I think that if you have it in your budget, you should absolutely be running ads right now. Because one of the things that Facebook has said, one of the things that I've seen, like, Google and so many other people saying is that because so many of us are online right now you, there is almost always going to be a way for you to get in front of your audience, especially right now. And so even if it's a small budget of $5 – $10 a day, I would really utilize that because a lot of your competitors probably aren't. Or if they are, you could potentially beat out your competitor for the specific targeting that you're doing and really get in front and build your brand right now. – Shay Hrobsky

Facebook Ads shouldn't be scary. And in today's episode we talk about the basics to get started. It doesn't need to cost a lot and getting in front of new audiences can be super helpful in growing revenue and generating new leads

In this episode you'll learn:

→ Should you be running Facebook Ads right now?
→ What's the difference between boosting and running an ad?
→ Should you listen to the prompts Facebook gives you about boosting your posts?
→ So I'm ready to start ads, where do I start?
→ Running ads within Facebook Messenger
→ What images should I use?
→ How long should your ads copy be?
→ How long should you test your ads for?
→ A/B testing
→ What data do we care about?

Want to skip ahead?  Here are some key takeaways:

[6:22] Now is a great time to start Facebook ads if you haven't already. Most of your competitors probably aren't and even with a budget of $5-10/day you can make a big impact.
[9:08] Run ads versus boosting posts. You get a lot more flexibility in who you target and what results you expect from your ad.
[10:44] Facebook is a business and they want your money. So when they prompt you about the success of your post, that's what they're trying to do – get your money. 
[12:49] Before you start to build out your ads, make sure you have a CTA (Call-to-Action). And make sure you have your pixel set up.
[16:20] Messenger bots are great but rules are changing all the time. Messenger is still a great way to communicate and be more personal with your audience.
[18:33] Use images of yourself. If you can't make sure your stock images are brightly colored and stand out in the Facebook feed.
[23:33] Test both short and long copy to see what resonates more with your audience.
[27:19] A/B testing doesn't have to be complicated. Pick one variable and test that first. then figure out the next thing you want to test for.
[29:14] We care about the CTR (click thru rate). How many people are actually registering.

Resources

FREE 30 Min Digital Marketing Therapy Sessions through April 2020.
Facebook Blueprint
Facebook Ads Training from Shay

Full Transcript

[INTRO] Hello Sami here, your host of the Digital Marketing Therapy podcast. Welcome to another episode. Today we're talking about Facebook ads. And I wanted to talk about this right now because I think a lot of us are home, a lot of us might have some extra spare time in our businesses right now. And I think it can be a really great time to think about the digital marketing and online marketing piece to our businesses, and how can we maybe take this time to learn and implement new things that we know will be beneficial for us long term when things return back to normal, whatever normal looks like.

And Facebook ads is something I think a lot of people are scared to dump jump into, but something that can be super valuable and a really low-cost way to get your business out in front of more people. So today, I am so excited to have one of my business friends join me Shay and she is going to be talking with us all about just getting started with Facebook ads and how to get into it.

So Shay is a marketing and mindset aficionado. She owned an online business for almost 10 years and she manages at least $40,000 in ad spend every month for clients. Not only does she love geeking out on numbers, she was a mathlete in middle school, and this is what sets her up for true success. Guys, she's all about the data for sure.

She also coaches clients who need help creating success with their own marketing campaigns and building out a successful strategy. With the last two years, she's managed 10 six-figure launches and at least 15 five-figure launches. A little behind the scenes Shay is a mom to two amazing kiddos. She loves reading sports and watching Christmas movies. year-round. She is a Christmas freak for sure. She loves cooking, dancing and of course laughing. So with that, I'm super excited to jump into this Facebook ads conversation with you. Please take a listen. Even if you think you're going to be overwhelmed. I promise she breaks it down super easy for you.

