Andre Chaperon & Shawn Twing – The Traffic Engine
Description
The traffic engine
Paid traffic manifest
Email archive
Questions and answers
Course outline and schedule
219 reviews
Enroll in Motor Traffic CLOSED! (see registration schedule)
Shawn and I have been discussing the idea of this course since October 2018. “You create the course,” I said, “and I will publish it under our TLB brand.”
This was initially by email. Shawn’s response was almost immediate – an enthusiastic, “yes!”
But the months passed without any real progress. When I finally signed up for a status report, Shawn explained his resistance:
“You’ve set the bar incredibly high with SOI & ARM,” he said, “ARM redefined email marketing: it’s the gold standard. SOI did the same – how the heck am I supposed to live up to that ?! ”
[Several months later.]
Shawn emails me:
“I shared some of my thoughts on paid traffic with Todd Brown’s Top One brain…”
The bastard likes to open loop on me. So I replied, “… and?”
“I won the million dollar Power Hour for the best marketing idea. I’m starting to feel pretty good about this.”
March 2019: Shawn Twing in Top One (middle) / Damian Lanfranchi (left), Todd Brown (right)
[Several months later.]
Shawn: “I presented those ideas to John Carlton’s Platinum Mastermind Group…”
(Open-loop play never gets old with Shawn.)
Me: “… and?”
Shawn: “… amazing response … got [no name huge direct response company] as a customer … lots of great feedback … I feel great about it.”
[Several months later.]
Shawn: “Do you remember that guy I told you about who listened to my presentation and implemented the ideas? He took me aside last week and told me he doubled his cost per acquisition …”
Me: “Oh! …”
Shawn: “Right. But that wasn’t the punchline. It increased their average order value by 8x!”
And so it was, month after month, example after example. And now, here we are – both of us 100% “all in” – or, in Derek Sivers’terminology, we can finally say “HELL YEAH!”
Below is Shawn’s Traffic Manifesto.
(I will add more content and information to this page over the next week.)
Paid traffic manifest
What you are about to read was eighteen months (and twenty-one years) in the making. It began as a long conversation between two friends, and evolved day by day, month by month, in a personal and professional vocation.
I have shared these ideas with colleagues and clients, refined them with keen salespeople in exclusive groups and in intensely demanding boardrooms, and implemented strategies based on these ideas on behalf of clients who generate thousands of dollars in revenue, as well as clients who generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
Others have implemented these ideas as well, and their feedback has been consistent and overwhelming. Simply put, these ideas work.
Now I would like to share them with you.
Before I do that, I want to give you a bit of context so that you understand my perspective. “Where you are depends on where you sit,” as the saying goes.
I have owned a digital marketing agency for twenty-one years, worked with nearly two hundred clients, completed over 650 projects, managed thousands of campaigns, spent many tens of millions of dollars on Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other ad networks, and worked with some of the most demanding clients in the world’s most competitive business categories.
I have spent tens of thousands of hours thinking deeply about my craft and developing mental models and frameworks to further improve my understanding (and results), and have had countless conversations with some of the most capable marketers, strategists, writers, and thinkers in my field. .
More importantly, I am just like you. I am a creative professional, marketer and business owner who is 100% responsible for the stability and growth of my business. I have faced the same professional challenges that you have, and I am sure we have shared similar struggles.
Experience has led me to the conclusion that there are a small number of simple truths in any endeavor that really matter, and respecting those truths is the difference between success and failure.
Here are seven simple business and marketing truths that I have found particularly powerful.
Simple Truth # 1 – High-quality traffic is the lifeblood of any business
At its core, a business is a qualified system that generates revenue and revenue by combining prospects with an offering that turns those prospects into paying customers. No matter how great the offer is, how well written the copy is, how extreme the value, if no one sees it, there is no chance it will be successful.
Value, wealth, opportunity, and personal freedom arise from the ROI-positive combination of traffic + conversion.
