Episode 33: How You Can Earn Passive Income with Tripwire Products with Eden Fried

Monica Froese  00:04

You’re listening to the empowered business podcast. I’m your host, Monica Froese, a mom of two and your secret weapon to creating a six figure digital product business. I’m on a mission to help 1000 women make $100,000 a year. That’s right $100 million towards financial independence for women. As an online business expert, I am teaching you everything I know right here week after week. So you can join us on the journey to $100 million dollars. Sound good? Then let’s jump in. Today I’m talking to a fellow digital product coach or strategist, whatever you want to call us. We both teach other entrepreneurs how to build digital product businesses. And I’m very excited to talk to her today because we’re going to learn her philosophy around tripwires, which are limited time offers and also how she has been running a very successful Facebook ad campaign that has resulted in 3000 new purchasers. And those are people that she has added now to her email list who have paid her money in the last year, which is pretty fascinating story. So where are we talking to? We are talking to Eden Fried, and she has ditched pantsuits in law libraries in early 2016 and traded them in for sweat pants and a laptop so she could build a business online. Ever since abandoned in corporate America, Eden has successfully built a profitable online business by selling digital products. Today she and her husband live off of passive income, the kind of income you earn while sleeping at night. Or when you’re out to dinner with friends or wiping your baby’s butt cheeks. How does she do it? Well, she keeps no secrets. Eden shares her entire strategy on her website eden fried.com, where she teaches aspiring entrepreneurs how to build that life of freedom and financial flexibility by creating and selling digital products online. As you know, I feel the exact same way. I believe digital products help us to achieve financial independence. And it’s so very important for women to have that. So let’s welcome Eden and hear how she has managed to do that in her own business and how she helps others do the same. Eden didn’t Welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you.

02:27

Thank you so much, Monica. I’m really excited for our conversation. Yeah, me too.

Monica Froese  02:31

So I always like to start these conversations with asking about your entrepreneurial journey, like where you got started, and what you’re doing today.

02:39

 Oh, that’s a that’s a fun one. It’s a loaded question. Back in 2016, which I can’t believe how many years ago that is now. It’s kind of crazy. I was actually working in corporate and completely miserable like soul sucking, counting down the seconds until 530 kind of experience. I made the plan in my early 20s that, you know, I didn’t want to be experiencing that and want that to be what my life was. So I actually thought, Hey, I’m gonna go to law school. I actually had taken the Law School Admission Test two years earlier, they’d had a five year expiry on the score. So I’m like, I can go to law school. I did mock trial in high school in college. I already took the LSAT. I thought back in the day, I would go to law school. So I applied I got in, submitted my resignation for that, that summer. So summer 2016. I went to Budapest, Hungary. My brother was there at the time, and I was attending his wedding. Now he is an extremely entrepreneurial person. Like, the most that I’ve ever. Like, I’ve never met somebody more entrepreneurial than him. He channels on like the Steve Jobs vibes, if you know what I mean. So I was at his wedding. And of course, his wedding is just filled with guests, his really close friends who are also extremely entrepreneurial. And I guess he made it his mission, that at his wedding, at his reception, that I would change my mind about going to law school, and that I would instead pursue online business. He was successful. I don’t know how he was. I mean, I think he was successful, because I did have my own doubts about going to law school, I think I made that decision, because I was just unhappy. And that’s not a good place to make a decision from, like no decision should be made just because you’re unhappy unless it’s like, hey, go to therapy or you know, change, not take on $250,000 in student loan debt just so you can be miserable in a different corporate setting. So yeah, I made that decision to not go to law school. I had called my my husband at the time or no, he’s my husband now. He was my boyfriend at the time from Europe and I said, change of plans, not going to law school. The very next day I started my website had absolutely no clue what I was going to do. How I was gonna make money. But I ended up I just deferred my admission to law school I did not completely rejected, I just said, Hey, give me a year, maybe I’ll come maybe I won’t. So gave myself a year to just play around. And in that year, I did all kinds of different things. Freelancing kind of financed things for me for a while, until I launched a digital product in that year. And I never went to law school. I emailed them back a year later saying, I’m still not coming. And I’m not deferring again. And I’m just not going to law school.

Monica Froese  05:33

Alright, so lots of questions now. Okay, so the first digital product was launched in like the end of 2016.

