Negotiating Advertising Deals

You can’t grow a business without marketing. But you also can’t grow it with random marketing. Here’s your tactical crash course: 1: Build your brand foundation → Define who you serve and what result you deliver. → Craft a clear tagline and positioning statement. → Make your profile and website match that promise. 2: Create social proof → Gather case studies that show before-and-after results. → Ask clients for video or written testimonials. → Share wins regularly in your content. 3: Build a referral engine → Reach out to past clients for introductions. → Create an incentive for referrals. → Nurture your network with value, not just asks. 4: Own your audience → Start an email list and nurture it weekly. → Offer a free resource to attract subscribers. → Use email to sell, not just to share tips. 5: Be consistent in content → Post 3–5x/week on LinkedIn with clear calls to action. → Share a mix of education, proof, and personal story. → Repurpose posts across platforms for more reach. Marketing works best when it’s a system, not a guessing game. 💎 Hey there! I'm Diana, a Business Growth Strategist for B2C and B2B coaches. If you want to 5x to 20x your business without working more hours, send me a DM and let's explore what's possible for you.

ChatGPT writes like a marketer. Claude writes like YOUR marketer. That's the nuance no one talks about. Claude gives you nothing impressive on a lazy prompt. And that's exactly why it's the best marketing tool available. Because Claude doesn't perform. It listens. Upload your brand voice doc. Your audience research. Your last 3 campaigns. Claude will absorb all of it and write like someone who's been on your team for months. No other model follows constraints like this. No other model stays in your lane this well. But you have to build the lane first. Stop writing one-shot prompts and use this framework instead. Here's the anatomy of every prompt I use: → Task — Start with the mission. What are we building? What does winning look like? → Context Files — Upload your brand voice, audience research, and past campaign data. Claude can't read your mind. → Reference — Paste a campaign you want to model. Then reverse-engineer why it worked. → Success Brief — Define the channel, the desired reaction, and what the output should never sound like. → Rules — Set the boundaries. Brand landmines, banned phrases, non-negotiables. → Conversation — Block Claude from writing until it asks you questions first. → Plan — Make it list the 3 most important rules before drafting a single word. → Alignment — Lock in a 5-step execution plan. Then go. 👇 Copy and paste this prompt: -------------- I want to [BUILD A CAMPAIGN] so that [SUCCESS METRIC]. Define what winning looks like before anything else. [brand-voice.md] — Tone, vocabulary, do's and don'ts [audience-research.md] — ICP pain points and desires [past-campaigns.md] — What worked, what flopped Here is a campaign I want to model: [Paste the campaign example or upload a screenshot] Here's what makes this reference effective: [Your reverse-engineered breakdown — the hook, the structure, the CTA pattern. Format each insight as a rule starting with "Always" or "Never."] SUCCESS BRIEF Campaign type + channel: [Email sequence, landing page, ad set, social series?] Audience reaction: [What should they think/feel/do after seeing this?] Does NOT sound like: [Generic AI copy, corporate jargon, competitor X?] Success means: [They click? They buy? They share? They remember?] My context files contain brand standards, constraints, and audience landmines. Read them fully before starting. If you're about to break one of my rules, stop and tell me. DO NOT start writing yet. Ask me clarifying questions so we can refine the campaign approach together. Before writing anything, list the 3 rules from my context files that matter most for this campaign. Then give me your execution plan (5 steps maximum). Only begin work once we've aligned. ------------------- Your context files matter more than your words. Your constraints matter more than your creativity. I made an infographic that breaks this down step by step. Save it. Use it. Share it with your teams. Stop prompting from scratch every time.

