Ever wish you could peek inside a real $27 funnel while it’s working, wobbling, and getting rebuilt in real time? Michelle Knight is back, and we get into the actual numbers behind her storytelling funnel that was pulling a 2.5 ROAS before Meta changed the game.
- Unlock 2,900+ storytelling content ideas for just $27
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We talk through why her order bump converted at 50%, how her upsells performed, and what happened when she tested a new kind of ad that looked promising but quietly lowered buyer quality.
This conversation is part funnel breakdown, part mindset check, and part live troubleshooting session on what to keep, what to change, and how to think when your ads stop behaving.
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Meet Michelle Knight And The Funnel
SPEAKER_03
If you want another look behind the Facebook ads funnel of an online course creator, then you’re going to like our interview today, our feature with Michelle Knight. And if her name sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because it is. She was on this podcast like a year ago, about, and she was sharing about why your brand story belongs on every funnel page. This is her specialty. I’ll link that episode also in the show notes below. And to refresh your memory, Michelle Knight is the founder of Brand Mary, and she has spent the past decade teaching entrepreneurs how to build authentic brands through strategic storytelling. She specializes in teaching entrepreneurs how to stand out in crowded markets without compromising their authenticity or burning out in the process. Her signature frameworks have helped her clients generate millions in revenue or while building businesses that honor their lives and not consume them. And so why you want to watch this episode is because Michelle’s self-liquidating offer funnel was it’s$27. It’s called the Storytelling Super Bundle, and it it was breaking, well, it was doing a lot more than breaking even. It was getting 2.5 ROAS until Meta changed some things, and now we’re in the aftermath of that. So if you want to see a successful funnel structure, and then also hear how we as advertisers would troubleshoot it to try to get performance back online so we can get more of that sweet ROAS, then continue watching or listening. Michelle, welcome back to the episode.
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Why The $27 Bundle Converted
SPEAKER_03
You’re welcome for having you. I’m I’m happy for you to be here. Like I love finding out about these kinds of funnels. So fill us in. First of all, before we get into all of the goodness that was the downfall of your funnel and how we’re gonna get it back, I am super curious. Why do you think it was getting 2.5x return on ad spin? As in you gave a dollar to Mark Zuckerberg and he handed you back two dollars and fifty cents. Like, tell us why you think in a nutshell that was working so well, and then can you break down the order bump or what the main offer is and the order bump and the upsell? And I’ll just be quiet and nod my head.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely. And of course, ask you anything. But essentially, I wanted to create this content super bundle as like a no-brainer. So it’s a$27 offer, but it includes over 2,900 content prompts, and they’re all focused on storytelling only. So, how to tell your story, your client’s story on Instagram and on in emails, YouTube videos, podcasts, like all the things, you know. Like you said, I’ve been doing this for 10 years. So I’ve got a lot of prompts in the library. And so I think one reason that it was doing really well was that it’s like a no-brainer offer, you know. The other reason I think it was doing really well in the beginning were the types of ads that I was utilizing and what Meta was driving traffic to. And those were high-quality talking head reels. And so these were me just face to camera, talking about the bundle itself, but also repurposed content from my YouTube channel. So I would clip, you know, things where I’m just talking about the importance of storytelling or why you need it, you know, really just kind of talking about that angle and then promoting the bundle. And when that type of ad was working really well, December through January, the average order value was higher. So the average order value was around$55 on like a$27 offer. And we’ll talk about what I think shifted that and changed that as we started to scale the ad. But in my opinion, that I think are the two fac the three factors that were working really, really well.
SPEAKER_03
Okay, all right. And break down the order bump and upsell too.
Offers, Bump, Upsell, Downsell Breakdown
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely. So the again, the bundle is$27 and it was over 2,900 prompts, content prompts, templates, fill in the blanks, those types of things. And then immediately on the checkout page was a bump. And the bump was a 365-day done for you calendar. So the idea was that you would buy the bundle, you could go through it, it’s a lot of stuff. But if you wanted me to just break it down in a day-by-day yearly calendar, you could buy that for$17. And there was a 50% conversion rate on that bump. And so, you know, that was the first time that I’ve really experienced a six, I think, a successful bump in that way because it was so closely related to the offer. It was kind of a, well, you’ve got all this, but you might, it might be a little stressful to go through all of this. You might not have the time. You want to get started right away. So we were kind of solving one of those pain points. And then basically, right after that, at purchase, there was an offer for my personal branded newsletter course, which is all about using storytelling and email marketing and how to choose the stories, use them in a launch, how to craft your stories, how to bring your personal brand into your emails. And that one was uh a$77 offer. And then there was a downsell for my brand story course for$47. So it was all storytelling related through the funnel.
SPEAKER_03
You had a downsell into your brand story course for$47. Was that like a discounted downseller?
SPEAKER_01
No, it wasn’t. It was for anyone who didn’t take the 77, would get offered the 47. And there are definitely some tweaks that I’m making. I whipped that up so fast. That for that funnel. I already had the products, and so we kind of just plugged in what I had. But as we are going to be talking about kind of the rebuilding and the restructuring and raising the AOV, there are some changes that I’m making in terms of those upsells and downsells because the the email marketing got about a 10%, but the the brand story did not. And it fell too out of left field, I think, for what we were also doing. So there, you know, I’m happy to share, you know, changes that we’re making, but there are some additional courses that are now created that we’ll be building into the new updated funnel that are more closely related to content.
