The Art of Online Business

Why Ads Managers Say No to Your Revenue Share Offer (And What to Do Instead)

• Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie

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Thinking of offering revenue share to an ads manager so you don’t have to pay upfront? I get why it feels like a win-win, but the reality is that good ads managers rarely say yes to that kind of deal. 

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I explain why revenue share offers are risky, the kind of ad managers you actually attract with them, and why that can hurt your results. 

I also walk you through the practical steps you can take to improve your funnel, like boosting opt-in page conversions, tightening up your emails, and testing your audiences... so that when you’re ready to hire an ads manager, you’ll already have profit to pay them with.



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Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie’s Links:

Speaker 0:

So are you thinking of offering revenue share to get an ads manager without paying their full rate upfront? Listen, I get it. It seems like a win-win. You only pay if you make money, right. But here's the thing A good ads manager probably will not say yes to that kind of deal, and you want to eventually work with a good ad manager, right? So here's the reason that they won't probably accept the idea, and I'm also going to give you, near the end of this episode, some very concrete things that you can do instead to make your launch or your challenge perform better for you, which means more money in your pocket.

Speaker 0:

And listen, I do do understand you. I've received pitches like this from folks over the years and I totally get it. From a course creators perspective, it's like you might not be able to afford a full ads management monthly retainer yet and you want somebody on your team who is invested in your success and it's not just to go through the motion Plus. You really believe in your offer and that it will convert, which means you're willing to share the pie, and that all makes sense. You're bootstrapping it. I've been there Most of us online entrepreneurs have been there bootstrapping it from zero in the beginning and you want help and you're getting creative, so you can get the help you want to expand the reach and launch your thing and make some moolah. So, like I said just a moment ago, I'm going to tell you that it's not a good idea to offer revenue share, and I'll give you some good things that you can do instead to make your launch successful. Right after I explain, from an ads manager's point of view, what's risky about this and why. The good ad managers will say no, and I don't want you to attract bad ad managers because then it's just throwing money down the drain. You may as well go ahead and buy a 150 pound golden retriever and just spend all your money on their dog food. It's about as useful. Well, actually, the golden retriever will give you super cuddly feels, you know, whereas just throwing money down the drain for ads will not do that for you. I digress that should be a good Instagram soundbite.

Speaker 0:

So, from an ads manager's perspective from a good ad manager perspective you want me to run your ads right, but I'm not in control of your full funnel. And since there's so much that's out of my control, what if your email sequence underperforms or your checkout page is confusing, or you ghost your email list after people sign up. For example, maybe your welcome sequence not your welcome sequence, your registration sequence isn't what it could be and so people are forgetting about your webinar once they register because you're not reminding them enough. Or maybe your webinar has yet to be perfected and has yet to be proven, like the percentage that it converts at. There's so many conversion steps throughout your funnel and if any of it goes wrong or performs less than you had hoped, I, as the ads manager, lose money.

Speaker 0:

And let's talk about attribution setup, because in the beginning usually there's not very good attribution setup and if an ad manager myself can't track how many sales are coming from your ads, then how do we know what came from ads? This has to do with making sure that attribution setup in your email CRM. You know if you use convertkit, kajabi, mailchimp, not MailChimp, or flow, flowdesk, not Flowdesk, or ActiveCampaign, you know? Do you have UTMs set up? And what about funnel analytics? And again, I am not coming at you, so if you feel triggered I do apologize, but what I want you to see is why a good ad manager who's considering these things probably wouldn't take you up on a revenue share offer. And then you understand this and you probably won't do a revenue share offer knowing that you'll attract less than the best kind of ads manager.

Speaker 0:

And then look, first-time launches are notoriously unpredictable. I've been through personally my own first-time launches for not just for my previous business, my business where I was teaching Chinese to expats in China. Did you know that I used to teach Chinese? Did you even know that I used to live in China for 12 years and I've spoken on stages, done cultural onboarding for pretty large organizations in China, had a YouTube channel that was like I don't know, 20,000 subscribers. I digress, you can look for that, search elementary chinese if you want. But there will be surprises in a first time launch okay, and surprises usually mean lower conversions and also revenue share delays, payment, like, hear me out I, we ad managers, cannot pay our teams or feed our family off of potential earnings. And look also the good ad managers we're booked and we're working and we're too busy to take on all that risk for maybe a payday later.

Speaker 0:

So when you offer a revenue share deal, you're actually attracting a less experienced ad manager or someone who, well, they're new and they're willing to gamble and that's fine if you're okay with somebody Learning on your ad budget, but it's not ideal if you're serious about results. So here's what you want to do instead so that your launch, your webinar, your challenge, your bootcamp is making money for you, and then you have the budget to hire an ad manager to add fuel to your already burning fire, to make that launch work even better, to burn even brighter. Okay, step one you got to make your own funnel better before you pay anyone to run ads to it, because I want you to have profit from your business and out of that profit you can pay an ad manager. You got to move away from the bootstrapping phase and it's totally worth it and you can do it.

