The Challenge: Why Most Newsletter Growth Campaigns Fail

One of the craziest things I see people do is running ads but not putting focus in on the ad creatives. I'm Brad Smith, owner of Automationlinks, and I've been doing this marketing stuff for 10 years, worked with over 2500 brands. In this case study, I'm going to break down how my client Will and I used X ads to get thousands of subscribers and leads for his business.

Quick Context: Most people run random ads without strategic creative sequencing

Method Used: 4-stage funnel system targeting different awareness levels

Time Required: Ongoing campaign with sequential touchpoints

Key Result: Thousands of newsletter subscribers at lowest cost per lead available

The coolest thing about this approach is that X is the lowest cost place to get new leads. You can retarget them elsewhere - Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, wherever - but bring them in on X first.

The 4-Stage X Ads System: How We Built Trust Before Selling

Stage 1: Top of Funnel - Building Authority

Top of funnel is a place where nobody's ever heard of you - they don't know you, they don't trust you, they just don't like you yet. So we need a post here that builds trust, builds authority, and gives something of super high value so they remember you, your business, as being the authority and the helper, the person that knows what they're talking about.

Case Study Insight: The goal isn't immediate conversion - it's brand recall and authority positioning

What Happened: We created high-value content that solved specific pain points

Tools/Methods Used: Case studies, prefilled templates, and pain point solutions

For this stage, we use a sample template where we're basically trying to solve their pain point with something of high value. You want to think about what your customer pain point is, you want to talk about a case study, and you want to prefill these in.

Stage 2: Middle of Funnel - Relationship Building Through Video

The next one is middle of funnel. This will be the next ad that we want them to see, and this is where we build a relationship with them, we educate them, we provide value. I like to use a video here because hey, you heard about me once, now here's a valuable tip and education piece so you never forget about me.

Case Study Insight: Video creates deeper connection after initial brand awareness

What Happened: 20-30 second videos provided education and built relationships

Time to Results: Second touchpoint in the sequence

Tools/Methods Used: Short-form educational videos with clear value propositions

This middle of funnel is going to be a video. I like to use videos to build relationships, so on the video I make it about 20 to 30 seconds long for an X ad. Yours can be maybe up to a minute or 2 minutes long, sometimes you can do a preview of maybe a YouTube video, but the goal here is to provide some sort of education.

Stage 3: Bottom of Funnel (First Ask) - Lead Magnet Offers

The next two are going to be bottom of funnel, and this is retargeting after they've already seen you twice. You saw my name, you saw my brand, you saw I'm an educator and that I helped you and provided value. Now you can go and get something of value on my website or my lead magnet.

Case Study Insight: Only ask for the lead after establishing authority and relationship

What Happened: Offered full system breakdown as lead magnet

Tools/Methods Used: Complete follow-up systems covering multiple platforms

This is where I send people to my system. Now if you want my full system breaking down how to follow up with every single lead so they never forget about you on every platform - on email, YouTube, Google, Meta, TikTok, wherever - that's the exact one that I would send you if you saw one of my retargeting ads. It's still a lead magnet, still something of free value.

Stage 4: Bottom of Funnel (Final Touch) - Personal Brand Recognition

The last one where you're going to see me maybe the fifth, 6th, 10th time, that's where we need something relatable. A picture - I like the personal brand's face to be here so they remember the face over and over. But what you can do is you want to keep a similar structure here so they never forget.

Case Study Insight: Personal branding becomes crucial for final conversion touchpoints

What Happened: Used consistent personal brand imagery for recognition

Tools/Methods Used: Relatable pictures with consistent brand structure

The Secret Weapon: AI-Powered Customer Profiling

Now we use a software called Twinlytics to help us target our ideal customer pain points. You can use other AI software like ChatGPT or Grok, but it doesn't know who your ideal customer is using all the data in the world. So what they do is they partner with data companies to say this is the ideal customer profile for you, here's their pain points, and here's how you can solve them.

Case Study Insight: AI tools with real customer data outperform generic AI for targeting

What Happened: Twin Litics generated data-driven ad copy using ideal customer profiles

Tools/Methods Used: Data company partnerships for customer profiling and pain point identification

I would take this exact post and I would then copy it and even ask it to create maybe five more versions. Since Twin Litics already knows who my ideal customer profile is, they're going to actually write this ad for me using the data, using the pain points, using the exact words that would catch my customer attention.

It generated 3,000 leads, it targeted my ideal customer profile, it brought in the keywords that would capture my ideal customer's attention, and then it gave me some other data points to put in there.

Campaign Structure: The Technical Setup

Case Study Insight: Different campaign objectives for different funnel stages maximize efficiency

What Happened: Strategic campaign type selection based on funnel position

Tools/Methods Used: Follower campaigns, engagement campaigns, and website click campaigns

Just as a reminder, if you watch any of my other content, top of funnel needs to just be a follower campaign - you're trying to get more followers. Middle of funnel needs to be an engagement campaign - we just want people to comment, like it, bookmark it, or engage. The bottom of funnel where they're going to start seeing you the third, fourth, or fifth time - this is where you're going to ask for that website click, you're going to ask them to sign up and schedule, and you're going to ask them to go take that action.

Why Personal Brands Win: The Newsletter Connection

That's what I want to show you - this review here that we just recently got. This is a personal brand and a newsletter, so it's always best to create that personal brand so you can build the relationship, get that in organically. And then what you can use is the low-cost price of X ads or even YouTube ads to bring in your ideal customers, and then what you want to use is Meta and other platforms where it's a little more expensive to retarget and remind them to come back and take an action.

The Follow-Up Sequence That Never Lets Leads Forget You

When somebody first sees you on X, you want to show an ad to build a relationship. When they see you a second time, you need to educate them. See you a third time, you need to give something of value. See you a fourth time - time to sign up and work with me.

Case Study Summary: This systematic approach transforms cold X traffic into warm newsletter subscribers by building trust first, then relationships, then offering value, and finally asking for the conversion. The key is using X's low costs to acquire leads, then retargeting on higher-cost platforms for maximum efficiency.

For setting up your customer profiling and targeting system, I recommend checking out our customer data solutions and our complete X advertising blueprint .

Next Steps: Start Your Newsletter Growth System Today

What are you waiting for? Go start thinking about your ideal customer profile, what type of post would really catch their attention, and then use these exact ads to follow up with your leads.

If you want to implement this complete system, I recommend starting with our X advertising blueprint and setting up proper tracking with our recommended tools .

For ongoing support and the complete follow-up system, schedule a consultation to discuss your specific newsletter growth goals.

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