Welcome to VidTao Blog, your one-stop destination for all the latest in Direct Response video advertising.

Today’s briefing is a 4 minute read:

  • ✍️ Analysis: The “Big Idea” Secret behind this $500k/mo Direct Response eCommerce offer: Breaking down what worked (and didn’t) behind this offer’s 158 ads tested in the past 30 days
  • 🗳️ Poll: Your take on Direct Response Marketing…
  • ➕ Plus: Jerry Seinfield’s split test secrets, Why Broad Targeting Works, How to Reliably Engineer “Breakthrough” offers, Google’s new Ads Editor, 12 crazy new GPT apps afteryesterday’s OpenAI GPT new features release, and much more…
  • ➕➕ Plus: BIG VidTao 2.0 announcement tomorrow… (Stay tuned…)

✍️ Direct Response Strategy & Tactics Corner

We’re going to dive into breakdown of a $500k/mo Direct Response eComm offer in just a moment.

And we’re going to illustrate it with a key concept on how to build & communicate a rock-solid “Big Idea” from Mark Ford’s (aka “Michael Masterson”) fantastic book “Great Leads”.

Mark Ford aka Michael Masterson

Here’s why you should listen to what Mark Ford has to say about Direct Response marketing:

Mark has helped launch & grow dozens of multi-million dollar direct response businesses, including the Agora Companies: which he and Bill Bonner have grown to over $1 billion in gross revenue.

(Go here to see the article we did last week all about how Mark generated $1 billion+ in Direct Response Revenue from his "Lead" Framework)

📖 Part 1 - Direct Response Theory:

How to Nail Your Big Idea using the “Rule of One”

Without a rock-solid, clear & compelling “Big Idea”, your marketing is going to fall flat.

As legendary David Ogilvy put it:

So how do you NAIL your big idea?

To make your customer (as Ogilvy puts it) “notice your advertising, remember it, and take action.”??

Your best bet, according to Mark Ford, is to always remember the “Rule of One”: 👇

☝️The Rule of One:

Write about one thing at a time.

One good idea, clearly and convincingly presented, is better than a dozen so-so ideas strung together.

Want to see how to apply the Rule of One?

Let’s take a look at how one eCommerce offer is spending $500k+/month on YouTube ads…

…Generating massive profits by effectively applying the “Rule of One” to their winning ads.

(Also, any guesses on what happens when you don’t follow “The Rule of One”? We’re about to find out in just a moment…)

🧑‍🏭 Part 2 - How to Apply this Direct Response Theory:

What Happens When You Apply the “Rule of One”

Here is the ad: this YouTube ad for Prepared Hero’s Fire Blanket offer with nearly 10 million paid views :

Inside VidTao 2.0 you’ll see that in the past 30 days they have spent an estimated $300k+ on this ad alone:

Source: VidTao 2.0

Here are 5 key ways this ad sticks to the “Rule of One” and hammers home on a single Big Idea:

  • 🧠 Single Idea: The ad focuses on one clear idea - that the emergency fire blanket can prevent tragedy and save lives in the event of a kitchen fire.
  • 💡💡 Repetition: The ad repeats this singular benefit in different ways, highlighting how deadly fires are, how the product is easy to use to put them out, and how it is recommended by firefighters.
  • 🔬 Focus: There are no other ideas or benefits mentioned.
  • 😨 Singular Emotion: ad also drives home the fear emotion with statistics and imagery of deadly fires
  • 🤝 Ad Big Idea → CTA Congruency: the call to action directly aligns with the key idea of preventing fire tragedy.

Want an easy way to apply this to your own ads?

Here’s a checklist of “The Rule of One” adapted from Mark Ford that you can check your ads with. Here we’ve filled it out specifically for Prepared Hero’s winning Fire Blanket Ad:

📋 Your “Rule of One” Ad Checklist
  • 🧠 One good idea: The emergency fire blanket can prevent tragedy and save lives from deadly kitchen fires.
  • 😨 One core emotion: Fear and urgency around preventable fires & resulting tragic loss of life and devastated families.
  • 🎬 One captivating story: Dramatization of a kitchen fire that "could have been a family tragedy."
  • 💎 One single, desirable benefit: The blanket "can be the difference in avoiding tragedy when fire happens."
  • 👉 One inevitable response: "Click the button below to check availability" of the lifesaving emergency fire blanket product.

Run your own ads through this checklist to identify any weak spots!

Now let’s look at what happens when you don’t follow the “Rule of One” so closely…

…But What Happens When You DON’T Follow the “Rule of One”?

Now here’s the thing: everyone can learn a ton from how Prepared Hero goes about testing new creatives.

According to VidTao 2.0, Prepared Hero has tested 158 creatives just the past 30 days! 👇

Source: VidTao 2.0

Prepared Hero is a true beast when it comes to relentlessly TESTING new ads, to find as many new winners as possible.

And no doubt this is a big reason why this offer has been so successful.

But here’s the other side benefit for all of us YouTube advertising nerds:

With all these ads tested, we’re also going to see examples of ads that did NOT work.

Let’s take a look at 2 Prepared Hero ads that did not work to see how closely they followed the “Rule of One”:

Prepared Hero Fire Blanket Ad 2: https://youtu.be/u5FCjAU0q74

  • Ad 2 Total Adspend: $2,406 (estimate from VidTao 2.0)

Prepared Hero Fire Blanket Ad 3: https://youtu.be/iY3YCs-GifY

  • Ad 3 Total Adspend:  $1,912 (estimate from VidTao 2.0)

“Rule of One” Analysis: Winning vs. Losing Ads

Look at Ads 2 & 3 and you’ll see: They don’t follow the Rule of One as closely as the winning ad.

