We write, launch, and manage demo-focused video ads for B2B software companies, then report the numbers an investor would ask for: cost per demo, close rate, and cost per customer. Your account is run by a founder who came to marketing from venture capital.
Not ready for a call? Ask for a free teardown of your Meta ads.
Who this is for
Most software teams we talk to have a product that works and a founder who sells it well, but nobody whose whole job is filling the calendar. That is the seat we take.
Proof
Every figure comes from the client’s own ad account, with the math shown on each case study. Clients are identified by industry only, by agreement.
A software company selling to service operators in the trades needed its demo calendar full without acquisition costs climbing. Video ads aimed at operators by trade and role produced 14 demo requests. Four of them signed, a 28.6% close rate, so each new customer cost $172.73 in ad spend.
“The ads are crushing it — and the testimonial videos will be huge.”
Estimating and bid-workflow software for building-products manufacturers: a small, specialized buyer most agencies would send to LinkedIn. The founder recorded the ads on his phone. In seven weeks the campaign produced eight leads, and the cost of each one fell by nearly half in month two with no change to budget or creative. In October a new video more than doubled the click rate.
AI-made video ads
In October we added a new ad to our construction software client’s campaign, next to the founder’s own phone-recorded video, the ad behind every lead the campaign had produced. Nobody filmed the new one. An AI presenter reads a new script built around the line the founder was testing on his sales calls. Same campaign, same audience, same $20 a day. Within two days, Meta was putting nearly all of the budget behind the AI ad.
Hi, I’m Trace, the founder of Main Course Media. Well, an AI version of me. Nobody filmed this.
In October we ran an ad made the same way as this one for a software client, right next to their founder’s own video. Same budget, same audience.
The AI ad more than doubled the click rate, and each click cost 70% less.
So if your founder doesn’t have time to be on camera, they don’t have to be. Book a call with the real me, and I’ll show you how it works.
| Metric | Founder on camera Aug 13 to Oct 14 · $1,081.01 | AI presenter Oct 6 to 14 · $168.20 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Link click-through rate | 1.08% | 2.31% | +114% |
| Cost per link click | $7.21 | $2.18 | −70% |
| Cost per 1,000 impressions | $77.48 | $50.45 | −35% |
| Cost per landing page view | $16.89 | $3.17 | −81% |
| Cost per lead* | $135.13 | $56.07 | −59% |
| Watched 3 seconds or more | 26.9% | 26.7% | Even |
On both ads, about 27% of the people shown the video watched at least three seconds, so the AI presenter stopped the scroll as often as the founder did on camera. The gain came after that: the new script turned more of that attention into clicks, and its impressions cost 35% less.
Add the AI presenter to the Meta video ads program and it reads the scripts you approve, so your founder never films. Your team still sends a few screen recordings of the product.
Book an intro callFigures from the client’s Meta ads account for the single campaign under management, read Oct 16, 2026. Founder on camera: Aug 13 to Oct 14, 13,952 impressions. AI presenter: its first nine days, Oct 6 to 14, 3,334 impressions. Rates and costs are worked out from the platform’s totals. *Cost per lead counts every lead Meta recorded for the founder’s ad, but only the three people the client’s CRM confirms as new prospects from the AI ad, a stricter count that works against the AI ad. The founder’s video had run for eight weeks before the new ad started, so some of the gap is a fresh ad against a familiar one. Nine days on one account is an early read, not a promise of typical results.
Read the full case studyThe offer
One monthly fee covers the whole program, from the first script to the monthly report. Ad spend goes straight to Meta, at whatever level you choose.
We learn the problems buyers raise on your demos and the objection that stalls deals, then write short scripts around them for you to approve.
Your founder or a salesperson records about 20 minutes on a phone, plus a few screen recordings of the product. We cut it into captioned ads in Meta’s vertical, portrait, and square sizes: 6 to 9 in the first month, then 4 to 6 new ones every month. No studio and no actors.
Budget goes to the industries and roles that can sign a software purchase, not to broad reach that looks good in a dashboard.
