Hey friend,
If you follow me on LinkedIn, you know I’m not a fan of the marketing funnel.
It has convinced an entire generation of marketers that content for cold audiences should never mention their brand, include a CTA, or (god forbid! 🤯 ) actually sell their product.
I see the same B2B brands in my LinkedIn feed every day.
I have no idea what they do or why I should care. These brands spend thousands running vague ads that don't solve a clear problem or connect them to a category.
TL;DR: TOFU content, especially ads, is a total waste of budget. It doesn’t build awareness or “fans”… it just puts money into LinkedIn’s pocket.
But, there is a way to make cold ads work and pull buyers into your pipeline.
Here's my playbook 👇
Too Many Brands Fall Into The TOFU Trap
Just to be clear, I’m not wearing a tin foil hat about marketers being obsessed with TOFU content.
Databox data shows 67% of B2B content teams create TOFU content the most often. Only 4.7% focus on content for buyers ready to buy.
That doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that most of that TOFU content and “awareness” ads are completely stripped of anything that makes it memorable.
Even the “fun” stuff doesn’t explain how the product solves a specific problem or delivers a clear outcome. Most of the time, there isn’t even a CTA.
Here's what happens when you strip the “salesy” part out of cold ads:
The 5% of in-market buyers scroll past because they don't realise you can help them
The 95% of out-market buyers forget you because your content has no hook
You pay for impressions instead of brand recall
All these "awareness" ads just hand money to LinkedIn.
Cool. What does your product actually do though? How will it help me? 🤔
Less TOFU. More 95:5.
Most marketers have heard of the 95:5 rule by now. It’s a theory from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute that about 5% of B2B buyers are in-market in any given quarter, and the other 95% won't buy for months or years.
What I’ve come to understand is most marketers hear "95% aren't buying" and think this audience group shouldn’t be sold to.
That's the exact opposite of the correct takeaway.
I always refer back to Wynter's B2B buyer research here:
92% of B2B buyers purchase from their day-one shortlist
78% only shortlist brands they've already heard of
58% build their shortlist from peer recommendations
If your cold ads are vague, you won't be the brand that gets recommended or remembered. And if you're not on the day-one shortlist, you will lose out to competitors 92% of the time.
Why Marketers Are Still Afraid To Sell
Any marketing program that’s built on the "they aren't ready to buy yet, we need to warm them up in a nurture sequence!" strategy needs a reality check.
You can't warm anyone up to buy anything if they are not in-market for it.
But even cold audiences have people who are looking around, researching, and bookmarking brands in their memory.
The problem for cold ad campaigns is, an algorithm can't predict when someone moves from out-market to in-market. This is why I always preach that every promoted piece of content needs three things:
Clear value proposition that shows you solve a real problem
Business connection that ties your product to their pain
A way to act and a clear CTA for the 5% who are ready
This post I turned into a Thought Leader Ad ended up being one of our biggest drivers of closed/won deals last year, and we ran it purely to a cold audience:
It influenced $480k in ARR because it understood the audience's problem, told them how we solve it, and had a simple CTA telling them how to act.
My point is most brands nail the engagement part in their ads, but ignore the value prop and tie back to the business. It makes it impossible for the audience to build association with the brand.
How To Run Cold Ads That Hit
Instead of making prospects go through a 12-step nurture and retargeting sequence only to lose them to a competitor who wasn't afraid to sell... it’s better to just sell in your ads from day one.
Here's the framework I use for every cold-audience ad we run:
1. Agitate the problems you solve
Call out the specific pain your ICP faces by using voice-of-customer language from real sales calls. If someone sees your campaign and doesn't think "that's me," the ad has already failed.
I call these Category Entry Points (CEPs): the problems that move your audience from out-market to in-market.
Some of the CEPs we use to target cold audiences
Map out 7-10 CEPs from your closed/won calls.
2. Sell the desired outcomes
What does their world look like after they solve this problem? What are their most important goals to hit?
For us, clients come because they want more pipeline, lower CAC, and more efficient ad budgets.
Another real example of a successful cold ad. We pulled a figure from quarterly results and used it as messaging.
Your ad must be specific about the result.
3. Share a unique POV on the problem
This is what separates your brand from every other company making the same claim in their ads.
What do you believe about this problem that others don't? What narrative are you standing behind that others aren’t?
If you follow me on LinkedIn, you know I hate the marketing funnel. My unique POV is it’s outdated and it doesn’t work in modern marketing engines. This resonates with a lot of marketers who have tried (and failed) to make funnels work in their org.
That is how I get their attention.
4. Position your product/service as the solution
Yes, in a cold ad. This is the part most marketers skip because someone told them it's "too salesy" and you need to “nurture” your audience. Bogus.
Your ads must always tell your audience what you do. At the top and the bottom of the content, leave no confusion about what you're advertising.
This is a video ad we run to cold audiences. The testimonial, clear positioning, and value prop leaves no doubt about what our agency does.
5. Add a CTA so in-market buyers can act
The 5% who are in-market today need a way to take the next step. The 95% who aren't buying yet might not click your CTA, but they're absorbing your problem, outcome, and POV. That's what builds mental availability for when they move in-market.
This works for in-market and out-market audiences at the same time as:
In-market audiences get to the end, read the CTA, and don't feel bait-and-switched
Out-market audiences remember you because the content is caked in your brand and builds the right mental associations
I'm not just blowing smoke here either. We’ve tested this across multiple formats and the results consistently delivered pipeline and revenue.
In November, we targeted a completely cold audience of B2B SaaS marketing leaders with content that agitated a specific problem, positioned our services, and included a CTA.
Here’s an example of one of the ads we ran in the experiment:
We knew from sales call analysis there was growing demand from high-ACV clients for new Google campaigns like PMax. So, we created content showing how we were running PMax campaigns to drive value for current customers.
After putting $5k ad spend behind the posts, we had a 50% lift in B2B SaaS SQLs for the quarter, and 2 closed/won deals in the first 3 weeks.
This is a classic example of how to increase luck surface area by stretching messaging across in-market and out-market audiences.
You get in front of more of the 5% while building recall with the 95% who'll buy later.
It’s Okay To Sell In Cold Ads
You don't need a 12-step nurture sequence or a carefully mapped out TOFU-MOFU-BOFU funnel to sell to your audience.
All you need is content that’s clear about the problem you solve.
So, here's your checklist for this week:
Pull up your top three ads aimed at cold (or “awareness”) audiences. Can someone who's never heard of you explain what you sell after seeing them?
Check each ad for messaging. Are you agitating a real problem? Showing an outcome? Positioning your product?
If your cold ads have no CTA, add one. The 5% who are in-market need a way to act, and the 95% won't click it as they're building their shortlist.
Stop separating brand content from demand content. The best cold ads do both at once.
That's how you run an efficient paid ads program in 2026.
Hope you've found this useful and I'll catch ya in the next one!
🤘
Patrick
P.S. If you're spending more than $5K/month on LinkedIn and want to know if your cold campaigns can be improved, I’m always up for a chat. Hit this link to get your free marketing plan and I'll show you exactly how to structure your 2026 campaigns.