CRACKING COLD PAID ADS AT SCALE — THE EXACT PLAYBOOK FOR TURNING TOTAL STRANGERS INTO HIGH-TICKET BUYERS

CRACKING COLD PAID ADS AT SCALE — THE EXACT PLAYBOOK FOR TURNING TOTAL STRANGERS INTO HIGH-TICKET BUYERS

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Author: Jeremy Haynes | founder of Megalodon Marketing.

CRACKING COLD PAID ADS AT SCALE — THE EXACT PLAYBOOK FOR TURNING TOTAL STRANGERS INTO HIGH-TICKET BUYERS

Table of Contents

Earnings Disclaimer: You have a .1% probability of hitting million dollar months according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. As stated by law, we can not and do not make any guarantees about your own ability to get results or earn any money with our ideas, information, programs or strategies. We don’t know you and, besides, your results in life are up to you. We’re here to help by giving you our greatest strategies to move you forward, faster. However, nothing on this page or any of our websites or emails is a promise or guarantee of future earnings. Any financial numbers referenced here, or on any of our sites or emails, are simply estimates or projections or past results, and should not be considered exact, actual or as a promise of potential earnings – all numbers are illustrative only.


Watch the full video breakdown on this topic here.


Key Takeaways

  1. Cold paid advertising is the last door between “healthy six figures” and legitimate seven-figure months. Organic traction and warm retargeting will take you to $200–300 K, maybe $500 K, but the real multiplication happens when you profitably convert people who have never laid eyes on you.
  2. What closes warm buyers often bombs on cold traffic. Dialed-in messaging, offer shape, and funnel type must mutate for strangers who’ve invested zero attention-equity in you.
  3. Three traffic rungs—organic → warm paid → cold—must be climbed in order, unless you have the bankroll and appetite to face-plant, iterate, and relaunch under a paid microscope.
  4. Chad Holmes’ stadium model is gospel. Only 3–4 % of any market is “in-market.” Your fortune is hidden inside the 30 – 33 % that needs convinced and the 30 – 40 % that’s “mass market.”
  5. Content-first ad frameworks (Venus Flytrap 1.0 & 2.0) soften cold audiences fast. Sequence value videos before direct response to manufacture the familiarity bias organic buyers already possess.
  6. Offer, funnel, or front-end strategy—alter at least one when you go cold. Sometimes it’s a down-sell tripwire, sometimes it’s a webinar, sometimes it’s a multi-step content journey. Change nothing and nothing improves.
  7. A brutally organized back-end selling system plus a killer sales team makes cold paid traffic feel warm. Breakout videos, hammer-them campaigns, value-dense emails, and personal setter outreach raise conversion velocity and average order value.

Table of Contents

  1. The Caramel Frappuccino Wake-Up Call
  2. The Traffic Ladder: Organic → Warm → Cold
  3. Why Your Organic Winner Will Usually Lose Cold
  4. Stadium Selling & The In-Market Mirage
  5. Front-End Mutation: Strategy, Offer, Funnel
  6. Content-First Ad Sequences: Venus Flytrap 1.0 & 2.0
  7. Physical Products, Services & Info: Custom Cold Plays
  8. Front-End vs. Back-End Economics
  9. Case Study: The Two-Month Roller-Coaster Book Funnel
  10. Dialed-In Messaging: Talking to Two Audiences at Once
  11. The Role of Sales Team & Back-End Systems
  12. Implementation Checklist & Next Steps
  13. Final Word: Million-Dollar Months or Bust

1. The Caramel Frappuccino Wake-Up Call

Miami evening, top down on the BMW 750—life felt pristine until a rogue cyclist unleashed a caramel frappuccino across the leather, the paint, and my shirt. Sticky humiliation, sure, but more importantly: proof that poverty throws drinks while wealth builds moats. The frappuccino incident was a literal reminder that the masses will lob whatever they can when you try to deliver a wealth message. You either retreat or you grab a clean fit, call the detailer, swap into the 911 Turbo S, and film the content anyway.

Cold advertising is the business equivalent. Strangers sling skepticism, trolls, and CPM-inflating noise your way. You can whine about “algorithm poverty” or you can harden your systems, deploy better messaging, and keep driving.


2. The Traffic Ladder: Organic → Warm → Cold

Most entrepreneurs play hopscotch like this:

  1. Organic Content First
    • Unlimited consumption window, deep familiarity bias.
    • Prospects binge fifteen videos over six months, call your closer half-sold.
    • Sales reps turn into cashiers; everything feels easy.
  2. Warm Paid Advertising (Retargeting)
    • Paid remarketing to site visitors, video viewers, DMs, list segments.
    • ROAS still glows, but volume caps fast.
    • Many businesses die here—agency PTSD, credit-card anxiety, or plain impatience.
  3. Cold Paid Advertising
    • Total strangers. No prior impressions. Zero goodwill.
    • Where million-dollar months hide—but only if you mutate strategy.

