# The complete guide to Sales & Marketing on Prolaud

> Every sales and marketing tool a course creator needs, on one page: ad links and ad copy, ready-made creatives, an affiliate program, landing pages, a lead inbox, email and WhatsApp campaigns, automations, early-bird pricing, coupons, payment links, a storefront and attribution. With screenshots and a video.

Published 2026-10-17 · by Renu Rawat the Founder of prolaud.com · 16 min read
Source: https://prolaud.com/blog/sales-and-marketing-tools-for-course-creators

Most course creators don't struggle to teach. They struggle with everything around the teaching: getting the right people to the course page, following up with the ones who asked a question, nudging the ones who almost bought, and knowing which post or ad actually brought the sale. Usually that work is spread across five or six tools that don't talk to each other, and the numbers never quite add up.

On Prolaud it lives in one place. Open Grow → Sales & Marketing in your dashboard and every card opens the real tool, already connected to your courses, your students and your site. This guide walks through each one in a small demo art academy, Brush & Clay Studio, in the same four groups the page uses. Every screenshot is the product as it is today, and the six-minute video below walks through the same screens.

[Video: Sales & Marketing on Prolaud: every tool, from first visit to paid enrolment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKhOTDGnmeI)

*The whole guide in six minutes, narrated, in the same order as this article.*

![The Sales & Marketing page in the Prolaud dashboard: a short tour link, then the Bring people in cards for Facebook & Instagram ads, Marketing creatives and the Affiliate programme](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/hub.jpg)

*Grow → Sales & Marketing. Each card opens the tool itself; the tour at the top takes three minutes.*

Under the first group, two more rows of cards cover the rest of the journey: turning visitors into students, and closing the sale.

![The Turn visitors into students cards: Lead inbox & forms, Email campaigns, Automations, Course announcements, WhatsApp campaigns and Communities](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/hub-2.jpg)

*Turn visitors into students: six tools for following up.*

![The Close the sale cards: Discount codes, Limited-time offers, Payment links and Storefront & memberships](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/hub-3.jpg)

*Close the sale: the offer, the code and the link that turn a maybe into a purchase.*

> **What's on your plan:** Everything on this page is on your plan unless its card says otherwise. Today one card does: WhatsApp campaigns, which is on the Studio plan. See pricing (/pricing) for what each plan includes.

## Part 1: Bring people in

The first group gets your academy in front of the right people, and makes sure every visit they make is counted, so later you can tell which effort paid off.

### Facebook & Instagram ads: ready before you spend

Prolaud doesn't place or pay for ads; you do that in Meta Ads Manager as usual. What the ads helper does is get the three things right that most first ads get wrong, in the order you need them.

1. Your Meta Pixel. The helper checks whether your site has one. If it doesn't, it says so and opens Site settings, where you paste the Pixel ID from Meta Events Manager. The pixel is what lets Meta show your ad to people like your visitors, and retarget the ones who left.
2. A tracked link. Pick the course or product you're advertising and where the ad will run, Instagram or Facebook, and name the campaign. Copy the link and use it as the ad's website address. It carries utm tags, so every visit, enquiry and sale from that ad is counted under that campaign.
3. The words. Click Write three versions and you get three ad texts, each with a headline, written from your course's own description. Read them, change anything, and copy them into Ads Manager.

![The ads helper: step 1 your Meta Pixel, step 2 a tracked link for the ad with the course, where it runs and the campaign name, and the finished link with a Copy button](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/ads.jpg)

*Pixel first, then the tracked link. The link is the part that makes the sale countable.*

![Three ad texts written from the course description, each with Copy text and Copy headline buttons, and a link to open Meta Ads Manager](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/ads-copy.jpg)

*Three versions to start from. Each is written from the course's own description, so it promises what the course teaches.*

The tracked link is the important part. Without it, a sale from your ad looks like any other sale. With it, the report in Part 4 shows how many people the ad sent, how many asked a question, how many bought, and what they spent.

### Marketing creatives: posts and posters made from your course

Pick a course or product and you get four ready-made pictures, in your academy's colors and with your logo: a square Instagram and Facebook post, a story for Instagram or WhatsApp status, a LinkedIn and Facebook link banner, and a printable offer poster. The story and the poster carry a QR code that opens the course.

