My viral video marketing case study. 5+ million views and a 5x spike in sales:
I had my second most successful Compact Keywords sales day on April 29th and it was completely unexpected.
My most successful sales day was last year’s Black Friday and April 29th was so outstanding, that it actually came very close to Black Friday sales.
April 29th was just a random Wednesday, with no special promotions, no planning, nothing intentional – yet it exceeded my average sales day by ~5x.
What triggered the spike in sales, and what didn’t
I did two things the day before on April 28th.
1. In my daily podcast, I shared a strong Compact Keywords video review at the beginning of the podcast, vs. what I normally do – sharing video reviews at the end.
The review is at 1:15.
2. I made a hyper-viral video unrelated to Compact Keywords. 465,000 views in 8.5 hours. 3.3 million views in 24 hours.
I wouldn’t have expected this viral video to be the source of the sales spike because:
- It’s unrelated to SEO (Compact Keywords is my course on using SEO to get sales (rather than getting vanity traffic))
- I’ve had viral SEO videos where I specifically promote Compact Keywords at the end, which haven’t driven sales as hard as this random viral video
That said, I’m pretty sure the spike in sales came from this random viral video, and not as much from me leading the day before’s podcast with a strong testimonial.
The why for this is very simple.
I’ve noticed that when viewers of my podcast purchase Compact Keywords, a good percentage of them fill out the post-purchase survey I have.
With this spike in sales, very few people filled out the survey – something more common with customers from social media.
The daily podcast creates a personal connection that the social media videos do not. This connection encourages listeners to fill out the survey (thank you to all my listeners, by the way). Social media, since it’s not long form, does not have the same effect.
So this is why I think the spike was mostly due to this viral video.
Google Analytics’ AI also attributes it to the viral video, “On April 29, 2026, ‘Organic Social’ sessions increased significantly, exceeding expectations by 1,115% week-over-week. This surge is attributed to an effective Instagram campaign, with key drivers including the page path and screen class ‘/newsletter/‘ and the session medium ‘social,’ both showing substantial growth. Additionally, the ‘Safari’ browser exhibited a 600% week-over-week increase, further contributing to the overall spike in sessions.”
This is my Instagram profile for reference:
I made this viral video in 20 minutes as an afterthought!
Last Sunday I shared the story of how on December 20, 2025, at 1 AM, I made my day’s social video in a couple minutes, not expecting anything. That video was about how you can use Google’s AI to animate your business logo and set the animation as your Gmail PFP.
I share this story and my exact workflow for making these lazy viral videos, here.
On April 28th, I put up my day’s social video, found a major problem with it, took it down, and said I’ll fix the video and post it another day.
That meant I needed new social video content for the day to fill my 1 video per day quota.
It was 11:45 PM. I was dead tired. I just needed something easy.
The Gmail PFP trick was top-of-mind because I had written that article about it a few days before.
SO I MADE THE SAME SUBJECT MATTER IN 20 MINUTES AGAIN!
All I changed was the hook.
The video came out at 12:05 AM on April 29th. Sales started increasing not long after, and I woke up with sales already above average.
December 20, 2025 hook: “It’s almost unfair that Gmail allows this.”
April 29, 2026 hook: “Just a reminder that 22% of the global population uses Gmail, and this is the easiest marketing hack that anybody can do.”
That 22% stat appeared later in the December 20th video. I moved it to the front for the April 29th video.
Total views so far for the December 20 video: 7,019,300
Total views so far for the April 29 video: 5,223,913
Here are the links to the videos, again.
December 20 video:
April 29 video:
The December 20th video, despite being about the same thing, did not lead to a spike in sales
Here’s what changed between December 20th and April 29th:
I started making a deliberate effort to constantly share Compact Keywords video testimonials.
I share the video testimonials to the top platforms that take video. In the video description, I always use language around “Compact Keywords review” while also sharing the transcript of the review.
I’m doing this for three reasons:
- Gets new people into the consideration stage.
- Nudges people already in the consideration stage into the purchase stage.
- Ranks on Google and influences LLMs.
#1 and #3 are what to pay attention to.
Likely customer journeys
As shared above, my social media profiles read:
🧲 Get visibility, customers, users
🔎 My SEO course – compactkeywords.com
👇 My growth hacking newsletter
🔗 edwardslink.com
There are two likely customer journeys I see.
First: people already in the consideration stage from my daily content and from seeing me sharing positive reviews get pushed over by this one viral video. I spent weeks and months earning trust by constantly posting video testimonials. This one viral video was so useful they said, “Okay, I trust him enough to try his course.”
The second customer journey I see is for people unfamiliar or not very familiar with Compact Keywords.
