Category: Blog

There’s no such thing as profitable ads. There are only profitable funnels

Micheal O'Neill

There’s no such thing as profitable ads. There are only profitable funnels

Here's what we have for you today

I might as well come straight out and say it. There’s no such thing as profitable Meta ads. As a Meta ad agency owner, that might seem like a strange comment. But the reality is there are only profitable funnels. This is especially true if you’re selling an online course and membership. Having helped hundreds of people launch and scale profitable Meta ad campaigns for digital products, the number one mistake I see people make is thinking their ads are the reason for poor sales. Here’s how I think about ads and funnels.

Your ads are just the start of the journey

The purpose of the ad is to buy you 5 seconds of attention. The goal of an ad is to deliver a potential buyer to your landing page in the right frame of mind. The goal of your ad is not to sell. The goal of your ad is to capture attention and generate enough desire that the person is willing to invest in finding out more. Your ad has done its job if your prospect lands on the first step of your funnel with excitement and an open mind.

Your funnel determines your profitability

Your funnel does all the heavy lifting and selling of your course or membership. The best ads in the world can’t overcome a low-converting funnel and offer. While your ads can attract more people at a lower cost into your funnel, your offer conversion rate will ultimately determine your profitability. This is true whether you are running an evergreen offer or stacking leads for a live launch. Spend more time optimizing your funnel than you do optimizing your ads.

Focus on conversions not vanity metrics

One of the best ways to ensure profitable ads is to make an offer immediately. Making an immediate offer, let’s optimize your ads and funnel for conversions. In this case, the only metric you need to worry about is profit on ad spend. You can forget about CPM, impressions, and cost per click. All that matters is sales. Taking this approach simplifies your optimization and reporting and gets you focused on the right metrics. Ads and funnels are two sides of the same coin. To solve one side, you must solve the other side. That’s why I always take a full-funnel approach with my agency clients. Because running awesome ad campaigns isn’t enough to build a profitable online business.
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What is Loss Aversion and how can you use it to increase conversions and sales

Micheal O'Neill

What is Loss Aversion and how can you use it to increase conversions and sales

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Your customers are twice as motivated to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.

This means they will do as much to avoid losing $500 as they will to get $1000.

This principle is called Loss Aversion.

And I love using it in my ads, online course, and membership sales sequences to get people to take action.

If you’re anything like me you don’t like being negative.

But having generated over $10 million in online sales I’ve seen the power of Loss Aversion.

Here’s how to use it in your campaigns.

Why Does Loss Aversion Work?

The cognitive scientist Daniel Kahneman coined the term loss aversion in 1979.

The principle is thought to be rooted in evolutionary psychology. When living on the edge of survival as a hunter gatherer the loss of a day’s food could cause death, whereas gaining an extra day’s food was less valuable when it couldn’t be stored.

But today we can use it to help our audience make a decision and take action.

3 Ways You Can You Use Loss Aversion

There are lots of ways to use loss aversion. From subtle nudges in your copy to the very structure of your launches and offers.

Here are just 3 of the main ways I use it.

#1 Amplify the Pain

Highlight the negative consequences of not taking action. Make it real for your audience by describing what they stand to lose.

#2 Frame Benefits as Losses:

Instead of saying, “Download your free guide” say, “Don’t miss your chance to download your free guide.”

This frames the benefit in a way that emphasizes the potential loss of not acting.

#3 Use Scarcity and Urgency:

Create limited-time offers and exclusive bonuses. People are more likely to act if they feel they might miss out on something valuable if they delay.

Think of Loss Aversion as a spice to flavor your copy and launches.

The tastier your dish the more your audience will dig in and buy your course or membership.

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What is CPM, why it matters and what it can tell you about running profitable ads

Micheal O'Neill

What is CPM, why it matters and what it can tell you about running profitable ads

Here's what we have for you today

If you’re running Meta ads, you’ve probably heard that CPM is a rubbish metric.