05:41

So it was launched. So we’re up. We’re, I was kind of on the academic year. So I started in 2016. Like, I think it was like June or July 2016. So I launched in March of 2017. I believe it was like the end of March, my first product. And that’s what started making real like pass. I mean, I’m passive as an air quotes everybody. Yeah. But like the air, quote, passive income from a digital product. And that was like justification for me that there was opportunity to continue.

Monica Froese  06:14

Sounds very similar to my experience, like, I’m curious. So why first, why a digital product? Like, why was that the thing and what wasn’t?

06:24

So I had done everything. Like I said, freelancing was not my jam. Because I didn’t love I don’t have the personality to have a boss. I just don’t like it. I feel like I’m very boss, like, on my own, that I just don’t want, you know what I mean?

Monica Froese  06:41

I feel like I am exactly like you.

06:44

So I’m like, I just don’t like it. I always and this is terrible at me. But every time I work under somebody, I’m like, I could do it better than you like, you know what I mean? I just come on, let me let me just try this myself. So having freelance clients is like having multiple bosses. And to me that was worse than having one. So I freelanced primarily to make sure that I was like, at least paying my bills, I had the threshold of how much money I needed to make. And I made sure that I made that. And I knew that it wouldn’t be my long term thing, because it just wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy doing it. I you know, and I tried lots of other things, my brother kind of steered me in the direction of SEO and affiliate marketing. And listen, those things are great. And you can have a lot of success with them. But you need to, like put your head down and make it it’s just a lot of boring work to be completely honest. And I wasn’t passionate about it. Like I am somebody who has to be passionate about the work that I’m doing. Otherwise, I’m not happy doing it. And life’s too short. You know, I know so many people whose lives ended prematurely. And that’s maybe that’s morbid, but it’s true. And to me, that’s a motivating factor and making sure that whatever I do every single day is bringing me joy. So that was out. You know, I still make some money with affiliate stuff. But it’s just little things here and there. I never wanted to run ads. Like on my site, I hate the experience of being on sites with ads. It wasn’t my thing. Plus, you need tons and tons of pageviews. I wasn’t there yet. So I stumbled on digital products. My first digital product actually happened to be a Pinterest course, it was just about what it was, I did not know that. It was about how I got my first like, I don’t remember something about how I got my first 10,000 followers or something I can’t remember like what the tagline was, but it’s called Pinterest on puzzled. And it was just, it wasn’t like, here’s everything you need to know about Pinterest. It was just here was the strategy I use. And this was back in the day a board booster, you know,

Monica Froese  08:49

yes, I do remember board booster.

08:50

And that was like part of my strategy. You know, so I just showed people just were asking me questions, but how I was doing it. So I just recorded my screen and show them what I was doing. And that was it. Primarily sold it through my small email list at the time. And I did have a Facebook group. And yeah, I mean, that made I think, I don’t remember the exact numbers. I wasn’t even organized enough to like be able to go back and pull up the exact numbers. But I know that initially like when I first opened it up, it was like $19 That’s it. So I sold it for and it made like $500 really fast and then it made like 1000 and then just kind of snowballed. And I was like this is so much more fun. Love to figure out how I can scale this.

Monica Froese  08:55

This is eerily similar. So first of all, everything you said about working like freelancing. The reason I told my my husband I butted heads the most when I quit corporate. When I turned down contracts, like 1000s of dollars of contracts. He’s like you just gave up your W2 wage. And we live paycheck to paycheck. Why? Yeah, and I’m like because I was like insistent that I was going to build a brand on my own terms and working for someone else and building their brand wasn’t going to get me. So I like my personality is just like yours. I launched a couple things before this, but in March of 2017, so the same timeframe, I launched my first Pinterest course, as well. And that was the turning point for me. That’s when I launched it at $47. And it was the same thing. People kept asking, How are you using Pinterest? How are you using Pinterest? It was 13 videos. It was like not well done. And it quickly like I remember sitting at dinner with him and like I got 10 payment notifications and I was like jumping out of my seat. I’m like, Whoa, this works now. And that was like the real turning point of like, I think digital products and I don’t even know honestly if like digital products was like a thing people were calling it then.

10:42

It was just a course I don’t even know it wasn’t like that. And people did it. People were selling stuff. But it wasn’t that popular yet.

