If you run ads on behalf of clients, you’ll often see a phenomenon that, on the surface, seems to run against classic marketing funnel theory.

That is, ads that get the fewest clicks are often those that get the most conversions.

You would think you’d want to get the most people to click on an ad, hence more opportunities to convert more people, but it doesn’t always work that way in practice.

Why is that?

Before we go there, let’s take a step back to look at what we’ve traditionally thought about as a funnel process.

Marketing Theory Says Maximize the People Getting to Each Funnel Stage

One of the things that you’re taught in marketing is that, in general, you want to maximize the number of individuals who get to each stage of the buyer journey. So, if you start from the top of the funnel, try to get as many individuals as possible to become aware of your company.

Then, get as many of those who are aware of you to engage with your content, either in social (because they follow you) or on your website or app. Of those that engage with you, get as many of them to consider you for your products or services, and then convert them (purchase or form submission). Finally, encourage those who convert to spread the word about you through posting on social or getting reviews from them.

Makes sense, right?

But the problem is that, in practice, the funnel is a lot more complex than mere theory. (And as you know from previous posts we’ve had, the future belongs to those who embrace complexity!)

There are also some subtle nuances that are at play here – ones that you pick up on when you do this on a regular basis.

Qualification, Narrowing, and the Art of Maximizing Conversions

So, what’s really going on when clicks are down but conversions are up?

Let’s take a look at an example in the health and wellness space. Say you’re advertising a service that your wellness spa provides. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll use cryotherapy, which is a non-invasive cold therapy treatment where you stand in a specialized chamber for 2-3 minutes while your body is exposed to temperatures between -200°F and -300°F. 

That’s very cold. But lots of people do it.

Now, let’s say I create one ad group for just people searching for “whole body cryotherapy” or simply “cryotherapy near me.” The volume of these searches is going to be “OK” but certainly somewhat limited in a local area. After all, while cryotherapy is becoming more popular, it’s not quite mainstream.

Let’s say I also want to advertise cryotherapy to an audience that is seeking treatment for certain conditions. After all, cryotherapy helps people with rheumatoid arthritis, chronic low back pain, recovery from exercise, muscle pain, and sports injuries, and overall inflammation reduction.  Certainly, the volume of searches in any given local area here is great, especially for keywords such as “treatment for arthritis”, “sports recovery therapy,” “back pain therapy,” “how to recover from intense exercise,” etc.  

As far as the ads go, I basically will promote copy like: “Recover Fast w/ Cryotherapy” or “Fight Arthritis w/ Our Cryotherapy.” You get the point.    

So what happens? I get a ton of clicks to my landing page for cryotherapy from the latter ad group. But I get very little overall traffic to the same page comparatively from the core cryotherapy keywords.

Yet, I get a ton more conversions for the latter ad group.  

Why?  

If you think about it, someone who is searching for cryotherapy, in effect, is almost pre-qualifying themselves for a wellness facility’s service in this area. The person searching, in other words, is likely pretty qualified because they know the term and are more likely to want it now.

They are, in a word, in-market.

In the case of “treatment for arthritis,” “sports recovery therapy,” you could argue they are in-market for help but not quite at the stage of being ready to buy. They’re researching. That’s why they might click, and you might get traffic, but they’re not really buying “right now” like the people in the “cryotherapy” keyword ad group.  

This is how marketing is a bit more nuanced in practice than in theory.

Why Does This Matter When You Run Ads

Understanding the click-versus-conversion dynamic fundamentally changes how you approach your advertising strategy, particularly around time horizons and audience development.

Your Time Horizon Determines Your Audience Scope

If you need conversions immediately – say you’re launching a new service line, have monthly revenue targets to hit, or are working with a client who needs to see ROI quickly – you’re inevitably going to narrow your audience and prioritize pre-qualified prospects. This means targeting people who are already searching for your specific solution (like “cryotherapy near me”) rather than those researching their problem (“arthritis treatment options”).

The trade-off? You’re fishing in a smaller pond.

In a local market, there are only so many people actively searching for cryotherapy at any given moment. Once you’ve converted them, you need new prospects entering that qualified pool. This is why businesses that focus exclusively on bottom-of-funnel audiences often hit a performance ceiling after initial success.

The Meta Advertising Paradox: Optimization vs. Audience Expansion

This challenge becomes even more pronounced on platforms like Meta (Facebook/Instagram), where the algorithm is designed to optimize for your conversion objective. When you run conversion-focused campaigns to narrow audiences repeatedly, Meta’s machine learning gets “pretty good” at finding people who look exactly like your previous converters.

You’ll see strong ROAS initially, but over time, you’re essentially re-targeting the same audience profile over and over. You’re not actually building awareness or consideration among new potential customers.

The question then becomes: how do you use Meta to expand to new audiences who aren’t currently in-market, pre-qualify them, and then convert them down the line?

Meta does offer a structured approach to this through a multi-campaign strategy:

• • Awareness/Top-of-Funnel Campaigns: Run broad-targeted campaigns optimized for reach or engagement (not conversions) to educate people, in our particular case, about cryotherapy’s benefits for specific conditions. Target interest-based audiences like “fitness enthusiasts,” “arthritis,” or “chronic pain” without requiring them to know about cryotherapy yet. Use educational content, videos, or carousel ads explaining how the treatment works.
  • Build Custom Audiences: Create custom audiences of people who engaged with your top-of-funnel content (video views at 50%+, engagement with posts, landing page visitors who didn’t convert). These people are now “warmed up” but not yet qualified.
  • Consideration/Middle-Funnel Campaigns: Retarget these engaged audiences with more specific content about your facility, testimonials, or special offers. Optimize for landing page views or lead generation rather than immediate purchases.
  • Conversion Campaigns: Finally, create conversion-optimized campaigns targeting only those who’ve moved through your consideration stage. These are people who visited your pricing page, watched multiple videos, or engaged repeatedly with your content.

Note: This does take some budget. And, it takes time.

This is not for the faint of heart.

The key is running these campaigns simultaneously with different budget allocations based on your time horizon. If you need immediate results, allocate 70-80% to bottom-funnel conversion campaigns targeting qualified audiences. But reserve 20-30% for top-of-funnel awareness campaigns that build your future qualified audience pool. As your business matures and you exhaust your immediately qualified audience, gradually shift budget toward awareness and consideration to keep your pipeline full.

Conclusion

In the end, the marketing funnel isn’t as straightforward as the textbooks make it out to be. Sometimes, the path to more conversions means accepting fewer clicks, and that’s perfectly OK.

The real skill lies in understanding when to narrow your audience for immediate results and when to invest in building awareness among people who aren’t ready to buy yet. Both strategies have their place, and the best advertisers know how to balance them based on their time horizon and business objectives.

So next time you see an ad group with lower clicks but higher conversion rates, don’t panic. You might have just stumbled onto an audience that’s actually qualified and ready to act. And that, after all, is the whole point of advertising, not just getting clicks, but getting the right clicks from people who are ready to become customers.

Remember: in advertising, as in life, quality often beats quantity. The question isn’t always “how many?” but “how qualified?”