Media Buyer Hit Record ROAS on a High-Ticket VSL Using a Behavioral Coaches Segment
A media buyer running a high-ticket video sales letter offer found their best-performing audience by combining a behavioral coaches segment with a 1% lookalike — producing the highest ROAS the account had ever seen.
The Situation
A media buyer managing ads for a high-ticket coaching program had been testing audiences for months without finding one that could scale. Broad audiences were too expensive. Interest-based audiences were exhausted. The offer converted well when it got in front of the right person — the problem was finding that person at scale without destroying ROAS.
How It Was Done — Step by Step
Pulled a Behavioral Coaches Segment
Rather than using a platform interest category, the media buyer requested a behavioral segment of individuals who had actively researched business coaching programs, coaching certifications, and coaching business topics within the past 30 days. Real behavior, not an inferred interest.
Tested the Raw Intent Audience as Cold Traffic First
The intent audience was uploaded as a custom audience and run as a cold traffic test against the VSL landing page. Even without optimization, it outperformed the best existing interest-based audience by 40% on cost per lead.
Generated a 1% Lookalike From the Intent Audience Seed
Using the intent audience as a lookalike seed rather than a typical customer list, they generated a 1% lookalike — people who matched the behavioral profile of individuals already in research mode for coaching. This became the scale audience.
Merged Intent Audience and Lookalike Into a Single Ad Set
The raw intent audience and the 1% lookalike were combined into one ad set using campaign budget optimization, letting the algorithm balance spend while maintaining audience quality. Precision and scale together.
Ran New Creative Specifically for the Coaching-Intent Mindset
Rather than running existing creatives, they developed a new video hook opening with a pain point directly relevant to coaches trying to scale. Audience-creative alignment produced a conversion rate 2.4x higher than any previous test.
The Result
The highest ROAS in the account’s history — achieved by starting with a behavioral signal instead of a platform interest. The audience knew what they were looking for. The creative spoke directly to that. The combination produced results the account had been chasing for months.
“I’ve been running paid media for six years. I’ve never seen anything work like a behavioral seed for a lookalike. It was a completely different level of precision.”
Senior Media Buyer — Performance Marketing Agency
Want Results Like This?
See how Smart Marketer’s data tools could apply to your business.
