What Eugene Schwartz's 'Breakthrough Advertising' Teaches About Modern Funnels

Why This Book Still Matters More Than Any Other

I first read Breakthrough Advertising in the early 1990s. A dog-eared copy, borrowed from a mentor who told me it was the only book I needed if I was serious about direct-response copywriting. He was not exaggerating.

In the three decades since, I have applied Eugene Schwartz's framework to every project I have touched — sales pages, VSL scripts, email sequences, direct mail packages, full sales funnels. The principles in this book have been the strategic backbone behind more than $523 million in tracked results. Not because they teach you how to write clever sentences. Because they teach you how to think about markets.

That is the distinction most people miss when they talk about Breakthrough Advertising. It is not a copywriting book in the way most people use that term. It is a strategic framework for understanding how markets think, what they already believe, and how to position your message so it feels like the answer they have been searching for. The copy flows from the strategy. Get the strategy wrong, and the most beautifully written copy in the world will fail.

Among the greatest copywriters in history, Schwartz stands apart because he gave us a system that works regardless of the medium, the market, or the era.

Who Was Eugene Schwartz?

Eugene Schwartz was a direct-response copywriter who worked primarily in the 1950s through the 1980s, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for publishers, supplement companies, and information product marketers. He was legendarily disciplined — working in focused bursts of exactly 33 minutes and 33 seconds, followed by breaks — and he was legendarily productive.

But Schwartz's lasting contribution was not his copy. It was his thinking about markets. Published in 1966, Breakthrough Advertising codified a set of principles about market psychology that transcended any individual ad, campaign, or medium. While other copywriters taught techniques, Schwartz taught strategy.

He understood something that most copywriters still struggle with: the prospect's state of mind determines everything about how your copy should be structured. Not the product. Not your personal writing style. Not the latest trend in marketing. The prospect's existing awareness and beliefs are the foundation upon which all effective copy is built.

The Five Levels of Market Awareness

The centrepiece of Breakthrough Advertising is Schwartz's framework of five awareness levels. This is the single most useful strategic concept I have encountered in over thirty years of writing copy, and it is the lens through which I evaluate every project.

Here is how I think about each level and how each maps to the modern funnel ecosystem.

Most Aware

The prospect knows your product, knows what it does, and is already inclined to buy. They just need the right deal, the right timing, or the final nudge. Your copy should lead with the offer — the price, the bonus, the deadline. There is no need to educate, prove, or persuade at length. These people are ready.

In a modern funnel, Most Aware traffic comes from your email list (especially buyers), retargeting pixels, and branded search. The copy they see should be short, offer-focused, and action-oriented. A long-form sales page full of proof and education would actually hurt conversion with this audience because it creates friction between desire and action.

Product Aware

The prospect knows your product exists but has not decided to buy. Maybe they have visited your page before. Maybe they have seen your ads. They know who you are and what you sell — but they need to be convinced that your product is the right choice for them. Your copy should lead with differentiation, proof, and the strongest benefits.

In a modern funnel, Product Aware traffic often comes from warm retargeting, comparison-shopping prospects, and email subscribers who have not yet purchased. The copy needs to answer the question they are already asking: "Why should I choose this one?"

Solution Aware

The prospect knows solutions exist for their problem but does not know your specific product. They may be researching options, reading reviews, or evaluating alternatives. Your copy should lead with the mechanism — the unique approach or method that makes your solution different. This is where copywriting formulas like PAS (Problem-Agitation-Solution) do their strongest work, because the prospect already acknowledges the problem and is actively seeking the answer.

In a modern funnel, Solution Aware traffic typically arrives from non-branded search queries, content marketing, and referrals. They need to understand your unique mechanism before they care about your product name.

Problem Aware

The prospect feels the pain but does not know that solutions exist. They might not even have a precise name for their problem — they just know something is wrong. Your copy must begin with the problem itself, articulated so precisely that the reader feels understood. Only after you have demonstrated that you understand their situation can you introduce the idea that a solution exists.

In a modern funnel, Problem Aware traffic is typically cold — Facebook and Instagram ads, display advertising, content marketing reaching people who are not yet searching for solutions. This is where many funnels fail, because the copywriter writes product-focused copy for an audience that has not yet made the mental leap to "I need to buy something."

Unaware

The prospect does not recognise the problem at all. They are not in pain — or if they are, they have accepted it as normal. Your copy cannot begin with the problem or the solution, because the reader has no frame of reference. Instead, you must open with a story, a striking fact, a bold claim, or a pattern interrupt that pulls them into a new way of seeing their situation.

In a modern funnel, Unaware traffic is the coldest of the cold — disruptive advertising shown to broad audiences, viral content, and mass media. Writing for Unaware prospects is the most demanding discipline in copywriting, because you must create a bridge between total indifference and engaged curiosity without the crutch of existing desire.

