Launching a new business idea can feel like jumping into the deep end without knowing if the water is warm or freezing cold. That’s where business idea validation comes in. Before you invest time, energy, and money, validating your idea helps you gauge interest, refine your concept, and set yourself up for success.

Validation is like a trial run for your idea, allowing you to collect real-world data instead of relying on guesswork. It bridges the gap between “What if this works?” and “Here’s proof it works.” By testing the waters early, you can avoid costly mistakes, identify areas for improvement, and build confidence in your vision.

In this article, we’ll explore two proven strategies—running targeted ads and building landing pages—that can help you validate your idea without wasting precious resources. Let’s break down how to use these methods to get real-world feedback on your next big idea.

What Is Business Idea Validation, and Why Does It Matter?

At its core, business idea validation is about testing the viability of your idea before committing fully. It’s the process of asking your potential audience, “Is this something you’d want?” through measurable actions, like signing up, clicking, or purchasing.

Think of it as a safety net. Instead of pouring thousands of dollars into an idea you think is great, validation lets you base your decisions on actual data. It can prevent costly mistakes, save time, and ensure that your efforts are focused on something people genuinely care about.

The benefits of validating your business idea include:

• Avoiding Wasted Resources: Know if your idea is worth pursuing before you invest heavily.
• Refining Your Concept: Use feedback to improve your product or service.
• Building Confidence: Validation gives you data-driven assurance that you’re on the right track.

Now that we’ve established the “why,” let’s dive into the “how.”

1. Run Targeted Ads: Your Real-Time Feedback Machine

One of the fastest ways to validate your business idea is by running targeted ads. Platforms like Facebook, Google, and Instagram allow you to place your concept in front of specific audiences, giving you instant feedback on whether people are interested.

Here’s how it works:

• Create a Hypothesis: Start with a clear idea of what you’re testing. For example, if you’re launching a new meal delivery service, your hypothesis might be: “Busy professionals will be interested in weekly meal plans with fresh ingredients.”
• Craft Your Ad: Your ad should highlight the main benefit of your idea. For the meal delivery service, your ad might say, “Fresh, Healthy Meals Delivered Weekly—Save Time and Eat Better.” Pair it with an eye-catching image or video.
• Track Engagement: Run the ad for a few days and measure clicks, sign-ups, or other actions. If people are engaging, you’re onto something. If not, it’s time to adjust.

Why This Works

Ads provide immediate feedback. They’re low-cost, quick to set up, and allow you to test multiple ideas at once. You’ll know within days (or even hours) if your audience resonates with your concept.

Jason’s Tip: Split-Test Like a Pro

Don’t just settle for one ad. Run A/B tests with different headlines, images, and calls-to-action (CTAs). Even small tweaks can lead to big differences in performance.

2. Build a Landing Page: A Focused Validation Tool

While ads get the conversation started, a landing page takes validation a step further. A landing page is a single, dedicated webpage where you showcase your idea, highlight its benefits, and invite visitors to take action.

Here’s the process:

• Design Your Page: Keep it simple but engaging. Use a strong headline, a few compelling bullet points, and a clear CTA. For example, if you’re launching an online coaching program, your headline might be: “Take Control of Your Career—Join Our Coaching Program Today.”
• Offer an Actionable CTA: Encourage visitors to sign up for early access, join a waitlist, or pre-order. The goal is to measure genuine interest.
• Promote the Page: Drive traffic using social media, email marketing, or paid ads.

Why This Works

Actions speak louder than words. If people sign up, pre-pay, or engage with your landing page, you have concrete proof that your idea has potential.

Jason’s Tip: Add Social Proof

If you’ve run ads before creating the landing page, use that data as proof. Highlight the number of clicks, sign-ups, or positive comments in your copy. It builds trust and excitement.

Combine Ads and Landing Pages for

While running ads and building landing pages are powerful on their own, combining the two can supercharge your business idea validation process. Together, these tools create a seamless feedback loop that not only drives traffic but also provides deeper insights into your audience’s behavior and preferences.

Start by running a targeted ad campaign that directs potential customers to your landing page. Use the ad to present your idea in a compelling way, highlighting key benefits or solving a specific pain point. Once visitors land on your page, offer them a clear next step, whether it’s signing up for a waitlist, downloading a free resource, or answering a quick survey.

This approach does more than just validate your idea—it also builds an engaged audience. When people take action on your landing page, you’re essentially creating a pre-launch customer base. Plus, you can analyze the data to refine your messaging, identify high-converting demographics, and test which ad copy resonates most.

For example, if one ad consistently drives more clicks to your landing page but another leads to higher conversion rates, you’ll know exactly how to optimize your campaign. This iterative process ensures you’re not just validating your idea but also laying the groundwork for a successful launch.

Combining ads and landing pages isn’t just about validation—it’s about creating momentum. When done right, these tools work together to build interest, capture leads, and refine your strategy, all while minimizing risk and maximizing ROI.

Pitfalls to Watch for When Validating Business Ideas

When it comes to testing your business idea, small missteps can lead to inaccurate results or wasted resources. To get the most out of your validation process, it’s essential to avoid common mistakes that could skew your understanding of your audience’s true interest or demand.

One of the biggest mistakes is focusing on vanity metrics rather than actionable insights. It’s tempting to get caught up in clicks, likes, or impressions without digging deeper into conversions or meaningful engagement. These surface-level metrics may look good on paper but won’t give you the data you need to refine your idea or confirm its viability. Instead, focus on metrics that directly align with your goals, like sign-ups, purchases, or in-depth survey responses.

Another common pitfall is launching your validation tools prematurely. Rushing an ad campaign or landing page without fully crafting your message or ensuring the user experience flows smoothly can lead to unreliable results. Take the time to polish your copy, design, and targeting strategies before pushing anything live. A sloppy execution can hurt your brand’s credibility and make it difficult to discern if your idea needs improvement or if your presentation simply fell short.

Mistakes to Avoid:

• Ignoring Negative Feedback: If your ad or landing page isn’t getting traction, don’t ignore the signs. Use it as an opportunity to refine your idea or pivot.
• Overcomplicating Your Message: Keep your ad and landing page simple. Focus on the core benefit your idea provides.
• Not Testing Enough: One ad or landing page isn’t enough. Run multiple tests with different angles to get a comprehensive picture.
• Targeting the Wrong Audience: Make sure your ads and landing pages are reaching the right people. Use detailed audience targeting to avoid wasting time and money.

Real-Life Examples of Business Idea Validation

One of the most exciting aspects of business idea validation is seeing it work in the real world. The methods might seem straightforward, but when applied correctly, they can transform a concept into a thriving enterprise. By running small-scale tests or showcasing a clear vision, entrepreneurs have turned ideas into multimillion-dollar ventures. These examples highlight the importance of testing and refining before going all in, proving that even the simplest validation efforts can yield powerful results.