Every ad optimizes toward a completed demo request on your own page. We set up the pixel and the Conversions API, connect them to your CRM, and switch off the shortcuts that inflate lead counts with people who never meant to book.
We watch the account, cut creative that is not earning its budget, and move the money to the ad that is.
Spend, demo requests, cost per demo, and what changes next month, with a 30-minute call to go through it. Tell us which demos closed and we add close rate and cost per customer.
$495/mo
Reach buyers already searching for your category or comparing tools. Same tracking, same monthly report.
$2,000 one-time
A fast, custom marketing site of up to 10 pages, built to turn a visit into a booked demo. Hosting and edits included. Or $200/mo on a 12-month agreement.
$595/mo
On-page and technical SEO plus backlinks, so the people researching the problem you solve land on your site.
$600/mo
Four posts a week across LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook, plus two SEO blog posts a month.
Running three or more? A package bundles them for less. See every price.
Getting started
Your product, your buyer, your sales cycle, and what a new customer is worth to you.
A recommended budget and a target cost per demo, worked out before you spend anything.
We write the scripts and you record them. We build the audiences and the tracking.
Ads go live and monthly reporting starts. Our latest software client was live six days after receiving scripts.
Who runs your account
Trace Christian founded Main Course Media after working as a venture capital analyst, where the job was deciding whether a startup’s numbers would hold up. He runs every software account himself, from the first script to the monthly report.
Runs marketing for companies without a marketing department of their own, on AI-assisted systems he built himself, including the reporting pipeline behind every client report.
Building Syllabus, an AI lecture-notes app for Mac that records a class, transcribes it, and files a study summary in Google Drive. It runs today for a small invited group ahead of a paid launch, so he is working through the same pricing, onboarding, and first-customer questions as the founders he markets for.
Due diligence, financial models, forecasts, and valuations for startups valued between $23 million and $47 million, across funding rounds. Worked directly with founders on their pitch decks and investor materials, then presented the companies at pitch events that led to more than $200,000 invested.
Hands-on SEO, Google Ads, and website builds for small businesses with real budgets on the line. Groundbreaker is now Main Course’s partner firm.
Studying for a BBA in Entrepreneurship at Dallas Baptist University.
Your report leads with cost per demo, close rate, and cost per customer: the figures an investor asks about, not the ones that flatter an agency.
He has built models and decks next to founders in the middle of a raise, and he is building a software product of his own, so he knows what your board wants from marketing and how little time you have for it.
One call to learn your buyer, scripts ready to approve, and a recording session on a phone. You keep selling while we run the account.
Our founder’s work has been featured in
Questions
It has for both software companies we run ads for. One got 14 demo requests at $49.35 each from a two-week test, and four became paying customers. The other, selling into a small manufacturing niche, reached 5,405 people in that audience at $20 a day.
Your buyers scroll the same feed as everyone else, between jobs and after hours. A founder talking plainly about a problem they recognize is cheap to make and hard to scroll past.
There is no minimum. The two software campaigns on this page ran at $20 and $50 a day. We usually suggest $750 to $1,500 a month on Facebook and Instagram to start, paid directly to Meta, and we agree a target cost per demo with you before the first dollar goes out.
No. Ad management is month-to-month, and you can cancel with 30 days’ written notice and no early-termination fee. The one service with a term is a website bought on the monthly payment plan, which runs 12 months.
You do. We work inside your own ad account, the pixel sits on your site, and the videos are recorded by your team. If you ever leave, everything stays with you.
One call about your buyers and your sales process, access to your ad account and website, one person willing to record a short video on a phone, and a sales team that tells us which demo requests turned into customers. That last part is what lets us report cost per customer instead of cost per click.
Trace, directly. He writes the scripts, builds the campaign, and sends the report himself, with no account manager in between.
Tell us what you sell and who buys it. We will tell you plainly whether paid video fits, and what a demo should cost.
Not ready to talk? Get a free website report, or a free ad teardown if you sell software.
