5 Facebook Ads lessons from a Facebook Ads strategist

It’s the last episode of 2023! Wow, what a ride it was and I’m so grateful to you for being a part of it.

Inside this episode I’m sharing 5 lessons with you that will, hopefully, demystify Facebook & Instagram ads somewhat for you. I’ve been running ads for over 9 years now and the more I speak to people the more I realise that there is still so much mystery around this amazing way to support your business growth.

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Transcript

Episode 154

Welcome back to the new School of Marketing podcast. I am so grateful to you for tuning in. Before we dive in, I would love to pay respect and acknowledgement to the Palawa people of Lutherwita who are the traditional owners of the land on which my business operates. And I pay my respect to their elders, past, present and emerging. Welcome, welcome. I hope you’re well. I hope you’re getting into the swing of things if Christmas is your thing. But otherwise, if it’s not, that’s totally okay. I’m pretty much done with all my Christmas shopping. I’m kind of quietly surprised and a little bit proud of myself that I’m actually done. We’re counting down the days. Well, at least my daughter is counting down the days until she finishes school. And until it’s Christmas, every morning I will hear it’s this many days until Christmas, which is really nice. We’ll celebrate Christmas at home and then we’re going to venture out with the camper trailer going on a camping trip while the doggies stay home with my family. My family are visiting from the Netherlands, so they’ll have a little bit of a holiday while we have a little bit of holiday, which will be nice. But to this episode, I want to talk about Facebook and Instagram ads. That’s why we’re here. And yeah, the more I speak to people about Facebook and Instagram ads, the more I realize that there is still so much mystery around this amazing way to support your business growth. And I’m in it. So sometimes it’s hard to step back and look at it the way other people see it. So I have tried to sort of step back and listen to what I hear around me. So I’m going to share some lessons with you and I hope that it’ll take away some of the questions and some of the preconceived ideas that you may have about Facebook and Instagram ads. 

The first one is that it’s not as hard as everyone thinks. And I’ve decided to start with this myth. And I’m literally using air quotes with my fingers here because I feel that people who don’t understand something, they often automatically label it as difficult and that’s only normal. Sometimes we resist new, we resist changes. I’m still there as well. Like, there’s certain social media platforms that I’m not on because I am resisting that change. I don’t need more on my plate. So, yeah, as with anything unknown, there’s a bit of a learning curve. And I’m going to make an educated guess that when you started your business, you had to learn every step of starting a business, growing a business, you’ve had to take those learning steps, but you did it, and here you are. So Facebook ads are not as hard as everyone thinks. And to explain it in a simple way, we can kind of compare it to newspaper advertising. I know not many people use it anymore, but, yeah, so it’s kind of like newspaper advertising, but with much more transparency. That transparency also makes it slightly more confusing because there are more layers. So when you place an ad in a newspaper, you have very little control over factors such as how many people will see it, how long your ad will be seen, and by who. It is often limited to a geographic region, and it’s hard to track sales as a result of a printed ad. Facebook ads are kind of just like a newspaper ad, only you have control over a lot more. So firstly, you get to control who you want to show your ads to, and in a way, only pay for that, not for everyone who shouldn’t be seeing it. You can also choose to show it to a specific geographic region or to multiple countries. You can choose when you want the ad to start and to finish. And there are a number of ways to track results. So it’s actually so transparent that you can even see how many people actually saw the ad, clicked on the ad, and then potentially added something to their cart or signed up to something and then purchased it. Sure, there are cracks and not everything tracks completely accurately, but it’s a whole lot more transparent than a newspaper ad or a magazine ad, really, because you don’t really know what the results are from that. I think that the reason people think it’s hard is because with a newspaper ad, there is a certain unknown factor in terms of the results. And I think people were okay with that because that was the way it was. Well, still the way it is. Whereas with Facebook ads, there is so much more transparency that it makes people more uncomfortable and potentially confused with all the options. But I don’t know. I know this is my life and my work, but I much rather have all the data so that I can have a much more predictable result for the money that I’m spending the first step to successful Facebook advertising. And honestly, any advertising, whether it’s Facebook or another digital platform or print advertising, the first step is to know who your ideal customer is and to map out the journey you would like them to take, from finding you to then finally purchasing from you. And most people who are in the early stages of business only think about those two steps, but there is so much more in between. It’s really important to map out your clients journey, from when they find you or how they find you to when they find you and then what’s going to happen next. And you need to map this out before you throw any money at any marketing tactic, including Facebook ads, including organic social media, because otherwise you’re just flinging spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. And you need to know who your ideal customer is, even when you do print advertising. Because if you think about it, there’s no point in advertising in a newspaper if your ideal client are not newspaper readers. And it’s the same with Facebook in terms of targeting or even using the platform to advertise. Because funnily enough, there are still people who don’t use Facebook. So yeah, you need to know who your ideal client is. Moving on to lesson number two. So lesson number one was, it’s not as hard as everyone thinks. 

