Coaching Call Breakdown: Building Your First Paid Traffic Funnel#

Hey there! What you’re about to read is from a recording of a coaching call we had a while back with our platinum mastermind group. These are folks working towards hitting seven figures using Sam Cart, and they paid a good amount to be in the group.

I wanted to share this call with you because we’re breaking down the super simple, three-step funnel we use to bring in new customers every day from paid traffic. It’s a really clear strategy.

Starting Point: Leanne’s Business & Course#

Okay, so, when I look at building a funnel, I usually start from the end and work backward.

You’ve got your course here that you’re aiming to sell. You mentioned selling it for $2.97, but it sounds like that price isn’t locked in stone and it’s maybe not a huge money-maker on its own right now. So, you’ve got flexibility with that price.

Your main goal with ads here is to get people to buy this course. My guess is you’ve got back-end offers waiting for them after they buy the course.

• Is that back-end stuff the main part, the bread and butter, of your business currently?

Yeah, the bread and butter right now are the live offers and private sessions. I’d definitely love to see the courses get more traction, as they don’t take up your time once they’re created, of course.

• Okay, good to know. What’s the price range for those backend offers? Like, lowest to highest?

Well, the lowest just went up because of our coaching, but…

• No worries, just ballpark numbers.

Okay, so the lowest backend offer price is $49.

• And the private sessions?

Private sessions are $250**. There are also **coaching packages** that go up to **$1,200.

• Got it. We’ll use $1,200 as the top end just to understand the potential.

The Current Challenge: Sending Ads to YouTube#

Now, here’s the thing that worries me about the YouTube video you mentioned. You definitely do NOT want to send ads directly to a YouTube video.

Why? Because YouTube has way too much stuff outside your control. Think about it:

• You send someone there, and there’s the main video, but then there are all these other little videos everywhere.
• There are just so many different places for someone to get distracted. You know what YouTube looks like – it’s easy to click away.
• Even if there were no distractions, your goal for this video is for them to watch it and then go buy your course. But you have no control over the look of the page.
• You want a big button that screams “Buy Now!” right below the video. On YouTube, you only have a tiny description area where you wish you could put that big button. You just can’t design the page the way you need to.

The Recommended Solution: Your Own Landing Page & Merged Video#

The good news is you can take that valuable video you have and put it on your own landing page. This is where you should send your paid traffic. You can design this page exactly how you want it.

If that video is really valuable, here’s what you want it to do:

1. Deliver on the promise: You mentioned giving away four key elements. These need to be really good.
2. Build trust: Make people who don’t know you (and are risking their time to watch) glad they watched. They should come away thinking, “Leanne knows her stuff. This is someone I want to learn more from, maybe even buy from.”

BUT, it can’t just be content. If the video is just, “Hey, here are the four keys: Key 1, Key 2, Key 3, Key 4,” and ends like a typical YouTube video (saying “thanks for watching” or “click like and subscribe”), that’s not the ending you want for this goal.

The ending for this video, in this environment, needs to be a pitch.

• Basically, you want to wrap up the content like, “And finally, here’s key number four. Hope you enjoyed those four keys to success. They’ll definitely help you! Make sure you use them.”
• THEN, transition: “But if you liked those, that’s just a tiny taste (one-tenth!) of what I can show you about how to really land a deal with a big producer. In fact, there are 17 other keys, secrets, or strategies I’ve put inside my new program called [Whatever Your Course Name Is].”
• End the pitch with a clear call to action: “So, if you’re interested in that, just scroll down below this video and read all of the sales copy that’s right there on this page.”

Designing the Landing Page#

So, imagine your landing page looks like a normal sales letter:

• You’d have your text.
• Maybe a picture on the right, or a picture here and text there.
• It just scrolls down the page.
• You can see examples on our sites like creatorw.com or samcart.com on our front-end offers. Paul probably has a million examples too.

This structure is the funnel you want if the goal is selling this $47 course.

I like starting with content because it says, “Hey, click this ad, and I’m actually going to give you something valuable first.” It builds trust. You could send traffic straight to a sales page without giving content, just getting them excited about the course itself, but giving content first (like your four keys) gathers trust.

