Running ads direct to sales page vs to email list?

There are solutions... and then there are solutions that will be right for you. Top Dog no questions asked would do everything you want and then some would be Infusionsoft, that is now called "Keap" BUT For YOU right now... way overkill. The expense and the learning curve would be mind boggling.

For you, Im not so worried about the expense as I am the learning... you dont know enough to jump into the absolute best in class.

For right now... I am going to say you are over thinking this... you are offering 3 products: Free trial, Monthly and lifetime. ( Good, Better, Best ) Off to a great start.

A sale is a culmination of multiple conversions. The click on the ad...a conversion, they click on a option ( good better best ) a conversion. They actually commit to one of the 3 options, a conversion.

And here is where things get tricky, you then want to convert Good to better or Best... and then you want to convert Better to Best.

So FB tracks the ad... but then things go into ghost mode - how to track the e-mails. The absolute best tool for YOU right now is Google Analytics ( https://neverbounce.com/blog/optimiz...ogle-analytics ) and there are a number of reasons for this. #1 it is documented by Google very well, and it is documented by users like you or me that use it, learning to use it, are masters at it. As much as there is a learning curve... its a curve that is manageable by the sheer volume of help online.

So YOU specifically... we know because we know, a great majority of your sign-ups are going for the free trial offer - your issue is then converting these to Better or best.

a 10 e-mail sequence targeting those that have your "Good" offer to upgraded to Better or Best. Each of the 10 e-mails will have a separate lander - Email 1 goes to lander 1 Email 5 goes to lander 5 Email10 goes to email10.

I suggest this..because we understand with every communication past the first one there is generally diminishing returns. Your best conversion rate will be the first contact ( from the ad, the next best will be email 2 and then email3 etc etc From the ad will produce the best conversion ratio, Email10 will produce the worst ratio ( generally speakiing )

For the sake of discussion we will say your ad gets 1000 clicks. 100 of those clicks signs up for your free offer. Email1 might get 5 conversions to Best email 3 might get 2 and email8 might get 1. Obviously Email 1 is getting a 5% conversion rate... but if you srat looking at the 10 day collective, you are looking at an 8% conversion overall ( there could be some mathmatical discussion here how that is a flase statement [ Socialentry I know you are reading this ] but we are just trying to keep this simple

with thoss 10 landers, you can now use Google Analytics to understand how these e-mails are performing. You can start tweeking titles, and messages and so on and so forth.

So what happens after 10 you ask... I would create an 11th lander for your "Good" audience and send them the once a week newsletter with the lesson they are missing ( meaning the titleof the video.. and a brief overview of the lesson ) and if they dont want to miss out upgrade NOW.

So you have a segragated mailing list for Good... once Good converts to Better or Best, you have to move that contact accordingly to the better or best list.

And you want to employ the same type of things with Better... because you ultimately want them to upgrade to Best.

So that once a week email you send out you wil have basically the same email3 times... the Good one..that teases the lesson, the Better one that says why pay monthly... pay this flat rate now, and never pay again. and then the Best email that is what you have been delivering all along.

Off the ad, you will have 3 options available... once they convert to Good, htey will have 2 options available, and if the jump to Better, they will have 1 option available.

Throw in a merch option in here, and your Best mailing list wil also have options - and they will buy just to support you and your efforts because they GET IT - think SHIRTS and Flags - you would kill it Im telling you.

The secret to "tracking" is #1 Google Analytics, and #2 using individual landers for each separate instance so YOU can better track and understand what is going on and when.. A Pain up front, but super easy once it is all set up... once the Good sequence is set, its just a matter of tweeking the open rate and sales sequence to see results.

Im sure thats half scatter brained so if you have questions.. you know im here!

Hope that Helps!

What has been working for me is to give away the freebie and then have an offer immediately at the thank you page.


Results may vary depending on the market

Most people do not purchase from seeing a website offer for the first time, and they do not know you. So the chances of getting a sell from direct linking is very low. If you can get them to join your email list by giving them some type of free offer, you stand a much better chance of them buying one or more offers from you over time. This system has been working for the top internet marketers for many years and still does work.

In my view, whether to go with a 1-step (direct to sales letter) or multi-step (to a squeeze page) depends on TWO main things:

1) If it's a high-ticket item, you're going to need a list. Period. One contact won't do it. If it's a low-ticket (or impulse item), then you may not need to build a list at all.

2) If it's a low-ticket item, but you have MORE items in that niche to sell (or promote as an affiliate), then you're absolutely going to want a list. Many marketers run low-ticket offers just to build a list in a specific niche (it's a very smart thing to do).

So, IN MOST CASES, you will want to build a NICHE list before selling.

For tracking, there are many options.

I write my own tracking code in PHP (because coding is a hobby).

I'll also mention that I hate Google Analytics. It's just too cryptic for me. It's like using an F-22 fighter jet to kill a fly. It's overkill for me (although MANY people will disagree with my opinion). And Facebook tracking simply isn't accurate.

If I didn't write my own, I would use web-stat.com. I love it. It's a paid service, but it's cheap. And it's easy to use and understand. (I am not an affiliate, but should be).

I hope that helps.

John

I think there are certain advantages to sending a prospect directly to your sales page and to your squeeze page also. If you know your conversion rate, you can send prospects to a sales page, get a sale, and rely on backend products to recoup your cost of advertising (if you lose money on the frontend sale). As "anymore" above stated, sending prospects to a squeeze page is good if your price is towards the higher end. People like to buy from people they know and feel comfortable with. Optin email marketing gives you the chance to build that relationship, and make people feel comfortable from buying from you - not to mention also getting acquainted with your offer over and over again.

Here are some results...

I've been having some luck running direct to my sales page. However after getting nearly 1000 clicks to the sales page (which is a decent sized sample), I have found that my conversion rate is around 2% (and going down). My ad is doing great in getting people there, but not a lot of them are pulling the trigger. This is an indication that my sales page sucks!

I've also ran traffic to a freebie and put them through a 5-email sequence. 158 clicks, 68 optins, zero sales....I let this campaign run for about a week prior to shutting it off. I've still been watching to see if any of those 68 optins have led to sales, but still after a month not a single sale from them. This tells me that my email sequence sucks!

At the very least, this data is telling me that my ads are doing well but my sales page and email sequence are crappy!!