Meta Ads for Online Courses: The Ultimate Scaling Guide

So, you're looking for a Meta ads agency to help scale your online course. Maybe you've tried running ads yourself and hit a wall, or maybe you've been burned by an agency before that promised the moon but delivered a bunch of leads that never opened a single email, let alone bought anything.

I get it. It's frustrating. The truth is, the market for "ads agencies" is absolutely saturated, and finding one that actually understands the nuance of selling knowledge rather than just physical widgets is rare. Selling a £30 t-shirt is easy. Selling a £997 transformation? That takes a completely different skillset.

I've auditied hundreds of ad accounts for course creators, coaches, and education businesses. The pattern is almost always the same. They hire a generalist agency. The agency runs "traffic" or generic "lead gen" campaigns. The leads come in cheap, everyone celebrates for a week, and then... silence. No sales. No ROI. The agency blames the landing page, you blame the leads, and money gets wasted.

This guide is going to walk you through exactly what actually works right now for selling courses with paid ads. I'm not going to give you the corporate spiel. I'm going to tell you what I'd look for if I were in your shoes, and share some of the strategies we've used to generate six-figure revenues for our clients in the elearning space.

The Economics of Course Advertising (Why You're Calculating It Wrong)

Before we even talk about ad creatives or audiences, we have to look at the maths. Most course creators I speak to have unrealistic expectations about their numbers. They think they can spend £10 and make a £500 sale immediately from a cold audience. That might have happened in 2015, but today? It's a different game.

In the course world, you are buying data. You are paying for the privilege of starting a conversation. If you don't know your numbers—specifically your Earnings Per Lead (EPL) and your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)—you are flying blind.

Let's say you sell a course for £500. A generalist agency might panic if your Cost Per Lead (CPL) goes over £5. But if you know that for every 100 leads, 2 people buy (a 2% conversion rate), that means 100 leads generates £1,000 in revenue. That means your Earnings Per Lead is £10. Technically, you could spend up to £9 per lead and still be profitable. But an inexperienced media buyer will turn off a campaign getting £6 leads because they think it's "too expensive", inadvertantly killing your profit.

We built a calculator below to help you map this out. You need to play with these variables to understand what you can actually afford to spend.

The "Agency" Trap: Why Generalists Fail at Courses

I remember taking on a client who had been with a big, fancy digital agency in London. They were spending £5k a month promoting his "Data Science for Beginners" course. The agency was running traffic ads to his blog, and "Page Like" campaigns to grow his following. They reported "great engagement" and "low CPCs".

The client had made zero sales. Zero.

The agency didn't understand that a course is a considered purchase. It's not an impulse buy. You need to build authority. The "trap" is hiring an agency that treats your course like a pair of trainers. They'll set up a catalogue sales campaign or just boost posts, ignoring the fundamental need for a funnel.

If you're vetting someone, you need to dig deep into their specific experience with info products. If you want to know what to look for specifically, we have a detailed breakdown on UK course ads expert: the founder's vetting guide that goes into the nitty-gritty questions you should be asking.

The Funnel Architecture: It's Not Just An Ad

Here is the reality: The ad is just the doorway. The funnel is the house. If the house is a mess, it doesn't matter how nice the door is.

For courses, we generally see three main funnel types working right now, and your agency should be advising you on which one fits your price point.

1. The Low-Ticket "Self-Liquidating" Offer (SLO)

This is usually for courses priced between £27 and £97. The goal here isn't necessarily to make a huge profit on day one, but to acquire a customer for free (break even) and then upsell them to a higher coaching program or masterclass later. The ad sends them directly to a long-form sales page. Simple, direct.

2. The Webinar / VSL Funnel

For courses priced £297 to £997, you need more time to persuade. You can't just say "Buy Now". You need to say "Learn How". We run ads to a registration page for a free training or a Video Sales Letter (VSL). The value is provided upfront, demonstrating your expertise, before pitching the course.

3. The Challenge Funnel

This has been huge lately. "5-Day Challenge to Launch Your Podcast" or similar. You run ads to get people into a free or low-cost 5-day live experience. The engagement is sky-high, trust is built rapidly, and at the end, you pitch your high-ticket academy (£1k+). We've seen this strategy drive significantly higher conversion rates compared to standard evergreen webinars for interactive topics.

If you're unsure which funnel fits your specific business model, you might want to check out our Meta ads funnel blueprint for UK course sales (2024).

Creative Strategy: The "Expert" is the Asset

This is where I see 90% of campaigns fail. Agencies will use stock photos of people in suits shaking hands or generic "laptop on a beach" images. It screams "scam" or "low quality".

In the course business, YOU are the product. People buy from people. Your ads need to feature you. Talking head videos where you address the camera directly, call out the user's specific pain points, and offer a solution are consistently our top performers. B-roll is fine for cutaways, but if I can't see the teacher's eyes, I'm probably not trusting them with my credit card.

A few creative angles we find work really well:

• The "Myth buster": "Stop trying to learn coding by reading books. It's the worst way to learn." (Contrarian views stop the scroll).
• The "Over-the-shoulder": "Watch me set up a profitable campaign in 5 minutes." (Demonstration of competence).
• The "Direct Callout": "If you're a freelance writer struggling to break £2k months, this is for you." (Qualifies the audience immediately).

