It’s hard enough without throwing this into the mix!
I mean, tell me if this sounds like you:
Figuring out how to get people to buy from you, and not one of your million competitors, is becoming harder and harder…
Dollar after dollar on wasted ads, or campaigns that just don’t bring in any profitable customers…
Publishing funnels that just don’t seem to… make any money…
Just getting to a profitable funnel is hard enough!
But what if I told you that before even hitting any of these roadblocks most marketers are silently sabotaging their own funnels!
And in doing so, it means that no matter how much cash they throw at their funnels, they’ll still walk away losing crazy amounts of money.
No matter how good their product is, how slick their ads look, or how irresistible their explainer videos are.
This deadly mistake kills more funnels than anything else I’ve ever seen!
In fact, I’m willing to bet its hiding inside one of your funnels right now.
And simply knowing what it is could change everything for you.
You see, not only will avoiding this deadly funnel mistake help you stop losing money in your funnels, you’ll also be able to:
- Know whether or not your funnel is a winner
- Figure out the exact point you should turn off a money-sapping funnel
- Turn losing funnels into winners!
- Run profitable ads with an unlimited ad budget
So, the only question left is:
What is this deadly mistake, and how can you avoid it?
Let me show you…
Why Your First Goal On ANY Funnel Should Not Be To Make Money
Yup ?
You didn’t read that wrong.
Crazy, right?
When most people launch their funnels they usually have dollar signs in their eyes.
They start dreaming of all the things they’re going to do with the money they make before they’ve even hit the ‘publish’ button.
So once their stats come back and it shows them losing money, they immediately turn them off.
(This isn’t even the deadly funnel mistake I want to show you)
You see, most funnels don’t make money on launch. In fact, most of them lose money.
But this is where so many marketers go wrong.
Your first goal when launching your funnels should NOT be to make money.
Focusing on making money right out the gate is why so many marketers and entrepreneurs actually lose money in their funnels.
But if that’s the case, then what should you be doing? ?
You want to breakeven.
It sounds counterintuitive, but this is what you should be targeting in the early stages of your funnel, to at least be breaking even.
Why is that so important?
Well, think about it, if you’re breaking even you’re not losing money. Simple enough.
More importantly though, you’re still generating the single most important thing for your business: Customers!
That means you’re bringing in customers at no cost.
Read that again, because it’s pretty important.
Once you get this right, you essentially have no ad budget ?
You can start generating thousands of customers (and leads) every month at no cost, and then sell them in The Filler section of your business (the backend) ?
You just need to decide how much you want to spend.
This is one of those “hidden” secrets that people who actually make money online are using.
And you should be too.
Ok, so now that you know your initial target should be to find breakeven funnels, lets move onto that deadly mistake I mentioned earlier.
How Marketers Are Sabotaging Their Own Funnels
Most marketers and entrepreneurs stubbornly focus on one thing.
And it’s killing their funnels ?
I can’t tell you how often I get this question too.
“What’s a good conversion rate for your funnel?”
If you’re doing this, stop it immediately ⛔️
There’s one big problem with focusing on conversion rates.
You can have mouthwateringly high conversion rates in your campaign and funnel, and still be losing money! ?
You could also have a funnel with teeny conversion rates (that most marketers would scoff at), but still make tons of money ?
Conversion rates are for optimization (getting your funnels to perform better), they’re not a gauge for how well your campaigns & funnels are actually performing.
They’re only a piece of the puzzle ?
So, what should you be focusing on then?
Whether its any of the funnels I’ve published over the past decade, clients I’ve consulted with, or marketers I’ve helped, the focus should always be on two specific things (and one ratio):
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) to Average Order Value (AOV).
I call this The Golden Ratio.
In simple terms, it’s basically how much it costs you to generate a paying customer, and how much that customer is actually worth to you from day one.
In the previous section I mentioned that you want to breakeven as a start.
That means you want this ratio (CPA:AOV) to be one to one (1:1).
IE: If you spend $1,000 on Facebook ads, you want to at least be making around $1,000 back from what everyone spends when they go through that funnel as a result of those ads.
Remember when that happens, you’re acquiring customers for free.
And it doesn’t matter what your conversion rates are!
That’s why focusing on conversion rates in your funnels before you even look at your golden ratio, is the biggest deadly mistake most marketers make in their funnels.
Doing that sabotages their funnels, and suffocates them before they even know if those funnels are actually worth keeping!
You could literally be throwing away a million dollar funnel this way ?
Conversion rates don’t determine whether or not that funnel should be kept running, the ratio will do that for you.
Once you’re breaking even (and the ratio is at least 1:1), you can start optimizing and tweaking your conversion rates across your campaign and funnel.
I’m talking about testing ad creative, order bumps, headlines, triggered email sequences, OTO’s (One Time Offers), thank you page upsells, stacked funnels and so on.
In doing so this is how you turn that 1:1 ratio into something better, where the value of that customer is worth more than what you spent to acquire them.
Get this right, and you’ll start to get paid to acquire customers, BEFORE they’ve even bought your core product.
Math that makes you money, who would’ve thunk? ?
How To Turn Losing Funnels Into Money-Making Winners
Do you need ‘funnel CPR’?
If the answer is “yes” you need to stop focusing on conversion rates!
Focus on your golden ratio instead.
Figuring out what it costs you to acquire a customer (CPA) versus what they spend with you (AOV) is where the long-term money is actually made.
If this ratio is 1:1, you essentially have no ad budget, and you can spend as much as you want to find new customers ?
These are the funnels you want to aim for, because this is how your dream business is built!
Once you have a breakeven funnel you can start tweaking and optimizing, and you can hit the ‘scale’ button.
If you want to make money online, this is how you do it.
This is how you win.
Until then, here’s to breaking even!
Steve De La Cour
Founder & CEO
Kong
