Full Funnel Nudity [Edition # 5]: This Ad Funnel is Disgustingly Good!

Disgust is a deceptively powerful motivator. 

And it’s a trigger that advertisers can tap into in many different ways.

You can stimulate disgust by uncovering gross problems that are hiding in plain sight.

Or you can show your audience why they should be disgusted with an outcome.

Or why they should be disgusted with the status quo.

Or why they should be disgusted with “the system.”

Some products, like the one in the ad funnel I am breaking down today, naturally deal with icky issues.

But being disgusting and using disgust to activate your audience are two different things.

Today’s funnel breakdown will show you the right way to disgust your prospects.

And it will also show how to turn disgust into a sick amount of sales!

So follow along and learn how you can use the power of disgust to motivate your market.

But before we get into that… here’s a quick and in-no-way disgusting disclaimer about what we do here:

Get the Wax out of your ears and listen up!

The ad funnel I am dissecting for you today is for an earwax remover called Tvidler.

And yes, earwax is naturally disgusting. But here’s the thing...

You’re not gonna get people's attention by attacking them for how dirty their ears are.

In fact, you might make them feel ashamed. Shame is NOT an emotion you want to trigger with your ads. When people feel ashamed they tune you out.

So although this ad does show you what a disgusting dirty human being you are by pilling up pounds of wax in your ears…

… it doesn’t shame or attack you.

Instead, this advertiser skillfully shows how everyday ordinary products you didn’t know could harm you are ruining your ears!

Starting with the most unassuming culprit of them all!

The “Everyday Surprise Danger” Opener

Want a great attention-grabbing opener for your ad? 

Use what I call the “Everyday Surprise Danger” opener.

The “Everyday Surprise Danger” shows people how something seemingly innocent that they do or use every day is actually harming them.

Tvidler’s ad copy uses the Everyday Surprise Danger Hook to catch the attention of a huge market segment - earbud users.

Who knew my earbuds were actually causing me to build up more earwax? 

That’s gross, isn't it? No wonder my buds are looking a little yellow.

After the opener, the copy in this ad quickly threads the needle between everyday danger and LIFE changing consequences. Hearing loss. Scary stuff.

The one thing I don’t love about this ad is the video thumbnail.

The short copy in this ad is really strong, and I think there are a lot of other ways the thumbnail could support it better.

For example, you could show a doctor holding an earbud caked in wax. Or a graphic of how earbuds build up the earwax. 

Obviously, in the medical field, you have to be careful with compliance in every area of your ad. So that could be a factor. 

But, hear me out… OK, never mind, I just wanted to get in another ear pun.  

Let’s move on to the video in the ad and its disgusting highlights.

A disgusting amount of buying triggers

This video in this ad is so solid that I actually recorded it. I did this more for my own swipe file than yours, but hey, I am happy to share. 

I am not gonna break down the video line by line. But I will hit the disgusting highlights.

This video is packed with emotional triggers intended to expose the inferiority of competing solutions.

I count seven of these triggers in just the first 55 seconds of advertising.

Disgust Trigger #1 – Disgust with one’s self: They show the product in action, cleansing someone’s ear of an impressively gross bile-colored pile of earwax. At the same time, they quantify the improved results their product can deliver. “10X more effective than the traditional cotton swab…”

Disgust Trigger #2  – Disgusted by lies: They expose cotton swabs as dangerous by showing a warning label that says don’t put these in your ears. Listen, I had no idea you weren’t supposed to put cotton swabs in your ears. I am betting most other people don’t know that either. In fact, I bet the #1 reason people buy them is to shove ‘em in their ear canals. Now that I know this, I am not going to clean my ears with swabs anymore.

Disgust Trigger #3 – Disgust with others: This trigger is a bit subliminal, but it may be the most powerful of all. When the status quo (cotton swabs) is exposed as gross or inferior, we rush to the new solution. Why? Because we don’t want to be the gross neanderthal who still does things the old way. We want to be in the know. And we want to be first to adapt so we can look down on the gross waxy mother fuckers who still clean thier ears the stupid way. See how that works? 

Disgust Trigger #4 – Disgust with bad habits: “2 in 3 people suffer from earwax build-up.” Is that true? If it is, there’s a two-thirds chance you are gross. This one’s a sale clinching layup!

Disgust Trigger #5 – Disgust with illness: Health complications. “Hearing loss… headaches… fatigue… memory loss.” Man, those are scary outcomes. The disgust knife is twisting almost as fast as this earwax doohickey!

Disgust Trigger #6 – Disgust with the system: Earwax removal is expensive and it takes forever to get an appointment. The dysfunctional health care system is letting you down!

Disgust Trigger #7 – Disgust with the Status Quo: Cotton swabs can cause infections and punctured eardrums. At this point, there’s literally a lady crying on the screen. Sheesh!

That’s a whopping amount of disgust triggers in less than a 1-minute of advertising.

And it’s powerful market-moving stuff! 

I mean after watching that I would rather have Freddy Krueger clean my ears than put another cotton swab in there!

The rest of the ad is technically solid as well.

They give a little background on the history of the company

They pack on the social proof.

They even explain the purpose behind offering a 50% discount.

Pro Tip: Sharing the “why” behind your offer is a great way to make it feel more personal and more urgent.

The bottom line is this is a top-notch add that all but seals the deal.

