Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers

by Russell Brunson

Reason #1 — My product fits into more than one of these desires: Many products can be marketed toward getting a result in more than one of these desires, but your marketing message can only focus on one of them. Anytime you try to get your potential customer to believe in two things, your conversions will usually cut in half (most times by 90 percent or more). To target two different desires, you need two different ads leading to two different funnels. Only focus on one desire with each message you put into the market.

One of the common misunderstandings with traffic is that you have to “create” traffic, but, as you can now see, that just isn’t true. Traffic (your dream customer) is already there. Your job is to identify where they are, tap into those existing streams of traffic, throw out some hooks, and then get a percentage of your dream customers to start coming to you.

After four months of following this strategy, he got zero responses. (Pretty discouraging, right?) Chet was known for what he called PHD (Pig-Headed Discipline), though, and he refused to give up. Then, in his fourth month, something changed. He landed his first big account: Xerox. It was the biggest advertising buy ever for the company. By the sixth month, he had landed 28 of the 167 advertisers. And with those 28 advertisers, Chet doubled the sales over the previous year and went from number 15 in the industry to number 1. He kept doubling sales for the next three years in a row. By the end of year three, he had successfully brought in all 167 of his Dream 100 as advertisers in their magazine.

“The goal of the Dream 100 is to take your ideal buyers from ‘I’ve never heard of this company’ to ‘What is this company I keep hearing about?’ to ‘I think I’ve heard of that company’ to ‘Yes, I’ve heard of that company’ to ‘Yes, I do business with that company.’”

On that list I identified: 10+ top websites and forums they spent time on 15+ active Facebook groups they participated in 50+ influencers they followed on Facebook and Instagram 30+ podcasts they listened to 40+ email newsletters they subscribed to 20+ blogs that they actively read 20+ YouTube channels they subscribed to After making the list, I added up how many subscribers, readers, and followers each of those channels had. I was so excited to find out that there were over 30 million of my dream customers on that little list alone, all congregated inside of those 185-plus communities!

Girl, Stop Apologizing. As I was in the middle of writing this book, I was curious about how she had sold over a million copies of her books. I asked her for the secret to selling that many copies, and she told me: We asked ourselves this question: “What are the tribes that my women are already in? What network marketing companies are they in? What Facebook groups . . . what Instagram channels . . . what hashtags are they following?” After we identified these things, we tried to figure out who are the tribe owners of these women. Who do we need to become friends with? Anyone who had over 200,000 followers, we would direct message (DM) them, tell them who we were, and ask them if we could talk. We started messaging everyone. Our focus was to find the tribes, and then figure out the best ways to infiltrate them.

We would send them free product and just say, “If you like it, tell people, and if you hate it, tell people that too.” Not

“We can spend a ton of time and money convincing people on these other platforms to move to podcasts, or we can spend that same time and money focusing on the people who are already listening to podcasts. If they find a new show they love, they’ll listen every day!”

If you were to hire me today for a $100,000 consulting day, the first thing I would do with you is spend the first three to four hours building out this list. That is how important it is, so don’t skip it! Yes, it’s simple, but it’s the foundation to everything!

As the CEO and cofounder of the fastest growing, non-VC-backed software company in history, hitting nine figures in under three years, it would seem difficult to narrow down the ONE thing that really propelled us to where we are more than anything else . . . But, it’s not. It’s the Dream 100. The Dream 100 is the foundation for our entire company.

After the hook grabs their attention, you now have a small window to connect with them through story. There are two core goals from that story that you are about to tell them.

Your personality (or “your Attractive Character,” mentioned in DotCom Secrets) is becoming more and more vital to the success of your traffic campaigns. Anyone can throw up an ad and get someone to buy once, but if you are willing to share your stories, build a connection with your audience, and actually serve them instead of only selling them something, they will continue to buy from you over and over again.

If any of your traffic campaigns aren’t working, it’s always the hook, the story, or the offer. If the conversion on your landing page isn’t working, it’s always the hook, the story, or the offer.

I also only use my social apps (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) for two purposes: to produce and publish content, and to spy on my Dream 100.

Paid ads are how you scale a company fast. My number-one goal with every funnel I create is to have a “breakeven” funnel, where for each $1 we put into paid ads, we get at least $1 back. You see, this is the big secret that I shared in DotCom Secrets, which was proven with the launch of ClickFunnels.

