07:18Will Nelson · Talking Head
If You Don't Understand Messaging, You Don't Understand Ads
A performance-ads coach breaks his 3-step messaging framework down to the sentence level, using real screenshots from six-figure coaching ads.
October 6thThe argument in one line.
Instagram ads for coaches scale when you test many angles with simple creative, judge them on real client-acquisition cost, then retarget and re-sell so each client is worth more.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- An online coach doing roughly $10K a month who runs Instagram ads and can't tell which ads to keep or kill.
- A coach who gets leads and booked calls but few paying clients and keeps blaming the ad creative.
- A coach who spends weeks polishing one video before testing it and wants a faster testing rhythm.
- A coach with a retention problem who wants to know when to pitch renewals and how much LTV changes what you can spend.
SKIP IF…
- You sell a low-ticket product with no sales calls, since the cost-per-call benchmarks here assume a high-ticket coaching offer.
- You want a step-by-step ad account setup tutorial, because this is a lessons talk, not a walkthrough.
- You're not running paid traffic at all and only want organic growth tactics.
The full version, fast.
Will Nelson, who spent $1M on Instagram ads this year and helped 1,500+ coaches, gives seven lessons. Ugly, organic-looking ads beat polished ones. The angle and messaging matter more than the edit. A winning ad can take 20 to 100 tries, so treat failures as data. Judge ads on cost per message, cost per call and cost per client, and let each spend about one client's acquisition cost before killing it. Retarget people who saw you once, show up more than any other coach, and raise lifetime value through renewals and referrals, which turns a 4 to 5x return into 12 to 15x.
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00:00 – 00:27
01 · Cold open and promise
Seven lessons from $1M in Instagram ad spend and 1,500 coaches.
00:27 – 01:55
02 · Lesson 1: Ugly ads win
Ads that look like organic content outperform polished ones; client Nate went from $60K to $140K a month on a barely edited ad.
01:55 – 03:13
03 · Lesson 2: Angle and messaging matter
People stop for the situation the ad describes, so change the words and segment by reason to buy.
03:13 – 04:10
04 · Lesson 3: You only need a few ads
It may take 20 to 100 ads to find the winners; failed ads buy data.
04:10 – 06:30
05 · Lesson 4: Read your data
Client Kyle killed a campaign that returned $52K on $8.5K because he judged it after $20 to $30; the three-number read order and spend-per-client rule.
06:30 – 08:00
06 · Lesson 5: A trust problem, not a lead problem
Leads that don't buy need retargeting with testimonials, a direct offer and a value piece.
08:00 – 09:30
07 · Lesson 6: Omnipresence
The coach they see most gets the client; Will spends $100K to $150K a month so prospects see 10 to 15 of his ads.
09:30 – 12:03
08 · Lesson 7: Raise LTV
Renewals and referrals turn a $3,000 client into a 12 to 15x ROAS; ask in the first 30 to 60 days.
12:03 – 13:17
09 · Offer and next video
Pitch for his coaching programs and a pointer to the Kyle ad-account walkthrough.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Nobody opens Instagram to watch ads, so the moment an ad looks like an ad, prospects scroll past it.
- When an ad isn't working, don't remake it. Change what it says, because the angle is the reason someone buys.
- Every distinct reason a client bought from you is its own angle, and the exact words inside each angle are your messaging.
- Make four to five ads that speak to one specific person before moving on to the next segment.
- A failed ad isn't money lost. It's data that leads you to the one or two ads that carry the business.
- Judging an ad after $20 to $30 of spend is how a six-times ROAS campaign gets switched off.
- Meta performance swings daily, so an ad can do nothing today and get six messages at $2 each tomorrow.
- Read three numbers in order: cost per message, cost per book call, then cost per client.
- Let an ad spend roughly what you'd pay to acquire one client before you decide anything about it.
- More new ads to strangers won't fix a trust problem. Retargeting the people you already paid to reach will.
