Marketing Funnels, Engineered: the full ledger
This is the full ledger for the book: every number in it, where it came from and when. Numbers from my own accounts are labelled the way the book labels them. "Settled" means money that reached the bank, and "Meta's count" means the sales and values the ad platform itself reported. Anything marked "made-up example" is invented to teach a sum and is not data. The sections follow the pieces in reading order, and if you find a number from the book missing here, treat it as my error.
Page one: marketing first, then data, then marketing again
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| fifteen years | Years I worked in data and analytics | my own account of it | 19 Oct 2026 |
| six months without an interview | How long I looked for work without one interview | the earlier edition of this book and my own records | After the 2008 financial crisis |
| about sixty days | How long after the work my services company was paid | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
Page two: the money
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| A$5,911 | Spent on the Labs book ads, lifetime | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| 122 buyers | Buyers Meta counted from that spend | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$48 | Cost per buyer | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about A$26 | Value per buyer, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| 53 cents | Returned per dollar spent, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about A$22 | Cost per buyer above value per buyer (48 minus 26) | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about A$2,750 | Spend that did not come back (a check gives A$2,739) | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| twenty-eight sales | Sales Meta reported in one week, on the Labs book | the earlier edition of this book and my notes for The Anti-Hype Method; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| twenty-two payments | Payments that actually settled that week, on the Labs book | the earlier edition of this book and my notes for The Anti-Hype Method; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| three hundred dollars, ten buyers, twenty-seven each | Example sum, not my data | made-up example | Not applicable |
| thirteenth of October | Day I paused four Sixty Steps campaigns | Sixty Steps ad account | 13 Oct 2026 |
How this book works
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| five parts | Parts in this book, before the Field Manual, the appendix and the ledger | the structure of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
| seven questions | Questions from my earlier book, The Anti-Hype Method; each piece rewords one | The Anti-Hype Method | 19 Oct 2026 |
| ninety days | Window in the load-bearing question, one of the seven | The Anti-Hype Method | 19 Oct 2026 |
The ad I scaled on six clicks
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| four sales, six days | Imagined ad set in the opening story | made-up example | Not applicable |
| about three sales | Sales one Labs ad made from its first views | my own account of it, approximate | 16 Oct 2026 |
| six clicks | Clicks that ad had when I scaled it | my own account of it, approximate | 19 Oct 2026 |
| a week or two | Wait before settled money is final (about fourteen days) | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| 11 October | Day I wrote a kill rule for the Sixty Steps campaigns | Sixty Steps ad account | 11 Oct 2026 |
| A$60 | Spend at which an ad set without a buyer is stopped | Sixty Steps ad account | 11 Oct 2026 |
| 13 October | Day I paused all four campaigns, around noon Perth time | Sixty Steps ad account | 13 Oct 2026 |
Why you cannot tell what is working
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| forty metrics | Imagined dashboard in the reader's story | made-up example | Not applicable |
| about seven landings | Landings counted per person who stayed | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| about seven times | Error in cost per landing from that overcount | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| half again | Extra one vendor demanded over what we agreed | my own records | 5 Oct 2026 |
| a thousand accounts | A seller's pitch, not a claim of mine | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| 10.73 percent | Click rate on my April ad | my own records | Apr 2026 |
| roughly four times normal | That click rate against a normal one | the earlier edition of this book | Apr 2026 |
| about a week | Time I spent pleased with myself over that ad | the earlier edition of this book | Apr 2026 |
| A$564.35 | Spent on that campaign, with no sales and no enquiries | my own records | Apr 2026 |
| one sale against three | Sales from the rebuilt page against the old one | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| seventy-five and seventy-nine sessions | Visitors each page version had | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| $40 against $24 | What the rebuilt page took against the old page, from the same test | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| a hundred ads in an hour | What a chatbot can write; a general claim, not mine | made-up example | Not applicable |
Fifty juniors, not a button
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| fifty | A picture of AI helpers, not a headcount | my positioning notes and the earlier edition of this book | 6 Oct 2026 |
| four rounds | Reviews by AI readers set to judge blind, on one ad batch | my own records | 7 Oct 2026 |
| $4,120 | Stripe figure an AI helper invented in one ad draft | my own records | 7 Oct 2026 |
| $910 | Comparison figure an AI helper invented | my own records | 7 Oct 2026 |
| about two hundred words | Length of my own email used as a voice sample | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
Why not just hire someone
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| six | Gap between 28 sales Meta reported and 22 that settled | the earlier edition of this book | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| A$35 | Cost per buyer, the Labs ad set with the cheapest buyers | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$21 | Value per buyer for that ad set, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| two or three fixes a year | Fixes made yearly before the rebuild | Turn Your Expertise (my earlier book) | Not dated |
| seventy fixes a year | Fixes made yearly after the rebuild, Power BI support contract | Turn Your Expertise (my earlier book); year from my memory | About 2024 |
| three hours | Time the last fix took | Turn Your Expertise (my earlier book) | Not dated |
| one hour | Time that fix should have taken | Turn Your Expertise (my earlier book) | Not dated |
| thirty leads a month | Example agency pitch | made-up example | Not applicable |
| five thousand a month | Example agency retainer | made-up example | Not applicable |
| ten thousand a month | Example minimum ad spend | made-up example | Not applicable |
| ninety days, ninety rows | Example quarterly review of daily numbers | made-up example | Not applicable |
| fifteen thousand | Example fees across the quarter | made-up example | Not applicable |
| thirty thousand | Example of your own money through the ad account | made-up example | Not applicable |
An engineer's habits, applied to ads
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 reported sales | Sales Meta reported in a seven-day window | the earlier edition of this book | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| 22 settled sales | Sales that settled in the bank, same week | the earlier edition of this book | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| three tracking tools | Senders firing on one purchase | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| A$48 | Cost per buyer, Labs book ads, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$26 | Value per buyer, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| five hundred dollar cold test | Size of my standing test for a new idea | my own records | Standing rule |
| two of my ad accounts | Accounts that carry a monthly spending limit | Sixty Steps ad account and my own settings | 15 Oct 2026 |
| sixty-five cents on the dollar | Return on Labs scaling campaigns, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
What Meta does with a new ad
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| three days old | Age of the imagined ad set in the opening | made-up example | Not applicable |
