Busting 7 common Facebook Ads myths

Over the past 10 years I’ve heard so many things about Facebook & Instagram ads that are simply not true (and I honestly don’t know where these thoughts come from) so I want to bust some common myths today.

Let’s dive in and clear some of this up for you.

Inside this episode I also mention my Free Lead Value calculator which you can find here.

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Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
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Transcript

Episode 157

Hey, before we start this episode, a quick note to let you know that I’ll be hosting a free life masterclass on the 1 February Australian time where I teach you more about how to sell more of your online courses with meta ads. I will teach you my four ad stack method to attract leads and amplify your online course sales. If you want to sell more of your online course or membership, but you’re not attracting new leads or you’re struggling to get in front of and attract more of your ideal clients to buy your course and you’re ready to serve more people and turn new leads into sales over and over, please join me on this free class. You will find the link at biancameckenzie.com/masterclass and I will also pop it in the show notes. All right, with that out of the way, let’s get to the show. 

Welcome to the new school of Marketing podcast. I am so grateful for 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 the elders past, present and emerging. 

Welcome, welcome. I am counting down the days until school starts. I know some states have already started school. Tasmania is always really late, so I got to hang in there for a little bit longer. My daughter’s been going to the school holiday program, which she loves, and they do so many fun things. She’s been on an excursion to a play center. She’s been to a pool. When I dropped her off earlier, they were going to have a reptile show. So yeah. Anyway, she’s having great fun at her holiday program and it’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? Because I work for myself and I work from home and I can make the choice whether or not I send her to the school holiday program. Like, I have the option to keep her home and sort of work around her or take more time off, but she actually asks to go to the program. I think she just gets bored at home. So I love the flexibility that she can go there. So yeah, really good. Sadly, my parents have left so they’ve spent two months with us here and now they’ve gone back to the Netherlands. We’ll have to book a trip there at some point. I don’t really want to fly with my almost two year old. He just cannot sit still. Anyway, a different story. 

I want to talk about Facebook ads, and I want to do some myth busting because there are so many misconceptions or preconceived kinds of beliefs about Facebook ads. So I want to just talk about that. So let’s have a chat. 

The first one that I often come across is the more ads you run, the more success you have. And I actually would go against that. People just reckon if you run like heaps of ads, you’ll be everywhere and you’ll just be seen and things like that. But really, it’s quality over quantity and you cannot, in a way, bribe the algorithm. Obviously, well created, well targeted ads will be shown, but the algorithm, or Facebook still determines what gets shown and when. So basically flooding the platform with ads is not going to increase your success. You really need to think about your targeting. Creating creative, like videos, images, copy. The ad needs to be compelling for people to actually interact with because Facebook will be learning from this. And the better your ad does in a way, like, the better it still will perform. It’s kind of really weird and nobody really knows how exactly it works. But the better your organic content and the better your ads, Facebook kind of recognizes that and goes, oh, people want to see more of this stuff. So you want to be creating really high quality, like, really good ads versus a lot of ads, if that makes sense. 

Another one I hear often is Facebook ads are only for big budgets. And yeah, it does help when you have money, but you can achieve so much with small budgets as well. I have so much fun with this. It can really be tailored to any budget. And again, strategy and targeting matters more than your budget. Like, you can fling a whole load of cash at Facebook, but if you’re not being strategic about your ads, if you’re not targeting the right audiences, if you haven’t got your creative down pat, your audience and you know who you actually are talking to, like, you’re not positioning yourself in the right way and you’re not messaging, not creating the right messaging, you can literally be wasting so much money because your budget, you can just race through the money that you’re putting against it and not getting any results. Whereas if you’re super specific about who your ideal client is and what your message is, and you have a small budget, you are going to have so much more success. So Facebook ads are not just for big budgets. You can achieve so much with a small budget. And when I say a small budget, sometimes you can actually do quite well with like $5 a day. I know that seems like a really little amount, but like I said, if your messaging is really on track, if you know your audience, you can achieve so much more with a small amount. 

Another one, I don’t even want to bring this up, but I will. So boosting posts. Yeah, boosting posts is not effective advertising. I know. I talk to people and they go, oh, just boost some posts. I feel like boosting has its place, but it doesn’t have anything on a comprehensive ad campaign. A comprehensive campaign and using ads manager, not boosting offers you so much more control and it offers you more targeting options. So I tend to say stay away from the boost button because you just don’t have a whole lot of control. And I have seen more people waste money than actually have success with it. I know some people do have some success with boosted posts, so I don’t want to fully disregard them. But I have seen more people waste money with it than actually make money with it or getting results with. 

