25:18Matthew Larsen · Tutorial
The Exact System to Get Your First Client With Paid Ads
A marketer live-builds the entire funnel, offer, ad, landing page, and VSL opening, needed to land a first paid-ads client, in real time.
September 3rdThe argument in one line.
A cold-traffic funnel breaks on incongruent numbers, not weak creative: when the ad, landing page, and VSL each promise a different result, confused prospects drop off no matter how much proof backs the offer.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You run paid ads for a service or agency offer and want a real, page-by-page example of how a funnel gets audited.
- You're selling to a high-ticket B2B or CEO-level audience and need to see how sloppy, inconsistent numbers erode trust with a skeptical buyer.
- You want to watch an actual landing-page section and a static ad get rebuilt on screen, not just described in theory.
SKIP IF…
- You're looking for D2C or e-commerce funnel examples; this audit is entirely B2B, book-a-call offers.
- You want polished, produced content; this is a raw screen recording with live tool fumbling in Webflow and Canva.
The full version, fast.
A marketer publicly audits a real content-scaling agency's ad funnel: the offer, landing page, VSL, messaging, and paid ads, then rebuilds the above-the-fold section in Webflow and a static image ad in Canva, live. The core finding is congruency, not creativity: the same funnel states three different view-count promises (100 million, 10 to 500 million, 5 to 500 million) and two different ICPs (1 million and 10 million CEOs), which confuses cold traffic even though the offer has overwhelming proof and strong production value. The rebuild picks one number, tightens the headline to the promised result, and moves social proof above the fold. It also argues a guarantee this weak is worse than no guarantee when the proof is already this strong.
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00:00 – 00:46
01 · Introduction
Cold open: the host explains he saw a business owner's ad with strong production value in his feed and is going to audit the offer, funnel, messaging, and ads, then rebuild pieces of it live.
00:46 – 03:53
02 · Researching the Business
Pulls up Media Scaling's website, Instagram, YouTube, Meta ad library, and sales page to get the full picture before auditing: a content-marketing agency, owner Logan Forsythe, ICP stated as $1 million+ CEOs and businesses.
03:53 – 06:01
03 · About This Video and Disclaimer
States ground rules: this is public-information only with no inside knowledge, something working 'in spite of' a bad element isn't proof the element is good, and perception is reality for a cold prospect.
06:01 – 19:31
04 · The Offer
Runs the offer through a checklist (cold-traffic fit, must-address problem, obvious value, clear result, minimal effort, repeatable fulfillment, risk reversal, 5-year relevance). Flags three conflicting view-count promises and two different stated ICPs, and calls the 'work for free' guarantee weaker than no guarantee at all.
19:31 – 22:46
05 · The Funnel
Confirms it's the right structure (sales page, VSL, application, booked call, thank-you page) but finds the sales page, VSL, and ads all state different numbers, breaking the funnel's congruency.
22:46 – 34:47
06 · Rebuilding the Above the Fold
Audits the mobile above-the-fold section as incongruent and visually unclear, then rebuilds it live in Webflow: one headline ('Get 100 Million Views Filming Just 2 Hours Per Week'), one CTA, and a stated 7-day first result.
34:47 – 42:13
07 · The VSL
Reviews the 17-minute VSL: clear audio and professional delivery, but no proof in the first 5 seconds and a slow, repetitive opening that restates the ad and headline the viewer already saw.
42:13 – 44:55
08 · The Rest of the Sales Page
Finds an overwhelming amount of proof and testimonials but no written how-it-works section or FAQ, and recommends grouping proof by the objection it overcomes plus a full written sales letter.
44:55 – 56:35
09 · Messaging
Breaks down the ad angles against a Problem/Circumstance/Outcome framework, finds only one working direct-offer angle, and drafts a batch of alternate angles in the ICP's own words.
56:35 – 59:51
10 · Paid Ads
Reframes a paid ad's job as attracting qualified bookers, not cheap clicks, and audits the existing video ads for stand-out, ICP callout, proof timing, and a clear CTA.
59:51 – 1:12:31
11 · Static Image Ad Rebuild
Since the business runs no static image ads, builds one from scratch in Canva: a callout, the 100-million-views offer, three objection-handling bullets, and a call-to-book CTA in a contrasting color.
1:12:31 – 1:13:39
12 · Final Recommendations
Wraps with a short punch list: fix the messaging, redesign the above-the-fold, make the offer understandable without the full VSL, run a full congruency pass, and tighten the VSL's pacing.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A funnel with three different promised results (100 million, 10 to 500 million, and 5 to 500 million views) confuses cold traffic no matter how good the ad creative is.
- Something working in spite of a bad sales page is not proof the sales page is good; overwhelming proof can carry a broken funnel for a while regardless.
- If a detail is buried in minute 16 of a VSL or on a hidden page, it might as well not exist, because perception is reality to a cold prospect.
- A guarantee like 'we work for free until we hit the result' can read as weaker than no guarantee at all when the promised range is absurdly wide.
- With overwhelming, well-organized proof, a business may not need a guarantee at all.
- More than 70% of visitors never scroll past the above-the-fold section, so the headline, CTA, and proof all need to live there, not below it.
- A VSL, the ad that drove the click, and the above-the-fold headline should feel like one continuous conversation, not three restatements of the same pitch.
- For a $1 million to $10 million CEO audience, a 17-minute VSL is a big ask; time to first value should be minimized, not stretched to 90 days.
- Direct-offer ads can scale a business a long way, but relying on only one angle leaves out prospects who respond to problem, circumstance, and outcome-based messaging instead.
- Messaging should use the ICP's own words for their problems, circumstances, and desired outcomes, not internal claims like 'the most powerful organic growth strategy of the decade.'
- A static image ad has to do more selling work than a video ad: a callout, a plain-English offer, a few objections handled, and one clear next step, all in a single frame.
- Grouping testimonials by the objection they overcome (time, skill, niche fit) turns a wall of proof into an argument instead of just a pile of receipts.
Congruency, not creativity, is what breaks this cold-traffic funnel
WHAT TO LEARN
When an ad, a landing page, and a VSL each promise a different number to a different ICP, cold traffic drops off no matter how much proof or production value backs the offer.