| July to October | Months the Labs book ran on Meta | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| ten posters | My picture for how the platform picks a winner | my own records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| five-ad set | Ads in one ad set | my own records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| hundreds of ads | Ads over which luck evens out, my dictation | my own records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| ten of eighteen | Test ad sets with no buyers | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$485 | Spent on those ten ad sets | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| eight ad sets found all thirty-three buyers | Ad sets in the testing campaign that got buyers | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$27 | Cost per buyer, keep-your-job ad set | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| five buyers | Buyers in that keep-your-job ad set | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$65 | Cost per buyer, the creative testing campaign | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 2x | Multiple of target cost per buyer before killing an ad set | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 2% | Chance an ad twice as good as target dies early at 2x (modelled) | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 13% | Same chance at 1x (modelled) | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$35 | Target cost per buyer on the Labs book | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$70 | Floor of twice that target, from my dictation | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| sales arrive at random | Model input: sales arrive at random as money is spent, at a steady cost per buyer for each ad (a Poisson model in spend, not a measured result) | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$17.50 | Model input: cost per buyer of an ad twice as good as the A$35 target | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| e to the power of minus spend over cost | Model rule: the chance an ad has made no sale by the kill spend. At A$17.50 a buyer, A$70 gives 1.8% (printed as 2%) and A$35 gives 13.5% (printed as 13%) | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| three days | Minimum age before I look at 2x or kill at 3x with no sale | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
| three claims | Claims in my dictation that the account took off me | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| three real winners | Ad sets with three or more purchases at or under A$35 | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| two of three | Winners a 2x floor would have stopped before their first sale | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 2.5x | Multiple at which all three winners survive | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| twelve book ad sets | Ad sets that never made a sale | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$183 | Extra kept by killing at the target instead of at twice the target | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
Part Two: which ads pay for themselves
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| three things | What you keep from Part Two even if you stop after it: the sum, the check that makes the sum honest, and the kill rule | the structure of this book | 20 Oct 2026 |
Twenty-eight sales, twenty-two payments
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| twenty-eight sales | Sales Meta reported in a seven-day window, on the Labs book | the earlier edition of this book and my notes for The Anti-Hype Method; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| twenty-two settled | Charges that settled in the same window, on the Labs book | the earlier edition of this book and my notes for The Anti-Hype Method; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| six | Sales that existed as reporting, not revenue (28 minus 22) | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| three tracking integrations | Senders firing on one purchase | the earlier edition of this book and my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| about twenty-seven percent | How far Meta overstated sales (28 against 22) | the earlier edition of this book | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| twenty-one sales | Sales Meta credited to the scaling campaign | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| eleven sales | Sales that last click supported | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Week of 2 Aug 2026 |
| eighty-six percent | Budget share to the over-credited ad; the real earner got four percent | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| ninety percent | Share of sales that should carry a campaign tag | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| A$3,155 | Sales value Meta attributed to the Labs book campaigns | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$2,617 | Settled from book-funnel charges (book, add-ons, upgrade) | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about seventeen percent under | Settled book-funnel money against Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$1,036 | Settled from twelve sales of two other products | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about sixteen percent over | Settled money with those twelve sales added, against Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$6,195 | Spent on the Labs book on the later pull | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about fifty-one cents | Meta-counted return per dollar on that later pull | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| between about forty-two and fifty-nine cents | Settled return per dollar spent on that pull, as a range | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| mid-July | Start of the window for those Labs figures | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| twelve | Sales of other products in the bank total | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| fifteen hundred dollars | Example dashboard sales | made-up example | Not applicable |
| thirteen hundred dollars | Example ad spend | made-up example | Not applicable |
| about eleven hundred and eighty | Example corrected sales (1,500 times 22 over 28) | made-up example | Not applicable |
| more than a hundred dollars | Example loss hidden by the dashboard (1,300 minus 1,180) | made-up example | Not applicable |
| $40 | Example break-even cost per buyer for the bracket method | made-up example | Not applicable |
| $270, nine sales, best $30, worst $90 | First bracket example | made-up example | Not applicable |
| $280, fourteen sales, best $20, worst $35 | Second bracket example | made-up example | Not applicable |
| about two weeks | Time for settled money to be final (fourteen days) | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
The sum
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| about two months | Time I spent testing the wrong problem | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| A$16.57 | Average order value, Australian dollars | the earlier edition of this book; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Aug 2026 |
| between A$20 and A$40 | Order value each order needed to cover its ad cost, Australian dollars | the earlier edition of this book; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Aug 2026 |
| about an hour | Time the arithmetic took once I finally did it | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| fifty percent | Buyers taking the add-on | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| twenty customers | Customers needed before a measured lifetime value is usable; with fewer, mark it provisional and date the replacement | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| roughly fifty purchases | Purchases before a cost per buyer settles; a figure worked out on ten sales is a guess | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| a few percent | Gap between the sum on settled cash and the sum on platform revenue, beyond which you find out why before trusting either | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| day one, day thirty, day ninety | Days on which I test the checkout, the follow-up and the whole thing | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| A$48 | Cost per buyer, Labs book, lifetime | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$26 | Value per buyer, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$22 | Gap per buyer (48 minus 26) | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$35 and A$21 | Cost and value per buyer, scaling ad set with the cheapest buyers, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$55 and A$37 | Cost and value per buyer, Proven Scaling campaign, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| one client | Labs book buyer who later became a paying services client | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $15 | Product price with nothing behind it, so each buyer is worth $15 | made-up example, from the earlier edition | Not applicable |
| $180,000 | Paid by a customer after the first order | made-up example, from the earlier edition | Not applicable |
| one buyer in a hundred | Share who go on to the dearer offer | made-up example, from the earlier edition | Not applicable |
| $1,800 | Back end per buyer (180,000 times one in a hundred) | made-up example, from the earlier edition | Not applicable |
