Awareness — matching message to reader
In plain English
Imagine selling the same running shoe to two people.
The first has never thought about running shoes. If you open with "20% off, buy now," they'll ignore you — they don't want a running shoe, because they don't yet know they have a problem.
The second has been comparing three brands for a week and is sitting on your product page. If you open with a gentle story about the joy of movement, you'll annoy them. They want the price, the sizing, and a reason to press buy.
Same product. Opposite messages.
Most shops write one message and send it to everybody — usually the second kind, because it's what works on people who are already close to buying. Which is exactly why cold advertising performs so badly for so many stores.
This screen lets you say which kind of reader you're writing for. Once you pick, every AI copy tool in the app writes to that person: softer and story-led at the cold end, direct and offer-led at the warm end.
How to use it
- Click "Growth Science" in the left-hand menu, then "Awareness."
- Read the five stages and decide who you're writing to. For cold ad traffic, that's usually stage 1 or 2. For your email list, usually 3 or 4. For a product page or a retargeting ad, usually 5.
- Select the stage.
- Generate your copy in ad copy or storefront copy — it now writes for that reader.
- Use different stages for different audiences. One message does not fit all.
- Test two stages against each other on the same cold audience — the difference is usually large.
⏱ ~5 min · 💳 Pro+ · 🎯 Stop sending "buy now" to people who've never heard of you
Why this matters for your business
Here's a pattern that plays out constantly. A shop's retargeting ads work brilliantly — 4× return, sometimes better. So they scale up, pointing the same creative at cold audiences. Performance collapses. The conclusion drawn is usually "cold traffic doesn't work for us" or "the platform's targeting has got worse."
Neither is usually true. The retargeting ad worked because it was shown to people who already knew the brand, had visited, and possibly had something in a basket. For them, "20% off, ends Sunday" is exactly the right message — it removes the last bit of hesitation.
Show that same ad to someone who has never heard of you and it's noise. There's no hesitation to remove, because there's no interest to begin with. They needed a completely different message — one that made them recognise a problem before you ever mentioned a product.
Getting this right is often the difference between cold traffic being unprofitable and being your main growth channel. And it costs nothing to fix: same budget, same audience, different words.
What this typically unlocks
| What you get | Typical result |
|---|---|
| Cold-audience ad performance | Often 2–3×, on the same spend |
| Understanding why an ad flopped | Usually a stage mismatch |
| Message variety across channels | Deliberate, not accidental |
| Wasted spend on mismatched creative | Sharply reduced |
What you actually get
Five stages. Pick the one that matches your reader.
| # | Stage | Who they are | What to say | What your CTA should be |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unaware | Doesn't know they have the problem | Story, identity, or a surprising fact. Earn attention before selling | Soft — "discover," "learn" |
| 2 | Problem-aware | Feels the problem, doesn't know solutions exist | Name the problem in their words, then present your product as relief | Curiosity → reveal |
| 3 | Solution-aware | Knows solutions exist, not sold on yours | Why your approach beats the alternatives | Compare, evaluate |
| 4 | Product-aware | Knows your product, not convinced | Proof — reviews, guarantees, specifics that remove doubt | Reassure, then buy |
| 5 | Most-aware | Ready to buy, needs a nudge | The offer. Price, terms, urgency | "Buy now" |
Matching stage to channel
A reasonable starting point:
| Where the reader is | Usual stage |
|---|---|
| Cold social ads, top-of-funnel content | 1–2 |
| Blog and SEO traffic | 2–3 |
| Your email list | 3–4 |
| Product pages | 4 |
| Retargeting, abandoned cart, "most-aware" | 5 |
These are starting points, not rules. A cold audience for a well-known category (running shoes) may already be problem-aware; a cold audience for something genuinely new is at stage 1.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Writing stage 5 copy for everybody.
Stage 5 copy is easy to write and it works — on people already at stage 5. It reads well, it's what your competitors do, and it converts your warm traffic nicely.
Then you point it at cold traffic and it fails completely, because you're pressing "buy" on someone who hasn't yet been given a reason to want anything. The fix isn't better targeting or a bigger discount. It's a different message.
Works with positioning
The two combine:
| Positioning | Awareness stage | |
|---|---|---|
| Says | What makes you different | How hard to sell right now |
| Fixed or variable? | Fixed — one per shop | Variable — changes per audience |
Positioning gives the copy tool your substance. Awareness tells it how directly to deploy that substance. Both together produce copy that's specific to you and appropriate to the reader.
How it works (without the technical bits)
Choosing a stage only changes how the copy is written. It doesn't change the format of what you get back, so the same templates and workflows keep working.
Real merchant scenarios
Scenario A — The ad that worked warm and failed cold
Setup. Supplements brand. Retargeting at 4.2× return. Scaled the same creative to cold audiences and got 0.6×.
The creative:
"20% off our bestselling magnesium. Ends Sunday."