02Researching the Business
- Before auditing any part of a funnel, pull the website, social profiles, ad library, and sales page side by side; comparing what a business claims in each place is the fastest way to spot its real problems.
- An inactive social profile still gets clicked by cold-ad traffic doing due diligence, and a thin profile makes the ad look less credible.
03About This Video and Disclaimer
- Something can keep converting in spite of a weak sales page, not because of it; don't mistake a business's revenue for proof that its funnel is well built.
- Perception is reality for a cold prospect: if a detail isn't stated clearly or is buried deep in a VSL, it effectively doesn't exist for them.
04The Offer
- Grade an offer against a fixed checklist (built for cold traffic, solves a must-address problem, obvious value, clear result, minimal effort, repeatable fulfillment, strong risk reversal, 5-year relevance) instead of judging it by gut feel.
- A promised outcome stated as a huge range (5 to 500 million views, or 2 to 100 clients) reads as ambiguous to a cold prospect, even when the range exists for real contract reasons.
- A guarantee that amounts to 'we'll work for free until it works' can be weaker than having no guarantee at all, especially when the proof is already overwhelming.
- Time-to-first-value matters: an offer promising results in 90 days to a year, with no stated quick win, gives cold traffic a long, uncertain wait before it can trust the promise.
05The Funnel
- Every step of a funnel (sales page, VSL, application, thank-you page) should read like one continuous conversation with matching numbers, not separate documents written at separate times.
- A confirmed appointment on the thank-you page is table stakes; the bigger opportunity is prompting the prospect to add the call to their calendar right there.
06Rebuilding the Above the Fold
- Because most visitors never scroll past the above-the-fold section, it needs the full compressed pitch: one offer, one number, one clear call to action, and social proof, all visible without scrolling.
- Rebuilding a headline from a vague range to one concrete, testable claim collapses three conflicting numbers into a single clear promise.
- Naming the specific objection a funnel skips over, and answering it directly above the fold, removes a doubt before it forms.
07The VSL
- Show proof in the first five seconds of a VSL rather than repeating the headline the visitor just read on the page above it.
- A VSL, its landing page, and the ad that drove the click should each add something new; repeating the same pitch three times in a row wastes the prospect's patience.
- For a higher-level, busier audience, a shorter VSL backed by an FAQ chapter and on-page writing outperforms a long video they're unlikely to finish.
08The Rest of the Sales Page
- A page with a large volume of testimonials still needs structure: a written how-it-works section, an FAQ, and proof grouped by the specific objection it answers, not just a dump of logos and quotes.
- For a complex, high-consideration offer, a long-form written sales letter does the persuasion work for the reader who won't sit through a 17-minute video.
09Messaging
- Messaging has two jobs at once: it decides who the ad algorithm shows the ad to, and it decides whether that person responds, so vague internal language undersells both.
- One working direct-offer angle isn't enough at scale; problem, circumstance, and outcome-based angles reach prospects who don't respond to a straight pitch.
- Write ad angles in the ICP's own words about their specific problems, circumstances, and desired outcomes, then route every angle back to the same core offer.
10Paid Ads
- A paid ad's job isn't the cheapest click or lead; it's attracting people qualified enough to book, show up, and close.
- Judge a video ad on whether it stands out in the feed, calls out the ICP, shows proof within 15 seconds, and ends with one clear call to action, not on production polish alone.
11Static Image Ad Rebuild
- A static image ad has to earn attention and explain the offer without a VSL's runway: a callout that stops the scroll, the offer in plain English, a couple of objections answered, and one next step, all in a single frame.
- Borrowing the same numbers and objection-handling from a rebuilt landing page keeps a new ad format congruent with the rest of the funnel instead of introducing a fourth version of the offer.
12Final Recommendations
- The fix list for an incongruent funnel is short and mechanical: pick one number, run a full congruency pass across ad, landing page, and VSL, and get to the point faster in the VSL.
- None of this requires new proof or a better offer, just removing the contradictions that make an already-strong offer look untrustworthy to someone seeing it cold.
Terms worth knowing.
- ICP
- Ideal Customer Profile: the specific type of buyer an offer, message, or ad is built to attract.
- VSL
- Video Sales Letter: a pre-recorded video that stands in for a live sales pitch, explaining the offer and building trust before a prospect books a call.
- Above the fold
- The portion of a webpage visible on screen before the visitor scrolls, where most people decide whether to keep reading.
- Cold traffic
- Prospects seeing a brand for the first time, typically from a paid ad, who have no prior familiarity with or trust in the business.
- Risk reversal
- An offer element, usually a guarantee, that shifts the financial risk of a purchase away from the buyer and onto the seller.
- Congruency
- Consistency of the core claims (numbers, promises, ICP) across every touchpoint in a funnel, from the ad to the landing page to the VSL.
- Book-a-call funnel
- A funnel structure designed to move a cold visitor toward scheduling a sales call, rather than buying directly online.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
04:46
“I really want to make clear the difference between in spite of something versus because of something.”
05:43
“Perception is reality. If they can't easily find it, it might as well not exist.”
10:18
“5 million to 500 million is an insane range.”
16:48
“He has so much overwhelming proof that I don't think you need any guarantee anyway.”
22:58
“Not to insult him here, but this above the fold is absolutely shocking.”
27:49
“We get 100 million views. Work with us for one year. We script your videos, we edit them, we post them, we manage them. All you need to do is film.”
56:38
“Our paid ads are not there to get the cheapest clicks or leads. Their job is to attract qualified people who will book, show up, and close.”
Word for word.
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analogy
I saw a business owner on my feed who just had such great production value and such a nice background that his ads just kind of like jumped off the screen at me. So I took a deep dive into what he was doing with his campaigns and I audited his offer, I audited his funnel, his messaging, and then the ads themselves. And I actually rebuilt a few things live.
So you're gonna see what they looked like before. and what they look like after I rebuild them. So let's get started.
So today we will be auditing and then rebuilding when necessary parts of Media Scaling's ad funnel. So we're going to go over the offer, then the messaging, then we're going to go over the funnel, and then we're going to go over the paid ads, and we're going to see what we find. So I saw Logan Forsythe's ads in the feed.
He was the owner of Media Scaling, and I... I found them quite eye -catching. I love his setup, like what you say, like production value.