But before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by our Digital Marketing Therapy sessions, which are now free through the month of April 2020. I am so excited to sit down and talk with you and help you work through where you might be stuck in your business, how to maybe create a different product or service right now that can still allow you to be of service to your customers, stay top of mind with your clients. So that when things kind of calmed down a bit, you have an opportunity to still be there for them. So 30 minute sessions, all you have to do is go to thefirstclick.net/officehours to sign up and I can't wait to get to know more about your business and help you figure out new ways to generate revenue and provide the incredible service to your customers and clients that you love. Okay, but for now, let's get into it.

[CANNED INTRODUCTION] You're listening to the digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Hey there everybody welcome my friend Shay to the podcast. Shay. Thank you so much for joining me.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Yes, I am so excited to be here, Sami.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yay. So Shay helps me with my Facebook ads when I'm running them. And she has been a godsend to me because Facebook ads are kind of confusing.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Girl I know. I've been in them since 2011. And I still get confused from time to time, so I totally get it.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So why did you get into Facebook ads to begin with and why is that kind of been the thing you've stuck with?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Well, I actually didn't even start in Facebook ads. I started in just social media marketing. And one of my clients, I managed her clients social media and one of her clients was a gym and they're like, hey, we want to test out Facebook ads? And so she came up to me and she said, Shay, can you test out these ads, and I said, I've never done this before. But hey, I'm willing to try if that meant that we could help them scale their in person gym, their local gym. And if it meant I could learn a new skill. And once I did that, I fell in love with the data. I fell in love with being able to control how many people you can bring through your funnel, being able to scale it. And it was just really cool to see all of the leads that they were getting, especially in the beginning of Facebook ads, and how we were able to help them build their business. So ever since 2011, when I tested it, I've been doing Facebook ads and managing them for clients.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And I mean, would you say that the interface and the process and everything has completely evolved and changed since then.

[SHAY HROBSKY] 100%. And it's still evolving and changing. Like I have clients who were like, I'm going to look in my numbers, but they've moved. And I'll have to re record a video to say, yeah, Facebook's changing so quickly. And I mean, it's it's way more advanced now. And the really, the cool thing that we can do with Facebook ads is really hone in on targeting and we weren't able to be that targeted back then. So it's really fine tuned, and it's really cool to watch now.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And we should clarify too when we're talking about Facebook ads, it's just kind of assumed that you're also talking about Instagram, because the Instagram ads are all and Facebook ads are all in the same interface now, right?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Yes, because Facebook bought Instagram, and so we're able to run our ads and ads manager for both.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, cool. So I know a lot of you might be thinking that you don't want to listen to this because there's no way you're going to run Facebook ads. We're not going to get into the nitty gritty of how to actually set it up. But I do want to talk a little bit about them because we are in a period that's very strange and more and more people are working from home or taking, you know a break from there, I call it a break from their businesses. And more and more people are on social media. And so now might be the perfect time to really dive in and think about what about running ads to keep kind of leads going or to keep awareness going. But I mean, what's your take on running Facebook ads right now?

[SHAY HROBSKY] I think that if you have it in your budget, you should absolutely be running ads right now. Because one of the things that Facebook has said one of the things that I've even seen, like Google and so many other people saying is that because so many of us are online right now, there is almost always going to be a way for you to get in front of your audience, especially right now. And so even if it's a small budget of five to $10 a day, I would really utilize that because a lot of your competitors probably aren't. Or if they are you could potentially like beat out your competitor for the specific target targeting that you're doing, and really get in front and build your brand right now.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So I want to ask one quick, specific question and then we can get into some more broad stuff. But when it comes to running ads in a time like this, where the word COVID-19 or Coronavirus is definitely being watched by Facebook, do you think it's good to include if it's relevant? Do you think it's good to include that language in your ad? Or would it be better to keep it off in order to get more deliverability?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Actually, Facebook just released like a statement for ads, was it yesterday? Well, when we were recording this from before, they said that it's okay for you to use the word COVID-19 or Coronavirus, as long as you are not instilling fear or talking about it or giving out false information.

