A couple weeks ago, right after I ran a classified ad in Daniel Throssell’s newsletter, I got an email from a new reader:
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I just joined your list from Daniel Throssell’s classified ad and really love your Quick and dirty email training, especially because the companies you talk about pertain to ecom.
Was wondering, do you have any other ecom focused resources? Will gladly pay for them.
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I wrote back to ask the guy what he is doing and what specifically he is looking for.
It turns out he has a Shopify jewelry store in the affirmation niche. And he asked:
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Do you have a swipe file of story-based advertorials? Will gladly pay for it!
I noticed you talked about you using the story based advertorials in your story sells bonus as well.
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The background, as you might know, is, that between 2018 and 2021, I wrote dozens of front-end advertorials — basically mini sales letters — all following the same “horror story” structure. These advertorials were parts of cold-traffic funnels that, by my best estimate, brought in over $15 million in cold-traffic ecommerce sales.
The funnels that featured those horror advertorials are no longer running. Of course, I do still have the original copy. I haven’t ever sold it or shared it before. But I’m no longer taking on clients to write advertorials. So I asked myself, why not sell what I got?
I wrote back to the guy to say he could have a collection of my horror advertorials for $100.
He agreed and PayPaled me $100. Later that night, I drove to an empty parking lot behind an abandoned factory, and I dropped off a leather bag filled with my advertorials for him to pick up.
Well, not really. I just sent them to him via email.
But then, sitting on my couch with pen in hand, I had one of those Obvious Adams moments. If one person believes he can get value from a swipe file of story-based advertorials… maybe a second person also might? Or maybe even a third?
I’ll see.
Because right now I am making a collection of 25 of my horror advertorials for $100 to people on my email list.
The offers promoted by these advertorials include everything from anti-mosquito bracelets, bamboo fiber paper towels, fake diamonds, dog seat belts, stick-on bras, and kids’ vitamins.
Is it worth buying this horror-filled swipe file?
It depends.
A few days after I clandestinely dropped off the leather bag of advertorials in the abandoned factory parking lot, the jewelry store owner wrote me to say:
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I’ve been going through your advertorials and they’re incredible to study. Off the top of your head, do you have an idea of which ones stood out in terms of sales/performance?
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The fact is, success in these horror advertorial funnels was due more to the offer than the copy. A good/scary advertorial couldn’t reliably sell a bad/bland offer for very long. On the other hand, a good offer worked even without an advertorial, with an ad that went straight to the product page.
But combine a good offer with a good advertorial and the result was often a big success, and one that could last for years.
I don’t have exact sales numbers for any of these advertorials. But I definitely do know which ones ran for a long time, which ones sold well both on the front end to Facebook and YouTube traffic, and and on the back end via email.
So if you get this swipe file of 25 advertorials, I’ll also sense you a little welcome letter where I describe which of these advertorials were part of long-running successes, which advertorials I think are particularly strong, and which ones might be worth modeling for other reasons.
In this same letter, I also included a quick description of the overall structure of these horror advertorial funnels.
Speaking of funnels:
I encourage you NOT to buy this swipe file if you are simply looking for more swipe file content to hoard, or if you have no experience running cold traffic and are looking for a miracle in that department.
It only makes sense to buy this if you already have a functioning cold-traffic funnel — either for your own business or for a client’s business.
In that case, dropping in a horror advertorial into your existing funnels can help you get much more out of that cold traffic. That’s what happened with that kids’ vitamins advertorial I mentioned above. That client managed to profitably scale from $2k/day to $12k/day in daily ad spend by adding in one of my horror advertorials to their existing funnel.
Last thing:
If you do buy this swipe file, I have a special free (“free” as in no money) mystery offer for you. I will tell you about that offer in the email that delivers the zip file with the advertorials. Again, this offer will only be relevant if you already have a working cold-traffic funnel. In that case, even though this offer is free, it might easily be worth a few thousand dollars to you.
I am making this swipe file available until this Sunday, March 27 2023, at 12 midnight PST. After that I will take it down.
If it turns out there’s not much interest in this swipe file, I will drag the beast to the back of the house and quickly put it out of its misery. On the other hand, if it turns out there is interest, I will think about how to expand this and charge more for it.
In any case, if you want this swipe file, you will have to be on my list first, and before the deadline. To get on there in time, click here and fill out the form that appears.