- Retargeting a small warm audience can work at $20 to $30 a day per ad.
- The coach a prospect sees most often gets the client, and you don't need to be the best coach in your space.
- Most buyers click three to four ads and follow the coach before they ever book a call.
- A client who re-signs and refers can turn a 4 to 5x front-end return into a 12 to 15x ROAS without cheaper ads.
- Raise renewals in the first 30 to 60 days: roughly 80% re-sign when asked early, versus 20 to 30% after 90 days.
- The business that can afford to pay the most to acquire a client can outspend every competitor.
Test angles, read real numbers, raise LTV
WHAT TO LEARN
Ad results come from testing many angles with simple creative and judging them on client cost, then building trust and lifetime value so each client is worth more than the ad that found them.
- Make ads that look like organic content, because polish signals an ad and prospects scroll past it before the message lands.
- When an ad fails, change the angle and wording rather than the production, since the reason someone buys is what stops the scroll.
- Treat each angle as its own segment and build four to five ads for one specific person before moving to the next.
- Expect to test 20 to 100 ads, and count failures as purchased data instead of concluding that ads don't work for you.
- Judge an ad on cost per message, then cost per call, then cost per client, and let it spend about one client's acquisition cost first.
- Don't switch off ads on a bad day, because delivery on Meta shifts daily and early spend of $20 to $30 can hide a winner.
- If leads aren't converting, retarget people who already saw you with testimonials, a direct offer and something of value before buying more cold traffic.
- Show up repeatedly across ads and organic channels, because buyers typically click three or four ads and follow before they book.
- Raise lifetime value through renewals and referrals, and bring up renewals in the first 30 to 60 days when results are strongest.
- Higher LTV lets you pay more to acquire a client than competitors can, which is how you win the auction without cheaper ads.
Terms worth knowing.
- ROAS
- Return on ad spend. Revenue collected divided by what you spent on ads, so 6x means $6 back per $1 spent.
- LTV
- Lifetime value. Everything a client pays you for as long as they stay in your program, including renewals and next offers.
- Angle
- The specific reason a particular type of person would buy from you, which an ad has to describe to stop their scroll.
- Messaging
- The exact words used inside an angle to express it in an ad.
- Retargeting
- Showing ads specifically to people who already saw or engaged with you, usually a small audience that needs a modest budget.
- Andromeda
- Meta's ad-delivery system update, which the speaker says makes the angle and message matter more than the individual creative.
- Re-sign
- A current client renewing or extending their coaching program.
Things they pointed at.
11:55productRoad to 500K
12:05productElite program
06:00channelLive call fixing Kyle's Instagram ads
Lines you could clip.
00:20
“Nobody opens up Instagram to watch ads. So the second your ad looks like an ad, your prospects will scroll right past it.”
03:20
“A failed ad isn't money you lost, you're buying data.”
06:50
“You don't have a lead problem, you have a trust problem.”
Word for word.
Read-along
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Spending $1 million on Instagram ads this year and helping over 1 ,500 coaches with theirs taught me seven brutal lessons. And they're brutal lessons because I lost tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars by learning them. But they're also the reason why my coaching business now makes around a million dollars a month.
So if you're considering or already running Instagram ads right now, make sure to watch this because these are the seven things I wish somebody would have told me before I ever spent a single dollar. And lesson number one is Ugly ads win.
Now, I know that sounds wrong because you'd think that a good ad needs nice lighting, clean edits, and a perfect captions, maybe just like this YouTube video. So you probably spend a whole week on a few videos or you keep waiting until the ad looks perfect. But nobody opens up Instagram to watch ads.
So the second your ad looks like an ad, your prospects will scroll right past it. That's why ads that don't look like ads statistically do better. So you just need to make it look like organic content, which is why the ads I'm running right now for my million dollar a month business are just usually me talking in my car.
