Happy Thursday!

The other week I did a screen-share episode where I went through a stack of real landing pages and listicles that are running as paid traffic right now. Some are great. Some are obviously AI slop.

I broke down what separates the ones that work from the ones that look like they were vibe coded in an afternoon (because they were).

The Anatomy Of A Winning Listicle

Most brands still send paid traffic straight to a product page or homepage. That's a mistake. The brands winning right now are running listicles instead, and their conversion rates are proof: some are hitting 6 to 7% where a product page barely clears 1.5%.

Listen here: Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify

What I pulled from this one:

• Two-layer-deep angles cast the widest net. "10 Reasons Turmeric Curcumin Is A Game Changer" is fine. "10 Reasons Turmeric Curcumin Is A Game Changer For People Who Drink Regularly" is better. It feels specific enough to be personal while still including almost everyone.

• Skip AI for the research phase. If you let ChatGPT scour the internet for your category, you get the same slop every competitor selling a similar product gets. Do the research yourself: forums, Reddit, TikTok story times, micro-blogger sites. That's where the angles nobody else has come from.

• Stack social proof and don't apologize for it. Bestseller badges, star ratings, customer counts, doctor endorsements. The best pages I looked at loaded up on all of it at once and it worked.

• Sellout risk closes the deal. Whether it's "order ships today" urgency or Comfort's version, where waiting longer gets you a bigger discount, scarcity messaging is still one of the most reliable ways to get someone over the finish line.

That's all for today

If your paid traffic is still landing on a product page, that's the first thing to fix before you touch anything else.

It's Thursday, and it's all downhill from here. Get some rest, drink some water, and I'll see you Sunday.

Nik