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There’s some serious gatekeeping happening in the online course world when it comes to Facebook ads. The strategies that are actually working for big accounts aren’t what you see being taught in most courses or free content.
If I had known these three secrets when I first started my business, it would have saved me thousands of pounds and months of frustration. Today, I’m pulling back the curtain on exactly how successful course creators are really growing their businesses with Facebook ads.
Secret #1: Facebook Ads Are How Most “Organic” Accounts Actually Grow
Here’s what no one wants to admit: those course creators you see teaching organic social media strategies? The ones with massive followings who claim to have grown purely through content?
They’re probably growing about 10% from organic content and 90% from their paid ads.
I’m not talking about running ads directly to their social media accounts (that’s so 2018). Instead, when they run Facebook ads to their funnels, lead magnets, or webinars, something fascinating happens.
The Psychology Behind Social Media Growth
Picture this: you’re scrolling through Facebook and an ad catches your attention. It’s interesting, but you’re not quite ready to click through and buy or even opt-in for their freebie. But you are curious.
What do you do? You click on their avatar or business name and land on their Instagram or Facebook profile. You start browsing their content, and if you like what you see, you follow them.
This is how Facebook ads create “organic” growth.
We see this pattern constantly in our business. When someone follows us from our ads, our notifications show:
- Sarah has started following you from your ad
- Sarah has commented “BANANA” (our trigger word for a lead magnet)
- Sarah has commented “YES” on another post
They’re working through our content and opting into everything that sounds valuable, but now they’re doing it directly on Instagram rather than through the original ad.
When you’re spending a couple thousand pounds a week on Facebook ads like we do, this generates hundreds of new followers. Imagine those bigger accounts spending £50,000 or more per week – can you see how many followers they’re actually getting from their ad spend rather than their latest trending reel?
Secret #2: You Must Know Your Average Days to Sale
There’s a crucial number that most course creators don’t know, and it’s costing them a fortune.
This number is the average number of days it takes someone to go from clicking your ad to actually purchasing your course. Not knowing this metric causes people to turn off perfectly profitable ads before they’ve had a chance to work.
Why This Metric Matters
Recently, I was training a team member on our Facebook ads using a tool called Hyros (a Facebook ads attribution platform). We pulled up our results for the previous seven days, and our main cold traffic funnel showed a ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) of 0.4 – definitely in the red.
My team member suggested we turn off these ads immediately. But I stopped her.
Our average time to sale isn’t seven days – it’s 25-30 days.
We’re in a market where people don’t trust easily. They need time to warm up before purchasing. When we expanded our view to look at the last 30 days instead of just seven, our ROAS jumped to nearly 6x. That means for every pound we invested, we got almost $6 back.
Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot
If we had turned off those ads after seven days, we would have missed out on massive returns. We’d be stuck in a cycle of:
- Test ads for a few days
- Turn them off when they don’t immediately profit
- Test new ads for a few days
- Turn them off again
- Conclude that “ads just don’t work”
But they do work brilliantly when combined with the right follow-up strategy and proper tracking timeframes.
Your homework: Figure out your average days to sale if you’re running ads or planning to run them.
A Quick Reminder About Funnels
Before diving into secret #3, I need to emphasise: never run ads without a proven system to send traffic to. We don’t point ads to sales pages, home pages, or even standalone lead magnets without a proper follow-up sequence.
If you don’t have a high-converting funnel yet, grab my AI template called the Seven Day Payday. It takes minutes to set up using AI prompts that ask about you, your product, and your business, then generates a high-converting email funnel you can implement in any email system.
Secret #3: You Must Constantly Test New Ads
Most course creators get this completely wrong. Here’s the typical scenario:
You finally set up your funnel, you’re excited, and you want more people in it. So you start running ads. You spend the first few weeks creating different ad creatives, testing them, analysing results, and identifying your winners. Then you turn off the rest and focus on scaling the successful ones.
This approach leads to the ad performance rollercoaster.
The Problem with Reactive Ad Management
All ad creatives have different lifecycle lengths. After a few weeks or months, your winning ads will start to decline. When this happens, most people either:
- Try to “fix” the ads by tweaking targeting or budgets
- Panic and quickly create new ads to replace the declining ones
The problem? You’re starting from zero with new ads.
Facebook’s algorithm is incredibly smart. Ads tend to perform better over time as Facebook learns who to show them to and how to optimise delivery. This learning phase takes time.
The Proactive Solution
Instead of waiting for your ads to fail, be proactive. Make ad creation part of your regular content strategy.
Create content for your social media that can easily be repurposed into ads.
This approach has multiple benefits:
- You’re constantly pre-testing content and angles with your audience
- You can identify high-performing posts to turn into ads
- You build up a pipeline of new ads before you need them
Start testing new ad creatives every week or two. As your current ads begin to decline, you’ll have new ones already ramping up. This creates consistent, steady growth rather than the frustrating ups and downs of reactive ad management.
The Foundation: Your Funnel Comes First
Remember, these Facebook ad secrets only work when you have the right foundation. You need a proven funnel system before you start throwing money at Mark Zuckerberg (he’s got plenty already!).
Don’t ever run ads that send people nowhere – you want a strategic system that converts.
My Seven Day Payday template is the simplest way to get a high-converting funnel set up fast. It’s AI-powered, works with every email platform, and you can have it running today for just £27. The price will be increasing soon, so grab it while it’s still available at this price.
With the right funnel and these three secrets implemented, your Facebook ads and sales system will work together beautifully.
Ready to Transform Your Course Business?
These three secrets have been absolute game-changers for our business and the thousands of course creators we’ve helped. Even if you only implement one of these strategies, it could completely transform your ad performance and overall business growth.
Want to turn your course into a consistent revenue stream? Grab the Seven Day Payday AI template and build your high-converting funnel today.
