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The simple step you are missing is costing you ad spend & conversions
Hot from Skills Lab: Fix the missing middle of your paid ads funnel
Happy Thursday Vibe Marketer,
Your paid ads funnel is broken if you go from ad to product/checkout page directly.
You optimize your ads for creative, copy, budget, and ICP. But, nobody optimizes what happens after the click. You are skipping the middle.
The missing middle has a fix. It is called an advertorial. A story-driven page that sits between your ad and your product page. Its only job is to take a cold lead from curious to convinced before you ask them to buy.
In this issue, I am sharing a section from Skills Lab episode 3, the Vibe Marketer's community exclusive session, where Jackson Dean walks through the advertorial builder skill he built that takes your research, personas, and angles and turns them into a page that converts the click.
Note: Skills Lab is where Jackson Dean does a monthly deep dive on building and using a Claude skill for a real marketing pain point.
What an advertorial actually is
Most paid ads go: Ad →Product Page / sales page/ Checkout.
The ones that convert cold traffic go: Ad → Advertorial → Product Page / sales page/ Checkout.
The advertorial is the step that earns the buy before the product page asks for it. One rule applies to every advertorial: the only action on the page is clicking through to the next step. No navigation. No exit links. No distractions. If you paid for the click, the page keeps them moving forward.
Session notes: Behind the system that fixes your conversions with an advertorial
Every advertorial regardless of the format does four things. Here is what that looks like:
AD CLICK
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ADVERTORIAL │
│ │
│ ① Earns attention │
│ Headline that reads like an article │
│ Hero image that stops the scroll │
│ No logo. No nav. No "buy now" above the fold │
│ │
│ ② Makes the problem real │
│ A number. A comparison. A visual. │
│ The reader feels the pain before the product │
│ appears. They are nodding, not defending. │
│ │
│ ③ Weaves in proof │
│ Testimonials inside the story, not below it │
│ Stats cited mid-narrative, not in a facts box │
│ Objections handled through characters, not FAQs │
│ │
│ ④ CTA as next step │
│ Soft language — "see if it works for you" │
│ No urgency scream. No "LIMITED TIME OFFER" │
│ One action. One destination. Nothing else. │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
PRODUCT PAGE
Above elements are fixed components of advertorials. But, the formats below decide how they are arranged and what the reader feels at each step.
The 3 formats
Problem-Solution Editorial
Reads like a news article. Sells like an ad.
Section | What it does |
|---|---|
Hook | Opens with the problem the reader already has. A number. A comparison. A visual that makes the pain impossible to ignore |
Problem | Expands the pain. The reader is nodding before the product ever appears |
Solution | Introduces the product as the answer to the question the page already asked |
Proof | A stat, a result, a comparison that backs the claim without overselling |
CTA | One action only. Drives to the prodcut page. Nothing else on the page goes anywhere |
Someone landing on this page does not immediately know they are being sold to. By the time the product appears, the reader has already agreed they have the problem. The product is not being introduced, it is resolving something the page already made real. It is not selling. It is answering.
Listicle
Familiar structure. Forward-only machine underneath.
Section | What it does |
|---|---|
Hook | A bold headline — "5 reasons why..." — that signals exactly what kind of page this is. Familiar enough to trust, specific enough to click through |
Proof points | Each section is a standalone story. A real result. A real image. Each one adds credibility before the next ask |
CTAs throughout | Not just at the bottom. They appear after each proof point lands, while conviction is still fresh |
Navigation | The header looks like a real site. The logo is there. None of it goes anywhere. Every link drives to one place |
Closing CTA | Stacks on top of everything that came before it. By this point the reader has said yes multiple times already |
The page is not designed to be read, it is designed to be moved through. Each scroll is a small commitment. Buyers who skim and buyers who read both find their way to the same place.
Quiz Funnel
Looks like one question. Works like a 30-step commitment machine.
Section | What it does |
|---|---|
Opening question | One question. One screen. Nothing else. Simple enough to start, specific enough to feel relevant |
Question sequence | 20 to 30 questions deep. Each answer is a micro buy-in. Each completion makes leaving feel like a loss |
Progress indicator | Shows how far they have come. Sunk cost kicks in around question 15 finishing feels easier than stopping |
Email capture | Comes before the product page. Even a non-buyer becomes a lead with full context on their problem |
Product page | The traffic that arrives here has already said yes 30 times. It is the warmest cold traffic paid ads can produce |
The reader is not reading. They are answering the questions and by question 25 they have shared their problem, their hesitation, their goal. They have done the qualifying work themselves. The product page at the end is not a pitch. It is a confirmation.
The skill that builds it for you
Building an advertorial from scratch takes a copywriter, a designer, and a developer. Most marketers skip it because it feels like too much work for something they are not sure will convert.
Jackson built a skill that removes that friction. Here is how it works:
Input: you give it a URL, an angle, or both. That is all it needs to start
It reads the prior work: the research, personas, and angles from Session 1 and session 2 feed directly into this skill. The pipeline connects
It maps the angle: 60 real advertorials already running in the market are baked into the skill, categorized by format. It maps your angle against those references and selects the format that fits. Not a guess. A decision based on what the market has already shown works
It writes the spec first: before a single line of HTML, it produces a markdown document locking in the angle, the persona, the format, the CTA, and the compliance guardrails
Then it builds the page: a real HTML file. Open it in a browser and you have a testable advertorial ready to run traffic to
Strategy before execution. Every time.
Note: Claude does not generate images natively. The advertorial comes out with placeholders in the HTML. Jackson also share the fix in the session.
Want to go deeper?
This is what Skills Lab looks like every month.
The session recording on what advertorial skill is and how it works is inside the community.
Along with:
Session 1 - The voice builder
Session 2 - The customer research pipeline. The persona builder. The angle generator.
One complete paid ads system from brand voice to customer research to winning angles to the page that converts the click in one place.
—
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