SPEAKER_03
Okay. I got so many questions. First one, you do. First one though, average order value, in your own words, for the uninitiated.
SPEAKER_01
Um, yeah, it’s just the average price that someone is purchasing for your funnel as a whole, right? So, you know, basically just taking how much money you’ve made, dividing but by the number of purchases, and that’ll tell you your average order value. And so for me personally, while this is a$27 product, and I’m actually okay breaking even, and then we had that 2.5, and then breaking even didn’t sound cool anymore. I was like, no, I was good with breaking even as long as it was a high quality buyer, because my main goal for all of my products is into my high-level program, right? And so that was one of the things that I was really paying attention to was the average order value every time we would make changes or we would scale the price or change the ads. I wanted to make sure that that remained the same or increased. Uh, and so that’s something that’s always kind of like a driver for me because I’m not, I know that this this funnel, like so many of us, with like a self-liquidating offer, we’re not doing it to make all of our money on this funnel. It’s something we’re trying to do down the line.
SPEAKER_03
That needs to be said again. With the self-liquidating offer, we’re not, how did you phrase it?
SPEAKER_01
Trying to trying to make all of our money off that particular offer. It’s actually what’s happening down the line.
Defining AOV And Back-End Goals
SPEAKER_03
And ideally, we could be profitable off of the front end, the self-liquidating offer too.
SPEAKER_01
I would prefer that, yes, as we’ve already discussed.
SPEAKER_03
Right, right. Because, dear listener, if you’re getting ideas, oh, as long as I have a much bigger, let’s say, mid-tier or high-tier offer down the line, I can just set up my self-liquidating offer as like a loss leader, so to speak, and lose money on buyers on the front end, but it that’s not the place to start.
SPEAKER_01
No, I mean, for me personally, I at least wanted to be breaking even, right? Because then the way that I looked at it is I was paying nothing to get qualified buyers into my business. Versus, and this for me is the first time I’ve actually run ads to a product. I’ve been in business for you know 10 years. And anytime I’ve done ads prior, it’s always been to some sort of free offer, a webinar, a challenge, something like that to a cold audience. So this was also the first time that I was targeting a completely cold audience. No, they don’t know me at all, right? With a paid offer.
SPEAKER_03
Okay. All right. Yeah. Oh, I’m gonna sit on the rest of my questions and ask you. I’m curious, have you run a lead magnet before and what went into deciding to set up this self-liquidating offer and run ads towards it?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I’ve done a lot of lead magnet ads before. And I think for me, there I noticed a shift in early February of last year, where we aren’t ex we weren’t experiencing as many sales in the email funnel that we had been in years past, right? And so I felt like open rates were going down, click-through rates were going down just historically. We kind of know this to be true. And so while I was having, I was getting leads, they weren’t turning into paying buyers quickly. And so I was willing to experiment with, well, what would happen if we, you know, made money on the front end. Now, all of that to say, I still am going to be creating lead gen ads again and experimenting with some courses because I do think that part of it was this bundle didn’t exist, right? So if I put this on the back end of a really valuable freebie about storytelling at$27, it’s probably gonna do really well. So that is one of the things that I’ll be testing in Q2.
SPEAKER_03
Okay. All right. So lead magnets, yes. You had run plenty, and then you noticed that conversions inside of that lead magnet funnel, if you will, or open rates too, were dropping.
unknown
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03
Okay. So you’re like, it’s time to see how running ads to the self-liquidating offer we’re going to work.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, I would have been talking about it. I was like, well, let’s give it a try and see what happens.
From Lead Magnets To Paid Front End
SPEAKER_03
Okay. All right. For more context on let’s say the business your business ecosphere that this self-liquidating offer exists inside, because I think this is really important for the listener. Yes, we want self-liquidating offers to self-liquidate so we can make a profit, but they should fit inside of our overall or like a larger funnel, our overall business strategy to sell that higher-end program. What is the name of the program that you’re ultimately selling further down the funnel?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so it’s Authentic Brand Builders Academy, and it is all about creating and monetizing a personal brand online. And my main methodology for doing that is storytelling. So the bigger offer is it’s hands-on, right? And so it’s a it’s a 12-month program, and you go through a designed kind of roadmap, if you will, of building the brand, choosing the content strategy, the marketing angles, and then optimizing your selling strategy, all with a storytelling base, but you get support through the process. So weekly calls, with me, group calls, that kind of thing. So it’s it’s very hands-on. Um, but it is very specifically for someone that is ready to start telling stories online, is ready to be building a personal brand. And so one of the things that we are playing with, especially this year, is that entry. Is it storytelling or is it branding? And so kind of playing with which one creates a higher, you know, conversion rate ultimately for the business. And so this was kind of our first test at that, because I again I haven’t really I’ve sold through email marketing and SEO and YouTube for about nine years. So selling directly through ads and social media and things is all it’s I’m in the full fun experimental stage right now.
SPEAKER_03
It I mean, it sounds like fun. So you hit some days it’s fun. Other days when’s it not fun?
SPEAKER_01
You know, the days when it’s not working.
