Father of 3. Paid Ads Expert. CTO @ https://xitter.cf/t.co/grvHczbCKU, growing https://xitter.cf/t.co/hIkf8lRSCU. I teach you how to make ads work ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Joined April 2023
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Someone just paid for Facebook ads coaching with me.
I pulled their whole journey from PostHog. It's the best small example I've seen of how lead gen works now 👇
Day 1: They click a ChatGPT link to my Facebook ads coaching page.
→ 13 minutes on the site, ending on my blog post "best Facebook ads coaches for ecommerce"
→ They leave, then come back half an hour later and go straight to that same post again
Then nothing for 3 weeks.
Day 24: They find me again on Google and land on the homepage.
→ Services → Funnel workshop → 4-session package
→ Click "book". Don't buy.
Day 26: They come back by typing the URL. 27 minutes on the site, reading another guide (Meta ad objectives).
→ Click "book" 4 times. Still don't buy.
Day 27: Back again, straight to the coaching page.
→ Book → Stripe → paid. The last click to the paid confirmation took under a minute.
6 visits. 4 different days. 7 booking clicks. 1 sale.
What this taught me about building a lead gen funnel:
1/ AI search is now a source of new leads. My first click came from ChatGPT, not ads. Write pages an LLM wants to cite: clear service pages, "best X for Y" comparisons, honest guides. 50% of my bookings are coming from LLMs.
2/ Comparison content sells. The post they read twice was a roundup of the best coaches. Buyers will compare you with others anyway, so write that comparison yourself.
3/ (almost) Nobody buys on the very first visit. This took 26 days. If your funnel only works on day 1, it doesn't work. Plan for the return visits: email, retargeting, a reason to come back. Give a lot of free content. In most cases customers STILL need your help even if you explain the exact same concepts that you'll give them over a consultation.
4/ Make your brand easy to find. Three weeks later they didn't remember my URL. They searched Google. If your name doesn't rank, you lose that buyer. This is one of my weakest spots, don't do the same. Be remarkable. Be THAT guy.
5/ Offer more than one level of commitment. Before buying they looked at a workshop, a 4-session package and 1:1 coaching. Different entry points let people pick what fits.
6/ A click on "book" is not a booking, especially if the price tag is not the lowest. 299$ for one hour are a serious commitment for most people. Six clicks led nowhere before the seventh converted. Ask for the email on the first click so you can follow up instead of hoping they come back.
7/ Make the last step fast. Once they decided: page → Stripe → paid in under a minute. When they're ready, don't slow them down.
A funnel isn't one landing page. It's everything that happens in those 26 days.
Wow. Imagine being bashed by the entire internet just because you... won the race.
This consumed me for 10 years. Online abuse is not okay.
It has made me doubt myself and my abilities for long enough, it was time I spoke out and let it go!
#triathlon #ironmantri #worldtriathlon #ironmanworldchampionship #cozumel
I love these things, it's free lead gen tool for my consultancy business adsformakers.com.
Already got at least 4 clients telling me "Claude told me this...." and then they pay me to fix the mess it made.
Keep making "AI CMOs" please.
Our Head of Growth runs $300K+/mo in paid ads without opening a single ad manager. Three platforms, one terminal, 12 custom Claude Code skills.
200+ hours of work off real client campaigns. Some clearing 4X ROAS on $1M+ spent. 40+ strategy files, 39 Python scripts hitting the platforms directly.
My bet: the agency that codes its ad-ops owns the margin everyone else burns in clicks.
The whole thing is 4 Claude Code skills:
> /linkedin-ads (15 strategy files, 14 scripts): full-funnel framework with audience-sizing rules, 6 campaign structure models, ABM 1:1/1:few/1:many playbook, 35-item audit checklist, creative by awareness stage. Scripts pull demographics across job function, seniority, company size, industry, country.
