The Reverse Awareness Funnel
🎛️ Why BOFU Ads Are Suddenly Crushing at TOFU, Social Media Usage Trends 2025, and more!
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In this newsletter, you’ll find:
🎛️ The Reverse Awareness Funnel: Why BOFU Ads Are Suddenly Crushing at TOFU
📊 US Social Media Usage Trends 2025
🏆 Ad of the Day
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3 ways to beat Meta Andromeda with diverse modular UGC
Andromeda’s update just changed the game for ad creatives, and most brands don’t even realize it yet.
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🎛️ The Reverse Awareness Funnel: Why BOFU Ads Are Suddenly Crushing at TOFU
Everyone thinks cold audiences need soft stories. The gentle hook. The cozy “day in the life.”
The creator whispers their way into the viewer’s trust. But the market has flipped.
People trust BOFU content more at TOFU now because soft storytelling has become the new wallpaper.
Everything feels “relatable.”
Nothing feels real. When every brand opens with a gentle vibe, the pattern break becomes the truth-telling, straight-to-the-point ad that actually says something.
The expectation break is the new scroll stop
Cold audiences don’t want a mood; they want clarity.
What is this? Why does it matter? Why should I listen?
BOFU-style ads deliver that instantly:
→ guarantee-first intros
→ founder offers videos
→ bold transparency hooks
It’s not aggressive. It’s refreshing. A direct signal in a feed full of soft noise.
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What winning teams are running cold right now
1. Guarantee Videos: Start with your strongest risk reversal. It signals confidence before context, exactly what cold leads trust.
2. Founder Offer Videos: Skip the setup. The founder talks directly, simply, and plainly. Directness = instant credibility.
3. Radical Transparency Hooks: Break the fourth wall immediately -
“Here’s the one flaw in our product we haven’t fixed yet.”
“Most people buy the wrong version first, here’s the one they actually keep.”
“Before you buy ours, here’s the cheaper competitor we recommend for some people.”
These don’t feel like ads. They feel like the truth.
The traditional funnel assumes people need warming. The modern feed proves people need honesty. When everyone whispers, the one brand that speaks clearly wins the room.
📊 US Social Media Usage Trends 2025
Social media adoption in the US continues to be led by YouTube and Facebook, with new Pew data showing clear shifts in how adults and younger audiences split across platforms. The surveys span over 5,000 Americans and map overall usage, daily frequency, and growth across emerging apps.
The Breakdown:
1. Overall Platform Reach - YouTube is used by 84% of US adults and Facebook by 71%, keeping both as the widest-reaching platforms in the country. Half of adults visit each platform daily, with Facebook seeing 37% checking multiple times a day and YouTube at 33% doing the same.
2. Growth of Mid-Tier Platforms - TikTok has grown from 21% in 2021 to 37% in 2025, while Instagram rose from 40% to 50% over the same period. WhatsApp has increased to 32% and Reddit to 26%, and newer platforms remain small, with Threads at 8% and Bluesky at 4%.
3. Daily Usage Patterns - About 52% of adults visit Facebook daily and 48% visit YouTube daily, far ahead of TikTok at 24% and X at 10%. Younger adults show higher daily engagement on YouTube, reaching 95% usage among ages 18–29.
4. Younger Audiences Shift Further - Among adults aged 18–29, 80% use Instagram versus 19% of those 65+, and 63% use TikTok compared with 5% of older adults. Younger adults cluster heavily around TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, and YouTube, with roughly half visiting TikTok daily.
The data shows YouTube and Facebook remain the only platforms with universal reach while growth continues in TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reddit among younger groups. Platform fragmentation is increasing, meaning content strategies must adapt to different behaviors instead of using a one-size-fits-all distribution.
🏆 Ad of the Day
What Works:
1. The headline reframes vanity as intelligence, not indulgence - Calling a skincare product “the smartest thing in my carry-on” shifts the purchase from beauty to competence signaling. It speaks to the traveler who wants to feel efficient, evolved, and ahead of the curve.
2. The testimonial is engineered to collapse complexity into superiority - “One bottle replaced half my skincare bag” taps into reduction bias, where fewer steps feel inherently more premium and effective. It lets the viewer imagine decluttering their routines without sacrificing results, activating relief and pride at the same time.
3. Composition creates an “I already own this” illusion - The viewer is placed at the POV of someone about to zip their bag, which tricks the brain into momentarily adopting ownership. That micro-identification increases purchase likelihood because the product is no longer a stranger, it becomes part of the viewer’s routine in a single glance.
The ad wins by blending competence, minimalism, and identity into one quiet moment, making the product feel like the essential upgrade for anyone who sees themselves as smart, edited, and effortlessly put together.
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