Monica Froese  10:48

You know exactly. So that is just kind of creepy. How similar our experience was. Now when did you so I know now like you are you have a whole training dedicated to tripwires. And for anyone doesn’t know what tripwire is, it’s essentially a limited time offer usually become comes behind an opt in like, Hey, get my free thing. You give your email over and then you’re presented with this limited time offer. We call it a tripwire in this world. And for a long time. I feel like that is what you taught. I’m sure you still talk about it. But like I remember that being like your thing. So how did that become a thing? And like, tell us more about tripwires and why you love them?

11:27

Yeah. Okay. So what I found after I launched, you know, this, this Pinterest course was this realization that this is I don’t want to say it’s easy, but it’s just a lot easier than a lot of the other monetization methods that people were talking about at the time. And to be honest, that people are still talking about now on how to make money. And I just could not wrap my mind around the fact that Why are more people not doing it. Honestly, it’s it’s really not that complicated. Why are there so many people who are still so focused on their, on their blogs, and just generating content with absolutely no strategy behind it when they could be making money from you know, the, the blogs that they already wrote and everything that already exists out there. And I found that the reason why people weren’t pursuing it is number one, they didn’t know about it. And number two, when they did learn about it, they thought it was too complicated. They thought, hey, like I’m not the kind of person for this. It’s, it’s just too much work. Well, tripwires are the easiest thing that you could possibly do to dip your toes into the waters of digital products, you can honestly take content that you already have. Wrap it up into an offer. And within a day, depending on how tech savvy you are, and you don’t need to be tech savvy. But if you’re especially tech savvy, this could take you an hour. And if you’re not it could take you a day or you know, a week depending on the amount of time you have. But within a very short timeframe, you can set up a tripwire. And that tripwire is going to give you the opportunity. And I say like that because nothing’s a guarantee. This depends on a lot of different factors. But it can give you the opportunity to convert your existing traffic into what I like to call instant customers within a moment of them learning about you and signing up for your email. They now are presented with an offer to buy from you. And it’s just so simple that I was like let’s let’s give this to people in a way that is easy to digest.

Monica Froese  13:24

Because what I have found is that bloggers, they do know many of them do know that they should be growing an email list. So and many of my blog and I have a ton of blogging friends and I love them dearly. Even if we monetize differently, and there’s no, it’s fine. But like my blogging friends, know, I cannot stand display ads. And so a lot of them they’re making good money on display ads. I’m not Poo-poohing it because they make good money on it. But they still were building an email list. And I was like so all these people who are opting into your email list like, why aren’t you asking them for money, which would be with a tripwire. And it’s so, it’s like it like you said it’s so easy to do. And you’re already asking people to opt in and they are so why not at it so it makes perfect sense to me. So what was your first tripwire?

14:11

What was my first tripwire has been a long time so I thought about it. Um, gosh, I think my first tripwire had to do with building an email list. Oh my gosh, what was it? It was a bundle of like list building something. Oh, I remember. Okay, email list building hack pack. That’s what it’s called. I’m really bad at naming things. By the way, share the hair of shame. Think well, thank you. But I, Tara I always am so self conscious of the names. I’m like, this is so bad. But yeah, it was just a bundle of like things to make lists build easier, and then had a crazy conversion rate. Like I actually think over 70% of the people that entered my list would buy it. And I think it was priced at $9. That was my trip wire price discounted from what about 25 was typically what I did.

Monica Froese  15:02

Okay, let’s talk about price because I think people do get obsessed with pricing. Yes, like, for some reason I have a whole pricing module that the first time I launched my program, it was actually pretty basic. And then I realized people spazzed out about pricing, and I’m like, Yeah, all right, we need to build this out a little bit further. What is your opinion on like, a good, because what they always want to know is, what is the like the list price that you would put it out for sale for and then what do you discount the tripwire like, what have you seen? That works as a different by niche?

15:39

Yeah, so pricing with a tripwire a number one thing is it needs to either not be available anywhere else, which a lot of people don’t realize, like, you know, you can have a list price and it can be discounted, or you could just make it only available there. That’s interesting.

Monica Froese  15:54

I never really thought about that.