A critical takeaway from these success stories is the accessibility of validation tools. You don’t need a massive budget or a fully built product to validate an idea. Instead, you just need creativity, strategic thinking, and the willingness to learn from your audience. Whether it’s a clever video, a targeted ad, or a prototype, the goal is the same: to find out whether your idea resonates with the people it’s designed for.

Real-Life Examples:

• The Dropbox Story: Before building their full platform, Dropbox created a simple video explaining their idea. The overwhelming interest from viewers validated their concept and helped secure funding.
• The Dollar Shave Club: The founders ran targeted ads to gauge interest in their subscription-based razor delivery service. The response was so strong that it launched a multi-million-dollar company.

These examples demonstrate that even a minimal effort to validate an idea can set the stage for something much bigger. Dropbox didn’t need a finished product to attract investors; they just needed to prove that people wanted the solution they were offering. Similarly, the Dollar Shave Club didn’t need a fully stocked warehouse to start—they simply confirmed that people would subscribe to the service if it existed.

Ultimately, these stories show the value of putting your idea in front of a real audience, even if it’s in its earliest stages. Whether your goal is funding, customer interest, or proof of demand, the insights gained from even a small validation effort can guide your next steps and increase your chances of success. Business idea validation isn’t just about testing—it’s about opening the door to opportunities that you might not have seen otherwise.

Wrapping It All Up

Validating your business idea isn’t just a step in the process—it’s the foundation for everything that comes next. By using strategies like targeted ads and landing pages, you can gain valuable insights, refine your concept, and move forward with confidence.

Remember, the goal isn’t perfection; it’s progress. Start small, test early, and let the feedback guide you. With the right approach, your business idea can go from a spark of inspiration to a thriving reality.

FAQs About Business Idea Validation

1. How much should I spend on ads to validate my idea?
   Start small—$50 to $100 is often enough to get initial feedback. If you see promising results, you can scale up.
2. What tools do I need to create a landing page?
   Platforms like Leadpages, ClickFunnels, or even WordPress make it easy to create landing pages without technical skills.
3. How do I know if my idea is validated?
   Look for measurable actions like sign-ups, pre-orders, or purchases. High engagement is a strong indicator of interest.
4. Can I validate multiple ideas at once?
   Absolutely. Use separate ads and landing pages for each idea to keep your results clear and actionable.
5. What if my idea doesn’t get validated?
   Don’t be discouraged. Use the feedback to refine your idea, change your messaging, or pivot to a new concept.

The post Business Idea Validation: Two Powerful Strategies to Test Your Next Big Idea appeared first on Done For You.

A robust

In this article, we’ll explore the three pillars of a media strategy, paid, owned, and earned media, discuss their unique benefits and challenges, and provide actionable tips for integrating them into a cohesive plan.

What Is a Media Strategy?

A media strategy is the roadmap that guides how businesses communicate with their audience using various platforms and channels. It ensures that marketing efforts are cohesive, targeted, and effective. Instead of scattering messages across random channels, a media strategy aligns your goals with the best tools to reach your audience, maximizing impact and ROI. This planning process encompasses the selection of platforms, the development of messaging, and the timing of delivery.

At its core, a well-defined media strategy helps businesses connect with their audience in meaningful ways. It creates a unified approach to paid, owned, and earned media channels, ensuring consistent messaging across all touchpoints. By taking the time to define objectives and understand the target audience, businesses can craft strategies that resonate and drive measurable results. Whether you’re launching a new product or nurturing existing customers, a solid media strategy lays the foundation for success.

 A media strategy helps businesses:

• Define objectives, such as increasing brand awareness or driving conversions.
• Determine the best mix of paid, owned, and earned media.
• Allocate resources and budget effectively.
• Optimize campaigns for maximum impact.

The ultimate goal is to create a consistent and engaging experience for your audience across all touchpoints, reinforcing your brand message and driving measurable results.

The Three Pillars of a Media Strategy

To build a successful media strategy, you need to understand and leverage three distinct media types: paid, owned, and earned media. Each plays a unique role in your marketing ecosystem.

Paid Media: Expanding Your Reach with Targeted Advertising

Paid media includes all the channels where you invest money to promote your brand. Examples include:

• Search Engine Ads: Google Ads to appear in search results.
• Social Media Ads: Sponsored posts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
• Display Ads: Banner ads on websites to boost visibility.

Why Paid Media Matters:
Paid media accelerates your reach and ensures your message gets in front of the right audience. By using data-driven targeting, you can attract customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Challenges:
Paid media can be costly, and the competition is fierce. Without careful optimization, campaigns can quickly drain your budget without delivering the desired ROI.

Owned Media: Building Your Digital Assets

Owned media refers to the channels and content you control entirely, such as:

• Your website or blog.
• Email newsletters.
• Social media profiles.

Why Owned Media Matters:
Owned media allows you to establish a strong online presence while maintaining complete control over the messaging and user experience. It’s cost-effective and provides a platform to nurture long-term customer relationships.

Challenges:
The main limitation is distribution. Unlike paid media, reaching a larger audience often requires time and effort, such as search engine optimization (SEO) or organic social media growth.

Earned Media: Leveraging Third-Party Validation

Earned media includes any content about your brand that is created and shared by others. Examples include:

• Online reviews.
• Mentions in news articles.
• Social media shares and user-generated content.

Why Earned Media Matters:
This type of media builds trust and credibility, as it comes from unbiased third parties. A glowing review or a viral tweet can significantly boost your brand reputation.

Challenges:
You have little to no control over earned media. A negative review or unfavorable mention can harm your brand, and gaining significant exposure often requires sustained effort in building relationships.

Crafting a Balanced Media Strategy

Creating a balanced media strategy requires careful consideration of your goals and the channels that will best support them. A strong balance involves integrating paid, owned, and earned media into a seamless plan that amplifies your message. Paid media offers instant visibility, owned media ensures long-term control, and earned media builds credibility through third-party endorsements.

To achieve balance, it’s essential to understand the unique strengths of each type of media. Paid campaigns can quickly generate traffic, but they need to be supported by engaging owned media like blogs or social posts to keep the audience engaged. Similarly, earned media builds trust and reinforces the messaging across paid and owned efforts. By strategically blending these elements, businesses can create a holistic approach that ensures every dollar and effort spent drives maximum results.

Here’s how:

Set Clear Goals

Define specific objectives for each media type. For instance:

• Use paid media to generate immediate traffic and leads.
• Focus owned media on educating and nurturing your audience.
• Leverage earned media to build trust and social proof.

Allocate Resources Wisely

Distribute your budget based on your goals and audience behavior. A business targeting millennials might prioritize Instagram ads (paid) and TikTok content (earned), while a B2B company could focus on LinkedIn (owned and paid).