> /meta-ads (16 strategy files, 12 scripts): the Meta Ads Operating System, Creative Cadence OS, Pixel + CAPI setup, ABO to CBO to Advantage+ progression, creative fatigue detection. Scripts handle full creative-copy extraction across link, video, carousel, dynamic formats.
> /google-ads (9 strategy files, 13 scripts): the intent ladder, account structure split by intent, Phrase/Exact then Broad keyword progression, Performance Max guardrails, search-terms wasted-spend finder.
> /onboarding: 5-minute interactive setup. Walks credentials platform by platform, tests connections.
Underneath all three sits the foundations layer: the 5-Stage Demand Engine (replaces TOFU/MOFU/BOFU), budget allocation by stage and channel, voice-of-customer copy framework, scaling quadrant, optimization signals split between leading and lagging.
On each platform, one job at a time:
> Google: pulls 30-day search terms, queues every query that spent money with zero conversions as a negative once you approve, audits quality scores in the same loop.
> Meta: click-through fatigue watch across every live ad. Audience oversaturation flag.
> LinkedIn: 35-item account audit, then demographics on the top campaign. The job titles and company sizes that convert.
Read-only until the diff matches what Ivan would've done by hand. Then negatives, then fatigue, then bids.
Weekly pass: Ivan runs the zero-conversion sweep on Google, then the fatigue check on Meta, then pacing. Diff against last week's run.
Comment "ads" under the article and we'll send the repo. Must be following.
This is a fantastic answer. Media buying should be treated as a living part of the business not some appendix that get outsourced to an agency. Agencies will just do some unnecessary operations on the account to justify their fee trying to keep you in the dark as long as possible
.@andrewjfaris gave us the definitive answer to the age-old question: agency or in-house?
“What you should do is get the smartest people doing the smartest things on behalf of your business at a price that makes sense for your business.”
With one caveat …
<$50k/mo on Meta?
Manage it yourself. You’ll learn a ton + dodge crappy agencies.
>$50k/mo on Meta?
Find the smartest person (agency OR in-house) and hire them.
In the western world the correct value is 32-42, while I think that a man can be 45-46 and not have any particular issue.
Historically there's a -10 factor to take in account (40-10, 50-10) and the average fitness level is high.
Al di là del super populistico "effetto Sinner" (comunque una gran cosa e ben vengano tutti i nuovi esperti di Tennis e i tifosi della Domenica) la cosa che più mi fa effetto è mio padre che da "il tennis è una merda" ora si guarda i 250 e quando gioca Jannik si fa di Lexotan.
Nothing easier. A reboot with a new cast seems the only way to milk the cow once again, unless there's some clause that forbids it.
They've rebooted everything else, why not Star Wars?
I think I've found the perfect "internet person" (and most people probably already know her): @stephsmithio.
I've been following her for a long time through the @SmallBetsDotCom community, and I haven't come across anything off-putting, on the contrary, I've found everything she's posted or published online genuinely enjoyable.
Always with elegance and good etiquette.
It would be wonderful to have more people like her around.
Agree 100% here, @RobertMSterling got it.
KPMG is laying off 10% of their audit partners. You might have missed the news amidst today’s announcement that Meta is also laying off 10% of their employees.
I’ll be blunt: If you work in front of a computer, your job isn’t safe.
It doesn’t matter how senior you are (KPMG’s partners literally own the company). Nor does it matter how good you are at your job (Meta’s engineers are among the best of the best in the tech industry).
Your job is at risk, and it’s incumbent on you—and no one but yourself—to plan for what you do in your career to proactively manage that risk.
Four reasons why this is happening:
1. Competition: AI is reducing barriers to entry across every industries, from professional services (such as the audit and advisory services provided by the likes of KPMG) to software and everything in between. Reduced barriers to entry mean increased competition, which means lower pricing power, margin compression, and pressure to reduce costs—especially fixed costs such as labor, which is the number one expense for most white-collar businesses.
2. Need to Invest: As incumbents face increased competition from new entrants to their market and from substitute products (e.g., vibe-coded homebrew SaaS replacing expensive vertical SaaS products that previously enjoyed virtual monopolies within their respective target markets), they are forced to make sizable investments in technology to remain competitive.