If you're struggling to come up with ideas, have a look at our guide on UK online course ads: the ultimate creative blueprint for some specific scripts and formats.

Audience Targeting: Stop Guessing

One of the biggest mistakes I see in ad accounts is "Interest hoarding". The client (or their agency) has stuffed 50 different interests into one ad set. "Online marketing", "Tony Robbins", "Entrepreneurship", "Small business", "Gary Vaynerchuk".

When you do this, you have no idea what is actually working. Is it the Gary Vee fans buying, or the Small Business interest? You can't optimise what you can't isolate.

However, the algorithm has changed. These days, broad targeting (no interests, just age and gender) is often outperforming interest targeting if your creative is good enough. The AI uses your ad copy and video to find the right people. But this only works if you have plenty of data (sales) flowing through your pixel.

If you're starting from scratch with a new pixel, you likely need to "teach" it. We usually start with a "competitor stack" (targeting fans of big names in your niche) or a "tool stack" (targeting users of software related to your course topic, e.g., targeting 'Adobe Lightroom' users for a photography course). Once we get 50-100 conversions, we open it up to Lookalikes and broader audiences.

We've found this particularly effective for professional courses. For example, if you're selling a B2B course, LinkedIn might seem obvious, but Meta can work if you target correctly. See our thoughts on LinkedIn ads for online courses: the high-ticket blueprint for a comparison.

Case Studies: What Real Results Look Like

I want to share a few examples from our own experience so you can see what's actually possible. I'm not doing this to brag, but to give you a benchmark. If an agency tells you they can get leads for £0.10 in the finance niche, they are lying. If they tell you it costs £100 per lead in the knitting niche, they are doing it wrong.

Case Study 1: The High-Ticket Course ($115k in 1.5 Months)
We worked with a client in the eLearning space selling a comprehensive vocational course. The challenge was trust—it was a pricey commitment. We focused on a strategy that provided value upfront to build authority. The result was $115k revenue generated in just 6 weeks. The key here was a campaign structure that nurtured potential students through the decision-making process, addressing their hesitations before asking for the sale.

Case Study 2: The "Rapid Fire" Launch (447% ROAS)
Another client had a lower ticket offer and wanted to scale fast during a launch window. We implemented a campaign structure that allowed us to rapidly test different creative messages to see what resonated. We identified the winning creatives quickly and scaled the budget, driving a 447% ROAS in a single week. Speed of implementation and testing is vital during a launch.

For a deeper dive into how we structure these campaigns, check out Meta ads: the ultimate course sales growth blueprint.

Vetting Your Future Agency: The "BS" Detector

If you decide to hire help, you need to be armed with the right questions. Don't let them dazzle you with impressions or "brand lift". You can't pay your mortgage with brand lift.

Ask them these three questions:

1. "How do you handle creative testing?" If they say "we upload the images you send us", run. A good partner should be guiding the creative strategy, writing scripts, or at least giving detailed feedback on what needs to be filmed.
2. "What is your approach to the 'Learning Phase'?" If they don't have a clear answer about how to exit the learning phase (getting 50 conversions per week per ad set), they likely don't understand the mechanics of the Meta algorithm.
3. "Can you show me a case study for a course similar to mine?" If you sell a B2B course on leadership, a case study about selling dog treats is irrelevant. The buyer psychology is totally different.

We actually wrote a whole article on finding the right partner, specifically for those based in major hubs (though the advice applies everywhere): London's guide: find a Facebook ads expert for courses.

Common Technical Pitfalls

I have to mention the tech. Since iOS14, tracking has become a nightmare for the unprepared. If your agency isn't setting up the Conversions API (CAPI), you are missing data. I've seen accounts where the Facebook Ads Manager shows 10 sales, but the backend shows 20. If you are optimising based on the 10, you might turn off a winning ad because you think it's underperforming. You need 3rd party attribution tools or a robust server-side setup to survive today.

Also, make sure your "custom conversions" are set up correctly. Don't just track "leads". Track "qualified leads" (people who answered questions a certain way) if you can. Quality over quantity, always.

For those of you specifically looking at creating ads that convert students, not just lookie-loos, we have a resource on ad creatives that convert online course students.

My Recommended Action Plan

If I were starting a campaign for your course today, this is exactly what I would do.

Final Thoughts

Scaling a course with ads is hard work. It's not a "set and forget" income stream, despite what the gurus on YouTube tell you. It requires constant testing, tweaking, and a relentless focus on the numbers.

You need to move away from the mindset of "spending" money on ads and towards "investing" money in acquiring customers. If you can spend £100 to acquire a customer worth £500, you don't have an expense problem; you have a cash flow limit on how fast you can grow.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the data, or you've tried this and it just didn't click, it might be time to bring in an expert eye. We can't promise to make you a millionaire overnight—no honest agency can—but we can promise to give you a clear, data-backed strategy to grow your course business sustainably.

If you want to stop guessing and start scaling, consider booking a free consultation with us. We'll look at your ad account, tear apart your funnel (in a nice way), and tell you honestly if we think ads are the right move for you right now.

Hope this helps!