Paid for traffic and got no sales — where did it break? Five steps find it

What this is

One of our published methods, written in plain language: what it can do, when to use it, what goes in and what comes out.

Why it matters

Most methods are published as papers or code. This one is written so you can decide whether it fits your problem before you invest time in it.

How to use it

Read the page top to bottom. If it matches your question, use the online tool - or subscribe and run it on your own data.

What you get

A clear answer on what the method does and does not do, plus a live curve from our own demand series. Free to read.

Free to readOnline tools from $5 per runSee it →

Demand curve read by this method — A live reading from our own demand series - the shape of the signal this method works on. 570 industries are tracked daily; this is one of them.

Data base: InfoGap own records - 391 Chinese cities x 8 dimensions, 213,208 city-industry rows, 40,499 POIs (central / lifechain, 2026-10-08).

InfoGap Algorithm Handbook · one algorithm per page · plain language

1In one sentence: what it does

Splits the business journey from "someone sees you" to "someone pays you" into five steps, and shows you which step you fell off.

2When to use it

You are most likely in one of these three situations:

You paid for traffic, got 612,000 impressions, and not a single order.

What people usually do: change the creative, change the platform, keep raising the budget.

With this: key the first step's numbers in and see whether it is "too few people clicked", or "they came in and nobody watched to the end", or "they watched and nobody asked you anything".

You post content regularly and the likes are decent, but nobody joins the group.

What people usually do: post a few more and see.

With this: look at the colours. The engagement step is green and the conversion step is red, so the break sits between those two — change the line telling viewers what to do after watching first, not how often you post.

A friend says "your problem is simply that not enough people are seeing it".

What people usually do: do that, and spend more.

With this: look at the first step's numbers first. That step is green already, which means money is not the problem — the problem is further inside.

3What goes in · what comes out

Input: one platform, one piece of content, one string of numbers (this is the set used for the real run)

Platform — Xiaohongshu
Content title — Shanghai coffee shops: the traps to avoid
Share of impressions that clicked through — 0.004
Are impressions still growing — 0.9
Share of clickers who watched to the end — 0.31
Watch time as a share of the whole piece — 0.4
Saves 0.008 / Comments 0.002 / Likes 0.01
Direct messages asking 0.0 / Group joins 0.0 / Follows 0.003
Shares 0.001 / Share of new people brought in 0.02

What comes out

Output: the raw run, as it came out (not a character changed)

Entry layer (do people who see it want to click through): 🔴 Lost | click ratio 0.004, impression growth 0.9
Catch layer (do the clickers want to watch to the end): 🔴 Lost | completion ratio 0.31, watch-time share 0.4
Engagement layer (do viewers want to act): 🔴 Lost | saves 0.008, comments 0.002, likes 0.01
Conversion layer (do they want to reach you): 🔴 Lost | direct messages 0.0, group joins 0.0, follows 0.003
Spread layer (will they pass it on for you): 🔴 Lost | shares 0.001, new people brought in 0.02

Break diagnosis: none (there is no "upper layer green, lower layer red" case)

How to read it: all five steps are red, which means it is not one step that collapsed — nothing in this whole piece of content was caught. At that point the thing to change is the content, not the budget. The other way round: if only one layer is red, that is a break — fix that layer and you are done.

📈One picture: five steps, and which one people are stuck on

From seeing you to paying you there are five steps; see whether one of them is broken, or nothing was caught from the start.

4How to use it

There is no public calculator for this yet — the method above is the whole procedure; on this site the inputs have to be keyed in by hand.

Collect the numbers your dashboard shows for each of the five steps
Fill in what you can see (leave blank whatever you can't — it will not guess a number for you)
See which layers come out red; only one red → fix that layer; all red → replace the content

5Who it is for

People already paying for traffic; shop owners who post content every day and get nobody asking; people who read other people's accounts for them.

6Common questions

Q: What if I don't have numbers this detailed?

A: Most platforms show them in the back office. Whatever you can't see, leave blank — the algorithm marks it "no data" and will not make a number up for you.

Q: If all five layers are red, is it over?

A: It is not over, it is "not started yet" — it has not even cleared the first layer. This is exactly the moment when spending more money is the worst thing you can do.

Q: Do the green layers need attention too?

A: No. Fix the red ones first; touching the green ones is more likely to break something.

7Related algorithms

traffic-target · did you pick the right words demand-verify · is the demand real curve-generation · did the change actually work ← Back to the Algorithm Handbook

✓Why this scenario exists (the evidence)

Why this scenario exists:

The overseas scouting report carries two real bills: ① $3.18 per thousand views, 612,000 impressions, $0.21 per click — $1,948 spent in total and not one lead; ② $700 bought back 180 clicks and 0 sign-ups.

The same report files this kind of practice under "looks cheap, is actually a trap": cheap creative + a cheap campaign objective = paying for noise.

Source: the site's ads-scout research report (ads-scout-20260921).