Simple Truth # 2 – There is no such thing as ‘free traffic’
There are many ways to acquire traffic. Generally speaking, there is organic traffic, affiliate traffic, and paid traffic.
I don’t like the term “paid traffic” because it implies that the other options are free. They are not. The payment method is simply different. Rather than paying mostly with time, energy and attention – all of which are finite resources, I prefer to pay for traffic with money which, under the right circumstances, is effectively unlimited.
How can money be “effectively unlimited”?
Here is a simple example. If you create a system that costs you $ 10 to acquire a customer, the average value of a customer’s first purchase is $ 15, and over the lifetime of an average customer you will earn an additional $ 250, how many customers can you afford to buy? ?
All of them.
My friend Todd Brown describes it best. “A typical businessman gets a customer to make a sale. A smart businessman makes a sale to get a customer. ”
Simple Truth # 3 – Paid Traffic Gives Us What We All Want Most – Control
Let’s be very clear about what we all really want. As business owners, creative professionals, and marketers, we need to raise awareness, generate leads, make sales, meet our obligations to our clients and clients, and make a profit that keeps us in business.
That is what we need.
But, what we really want – more than anything – is a sense of control. We want to know that our business results (and our revenues) are stable, predictable, and scalable. That next month will be better than this month. That there is an opportunity to increase the value we bring to the world, expand our horizons, our relationships and our income.
Just for a moment I want you to imagine what it would feel like to experience that. What if you knew – really knew – that you could prosper month after month, year after year? Later I will explain what it takes to get there.
Simple Truth # 4 – The rules of the paid traffic game have changed
The old model for paid traffic – still widely used today – was based on cheap traffic and flexible traffic platforms that allowed for aggressive tactics, over-the-top messaging, and shady business models. If an advertising account was closed, no big deal – just go ahead and open a new one and you were back in business.
The previous model was based on low cost and high volume. The answer to every traffic question was always “more.”
The reality is expensive, the largest traffic platforms (YouTube and categories).
The new model is based on high quality and lower volume. Now the answer to every traffic question is “better.”
The days of the old model are numbered. The future belongs to those who understand the implications of this new reality and change their strategies accordingly.
Simple Truth # 5 – The way to win is to avoid losing
Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger are arguably two of the world’s biggest investors and the sharpest analytical minds. Decade after decade they have been asked about the secrets of their success, and they have consistently attributed that success to avoiding foolish mistakes rather than seeking innovation.
“It is remarkable how many long-term advantages people like us have gained from consistently trying to be not stupid, rather than trying to be very smart.” —Charlie Munger
In my experience, this view is universally true. The overwhelming majority of the benefits I’ve provided to my clients over the past two decades have come from showing them how to consistently avoid costly performance shredding mistakes.
A recent and profound example:
‘Customer X’ was spending $ 200,000 / month on Google Ads, of which $ 140,000 was objectively, demonstrably wasteful. The overall ROI was positive and no one wanted to disable something that was generally working. Yet a minority of spend was driving results, and within weeks, more than a million dollars in wasted ad spend was returned to the bottom line (while at the same time improving overall performance).
That’s the power to avoid big mistakes.
Each advertising platform has unique ways of making costly mistakes, and some of those mistakes are recommended as “best practices” because they generate significant revenue for the platform. If I don’t do anything else, let me help you identify and avoid those costly mistakes.
Simple Truth # 6 – Your Insights Are Much More Valuable Than You Realize
In October 2019 I had the opportunity to sit through the legendary Dean Jackson market at a speakers ‘dinner before Kevin Rogers’ Copy Chief Live.
Dean explained that he had analyzed many of his clients’ businesses and found that they all had something in common. When sales were calculated over time, 15% of sales occurred in the first ninety days after acquiring the lead, and the remaining 85% of sales continued for eighteen months.
“Think about it,” he said. “There is 4x the income opportunity after ninety days.”