STOP Using Broad Targeting on Meta Ads (If you want a higher ROAS) After auditing $100M+ in ad spend across premium 8-9 figure e-commerce brands, here's the framework that's actually driving profitable scale: The Cascade Targeting System Most brands get targeting backwards. They deploy mass market messaging that no one listens to. Instead, they need to speak to many niche groups—personally. Optimize for resonance before reach. Here's the 3-layer framework that's generating a 3X-10X MER: → Level 1: Market Segments (Highest Impact) → Level 2: Personas (Secondary Impact) → Level 3: Angles (Tactical Impact) The AG1 Example: Instead of "Get healthier today" mass-market messaging, here's how they stack segments: Level 1 | Market Segments: → Travelers → Athletes → Busy Parents Let's use the busy parents segment as an example. This may breakdown into multiple personas as follows. Level 2 | Busy Parents Personas: → The Nutrition Research-Oriented Busy Parent → The Convenience-Focused Busy Parent → The Wellness-Minded Busy Parent Now we'll create different angles for each persona, let's just use the first one here. Level 3 | Nutrition Research-Oriented Busy Parent Angles: → "Nutrition you can trust for your family" → "Simple ingredients, 3rd-party tested, pediatrician-approved" → "Efficacious absorption for all gut biomes" To scale this, we can just add more angles, personas or market segments. The Data That Changes Everything: Mass appeal creative: Hits 15% of audience at 25% message resonance Hyper-targeted creative: Hits 100% of audience at 85% message resonance The Scaling Hierarchy (By Account Impact) 1. New Market Segments → Unlock entirely new customer pools (highest ROI) 2. New Personas → Deeper penetration within existing segments 3. New Angles → Tactical optimization within proven personas (lowest ROI) Here's what most brands miss: The biggest impact on account performance doesn't come from better creative execution. It comes from strategic market expansion. Most premium e-commerce brands are sitting on 5-10 untapped market segments. They're optimizing the wrong variable. The breakthrough happens when you stop asking "How do we appeal to more people?" and start asking "Which specific group haven't we spoken to yet?" Each new market segment you unlock is a step-function increase in addressable audience. Each new persona is incremental growth within that segment. Each new angle is tactical optimization towards converting that persona. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Start being everything to someone very specific. Then stack another segment. And another. That's how you build a $100M brand from targeted creative strategy.

If you write a lousy brief, you'll get lousy advertising. Garbage in, garbage out. I've seen too many creative briefs that try to do everything: → Drive trial AND increase usage frequency → Target everyone from 18-65 → Deliver 7 different messages → Show up on every media channel Then marketers wonder why the creative work misses the mark. Here's what actually works: ✓ ONE strategic objective (not three) ✓ ONE tightly defined consumer target (not "everyone") ✓ ONE desired consumer response (not think, feel, AND try) ✓ ONE main message (not a laundry list) ✓ TWO reasons to believe (maximum) The best creative briefs force brutal decisions. You can't say: "Drive penetration and usage frequency" — Pick one. They require different targets, different messages, different media. You can't target: "18-65 year olds who shop at grocery stores" — That's everyone. No one will feel "this brand is for me." You can't deliver: Seven unrelated messages and expect consumers to remember anything. The discipline starts at the brief. The brief sets up everything that follows. Strategy before execution. Always. [Link] Read the full line-by-line breakdown with examples of good vs. bad briefs → https://lnkd.in/epk9F-cK What's the biggest flaw you see in creative briefs? P.S. Follow me for daily insights on brand strategy that challenge how you think about planning and execution. We have a 1-day training session on writing smarter Creative Briefs. I make marketers smarter.

Your marketing is telling three different stories. And your customers trust none of them. I just fixed an equestrian trainer's broken brand alignment. Not because I'm a design genius. Because I finally got her marketing to tell one coherent story. Here's what most people miss about brand alignment: Your logo isn't just a logo. Your video isn't just a video. Your landing page isn't just a landing page. They're chapters in the same story. And when they don't match, your customer's brain screams "something's wrong here." The alignment problem: DASH Performance Horses had a star logo. Generic. Meaningless. Their video showed elite horse training. Their landing page talked about transformation. Three touchpoints. Three different stories. Zero trust. Think about it: Your customer's brain is constantly pattern-matching. Looking for consistency. Searching for signals that you're real, credible, trustworthy. When your visual identity says "amateur" but your video says "professional," cognitive dissonance kicks in. The brain chooses doubt. Every time. Why misalignment kills trust: It's not about pretty design. It's about psychological coherence. When someone sees your logo, watches your video, and lands on your page, their subconscious is asking: - Is this the same company? - Do they know who they are? - Can I trust them with my problem? Misalignment creates micro-friction at every touchpoint. Death by a thousand tiny doubts. The story thread framework: Visual Thread: Logo → Video thumbnail → Landing page header Every visual element should whisper the same promise. Message Thread: Problem identification → Solution presentation → Transformation promise One continuous narrative, not three sales pitches. Emotional Thread: Initial curiosity → Building trust → Creating desire Each touchpoint deepens the emotional connection. For DASH, we killed the meaningless star. Created a horse silhouette integrated into the "D." Suddenly, every touchpoint said "elite equestrian training" without saying a word. But here's the deeper truth: **Alignment isn't about making things match. It's about removing reasons to doubt.** Every inconsistency is a trust withdrawal. Every alignment is a trust deposit. Your customer shouldn't have to work to understand who you are. They should feel it instantly, viscerally, consistently. **The uncomfortable truth:** Most brands are schizophrenic. Different departments. Different designers. Different messages. Your customer doesn't care about your internal chaos. They just know something feels off. Stop treating your marketing assets like independent projects. Start treating them like movements in a symphony. Because trust isn't built in one touchpoint. It's built in the space between them.

