I Spent $25K on Ads and Made $130K. Then Everything Changed.

When you look at your last Meta ad campaign, I'm gonna guess your cost per lead went up, and your last webinar either had very low show-up rates or the people in the room just didn't feel like the right people. And there are so many things that ad strategists will tell you to do, like test more creative, but I'm telling you, just creative alone isn't going to fix this problem. Ads just don't work like they used to. The heyday of ads is over for a variety of reasons, AI being one, and the way Meta has changed how we can target people. And while a lot of people will tell you to just stay with ads, change this, tweak that, try this different strategy, a lot of those people are just kind of sticking their heads in the sand and not realizing or accepting what's going on, because ads are never going to get back to how they worked before. And if you think people aren't buying from organic, you have a problem. Okay, so what can you actually do right now if your ads aren't working and you want to continue getting leads into your coaching business in 2026? My name is Trena Little, and I help establish coaching business and course creators use YouTube to build a sales asset and not become a YouTuber. And I want to share with you first how I figured this all out. Like, how do you know, Trena? Because I'm never here to claim something that I don't know is true because I haven't tested it. Like, some of you feel like you can share on my comments that social media just doesn't work, but have you even tried it? Or YouTube doesn't work, but then when I look at your YouTube channel, you're not even using YouTube. I decided to minimize the amount of money that I was spending on ads earlier this year because I to realize something, and then I researched it and backed it with data. And what I'm realizing with all of this research that I'm about to share with you and tell you what that said for me to do moving forward is that the ROI on ads isn't there anymore unless you're able to spend massive amounts of money per day on ads, even if you're using the same ads, the same sales page, the same offer as you were in the heyday of ads. Because not only has the way ads are set up different, the way we are engaging as a consumer has completely changed too. Now I want to be clear, this isn't just me coming from one angle like some of you do in my comments, but I talked to a couple people. One specifically is a friend of mine who was in a mastermind and she runs a multimillion dollar coaching business and she has built this coaching business running ads. Now when I spoke to her earlier this year, she said April was going to be the first month ever that ads were not going to help her hit their projected revenue for the first time ever. And that is somebody who is spending lots of money on ads, who understands ads, who knows the ad strategy. Then last week I was speaking to one of my clients and she kind of reiterated the same thing, only she wasn't spending massive amounts of money on ads, but she was doing the same thing on ads that she has done the last couple of years. And in the last couple of years it generated her hundreds of thousands of dollars. And now this year the cost per lead is going up. The people coming to her webinar, if they are aren't even showing up on her webinar, aren't buying, and she wasn't even able to pay herself the last couple of months because her ads aren't generating revenue into her business anymore. So this is happening to more than just me, and I'm going to tell you the truth, that doesn't mean I'm cutting back and quitting ads completely, but you've got to be adding something to your strategy if you want your coaching business to continue growing and making you money in 2026. I want you to know that if this is something you're experiencing, it's not just you. The light bulb for me really went off back in April when I hosted a launch. Now let me explain this particular case study for Meta ads. I want you to know I'm comparing apples to apples here. The time of year is different. Yes, the offer, the sales page, the launch event, the emails, the flow, everything was the exact same from October to April. In October, I had spent about $24,000 for this particular launch, getting people into a virtual conference, a paid virtual conference. By the end of that launch, the leads we were able to generate and all the leads that I had on my email list collectively, I had my biggest launch ever in my business and we collected over $100,000 in cash in one day. So let's skip to the April launch. Like I said, same ad, same sales page, same everything. I did pull back spending on ads a little bit and we spent around $18,000 for this particular launch because all year from January to March, as we were spending money on ads, I was sensing this change. I was feeling like the leads we were getting from ads had changed. It wasn't the same. And so I was being as cautious as I could be with my money because I'm not here to light my money on fire. I'm here to bank my money, right? And so I pulled back a little bit on ad spending. So yes, of course, the launch may not have done as well. But here's the thing, we were still able to sell more virtual conference tickets than we were in October with less ad spend, but we were only able to collect about $70,000 in cash on that particular launch. So yes, it was less ad spend, but it was also significantly less cash generated. And you may think, well, Trena, that tracks. Let me tell you about the people in the room in October versus April. The people in October were engaging, were my people, were excited, had offers, had ran their coaching business. They were the room. It was so exciting. It was so motivational. To be hosting that conference. Same room in April, depressing. Again, we use the same ads, we use the same messaging, but people in there were complaining, they were whining, they were saying, I'm not getting what I paid for. Remember, same thing as October, as in April, the quality of the lead, the lead that was showing up from Facebook was just abysmal. And this is where it all started to click for me. The fact of the matter is The Meta ads platform has changed this year, and I don't think anybody's gonna argue that because Meta AI now prioritizes raw creative signals over the targeting that we used to be able to control. Privacy updates really broke the tracking that we were able to do to bring in those