I disagree entirely.

Now, don’t get me wrong. At the end of the day, all I care about is Profit On Ad Spending.

AKA – how much is left over after your ad spend and your unit cost.

But CPM can give you a lot of valuable insights into your ads.

What is CPM?

CPM is Cost Per Mille or cost per thousand impressions.

It’s how much it costs you to get your ad in front of a thousand people. We can’t fully control CPM, but it does give us some important feedback. Now, Meta has never defined exactly how CPM is calculated, but with a little reverse engineering, we can figure out what it’s telling us.

And we can use this data to improve our ad performance.

What does CPM tell you?

Simply put, CPM is a combination of the advertising competition for your audience and how much Meta likes your ads.

Meta lives and dies by it ability to get people to come back to the platform as often as possible and stay for as long as possible. To do this it has to make sure it’s a nice place for it’s users. As ads are a big part of a users feed, Meta peanilises advertisers who’s ads don’t add value to the user experience.

That penalty is in the form of high CPM’s.

What to do if your CPM is high?

If your CPM’s are high it’s time to look at your ads and your funnel.

Refining your message and more importantly your creative is key to reducing your CPM. Also ask yourself the question – Does my target audience really want what I’m offering? If it isn’t a top of mind problem for your audience the chances are they aren’t going to get excited about your ads.

We can’t control how competitive the advertising auction is but we can control how engaging our ads are.

The key to successful ads is creating content that your audience finds useful and interesting.

Instead of focusing on you and your offer think about your audience and what they want and need.

This is a surefire approach to profitable ads.

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AI Agents: How to grow your online business on autopilot

Micheal O'Neill

AI Agents: How to grow your online business on autopilot

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Over the past couple of months, I’ve been geeking out over AI Agents to automate as much of my business as possible.

Most people are on board with using AI for ideas and content generation.

But that’s just scratching the surface of what’s possible.

So, what is an AI Agent?

I look on AI Agents as a digital assistant I train to perform a specific task.

With a little imagination and a lot of process based thinking there aren’t many processes that AI Agents can’t assist you with.

Here are 3 ways I use AI Agents to grow my online business.

Use AI Agents to free up time for high-value activities

AI Agents are great at automating mundane tasks.

If you can define a process for a task, you can build an AI Agent to complete that task. This applies to everything from customer service to social media management and repurposing to data entry. Not only will this save you time, but it also ensures consistency and accuracy.

With the repetitive tasks taken care of, you and your team are free to focus on the big stuff, like lead generation, sales, and fulfillment.

Use AI Agents to simplify data-driven decisions

AI Agents can process lots of data quickly.

Whether that’s pulling data from your ad account and reporting on your best-performing creatives or analyzing member surveys to identify key pain points and frustrations, you can build an AI Agent to summarize and suggest your best next steps.

This is one of the areas I’m getting the most value from AI, especially after the launch of ChatGPT-4.o.

Use AI Agent to improve your customer’s experience

We need to be careful with this one.

There’s nothing more frustrating than talking to a Chatbot that doesn’t understand our problem. BUT we can use AI agents to give instant and real-time support 24/7. The key to making this a valuable experience is to give our customers the power to switch to human interaction whenever they want.

Watch this space. Customer service will be one of the first areas that Ai will truly revolutionize.

Remember we are still very early in the AI game.

It’s a matter of taking simple and consistent steps to integrating AI into your business.

But there are only two options.

  1. Sit back and wait until your competition forces you to adopt AI
  2. Embrace it and get early movers advantage
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The 3 lead levels and the one you need to profitability grow your online business fast

Micheal O'Neill

The 3 lead levels and the one you need to profitability grow your online business fast

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I’ve been talking about lead generation for years, but I’ve just realized something.

I’ve never defined what a lead is.

Or worse still, the type of lead you need to grow your online course or membership fast.