If you’re the outlier who swings straight for cold on Day One, Godspeed—just bring a wallet thick enough to survive wrong hypotheses.


3. Why Your Organic Winner Will Usually Lose Cold

Organic buyers already trust you. They’ll wire $5 K for Master Internet Marketing or $3 K/month for Inner Circle because:

  • They chose to binge hours of your free expertise.
  • They’ve already profited from that free expertise.
  • They like your white wheels, Florida sunburn, and disgust for mediocrity.

A cold prospect sees none of that. Flash the same 5 K tag and they bounce. So you must modify one (or more) of three levers:

  1. Front-End Strategy – content ads vs. direct response.
  2. Offer Construction – new entry price, risk reversal, payoff speed.
  3. Funnel Mechanism – webinar, challenge, low-ticket ascension, call funnel.

Keep these static and cold campaigns resemble that frapped BMW—messy and expensive.


4. Stadium Selling & The In-Market Mirage

Chad Holmes’ Ultimate Sales Machine frames it perfectly:

  • 3–4 % In-Market – already bleeding, begging, or desiring.
  • 30–33 % Needs Convinced – they benefit but aren’t actively searching.
  • 30–40 % Mass Market – latent interest or oblivious.

Most advertisers scrap over the first slice, saturate quickly, then whine that scale “isn’t possible.” The game is cracking the other 60 %+.

Aloe Vera Analogy

If I slash my knee on Miami asphalt, I’m in-market for hydrogen peroxide and Band-Aids. The other 97 % of the population isn’t thinking about antiseptic—until a smart ad reframes risk (infection horror) or opportunity (scar-free healing). Same with aloe after a Keys sunburn. Scale demands messaging that creates urgency where none existed.


5. Front-End Mutation: Strategy, Offer, Funnel

5.1 Strategy Shifts

  • Content-First Paid – Pay to deliver pure value videos, retarget engagers with the sale.
  • Direct Response Paid – Hit cold traffic straight with webinar opt-ins, quizzes, or low-ticket orders.

5.2 Offer Shifts

  • Inner Circle is too high-friction for a stranger, but a $97 quick-result mini-program or $29 book can liquidate ad spend and upsell fast.
  • Physical product? Bundle, limited trial, or payment-plan shock absorber.

5.3 Funnel Shifts

  • Call funnel for a $5 K course can work cold—but only if break-even happens inside the credit-card cycle and setters are merciless.
  • Webinar or five-day challenge often warms ice better before the call.

Manipulate at least one lever, sometimes all three.


6. Content-First Ad Sequences: Venus Flytrap 1.0 & 2.0

Venus Flytrap 1.0

  1. Value Video #1 – pain awareness.
  2. Value Video #2 – authority flex, proof.
  3. Direct Response Ad – call to action.

Venus Flytrap 2.0 beefs it up:

  • Extra value videos per stage, retarget window extensions, and granular audience exclusions so sequences stay tidy.

Result: Stranger binge → certainty builds → direct response lands. Perfect for info offers and B2B services where expertise sells.


7. Physical Products, Services & Info: Custom Cold Plays

Hyperbaric Chambers Example

  • Show Brian Johnson bragging about nightly vascular fireworks and longevity gains.
  • Follow with NBA teams, med-spas, and millionaire testimonials.
  • Then retarget with direct response financing options.

Book Funnel Example (Info/B2B)

  • $7–$29 front-end covers 50–70 % ad cost.
  • Upsells and backend coaching recoup remaining spend in 4–5 weeks.
  • Break-even outside the 30-day billing cycle? Switch to platform invoicing (net-30) or shorten upsell timeline.

Low-Friction Service Example

  • Done-For-You UGC Ads at $197 starter fee.
  • Back-end retainer or revenue share.
  • Same stadium logic applies: price + speed + novelty convert needs-convinced.

8. Front-End vs. Back-End Economics

Front-End Metrics – ROAS inside the billing cycle. If break-even occurs at week 5, but Amex wants cash at week 4, you’re floating. Move to invoice terms or tweak timeline.

Back-End Metrics – Lifetime Value uplift via upsells, continuity, masterminds. If you pull 12:1–19:1 ROI by month 5 (book funnel case), you can stomach front-end volatility—if cash flow allows.

