This Proven eBook Sales Funnel Strategy Can Pay For Your Ads And Snowball Your Email List

An ebook sales funnel could become your business's hardest-working employee. Here's why.

If you’re a creative business owner who is too scared to run paid ads because you can’t afford the risk of your product or service NOT selling, I’m going to share with you today a simple, proven ebook sales funnel strategy that’ll help you feel confident that you can never go wrong with paying for ads.

- even when they DON’T create an immediate profit for you.

Here's what many creative business owners fear the most, and the reason why they may completely avoid ever running any paid ad campaigns...

If you're paying for advertising to give away something for free, every new subscriber costs money, right?

That means the faster you try to grow your list, the faster your ad expenses will grow.

So how do you, as a small creative business owner, make your ad campaigns sustainable when you're just starting out, or you don't have a big ad budget?

As a marketing mentor who worked as a freelance social media manager for 9 years, I've worked with many 6-and 7-figure online business owners who used this strategy. They used ebooks as a way to increase their authority as experts and pay for the 24-7 evergreen ad campaigns that drove all their traffic to their email list.

I helped them with many parts of this funnel strategy, from validating it first on social media, setting up the tech, experimenting with the copy, writing the ad creatives, to writing the emails.

I'm also just about to launch my own ebook sales funnel, using everything I learned and what I'm about to share with you here.

I LOVE writing, and I LOVE automated funnels, so this strategy hits the sweet spot for me! And I think you'll love it, too, when you hear how much it can do for your creative business!

So let's kick things off!

Continue reading, OR if you prefer listening while driving to your next business networking event. 🪄 🎧💫

Prefer to watch instead of read? Watch the YouTube version here (and see the visual layout of the ebook sales funnel!🪄 📺💫

Big Noob Mistake: Running Ads Straight to a Product or Service ❌

Losing money on paid ad campaigns when you're just starting out is the fear a simple ebook sales funnel can help you completely demolish.

It’s a way of selling an ebook where the cost of your ads is always a bit lower, and you’re never worried about losing money.

Because every dollar you spend on the ads is a good investment.

The math MATHS!

You see, the trick is to not make selling your service or product the GOAL of your ad campaigns...

When you’re just getting started with ads as a small biz owner, that’s a risky bet I'm betting you can't afford to take.

And why so many small business owners complain that ads didn’t work out for them.

They only measured the success of their campaigns by how many sales they got right away.

How Savvy, Money-Making Marketicians Run Ads 🪄🌪️

Instead, a better way to start running paid ad campaigns when you’re new to online business - when you’re just figuring out what you want to sell, your sales messaging, or when running paid ads feels like gambling or pissing money up a wall to you - is to focus instead NOT on sales but on getting email signups and growing your email list.

That’s a great way for a NEW online business to plant the first seeds toward profits that may take a bit longer to grow into something bigger, ya?

And so this is where selling a digital book with a simple eBook sales funnel comes in.

Why an eBook? What if I Flunked Out of English Class And Would Rather Poke An Eye Out Than Use AI?

Why an ebook? Because they are VERY easy, inexpensive, and fast to create.

You can create one over a weekend on any topic, no matter what you sell. I’ll give you some examples and ideas for making them later!

For now, though, here’s how they can help your business in a BIG BIG way.

Especially if you’re new to online business, if your audience is teeny-tiny, and you’re not making as much money as you’d like to be right now. 

Because when you price them low, ideally below $27, they are an easy buy-in for your customers.

People don’t need to have a huge amount of trust in someone to buy a $7 or $9 ebook, right?

Ebooks do not cost that much, so even if the book sucks, it’s not a big loss.

Very few people are going to go through the hassle of asking for a refund on a $7 purchase if they absolutely HATE it, right?

So ebooks are a great way to create new customers and build trust by making the price a ‘’no-brainer’’ and by making an effort to make it worth it. We still never want all-AI slop here, though.

Make some actual effort to show people you’ve made something unique and worth a few dollars and hours of their time.

AI may save you time, but it may cost your reputation.

And finally, the best thing is, when you have an ebook like this within an ebook sales funnel, it eliminates the COST of your ads altogether WHILE building your email list.

How an eBook Sales Funnel Works: Tripwires, SLO's, And OTO's

So it works like this:

You run the ads NOT to the ebook itself, but to a free email optin or newsletter ABOUT your product or service.

