Two months fixing traffic when the problem was price.

What we ran

A funnel with an average order value of $16.57 against a break-even floor somewhere between $20 and $40. For about two months, the response to a flat order value was to test different creative, rewrite the page, and try different audiences.

What the numbers showed

The number that would have ended the argument was already on the screen the whole time: the order bump attach rate sat at a healthy 50%. Half of buyers were taking the add-on. A funnel where half the buyers take an upsell isn't broken mechanically. It's underpriced.

Why it failed

The order value was treated as a traffic problem because traffic is where the attention naturally goes: creative, audiences, page copy. A pricing problem dressed as a marketing problem looks identical from the dashboard, and nothing about testing more creative was ever going to move an order value that was being held down by the ladder's own pricing, not by the people arriving at it.

What we changed

Order value against the break-even floor is now a weekly check, read before any traffic decision. A healthy attach rate on an add-on, bump or upsell is treated as a signal that the mechanics are fine and the price is the lever, not a reason to keep testing creative.

How to spot it in your own account

Pull your average order value and your break-even floor side by side. If the order value is below the floor, check your add-on or bump attach rate before touching anything upstream. A high attach rate on a healthy funnel with a low order value is the specific sign that the fix is a price move, not a traffic move. Checking this took about an hour once it was actually done; the two months were spent not checking it.