After the buyer’s order, they immediately see the first of our two special upsells, which are also called one-time offers (OTOs). Our first OTO was $97 for one of our online digital courses that helped implement what they would learn in the book. This first OTO had 9.92% order conversion in a one-click upsell that allowed them to add it to their order without having to re-enter their credit card information.

Then we offered a second OTO selling a course on how to get traffic into funnels for $297. This second OTO had 4.19% order conversion using a one-click upsell. New money collected for each buyer: $297 x 4.19% = $12.44 Total average cart value: $25.27 + $12.44 = $37.71 I spent $23 to get each customer, but with an average cart value of $37.71 in sales, we made a net profit for each new buyer who came into our funnel: $14.71

there are really only two ways to scale a company fast. The first is to take on outside funding and then to use that money to either acquire other companies or pay to acquire customers. However, this way is lazy and inefficient, and I don’t recommend it. I liken this strategy to taking steroids to win a bodybuilding contest. Yes, you won, but you cheated.

The better, smarter, and more efficient way to scale a business is to create a funnel that is profitable and then to put as much money into paid ads as possible. When you have a funnel that at least breaks even, then you don’t have an advertising budget and you can spend as much money as you want without it ever costing you anything to acquire customers.

As long as we watched the ads closely and made sure that we didn’t buy ads in places that weren’t going to at least break even, we could grow fast. Soon we were spending over $25,000 per day and growing at a pace that no one had ever seen before.

“Which is better: controlled traffic or earned traffic? Is it better to work your way in or buy your way in?” The answer is, “Both are essential to the long-term success of your company.”

one other type of traffic that trumps both earned and controlled traffic. Given the chance to have only one, I’d always choose this third and last type of traffic: traffic that you own.

“If I had 10,000 people on my list, and I was selling a $50 product . . . if just one percent of them bought a product from me . . .” I mumbled under my breath. “One percent of 10,000 people was 100 people times $50.” Then it hit me. I’d make $5,000, right?

what if I had 100,000 people and sold the same product? That would be $50K! And that was if just one percent of the people I sent an email to actually bought a product from me! But what do the numbers look like if two percent buy? $100,000? Whoa! That’s more money than most people make in a year.

feeling when you found something that was too good to be true, but no matter how many ways you looked at it, you couldn’t disprove it?

the skeptics ask this question, and I always smile because I know that they don’t understand how leverage works. They’re used to working eight hours a day and getting paid for those hours. If they want to make $100K per year, they have to make at least $50 per hour, work 40 hours per week for at least 50 weeks per year.

When someone has spent the time to build a list of followers of 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000-plus people, they can send out an email to that list selling a product. To make $100K, they only need a small percentage of those people to buy the product, yet to someone working for the hourly wage it would take them all year to earn that amount.

I unplugged our phone line, plugged it into my modem in the wall, and started writing the email. I wrote about an amazing product that I had yet to create and ended the email with a “Buy Now” link to my personal PayPal account. I loaded the email addresses in, where all I had to do was click send. I sat there for a few minutes, visualizing what was about to happen. I did the math one last time in my head, and then I took a deep breath, smiled, and clicked send. 0 of 1,000,000 emails sent . . . 1 of 1,000,000 emails sent . . . 5, 9, 21 of 1,000,000 emails sent!

Just a few months earlier, I had gotten our internet access shut off within hours of me telling her she could quit her job. Yes, 23 “tests” in 18 months, all in an attempt to make money online, had failed.

What I had assumed at this point and what Mark Joyner taught me were the same: the list is the key. That’s the big secret. It is the only real asset in any company.

It would not have been difficult for eBay to clone Skype and make a better product. What Skype had that eBay wanted, though, was 54 million members in 225 countries and territories, increasing at a rate of 150,000 new users daily. eBay was purchasing the list.

Facebook purchased Instagram (and its 30 million users) for $1 billion.11 Obviously, there are many reasons why Facebook made the acquisition, including acquiring their development team and gaining speed to market, but one of the main reasons was to obtain Instagram’s member list. We also see it in smaller, entrepreneurial-type companies. Your list is your key to your current and future success online. This is the best type of traffic: traffic that you own.

I have 1.6 million entrepreneurs who are on my email lists, hundreds of thousands on my Messenger lists, over a million following me on my social lists, and ten...

