The $10 Million Ecommerce VSL Playbook with Fernando Oliver

Andy Splichal:

Welcome to another episode of the Make Each Click Count podcast, where we dive deep into strategies for e-commerce success. Today, I am thrilled to welcome Fernando Oliver, an e-commerce powerhouse who's generated over $10 million in revenue and sold two brands from a wealth of expertise. From spending millions of his own money on ads, Fernando has mastered video sales, letters, VSLs, advertorials, e commerce funnels, and direct response marketing. Plus, now he's the newest contributor to make each click count University, offering his exclusive masterclass, the $10 million e commerce VSL playbook. Get ready to learn how to elevate your e commerce game with expert insights from a true industry leader. Welcome to the show, Fernando.

Fernando Oliver:

Hello, Andy. I'm glad to be here.

Andy Splichal:

We're happy to have you.

Fernando Oliver:

Thank you.

Andy Splichal:

You've mastered success in e commerce, generating over 10 million revenue. It's huge. And you've sold two brands. What initially sparked your interest in video sales, letters, vsls and advertorial funnels for e commerce?

Fernando Oliver:

Well, it's a good question. I see a general trend. I see the industry moving towards more complex marketing. I think that for those of you in the e commerce industry, specifically with social media marketing and Facebook ads, the marketing side of the business has generally been very simple until recently. I think now as the algorithm gets stronger, more competition comes in. I think that the sophistication of advertising is going up. Whereas a few years ago you could have a 32nd drop shipping ad, a very basic ad, or a UGC ad and be profitable at scale, I think that's no longer as easy. It's certainly still possible, but I think it's changing quickly.

Fernando Oliver:

So I'm seeing more and more of these vsls. That's just a little setup and, you know, frame of what I'm going to talk about. But when I first discovered vsls, it was Gundry MD. If you're familiar with the brand, they do these very long 40, 60 minutes ads that run on Facebook and they do hundreds of millions a year in revenue. It was created, the brand was created by Craig Clemens, who's a top copywriter. And pretty much the first time I saw one of those ads, I was intrigued. I wanted to figure out how is this 60 minutes advertisement being consumed on Facebook? Why are people watching it and how is it so profitable? It was the biggest ad on every spy tool. So I just dove in and I started to learn about vsls, read the scripts, watch some of the top ones in the world, and not even to use them for e commerce just because I was curious and I was really interested in the copywriting aspect of it.

Fernando Oliver:

At this point, I was still advertising with these shorter ads, but that's really what got me started is this just discovering them. And I was pretty fascinated by them, to be honest.

Andy Splichal:

So those that might be unfamiliar, can you explain what video sales letters vsls are and how they're different than a traditional ecommerce sales funnel?

Fernando Oliver:

Of course. So VSL, a video sales letter, is really just that. It's the comprehensive sales process of a sales letter put into video form. And the purpose of it, in its most raw form, is to take completely cold traffic, who's never heard of your brand or your product or your pitch, and to turn them into buyers. And we do that in a step by step system, just like a sales letter, where we have different elements in the VSL, where we introduce the problem, we explain it, we explain the solution, how the product provides this, and we do the pitch. So it's a step by step process that can be anywhere from five minutes to 60 minutes, and it's meant to have the entire sales pitch in one video. Whereas some ads will just be a curiosity ad to get you to click to the next page where they'll sell you. The VSL is supposed to capture that attention, build curiosity, and sell you all in one video.

Andy Splichal:

So now you've spent millions of dollars of your own money on ads during that time. What key lessons did you learn about optimizing ad spend when using vsls for ecommerce businesses?

