AV

1 year into ecom with nothing to show for it yet. documenting the journey until something clicks.

[AV @ecomunkl]

@Idan_Frenkel8 this one is great, makes sense

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 19 dropshipping journey. The end?

$51.32 spent. 0 ATCs. 0 sales. Killed it.

But here’s the plot twist.

While trying to make my own stuff work, I searched for a side hustle as a creative strategist. Landed a job for a product that’s already converting. Now I get to put my skills to a real test. Is it bad product selection or a skill issue? I’m about to find out.

Starting Monday. Putting my own product tests on pause. From now on, sharing my journey as a CS.

Need the cash anyway. Every month you’re burning money on AI subscriptions, tools, ad spend. AI animation ads cost per video. It all builds up. This product alone, $150+ on ads with nothing back, plus the cost of creating the ads. Easily $200 burnt in a few days. Fail 2 to 3 products a month and it adds up fast.

That’s the reality nobody posts about.

The dream isn’t dead. Just funding it differently now.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Also from all the tests, these hook and hold rates are pretty much the ugliest, therefore I put a lot of effort in the ads.

Strange

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 18 dropshipping journey.

$55 spent. 4 ATCs. 1 checkout. 0 sales.

Soft metrics from ads are starting to look good. But after launching the missed avatars yesterday, the budget spread so thin. $27 on each ad set. Not fair to cut anything when ads are getting so little spend. Going to day 3 for this product.

It’s strange nobody is converting. And no, it’s not a cart or checkout problem. This isn’t a new site, previous products converted just fine on it.

Saw two ideas while swiping that I liked. Adapted them for my product and launching a new ad set with two new ads today.

Now I’m wondering: does it make more sense to run an ABO with two ad sets at $30 each instead of one CBO at $60? Because it feels like CBO tries to spend everywhere, cuts budget short, and nothing gets properly tested.

Day 3 for this product. Need a sale.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 17 dropshipping journey.

$71 spent. 4 ATCs. 3 checkouts. 0 sales.

First day of a new product and ads. No sales but got some signals.

Soft metrics aren’t great. Hold rate is ugly and I’m not sure why. And ads manager is overreporting ATCs.

The strange part: the script I had the least conviction in, just threw it in as a test, took over the spend and got the most ATCs. Funny how that works.

Launching the missed avatars today. We’ll see what happens next.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 16 dropshipping journey.

Ads are live. Did more research after launch and found some avatars I missed. Built a couple more scripts for those but holding them back. Want to see how the initial batch performs first since it’s mostly proven angles and avatars. Will throw the new ones in after a couple of days.

While I wait, more research. Checking what’s happening in other niches, what people are doing, deeper dive into my own niche.

Nothing fancy today. Just patience and preparation.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 15 dropshipping journey.

The boring part. Research. Studies. Reddit. TikTok comments. Google. Going to the places my potential customer actually goes.

Found multiple avatars, multiple solutions. Built a mechanism that explains why the problem keeps coming back and why other solutions failed. Started building ads.

First half of the day was scripting ads from proven structures filled with my own research. Now editing.

Launching at midnight. Hoping for the best.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 14 dropshipping journey.

No ads today. Just research. Built a new product page.

Changed niches and I’m doing things differently this time.

“Doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.” Those words stuck with me, so I’m slowing down. No rushing to launch. No ripping competitor angles and hoping for the best.

The plan: deep research, find underserved avatars and angles that keep coming up, filter the ideas, then start building scripts. Boring work but necessary.

I’ve rushed tests before. Looked at competitor ads, tried to understand who they’re talking to, adapted their angles. Flopped every time. But I’ve also seen some of my ugly edited ads do decent numbers. I think it’s because the message was actually relevant.

So now I’m focusing on messaging. Know who you’re talking to before you talk to them.

No launch today. Just preparation. The ads come when the research is done.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 13 dropshipping journey.

$88.60 spent. $36.95 back. 3 ATCs. 1 checkout. 1 purchase.

Budget overspent again. Maybe Meta sees the engagement and keeps pushing, but the CPA is not workable. CPM and CPC dropped a bit but could just be fluctuations.

Dropping the product. Sharing the full test stats. US market.

Took an L on this one. The takeaway: I entered the market without a mechanism different enough for people to believe this would actually get them to their desired outcome. They’ve tried similar solutions. I didn’t convince them mine would be different.

That’s the hypothesis I’m carrying into the next product test.

Hurts. But we keep pushing.

[AV @ecomunkl]

@zakaria_airak great information, great read, thank you!

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 12 dropshipping journey.

$119.89 spent. $128 back. 4 ATCs. 3 checkouts. 1 purchase.

Set the budget at $70 but Meta somehow blew through $119. Not sure what happened there. Did Meta think it was a good day?

That one sale saved me.

CPA is awful for day 1 but it might deserve one more day. Today is the last chance for this product.

Also on first day it got some engagement, 7 reactions, so that's also a good signal I think.

Already did some research on new products. Have some stuff I want to test.

We keep going.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 11 dropshipping journey.

Couldn’t let go. Decided to give it one more shot.

Last hypothesis: people see my ad and think it’s the same mechanism they’ve already seen. Nothing new, why click.

So I changed the mechanism. Bringing something they haven’t heard before.

If this doesn’t work, I’m out of bullets. New product search begins.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 10 dropshipping journey.

$50.99 spent. 1 ATC. 1 initiated checkout. 0 sales.

New ads brought nothing. Dropping this product.