15:55

Yeah, and that way, it’s a little bit less work for people who just maybe they don’t have a sales page anywhere else. And they’re just not ready for that step yet. I like to make it no brainer pricing. And depending on your customer, no brainer pricing can be very different. If you’re targeting millionaires, no brainer pricing could be like a lot of money, right. But you know, most of us are not targeting millionaires. We’re targeting regular everyday people. So for me, when I first got started, I stuck with $9 as the sweet spot. And that worked really well. I have increased since then. Because I’m confident in my offer. And I have the case studies and I have the testimonials. And I know that people will, like the pain point is strong enough, even for those limited time offers. But if you’re just getting started and you’re nervous about pricing, there’s nothing wrong with staying under $10. Now I’ve seen a lot of tripwires for seven. And I think it’s silly. And this is me just telling you exactly my opinions on it. Don’t price it at seven. There’s no difference between seven and nine. I agree. Just charge the extra two.

Monica Froese  16:59

Yeah, my my good friend Lena. And I actually use this example in the course she said to me, when at one time I was stressing about raising the price of one of my courses from like 147 to 247. And I was like really stressed about it, which is so funny now looking back. And she’s like, you know, the difference between 247 and 297. There isn’t. That people only see the two and the seven and the middle number in that case doesn’t matter. And I agree it’s very similar for tripwires, like 17 is the same thing as 19. Keep it below 20 people see the 20. So if it’s below, it’s just below like, or like a lot of times to like benchmarks for different In my opinion, like women, particularly for whatever reason feel like they have to like seek out their partner, which I have very strong opinions on I don’t I don’t ask permission, I don’t ask for forgiveness. I spend what I want to spend, I’m very well aware of the finances. This is my personal take on it. I understand not everyone so like, but I noticed like a lot of women like $50. And under they feel more confident and like making that decision versus like, oh, maybe I shouldn’t do this without checking with someone. So like 47 is as good as 27. Of course, the product is worth that, you know, like don’t give a junk product. But in essence, pricing is kind of like it’s it. I don’t know, I think people stress too much over it.

18:16

I agree completely. And I also think like, you know, you mentioned 1790, not much of a difference. But I actually also want to point out that a lot of people will try 12 and 12 is more than 10. But 19 is less than 20. Which one’s going to sell better? Honestly, the 19 might sell better, because it sounds like it’s less than 20 versus more than 10. So just you know, don’t be afraid like those that those little distinctions can make a big difference. And if you’re thinking, hey, it’s just $2 just $5 Well, there’s transaction fees, like there’s all that stuff can add up quite significantly. And it does make a difference.

Monica Froese  18:52

It does actually, I was just doing my bookkeeping, doing like our q2 financial recap with the bookkeeper. And we are comparing our merchant fees year over year. Last year, I was doing a lot more on the redefining mom side. So b2c smaller volume transactions, and my merchant fees were like 4.2% of revenue, and this year, they’re 3.5. And I was like, wait a minute, we’re making like a lot more money. Why? Like it was very, like, percentage wise, I was confused, but even dollar amount they were like on par, but we’ve made a lot more money. And she’s like, well, you were doing a lot of small transactions last last year. And so but like Pay Pal, it’s like 30 cents plus 2.9% on every transaction. So yeah, consider that to like once you get to volume that adds up like you’re paying that which is why it’s so important to track your number. Oh, yes, always track. So okay, let’s talk about urgency on a tripwire. What’s your take on urgency and how do you how do you reduce urgency?

19:51

So I think urgency is really important and it’s honestly without it your tripwire is no different than any Any other offer that you may have anywhere else on your website? What? What’s the reason someone’s got to climb out of bed, let’s be real. They might be on the toilet in the bathroom or scrolling on their bed, whatever. How can you get them to go get their credit card out of their wallet, you have to like make them make that decision right now. So I accomplish that with a timer. And by saying when the timer expires, this offer is going to go away. It’s either just not available, like we said earlier, or it’s going to be a higher price. It’s very important. I always say this, when I’m talking about urgency that your urgency is authentic. We want to be ethical in everything that we do online. And it’s just really sleazy, if you say it’s not available at this price, and then it actually is later on. Or if you say it’s not available in general, and people find it somewhere else. You always want to be truthful. But when that timer expires, you want to make sure that that page redirects somewhere else, and is no longer available and a simple 15 minute timer, even a 20 minute timer can accomplish that.

Monica Froese  21:00

Have you found the different time frames that you’re giving a convert better?