Fernando Oliver:

I learned that the creative, the video itself, is by far more important than the media buying. This is especially true now as the algorithms become so powerful, broad targeting is really almost always the way to go. Of course, retargeting is a little bit different, but for cold traffic, I've just been pushing broad targeting for the last year and a half and focusing all of my effort and time on the creative. Now, granted, we have rules for media buying, KPI's of when we turn ads off, et cetera. But in general, I've been pushing more and more of my effort, my team, my time, into making the creative as good as possible. Launching everything with multiple variations to ensure that we're not being bottlenecked by a weak hook or a weak lead. So every ad we launch has multiple variations, 510, sometimes 20 if it's a longer ad. And we give those to Facebook, mostly in cbos, and really let the algorithm decide what the audience likes best, what's clicking the most with our target audience.

Fernando Oliver:

And then when it starts to work, we just up the spend. So very simple media buying and very strict with when we turn ads off because we know that the real work goes in before we even launch the ad. So the more time I put into my ads, I found that it almost directly correlates with more successful campaigns and higher win rate.

Andy Splichal:

What do you start your budgets with, with those Facebook ads?

Fernando Oliver:

It depends on the, you know, the average ticket of the offer. But typically I don't, I don't go any lower than 100. So I always start at least $100 a day. And if the aov is a little bit higher than that, then I like to do 200. So if our aov is like 120 or 150, I'll do 200. And that's typically enough for one VSL with maybe five variations.

Andy Splichal:

Now, do you find that the price point needs to be at a certain level for video sales, letters via sales to work?

Fernando Oliver:

So typically these medium ticket products work best for vsls. So anywhere from forty dollars to two hundred dollars. I think below that it's hard to justify the cost of traffic because your cpms will be at a certain point if you're advertising anything for optimizing for purchases. And it's hard to make the numbers work with like $20 products or $15 products. So I found the sweet spot to be as close to a $100 as possible in terms of aOv. And then that could be an $80 front end product. So either a massager or a brace or some kind of skincare product, regardless of what it is, I mean, over $50 is ideal.

Andy Splichal:

Now, you had mentioned a couple of different product types, massagers, skincare. I mean, are there certain verticals, certain products that work better with bsls?

Fernando Oliver:

Yeah, absolutely. So the power of the VSL is its power to retain attention and then give information. That means that products that need to be explained, that have a function, that have a mechanism or a purpose, tend to do well with vsls. That's why supplements are the biggest product being advertised with vsls over the last ten years, because the more you can explain how the supplement works, the more buy in you have, the more belief you have, and the more desire you have. So when it comes to e commerce, where most of my experience is, if you have some form of, let's say, a skincare gadget with red light therapy and some kind of serum, you need to explain how that product works for it to be believable and for the prospect to buy in. Just showing the product itself, it doesn't give enough information to justify the price you're selling at, but through the VSL. When you're selling either a health product, like I mentioned, massagers, braces, red light therapy, heating and cooling devices, something that has a function or a mechanism, and you can explain that you really raise the perceived value of the product and then you can justify a higher price and that's what get to your margin.

Andy Splichal:

Now, many ecommerce store owners, I mean, conversion rate is usually such a problem trying to explain. They hit a landing page trying to explain it there. How do you find the vsls? What kind of conversion rates can you get with those?

Fernando Oliver:

I think it's certainly higher than with just standard short ads to a product page. And this also the advertorial kind of ties in here because that's a very powerful tool for raising conversion rates. But I think typically you can get 50% to 100% higher conversion rates if you have a VSL as your advertisement, because you're essentially warming up that traffic so that by the time they get into your funnel, they're already warm traffic almost. They're not even cold traffic anymore because they've been sold the entire, the whole premise of the product, your brand, the offer. Whereas if you're using a shorter ad, you're mostly getting curiosity clicks. So it's still relatively cold traffic when they get onto your landing page. And then you're requiring your landing page to do the selling for you, which is, in my opinion, not the best place to sell. The landing page is great for handling objections, building up the perceived value, pushing for higher aov orders.

Fernando Oliver:

But when you do your selling in a VSL, I think conversion rates can be 3%, 4%. They can be very strong and I've seen that many times in my own brands.

