Meet Our Heroes
The Rational Investor isn’t your typical trading education platform. While most services in the crypto and stock trading space teach “their setups” and focus on flashy wins, TRI takes a fundamentally different approach. They teach people how to become real traders, not just followers. Their secret sauce? Tools that literally don’t exist anywhere else in the crypto trading niche, particularly their proprietary Crypto Breadth Dashboard and advanced trade signals that give everyday traders an unfair advantage in volatile markets.
Founded by Brian, who built his largest following on Twitter, TRI offers three core membership tiers: TRI Silver (foundational trading education), TRI Pro (advanced tools including their exclusive trade-finding engine), and TRI School (comprehensive cohort-based programs with live instruction and TA support). Their philosophy is simple but powerful: teach risk management, provide edge-building setups, and create a sustainable trading business, not just quick wins.
Their audience? Primarily men in their 30s and 40s who understand the basics of crypto and stocks from YouTube videos and surface-level content, but lack the deep knowledge to actually profit consistently. These are ambitious guys looking to build a real income stream through trading while investing intelligently for the long term.
The problem? Despite having world-class educational content and proprietary tools no competitor could match, TRI’s marketing was entirely reactive. They’d run ads only when promoting something specific: three times a year for School enrollments, during Black Friday for Pro tools, and sporadic campaigns in between. Their approach was scattershot, inconsistent, and left massive revenue on the table.
Their Goals
TRI came to Digital Time Savers with a straightforward mission: build a sustainable, scalable growth system that consistently brings in new members across all three product tiers without relying on seasonal promotions or one-off campaigns.
Specifically, they wanted to:
- Increase Silver memberships (their entry-level offering and top-of-funnel product)
- Scale Pro memberships (their premium tier with advanced tools and signals)
- Fill cohorts for TRI School (their highest-touch, highest-value offering)
- Create predictable, month-over-month revenue growth
- Move beyond reactive campaign launches to always-on marketing infrastructure
They weren’t looking for quick hits. They wanted a marketing engine that worked year-round, brought in qualified leads who understood the value of real trading education, and converted those leads into paying members who stuck around.
The Challenge
TRI had three major problems, and they were all connected.
First, their ad strategy was nonexistent. They had dabbled in Twitter ads (logical, given Brian’s following there) and ran some Facebook campaigns, but nothing was structured, tested, or optimized. Every campaign was built from scratch, launched reactively, and abandoned once the promotion ended. There was no data continuity, no learning from past efforts, and no compounding growth. It was like starting over every single time.
Second, their messaging didn’t differentiate them. In the crowded online trading education space, everyone claims to teach people how to trade. TRI’s actual differentiators (proprietary tools, business-focused education, risk management emphasis) weren’t coming through in their marketing. They sounded like everyone else, which made it nearly impossible to cut through the noise and attract their ideal customer: the semi-informed guy who’s ready to go deeper but doesn’t know where to start.
Third, they had no funnel. Their sporadic campaigns sent traffic directly to product pages or generic landing pages with no nurture sequence, no retargeting strategy, and no way to convert people who weren’t ready to buy immediately. In a space where trust and education are critical, this was a dealbreaker. Most people interested in trading education need time to evaluate, compare, and convince themselves. TRI had no mechanism to stay in front of those people.
The result? Unpredictable revenue, wasted ad spend, and a nagging sense that they were sitting on a goldmine but had no way to extract it.
Our Process
Digital Time Savers approached this project like we were building a media company, not just running ads. TRI needed infrastructure, strategy, and systems that could scale. Here’s how we did it.
Phase One: Audience Research and Messaging Overhaul
Before we spent a single dollar on ads, we went deep on TRI’s audience. We analyzed their existing members, studied competitor messaging from platforms like AvaTrade Academy and TrendSpider, and mapped out the psychological journey of their ideal customer: the 30-to-40-year-old guy who’s watched YouTube videos about crypto, opened a Coinbase account, maybe even made a few trades, but doesn’t have a system or strategy that actually works.
We identified three key pain points this audience felt viscerally:
- Confusion. Too much conflicting information, no clear path forward.
- Frustration. They’d tried trading on their own and either lost money or made inconsistent gains they couldn’t replicate.
- Skepticism. They’d seen too many “get rich quick” schemes and didn’t trust most trading educators.
From there, we rebuilt TRI’s messaging to speak directly to these emotions while highlighting what made them genuinely different. Instead of “learn to trade crypto,” we led with angles like “Stop guessing. Start trading like a business.” and “The tools Wall Street doesn’t want you to have.” We emphasized TRI’s proprietary dashboards, their business-building approach, and the fact that they teach you to trade, not just copy someone else’s setups.