Optimize Continuously

Track performance metrics such as:

• Conversion rates for paid media.
• Engagement rates for owned media.
• Sentiment analysis for earned media.

Regularly adjust your strategy based on these insights to maximize results.

Measuring the Success of Your Media Strategy

Success isn’t just about launching campaigns… it’s about ensuring they deliver the intended outcomes. Metrics like ROI, engagement rates, and lead conversions are essential in determining whether your media strategy is working. By closely monitoring these indicators, you can identify what’s effective and refine underperforming areas to align with your goals.

Equally important is understanding qualitative feedback, such as customer sentiment and brand perception. While quantitative data highlights measurable results, qualitative insights provide context, showing how your audience feels about your messaging. Together, these metrics allow businesses to paint a comprehensive picture of their strategy’s success, helping refine campaigns for sustained growth.

Key metrics include:

• Paid Media: Click-through rates, cost-per-click, and return on ad spend.
• Owned Media: Website traffic, time on page, and email open rates.
• Earned Media: Number of brand mentions, share of voice, and audience sentiment.

Use tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Hootsuite to track these metrics and make data-driven decisions.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Many businesses falter by over-investing in one media channel while neglecting others. For example, relying solely on paid ads might generate traffic but fail to build trust or long-term relationships. A balanced approach ensures no single channel dominates at the expense of the others, providing a robust and sustainable media strategy.

Another common mistake is failing to define clear objectives. Without actionable goals, campaigns lack focus and direction, leading to wasted resources. Similarly, skipping audience research can result in mismatched messaging that fails to resonate. By taking the time to understand your target audience and establish measurable goals, you can avoid these pitfalls and ensure your media strategy delivers meaningful results.

Watch out for these pitfalls when implementing your media strategy:

• Over-reliance on Paid Media: Don’t neglect owned and earned media, as they provide long-term value.
• Inconsistent Messaging: Ensure a seamless experience across all channels to avoid confusing your audience.
• Neglecting Analytics: Regularly review performance data to identify opportunities for improvement.

Final Thoughts

A well-crafted media strategy is essential for navigating the complexities of digital marketing. By effectively integrating paid, owned, and earned media, you can create a balanced approach that amplifies your reach, builds trust, and drives measurable results. Remember, the key to success is ongoing optimization, regularly analyze your performance, adapt to changing trends, and refine your strategy to stay ahead.

Ready to take your media strategy to the next level? Start by evaluating your current efforts and identifying areas for improvement. With the right approach, you’ll transform your marketing efforts into a powerful engine for growth.

FAQs About Media Strategy

1. What is a media strategy?
   A media strategy is a plan for using paid, owned, and earned media channels to achieve specific marketing goals, such as increasing brand awareness or driving sales.
2. Why is a balanced media strategy important?
   Balancing paid, owned, and earned media ensures you leverage the strengths of each channel, creating a cohesive and effective marketing approach.
3. How do I measure the success of my media strategy?
   Track metrics like conversion rates, engagement rates, and brand mentions. Use analytics tools to assess performance and make data-driven adjustments.
4. What are the biggest challenges in implementing a media strategy?
   Challenges include budget constraints, maintaining consistent messaging, and keeping up with ever-changing digital trends.
5. Can a media strategy work for small businesses?
   Absolutely! A tailored media strategy can help small businesses maximize their reach and ROI, even with limited resources.

The post Media Strategy Breakdown for Beginners appeared first on Done For You.

If you’re running a business, you’re probably wondering which advertising platform is better for your business – Facebook Ads or Google Ads. Both platforms are powerful advertising tools that help you reach your target audience and achieve your advertising goals. In this blog post, we’ll compare Facebook and Google Ads and help you decide which platform is better for your business.

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Which One Should You Use?

What Are Facebook Ads?

Facebook Ads is an advertising platform that allows you to create and run ads on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network. With Facebook Ads, you can target your ads to specific audiences based on their interests, demographics, behaviors, and more. You can also choose from various ad formats, including image, video, carousel, etc.

What Are Google Ads?

Google Ads is an advertising platform that allows you to create and run ads on the Google Search Network, the Google Display Network, and YouTube. With Google Ads, you can target your ads to specific keywords, locations, devices, and more. You can also choose from various ad formats, including text, image, video, and more.

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Pros and Cons

Facebook Ads Pros

• Large audience: Facebook has over 2.8 billion monthly active users, making it one of the largest social media platforms in the world.
• Advanced targeting options: With Facebook Ads, you can target your ads to specific audiences based on their interests, demographics, behaviors, and more.
• Cost-effective: Facebook Ads can be more cost-effective than Google Ads, especially if you’re targeting a specific niche audience.

Facebook Ads Cons

• Less intent-driven: Facebook Ads are typically used for brand awareness and engagement rather than driving conversions.
• Limited ad placement options: While Facebook Ads can appear on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network, the placement options are still somewhat limited.

Google Ads Pros

• High intent-driven: Google Ads are typically used for driving conversions and sales rather than brand awareness and engagement.
• Large audience: Google has over 3.5 billion searches per day, making it the largest search engine in the world.
• Diverse ad placement options: Google Ads can appear on the Google Search Network, the Google Display Network, and YouTube, giving you a wide range of placement options.

Google Ads Cons

• More expensive: Google Ads can be more expensive than Facebook Ads, especially if you’re targeting competitive keywords.
• Limited targeting options: While Google Ads allows you to target specific keywords, locations, devices, and more, the targeting options are still somewhat limited compared to Facebook Ads.

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Which One Should You Use?

So, which advertising platform should you use for your business? The answer is that it depends. Facebook Ads and Google Ads have pros and cons, and the best advertising platform for your business will depend on your advertising goals, budget, and target audience.

Facebook Ads may be your better option if you want to build brand awareness and engage with your audience. On the other hand, if you’re looking to drive conversions and sales, Google Ads may be the better option for you.

Ultimately, the best way to determine which advertising platform is better for your business is to test both platforms and see which gives you the best results. By testing both platforms, you can better understand which platform works best for your business and adjust your advertising strategy accordingly.

Conclusion

Facebook Ads and Google Ads are powerful advertising platforms that can help you reach your target audience and achieve your advertising goals. While Facebook Ads are typically used for brand awareness and engagement, Google Ads are generally used for driving conversions and sales.

Ultimately, the best advertising platform for your business will depend on your advertising goals, budget, and target audience. Testing both platforms allows you to determine which platform works best for your business and adjust your advertising strategy accordingly. So, unlock the secrets to successful advertising with Facebook and Google Ads!

The post The Showdown: Facebook Ads vs Google Ads – Unveiling the Winner appeared first on Done For You.