Andy Splichal:

Now, when, where are you sending the traffic? I mean, are you sending to your own website to Shopify, woocommerce, wherever your website is? Or have you tried sending it to Amazon or does it matter?

Fernando Oliver:

I've never tried sending to Amazon from a VSL. Mostly I do VSL to advertorial to product page. So it's kind of a multi step funnel. And of course I'm hosting and owning the advertorial and the product page. They are my websites. And then that's one option you have and then the other option is to go from a VSL straight to the product page. This is often done with those lower ticket products that we were talking about that don't require as complex of a sales process. And then you'll see often in bigger brands for supplements, skincare, creams, et cetera.

Fernando Oliver:

They'll often do a quiz funnel. So they'll go from a long VSL to a quick three question or four question quiz, and then to the bundle selection page or product page.

Andy Splichal:

So let's talk about avatorials. That's another tactic that you champion. How do you integrate, what is an advertorial and how are you integrating it?

Fernando Oliver:

So an advertorial is essentially a sales page made to look like an editorial. So it's made to look like it's from a third party perspective, a neutral perspective, hence the name advertorial. It's a combination of an advertisement and an editorial. So typically in an advertorial, you will present your product, your pitch, the story behind it, some kind of testimonial from a third party perspective. You won't be speaking as you, the brand, as you would on a product page where you'll say our product or our invention or etcetera. You're not buying directly from the brand on the advertorial. You're reading somebody's perspective, and the advertorial is there to pre sell them, essentially. So to take the traffic from your advertisement, really heat them up with more information, more desire, etcetera.

Fernando Oliver:

And then by the time they land on your product page, where now they're officially buying from the brand itself, from you, where the transaction takes place, they're much more prepared to spend more money to convert at a higher rate, etcetera. So that's kind of the purpose of an advertorial and what it is. And I like to use them especially for, as I mentioned earlier, these problem solving, functional products, products that do something. So they get you from point a to b with a certain mechanism. So they get you from back pain to pain free with a certain function. Those products tend to work best with vsls and advertorials because you can just go deeper into that mechanism of how it works.

Andy Splichal:

So, I mean, this is a lot of stuff you're putting out as far as copywriting needed, video scripts, editing, the. How do people do that? I mean, how do they.

Fernando Oliver:

So essentially, when you. Yeah, that's a great question. When you start to use this more comprehensive marketing, your business has to grow an entire, pretty much a media team and an advertising team with editors, copywriters, project managers, creative directors, media buyers. You have to really build the systems and the foundation for this, because to do it properly, it takes time to create a VSL, it takes time to test it. It takes time to put the videos together, and you need expertise. So whether you're doing, you know, you're using contractors on a per project basis, which is how I recommend people start, or you're doing it in house. If you have some success with these vsls and more complex funnels and you bring these people in house, regardless of how you do it, you need to have systems for it, or else it's just too complex. So you can't one.

Fernando Oliver:

I don't recommend doing it all yourself. If you're writing the script and then editing it and then revising it and then launching the ads, it's a very long process just for one ad. So you need to systematize it. You need to have a team there to help you out. And then the priority becomes copywriting, because that's really what makes this all work. The video, the media, buying all of it is kind of a package for the copywriting and the script, because that's essentially what you're saying. That's your message. So I put most of my time and effort on coaching my writers, revising what they write, editing what they write, reviewing it with them, giving them live feedback, and then doing a lot of the writing myself, because I found it's a very high leverage task.

Andy Splichal:

What about AI? How can AI help in this process, or should it not even be involved?

Fernando Oliver:

AI is huge. So I've been using a lot of AI. I think it's very effective for certain parts of the process. It can't do it all for you, at least not yet, but it can do a couple of things really well. First is research. It can get very good market research. It can gather tons of studies. It can gather tons of relevant information.