The implications of that analysis are staggering. Marketing is a long game. And a clear understanding of financial incentives tells us that we should overinvest in long-term relationships with our prospects. That investment will be with where and how we acquire our audience.
Simple Truth # 7 – There is only one thing to do to improve your resultsWhen we accept that our companies are systems, we realize that they are subject to the ideas of system theory. Perhaps the deepest understanding is this, from Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints: The only way to increase the performance of a system is to improve the performance of its weakest link.
In Goldratt’s terminology, we have to focus on improving the optimal system, not improving the local optimal. Improve the whole, don’t play with the parts.
In simple terms, that means there is always one, and only one, place to focus our attention and improve our results. We just need to know where and how to look, and then act accordingly.
When we internalize these simple truths and then begin to act on them, we tap into the most powerful force in the universe – you. Our measuring stick becomes progress instead of effort: relentless forward movement, not spinning in circles.
That leads to the obvious question: how do we do that? I’m glad you asked …
André has created the definitive guides for customer acquisition (Sphere of Influence) and customer conversion (AutoResponder Madness). The bar was set impossibly high, which is why this announcement has been eighteen months in the making.
Starting in early April, I am going to lead a cohort of people through an eight week paid traffic training that we are calling the Traffic Engine.
We’ll start with the basics, timeless fundamental principles, and a behind-the-scenes look at the new reality of paid traffic and digital marketing.
We will then apply those concepts and principles to create retargeting and prospecting campaigns in Google Ads (including search and the Google display network) and Facebook. There will be live question and answer calls with me, in-depth hot seats, and performance / metrics review.
Additional options will be available to freelancers and agency professionals who want to implement these ideas for their clients. This is a limited time offer (available April 1-7).
An outline of the course, prices and other information will be available here starting April 1.
My goal for this course is simple: to outsource and share my decades of experience with a group of people who can multiply your value far beyond anything you can do just by building “traffic engines” for your own businesses (or learning how to help others to do the same).
And, in the spirit of transparency, I also have a selfish reason. Teaching is the ultimate forcing mechanism for me: it requires depth of thought and knowledge to test my pressure ideas, explain them clearly, and distill them into actionable ideas. For years I have done it individually with clients and now I am looking forward to doing it with a motivated group of early adopters.
All rights reserved.)
Email Archives
Tue (Mar 24, 2020) – TTE: American Airlines (Email 1)
Wed (Mar 25, 2020) – TTE: Where do I start? (Email 2)
Thu (Mar 26, 2020) – TTE: Structure + Council (Email 3)
Fri (Mar 27, 2020) – T: Price Frame (Email 4)
Mon (Mar 30, 2020) —TE: Ladybug Marketing Effect (Email 5) [w / video presentation]
Mar (Mar 31, 2020) – T: Freeze Frame (Email 6)
Wed (April 1, 2020) – CART OPENED
Fri (Apr 3, 2020) – TTE: Test Framework (Email 7)
Sun (April 5, 2020) -TTE: Iterate to Success (Email 8)
Monday (April 6, 2020) – TTE: One person only (Email 9)
Tue (April, 2020) – CART CL at 11:59 pm Pacific Time- 7 closed TTE: Resources (Email 10)
1.) I don’t have an offer / product – I’m an affiliate – Will TTE still be relevant to me?
I answered this question in part in Email 2.
TTE will be relevant / actionable for any business that benefits from monetizing attention with paid traffic, including affiliate offers. However, I am absolutely not an affiliate marketer specialist, so my examples are unlikely to be specific to those needs.
2.) How is TTE different from the traffic module in SOI?
The traffic engine will be a complete upgrade (and expansion of) paid traffic content in SOI. Much has changed since that content was written, and TTE will reflect my best and current thinking.
In particular, Google and Facebook have become much tighter on advertisers, and ad costs have increased by orders of magnitude. The downstream consequences of those two factors are profound and much of what I will cover in TTE will be in response to that new reality.