Diagnosis. Perfect stage 5 copy, shown to a stage 1–2 audience. Cold viewers didn't know they might have a magnesium problem, so a discount on solving it meant nothing.
Rewritten at stage 2 (problem-aware):
"Waking at 3am and not knowing why? For a lot of people it isn't
stress — it's a mineral most diets stopped providing decades ago."
Results on the same cold audience, same budget:
| Stage 5 creative | Stage 2 creative | |
|---|---|---|
| Click-through | 0.4% | 1.9% |
| Cost per click | £2.80 | £0.71 |
| Return on ad spend | 0.6× | 2.4× |
They kept the original for retargeting, where it was still the right message. Different audiences, different creative.
Scenario B — Different stage per channel
Setup. Skincare brand sending identical messaging everywhere.
Restructured by stage:
| Channel | Stage | Message |
|---|---|---|
| Cold social | 1 — Unaware | A story about skin that reacts to everything |
| Blog / SEO | 2 — Problem-aware | Why sensitive skin reacts, and what to look for |
| Email list | 3 — Solution-aware | Why cold-processed beats standard formulation |
| Product pages | 4 — Product-aware | Reviews, before/after, ingredient list |
| Retargeting | 5 — Most-aware | Free shipping, ends Friday |
Result over a quarter:
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Cold traffic conversion | 0.4% | 1.1% |
| Email click rate | 1.9% | 4.3% |
| Blended cost per customer | £48 | £29 |
Nothing about the product, price, or budget changed.
Scenario C — When stage 5 was right all along
Setup. Merchant read about awareness stages, decided all their copy was too salesy, and rewrote everything at stage 2.
Their conversion fell.
Why. Most of their traffic came from branded search — people typing the shop's name into Google. Those visitors were already at stage 5. Rewriting to problem-agitation made them work harder for information they'd come specifically to get.
Fix. Stage 5 restored on product pages and branded-search landing pages; stage 2 kept for cold social only.
The lesson. There's no universally correct stage. Getting it wrong in the "softer" direction is just as costly as getting it wrong in the "harder" one.
Scenario D — Diagnosing a flop
Setup. Furniture brand's cold campaign produced almost no clicks. Assumed the creative was bad.
Checking the stage. The ad opened with "Handcrafted oak, mortise-and-tenon joinery, 25-year guarantee" — stage 4 copy, proof and specification, aimed at someone already considering them.
Cold audience was at stage 1. They weren't shopping for furniture at all.
Rewritten at stage 1 — a short piece about how much of the furniture bought in the last decade had already been thrown away.
Click-through went from 0.3% to 2.2%. Same product, same photography, same budget.
Best practices
✅ Match the stage to where the traffic came from. Cold social is not your email list.
✅ Use several stages across your funnel, not one everywhere.
✅ Test two adjacent stages on the same cold audience — the gap is usually obvious quickly.
✅ Keep stage 5 for retargeting and branded search. It works brilliantly there.
✅ Combine with Positioning so the copy is both correctly pitched and specific to you.
✅ When an ad flops, check the stage before blaming the creative. It's the most common cause.
❌ Don't send "buy now" to people who've never heard of you.
❌ Don't rewrite everything soft. Scenario C lost money doing exactly that.
❌ Don't guess your audience's stage — think about where they came from and what they'd already been doing.
❌ Don't change stage mid-campaign without measuring; you won't know what caused the change.
Plan tiers
| Capability | Free | Starter | Pro | Agency | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All five awareness stages | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Conditions ad copy | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Conditions storefront copy | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Combines with positioning | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Per-campaign stage presets | — | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
Frequently asked
How do I know which stage my audience is at? Think about where they came from and what they were doing beforehand. Someone who typed your name into Google is at stage 5. Someone scrolling social who's never heard of you is at stage 1 or 2.
Can I use different stages at the same time? Yes, and you should. Different channels reach different readers.
Does this change the format of the copy I get? No. Only the approach and tone change; the output structure stays the same.
What if my product category is well understood? Then your cold audience probably starts at stage 2 or 3 rather than 1 — they already know the problem and that solutions exist.
Is stage 1 ever worth it for a small shop? It's the slowest and most expensive to convert, so usually not first. Start at stage 2 for cold traffic and only go to stage 1 if your category is genuinely unfamiliar.
Does this affect emails as well as ads? Yes — anywhere the copy tools write. Email lists usually sit at stage 3–4.
How does this relate to the Journey diagnostic? Journey tells you which stage of your funnel is weak. This tells you how to write to the people in it. A weak Engage stage often means an awareness mismatch.
See also
- Growth Science overview — all eight tools
- Positioning — what makes you different
- Jobs — the customer language to use at each stage
- Journey — which funnel stage needs the work
- Ad & email copy — where stage conditioning applies
- CRO & storefront copy — same, for pages
- A/B testing & experiments — testing two stages against each other