Fernando Oliver:

You can upload forums, reviews, feedback from customers, and it can synthesize all of that and kind of comb through it and take out the patterns right, the words and phrases that are used. So you can get a very comprehensive research document and a great foundation. And then it's very good at first drafts and ideation, so it can come up with creative ideas based on all this information, of what angles you can take. And it's very good at putting that first draft together just to kind of get some meat on the bone, and then you can go through and edit it and cut it out. So far, I found that the quality of the copywriting from AI is not good enough to be consistently profitable. But if you're using it just for a first draft, just to get something out there so you're not working with a blank page, I found it's very effective.

Andy Splichal:

How much do you test the copywriting opposed to other pieces of the ad, whether it's the video itself or graphics or the avatar. I mean, where how much testing goes into it all.

Fernando Oliver:

Again, the copy is the number one priority, and then the video and the animations and the sound, that all of this stuff is there to enhance the copy and to be congruent with it. So that's first and foremost. What I constantly tell my video editors is that the video we put together has to be congruent with what we're saying in the script. And then to answer your question, so when it comes to testing, any new creative, any new VSL that's launched is always tested with multiple variations, as I mentioned earlier, at least five. So that could just be different hooks to ensure that we're not testing just one hook and it's a bad one, and we lose all that potential that the VSL has. So we test multiple hooks with every VSL launch, and then once we have a profitable VSL, we want to keep it alive and ideally scale it. So we're testing hooks and leads. Leads are the first 32nd of the video, and we prioritize copy there.

Fernando Oliver:

So most of the time, every hook, every lead is fresh copy and new copy, unless we have a very good idea for a visual. Typically in the hooks is where visuals are most important. But the deeper you go into the ad, the more the message and the copy is more important, and the video kind of takes a backseat and is there to enhance the video.

Andy Splichal:

You're now offering your masterclass, the $10 million e commerce VSL playbook here in the make each click count University. Can you give us a sneak peek into what students would learn with this masterclass and why it's a game changer for e commerce entrepreneurs?

Fernando Oliver:

Well, I think that this program that I put together is very good at helping you understand the entire philosophy that I'm talking about here of what vsls are, how they work, how to put them together. You'll also learn my process of how I go about creating them, putting the scripts together. I have three main steps that I do that I go into, and I also go over a bunch of live examples of some of the best vsls on the planet. So it's very good for one, if you've never really heard of vsls or you haven't used them yourself, I think just after this little course, you'll know you'll have a very strong foundation so you'll understand how they work and how to put your own together. And then if you are more experienced, there are parts of it that I go a lot more in depth in. So I think you can take a lot from it, regardless of your level of skill or experience in this. So it's essentially like an all in one, you know, a to z philosophy on vsls, how to put them together and everything that goes into that.

Andy Splichal:

So, I mean, there is a lot that goes into it for sure. So I'm curious, what are some of the common mistakes that can cause vocals not to work?

Fernando Oliver:

Yeah, the most common mistake I see is people overcomplicating it, getting too complex with their copy, too confusing, too dense. And I think that tends to happen when you're not confident in your, either your product or your message or just your experience in general and your abilities. People tend to overcomplicate, especially the script. So they'll write with really big words, complex sentences, a lot of abstraction, just writing about ideas and these things that don't really enhance the buying process and make it very hard for the VSL to be consumable and fun and interesting. I also see people being too black and white when it comes to testing these vsls, where if they test a VSL, maybe with five variations, and they don't get a profitable one right away, they scrap it completely and they move on. I think that's a mistake. I think oftentimes because the buying process is more complex, especially if you have an advertorial and a custom checkout page, you have multiple steps here, multiple variations at play, variables at play. The testing process is a little more nuanced.

Fernando Oliver:

So just because a VSL is not profitable, I often tell people, hey, go back, take a deeper look at the numbers. And oftentimes the VSL has great click through rates, great cost per click, and it's the advertorial or it's the product page that has a low click through rate and a low take rate. So those are the two main mistakes, overcomplicating their scripts and then being too black and white when it comes to testing and not taking a look at other variables.