![Marketing creatives: the course picker, headline, one line under it and button text, and four designs side by side — square post, story, LinkedIn banner and poster with a QR code](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/creatives.jpg)

*Four designs at once, from the course's cover, title, price and offer. What you see is what you download.*

- Everything on the picture comes from the course: its cover, title and price, and the early-bird price and end date when one is running.
- Change the headline and the line under it, change the button text, or turn the price off.
- Click PNG under a design to download it, and copy the caption to post with it.
- Each design links to the course with its own tags (Instagram, LinkedIn or the poster's QR code), so the attribution report shows which one brought the sale.

It's the fastest way to never post a launch without a picture again. And when an early-bird price ends, the next download simply shows the full price.

### Affiliate program: partners sell for you

Past students, fellow teachers and creators with an audience can share your courses with a link of their own and earn a share of what they sell. Turn the program on and set four things:

- Commission: the share of each sale a partner earns. You can give one partner a different rate.
- A click counts for: how many days after clicking a partner's link a purchase still earns them a commission (30 days by default, up to 180).
- Who can become a partner: anyone can ask and you approve each one; anyone can join and gets a link at once; or only people you add.
- Your terms: shown on your join page. Say how and when you pay.

![The Affiliate programme page: commission, how long a click counts, who can become a partner and the terms; a request to join with Approve and Decline; and partners with visits, sales, earned and owed](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/affiliates.jpg)

*Your settings at the top; requests to join and every partner, with what each is owed, below.*

Add a partner with their name and email, or share your join page and approve the requests that come in. Each partner gets an email with their link, and a private partner page on your site with their links for every course, ready-made posts carrying their own code and QR code, and their visits, sales and earnings. Buyers are shown to partners only as a masked hint, never a full email.

![A partner's page on the academy's site: Hi Riya, the commission and how long a click counts, visits from their link, sales, owed and paid, and their links for each course with Copy buttons](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/partner.jpg)

*What a partner sees. No account needed — the link in their email is their way in.*

> **Who pays the partners?:** You do. Buyers pay into your own account as with every sale, so commissions are yours to pay, by bank transfer or however you agreed. Prolaud keeps the record: what each partner earned, what you owe, and what you've paid. When you've paid someone, open their Sales and click Mark as paid.

A few rules keep it fair. If a buyer clicked two partners' links, the one they clicked last gets the sale. The commission is worked out once, at the rate in force when the sale happened. There is no commission on a partner's own purchase or on a free order, and a refunded sale that hasn't been paid out yet is cancelled automatically.

### Pages: landing pages on your own address

Your academy's website lives in Pages. Every page is built from sections (a hero, features, text and more), and you can add as many as you like: a landing page for one course, a page for a workshop, a page you only link from one ad. They all sit on your academy's own address, so the visits count in your own reports and the trust stays with your brand.

![Pages: the list of the academy's pages — Home, About and Contact — each published, with Design and Edit buttons, and New page and Add legal pages at the top](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/pages.jpg)

*Every page on your public site, with its status. New page starts a landing page in a click.*

### Analytics IDs and your Meta Pixel

If you also use Google Analytics, Plausible, Hotjar or the Meta Pixel, add their IDs in Site settings → Advanced → Analytics & tags, and Prolaud puts their snippets on every public page for you, with no code. There's a box for any other verification tag or script, too.

![Site settings, Analytics & tags: fields for the Google Analytics 4 ID, Plausible domain, Hotjar Site ID, Meta Pixel ID and custom head HTML](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/pixels.jpg)

*Paste an ID, and it's on every page of your site.*

### Wall of Love: let your students sell for you

The Wall of Love collects what your students say — wins, artwork, videos and shout-outs — and shows it on your public site. Prospects trust other students more than any headline you write, so this is the cheapest marketing you will ever do. Add a quote by hand, or pick a student's win from your community.

![Wall of Love: three student quotes with their names, an Add to wall button and View public wall](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/wall.jpg)

*Student words, on your public site.*

## Part 2: Turn visitors into students

Most people don't buy on their first visit. The second group is about the people in between: the ones who asked a question, signed up for something free, or bought once and might buy again.

### Lead inbox: every enquiry, and what it turned into

Every contact-form submission from your site lands in the Lead inbox, with the person's name, email, message and the page they wrote from. Mark each one contacted or qualified, star the promising ones, add a lead by hand, or import and export them as CSV. Embed a form gives you the code to put a form on another site.

