Story-Based Advertorials: The Secret Weapon for Converting Cold Traffic
Selling to cold traffic is one of the toughest challenges in marketing.
With cold traffic, the prospect don’t know how great your product is or how many testimonials you have. Which means you're essentially starting from zero.
To make the sale, you've got a lot of educating to do... but not a lot of space to do it.
You have to:
1. Grab attention
2. Connect emotionally
3. Build trust
4. Communicate features and benefits
5. Persuade them to buy now
You have to do all that in the space of roughly 800 words... that's a tall order for any copywriter. The good news is, we have advertorials to help.
What's an Advertorial?
Advertorials are advertisements designed to look like blog posts or articles.
Here's an example:
Ever read an article online and see a row of pictures underneath, like this?
This is a "content recommendation widget." Usually, 2-3 of the images link to advertorials.
For someone coming from CNN or Fox News, an advertorial doesn't look like an ad. It's camoflauged, so the reader doesn't think "this is an ad" and click away.
Another example:
What are Story-Based Advertorials?
I divide advertorials into two types: news-style and story-based.
News-style advertorials start with a big announcement, like a scientific breakthrough or industry shakeup. They're written in the 3rd person and sound like a news story.
They have headlines like this:
The End of Supplements?
How "DNA-Based Nutrition" is Disrupting a $45 Billion Industry
Story-based advertorials, on the other hand, have headlines more like this:
I Erased My Joint Pain After Months of Suffering...
All Thanks to This "Nano Secret"
Typically, story-based advertorials start with a 'hero's journey' story to draw the reader in. It usually goes like this:
- The author has a problem
- They try a bunch of solutions, but nothing works
- The problem keeps getting worse, and they hit rock bottom
- Then someone they trust tells them about a different solution
- They're skeptical, but decide to give it a try and... it works!
- Life is good again. The end.
Your reader should be nodding their head, thinking, "Wow, they had the same problem me, but even worse! If the product helped them, maybe it can help me too."
But to make that kind of connection, you have to hit certain key moments in the right order. Here are the 4 sections that make a great story-based advertorial.
Section 1: Backstory
You want to start with a quick backstory—10 to 15 sentences showing the author struggling with a problem.
Say you're selling a dog training device. The backstory could show how the author's dog has been chewing up her furniture, and she can't get it to stop:
To hook your reader, you need to elicit strong emotions. So make your backstory dramatic and highly descriptive.
Your backstory also needs to be quick—you want to get in and out of your in just a few sentences. If it's too long, your reader will get bored and click away.
Section 2: Downward Spiral
In the next section, it's time to raise the emotional stakes. You do that by showing the problem getting worse—a lot worse.
Where the backstory gives you a time-compressed overview of the problem, the Downward Spiral shows it playing out in a single scenario. It's the 'breaking point' moment where things get totally out of hand.
For the misbehaving dog story, you could show them chewing up the author's brand new iPhone 16 Pro—the one she scrimped and saved for months to buy:
Basically the author's world is crumbling around them. They're battered, bruised, and desperate for help.
Section 3: Ray of Hope
Fast forward a few days or weeks later. The author is still hurting. But then, their fotune suddenly changes.
This usually plays in one of two ways; the scenario you choose will depend on the product you're selling.
Outside Help Scenario
The author gets unexpected advice from someone they trust (like a doctor, a friend, or a mentor) who shows them a solution (your product).
Example:
Inner Resolve Scenario
In this scenario, the author makes a last-ditch attempt to improve things. They go on a research binge, reading articles, forums, even research studies.
After many long hours, they find the root cause of the problem and/or solution. Here's an example:
Section 4: Product Demo
Skeptical but hopeful, the author decides to take the plunge and place an order. When it arrives, the all-important product demo begins.
In this section, you show the product taking effect, solving the author's problem and dramatically improving their life.
Similar to the Ray of Hope section, this usually goes one of two ways:
Slow-Acting Product
If your product takes a while to work (like a supplement or skincare formula) you show the author getting results over time. Create 4-5 'snapshots' where the author reports her results after an hour, 1 day, 1 week, a month, etc.
Example from a CBD advertorial:
I took out the glass dropper, and put some of the drops under my tongue... it had a nice orange taste, and wasn't bitter at all.
In about 20 minutes, I could feel it start to kick in...
What I noticed first was how good I felt. Pills and poor sleep had me on edge for months.
But now I felt a warm, relaxed energy wash over me. I wasn't jittery or anxious, and didn't feel "stoned" at all.
Around 5 minutes later, I began to notice my back. Usually there's a constant, throbbing pain right around my slipped disc... but now it was fading.
Fast-Acting Product
If your product works fast, you show it in action—not with a series of snapshots, but a single "comeback" story. The author tries out the product, and it works amazingly well—even better than she'd hoped.
Example from the dog training advertorial:
What Jenny did next surprised me.
After listening calmly, she got up from her chair and walked into her bedroom. When she came back, she had an old sneaker in her hand.
“Let’s do a little test, shall we?” she said, and set the sneaker in front of Elmo.
“No!”she said in a loud, firm tone.
Unsure what to do, Elmo licked his chops and stared at the shoe. After a few long seconds, he couldn’t hold back and lunged at the sneaker.
Then Jenny did something amazing: she pulled a small device from her pocket, pointed it at Elmo, and pressed a button...
Immediately, he dropped the sneaker and backed away. No growling, no aggression.
My jaw dropped open. “How on earth did you do that?” I asked.
“For headstrong puppies, this is my secret weapon,” she said, holding up the device.
Section 5: The Pitch
Now it's time to go into sales mode. You've made an emotional connection with the downward spiral and inspired belief with your product demo.
To close the sale, you bring in all the persuasion elements you'd see in a traditional sales page: features, benefits, social proof, guarantees, scarcity, and urgency. You lay them out just like you would on a traditional sales page.
Final Thoughts
If you're a marketer selling to colder traffic, you should be testing story-based advertorials.
When done right, they can take a cold lead and warm them up in the span of a single page. The journey feels real and relatable, building trust in a way regular landing pages and sales pages can't.