Much, much better than mine. Ten times better than mine. So if we go and do a little bit on the research on the business first, we kind of have to know a little bit.
So I have their website pulled up. I have Instagram pulled up. I have the YouTube pulled up.
And then we will pull up the ad library and the sales page very quick. So we have that here. We have some ads running.
I thought I saw more earlier when I saw this in my feed.
Perhaps we can see more if we just do United States.
There we go. So these are the ads. We'll click through to the sales page.
So this is the sales page. So essentially we have, what do we have here? We have website, Instagram, YouTube, ad library, and sales page.
We're just kind of looking at the YouTube and Instagram. We're not going to do anything, but a lot of people will. They see your ad on Instagram, they click on your profile like I did, or they go to Google and they find your YouTube, or you can extrapolate that to LinkedIn.
or Twitter or any other search results, it's best if you have some stuff there. Like posting stuff on here is going to make your ads perform better. Looks like we haven't posted in four months.
But this is, let's go to the website first because that's where you get the best idea of about a business. So the industry is content marketing. So I would say like business focused content marketing.
It's not like YouTube or anything. And the ICP on here is 1 million CEOs. On the sales page, you don't see anything on here, which makes sense.
But then on the sales page, we see 10 million CEOs. So I am a bit confused on that, but we're going to... So ICP, we're just going to do $1 million CEOs because...
Here it says $1 million. So it's not necessarily a good start from the congruency department. So we're going to go $1 million per year, CEOs and businesses.
We're going to generate you 500 to, or 5 million to 500 million views in a year, or we're going to work for free. Sure.
And then the price, I actually did click through the application just to save time here. It was $5 ,000 to $30 ,000. It said on one of the questions.
So about the video, now that we know a little bit about the business and we have like our industry, our ICP, our offer, full disclaimer and disclosure, I'm working with publicly available information. I don't have any background or inside information on this business. I don't know this person, have never talked to them.
I'm only doing this with public information. So we're not going to have the full context. We're basically going to look at it through the eyes of a potential customer of theirs as well.
Right. As far as what we're going to cover, we're going to cover the offer. We're going to cover the messaging.
We're going to cover the funnel and we're going to cover the paid ads. We're not going to talk about anything else in this video. We're going to keep it focused on that and rebuild it as best we can.
I really want to make clear the difference between in spite of something versus because of something. There's going to be instances where I'm no doubt it's working and it's profitable. But just because something is working doesn't mean like if a sales page is very bad, for example, that doesn't mean it's working because it's very bad.
It's in spite of that, right? So we're going to try to fix it up using best practices as much as possible. We also want to make clear that perception really is reality.
A lot of the time, I will do audits like this publicly or on YouTube, and people will message me after that I did the audit, and they're going to say, like, I have that. And, you know, that's fine. I'm sure you do.
But from the eyes of a customer, which we're going to primarily look at this funnel through, like, if you don't clearly say it or, you know, it's buried in minute 16 of a VSL or it's on some hidden page of your website, it basically might as well not exist, right? So we just want to make that clear. Perception is reality.
If they can't easily find it, it might as well not exist. And then the final one is I really like this format because it's very familiar. We're going through the same kind of thing every time in these videos.
But everything, every business is different. And this is really how you learn in the real world. So the first thing we're going to talk about is the offer.
And the offer is what we're asking our ICP to buy. A great offer makes every part of the business easier and a weak offer forces the funnel marketing sales team and fulfillment to compensate. And basically, we need to judge the offer in the context of the ICP, right?
It should solve something that they already care about, create obvious value, be repeatable and profitable to fulfill. The more dialed in our offer and the stronger our offer is, the... You know we can't ever butcher our paid ads and funnel or botch them completely But it's going to be easier if we have a three out of five offer for example We're going to have to work a lot harder in our and we got to have to be more dialed So first thing we're going to do is we're going to do an offer checklist And we're going to go through is this built for cold traffic What that basically means is like if I do I need is this like instantly?
recognizable? Is it instantly desirable? I don't need to know this person.
I don't need to watch 10 hours of his content. I don't need to be introduced to him. And basically, I would say it is built for cold traffic.
It's desirable to people who are not kind of, you know, they don't know him that well. They don't need to know him that well. It's basically just an offer where it's very clear.
that it is a short form content offer, especially when you combine the context of the landing page with the context of his ads. The viral script scaling system guarantees, then it says five to 50 mil, 500 mil on the landing page and 10 to 500 here. But it's very clear that this is a kind of a short form content offer.
And then the ad says 100 million and 90. It's very, very incongruent and we're going to fix that. But to me, it's very clear.
Does it solve a problem people must address? To be honest, I would say no. Like you could extrapolate this and say this is a lead generation offer and people have to generate leads and that would be true.
But to me, like this is not what's going to come to mind when most people think about generating leads as their first kind of go around. They're going to think outreach. They're going to think partnerships.
They're going to think networking referrals. They're going to think paid ads, in my opinion, before this. Something that people must address, especially because this also promises views, not leads or clients, technically, I would say no.
To be honest, people don't really need to get views. It's nice to have, but as far as the offer is built around that, I would say no. Does it create obvious value?
What that basically means is does it make them money? Does it save them time? Does it reduce risk?
Does it reduce cost? Does it increase speed? It definitely doesn't reduce cost.
You're going to have to pay for this. It definitely doesn't reduce risk. It definitely doesn't...
I'd say arguably it does make them money, and it could make money. And over 1 million leads generated, 24 million followers, 10 billion views. I think it does create obvious value, especially for the ICP.
To me, this business has some of the most overwhelming and well -done proof that I've ever seen. This is a model of how to do this properly. I actually saved this entire page as far as proof goes for my swipe file.
So yes, absolutely overwhelming amount of proof. It makes me think that I'm going to succeed and I'm not even planning on hiring them. Very good.
To me, like promise is a clear deliverable or a result.
I don't really think this is true. I, I personally hate this. I understand that it's probably done or it's inevitably done for contract, like contract reasons.
And, you know, some clients are going to start at, you know, this level versus that level. But I, when you make a, you know, 5 million to 500 million is an insane range.
