Do you think making 150 sales qualifies as good enough testing to justify paying for advertising?

Bkelly301,


It's not the number of sales you've made, but the conversion rate that is key. Out of those that see your offer, what percentage convert into a sale? By knowing the rate, you have one measure of marketing performance and can determine how much you can spend on acquiring a customer without losing money based on your course pricing.


I'm not "playing down" the fact that you have already made multiple sales - 150 sales, that's a good thing, of course.


Set aside whatever budget you can come up with and do a paid marketing test. Track your results, tweak the offer, and optimize your variables. Keep the scale small until you have the highest converting offer possible. When you can buy traffic and make a positive return with it . . . then is the time to scale your budget. If possible, I would suggest you shoot for 1,000 clicks to your offer and see what that brings you in the way of a conversion rate (could be less if you can't afford 1K). The more clicks you can afford, the more likely your test will be statistically valid.


The very best to you.


Steve

Thanks for the tip Steve!

I'm definitely nervous, but I guess I have to get over that and just start testing.

I'd say BK, feeling the fear of spending money is the quickest and yes, most uncomfortable way to release the fear so you spend advertising money freely. Right now you seem to be in the space of being afraid to spend money because you fear wasting/losing money; scarcity mindset.

Think abundance. Spend money as an investment for the present and future. All ad money expands your brand awareness, and as a bonus, you may make sales too.

Think less ROI and more MOE - My Own Energy - to understand that even if you sold zero copies, if the idea benefits folks, it is good enough and warrants spending aka investing.

Ryan

Hi

#1 have you thought about advertising on the youtube ad platform?

#2 Is your list segmented into buyers and those that have opted in for more info?

#3 are you pitching complimentary affiliate offers to your list (see#2, the reason you want them on different list is because they have different needs that require a tailored approach)

#4 Steve is spot on, you will need to start small, test, refine and scale..

Bob

Clearly, you have never spent a dime on advertising.

This "mindset" will ensure your ROI is negative.

The only thing you can do is a test. Start small and do your research first. Factors like the color of your site and buttons, one word of copy in your ad or sales copy, the continuity between ad and sales copy, and many other factors can have a huge impact.

Check out, Perry Marshall. His free content is how I learned PPC, years ago. It's well worth checking out.

Thinking about FB ads? Watch this:

Hello,

I think that your best bet before getting involved in paid advertising is researching your target audience, creating a sales funnel with split testing, set a start out budget on a small level, Keep it simple, the best thing to remember when doing paid advertising is that the moment you get to complicated and far fetched you'll lose out.

Lastly, just remember to track all of your advertising campaigns.

free traffic has been working great for you it's best you keep that up and start small with paid traffic

Get your GDPR in place, the go to Aweber or Getresponse, generate an opt-in form, list, funnel, products (yours or aff ones)

I use single optin, but emphazise GDPR and what subscribers will get from me. Single/double, each has pros/cons; your call

Then get a few good solo's (Udimi, check feedbacks), up to say $50-$100, that'll get you plenty of clicks and some numbers to work with

Go to YouTube if unsure about specifics; Historically, I employed a good mentor (we still keep in touch), and use YT etc for research too.

If this is the case then you should be looking at YT not FB for advertising.

Every time you hook up a new lead source to your funnel, you go back to zero on the growth and knowledge chart.

I recommend looking up Alex Becker's YT channel and watching his videos. Look for the ones that talk about using a second channel to run the ads, targeting those people who watch your main channel and building your retargeting list that way.

Cheap leads especially compared to regular FB ads.

I have watched (and commented upon) your threads for awhile and it's cool to see your growth. One major business model issue I see for you is you need an upsell, a higher ticket product or service for buyers to buy next. This is called laddering.

Why?

You need to be able to invest the entire revenue your first product brings in on Cost of Customer Acquisition. That's Measure #1. Start measuring it.

Then you make your money on the upsell.

It's a lot easier to get buyers to buy again.

That upsell will have its own CCA, based on the number of buyers of the first product it takes to get a buyer of the upsell plus any other costs of getting that second purchase.

Track and control these two things:

1. Your Cost of Customer Acquisition

2. Your Lifetime Customer Value

and you will do well.

Always be looking for ways to lower your CCA (strategic partnership with someone who has a list of buyers who overlap your niche and are likely to buy is one great way to lower CCA).

Always be looking for ways to raise your LTV. There are only 3 ways to do that: more customers, higher per-sale prices, larger/more frequent number of purchases from upsells etc.

With the 150 sales you have proven that people want this thing. Now you can build on that.