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

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.