If your “strategy” is just picking interests and crossing fingers, you’re wasting your ad budget. Let me show you how high-growth founders build scalable Meta systems (not just ads). Deep Dive: Facebook Ads Strategy That Converts Yesterday, we explored why Facebook Ads can scale businesses to millions. Today, we get tactical. If you’re spending money without a plan, this is where it turns around. 1. Audience Segmentation: ➞ Core Audiences: • Use Facebook’s interests & behaviors to target cold prospects.  • Your source audience should be small in size for meaningful patterns, smaller groups skew results, larger groups become too broad. • Align messaging with awareness: a cold lead ≠ ready to buy ➞ Custom Audiences: • Retarget video viewers, site visitors, email-list subscribers • Serve tailored creatives based on where they dropped off in your funnel ➞ Lookalike Audiences: • Upload your highest-value customer list. • Let Meta find your next million ideal buyers with a 1% lookalike 2. Creative Testing Framework: ➞ Format Testing: • Compare single-image ads, carousel, and short-form video to identify thumb-stoppers ➞ Copy Variations: • Test curiosity hooks vs. outcome-driven headlines  • Leverage emotional triggers over feature lists ➞ Timing Cadence: • Avoid ad fatigue by rotating creatives every 5–7 days • Analyze performance drop-offs and swap early underperformers 3. Budget & Bidding Smart: ➞ Day-Parting Strategy: • Allocate higher budgets during peak scroll times (e.g., 6–9 PM) to maximize engagement ➞ Bid Control: • Start with “Lowest Cost” bidding to gather data  • Switch to “Cost Cap” once your winners emerge to scale profitably 4. Key Metrics That Matter • CTR (Click-Through Rate): Aim for ≥ 1.5 %. The industry average is 0.90 %, with top-performing image ads hitting 1.25–1.33 % • CPA (Cost per Acquisition): Keep it below 20 % of your average order value • ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Target ≥ 3× for sustainable growth, recent data shows an average of 2.79×, up 11.6 % year-over-year If you’re not tracking these, you’re flying blind. ------------------------ 👉 Next Step: Work With Me 1:1 Want to map out your entire Ads funnel in minutes and get expert eyes on your strategy? I offer limited 1:1 strategy consults + mentorship for brands that are serious about performance and scale. Spots are limited (3 openings this month) DM me “Private Ads Strategy or PAS” if you want to talk.

The Real Reason Most Campaigns Fail? The BRIEF. 👉 Let’s stop pretending it’s always the agency’s fault. → It’s not always the creative. → It’s not the media plan. → It’s not the pitch team. 👉 Most campaigns fail because they were set up to fail. And that failure starts with a BAD BRIEF. 👉 What does a bad brief look like? → It’s vague. → It’s written by committee. → It has no business outcome attached. → It’s filled with jargon, but no clarity. → It’s written to tick a box, not solve a problem. 👉 I’ve received briefs that were: → A three-line email → A rushed conference call → A 42-page RFP with zero actual direction → A three-minute thought during a presentation → A “template” copied and pasted across departments 👉 And every time, the question is the same: “Come back with something great.” 👉 Here’s the uncomfortable truth: If the problem isn’t clearly defined, no one can solve it. → Not even the best strategist. → Not even the best creative director. → Not even the best media team. But how do you solve a problem that’s never been clearly defined? Who’s responsible? Both sides. 🟦 Brands need to stop outsourcing confusion. → If you’re not aligned internally, don’t expect clarity externally. → Define the outcome. → Sharpen the ask. → Then brief. 🟧 Agencies need to stop playing along. → Challenge the brief, and ask questions. → If it’s broken, don’t build on it. → Fix it first. 👉 Why does this matter? Because unclear briefs don’t just waste time. The result? → Great agencies are stuck answering the wrong question → Misguided pitches → Frustrated clients → Underperforming work 👉 So what’s the fix? Simple, but not easy. → Better briefs lead to better ideas. → Better ideas lead to better results. → And that starts with the courage to slow down and get clear. 👉 So here’s what I do: ✅ Ask for a formal written brief ✅ Request a meeting to walk through it ✅ Interrogate the assumptions ✅ Clarify the objective ✅ Ask: “Is this the right question or just the one that made it onto paper?” 👉 The truth? Most campaigns don’t fail at the end. They fail at the very beginning. A bad brief.