21:06

So I typically will do it based on how long the sales page is. Because it’s just it’s really important that you give people time to read. Or if you have a video and I see this a lot where people will put like a five minute timer on, but they have like a 10 minute video on their page. How can you expect someone to consume all of the material you’ve invited them to consume when you have a timer? That expires before they can so 15 minutes has been my sweet spot. But for more expensive suppliers as I’ve experienced, or as I’ve been experimenting with higher price points, people are going to need more information and they’re going to need longer tripwire sales pages. So I would do like a 20 minute timer. I would never recommend anything higher than 20 minutes. If they’re not going to make a decision in 20 minutes. They’re not going to make a decision within the hour. So even though it may be tempting to let them have an hour to make their decision, trust me the shorter timeframes are always going to be more successful. Okay, so let’s talk about the fact that in this scenario, they’ve opted into something for free. You have presented them with the tripwire they don’t take the tripwire but now they’re in your OPT in sequence because that’s already started firing right like that fires upon opt in you, I’m assuming you might do something similar to me where like if they end up buying the tripwire, then they get taken out of the opt in sequence and they go through a tripwire sequence instead. So they’re not like getting duplicate. It depends. Everyone’s different. You might not even build out your tripwire sequence like I do, so they get taken out of the opt in and our focus on tripwire, but let’s just say they don’t take the tripwire. Now, they’re they’re still on this opt in sequence. Very popular question. Do you re offer the product and at what price point what’s your take on this? If you’re just starting out and you’re brand spanking new to this don’t offer the tripwire because I just want you to get the tripwire setup first, I don’t want you to like set up the to worry about Oh, I didn’t set up the back end yet. So let me hold off on setting up the tripwire progress over perfection set up the tripwire for the rainy day go ahead and go in and set up the next part. But yeah, if you’re ready for that next step, a tripwire is already running, then go in and offer the tripwire at a slightly higher price point. And it and this is really up to you. It can be another tripwire, it could be another like, in between whatever the initial price was, and whatever the actual price is. And you want to consider that when you’re actually deciding on all of the price points for your products. Or it could just be Hey, you didn’t buy the first time but like, come on, you know, you need this. Here’s a link to the sales page. I’ve tried it both ways, and they’re both successful. But I do always think having urgency makes it just a little bit more successful. The conversion rate always does seem to be slightly higher when there’s a timer involved. So I’ve always had a little bit more success with that approach.

Monica Froese  23:52

Yeah, and you know, we don’t say on our set this is we never say anything like this is the only time to get this price because we do reoffer our tripwires in email and we and and usually at the tripwire price, and we we’ve posted as like one last opportunity like this is you know, and that has worked really well for us we recoup a lot. And so I tell students, like just be careful how you’re wording things, you know?

24:17

Yeah, just make sure it lines up with your strategy if you plan on offering it later on. Don’t say you’re not gonna offer it later on. Just say hey, here’s here’s a chance don’t miss it.

Monica Froese  24:26

Yes, exactly. Okay, so before we move on from tripwires, is there anything else people should know? That is like a core foundational important thing to know before they set one up?

24:36

I think maybe there’s so many different things. I’m having a hard time deciding which one to say. I know technology’s always like the big question mark when it comes to setting up tripwire. So I’ll just address that one. It’s okay to use the tech that you have. And you know, try and leverage the existing platform that you have and don’t feel like you need to go shopping for the most expensive things. But make sure that your technology is actually following the rules of what you need it to with a tripwire. Because you just don’t want to be unethical and your technology can sometimes be the thing that makes you unethical in a sense. So you want to make sure with the tripwire that your technology will expire your page. It’s not just a timer that when it gets to zero, it does nothing. And you want to make sure obviously, that you are doing those redirects to you know, an expiration page and that your lead magnet goes to the tripwire page. So just you know, it’s okay to shop within the tools that you already have. But make sure it’s doing what you need it to do. And then I will just say that I’m a big deadline funnel fan. And that is the tool that I use for all of my tripwires and any expiring offers. And it’s been absolutely wonderful for me. So if you’re looking for, you know, a tool that does the job, that one will do the trick for you.

