The Hook
I’m genuinely not sure what to make of this hook from Notion. In theory, it’s a really strong headline. $12,000 for free??
Maybe I’m too cynical, but it just feels too good to be true. Even for a B2B offer. The headline is so bold with its claim, I just don’t believe it. If I came across this offer in the wild, I’d dismiss it as some bullshit marketing maths, and scroll away.
Maybe that’s just me. I might post to LinkedIn and see if anyone else agrees.
But for now, let’s actually do the maths:
Cost per seat = months × $20
6 months: 6 × $20 = $120
3 months: 3 × $20 = $60
1 month: 1 × $20 = $20
Maximum value at 100 seats
6 months: $120 × 100 = $12,000
3 months: $60 × 100 = $6,000
1 month: $20 × 100 = $2,000
”up to 3 months” and “$12,000”
$12,000 ÷ $60 per seat = 200 seats needed
The startup program is for companies with fewer than 100 employees, so 200 seats looks unlikely
OK, so…it is bullshit. Unless I’ve missed something. It seems you can’t actually get $12,000 free with this program. You’d need to get 6 months free, which is only available to companies “affiliated with one of our startup partners”. Which the ad doesn’t state. And you’d still need to have 100 seats, the maximum available on this program.
So the hook is too good to be true. But let’s assume that as a copywriter my bullshit detector is unusually high. For plenty of B2B buyers, this is probably a strong hook that will, in fact make them click.
The Angle
This ad reads like someone trying to satirise how AI writes copy. The emoji, the arrows, the title-case. It would be pretty good satire if it wasn’t an actual ad Notion ran.
The angle itself is an odd one. “Strategic investment” is a weird sell for a big-ass free trial. What are they investing? It’s not money, we’ve covered that. So I guess they’re trying to say that the effort of implementing Notion Business at zero cost is a strategic investment?
This is a BOFU ad, clearly. It’s trying to say “You already know who we are, here’s a low-risk way to get started”. But the word ‘investment’ makes me stop to work out what I’m investing. It’s a word that adds a weird amount of friction to an ad that it clearly trying to rush you to the finish line.
They don’t touch on any benefits, they don’t tell you what features beyond “enterprise grade AI suite”. It’s just GO GO GO.
It’s almost like they don’t expect you to read the primary text at all.
The Ask
“Free Trial with AI Access” is fine inside the image. It just clarifies the framing of the $12,000.
But then it goes nuts. The headline is so long it gets appended. Same with the description.
Seemingly the description also goes into benefits, but it’s so long you can’t read what they are. Maybe this was supposed to be the primary text and the primary text was supposed to be the description? That’s the only thing I can think of.
Going back to the headline, I don’t know why they’re trying to cram so much in there. “Stop waiting. Start transforming” is AI copy if I’ve ever read it. I’d remove that and just keep the headline about the offer. Feels odd tryijng to shoehorn in a generic tagline here.
Overall, a bizarre and messy CTA.
The Landing
Before I get on to the landing page itself, this is the link for it:
https://app.notion.com/signup?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=startups
Notice that it specifies linkedin as the UTM source, even though this is a Meta ad.
Then this is the actual landing page. Just a sign up modal. Which seems wild to me.
Why aren’t they landing on a page clarifying the startup program, explaining the maths, giving them ANY details about what they’re signing up for?
But no. Just the regular sign up modal. The least reassuring landing page when you want someone to commit to three months for their (up to) 100 employees.
The Verdict
The only conclusion I can draw from this ad is that Notion is so big, they don’t care how well their ads perform. Or they’re so big, it doesn’t matter what their ads say.
They lie, they don’t even try to sell the product, half of their CTA copy isn’t even shown to the reader.
It’s a hot mess!