If you have great clicks are your ads working?

Are your online ads working?  Thinking about this today and I decided that this is a more complicated question than it first appears to be.

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I have a friend running campaigns, testing ads that got great clicks way better than industry average but no one downloaded the white paper advertised- no results.

If you wrote the ad for a client you would probably say that the ad was great "just look at that click through rate" you'd say. On the other end the client  would be saying "nothing is happening, no new leads no one downloaded the white paper - i'm not advertising anymore". What's the truth here?

The truth is that you did your testing, you created an ad that attracted attention and  your ad is "good" but your offer is not- either because your audience doesn't care about your offer- or your message doesn't match the advertisement.

Back to the drawing board- I advise changing the offer first - if it was a white paper- offer a video or a free trial if you can. If that doesn't work then I would change the message entirely to attract an audience that wants what you have.