SPEAKER_03
What do you mean it’s not working on certain days? Oh, okay. So 2.5 ROAS return on aspend. Was that just every day consistently, or were there some days where there wasn’t like that?
Daily Tracking, Volatility, And Buyer Habits
SPEAKER_01
No, you know, and that’s one of the reasons that I think, and yeah, no, I’m sure and I know you do this with your clients, and I can’t stress tracking your daily data enough. I think it’s so important. And for me, I do a lot of organic, like YouTube, obviously, is a big one for me. My website is a big driver. And so I actually started using like a third-party tracker just so I could really see what was coming from the ads, what was coming from a YouTube video or the website, because sometimes in years past, I’d be like, yeah, that sounds good, meta. That’s about what we had. And that’s not the best way to get the data. But back to your question, I was tracking it every single day. And so there were days where it would be zero, and then there were days when it was six, and there would be days when it was one and days when it was three. And so, you know, for anyone listening, it was like that’s why, yeah. And it that is, I think that’s to be expected because, you know, we would even notice a habit of like Saturdays tend to be a little slower for us, but Sundays were really big and profitable. And I think that has to do a lot with my ideal customer as well. I have service a lot of women and a lot of moms, and I think Sundays are the day when they’re like taking a little meet time. And so, you know, I think they’re they’re watching that data, I think is just like really valuable just across the board. But there were definitely highs and lows. Typically, we would never have more than two days with zero, and then we would spike. If it started to drip three days or four days, that’s when I would really start looking at the data, the frequency is are they sending too much to this one ad? Is my audience exhausted? Do I need to add more creatives? Things like that.
SPEAKER_03
Nice. I love that you covered that because my next question was going to be how did you like stay your mind and not give in to tinkering when you saw one or two days of no sales?
SPEAKER_01
Well, I would like power walk on the treadmill to clear my head and be like, get out of your head, Michelle, stop overreacting. And then honestly, I would have these conversations with you know, Claude AI. I use Claude AI in my business, a big fan. And I would kind of just sometimes I’d look at the data, but if I was really mentally in my head, like this is not working, I would kind of just feed the data and be like, what am I missing? You know what I mean? And that was just really helpful. I think with when it comes to marketing, I always say branding is emotional, but marketing is data. You cannot make emotional decisions about your marketing. You need to just look at the numbers because it’s really easy to be like, this isn’t working. And there have been times, many times, where I have made emotional decisions. And I’ll share one with you. And one of the reasons why I think it got messed up, and when I should have been making more of like a data decision.
SPEAKER_03
Share, share away.
The B-Roll Pivot That Cut AOV
SPEAKER_01
I’m yeah, let’s go. So I had, I had been, you know, we had a ROAS of 2.5 pretty much all of December. When ad costs are historically more expensive, however, I think buyer behavior is also a little bit, you know, we’re we’re very credit card happy in December while we are buying all of the things and the gifts. So in January, our ROAS leveled out a little bit at 1.5. Still profitable, but definitely took a dip. And so I started exploring why this might be happening. I started to hear a lot of people talking about B-roll, B-roll ads. You know, they were easy to make. You could create them, you could add them. And so while my talking head videos were still doing well, I was like, they’re not doing how they were. So let’s try this B-roll. So I essentially added B-roll ads. And for anyone listening who’s like, what is my husband hates the word B-roll because I’m always like, I need to film B-roll. And he’s like, if you say B-roll one more time, I’m gonna lose it. It’s essentially, you know, just video footage with some sort of text overlay. Okay, so they’re the easy, easy things that we see online. So I created a few of those and meta loves those ads, you know, because they’re low lift. And so I started to get higher impressions, but my average order value started to go down. It dropped almost in half overnight with the B-roll, and then it pretty much just stayed at that point.
SPEAKER_03
Huh. Okay, so you you said Meta loves B-roll. And you said you were getting more impression. So you basically were testing a different kind of ad because why not see if we can improve results, right? Why do you think that specific test didn’t work though, with the B-roll?
SPEAKER_01
I have my theories on, you know, as someone who comes from a background in long form content, use a lot of video content. I think there’s a higher intent, right? I’m gonna watch and see what this person says. And so we were going from talking head videos, which were only about 90 seconds, but you’re either reading the caption or you’re watching that video. You’re stopping your scroll, you’re taking a moment, you’re saying, This is important to me. I’m gonna see what this person has to say. So the intent is higher versus this action of just scrolling through a phone very quickly, seeing something, quick text, oh, that’s cool, clicking on it, going to a landing page, right? So not only did our conversions from landing page to checkout page go down once we started the B-roll, but then most of those individuals were only buying the$27 offer, not the bump, which was getting a 50% conversion prior to that, and not anything else in the funnel. And I really do think it was that buyer intent. I also, and you know this better than me, because I just do my own little personal, you know, meta research. This is your area of expertise, is that when, especially with an Advantage Plus campaign, which is what I was testing and using for these months, they’re gonna find the cheapest buyer, right? And that’s not necessarily what I wanted, as we talked about before. It wasn’t necessarily just about volume for me, it was about the ROAS. And so I think those things mixed together resulted in, you know, dropping our ROAS in February.