Monica Froese  25:51

Yeah, and deadline was a little bit more expensive. And I think a little bit more complicated to use. But I would agree I only use that line funnel on my big stuff, courses. Course evergreen funnels like big programs, we don’t use it, we use lead pages, the built in timer, because lead pages actually let you when the timer runs out, it will hide that section and open up another section. I used to redirect. It’s so funny because I would clone and redirect. And that’s more pages to manage that are out there. Especially because I have like a million funnels. And then I interviewed lead pages like couple episodes ago, Episode 24. And the guy I was interviewing from there was like, No, you can just hide it. And I like knew this. I’ve been using lead pages since that’s cool. I did it. Then I’m like, Wow, I’ve wasted so much of my time. What was I thinking? And it’s like, I knew that I knew about the hide and unhide sections, hiding and unhiding sections makes running urgency in general with lead pages, even if it’s like time bound. So much easier because you just have to flip a switch. So anyways, that’s my I am I am a big proponent of lead pages by like deadline funnel, too. We do use that.

27:01

Yeah, that lead pages is it is a solid tool to use for sure. Great for managing all kinds of things.

Monica Froese  27:07

Yeah. Okay. So now I want to talk about we’re gonna pivot a little bit away from trip wires, because I get targeted with a certain Facebook ad from you and have been for about the last year, which I find that I remember the first time I saw it, and I actually sent it to my operations manager. I was like, look at this. Mirror. Oh, you know, we’re always looking for ad inspiration. So this is on Facebook. I saw it. And because the ad is still running, one would assume it has done well. So yeah, can we talk about like what the product is with the ad and and what you’ve learned from your ad experience and all the things

27:40

Oh, my God, I’ve talked about this forever, Monica. So the the product is called launch list. And it’s essentially an automated spreadsheet that you plug in your product name, the date, you want to launch the strategies that you plan on using to launch. So if you’re going to launch with a challenge, if you’re gonna launch with a webinar, if you want to have affiliates, the social media channels you plan on using to promote pretty much like any strategy that you plan on using if you want to run ads, all of those different things, you check off what you’re going to do. And within seconds, it will just generate a complete task list for you with due dates based on your own launch goals. So it is like a very sophisticated Google spreadsheet. I say Google spreadsheet, because it’s an important distinction. It’s not currently accessible on Excel or any of the other like Mac, whatever the Mac competitor is. It’s just a Google spreadsheet. And it’s it’s a smart spreadsheet, like can do all kinds of things based on very fancy functions that full disclosure, I did not do because my brain does not work like that. But I generated all the information and handed it to a developer and said, Can you make this a reality for me? And it’s, it works really, really well. And it’s like the thing that people need I did a survey to my audience. Well, I mean, a year and a half ago, I would say, six months before I started, I made this product and started running the ads to it. And truly 99% of the people said, I want a product that tells me exactly what to do and when to do it. And I’m like, I can make that happen for you. And that’s how the spreadsheet was born. And honestly, the spreadsheet is just a much fancier version of something I had already made. years past had been providing to people that this was like a smarter version on steroids To be honest, for lack of a better phrasing. So yeah, that’s the product. I started running ads in. I think it was exactly a year ago. I think you’re right with your timing. I think it might have been July 2020 2020 Is it 2020? Yes. 2020 losing track of time here. But yeah, I mean, I but I started by marketing it to my audience first to confirm that it was going to be a successful funnel that it was actually going to sell before I started doling out buckets of cash to the Facebook gods. And once I confirmed that it was going to work and had a good conversion rate, I was like, Alright, let me try this on Facebook. And the rest is history started working really well.

Monica Froese  30:11

So the first and I think that I still get targeted with the most is actually a video of the spreadsheet. So yeah.  Is that the creative that does the best for you?

30:22

Yeah, absolutely. We’ve tried a few different versions of like static imagery or imagery that static with, you know, the video embedded in it. But honestly, the best one is, is really me holding up my phone to my computer screen while I’m using the spreadsheet.

Monica Froese  30:38

Isn’t that crazy? It’s not even a screen share. It’s literally you holding our phone, like a very like, rough video, like there’s nothing special about it, but it’s catches your eye, it does catch your eye in the feed.

30:50

It’s a little bit of a shaky hold. And that because it’s me holding it and like, honestly, I think if you put the volume up, you can like hear me breathing. And that’s it. It’s not even no audio or anything. It’s just me holding up my phone.

Monica Froese  31:03

Yes. Okay, so dyno, do you run your own ads? Or do you have an agency,

31:07

I started by running my own ads I made, I wanted to figure it out myself, like I have a hard time hiring things out until I have some kind of foundational understanding of what they’re going to be doing. So I started myself, and then I after about like, two months I hired a company.