more qualified leads. And the biggest piece of all of this— buyers themselves aren't relating or wanting to connect with these aggressive ads the way that they used to. Your buyer, your consumer, your viewer is smarter now and they know these are ads and they're less likely to want to jump into that knowing it's an ad. It's all just kind of a perfect storm that's happening and a lot of gurus aren't addressing this or saying it out loud. I already mentioned this, but I feel it needs reiterating. The dumbest advice that you can take right now is just create more creatives, test more hooks, test more headlines. This may work if you're able to spend the amount of money that you need to spend to test this out. Otherwise, you are literally just going to light your cash on fire. And I know if you're here watching this video and you're a coach in 2026, you probably don't have this extra money to just light on fire for funsies to test a headline or to test a creative, right? Because the other problem that nobody is even talking about either is that it is taking much longer to convert a cold lead than ever before. In the heyday, right? I'm going to keep saying heyday. Maybe that's a drinking game, but in the heyday of ads, you you could fill up a webinar full of cold leads and you could get them converting at 10, 15, 20% on that webinar. That is not happening anymore for a variety of reasons. The targeting we already talked about. The other thing is that people understand webinars and sales pitches and they've been burnt by programs, by coaches before, so they are less hesitant to buy on their first interaction with you if that is a webinar. So this is going to light your money on even more fire because you're going to collect these leads, but it's going to take you 100, possibly probably 200 days to take that cold lead into actually buying from you. And this is industry standards that we're seeing, how long it's taking to bring a cold lead into actually becoming a client, and that cold lead particularly from Facebook ads or Meta ads. So if your business doesn't have the cash flow now, even relying on ads and putting your eggs into the ad basket isn't going to help you with your cash flow right now. You're going to need to wait 5, 6, 7 months to see that return on investment in the money you're putting into ads. Here's where we get to the good news. What should you actually do that can help you right now? It's actually something that I've recommitted myself to this year, and it's where you are right now. YouTube. YouTube is absolutely where I'm putting all my eggs. Yes, absolutely. I am still going to run ads because that's a piece of the strategy, but that's not the entire strategy. I'm going to lean on YouTube as my discovery platform. I'm going to use YouTube as my way to capture leads because they may come to my video cold, but the longer you watch my videos, the more you watch my playlist funnels and how I strategize, how I get you to binge-watch content warms you up even more. So what this does is obviously YouTube is for free. I can get in front of the right people if I have the right strategy. I can then warm you up faster with my videos, and then I can get you on my email list. And now that buyer's journey from cold to warm shrinks significantly because just think about it, when somebody sees your ad, it's forced upon them, right? They're going through their stories and then all of a sudden there's this rando that they've never seen before. So already it's abrupt to see you, whereas on YouTube they are selecting your video. They are going to YouTube to have a problem solved. And if you have a video that was good enough to win their click, it spoke to them, it sparked their curiosity, and they actually clicked on it, they're going to be much more open to listen to you than an ad that was forced upon them. And that's even if you have a great hook, you're still being forced upon them with an ad. They may be at school pickup, they may be at soccer practice, and they're not even in buyer mode. But when they go to YouTube, when they're searching ChatGPT, when they're searching Google, they are in buyer mode if they're searching a problem that they need solved that you have the solution for. So again, they're already more open than anybody is through Meta ads. And I'm telling you, it doesn't matter what this guy has to say about organic not selling. I have sold hundreds thousands of dollars through just organic sources. I have clients who have sold hundreds of thousands of dollars without even spending a single dollar on ads. YouTube works. But here's why YouTube's not working for me right now, because I neglected YouTube. I have not put the work in that I should on these videos. I've kind of phoned it in. You know how they say the cobbler's kids have no new shoes? That's kind of what I've done here on YouTube the last couple of months. I knew topics that would do well. I phoned in a thumbnail, but now I'm committed. I see See the data. I just recently did a mid-year State of the Union report to my email list, and I explained the deep dive of the data that I did that shows my thousands of leads that I have gotten from Facebook convert at such a small fraction than people that I am getting from YouTube. And that is what's important when the data tells you the direction to go and you know what data to look at to validate your direction. I haven't even talked about the power of committing to YouTube and what that has for you with AI search increasing and soon going to pass regular organic search. I go into a complete deep dive of that in this video right here. So if you're more curious about, well, how does YouTube help me with AI, that video will definitely give you all the information. But I think the most gut-wrenching part about ads, other than that sense of, well, guess I'm lighting this money on fire, is that when you turn that ad off, when you stop feeding it money, that's it. It's done. No matter how much money you pumped into it, no matter how much time you spent on the creative, the moment you stop the cash flow to that ad, those ads are done working for you. But YouTube, the time, the effort that you put into your YouTube videos, whether you're posting on YouTube or not, those videos continue to work for you. I have a client who hasn't posted in over a year and she's still getting thousands of views on her YouTube channel every single month, generating email signups for her business without even