I’m lost right now. Christmas is coming up and I’m only burning money. Instead of gifts I’ll be giving my family hugs this year.

But I’m not abandoning the dream. New product search starts today. We keep pushing.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 9 dropshipping journey.

$35.86 spent. 0 ATCs. 0 sales. $5 CPCs. Turned off ads early because I couldn’t watch it anymore.

I’m fucking devastated.

Hours of research, reverse engineering, scripting, editing. All for stats that make you want to close your PC and never open it again.

I’ve tried everything. Competitors’ angles with their winning structures. Flopped. Changed formats. Flopped. Different angles, different desires. Flopped. Different pain points, trigger moments, beliefs. Flopped. Took proven structures from completely different products and adapted them. Flopped.

$5 CPCs. Something is fundamentally broken and I don’t know what it is.

I take a structure that’s literally working right now for someone else, fill it with real research, and it dies on arrival.

The worst part is sitting there refreshing the dashboard knowing nothing is coming. Watching dollars disappear into nothing while your competitor scales the same product.

Thinking about dropping this product. I cannot crack it.

The mood is the lowest it’s been. But I’m not quitting. I refuse to let myself down.

Still chasing the dream, even when the dream feels like it’s running away from me.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 8 dropshipping journey.

$58.55 spent. $64 back. 1 sale, 2 ATCs.

Launched a new ad set with fresh angles. Some entirely new ones I haven’t seen in ad library.

One angle that competitors are running took most of the spend. Hook rate, hold rate, CTR all look decent.

But CPC is killing me again. Every ad is hitting minimum $3 CPCs. Is it the crowded niche? Not sure. $50 CPA, not workable, but it’s only day one of this ad set so keeping it running.

Since the winning ad leans problem aware, I made two more off it. One deeper into problem aware, one into solution aware. Launching both on day 9.

Don’t see anything positive yet. But spirit is still up. We’re not giving up.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 7 dropshipping journey. Shut everything down.

Looked at which ads were getting spend and what early metrics they were pulling. I know the data is thin, but nothing gave me a reason to keep going.

The angle my competitors are scaling on just doesn’t work for me. Tried different formats. Different avatars on the same angle. Different personas, different desires. Nothing stuck.

Everyone says make feedback loops. I have no clue why it didn’t work. I compare their winning ads to mine and I don’t see the difference.

The only feedback loop I can build from this is maybe they can afford higher CPAs and make it work on the backend. I’m not sure.

So the plan for day 8 is to go in a completely different direction. New angles from fresh research, including one angle nobody is advertising for yet. Also built some tracking with Claude to log which angles and formats I’ve tested so I stop getting lost in my own tests.

7 days in. 3 sales. A lot of confusion. But still here.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 6. No sales. Spirits are down.

$50.88 spent. 14 visits. Zero ATCs.

Meta keeps pushing spend towards an ad with 75% hook rate and 53% hold rate on a 3 day average. Sounds great on paper. But it’s eaten $64 with one ATC and no sales. Today it ran a $99 CPM and $3.15 CPC. Turning it off.

I feel confused. I don’t understand what I’m missing.

I take proven concepts. Check the engagement. Check how they’re performing. Take the skeletons and formats that are recently winning, put my research and angle into it.

And I get 3 to 6 dollar CPCs. My competitor is steadily scaling the same product.

My mind says I’m doing everything right. Meta says otherwise. One of them is wrong and it’s not Meta.

Turning off the first ad set today. It’s the only one eating budget while everything else gets starved. Maybe the others will breathe. But I believe if you launch a real winner, CBO picks it up fast. If nothing in the other ad sets is getting spend, maybe nothing in there is good enough.

I’m lost right now. Going to step back. Analyze what I’ve done, what could’ve gone wrong, check the market again, study what competitors are actually doing differently.

Something is off and I need to find it before I burn more money.

[AV @ecomunkl]

@scaling_rn 6 adsets, 54 ads in total including statics

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 5. Reality check.

$48.95 spent. 1 ATC. No sales. 12 clicks.

My top spender pulled $17 today with one click. Over 4 days it’s eaten $100 of budget and produced one sale. Cutting it.

All the new ads I launched? Nothing picking up spend. Meta is throwing a dollar here and there on some statics, but the concepts I had the most conviction in are sitting there doing nothing. I thought they were very good. Meta thinks otherwise.

That’s the part that messes with your head. You study the market, adapt winning formats, put in the work, and the algorithm just says no.

Not touching anything today. Day 6 will tell something maybe.

[AV @ecomunkl]

Day 4. Got lucky today.

$43.13 spent. 4 ATCs. 2 sales. $128 revenue.

The top spender finally converted, but it’s sitting at around $80 CPA over the last 3 days so still not great. CPC at $2.30, better than before but still not where I need it.

Second ad sitting at $5.52 CPC. Not sure why these numbers are so high yet. Not happy with it.

My new concepts that I had high conviction in barely got any spend. $1.64 total. But somehow one pulled an ATC. Probably luck.

Looking at the ad account, the budget is spreading so thin now between all the ads. Same problem I had before. More ads, less data per ad, harder to learn anything.

Set up some BOF ads today. Statics and deal videos. I know there’s barely any bottom funnel to work with when you’re getting 10 to 15 clicks a day, but I’m covering all awareness levels for this angle. It works for more than one competitor and they’re scaling.

Not touching anything until Monday. Hoping the new concepts pick up spend over the weekend since I still have high conviction in them.

Let’s see what the weekend brings.