Very candidly, no fancy edits, no overly done hormosy video. And this doesn't just work for me. Our clients are doing the exact same thing.
One of them, Nate, has an ad with basically no editing at all. And he's collected over $700 ,000 just from that ad alone. And with stupid, simple ads like that, he went from doing about $60 ,000 a month to $140 ,000 in less than two months.
I actually think almost every single one of the 121 coaches I've helped scale past $100 ,000. a month with Instagram ads, did it without any type of fancy editing, hooks, or even a good camera. So a better ad doesn't mean a prettier ad.
But if the production doesn't really matter, then what actually does? Lesson number two, the angle matters and the messaging matters, not the ad. Well, that's exactly what we're going to talk about.
Is the angle and the messaging matters more so than the ad, especially with Andromeda? And when I say angle, I mean the reason why somebody would actually buy from you. Nobody stops scrolling because of your edit.
They stop because the ad describes the exact situation they're in right now so when an ad isn't working don't remake it just change what it says and then to find your angles think about different reasons why people would want to buy your product sometimes this is called a majority or a minority hook take a gym for example people don't all join the gym for the same reason some join because it's the cheapest some join because it's the closest and some join because it has the best equipment or amenities in town it's the same reason but each of those people needs to hear something different to sign up and if you just have one message expecting it to hit different people you're only going to get a small percentage of the overall audience and it's the same with my own ads i can say you're already running ads but they're not as profitable as you want them to be or i can say you're growing on instagram and going viral but you're not getting clients i'm selling the exact same thing but those are
two totally different people so if i'm going after one of them i have to make four to five ads that speak just to that one person and your clients didn't all buy from you for the same reason either so every reason is its own angle the exact words used inside each angle are your messaging and this is why it's so important that i actually made a whole video about it on this channel that you can watch right after this one but what you guys need to understand is that you won't find the perfect angle on your first try might not even be your 10th 20th 30th try so that's lesson number three you only need a few ads to make millions despite what everybody tells you but it might take 100 ads to find them.
So a failed ad isn't money you lost, you're buying data. And that data is what leads you to the one or two ads that can take you to $100 ,000 a month. For some coaches, it takes 20 ads to find a winner.
And for some, it takes 100. Some, you might get it right on the first try. The problem is that a lot of you treat ads like the lottery.
You run one ad, it doesn't hit, and then you go, ads don't work for me, I'm just gonna go try to go viral, pay a content coach. But you have to play the volume game to figure out which ad is. is just like you would on content some of my ads spend money and don't get me a single call so i turn them off and others get me calls at a really good cost per call cost per show cost to acquire so i leave them on and put more money behind them but here's where most coaches mess up because before a winner can show up they kill it by accident which is lesson number four if you can't read your data you'll kill your best ads And I have a really good example of this with one of my clients, Kyle.
He got on a call with me and told me that he had been stressed the whole month. He was launching ads and turning them off after spending 20, 30, maybe even $50. So then he would test new ones over and over again because it seemed like nothing was working.
So I pulled up the numbers with him. The last campaign he gave up on had spent about $8 ,500, but it brought in $52 ,000 in contracted revenue, which is a six X. So if he would have spent 10 ,000, he would have made $60 ,000.
And if he would have spent 20 ,000, he would have made $120 ,000 back. His messages were costing him under $10 and his book calls were under $100 on average. And that's because every single one was extremely good, but he couldn't see it.
He didn't know how to read his data because he was judging every ad after only 20 or $30. And that's lesson number four. If you can't read your data, you will kill your best ads without even knowing it.