Advantage Plus Targeting And Updates
SPEAKER_03
I love how much you think about your funnel in the overall context of what you’re trying to accomplish, not just the initial money that it’s making. And I want to highlight that you were testing this funnel, you were running this funnel profitably using Meta’s Advantage Plus option. And I think most of us, especially since the Andromeda update was pushed out to all accounts in the fall, know now that like when we talk about Advantage Plus, and some people call it like Meta’s AI kind of campaign. Well, how do you how do you refer? I I feel like I feel like I suffer from knowledge bias actually.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03
Where I’m just so close to it, I’ll just start referring to things in like nerdy terms that nobody really relates to. So I’m just gonna ask you, how do you refer to an advantage plus campaign? Like if somebody was to ask you what that is.
SPEAKER_01
Honestly, I just go with advantage plus because that’s what it’s called in the system. And since I help my clients, you know, I’m like, what is what’s the what is it called in there? So it’s easy for them to find. But yeah, it’s essentially like you were saying, it’s meta going. We’re gonna find your buyers based on this pool of data. And honestly, you can still give it a good amount of data. I did not give it data, I basically gave it a demographic and a location, and that was it. I didn’t upload my email list, I didn’t upload my buyers, I just let it do its thing. And because my tracking, you know, I use Thrivecart, so it the tracking is really great. It started to, you know, see, oh, these are the people who are buying. We’ll find more people like this. And again, it did work well. But I also know a lot of people who try it and it doesn’t work at all for them. And so it really is just so much testing. And I think that’s why back to kind of what you were saying about like looking at the whole funnel, really thinking about what is the goal here with this, so that you can remove that emotion and just look at the data. Not that it’s easy, trust me. I have my moments where I’m like, yeah, I hate it. But with that being said, I’m always open to updating because one of the things that from my research that rolled out in January is they did make another update. And that was right around the time when my like CPMs went up and everything started shifting. So I’m never like, this is the one way, you know, we might have to in a month go try another strategy and then try another strategy, and that’s why I just look at marketing and especially advertising is like playing a game, just seeing if I can level up.
Emotional vs Data-Driven Decisions
SPEAKER_03
The mindset this is a mindset heavy episode. Like when you drop that bar, branding is emotional, but marketing is data. I was like, ooh, that’s good. I’m gonna type this down. Okay, all right. So the emotional decision, please tell me what that is after I clarify what advantage plus is, and we still have the option. To not use Advantage Plus. I personally am not married to either. I say whenever Meta rolls out a relatively new feature, you can try it. Don’t put all of your ads, like your ad budget aches, so to speak, in one basket. Like test it, just like you would test a new creative. Advantage Plus has been working really well for selling things in my client accounts. And lots of my client accounts were seeing this option since like mid to late 2024. This last year was 2025. I’ll just say that Advantage Plus, all that means is whereas before we could choose our targeting and say, Meta, you must only target with we would say Meta, here here’s our here here’s our circle of targeting, our audience that we want, and you can only target what we say, right? And meta, its algorithm would just only target those people, right? Whereas now, when anyone clicks inside of their account, at least all accounts that I manage, whenever you choose targeting and advantage plus is on, it says your suggestion, which for a marketer like me or an advertiser like me, in the beginning is kind of scary. It’s like, what do you mean this is just my suggestion? You’re going to do what you want when you choose to do what you want, and that’s exactly what Advantage Plus is. You give it a suggested, targeted, like targeting audience, but Meta’s algorithm reserves the right to stray outside of that audience when it deems necessary or when it thinks that it’s in your best interest.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03
So the emotional decision that you made was what exactly?
SPEAKER_01
It was B-roll. It was it it it was it was just it was one of those this is working still, but it’s not working how I want it to be working. It needs to be fixed, you know. And looking back, I think if I would have just left it alone, added more talking head videos rather than more B-roll, because that’s one of the things, especially with the Advantage Plus campaign, is just always adding new creative. And I know that’s something, you know, Metal wants creative and they want a lot of it. They want videos and they want different versions and they don’t want different pain points and desire and obstacles and all those different angles for the buyer behavior. I really do think that if I would have left it as talking head and created some more variations of that, we probably would have been a-okay. But you live and you learn, and it happens. And again, this isn’t to say the B-roll is bad because we were still getting a row as of one. So for anyone listening who’s just getting started, it’s like talking head videos terrified me. There were mock-ups in there, there were, you know, graphics in there, B-roll is sometimes easiest to create. It’s not to say that those are bad. They weren’t delivering the Zults for my big picture funnel that I was trying to achieve.
SPEAKER_03
Okay. I feel like I I wanna, I wanna say, was that really emotional decision? Or were you just testing a different format? Because we got to do it.
Landing Page Flow And Checkout Strategy
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, this might get more personal than we need to get, but I have a I have a a habit of feeling like things are broken when they’re not broken. And if I just wait 48 to 72 hours, sometimes it levels itself out. And so for me, that was a little bit, but again, like you’re saying, it it was a mixture of testing and a little bit of me being like, it’s not working. What’s happening? And we learn, you know, and that was actually a really good thing for me to learn because when I noticed that, I actually started giving different attention to the types of content that I was creating organically on Instagram. So I mentioned, you know, that like I come from a background of not really using social media to sell. My long-form content is my thing, my baby, my SEO is how I’ve always built my business. But with that data, I started to say, whoa, I keep creating these B-roll videos on Instagram and they’re getting really good views, but I’m not making sales from these videos. And I started incorporating more series and talking head videos and actually started making more organic. So looking at that data, you know, it wasn’t a complete loss because now I’m using that actually in my organic approach. And for me, I think that’s just kind of talking head and I get along really well.