![The Lead inbox: cards for leads captured, leads converted and revenue from leads in the last 90 days, then each lead with their email, message and status](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/leads.jpg)

*Three cards answer the real question: did these enquiries turn into students?*

The three cards at the top cover the last 90 days: how many leads you captured, how many went on to buy (the same email bought at or after the enquiry, however long it took), and the revenue from them. View chart shows each one day by day.

### Email campaigns and contacts

In Marketing, your contact list fills in by itself as people sign up, enquire and buy, so there's nothing to import before you start. Tag people into segments (a batch, a course, your repeat buyers), then send an email to everyone or to one tag.

![Marketing: counts of contacts, segments, active automations and channels, then Start from a proven playbook with six ready-made automations](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/email.jpg)

*Contacts collect themselves. The playbooks are ready-made starting points you can edit.*

If you're not sure where to begin, start from a playbook. Each one fills in the builder with tested wording you can change: welcome new buyers, a WhatsApp welcome ping, recover abandoned checkouts, win back students who have gone quiet, nurture a new lead, and tag repeat buyers as VIPs.

### Automations: follow-up that happens on its own

An automation is a rule: when something happens, do something, instantly or after a wait. When someone makes a purchase, send them a welcome email. When someone gets a tag, send a WhatsApp message. Use the contact's first name in the subject and body, preview it, and send a test to yourself before you switch it on.

![Building an automation: the trigger When someone makes a purchase, the action Send an email, and the email editor with a subject using the first name](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/automations.jpg)

*When this happens, do this. Send test to me shows you exactly what students will get.*

Automations are where small academies win back time. The welcome email, the reminder to someone who started checkout and didn't finish, the note to a student who hasn't logged in for two weeks: write each once, and it goes out every time, on time.

### WhatsApp campaigns from your own number

For many students, WhatsApp is the message they actually read. WhatsApp campaigns send from your own WhatsApp Business number, in your academy's name, so replies come to you. It's on the Studio plan.

![WhatsApp campaigns: the connected business number with delivery reports on, and the templates with their language, kind and whether Meta approved or rejected them](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/whatsapp.jpg)

*Connect your number once. Your templates come straight from Meta, with their approval status.*

- Why templates: WhatsApp only delivers a message you start when it's a template Meta has approved. A typed message reaches only people who wrote to you in the last 24 hours. You can write a new template and submit it for approval from this page; Meta usually reviews it within minutes.
- Who pays: Meta bills your business directly for the messages you send, at its own rates. Prolaud adds nothing per message.
- Connecting: a one-time setup of about 20 minutes, with every step listed on the page. The number can't also be signed in to the WhatsApp app on a phone.

To send, choose who gets it (everyone with a phone number, or one tag), pick an approved template and fill in its blanks. A blank set to first name becomes each person's own name, and the preview shows the message exactly as they'll read it. Then confirm that these people agreed to hear from you on WhatsApp, and send.

![Send a campaign: send to a tag, the template, its blanks with first name and the batch name, the consent box, and a preview of the message](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/whatsapp-2.jpg)

*Pick who, pick the template, fill the blanks. The preview is what each student sees.*

Afterwards you see how many messages were delivered, how many were read, and which didn't arrive, with Meta's own reason, such as a number that isn't on WhatsApp. Anyone who replies STOP is never sent another campaign.

![A sent campaign: 10 delivered, 7 read and 1 not delivered, with the reason that the recipient is not a WhatsApp user](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/whatsapp-3.jpg)

*Delivered, read and not delivered — with the reason for each one that failed.*

### Course announcements

To tell everyone on a course something at once — a new batch, a changed class time, a bonus lesson — open the course and click Announce. Write a headline and a message, and it emails every student enrolled on that course. If the course has a community, it can also post the message there, so it stays where students will see it later.

![The Announce to your students dialog on a course: the course and its enrolled students, a headline, a message and the Email channel ticked, with a Send to 6 button](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/announcements.jpg)

*Open a course → Announce. One message to everyone on that course.*

For a WhatsApp message to a course's students, use WhatsApp campaigns with that course's tag, so it goes as an approved template from your own number and actually arrives.

### Communities: a reason to come back

A community gives your students a place to come back to between lessons: a wall to post on, challenges with daily check-ins, a leaderboard, short videos and your upcoming live classes. That matters for sales more than it seems. Students who come back finish, students who finish leave reviews, and finished students buy the next course.

![Communities: the list of communities, the next live class with Join, a course on sale with Buy, short videos, and the leaderboard](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/communities.jpg)

*One home for every community, with your next class and your next offer on it.*

A community can be free for everyone, free with a course, paid on its own, or part of a membership. The Communities guide (/features/community) covers every part of it.

