Million-Dollar Funnels Aren’t Made With Ads

Having a million-dollar marketing funnel is nothing to scoff at. 

It’s a huge accomplishment that deserves its’ kudos. There’s a lot of automation, dedication, and ideation that goes into making something like that happen.

It’s the type of benchmark that says, “Hey, I was a serious business owner at 6-figures. But now? I turned my serious business into an EMPIRE.”

So listen, if you already have one: congrats, I commend you for the hard work. Feel free to kick back, put your feet up, and hang out.

For anyone looking to scale their funnel to that million-dollar benchmark, you’ll want to take a couple of notes.

But before I get into that, let’s talk about me real quick—just to make sure you know I’m not some random schlub pretending to know a thing or two about marketing.

My name’s Yogev Almog, I’m a marketing consultant and copywriting strategist for 6, 7, and 8-figure brands. 

I’ve written for and consulted on funnels ranging from fitness, coaching, eCommerce, business automation, CPG, financial institutions, telehealth services, done-for-you businesses, chiropractors—name an industry and I’ve likely written something or at the very least given some advice on it. 

And just to put the cherry on top, my work has been a direct contribution to a handful of million dollar funnels. 

So, now that you know a little about me and my credibility, I feel pretty comfortable saying this next part:

If your end goal is simply “The Million-Dollar Funnel,” everything I’m about to say is probably going to upset you. 

In fact, it definitely will. And you know who I’m going to upset the most today? Ad experts. 

Dearest ad expert friends of mine: I love you, truly, I do. I promise this isn’t a shot at you. 

The thing is, entrepreneurs are especially obsessed with social media ads right now.

There’s this instant gratification that comes with an ad campaign because you can pretty easily track where a sale is coming from.

“Person sees ad. Person clicks on ad. Person spends time on site. Person buys.”

You can see how it might get addicting to watch as your phone blows up with sales confirmations but what people tend to be super quiet about is: 

1. The amount of ad budget you need to kickstart a campaign
2. All the creative you constantly need to test (Both the visual and written) 
3. Following community guidelines to make sure your account doesn’t get shut down for saying the wrong thing
4. The inevitable upward trend of ad spend due to market saturation

Talking about this often makes me think of a conversation I had with a client. 

On a call, she mentioned a competitor of hers in the coaching space who paraded around their million-dollar funnel. 

What’s important to note is this competitor went on a podcast talking about the $1.2 million they made that year but admitted to spending over a million on just ads alone…

…yea, that’s not what you want. 

Don’t get me wrong, loss leaders can be helpful in business, and turning a $200,000 profit is nothing to be ashamed of but the fact of the matter is that’s not $200,000 in profit. 

They still had to pay out employees, cover operating expenses, and ONLY THEN could they pay themselves out…  

…That’s a lot of work just to say you have a million-dollar funnel. 

Still, we see a few industry leaders truly killing it with Meta and Google Ads and all of a sudden that means everyone flocks to it as “the way” for every business to grow. 

Listen, there’s some truth to this. Ads can definitely grow your business and reach audiences you wouldn’t typically have access to. 

And sure, taking a loss on the frontend makes plenty of sense if you’re re-engaging repeat customers or people who didn’t initially buy on the backend—but how many people actually have that dialed? 

How many have figured out exactly what their ideal customer wants with organic traffic before putting money behind paid traffic? 

Ads are great, but only when they’re used the right way and only when you’re ready. 

(There’s nothing wrong with messy action, but if you’re not careful messy can become a disaster.)

And the only way you’re able to do that is if you recognize what is objective truth: ads aren’t THE answer, ads are just a tool—a piece of the bigger picture. 

Once you see that, you’re able to use them more effectively, efficiently, and you put power back into your hands. 

Because when you rely solely on social media ads as your lead and revenue generator, you basically are at the mercy of Meta and how they want to run things. 

So how do you put that power back into your hands and build a business not dependent on ads? You take a step back and look at all the pieces that make a successful million-dollar funnel. 

There Are 3 Key Components To Any Successful Million-Dollar Funnel:

1. Attention
2. Affection
3. Retention 

I can dig deeper into each one of these in a later post but for now let’s just focus on the general idea.  

Attention is simply getting people to notice you. You’re creating awareness of something interesting or important. 

Typically this is where ads come into play but this can also be featured content, affiliate email programs, podcasts, you get the picture. 

Affection is what happens after you’ve grabbed their attention. The goal here is to connect with the audience and create a relationship that makes them want to buy from you.

This shows up as sales pages, email sequences, and even your everyday content on your social platforms but the bottom line is that you’re nurturing these people.

The last part is retention.

Now, whether or not this person has bought from you, they expressed interest in some form and you want to keep that person around. 

Why? 

Well, buyers will tell people how great your stuff is and anyone who didn’t buy might just need a little more time to think before they decide to buy from you. 

And again, even if they NEVER buy, best case they refer someone to you, worst case it doesn’t hurt to have one other person that likes you.

This piece also is largely working in your email and in the content you’re pushing out through your other channels. (Facebook, Instagram, podcast, blog, etc.) 

Okay, so remember when I said that entrepreneurs are addicted to ads? What I mean is, they’re so hyper-focused on making sure that Attention works that there’s little to no thought put into Affection or Retention—which is a problem. 

Those last 2 pieces of a successful million-dollar funnel can take time to build but are what can save you SOOOOO much time and money on cold ads and retargeting. 

Plus, if you set them up and automate the processes correctly, they account for the highest ROI in any successful business. (And I mean ANY.)

What really stops entrepreneurs from focusing on these areas is pretty simple: 

1. It’s harder to track exactly where a sale came from
2. It takes more time to see the results
3. It’s really not sexy

And I sympathize with you, really, I do. 

I want my results on demand like everyone else does. 

The thing is, that’s not how you build a million-dollar funnel. 

You have to be willing to put in the time and effort to make it work. Not only that, you need a strategy that makes sense within your business that can effectively scale as you do. (Because trust me, that million-dollar funnel is NOT a one-person operation.) 

SO am I saying don’t use ads? Absolutely not. (My ad expert friends would kill me if I did.) 

Ads are an important piece of a flourishing market strategy. 

But remember, that’s exactly what they are: a piece. 

And when you go back to edit or build your funnel, you should treat them as such—just a piece of the bigger picture.

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