Over the past few years, I’ve generated hundreds of thousands of leads.

But all leads are not equal.

So here are the 3 lead levels and the one you need to focus on.

Level 1 Leads – A person you can contact

A lead is anyone you can contact directly.

This means everyone in your phone book, friends on Facebook, and followers on Instagram. When you first launch an online course or membership, these people can be invaluable. But it’s impossible to scale an online business based on these people alone.

And remember, not all contacts are equal: phone no. > email address > social follower.

Level 2 Leads – An engaged lead

The next level up is an engaged lead.

Engaged leads have interacted with you and expressed interest in you and your content. These are people actively seeking a solution to a problem they have. These will typically be people who have given you their email address in exchange for a lead magnet.

Engaged leads are a step up from Level 1 leads, but they aren’t what you want.

Level 3 Leads – An engaged perfect fit lead

Finding engaged, perfect fit leads is the key to quickly scaling your online course or membership business.

Perfect fit leads aren’t just looking for a solution to a problem. They know, understand, and want “your solution” to their problem. They also have an urgent motivation to take action and solve the problem right now.

Every lead generation action you take is to find and cultivate these people.

Anytime I’ve seen lead generation go wrong, it’s because online business owners have generated too many Level 2 leads.

Every lead is valid. No one signs up for a lead magnet without some level of interest.

But if you want people to hit your list and buy, you need to focus on Level 3 leads.

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3 reasons why most online course and membership launches fail (and simple steps you can take to guarantee a profitable launch)

Micheal O'Neill

3 reasons why most online course and membership launches fail (and simple steps you can take to guarantee a profitable launch)

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In 2015, I launched my first digital product.

I immediately became obsessed with why some launches work and others don’t.

I couldn’t figure out why one launch would crush it and the other launch flop, especially when they both followed the same framework.

Having delivered and advised on over 100 launches and generated over $10 million in online sales, I’ve discovered the 3 primary reasons why launches fail….

….and what you can do to make sure your next launch is profitable.

Reason 1 – A weak offer

80% of your launch results come down to your offer.

Weak offers focus on the course or membership leader, content and deliverables.

A strong offer promises to eradicate your audience’s biggest pain point and help them achieve their dream outcome in the shortest time frame with the least amount of work.

Reason 2 – Low audience engagement

When managing my client’s launch expectations, the first thing I do is look at their audience engagement.

If you have a large hot list, you’re going to make sales irrespective of your marketing and offer. If you have a small cold list, you will struggle to make sales no matter what you do.

Your launch results will be directly proportional to how you show up for your audience when you aren’t launching.

Reason 3 – Pre-launch content and marketing misalignment

Even with the best offer and audience in the world, success isn’t guaranteed.

Your pre-launch content and marketing has to align with your audience and the offer you’re about to make.

Alignment with your audience comes from showing them you understand their pain, fears, frustrations, dreams, goals, and ambitions.

Your offer should feel like the logical next step after people have completed your pre-launch workshop. Your job is to make it easy for them to say yes.

There are a lot of moving parts in a launch.

It’s a complex process but the upside potential makes it all worth it.

Launch success doesn’t happen overnight.

It’s a process, but as long as you keep working on these three elements, you will get there.

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4 dead-simple Meta ad hook formats to lower your cost per lead and increase your sales (even if you hate writing copy)

Micheal O'Neill

4 dead-simple Meta ad hook formats to lower your cost per lead and increase your sales (even if you hate writing copy)

Here's what we have for you today

4 dead-simple Meta ad hook formulas to lower your cost per lead and increase sales – even if you hate writing ad copy.

I used to think crafting high-converting ad copy was a mystery.

Sometimes my ad copy kicked ass, other times it flopped.

That was until I created formulas for every section of my ad.

Here are my top 4 Meta ad hook formulas to lower my costs and drive more sales:

The Problem Hook

If you’ve ever thought, “I’d love to {X} but {Y}” – this one is for you.