So another one that I want to bust is vanity metrics. So likes and comments do not mean that you have successful ads. I know that Facebook and Instagram really focus on engagement in the organic space. So I can understand that people sometimes think, oh, I’m getting lots of likes and comments, and that means my ads are successful. I would say it’s great that you’re getting interaction with your ads, but if you’re on the platform and if you’re using ads to actually make money because you don’t want to just be spending. So if you’re not getting those results, then I would say your ads are not successful. So yes, engagement is essential. But I would dare say that your ultimate goal is conversions and reaching the objective that you set out, which is either sales or getting leads. So that’s how I would measure the success of my ads, and not by the engagement through likes and comments. 

Okay, another one is that targeting everyone is effective. We kind of all know that it’s not, right? I mean, I hope you do. So, yes, casting a wide net can be really good, but I would say that precise targeting, like getting in front of a specific audience, gets you better results and wouldn’t say it’s getting harder with Facebook. Facebook just needs to learn from your account because there are a lot of targeting options that have been removed. But you can do so much still with targeting. So I’m kind of like in that middle camp that sometimes casting a wide net works, but only if your account has been learning and if you’ve been running ads for a long time. And your account, it’s kind of like AI. Like it knows who your ideal client is. So when you cast a wide net, it knows who to go for. But as an ads manager, I still prefer to go for specific audiences, getting really laser sharp on targeting. And it also comes down to your messaging. Like really speaking to your absolute ideal client in your messaging really helps as well. So yeah, don’t target everyone because not everyone is your ideal client. So just really know who your ideal client is. 

Another one that I want to bust is that images are more important than copy and it does help stop the scroll if you like, but you got to go deeper in your copy. Copy is seriously crucial for ad success. I don’t know if you’ve seen those ads with images and you look at them and they stop your scroll, but then when you read the copy, they have absolutely nothing to do with the image. It really annoys me, to be honest. So copy is important. Yes, you need to stop the scroll. It is really important to get in front of the right people. So targeting, stopping the scroll and then getting them to read the copy. And the copy is usually the thing that gets them to take the action. So yes, images are important to stop the scroll. You need to be noticed, you need to be visible, you need to be seen, but your copy is what is going to ultimately get them to take the next step. So copy is super important. 

And the last one that I want to tackle is that I sometimes hear that, oh, just put some Facebook ads up and just leave it running. Facebook ads are not set it and forget it. You cannot leave it like that. You can’t forget about it. You really need to monitor your ads. You need to tweak them, optimize them. At least the smallest thing you need to do is just check in on them to make sure that they’re actually doing what you set out to do. Like if you want to generate leads, you need to check if you’re actually getting leads, you need to check if your lead cost is in the range that is acceptable to you, which you would need to know your lead cost value or your lead value. And there’s other numbers there. I have a freebie for that. So your lead value calculator, I’ll link to it in the show notes. But yes, you cannot set and forget them. You need to check in on them and tweak them. And sometimes when they work, you just let them run. But you still need to check in on them. You cannot forget them. And you know what? You probably won’t forget them because at some point you’ll get a bill from Facebook and you went, you’ll go like, oh my gosh, I forgot. So please check in on them. Don’t set and forget them. 

So some myths that I really wanted to bust and I’ll do a quick recap is more ads does not equal more success Facebook ads are not only for big budgets. Boosting posts is not an effective advertising strategy. Vanity metrics so likes and comments do not mean that your ads are successful. Targeting everyone. It’s not a good strategy. It’s not effective. Images are important, but they do not matter more than copy. And when I say images, I also mean videos. So your creative is really important but not more important than your copy. They both have a really important place. And the last one, Facebook ads are not a set and forget, you have to check in on them. 

All right, well with that, I want to tell you that I am hosting a free online master class on the 1 February Australia time. So if you’re in the US, it’ll be the 31 January for you. I’m going to be teaching you how to sell more of your online course with meta ads. So with Facebook and Instagram ads in the free class, I’m going to teach you my four ad stack method to attract leads and to amplify your online course sales. So if you want to sell more of your online courses or your memberships, but you’re not attracting new leads or you’re struggling to get in front of and attract more of your ideal clients to buy your course, and you’re absolutely ready to serve more people and turn new leads into sales over and over, I want to invite you to my free masterclass on the 1 February 31 January. If you’re in the US, I’ll pop the links in the show notes so that you have everything there for you. But you can go to biancamckenzie.com masterclass that’ll have all the details, all the dates, times, everything that you need to pop it in your calendar. And I can’t wait to see you there. 

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the new School of Marketing podcast. I hope it was helpful and I can’t wait to share more marketing tips with you next week. If you are ready to take your business to the next level with Facebook and Instagram advertising. Make sure you visit newschoolofmarketing.com to download practical, free resources. And remember to subscribe so that you never miss an episode. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you. Until next time, take care and market your business every day.