| 3%, 33%, about 1% | Sample firm: ask rate, close rate and the buyer-to-customer rate they give | made-up example (round, not a benchmark) | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $2,000 workshop | Workshop that takes ten hours at $100 an hour, so it keeps $1,000 | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $27 | Course price | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $10 add-on, 4 in 10 | Add-on and take rate, worth $4 a buyer | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $60 upgrade, 1 in 10 | Upgrade and take rate, worth $6 a buyer | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $37 | First-order revenue per buyer, the floor (27 plus 4 plus 6) | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $460 | Paid by a customer after the first order | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| 25%, 20%, 5% | Ask rate, close rate and share of buyers who become customers | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $23 | Back end per buyer (460 times 0.05) | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $60 ceiling | Most a buyer can cost (37 plus 23) | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| A $1,500 for 50 buyers, B $2,250, C $3,500 | Three ad sets at $30, $45 and $70 a buyer | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $8 a buyer, $400 | Loss on ad set B across 50 buyers | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| five in a hundred, four hundred buyers | Customers per hundred buyers, and the buyers needed to reach twenty customers | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $11.50, $48.50 | Stress test with the close rate halved: new back end and ceiling | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
The book that never paid back
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| three months | Time the scaling campaigns ran flat and looked fine | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| three small add-ons | Small add-ons offered at checkout | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| fifty-five to sixty-four | Age range of the readers the book ads reached | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| one landing in ten | Landings that ended in a sale (10 percent) | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| more than half (52 percent) | Landings that went to checkout | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| 12 October | Day of the pull and the decision | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$5,911 | Spent on the Labs book ads, lifetime | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| one hundred and twenty-two buyers | Buyers Meta counted | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$48 | Cost per buyer | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$26 | Value per buyer, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| fifty-three cents | Returned per dollar spent, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| forty-seven cents | Lost per dollar spent (1 minus 0.53) | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about seventeen percent under | Settled book-funnel money against Meta's count, July to October | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about sixteen percent over | Same, with twelve sales of other products added | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| twelve sales | Sales of other products in the bank total | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$35 | Cost per buyer, the ad set with the cheapest buyers | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about A$35 | My target cost per buyer on the Labs book | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| sixty cents on the dollar | Return of that ad set, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| three buyers | Buyers in the only ad set above a return of 1.0 | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| sixty-five to sixty-seven cents | Monthly return of scaling, July to September, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| sixty-seven cents | Return in scaling's first month, July | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| thirty-five cents | Return on creative testing, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| eighteen | Creative-testing ad sets with spend | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 93 buyers, A$3,896 | Buyers and spend across all the Labs scaling campaigns, 16 October pull | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 0.65 (July 0.67, August 0.65, September 0.65) | Return of the scaling campaigns, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 11 percent | Share of the Labs book spend that went to ads with zero buyers | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$6,195 and A$3,155 | Spend on the later pull, July to October, and the value Meta attributed to it | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| between about 0.42 and 0.59 | Settled return on all book spend on that base; no settled figure by campaign exists | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| ten of eighteen | Creative-testing ad sets with spend that had no buyer | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about A$2,750 | Spend not returned, by Meta's count, to 12 October | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$900 | Spent on my single best ad | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| twenty-eight buyers | Buyers that best ad brought | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$32 | Cost per buyer for that ad | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| 13.6 percent | Landings on that ad that bought | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| six dollars | How far that ad still sat under water (32 minus 26) | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| 15 October | Day the bundle test began, on the Sixty Steps account; decided 12 October | my own confirmation of 19 Oct; Labs ad account and payment records for the 12 October decision | 12 Oct 2026 |
| no result yet | The bundle test has no result to report | my own confirmation of 19 Oct | 19 Oct 2026 |
| about A$40 | Break-even cost per buyer before the offer after checkout | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| sixty-six cents | Return of the Proven Scaling campaign, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$2,617 and A$3,653 | Bank (Stripe) total over 17 July to October: book-funnel charges only, and with twelve sales of two other products added; the charges carry no campaign tags | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about 0.42 and 0.59 of A$6,195 | The same two bank totals as a return on the later pull's A$6,195 of spend (2,617 over 6,195, 3,653 over 6,195) | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$2,139 | Spend of the creative testing campaign on the later pull, lifetime to 16 October (0.35 by Meta's count) | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about four percent | How far scaling and testing, priced at their own returns (about A$3,281), sit above Meta's account total of A$3,155; derived, and the source gives no reason | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about A$160 | Spend of the account not inside the scaling and testing campaigns (6,195 minus 3,896 minus 2,139); derived, and the pull does not break out what it returned | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| about A$126 | Gap left if that A$160 returned nothing (about 3,281 minus 3,155); more than rounding the two returns explains (about A$30) | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 12 October, 16 October | Windows: the headline is lifetime to 12 October; the later pull is 17 July to October, pulled 16 October. They are never read as one run | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
The minimal machine
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| seven tools | Tools on an imagined seller's stack | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| two emails | Emails in my recovery sequence | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| sixty days | Length of the recovery window | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| 3,997 sessions | Sessions that expired | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| exactly three | Expired sessions that had left an email address | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| about three people | Size of the pool my recovery sequence served | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| fifty-four ads | Ads in the account I reviewed | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| A$42 a day | Total daily spend across them | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| under eighty cents | Spend per ad per day | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| more than two hundred days | Time the slowest ad needed for a readable result | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| fewer than one in four | Visits the funnel recorded that reached the offer (recorded visits overcount people) | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| under three in a hundred | Visits the funnel recorded that bought | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| twelve of seventeen | Pop-up firings on people who never reached the offer | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Aug 2026 |
| one month, about two thousand dollars | What an agency landing page cost | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| a quarter of the way down | How far most visitors scrolled | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
Kill rules, a loss ceiling, one test at a time
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| six weeks | Imagined ad set in the opening story | made-up example | Not applicable |