Monica Froese  31:24

Okay, can we talk numbers like conversion rates and stuff? How I mean, how is it doing? Like how many leads, okay, so it’s a, it’s direct to sale, right? It’s not an opt in to, it’s direct to sale.

31:38

 It’s called a self liquidating offer, which you know, a tripwire is technically a version of a soft self liquidating offer, or some people call it a slow funnel. So it is $37. And that’s the you know, when you click on the ad, you’re offered $37 product on the back end of the product or several other offers starting at 97, and then going to 77 847. And there are three offers on the back end of it. So honestly, when I run my ads, it’s not necessarily the goal is not necessarily Hey, just get people to purchase launch list, even though that’s great, it’s, hey, let’s see how we can increase the average order value. So the average order value for me, you know, depending on the month, because Facebook and Instagram are, you know, very temperamental, and it does depend on the month and sometimes are more competitive than others, my average order value will range from $50, a sale to up to $60, a sale, sometimes a little bit higher. And that’s because some people will buy everything in the funnel, which could be up to $250. And some people will just by launch list for 37. And when you average that out, it could be 50 to $60 per sale.

Monica Froese  32:44

What’s your average return on adspend in a month?

32:47

So typically, the average return on adspend would be? I mean, typically, for every dollar spent, I’m going to make around $2.

Monica Froese  32:58

But it’s like a two Yeah,

33:00

yeah. And that whole range, there are some times where it’s much lower. And to be honest, in the past few months, with the you know, iOS updates and changes like that. It has been a little bit lower, but everything kind of averages out in the end.

Monica Froese  33:13

Is it always profitable? Have you had upside down months? I’ve never been negative. I really see that’s impressive. That’s very impressive. So holistically, like just a rough number, like how many people have bought the front end offer for this? I think we’re at about 3000 people, wow. Now think about this, like this is 3000 people who have come to you and already committed to paying you money. And I’m a firm believer that the hardest thing is to get the first sale, once someone pays you once I mean, and I i can validate this in so many ways. But one of those strongest ways I can validate it is I was reading the welcome survey for my program, we’ve had two different cohorts. So it was a total of like 220 people actually took the time to respond to the survey. And we asked, you know, why did you purchase and this is a $2,000 programs, this is not a light investment. And overwhelmingly, it was because they have bought something else for me, not a large purchase, like 37, 27, a tripwire type type thing. And I gave them enough value out of that purchase that they trusted me. And then they went on to spend $2,000. So you just added 3000 buyers, to your list, and you were profitable every month running this ad.

34:29

Yeah. And that’s the thing to remember within, you know, with a funnel like this is yes, it’s great to make money, but also it’s a lead gen funnel. Yeah, you know, that’s the number one goal honestly, for me, and it’s great to make money on it, but it’s also like, Okay, well now they’re on my email list. And we you know, I always say how important having an email list is, I got these people on my email list for free for a profit, essentially, and now they’re probably gonna buy more stuff for me later on. So it’s kind of like a win win.

Monica Froese  34:56

I had a conversation with someone Who had a very different outlook on this than I did, which I think is fine. And we did not agree pretty much on anything. But I also I very much, I am a firm believer, like, when everything religion, politics, I like talking to people who have opposing viewpoints. To me, that’s how you grow, and you learn and you know, you’re stretching. So I totally didn’t agree with the conversation. But when they looked at how much money I was making, and they saw my ad spend, they were like, you need to go out and like 5x your ad spend, you could be making so much more money? And I’m like, No, not necessarily. I’m my ads, like yours are always profitable. I’m very profitable, with the ads that I run, and we spend, we spend anywhere from like five to 15,000, sometimes 1720, I’ve even had a month on ads, like we run a decent amount of ads. And the thing is, scaling is not always better. Because, you know, and especially for us, our audiences are to a degree finite, you know, like, there’s not, not everyone’s gonna be interested in digital products, we’re not selling something that’s like a commodity, necessarily, right. So, you know, if you tap out those audiences, and things, so like scaling doesn’t necessarily mean more profits. So instead, I prefer my business to have a very healthy profit margin. And we scale, I would say, maybe gradually, but it was just an interesting, like, they were very much encouraging me to just dump all of my cash flow my profit into Facebook ads. And I’m like, that’s how companies go out of business. And I’m in this for the long haul.