So for example, let's say that you are talking about web design, Sami, or web development you could say, “in a time like this we're we're unsure of what's going to happen with Coronavirus here are three tips to do this with your website,” or something like that. But you can't just say, “I heard with this Coronavirus, this person has done this, this and this,” because it's giving out false information. So as long as you're using it in a general term pertaining to your audience, it's okay for you to use right now.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, and just as a general rule of thumb, you want to be genuine and authentic with your audience.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Exactly. And, you want to be Facebook compliant to like, if you're giving out false information, somebody can flag your your ad and Facebook could essentially like remove your whole ad account. So it's just about having common sense being authentic and really coming from a place of wanting to help your ideal client.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yep. Okay, so let's get just to basics. One question I get a lot of is, well, I can just boost my post. So why would somebody maybe want to do like a, like a full on ad campaign and ads manager versus just boosting posts here and there.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Absolutely. And I get that question so much too. The reason why I always suggest going through ads manager is because of your ability to target. Because of your ability to really get detailed in your targeting, you can't get as detailed when you're boosting a post.

Also, when you're in ads manager, you have the option to change your objective. You can change it to conversion to link clicks to engagement to different things, where you're able to say, okay, I want more people to convert. So to sign up for my email list or to sign up for this free offer or webinar or whatever your marketing, whereas when you're boosting posts, you don't have those options. And so you're going to be spending more money to get less people where you need to be

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, because that's just mostly trying to get more eyeballs on that post

[SHAY HROBSKY] Exactly. Facebook is going to say, okay, you're paying me to boost this. So I'm just going to show whoever, whether it's your Facebook page likes or whoever you choose, when you're setting it up, I'm just going to put it out there in front of them. I don't care if those people are better suited to convert or not. We're just trying to get as many eyes as it on possible. Whereas, they're not guaranteed to link click, whereas when you're doing it an ads manager, and let's say for example, you do choose link clicks, Facebook's going to show it to more people who are like, I want to click this, I want to go see what they have. And their behaviors match more of what your objection is for.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. And so then when you know you're on your business page, and then it always sends you these emails and pops up and says this post is doing really well you could boost it for $15 and blah, blah, blah, like, do you recommend listening to those prompts?

[SHAY HROBSKY] No! Uh uh! Facebook wants your money. Of course, like there a business. That's the reason why we as consumers get to use it for free. So they're going to say, hey, this is getting 58.5% more engagement, boost this post. Absolutely use that post, you can actually find that post in ads manager and create an ad from it. But be smart about it. Don't boost it from your Facebook business page, go into ads manager create it so your objections are set up for what you want. And then use that post in order to build up your community. Get more people on your list, or whatever you want your objection to be. Yeah, give I'm sorry, objective.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]  Yeah. And I think to one way that you can use those prompts to help you from a data perspective is just if you pay attention to them, even if you're not going to put money towards an ad, paying attention to those so that you know which content to just in general create more of

[SHAY HROBSKY] Exactly. And so many people are like, oh, this post is doing great, what do I do next? Well, what worked about time of the day? Did you post it? Why are people engaging with it? And let's take that and utilize that for a different post, schedule it out where it's similar. And then that next post, create a call to action if there isn't one in the first post, or create an ad that is similar to the post so that you are still getting in front of the right people and building it out so that you're continuing to keep that engagement up.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I love it. okay, so before, okay, so we're saying, okay, I'm going to start an ad campaign. I'm going to do some stuff right now to stay in front of my target audience or to grow my target audience. I'm going to just do $5 a day I'm going to do a basic brand awareness campaign, right? What types of things might I want to think about and put in place before I even jump into ads manager,

[SHAY HROBSKY] I would always have posts with called calls to action. You can be building your brand awareness, no problem. But make sure no matter what inside of that post, there's a call to action for one. You will also, if you're going to have people clicking back to your site for any reason, you really want to make sure your pixel is set up. And your pixel is what you can use to track the people that are coming to your site. So you could down the road retarget them for other offers that you might have. And so before I run any ads, I make sure I have my pixel on my website. And I make sure that I, whenever I'm creating an ad, I do have that call to action.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And the call to action can be something as simple as message me back, right or asking a question in a post so they respond, right?