Lesson number two is it’s not as easy as everyone thinks. I know I just said that it’s not as hard, but it’s also not as easy as everyone thinks. So as I said in lesson one, most people have a two step thought process. They assume that when people find their business, they will purchase what they’re selling. And this is so far from the truth, and sadly so I’ve been at this for quite a while now, for close to ten years now, and I’ve seen that it’s definitely true that people buy from people. Building a relationship with your clients is more important than ever because there are so many options out there for people. I’m not the only Facebook ads, you know, the people that work with me are the ones that resonate with me, that trust my skill set, but there’s so many others that have just as good of a skill set, if not better than mine. So when you pick to work with someone, you kind of want to work with someone that you get along with, right? So it’s really important to have that relationship building part. And I bet that the same is with me, that your business isn’t the only one, the only one selling what you sell. So the differentiator in your business is you. So the power of selling is in the experience that people have with your brand, and that’s why it’s so important to know who you’re selling to and mapping out the experience and the journey that you want someone to have with your brand. And Facebook ads can actually help. You can support this journey at several points. It can also speed things up a little. Once you know the steps in your client’s journey, it becomes much clearer what Facebook ads can actually do for your business. And you might think that Facebook ads are technical, but you’ll see that when you have a clean map of your client’s journey, it becomes a lot less technical and a lot more emotional. So Facebook ads manager, which is the infrastructure to set up your ads, it’s actually quite intuitive and it has a lot of default options that will most likely work for you. It’s still important to know what each option means and what it can do for your business. So it’s not as easy as leaving every setting on the default option, but they do make it reasonably straightforward. So when you actually know what you want your ads to achieve, it’s actually much easier to figure out what settings you should be using. And there’s heaps of support for this available as well. It’s one of the things that I teach and that I support with my clients and my students. So it’s not as hard as everyone thinks, but it’s also not as easy as everyone thinks. 

The next lesson I want to share with you is that Facebook ads don’t work without a strategy. And look, this lesson isn’t just applicable to Facebook ads, but it is important to mention it. A strategy is important for any marketing tactic, so don’t ever just dive into something to see if it will work, especially not when you’re investing money in it. Facebook ads need a strategy, and that’s why it’s so important to know your client’s journey. So Facebook ads are not a standalone tactic and I think it needs to be used in conjunction with other marketing know. Some people will say something different, but I think you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. It should be part of a bigger picture, especially in a service based and in a digital product based business. So when you put your strategy together, you need to think about a few things. So I’m going to list these things that I think you need to think about. So things to consider in your strategy are your business and your ad campaign goals. So what is it that you’re trying to achieve? You need to think about what will likely convince your client to purchase, and that could be a whole range of things. One of the things is a really well crafted sales page. Another thing to think about is creative ideas to lead your clients to purchase. You need to think about how your audience spends their free time so that you know where and how to target them. And this is not necessarily only on socials. I don’t want you to go and stand at the sidelines of the tennis court and that kind of thing. But they could be reading magazines, they could be part of certain sports clubs. There’s targeting options inside of Facebook that you can utilize in that way as well. You also need to consider what your client’s perception is of the product or the service that you offer. You need to think about how much to spend on each of your target audiences or each of your campaigns. This is all part of your strategy. Another thing to consider is selling points that you can emphasize in the ads and on your landing pages. You also need to think about how well the ad copy or the ad content performed in tests before you actually fully launch a campaign. So I always recommend doing testing. I do this with all of my clients. Every single time we do a launch, we do testing all again, because things change. People are in a different spending and buying mode at different times of the year, different seasons. So think about how well did your ad copy and content perform in tests. And another thing to consider in your ad strategy is that how effective a campaign was after it was launched. So you need to measure your results against your goals. So the first one is what are your goals? And then once you’ve done your campaign, you need to look at, okay, well, how did that work out? And it’s part of a bigger picture. There’s so much more that goes into a Facebook ad strategy. But you need to really think about this, plan this out, get into that brain space of your ideal client so that you can take them on that journey and Facebook ads can play a part in that. Okay. 