In the case of professional services companies, this means large investments in proprietary software (all of the Big Four firms are investing billions in new technology right now); for big tech companies, this means tens of billions of dollars going into data centers and physical infrastructure.
Essentially, capex and opex are in the middle of a zero-sum battle in corporate budgets. As companies face the need to invest more in capex and R&D—and as capital markets become increasingly averse to providing them additional liquidity to fund it, out of concerns that the ROIC on said capex will not be accretive to earnings—opex is cannibalized to fund capex. And, again, the primary lever CFOs in white-collar companies have to instantly reduce opex is layoffs.
3. Automation: These competitive pressures are compounded by AI rapidly automating work faster than incremental revenue is able to be generated. In other words, workers are being made redundant faster than companies are able to come up with the new business that might otherwise save those jobs.
Some in the tech industry (people far smarter than me, I will add) conjecture that, on a net basis, AI will create more jobs than it will destroy, due to an AI-facilitated period of hypergrowth and a corresponding boom in corporate earnings. But with every company I advise, across the worlds of startups, SMBs, and large industrial companies, I’m simply not seeing that yet, and I don’t know anyone who is.
4. It might feel like ancient history at this point, but many companies are still dealing with the excesses of the Covid-era labor market. Money was loose, talent was in short supply, and software companies, financial services firms, and professional services companies hired too many people too fast, with standards that were too low. They’ve made significantly progress in right-sizing their workforces over the past couple years (return-to-office mandates, for example, have essentially created “soft layoffs” at many large companies), but much work still remains.
If you’re picturing your career and your company as you read these words, I can’t emphasize it enough: Plan ahead. Build a network of people outside your company who would want to work with you if your current job were made redundant. Think about businesses you might want to start (it’s a lot easier to keep your job if no one but your customers can terminate you). Set money aside.
Be proactive, not reactive. Be a predator, not the prey.
Because these trends are inexorable, they’re unstoppable, and, chances are, they’re coming for all of us.
Start planning. And start planning now.
My feed is saturated with these testimonials, and I find them increasingly difficult to take at face value.
Seemingly overnight, everyone has rebranded as an "AI transformation consultant",people who, six months ago, were doing something entirely unrelated.
Armed with a rudimentary grasp of what an LLM actually is, they claim CEOs are rolling out the red carpet and cutting them checks and pour money in their pockets.
Forgive my skepticism, but something doesn't add up. Either every organization I speak with, and we're talking dozens, US and Europe, is operating with UNUSUAL caution, or this supposed gold rush is simply savvy self-promotion by a new cohort of AI consultants marketing their own mythology.
The shift is real, OK, entrepreneurs are adopting AI. But the overwhelming majority, particularly the SMB operators running sealcoating outfits, renovation crews, HVAC companies, and the like, are figuring it out on their own.
And for precisely the same reason these self-anointed gurus believe they can add value, these business owners don't need them. The learning curve is that shallow.
If a piano teacher can reinvent herself as an AI consultant over a weekend, then the business owner herself, or someone already on her payroll, the cousing the assistant, the daughter, can absolutely do the same. They won't throw billions at you for sure, they are not stupid, and you won't be able to improve their business just getting them an @openclaw instance. Generating leads is not just that, runnign the business is a different beast.
The sheer volume of accessible material, combined with how readily an LLM will walk you through configuring your own infrastructure once you've got the fundamentals down, renders the consultant redundant in most cases. This isn't even the old "my nephew built me a WordPress site" dynamic. That was rocket science by comparison!
And when you move upmarket, to structured companies with real leadership, even in the most freewheeling countries and industries, the bar rises considerably.
You need genuine expertise, an established firm behind you, earned credibility, and substantive prior knowledge of the industry and the specific business you're pitching. Or you need to know the PEOPLE and cut the line. They are not getting anybody in exactly like it was before. Come on...
