Unpopular opinion: using social media ads to find clients is overrated

I spent $800 on LinkedIn ads over 3 months and got 2 leads that ghosted me. Then I started emailing people directly with a simple script I wrote in 10 minutes. That got me 5 meetings in 2 weeks. Everyone told me ads were the future but honestly, real outreach worked better. Has anyone else had better luck with cold emails than paid ads?

2 comments

2 Comments

emma_young8d ago

Started off thinking ads were the smart play, spent maybe $600 on Instagram ads before I realized I was basically burning cash. Switched to just sending personal messages to people I wanted to work with, nothing fancy, and my reply rate went way up. Made me rethink everything I thought I knew about getting clients online.

the_eric8d agoMost Upvoted

Did you try any A/B testing on the ads or just let them run? I threw $500 at Facebook ads once and got almost nothing but bot clicks. Cold emailing has been way better for me too, seriously. I use a real simple approach like you said, just a short message that shows I actually looked at their profile. It takes more time upfront but the conversion rate is miles ahead of anything I got from paid ads.