The Shortcut to Traffic — If You Can Afford It

5 Min. Read Aug 21, 2025 #Traffic Secrets

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Most of your dream influencers will never promote your product.

Not because you suck — but because, from their perspective, you’re competition. You’re building in the same niche, fighting for the same attention.

That’s fine. You don’t need their help to reach their audience.

You just need to rent it.

Every major platform — Facebook, YouTube, X, Reddit, even TikTok — lets you buy ads that target another creator’s followers directly. It’s not cheap, but it’s fast, measurable, and brutally honest.

Paid ads are how you test what actually works — not what you hope works.

If you can build a breakeven front-end funnel — meaning for every $1 spent on ads, you earn $1 back — then congratulations: you’ve created an infinite growth loop.

If you lose money, shut it off, fix the funnel, test again.

Small budget. Iterate. Repeat.

Prospecting Ads

Prospecting ads are your cold outreach — throwing hooks into the ocean to find people who’ve never heard of you.

These are the scroll-zombies. You interrupt them, spark curiosity, and hope a few stick around.

A few will buy immediately. Most won’t.

That’s fine — those who engage (watch, like, comment) now move to your next bucket: retargeting.

Retargeting Ads

Retargeting is where profit hides.

You show new stories, test new hooks, and remind people why they clicked in the first place.

Unlike prospecting ads, you don’t need to constantly reinvent the creative.

You make it once — it runs forever.

To make retargeting work, you need a pixel — a small tracking script that tells you how far each visitor goes in your funnel.

Did they watch 10 seconds?

Did they click through?

Did they almost buy?

Pixels don’t just collect data — they reveal what’s broken.

They tell you when to tweak your message, change your offer, or target a different crowd.

Russell Brunson outlines three key stages — and goals — of an effective retargeting campaign:

1. Engaged → Sell the Click

People who interacted with your ads but haven’t visited your site.

Your goal: get them to your landing page. That’s it.

2. Landed → Sell the Opt-In or Purchase

Visitors who clicked through but didn’t convert.

Your goal: push them to sign up or buy.

They’re already curious — they just need a nudge.

3. Owned → Sell the Next Step

These are your people — the ones who opted in or bought something.

You’ve earned their trust, their inbox, maybe even their credit card.

Now you own this traffic.

You don’t rent it anymore.

Where This Leads

Once you own the traffic, the real game begins.

They’re now in your follow-up funnel — the system that turns attention into long-term revenue.

That’s where consistency beats virality.

In the next chapter, we’ll break down how to build back-end funnels that don’t just convert — they compound.