The Path to Purchase:
Why Your Ads Feel Expensive
And How to Fix It
Most brands try to fix ad performance inside the ad account. The real issue is almost never the ad. It's what happens after the click.
Watch the Full Breakdown
If you prefer video first, start here — then use the written breakdown below as your reference guide.
You Don't Have an Ad Problem
A brand comes to us and says: "Meta is getting expensive. CAC is rising. Ads don't scale anymore." So they do what everyone does — new creatives, new audiences, new copy, more testing, more budget. And performance barely moves.
Because they're trying to fix the engine while the wheels are square. Your ads are not a standalone system. They're the front door to a larger structure — and if the structure behind that door isn't designed correctly, the algorithm can't help you.
while the wheels are square.
CAC is not determined by your targeting, your hook, or your creative. CAC is determined by how valuable a customer becomes after the click. Fix the journey and CAC falls automatically.
About Aaron Hammond
Co-Founder at Three Beacon Marketing. Over the last decade, Aaron and his co-founder have worked with dozens of DTC brands in health, wellness, and lifestyle — helping generate over $100M in revenue. They've watched brands burn through budget optimizing ads while their actual problem was a broken buying experience downstream.
Your Roadmap for This Guide
We start with what the path to purchase actually is, then work through four concepts that will permanently change how you think about acquisition cost.
What the Path to Purchase Actually Is
Here's how most brands think advertising works:
Simple. Also wrong.
Real ecommerce growth looks more like this:
That entire sequence is what the algorithm is optimizing. Not the ad. Not the click. The customer journey.
It's trying to find people who behave like your best customers.
Your site — not your ad — trains the algorithm. This is where CAC actually comes from. Which means if your buying experience is broken, no amount of creative testing will fix your acquisition costs.
Why Your Ads Feel Expensive
Most brands run ads to their core product. Usually a $60–$150 item. And they judge success based on one question: "Did we make money on the first purchase?"
Seems logical. It's also why scaling stalls.
When you ask cold traffic — someone who met you 30 seconds ago — to make a high-commitment decision, the algorithm has to find a tiny subset of people willing to do that immediately. That audience is small. Small audiences are expensive. So CAC rises.
Then the brand says: "Ads are getting worse." No. Your entry point is wrong.
convinced customers, not new ones.
You're not running bad ads. You're running the right ads into the wrong funnel. The algorithm is doing its job — it just doesn't have the downstream behavior it needs to find cheaper customers for you.
Gateway Offers & Intro Products
Sample packs. Trial sizes. Starter bundles. Low-commitment offers. This is the conversation we hear constantly:
Starter kit buyers had dramatically higher LTV than direct-to-flagship buyers. Not because the product was magic — because behavior matters.
Here's why it works — the behavior chain:
When Meta sees people come back and buy again, it finds more people like them. Suddenly CAC drops, CPM stabilizes, and scaling gets easier. Not because the ad changed. Because the customer quality changed.
Shutting off your gateway offer because day-1 ROAS is low. Every. Single. Time. 🔄
The Upsell Tree & Higher AOV
Here's the part brands really miss: the intro product is not the profit center. The upsell tree is.
You're monetizing the journey.
The path looks like this:
A good path to purchase does three things simultaneously:
- Lowers acquisition friction. The entry offer removes the commitment barrier so the algorithm can find a much larger, cheaper audience.
- Increases average order value. Upsells, bundles, and cross-sells capture revenue on the same traffic without additional ad spend.
- Improves customer quality. People who move through the full journey become higher-LTV customers — which trains the algorithm to find more people like them.
When all three things happen simultaneously, something shifts. Your ads suddenly "start working" — not because the ad got better, but because the algorithm finally has enough conversion density and repeat behavior to optimize.
This is why some brands can spend aggressively and others can't. They're not better advertisers. They built a better buying experience. The ad is just the front door.
Stop Measuring Day-1 ROAS
This requires changing one habit. Stop judging ads by what happens on the day of the click. Start measuring what the customer becomes over time.
😬 "ROAS on day 1 was 0.8x. Killed it." (Just shut off your best acquisition channel.)
🎯 Same campaign at day 90: 3.2x LTV. That's the real number.
If you measure a gateway offer with the same metric as a core product, you will shut off your best acquisition tool. Most agencies — and most brands — do exactly that. They optimize for yesterday's transaction instead of tomorrow's customer.
A gateway offer that looks unprofitable in-platform can be your most profitable acquisition channel in reality — if you measure it correctly. The metric mismatch is the single most expensive mistake we see DTC brands make.
The Full Picture
Experiences create customers.
If your ads feel expensive, before you touch the ad account — map your buying experience. Look at your entry offer, your upsells, your follow-up, your repeat purchase path. That's usually where revenue is leaking and where acquisition cost can realistically drop.
Brands who fixed the path to purchase, watching CAC finally drop 📉
Where to Find Me
Email: aaron@threebeaconmarketing.com
Follow me on my socials for more helpful tips and guides. If you're a DTC brand trying to lower CAC and build a buying experience that actually scales, you'll feel at home.
Want Help Mapping Your
Path to Purchase?
We'll review your customer journey and identify where revenue is leaking — and where acquisition cost can realistically drop.
Whether you run with it yourself or partner with us to execute, you'll walk away with clarity.