This first cohort of TTE will also have live question and answer calls, hot seats, and other direct interaction with me.
Lastly, the paid traffic content for SOI was specific to that methodology. The traffic engine is focus independent, which means it will inform how you think about lead generation, direct bid, and other advertising models. And of course you are informed by the principles that make SOI and ARM great.
3.) Because Google and FB change their platforms so frequently, will this course still be relevant in a year?
This is not a “flavor of the day” training based on tactics. Instead, it focuses on timeless principles that inform implementation. I hope some of the ‘which button can I push? Details will change over time (and the ones that will update), but the focus is on the high leverage strategies that drive the action, not the details’ in the weeds ‘.
However, approximately 60% of the course content will be implemented and I expect those recommendations to be largely durable over time (and updated as needed).
4.) I’m new to paid traffic (never done it before) – will the course be too advanced for me?
Possibly.
I would suggest reading the free 10-part blog I wrote last month. If that feels like it’s too complicated, that’s probably a good indicator. The traffic engine won’t be a good fit. (In that case, I would recommend studying that material and asking questions in the comments that I will continue to answer.)
On the other hand, if that content and style resonates with you, you would expect The Traffic Engine to be accessible to you. I’m going to go much deeper into the course, but my approach to distilling / simplifying ideas to make them accessible will be the same.
5.) I have been handling paid traffic for years, it is our main source of leads, will I learn something that I do not know yet?
I am 100% convinced that André added this question as a curve knowing how much I hate discussing my background and experience.
The short answer is yes, even if you’ve been running traffic for a long time I’m sure you’ll get a lot of value from The Traffic Engine. In fact, in my experience, the higher the ad spend, the greater the impact of these ideas because the results multiply.
I say this with confidence (and humility) because I have shared these ideas and principles with some of the best salespeople in the world in the most competitive markets and I have yet to experience anyone yawn and they tell me they already knew everything or couldn’t immediately see more of 10 ways to benefit.
6.) What format will this course have? Text, video, live calls, etc?Text, screencasts, live Q&A and hot-seat calls via Zoom, recorded interviews, links to resources (videos, articles, tools, etc.). There’s a very, very, very slim chance that I use video as well (the idea of seeing myself on video is so awful though that I doubt it).
Please continue to ask questions in the comments below and share any information you have had so far during this campaign.
7.) Is there a payment plan?
For this early adoption registration for TTE, no.
I want to be very clear that you shouldn’t sign up for the traffic engine if it’s going to be a stretch financially. André and I would rather you keep the $ 375 to spend on paid traffic (and using the free paid traffic training as a guide).
If you are interested in the traffic engine, please remember that it is paid traffic which means you will want some budget available to buy traffic.
As much as we would love to have you on the course, it is far more important that you make decisions in your own best interest. The traffic engine will be available again later this year, so please don’t feel like you are missing an opportunity. We will be here when I’m ready.
8.) What are the prerequisites for this course? What do I need to have / know before I can apply what TTE teaches?
There are no formal prerequisites for The Traffic Engine. However, here are some guidelines that may be helpful:
First, read the 10-part free paid traffic training and the Traffic Engine Manifesto.
Second, email # 2 —Where do I start? – explains how to get the most out of the training.
Third, if you still have questions about your specific situation, ask a question in the 219 comments.
9.) How much should I plan for a budget for paid traffic?
I have also answered this question in the comment section (usually more specific to the individual’s situation).
In general, there is no correct answer to this question. The overall goal of paid traffic is to be revenue neutral (free customers) or revenue positive as quickly as possible. Initially though, during testing and iteration, there is no way of knowing when that will happen.
Without knowing specific details, it is difficult to estimate.
If you are planning to test ideas, $ 10 – $ 25 / day is a decent budget. The goal of that test would be to get a result, so this would not be in progress if it is not working. Test, iterate, test again – this is how the process works.