showing up up anywhere. That's where I want to be building my content. I want to be able to take time off of creating content and still have my content work for me. I want to be able to not have to spend money to make money, and that's what YouTube does for you. Now, before you get too excited about YouTube, and maybe you're already on YouTube and you're like, Trena, but my YouTube videos aren't doing this, I'm not seeing leads, I'm not getting clients from YouTube, there's probably something that you're missing because I'm gonna be totally real with most people are on YouTube playing the YouTuber game. As a business owner, as a coach, as a course creator, you should not be playing the YouTuber game because a lot of what is taught for YouTubers is going viral or chasing the views and subscriber number. That is not what you should be doing as a business owner on YouTube. You need to be focused on very specific content that's going to attract that person that's going to say yes, yes to your offer, to your coaching program, to your course. And those people are not searching beginner-level videos. And if you're creating these beginner-level videos, you're never going to make a sale from those. So I created a custom GPT for you that you can get for totally free, where you can plug in a couple of your videos that you've posted, or maybe you have an idea for a YouTube video. And when you plug that idea into this GPT, it's going to tell you, is that video attracting beginners, or is that video attracting your ready-to-buy viewers? I call these beginner Bettys or expert Esthers. Because 9 times out of 10, that's what's going wrong with most of the clients that I work with who are on YouTube. Sure, they're posting, maybe they've got views and subscribers, but they're not making any money in their business because they've created content for beginner Betty. So you can get that custom GPT at trenalittle.com/whoswatching and you can see, uh-oh, am I leaning towards beginner Betty content? Because that means I'm not going to get any leads from that content. Again, I'm all about showing receipts. Proof, timeline screenshots. And so I want you to know this is literally working out in the world today. My clients are killing it right now and they aren't even spending any money on meta ads. For example, Belle completely quit Instagram altogether and after her first 5 videos following my YouTube strategy that I teach for business owners was able to generate $42,000 in sales. After just 16 videos on YouTube and less than 200 subscribers on YouTube, she generated over $150,000 in sales. Gina started her YouTube channel from scratch, and within 6 months, not only was she able to fill her coaching program that she had, she also was able to open a brand new cohort, increase the pricing, and fill that again without even needing to do a public launch because her ready-to-buy viewers were watching her videos and waiting for that to open again. And Nicole literally has less than 10 subscribers, and after 5 videos, she was able to bank $19,000 in cash from a lead that she got got from those 5 videos with less than 10 subscribers. None of these people are running meta ads, and they're making cash through their YouTube organic videos. And I say this again, because there's another side of that. I have a client who recently joined working with me, like I said, she spent over half a million dollars in ads just last year alone. And she said those ads used to work for her 2020, 2021, 2022. It's the same business model on paper, but those ads haven't been generating leads and cash for her, and she hasn't been able to pay for the last couple of months because of that. That's why she's in the YouTube coaching experience, because she's not burying her head in the sand anymore. She knows meta ads don't work like they used to, and she's got to pivot and find what is working for her coaching business. So what do you do right now? I've got 3 things for you. One, don't blow up your ads completely, okay? Don't go to your ads manager and say, you're fired. I still am running my ads, but I'm leaning in my ads more towards a warm audience, and I'm using my YouTube videos to help me grow that warm audience. Retargeting people that have already engaged with my content, people that are on my list from my YouTube channel because of my opt-ins. Because cold audiences are so hard to make back your money on Meta ads right now. 2, make sure Meta ads aren't your only stream of leads and traffic. You have got to have your leads, your discoverability on something other than Meta. Not for just what I've said this entire video,, but any given time your Meta ads account could be shut down. I've heard this horror story over and over again, and if you're only focused on Meta ads, that means you are dead in the water once that ad account is shut down. That's why it's so important to be using YouTube strategically here for a business owner to get people on your email list. No matter what happens on other platforms, you have your own email list to always reach out to your people. And the third thing is start to think about shifting your budget. Maybe you pull back a little bit on the cold ad lead generation. Maybe you put it into hiring a YouTube editor. Maybe you put it into hiring a YouTube strategist who knows what they're doing on YouTube. Start building a content asset that will last for you for months and years, and make sure you run your next video idea through the Who's Watching GPT. I'm not here to tell you ads are dead and a waste of time, but they are not the discovery engine that they used to They are a piece, they are a finishing touch to a funnel, but it can't be the entire funnel itself. And coaches who are figuring that out now and pivoting in the next 6 months, they'll be the ones that still have a coaching program. The ones who are still running ads and focusing just on ads as their lead generation will have a hard time making profit in their business. Now, I mentioned how the types of videos here on YouTube that you create as a business owner need to be very strategic. And every single video that I create here, I run it through 3 specific tests before I even create it. And so if you want to know what are the 3 tests your video should go through before you put your time into it to make sure it generates leads, sales for you, watch the video on your screen right now because I'm diving into those 3 tests and how you can use it for your next video.