SPEAKER_03
Okay, so you gave in to not just your, but I would say most of us entrepreneurs have the tendency to tinker and not to tinker, to tinker, or if we’re if we’re feeling like we want to change the optics on that, a tendency to test. And it didn’t work out, but your mindset’s like I I like it. You’re like, hey, okay, I learned a lot, and we’re just gonna go back to what was working quite well. Okay, let’s start to dive into the data that I know our data-minded listeners are just like waiting for, like, break down the funnel for us, please. Before we do that, though, dear listener, this storytelling content super bundle that Michelle has, like, if you’re ready to grow your business by having either your story or guest stories or client stories or case study, for example, stories, all these things that we know really do help your ideal clients or customers see themselves and the result that you can provide for them, and thus work to increase conversions. Like that is linked up in the description below this audio podcast, and you get like 29,000 ready-to-use prompts. Good lord, that’s a lot, and not just prompts, but hooks and templates and frameworks for every platform. Every platform, no wonder people are buying.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a good one.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I’m like, maybe I should increase what I offer in my so well. I’m distracting myself. That bundle gives you everything you need to stop overthinking content and start showing up consistently with stories that actually sell, and that is linked below. So head down there and support your own bit, like invest in your own business. Um, there. That’s my promotion.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Well, I think you know, and what it’s funny because one of the videos that historically did really well for me was actually just talking about the fact that we all want to tell more stories, but we don’t know what stories to tell. And when you’re a business owner, it has to be strategic because at the end of the day, it’s about community growth and revenue. You know, it’s not just about sharing our stories on the internet. Most of us have some sort of intellectual property that we are selling a product, a service. We are not influencers selling someone else’s product or service. And so that’s what I teach and what I focus on is that strategic side of it. So yeah, I was really proud of that bundle. I still very, I still am so proud of that bundle. But I don’t know what kind of data you, I can just like I have a bunch of numbers in front of me. I know I’ve already kind of shared, you know, some of it in terms of, you know, the 50% order bomb. We were getting a 25 to 36% landing page to checkout conversion. So one of the things that we were doing with the cold audience was once they clicked on the ad, they would go to a landing page, a sales page to get all the information and then take the next step to go to the checkout page. And so that we could really identify as we looked at the numbers, oh, we’re getting all these clicks, but then no one’s clicking to check out. So we have a messaging issue, right? Or we have an audience issue.
SPEAKER_03
Oh, interesting.
unknown
Okay.
Order Bump At 50% And Why It Works
SPEAKER_03
So instead of what I like to promote and push, we’ll say folks to do that’s intriguing. So context, I run ads for a living, and some of my clients have self-liquidating offer funnels. And whenever they do, I’m like, one, we need to use Thrivecart. If you’re not on that, get on that, please, so we can have more accurate data. Leave Kajabi right away, or at least for sales pages. And then two, the thing that I say always, like always, always, always, is have what I call a super checkout page, which would be you take the checkout part and you build the sales page on top of the checkout so that any button that says bye just slides you down straight to the checkout portion where people can put in their payment information instead of taking you to another page, because we always lose a percentage of clicks when we go to the next page. But I’m always ready to admit that like there’s multiple ways to the top of the profit mountain, if you will. And it seems like you have been working this clearly 2.5 ROAS with the links to a separate checkout page, right?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And so I’m glad that you mentioned that because that’s actually something we will be testing moving forward, is straight to a heavy-duty checkout. But this was one strategy that we were testing at the time, and it was working really well, right? So they would go, and because this was an absolutely cold audience with Advantage Plus, with no suggestions, you know, it was really like, I need I want to convince you a little bit more. So we had the landing page with the information, everything that they would get. Then they would get, again, we had about the 25 to 30, I think I said 36. And then 25% of people would then check out on the CTR on the checkout page. So the data for me, we were hitting those numbers in terms of like the landing page and the checkout page, and then obviously the row as. But it is something that I want to test. And it goes back to all the testing, you know? It’s like, well, try it this way, and we’ll also try it this way. Um so that’s really great to hear because I do have those like heavy duty pages. I wish Thrivecart, I wish Thrivecart would let us do standalone pages and then a second step to a checkout, but that’s just me. That’s my own beef.
SPEAKER_03
Standalone and a second step to a checkout? What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01
Where we could build like a landing page, click a button, and then it would pull the checkout page.
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
SPEAKER_01
You know, similar to what I have set up here, we’re using Kajabi. Actually, we use Kajabi as the sales page and then Drivecard as the actual purchase where you would make the purchase. Because yeah, Kajabi for conversions and all that is just not working the way that it should.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, Kajabi. I mean, I’ve been managing ads for now six years since well, for other folks, and then an extra year for myself, and it’s Kajabi. Like they just they they know what’s going on, and they just haven’t changed. Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway. I I mean I use Kajabi. I just don’t use it for any cells.