And when you take into account that it also says 10 to 500 million here in one year, and then it says 100 million in 90 days here, basically with the range and the incongruency, I would say no. And some of that can be fixed, but it's just like, think of that. I get these DMs all the time.
It's like, our system will get you, You know, you pay us $15 ,000, for example, I'm just making this up and that will get you, you know, two to a hundred clients, right? Like, so which one is it?
If it's two clients, you know, this is a terrible deal for me. That's a $7 ,500 CPA. If I get a hundred, that's a great deal, right?
Or even if I say, you know, two to seven, like. 5 million to 500 million is an insane range. And I understand that it's got to be done for contract value or like contract terms in the guarantee.
But the someone who is clicking from ads here, who is coming in and just like seeing this for the first time, who doesn't really care like this. That's what I'm saying. It's cold traffic is going to see that and it's going to be ambiguous and it's not going to be clear.
And a lot of people are going to drop off. especially if they came from an ad that says 100 million in 90 days, or if they read this and says there's just kind of like three different things here. Again, like it says record for 90 minutes a month in here in the ads.
And then it also says filming less than two hours a month, I guess less than two hours or 90 minutes is less than two hours. But I don't think this is true. Delivers value quickly.
To me, like we don't know their backend here, but they very well. they may very well get you a bunch of, you know, wins in the first seven days. But like I said, perception is reality.
And like, what do you get? Where's the process?
Like to me, maybe I haven't seen it or you'd have to dig through a VSL, but like realistically, this says in one year up here, the other one says 90 days, but that's not a quick win either. This says 90 days. And to me, like the time to first value, if I'm objectively trying to evaluate this as a prospect is going to be quite substantial, you know, 30 days at minimum, 60 days, 90 days where there's like they could be.
And if they're not, they probably should have some sort of quick win, you know, in their onboarding, like, you know, gets that time to first value down and then kind of, you know, but they don't say it anywhere. Right. It's just one of those things.
As far as minimum customer effort and sacrifice, this is a done -for -you offer, but it's not necessarily a done -for -you offer where the client doesn't have to do anything. I really love how they put in the two hours here per month or the 90 minutes in the ad creative. I really love that, and I would love to see that same thing with the time delay.
Maybe when we're rebuilding this page, we will... do something like that. But I would say that it's expected that they're going to have to film.
And I think that this does do that, especially when they say in the ad that we script it, we edit it, we post it, we manage it, and you're basically filming for 90 minutes. I think that's true. I'm going to delete covers acquisition and fulfillment costs for this one, just because it's a rebuild.
Do you think it has standardized and repeatable fulfillment? It's definitely not going to be as standardized and repeatable as, let's say, advertising for roofers, right? Where you can just find an ad funnel that works and then just copy and paste it to 100 different roofing clients.
I'm definitely, I'm sure that they have their processes, right? And I'm sure it is standardized and repeatable. So we're going to give them here.
To me, like this is not a strong risk reversal at all. I think the, or we work for free until we do is absolutely goofy. And that's my opinion.
Like, just think of it. You're promising them a result. You didn't hit the results.
Like essentially you failed to deliver on what it said just by, you know, right. Why would they want you to work for free? Right.
To me, I don't like that. I think that is actually worse than not having a guarantee at all. Will it remain relevant for at least five years?
It's difficult to say, you know, the short form content is not quite there to the same degree that like, you know, SEO or websites were. But I would say that it's probably going to remain relevant for at least five years. But we kind of see in some of his ad stuff that it's like such a big opportunity.
And it kind of implies there's an opportunity to dominate social media like never before.
But I would say so like without being like needlessly harsh. So and then does it naturally to the main offer? I kind of think that this is the main offer.
So that's just going to be an N .A. for now. But we would really like to see like I would really like the results to be tied to a more downstream business objective.
But this is probably. Not possible, to be honest, so I'm not going to really say too much. Possible as a standard practice.
Would love to see a set number instead of 5 to 500 million. That range is just too high. If you do...
And we don't know this, if they do this with... love to see some quick wins or something in the onboarding process to tie the customer over until their content takes off and if you do this would love to see you say it on the page this risk reversal is worse to me than not having one you have so much overwhelming proof that I don't think you need any guarantee anyway.
Those are my notes for the offer. Strong risk reversal, when you have this much proof, this has got to be the most proof that I've ever seen, at least in a Facebook ad from an Instagram post. He doesn't need any guarantee, and especially doesn't need a guarantee that, in my opinion, makes it weaker.
So for the rebuild, right, we kind of went over it there. So we want to take out the guarantee completely if we are not going to give a refund, basically. We're essentially going to want to zero in on a set number.
In terms of the result, at least in the funnel, like we can always elaborate individually on the sales calls, right? We don't, we can just, but we really need to remove all of this during this process because the number of like people talk objections, objections, objections in the sales process, but the Number of objections in the sales process are a small fraction of the objections that would prevent someone from actually booking a call.
Not sure which offer is the real one, but we really need to make it congruent. One says 100 mil in 90 days. One says 10 to 500 mil.
One says 5 to 500 mil. One ICP website says 1 million CEOs. Sales page says 10 million.
They could be different. He could be targeting different than the general website with here. But to me, if you're going to have a call out on the sales page saying $10 million CEOs, and then right here it says 1 million, we really got to fix that.
via sales says one mil literally right after. So it's just one of those things, right? We just got to fix the offer.
And once we do, it will be quite strong. We're going to try to clean this up in a few seconds when we rebuild the sales page. So let's see what we can do.
So into the funnel now, because we're going to go offer and then funnel. basically the sales page, the VSL. Then we're going to go messaging and then we're going to go paid ads at the end because we want to get the funnel right.
We have the offer. We need to get the funnel right. Then we'll do the different messaging and tie it back.
The funnel is obviously the process that turns attention into booked calls. A funnel cannot save a week offer, but we can't have an insanely bad funnel either because that will kill us. So the funnel needs to basically be treated as one continuous conversation.
Every page has a step and a job, and we basically need to move the prospect naturally. So let's do a little bit of a funnel audit, right? So is this the right funnel for this offer?
I would say yes, it should be a book a call funnel. Do they have a sales page? Yep.
Do they have a VSL? Yep. They have their application and call booking page inside.