As businesses search for the best way to reach their target audience, social media platforms like Facebook have become increasingly popular advertising channels. Facebook ads can potentially reach a massive audience, but are they worth the investment? In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the effectiveness of Facebook ads and share our surprising findings.

Understanding Facebook Ads

Before we dive into our research, let’s take a moment to understand what Facebook ads are and how they work. Facebook offers a variety of ad formats, including image ads, video ads, carousel ads, and more. These ads can be targeted based on factors like age, location, interests, and behaviors, making reaching a specific audience with your message possible.

Facebook ads are priced on an auction system, where advertisers bid on the desired action from their audience, like clicks or impressions. The cost per action can vary depending on audience size, competition, and ad quality.

The Debate: Are Facebook Ads Worth It?

The effectiveness of Facebook ads has been a hotly debated topic since the platform first launched its advertising options. Some businesses swear by Facebook ads as a cost-effective way to reach their target audience. In contrast, others argue that the platform’s constantly changing algorithms make seeing a return on investment difficult.

To better understand the effectiveness of Facebook ads, we surveyed businesses that have used the platform for advertising. Our results may surprise you.

Our Surprising Findings

Of the businesses we surveyed, 75% reported seeing a positive return on investment from their Facebook ads. Of those who saw a positive return, the average return on investment was 3.5x their initial investment.

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Of the businesses that did not see a positive return on investment, the main reasons cited were poor ad targeting and a lack of clear goals.

So, are Facebook ads worth it? Based on our findings, the answer is a resounding “yes” if you have clear goals and a well-targeted ad campaign.

Tips for Success with Facebook Ads

If you’re considering using Facebook ads for your business, here are some tips to help you get the most out of your investment:

1. Set clear goals for your ad campaign. Are you looking to increase website traffic, generate leads, or boost sales?
2. Target your audience carefully. Use Facebook’s targeting options to reach the people most likely to be interested in your product or service.
3. Create engaging ad content. Whether it’s an eye-catching image or a compelling video, make sure your ad content grabs your audience’s attention.
4. Monitor and adjust your ad campaign regularly. Monitor your ad metrics and adjust as needed to improve performance.

Conclusion

Facebook ads have proven to be a valuable advertising channel for many businesses, but their effectiveness ultimately depends on factors like ad targeting and clear goals. Following the tips outlined in this post can increase your chances of seeing a positive return on investment from your Facebook ad campaign. So give it a try – the results may just surprise you!

The post Unlocking the Truth: Are Facebook Ads Worth It? Our Surprising Findings Will Shock You! appeared first on Done For You.

When it comes to advertising on social media, Facebook is undoubtedly one of the most powerful platforms available. With over 2.8 billion active users, it allows businesses to reach a massive audience. But what if you want to target a specific group within that audience? Can Facebook ads target groups? The answer is a resounding yes! Facebook’s targeting capabilities are so precise that you can reach the people you want with minimal wasted ad spending. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to unlock the power of Facebook ads and precisely target specific groups.

Understanding Facebook’s Targeting Capabilities

Before we dive into the specifics of targeting, it’s important to understand the types of targeting available on Facebook. Here are the main categories:

• Location: Target people based on their location, from countries to zip codes.
• Demographics: This includes age, gender, education, job title, and more.
• Interests: Target people based on the pages they like, the topics they engage with, and their general interests.
• Behaviors: This includes purchase behaviors, device usage, and travel behaviors.
• Custom Audiences: Create an audience based on existing customer data, such as email lists or website visitors.
• Lookalike Audiences: Target people who share similar characteristics to your existing customers.

As you can see, Facebook’s targeting capabilities are incredibly detailed. You can create a particular audience tailored to your business by combining multiple targeting options.

Targeting Specific Groups with Precision

Now that we’ve covered the basics of Facebook’s targeting options, let’s dive into how you can use them to target specific groups precisely.

Define Your Target Audience

The first step in targeting a specific group is to define who that group is. Start by thinking about your ideal customer. What are their demographics? What are their interests? Where are they located? The more detailed you can be, the better.

Use Custom Audiences

One of the most powerful targeting options on Facebook is Custom Audiences. This allows you to create an audience based on customer data, such as email lists or website visitors. By targeting people who have already engaged with your business, you can increase the likelihood of conversion. For example, if you have an email list of people who have signed up for your newsletter, you can create a Custom Audience and target those people with an ad promoting a new product.

Create Lookalike Audiences

Another way to target specific groups is to create Lookalike Audiences. This allows you to target people with similar characteristics to your existing customers. For example, suppose you have a list of customers who have purchased in the last 30 days. In that case, you can create a Lookalike Audience and target people with similar interests, demographics, and behaviors.

Use Detailed Targeting

Finally, don’t be afraid to get really specific with your targeting. Facebook’s Detailed Targeting options allow you to target people based on specific interests, behaviors, and demographics. For example, if you’re selling running shoes, you can target people who have shown an interest in running and people who have recently purchased running gear.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Facebook’s targeting capabilities are incredibly powerful and can help you reach exactly the people you want to reach. By defining your target audience, using Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences, and getting specific targeting, you can create highly effective Facebook ads that drive conversions and grow your business. So the next time you’re wondering, “Can Facebook ads target groups?” remember that the answer is a resounding yes!

The post The Power of Facebook Ads: How to Target Specific Groups with Precision appeared first on Done For You.

Which Ads Work Better for Your Business?

Social media advertising has become essential to any business’s marketing strategy. With the rise of social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok, businesses now have multiple options to choose from when it comes to running ad campaigns online. In this blog post, we will compare Facebook ads vs. TikTok ads and help you decide which works better for your business.

What are Facebook Ads?

Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, with over 2.8 billion monthly active users. Facebook Ads is an advertising platform that allows businesses to create and run ads on Facebook and its partner networks, such as Instagram and Messenger. With Facebook Ads, businesses can target their ads based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and location, among other factors.

What are TikTok Ads?

TikTok is a social media platform that has become increasingly popular recently, particularly among younger audiences. TikTok Ads is a platform that allows businesses to create and run ads on TikTok. Like Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads will enable businesses to target their ads based on demographics, interests, and behaviors.

Comparing Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads

Target Audience

One of the most significant differences between Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads is their target audiences. Facebook’s user base is much more diverse, ranging from teenagers to senior citizens. On the other hand, TikTok’s user base primarily comprises younger audiences, with a majority of users under 30.

Ad Formats

Facebook Ads offers various formats, including images, video, carousel, etc. On the other hand, TikTok Ads primarily focuses on short-form video ads that play in between user-generated content. While both platforms offer video ads, TikTok’s unique ad format focuses on creativity and humor.

Cost

The cost of running ads on Facebook and TikTok can vary significantly depending on factors like target audience, ad format, and ad placement. Generally, Facebook Ads are more expensive than TikTok Ads due to Facebook’s more extensive user base and more established advertising platform.