SPEAKER_02
I do too, right?
Upsell Math, Price Tests, And Risk
SPEAKER_03
Okay, so we share that in common. Here’s what I think moves the needle for a listener who is just trying to get profitable. Like when I think profitable, I know that, and you know that, Michelle, it’s the average order value that makes this self-liquidating offer profitable or self-liquidate, right? Because we’re gonna run ads, super basic terms for you, listener. We’re gonna run ads and we’re gonna have to pay a certain amount for every sell that we get. And so we want our average order value to be higher than our cost per sell, and that gap between what people the amount people spend on average, average order value, and the amount we pay per cell, cost per sell. The bigger that gap is, the more profit uh we have. Tracking with me so far.
SPEAKER_01
Me? Yes, everyone listening, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03
Okay, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. So the first stat I would love to know, Michelle, is I I usually quote 15, 20 percent of the main people who purchase the main offer also are purchasing that order bump. And that’s kind of a benchmark to say we want to get that as a minimum on our way to profitability. And then obviously, listener, in my very strict terms, it’s not a self-liquidating offer if it doesn’t have an order bump and an upsell. Of all the folks that I’ve run ads for who had self-liquidating offers, I can only think of one actually who had a self-liquidating offer that only was the main offer, like no order bump, no upsell, and it it was profitable. Other than that, everyone else did. What percentage of your purchasers took you up on that upsell again?
SPEAKER_01
50% on the bump.
SPEAKER_03
That’s huge. On the bump, sorry, on the bump, on the bump.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, just meant to be okay, yeah. All right, and again, I think it I’ve tested this many times on different offers before and never to that high of a conversion rate, but it was like I said before, it was so closely related to the offer. It solved the pain point of like, how do I do this faster? So for anyone listening who’s who’s like, what the heck do I do as a bub? It’s not about giving them more information, it’s about helping them implement the information faster, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_03
That is going back to my coaching days. Like, I don’t know if you knew, but I spent the first three years of the pandemic stuck here in Mexico where I still live. But my one of my part-time jobs back then was coaching in like a high-level mastermind slash group coaching program. And yeah, absolutely. Order bumps are for speeding up that result or making that result of the main offer way, way, way, way, way, way, way easier. So 50% there could be some opportunity to increase that price of the order bump later on in your testing, gradually, and see if that doesn’t give you more profit. Because 50%, that’s that’s solid.
Selling As Service And Authenticity
SPEAKER_01
It is, it is, yeah. I was very proud of that. I think one of the things that I would definitely want to play with more, kind of talking about the self-liquidating offer, is having a higher offer within that upsell funnel. So 77 was our highest, but one of the things we’re gonna be playing with is actually 197 and and experimenting with that because I didn’t have that product at the time that fits so beautifully. I have that product now. And so that’s another thing, too, that I would love to share is like I think sometimes we think we have to have it all done to like get started. I built this kind of as I went, you know, I I put the bundle together and the bump, and that was good. And then I threw in one upsell that I happened to have. It was actually the storytelling, the brand story course. So it’s only 47. And then when the personal branded newsletter was done, I added that in there. And now that I have two more courses that I’ve created over the last two months all around storytelling, we’re gonna be building out that funnel further. And you know, you were talking, we would talk about the self-liquidating offer. For me, it’s like they’re in a buying frenzy. We’ve all been there, you know? And so sometimes I think I also with the mindset piece, I’m like, oh my gosh, how many offers can I? Am I gonna annoy the buyer by just having all of this stuff? But really, from my experience and what we know about psychology and marketing, you know, I think about like checking out at a grocery store or checking out anywhere and all of the all of the things they’re offering you to buy at the last minute. And that’s kind of what you’re replicating with this is the people who are really interested and the people who are in that buyer’s mindset, getting them to buy as much as possible, really qualifying them for that higher price offer down the line. And so that’s, you know, again, always playing with that, but you don’t have to have like this whole thing built out. I don’t even have an email funnel on the back end of this. I don’t even have that done yet. And I think that just goes back to like, if I if if I’m the type of person that if I wait too long, I won’t do it. You know what I mean? I’ll get in my head. And so if anyone listening is similar, like get yourself a product that you you believe in, you know, get yourself a nice order bump, and like you said, at least one upsell. And, you know, start to really test that and and see how it ultimately does for you. And you can always continue to build and optimize because you will be for forever and ever. It’s not a set it and forget it.
SPEAKER_03
So I’m gonna hop on, I’m gonna hop on my preaching pedestal really quick and say that as online business owners, as course creators with like integrity, we do have a responsibility to sell, right? And so we talk about like the buyer frenzy when somebody buys one thing and then buys the next thing, like that is absolutely buyer psychology, if you will. And then, like, if you’re listening right now and you have like, you know, oh, I don’t want to be like this creepy salesman. Like, I’m gonna flip that and say that if what you’re selling helps people, you know, get some transformation in their life because you are at like this unique juncture of they need your help and you are uniquely qualified to like serve them with your skill set plus your passion that you have, then like absolutely sell because someone will be better off the more things that they get from you, and then also, yes, you’ll have a more qualified buyer. And I remember when I was starting out and I did have like so many just internal roadblocks against selling, and it just keeps I still kind of do actually, if I’m gonna be honest and uh raise and extend the vulnerability umbrella, as we might call it. Like, I still have like some hangups around just like selling, but I have to remind myself too that like when I can truly serve, then I need to sell and selling is serving. What would you say about that, Michelle?