And I see this all the time because most of you, make decisions based off how you feel that day the ad spends thirty dollars nothing comes in it feels like you're wasting money so you turn it off but meta changes every single day and an ad can do nothing today and then tomorrow it can get you six messages at two dollars a piece maybe even three calls for fifty dollars so when you kill it at thirty to forty dollars you're not giving it time to do much of anything and the way that i read the data in my own business for my clients is by looking at three numbers in this order what a message or lead cost me what a book call cost me and then what it cost me to acquire a client or my aov then i let an ad spend about what i'd pay to get one client before i decide anything so example if it costs you about five hundred dollars to get a client i'm going to look at my cost per message then I'm going to look at my cost per call before I make a decision about turning off that ad for a lot of coaches again that's around that 500 but if your offer is cheaper it could be less and if it's more expensive it'll be more if your messages are under ten dollars and your calls are around 200 by then it's working so again leave it alone now I actually filmed that whole call with Kyle so you can see me go through his real ad account for 30 minutes showing you exactly the challenges that he was facing and the things he couldn't see you can watch that one right after this one on this
channel if you're interested now when coaches do start reading their data most of them see the same thing plenty of leads and not enough clients which brings me to lesson number five you don't have a lead problem you have a trust problem which is exactly why i'm making this youtube video short form content is a red ocean and everybody else is doing the same thing and nobody's actually going to take the time to make long form content and when a lead comes in but they don't buy it's easy to blame the ad so you go and make new ads without realizing the previous ad actually did its job because it got the right person to look to be interested to essentially raise their hand they didn't buy because they've seen you just one time in their life and maybe they don't trust you yet just because somebody saw your ad doesn't mean that they're ready to pay you right now so more new ads to strangers won't fix it you already paid to get those people to look at you but then you leave them alone right when they need to see more of you
What fixes this is simple retargeting ads to those people. And it doesn't take a big budget at all, despite what you might hear, because this is usually a smaller group of people. Maybe 20, 30 bucks a day per ad is enough to keep on showing up for them.
And there are three kinds of ads I would show them. Testimonials that answer the objections you hear on sales calls, a direct offer, maybe it's a looking for, maybe it's a static image for the ones who are ready right now, and something of value like a possible guide. Because if you don't do it, another coach will.
They retarget the people you paid to find and they will sign them as clients. Now, do you want to know the fastest way to build that trust? Well, it's simply showing up more than anybody else.
Think of omnipresence. So lesson number six is the coach they see the most. gets the client think of omnipresence where literally every time you open up instagram youtube anything you see my face that's exactly again how i run my own business because i want to be everywhere a lot of other coaches in the industry are spending 10 20 maybe 30 a thousand dollars or maybe not even running ads at all meanwhile i'm spending about 100 to 150 000 every single month so by the time you see one ad from another coach you've already seen 10 to 15 of mine you've seen more social proof that know what to do with and if you're watching this video my guess is that you've probably seen three to five ads from me every single day and that's on purpose i even had a guy message me and say i see your ads more than i see my dad and that's exactly the messaging that i want because when i look at how people become my clients they don't buy from just the first ad they click on three to four of them then they follow me and then only after all of that do they finally book a call so i'm not paying to reach everybody one time i'm paying for the same right people to see me again
and again and take them through a journey of no like and trust and it's not just my ads i post every single day i'm on my stories all the time and now i'm on youtube most of my content on organic doesn't get that many views but the right people keep seeing me so you don't even need to be the best coach in your space to do this you just need to be the one that they see the most because somebody can see your ad today and not be ready to buy then six months later they're finally ready to invest and when they are they already know who you are and the people who trust you the most are the ones who already bought from you.
So that's where the easiest money is in your business. Which brings me to lesson number seven. The easiest way to raise your ROAS or increase your LTV has nothing to do with your ads.
When coaches want a better return, they try to get cheaper leads and cheaper calls. But the easiest way is to get your current clients to pay you more money. That's what's called your LTV or lifetime value.
So everything a client pays you for as long as they stay in your program. And you can raise it by charging more, by selling them your next offer, or getting them to re -sign and refer.
In fact, I actually had a client, Dermot, that made over $30 ,000 in his first 10 days in Elite based off using this playbook. So here's what that looks like with the real numbers. Let's say it cost me $3 ,000 to get a client.