Phase Two: Funnel Architecture and Lead Magnet Creation
TRI didn’t need people to buy immediately. They needed to build trust first. So we designed a multi-stage funnel that met people where they were and moved them toward conversion gradually.
Top of funnel: We created lead magnets designed to attract TRI’s ideal customer and showcase their expertise. These included free resources like “The 5 Risk Management Rules Every Crypto Trader Must Know” and “How to Read Market Breadth Like a Pro (Without Paying for Bloomberg).” These weren’t generic PDFs. They were legitimately valuable, actionable guides that demonstrated TRI’s depth of knowledge and hinted at the power of their paid tools.
Middle of funnel: We built retargeting sequences that nurtured leads over time. People who downloaded a lead magnet got entered into an email sequence and retargeting campaigns that educated them on TRI’s philosophy, introduced them to the tools, and showcased success stories from existing members. The goal was to keep TRI top of mind and build credibility before asking for a sale.
Bottom of funnel: We created dedicated landing pages for each membership tier (Silver, Pro, School) with clear value propositions, social proof, and benefit-driven copy. These pages were optimized for conversion and designed to handle traffic from multiple sources: cold ads, retargeting, email, and organic.
Phase Three: Multi-Platform Launch (Facebook, Google, YouTube)
With messaging and funnel infrastructure in place, we launched coordinated campaigns across Facebook, Google, and YouTube. Each platform played a specific role.
Facebook Ads: We used Facebook for top-of-funnel awareness and lead generation. We tested multiple creative angles (risk management focus, proprietary tools, business-building approach) with carousel ads, video ads, and single-image ads. Our targeting focused on crypto enthusiasts, stock market investors, and people interested in financial education, side hustles, and wealth building. We also created lookalike audiences based on TRI’s existing member list to find high-intent prospects.
Google Ads: We ran Google Search campaigns targeting high-intent keywords like “best crypto trading course,” “how to trade crypto profitably,” and “crypto trading signals.” These campaigns captured people actively looking for solutions and drove them directly to conversion-optimized landing pages. We also launched YouTube pre-roll and in-stream ads to intercept people watching crypto and trading content, positioning TRI as the next logical step in their education journey.
YouTube Ads: Given TRI’s strength in educational content and Brian’s following, YouTube was a natural fit. We created video ads that felt native to the platform, using a direct, casual tone that matched TRI’s voice. These ads highlighted TRI’s unique tools, teased the depth of their curriculum, and drove viewers to lead magnets or directly to membership pages depending on intent signals.
Phase Four: Testing, Optimization, and Scale
The first 60 days were all about testing. We tested audiences, creatives, offers, landing pages, and messaging angles. We killed what didn’t work fast and doubled down on winners. Here’s what we learned:
- Messaging around proprietary tools outperformed generic “learn to trade” angles. People responded to exclusivity and differentiation.
- Lead magnets focused on risk management had the highest conversion rates. TRI’s audience was scared of losing money, and content that addressed that fear built trust fast.
- Video ads on Facebook and YouTube significantly outperformed static images. The casual, educational tone TRI was known for translated beautifully to video.
- Retargeting was a game-changer. Most conversions happened after multiple touchpoints, reinforcing the need for a strong middle-of-funnel nurture strategy.
As we identified winning combinations, we scaled spend aggressively. We expanded lookalike audiences, increased budgets on top-performing ad sets, and launched new creative variations to avoid ad fatigue. By month three, we had a predictable, scalable system that was bringing in new members daily.
Results
Within 90 days, The Rational Investor went from sporadic, reactive campaigns to a fully optimized, always-on growth engine. Here’s what we delivered:
- Generated over 1,200 qualified leads through lead magnets and top-of-funnel campaigns
- Increased Silver memberships by 320%, turning TRI’s entry-level tier into a consistent revenue driver
- Boosted Pro memberships by 215%, scaling their premium offering without relying on Black Friday promotions
- Filled two full TRI School cohorts ahead of schedule, generating over $85,000 in School revenue in a single quarter
- Achieved a blended ROAS of 6.2x across all platforms, with Facebook leading at 6.8x, Google at 5.9x, and YouTube at 5.4x
- Reduced cost per acquisition by 47% as campaigns matured and retargeting kicked in
- Built a retargeting audience of over 15,000 engaged prospects, creating a compounding asset for future campaigns
But the real win wasn’t just the numbers. TRI now had a system. They were no longer dependent on seasonal promotions or one-off launches. They had predictable lead flow, consistent conversions, and a scalable infrastructure that could grow with them. Their marketing finally matched the quality of their education, and the results spoke for themselves.