From there, you add extra web pages called a tripwire, a SLO, and a OTO.

Here's what they are...

Tripwire Offers

After your new subscriber gives you their email address, you send them to a thank-you page. You place the ebook paid offer on the thank-you page.

This is called a tripwire offer.

Self-Liquidating Offers (SLO's)

When a tripwire offer PAYS for the ads you ran to generate those email signups for your free thing, the tripwire is working as what we marketers call a ‘’self-liquiding offer’’ or SLO. 

You aren't profiting off the sale of the tripwire, but you're recouping what you paid in ads.

So, you never want to run ads to a free thing without something for sale further into the funnel. And an ebook makes the perfect fast, easy-to-create, inexpensive kind of thing to have to do this.

Then of course, the real benefit is that you now have a growing email list at either a breakeven cost or a tiny bit of profit.

You could even earn more than a tiny bit if you make savvy tweaks to your ebook sales funnel to increase the conversions.

Introducing: The Order Bump! (such a cute name!)

Order Bumps

An order bump is a single, much smaller offer that sells just below the ebook on the checkout page.

If you've ever gone to buy something online and you see a tiny box with a check just below the form, and it's asking, ''Would you like to add this as well? Yes? Yes?''

Usually, this is something that is below $20. It is usually relevant to the main thing you're about to buy. That check box offer is called an ''order bump.''

One Time Offers (OTO's)

Now, you've made back some of the ad's cost, but it's often not enough to make a big profit. But you've made a new customer who is VERY interested in the things you've been offering so far, so why not add ANOTHER web page to show them another product or service you can provide for them that they may be super keen to buy?

So after the checkout page, on what would be the tripwire confirmation page, you instead slide in ANOTHER web page. This page is what we call a ''One Time Offer'' or ''OTO.'' This is usually something REALLY good that's in the over $50 range.

Something that can help the new customer get to their goal or satisfy their interest even FASTER and with more convenience than the previous things.

If your new customer says, YES, PLEASE! to your OTO, THAT is when you not only are building your email list for FREE - you are also making a profit! This is how online businesses can make SERIOUS money when their funnels are converting really smoothly.

It takes time and expertise to make that happen, and that is incidentally what most marketing mentors excel at helping you do!

This is What Makes a Funnel a Magical Money-Making MACHINE!

What makes an ebook sales funnel work well is killer offers combined with part creativity, part math, and a LOT of buyer psychology.

You have to really KNOW what your customers want to make a lot of sales this way. But if you can do it, it can become an additional income stream for your business.

And for all your new email subscribers who did NOT buy, you can now nurture and WOW them in your emails to sell your products or service there, in the backend. 

How An eBook Sales Funnel Helps You Grow Your Audience On A Shoestring Budget

So, an ebook sales funnel can effectively reduce the risk of running ads.

It’s a very savvy way to get familiar with paid ads, a savvy way to build your email list FAST, and a savvy way to create your first paying customers.

You don’t have to worry about whether or not your products or services sell or think the ads are not working, so long as people are giving you their email addresses.

Because you do not even need that many tripwire sales to cancel out a lead generation campaign like this.

And you could run it at as low as just$5 a day.

And I have even better news for you here now:

Email sign-up campaigns for lead generation are the cheapest kinds to run on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Meta charges you less to run this type of campaign as opposed to a campaign that goes straight to a product or service.

When you stop thinking about ebooks as content and start thinking about them as customer acquisition assets, the role they play in your business changes completely.

How to Make an eBook Sales Funnel in a Weekend (Without AI!)

Now, you may be wondering: HOW do I create an ebook sales funnel?

Well, first, you gotta create the actual ebook. I recommend using Canva. It's got some beautifully designed templates that you can easily customize with an easy drag-and-drop system.

If you’re not familiar with Canva, you can also hire a VA from a platform like Fiverr to put the ebook together for you.

Next, you’ll need a small bit of tech using your website or email provider combined with a paygate service. So you could create a simple Stripe or PayPal link for FREE. Easy-peasy.

OR, you could use a software subscription service like Thrivecart, Stan, or Gumroad.

After that, the setup is as follows:

A landing page for your free offer or newsletter sign-up. This is where you run the ad traffic to

A thank-you page confirming that the person who has just given you their email is now on your email list.

This is where you tell them thank-you and to go check their inbox. But instead of just saying adios HERE, you present the ebook offer.

