Weekly report on the Shadow AI Checklist campaign for Fair & Square AI. The ads went live on 12 September after the account was cleared. This covers that first live day.
The ads are working. The problem is we cannot yet count how many people are actually downloading the checklist. On the first live day the ads sent 438 people to the checklist page at just $0.13 a visit, with a click rate of 4.33% (over four times the usual Meta benchmark). But the page is set up to record only visits, not sign-ups, and the campaign is set to buy clicks rather than leads. So we have strong, cheap interest and no way to measure the leads. Fixing that is the single most valuable next step.
Three of the eight checklist ads were live on day one. Two are doing the heavy lifting: the Board angle brought most of the traffic, and the Personal accountability angle had the best click rate of all. The Auditor pressure ad is not landing and barely sent anyone to the page.
Here is what happened to the traffic on day one. Everything is healthy right up to the checklist page. The final step, the actual sign-up, is where we lose sight of people, because the page is not yet set up to record it.
We followed a live ad through to the page and read every step. The page loads fast and the offer is clear. The one thing missing is a signal back to Meta each time someone signs up.
One campaign is running, with eight checklist ads. Three were live on day one, five are still switched off. Judged on interest and cost, the traffic quality is excellent. The only column we cannot fill is sign-ups, because they are not yet tracked.
| Ad | Status | Spend | Clicks | CTR | CPC | Visits | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V1 Board angle | Live | $50.22 | 444 | 4.78% | $0.11 | 383 | SCALE |
| V6 Personal accountability | Live | $8.32 | 69 | 6.49% | $0.12 | 53 | SCALE |
| V4 Auditor pressure | Live | $0.59 | 15 | 0.81% | $0.04 | 2 | REPLACE |
| V2 Shadow AI behaviour | Off | $0.00 | 0 | n/a | n/a | 0 | TURN ON |
| V3 The 63 percent stat | Off | $0.00 | 0 | n/a | n/a | 0 | TURN ON |
| V5 Inventory blind spot | Off | $0.00 | 0 | n/a | n/a | 0 | TURN ON |
| V7 Regulatory inevitability | Off | $0.00 | 0 | n/a | n/a | 0 | TURN ON |
| V8 Paper policy vs reality | Off | $0.00 | 0 | n/a | n/a | 0 | TURN ON |
Almost all of the day-one spend went to two strong ads (V1 and V6). No spend was wasted on a dead link or a broken page. The only real waste risk is that we are paying for traffic we cannot yet measure.
This is the big one. Right now the page tells Meta when someone visits but not when they sign up. We will add a sign-up signal to the pixel that already exists, so every checklist download is counted. Then we can finally see the number that matters: how many leads, and at what cost.
The campaign is currently set to buy clicks. Once sign-ups are tracked, we will switch it to buy sign-ups. Meta will then focus the budget on the people most likely to download the checklist, which lowers the cost per lead over time.
The sign-up form asks for a phone number for a free checklist. On a first, cold visit that extra field costs sign-ups. Name and email is enough to deliver the checklist, and we can ask for the phone number later. This should lift the number of people who complete the form.
Only three of the eight checklist ads are live. Turning on the other five (Shadow AI behaviour, the 63% stat, Inventory blind spot, Regulatory inevitability, Paper policy vs reality) gives the test more angles to find the strongest one, and keeps the audience fresh.
The Auditor pressure ad had a click rate of 0.81%, far below the others, and sent only two people to the page. We will pause it and put that budget behind the Board angle and Personal accountability ads, which are getting cheap clicks and strong interest.