Basically, I closed, it looks like. And then I did look at their thank you page in preparation for this, and it is quite good. We're not really going to go into the thank you page today.
The congruency, like a very, very big problem. Like we have different ads saying different stuff. We have a video creative saying a different thing than the primary text even.
And then we have like, just no, the answer is no. Does the sales page match the VSL? Like if we go to it, it says 10 million here and then 1 million here.
It says in less than versus in little. Like this might seem like nitpicking, but this stuff actually matters, guys. Like when you're, you need to put yourself in the mind of someone who clicked on the ad, who is a $1 million peer business owner, who's not necessarily thinking about this.
And it's just like, here, it's like, I'm confused, basically. Like that is going to be what they're thinking. So I would honestly say like none of this is congruent.
The thank you page did confirm the appointment. Let me pull it up, actually. So this is the thank you page.
It definitely does confirm the appointment. So that's a very nice job there. Does it prompt them to accept it?
I would like to see one of those things where it's just like you need to like a Google Calendar thing.
I would say no, honestly. It should have a visual like right here. Our extra.
Watch what you kind of says there, but then it definitely has the next steps and Then it has these thank you page Videos so those look great All the questions are answered love that love that setup So basically yes does three of those four things So the first thing we're gonna do is the above the fold if you don't know what that is The above the fold is the section like if you're gonna look at it on mobile like the section that this is it's like the section that is visible without scrolling and to me like not to insult him here but this above the fold is absolutely shocking it's like well it obviously is incongruent but visual hierarchy like this is off the call to action button's not above the fold the vsl is half cut off like there's a lot of work to be done there and we're going to do that in a couple of seconds It's very important because if you look at heat maps, like 70 % of viewers or more don't actually scroll past this.
Of course, the people who are going to be your customers, like obviously scroll past it and read more. I'm not saying that's not true, but we want to design it where everything they need to know is clear above the whole fold, instantly recognizable. We basically want to create it as a compressed version of everything.
So does the banner match the branding used in the ad? Not really. There's no real branding there.
It definitely doesn't follow a clear visual hierarchy. There's no real callout. You have to kind of read it in here.
And then it also says something different there. So I guess there's a callout, but it's extremely confused. So I'm not going to say clear.
The headline is not congruent, to be honest. I understand the result they're being promised. I'll say yes to that.
It's 500, five to 500 million views. That's a big range, but still does the sub headline show? No, not really.
Is there social proof above the fold? No. Is there a VSL?
Yes. Does it have a clear thumbnail? Yes.
And then no to these. So let's actually rebuild it here. I'm just going to go and start with a template just because, you know, I don't think you need to watch me like do this the entire night.
So like this is what we're going to do here. We're going to start with a template. This is a sales page template.
I'm just going to do what I would do for this above the fold. So if we basically go here, I'm just going to take a picture of this VSL. It's kind of a representation of the VSL.
Because there's a good picture actually like that.
Just because. I'm not going to download his video. So we have the image.
Let's go to Webflow. Basically, I duplicate this here. Let's upload his image.
It's kind of cooked. We're just going to pretend that's the VSL. Looks like it.
So to me like the first thing I would do What would I do?
Go to the website I probably take this logo to be honest And then that's way too big. We'll do that after.
We'll do that after. So book a call. I think we want to keep it as tight to who it is.
So book a five -minute call for one million plus businesses and CEOs. A call out, I would say.
Over 10 billion views generated. I'll just say that.
Over 10 billion views generated in two years, perhaps. Oh, deleted the wrong one.
Maybe we'll bold that. No, we don't need to bold that. This is where we need to get the headline of it right.
So I really liked what I saw on the Facebook ad, I think, actually. Because to me, the headline needs to promise the result.
Basically, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna just do what I would do, like, you know, get 100 million views per year filming to just two hours per week. That's way too big and way too long.
I'll probably just skip. 100 million views filming two hours a week.
Let's see. Two.
There's too much padding on there. I don't know what is going on with that. There we go.
That's better.
We get 100 million views.
And I really liked, I'm going to take what he had in his ad library.
Change it a little bit. Work with us for one year. We script your videos.
We edit them.
We post them. We manage them.
All you need to do is film. It's a bit... I don't know.
Let's see what it looks like on the live version. We have to fix it. This logo is going to be huge.
There we go. We just need to make it big. Yeah, I would fix it on desktop, obviously, but it's going to be on mobile, and I would just do that later.
So this, why is this so big?
There we go.
Are we getting there? Are we not getting there? There we go, now we're getting there.
Seems to me to be a little bit of a, like a little bit. Probably doesn't need to be 24.
Let's try that.
Get 100 million views See what it looks like now It's not quite there work with us for yeah, we don't like that So let's get this down to like six maybe get this down to six maybe definitely need to um fix that a little bit and then i definitely want to do what i said a little bit on um how would you say i think it could be like this you will get your first video live within seven days It's probably too big, though.
It's a little bit too big.
PS, because then they'll actually read it. You'll get your first video live in seven days. Because I remember I said there was a time delay objection.
Like, do I really have to wait 90 days or wait? So let's see what this looks like.
Get 10 million views.
Oh, this should say month too.
So what do we need to do here? Why is this so big? We could change the...
It's like the spacing that's a little big, I would say.
We could just... I guess we could technically put it like that, but I'm not necessarily a fan of that.
Oh, beautiful. Not so bad if I must say so myself.
So let's get that here. We really needed to build, so let's do this one.
Is this it?
And then the original.
Yeah, I would honestly expect mine to perform much better. I guess that would be worth an A -B test, right? But we see proper visual.
I see a clear call out, one call out above the fold. We see social proof above the fold in a better way. We see proper visual hierarchy.
We see one clear offer. 100 million views in one year, filming just two hours per week or per month. I kept saying per week.
work with us and then like that's the result and then the sub headline elaborates on the results like work with us for one year we script your videos we edit them we post them we manage them all you need to do is film next steps clear book a five minute call and one of the biggest objections around time delay is clear you're going to get your first video live within seven days so i think that uh i think mine's honestly much better but i am also biased but it's worth a test because the one on the left is absolutely shocking to be honest And it's one of those things in spite of versus because of, right?
Like he probably is getting a lot of business off this, but it doesn't mean it's good. It doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. So I would probably, if I was him, test something like that immediately.