You say, "Hey, since you’re interested in this topic, if you’d like to read all about it I’ve got this ebook here for only $7! Grab it now.’’

So one thing you’ll see here is that the ebook should be relevant to your free offer.

It should be on or around the same problem or interest, right?

Otherwise it’s going to feel like it’s coming out of nowhere and things are going to feel weird for your new subscriber.

So make it relevant to the free thing they signed up for in the first place.

Here’s what I’m doing as an example:

If you sign up to my free Money Manifesting Witchcraft newsletter today, instead of just a thank-you page directing you to go check your email inbox, you get a tripwire offer: Get all 10 emails of the newsletter in a beautifully designed eBook RIGHT AWAY instead of having to wait for 10 weeks. Now, that's an OK offer that might appeal to someone who doesn't want to wait. Selling SPEED is always a good way to make an offer more enticing. (Not the drug kind, lol)

But to make the offer more tempting to someone who has the patience of someone willing to endure a freakin' Timeshare seminar to get the free hotel stay, I need to make it MORE. So I'm adding, as an Order Bump, an audio recording of all of the money affirmations as well.

Now I've added both speed AND convenience.

Here's What It Looks Like

Now, here is what an ebook sales funnel looks like visually.

This is a funnel software I use to calculate signups and conversion rates called Geru.

It’s handy for helping me work out the funnel math.

Once I know what percentage of my new free newsletter subscribers are buying my ebook, I can ramp up my Facebook ad spend to turbocharge the whole process.

But I do not want to do that until that percentage of subscribers and buyers meets the industry benchmarks or above.

The ebook sales funnel industry benchmarks are currently:

5% for free offer sign-ups and 2% for tripwire buyers. But keep in mind that it is entirely based on general estimates.  It's the bare minimum to try to at least match when you start running a lot of traffic to the funnel.

You could be a unicorn and do WAY better than that if you’re lucky and people LOVE your stuff. Or you're good at marketing.😉

But the benchmarks are good to know in case you’re way below because then you know you need to work on your offers a bit more first.

You'll want to check the offer itself, the copy, the tech set-up - all the tweaks that come AFTER you get it up and running.

Ideally, you want to test your ebook sales funnel out with organic traffic first from social media or your existing email list.

That’s always what I’d recommend, as you don’t ever want to run ads to an absolute lemon thatyou’ve never even sold at least once. Always try to VALIDATE your offers before you put a lot of time and money into them.

Validate just means you KNOW FOR SURE people either really want it or you've already sold it a few times. So you KNOW it SELLS.

But the takeaway idea here that I want you to remember is this:

When you’re new to online business, your first product or service doesn’t have to be just something you sell.

It can be a foundational asset that is as important as building a website or setting up an automated email welcome sequence.

It’s an important part of the online engine that funds your business growth.

Ready to start Building Your Ebook Sales Funnel?

So if you're thinking, 'Okay Christine... I get the strategy. But what do I actually build this IN?' I've got you!

Personally, I recommend either Go High Level or Systeme.io because both let you build your landing pages, checkout, email automations, and sales funnel all in one place.

You don't need to duct-tape together six different tools, web pages, payment links, and email delivery systems just to sell a simple ebook.

If you'd like my help setting everything up, here's what I can give you to help you get started...

Click the link below to join my free newsletter, The Creative And Unconventional Marketician.

This is one of my special themed, limited series, 10-email newsletters.

This one is for ambitious creatives building digital businesses who are ready to move beyond FREE traffic marketing using core content, social media, SEO, or AIO. This one is FUNNEL and PAID AD-STRATEGY-focused. So, it's for the slightly more advanced creative biz owner. If you're still a complete online biz noob, you want to join The Creative And Unconventional Entrepreneur.

That one is full of online business IDEAS and business models to help you work out what might suit you best and help get you started.

Once you're inside the more advanced Marketician, I'll send you my favourite strategies for creating digital products, growing your audience, and building sustainable marketing systems using automation and ads.

Then, if you decide that Go High Level or Systeme.io is the right fit for you, use my affiliate link, and I'll send you an exclusive bonus to help you build your ebook sales funnel faster.

Depending on when you're watching this, that bonus might be a workshop, a mini-course, templates, or even a live training with me.

That way, you're not just getting the software.

You're getting my step-by-step guidance to turn your ebook into a sales funnel that can start paying for its own growth!

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