How to Know If It’s Your Ads or Your Product That Sucks

Question (Camille):“How do I know if it’s the ad that sucks or the product that sucks?”Answer (Dan Coughlin & Matt Johnston):Check Retention & LTV: Look at repeat purchases and customer lifetime value. If people don’t come back, the product may be weak.Collect Feedback: Reviews and direct customer feedback reveal if the product solves the problem.Analyze Data: Metrics like churn (for apps) or reorders (for consumables like skincare/supplements) show product strength.Acquisition vs. Retention: Most businesses focus only on acquisition, but retention exposes whether the product truly delivers.Marketing Stress Test: Running ads aggressively reveals weak points in the funnel product, creative, landing page, or brand.Real Reviews & PR: Send products to YouTube or micro-reviewers for authentic feedback and exposure.Holistic View: It’s rarely just the ad or the product it could be landing pages, store design, brand presence, email/SMS marketing, or product-market fit.Bottom Line: Start marketing hard, track the data, fix holes as they appear. If every hole is unfixable, it’s likely a product problem.You’ll Learn:How to use customer retention data to judge product quality.Why ads alone can’t fix a broken product.How to stress-test your funnel to find the real issue.When to accept that the product not the ad is the problem.