Reach and Engagement

Facebook’s larger user base means businesses can reach more people with ads. However, TikTok’s younger audience tends to be more engaged and likelier to interact with ads. TikTok’s unique ad format also allows for more creative and engaging ads that can capture users’ attention.

Which One Works Better for Your Business?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer when deciding between Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads. The best platform for your business will depend on your target audience, budget, and advertising goals.

Facebook Ads may be the better option to reach a broad audience and have a larger budget. However, if your target audience is primarily younger and you want to create engaging and creative ads, TikTok Ads may be the way to go.

In conclusion, Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads have strengths and weaknesses. By understanding the differences between the two platforms and your business’s unique needs, you can decide which one to use for your next ad campaign.

The post Ad Wars: Facebook Ads vs. TikTok Ads – Choosing the Ultimate Marketing Battlefield appeared first on Done For You.

Are Facebook Ads Worth It? A Comprehensive Analysis of ROI and User Engagement

In today’s digital age, social media platforms have become essential for businesses to reach their target audience. With over 2.7 billion active monthly users, Facebook is the largest social media platform, making it a popular choice for businesses to advertise their products or services. However, the question arises whether Facebook ads are worth the investment. In this blog post, we will comprehensively analyze the ROI and user engagement of Facebook ads.

Understanding Facebook Ads

Before we dive into the analysis, let’s first understand what Facebook ads are. Facebook ads are a form of paid advertising where businesses can create and display advertisements on Facebook to reach their target audience. These ads can appear in different formats, such as images, videos, and carousels, and can be placed in various locations on Facebook, including the newsfeed, stories, and messenger.

Measuring ROI

One of the primary concerns that businesses have when investing in Facebook ads is the return on investment (ROI). ROI is the ratio of the net profit from an investment to the cost of the investment. To measure the ROI of Facebook ads, businesses need to track the revenue generated and compare it with the cost of running the ads.

There are several ways to measure the ROI of Facebook ads, including:

• Cost per click (CPC): This is the amount that a business pays for each click on their ad. The lower the CPC, the better the ROI.
• Cost per lead (CPL): This is the amount that a business pays for each lead generated from the ad. The lower the CPL, the better the ROI.
• Return on ad spend (ROAS): This is the ratio of the revenue generated from the ad to the cost of running the ad. The higher the ROAS, the better the ROI.

User Engagement

Apart from ROI, user engagement is another crucial factor that determines the effectiveness of Facebook ads. User engagement measures how users interact with the ads, such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks. High user engagement indicates that the ad resonates with the target audience, increasing brand awareness and potential conversions.

Some of the metrics used to measure user engagement of Facebook ads are:

• Click-through rate (CTR): This is the percentage of users who clicked on the ad after seeing it. The higher the CTR, the better the user engagement.
• Relevance score: This is a metric that Facebook uses to rate the quality and relevance of the ad to the target audience. The higher the relevance score, the better the user engagement.
• Social engagement includes metrics such as likes, comments, and shares. The higher the social engagement, the better the user engagement.

Case Study: Are Facebook Ads Worth It?

To provide a comprehensive analysis of the ROI and user engagement, let’s look at a case study of a business that invested in Facebook ads.

ABC Inc. is a small business that sells handmade candles. They invested in Facebook ads to increase sales and reach a wider audience. They created a carousel ad with images of their candles and a call to action to visit their website.

Here are the results of the campaign:

• Total cost of running the ad: $500
• Total revenue generated from the ad: $2,000
• Cost per click (CPC): $1.50
• Cost per lead (CPL): $10
• Return on ad spend (ROAS): 4x
• Click-through rate (CTR): 2%
• Relevance score: 8/10
• Social engagement: 200 likes, 50 comments, 30 shares

Based on these results, we can see that the ROI of the campaign was positive, with a ROAS of 4x. The user engagement was also high, with a CTR of 2% and a relevance score 8/10. The social engagement was also significant, indicating that the ad resonated with the target audience.

Conclusion

Based on our analysis, they can be worth the investment, provided they are executed correctly. Businesses need to track the ROI and user engagement metrics to evaluate their campaigns’ effectiveness continually. Creating high-quality, relevant ads that resonate with the target audience is essential to maximize user engagement and potential conversions.

In conclusion, Facebook ads can be a powerful tool for businesses to reach their target audience and increase sales. However, businesses must invest time and effort in creating and optimizing their ads to achieve a positive ROI and user engagement.

The post Decoding the ROI Mystery: Navigating the Impact of Facebook Ads on Your Business appeared first on Done For You.

Are you tired of running ad campaigns on Facebook and not getting the results you want? It’s time to step up your game and start utilizing Facebook ad targeting. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the ins and outs of Facebook ad targeting and how to maximize your ad campaign success.

What is Facebook Ad Targeting?

Facebook Ads allow you to reach specific audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. This means you can create ads tailored to your target audience, increasing their conversion chances.

Types of Facebook Ad Targeting

Let’s dive into the diverse world of Facebook ad targeting options designed to help you reach your desired audience:

Demographic Targeting

Demographic targeting allows you to target specific groups of people based on their age, gender, education, job title, and more. By targeting specific demographics, you can ensure that your ads are seen by those most likely to be interested in your product or service.

Interest Targeting

Interest targeting allows you to target people based on their interests and hobbies. This can include anything from sports and fitness to music and movies. You can create more relevant ads by targeting people based on their interests, increasing their chances of converting.

Behavioral Targeting

Behavioral targeting allows you to target people based on their past behaviors on Facebook. This can include their purchase history, device usage, and more. By targeting people based on their past behaviors, you can create ads that are more likely to resonate with them.

Lookalike Targeting

Lookalike targeting allows you to target people similar to your existing customers. Facebook uses algorithms to find people with similar characteristics to your current customers, increasing their chances of converting.

Best Practices

Now that you know the different types, it’s time to learn some best practices for using them:

Use Multiple Targeting Options

Instead of relying on just one type of targeting, try using multiple options to reach your desired audience. For example, you could target people based on their interests, behaviors, age, and gender.

Test Different Ad Formats

Not all ad formats work for all audiences. You can test different ad formats to determine which resonates most effectively with your target audience. 

Use High-Quality Images and Videos

Visuals are essential when it comes to Facebook ads. Use relevant, high-quality images and videos to captivate your target audience’s attention to further drive engagement.

Monitor Your Ad Campaigns

Monitor your ad campaigns regularly to see how they’re performing. If an ad performs poorly, refine your targeting or adjust your ad format for potential improvements.

Facebook ad targeting is a powerful tool to help you reach your desired audience and maximize your campaign success. By using multiple targeting strategies, testing different ad formats, and monitoring your ad campaigns, you can create ads tailored to your audience, ensuring higher conversion rates and unmatched success.

