How to Use Content Ads to Lower Your CPMs and Warm Up Cold Audiences Before Direct Response

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I figured something out about a decade ago that completely changed how I approached paid advertising. I discovered the power of spending significant budget on distributing content to people before hitting them with direct response ads.

I originally called this concept content-first ad strategies. The idea was simple in practice: replicate the organic sales process via paid advertising. Instead of hammering cold audiences with “book a call now” ads, I warmed them up first with strategic content distribution.

My first iteration was something I named the Venus Fly Trap. It was a sequence where people had to watch a threshold of video one before seeing video two. They’d need to watch a threshold of video two to unlock video three. Once they consumed enough of video three, I’d finally show them direct response ads.

Yes, it created friction and diminished the overall quantity of people who’d see the direct response ads. But in my experience, it worked tremendously well for sales teams that needed really warmed-up leads — the types of leads that typically only come from organic channels or webinars.

Over the years, I’ve iterated on these content strategies extensively. I’ve created systems that run content on the back end of direct response and built massive setups with multiple steps and large content cycle bins containing dozens or even hundreds of videos per step.

All of this is designed to help with positive sales outcomes: increased average order value, shorter sales cycles, and more enthusiastic leads who actually want to talk to your team.

If you want to explore the full system behind content-first advertising strategies, check out my 7-week live comprehensive training or my flagship program, Inner Circle.

Results are not typical. Your results will vary and depend entirely on your individual capacity, business experience, expertise, and level of desire. There are no guarantees concerning the level of success you may experience. The testimonials and examples used are not intended to represent or guarantee that anyone will achieve the same or similar results. We don’t believe in get-rich-quick programs. We believe in hard work, adding value and serving others. As stated by law, we cannot and do not make any guarantees about your own ability to get results or earn any money with our information, courses, programs, or strategies.

Why Content Ads Matter for Warming Up Cold Leads

Here’s what I’ve noticed repeatedly: content is powerful. We all see how effective it is organically. When you start incorporating content into your paid ads strategically, you create a different dynamic for your sales conversations.

According to HubSpot’s research on content marketing, businesses that prioritize content distribution see meaningful differences in how their audiences engage with subsequent offers.

Be direct about when you might not need content ads for high-ticket product or service-based businesses: when you have an absolute monster of a sales team.

If your organization is truly exceptional at turning cold leads (people who fill out a lead form, opt into a lead magnet, or buy something low-ticket) into high-ticket conversions, you may not need this approach. If your team routinely closes leads like that, you’re set.

But here’s the reality: if your sales team requires people to be warmed up — if they do their best when somebody has consumed a significant amount of content or watched certain thresholds of your VSLs or webinars prior to the sales conversation — then you are among the majority of businesses. You will benefit from content ad strategies.

What the Forester Strategy Is and How It Works

I’ve discussed many of these strategies before. The Venus Fly Trap 2.0, for instance, is the second iteration of that original sequence. Some of my back-end content-selling systems include a strategy called the Hammer Them campaign. That strategy takes somebody who just booked a call, opted into a webinar, or bought something low-ticket and hammers them with dozens of pieces of content, both short and long form, with a specific frequency goal.

In this post, I’m covering a strategy I haven’t talked about publicly yet: one of my original content ad strategies known as the Forester.

I named this strategy the Forester because I was inspired by the profession. Foresters clear large areas and then plant new trees behind them. Over the following decades, there is a renewed, renewable source of timber. I saw advertising similarly for this strategy.

Here’s what I’ll show you: how to take cold audiences (people who have no idea who you are), put content strategically in front of them without caring about the threshold they consume (which lowers your CPMs), hit them with direct response ads, and simultaneously swarm them with content while they receive the direct response ads.

You get all the benefits of content in paid advertising.

This approach typically reduces your CPMs compared to hitting cold audiences directly with direct response. In addition to lower CPMs, it produces warmed-up leads. It gives your sales team the opportunity — no matter which funnel you plug into the direct response step — to work with people who are more aware of you and your offers.

Warmed prospects generally improve show rates, connection rates, and create more confident prospects who actually want to talk to your team.

The Three-Step Framework for Content Cycle Bins and Direct Response

This strategy has three main steps. Two happen concurrently, and one leads the entire process.

The whole strategy starts with a content cycle bin. A content cycle bin can be replicated on major social channels: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. You can technically do this on YouTube, although I typically don’t recommend it. The system works much better on platforms where people scroll and are open to suggestion through a news feed or short-form videos.

According to Meta’s advertising best practices, video view audiences can be created based on various engagement thresholds, which is the foundation of how this system operates.

Let me explain the difference between a sequence and a content cycle bin. My original Venus Fly Trap was a sequence: someone had to complete one thing for the next to unlock. A content cycle bin is different. It’s essentially one campaign with dozens or sometimes hundreds of ad sets depending on account spend (which limits how many ad sets you can create and therefore how many pieces of content you can run).

It’s one campaign, one ad set per piece of content. That way we can run a 3-second video view exclusion for each piece of content in its ad set.

