Facebook ads for an equestrian training business
An online dressage training business needed an email list. Leads have come in consistently at under a dollar each, and the paid programs now advertise profitably too.
Amelia, Equestrian training. Recorded March 2023.
Amelia runs a horse training business teaching students through online programs. Like most education businesses, the sale does not happen on first contact — people need to know her before they buy, which makes the email list the actual asset.
She tried running the ads herself first and it did not go well. Her reason is one of the most common: the back end of the platform is genuinely complicated and it changes fast enough that occasional attention is not enough. She had also worked with another agency before.
Cost per lead has been consistently under a dollar. In a niche that small that is unusual, and it comes from matching lead magnets to what her specific audience wants rather than running a generic list-building offer.
The newer development is advertising the paid programs directly, including supporting live launches with paid traffic. Those have returned well on the investment, which closes the loop — the list grows cheaply, and the ads also sell into it.
Her advice to anyone hesitating is the one I would underline. Most people will not invest in list building because the return is not immediate. But a cheap subscriber who buys in six months is worth more than an expensive click that buys today, and businesses that only ever chase the immediate sale never build the asset.
For coaches and course creators, lead cost and list quality decide the economics of everything downstream. It is worth getting right before scaling anything else.
In Amelia’s words
“When I first started out I tried to do the Facebook ads myself, which did not go well, because it’s quite complicated in the back end of Facebook and things change so quickly.”
“He has helped me so much to grow my email list. We’ve been consistently getting cost per leads at under one dollar.”
“The mistake a lot of people make is they don’t invest in building their list and in generating leads. Once someone is in your email list you can get to know them, and eventually they’re going to become your customer.”
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