| four times normal | Click rate on my April ad, which made no sales | my own records | Apr 2026 |
| twice target cost | Spend with no sale at which I look | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| three times target cost | Spend with no sale, after three days, at which I kill | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| a day to three days | Time for conversion reporting to settle | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| about twenty percent | Budget change that is safe at one time | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| about fifty percent | Accuracy my swim product topped out at, after two years | my own records and the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| twenty-six ad sets | Labs ad sets in my simulation | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$35 | Target cost per buyer used in the simulation | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| twelve ad sets | Ad sets that never bought | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$532 | Spent by those twelve | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$234 | Saved by a cap at 1x target | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$51 | Saved by a cap at 2x target | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| nothing | Saved by a cap at three times target | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| three winners | Ad sets with three or more buyers at or under target | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| two of three | Winners ended before their first sale at 1x or 2x | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$71 and A$86 | Spend at which two winners made their first sale | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| two and a half times | Cap at which all three winners survive | Labs ad account and payment records, simulation on those records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| twice target, moved to three | Line I first wrote, then changed | Sixty Steps ad account and simulation on Labs records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| A$3,896 | Spend, all Labs scaling campaigns | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| sixty-five cents | Returned per dollar by scaling, flat July to September, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| A$26 | Value per buyer, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$48 | Cost per buyer | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| A$22 | Gap per buyer (48 minus 26) | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about fifty purchases | Purchases for a rate to settle; fifty is the floor | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| A$1,100 | Loss ceiling (50 buyers times A$22), what it would have been | worked from the Labs figures | 19 Oct 2026 |
| about A$2,750 | Lost on the Labs book, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about A$1,650 | How much sooner the ceiling would have stopped it (2,750 minus 1,100) | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| about A$3,000 a month | Total Meta cap; two ad accounts carry a limit | my own records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| queue built twice, content system restarted three times | Times I rebuilt my test queue and content system | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
Reprice on evidence, diagnose before you fix
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| A$16.57 | Average order value, Australian dollars | the earlier edition of this book; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Aug 2026 |
| between A$20 and A$40 | Order value each order needed to cover its ad cost, Australian dollars | the earlier edition of this book; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Aug 2026 |
| two months | Time spent testing the wrong problem | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| half | Buyers taking the add-on | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| near A$31 | Order value after three repricings, Australian dollars (end state) | the earlier edition of this book; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Aug 2026 |
| 19 August 2026 | Day order value crossed the first-order floor (no figure for the crossing) | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Aug 2026 |
| three repricings | Price changes I made | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| $40 | Order total, the book plus three checkout add-ons, at which the add-on take rate fell to almost nothing | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| three things | Things I built that looked right and were not: a pop-up, heavier statistics and an extra layer of ads | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| four lines | Lines to write before adding anything: what you expect, the number that shows it, the off switch and the result that removes it | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| about sixty-five cents on the dollar | Return on Labs scaling, July to September, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| thirty-four claimed, thirty settled | Example gap between Meta's count and the bank | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $1,350 and $45 | Example spend and settled cost per buyer | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $34, $58, $11 | Example floor, ceiling and loss on a first order | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $550 | Example loss across 50 buyers at $11 | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| A $900, B $1,350, C $1,400 | Example sheet of three ad sets at $30, $45 and $70 | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
| a hundred against eighty | Example Meta count against bank, so multiply by 0.8 | made-up example | 19 Oct 2026 |
The offer and the price ladder
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| twentieth of October, ten to eight | Day and time, Perth, I cut the grader campaign's daily budget | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| two hundred dollars to fifty | Daily budget of the five-dollar grader campaign before and after the cut (A$200 to A$50) | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| twenty minutes before | How long before the cut I paused one ad | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| two hundred and eighty-four dollars, two days | Spent by that ad over 19 and 20 October with no buyer (A$284) | my own records | 19 to 20 Oct 2026 |
| twenty-second | Day of the readout; its rule stayed as written | my own records | 22 Oct 2026 |
| about sixty days | How long after the work my services company was paid | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| two ideas | The self-liquidating offer and the mid-tier offer | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $5 | Price of the Labs book, the front end | Labs ad account and payment records | Jul to Oct 2026 |
| fifty-three cents on the dollar | Return on all Labs book campaigns, lifetime to 12 October, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| $5 | Price of the Sixty Steps grader, the front end | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 18 to 19 Oct 2026 |
| sixteenth of October | Day I built the grader | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| three small add-ons | Add-ons at the grader checkout, with no take rate yet | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 19 Oct 2026 |
| $27 | Price of the toolkit | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 15 to 18 Oct 2026 |
| 15 October | Day the toolkit ads began | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 15 Oct 2026 |
| A$265 | Toolkit ad spend by 18 October, with no buyers | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 18 Oct 2026 |
| one click, no buyer | What the toolkit ads got on the first night | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 15 Oct 2026 |
| half | Labs book buyers who took an add-on | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| $40 | Order total, the book plus three checkout add-ons, at which the add-on take rate fell to almost nothing | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| almost nothing | Take rate at that order total | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $27 to nearly a thousand dollars | Range of upsell prices I tried before the 2026 method | my own records | Before 2026 |
| third to eighth | Upsell offers that earned nothing | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Aug 2026 |
| first two | Offers at the front of a run of upsells; the third to the eighth, behind them, earned nothing | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Aug 2026 |
| fifty-three views | Sample behind that call; too small to read | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Aug 2026 |
| one front end, three add-ons, two offers after checkout | The most I would build on one ladder | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Aug 2026 |
| $297 | The middle rung I am still designing; no result yet | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 18 to 20 Oct 2026 |
| nearly sixty | Five-dollar buyers it takes to match one $297 sale (297 divided by 5 is 59.4) | my arithmetic on the $297 and $5 prices | 20 Oct 2026 |
