Conversion copywriting is writing with one job: get one specific reader to take one specific action – sign up, reply, click, buy. And you measure whether it happened.
It works when you know why people buy (feelings first, logic second), research your reader until you can describe the problem better than they can, keep the message simple, and build the case instead of pushing.
You can learn it, hire for it, or let AI write the first draft. The thinking still has to be yours.
Back in 2020, I recorded a short YouTube video called “What is CONVERSION COPYWRITING? [Copywriting on STEROIDS!]”
Steroids. In capital letters.
(Subtle, I know.)
The title aged about as well as you’d expect…
But the idea underneath it didn’t.
So here’s the grown-up version – what I’d tell you about conversion copywriting today, after six more years of writing it, testing it and fixing other people’s.
What is conversion copywriting?
Conversion copywriting is writing that’s built to make one reader take one action.
That’s it.
Not “raise awareness.” Not “tell your brand story.” Not “go viral.”
One reader. One action. Something you can count.
A sign-up. A reply. A click to the sales page. A sale.
The easiest way to see the difference is to put it next to its neighbours:
Content writing wants to be read. It teaches, entertains and builds trust over time. (This post is content.)
Copywriting wants to be acted on. It sells – a product, an idea, a next step.
Conversion copywriting is copywriting that gets measured. You know which number it’s supposed to move before you write a word… and you check it afterwards.
Claude Hopkins called this scientific advertising back in 1923. Same idea: you measure everything, and you let the numbers – not your taste – decide what stays.
(More on the three neighbours here: copywriting vs content writing vs SEO writing.)
Here’s why the distinction matters so much:
My opt-in page for cold Meta ads traffic converts at 91.29%.
Not because the words are pretty. They’re not, really.
It’s because every single element on that page exists to get one person to do one thing – and anything that didn’t help got cut. (The whole funnel, with the numbers, is here.)
That’s conversion copywriting in one sentence:
Every line has a job. If it doesn’t do its job, it goes.
Why do people actually buy?
Another one of my 2020 videos was called “The KEY to getting people to shut up and give you their money…”
(Yes. I had a thing for subtle titles back then.)
The key, it turns out, isn’t a clever trick.
It’s this:
People decide with their feelings. Then they use logic to defend the decision.
Nobody wakes up in the middle of the night thinking “the thing I want most today is an email copywriting course.”
That sounds like work.
But “Hey, what if my emails brought in sales every week – without me feeling like a sleazy car salesman?”
Well… sign me up.
Same product. Different conversation.
This is why feature lists don’t sell. Your reader doesn’t want your course, your system or your 47-page PDF. They want a nasty problem – and the feeling that comes with it – to go away.
The fastest way to get there is to ask “So what?” after every line you write about your offer… and keep asking until you hit a feeling. (Here’s the full So What? test, with an example.)
One rule I never break here, though:
Don’t make your reader feel stupid.
Pointing at someone’s pain is fine. Rubbing their nose in it isn’t.
Shame doesn’t make people buy. It makes them freeze – and close the tab.
So when your copy touches a problem, make it clear the problem isn’t a character flaw. Usually, nobody ever showed them the better way. That’s not their fault.
How do you find out what your reader really wants?
Customer research.
I called it “not sexy” in a 2020 video title, and I stand by that.
It’s still the most profitable boring thing you can do.
The way I see it, roughly 41% of a campaign’s success comes from the list, 39% from the offer – and only about 20% from the copy itself.
Which means most of the “copywriting” happens before you write anything. You figure out who you’re talking to, what they’re struggling with, and how they describe it in their own words.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
1 – Ask your list. One question, one email. “What are you struggling with most right now?” The last time I did this in mid-July – when half the world was on holiday – my inbox filled up within hours. Roughly a third of the replies said some version of “growing my email list.”
2 – Read every reply. Not a summary. The actual words. Your next headline is sitting in there.
3 – Talk to your buyers. Two or three short conversations with people who already bought will tell you more than any template. Ask them why they bought – and what almost stopped them.
4 – Read the reviews of books and products in your market. Especially the 3-star ones. That’s where people explain what they actually wanted and didn’t get.
Do this, and you’ll probably get surprised.
I certainly was:
The people who buy from me are often NOT who I’d have guessed. They’re experienced, they already have a business, and they’re way past the beginner stuff.
I would never have known that without asking.
(Want a shortcut for this part? My Voice & Market X-Ray does the deep research on your ideal client – and on your own voice – for you.)
Should your message be simple or sophisticated?
Simple. Almost every time.
And I say that as someone who loves sophisticated ideas.
That’s exactly the problem, by the way. It’s called the curse of knowledge: once you know a lot about something, you forget what it was like not to know it.
I bump into it constantly. I assume people know way more than they do… and then wonder why my brilliant explanation lands with a thud.
A few years ago, I got a reality check from the great David Deutsch.
I’d spent two days polishing a landing page for one of my products. I was READY for his praise.