We stopped writing creative briefs three weeks ago. We've shipped 3x more ads and cut underperforming spend by 40%. A system writes them now: before I open my laptop on Monday. Before this, our Mondays looked like yours. Pull last week's numbers. Open a blank doc. Four people spend an hour debating what to make next, then brief from gut feel. We called it "strategy." It was expensive guessing. So I built something I call the Brief Engine. Every Sunday night while I'm on the couch, I read my ad account, read my competitors' ads, read the cultural calendar, and write Monday's briefs before I set my alarm. Zero human input. The first time it ran, it embarrassed us. Three things sitting in plain sight that nobody on the team had flagged: > A winning angle returning 2.63x ROAS on $1900 in spend. We almost killed it. > 71% of our ads were headline-format. The category norm is 48%. We had a blind spot, not a strategy. > Zero offers. Zero bullet-point ads. Zero stat-driven formats. It wrote 15 briefs in 10 minutes. Scored and sorted. The top brief was a March Madness moment: "Your bracket is busted. Your morning doesn't have to be." Tagged time-sensitive, top of the queue. Now my team spends 30 minutes on Monday sharpening hooks and killing weak angles. The system gets the brief 80% there. The last 20%—tone, nuance, the gut call on what actually lands—that's where the team earns its keep. The briefs got more creative, not less, because the starting point was sharper. I didn't build it to get smarter. It did anyway. Week 3 was better than Week 2. Week 2 was better than Week 1. Most automations save you a Tuesday afternoon. This one makes your competitors' Monday mornings more expensive every week. That gap is your actual competitor: not the other brand. I shared an early version with a media buyer running $300K/mo. He ran the buried-angle audit on a Tuesday. By Thursday he'd reallocated $4K to an angle returning 3.1x that had been sitting on $220 in spend. His exact words: "I've been staring at this data for months and the answer was already there." One thing you can steal right now: Every Friday, pull 30 days of ad data and ask: "What's returning 2x+ on less than $1000 in spend?" That's where your buried winners are sitting. But that's a flashlight. The Brief Engine is a floodlight: and it gets brighter every week you run it. The full build is documented. Every prompt. Every automation. The scoring rubric. Comment "DFY BRIEF" and I'll send it. ---- 🔗 Want more? Join 1000+ marketers leveling up their creative with AI. Subscribe to my Friday Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ePpsyBWt

The best ad strategy isn’t scaling—it’s what you do BEFORE you scale. Imagine running ads like sailing the ocean. Some days, the waves carry you. Other days, the wind dies, and you’re stuck. And sometimes—when the storm hits—you can’t do a damn thing but hold on. Good advertisers don’t waste these moments. They get to work. When sailors can’t sail, they don’t twiddle their thumbs. 🔹 They mend their nets. 🔹 They sharpen their tools. 🔹 They prepare for the next storm—or the next rise in wind. It’s no different in advertising. When the market slows, or competition is too fierce, you have two choices: (1) Sit back and wait. (2) Get to work so that when the conditions shift, you’re ready to scale. If you’re smart, you’ll choose option 2. Here’s what you should be doing when: -> Your competition is outspending you, and you can’t justify another dollar. -> It’s the off-season, and raising the budget would just burn your cash. ✅ Audit your data—know what worked and why. ✅ Check your conversion tracking (because broken tracking is a hidden killer). ✅ Optimize your product feeds—rich data = better performance. ✅ Re-examine CLTV—has it changed? Is it still accurate? ✅ Refine your messaging—does it still resonate? ✅ Train your team—better skills = better results. ✅ Analyze your sales cycle—are customers taking longer to convert? ✅ Get a third-party audit—you don’t know what you don’t know. Because when the winds pick up again, there’s no more time for this. That’s when you either scale fast—or sink. Great advertisers don’t wait for the perfect moment. They make sure they’re ready when it comes.