How important is it to target businesses that are already running ads, and does the offer change if they aren't?
If you’re selling a speed‑to‑lead offer that saves clients money on ads or improves their ad ROI, it’s crucial to target businesses that are already running ads. The whole premise relies on them having ad spend you can optimize. If they don’t run ads, the offer doesn’t apply. I recommend filtering for ad‑running businesses, using Facebook Ad Library, Google’s ad transparency library, enriching the data via their websites, finding email addresses, and doing LinkedIn lookups to identify decision‑makers before pitching how you can increase their revenue.
No, for the same reasons I've mentioned before — ads don't really make sense at small budgets. It typically takes something like 10x that budget just to begin to tell whether a campaign is actually working or total garbage.
First, identify prospects who are already running ads by scraping Facebook or Google ad libraries and enriching them with contact info. Use browser automation to opt into each of their offers, recording the time and outcomes to demonstrate you've experienced their lead flow. Then, use AI to create a detailed, personalized icebreaker email that shows you've gone through their process and highlights how much money they're losing due to slow lead response—often $20,000–$30,000 per month. Offer a solution that patches these leaks, promising an additional $15,000–$20,000 in revenue. Reach out warmly, referencing specific details from their LinkedIn or ads to build rapport. Because these are high-intent, high-value leads spending money on growth, your reply rate can be 5–10%, allowing you to contact about 300 prospects per day. This approach is essentially a highly customized audience selection similar to Facebook Ads but executed via automated outreach.
speed to leadbrowser automationAI personalizationoutreach
I’ve run paid Facebook ads for AI offers and seen a very high cost per acquisition—around $1,500 per lead—so the campaign isn’t profitable right now. I’m going to keep testing and optimizing the ads to bring the CAC down, but for now it’s not a recommended primary channel unless you can significantly improve targeting or offer.
That assumption isn't a good qualifier for smart; smart means having a low cost per acquisition relative to gross revenue. I don't personally use LinkedIn ads. The simplest way to start is outbound outreach, such as cold email or Upwork applications, and if you use LinkedIn, just DM people directly rather than building a full inbound ad funnel with landing pages and static assets.