ad platforms can only work with what you give them. If your audience isn’t growing, your results won’t either. Before you change the ads, ask whether you’ve changed who’s seeing them.
A few things worth checking if things have gone flat:
- Are your ads reaching new people, or showing up to the same ones each time?
- Where are new people coming from right now? Paid, organic, referrals, or a mix?
- Do you have anything in place that regularly brings new people to your brand?
If the answer to that last one is no, that’s usually where to start.
Not sure where your audience growth is coming from? Get in touch and we’re happy to take a look.