{X} = the primary desire or dream outcome

{Y} = primary problem or frustration

Example:
If you’ve ever thought, “I’d love to launch a digital course, but where do I even start?” – this one is for you.

The Dream Hook

Are you {Z} looking to {X} this year?

{Z} = what your audience aspires to

{X} = the primary desire or dream outcome

Example:
Are you a membership site owner looking to hit 6 figures this year?

The Question Hook

“{Y}” – this is the number one question I get asked by my clients every day.

{Y} = primary problem or frustration

Example:

“How do I draft high-converting and profitable Meta ad copy?” – this is the number one question I get asked by my clients every day.

The Authority Hook

After {W} years as a {Z}, I’ve learned a thing or two about {Z}

{W} = length of time you have been doing {Z}. The bigger W is, the better.

{Z} = what your audience aspires to

{X} = the primary desire or dream outcome.

Example:

After 15 years running Meta ads, I’ve learned a thing or two about how to craft high-converting and profitable ad copy.

When drafting ads, there is nothing worse than a blank page.

Using these formulas combined with copywriting frameworks like AIDA will make your life much easier.

And, if you study the formulas, you’ll notice that there are only a small number of variables.

So once you have tried the main formulas, feel free to improvise.

What’s the first hook you are going to test?

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3 Tips To Write Bullet Points So Good Your Readers Will Instantly Take Action

Micheal O'Neill

3 Tips To Write Bullet Points So Good Your Readers Will Instantly Take Action

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When I started writing copy, I didn’t pay much attention to bullet points.

I saw them as a handy way to summarize information and make it easier to read.

But now, after over 100 digital product launches and $10,000,000 in online sales, bullet points are one of my top 3 copywriting conversion levers.

And, if you want to increase your opt-in and sales conversion rates, learning how to craft compelling fascination bullet points is a copywriting cheat code.

There’s no going back once you see the power of fascination bullet points.

You’ll suddenly want to use them in every email, social post, opt-in page, and sales page.

Here are my top 3 tips for writing irresistible fascination bullet points:

1. Tease the benefit, don’t reveal it

Don’t just tell someone what they will get.

Tease them with the benefits of what’s possible once they have what you’re offering. A 78-page guide is dull and boring. But a “step-by-step blueprint to cover the cost of your ads before the bill hits your credit card” is a much more appealing prospect.

Tell your reader what their life will look like when they take the action.

2. Be specific

The more specific you are, the more intrigue you’ll create.

Describe in specific detail how someone will benefit from taking action and what they will see, hear, feel, and do. Include numbers and specific deliverables. “The surprising reason your Meta ads are failing (and how to turn them around in 24 hours)”

Even if you can’t promise measurable outcomes you can be specific with your timelines.

3. Create a cliffhanger

Use open loops to build curiosity.

Nothing drives people to action like the need to close a loop. An open loop is simply an information gap that leaves readers hanging, desperate to know the resolution. “How I generated 10,000 leads in 30 days using this unconventional Facebook ad strategy…”

The only way for your reader to close the loop and satisfy their curiosity is to take action.

Remember, fascination bullet points are like a movie trailer.

You want to show readers just enough to get them drooling with anticipation.

Hint at the most exciting parts, but leave them eager to buy their ticket.

And the best way to get good at this is to practice….. let’s get started…

Give me a line from your opt-in or sales page and I’ll turn it into a fascination bullet point.

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3 beliefs that separate successful online course and membership site owners from unsuccessful ones

Micheal O'Neill

3 beliefs that separate successful online course and membership site owners from unsuccessful ones

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Show me how someone reacts after their first launch, and I’ll tell you if they’re going to make it in the online world.

Rarely will your first digital product launch go to plan.

Unless you have been building and engaging with your list for some time, your first launch will be underwhelming.

I’ve mentored, coached, and delivered over 100 digital product launches.