Andy Splichal:

Now, when you're talking the video itself, that's the running in the Facebook ads. Is that typically someone talking like, is it a person looking at the camera talking? Because I know a lot of ecommerce owners are scared to death of being in front of a camera. Or is it a bunch of b roll with action shots? What's the video actually look like in most cases?

Fernando Oliver:

That's a great question. So the most bare bones video you could possibly make is stock footage with an AI voiceover. That can be done essentially for free and very quickly. And that's how you can test scripts. If you're just getting started with this now, if you really want to take it to the next level, you'd have an actor or some kind of spokesperson, a UGC creator, whoever it may be, someone from backstage who reads out the script, who has a good voice and a good way of speaking and is very compelling, and it has practice on camera. And then in terms of footage, you would want as much custom content as possible. So that means you're paying actors and creators and studios to film content about your product. You're filming the b roll, the shots of people in pain, the shots of people feeling better.

Fernando Oliver:

Whatever it may be, the more custom content you have, the more unique and engaging your VSL is. But you can also find a middle ground. And then the highest level would be to go to a professional studio and pay ten or $20,000 to get all of this shot by professionals with real camera, lighting, et cetera. And to get a real authority figure, an expert, to be the spokesperson. So if you're selling a health product, that would be on the lower end, maybe a physical therapist, and on the higher end, the doctor. Same with skincare. You could have a dermatologist. So that's what the biggest brands do.

Fernando Oliver:

They have a real expert authority figure. They have very high quality content shot by a studio or professional production crew. And then they have very good copy. But of course, it's a spectrum, as I said, you have the stock footage and the AI voiceover, and then you have this like Hollywood style VSL. So somewhere in the middle is, I think, the best place to be for most e commerce business owners.

Andy Splichal:

So let's talk about you a little bit more. So you sold two brands. What kind of brands were they and how did VSLs play a role in growing those brands?

Fernando Oliver:

They were both in the health and pain relief niche. So they were medical products for consumers that are sold through Facebook ads primarily. We did native, we did search mostly for retargeting, but primarily through Facebook ads. And they were on average about dollar 100 aov. We had about five products in total between those two brands, main hero products that were driving most of the revenue. And vsls are really what took those brands to the next level. So ive been doing e commerce for about four years now. Always pretty successfully having profitable brands and stores.

Fernando Oliver:

My first store was a gardening supply store, little gardening gadgets. And that one was very profitable, but that was with shorter ads and straight to a product page. So it was very limited in how much you can really scale that. If you have the right product market fit, you can get lucky and really scale it. But I tended to not really hit those multiple six figure a month revenue numbers until I started using vsls and advertorials. That's when things really took off. So in the beginning of 2023 is when I launched my first VSL. It was a five minute ad for one of these health products, and it was immediately successful.

Fernando Oliver:

40% net margins on paid traffic right away, and then it scaled steadily. And that one VSL, the first one we did, ended up generating about a million and a half dollars in revenue. So that's the power of one five minute VSL for a simple product.

Andy Splichal:

So let's talk about that first one that you did. Was it, who was the. Were you talking to the camera? Did you hire somebody? How. How much effort? Or I guess shouldn't say how much effort? What was the final VSL like?

Fernando Oliver:

So for that first one, we had an AI voiceover. We had an AI voiceover. We had a pretty solid script, as I said, five minutes. And then we had pretty good content. We had a mix of custom content and stock footage. And then, yeah, that was essentially, we bundled that all up, tested it with a few hooks and leads going to an advertorial page, and then that went live on Facebook. And then a quick caveat. So this product, we had tested it before with an advertorial page.