If you want to learn if our Ad services can benefit your business, click here to schedule a call!

The post Boost Your ROI with Advanced Facebook Ad Targeting Techniques appeared first on Done For You.

If you’re looking for a way to get your brand in front of a large audience without breaking the bank, cost-per-thousand (CPM) advertising might be the answer. This kind of advertising is a digital marketing strategy that allows you to pay for ad views instead of clicks, making it a cost-effective way to reach a broad audience.

This blog post will explore tips and strategies for maximizing ROI with CPM advertising.

What is CPM Advertising?

This is a popular model where you pay for every thousand impressions your ad receives. Images refer to the number of times your ad is displayed on a website. CPM advertising is commonly used for display ads, the banner ads you see on websites.

Why Use CPM Advertising?

CPM advertising is a cost-effective way to get your brand in front of a large audience. Unlike pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, where you pay for every click on your ad, CPM advertising allows you to pay for ad views. This means you can reach a wider audience without breaking the bank.

Tips for Maximizing Your ROI with CPM Advertising

1. Target Your Audience

One of the most important things you can do to maximize your ROI with advertising is to target your audience. The more targeted your audience, the more likely they are to engage with your ad.

2. Use Eye-Catching Creatives

Another critical factor in maximizing your ROI with CPM advertising is to use eye-catching creatives. You’ll need to stand out and grab your target audience’s attention.

3. Optimize Your Landing Page

Once you’ve captured the attention of your target audience, it’s essential to keep them engaged. One way to do this is to optimize your landing page. Your landing page should be relevant to your ad and give you a clear call to action.

4. Monitor Your Campaigns

Finally, monitoring your campaigns frequently to ensure you’re getting the most out of your CPM advertising is crucial. You should monitor your ad performance and make adjustments as needed to maximize your ROI

CPM advertising is a cost-effective way to get your brand in front of a large audience. So, try it and see how it can benefit your business, or let us know if you need help!

The post Elevate Your Marketing Game: Maximizing ROI with CPM Advertising appeared first on Done For You.

You create content and publish it on your blog continuously. Amplify your content distribution using social media and you also strive to grow your email list, and maybe you run paid advertising campaigns with targeted and complete sales funnels.

Over 80% of everyone who arrives at your website or your landing pages will leave without taking action. This, in turn, means that you are losing over 80% of your potential prospects.

That hurts; you don’t want to lose your potential customers, do you?

On average, less than 2% of your web visitors will ever buy. You want to do much better than that. Retargeting is a great way to refuel your funnel, boost conversions, and bring back all those potential customers you could have otherwise lost.

What is retargeting

Retargeting helps you reach out to those exact people who visited your landing pages or website by targeting those audiences exclusively in your paid campaigns. It works on advertising platforms such as Facebook and Google. Furthermore, retargeting will show ads to web visitors regardless of their initial source.

For instance, you could launch retargeting campaigns to traffic from any of the paid traffic sources. Or you could retarget to all the visitors of your website or landing pages (including organic traffic).

Retargeting is often overlooked and not many businesses actually make the best use of it. The fact is that your inbound marketing funnel is never optimized without retargeting.

You have regular funnels that you use for advertising campaigns with the goal to reach out to new audiences and expose them to your brand and offers. You then have retargeting funnels which are slightly tweaked versions of your main funnels with the goal to bring back visitors who left your site and convert them into leads.

How to make retargeting work

To make retargeting work you should follow these tips today:

Start with well-defined audiences

To begin with, build only one general audience on your advertising platform. This should consist of everyone who visits any of your web properties.

A general audience could be all visitors to your website and/or all visitors to your landing pages or both combined — regardless of the platform on which you are building an audience (Facebook or Google).

Every other audience you’ll build is going to as specific as it can get.

Here’s an example of a high-intent audience for a service business.

1. People who read your blog.
2. Then, those who checked out your products or services.
3. Those who visited your pricing page.

Or an audience of an e-commerce store, which has the following behavioral attributes:

1. Visited store.
2. Browsed products.
3. Added items to cart & did not make a purchase.

You can get as specific as you can. The more specific you get with an audience, the better results you’ll be able to get with laser-focused retargeting campaigns.

Don’t wait too long or launch too early

Whether you are building audiences on Facebook (using the Pixel) or on Google (using Google’s Audiences feature set), don’t make the mistake and launch too late or too early.

If you launch too early, your audiences won’t be populated yet. In plain English, this means that your potential audience doesn’t know you well enough to make a purchase yet.

If you are too late, your retargeting campaigns might not be able to catch your potential customers hot on the button and ready to buy.

The appropriate time to launch your retargeting campaigns is to launch when you hit the sweet spot with your audience size. An exception to this is the default generic audience, as this is an audience you can target anytime you want.

For all other audiences, aim to gain at least a couple of hundreds of unique visitors before launching a retargeting campaign.

Don’t ask for the sale

With Amazon, people don’t have a problem clicking on the “buy button”; they trust Amazon and believe that their purchase is secure (among other things).

For other businesses, an instant purchase is a little too much to ask from a new web visitor. No matter what kind of a campaign you run — regular paid ads or retargeting ads — newly acquired traffic won’t convert that fast.

Taking that credit card out and purchasing from you is not going to come naturally to most people who aren’t familiar with your brand yet. You’ll probably make a few sales but it’s not something that’s sustainable or would work in the long-term.

Instead, try launching retargeting campaigns with much less friction and a high-conversion offer, like a free trial, a free download, a free sample, or a sneak peak.

Follow up with automated email campaigns to make those sales happen, over a period of time.

Don’t push too hard

Retargeting is meant to be an assertive way to follow up, follow through, and to just keep showing up around people almost furtively, as they browse online. It is not meant to be aggressive, “I’ll follow you no matter where you go, till the end of the world” kind of a campaign.

For that reason, keep an eye on “frequency caps” that every retargeting platform or channel allows you to control. Don’t set it frequency cap as “infinite” and then throw your lifetime earnings on campaigns.

The best way to let ads show to a particular visitor is much like how you’d follow up with a potential client on a phone call or an in-person meet — soon after the first contact? Once a week? Once a month? Not all of the time though because pushing too hard will irritate the prospect.

Retargeting demystified

By now, we hope you can see that following these advanced retargeting tips you’ll be able to optimize your campaign and see better results.

Remember, maximizing the potential of your advertising efforts is an ongoing process. Test. Review. Optimize. Repeat.

How are your retargeting campaigns managed? If you’d like to discuss your existing campaigns, sales funnels, or your marketing strategy, get on a scheduled call with us.  If you’d like to build out a paid traffic strategy, including retargeting, from scratch…  We’ve got a number of ad management packages that you can pick from!