What this means: as soon as somebody watches any one of the videos within this content cycle bin, they’ll never see that particular video again.

Step One: Content Distribution to Cold Audiences

In the first content cycle bin for the Forester campaign specifically, we’re putting out content intended to be consumed for at least 3 seconds. Once somebody watches for a measly 3 seconds, they become retargetable for the direct response ads we’ll show them next.

This first content cycle bin targets ice-cold audiences — people who do not know us.

Here’s a common dynamic on social platforms: targeting a warm audience typically yields a cheaper cost per result and lower CPMs because those people have already interacted with you. If people who have already interacted are cheaper to reach, you can manufacture that by doing the cheapest possible paid action to get someone retargetable, making them cheaper to hit with direct response ads.

That’s the Forester’s intention in this first step. Put pieces of content in front of people who do not know you; when they consume content, hit them with direct response ads. When they watch 3 seconds of any piece of content in the content cycle bin, you can remarket to them.

Target the same cold audiences you would normally use for direct response ads: lookalike audiences, broad targeting, interest stacks — simply put, people who do not know you. Create an audience for people who viewed at least 3 seconds of any single video in the content cycle bin. That gives you the retargeting pool for your direct response ads.

Step Two: Direct Response to Your Warmed Audience

When you run the direct response ads, it’s business as usual. Use whatever creative and funnel you normally would: image ads, video ads, call funnels, DM ads, webinars, low-ticket products, lead forms, quizzes — anything you typically spend on for direct response.

Target and run the direct response funnels you prefer against the audience that has watched at least 3 seconds of any piece of content.

Step Three: Strategic Content Running Alongside Direct Response

Once you begin retargeting people with direct response ads, run a two-step campaign simultaneously: the original content cycle bin and the direct response plus another content cycle bin.

There is an important difference between content cycle bin one and content cycle bin two:

• Content cycle bin one is purely to get people retargetable. Pick content that will get a view — that’s all.
• Content cycle bin two is strategic. If someone is being targeted by direct response ads, determine which content would make sense for them to see at the same time.

Content for cycle bin two might include:

• Testimonials
• Use-case content
• Unboxing videos
• Onboarding or initial experience videos
• Long-form videos demonstrating expertise (and their short-form versions)
• Stage speeches or podcast appearances

This content should be selected strategically — content you want someone to see while they’re being hit with direct response ads to increase the likelihood they take action.

How to Set Up the Technical Components for Content Cycle Bins

Important technical component: create the campaign and load it with ad sets that each contain one piece of content. The audience for retargeting will be people who watched 3 seconds of any one of those videos.

Apply the same logic to any content cycle bin you deploy: run a 3-second exclusion for each piece of content. Anyone who watches any of the pieces will not see that same piece again. As they continue to scroll, a different piece of content will hit them next.

This creates strong familiarity bias and produces a swarm effect — you will appear repeatedly in their feed because you’re one of the few advertisers spending on content.

According to WordStream’s research on remarketing, audiences exposed to brand content prior to direct response messaging tend to engage at different rates than completely cold audiences.

This approach can be highly effective, though it can be difficult to track ROI directly. You typically blend this strategy with direct response spend and justify it by split-testing: run direct response by itself and then run the combined strategy against it to compare performance.

Where to Learn the Full Content Ad System

There is a lot of technical detail I could demonstrate: literal ad campaign setups on all platforms discussed, content examples, direct response examples, and case studies of businesses using this exact strategy. This blog post provides above-and-beyond guidance, but the full Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and implementation details are included in paid programs.

If you want the full details, invest in one of our programs. Options include the 7-week live comprehensive training, Master Internet Marketing, and the flagship program, Inner Circle.

Results are not typical. Your results will vary and depend entirely on your individual capacity, business experience, expertise, and level of desire. There are no guarantees concerning the level of success you may experience. The testimonials and examples used are not intended to represent or guarantee that anyone will achieve the same or similar results. We don’t believe in get-rich-quick programs. We believe in hard work, adding value and serving others. As stated by law, we cannot and do not make any guarantees about your own ability to get results or earn any money with our information, courses, programs, or strategies.

Inner Circle is for established operators trying to scale significantly. You should be making at least $100K a month to consider it. Most members join in the range of a couple hundred thousand a month; they are trying to crack their first million-dollar months or the next million a month. They want to be around people like them and have access to resources and information to help in that process.

Master Internet Marketing is a 7-week live class. It’s excellent for training your staff or training yourself. Each class covers a different topic each week (about a three- to five-hour class per week), plus an extensive homework library and SOPs that walk you through execution with examples, active communities, and the ability to ask me questions directly.

If you won’t take action on either program, check out some of my other content. I have resources dedicated to propaganda campaigns, content ad strategies, and similar topics.

This is a strategy that businesses I’ve worked with have made significant money with over the years. We originated these strategies, put them into practice, and teach them because of how well they work. We’ve been doing this since day one of my career when I only had marketing jobs.

Go put this into action. This strategy is powerful, and I look forward to seeing what you do with it. Keep me posted if you get results implementing it.

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