And, I’ve seen my fair share of first-launch flops.

The launch results are not important.

However, what sets successful online business owners apart is their post-launch mindset.

I call this bounce-back-ability.

And it’s not just about putting lipstick on pig; it’s about setting yourself up for success in the future.

Here are 3 common beliefs of the most successful online business owners share.

#1 In it for the long run

Successful online business owners realize from day 1 that they are in it for the long haul.

It’s not that they don’t want to see results quickly, but they understand that time is on their side. Very rarely have I seen someone build a multi-million turnover business in 1 year. But I’ve seen plenty of people build multi-million dollar businesses in 3, 5, and 10 years.

Successful business owners are impatient with their day-to-day projects and patient with their long-term goals and results.

#2 Their results don’t define their value

It’s easy to get disheartened with the results of your first few launches.

When a launch flops, it’s easy to start questioning everything. Successful online business owners fully separate their personal value and the value of their program from their sales figures. Unsuccessful people link their personal value to their launch results and are in for a world of pain as they grow their businesses.

Every launch is an opportunity to learn. Make sure you learn the right lessons.

#3 They invest in growth

Growing an online business, just like every other business, requires investment.

Sure, you could figure it all out yourself, but how much time will you waste going it alone? You either pay with time or money; the choice is yours. The most successful online business owners value time over money and invest in growth, working with people who’ve already gotten the results they want.

I will always pay for shortcuts.

The people who succeed online don’t always have the best course or membership.

They are the people who approach the game with the right mindset.

Most of all, they take a long-term view of their business and understand that their growth won’t be linear.

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3 steps to fix a leaky online course or membership funnel, without touching your ads, to increase your sales and profitability

Micheal O'Neill

3 steps to fix a leaky online course or membership funnel, without touching your ads, to increase your sales and profitability

Here's what we have for you today

On the 15th July 2023, I started working with a new client.

They had an established evergreen course funnel that had made $$$’s millions for them over the years.

I got down to work, and within a couple of weeks, our ad campaigns were profitable.

However, our results were inconsistent.

And no matter how many new ads I drafted or creative I tested, we couldn’t increase our sales to what I knew was possible.

In my onboarding funnel report, I outlined the issues with the funnel and why I thought it best to completely re-engineer it.

But between scheduled live launches and JV launches, the client didn’t have the capacity to do that.

That was until last month. We finally got the green light to overhaul the funnel.

And boy, are we seeing the benefit of the changes we made.

We started getting sales instantly and have some ad sets that are getting an 8 X return on ad spend.

Here are 3 steps you can take today to revive an underperforming funnel:

Step 1 – Make it easy – remove all friction

Anytime you make your audience think you are losing sales.

Your audience should feel like a lazy river carries them through your funnel. Build your funnel so that if someone tripped, they would land in the right next step. If a caveman couldn’t make it through your funnel, it’s probably too complicated.

Use big buttons, simple calls to action, and visual prompts to move people through your funnel.

Step 2 – Get to the offer quickly

You need to demonstrate value before you make an ask.

But it’s just as essential to get your offer in front of prospective buyers as soon as possible. Don’t sugarcoat it, and don’t apologize for making the offer. You should believe that purchasing your offer is the best thing your perfect-fit client can do, and if that is the case, they must hear your offer.

The quicker you make an offer to someone after they join your list, the more likely they are to buy.

Step 3 – Make the offer feel like the logical next step

Your offer needs to align with your funnel.

Start thinking of your offers in terms of a journey. Your front-end webinar, lead magnet, or workshop should feel like the first step on your perfect-fit clients’ journey. Your offer should feel like their logical next step.

And don’t forget your offer has to promise to take your perfect-fit client to a desirable and valuable location.

Take some time today with your funnel.

Does it tick all the above 3 boxes?

If it doesn’t work on each step one by one.

Remember a little work consistently over time is far better than a once-off big flurry.