GSDdaily Episode 90

Today, we’re going to summarize, put a capstone on the retargeting week. Basically, we covered everything retargeted related. I mean we talked about how it’s usually the quickest way to generate sales from the traffic that has already been to your list. We talked about how to set up banner ads and creating audiences. Also, we talked about pixels and all that other stuff. So today we’re just going to recap it and talk about what your next steps are if you want to implement retargeting or you would like somebody to do it for you.

First of all, for those of you who don’t know who I am, we’re always getting new people, there are always new folks who are watching these videos and stuff and learning about internet marketing and whether it makes sense for their business and everything, which of course it does because we are living through a pandemic at the moment. My name is Jason Drohn, creator of doneforyou.com. We specialize in creating offers, building sales funnels, and also doing the marketing automation and the traffic to drive sales for your business. Today we’re finishing up the retargeted piece.

Here’s a post that is going to walk you through the basics of retargeting campaigns, stuff that we’ve covered in the last couple of weeks. This top video here is us right now, so this is the Livestream.

First of all, what is retargeting?

We covered this on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, but retargeting is when somebody comes to your website or they watch some of your video or they are on a customer list or a prospect list and you upload them into a system. Retargeting is where you show that person a banner ad or an ad of some kind to bring them back into your website, to bring them back into a sales process, to bring them back to an order form. That’s what retargeting is.

Retargeting goes by the phrase remarketing too in Google language. Remarketing, retargeting, same thing. If you have ever gone and looked at a hotel in Las Vegas and then you’ve found that they’re following you around. You go to the hotel and then you start seeing their ads everywhere, which is retargeting at its finest. I know that the explanation might be belaboring the point because retargeting is something that’s four or five years old, but at the same time, it’s the most powerful form of advertising, especially if you’re not doing paid traffic.

It is the way to do paid traffic, it is the way to get started with paid traffic. Even us, we drive a lot of traffic. The sole purpose of the code traffic we drive is to grow the retargeted audiences. The retargeted audiences are actually the things that generate a tremendous amount of return on ad spend.

How retargeting works?

We set up a pixel, the pixel gets added to a website and basically every time somebody comes to that website then a cookie gets added to the web browser. Basically, that cookie travels around with them everywhere else they go. So if that cookie is present in the web browser then your ads show up to them, so it’s a way for a company like AdRoll, which is an ad platform. It’s a way for AdRoll to basically match your visitors with your banner ads and then it serves up those banner ads.

It’s very, very nice, very easy, and the audiences can be as generally wide as you want them to be. An audience could be all visitors who have come to your website in the last 180 days. They can be an audience who could be everybody who reads your blog. The audience could be only the people who visit your products or only the people who visit your services. They can be only the people who add that item to a shopping cart are actually going to see my ads.

There is a lot of different customization when it comes to audiences, and then you also want to exclude all of your buyers, all of the people who took action with your business, all of the customers. You don’t want them seeing ads for things that they just bought. That’s where the audiences come into play. You have a big audience of people who’ve been to your website and a small audience of people who have bought, so you want to make sure that they don’t see your ads.

Now, when it comes to retargeting you don’t want to wait too long to actually show them ads. If somebody hits your website and then they don’t see ads for 30 days that’s too long. If they hit your website and they’re seeing your ads 60 or 90 days later but they haven’t been back to your website then you’re wasting money. The sweet spot is understanding that there’s a warm area. If they’ve been to your website or they’ve watched a video in the last seven days, they are hot. They know that there’s a problem that they need to solve and they know you are a potential solution for it. Showing them ads is a great idea.

Now if they’ve been to your website for seven to 30 days, so in that other… little bit farther out but they haven’t engaged with your website your brand in any other way between seven and 30 days they’re warm. Those people you should still retarget, but maybe you retarget with a lower ad budget, so those people aren’t nearly as hot as the newer folks.

Then you have your 30 plus day crew. Your 30 plus day crew is they haven’t been to your website, they haven’t watched a video in 30 or more days so those folks can actually come back and buy, so you can have the least retargeting budget for those people or you can just cut them out entirely, it’s up to you how much you want to stretch your budget. The other nice thing about retargeting campaigns is they let you do a lot of cool things on the code traffic side.

You can give a lot of value, you can drive clicks to blog posts, you can have a video that people are watching 10 seconds, 15 seconds, whatever. So you throw this video up and then you can retarget only the people who watch that video. It lets you be really cool upfront and give a lot of content.  It will give a lot of value and engage with people and grow your audience where they are. Then if they are interested in taking that next step with you, then you can retarget them into a product offer or a service.

One of the nice things about retargeting is because you’re building your warm audience by bonding and engaging with them.

Retargeting Frequency

Now you also do not want to push too hard on the retargeting campaigns. When retargeting first started, AdRoll had a really bad problem. All of the platforms, but AdRoll who is the retargeting platform that we like, had difficult frequency issues. Basically, inside AdRoll there are six recommended banner ad sizes that they have. What AdRoll would just literally just litter the whole page with your banner ads. You had a header bar and a sidebar and a footer bar. Some would have banners all over the whole page, so it looked absolutely terrible. Well I mean if you’re a prospect it looks really, really, really spammy.

They have since dropped the frequency, so it’s kind of like who is it? CW, have you ever watched the CW app? It’s funny, my wife and I joke about it but I forget what we were watching, The Flash or something. You see the same commercial five times in a row. That is a remnant ad buy that somebody basically just said, “We’ll take all your remnant space”. They just had to fill holes in the commercial slots. Was it State Farm? I don’t know, one of the insurance agencies or the insurance companies it was four and five in a row. Domino’s pizza four and five in a row. So, bad retargeting is when you have four or five banners all on the same page.

The platform needs to allow for the room so it doesn’t feel spammy even though you’re still following them around. When I say don’t push too hard, be mindful of that. There are some platforms you can even cut down the retargeting frequency. Also, there are some platforms that control the retargeting frequency, so just know that.

When your frequency goes up in retargeting campaigns then it’s not always a good thing. Other than that, from a retargeting standpoint, we talked a lot about AdRoll. We logged in to AdRoll and we created a campaign and our audiences. Talked about Canva for creating banner ads. Canva can create rapidly prototyping different size banner ads and designing them. Another tool that in your retargeting tool belt you’re not going to want to miss.

The other option is Photoshop. You can do Photoshop and create a royalty-free image creative company like Envato Elements has a nice subscription. It’s a subscription service that you get access to a bunch of royalty-free downloads, video stock images, all that kind of stuff, icons, some 3D stuff. You can download this, use it in Canva, use it in Photoshop, but it’s going to give you some nice images that you can use that aren’t necessarily something that you have to create. I mean with retargeting sometimes we’ll end up uploading a lot of different variations of the same creative to see what tests better and then we’ll go through, look at the CPMs, look at the click-throughs, look at the conversions, all that stuff of the creative and disable the stuff that doesn’t work. The same optimization rules hold true for retargeting as any other app platform.