36:30

Well, you know, it’s great that you mentioned that, because that’s so important to understand, when you’re going into ads, it’s not something you just turn the dial on, if you’re like, oh, if I spend $1 and make two Well, let me spend $10. That’s it doesn’t work like that, that turning the dial doesn’t just, you know, teknicks everything. And that is why I decided to hire an ads company, because I’m like, I know that to be true. But I also don’t know the limits myself. And I need somebody else to guide me on testing those new audiences and turning the dial in a healthy way. So that I can keep that profit margin and, and protect it to the best of my ability.

Monica Froese  37:05

Yeah, I totally agree. So okay, it’s been a whole year that you’ve been running this, what are we going to call it? We’ll call it the self liquidating offer? I guess there’s so many names for it out there. Some of them are even trade, right? I like called like a anyways, I don’t want to talk about trademark names, because there’s so many trademark names. Right? It’s a lower price digital products. Just say that. Yeah. Yes. You’ve you spent a whole year optimizing this. So are you planning on launching more?

37:32

So yeah, I mean, I, honestly, I’m about to have my second baby. And that’s going to be my focus for a little while. However, I do have other products that are currently being created that can fit the mold of another funnel, will it be another funnel that I you know, point ads to? I don’t know yet, because I want to kind of ride the wave of all the different changes that are happening on Facebook and Instagram right now, before I you know, do this while I’m also with my newborn child. So we’ll see. We’ll see what that looks like. But right now, it’s working well as its own product. And I, you know, I do have that consistent lead growth. And yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes.

Monica Froese  38:14

 Well, that’s very exciting. And I, I like you to like sticking things out. And it’s so easy to get the shiny object and jumper The next thing like you could have, you could be like, now I need to do an evergreen webinar and run all my ads. It’s been over there, but like you stuck with it. And I think that that’s also something that’s under appreciated in this world, and very important for getting momentum.

38:36

I have to say to you, as somebody who never ran ads in the past, running ads, put yourself out there in a way that nothing else really does. And I’m not somebody who likes attention. And I wish I didn’t brand my business with my first and last name. Like I honestly I would love to just hide under the blankets and not like be someone that anybody sees or knows like that I don’t I would die if I was ever famous. That’s not my personality. And so you know, people when they see an ad, they feel like they can comment whenever they want. And I’ve had to develop a really thick skin. And so the idea of running more ads like Oh, can I handle that? I don’t know.

Monica Froese  39:11

 Oh, I’m going to incent heavy with the ban. Ban yeah. Oh yeah. I mean,

39:16

I know I’ve hired you there are people on my team who just manage the comments section some like I you know for everyone who’s like hey it’s a great ad that you’re holding your camera to it there’s another person that’s like wow you couldn’t do screen recording you know everybody

Monica Froese  39:30

it’s like well it’s working by profitable I don’t like oh people can be people can be quite brutal I don’t know why ads particularly bring out the trolls the most everyone Oh, I wish I was prepared for that but I wasn’t Yeah, yeah. Well liberally ban that’s what I tell. My students ask me like, they’ll screenshot nasty comments like what do I do? How do I respond to this? Ban, like you don’t have energy for that. Don’t waste your energy on someone who’s talking to you like that, like a bye Yep. Okay, well this has been really fun so tripwires running profitable Facebook ads, where can people come and find you and get these offers?

40:10

Alright, so I’m on Instagram and my username is Eden Fried, fFried is spelt like fried F-R-I-E-D. So come hang out with me there. And you know I’m also on Facebook but honestly Instagrams probably the best place to hang out with me. If you’re interested in learning more about tripwires and getting that set up, you can go to even free.com forward slash tripwire. And if you want to check out launch list, Edenfried.com forward slash launch will get you to the sales page. You can stock it, check it out, see what’s working. And yeah, that’s that’s everything I think.

Monica Froese  40:47

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of your knowledge with us today. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Thanks for tuning in to today’s show. I have a brand new way for you to connect with me. I just launched a new Instagram account where I am sharing all of the best tips on how to grow a profitable digital product business. I’d love for you to come join me and send me a DM to say hello. The handle is at Monica.froese. As always, you can find all the links and information mentioned in this episode at Monica froese.com forward slash podcast. See you here again next week.