EP 488: What Happens After Someone Sees Your Facebook Ad but Doesn’t Click?

Show Notes:

👀 Why someone seeing your Facebook or Instagram ad without clicking can still matter
🧠 How ad exposure can create familiarity even when there’s no immediate action
🔎 Why people may search your business on Google, AI tools, or social media after seeing an ad
🧩 How ads and organic marketing can influence the same customer journey in different ways
🔁 Why repeated exposure can matter when someone is not ready to act the first time
🎥 Phil’s take on using video engagement as a retargeting opportunity
📊 Why advertisers should look beyond just using Ads Manager when evaluating what may be happening
❓ Questions to ask leads so you can better understand how they actually found you
⚠️ The danger of using indirect activity as an excuse to keep a genuinely weak ad running
🖱️ Why clicks, leads, purchases, and other measurable actions still belong in the evaluation
✅ Reminder: every business is unique, results vary, and there are no guaranteed outcomes

Transcript Disclaimer

This transcript was generated automatically using AI transcription tools and may include errors, omissions, or wording that differs from what was intended. I have not reviewed every word, and no part of this transcript should be interpreted as an income claim, success guarantee, or promise of results of any kind. The information is for educational purposes only.

Transcript:

Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Next Level Facebook Ads Podcast with Phil Graham. We help you master Facebook ads and give you an unfair advantage over your competition. Are you ready? Let’s go.
Speaker 2:
What’s up, podcast family? Welcome to the Next Level Facebook Ads Podcast, episode 488. I’m Phil Graham.
Today, I want to talk about what happens after someone sees your Facebook or Instagram ad, but they don’t click. When somebody sees your ad and doesn’t click, it’s not always a bad thing. It can be completely normal and it could actually be a good thing.
You’ll learn more about why in this episode. A lot of advertisers look at their ads in a very simple way. Someone sees the ad, they hopefully click it, and then maybe become a lead or a customer.
But what about the people who see your ad but they didn’t click? Did they care? Did they not care?
Do they hate you? Did the ad have zero impact? Well, the answer is not necessarily.
And today I want to talk to you guys about what can happen after someone sees your ad and doesn’t click and why it still matters and what you should be doing about it because it is so important. And many times it might be the difference between failure or success when it comes to your ads. So welcome to the show today, you guys.
It is mid-September. Hope you guys are doing really well. This is an episode that should click with everybody, whether you’re brand new or very experienced or maybe somewhere in between.
It’s really important stuff. But before we jump into that, if you guys need any help with your ads, whether that’s one-on-one coaching and consulting or someone to run them for you, just go to my website, PhilGrahamdigital.com or DM me on Instagram at PhilGrahamdigital and I would love to connect with you. So let’s talk about what happens after somebody sees your ad and doesn’t click and why it’s not always a bad thing. Let’s start with a fact. Most people who see your ad will not click your ad. That is completely normal. Why?
There’s a million different reasons. Maybe they’re multitasking. Maybe they’re busy. Maybe they don’t want to click right that second. Maybe they don’t need what you’re offering right that second.
maybe they’re distracted maybe they’re in line at the grocery store scrolling their phone there’s zillions of reasons why somebody would see an ad and they might even like it but they don’t click at that very moment it’s totally normal and when you just look at the numbers a huge percentage of your audience will see the ad not click and they’ll keep on scrolling however that’s not always a bad thing because seeing the ad can still create some awareness and familiarity which could lead to things down the road. They might remember your name, your offer, your product, your service, or the problem you solve. So those things can be very important. Now, we don’t run ads specifically just for that typically, but that can be a side benefit to somebody seeing an ad and not immediately clicking on it. One really important thing I want to have you guys understand is that many people do not take the path that you expect them to take. You might expect them to see your ad, click on the ad, become a lead or become a customer. And every once in a while, yeah, that happens. But so many people will maybe either click on your ad and not take an action or more of them will not click on it at all, at least the first time. But they might pay attention and they might Google your business or put your name into AI and find out more about you to see if you’re legit. Or they might just type the website directly into their browser or their phone. Or they might look you up on Instagram or Facebook or another social media platform. They might mention it to a friend or a spouse that they saw an interesting ad. They might come back in a few days or even a few weeks and become a leader or customer through a different marketing channel because they remember they saw your ad before. None of that starts with an ad click. All of those things could happen from somebody just seeing an ad and not clicking. So that’s something that you have to really take into account. So I want you guys to remember this really important point. Somebody being familiar with you because they saw an ad can matter and make a big difference tomorrow, next week, next month, etc. The first ad exposure that they get might just be introducing your business in their mind. And then the second or third one even, they may not click, but it might seem more familiar and seem more legit because they’re starting to see you more. And then later when the timing is right, they’re ready to take an action. They recognize you. You seem familiar. You seem legit.
Many times there’s a better chance that they may actually not only take the action, but become a better potential lead or customer because of the ads that they’ve seen leading up to it. As long as, of course, you’re not running scammy clickbait kind of crappy ad, obviously. So that familiarity from seeing your ads, even if they didn’t click, can also sometimes make other marketing messages that you do more effective, whether it’s ads or organic or both.
The ad might play a role even if you never receive a click from it. Your ads can support other marketing channels and your organic, just like your organic stuff, can support your ads. It can all work together.
