I launched ads a few days ago.
Here’s how it’s going so far…
Goal
Tbh, a lot about this course launch is abnormal:
2 week email warmup period for waitlist (instead of 1 week)
5 day launch period (instead of 7 days)
No upsell after thank you page
But since this is my first launch with my agency, I’m seeing how things go - will report my learnings in the next few weeks.
Customer segments
My agency and I split it up into 3:
Cold (people who don’t know me)
Remarketing (people who’ve seen my content)
Business (focusing on impact of tracking your time for your business)
Usually, remarketing gets the most results because it’s a warmer audience…
But I was shocked that wasn’t the case for me.
Ad creatives
First, here are the ads people saw.
Cold / remarketing videos
I made 4 videos:
“unhinged ADHD hacks: I learn a new skill every month”
“exposing my entire life tracking system: i track my entire life”
“30 day skill challenge to unrot your brain”
“I track my entire life” (more focused on course platform)
These were all based on my previous viral videos from a few years ago (life tracking) and recently (new skill).
Cold / remarketing statics
I didn’t really expect these to do as well as the videos. Usually video builds more trust.
cold
remarketing
Business videos
“people are always shocked when they find out I have ADHD”
“I posted every day for 159 days and this is what happened”
I was really proud of these videos - I feel like they were engaging and used proven, researched, viral hooks.
Business static
Ad copy
Okay I know no one reads captions, but I still spent hours on these…
Each caption was related to the video and audience.
I structured my captions like:
Audience or problem callout
Transformation
Call to action (click/join waitlist)
Let me know if you’re interested in reading them! They probably didn’t have as much of an impact as the actual creative itself though.
Results - 423 waitlist signups in 3 days
Here’s the full screenshot - I’ll explain my takeaways below.
Observation 1: business audience didn’t work ($70 cost per result)
This was fine if I was doing organic - I only need 2-3 high ticket clients to make $5-10k+ a month.
I already knew most of my audience were more productivity than business (even if they’re into business, they’re more beginners).
But since I was spending money on this, we had to turn ads off if they weren’t performing.
Observation 2: cold traffic > remarketing (256 leads vs 162)
Highest performers were videos 1 and 3, which were the ones about learning a new skill every month.
Not sure why this happened but since my thank-you page led to a related video, I got a boost in views on YouTube.
Observation 3: the best video had a cost per result of $1.53
I’m not sure if this is good or bad.
If I had ran ads to my newsletter (not my course waitlist), I could’ve made some money back with beehiiv boosts or Sparkloop.
I used to get $2 or $3 for every subscriber I referred to another newsletter - so a few years ago, some people used this method to print money.
Spend less than $1 to get a subscriber, then earn $2 for referring that subscriber to a newsletter you recommend.
However, I didn’t do that this time - I made no money back because I wasn’t selling anything right away.
What I’d do next time
Hook test organically (don’t be afraid to post even if the CTA says “click the link below”)
Only use high performing organic videos as ads
Match landing page closer to ad (learning a new skill every month)
Upsell a small, related template after to recoup some ad costs
I haven’t started selling anything yet so we’ll see how high-intent the waitlist people are - but I’ll update you on how things progress!
As always, feel free to reply if you have any questions 🫶
Til next time,
Jennifer
