Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out!
Happy to give you some initial thoughts on selling your courses with Facebook ads. It's a bit of a different world to selling cheap items, but definitely doable. The key isn't really finding some magic "average cost per customer" – because that figure is mostly useless without context. The real work is in building a system where you can afford to pay what's necessary to acquire a customer profitably. I'll walk you through how we think about it.
TLDR;
- Forget 'average cost per customer'. Focus on Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). You can afford a high CPA if the customer value is higher. This letter includes an interactive ROAS calculator to help you figure this out.
- Your ads aren't the problem, your offer is. A $97 course must solve an urgent, expensive problem for a very specifc audience. I'll show you how to frame it.
- Stop guessing with targeting. There's a clear priority for which audiences to test first to get the best results, from cold interests to warm retargeting. There's a flowchart inside that breaks it down.
- Success comes from optimising the whole funnel, not just the ad. Your landing page, copy, and testimonials are just as important. A weak link here will kill your campaign, no matter how good the ad is.
Let's first talk about what a realistic cost per customer actually is...
You're right, the cost per customer (or CPA - Cost Per Acquisition) for a $97 course can vary wildly. I've seen it range from $20 to well over $150. Anyone who gives you a single number is either lying or doesn't have enough experience. It depends on your niche, your targeting, your creative, your landing page conversion rate, and a dozen other things.
I remember one campaign we worked on for a course creator generated $115k in revenue in about 6 weeks, and for another client, we drove a 447% ROAS in just one week. But these are standout results after a lot of testing and optimisation. They certainly weren't paying a few dollars per customer. They were profitable because they understood their numbers.
Instead of CPA, you should be obsessed with ROAS (Return On Ad Spend). If you spend £1 and make £3 back, who cares if the CPA was £30 or £50? The campaign is profitable. That's the only metric that realy matters.
To give you a rough idea, here's how the maths typically breaks down for selling a digital product like a course in a developed country like the US:
| Metric | Pessimistic Scenario | Optimistic Scenario | What This Means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost Per Click (CPC) | $1.50 | $0.50 | How much you pay for one person to click your ad. |
| Landing Page Conv. Rate | 2% | 5% | The percentage of clickers who actually buy the course. |
| Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) | $75 ($1.50 / 2%) | $10 ($0.50 / 5%) | Your actual cost to get one sale. |
| ROAS (on a $97 course) | 1.29x ($97 / $75) | 9.7x ($97 / $10) | Your return for every dollar spent. |
As you can see, a $75 CPA on a $97 course is barely profitable. A $10 CPA is fantastic. Most campaigns will land somewhere in the middle, and your job is to pull all the levers you can to move from the pessimistic side to the optimistic one. This interactive calculator below should help you play around with your own numbers.
Cost Per Sale: $40.00
Total Revenue (at $97/course): $4,850
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): 2.43x
Your offer needs to solve an urgent problem...
Here’s the bit most people get wrong. They spend weeks perfecting their ads, but their campaign was doomed from the start because their offer was weak. For a $97 course, you can't just sell information. Information is free. You have to sell a transformation. You have to solve a specific, urgent, and expensive problem for a well-defined audience.
Most failed campaigns I see are because of a lack of demand for the offer. The founder built something they thought was a great idea, but nobody actualy wanted to pay for it.
Here’s how to build an offer that sells itself:
- Specific Audience: Who, exactly, is this for? "Anyone interested in marketing" is a terrible audience. "Struggling freelance copywriters in their first year of business" is a great one. The more specific you are, the more your message will resonate.
- Urgent Problem: What nightmare are they living that your course solves? They're not just 'bad at writing headlines'. Their nightmare is 'staring at a blank page for hours, terrified of losing a client because their copy isn't converting'. You sell the cure to that nightmare.
- Clear Solution: Your course isn't a collection of videos. It's a system, a process, a "Headline Generator Toolkit that lands clients". Give it a name, define the deliverables, and promise a tangible outcome. This makes it feel less risky to buy.
We use a framework called the Before-After-Bridge to structure ad copy around this. It's incredibly persausive.
- Before: Describe their current world of pain in detail. "Your email offers get single-digit open rates. You spend hours writing, only to hear crickets. You're starting to wonder if you're cut out for this..."
- After: Paint a vivid picture of the dream outcome. "Imagine hitting 'send' with confidence, knowing your inbox will soon be flooded with sales notifications. Imagine clients praising your 'magic touch' with email and referring their friends."
- Bridge: Position your course as the clear, simple path from their 'Before' state to their 'After' state. "My 5-Step Email Ignition course is the bridge. It’s the exact system I used to..."