So, start the video with the free content, and then sell hard at the end. “If you liked those four things, there’s WAY more inside here!”

Tell them about what’s in the course. For example, “We have this templated email you can send producers to get…” (you know your space, so sell the crap out of all the specific things inside the course).

Make sure the sales copy on the page backs up what you say in the video pitch.

And most importantly, have a big call to action button that sends them over to the next step, which would be your Sam Cart checkout page.

Refining the Checkout Process#

You mentioned having a video at the top of your Sam Cart checkout page explaining what’s in the course (Songwriters on the Rise).

My question is about having that video on the landing page and then another video on the checkout page. We always talk about how the more clicks someone has to make, the more likely you are to lose them.

A common mistake people make is having a landing page with just a content video and maybe a passive button below it saying “Buy Now” or “Learn More.” That’s not going to work! You have to tell people exactly what to do. Otherwise, they watch the video and think, “I don’t know what’s after that button, why should I click it?” So, they won’t.

My recommendation: Get rid of that second video on the checkout page. The sales copy and video pitch need to be merged into the landing page video. Give the content, then sell, all in one video.

By the time they scroll down to the bottom of the sales copy and see that big button, they should be ready to just fill out the checkout form.

You know, with Sam Cart now, you could even embed the checkout form directly onto the landing page itself, so you don’t even need a separate checkout page anymore. Or you could use the new slide-out checkout feature, which is really sweet! When someone clicks the button, the checkout page slides out right there on the same page.

• Yeah, I’ve seen that in your videos, it looks really cool. I need to put that on my website instead of the Express checkout. I just think it looks so much better.

The Express checkout will work just fine, though. Honestly, the slide-out doesn’t win in every test we run, but it does in many.

But here’s the key: we’re talking about little tiny improvements there. At the stage you’re at right now, we’re just focusing on covering the basic fundamentals:

• Deliver great content.
• Sell the heck out of your course.
• Get everything off of YouTube and onto a page you control the look and feel of.
• Give people an easy flow to follow.

Whether you use the slide-out checkout, embed the checkout on the page, or send them to a separate checkout page isn’t going to make or break your campaign at this point.

What WILL make or break it is putting that video on YouTube and driving ads there. That simply will not work.

• Exactly. I like keeping it all on one page. So the landing page can be in Sam Cart, right?

Yeah, you can do that. Just like a sales page. You can do that too.

Those specific details about where the page lives or how the checkout appears (embed vs. separate page vs. slide-out) don’t really matter in the end, at this stage.

Looking Ahead: Average Order Value (AOV) & Cost Per Acquisition (CAC)#

Later on, once you launch this and you’re tracking results, we’ll start looking at the numbers closely, especially if you’re on the edge.

• You’re selling a $47 product**. Hopefully, you get some **upsells** in here for **$100 to $200.
• Another type of upsell for you could be getting people to book a call (even if it’s a free call initially) so you can sell those higher-ticket backend offers (like the $250 sessions or$1200 packages). That’s a common strategy for us.

When we do all this, we’ll look at your Average Order Value (AOV).

• The minimum AOV will be $47 (if no one takes any upsells).
• If you really nail the upsells, your AOV could be around $150.

This AOV tells us your budget for your Cost Per Acquisition (CAC) – how much you can afford to pay to get one customer from ads. Your CAC needs to be in the same ballpark as your AOV.

• If your CAC is anywhere below $47, you’re printing money!
• If it’s around $100 or$150, and you’re breaking even (paying $100 per customer but only getting$100 back including upsells), that’s when you start getting into the nerdy tactical stuff.
• That’s when you might test:
  • Maybe testing the slide-out checkout versus the standard checkout?
  • Maybe testing a one-page funnel versus a multi-page funnel?
  • Just trying to eek out little tiny wins to bump up that AOV or lower the CAC slightly.

But at this point, the goal is simple: Cover your bases with the fundamentals of a good funnel.

• Have a good ad.
• Have a landing page with no distractions that builds credibility and sells your product.
• Give people an easy way to buy.
• Give them an even easier way to spend more money (upsells).
• Make sure you have good sales copy throughout these steps.

If you do those things, you’re in the right ballpark. It’s worth throwing some money at ads because you’re not going to just waste it all. If you ran ads directly to the YouTube video and spent $1,000, you'd probably waste$1,000. But we’re not going to do that, so you’re in a good spot.

Understanding Cold vs. Warm Traffic#

I think people new to running ads or working with cold traffic sometimes get hung up on terms like “cold traffic” and “warm traffic.” It’s okay! Don’t overthink it.

The key point is: to sell things to people who are cold (meaning they’re not in your world yet), you need to understand that an ad is an interruption. Someone is just scrolling Instagram or watching YouTube. They’re cold. They don’t know you, they don’t know Leanne at all.

You’re interrupting them. The strategy we’ve discussed is what it takes to take someone cold and warm them up so they become ready to be a customer.

This is the difference between backend offers and front-end cold traffic.

• Leanne, when you email people who already know, like, and trust you (your warm audience), you can say, “Hey guys, private session for $1,200!” And you likely have people ready to jump on that.
• That’s warm traffic. For cold traffic, it requires this mechanism (the sales funnel) to go from “I don’t know who you are” to “I like and trust you, and NOW I’ll consider buying something.”

That difference is what “warm” and “cold” mean. You have to build this sales funnel to warm someone up and bring in people who have never seen you before.

Other Warming Strategies: Webinars & Direct Offers#

A webinar is another way to do this. It’s a very similar strategy. You’re basically just swapping the landing page out and putting a webinar in its place. A webinar is a tool designed to be a longer form of content to warm people up, get them into your world, and then present an offer.

We often get asked tactical questions like:

• Can you go direct to the offer on a checkout page?
• Do you need the landing page?
• Do you need to use a webinar?

These are all tactical differences. You’ll see different people use different tactics. Some rely heavily on webinars, others do it different ways. John, I think you mentioned someone on Sam Cart who sends ads directly to a checkout page for a $297 offer.

Those are tactical choices. But strategically, if you want to be successful with running ads and grow faster than ever (because that’s what ads are – they’re premium fuel, jet fuel, rocket fuel!), you must have some mechanism to take a cold person and turn them into a warm person.

Just so everyone is clear on why this funnel (content on landing page -> pitch -> checkout) is what I think Leanne should start with:

• This should be her control (the main test).
• It’s because she’s selling a $47 course.

Generally, the more expensive your product is, the more someone has to trust you to buy it, whether they’re cold or warm.

• If we sell a $1 book online, you could probably send people to the world’s shortest landing page and make sales. People are willing to risk a dollar even if you’re a scammer!

Here’s how I break it down for digital products (physical products are a bit different):

• Physical products: You could sell a **$500 skateboard** with a simple landing page with no video. Why? Because it's easy to understand ("Wow, that looks like a badass skateboard! Made of titanium? That's why it's$500. Looks cool, I’ll buy it.”).

• Digital Products (outside of physical): You need a sales pitch.

  • For a $200 to$500 course, I’d recommend a very long Video Sales Letter (VSL), maybe 15 to 30 minutes. You need that time to sell and convince people to part with that much money.
  • For a $1,000 to$2,000 course (again, to cold traffic), it’s likely an even longer VSL (maybe 30 to 60 minutes) or a 60 to 90-minute webinar (especially if it’s live). A webinar often builds more trust because it feels less scripted, you’re going off the cuff with slides, maybe interacting if it’s live. You need that level of trust to sell a course that expensive.
  • Alternatively, for the higher price point, you could do a Jeff Walker-style product launch, which is typically three pre-launch videos followed by a 30-minute VSL. If you’re familiar with that (we’ve done them for years), those three pre-launch videos plus the 30-minute VSL essentially add up to about a 90-minute webinar, just broken into smaller chunks.

Okay, let’s break down this sales stuff like we’re just chatting about it.

The Core Sales Pitch: It’s All the Same Tune#

Listen, you see all these different ways people sell stuff – webinars, sales pages, quick videos. They might look super different, like totally separate paths. But at the heart of it? It’s the same darn sales pitch.

