Do This Before You Run a Single Ad

What should you do before you run ads?

Before you run a single ad, get your funnel economics right. Work out what a customer is worth to you and what you can afford to pay to acquire one, so every click has a number behind it. Lay that foundation first and profitable ads become almost inevitable. Skip it and you are just gambling.

Why most people start in the wrong place

One of the main reasons business owners get scared of ads, especially the ones who have been burnt before, is that they start right there: running the ads.

They pick a budget, write a creative, switch it on, and hope. When the money goes out faster than it comes back, they conclude that "ads do not work for my business". But the ads were never the first problem. The maths underneath them was.

What funnel economics actually means

Before you spend a penny, you need to know your business is set up to win. That comes down to funnel economics.

In plain terms: what is a customer actually worth to you, and how much can you afford to spend to get one? Once you know those two numbers, every click, every lead and every sale has a figure attached to it. You stop guessing whether an ad is working and start measuring it against a target you set on purpose.

Get this right and you are all but guaranteed to have ads that make money, rather than burning a hole in your pocket.

Maths plus judgement

Here is the honest part: getting it right is not always easy. It takes a combination of solid maths and good judgement, a feel for which levers to pull and when.

I genuinely love thinking through problems like this. It is why, whenever we take on a new ads client, I am always involved in the early stages, while we get the funnel into shape before a single ad goes live. The ad account is the easy bit once the economics underneath it are sound.

The good news is you do not need a full-service team to lay these foundations. You need the right framework and a bit of guidance, and you can do the important thinking yourself.

Meet Brian

The affordable way to get that guidance is Brian, our AI Comedy Marketing Machine, and the club built around him.

Brian helps you get the foundations and the creative right together, so that when you do switch your ads on, the maths is already on your side. It is the low-cost way to get our thinking in your corner before you spend on traffic.

Take Brian for a spin and lay the foundations that make profitable ads almost inevitable.