## Part 3: Close the sale

The third group is the offer itself: a reason to buy now, a code for the people you want to reward, and a link that takes someone straight to paying.

### Early-bird prices

In a course's Pricing tab, set an early-bird price and the date it ends. Until that date, buyers see the offer price with the full price struck through, and how much they save. After it, the full price comes back on its own; there's nothing to remember to switch off.

![The course Pricing tab: currency, price and strike-through price, the early-bird price and the date it ends, and What buyers see showing the offer price with the full price struck through and the saving](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/pricing.jpg)

*What buyers see updates as you type, so you know exactly how the offer reads.*

If you sell to students abroad, you can also set prices in US dollars for visitors from outside your country. Leave them blank and those visitors see your own currency.

### Coupons

Below the price, add discount codes that students type at checkout. Each code has how much it takes off, an optional end date, and an optional limit on how many times it can be used. Use them for a partner's audience, a webinar's attendees or a thank-you to past students — anyone you want to give a better price without changing it for everyone.

![The Coupons section of the course Pricing tab: a code, the discount, an end date, a maximum number of uses and an Add button](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/coupons.jpg)

*A code, how much off, until when, and how many times.*

### Payment links

Sometimes the sale happens in a conversation: on a call, in a DM, after a demo class. From the Courses page, Send Payment Link makes a link to pay for a course, for one person or for anyone. For one person, enter their name and email (and phone, if you like), set a special price just for them if you've agreed one, add a note, and choose when the link expires. They get the link by email, and once they've paid they're enrolled.

![Create Invite for a course: the recipient's name, email and phone, the course price and a special price for this person, a note and the link expiry](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/links.jpg)

*A link for one person, at a price agreed with them, that expires when you say.*

### Storefront: everything else you sell

Courses are only part of what an academy sells. The Storefront sells the rest from the same checkout: memberships, bundles, downloads, paid communities and one-to-one sessions. It shows your sales and orders at the top, and every product with its type, price and status.

![The Storefront: gross sales, orders and products at the top, a note to connect payments, and the list of products — communities, a course and a membership — with their prices and status](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/store.jpg)

*Every product, one checkout. The yellow note shows until you connect your own payment account.*

Buyers pay into your own Stripe or Razorpay account, so the money goes straight to you. Connect it once from the Storefront, and every tool in this guide that takes a payment uses it.

## Part 4: See what works

The last group answers the question every other tool raises: was it worth it? Because the ad links, creatives, partner links and emails above all carry tags, Prolaud can tell you where each student really came from.

### Where your students come from

This report shows every visitor, lead and buyer, and the revenue from them, grouped by where they first found you: your paid ads, Google, an AI answer such as ChatGPT, social media, your emails, a partner's link, or a direct visit. Pick the period at the top.

![Where your students come from: totals for visitors, leads, buyers and revenue, then a table by channel — affiliate, paid social, organic search, direct, social, AI answer engines and email — with visitors, leads, buyers, revenue and last visit](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/attribution.jpg)

*Every channel, from the first visit to the money. The numbers come from your own site.*

- A sale counts for where the buyer first found you. The last-visit column shows the sales credited to where they came from just before buying, so you see both sides.
- Buyers are matched by their account, or by the email they left on an enquiry form, so a visit on Monday and a purchase on Friday still join up.
- Sales that can't be tied to a visit, such as a purchase on a device that never visited your site, are listed separately rather than guessed.

Below the channels, every campaign you tagged gets its own row, with its visitors, leads, buyers and revenue. Then come your latest visitors, each with where they came from, and whether they became a lead or a buyer.

![By campaign: each tagged campaign with its source, visitors, leads, buyers and revenue; then recent visitors with where each came from](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/attribution-2.jpg)

*By campaign, then visitor by visitor. This is where you find out which ad to run again.*

### Analytics

Analytics shows the business as a whole: revenue this month and all time, total students, completion rate, revenue and enrolments month by month, your top sellers, and how far students have got. Read it next to the attribution report, and you know both how much you sold and why.

![The Analytics dashboard: revenue this month and all time, total students and completion rate, with revenue and enrolment charts for the last six months](https://prolaud.com/images/blog/sales-marketing/analytics.jpg)

*Revenue, enrolments and completion, over time.*

## Putting it together: one launch, start to finish

Each tool is useful alone, but they're built to be used together. Here's how a single course launch runs through all four groups.