| several hundred dollars | Price above which one click is not enough and the buyer needs a visible total | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| one client | Labs book buyers who later became a paying services client | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| A$20 to A$40 | First-order floor from my own sum, cross-checked by a funnel training I bought | the earlier edition of this book; my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| thirty days, ninety days | The two windows the cash question is asked over | my advice in this piece | 20 Oct 2026 |
| ninety days | Window in the load-bearing question I put to the ladder, one of the seven questions | The Anti-Hype Method | 19 Oct 2026 |
| three things to name | The rung, the day it lands and the bill it covers | my advice in this piece | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $30 to win a buyer, $20 paid in a month | Example ladder that is short of cash | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| a ten-dollar hole, forty dollars by the third month | Example gap and its later repayment | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| third week | Example of a profitable ladder that is still short of cash | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| a quarter | Example of how long you lend the gap to your funnel if only ninety-day money covers it | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| five rungs | Example of a guru ladder | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $37 and $45 | Example first-order revenue (the course from Part Two) and cost to win a buyer | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $8 gap, $3.50 gap | Example gap on day zero, and after a $9 add-on taken by half (first order $41.50) | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $297, one buyer in a hundred, $2.97 a buyer | Example mid-tier rung and what it adds to each buyer | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| fewer than ten | Takers below which a rung has no take rate yet | my advice in this piece | 20 Oct 2026 |
The page
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| seven simulated readers | Readers on my 12 October page panel; a simulation, not real people | my own records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| six of seven | Simulated readers who said the first screen did not match the ad | my own records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| two | Simulated readers who would not pay, both citing the mismatch | my own records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| one simulated reader | Reader who said it took a moment to confirm they had the right offer | my own records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| seven, all seven | Second panel on three headline lines; every reader flagged refund risk | my own records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| three hero lines | Headline lines the second panel scored against the book | my own records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| 13.6 percent | Share of Meta landing-page views that bought, on my best ad | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about one in seven | The same rate said as a ratio | my arithmetic on the 13.6 percent above | 20 Oct 2026 |
| 971 KB | Size of the heaviest image on the old front page | my own records | 10 Aug 2026 |
| 9.8 seconds | Its load time on a throttled phone connection | my own records | 10 Aug 2026 |
| seven in ten | Visitors on phones | my own records | 10 Aug 2026 |
| about thirty minutes | Time the proposed speed fix would take | my own records | 10 Aug 2026 |
| roughly seventy percent | Rule of thumb: landing-page views per link click | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
| sixty-six percent | Real sessions that never got a quarter of the way down the page | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
| over sixteen thousand pixels | How tall that page ran | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
| 19 October | Day I reordered the five-dollar page and wrote its baseline | my own records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| six out of ten | Score on the five-second test | my own records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| ninth | Where the offer sat in the section order | my own records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| seven of thirty-one | View-content events near the price card | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 19 Oct 2026 |
| the three days before | Window before the reorder that gave the baseline | my own records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| four of the thirty-one | Viewers who bought in the three days before the reorder | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| a month and about $2,000 | What an agency page costs | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 19 Oct 2026 |
| three different counts | Counts of the same visitors that disagreed | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| ten to twenty | People on a five-dollar page with no buyer before I kill it | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $5 | Price of that product | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $20 | Spend at which I would kill it | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| three days | Length of my written kill rule for ads | my own account of it | 19 Oct 2026 |
| one in seven | Example conversion rate | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| fifteen visitors, about one time in ten | Chance of no sale across fifteen visitors at that rate (6 over 7 to the fifteenth is 0.099) | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| three ads, three promises | Example of three ads with three different promises sent to one page | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| one book against three | Sales for the rebuilt page against the old page | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| $40 against $24 | Revenue for the rebuilt page against the old page | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| about eighty | Sessions on each page | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| two screenfuls | How far down the promise, the price and the button should sit | my own records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| five seconds | Length of the five-second test; also the active time that makes a session engaged | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 19 Oct 2026 |
Making the ads
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| six | Ads added to a live ad set, noted at the top of their file | my own records | 17 Oct 2026 |
| two | Lines cut from that batch and named in the piece | my own records | 17 Oct 2026 |
| one | Ad at a time that I approve | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| five | Classes of fact in my fact table | my own records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| two | Columns in the line-and-source table, with two more entries under it | my ad standard | 7 Oct 2026 |
| six | Rules in my ad standard | my ad standard | 7 Oct 2026 |
| twenty-eight, twenty-two | Meta-counted sales and settled charges in the check week | Labs ad account and payment records | Aug 2026 |
| five | Concepts in the October test | my own records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| tenth of October | Day the concept test went live | my own records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| $5 | Price of the course sold by the seller whose ad shapes I mined | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| twelve | Top concepts mapped from one seller's ads | my own records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 224 days | How long the longest-running concepts had run, which is more than seven months | my own records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| forty-seven | Ads covered by that map | my own records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| thirty-six of thirty-nine | Long-running ads using patterns my copy review bans | my own records | 13 Oct 2026 |
| five ads per concept ad set | Layout of the concept test | my own records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| A$16 | Daily budget per ad set in that test | my own records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| 13 October | Day I paused every campaign on the account | my own records | 13 Oct 2026 |
| A$389 | Spent on the whole testing campaign (more than the five concept ad sets, which come to about A$240), 1 to 18 October, with no purchase counted by Meta | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 18 Oct 2026 |
| twenty | Buyers under which I mark a result as too small to read | my own records | 18 Oct 2026 |
| about A$100 | Spent on the grader campaign, 1 to 18 October (A$101, rounded) | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 18 Oct 2026 |
| two | Purchases Meta counted on the grader campaign by 18 October | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 18 Oct 2026 |