Iterating Upsells And Timeline
SPEAKER_01
I agree 100%. You know, the the only thing I would add to that too is that when you are doing it from a very authentic and aligned place, for me, that’s the secret, right? If you’re selling something you don’t believe in, it’s gonna feel like crap, you know. If you’re selling something to anyone, you’re just like, I don’t care who buys this. For me, that never feels aligned. Like I have got to be crystal clear on who this is gonna serve. And of course, that’s gonna play a role in your messaging and it’s gonna give you great conversion rates like this, you know, when you can speak specifically to that person. And I think those pieces mixed with, you know, just the storytelling in general, right? Showing up, being vulnerable, being authentic, it makes the sales process so easy. I could go on a whole soapbox about how actually asking for the offer is not the sale, it’s all the marketing leading up to it, but we can save that for another episode.
SPEAKER_03
We’ll save that for another episode. I was quite intrigued when you said you started with just the main offer and the order bump. Were you profitable running ads just to the main offer and that order bump with the sweet 50% uptake?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that was when we were doing the 2.5.
SPEAKER_03
Okay, cool. So the fun thing about upsells is you can play. Like I interviewed this guy named Jock Hopkins, the online course guy who teaches folks how to have successful online courses, but he also sells a piano course that is very profitable for him and his business too. So he does the thing and teaches the thing. And he went through three different upsells before he landed on his final upsell. And the cool thing is his upsell is post-purchase revenue. So, like you really can just keep tinkering, sure it takes time, but keep tinkering with the upsell until it works within your business. So, was this your first the current upsell you have? Was that the first one that you tried?
SPEAKER_01
So the the order and the bump, those were the first iteration, and then the upsell originally was the brand story, and then we switched it to the personal branded newsletter. So that has changed, and then that and that will continue to change because that’s one of the things that we’re updating and changing with this new iteration. Cool. Uh but again, I didn’t I didn’t have the courses at that time, so I just started with what I had.
SPEAKER_03
What was the timeline, by the way?
SPEAKER_01
I just built this when we were in Mexico, so that was like November, is when I started running ads to it. It might have been like right before we went. And we were getting that in November, December. And then I think I changed the upsell and started adding the talking head videos at the beginning of December.
SPEAKER_03
Okay. All right. Let’s see here. I usually say five to 10% is our initial. We have made it to five to 10% of the people that buy take the upsell. Also, what are your stats at right now?
SPEAKER_01
I was at seven.
SPEAKER_03
You’re at seven.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. So it’s good. Yeah.
Price Elasticity vs New Offers
SPEAKER_03
Okay. Very cool. And that’s at$77 for the personal branded newsletter course. And then you’re thinking about upping that to, I think, did you say$197 to see how that converts?
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
SPEAKER_03
Why the big jump? I’m curious.
SPEAKER_01
Well, it’s gonna be a different product, and so the the specific product is more expensive, number one. It’s all about using storytelling to close the sale. And so I think that this is gonna solve a pain point that I have a theory, right? Because it hasn’t been tested, so we can talk theories. I think the personal brand of newsletter, it was working, right? 7%. But I’m always like, how do we make it higher? I think. Think for some people, it was like, well, I just bought this bundle. You told me there were email marketing prompts in here. So why do I need a whole course? Now the course teaches you the fundamentals of it, right? But I’m always thinking about like the buyer question and the buyer behavior, where where now that I have this four-part storytelling sales system that we’ve just finished, that addresses a big pain. Okay, I’m gonna use all this in my marketing, but how do I actually make revenue? So now you’ve given me all of the content, but then how do I launch? How do I make the sale? How do I close the sale? I also think because it specifically has a higher return on investment for the buyer, because it is a selling course, then I’m open to testing a 197 for that. And then we’ll have a downsell in the funnel as well.
SPEAKER_03
I like a good test. I would, I would, my, my gut would lean in the other direction. Um because yeah, I usually say, like, let’s try to get to, you know, like if I’m if I’m inevitably I end up coaching to some of my ad clients. I’m like, let’s get to be on point as far as positive ROAS, and we’ll do that by increasing average order value. But then once we’re there, I’m like, let’s test uh price elasticity as in how much we can increase the price, like incrementally to work. But you have an upsell that’s working, and you’re like, hmm, okay, thinking about your buyer, why don’t we just swap it out for a whole nother offer? And what you’re saying does make sense. I personally wouldn’t test that first. Yeah, but what you’re saying makes absolute sense that the upsell currently is like super close to the previous purchases, and so what if we help somebody sell more in their business? And inherently helping somebody sell more is worth more as far as like what you can charge for it.
SPEAKER_01
So so let me ask you a question now. So yeah, so you would testing that elasticity, as you said, you would incrementally increase rather than going big and then down selling if they don’t buy the 1970. Is that what you’re saying?