Speaker 0:

So spend time looking at your opt-in page conversion rate and doing the things to improve that opt-in page conversion rate. You know, like making a very solid, clear, above the fold page where that first opt-in button shows up on the first screen length of somebody's mobile phone. Make it super clear on your opt-in page who this launch is for this webinar, training, this challenge, this bootcamp who it's for and what they will get. Also, make sure that all of your opt-in buttons are a different color from everything else on your page and that all of your opt-in buttons are the same color, and so people, when they see a button, realize it's a button and that they should click right. There's more things you can do to increase opt-in page conversion rates, but I'll skip to the next thing, which is make sure that your email open rates are solid. And please make sure that your email open rates are solid. And please make sure that you have a solid registration email sequence set up, meaning that when somebody signs up for your webinar and that webinar is two weeks later, that they are getting an email every second day so that you are top of mind and that they show up, so you can have that 30% show up rate. And make sure that your email open rates are solid. Invest in a course that teaches you how to write email subject lines, or just look at your best subject lines and dump those into ChatGPT, analyze what's good about them and come out with some better subject lines too. And while you're at it, make sure that your email click through rates are also solid and invest some time either time or money into improving those. Make sure that you're sending enough follow-up emails post-webinar or post-workshop Follow-up emails here means sales emails.

Speaker 0:

Make sure you're selling right. This has happened before. I've had clients who are like I had the conversion rates and people just aren't buying. And I look and I'm like do people even understand that you're selling something? Because you did a lot of education but you did very little persuasion or giving somebody a reason to not just continue to educate themselves but to actually move on their desire and move on solving their problem. We've got to empower people to make a move to solve their issue, not just provide more education. And certainly the follow-up emails, ie the sales emails after the what like I'm waving my scissors around after the webinar those are sales emails sell. Those are not continuing education emails that follow up and expand more and more off of what was taught in the webinar. I've seen this. I've worked with clients who had email sequences like that. But that's not you.

Speaker 0:

Something else you'll want to do to make your launch work better or to make ads for your launch convert better is spend time running ads to a lead magnet in between launches. That way you can nurture those leads. But you'll also learn about audience targeting and you'll find your best cold audiences that respond to your messaging and then you can use those same cold audiences during your launch. Plus, your email list will be bigger, so you can retarget your email list. With your launch registration ads. You'll be able to do things in between, like test hooks and test graphics and test videos and test messaging all like when the stakes are low and you're not literally betting money on ads to work, because ads should not be a bet. Your best messaging, your best videos, your best graphics should be put into your ads. So use that kind of practice to lower your lead cost before a big launch.

Speaker 0:

And if you want to take a shortcut to making your launch registration ads work better, well, this is what we do during one-on-one coaching with me. It's one month long and I will help you run a successful launch ads campaign all by yourself. The benefit of that will be that you can get your launch profitable before you ever need to hire out ads management and will, in the first call, look at your funnel and go step by step, based on my experience in all the hundreds it's been hundreds now because ever since 2020, I started, you know I was coaching high earning online course creators like between 600,000 annual revenue and like 1.2, 1.3 million annual revenue for like the first three years before I even started managing ads for myself managing ads for myself and I was also working in an ads management agency with the same kind of online course creators who were super successful before I started doing it in my software business. So I know how to look at funnels and look at each of those conversion steps and tell you what needs to change so that you can increase conversions throughout your funnel. That's what we're gonna do on call one.

Speaker 0:

And then we're going to look at your ad copy and make sure that your graphics and your ad copy are set up just the way that I would advise my ad clients to set up their ad copy right. And then I'm gonna teach you and walk you through setting up your campaign so that it's set up with the same care in the same strategic way, best for your business, like I would do it for any and every client who I serve on a monthly basis. And then we're going to launch that campaign and I will guide you step by step through ensuring that the best ad creative and the best graphics are being used with the best targeting, so that your launch registration ads have the best chance of performing well. That link is in the show notes below.

Speaker 0:

So if you're going to launch, or if you're going to run ads to a membership, or even if you're just going to run ads to your lead magnet, knowing that you're already doing a good job of converting leads, you know from your email nurture sequence and you want to learn how to run your own ads so that you can just use that knowledge over and over and over and over again to rack up more profit inside of your business, then coach with me and I will help you in that way. It's a 28-day coaching setup. There's three calls and you have unlimited access to me to ask all those questions that pertain specifically to your business. Let's do this Until the next time that you hear from me or see me. Take care, be blessed and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.

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