| sixteenth of October | Day the grader ads went live, and the date of the structure map | my own records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| almost A$300 | Spent on one grader ad over 19 and 20 October with no buyer recorded (A$284, rounded) | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| twentieth of October | Day I wrote this piece and paused one grader ad | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| twenty-second | Day of the readout, which has not happened yet | my own records | 22 Oct 2026 |
| 15 October | Day I set my targeting defaults; every buyer ad set has run broad since | my own records | 15 Oct 2026 |
| fifty | Creatives run against a budget that gives each a handful of impressions | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
| twice target | Spend, as a multiple of target cost per buyer, I give an ad set before I look | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
| three times target, three days | Spend with no sale at which I kill an ad set, once it is past three days old | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
| twenty-five, sixty-five | Minimum and maximum age in my targeting defaults | my own records | 15 Oct 2026 |
| a hundred | Ads the hype claim says to let AI write | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $0.75 per thousand ads | What the scraper costs | my own records | 13 Oct 2026 |
| fifteen | Unique ad bodies below which a map is a weak signal | my own records | 13 Oct 2026 |
| 120 to 230 words | Body length in my ad standard | my ad standard | 7 Oct 2026 |
| 40 characters, 30 characters | Headline and description limits in my ad standard | my ad standard | 7 Oct 2026 |
| three | Rows in the made-up seller's fact table | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $27, fourteen bookkeepers, $180 to $240, three years, thirty days, five lessons | Details of the made-up seller and her ad in the Field Manual example | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
Tracking that holds
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| twenty-three seconds | Spike in recorded page loads | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| three weeks | How long the spike lasted | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| two hundred and seventy-four | Loads with zero scroll and zero engaged time | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| two witnesses | The ad platform and the payment processor, which will disagree on a sale | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| three senders | Browser pixel plus two server senders telling Meta about each sale in the 28 and 22 week | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| three things tonight | Checks you can run if you cannot edit your checkout: a test purchase seen once in each place, the campaign on the payment, and one day of Meta against settled charges | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| three questions | Questions in the message to send whoever built your checkout | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| five-ad test | The test in which Meta steered the budget to the wrong ad, told in Part Two | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| three purchases, A$267.14 | What Meta booked | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| two real charges, A$144.43 | What the bank held for the same sales | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| tenth of October | The Perth day I counted | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| 219 | Server landings on the book page | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| 170 | Browser landings on the book page | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| eighty-five each | Browser landings on mobile and on desktop | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| twenty-eight | Engaged sessions of five or more active seconds | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| five active seconds | Time on the page that counts a session as engaged | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| twelve | Link clicks Meta reported that day | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| fifteen | Landing-page views Meta reported that day | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| more than seven | Server landings per human (219 against 28 engaged sessions) | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| about six | Browser landings per human (170 against 28) | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| within a factor of two | Meta's 15 landing-page views against my 28 humans | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| two kinds of Meta visitor | The prefetch visitor and the ad review visitor, neither of which buys | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 11 Oct 2026 |
| 0.54, 6.1, 7.8 | Meta landing-page views, browser landings and server landings, each divided by the 28 humans | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| between about one half and two | Range of those ratios that is usable for a quick read | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| forty-two of forty-three | Payment forms never touched | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about seven times | Error in per-landing rates | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 11 Oct 2026 |
| one count | Count to divide by for every conversion rate you quote, named in the sheet header | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| three signs | Signs that a landing count is counting loaders | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| five steps | Steps in the five-minute tracking check | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| four rules | Rules for sending purchases: browser and server together, one shared event ID, a check within a day, one conversion definition per product | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| two copies | First visit and latest visit, kept separately so an empty visit cannot overwrite either | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
After the first sale: the email and the back end
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| one Labs book buyer | Buyer who later became a services client | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| about sixty days | How long my services company waited to be paid, and the invoice term in the second path | my own account of it | 20 Oct 2026 |
| two channels | The confirmation screen at once, and an email within about a minute | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| one minute | How soon after payment the confirmation email goes | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| a few days | How long the delivery link lasts before it expires | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| a few in every hundred | Share of payments producing no download at which something is broken | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| twenty-one emails over about thirty days | Length of the grader sequence | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 18 Oct 2026 |
| twenty | Emails that send, because one is held back on unconfirmed figures | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 18 to 19 Oct 2026 |
| 18 October | Day the sequence went live | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 18 Oct 2026 |
| first five | Emails that each ask for one job with a free tool | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 18 Oct 2026 |
| fifteen minutes | Size of the day-one job | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 18 Oct 2026 |
| four free links | Free links for every paid ask | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 18 Oct 2026 |
| two days | How long after a reply my sequence wrongly kept firing, because it only tracked sent or not sent | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| one to three bold phrases, one main link | Format of every funnel email, with seventeen-pixel type, 1.75 line spacing and 24-pixel gaps | my own records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| 138 | Recipients of the 19 October broadcast, sent at ten past six in the evening Perth time (recipients, not opens) | my own records | 19 Oct 2026 |
| no counts | Opens, clicks, replies or purchases for that broadcast, or from the series: none exist yet | my own records | 20 Oct 2026 |
| four buyers | Buyers who got the same email twice when a sender crashed | my own records | 21 Aug 2026 |
| $5 | Price of the ad grader | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 18 Oct 2026 |
| $297 | The middle rung, still being designed | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 18 to 20 Oct 2026 |
| three rungs, three blanks | Rungs in my ladder and the figures I cannot fill yet: the middle-rung take rate, how many of those go on, and what a client pays for the large step | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 20 Oct 2026 |
| last twenty buyers | Cohort size under which a value figure stays provisional | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| five questions | Questions to answer, from your own records, about what to build after the front end | my advice in this piece | 20 Oct 2026 |