So you don't have to have a super sophisticated funnel that kind of goes to landing pages and sales pages and blah, blah, you can just start a conversation.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Agreed. Yes. And that was one of the things that I did when I first started out with ads. I would actually just create a post, share stats from what my what some of my clients have done,and then I invited them to message me, so that we could have a conversation to see if they needed help with coaching to do their own ads, or if they needed somebody to do them for them.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, and I want to bring up two things that might get crazy technical, but even if you're not running ads are important to do. Right? So number one, the pixel, you talked about, even if you're not ready to run ads, do you recommend websites still put the pixel on so they're still tracking that data?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Absolutely, because anybody within the last 180 days, so the last six months who've come to your site, you can essentially retarget them when you're ready. And it's really cool because in Facebook, you'll be able to like when you start running ads to be able to see the data and see what age ranges that people are coming, what pages that they're clicking on and then you could essentially build ads off of that.

So for example, one of my clients Amber, one of her planner blog posts was getting a ton of traffic. And so they created an ad to send people to that blog post, because A she had affiliate links in there, and B, we could essentially retarget them when we were ready to do her launch.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] That's awesome. And then the second thing that I wanted to bring up was, you know, asking people to direct message you especially well, obviously, your business page because you can't the other I guess the other thing we should mention is you can't run ads on a personal page. So no, you're running your business on a personal page. No, no.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Yes. And you can't run ads to a group either and you cannot target groups in ads manager, I get that question a lot. Well, can I target groups? Unfortunately, you cannot. And so yes, you're running ads from your business page in ads manager.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] But when you ask them to then direct message you and you work with them, in that in that vein, that at some point, if you also get into Facebook Messenger marketing, then you can also start to target those specific people but they have to have already engaged with you correct? You can't just run ads to random people's messenger accounts kind of, or is that changing?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Well, you can't run ads to like. So you can actually run messenger ads where if somebody is in their messenger an ad will pop up, but you cannot do like mini chat, which again is a little more advanced where you can target them and actually talk to them until they've engaged with you. Facebook changed that in February, so you know, no, so you you used to be able to like I would get ads and messages from like, people who I used to engage with in messenger because I signed up for their bot, but unless they messaged you within four days, I believe it's four days that they cannot, that you won't be able to message them back with messenger bots. But you could always message them back from your business page just as a normal person got it.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, interesting. But do you think? I mean, do you think messenger, ads and bots and all of that is going to continue to grow? Or do you still see, like ads?

[SHAY HROBSKY] I absolutely do think, I think that they're both going to grow? Yeah. I think that with messenger bots, you're able to build a relationship with people that you aren't normally able to build, especially as you're building out your brand. And so to be able to ask a question, have them click on a button to say yes or no, and send them through to a specific funnel. Again, this is more advanced. But I do think that it's going to continue to grow. And once you get to that level, when you're ready, I think that the strategy is going to be super important moving forward with Facebook ads is having that set up down the road.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. And starting now with a direct message and just chatting with people just primes them to when you do make that switch. It's not so weird.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Exactly.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay. So talk to me a little bit about images because this is the question I asked you all the time, should I have this image or that image? And I love your take on on what to use and I think it will actually help people take that next step because I think that's kind of one of the creatives that gets people stuck.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Yes, time and time again. And this is from data from running over $40,000 a month in ads among five to six different clients among. Native pictures,so when you and I were talking pictures of yourself, pictures of your kiddo or you with your kiddos. Those 90% of the time outperform any other pictures. Or again, my client Amber. And she keeps coming up on my in my mind because we're getting ready to do a launch for her. But her picture of her and her family of her and her kids at the beach or have them walking, always perform better than the stock images.

Now with that said, if you don't have any pictures that you're comfortable with using some of the other pictures that I found have worked well are bright and colorful images. Not those bland like deskey type images were that you see everybody posting, but bright, colorful images that are going to stop you in your newsfeed. You have to remember Facebook is blue and gray and it's just kind of bland colors. And so if you're blending in with those bland stock photos, your CTR is going to be lower. And we want our CTR which is our click through rate how many people who see our ad to click through. We want that as high as possible, because that will decrease your cost per conversion down the road. And that'll increase your engagement.

