Today’s lesson: A marketing technique that works so well it makes cold traffic convert like warm traffic and why your customer acquisition cost (CPA) is always going to rise over time.
This is huge because I have stumbled upon a cold traffic strategy from testing that is going to convert people as if they already know you.
The Marketing Problem Gets Worse As You Grow
As we start our processes and procedures, we immediately get the “easy people” who are going to convert. When you first give your “New Shooter Accelerator” workshop or your first gun class, it’s going to be really easy for you to get people to the door and into additional training because the easy people are always easy. Then it will become harder and harder to get the same results.
We need to understand why scaling and growing hurts your numbers before we fix it. Over the last three months, my cost per acquisition has been steadily increasing. If your cost per customer has also been increasing, that is normal. It will never be cheaper than it is today for you to acquire a new customer. That’s why it’s so important to get started now.
As you become more well-known, you exhaust the easy people who know you. Then the algorithm starts pushing you into broader and colder pools of people—people who are harder to convince to take your class.
Cold people have never heard of you and have no reason to trust you yet. Everyone has been scammed or had their credit cards taken; they just assume you’re a scammer. They need more proof, social validation, and certainty before they buy at all. Your ad has to do more work today than it ever has before, but most ads are not built to handle this. This is the core problem we’re solving in today’s lesson.
The Traffic Spectrum
Here is what “cold traffic” actually means. There is a spectrum of “hot” versus “cold.”
- Hot Lead: Someone who wants to pay money and is ready to do it today.
- Warm Traffic: People who know you exist and trust you; they just need a nudge forward. This is what we exist on when we do word-of-mouth advertising. They trust you because they trust the person who referred you.
- Tepid Traffic: They’ve heard of you but haven’t committed and probably don’t know a specific offer you have.
- Cold Traffic: Has no idea who you are. They need proof, trust, and a reason to care.
- Icy Traffic: These people are so skeptical it’s almost impossible to get them to sign up.
As you scale, Facebook forces you further and further down this list. When you first run ads, you’ll notice many people who sign up are people you’ve heard of before or friends of friends, but then you move to colder and colder traffic.
The Real Issue With Scaling
The issue is not that the market is changing or the economy. The issue is that reaching people effectively gets harder. The game shifts from finding buyers to keeping the acquisition cost under control while scaling.
My goal is to spend as much as humanly possible on Facebook ads, and I want you to do that too. If you’re giving Facebook a dollar and getting money back, your goal should be to spend more. The problem is keeping acquisition costs down as you grow.
If we just double our ad spend right now, we’ll double or triple our cost per acquisition, which stops us from scaling. Every dollar wasted on cold traffic that doesn’t convert is a dollar gone forever. The brands that win long-term are the ones that solve the “cold traffic trust problem.”
The Customer Awareness Spectrum
Your audience is somewhere on this list, and as a customer understands a problem more, they migrate down the spectrum. The easiest people to market to are at the top; the hardest are at the bottom.
- Unaware: They don’t know they have a problem.
- Problem Aware: They know they have a problem but don’t know a solution.
- Solution Aware: They know they have a problem and know there is a solution.
- Product Aware: They know the problem, the solution, and specific products available.
- Most Aware: They know the problem and solution but have tried several solutions that didn’t work. These are the hardest to convert.
To hit people who are unaware, you just need to interrupt them and explain the problem. For problem-aware people, we need to validate their pain. For solution-aware people, we have to position our service as the right method. For product-aware people, we have to differentiate ourselves. And for the most aware, we need our irresistible offer.
The Andromeda Update and Trust Assets
The Facebook algorithm is smarter than ever, specifically the “Andromeda update.” Facebook is pushing you into broader and colder traffic because it’s running out of unaware and problem-aware people.
The algorithm is dramatically better at reading your creative—it sees faces, gender, expression, energy, and even the type of clothing you’re wearing. It finds more people who look and act like those who have already responded to your ads. Generic ads are punished; authentic human ads are rewarded.
The rules of the game have changed. The new game is about building trust faster than the competition, matching the message to the awareness level, and feeding the algorithm “human.”
You need to systematically collect social proof. If you don’t have a “testimonials” folder on your desktop with screenshots of comments, pictures, videos, or texts, you are behind the game.
The Power of Testimonials
Here’s what changed for me: I launched new ads using testimonials in a new way this week. My cost per acquisition went from $121.84 on average to $10.15 per book sale—a 91.67% drop. My average order value also increased 24%, from $31.92 to $39.58.
When I started using testimonials, each customer became more valuable and cheaper to acquire. This happened overnight by switching to a “testimonial first” ad test.
This is happening because of trust. Testimonials compress skepticism and do the convincing before the sale. They let strangers borrow certainty from someone who has already said yes.
They also give the algorithm a human pattern to find more buyers. Video testimonials are the single highest leverage asset in a paid traffic business.
Feed the Machine
One new ad can change your entire campaign. I was producing 25 new videos a week to keep my CPA at $100. My goal now is to produce 100 new video ads every week. You have to feed the machine fresh trust assets every day.
Stop waiting too long to collect social proof. Stop asking casually and getting vague responses. Start organizing what you collect, turn them into usable ad creative, and treat testimonials as essential.
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