Back-End Selling Systems – breakout videos, value-dense email (six/day max), hammer-them retargeting, manual outreach. All shorten payback period and lift LTV.


9. Case Study: The Two-Month Roller-Coaster Book Funnel

  • Weeks 1–5: ROAS swings from 0.9 to 4.0, averages 2:1.
  • Buyer AOV: $12 K after upsells and ascension path.
  • Month 5: Cumulative ROAS 12–19:1.

Issue? Cash float discomfort kills ad spend confidence. Solution: invoice billing + back-end velocity (webinars, call funnels, aggressive email).


10. Dialed-In Messaging: Talking to Two Audiences at Once

Filming for Cody Sanchez’s mastermind workshop? Audience knows nothing but “he runs Cody’s ads.” Messaging includes mini-bio, authority flex (eight-figure launches, sports franchises, med-spas), immediate money-making tactics.

Filming for this blog? You might be a die-hard follower or a first-time lurker. So I weave both contexts: insider references for veterans, foundational explanations for newcomers.

Cold ads demand the same duality. Every headline, hook, and proof point is crafted for:

  • Complete stranger (why listen at all?)
  • Soft-warm engager (reinforce, ascend, convert)

11. The Role of Sales Team & Back-End Systems

The greatest cold ad in history collapses if setters half-ass outreach or if closers turn every Zoom into a college lecture. A dialed-in sales team armed with trust assets — SOPs, Gamma docs, tailored selfie videos — transforms cold leads into fast pay-in-fulls.

Combine with:

  • Breakout confirmation videos (answer objections pre-call).
  • Hammer-Them 72-hour retarget blitz (15–20 impressions).
  • Six-a-day value email cadence.

Cold prospects show up primed, not puzzled.


12. Implementation Checklist & Next Steps

  1. Audit Traffic Sources
    • Document revenue and ROAS by organic, warm retargeting, and cold.
  2. Identify Bottleneck
    • Is warm retargeting maxed? Are cold campaigns losing? Determine weakest link.
  3. Select Mutation Lever
    • Strategy (content vs. direct), Offer (price or structure), Funnel (webinar, challenge, low-ticket).
  4. Map Stadium Demographics
    • Craft separate hooks for in-market, needs-convinced, mass market.
  5. Build/Refine Content Sequence
    • Minimum two value videos before direct response; four+ for high-ticket.
  6. Install Back-End Selling System
    • Breakout videos, hammer retargeting, email machine, manual outreach SOP.
  7. Prepare Sales Force & Trust Assets
    • Scripts, selfie-video guidelines, asset library for painless copy-paste.
  8. Switch to Invoice Billing If Cycle Exceeds 30 Days
    • Facebook, Google, TikTok all offer it—ask, apply, float solved.
  9. Monitor Front-End & Back-End KPIs Weekly
    • 7-day ROAS, 30-day payback, 90-day LTV. Adjust budgets accordingly.
  10. Iterate Relentlessly
    • New creative every 14 days, new offers quarterly, new funnels annually or when saturation signals appear.

13. Final Word: Million-Dollar Months or Bust

Cold advertising is the adult table. Organic content built your reputation; warm retargeting bought dinner; but cold traffic? That’s the invitation-only after-party where real money swaps hands.

Just remember:

  • Change something. Strategy, offer, funnel—pick one.
  • Respect the stadium. Only 3 % wake up ready to buy; 97 % need your narrative.
  • Speed plus sophistication wins. Front-end pays the invoice, back-end compounds wealth.
  • Protect the craft. When a caramel frappuccino smacks your ride, you either cry online or you replace the shirt, switch cars, and film harder.

Draw the line today: either scale to million-dollar months by converting total strangers, or stay parked in comfort while poverty pedals by with its next sticky drink.

Your move—time to get richer.

About the author:
Owner and CEO of Megalodon Marketing

Jeremy Haynes is the founder of Megalodon Marketing. He is considered one of the top digital marketers and has the results to back it up. Jeremy has consistently demonstrated his expertise whether it be through his content advertising “propaganda” strategies that are originated by him, as well as his funnel and direct response marketing strategies. He’s trusted by the biggest names in the industries his agency works in and by over 4,000+ paid students that learn how to become better digital marketers and agency owners through his education products.

Jeremy Haynes is the founder of Megalodon Marketing. He is considered one of the top digital marketers and has the results to back it up. Jeremy has consistently demonstrated his expertise whether it be through his content advertising “propaganda” strategies that are originated by him, as well as his funnel and direct response marketing strategies. He’s trusted by the biggest names in the industries his agency works in and by over 4,000+ paid students that learn how to become better digital marketers and agency owners through his education products.