Another lesson is that it works hand in hand with other tactics and strategies. So as I said, Facebook ads are part of a bigger picture and it should be one of the marketing tactics you use. It’s important to mix it with other tactics such as organic social media. So you can do social media on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, wherever your audience hangs out. So mix it with organic strategies. It’s also important to blend your Facebook ads with strategies and tactics over which you have more control and ownership, such as a website landing pages, email marketing. And when I say this in terms of ownership and control, so you do not own a social media platform. You don’t own Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, any of that. So if they go down, and sometimes they do go down, can you still operate your business? Are you still attracting clients? So your website, your email marketing, your landing pages, you own those. So you also need to have some strategies and tactics that are in that ownership space. So have a website, have landing pages, have email marketing. I’m not going to go into email marketing and the importance of it right now, but I do have a whole lot more content about that because I personally believe email marketing is one of the best forms of marketing. Again, it shouldn’t be your only form of marketing. And it’s the same with Facebook ads. So Facebook ads work best when they are part of a marketing ecosystem, so to speak. People need multiple touch points with your brand, and Facebook ads can simply be one of those touch points. Other touch point could be organic social media. You could have a podcast, a blog, a YouTube channel. You can do public speaking. There’s so many different touch points, and it’s a bit tricky to say this because I don’t want you to do all of the things either, because you don’t want to spread yourself thin. The main thing is think about where your ideal client spends their time, both online and offline, and then find ways to market your business in those spaces. So be where your ideal client is. If you struggle with lots of different platforms, then don’t, is what I would say. Pick the one where your ideal clients are and where you feel like you’re having the most fun. Because otherwise you’re not going to do it either. Okay, so that was lesson four. Facebook ads work hand in hand with other tactics and strategies. 

Lesson number five is Facebook ads amplify. And this is a super important lesson for anyone who is considering Facebook advertising for their business. Facebook ads amplify. And I can’t say this often enough, so what I mean by this is that Facebook ads amplify what is already happening in your business. If you’re already making sales, Facebook ads can amplify this. If you’re not making sales organically after driving traffic to your offer, you don’t want to be spending money on Facebook ads because all this will do is amplify your zero sales and you’ll be wasting your money. So if you’re not already making sales without Facebook ads, even though you have sent lots of traffic, and it has to be the right traffic, but if you’ve been sending lots of traffic to your website, the right kind of traffic to your website, and you’re not making sales, you need to look into why this is and you need to fix your conversion issue before you actually spend money on Facebook ads. There is one, but in this lesson, and that is that you can use Facebook ads for a non converting offer, but you need to treat it as a marketing research exercise to find out what the problem is so you can fix it. So you’re kind of like spending money to find the leak in your funnel in your business. And I have spoken about Facebook ads for marketing research before. There are so many options. So if you’re making sales organically already, Facebook ads can help you scale this. It can help you increase your reach, it can help you increase your impact, it can help you increase your revenue. But your offer needs to already be converting. Otherwise you’re basically sending money down the drain. You’re going to get a whole lot of data back. Like I said, it could be a marketing research activity for you to speed that process up a little bit to figure out where the leak is so you can plug it. But a lot of us don’t have that kind of budget to figure out where things are going wrong. So if you’ve spent money on Facebook ads and not gotten anything in return, go back in and go and look at all of the data, because the data will tell you something. It will tell you where you actually need to make some improvements. If you’re getting a whole lot of leads but they’re not converting to sales, it could be that you’re either getting the wrong leads or your messaging and your offer is just not strong enough. People are not really convinced that they need what you have to offer, which means your messaging is off. Sometimes if we don’t give people a deadline to buy, they will just sit on it for ages as well. I’m not saying that you have to have a certain urgency tactic or false urgency or things like that, but people do need a bit of a push, and there’s lots of ways to work around that as well. I kind of don’t want to go into it over here, but what I really want you to take away is that Facebook ads amplify. So it’s just going to literally blow up what’s already happening. So if you are not seeing results from your Facebook ads, it’s probably not the ads, it’s probably something else. So don’t blame the ads unless you really have tried everything and you know, it’s not working. 

So little recap Facebook ads are not as hard as everyone thinks. Facebook ads are also not as easy as everyone thinks. Facebook ads don’t work without a strategy. Another lesson is that it works hand in hand with other strategies and tactics. And the last one is so important. Facebook ads amplify all right, well, that is it for this year. 

This is the last episode of this year. I am going to take a little break, but I will be back in the new year, going to spend some time with my family, enjoying summer. I know if you’re listening from the other side of the world, I know enjoy your winter. But we have summer here in Tasmania, in Australia. So I’m going to be enjoying summer. Have an amazing Christmas, have an amazing new year and I can’t wait know so to say see you on the other side, even though we don’t really see each other right now, but thank you so much for listening. I do this because I love it. I do this because I have so much more to say. But I also do this because I get so many messages from you that you get something out of this and I want to keep giving back. So I do this for you. And thank you so much for tuning in. All right, I feel a little bit, I don’t know, weird. It’s a wrap up for the year, so thank you for joining me. I hope again that it was helpful. Have an amazing holiday wherever you are. And as always, if you are ready to take your business to the next level with Facebook and Instagram advertising, make sure that you visit newschoolofmarketing.com to download practical free resources. Plus subscribe to the podcast so that you don’t miss any episodes. Especially because I’m taking a little break. So subscribe so that you’ll be notified when I am back in the new year. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you. Until next time, take care and market your business every day.