Instead, he said something like:
“I don’t get it… What are you actually trying to say here? You’re talking to me like I’m some ‘male between 25 and 50 who makes over $100k a year’, and I don’t feel anything. Why don’t you just TALK to people like they’re real people?”
Ouch.
But he was right.
I’d written to a demographic. Not a person. (That one piece of feedback has probably made me an extra $30–50k since – full story here.)
So here’s my checklist for keeping a message simple:
One idea per sentence. If a sentence needs a second breath, split it.
One big idea per page. One reader, one promise, one offer – the rule of one.
Kill the jargon. If your reader wouldn’t say it out loud, don’t write it.
Read it out loud. Every place you stumble is a place your reader stops.
Remember: every sentence has one job – to get the next sentence read. It’s a slippery slope. Complexity is how people fall off it.
What is the Problem-Agitate-Solve formula?
In 2020 I called this one “stupidly simple.”
It still is. And it still works.
Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS) is a three-step structure you can use for an email, a sales page section, an ad, even a single paragraph:
Problem – name the problem your reader already knows they have. In their words.
Agitate – show what it’s costing them. Not to scare them… but to make it real, so the problem stops being something they’ll deal with “later.”
Solve – show the way out. Your idea, your method, your offer.
Here’s a quick example:
Problem: “You get new subscribers every week. Almost none of them buy.”
Agitate: “So you make another freebie. Run another ad. Your list keeps growing… and your revenue doesn’t. Every month, more people who signed up to hear from you quietly forget who you are.”
Solve: “Fix what happens in the first few days after they sign up – with a welcome sequence built to turn new readers into buyers.”
Two things most people get wrong with PAS:
They agitate with blame instead of consequences. “You’re doing it wrong” makes people defensive. “Here’s what it’s costing you” makes them lean in. Same rule as before – the problem is never a character flaw.
They skip the agitation completely. Problem → solution, done. But without the middle step, there’s no reason to act NOW instead of someday.
If you want to see a master do it, read my breakdown of Mel Martin’s problem-solution lead. And when you’re ready to put it on a full page, here’s how to write a sales page that doesn’t feel like selling.
How do you know if your copy is working?
You count.
Before you write, decide which number the piece is supposed to move. Opt-in rate for an opt-in page. Clicks or replies for an email. Sales for a sales page.
Then check it.
And one warning: don’t judge a page by one number in isolation. A sky-high opt-in rate can sit inside a funnel that quietly loses money.
That’s a whole topic of its own – here’s how I’d find and fix the leaks in a funnel, in the right order.
Should you write it yourself or hire a copywriter?
Depends on what’s scarcer for you right now: time or money.
But if you hire, hire well. Because most of the people who’ll apply… won’t be good.
A while back, I posted a small job on Upwork. Somebody to speed up my website.
At the end of the post, I added one line:
“Please begin your proposal with ‘GTftW’ as your first word.”
I got around 50 proposals in the first stretch.
95% of them disqualified themselves. Canned two-page proposals. Paragraphs about how great they were. No “GTftW.” One guy cold-emailed me three pushy messages within 20 minutes.
The good news?
That little test made hiring easy. The ones who passed had actually read the post.
So if you’re hiring a copywriter, here’s what I’d look for (I worked as a freelance copywriter for 5+ years, so I’ve been on both sides of this):
They follow instructions. Hide a small test in your job post. It filters out most of the noise in seconds.
They ask about your customer before they talk about themselves. A good copywriter’s first questions are about who’s buying and why.
They talk about results, not just samples. “This email got 14 replies” beats “here’s a pretty PDF.”
They answer the 3 questions every client has: Can you do this properly? Will you deliver on time? Are you easy to work with? (More on that here.)
And if you’d rather write it yourself?
These days, you don’t have to start from a blank page.
I use AI for writing every single day – but I start in AI and finish by hand. AI is great at the first 80%. The judgment, the voice and the taste are still on you.
(If a sales page is what you need, my Sales Page In An Hour tool walks you through one – in your voice. And Bulletsmith gets AI to write fascination bullets about what you actually sell.)
What to do this week
1 – Pick one page or email that matters. Write down the ONE action it’s supposed to get – and the number that tells you if it did.
2 – Send one research email. “What are you struggling with most right now?” Read every reply.
3 – Run the “So what?” test on your offer. Keep going until you hit a feeling.
4 – Cut one thing. One sentence, one link, one idea that isn’t pulling its weight.
And if you want a structure to write into, steal mine.
When I broke down 100 proven sales letters for my 100-day challenge, I kept finding the same 7-part structure underneath the winners. I turned it into a free cheat sheet – plus a 26-point checklist that catches the holes in your copy before it goes live.
Free cheat sheet
Steal the “Secret Recipe” Behind the Most Profitable Sales Letters of All Time
The 7-part structure I kept finding in proven sales letters – plus a 26-point checklist that catches the holes in your copy before it goes live.
Send Me the Secret Recipe →-Csaba