As far as the VSL goes, we'll do that next. The VSL is like a one -sided pre -recorded sales call that just basically lets them see your face, hear your voice, understand the offer. The thing to me about VSLs is I would always want to design my entire page above the fold and the rest, assuming that they're not going to watch even one second of the VSL.
Because especially as you go up market, he's going to go for 1 million or 10 million CEOs. Which one of them are going to watch a 17 minute or dig through a 17 minute VSL? I'm sure there's going to be some, but it's not going to be likely, right?
Damn, mine looks good. So let's go to the VSL audit. Does the VSL have a clear thumbnail?
It does. Is the first line of the VSL congruent with everything else?
It's not really congruent with the ads. The seeker's face does. Is his audio very clear?
Yes, it is. Look, sounds good. Does it show proof within five seconds?
To me, it would be much better if instead of just basically repeating this and repeating what's in the ad, if he just said, do you want to... If you're interested in generating 5 million. Like, do you want to generate 5 million to 500?
Again, it's that huge range. Do you want to generate 5 million to 500 million views in 12 months? Like this client, this client, this client, and then they pop up on screen here.
I think that'd be much better. Like that's going to be in my recommendations. The hook.
Do you want to generate five? I'm just going to put 100 million views per year. like XYZ, you know, AZ, like client, like client one, two, three, four, five, pop up with face.
I would probably do that, for example.
So it doesn't show proof in the first five seconds. And that's a big thing in my view that it needs to happen.
We don't really need to say watch the video right now. They watched the ad. They've already got to this point.
They're already watching the video.
I think that's a great form of proof. Excellent. It's his proof that makes it even more powerful.
Is the proof shown on screen instead of merely claimed? Yes. Is the offer fully explained within the first 15 seconds?
It's iffy. I think it would play a lot better with my above the fold here because then the offer is explained. You got to remember this, guys.
Your ad, your above the fold, your VSL, everything works together. And when you nail all of them, they can feed off each other. But when you don't and they're incongruent.
And they're a little bit repetitive, I would say. You can't get away with very much. I'm probably going to say...
I wouldn't say fully explained. I would say sort of explained, honestly.
I would say no. Yes, there's very good subtitles.
The speaker does look very professional. I love that setup. I would say the VSL, like typically in a VSL, you're going to want to make it shorter for people who are more successful because their time is more valuable, right?
If you're doing a B2C biz op or something, you might do it a bit longer because they have so many self -limiting beliefs. I would say like it's not egregious, but it is 17 minutes. And I just, you know, I don't know if we're going for 10 million or $1 million businesses here, but I can't imagine a $10 million CEO watching all of this.
I prefer if he just got to the point, especially in his video ads where he already explained it. Again, I just said it, but they work together. If he was using static image ads, he would need his VSL to do more work, right?
But he has video ads here, and then he has more video ads as his VSL. I don't think he really needs it, so I wouldn't say it's appropriate. Without actually watching and asking, I don't really...
I don't know if it does every question, but honestly, I would probably say no. Can they go through the funnel without watching the VSL? To me, they also can't.
There's not much other than proof and the VSL on there. So I would say no. To me, make an FAQ chapter on your VSL.
You need to... put writing on the page especially with busy successful people who do not typically want to watch a long vsl so they can just read it i typically prefer slides in a vsl like that's that's a ton of information that you do not have at all in the ad or without it so maybe this is necessary to be this length and we should do it but at the same time like we don't see any of that we have to watch a full 17 minute vsl and remember we're just coming from paid ads and we're loosely interested in this scenario so i'm probably going to say yes don't know if i have anything else in the in the vsl but like you need to make your ad plus above the fold plus vsl work together bit better they are somewhat repetitive ie they've already watched your video ad they have already watched or read the headline kind of and it's a kind of a messy headline the headline then you tell then you kind of waste 15 seconds repeating the headline then telling them to watch the video the video that they are already watching is kind of how i would describe what's going on here that's kind of all my recommendations for vsl just looking at it so let's go to the rest of the sales page like we need the rest of the sales page to basically sell them especially when you're talking to a higher level audience who may not want to watch a 17 minute vsl
You need to be able to understand it with the sales page. So do I completely understand it without this? Absolutely not.
There is an insane overwhelming amount of proof that is easy to consume. There is no clear written how it works section on this page. There's no clear FAQ thing that I've seen.
So no.
As far as the application form goes, looked fine to me. I did it. When I was looking for the links, we're not really going to waste any time on this for now.
So for the rest of the sales page recommendations, I would really recommend a simple who, what, when, where, why, how section at the top. I would really recommend a timeline for how this works.
I would really recommend an FAQ section, of course. And then I would probably, because the VSL is very long and complex, write a full -on, you know, 1 ,000 to 2 ,000 word, very organized sales letter that is essentially the written out version of the VSL.
And then I would probably group your proof around overcoming different objections. You know, someone like example, someone, I don't have time for this. Then under is a bunch of testimonials from people who said they don't have time.
I'd probably do that because you have such overwhelming proof, but it's just dumped there. When you could really be using it to overcome objections. A lot of people can't do that because they just don't have the quantity of proof.
This is amazing.
He has so much proof, so many testimonials. You can read more. And then he has this entire thing that is crazy, right?
He has even more inside. It looks so good.
So the next thing is going to be messaging. And this is where we know the messaging, where we know the offer, we have the funnel. But now we're going to look at the different messaging that they use in their paid ads.
And we're going to see if that really relates to their ICPs, problems, circumstances, outcomes, you name it. Because the messaging is going to kind of be a double whammy. Like on one thing, the messaging is actually going to determine who sees the ads, like who it targets.
And then it's also going to show that it resonates with it. So the right ad will cause Facebook and the algorithms, because they're so powerful, to show it to the right person. And then they'll be more likely to respond to it.
A lot of people, like I would say when they're doing paid ads, they really mess up on the messaging. Because B2B paid ads don't necessarily have to be pretty. It's just offer, clear message, and then proof is what really makes these kind of things.
So if we get down, we're going to do a little audit. We're going to see what different angles that they have, and then we're going to see how they relate to. So we've already seen that kind of direct offer because we've already seen a couple of these when we were scrolling through, right?