So images that are bright and colorful, cute animals really do work and I know people are like, but that's not my niche. I have a client who is in a professional niche who works with corporate women, executive women. And the cute animal pictures are like a wonderful break in their day. And so they're clicking through she has a higher click through rate.

And so test out images and tweak as well. So you could test out a couple different images and see what might work for your niche. But those are the types of images that I've seen have worked best.

So A: native pictures of yourself, your family, B: bright, colorful images, I posted some of just like there have been bright umbrellas in the air or there have been bright buildings or abstract photos that are just really colorful, or C: just images of cute animals or something like that just to kind of break up the monotony of your day. And it also looks like their blog articles or that there's something you're actually sharing versus ads with the stock photos that actually look like a sponsored post.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, that's so good. And no text over your images right?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Those have so the ones that have worked the best for my clients have been the ones without text. And there's one caveat with that. One exception is when you are doing cart close ads Okay, cart close ads putting cart closing soon on the image so that people know okay, I need to get in on this

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Or it was something crazy time sensitive. 

And I think what I love once you get into ads manager and I don't know when this change happened, but I know what is nice is now you can add multiple images to one ad. Yes. So it makes the A/B testing so much easier for for newbies.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Exactly. And if you don't have that option, because I do notice that some ad accounts still don't have that option, which is weird, you can actually just duplicate an ad. And so you could have three or four different ads in one ad set and test the images to see which one performs better.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]Y eah, well, speaking of rollout of features, I'm still mad at Instagram, because I still on my business account, don't have access to music in my stories. Just really, just, it's like, gosh, I don't know why that rolled out like a year or two. I don't know. Anyway,

[SHAY HROBSKY] I would write them Sami.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I know total sidebar makes me sad when I see people posting music cuz I'm like, I can't do that. Give it to me. Anyway. That's just my rant. Yes, sometimes Facebook and Instagram don't roll everything out right away.

[SHAY HROBSKY] No, and there was something I was on a q&a where clients get to come on and ask me questions, and I get to, like go into their ads manager. And I remember a client had had to have a button. Which it once you get to this level when you're creating ads, I really suggest not having a learn more or sign up button. And she was over I believe in the UK and she couldn't remove that feature and like, oh, certain countries have different things as well. And that drove me bonkers.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Okay, so images done. And I think the other question you probably get a lot that I get a lot is long copy or short copy.

[SHAY HROBSKY] And I say to test them both. I'm not gonna give like for okay, so for certain things longer copy does work for cart closing for like, quick freebies shorter copy works. But when you're trying to build a relationship if you're getting into these people's newsfeeds for the first time, I would say medium to longer copy works, especially with webinars. If you're going to be doing a webinar series or something like that a little bit longer tends to be better. From what I've noticed, again, test, tweak, see what works best for your niche and for your particular audience, and then adjust it as needed.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, so when you say test, how long should people let their ads run before they start messing with them.

