# Why Is My Campaign Generating Lots of Leads but No Sales?

URL: https://gogodigital.co.il/en/why-is-my-campaign-bringing-in-lots-of-leads-but-no-sales/

The short answer

Probably because the campaign delivers exactly what it’s measured on: leads. And sometimes the goal picked at setup fits the campaign manager’s needs better than the business’s.

## How does a campaign know what to bring in?

A campaign on Meta or Google learns from its own results. Every time a result is counted, the system goes looking for more people similar to whoever produced it.

So the key question is what counts as a result. In a campaign that sends people to WhatsApp, a result is any conversation started, even a “hi” that nobody follows up on. In a lead form campaign, a result is any form submitted, even one with a wrong phone number. And Meta counts a result even when someone only saw the ad, didn’t click it, and took action sometime the next day.

The system doesn’t know what happened next. It doesn’t know the lead never picked up the phone, or that the deal never closed. So it keeps bringing in more of the same.

## Whose goal is it?

When you set up a campaign, the first decision is the objective: awareness, traffic, leads, WhatsApp. That choice determines what counts as a result, and from there, who the campaign goes looking for.

And here’s a question that doesn’t always get asked: was the objective chosen for what the business needs, or for what the campaign manager needs? A campaign manager judged on lead volume and cost per lead benefits from an objective that produces lots of cheap results. The report looks good, and the client sticks around. The business, on the other hand, needs deals.

It’s not always intentional. Sometimes people just pick whatever usually works, without asking how much the product costs, who buys it, or how customers prefer to reach the business. That’s exactly what I wrote about in the post Which objective should you choose when building a campaign?

## What’s worth asking your campaign manager?

A few simple questions whose answers tell you a lot:

1. What objective was chosen for the campaign, and why that one?
1. What counts as a result in the report? A submitted form, a started conversation, or a phone call?
1. What happens to a lead after it comes in, and does that information make it back to the campaign?
1. How many deals closed from these leads, and for how much?

The fourth question is the one that matters. I call it the revenue test: revenue from closed deals compared to ad spend. A campaign manager willing to be measured by it will likely choose a different objective.

So maybe the question isn’t why there are no sales, but what we actually asked the campaign to bring in.

## Common questions

  How do I see what counts as a result in Ads Manager?

Next to the “Results” column, you’ll see the result type. Check whether it says website lead, Meta form, or conversation started.

   So the number of leads doesn’t matter at all?

It matters, but as a step along the way, not as the goal. Ten leads that bring in a deal are worth more than a hundred that bring in nothing.

   What if the business doesn’t share sales data with the campaign manager?

Then there’s no way to know if the campaign is working, and it keeps learning from the wrong numbers. Even simple feedback from the salesperson on which leads were relevant and which weren’t makes a big difference.