On the front end, that might be a 4 to 5x, but our retention has about 75%. And one out of three clients refers us somebody as well. So because they re -sign and because they refer, that same client is actually more like a 12 to 15X ROAS.
And while my ads didn't get any cheaper, the client just became worth more. So the coach who can afford to pay the most for a client is the one who can outspend everybody. And sometimes it's just as simple as asking.
The other day, I reached out to our existing clients and offered them more ways to work with me. And that alone made me over $70 ,000 just that day. Not because I had some genius strategy, I just asked.
So don't wait until the end of a three or six month program to talk about staying. Because by then it turns into this weird, awkward conversation. Try to bring it up in the first 30 to 60 days.
Because that's when your clients usually are getting the best results. When we bring it up in the first 60 days, we have about an 80 % re -sign rate. And if we wait past 90 days, it usually drops to around 20 to 30.
And this is exactly why I set up my own business the way I did. Right now, we have different ways to work with us depending on where a coach is at. First, there's Will .ai, which is built from my own coaching calls, courses, videos, my knowledge of building an eight -figure business.
It's the newest product I just released. And it's seven coaches in one app, like a sales coach, an ads coach, and a content coach all bundled. together.
So you can ask it anything about your business day or night. And it answers the way I would on a coaching call. It's the easiest way to start working with us.
And a lot of our current clients use it too. Then we have our road to 500K, which is for coaches usually under $30 ,000 a month, where you still get your own dedicated coach that you talk to every single day. And after that, there's our elite program, which is our bread and butter.
And that's where coaches scale to 100, $200 ,000 a month. And once a coach is already doing $100 ,000 a month, they can work directly with me.
So a coach can come in at the very first step and keep moving up. And I only had to pay to get the client once. So the longer a client stays, the higher your LTV and the client who gets results becomes your best marketing team.
Now, you don't need four different offers to do this. You just need to figure out how to make each client you sign from ads worth more. And when you combine all seven of these lessons, that's exactly what gets you to 100 ,000 plus a month with Instagram ads, which is part of what we teach inside of our private program and why we have over 500 active coaches right now.
Inside, we help you find the angles that your ideal clients will respond to, setting up your ads, retargeting, everything about your business so you can read your numbers to know exactly which ad to kill and which ones to scale so that you can start making money on demand so you don't have to learn all these seven lessons the expensive way so if you're an online coach making over ten thousand dollars a month and you want a predictable and reliable way to scale to or past a hundred thousand dollars a month go to the first link in the description and schedule a call with our team to see if it makes sense to work together and if you want to see what reading your data really looks like watch this video next where i go through kyle's whole ad account with him in fact he actually made ten thousand the next day after this call.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Will Nelson opens with a scale claim, $1M in Instagram ad spend and 1,500+ coaches helped, then promises seven lessons that cost him tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn.
Named ideas worth stealing.
04:30list
Three-number ad read
- Cost per message or lead
- Cost per book call
- Cost to acquire a client
Read in this order, and let each ad spend about one client's acquisition cost before deciding. Messages under $10 and calls around $200 indicate it is working for a roughly $500 client.
Steal forany paid-traffic offer with sales calls
07:35list
Three retargeting ads
- Testimonials that answer sales-call objections
- A direct offer
- Something of value such as a guide
The warm audience is small, so about $20 to $30 a day per ad is enough.
Steal forany offer where leads need more than one exposure
10:25model
LTV multiplier
- $3,000 cost of a client
- 4 to 5x front end
- 75% retention
- 1 in 3 clients refer someone
Retention and referrals lift a 4 to 5x front-end return to 12 to 15x ROAS without cheaper ads.
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
12:40product
“If you're an online coach making over ten thousand dollars a month, go to the first link in the description and schedule a call with our team.”
Delivered after a lesson recap and tied back to learning the seven lessons without paying for them the expensive way.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
Visual structure at a glance.
