The other day I got an email from someone who was selling a course to Average Joes on how to make side money by running Facebook ads for small businesses.
It is true that the Facebook ad platform isn’t overly complicated and also true that some business owners would rather pay someone who knows a little more than them to do it, but running Facebook ads is only half of the equation.
What happens when the ad performs well, but there are no real conversions at the end of the day?
Isn’t that a total waste of money?
Yes and no.
Yes, if there is no plan B.
No, if you have the council of someone who has experience in navigating the long-game approach of finding a company’s most profitable audience when plan A doesn’t work.
But how can a business owner know this if they don’t have the right person in their corner with the experience to give them the best return on their hard-earned investment? They can’t and that simply sucks.
That’s why I’m writing this… to educate and protect small business owners.
The truth is, there is no legit copy/paste success strategy for running ads. I know, bummer. No hacks. But remember hacks are short cuts and long-term success will never be the result of a “hack.”
As every business is different, so are their goals and thus, their ad strategies.
If you’re thinking about running Facebook ads for your business or hiring someone to do it for you, please read the info laid out below so that you can protect yourself.
Getting people to click on your ad depends on a number of variables.
The top two variables for creating a profitable ad are 1) choosing the right audience and 2) choosing the right offer for the right audience.
The size of the audience matters too – We’ve found larger audiences perform better for conversion ads because this allows the Facebook algorithm to do what it does best. However, that’s subject to many things, and we always recommend testing this.
Then there’s writing compelling copy and choosing attention grabbing media.
Testing which kinds of content works with your specified audience used to take time to gather data before trying something different. This process has recently become much easier with Facebook’s new dynamic ads – a feature that used to only be available to retail businesses. With dynamic ads, you can test different media, descriptions, titles, and call-to-actions, to discover and improve upon the most convertible ad combination.
When they DO click, you better give them a reason to convert – fast.
- Your landing page is created specifically for the offer.
- Your landing page focuses on a single deliverable.
- Visitors can immediately understand your offer.
- The design of your call-to-action is compelling.
- Your form has a friendly tone and is easy to complete.
- You have included elements of social proof.
Very few people convert into a customer on the first interaction.
- Provide promised freebie with no extra CTAs or fluff. Simply give the people what they want via a short, simple, friendly email.
- The next day, follow up with a personal “inside-scoop” email with interesting content intended to make you relatable to the potential customer. In this step, you might consider adding a call-t0-action (CTA) if it feels right.
- Check back in to see how they liked the freebie and if they have any questions. This is the ideal time to provide a CTA for them to take the next step.
- Next, give them a bonus tip related to your offer in case they haven’t opened the freebie. You’d be surprised at how many people request something and then never open it. This positions you as a helpful, friendly, resource. Repeat the CTA fro email 2 with new verbiage so you don’t sound like a broken record.
- Close the door. Let them know you will be winding down the emails on the topic so if they want to take action, now is the time (but not in a sales-y tone, but a, “I want to genuinely help you but this is the last chance” tone.) This creates a sense of urgency for them to act on your next step CTA.
- Eject them from the nurture email sequence and into the regular email newsletter sequence. Fun fact: We’ve received some of our most profitable and best customers from a free download that evolved into a year or so on our email list before taking action. Do the work upfront, stay consistent, and reap the rewards.
If you don’t have an email system that can create nurture sequences, we love Autopilot and recommend it 100% over everything else. It’s also perfect for measuring your ad results as you can connect your website forms and receive notifications of downloads and/or when people complete the nurture sequence in case you want to personally reach out.