| thirty and ninety days | Windows of the value-per-buyer worksheet in the Field Manual | my advice in this piece | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $7 guide | Path one: price of the guide, with no calls | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $5 checklist, 2 in 10; $10 pack, 1 in 10 | Path one: the two checkout add-ons and their take rates, worth a dollar each a buyer | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $9 | Path one: first-order revenue per buyer, the floor (7 plus 1 plus 1) | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| five emails, days 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 | Path one: the delivery sequence, one ask each | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $27 follow-on, days 11 and 13 | Path one: the postscript on day eleven and the offer itself on day thirteen | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| 10 in 100 by day 30, 15 in 100 by day 90 | Path one: share who take the follow-on | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $2.70 and $4.05 | Path one: what the follow-on adds a buyer at day thirty and day ninety | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $11.70 and $13.05 | Path one: value per buyer at day thirty and day ninety; the second is the ceiling | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $11 and $14 | Path one: two buyer costs; at $11 you are $2 short at checkout and $0.70 ahead by day thirty, and at $14 you are over the ceiling | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $37 course into $2,000 coaching | Path two: the course, with no add-ons, and the coaching it leads to | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| day 6, 20 minutes | Path two: the day the call invitation goes and the length of the call | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| 500 buyers | Path two: buyers in the example | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| 3 in 100 by day 30, 5 in 100 by day 90 | Path two: share of buyers who have held a call; 15 calls, then 25 | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| one call in five | Path two: close rate; 3 clients by day 30 and 5 by day 90 | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| 5 hours at $100, keeps $1,500 | Path two: delivery cost of each coaching client, so the sum counts $1,500 of the $2,000 | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $4,500 and $7,500 | Path two: margin from 3 and from 5 clients, which is $9 and $15 a buyer across 500 | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $46 and $52 | Path two: value per buyer at day thirty and day ninety | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $42, $21,000, $18,500, $2,500 | Path two: buyer cost, ads for 500 buyers, courses sold in week one, and the hole until clients sign | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| 60-day invoice | Path two: if clients pay on a sixty-day invoice the hole stays open two months longer | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| $4 ahead, $10 ahead | Path two: against a $42 buyer, at day thirty and day ninety | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
| one call in ten, $44.50, $2.50 ahead | Path two: stress test with the close rate halved | made-up example | 20 Oct 2026 |
Blind panels, and why I do not trust my own score
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| nine, nine and a half and six and a half | Scores my editing agent gave its own work from a sampled read | my own records | 2 Oct 2026 |
| first week of October | When that agent scored its own work | my own records | 2 Oct 2026 |
| six readers | Blind readers who read the whole book | the earlier edition of this book | 2 Oct 2026 |
| eight and a half, seven and a half and four | Scores the six blind readers gave the same three measures | the earlier edition of this book | 2 Oct 2026 |
| floor of six | Lowest score I would accept for enjoyment | the earlier edition of this book | 2 Oct 2026 |
| second week of October | When blind readers judged the Sixty Steps ads | my own records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| two book ads | Ads that had made real sales, which the readers failed | my own records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| one ad in five | Share of each new concept the panel passed | my own records | 10 Oct 2026 |
What it got wrong
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| four rounds | Blind panel reviews the ad batch passed | my own records | 7 Oct 2026 |
| six blind readers | Readers who scored my manuscript | my own records | 2 Oct 2026 |
| September | Month a model sat in a browser for hours | my own working rules | 22 Sep 2026 |
What we build for a client, and how we are paid
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80% | Our price per delivered buyer, against your current cost per sign-up | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 12 Oct 2026 |
| 110 buyers for the price of 100 | What prepaying buys | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 16 Oct 2026 |
| $5,000 | Prepay minimum, US dollars | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 20 Oct 2026 |
| fourteen-day | Window to measure parity on the tagged booking link | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 12 Oct 2026 |
| seven-day | Window to replace disputed buyers | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 10 Oct 2026 |
| thirty-day block of a hundred buyers | Charges stop at day thirty if not delivered | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 12 Oct 2026 |
| ten-buyer trial block | Trial for block one only | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 13 Oct 2026 |
| two business days | Time to take your materials with you | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 13 Oct 2026 |
| $297 | The On-Ramp price | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 18 Oct 2026 |
| five a month | Cap on On-Ramp clients | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 18 Oct 2026 |
| four-week | Length of the On-Ramp | my notes on the Sixty Steps offer | 18 Oct 2026 |
| 122 buyers | Labs book buyers, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| nearly twice | A$48 cost against about A$26 value per buyer | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
About Ryan
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| six months | Time I looked for work with no interviews | the earlier edition of this book and my own records | After the 2008 financial crisis |
| fifteen years | Years across roles in data and analytics | the earlier edition of this book and my own account of it | 19 Oct 2026 |
| six years | Years I ran my own analytics firm | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| seven businesses | Businesses I have run | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| more than a hundred | Technical projects I have delivered | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| fifty-one per cent | First-year medicine pass rate | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| three and one | Ages of my daughter and my son | the earlier edition of this book | 19 Oct 2026 |
A cost-per-buyer check and a revenue fix
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| A$30.58 | Cost per buyer in that audit, green on every dashboard | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| A$7.40 | What each buyer actually brought in | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
| three point four on two sales | Return shown for a dead ad set | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Not dated |
A design rule for AI page builds
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 October | Day an AI helper wrote new page code instead of converting a design | my own records | 13 Oct 2026 |
| two screen sizes | Phone and desktop, the screenshots a build brief asks for | my own records | 13 Oct 2026 |
A competitor ad puller
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.75 per thousand ads | What a scraping service charges | my own records | 1 Oct 2026 |
| 164 ads | Ads pulled for one competitor | my own records | 1 Oct 2026 |
| a month | Age of a competitor's ad after which I look hardest | my advice in this appendix | 19 Oct 2026 |
An ad teardown and a self-steering page test
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| seventeen ads | Ads in my ad-decode run | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Aug 2026 |
| four people | People who re-sorted the ads blind | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Aug 2026 |
| three parts | Parts of my ad formula; ads with all three sold every time I could check | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | Aug 2026 |
| twelve landing-page versions | Versions tried in my automated test | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | May 2026 |
| one week in May | Time I spent building and running that test | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | May 2026 |
Wider placements and a holding rule
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| A$99 to A$292 | Cost per thousand showings, feed-and-stories-only ad sets | Sixty Steps ad account | 15 Oct 2026 |
| A$13 | Cost per thousand showings, the one all-placements ad set | Sixty Steps ad account | 15 Oct 2026 |
| under one percent against about six | Reels conversion against feed | Sixty Steps ad account | 15 Oct 2026 |
