Essay · ~8 min read

Why social ads break the traditional funnel (Growth Newsletter #303)

Demand Curve Free Intermediate

Before you obsess over the exact split, it helps to see why prospecting and retargeting exist at all and where each one sits in the journey. This essay reframes the full funnel for social ads specifically, arguing that people are scattered across a timeline you cannot see, so you lead with strong cold creative and keep retargeting simple rather than building an elaborate nurture. That mental model makes the budget ratio feel obvious instead of arbitrary.

  • Search ads catch existing intent; social ads have to create it, which is exactly why cold prospecting has to carry most of the budget.
  • People do not move through neat funnel stages on social, so a heavy, complex retargeting sequence often overspends on a problem that does not exist.
  • Get one genuinely good top-of-funnel ad working first, then let retargeting quietly mop up the people who were interested but did not buy.
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The question it answers

  1. How do retargeting and cold prospecting budgets actually split when I'm just starting?

Read with it

  1. This is the cleanest answer to the exact question of how to divide cold and warm budgets when you are just starting. It gives... Demand Curve Article · ~10 min read Prospecting and Retargeting Campaigns Demand Curve
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