The module list
Eight modules, forty lessons, lifetime access. True, and nobody scrolling has ever stopped for it. The thing they want is the finished piece of work, the skill, the saved hours.
Ads for course creators and digital productsPeople buy the outcome, not the syllabus.
Online courses, templates, presets, planners, downloadable tools: anything sold from the ad to a checkout without a sales call. If that is you, read on.
What we see in course and download ads.
Course and digital-product ads usually describe what is inside, when the buyer is paying for what they will be able to do afterwards.
A reveal that arrives too late
A template or preset is bought on impulse, so the ad has about five seconds to show the result. Many open with a logo, a name or a slow build, and the viewer is gone before the reveal.
Results that can't be shown
Income claims and invented student results are the fastest way to a banned account and a fine. The honest alternative, real student work shown with permission, works better anyway.
What we'd make first
Show the finished piece in the first frame.
For a course, the first frame is the thing a student made, or the founder saying plainly what changes after week one. For a download, it is the template filling itself in, the preset transforming a photo, the tool producing its result, inside five seconds. Everything else follows that.
- Outcome-first static: the finished portfolio piece, not the curriculum
- Founder to camera: the one change the course makes, said in a sentence
- Template reveal, motion: watch it fill itself in, then the price
- Before and after: a student's week-one work beside week-six, with permission
A first drop for a course or download, ad by ad.
Starter's twelve ads a month leave room to test a few outcome angles before scaling the one that lands. The first week looks like this.
- Finished-work reveal, staticoutcome framing
- Founder to camera, UGC-styleauthority
- Template fills itself in, motioninstant reveal
- Finished-work reveal, static: outcome framing (the result, before any mention of lessons)
- Founder to camera, UGC-style: authority (who you are and why you can teach it)
- Template fills itself in, motion: instant reveal (the result inside five seconds)
- Student work with permission, static: social proof (a real name, a real piece)
- Time saved, static: anchoring (the hours a download saves against its price)
- The thing that stops them, UGC-style: problem first (the blank page, the botched edit)
- Lifetime access and refund, static: loss aversion (the risk of buying, removed)
- What you'll do in week one, motion: specificity (one concrete task, not a promise)
Illustration: the shape of a first drop, not a client's ads. Every ad is remade to your brief.
The numbers we watch for a course or download.
Cost per sale, and before that, hook rate and click-through rate. A course is a considered buy, so the ad's job is to earn the click and the page's job is to close; a download is an impulse buy, so the ad carries more of the sale and the hook rate matters most. We tell you which of the two your product is behaving like, because the fix is different.
We also watch which outcome angle wins. A course that sells on career change needs different ads from one that sells on a hobby, and only testing both side by side tells you which your buyers are.
A course sold through a free class or a webinar first has two numbers: cost per registration while the launch runs, then cost per enrollment once the cart closes, read against the registrations each ad brought in. Each Monday's drop is judged on whichever applies. An angle that fills the webinar but enrolls nobody is promising the wrong thing, and it is replaced before the next launch, not after it.
What a course creator's drop holds, and what stays yours.
Talking heads, reveals and statics, in each size
Founder clips, template and preset reveals and outcome statics each come in 9:16 for Reels, Stories and TikTok, plus 4:5 and 1:1 for the feed. Every one is edited to work with the sound off, and the hook, caption and headline for every ad are written for you, so a launch week is a matter of uploading, not editing.
Student results, shown the honest way
The FTC's Endorsement Guides, revised in 2023, say that when an advertiser cannot show a featured result is typical, the ad must say what people can generally expect, and that adding results not typical does not cure it. Source: the FTC's Endorsement Guides. So a student's result appears in your ads only with their permission and beside what a typical student gets, which you tell us and stand behind. The ads that show a before and an after work the same way.
Yours to run on any page you sell from
You approve every ad before it goes live, and any that misses the brief is remade free within seven days. Once paid for, an ad is yours on any channel with no time limit, so a reveal that sells can open your sales page too. A three-line note each week says what the drop tests; Growth and Scale add a monthly video report. The categories we turn down, income claims among them, are on who we make ads for.
How it works for a course creator.
One brief, then a fresh set of outcome angles every Monday, launch or evergreen.
Tell us the outcome
The result a student walks away with, the work you have permission to show, and your launch dates or evergreen offer. About ten minutes, then a kickoff call.
Outcome angles side by side
Your first ads arrive within seven days: several promises about the same course, each tested against the others, never the syllabus.
Run them, send the sales
Upload what you approve and tell us each ad's cost per sale, or per registration and enrollment for a launch.
Double down before the next cart opens
The angle that enrolls students gets new hooks and formats; the one that only fills the webinar is retired.
Where most courses and downloads start.
Starter: £1,250 a month for 12 ads. Twelve ads a month covers several outcome angles in the first weeks without over-spending on an audience that may be small. Downloads with many products, or a course with real volume, move to Growth once the winning angle is clear.
Questions we get from courses and digital products.
Will you make ads with income or results claims?
No. We do not invent student results or promise earnings. We show real work with permission, the founder's own claims they can back up, and the outcome in plain terms. That is both the law and the better ad.
I sell on a marketplace. Can you still help?
Yes, as long as you run your own Meta or TikTok ads to a page you control. The ads are yours to run anywhere; we just need the page the ad sends people to.
Do I need to appear on camera?
It helps for a course, because people buy a teacher. It is optional: outcome statics, student work and template reveals carry a drop without a face. If you will record one short clip, we script it and tell you exactly what to say.
See 8 before and after ad examples
Concept work: every ad in these teardowns is a concept we drew, not a real advertiser's or a client's ad.
More teardowns for this kind of business:
Not your kind of business?
Each of these pages speaks to one kind of customer, in its own words.
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