And if this was your typical ad review, we would wrap things up right here…

… BUT because this is a Full Funnel Nudity breakdown, just like Tvidler’s earwax cleaner… we’re going to drill a little deeper.

And I’m gonna show you all the impressive persuasion tactics and techniques that are behind the first click in this funnel.

So, let’s move on and take a look at one of the best discount landing pages I’ve ever seen.

A trustworthy Deal

I feel like I am so used to seeing flashing discount buttons and countdown timers that I never trust any deal.

But Tvidler’s landing page doesn’t exude any of that “unscrupulous salesman” vibe.

Even though there’s a huge 50% off discount and buy now button in the middle of the page, there are still trust signals everywhere.

For starters, there’s the imagery. 

You’ve got a white coat clad middle-aged sharp-looking doctor staring right at you on one side of the page

And on the other side of the page, you’ve got a happy, healthy young family staring lovingly at their new earwax cleaner of choice.

Next, you’ve got the badges.

The “Tested in the U.S.”  badge is a nice play on patriotism and a brilliant workaround for a product that’s probably made in China. 

The second badge has some type of medical symbol and year on it. Don’t know what that means, but it looks official.

Finally, you’ve got the logos just above the fold that pack on a few more trust signals.

The thing to notice about this page so far is that the trust signals all support the ad and the offer.

If you landed on this page and that imagery wasn’t there, “50%” and “Last Chance” would probably feel pretty shallow.

But the imagery helps make the page feel legit.

This is a stellar example of design supporting the copy by giving the words on the page legitimacy.

Spot on Subheads

Once you venture below the fold, this landing page only gets better.

Whoever wrote the subheads for this page has some serious copy chops.

Read through them and you can grasp just about every main selling point of this product.

And for those who study copywriting and advertising you’ll see some familiar frameworks in these subheads.

Here’s how you can use these same frameworks in your own copy!

“___ is bad for ___ and you know it”

“Don’t risk your ___  – Use this _____”

“Are you still _______?”

See how that works?

All right. Before we move on, there’s one thing that bothers me about this landing page.

It’s not something that’s on the landing.

But rather it’s something missing from this page.

And that missing mechanism is an exit-intent email pop-up.

Have you ever heard of a Landing Page Abandonment Sequence?

I am a firm believer that advertising and exit-intent email opt-ins go together like clams and butter. (That’s right, I said clams and butter. Have you ever dipped clams in butter? They are friggin’ delicious, anyway…)

… Your ads work hard to bring people to your landing page. Yes, if they leave, you can retarget them.

But why not give them a chance to opt-in to your email list?

Even if you get just 4 to 5% of the people who hit your page to join your list, it's worth it.

Because you give yourself a much better chance of converting people who would otherwise wander back off into the black hole of social media. 

Plus, if you able to email these potential customers, then you don’t have to pay Facebook a tax to reach them again.

The point is you should always consider using exit-intent email capture with your ads.

Lead ‘em to the finish line step-by-step

Just like their landing page, the Tvidler order page is also laden with trust signals.

There really is no laziness in this funnel. It’s buttoned-up!

There is one small detail I’ll point to, though, that I think is exceptional.

And that detail is the steps on the order form.

By calling out the steps on your order form, not only do you make sure you don’t lose anybody… you also make it visually easy for your customer to see what they need to do.

Also people like steps. Steps make sense in our brains. And we have a tendency to want to follow the steps.

So lead your customers to the finish line step-by-step, and you’ll get more orders.

But, don’t stop there! Because…

… You always have more to offer than you think!

OK, so I learned from Tvidler’s ad that there’s a 66% chance I have giant earwax gremlins hiding inside my head.

That’s a risk I am not willing to take.

So in the interest of showing you every step in Tvidler’s top-notch funnel and also having the cleanest ears in copywriting… I bit on this offer.

I bought myself a Tvidler.

But it’s what happened after I ordered this product that I want to share with you.

Because that is where our final lesson in this Funnel Breakdown lies.

And that lesson is:

You always have more to offer than you think!

Here’s what I mean by this.

Do you want to know what Tvidler offered me as an upsell after I ordered a Tvidler?

More Tvidlers!

In my experience, a lot of businesses complicate their upsell offers.

They try to stack on complimentary offers that are only loosely associated with the initial order.

And they go to these complimentary offers too early in their upsell/downsell sequences.

Instead, don’t overcomplicate your upsell offers.

There’s a simple rule of marketing.

“The thing people like most is more of what they already like.”

So, if you can, use your first upsell to offer people more of what they already bought.

If you have extra color varieties, sizes, or categories of the same thing someone just bought… use your upsell to offer those variations.

If you don’t have other varieties, simply offer your customer more of the same thing they just bought!

And if your product has parts…use your upsells to offer more of those too.

More parts are upsells two and three in Tvidelr’s post-purchase part of this funnel.

I have no idea what the Average Order Value is on this funnel. 

But based on looking under the hood of many of these types of funnels, I am betting this one crushes it!

So take notes, stick this one in your swipe file… and… wait a minute…. 

… You don’t have to do any of that. Because I just did it for you.

So, bookmark this page. And return to it when you want to see how a great eCommerce funnel is constructed top-to-bottom.

And with that, we’ve wrapped up another edition of Full Funnel Nudity.

(The only advertising breakdown that goes ALLLLL the way every time!)

What did you think of this edition? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Did it disgust you?

If so leave a comment below and share all your disgusting thoughts!