This is a great podcast arc. Let @mcuban weigh in and put this absurd narrative to rest. The fundamentals of building a trustworthy business haven't changed, and they're not about to.
That guy with a big smile just hit $4.5M ARR.
His business: helps SMB implement AI.
I grilled @cheneypiano about his playbook:
+ He DM'd CEOs on LinkedIn
+ Within 72 hours, he got his first sale: $15k
+ His pitch: CEOs get ai strategy. Their teams learn AI
+ He built a .org site, which gives him credibility
+ @Replit does his SEO/GEO, which lands him clients
+ He shifted to subscriptions to get steady revenue
Even at $15k/month, every 6 clients add $1M ARR. (He's increasing prices.)
Next: He's setting clients up with his version of NeoClaw (NVIDIA's safer OpenClaw).
Yes, I simplified his story. But he goes through it in detail in our interview. (YouTube link below.)
I feel the gap between Meta and those who work with their universe is somehow getting bigger, despite the platform still being quite efficient.
The API part always feels like a 2nd class citizen, and the random errors and sudden changes in the business suite are sometimes very scary.
If we add the heavy use of AI, probably also in the auction mechanics, it paints a picture of an immense black box that resembles a giant ship without a captain.
The whole thing looks like an aggregation of different patches that try to reassure advertisers and guide them as much as possible, but rather creates confusion.
Most of the setups I see now are wrong or at least not aligned with the goal of the advertiser.
I have to say Meta is still a safe harbour compared to Google's nonsensical thirst for broad campaigns and the ridiculous approach to ads of LinkedIn. And I also get that they want to keep a sense of distance from naive users.
I keep working and spending millions within Meta properties, I keep suggesting using it to many clients and, again, Meta is still the best acquisition channel for lots of industries (if properly used).
But we'd like to have more "faces", not a Meta AI for support and non-existent customer service. On this, Google is far superior. I met at least 40 different people at different levels over these years.
On the Meta side I probably got to speak to 2 or 3, with some kind of knowledge and authority. I wish they'd find a "Head of Product" for ads. They really need it.
Meta just killed the biggest technical barrier in performance marketing.
for years, the gap between big brands and small businesses wasn’t just budget. it was developer resources.
if you wanted to run dynamic product ads or set up the conversions api, you needed a dev team to configure servers and manually map structured data.
that changes today.
we just rolled out two massive updates that automate the entire backend setup:
🔵 ai-powered pixel enrichment: the pixel now uses ai to automatically read your website and pull product names, prices, and availability into your events. no more manual coding or schema .org mapping. smaller businesses get performance benefits without technical work and larger businesses can refocus tech resources on more important areas
🔵 one-click capi: we launched a “meta-enabled” conversions api setup. it’s literally one click. no servers, no ongoing maintenance, no costs.
this is a huge deal for signal quality.
advertisers using capi for web events see an average 17.8% lower cpa than those relying on the pixel alone.
historically, getting that setup was a nightmare for lean teams.
now, the playing field is leveled. the machine handles the technical plumbing, so you can focus entirely on creative and strategy.
if you’ve been putting off capi because it was too technical, now is the time.
What happens when you spend years building expertise in something...and then end up hating it?
It's beyond frustrating. You're basically a walking encyclopedia on the subject, and you couldn't care less about any of it anymore.
Is pivoting to an adjacent field the move? Or what?
What if this is the future of cinema?
We crystallize everything at the time of the big movie stars and we just shoot new movies with AI, starring prime-era Cary Grant, Marlon Brando and George Clooney.
EXCLUSIVE: Val Kilmer has been resurrected by AI to star in the new movie "As Deep as the Grave." Here's a first look at the film's trailer.
Kilmer's digital return has the support of his daughter, Mercedes, who previously told Variety: "He always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling. This spirit is something that we are all honoring within this specific film, of which he was an integral part.”
Watch the trailer here: wp.me/pc8uak-1lH9Yy