If you can't articulate your offer in these terms, your ads will struggle. No amount of clever targeting can fix a weak offer.
You'll need a better way to find your customers than just 'quality ads'...
Once your offer is solid, you can think about targeting. Just creating a "quality ad" and showing it to a broad audience is like shouting into a hurricane. You need a structured approach to find the right people at the right time. This means thinking in terms of a funnel: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu).
And for the love of god, do not run "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" campaigns. You are literally paying Facebook to find the people in your audience who are *least* likely to ever buy anything. Their attention is cheap for a reason. Always, always, always optimise for conversions (Purchases). The algorithm is smart, so tell it to find you buyers, not just viewers.
Here is the exact audience prioritisation structure we use for our eCommerce and course clients. You test these in order, moving budget to what works.
You start by testing several different interest-based audiences at the top of the funnel (ToFu). Once you have enough data (at least 100 purchases, but ideally more), you can create Lookalike audiences and start retargeting website visitors. The audiences at the bottom of the funnel (BoFu), like people who added your course to the cart but didn't buy, are your lowest hanging fruit and will almost always have the highest ROAS.
I'd say you need to nail the creative and the landing page...
This is the final piece of the puzzle. Even with the perfect offer and targeting, a terrible ad or a confusing landing page will sink you. Your ads and landing page have one job: to get the right person to click and then convince them to buy.
On the ad creative side:
- Test different formats: Don't just run image ads. Test videos, carousels, and user-generated content (UGC) style clips. For courses, a simple video of you talking to the camera explaining the 'Before-After-Bridge' can work wonders. Even better, get video testimonials from succesfull students. That's gold dust.
- Focus on the hook: The first 3 seconds of your video or the headline of your image ad determine if someone stops scrolling. Call out your audience and their pain point immediately. "Freelance writers: Tired of clients ghosting you? Here's why..."
On the landing page side:
This is where most DIY advertisers lose their money. They get cheap clicks but no sales. It's a leaky bucket. You need to look at your analytics and see where people are dropping off.
Your landing page needs to be a dedicated sales machine. It must have:
- A Killer Headline: Reiterate the 'After' state promise.
- Persuasive Copy: Use the Before-After-Bridge framework again. A good copywriter is worth their weight in gold here.
- Social Proof: Testimonials, reviews, case studies. Show people that your course actually works for people just like them.
- A Clear Call to Action: One big, obvious button that says "Buy The Course Now" or "Get Instant Access". Remove all other distractions and links.
- Trust Signals: Money-back guarantee, secure payment logos, a bit about you. People need to feel comfortable giving you their card details.
If your landing page converts at 2%, and you improve it to convert at 4%, you have literally just doubled your revenue and halved your cost per acquisition without touching your ads. That's how important it is.
This is the main advice I have for you:
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below in a table. This is the stuff you'll need to get right to have any chance of being profitable.
| Area of Focus | Actionable Recommendation | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Metrics | Stop focusing on CPA. Track ROAS as your North Star metric. Use the calculator to understand your breakeven point. | Profitability is all that matters. A high CPA is fine if your ROAS is high. This mindset shift unlocks scalable growth. |
| The Offer | Clearly define your specific audience, their urgent problem, and how your course is the bridge to their desired outcome. | A weak offer can't be saved by good ads. A strong offer makes advertising 10x easier because it taps into existing demand. |
| Ad Campaign Setup | Always use the 'Conversions' objective, optimising for 'Purchase'. Do not use 'Reach' or 'Awareness'. | This tells Facebook's algorithm to find you buyers, not just cheap impressions. It's the most important setting in your campaign. |
| Targeting Strategy | Follow the ToFu -> MoFu -> BoFu structure. Start with broad interests, then build retargeting and lookalike audiences. | This is a systematic way to find new customers and convert warm leads efficiently, maximising your budget. |
| Landing Page | Build a dedicated sales page with strong copy, lots of social proof (testimonials), and a single, clear call to action. | Your landing page is where the sale actually happens. Doubling your page's conversion rate doubles your business. |
As you can probably tell, running profitable ads for a course is a full-time job. It's not just about setting up an ad and hoping for the best. It's about being a strategist, a copywriter, a data analyst, and a psychologist all at once.
It involves deep research into your audience, constant testing of offers, targeting, and creative, and meticulous optimisation of your landing page. That's where working with an expert can make a huge difference. We've been through this process hundreds of times and can help you avoid the costly mistakes most people make when they start out.
If you'd like to chat more and have us take a look at your specific situation, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can review your plans and give you a clear strategy. Feel free to book one in if you think that would be helpful.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