Fernando Oliver:

The same funnel, essentially, except with a 62nd or a 32nd. Classic e commerce ad where you're just giving them benefits and you're telling them what the product will do. And it was not very profitable. As soon as we tested that VSL, it became like a super success without really changing the funnel. We did a little bit of tweaking on the funnel, revealing the price earlier, things like that. But generally, the architecture of the funnel was the same. And all we did was bolt on a VSL, a five minute VSL that I made in less than 72 hours. From the time of writing to the time of launching it on Facebook, it was less than three days.

Fernando Oliver:

And as I said, it was pretty much immediately a success.

Andy Splichal:

That's great. So now that you've sold your two companies, what do you spend your time on?

Fernando Oliver:

So while I'm still in the game, in the e commerce game, a little bit less intensely. Now, before, I was kind of operating everything myself, I had a business partner, but it was very intense. Working long hours every day for multiple years to get that initial big success. So now I'm taking a step back and doing a lot more partnerships. So I'm bringing my skill set of marketing, advertising, vsls, and partnering up with people who are much more willing to handle the operations, the backend, the fulfillment, the softwares, the partners, et cetera, all this stuff. So I'm doing a lot of these partnerships. I have a few brands of my own, and then now I'm doing a lot more consulting and working with some of these bigger companies who want this VSL expertise and want to take their ads to the next level. And those tend to be mostly supplement companies and e commerce companies that have high quality, customized products that they've created and that they manufacture themselves.

Fernando Oliver:

And those are what I'm doing. So these partnerships, I got a few of my own brands and then now doing more of this consulting, high ticket consulting related to VSL specifically.

Andy Splichal:

So if somebody is interested in learning more about you and working with you beyond the masterclass, which is in make each click count University, how can they get ahold of you?

Fernando Oliver:

Yeah, well, that masterclass is a great place to start. That'll give you my entire philosophy how to put all this together. And it's enough, there's enough information in there for you to go out and make a VSL for yourself and understand how to do it. Now, if you want more information, I have a YouTube channel. You can just search Fernando Oliver on YouTube, where I post pretty frequently. I just started that a few months ago, but I'm having a great time with it and I do pretty in depth stuff. So it's breaking down some of the top vsls, the nitty gritty tactics of copywriting. So I go pretty in depth there.

Fernando Oliver:

And I also have a paid community, the direct response ecom blueprint. And that's where I share everything. So all of my resources, I put together a very comprehensive course there detailing this entire system, not just the vsls, but the rest of the ecommerce funnel. And those are the main ways to get in touch with me on YouTube. You can see my content in that group. You can get more information, and then if you want to reach out to me specifically, you can dm me on Instagram. Fernando Oliver. Fernando, eleven Oliver is my Instagram and I'm immediately available there.

Fernando Oliver:

I also have Twitter, if you're more comfortable with that, or x Fernando Oliver there as well.

Andy Splichal:

Well, this has been great. Fernando, is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today?

Fernando Oliver:

Anything I'd like to add? Well, not particularly. I just think that, yeah, VSLs are a lot of fun. I think it's just starting to come into this industry in a big way. I'm seeing now with my content, a lot of people reaching out and saying, we've been doing this, we've been doing that related to vsLs. Whereas a year ago it was very underground, not many people talking about it or doing it. So I see the trend is rapidly rising, and I think that that's a good thing. I think that makes advertisements better. It makes advertisements more engaging, more interesting, definitely more honest as well, and more informational.

Fernando Oliver:

So I think overall, VSLs are great for businesses, they're great for consumers, for the people who are watching them. And I think it's generally an interesting change, an interesting trend, and I just enjoy them a lot. That's really all I have to add. Thank you very much.

Andy Splichal:

Hey, thanks for coming on the show, Fernando.

Fernando Oliver:

Yeah, thanks for having me. Have a great one for listeners.

Andy Splichal:

Remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding contacting Fernando, you'll find the links in the show notes below. If you're interested in his masterclass, visit make each click count University, where you can currently access his master class and all other content on the university for just dollar 19 a month. Well, that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy. Marketing talk to you in the next episode.