[SHAY HROBSKY] So Facebook has come out and this was last year or the end of 2018, with a learning phase. And so you don't want to be touching your ads. It'll say, once you put your ads to review, it'll say, in review, once it's approved, it won't go to active most of the time at the ad set level, it'll say learning phase. And so while you're in that learning phase, you do not want to mess with your ads, because that resets the learning phase, Facebook won't gather enough data, and then your ads are going to end up potentially being a hot mess. So I would say for three to five days or until and that would be three to five days, it'll give them time to get optimized, or until they're out of that learning phase so that Facebook can accurately collect the data of the people clicking through of the people converting things like that, so that you are getting in front of the right people.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, and, um, you know, if you're thinking of starting ads, just like you talked about at the beginning, you know, starting now and doing, you know, $5-$10 dollars a day doing some sort of, you know, brand awareness, just getting out there and running ads. Is that beneficial to do especially like, let's say, I know, or I want to plan for a launch six months from now or three months from now. Will it help me with my launch if I do sort of kind of baseline stuff now so that Facebook learns more about my audience? I can learn more about my audience. Before I actually ramp up?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Absolutely. So yeah, if you again, if you have it in your budget and you're ready to hit the ground running, I would absolutely do opt-in so if you have like a freebie or something that you can send traffic to, I would send them to that. I would also be doing Facebook Lives on your business page. And you can also create ads to that and target them for video views. And once you're ready, when you're in the pre-launch phase where you're going to be running more ads to build engagement right before your launch, you can retarget those video views to sign up for your freebie or your offer. So I would start as soon as you can, building out that engagement, building out that connection, building out that community with your audience as soon ahead of time as possible.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, and I would say with Facebook Lives now is the best time to get into it if you haven't done it before because people are home. Like people are hungry for content and things to do. So now is the perfect time to do that. And I will say the overwhelming thing for me is when people say test and I'm like I don't know how many things to test and what to test. So I think a mistake a common mistake people make when they're doing all of these things is trying to do too many things at once. So if you were going to A/B something like what would you like pick one thing, right?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Exactly. And so and you bring up a really good point, Sami, I would not test and tweak a whole lot at the same time, because then you won't know what's working and what's not. So what I teach my clients is, okay, let's start with two audiences keep it super simple, or even just one audience with two versions of ad copy, and then you'll narrow it down in your ads to which one performs better. But if you are doing five different versions of ad copy 18 different images and if you're turning things on and off and all around, you're not going to know what works and you won't be able to scale it if it is working.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Right so just do maybe the same ad copy with different photos or same complete ad with two different audiences. Exactly. And then once you know the winner, then you you bring in a different variable, right?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Yep, that is perfect.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, so don't do A/B testing, I think sometimes throws people for loop de loop.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Let's say that you don't have a whole lot in your budget to test like, I would just test maybe one copy with two ads. And so that way, you aren't jumping through hoops and you aren't overwhelming yourself. I've had clients who are like, I wanted to test all the things and then I get him for like, analysis, paralysis, and I don't test anything. And I'm like me that you've got this, like, test small and start slow so that you do feel comfortable, and you're building out the experience in ads manager so that you can keep moving forward.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, and then you know, understanding the data. One thing I really want to make sure we touch on is analytics and data and what data that we like to see? I mean, what do we care about? And what do we not care about?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Right? We care about our click-through rate. So how many people who are seeing your ad are actually clicking through to your registration page, if you or your opt in page depending on if you're running those ads, we care about, like how many, and we want that to be at 1% or higher. We care about how many people are registering if you are running ads for opt in. So for example, let's say you're running people to an ebook, or a free guide or a template, and it's, and you want to know how many people should be registering, you want at least 20 to 30% depending on your niche. So of the 100 people clicking through, you want 20 to 30 of them to be registering.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yep. And the number that everybody wants to look at because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy is impressions. That doesn't matter, right?

[SHAY HROBSKY] We couldn't care less about impressions. Aunt Jamima doesn't care about your impressions! We care how any people are registering, how many people are clicking through impressions do not matter.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, and I love this from a tactical standpoint, because when you're just like, if you're just starting out and you're just running ads that are just to your to your freebie or whatever, and you know, you're paying attention to download, you're making sure your numbers are good. That's one thing, but then when you go into launch mode, I mean, Shay really knocked me down a few pegs when I was like, Hey, this is my numbers is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna run ads and you were like, do you have like $10,000 because you need to reverse engineer.