In fact, my only goal with traffic that I control and traffic that I earn is to convert it into traffic that I own. That’...

when I buy an ad, I’m getting them to click once. When they join my lists, I can email them as often as I like for free, instead of just getting them to click once.

If I’m using a lead funnel: “I’d love to give all of your listeners a free copy of my new e-book, Marketing Secrets Blackbook, where you can learn 99 marketing secrets that will change your business . . . And change your life. You can download your free copy at MarketingSecrets.com/blackbook.”

If I’m using a free book funnel: “I just finished my new book Expert Secrets, and I’d love to send everyone a free copy if you’ll just cover my hard costs of shipping. Just go to ExpertSecrets.com and let me know where to ship your copy today!”

on the low end, you should average about $1 per month for each name on your list, and when I got started, that was true. When I had 500 people on my list, I was making about $500 per month. As I grew, these numbers held true for a while: 1,000 people on my list: $1,000 per month 10,000 people on my list: $10,000 per month 100,000 people on my list: $100,000 per month But as I’ve gotten better at building a relationship with my lists, these numbers have gone up dramatically. As a worst-case scenario, though, they should follow these metrics. For example, if you know you want to make $100,000 per year, make sure you are focused on getting at least 10,000 people on your list (10,000 people x $1 per month x 12 months = $120,000). If you want to make $1 million per year, focus on getting 100,000 people on your list (100,000 people x $1 per month x 12 months = $1,200,000).

these numbers change in every market. Most local businesses may only have 500–1,000 people on their lists, but because of their ability to build a better relationship with that list, they could be making $50–$100 per name per month, whereas with some types of lists (such as retargeting or social lists), you might only make $0.50 per name.

List building is a completely different investment model. I might have to pay anywhere from $1 to $5 per lead in Facebook. For this example, let’s use the top number. If I paid $5 per lead and only spent $5,000, I would generate 1,000 leads. If I averaged $1 per month per name, after five months I would break even, and after that I would have a positive cash flow of $1,000 per month.

David Frey wrote: “A study done by the Association of Sales Executives revealed that 81 percent of all sales happens on or after the fifth contact. If you’re a small business owner and you’re only doing one or two follow-ups, imagine all the business you’re losing.

Funnel #1: DotCom Secrets free + shipping book funnel Leads generated: 5,410 Books sold: 2,395 Average cart value: $30.81 Total gross sales: $73,789.95 Ad spend: $69,026.31 Profit: $4,763.64

In my follow-up funnels, I sent those 14,205 people emails with free videos to build a relationship with them. A few days later, I invited them to come watch my webinar where I taught them how ClickFunnels worked to grow as a company. Not all wanted to watch the web class, but 1,129 did and registered for it. At the end of the web class, we sold a product for $2,997, and 57 people bought it (grossing us $170,829). Over the rest of the month, some signed up for the ClickFunnels trial, some bought other books, and some bought courses and coaching.

When you look over the next 60, 90, 360 days and beyond, you’ll see that each lead can and should be worth thousands of dollars to you, and if you can break even (or even make a little profit) to generate that lead, you should do it all day every day.

Mike Litman say, “Amateurs focus on the first sale.”13 I didn’t really understand what that meant until I started using follow-up funnels and realized that I could spend way more money to acquire a customer than I initially believed. Dan Kennedy once said, “Ultimately, the business that can spend the most to acquire a customer wins.”

Messenger: In 2011, Facebook created their Messenger program which, for many people, has replaced email as their favorite communication tool. You can add Messenger subscriber boxes into your funnels and get people joining your email list to also join your Messenger lists. This gives you the ability to follow up with people through a different channel than email. It’s a very powerful tool that has a much higher open rate than email. However, because of the intimacy of people’s Messenger inboxes, I’ve found that unlike email, where I can send email daily and not have many people upset, with Messenger, I can only send one or two messages a week without losing many subscribers.

There are always new communication tools being developed, but their goal is the same: build a relationship with your subscriber and ascend them through your value ladder.

what should go inside of each message? We’ve found that the ones that give you the most leverage include messages based on: Emotion Logic Fear (urgency and scarcity)

The top of the page has a headline that appeals to one’s emotions, a video telling stories to get one emotionally interested in the product, and then an order form for one to take action. Fifty percent of my sales will come immediately from people who only see this top block and never scroll. They’re my emotional buyers.

Every sales page we create has this same style because it addresses the emotion, logic, and fear messages in the order required to create the sale.