The third eBook in the Paid Growth and Campaigns category. It assumes you've read Paid Ads for Small Businesses and decided that a discovery-led channel fits your business better than search. From here it goes deep on the specifics of Facebook and Instagram ads for a small budget: audiences, creative, offers, retargeting and the monthly review that keeps spend honest.
Members ebook·7 chapters· 35 minute read
Chapter 4
Offers That Earn the Click
Why offers that work on a discovery channel look different from offers that work on a search channel, and a small set of structures that consistently convert on Facebook and Instagram.
An offer that works on Google often dies on Facebook and Instagram, and the other way round. The reason is simple. People on Google have a problem in mind and are actively looking for someone to solve it. People on Facebook and Instagram are scrolling for entertainment and have to be persuaded that your offer is worth pausing for. The same offer phrased the same way will convert at a third of the rate on a discovery channel as it does on a search channel, and most of the lost performance can be recovered by changing the offer rather than the targeting.
There are a small number of offer shapes that consistently work on these platforms. They share three properties: a low first step, a clear next step and a specific reason to act now rather than later. Anything that asks for a big commitment, hides what happens next or could be acted on at any time will struggle.
This chapter walks through those offer shapes, which kinds of business each suits and how to write the offer line that goes in the ad and the offer page that catches the click.
The full chapter walks through the four offer shapes that work on a discovery channel, which suits which kind of small business, what the offer line in the ad needs to say and what the page on the other end of the click needs to do.
Why discovery offers are different
On Google, the search itself qualifies the person. Someone typing 'emergency plumber Newport' has the problem and is ready to act. The job of the ad and the page is to be the answer. On Facebook and Instagram, the person didn't ask for anything. The job of the ad is to make the offer feel relevant and worth pausing for, and the job of the page is to convert that pause into a small first step that doesn't require them to be sure yet.
The practical version: don't try to sell the full thing in the ad. Sell the next step. The full sale happens later, on a follow-up email, a phone call, a second visit to the website or a return visit to the shop. The earlier eBook Lead Capture and Follow-Up covers what happens after the click - this chapter is about getting the click in the first place.
Four offer shapes that work
Most small business discovery ads convert with one of four offer shapes. Pick the one that fits your business. Don't try to combine them into one offer - the result is always vaguer than each on its own.
The four discovery offer shapes
Free useful thing: a guide, checklist, template or short video that solves a real small problem in your category. Best for services where the buying decision takes weeks - the guide earns the email, the email earns the conversation
Low-cost taster: an introductory class, a small first product, a starter pack at a clearly reduced price. Best for studios, classes, beauty, food, and online sellers with a low-priced entry product
Time-bound deal: a real, short-window discount or bonus on a specific product or service. Best for shops with seasonal inventory, hospitality with bookable dates and any business with a real reason for a deadline
Show-and-tell: not a deal, just a single piece of compelling work or product that earns a click to see more. Best for visual businesses where the work itself is the offer - florists, makers, photographers, designers
Writing the offer line
The offer line in the ad does the work of qualifying the click. It needs to name the offer, the rough cost or commitment and the next step, in one short sentence. Vague offer lines ("check out our website", "book your free consultation today") cost you money because everyone clicks and almost no one converts. Specific offer lines ("first class for nine pounds, weekday mornings only", "our two-page tax return checklist for sole traders, free, takes two minutes") cost less per real customer because the click is qualified before it happens.
If you can't write the offer line in one specific sentence, the offer isn't ready and the ad will struggle. Go back to the offer itself before you spend on traffic.
What the page on the other end has to do
The click lands somewhere. That somewhere isn't your homepage. It's a page that picks up where the ad left off - same offer, same promise, same next step, same proof - and asks for one thing only. The earlier eBook Landing Pages covers the structure in detail. The version that matters here is short: headline matches the ad, one paragraph names who the offer is for, one block of three pieces of proof, one form or one button, no menu, no other distractions. Anything else on the page is costing you conversions.
Pricing on a discovery channel
Two rules. First, name the price somewhere on the page even if you don't put it in the ad - hidden prices on landing pages from cold ads cut conversion by a third in our experience. Second, if your offer is high-priced, the discovery offer has to be the first low step, not the full sale. A nine-hundred-pound coaching package doesn't sell from a Facebook ad to a stranger; a free fifteen-minute introduction call that leads into the package over the next two weeks sells reliably.
What to do this week
Pick the offer shape that fits your business from the four above. Write the offer line in one specific sentence. Look at the page the click would land on today and decide whether it picks up where the ad would leave off. If not, fix the page before you launch - the next chapter on retargeting is the right one to read while the page work happens.
Recurring principle: make the offer clear. A clear offer is the difference between traffic that converts and traffic that vanishes. The earlier eBook Designing Your First Offer is the deeper version of this idea; this chapter is the paid-ads-specific shortcut.
The rest of this chapter walks through the practical steps, the templates and the checklists you need to put it into action. It includes worked examples, copy frameworks and the small decisions that make the difference between a plan that sits in a drive and one that gets used.
Inside you'll find a step-by-step playbook, a downloadable template, a checklist you can run this week and a short list of common mistakes to avoid before you start.
The full action plan, broken into weekly steps.
Ready-to-use scripts, templates and checklists.
Worked examples for different sized businesses.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them.
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