Cut Your Webinar, VSL, or Workshop Funnel Call Costs in Half—Using The Same Ads
Your funnels built and ads live.
You sit back waiting to wake up to applications in your inbox and a calendar filled with sales calls.
At least, that’s what you were told to expect.
The results should appear on your calendar (almost) immediately — When it works.
I say “almost” because how much you’re spending on ads is a factor. But…
When calls aren’t getting booked or they’re outrageously expensive, it’s a sign something is wrong.
The first thing most people look at their ads.
Punching up sternly worded Slack messages to their media buyers and ad agencies…
Asking “Are we targeting the right people?”
Concerned that they just need to get their ads in front of the right audience. Then it will work.
It’s not your fault though… Most media buyers and agencies think this, too.
Whether you’re patiently waiting for the algorithm to optimize, testing new audiences, or whipping up new ads to test…
If less than 5% of your leads are booking calls — You don’t have an ad problem.
I’m an “ads guy”
And when I first got into this game this is where I started. I would try and fix the ads.
But after managing over 12 Million and working on numerous webinar, VSL, and workshop funnels I began to dig a little deeper.
Changing the ads never seemed to improve results. At least not by much.
I discovered that if people aren’t booking, the fix is usually found outside your ads.
So, I shifted my attention to the funnel. I began to look at the video itself.
Inside the retention graph is where I began to find the anwers.
If you want to wake up to a calendar filled with sales calls you need to analyze your retention graph.
I’ll say it again.
It’s rarely your ads.
Here’s a simple overview of how these funnels work:
Someone clicks on an ad.
They opt in on the landing page.
The watch the video (webinar, vsl, workshop, etc.).
The click to apply and/or book a call.
The mistake people make is starting with a top-down approach. They attempt to fix the ads first.
The ad performance is a symptom of the larger problem.
In reality,
The video is the sales vehicle for the call. It “sells” people on booking their call.
It really doesn’t matter how many people you send to this funnel, if people are not booking calls, the funnel is broken.
We need to shift to a bottom-up approach. Starting with the video. The thing that precedes the call. The thing that sell the call.
It’s the most important lever to achieve success.
The video and it’s message and positioning is what the landing page and ads are built off of as well. People often make dozens of changes to their ads, and often improving CTRs and CPCs but creating a disconnect with the video, and people still don’t book calls. Because the video itself did not change.
So then,
When calls aren’t getting booked or they’re outrageously expensive…
Start by analyzing these three metrics:
View rate.
60s retention.
CTA retention.
These three numbers will help you diagnose why people aren’t booking calls.
Let’s walk through what these are what they mean:
Your View Rate.
This is how many people hit the play button and start watching your video.
If people opt in to your funnel but never hit the play button, they will not see your offer, and if they do not see your offer they will not book a call.
No bueno.
While some people will book calls on the backend through email. I’ve found the majority of people will people it at the time of watching the video.
People hitting PLAY is the first hurdle we need to over come.
60s Retention.
This is how many people stick/drop off in the first 60 seconds.
Once they hit play we need them to stick around.
Have you ever started watching a TikTok or YouTube video and immediately swiped away, then you know what I am talking about here.
I mean, I do this with Netflix all the time.
If a new series or movie doesn’t hold my attention in the first few minutes. I’m gone.
In short form content like TikTok videos, we know this to be the “hook” and it’s what we deliver in the first 3 seconds.
In your webinar, VSL, or workshop, you need to hook people in and give them a reason to keep watching.
Call-to-action (CTA) Retention.
Lastly, how many people stick around till your call-to-action (CTA).
If they don’t stick around till that little button pops up? Chances are NILL they are booking a call and your chances to land a sale go out the window.
As you can see we have a few sticking points.
Get them to START watching by hitting play.
Hold they attention so they keep watching past the first 60 seconds.
Maintain their attention till we give them a CTA.
This is not an easy thing to do. But when you have a solution to a problem something wants to solve they will give you the time of day.
It’s just a matter of how you well you position yourself.
General review of “drop-off” points.
Outside of those three sticking points, we can asses “drop-offs”.
If you see a massive drop in your retention chart… Re-watch that segment.
Something happened. And people didn’t like it.
Could be what you said, an analogy, a section, a visual on the screen. Try and see what it was.
The most common places we see drop-offs are the start (60s) and when we make the call to action. When people see that you’re trying to sell them they will leave if they aren’t interested.
That’s why we focus on those points. But we may notice other sections where there is a drop off.
Improve these three values and your calendar fill and your cost per call decrease.
If more people hit play, more people will see your offer.
If more people stick in the first 60s, more people will see your offer.
If more people stay till the CTA, more people will see your offer.
If more people see your offer, more people will book calls.
If they don’t — Well you just identified the next problem to solve ;-)
Here are two real examples.
Client A:
52% of people are still watching their VSL at the CTA.
Client B:
21% of people are still watching their VSL at the CTA.
Client B asks how we can improve our cost per call with our Facebook ads.
My response:
“Get more people to see the CTA in your video.”
If Client B had twice the amount of people see their CTA — Keeping all things similar…
They would cut their cost of booked call in half.
They would book twice as many calls with the same ad spend.
All without changing a single thing on their ads.
The mistake is sending more people to a video that people aren’t watching.
Ads can always be improved but a bottom-up approach is money well spent.
It’s not that your ads don’t impact results.
But they don’t provide as big of an impact as fixing your funnel.
Taking a bottom-up approach will address your ads after the most important elements have been optimized.
Use the bottom-up approach as a roadmap to optimizing your funnel. Optimize the video, then the opt-in, then your ads last.
And if you’re working with an agency, or media buyer?
Don’t be surprised if they try and take all the credit when you take a bottom-up approach… Saying they found a top-performing audience or a unicorn ad.
You and I will know who the real MVP is.
Taking a deep dive into your webinar, VSL, or workshop funnel.
My motto is to validate, then accelerate.
When you start running ads you quickly get data on how your funnel is performing. How many people are booking calls, what do they cost, etc.
Usually, we can get some good data spending $1,000 -$5,000 on a funnel like this.
After spending millions of dollars optimizing these funnels for clients I put together a little guide to help people optimize them.
If you would like to get access the free guide?
Drop a comment below and I will send it your way.
Landon “Validate & Accelerate” Poburan
PS.
If you’re interested, here are two of my most popular articles over the last year.
