🍕$2M Ad vs. $2 Identity: Why Your Ad Doesn't Convert (And How to Fix It)

You ever seen an ad that looked like a $2,000,000 Super Bowl spot?

You know…the one that clearly cost at least seven interns, three divorces, and probably won an award for “Best Ad Creative of All Time, Ever, Seriously”? 🏆

It had gorgeous cinematography. Snappy tagline. The kind of ad that makes marketers whisper “god, I wish I made that.”

But the customer never clicked.
The customer never bought.
They didn’t even notice.

Why…?

Because that ad (as pretty as it is) isn’t actually speaking to the customer….it’s speaking to the version of them the brand wishes existed. The optimized, organized, green-smoothie-before-sunrise version. The “Ideal Self” customer. ☀️

Meanwhile, the actual customer is watching it in their sweatpants, ignoring their to-do list, and eating cold, leftover pad thai straight from the box.

That’s a $2,000,000 ad vs. a $2 identity problem…

And it’s killing performance in even the best-looking ad accounts.

🚨 Most ads don’t fail at persuasion…

They fail at perception.

They assume the customer is already the person they want to be. Confident. Composed. Ready to optimize. Sweatpants-free, and ready to buy things that will make their life better.

But most people aren’t buying from that mindset, they’re buying from the middle of a mild identity crisis on a random Tuesday after finding out their dog’s tooth extraction is going to cost 4X more than their last mortgage. 😅

So your $140 product = background noise.
They’re not asking “Is this worth it?” at that point, they’re asking “Am I the kind of person who would actually use this…right now?”

It’s not about the offer. It’s about the self that sees the offer…and what that self wants most.

🧠 The Psychology: Self-Discrepancy Theory

If you’ve read this far and are now thinking: “What the heck are you even talking about, Sarah?” you’re not alone. 😅

Nobody teaches this. Not in marketing school, not in Psych 101, and definitely not on that brand strategy podcast your co-worker keeps recommending.

Why? Because true buyer psychology is messy.

Most customers don’t have one clean, polished persona, they actually have multiple selves…each with its own fears, goals, and emotional filters.

Every customer has three versions of themselves bouncing around in their head:

1. ⏯️ Actual Self – who they are right now (overwhelmed, inconsistent, human)

2. ✨ Ideal Self – who they want to be (the optimized, motivated version)

3. 💥 Ought Self – who they feel they should be (thanks to guilt, social pressure, or passive-aggressive Instagram content)

When your ad speaks to the Ideal Self but the Actual Self is holding the phone, it creates a quiet kind of weird friction. A mental flinch. It feels like the brand is reaching for someone they’re not…or worse, making them feel like they cannot (and will not) measure up.

So they scroll.

🧪 A Real Example: Fitness Brand

Let’s say you’re selling a high-end home gym product (mini treadmills, maybe…because I’m currently in the market for one.😅) As a marketer, you’re tempted to go BIG, so you draft an ad that says:

It looks good on paper, and sounds impressive. But it lands like luke-warm coffee.

Your Actual Self customer isn’t “training like a machine.” They’re just trying not to throw out their back tying their shoes.

Ought Self hears the message and immediately feels behind, guilty, like this product is for someone more disciplined than them.

And Ideal Self just rolls her eyes. She’s been promised elite performance before.
It didn’t stick then (because she didn’t stick to it). Why would this be any different?

So the ad misses.
And all three selves scroll right past.

Actual feels unseen.
Ought feels judged.
Ideal is skeptical.

It’s not that your customer doesn’t want to change, it’s the way you’re talking to them that’s missing the mark here. You’re selling the destination without acknowledging the detour, the traffic, or the fact that they’ve taken this exit before and turned right back around.

But when you shift the order…when you start with empathy, not expectation…
everything changes.

So here’s what to do instead: craft ads that speak to all three selves, and track to see which one hits.

• For TOF (Actual Self): “This isn’t for gym people. It’s for ‘I tried once and immediately regretted it’ people.”

• For MOF (Ought Self): “When your dumbbell is holding up your Wi-Fi router…you know it’s time to buy something that will actually stick this time.”

• For BOF (Ideal Self): “The version of you who shows up…is still in there.”

That’s not just a better funnel. That’s better alignment with reality…and humans.

💥 Why This Works (and Why Most Brands Avoid It)

In my experience, most brands don’t think this deeply about their customers because… well, it’s humbling.

It means admitting your customer isn’t who you wish they were.

They’re probably not energized, proactive, or eagerly waiting for the perfect product to appear. They’re tired. They’re skeptical. They’re just trying to make one good decision today…and that decision might not include you.

It means trading aspiration for honesty, trading idealized “personas” for real, contradictory humans, and coming to terms with the fact that people might not be buying because of our “limited time offer” or CRO tactics.

And for a lot of marketers, that feels like giving up control over the only thing we assume we have control over…which is our marketing.

But here’s the thing:

Even though your customer is human (and often behaves like one) that doesn’t mean you’re completely powerless. You may not control who they are in the moment they see your ad…

But you can control what that moment feels like.

You can meet them with honesty instead of hype. With relief instead of pressure. With an offer that makes emotional sense to the version of them that’s actually present.

That’s not giving up control, that’s shifting control from you to them!

We go from “how do we get them to buy?” → “how do we make this decision feel safe, obvious, and aligned?”

Because when your creative speaks to the self that’s scrolling, (and not the fantasy you storyboarded) you don’t have to force the sale. It just happens naturally.

And that’s what real strategy looks like.

And if you’ve made it this far — still reading, still curious, still maybe muttering “Okay but how do I actually do this in my ads?” — that’s probably one of your selves raising their hand. ✋

⏯️ Maybe it’s your Actual Self, who’s tired of pouring money into creative that almost works but never quite sticks…

💥 Or your Ought Self, quietly whispering that you should get smarter about strategy instead of just testing headlines and hoping for the best…

✨ Or maybe it’s your Ideal Self…the part of you that knows you’re capable of making ads that feel different. Stickier. More human. More effective. If only you could figure out how…

Whichever one’s leading the charge today, I built something for you.

It’s called the 3 Selves Targeting System: a 30-minute crash course that shows you how to write ads that speak to the right version of your customer.

It drops tomorrow 🎉 and is only available exclusively inside my Skool community where we drop new systems every 30 days, test in public, and actually use behavior science to drive performance.

No pressure.
No countdown timers.
Just an open seat at a table where this kind of thinking isn’t “too much”…it’s the gold standard.

If it feels like the right time, I’ll meet you there.
If not, keep reading.
You’ll still find your way. ❤️

(Actual Self gets clarity.
Ought Self gets to cross it off the list.
Ideal Self…they’re already taking notes.)

Until next week…

🦕 Sarah

P.S. Most marketers intend to learn this kind of thing later…after the next launch. After the next quarter. After things “calm down a bit.”

But if you can understand how your customer feels in the moment they see your ad,
you won’t need as many hooks, tests, or reasons to panic when performance dips.

This isn’t a nice-to-have kind of thing…it’s leverage for you as a marketer and an actual strategy for you as a brand.

🎉 The course drops tomorrow, so make sure you get in today! 🎉 

The price for the community goes up next week:
💸 Now: $197
🔜 Next week: $297

(Because let’s be real — your Ideal Self already bookmarked this last week.)