Mass Desire: The Force Your Copy Channels

The second foundational concept in Breakthrough Advertising is mass desire — and it is the one that most readers underestimate.

Schwartz was emphatic about this point: your copy does not create desire. Desire already exists in the market. Your job as a copywriter is to identify the strongest existing desire in your market and connect it to your product.

This is a critical distinction. Many copywriters approach a project thinking their job is to convince people to want something. That is working against gravity. The copywriter's real job is to find the gravitational pull that already exists and align the product with it. When you do this correctly, the copy feels almost effortless to the reader — because it is telling them something they already believe and offering them something they already want.

In modern funnel terms, mass desire is the reason audience research precedes copywriting. You do not sit down and brainstorm benefits. You go into the market — forums, reviews, support tickets, social media, customer interviews — and identify the language, the frustrations, the aspirations, and the fears that already dominate the conversation. Then you write copy that channels those existing emotions toward your offer.

“Every failed funnel I have ever audited shares the same root cause: the copy is trying to create desire instead of channelling desire that already exists. Schwartz understood that your prospect's mind is not a blank canvas — it is a battlefield of existing beliefs, fears, and wants. Your copy does not paint on a blank canvas. It redirects traffic that is already flowing.”

When I audit a sales funnel that is underperforming, the first thing I check is whether the copy is aligned with the market's existing desire. Nine times out of ten, the problem is not the writing quality or the offer structure — it is a fundamental misalignment between what the market already wants and what the copy is saying.

Market Sophistication: Why Yesterday's Winner Becomes Today's Loser

The third pillar of Breakthrough Advertising is market sophistication — and this is the concept that explains why copy that generated millions in revenue three years ago now falls flat.

Schwartz identified five stages of market sophistication, each representing how saturated the market is with competing claims. The stage your market occupies determines what kind of headline and proof strategy will work.

Stage 1: Be First

No one has made this claim before. You can state your benefit directly and it lands with full impact. The first supplement company to claim their product boosts energy could simply say so, and the market responded. No proof required beyond the claim itself, because the claim was novel.

Stage 2: Enlarge the Claim

Competitors have entered with similar claims. To stand out, you enlarge your claim — make it bigger, more specific, more impressive. If the first company said "more energy," the Stage 2 response is "twice as much energy in half the time."

Stage 3: Introduce the Mechanism

The market is saturated with enlarged claims and has grown sceptical. Now you must explain how your product works — introduce the unique mechanism that makes your claim credible. This is where proprietary ingredients, unique processes, and patented methods become the centrepiece of the copy.

Stage 4: Enlarge the Mechanism

Competitors have introduced their own mechanisms. Now you must make your mechanism more impressive, more scientific, more proprietary — differentiate not just the what but the how at a deeper level.

Stage 5: Connect With Identity

The market is so saturated and so sceptical that no claim or mechanism will break through. At this stage, your copy must connect with the prospect's identity — who they are, who they want to become, what tribe they belong to. The copy shifts from product-focused to prospect-focused.

Understanding where your market sits on the sophistication spectrum is essential for headline writing. A Stage 1 headline in a Stage 5 market sounds naive and unbelievable. A Stage 5 headline in a Stage 1 market is unnecessarily complex and indirect. The sophistication level determines the approach.

How I Apply These Principles to Modern Funnels

Theory is worthless without application. Here is how I use Schwartz's framework in actual projects.

Traffic Temperature Is Awareness Level

The modern marketing concept of traffic temperature — cold, warm, and hot — is a simplified version of Schwartz's awareness levels. Cold traffic is typically Problem Aware or Unaware. Warm traffic is Solution Aware or Product Aware. Hot traffic is Most Aware.

The simplification is useful for quick strategic decisions, but the original five-level framework gives you far more precision. The difference between Problem Aware and Unaware cold traffic is enormous — and if your funnel treats all cold traffic the same, you are leaving significant conversion on the table.

When I build a VSL funnel for a client, the first question is never "What should the VSL say?" The first question is "What awareness level is the primary traffic source feeding this page?" That answer determines the opening strategy, the proof architecture, the length of the education section, and the transition to the offer.

Email Sequences Walk Prospects Through Awareness Levels

A well-built email nurture sequence is essentially a guided walk through Schwartz's awareness levels. The first email in a sequence to cold leads should meet them at Problem Aware — acknowledging their pain, articulating their frustration, showing that you understand their world. Subsequent emails should move them to Solution Aware — introducing the category of solution. Then to Product Aware — introducing your specific product and its unique mechanism. Then to Most Aware — making the offer.

This is why email sequences that jump straight to the pitch fail with cold audiences. You are trying to sell at Most Aware to people who are still at Problem Aware. There is no bridge.

Sales Page Length Is Determined by Awareness Level

One of the most common questions I get is "How long should my sales page be?" The answer is always the same: as long as the awareness gap demands. If your traffic is Most Aware, the page can be short — offer, price, deadline, buy button. If your traffic is Problem Aware, the page needs to be long enough to move the reader through three awareness levels before asking for the sale.