As we see positive results, we would put more money into advertising spending, knowing that we would be offsetting that expense with sales. Part of The Traffic Engine training is calculating these numbers so you know when to spend, when not to spend, and how much to spend.
Course outline and schedule
The Traffic Engine Basic Training is an eight-week, ten-module * course that teaches the fundamentals of successful paid traffic campaigns on Google Ads and Facebook, including prospecting and retargeting.
The emphasis of the course is learning effective, high-leverage strategies first (weeks one and two), and then implementing those strategies to create awareness, test offers, and win customers with Google Adssearch (weeks three and four), and Facebook ( weeks five and six).
Week seven will focus on maximizing revenue from existing traffic with the Google Display Network and Facebook retargeting.
(To make sure everyone is on the same page, we’re going to start with perspective first, then add retargeting, which is different from the advice I gave about 10-day free traffic that I want to acknowledge.)
Week eight will discuss optimization and scaling.
The goal of the course is for participants to have at least one Google Search Prospecting Campaign, Facebook Prospecting Campaign, and GDN and Facebook retargeting campaigns created and targeted to traffic.
Other related goals include:The most important mistakes to avoid on each platform.
The critical factors that drive performance on each platform.
The few metrics that matter and how to calculate those metrics using free tools (eg Google Analytics, Google Sheets).
Strategies for service offers, e-commerce, digital offers, lead generation and co-created offers.
Specific strategies of Sphere of Influence and Insanity Autoresponder.
Test strategies to inform the courier offer.
Frameworks and tools I use for idea generation and capture, content creation, reporting, and more.
(And much more I’m sure I’m forgetting …)
This first live cohort will include four questions and answers / hot seat calls with me. The exact dates have yet to be determined. However, I have included the weeks each call will appear in the diagram below.
(Question and answer / hot seat calls will be recorded and available in the learning area.)
The content will remain accessible for the past week eight, and participants will have access to all future course updates as they become available.
Each module will have comments to ask questions that I will answer regularly for the first eight weeks, then less frequently (but consistently) after that.
The course content will be a mix of written modules, screencasts, possibly video, and links to third party resources, I think they are valuable.
There’s also an upgrade version specifically for freelancers, agencies, and creative professionals who want to use The Traffic Engine for client work.
(Updated content appears below the main course syllabus.)
[* I can decide to add additional content. If that happens, I’ll make sure the content is created within eight weeks.]
Bonus: Module 0 – The 30,000 ‘view of the traffic engine (Tuesday, April 7).
CoreModule 1: Friday, Current Reality (April 10).
CoreModule 2: Traffic Principles (April 17).
Questions and answers
Bonus module: audience and offer masterclass
Core Module 3: Introduction to Google Ads (Search) – Create a campaign (Friday, April 24).
Module 4: Metrics and Performance
Questions and answers
Basic module 5: Introduction to the campaign (Friday, May 8).
Module 6: Metrics and Performance (Friday, May 15).
Bonus: Module 6.5: Facebook Messaging and Bid Testing Framework (Friday, May 15).
Questions and answers
Module 7: Retargeting – Google + Facebook Display Network (Friday, May 22).
Basic Module 8: Optimization and Scaling (Friday, May 29).
Questions and answers
Client Services Update (Plugin)
The following content is specific to the needs of freelancers, agencies, and creative professionals who will be using The Traffic Engine on behalf of clients. This is in addition to the basic training above.
Customer-Services Module 1: Strategies for finding and working with paid traffic customers (Google Ads and Facebook) – April 17.
Customer-Services Module 2: Common Problems and Solutions (Including Pricing, Reports, Expectations Management, and Customer Communications) – May 1.
Customer-Services Q & A / Hot-seat Call # 1.
Client-Services Module 3: Obtaining results for clients using the traffic engine (prospecting and redirection) – May 15th.
Customer-Services Module 4: Grow Your Business and Your Customers’ Businesses (How to Think Scale) – May 29.
Customer-Services Q & A / Hot-seat Call # 2.
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