Choosing the funnel path: ad, advertorial, VSL, product page, checkout

Source: Stefan Georgi (Stefan Georgi), the “state of direct response” module of his RMBC2 course, 2025.

TL;DR

• Context is king. The page after the click should feel like the platform the visitor came from. Stefan calls this congruence¹².
• YouTube viewers are there for education or entertainment. Educational or entertaining video ads beat hard sells, and they should land on a page that leads with a video³⁴.
• Native ads look like news links and should land on an advertorial, not a product page⁵².
• After the advertorial: if it’s long and the product is cheap, go to a product page. If it’s short (under ~200 words), go to a VSL. Both work, so test⁶⁷.
• “Ad → VSL → checkout” is no longer the default. Brands that struggle are often still forcing it. The most common path among people he knows doing eight figures in e-com is ad → advertorial → PDP → checkout⁸⁹.
• The checkout page still needs copy work. It’s where people type card details and commit¹⁰.

Details

Two customer journeys. Journey 1 takes a prospect to a first purchase. Journey 2 takes a customer to repeat purchases: upsells right after checkout, email, SMS and content. Copy doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so a copywriter writing “just emails” without knowing the journey underperforms¹¹.

Right person, not most clicks. For a “coffee without the crash” ad, the ideal clicker loves coffee but feels they drink too much. Non-coffee drinkers clicking is waste. An ad’s quality is whether it gets the right people to take the action consistently¹²¹³.

Congruence examples. A YouTube video ad that sends people to a plain text page “breaks the spell”, so send it to a page with a prominent video (a VSL or an e-com page with video). A native-ad click that lands on a hard sales page jars the reader. An advertorial that reads like the news story they were on keeps them reading, even when the formats “look ridiculous”⁴²¹⁴.

The paths Stefan lists⁹:

1. Ad → VSL → checkout (the classic, still works)
2. Ad → advertorial → VSL → checkout
3. Ad → advertorial → VSL → product page → checkout
4. Ad → product page → checkout
5. Ad → advertorial → product page → checkout (the most common at 8-figure e-com)

The ad itself can be a VSL-style video ad. You’ll never have perfect information about the optimal funnel, so hypothesise and test. For example, start with a long advertorial to a PDP, then test a VSL⁷.

What an on-page VSL does ¹⁵¹⁶: hook in the first five seconds, create curiosity, build rapport and credibility, then tell a hero’s journey. A reluctant hero sees suffering, searches for the real reason people suffer, and finds the real solution (the unique mechanism; see Name a problem mechanism and a solution mechanism). The product is then presented as the easiest, best manifestation of that solution, with a high perceived value and a price that’s “a great deal”. Long on-page VSLs are used less and less, but they still work.

AI changes the economics. In 2020 his RMBC method cut a sales letter from about 8 weeks to 1. In 2025 he claims 2–4 quality VSLs a day, 20–40 ads a day, an upsell in about 15 minutes and email sequences in under an hour, using Claude projects loaded with deep research. The skill becomes “copy thinker, not copywriter”: editing by giving the model ideas and judgement¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹. Modelling (swiping) what already works for similar products is the foundation²⁰.

Disagreements / caveats

• These are practitioner claims from a course intro, with no data shown. The “most common” path is an observation of his peers, mostly supplement and health DTC brands.
• Dose’s data says keep the buy box on the advertorial or listicle rather than adding a PDP click (Persona landing pages, listicles and promo assets). Path 5 adds a click. Both views agree that you should test it.
• For Meta traffic specifically, see Landing pages for Meta ads — congruency, listicles and sales pages.

See also

• Writing advertorials with Claude — Stefan Georgi's extract-then-model process — producing the advertorial step
• Writing video scripts and VSLs — the four forces (attention, retention, trust, direction) — scripting video ads and VSLs
• Checkout button copy — "Check out" beat "Submit my order" by ~30% (Stefan Georgi) — the last step of every path

Footnotes

1. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 10:06 — Stefan Georgi ↩

2. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 15:50 — Stefan Georgi ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 11:49 — Stefan Georgi ↩

4. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 12:36 — Stefan Georgi ↩ ↩²

5. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 13:23 — Stefan Georgi ↩

6. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 18:11 — Stefan Georgi ↩

7. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 19:02 — Stefan Georgi ↩ ↩²

8. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 21:23 — Stefan Georgi ↩

9. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 26:07 — Stefan Georgi ↩ ↩²

10. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 24:30 — Stefan Georgi ↩

11. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 03:06 — Stefan Georgi ↩

12. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 06:22 — Stefan Georgi ↩

13. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 08:57 — Stefan Georgi ↩

14. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 14:13 — Stefan Georgi ↩

15. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 22:12 — Stefan Georgi ↩

16. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 22:58 — Stefan Georgi ↩

17. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 27:40 — Stefan Georgi ↩

18. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 29:15 — Stefan Georgi ↩

19. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 31:37 — Stefan Georgi ↩

20. The State of Direct Response Copywriting in 2025 (And How to CRUSH It) @ 26:53 — Stefan Georgi ↩