Traffic

At this point, you already understand what value is, have seen how questions can control the product-customer exchange process, and have learned how to activate a person, turning them into an engaged lead. Now, it’s time to talk about traffic. You will learn how to generate traffic in large volumes and build a stable flow of people who convert into leads efficiently.

Many people get stuck at this stage because it’s always more exciting to work on the product rather than setting up ad accounts. In this module, we want to show that traffic isn’t just about ad platforms, moderation, and budgets. Instead, we’ll explain how to build a complete acquisition system—your own growth model that delivers predictable results and is fully under your control.

Let’s start with the Core 4 —a framework for organizing communication channels that we learned from Alex Hormozi.

The Core 4

The idea behind this quadrant is simple: we categorize communication channels based on two parameters:

1. Stage of familiarity with the product
2. Scale of communication

As a result, we get four categories that structure our entire traffic acquisition strategy.

As you can see, paid advertising is the fourth category of communication, which we will address last—and there’s a good reason for that. But let’s go step by step.

1. Warm Sales

The first category is one-on-one contact with someone who is already familiar with you or your product.

The key to working with this group is personalization and direct engagement. When you understand your value and know how to use questions effectively, no other communication channel comes close. These people already know you, so you don’t need to convince them of your credibility—you’re simply reaching out to those who already follow you and having a direct conversation.

This is the cheapest and most effective way to get your first leads. Yet, many people rush into ad platforms, hiding behind conversion rates and data, just to avoid speaking with real people. The paradox is that if you sell your product directly to at least 30 people first, your paid advertising will be significantly more effective.

From previous modules, you already know:

• What questions to ask
• What value is relevant for each segment
• How to activate a potential buyer

One important note: people dislike being pushed into a sale. If you’re unsure whether someone fits your ideal customer segment, take a soft approach—ask if they can recommend five people who might be interested. This reduces pressure in the conversation while expanding your lead base.

At this stage, gather at least 100 contacts and start selling. Once you begin seeing results, consider automating the first message to scale your efforts.

2. Content Publishing

The second category is one-to-many communication—publishing content for people already familiar with you.

Here, we lose the advantage of personalization but gain reach—a single piece of content can be seen by thousands of people. The goal is to create value through content for your audience on social media, communities, and discussion forums.

Content should be produced in volume—5, 10, or even 30 pieces isn’t enough. This is a compounding game, similar to launching a rocket—it takes the most fuel at the start. Make a rule: don’t judge a channel’s effectiveness until you’ve produced at least 100 pieces of content.

Prioritize platforms with recommendation algorithms, such as short-form videos and reels.

What should you write or talk about?

After one-on-one sales, you’ll likely have a list of frequently asked questions—use this as a content roadmap. Supplement this with case studies and frame them using the Hero’s Journey storytelling structure.

A great resource for mastering this method is "Building a StoryBrand" by Donald Miller.

At Marquiz, this approach increased our link click-through rate by 2.5x. Here’s what we did:

• We structured our content using the Hero’s Journey framework.
• The hero was our customer—an entrepreneur or marketer.
• The villain was the problem they couldn’t solve.
• The guide was our product, offering a plan for success.
• The resolution was the customer’s transformation—both internal and external.

When we truly understood our customer’s conflict, our content became more emotional, and we positioned ourselves as a guide, not the hero.

3. Cold Outreach

The third category is one-on-one interaction with people who don’t know your brand yet—otherwise known as cold outreach.

The goal at this stage is to find people in the right segment and directly engage with them. This requires a creative approach—thinking beyond traditional marketing channels and identifying where people with relevant problems spend their time.

Success in cold outreach depends primarily on how accurately you target the right segment.

4. Paid Traffic

The fourth category is mass communication with a broad audience unfamiliar with your brand—this is paid advertising.

We recommend leaving paid ads for last. If you go through the first three stages, running ads will be easier and more effective because you’ll already know who your customers are, what their conflicts are, and how to communicate value.

Where to Get Traffic in 2025?

We won’t introduce anything new here—this list is enough:

• Google Ads
• Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)
• LinkedIn Ads
• YouTube Ads
• TikTok Ads
• Native advertising networks
• Online marketplaces
• Classified ad platforms

How to Set Up Ads?

There are plenty of free guides online. You can also find courses on Udemy or Coursera covering any major ad platform.

Technical setup isn’t the biggest challenge—it might take time, but it’s not what determines success. The most important thing is knowing what to write.

Linear Marketing vs. Cycles

Everything we’ve discussed in the four Core Quadrants of communication falls under linear marketing—in other words, building funnels where you attract 1,000 people at the top and convert 100 leads at the bottom.

But the real world is more complex than simple funnels.

What happens when a product can be used multiple times? Take airline tickets, for example. A customer goes through the funnel once, but then re-enters it when booking another flight.

• Did they return on their own or because of paid ads?
• What about family members who didn’t go through the funnel but still use the product?

To answer these questions, we need a better model for understanding how customer acquisition really works.

Moving Beyond Funnels: The Reforge Model

The team at Reforge developed a new perspective on successful growth models. They identified that winning products share two key characteristics:

1. High usage frequency—Customers return and use the product repeatedly.
2. Compounding growth loops—The system builds on itself, creating exponential instead of linear growth.

For example:

• 100 leads enter the system
• 20 become paying customers
• 10 become loyal users and recommend the product
• Their referrals bring in 20 new leads

This loop effect generates sustained and scalable growth—without relying solely on constant new customer acquisition.

Three Main Types of Growth Loops

1. Viral Growth Loops
   A person hears about your product from a friend → they try it and become a regular user → they love the product → in conversation, they recommend it to someone → the new person discovers your product.
2. Content Growth Loops
   A post appears in a user’s feed → they like it → they subscribe to the channel → they engage with more posts → they share a post with a colleague → the colleague likes it → they subscribe to the channel.
3. Paid Traffic Loops
   A person sees an ad for the product → they try it and pay → revenue from the purchase is reinvested into marketing → new people see the ad.

Why Traditional Funnels Are Outdated

Marketers used to rely heavily on the AARRR framework to optimize each step of the customer journey individually. However, this approach has several major flaws:

• Lack of a systemic product understanding. Marketers focus on improving specific conversion points without seeing the big picture of how the product functions.
• Conflicting areas of responsibility. When product and marketing teams work separately, they have misaligned goals and often blame each other for poor results.
• Over-reliance on linear marketing. The traditional invest money → get customers approach ignores exponential growth potential.

That’s why growth should not be viewed solely through the lens of funnels—it must also be seen through cycles and the cumulative effects of marketing actions.

Both approaches are necessary:

• Linear marketing initiates, maintains, or accelerates growth cycles.
• Cycles create self-sustaining, compounding growth, where each new customer invites others and extends the cycle’s longevity.

The Growth Model

Understanding linear marketing and growth loops allows you to develop a customized growth model for your company.

The beauty of having a unified growth model is that it helps different team roles see the big picture of customer acquisition and understand how the product scales systematically by leveraging the four Core Quadrants of communication.

Here’s how our framework looks: (visual representation follows in the next steps).

The next step in working with the growth model is establishing key metrics for each process to create a performance tracking table for regular monitoring. Once you have translated the framework into a table of metrics, you can confidently make forecasts, identify bottlenecks, and model different growth scenarios based on where you focus your efforts.

At this point, you are fully equipped with strategies for managing traffic, have gained a systematic understanding of acquisition through the growth model, and are ready for efficient execution. Now, there is just one final module left—analyzing results.