# What advertising strategy turns paid clicks into paying customers? A four-step advertising strategy for small business: content first, email capture, a usable lead magnet, and a booking ask, with a 60/40 budget split. Source: https://thankfullycleargecko.shop/what-advertising-strategy-turns/ · based on the channel [Brad Smith](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCW4a7-xsOmM8AheRvr4w8A) · Video: [$10M Advertising Strategy (Step-by-Step)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X96SOzAs2M) · 2026-11-13 ![What advertising strategy turns paid clicks into paying customers?](https://thankfullycleargecko.shop/what-advertising-strategy-turns/what-advertising-strategy-turns.webp) ## Key takeaways - Brad Smith of AutomationLinks runs a four-step advertising funnel on roughly $3 million a month in ad spend. - New ad traffic goes to a blog post or video first, not the homepage, so visitors get value before any ask. - Retargeting runs across platforms; email capture is the second step and a usable lead magnet the third. - The final step is a direct booking or purchase ask, which converts warm retargeted audiences. - Smith splits the advertising budget 60/40: 60% to proven campaigns, 40% to testing new ones. An advertising strategy converts paid clicks into customers by planning the follow-up before increasing spend. Send new visitors to a blog post or video, retarget them with a reason to join your email list, give them something usable on a landing page, then make booking a call or buying easy. Brad Smith, owner of [AutomationLinks](https://www.automationlinks.com/advertising-agency), walks through the four-step funnel his team uses while managing about $3 million a month in ad spend. ## Why does sending ad traffic to your homepage waste money? A homepage asks a stranger to buy before they have received anything of value. Someone clicks an ad, lands on a sales page, looks around and leaves; a week later they are ready to buy, but they call the business they remember. Advertising that ignores this sequence pays for clicks that never convert, because the visitor had no reason to stay, subscribe or return. The fix is to treat the first click as the start of a relationship rather than a transaction. The homepage is built for people who already know the brand, while cold paid traffic needs an entry point that delivers something first. Smith calls the underlying idea the Nike shoe effect: a buyer sees a pair of Nikes, does not purchase immediately, and later returns to the brand that stayed in front of them. Advertising works the same way, and the business that plans for the delayed decision wins the sale. ## What are the four steps of this advertising strategy? The funnel runs in a fixed order, and each step prepares the visitor for the next ask. Building the follow-up first means every dollar of ad spend lands on a path that already exists. 1. **Send new visitors to a blog post or video.** Cold traffic gets education or entertainment instead of a pitch, which lowers the bounce rate and builds familiarity with the brand. 2. **Get people on your email list.** Retargeting ads across platforms, including Google Ads and Facebook retargeting, bring back visitors who did not subscribe on the first visit and give them another chance to join. 3. **Give people a reason to opt in.** The landing page offers something the reader can actually use, so the email address is exchanged for real value rather than requested for a newsletter. 4. **Get people to book or buy.** Once the audience is warm, a direct call to action, such as booking a call or completing a purchase, converts far better than the same ask made on the first click. ## How do you retarget across advertising platforms? Retargeting works by showing different messages to people at different stages of awareness. A visitor who watched a video or read a blog post but never subscribed should see an ad that offers the newsletter or lead magnet, not the same ad that brought them in the first time. Platforms such as Google Ads and Facebook each hold their own audiences, so the same person can be reached on search, social and display without repeating one creative everywhere. The practical rule is one audience, one message, one next step. Cold audiences get content, warm audiences get the opt-in offer, and subscribers get the booking or purchase ask. Splitting the audience this way keeps the advertising budget from paying twice for the same impression and makes performance easier to read. ## How do you get people on your email list and give them a reason to opt in? Email capture is the bridge between a curious visitor and a paying customer. A blog post or video earns attention, but attention fades without a channel to continue the conversation. Retargeting ads that promote the newsletter keep the brand visible, and the opt-in page has to justify the exchange with something concrete. A usable lead magnet does that job: a template, checklist, calculator, guide or short training that solves a small piece of the visitor's problem. The test is simple, because if the offer is genuinely useful, people will trade an email address for it. Vague promises such as "subscribe for updates" rarely clear that bar, while a specific tool tied to the content the visitor just consumed does. Smith's funnel follows the same logic, offering value at each stage before asking for the sale. ## How should you split your advertising budget? Smith splits the advertising budget 60/40. Sixty percent goes to campaigns that already produce results, and forty percent funds testing of new audiences, creatives and offers. The proven share protects cash flow, while the test share prevents the account from going stale as costs rise and audiences fatigue. A workable starting sequence for a small business looks like this: - Build the content page and the email capture before launching any paid campaign. - Fund the content and retargeting steps first, since they feed every later stage. - Move budget toward the booking or purchase step only once the earlier stages show steady opt-ins. - Review the 60/40 split regularly and promote a winning test into the proven group. This structure is what allows a funnel to scale without wasting money on ads that reach people who were never going to convert on the first click. ## What results can a follow-up advertising funnel produce? The value of the funnel shows up in the sale price of the business that owns it. Smith points to a company that sold for over $10 million, and the asset behind that exit was a system that turned advertising clicks into an owned audience and repeat customers, not a single high-performing ad. Buyers pay for predictable acquisition, and a documented funnel with content, email and retargeting steps is exactly that. For a smaller operation, the same logic applies at any budget. The goal is to stop renting attention and start compounding it, so each campaign adds subscribers and warm buyers instead of starting from zero. ## Where can you get help building this advertising funnel? The four steps are content first, email capture second, a usable offer third and a booking or purchase ask last, all supported by a 60/40 budget split. Brad Smith presents the full breakdown in the video on the Brad Smith channel, using his own agency's funnel as the example. Businesses that want the follow-up built for them can visit [the AutomationLinks advertising agency page](https://www.automationlinks.com/advertising-agency) to learn how to get the best results from their ads. ## Questions & answers **How much ad spend does the strategy in the video cover?** Brad Smith says his team manages about $3 million a month in advertising spend, and the four-step funnel is the structure used across those accounts. The approach is designed to work at smaller budgets too, because it focuses on follow-up rather than volume. **Why send paid traffic to a blog post instead of a sales page?** Cold visitors have no reason to trust a brand yet, so a sales page asks for a purchase too early. A blog post or video gives them something useful first, which keeps them on the site and makes later retargeting and email offers far more effective. **What should a lead magnet include to get opt-ins?** It should be something the visitor can immediately use, such as a template, checklist, calculator or short training tied to the content they just consumed. Specific, practical offers convert better than generic newsletter signups. **What does the 60/40 budget split mean?** Sixty percent of the advertising budget goes to campaigns that already perform, and forty percent goes to testing new audiences, creatives and offers. The proven share protects results while the test share keeps finding improvements.