So we've seen that direct offer type thing.
Probably retargeting or educational.
So the most powerful organic growth strategy of the decade.
He also said dominate social media like never before.
Where was my library?
Okay.
The first three seconds is very important.
I just love his setup. It's so amazing.
Direct offer, I'd say.
It's a decent one. Most business owners are creating content backwards. They are trying to get views instead of trust.
Sure.
retargeting for sure very good so to You said 200 views, no leads. Yeah, 200 views, no leads.
Your production quality is not the problem. Your ideas are. It's kind of probably true, but it's kind of a...
I'd probably use a straw man on it. Like, you know... I would say their stuff is not, but whatever.
Like, okay, there we go. So does their core messaging clearly identify the ICP? To me, it doesn't.
There's nothing in there that says $1 million that like leaps off the screen.
I just, does it appeal to the level of ICP they want to attract? I would say no to me.
There's really nothing about business in there unless I'm missing something. I would say that, does it use the exact language their ICP uses? I just can't see their ICP saying, I want to dominate social media like never before.
Or, I want to find the most powerful organic. Just to me, it doesn't do it for me. Does it describe the problems our ICP faces?
This one does.
This one kind of does, the first three seconds if you get no views. Kind of. I would say kind of.
You know, you spent $5 ,000 and you get no view. Kind of. Does it cover multiple angles?
I would say no. Does it preemptively overcome the ICP's major objections? We're not going to watch the whole ad, but anyway.
And does each of them lead back to the same core offer? It did. So to me, the direct offer is good.
other than the fact that it's incongruent with the landing page, but he does a great job in the ad of that. But I would say that this is not really the messaging that's going to work outside of the direct offer. And if we just take a look at why, let's think of some messaging for ourselves.
So let's do a little messaging rebuild. So what are the different problems that this industry could face? He did the 200v1.
That one was good. But the outcomes. Let's just put ourselves in the shoes of a million dollar business owner.
I want to post content, but I don't have the time.
Outcomes. Content will make your ads perform better. They click on your profile.
Circumstances. You know, I get all my clients through X and want, not Twitter, but I want to go blank and want another channel.
What are the problems? You know, I put so much time and effort into content and got 200 views, like you said, but I would say it more forcefully. I would say that 200 views wasn't the main point of it.
outcomes. I would also say that to be just like outcomes, content is the best way to kind of build a network that might be important to some people. And we're kind of doing this because essentially the markets are so big, right?
Not everybody responds to the same thing. Not everybody wants the same thing, right? For example, Somebody might want to do content because they know it makes their ads better.
Some people might want to do content because they want to build their network. Some people might want content, you know, they want to build a personal brand and that's how they would describe it, right? Like this is how they would describe it too versus just a lot of these things I just don't think are good.
I want to post content, but I don't know. what to post about. I want to post content but I don't even know what I don't know.
I want to post content but not sure if it is worth it in my niche or my industry.
what could be some other ones and i probably could sit here and go like hundreds and hundreds of these if i was sitting on it and not doing this in a video with a time on it but problems i am not good at speaking on camera it's a very good one i so like just think of the same ads instead of Some of this like, do you want to post content but you feel you're not good at speaking on camera?
Like, do you know you should be posting content but you don't have the time? Are you running ads? By posting social media content, it will actually make your ads perform better.
You could probably do five angles of that with how. Are you running a lot of paid ads on Facebook? A lot of people will click on your profile.
And if you have content on your profile that's valuable, like... they're more likely to click or whatever you want to do right you could probably do content will make your outreach perform better we could also probably do content will help you retain clients because it will nurture them content will make it easier on your sales team to close nurture them and get them bought in and less likely to like you could have so many of these and i just don't think that they're here the direct offer is good and he could probably scale this direct offer up quite a bit but one day we're gonna need to scale it because not everybody responds to direct offers either you know have you tried to post if you have you put hundreds of hours and you put a dozen hours into trying to make short form videos and all they got was 200 views you know do you know you should be posting content but you don't have time do you get all of your clients through paid ads and want to add another channel you know i rely too much on referrals and networking feast or famine revenue cycles like there's so many that you could do here and he could choose any of them
So which ones do I like? Because we should move on. We have the direct offer.
To me, the direct offer is really the only one that's good. After, like we just copy and paste all of these, to be honest.
We just have so many different ways to resonate with people and kind of like nurture people when we have all of these different ones that our ads will perform much better. Logan has literally some of the most proof I've ever seen, especially lately. He's good at talking on camera.
His offer is very acceptable. It's not a bad offer at all. And he has amazing production value.
He could slam these out in one day and be in a very good spot. It's just one of those things that we kind of need to do, in my opinion. And then let's get in the final part, which is our paid ads.
We all know what their job is, but our paid ads are not there to get the cheapest clicks or leads. Their job is to attract qualified people who will book, show up, close, etc. And it can be hard to know which ads are decoy ads or retargeting ads versus real ads, but we'll try our best here.
We've already seen a lot of these, but do they have at least four genuine marketing angles? No, not really. There's not any static images.
They do have a direct offer, so that's good. They have active ads, that's good. They don't really, in my view, have problem circumstances outcome messaging for out -of -market prospects.
I honestly don't think this is true.
The longest running ads have been running since June, so quite a while. So they don't have any image ads, so we're not going to do this. But for their video ads, let's just take...
Let's just take this one for example Let's take that other one with him talking to the screen that's I don't know if that's AI or not, but that's pretty interesting It kind of looks super grainy but whatever So does it immediately stand out? Well, to me, both of these immediately stand out because they're so...
It would be nice if he had a thumbnail kind of on the screen, though. But it does stand out because it's so unusual. They both stand out to me.
His production value is insane. Are the ICPs called out?
No. This is clear. Does it show proof?
Yes, it does. Here it does. No.
Does it show another form of proof within 15 seconds?
No, but it's in 24 seconds. I think it's good because that proves pretty good. Is the entire offer clearly explained in 15 seconds?
Yeah, like that ad's good.
Do we even get to the offer here? Where is that one?
No, it doesn't. I don't know if that's a direct response ad or not because it's kind of hard to tell, but yes, it does. Is there one clear call to action at the end?