[SHAY HROBSKY] You have to reverse engineer it. So let's say that you want 100 people to like, sign up for your launch and 1% of you know, the people who like come through your funnel will convert. So we're doing 100 people times 100. Is that correct? Yeah. And that's 10,000 people you need in your funnel? And so like, you need to think about that when you're spending and, and let's say that you need 10,000 people through your funnel, and your average cost per conversion is $4. That's $40,000. Right? So like, you need to think about those numbers. And sure, you might get a better conversion rate. But obviously, we want to be conservative with our numbers, plan for the worst and expect or hope or, like, be grateful for the best. But at a minimum 1% of the people will convert most of the time. So we need to reverse engineer what those numbers look like for you.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, I just love I think a lot of people at the beginning part of their business tend to just make decisions on hopes and dreams and, and how great we feel about what we're doing. Because it hasn't been proven. And so I think it's really powerful to have these kind of core numbers and to be able to say, Okay, this is really an expectation, and this is what I can do with the budget that I have, but you got to get started doing something.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Exactly.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So we talked briefly about Facebook and Instagram ads. And I know when you go in and run your ads, you can run the same ad to both platforms, but you really recommend separating those out, right?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Well, yeah, and you can run the exact same ads, but your Instagram cost versus your Facebook costs tend to be completely different costs, like cost per conversion, cost per click, things like that. And so I would create separate campaigns so that the numbers aren't mumbled and jumbled together. And then if let's say Instagram is performing three times better than Facebook, you have the ability to scale Instagram, but if you have them together, you're not going to know which one is working and you're not going to be able to scale it and you won't be able to scale it as quickly because Facebook's going to be dragging the numbers down in this example, because they're not performing as well as Instagram, and because those numbers are together, if you put them together, you won't be able to see that

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Right no that's a really good point. Any other I mean, you've given a lot of amazing tips for people that are just getting started.

[SHAY HROBSKY]  don't want to overwhelm. I know, like, Oh, my eyes are glossed and I'm done. I know, freak out. It does seem really, really scary. But once you get in there, once you like, take a deep breath, and you go step by step, and you start to slowly understand, I promise it gets better. I also promise you will get frustrated too. Like I said, I've been doing this for almost 10 years, and I still swear at Facebook.

So I get it.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, and I will say for me, the thing that helps me navigate through it better because I'm not in the platform all the time is if I have my copy, and my images, like an all and I kind of know what I'm doing before I even open ads manager. That helps because then I know I can just dump stuff in when I when I've started to put ads together and I'm like doing it as I'm building it like okay, what copy am I gonna write? If I don't have it written out ahead of time, that's when I just start to get crazy because I'm like trying to put things. So putting that plan together, and then Facebook does have a great resource and Facebook blueprint where you can do their tutorials on how to run ads, right?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Yes, and that is a very good point. Like I always suggest what you just said. Have your ad copy written ahead of time and have like all of that stuff done before you get into ads manager because it, when you go in there and if you're already stressed and anxious about going in there that's going to hold you up. And your ultimate objective is to move your business forward. So don't be the bottleneck when it comes to that. And yes, Facebook has so many phenomenal tools for building out your ads for like showing you the metrics showing you how to look at reporting and things like that. There are so many awesome tools for you to use.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, perfect. Any other things that kind of pop up for you or last words of wisdom?

[SHAY HROBSKY] Um, nothing else has popped up just you got this. This is something if this is something that you are going to embark on this year. You totally got this.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, I agree. I think I think you should go for it.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Me too.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, thank you so much Shay. If people want to find out more about you and kind of all of the amazing things you do, how can they how can they do that?

[SHAY HROBSKY] They can go to soulfueledlife.com. Otherwise, I have this awesome freebie, where it will walk you through creating an ad from start to finish and you'll be able to get on my list and get weekly updates on what's working and what's not working with Facebook ads.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I love it. Yeah. And we'll link all of that up in the show notes as well for everybody. Well, thank you so much. I'm so I'm just I've we've been trying to get you on for a while. So I'm very thankful that we made it work.

[SHAY HROBSKY] Me too. Thanks, Sami.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Thank you again to Shay for joining me. I hope you got as much out of it as I did. She's incredible. I love her energy. I love the way that she explains things and she's definitely wanting to take things to the next level for you if you're ready for the next phase of your Facebook ads. So make sure you head on over to the thefirstclick.net/podcast. Check out the show notes for this episode for Shea's awesome freebie. We'll also make sure to link up Facebook Blueprint there for you so you can get access to the free training that Facebook provides. And let me know I'd love to hear when you kick off your first Facebook ad and just have a little win and celebrate with you. Because it is definitely a daunting thing but you can do it. I have faith in you

For now I hope you subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on a single episode. Thank you so much for being a loyal listener and I will see you on the next one.