This is why arguments about long-form versus short-form copy miss the point entirely. The length is not determined by preference or trend. It is determined by the distance between where the prospect starts and where the prospect needs to be in order to buy.

Lead Types Map to Awareness Levels

The opening of any piece of copy — the lead — must match the awareness level. This principle, which Masterson and Forde later expanded in their book Great Leads, traces directly back to Schwartz.

For Most Aware audiences, use a direct lead: state the offer immediately. For Solution Aware audiences, lead with your unique mechanism. For Problem Aware audiences, lead with problem-agitation — what Schwartz would call entering the conversation already happening in the prospect's mind. For Unaware audiences, lead with a story, a startling claim, or a curiosity hook that pulls the reader into a world they did not know existed.

Every time I write a sales page lead or a VSL opening, I am making a Schwartz-level decision about awareness before I write a single word.

Common Misapplications of Schwartz's Framework

After three decades of applying these principles and studying how others apply them, I have identified the most common ways copywriters get Schwartz wrong.

Writing All Copy at Product Aware

This is the most prevalent mistake. Copywriters default to Product Aware copy — benefits, features, proof, offer — regardless of the traffic source. If you are buying cold Facebook traffic, your audience is not Product Aware. They are Problem Aware at best, Unaware at worst. Hitting them with product-focused copy is like proposing marriage on the first date.

Confusing Sophistication With Awareness

These are different dimensions. A prospect can be highly aware of their problem (high awareness) but have never encountered a solution claim (low sophistication). Or they can be saturated with competing claims (high sophistication) while still being only Solution Aware. The two frameworks interact, but they are not the same thing, and they require different strategic responses.

Treating the Framework as a Rigid Template

Schwartz described a spectrum, not a set of boxes. Real prospects do not sit neatly in one awareness level — they blend. A prospect might be Solution Aware about their general problem but Unaware of a specific sub-problem your product addresses. The framework is a strategic lens, not a paint-by-numbers system.

Ignoring Sophistication Entirely

Many copywriters apply the awareness framework diligently but ignore sophistication. They write a direct-claim headline for a Stage 5 market and wonder why it fails. Or they write an elaborate mechanism-based lead for a Stage 1 market where a simple direct claim would have converted three times better. Both dimensions must be accounted for.

Skipping Awareness Levels in the Funnel

You cannot jump a prospect from Unaware to Most Aware in a single piece of copy — at least not reliably. Each awareness level transition requires its own persuasion architecture. Funnels that try to compress the entire awareness journey into one page consistently underperform those that use multiple touchpoints to guide prospects through each level.

Why Breakthrough Advertising Remains the Most Important Copywriting Book

I have read hundreds of books on copywriting, marketing, and persuasion over thirty-plus years. I have recommended many of them on my list of the best copywriting books. But if I could only keep one, it would be Breakthrough Advertising without a moment's hesitation.

Here is why: every other copywriting book teaches you techniques. Breakthrough Advertising teaches you how to think. Techniques become outdated as media and markets evolve. Strategic thinking — understanding how markets work, how desire functions, how awareness determines receptivity — is permanently relevant.

The digital revolution has not made Schwartz's principles less relevant. It has made them more powerful. Schwartz wrote in an era of mass media, where you had to write one ad for a newspaper audience that spanned every awareness level. Modern digital funnels allow you to segment audiences by awareness level with extraordinary precision — serving exactly the right message to exactly the right person at exactly the right stage of their journey.

We have the technology Schwartz could only theorise about. We can build funnels that serve different pages to different awareness levels. We can write email sequences that systematically walk prospects from Problem Aware to Most Aware over a series of messages. We can use retargeting to identify where a prospect is in their awareness journey and serve them the corresponding copy.

Every one of these capabilities is an operationalisation of Schwartz's framework. The strategic thinking came from a book published in 1966. The execution tools arrived fifty years later. The copywriters who understand both have an almost unfair advantage.

Bringing Schwartz Into Your Own Work

If you have not yet read Breakthrough Advertising, it should be the next book you pick up. But reading is only the beginning. The real value comes from applying the framework to every project until it becomes instinctive.

Start with a simple diagnostic: for your next project, before you write a word, answer two questions. What awareness level is my primary audience? What sophistication stage is my market? Let those answers — not your product knowledge, not your creative impulses, not the latest marketing trend — determine your copy's structure.

When I work with clients on sales funnels, VSL scripts, and conversion-focused copy, Schwartz's framework is the foundation of every strategic conversation. It determines the architecture before the writing begins. And in over thirty years, that foundation has never failed.

If you are building a funnel, launching a product, or trying to improve the performance of existing copy, the awareness framework should be your starting point. And if you want a copywriter who has spent three decades applying these principles to real campaigns with measurable results, I would welcome the opportunity to talk about your project. Reach out here and let us discuss how to match your message to your market.