This viral video increased my Instagram followers by 15,500 people – a substantial percentage of which, I’m sure, checked out my profile.
Some of these people checking out my profile saw my SEO course in my profile description and went to it.
Some of these people, curious by Compact Keywords’ value proposition, did due diligence on it – Googling reviews, asking LLMs.
As I share here, a lot of people would rather read reviews off your site, even if they’re the same reviews that appear on your site.
The video testimonials I’ve been sharing, in addition to positive UGC discussions that have happened (thank you to everybody who’s commented), help convince potential customers that Compact Keywords is not another lazy, scammy SEO course.
This is another thing worth mentioning. I spent a year making Compact Keywords and constantly update it; it’s the best thing I’ve ever made. But if I wasn’t adamant about sharing the video reviews I’ve been receiving, way less people would make the decision to get it – and as a result it wouldn’t be able to help as many people as it has helped.
You have to be active sharing your reviews. Every review you get. Share them shamelessly. Share them constantly. Reshare them because lots of people didn’t see them the first time or people simply forgot about you. Share your reviews as much as you can.
This was made in 20 minutes
There are a few more insights left.
Using the method I share here, I made the viral video in 20 minutes.
You can tell, too. The cuts aren’t as tight, there’s an area where the captions cut out, and my camera isn’t in focus at the beginning.
Everybody’s obsessed with putting out perfect content. Instead, I recommend putting out content each day, and doing the best you can without burning yourself out.
Evergreen subject matter
Something I write about is evergreen subject matter: take notes on things in your niche that do well and try them yourself – then try them again.
Eventually you’ll compile a list of subject matter that always performs above average, no matter how many times you share it.
This Gmail PFP trick is one of those things – people are always interested in it.
Here’s my template for finding and tracking evergreen subject matter.
Use familiarity to hijack attention
Another thing I’ve noticed from making videos for 1,250+ days in a row is that familiarity is really great at getting people to pay attention.
It’s easier to get your point across if you pair it with something people already know.
The first three times I shared this Gmail PFP hack, the videos performed above average, but they didn’t go hyper viral. That could be because I didn’t use any recognizable brands in the videos.
The December 20th video shows the hack with the Nike logo.
The April 29th video shows it with the Airbnb logo.
Airbnb even commented:
Recognizable icons get people to pay attention.
Share your brand everywhere
The last thing worth mentioning is I had a lot of Compact Keywords shirts made and I try to wear them in many of my videos.
For people already in the consideration stage, this is a gentle reminder – “Hey, this product you’re considering is still here.”
This doesn’t matter if you’re not giving value. But if you are giving value, this builds trust which helps move people towards purchasing.
The story of these shirts is crazy, by the way – one of my first Compact Keywords customers is a very highly-rated designer. He liked the course so much that when I made a podcast saying I was trying to get shirts made, he randomly messaged me with these designs. They were EXACTLY what I was looking for and I turned them into all those shirts with Printful.
Anyway – the more you expose your products and services to your audience, the more people who already want them are reminded to get them.
The overall lesson
The overall lesson is to do marketing daily because you expand your surface area for luck.
As I shared, I did not expect this video to lead to an increase in sales. I made it because it was late, I was tired, and I needed content for the day.
But when you do things daily, making tiny iterations each day, improving your brand in tiny ways each day, sharing reviews so you help build a little trust each day, your surface area for remarkable things widens, and more remarkable things tend to happen.
It seems remarkable, but when you stop to think about it, it starts to actually make a lot of sense.
If you enjoyed this
Compact Keywords has a section on using video for SEO.
Here’s more testimonials:
“Booked about $100,000 of business through SEO in my first year with the Compact Keywords method.”
– Robert Brill
“These pages drove an extra $3 million in revenue from organic search over the following year.”
– Dominick DeJoy
“Compact Keywords contributed to a $4,000 sale within the first six weeks.”
– Omar Abu-Shaaban
“I’m now ranking #1 on Google for 25+ keywords and hundreds on Bing – with a new site – after starting Compact Keywords only two months ago. Everyone needs to take this. You will see results you can’t even comprehend.”
– Jacob Darrah
“Give it to a junior employee, have them follow it exactly as Edward’s laid out, and you’re going to gain a six-figure SEO-level employee just by having them go through this course.”
– Jon Ray
“Now I have more than 20 pages ranking #1 and #2 for my company.”
– Alejandro Morelli
“I bought Edward’s course a couple months ago. Recently I got my first sale from my high-ticket dropshipping store. The sale was $500. I did the bare minimum just to test the strategy.”
– Kristijonas Grigauskas
If you haven’t checked Compact Keywords out yet, you’re going to love it: https://edwardsturm.com/compact-keywords/