If you’ve ever opened an email, for example, and then you remember, oh, I saw some ads from this person or this company, it kind of plays together. It gives it almost a little more credibility. And so many times there’ll be situations where somebody will see an ad and then maybe they’ll Google the business or these days AI the business to find out more about it and maybe find you on social media, start following you, become a lead that way. And then you think it was just organic, but they never would have searched for you had they not even seen your ad in the first place. And so you don’t want to make the mistake of discounting how valuable it can be to have people see your ads, even if they don’t click. It’s human nature not to necessarily click an ad right away. Some people do, but a lot of people don’t. Sometimes they need to see you three, four or five times or even more, that’s normal. So you got to remember Facebook ads and Instagram ads and other platform ads too can make your whole marketing ecosystem potentially stronger if you do it right. And you also follow the data and adapt to that. So a couple of tips on what to do in these situations, because again, it’s normal for people to see your stuff and not click right away, retarget like a beast. So this is one reason I really love video ads as an example, because they can see your ad and not click. However, you can retarget them because if they watch any part of your video, three seconds or more, that’s a retargeting opportunity.
And you got to remember, it’s normal that they didn’t click right away. It doesn’t mean they hate you. It doesn’t mean they don’t like your product or service. Maybe you needed a different hook or maybe it was just bad timing. So when you’re running a video ad, you can retarget people that watch 25% of the video or three seconds, however you want to do it. There’s lots of good options. I typically like the 25%. Another thing you should do with your ads is you want to look at activity, not just inside ads manager, but outside it too. So for example, are people searching for you on Google with certain phrases that they might’ve seen in an ad or with your brand name?
more than when they were when you were not running ads. And you could use something like Google Analytics or other tools to figure that out. When you’re running ads versus when you’re not, you can see if your website traffic went up or not.
And that could also be an indication as well that they’re finding you other ways because of the ad, even if they didn’t click. If you’re talking to people like through leads, really listen for key things. Like people might say, I feel like I’ve seen you everywhere.
and make sure you’re asking how they found out about you and dig deep. Don’t just let them say Google or the internet. If they say Google, just ask how they searched.
You know, did you see us in an ad and then search? Did you just search randomly? Because a lot of times, unless you ask a follow-up question or two, you’re not gonna get the right actual answer.
And then obviously look at your overall business activity, your lead flow, your sales, when you’re running ads versus when you’re not. And I’m not talking about in like a two or three day period. I would be doing this in two and three week periods.
But here’s a warning for you guys. This stuff is super important, but you also don’t want to use it to justify an ad that might be just a genuinely bad, horrible ad. If it’s getting negative comments, no clicks, high CPMs, no conversions, nothing, then it might be a bad ad.
But if you’ve got an ad that’s doing pretty well with a decent click through rate, obviously lots of people are not going to click right away and that’s okay and you got to understand that because of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode so if performance is really weak on the ad overall over a period of time not just a few days you’ve got to evaluate the creative the offer the audience the hook the funnel all that stuff i’m not saying don’t do that because that stuff is super important at the end of the day clicks leads purchases qualified actions still matter so the point is not that you’re going to ignore those performance metrics and assume that every ad is good because somebody saw you at some point. The point is to understand that the customer journey that you have is messier and more complicated than just looking at whether somebody clicked on an ad and took an immediate action or not. And that the ads you run can have a tremendous effect in certain situations, even if they didn’t click it right away or even ever. So you’ve got to just think beyond the single click. Usually what I’ve seen for a lot of years is that the strongest marketing often works together with multiple channels, ads and organic working together versus one channel receiving just all of the credit. And I think that happens more than most people realize. So bottom line, the next time you see a Facebook ad or an Instagram ad of yours and you think about, oh my gosh, only X number of people click the ad. It doesn’t mean the impression was worthless. It doesn’t mean the ad was worthless. They might start following you on social because of it and become a customer and become a client. And that never would have happened had you not run the ad. But make sure that you are using measurable data, accurate data, and making smart decisions from that data so you’re not making the opposite mistake and letting a bad ad keep running as well. There’s that gets some good clicks, but not everybody.
But the people that didn’t click could still turn into customers, leads, clients, et cetera, like we talked about today. And as always, just a reminder, it’s always important to point out that every business is unique. Results can vary.
There’s no guaranteed outcomes. So always keep that in mind. So my friends, I hope that was helpful.
Episode 488 is in the books. We’ll have another great one for you next Tuesday. As usual, this stuff is really important.
Make sure you put it into practice, take some action and really use data as your guide and then make decisions based off of what that data is telling you over a reasonable amount of time. And in the meantime, if you want to get in touch, PhilGrahamdigital.com is my website. Until then, hope you guys have a great week.
I’ll talk to you on next week’s episode. Peace out.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for listening to the Next Level Facebook Ads Podcast. Please remember to subscribe and share this with all your friends. For show notes, more tips, and to learn more about Phil,
Speaker 3:
please visit PhilGrahamDigital.com/Podcast.