Do THIS to fix broken sales funnels (without tweaking your offer)

Happy Wednesday! Welcome back to The Copywriting Gig.

I'm Jim Hamilton. Over the past 7 years, my copy has contributed to 30m+ in sales for clients across health, biz opp, and B2B.

Each week, I share 1 actionable tip to grow your business.

Copywriting is a traffic filter.

The goal is to optimize quantity vs quality.

Sometimes you need to push more people through the funnel.

Other times, you need them to be more qualified.

And great copywriters know exactly when and how to adjust this balance in their ads, emails, and content to fix funnels that aren't converting or profitable.

So today, I'm sharing everything you need to know to balance traffic quantity vs quality in your copy.

Let's dive in.

Read time: 3 minutes and 57 seconds

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Understanding the Quantity vs Quality Spectrum

The simplest lens to use here is length.

Shorter copy means more quantity and less quantity.

Longer copy means more quality and less quantity.

(FYI: when I talk about quality traffic being more “qualified,” think of this as the person being more informed about what they’re clicking on, signing up for, etc.)

Now, we can also overlay price beneath to contextualize each end of the spectrum.

As a general rule:

The cheaper your offer is, the more you should move towards quantity over quality.

Examples:

• PDFs

• Books

• Tripwires

• Free + shipping offers

And vice versa.

The more expensive your offer is, the more you should move towards quality over quantity.

Examples:

• Courses

• Coaching

• Consulting

• Other services

The logic here is simple...

There's a direct correlation between price and how much information someone needs to make a buying decision.

But if your funnel isn't converting or profitable...

How do you know which direction of the spectrum to move in?

By analyzing the key metrics.

3 Warning Signs You’ve Got a Traffic Problem

Car dashboards have indicator lights to warn you when something’s wrong.

Funnels work the same way.

You just have to know where to look.

Here are 3 quantity warning signs to look out for:

• Less than 20% open rate (email)

• Less than 1% CTR (ads & emails)

• Less than 1% engagement rate (social)

If you’re seeing metrics like these, you may not be driving a high enough volume of traffic for your funnel to perform.

Here are 3 quality warning signs to look out for:

• Less than 20% opt-in rate (lander)

• Less than 1% conversion rate (sales page)

• Less than 10% close rate (sales call)

If you’re seeing metrics like these, the traffic you are driving may not be converting well enough for your funnel to be profitable.

Now let’s talk about how to fix them.

Optimizing Your Copy For Traffic Quantity vs Quality

Below is an ad I came across recently.

It’s optimized for QUANTITY over quality.

Have a look at it first, then I’ll explain why.

Now, what makes this ad optimized for QUANTITY over quality?

• It’s heavily focused on creating curiosity

• There’s no direct callout of the target audience

• There’s no clear explanation of how it works

• You don’t know if it’s a free or paid offer

• You don’t know exactly what’s going to happen on the next page

I’m sure this ad has a killer clickthrough rate (CTR) and drives a high volume of traffic.

It’s hard to resist.

But the tradeoff is, those clicks are much less qualified. They don’t know exactly what they’re clicking on. So many may immediately bounce once they hit the lander, driving the conversion rate down.

However, in the case of a low-ticket offer (less than $100), that can be just fine.

Now let’s switch gears and examine an ad from an old client of mine, Cole Gordon.

His ad copy takes the opposite approach.

Because he sells a high-ticket service ($18k+, in this case), he needs every click to be as qualified as possible.

It’s a long-form ad, so I’ve broken it down into two screenshots.

Here’s the first part:

What do you notice?

• Direct callout of the target audience

• Clear promise of desired result

• Risk reversal (if they don’t perform, you don't pay)

• Clear explanation of how their process works

• Established credibility and social proof

Now let’s look at the second part:

Here’s what I see:

• Even more credibility and social proof

• Specific claim of personal results (0-2.2m/m in 18 months)

• Clear explanation of what’s going to happen on the next page

• Repeat of risk reversal

You can imagine the CTR on this ad is much lower than the first example.

But those clicks are much more informed about what they’re clicking on and whether it’s actually for them. So the end result is much better downstream metrics (opt-in rate, booked calls, and ultimately, close rate).

And ultimately, downstream metrics are what matter most.

Putting It All Together

Everything in marketing is contextual and case-specific.

There are very few rules that apply universally.

That’s why understanding how the quantity vs quality spectrum works is so crucial.

But to sum all this up as succinctly as possible…

1) If you need MORE traffic that’s less qualified, emphasize curiosity. Don’t reveal what’s going to happen next. Shorter is better.

2) If you need less traffic that’s MORE qualified, include more conversion elements. Explain exactly what’s going to happen next. Longer is better.

That’s it.

Thanks for reading!

See you next week.

Jim Hamilton