Ads 2 & 3 stray from “The Rule of One”, weakening & diluting the viewer’s attention by focusing partially on other concepts like:

  • 😃 Ease of use: "extremely pleased with how easy it is to use"
  • ☺️ Peace of mind: "peace of mind it brings knowing I can prevent a fire catastrophe"
  • 🎁 Gift giving: "I bought one for each of my family members"
  • 🏎️ Car fires: "We even keep one in each of our cars"
  • 📋 Having an emergency plan: "12% of us don't have a fire plan at all"
  • 🗣️ Social media reviews: "found videos about this amazing product"

Don’t do this.

Instead, stick to your “Rule of One” checklist and magnify the Big Idea.

Ok.

Got all that attention focused on your Big Idea?

Now it’s time to “ramp up” the power of that Big Idea with more emotional language.

Here’s how the winning Prepared Hero ad does it:

🧠 1 Big Idea + ✍️ Strong Emotional Language = 🎉 Success

The winning ad hammers home the single Big Idea again and again in clear, descriptive emotional terms like this:

  • "If it hadn't been for one simple safety item this could have been a family tragedy" - Evokes feeling of avoiding tragedy.
  • "House fires occur in this country every 87 seconds" - Provokes sense of frequent danger.
  • "Nearly 3,000 people lose their lives" - Shocking statistics of death.
  • "They devastate families" - Strong word "devastate" to describe impact.
  • "When fire happens" - Urgent and inevitable phrasing.
  • "Your family's future" - High stakes of family's safety.

Compare this hard-hitting emotional language to what’s used in ads 2 and 3:

  • Ad 2 mentions "what a mess" and "chaos" but not tragedy.
  • Ad 3 says "sadly as many as 12% of us don't have a fire plan" - less visceral than deaths.
  • Both use more casual language like "check it out" and "scroll social media".

Wrapping up…

Pay attention to how well the ads you see use the Rule of One.

And most important:

Apply the Rule of One to your own ads, to ramp up your performance with the power of your Big Idea!

Today's Blog Post is Supported by Inceptly

Direct Response Video & Traffic Agency

Are you spending over $1k/day on ads?

Schedule a free brainstorm session:

👉 inceptly.com/call

🕙 Direct Response Marketing Minute

Here is your 60 second Performance Marketing Briefing for today:

🗳️ Today’s Poll

What's your take on direct response marketing?

In your experience, does it actually drive results?

Advertise with VidTao's Audience of 100k+

Advertise with VidTao to get your brand in front of the Who's Who of Performance Advertising & Direct Response. Whether you’re looking to reach decision makers at top brands or looking for rock-start talent for your team (like our happy advertising client below) VidTao’s audience are the cream of the crop of digitial advertisers always looking for the next interesting product, tool, or opportunity. Get in touch today.

That’s it for today!

Best wishes,

The VidTao Team

PS - Got a direct response offer or brand you're looking to scale with paid traffic?

Here's how our partners at Inceptly (our Direct Response Video & Traffic agency partner with over $950M in Direct Response revenue generated) can help:

1) Paid ads Strategy & Execution on Google, YouTube, Meta, TikTok (and more)

"We have been working with Inceptly for over 2 years now, and they have been instrumental in helping us drive paid acquisition at scale. I highly recommend Inceptly's services." - Sandy Diao, Director of Growth @ Descript.com

👉 Go here to set up a free paid traffic brainstorm chat.

2) Build a Custom Tracking & Attribution “Brain”:

"Thanks to [Inceptly's] data team, we now have a custom tracking solution built specifically to our business that supplies all of the information we need to floor or throttle the proverbial gas pedal which is front-end advertising." - Devyn Merklin, CMO Livingood Daily

Can one of Inceptly's custom data solutions help you finally crack the code on attribution at scale?

👉 Go here to schedule a free tracking & attribution consult

3) Build Direct Response Video Creatives that SCALE

"The Inceptly team just gets it when it comes to performance video creative. I love it." - Val Yakovchik, Founder & CEO MoxieLash

Let's build your next winning creative campaign on YouTube, YouTube shorts (and more)!

👉 Go here to set up a YouTube ad creative brainstorm with our team.

4) "UpSkill" Your Internal Creative & Media Buying Team

"Thanks to our work with Inceptly, at our current pace within 3-4 weeks we should be doing highly profitable $10k+ days on YouTube." - Wouter Akika, VidTao Bootcamp client, Founder & CEO of MyDermaDream

Let's “Transplant” our team’s experience directly into your internal team, as quickly as possible. Fast-track your team’s media buying & creative skillset with the best in the business.

👉 Go here to see if our internal team-build programs could be a good fit for your business.

PPS: Have you checked out VidTao 2.0 yet?

We just added new features like Affiliate offer tracking, and millions of NEW YouTube ads indexed from all your favorite companies and offers.

Here’s how to check it out:

☝️If you have a VidTao Premium account already?

Go to next.vidtao.com to log in to VidTao 2.0 and try it out.

🙅 …And if you don’t yet have a VidTao Premium account?

Current VidTao Premium members will be “grandfathered in” on the current pricing tier for VidTao 2.0…

…But once we fully launch VidTao 2.0 at the end of the month?

We’ll be raising the price (as you can imagine we’ve invested A LOT to upgrade the software and continue to add a bunch more amazing features we’ll be walking through over the next few days)

Go here to lock in current pricing & claim your VidTao Premium membership with VidTao 2.0 access:

👉 https://blog.vidtao.com/vidtaopremium