Grow & market

What makes a paid ad actually convert?

The short answer

The creative does 80% of the work, not the targeting: a scroll-stopping hook, one clear promise, and a landing page that keeps the exact promise the ad made. Test many cheap creative variations rather than obsessing over audience settings. Write for the customer's pain, not your feature list.

Go deeper, your way

2 hand-picked resources, 1 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

📄 Article

✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it A blunt, practical guide from Demand Curve's founder on which paid and organic channels fit which business, and why most startups can't profitably buy ads early on.

Startup Handbook: Customer Acquisition Channels

From julian.com by Julian Shapiro Long-form guide

Most companies cannot profitably acquire on Meta/Google without high margins or strong referrals.
Match the channel to your product's format, targeting, audience, and device.
Great creative and a promise-keeping landing page beat obsessive targeting.

Open julian.com →

📖 Book

Paid Intermediate

Why we picked it The practitioner's manual for running a high-tempo growth process, testing acquisition, activation, retention and referral, from the coiner of 'growth hacking'.

Hacking Growth

From Currency / Penguin Random House by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown Book (~320 pages)

Run rapid, prioritized growth experiments as a cross-functional team.
Confirm product-market fit and activation before scaling acquisition.
Growth is a repeatable process, not a bag of one-off hacks.

Open penguinrandomhouse.com →

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