Building an Online Info Product Business from Scratch

[Iqen]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working as a freelancer and trying to take that next step up, detaching hours from value. To that end, this journal will be all about my pursuit of an online information product based business.

I will continue to update this thread as I move from testing for basic interest, to development of my core sales funnel via Facebook traffic, to media buys for scaling, and eventually direct mail and telemarketing for revenue maximization.


Starting Point

My niche is attention deficit hyperactive disorder, commonly referred to as ADHD.

I have a free offer that I give away to capture a list of names and emails. I then try to sell a low ticket newsletter subscription OR a $7 "tripwire product" (a small product that gets people to mentally trust you with their money, opening the door to bigger deals down the line).

The 2 paid offers are being split tested against each other on clickfunnels.com, where my sales funnel is located.

I'm also using improvely as a link tracker (good for helping track the performance of each traffic source).

Right now I'm using Ad Espresso as my Facebook ad management software to help me turn my campaign profitable.


Solving the Cost Per Lead Issue

Initially my numbers were VERY bad, before I discovered that Facebook ads fatigue after only two or three days. I didn't think running only one ad would be important early on if I were targeting an audience of hundreds of thousands of people.

But as it turns out, Facebook oCPM focuses on a tiny fraction of that population (the most algorithmically "likely" responders) and keeps repeating the same ads to them, drastically lowering the click through rate as frequency increases.

So having lots of ads going is vitally important to hold interest.

Since using Ad Espresso to do the heavy lifting of testing and refinement, the conversion numbers have been impressive. But the cost figures have not:

And if you thought a $36 CPM ($36 per 1,000 ad impressions) was high, you should see the $80 CPM on the campaign I created right after…

I'm still trying to solve the CPM problem right now. I want numbers that result in a cost per lead (CPA, or "cost per conversion" in the above image) of $1 or less.

I got off the phone with a guy at Facebook, and he said as you add more and more targeting options, the CPM cost goes up. So now I am in cost control mode instead of conversion rate maximization mode. I am trying to dilute my targeting while minimizing the lower response.

I'll keep you updated on my progress. Please feel free to join in and share your thoughts, experiences, questions, really anything

Iqen

 

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[Iqen]

To get an idea of just how high a $70 CPM is, the Wall Street Journal charges a $35 CPM. And their average reader makes something like $180,000 a year and is in the market for high value financial services.

So I knew I had a big problem when I was paying $70 per 1000 impressions. Even with my other numbers dialed in, there's just no way to turn a profit on mothers of ADHD kids when your traffic costs that much.

I went into problem solving mode.

I sent emails to Facebook.

I incrementally reduced targeting per their advice.

Nothing really seemed to help.

Finally I concluded that perhaps I needed to stop focusing on ADHD, and instead create a more generalized product about how to improve focus and concentration.

It would appeal to a wider, less targeted audience, and perhaps sidestep any penalties Facebook might be applying to my account for a strongly focused mental health offer (their support said no such penalty system was in place, but I've been led astray before by company support people).

Well it turns out all my concerns were solved by going back to the Facebook power editor. Ad Espresso was the source of the problem.

Why was I getting $70 CPM's through Ad Espresso? I still don't know. Maybe they split the ads in such a way that it forces the CPM prices up. That's the only rational explanation I have.

I just know that working through the power editor again, you can see that I'm getting CPM prices in the eight to $13 range. And because my other numbers are good, I'm now picking up leads at about $0.70.

CPL is the 3rd most important number in this business. Only above that metric is cost per sale (CPS) and customer lifetime value (CLV).

Leads are indicative of sales but not conclusive because the list may be a bunch of non-buyers.

So the next big question is: will they buy? Time will tell…

In the image above you see two generic headline appeals I have tagged in the ad titles.

One appeal very specifically focuses correcting ADHD behaviors.

The other appeal more generically suggests a method of helping the brain rebuild its concentration centers to help rebuild attention/focusing abilities. This was my previous winner.

As you see above, the ADHD appeal blew away the performance of the brain rebuilding appeal, which means my plan to offer a more generic concentration/focus product was misguided. This shows why ideas are fine to have, but must always be run by the customer for confirmation before commitment.

So what to do next?

Well now I know that I really should be focusing on specifically helping with ADHD correction. I have to be cautious of not doing anything to upset the health authorities while still giving quality advice.

I threw up a product offer and it has not been converting well. But it was done quickly and before I really had the information that I do now. So my next step is to make a sincere effort to provide value to these potentially profitable leads.