You don't need to do that part. So for paid ads rebuild, obviously I'm not going to do any video ads here, but I am going to try to do them a static image ad. So they don't have one, so this will be an interesting one.
There's not going to be any before versus after, but let's just try it. So I open my template, and here it is. So to me, I want to have something that stands out in the feed pretty good.
I'll probably make it black.
Make it black, or we'd make it this dark color. If we screenshot that. Because then it's kind of on brand, like whatever this color is.
So let's get in there.
See if we can see that. So yeah, there we go. That's pretty good, I would say.
So text first. And these ads should be pretty simple. So I don't know.
Businesses over 1 million per year kind of so that's a it's kind of a goofy color even though I put that on the I'm probably gonna do a bold font here That's a bit too bold, but anyway So we're going to have our callout, we can fix it after. And we're going to have, it'll essentially mount to our subheadline.
Probably 36. And then we'll have some bullet points, maybe 32, overcoming some objections. And then we're going to have a call to action, but that's going to be in a contrasting color.
Maybe yellow.
does that look okay it's kind of i find it so goofy uh to just like do you have a business doing over 1 million per year like i probably call it like out like that to be honest if a business doing 1 million per year honestly probably gonna do so we will get you a hundred million views Get you 100 million views in one year, and all you need to do is film 1 million per week.
Book a five -minute call with our team to see if you qualify.
I have this thing called Flux on my computer where it kind of turns the screen a bit orange to mock the sun or to mimic the sun. I think it's messing with my screen right now. I'm not seeing very well.
Let me just pause quick. So we will get you a hundred million social media views. So, so we, we, what was, what did he say in his, what do I say over here?
so number one we script we script edit edit post and manage your videos probably going to do it script edit and post your videos You will get your first video live in seven days.
I kind of hate Canva's number sequence type thing. I'm going to just do number one.
I'm just trying to think of that business is over one million years. That just sounds so... Not ample.
Yeah, a little like amateur We need to do this a little bit What should we do with the second one? What's a big objection?
What is a big objection?
Like this is kind of the stuff that we'd like to see in the landing page on the main website, but Yeah, I'm gonna change the top to So let's put this also in the bold let's uh put this up there what is this what is the second objection that we could do are these not lined up this works for beginners and like what i saw over here i probably do a social proof one there Probably do something like this.
The visual hierarchy is quite cooked now.
Probably do it like that actually.
And we've got to remember, like, when we're using a static image ad like this, what we're trying to do is call them out so they stop scrolling, tell them the offer as plain English as possible, overcome basically, like, three objections or so, if we can, and then we want to tell them what the next step is. And then in our, when we're using static ad...
Static image ads our VSL has to do a lot more work just because we can't really you know We're not going to explain the whole offer in an image ad So I'd probably make three ads here so They kind of have three different things on the website So I probably do something actually, I have so many tabs open, you know, like content, you know, business owners.
I'll just do business owners here, to be honest.
This will be a direct one. And then if we want to do something different, let's bold this, like extra bold. And then, you know, yeah, let's do that actually.
And then we'll call it for today.
And then we'll just do maybe like a line.
Like an underline.
So let's see. Is this spaced evenly?
way worse, but this could probably be even bigger.
Then we can probably just make it a little bit bigger And then that will do so we'll make them this static image ad Sadly there was no ad before But yeah, that's basically going to be the end of this audit like to be honest we need to get better messaging in our ads design the above the fold you know design a brand new we need to um make it so they know the offer on our sales page without watching full vsl do a complete congruency audit between, because we have different ICPs stated, different amounts of views, different timelines.
And then what was another thing? Like, probably, yeah, like, probably get to the point much faster in the VSL. But anyways, that is how I would rebuild this funnel.
I hope it was valuable, and I'll see you next time.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Matthew Larsen spotted an eye-catching ad from a content-scaling agency in his feed and decided to take it apart in public: the offer, the funnel, the messaging, the ads, then rebuild the weak spots live on screen so viewers can watch the before and the after side by side.
Named ideas worth stealing.
09:17list
The Offer Checklist
- Built for cold traffic
- Solves a problem people must address
- Creates obvious value
- Has a high perceived likelihood of success
- Promises a clear result or deliverable
- Delivers value quickly
- Requires minimal customer effort and sacrifice
- Covers acquisition and fulfillment costs
- Has standardized and repeatable fulfillment
- Provides strong risk reversal
- Will remain relevant for at least 5 years
- Naturally ladders to a main offer
A 12-point checklist for scoring any offer against cold-traffic readiness, used here to grade Media Scaling's $5,000-$30,000 content-scaling package.
Steal forgrading any high-ticket B2B offer before writing ads or a landing page for it
22:58list
Above-the-Fold Audit
- Does the banner match the branding used in the ad, Instagram, and Facebook?
- Does the above-the-fold section follow a clear visual hierarchy?
- Is there a clear ICP callout?
- Is the headline congruent with the ad?
- Do you immediately understand what's being offered?
- Does the subheadline explain how the result will be achieved?
- Is there social proof above the fold?
- Is there a VSL?
- Does the VSL have a clear thumbnail?
- Is the CTA button immediately visible?
A checklist for the single most important screen of a landing page, since most visitors never scroll past it.
Steal forany landing-page rebuild or above-the-fold redesign
45:51model
Messaging: Problem / Circumstance / Outcome
- Problems
- Circumstances
- Outcomes
Turn the ICP's problems, circumstances, desired outcomes, questions, and objections into language, using the ICP's exact words, across multiple angles that all lead back to the same core offer.
Steal forgenerating cold-traffic ad angles beyond a single direct-offer angle
56:38list
Paid Ad Audit
- Does it immediately stand out in the feed?
- Is the ICP called out?
- Does it show proof within 5 seconds?
- Does it show proof within 15 seconds?
- Is the offer fully explained within 15 seconds?
- Is there one clear call to action at the end?
A quick pass/fail checklist for grading any cold-traffic video or static ad.
Steal forauditing your own paid ads before scaling spend on them
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
1:13:20next-video
“I hope it was valuable, and I'll see you next time.”
Soft sign-off with no explicit spoken ask; the only pitch (a second channel) lives in the video description, not in the video itself.
Visual structure at a glance.