1. Two weeks out: set an early-bird price ending on launch day, and make a landing page for the course in Pages.
2. The same day: download the four creatives from Marketing creatives and schedule the posts. Invite three or four past students to the affiliate program, and send them their partner pages.
3. One week out: make a tracked link in the ads helper, write the ad from its three versions, and start a small Instagram ad.
4. Every day: answer new enquiries in the Lead inbox. Let the welcome automation greet every buyer.
5. Two days before the early-bird ends: send one email to your contacts, and one WhatsApp campaign to the people who agreed to hear from you there.
6. After launch: announce the start date to everyone on the course, and invite them into its community.
7. A week later: open Where your students come from. See which channel, which campaign and which partner brought the buyers, and do more of that next time.

**Which tool for which job.**

| If you want to… | Use |
| --- | --- |
| Run an ad and know what it sold | Facebook & Instagram ads, then Where your students come from |
| Post about a course without designing anything | Marketing creatives |
| Have other people sell for you | Affiliate program |
| Follow up with people who asked a question | Lead inbox, then email or an automation |
| Reach students on WhatsApp | WhatsApp campaigns (Studio plan) |
| Tell everyone on one course something | Open the course → Announce |
| Give people a reason to buy now | Early-bird price, or a coupon |
| Close a sale in a conversation | Send Payment Link |
| Sell a membership, bundle or session | Storefront |

## Where to find every guide

Each tool has a step-by-step help guide: the Sales & Marketing overview (/help/sales-marketing-overview), ads and attribution (/help/facebook-instagram-ads-and-attribution), marketing creatives (/help/marketing-creatives), the affiliate program (/help/affiliate-programme), WhatsApp campaigns (/help/whatsapp-campaigns), automations (/help/marketing-automations), lead capture (/help/marketing-lead-capture), coupons and early-bird prices (/help/coupons-early-bird), course announcements (/help/course-announce) and sending a payment link (/help/course-send-payment-link-individual). The marketing feature page (/features/marketing) has the short version.

For the strategy behind the tools, read how to sell online courses (/blog/how-to-sell-online-courses), the online course launch checklist (/blog/online-course-launch-checklist) and email vs WhatsApp for course updates (/blog/email-vs-whatsapp-for-course-updates).

[Start free](https://prolaud.com/signup) — Every tool in this guide is a click away from the Grow menu in your dashboard.

## Frequently asked questions

### Does Prolaud run my Facebook or Instagram ads?

No. You create and pay for ads in Meta Ads Manager as usual. Prolaud gets you ready before you spend — it checks your Meta Pixel, makes a tracked link for the course and writes three versions of the ad text — and afterwards shows the visits, enquiries and sales that ad brought in.

### Does Prolaud pay my affiliates?

No. Buyers pay into your own account, so you pay your partners yourself, in whatever way you agreed. Prolaud keeps the record of what each partner earned, what you owe and what you have paid, and partners see the same figures on their own page.

### Can I send WhatsApp messages to my students from Prolaud?

Yes, with WhatsApp campaigns, from your own WhatsApp Business number, on the Studio plan. Messages go as templates Meta has approved, to people who agreed to hear from you, and you see who got each one and who read it. Meta bills your business directly for the messages; Prolaud adds no per-message charge.

### How does Prolaud know where a student came from?

Your site records each visit and where it came from, including the tags on the links from the ads helper, creatives, partners and emails. When someone enquires or buys, they're matched to their earlier visits by their account or the email they left. The sale is credited to where they first found you, and the report also shows where they came from just before buying.

### Do I need a separate email marketing tool?

For most academies, no. Contacts collect themselves from sign-ups, enquiries and purchases, and you can send campaigns to everyone or to a tag, and set up automations such as a welcome email after a purchase or a reminder after an abandoned checkout.

### Can I offer a lower price to just one student?

Yes. Send Payment Link lets you set a special price for one person, add a note, and choose when the link expires. For a group, create a coupon with a limit on how many times it can be used.

### Is there a video of all this?

Yes. The six-minute video near the top of this guide walks through every tool on the Sales & Marketing page in the same order, using the same demo academy. It's also on Prolaud's YouTube channel.

### What happens when an early-bird price ends?

The full price comes back on its own on the date you set. Your course page, checkout and any creatives you download after that date show the full price; there's nothing to switch off.