I have a webinar planned. The webinar will go into heavy, detailed background information backed by solid ADHD research. Currently I have the VA doing all the heavy research for me, guided by the questions and points we seek to achieve to advance our case. I will then package it into an informative format that leaves the prospect feeling like they received a lot of value, and now want the actionable steps to put their knowledge into motion.

Well done webinars can do some serious lifting in terms of sales. Still, I'm going to stay conservative. My product will be offered at a low price point, but have continuity built in. My goal right now is to have some semblance of a stable income so I can quit freelancing and focus on this business full-time.

 

[Iqen]

I'm testing my webinar sales funnel now and as expected, results have dipped. Unfortunately they dipped harder than I thought they would.

Cost per lead has jumped back up to the $2.50 to $3 per lead range mainly due to a very low conversion rate on the landing page. My conversion rate on the webinar sign-up is about 6 to 7% right now.

As you can see above I tried a random new angle and it is beating my control, we'll see if it sticks.

Webinar attendance is approximately 50% of those who register.

From reading around, a 20 to 40% sales conversion on a webinar is reasonable. I've gotten less than 10% even making it to the order form at the moment and no sales, which is pretty bad. I think I need to pop my order link a lot earlier, and also give the entire webinar another go to make it more professional and valuable (even though I don't think I'm doing too bad at the moment).

Analysis

It looks like I've become too effective at lowering my cost per click because now my traffic quality is no good. I'm getting very cheap clicks (CTRs regularly in the 4 to 8% range) but very poor conversions.

List/traffic is 40% of the equation according to Gary Bencivenga, an elite copywriter. The offer itself is 40% and the copywriting is 20%.

It does look like the offer or at least the presentation of it needs more work. But most significantly I need to tighten up my targeting so that I actually pay for clicks that have interest in what I'm promoting.


I've launched a new ad set with really tight targeting, the best of the best in terms of target audience on Facebook. If I still can't make it work, I'm going to start shopping for better (and cheaper) traffic outside of Facebook.

Jumping traffic sources is a big deal and I don't really want to do this if I don't have to. But the whole business relies on getting traffic that's high quality and cheap enough to make a profit on. So if this mandates me going out to BuySellAds.com or some other place then I'll do it.

 

[DrunkFish]

I'm interested in updates in this. You're relentless!

 

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[Iqen]

Thanks for the kind words!

To be honest I was somewhat mentally detached from this project for the last month or so. The lack of responsiveness on Facebook was a real punch in the gut, made me think that perhaps there really wasn't a hungry audience for my offer.

So I went into media buys at half steam, not devoting too much focus, attention, or resources to it. The mental justification was that it was a new traffic source and I want to learn how to crawl before I walked. But I could have done more.

Buy Sell Ads is a bit different than Facebook in that you buy ads typically in thirty-day blocks. This is nice because it forces you to see results over a longer timeframe, but perhaps not so good for the short term when you want some quick data to evaluate with. For the first week my test on my first site seemed lifeless, getting two or three clicks at a terrible 0.1% click through rate (to put this in perspective, a good click through rate is about 1%).

It's hard to see from the image above, but I used a lot of flashy/silly ads to grab eyeballs and get the click, which works very well on Facebook. Not so much on the parenting website I'm trying out now. Makes sense in retrospect.

My hunch (based on the ad that got 4 clicks) is that I'm working with a more serious audience who isn't in the fun/social media mood I've been marketing to in the past. So the next round of ads I've been plotting with my graphic designer will take a more serious tone and also try out selling through a message dominant format i.e. no graphics and big fonts that dominate the page.

2nd wind

Checking my merchant account I have a whole new perspective on the potential of media buying:

The most recent charges are unimportant (re-bills on customers that cost too much). But that triangle on the 5th is a different story. This customer came to me from my new BuySellAds campaign. And based on what I'm paying, the numbers are deeply profitable:

Cost per click: $2.20
Cost per lead, $6.60
Cost per sale: $13.20

I'm taking back $9.40 every month on a subscription. Add to that the low drop-off rate of subscriptions under $10 and this is an extremely profitable sale.

Then considering that I haven't even really optimized my ads, and there's still a ton of traffic sources to test, I'm pretty excited at the prospects of making this work!

Or maybe not. For all I know subscription I picked up came from the website owner looking to see what kind of offer was being pitched on his website or possibly how he could rip it off for himself. It was just a single sale after all. A lot more are needed to see the full picture.

Anyways a little result on good numbers was just what I needed mentally and I look forward to the next round of testing!