| four days | Protection from cuts for a new ad arriving in the main ad set | my written ad rules | 28 Jul 2026 |
A first-sale grader and a weekly target
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.86 on A$74.50 | Return of the ad my grader flagged for the cut | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 14 Aug 2026 |
| 0.39 on A$328.73 | Return of the ad my grader preferred, a loss of about A$200 | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 14 Aug 2026 |
| $8.80 | Average first-day order across five buyers | my written ad rules | 22 Jul 2026 |
| every Monday | Day my target cost per buyer resets, from the last week of settled revenue | my written ad rules | 22 Jul 2026 |
An account puller and a self-paying funnel
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| sixty cents on the dollar | Return of the scaling ad set with the cheapest buyers, by Meta's count | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| three small add-ons | Small add-ons offered at checkout | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| one larger upgrade | Upgrade offered after the add-ons | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| one landing in ten | Landings that ended in a sale (10 percent) | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| more than half | Landings that went to checkout | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| about half | Share of ad cost the whole book funnel returned, inside Meta's window | Labs ad account and payment records | 16 Oct 2026 |
My own event counter
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| four steps | Steps my counter logged: a landing, a checkout started, a purchase and an add-on purchase | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| a quarter of the way down | How far most visitors scrolled | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
An automatic kill program
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 percent, 48 hours | Autopilot rules: budget raise on green, minimum gap between raises | my written ad rules | Not dated |
| early August | Night my autopilot emptied a scaling ad set | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 3 Aug 2026 |
One price file
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| A$16.57 | Average order value, Australian dollars | the earlier edition of this book; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Aug 2026 |
| near A$31 | Order value after three repricings, Australian dollars (end state) | the earlier edition of this book; my own confirmation of 19 Oct | Aug 2026 |
| three repricings | Price changes I made | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
| a full week | Wait before touching a second price | the earlier edition of this book | Aug 2026 |
The human counter
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 219 | Server landings on the book page, one Perth day | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| twenty-eight | Engaged sessions of five or more active seconds | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| five active seconds | Time on the page that counts a session as engaged | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
Tracking setup in detail
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| two routes | Browser pixel and server events, the two ways a purchase is reported to Meta | my own records | 18 Oct 2026 |
| one shared number | One event ID on both copies of a purchase, so Meta counts one sale, not two | my own records | 18 Oct 2026 |
| one day | How soon after launch to check that Meta counts one sale, not two | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| three senders | Browser pixel plus two server senders telling Meta about each sale in the 28 and 22 week | my own records | Aug 2026 |
| four habits | What makes a campaign tag survive to the payment: capture on arrival, keep two copies, never overwrite with an empty visit, store the click number and write the campaign onto the payment | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| a five-dollar fake purchase | One fake sale on my live account that counted as real because its test code was not a live one | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 76 | Server landings on tool pages on a day with no ad spend on them | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 9 Oct 2026 |
| A$0 | Ad spend on those tool pages that day | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 9 Oct 2026 |
| 170 | Browser landings on the Perth day, split exactly eighty-five phones and eighty-five desktops | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 10 Oct 2026 |
| thirty-one | Buy-button clicks since launch | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 12 Oct 2026 |
| 28 of 31 | Those clicks from desktop sessions with zero active seconds | Sixty Steps ad account and site records | 12 Oct 2026 |
The grader and the portal
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| a fifth | Raise step for a Green ad set (twenty percent) | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| two days | Minimum gap between raises (forty-eight hours) | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| two times target | Spend multiple at which the grader shows Red | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| seven days | Age before an ad set can be graded Red | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| two guards | Spend multiple and age floor, both needed before an ad set shows Red | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| one times target | Spend at which an ad set can first show Green | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| three tabs | Tabs in the one-sheet grader: Ad sets, Payments and Rules | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| five cells | Cells to fill on the Rules tab | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| fifteen minutes | Time for a pasted export to turn into grades | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| three times target | My own kill line from Part Two, and the starting value in the one-sheet steps (never below two) | the earlier edition of this book | Oct 2026 |
| three days | Age floor for my own kill line | the earlier edition of this book | Oct 2026 |
| twenty-six ad sets | Labs ad sets I tested the grader on | Sixty Steps ad grader test records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 26 of 26 | Grades that matched | Sixty Steps ad grader test records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| four Green | Early-stage grades of Green on that export | Sixty Steps ad grader test records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| nine Red | Early-stage grades of Red on that export | Sixty Steps ad grader test records | 16 Oct 2026 |
| a fifth over target | Where the Amber band starts, early stage | my notes on the Sixty Steps ad grader | 16 Oct 2026 |
| Friday 16 October | Day I built the grader | Sixty Steps build log | 16 Oct 2026 |
| just after eight to about three | Hours to build the sheet, page, checkout and first upsell | Sixty Steps build log | 16 Oct 2026 |
| 21:40 | Time of the last commit that day | Sixty Steps build log | 16 Oct 2026 |
| two days later | When the page was rebuilt | my own records | 18 Oct 2026 |
| 13 October | Day the portal prototype went live | my own records | 13 Oct 2026 |
| zero | Difference between the portal's buyer count and Stripe's | my own records | 13 Oct 2026 |
A build that does not need me
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| sixteen hours | A hyperfocus day of building | the earlier edition of this book | Not dated |
| one decorative character | What crashed both scheduled runs | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 30 Jul and 6 Aug 2026 |
| two scheduled runs | Runs that crashed before the first step | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 30 Jul and 6 Aug 2026 |
| eight days | How long the failure stayed silent | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 29 Jul to 6 Aug 2026 |
| two missed Thursday sends | Weekly sends the broken automation missed | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 30 Jul and 6 Aug 2026 |
| four weeks | Time my daily ad report did not run | my notes for The Anti-Hype Method | 14 Jul to Aug 2026 |
| one line per item | Log line a script writes for each item of a long job; one failing step is the most a model fixes | my own working rules | 22 Sep 2026 |
| three pages | Pages of my written-down method: weekly ledger, kill rules and one check (an example, not a measure) | my own method | Not dated |
| one line per ad set | Line each ad set gets on the weekly ledger page (an example, not a measure) | my own method | Not dated |
| four parts | Parts of each ledger step: what to open, what to copy, what you should see and what to do otherwise | my own method | Not dated |
| one week | Week a stranger fills in from the three pages as the test (a future test, not a result) | my own method | Not dated |
Back cover
| Number | What it is | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| A$5,911 | Spent on the Labs book ads and never paid back | Labs ad account and payment records | 12 Oct 2026 |