It has been well over two years since we began handing out Linx Digital awards to our YouTube Ads Coaching Program students who have amassed millions of dollars-worth of revenue by advertising on the YouTube platform—and Robin Bouwman is one of them.

He's just hit $10 million with YouTube Ads after joining our YouTube Ads Coaching Program, so we took this opportunity to interview him and share the strategies he used to generate MASSIVE profits for his clients.

We'll also uncover how he utilized everything he's learnt from our course so far—and his perspective on how to effectively scale video ads.

Why Robin decided to enroll in Linx Digital Coaching Program?

‍Q: Tell us about your background and your experience with YouTube Ads? What's led you down this path?

I'm in the coaches and consultants niche, so I help people sell their courses or online programs. I got into YouTube Ads around 2 or 3 years ago. It started when a client asked me if I could run YouTube Ads for him and I said 'yeah—I can'. 

I tried to figure it all out myself. Google Ads Manager was pretty confusing but I got it to work—and it did for around 2 or 3 months, but then I got to the point where everything stopped working. Since I have been following you guys for a while on YouTube, I decided to join the coaching program.

That’s when I learned the basics of YouTube Ads for the first time—and it’s what got me to my first $1 million, generated for my clients with YouTube Ads. Immediately after that, I decided to be less active in the community to fine-tune the creative process—which is also what you guys taught me or at least, explained to me. I've done so I can scale even further. 

The things is, it's pretty easy to scale to a couple hundred a day; but when you get to around a couple of thousand a day, things get a bit more complicated. So that's pretty much what I've been working on, since our previous interview.  

How Robin managed to hit $10 million with YouTube Ads?

‍Q: Walk me through what your clients look like at a million, versus what they were like $10 million. Are you working with a lot more clients now, or still with the same clients that you scaled up?

It's a combination of both.

What prompted the increase in number of my clients (funnily) was when I started raising my prices a little bit—I was visiting Warsaw at the time. That decision helped me attract clients who spent more on ads because they can, of course, afford it. I also took in only one or two more clients, and focused on the profit-share model. That gave me more flexibility, along with a higher budget to really improve the creative process.

I would say the biggest thing that I started doing was follow two things:

First, is the the creative process that I spoke about.  

Second, is to focus on improving the current funnel and do split testing.

I don't know if that answers your question, but that's kind of what changed for me. By focusing on those two things, it allowed me to scale up my clients because I had more budget to actually make the change that they needed.

The small changes Robin made that generated MASSIVE results for his clients

Q: Do you think doing performance (ad campaign) deals gave you more autonomy in terms of having more freedom and flexibility when it comes to changing funnels, offers and landing pages—outside of YouTube Ads?

It depends on the client, of course; it's just that they trust you more because they understand that if it doesn't work, it's also going to negatively impact them. So yeah, they do. But I also screen for that, because I know that if I do a performance deal, it's probably also going to be about the funnel, right?

So if they aren't okay with that, then you know it's probably not going to work, or I just set a different percentage. 

If they want to do the funnel and the percentages, of course! It’s a bit higher—most of the time—but, yes! 

The biggest thing about it is that you have to look at it at a more holistic view where changes are made on multiple levers. I am saying this because sometimes, the solution could be as simple as changing the call to action underneath a VSL; and if that already doubles the revenue, that makes more sense than creating 100 YouTube ads, right?

The small changes Robin made that generated MASSIVE results for his clients

Q: What are some repeated mistakes that clients make—not within YouTube, but the things surrounding it—that have made the biggest impact in performance and overall results?

I have one client who sells a course about 'how-to-start-your-own-agency' that always had a VSL for 20 minutes.

I don't know if you guys are aware but, there's this new 10-minute VSL that people are talking about. We gave a shot at it and that garnered twice as many calls booked for the same budget, while keeping our close rate exactly the same. 

Because there are twice as many people are watching until the call to action, we now are able to book twice as many calls. So, yeah—that’s one example of a common mistake; a VSL that's too long.

Another is when qualifying people financially.

On the application questionnaire, I prompt questions like 'can you invest in...(what ever the product is)', and then limit the response selection to 'yes, I can' or 'maybe—I have my money in crypto and stocks', or ' no-I cannot'. In some cases, we mention somewhere in the form that the course is this amount—and if it would make sense for them to invest in it.

Those who responded 'no'—what we do is, we send to the call page. By doing so, we optimize for booked calls and only get qualified leads. If you don't do this, it's guaranteed that around 50% of the calls are disqualified.‍

So the 'magic' here is to tweak the Typeform, and making sure you're asking the right questions. Doing so can really improve the call quality, without unnecessarily paying more per call. 

Another thing that I started testing (but have only tested on one client) is a 'no opt-in' on the VSL; but this is a bit tricky. These VSLs are already proven to work with an email.

Now, I don't know what you guys are at with opt-in rates on YouTube since they are not the same as they were before; but I feel you have to spend a bit more on ads because the cost per conversion or per next step is more expensive. But it’s not something I would recommend to beginners.