A four-step advertising strategy that turns paid clicks into booked customers and repeat buyers
Video: $10M Advertising Strategy (Step-by-Step)
An effective advertising strategy does not end at the click; it plans the follow-up before a dollar of extra spend goes out. In practice that means four steps: send cold traffic to a blog post or video, retarget those visitors onto an email list, give them a lead magnet they can actually use, then make booking a call or buying the obvious next move. Brad Smith, owner of AutomationLinks, walks through the exact funnel his team uses while managing roughly $3 million a month in ad spend, and the same structure is outlined on the AutomationLinks advertising agency page.
Why paid traffic sent to a homepage quietly wastes budget
A homepage is built to serve everyone, which is exactly why it converts almost no cold advertising traffic. Someone clicks an ad, lands on a general page with a dozen possible paths, looks around and leaves. A week later they are ready to buy, and the business they call is the one they remember, not necessarily the one that paid for the first click. That gap between the click and the decision is where most ad budgets disappear.
The fix is to treat advertising as a sequence rather than a single transaction. Every stage has one job, and each stage earns the right to ask for the next step. The four steps below are the version Smith lays out, and they work for a local service business as well as for a software company.
Step 1: send new visitors to a blog post or video instead of a sales page
The first move is to give cold traffic something to consume rather than something to buy. A blog post or a short video that answers the question behind the ad lowers the resistance of a first visit and creates a reason to stay for a few minutes. It also builds a small amount of familiarity, which is the raw material retargeting depends on.
That first touch is not expected to close. Its job is to start a relationship and to tag the visitor so the next ad can be relevant. A useful rule is to match the ad promise to the content exactly: if the ad mentions a specific problem, the landing article should address that same problem in its first two paragraphs.
Step 2: retarget across advertising platforms to build an email list
Once someone has visited, the second step is to move them from an anonymous visitor to a contact you can reach without paying again. Retargeting audiences built from that first visit are shown a different message, one that offers a reason to join a newsletter or list. This is where the platforms work together rather than compete: a visitor who watched a video on one network can be reached with a list invitation on another, and the combined frequency is what makes the offer stick.
Email matters because it is the only channel where the cost of the next message is effectively zero. Paid advertising buys attention once; a list lets a business ask for the sale repeatedly, on its own schedule, without bidding for the same person twice.
Step 3: give people a reason to opt in that they can use immediately
The third step is usually where funnels leak. A generic "subscribe for updates" offer gives a visitor nothing to do today, so they decline. A lead magnet that solves a narrow, concrete problem — a checklist, a template, a short guide, a calculator — converts far better because the value is obvious before the email address is handed over.
The test is simple: would a stranger pay a small amount for this? If the answer is no, the opt-in will underperform. The landing page for the offer should repeat the promise from the ad, show what the download actually looks like, and ask for as few fields as possible.
Step 4: make booking a call or buying the easiest next action
With a contact on the list, the fourth step is to convert. That means a clear, single call to action: book a call, request a quote, start a trial, or buy. Everything on the page should point at that one action, with the friction removed — a visible calendar, a short form, a price, a guarantee.
Smith's point about buying a pair of Nikes captures the logic. Nobody buys running shoes on the first visit to a store's website; they see the shoes, think about them, and come back when the moment is right. Advertising works the same way, and the business that keeps showing up with a useful reason to return is the one that gets the sale.
How to split the advertising budget 60/40
The budget split that supports this funnel is 60/40. About 60% of spend goes to cold traffic — the ads that reach people who have never heard of the business — and roughly 40% goes to retargeting and follow-up, the ads and emails aimed at people who already interacted. Many advertisers invert this, pouring almost everything into acquisition and leaving nothing to bring visitors back, which is why cost per customer stays high.
The 60/40 figure is a starting point, not a law. A business with a long consideration cycle, such as a home renovation company, will usually justify a heavier retargeting share, while an impulse product can push more toward cold traffic. The number to watch is the blended cost per acquisition across both buckets, not the cost per click of any single campaign.
What this advertising strategy produced
Smith credits this funnel structure with helping a company sell for more than $10 million. The mechanism is not exotic: content that earns attention, a list that captures it, an offer worth trading an email for, and a clear path to a transaction. Each piece compounds, because the list keeps growing while the retargeting pool gets warmer and cheaper to reach.
Getting started does not require a full rebuild. Pick one blog post or video that answers a common customer question, point a small cold campaign at it, build one retargeting audience from those visitors, and offer one genuinely useful lead magnet. Measure the cost per booked call or purchase across the whole sequence rather than judging any single ad in isolation.
Conclusion
The advertising strategy that scales is a follow-up system, not a bigger budget: content first, email capture second, a usable lead magnet third, and a frictionless booking or buying step last, all funded on a 60/40 split between cold and warm traffic. Smith's breakdown of the funnel his team runs at roughly $3 million a month in spend is worth watching in full on the Brad Smith channel, where the four steps are walked through on screen. Businesses that want help implementing the structure can talk to the AutomationLinks advertising team about building the same funnel for their own offer.
Key takeaways
- The strategy runs on four steps: send cold ad traffic to a blog post or video, retarget to grow an email list, give a usable reason to opt in, then push people to book or buy.
- Brad Smith of AutomationLinks says his team manages about $3 million a month in ad spend using this funnel.
- The recommended budget split is 60/40: most of the money goes to cold traffic, the rest to retargeting and follow-up.
- Sending paid traffic straight to a homepage wastes budget because visitors leave without a reason to return.
- The funnel is credited with helping a company sell for more than $10 million.
Source: $10M Advertising Strategy (Step-by-Step) · Markdown version
Questions & answers
What is the four-step advertising strategy in simple terms?
It is a sequence: send cold ad traffic to a blog post or video, retarget those visitors to join an email list, offer a lead magnet they can use right away, and then make booking a call or buying the single obvious action. Each step earns the right to ask for the next one, so no single ad has to close the sale.
Why should advertising traffic go to a blog post rather than a homepage?
A homepage serves every audience at once, so a cold visitor finds no clear next step and leaves. A focused article or video matches the promise of the ad, keeps the visitor engaged for a few minutes, and creates a retargeting audience that can be reached again with a relevant offer.
How should the ad budget be divided between cold traffic and retargeting?
A practical starting split is 60/40, with the larger share going to cold traffic that reaches new people and the smaller share to retargeting and follow-up. The right ratio depends on the length of the buying cycle, and the metric to track is blended cost per acquisition across both buckets.
How long does it take before this funnel produces customers?
The email list and retargeting pool build gradually, so the first weeks usually show rising engagement rather than immediate sales. Most businesses see the cost per customer fall as the warm audience grows, because follow-up messages carry no additional media cost.