Nothing Is Set-And-Forget
SPEAKER_03
Well, yeah, because I I would say that I don’t have all the data like you do, and I don’t understand your niche, like you do. That’s that’s the disclaimer. But of course, from what I’ve heard though, I heard 2.5 X ROAS, and then we tried some B-roll, and that didn’t work so well. So we’re going right back to the talking head video. Cool, and so then I hear that order bump 50 conversion, and then uh the sweet spot of like you know, between five and 10% conversion on that upsell, and you’re at seven percent. My mind thinks keep those and just play with the price, like scooting the price a little higher as we flip back to talking head video and then just gradually scale ad spend and just see if that average order value tracks upward. That is the conservative route, but yeah, that’s that’s what I would that’s what I would do because it eliminates a lot of the risk. Like, I have no idea how much time you devote to other areas of your business too, but like for me, it takes a lot of time to like strategize, let’s say a new funnel or swap out a big piece. And so absolutely, yeah, I would test the elasticity first, since you’re already in the sweet spots for the upsell or to bump an upsell uptake before swapping out the offer.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, cool. Now I love hearing what, and I think that’s also the a fun other part, you know, is that like everyone I have a I have a theory that all marketing works, all marketing works, but not every marketing strategy will work for you, right? And so it is fun to hear the different ways that people are building and doing the upsell downsell because there are people who are like, go in with a 997 offer, you know what I mean, and then trickle back down. And so I love playing, as we’ve already discussed, and experimenting and finding what like hits that sweet spot. So I love thank you for sharing that.
SPEAKER_03
And you’re the business owner too. Like there’s more, I guess I’m fishing for the word, but like people are paying me to run ads and then like they’re paying a monthly retainer, right? And so, like, they might ask my opinion, but of course, like it’s in my best interest keeping a client too, like not to I think somebody used the word cavalier, right? Like, not to try and test things that would really, really go wrong. Like, I want to be conservative in my advice in general because otherwise my client will be like, You ruined my funnel, Quajo. That’s it, you’re fine. But you can do that, you’re the business owner, like that’s true. Yeah, it might work swimmingly well for you. Like, and that’s the cool part about this, is it’s just a test. And if it doesn’t work, it’s just time spent on the test, and then time spent rejigging the funnel, you know.
SPEAKER_00
Like, yeah, I have all I can only blame myself for the actions that I take.
SPEAKER_03
So sure, and it is the upsell. You can afford to do that on the upsell, Michelle, because you’re profitable with the main offer and the order bump. And so yeah. I’ve I’ve tell me after like you know, a few weeks have gone by, like how that’s how that’s going. Like, did it work? Did you swing back? Did you do like a mix of of both? Like, this is all just a journey, right?
Final Advice: Ship, Then Optimize
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think back to the mindset piece we talked about is like you have to have that mindset, especially with ads, because I think there are just with course creation, with passive income, with ads, with just all those buzzwords that float around the internet, you know, I’ve been doing this for 10 years, like nothing is hands off, you know, unless you absolutely outsource it and don’t care what happens. But like even for you, you’re having conversations with your clients. They’re, they’re, you’re, you’re like, hey, what about this? Let’s create some content. You know, you’re having calls with them. You’re nothing as a business owner is completely hands-off. And so the more that we can just kind of approach it from a let’s experiment and see what happens, let’s play and see if this works and clicks for us in this season of life and know that we might have to adjust it again. That is what’s going to make you a more adaptable business owner in the long run.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah. I agree. I’m going to ask for your closing thought, your word of encouragement for the listener who is, you know, in beginning stages or mid-stages of setting up and running their self-liquidating offer funnel, if you could prepare those thoughts. Because first I will speak directly to you, listener, and say that if you are confused with your ads, like they could be working okay, but you know that they need to work better, or you just don’t know the next steps, or if you’ve been running ads and they were working well, and for some reason, let’s say one of Meta’s suggestions that it gave you, you tried it out and it just kind of tanked things. And you want my eyeballs on your ads to tell you like the next three things I would do inside of your ad account to make your ads work better. That’s an ads audit. And if you go below the show notes of the podcast, you can buy yourself an ads audit, and I’d be happy to look at your ads and we can get them working better for your business because you need to serve more people with your passion and expertise. And that would be a great thing. All right, Michelle, what would you leave the listener with before we say goodbye?
SPEAKER_01
If I were telling a listener who was wanting to create a self-liquidating offer for the first time, I would encourage them to figure one specific problem that their audience has and solve it with the offer and do it quickly. Do it quickly, you know, for them. Don’t sit on it, don’t weigh a bunch because data is data, is data, and you don’t know what you don’t know. So you need to create it and you need to put it out there and you need to look at the numbers, and then you can make pivots like get out of your head, look at the data, and then experiment.
SPEAKER_03
With that, I’m not gonna add to that. That’s great, honestly.
SPEAKER_00
Period.
SPEAKER_03
Period. Done with that. Like, thank you so much for letting us peer behind the scenes of your of your of your self-liquidating offer funnel and being as you you said, or maybe I use the word vulnerability, but you said maybe it’s too much information, but like just talking about how you decided to test B roll and that was maybe an emotional decision that the data didn’t back up. But then here we are and moving right along. Thanks. Yeah. Like thanks for watching.
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for having me. This was a fun chat. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
SPEAKER_03
Me too. Me too. And dear listener, until the next time that you see me or hear from me, take care, be blessed, and we’ll see you in the next one. Goodbye.
