Solved: Correct Facebook Retargeting for Webinar Signups

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your Facebook ads plan. Tbh, your current approach has a few major flaws that will likely lead to you spending money without getting many, if any, signups for your course. The good news is that it's fixable, but it requires a fundamental shift in how you think about targeting and retargeting on the platform. Let's walk through it.

I'd say your current retargeting plan is built on a weak foundation...

Alright, let's be direct. The plan to run a broad ad for 5 days and then retarget people who watched 50% of the video is one of the most common mistakes I see new advertisers make. It sounds logical, but in practice, it's a very inefficient way to spend your budget. Here's why.

Firstly, when you set up a campaign with a very wide audience and no specific conversion goal, you're telling Facebook's algorithm to "find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price." The algorithm is brilliant at doing exactly what you ask it to do. It will seek out users who are least likely to click, least likely to engage meaningfully, and almost certainly not going to sign up for an hour-long webinar. Why? Because those users' attention is cheap. No one else is bidding for them. You're actively paying Facebook to find you the worst possible audience for your offer. It's an uncomfortable truth, but that's how the system works when you give it vague instructions.

Secondly, a 50% video view is a terrible indicator of actual interest. People watch videos on Facebook for a million reasons while scrolling. They might be waiting for a bus, listening with the sound off, or just passively consuming content. It does not mean they have a deep, urgent pain point around binge eating that they want to solve. It's a low-intent action. Retargeting this group is like trying to sell a car to everyone who glanced at a billboard on the motorway. You'll get a huge audience, but almost none of them are actually in the market to buy.

You need to target intent, not attention. And your current plan is set up to do the exact opposite.

You'll need a proper funnel with the right objectives...

So, what's the alternative? You need to structure your campaigns around a proper marketing funnel, even a simple one. This means having seperate campaigns (or ad sets) for different stages of the customer journey. We can think of it in three parts: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu).

Your #1 Priority: Change Your Campaign Objective

Before you do anything else, you must change your campaign objective. Instead of running a campaign for video views or reach, you must use a Conversions objective. You'll want to set up a custom conversion event for a successful webinar signup. This is non-negotiable. By doing this, you're telling Facebook's algorithm, "Go and find people within my target audience who are most similar to people who have already signed up for my webinar." The algorithm is incredibly powerful at this. It will analyse thousands of data points to find your ideal customer, but you have to give it the right goal to aim for.

This single change is the most important piece of advice here. It shifts your strategy from chasing cheap attention to finding actual potential customers.

You probably should rethink your audience targetting...

Casting a wide net is a surefire way to waste your budget. You need to be much more deliberate with your cold audience targeting. Your niche is specific, so your targeting should be too. Instead of 'all interests', you need to think like your ideal customer. What are they interested in? What pages do they follow? Who are the thought leaders they listen to?

Here are some ideas for interest-based audiences you should test in seperate ad sets:

• Wellness & Mental Health: Interests like "Mindfulness", "Self-care", "Mental health awareness", "Intuitive eating". These are a bit broad, but a good starting point.
• Specific Authors/Experts: Are there well-known authors, dietitians, or psychologists in the binge eating or intuitive eating space? Target people interested in them (e.g., Brené Brown, Geneen Roth).
• Competitors & Related Services: Target followers of pages like Noom, Weight Watchers (people looking for a solution), or other recovery-focused programs. You're looking for people who are already problem-aware.
• Relevant Behaviours: Look for behaviours related to online shopping for health products or engagement with health-related content.

The key is to test these interest groups against each other. After a few days, you'll see which audiences are delivering webinar signups at the lowest cost, and you can shift your budget to the winners. This is a much more intelligent approach than blindly targeting everyone and hoping for the best.

For retargeting, you need to focus on high-intent actions. Here's the priority I would use:

1. People who visited your webinar signup page but didn't register: This is your hottest audience. They were one step away from converting.
2. All website visitors in the last 30-60 days: They've shown some interest in you and what you do.
3. Facebook/Instagram page engagers: People who have liked, commented, or shared your content. This is a better signal than a passive video view.

Only retarget video viewers as a last resort, and even then, I'd focus on those who watched 95% of a longer, more value-driven video, not just a short ad.

We'll need to look at your messaging and your numbers...

An $899 course is a significant investment. You're not selling a t-shirt. Your ad copy and your offer need to reflect that. You need to connect with the deep pain your audience is feeling and present your webinar as the first step towards a tangible solution. I'd recomend using the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework in your ads.

Example Ad Copy:

Headline: Tired of the Binge-Restrict Cycle?

Body: Do you feel like food controls your life? The secret guilt after a binge, the promise that 'tomorrow will be different', only for the cycle to start all over again. It's exhausting and isolating. But what if you could find peace with food, for good? In my free 1-hour training, I'll show you the 3-step framework I use to help women break free from binge eating without restrictive dieting. Claim your spot now and take the first step towards food freedom.

This copy speaks directly to the nightmare your ideal customer is living. It agitates the problem and then presents your webinar as the clear, accessible solution.

Now, let's talk numbers. Your budget of $40/day is a reasonable starting point for testing, but you need to have realistic expectations. The cost to acquire a webinar signup (Cost Per Lead or CPL) in developed countries for a health-related niche can vary widely. Based on our experience with course creators, you could be looking at anything from $5 to $25 per signup, maybe even higher.

Let's use the interactive calculator below to model what this could look like. This will help you understand the relationship between your ad spend, conversion rates, and eventual profit.

As you can see from playing with the calculator, getting this funnel to be profitable requires optimising every single step. A small improvement in your CPL or your webinar close rate can be the difference between losing money and having a succesful, scalable campaign. This is why testing is so important.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Your instinct to use Facebook Ads is a good one, but the strategy needs a complete overhaul. Stop thinking about collecting data passively and start actively hunting for customers with a conversion-focused campaign. I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Getting this right involves a lot of moving parts: pixel setup, conversion tracking, audience research, creative testing, and constant optimisation. It's not just about setting up an ad and hoping for the best. It's a systematic process of testing and learning. For a high-ticket offer like yours, it's absolutly worth the effort to get it right from the start rather than burning through your budget on a flawed strategy.

This might seem like a lot to take in, and frankly, it is. That's where professional expertise can make a huge difference. An experienced paid ads consultant can help you avoid these common pitfalls, implement the right tracking and campaign structure, and accelerate your path to profitability. We do this day in, day out for course creators. I remember one client in the eLearning space where we implemented a similar funnel-based strategy on Meta Ads. That campaign generated $115,000 in revenue in just a month and a half, building a scalable system that consistently brought in new students.

If you'd like to chat through this in more detail and get a second pair of expert eyes on your specific situation, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can review your setup and give you a clear, actionable plan to move forward.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh