Do you really need to be making $80k before running ads?

She had taken the ‘Are you ready for paid ads?’ quiz.

Not once. Not twice. MULTIPLE times—just to see where the line in the sand might be.

She’d been doing the work. Building out the landing pages. Shaping her low- and high-ticket offers. Crafting her sales funnel.

So by the time we hopped on a free ads strategy call, she came with one big (and totally valid) question:

"Do I really have to be making $80k to run ads?"

The short answer: It depends.

She was ready to flip the switch and turn on the traffic. 

And if I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked this… well, I’d have a very solid budget for even more ad spend. 😉

The thing is that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to running ads. There was certainly nothing stopping her. But… it depends.

And what it depends on? Is your risk tolerance.

Why I recommend $80K (and when it matters)

When I suggest that you come to my Peacefully Passive Leads done-with-you ads coaching with a working funnel and a validated offer, it's because that's where I see people benefit most.

When you're making at least $80k, you can absorb the cost of ads fairly easily.

This 3-month ads coaching container is a $4,500 investment. And I suggest a minimum of $600/month ad spend.

So you need to be able to stomach the $6,300 investment—or what essentially boils down to just over $2k per month.

When you're making $80k per year, you're making about $6,500 months. So while a third of that going toward ads is still a stretch, it's one most people can stomach if they've identified traffic is the issue and feel confident in the return they can see on that investment, knowing that they typically only need one or two high-ticket offer sales to break even.

But without a validated offer, or some form of other income to offset the investment, the risk goes up.

What happens if your offer isn’t validated yet?

You're essentially spending for data at that point because you can't be sure that you'll see sales on the other side. You absolutely MIGHT see sales, but it’s less of a certainty. 

Or put it differently, you’re spending to see where the gap in your funnel is. So you can plug it. Fast.

So while it's not quite the equivalent of lighting cash on fire (lol super fun right??) because you are paying for leads—without knowing whether those leads will convert—you're flat out taking a calculated risk.

Now, I'm not saying that risk is "wrong" or "bad" at all.

I dare you to show me a successful business owner who hasn't taken a risk at one point or another.

But your nervous system needs to be able to handle that risk if it's one you're going to take.

Math with me

I consider $7/lead a pretty respectable cost per lead. So if you spend $600/month on ads, that gets you ~85 leads.

At a 1% conversion rate → you're not landing a client in that first month.

Now, do my clients typically get a better rate than $7/lead? (Heck yes. I have a client who got $0.52 leads her first week of running ads 🤯 but again, she was in the right place to run ads.)

And do I think you'll probably have a better conversion rate than 1%? Also yes.

And if you math that, a 2% conversion rate DOES get you a client in that first month.

But the reason I'm spelling this out for you is because I see far too many people NOT run these numbers in their business before investing (so I'm here to do it for you!).

And I think it's ESSENTIAL if you're going to run ads that you check in with your own risk tolerance around this.

Why I wish I’d started ads sooner

I look back and I wish I had started running ads far sooner (especially now that I've seen what a nerd I've become when it comes to them—and I say that with pride 🤓).

I love how it keeps so much of the emotion out of it with concrete numbers. 

I love how it can get you the data you need far faster than you can get organically. 

I love that all of your eggs aren't in the organic content basket and you have something working even when you're not.

I can go on (and probably will lol). 

But honestly, I wish I would have had more risk tolerance and leaned in sooner. I think the data alone would have been worth it for me and moved me along—but knowing that I excel at sales and have a high conversion rate there—I know I would have profited off of it way sooner too.

But the reason I'm sharing this is because all of that is important to weigh when considering if you are in the right spot to run ads.

Ready to find out if ads make sense for you?

That's why I created a free Ads ROI calculator just for you, so you can see for yourself if this is a move that makes sense for YOU and YOUR business.

And if you're on the fence and trying to decide, take me up on a free ads strategy session.

We can talk about whether this is the right time to run ads and what you'll want to have in place if it's not. And as you can tell... I won't BS you and tell you it is if it really isn't.

So if you’re thinking about flipping the switch on your traffic too, this is your gentle reminder to make sure the rest of your sales system—and your nervous system—is ready for it.