• Think of the old-school stuff:
  • Google the 12-Step Sales Letter.
  • Then Google the 21st Step Sales Letter.
  • Read everything you can about both.
• Here’s the secret: They are basically the exact same thing. Yeah, slightly different, but the differences don’t really matter. The core is identical.

Applying the Pitch to Different Funnels#

• **High-Ticket ($2,000 course):** If I'm doing a webinar to sell a$2,000 course, I use that exact same script. I just talk longer. I’m rambling a bit more, telling extra stories over 90 minutes to build more connection and trust. Selling something expensive requires someone to trust a relative stranger with a lot of money.
• **Low-Ticket ($47 product):** I can use that same pitch in five minutes on a sales page or short video for a cheaper product. Why? Because I don't need 90 minutes to convince someone to spend$47. It’s not a big risk for them. They’re not forking over a grand, so I don’t need all the extra fancy storytelling to build that high level of trust.

Any funnel, anything, can work if you have something people really want.

Overcoming Niche Challenges: Finding Your Angle#

• Webinars Aren’t Dead: Okay, in our online business bubble, a lot of people say webinars are dead. That’s not true. I’m spending seven grand a day right now on Typeform, and that funnel is a webinar.
• Why People Think Webinars Are Dead: It’s because in crowded niches, people get bombarded with the same stuff. 90% of webinars sound alike (“Let me show you my three-step process for… Facebook ads… launching a course…”). People stopped showing up because they heard it all before.
• Finding the New Thing: We’re always looking for what’s new, what’s different. In our world, AI was that new thing.
• AI as an Angle: AI actually helps our audience a lot. It removes obstacles like building websites, launching products, or writing sales copy. It helps with those painful parts. This was a perfect fit because:
  • We could be among the first to talk about it.
  • It genuinely helps solve problems for our audience by simplifying difficult tasks.
• Using the Angle: We took our existing offers, like our Creator U front-end offer and the Course Creation Challenge.
  • The Course Creation Challenge used to just be called that.
  • Now it’s like “The Course Creation Challenge AI Edition.”
  • AI is in the name, it’s in the sales pitch everywhere.
• Result: It brought that offer back to life! Same product, same offer, same basic sales copy – just a new hook and angle that goes against what people usually hear. It’s new, and it makes the offer more appealing because it promises to reduce the work involved.

Running Facebook Ads: Simple Steps#

Alright, let’s talk Facebook ads, especially if you haven’t run them before. It’s actually super beginner-friendly now.

• Old Days vs. Now: When I started, every single setting mattered. Now? Most settings don’t matter much at all.
• What Matters Most: A good ad!
  • Your ad needs to call out your target market directly.
  • Example: If I (Brian Moran) saw an ad about what a music producer looks for, I wouldn’t click. Facebook sees that and learns not to show it to guys like me.
• Facebook Learns: The people who do click tell Facebook who your audience is. Facebook starts learning who your target market is really quickly, often within your first $100 of spending.
• How Facebook Learns (Even Before Spending): It looks at your ad copy!
  • Make sure keywords are in your headline, body copy, and the ad text itself. It’s almost like SEO for your ad.
  • Use phrases like: “Are you a struggling artist?” or “Looking to land a music deal with a producer?” That tells Facebook exactly who you’re looking for, and it will go find them.

Addressing Different Audience Segments in Copy#

• Multiple Groups: What if you have two different groups of people who could benefit from your course, even if they behave differently?
  • Example: A group aged 29-34 who feel too old for the music industry and like they missed their shot (which, yeah, is ridiculous).
  • And maybe another group, like the empty nester who used to write songs and wants to start again.
• Solution: Just address both groups directly in your copy!
• How to Do It Simply:
  • Your headline could hint at it, maybe something like: “How to Land [Benefit] for [Audience 1 Type] and [Audience 2 Type].” (Like “How to land a deal for young artists and empty nesters.”)
  • In the intro paragraph, ask questions: “Are you this kind of person looking for this result?” or “Are you this other person who feels this way?” or “Are you this third type of person thinking that?”
  • Then just say, “I have good news for you.” And continue the rest of your pitch.
• That’s it. You just nod to both groups upfront, and then the core pitch that helps them both works for everyone who kept reading.

Hope that helps clear things up!