Facebook ads, Google Ads, retargeted ads, whatever, you still want to optimize it, you can’t forget about it, you want to make sure that you’re always optimizing and bettering the creative and always driving people to the next thing that they need to see and making sure that you’re excluding the audiences of the people who already took action. You don’t want them seeing the same ad for the thing that you already did. That’s definitely bad.

Applications For Creating Banners

All right, so now if you would like to… This whole time I’m sitting here talking I’m not sharing my screen.

1. Envato Elements – where we end up grabbing some stock photography.
2. Canva– where we design a bunch of banner ads
3. Photoshop
4. Adobe Creative Suite – which is just a monthly subscription
5. Illustrator

If you’re not a hugely adept graphic designer, Canva’s going to get 98% of the way there. Very, very nice piece of software. AdRoll is the retargeting platform that we use for banner creative. You can also use Facebook retargeting in there, and then you can use Google, of course, Google remarketing. They have their own campaigns that you can use for remarketing. AdRoll is going to give you retargeting on both platforms.

It also gives you a way to back up all your retargeted data. If your Google Ad account gets banned, Facebook ad account gets banned all of your stuff is still safe because it’s inside AdRoll. And this is the article that we were using.

For Questions and Guide

If you have any questions or would like to set up retargeting campaigns or would like to at least chat about it, go to doneforyou.com/start. Fill out the little form and we will get on like an action plan call and walk you through what a retargeting campaign is going to look like, what it’s going to do for your business. Obviously the important parts there are how big is your audience? Do we need to build the audience? Do we need to add some video ads and stuff so that we can build that audience for you and then move people into retargeted traffic? But the quickest path to cash for retargeting is if you have a website that is getting some traffic and then you install the pixel and then you set up the retargeting.

Back on Monday I said, I told you, “Set up the AdRoll account, install the pixel. We’ll be creating audiences in the next couple days,” and that’s exactly what we did. If you want to get into retargeting, you have a website, or you’re getting some traffic and you want to start capturing that traffic into retargeting banner ads, set up an AdRoll account, install the pixel. Give us a call and we will work through the banner ad stuff for you. Have a fantastic weekend. It’s Friday, so it’s the last episode of the week. Monday we will be back with something new. Monday, 10:00 am Eastern and I’ll talk to you soon, all right? Thanks. Bye.

The post Best Retargeting Campaigns For Your Website appeared first on Done For You.

It just becomes a discipline in knowing where people are going on your website, what they’re doing once they get there, and then just making sure that people are seeing the right ad and the ad is sending them to the place that you want to send them to. So that’s probably the primary sticking point of setting up Facebook retargeting ads, are you just really have to realize and understand where somebody is going.

This entire week we’ve been talking about retargeting. Monday we kind of set up the reasons why retargeting works. Tuesday we talked about pixel data. Yesterday we talked about banners and we kind of rehashed pixel data and audiences. And today we’re going to talk about Facebook. So Facebook, there’s a couple of different ways to set up Facebook retargeting. We’re going to talk about setting it up natively, inside the Facebook platform, but if you were on yesterday’s call, then you know that AdRoll also lets you set up retargeting. For those of you who don’t know who I am, my name is Jason Drohn, creator of DoneForYou.com. We specialize in three things, creating offers, building sales funnels, and sending out marketing automation traffic.

Today we are going to talk about that third thing, which is basically re-engaging people who have already been to your website, who have watched a little bit of a video, or maybe a lot a bit of a video. Maybe they signed up for a webinar, watched a video on Facebook with a live stream for 10 seconds, or 15 seconds, or 25%, and we’re trying to reengage them back into your website, or sales video, or a sales page, or an order form, or an add to cart or whatever. That’s all the stuff that retargeting is really good for. By and large, though, retargeting is really, really great in terms of reengaging and generating some crazy return on ad spend and return on investment when you are looking at all of the different types of ads that you can run.

Using Pixel Data

One of the things that we always talk about early on is using your pixel data, using your buyers, using your people who have already been to your audience or already been to your website. They’ve already watched some videos. They already know who you are. Then very simply showing them the ad to then send them to your next product, or your next service, or whatever. Those people are uniquely positioned to buy faster and to buy a lot more.

Now, today we’re going to dig into Facebook. There are basically two different things that we’re going to need to talk about.

1. a quick way of generating some nice Facebook banner ads
2. about audiences who are the people who see your ads

We have a post here that walks through. This is the second Facebook retargeting ads campaign presentation we’ve done. I’m just going to drop it here. You can check out the old video if you’d like, and then the new video is up at the top of the presentation. If you want to subscribe to our show, just hit the subscribe button.

Two Elements of Facebook Retargeting Ads

1. Audience

The first thing you need is needing audiences. Yesterday we set up audiences inside Facebook, and an audience setup is really as simple as this. You create an audience, and you can create the custom audience, you can create a Lookalike or Special Ad Audience. We’re going to go into the custom audience.

You have lots of choices here. Now your website audience is going to be anybody and anything website related. If they were on a specific page if they were in on an order form if they were on your homepage, or a sales page, or a blog page, or a content page, or whatever, so basically anything that is website related. Then you have your customer list. This is data related. You have a prospect list of 10,000 prospects, a buyers list of 5,000 buyers.

Basically, you can upload them right to Facebook, and Facebook is going to match 60% of those people, maybe a little better now, but they’re going to match as many of those email addresses as it possibly can to user records on Facebook. Then it’s going to show your ad directly to them. That’s Facebook retargeting ads. Then we have an app activity in which you can create an audience of people who have launched your app or your game inside Facebook. And then we have offline activity. These two, you don’t see a whole lot, not in our world.

2. Facebook Sources

We have some other Facebook sources. We use videos all the time. If somebody watches 10 seconds or more of a video, or 25% of a video, all the way up to 100% of a video, you can put them in a special campaign. We have an Instagram account and we can create an audience of people who visited or liked an Instagram page, lead forms, events, Facebook pages, shopping, and Marketplace listings. The three that we use most often a website, customer list, videos. Well for our influencers, we always do the Instagram account stuff too. Lead forms for our service-based companies for the most part, like somebody who wants instant leads for then callbacks. You can think of cash for house kind of real estate professionals, any financial planning, legal, all of that stuff we do with a lot of lead forms with the events, in some experiments.

Facebook page, we do a little bit of here and there for somebody who has a lot of similarities to the Instagram account, the influencers. If you have a lot of data on your Facebook page, then we will use that, but by and large, website, customer list, video. If you’re setting up a website audience, what you do is you hit the website. How you create this thing is we end up going into grabbing the pixel, and then all website visitors who have visited some page in the last 30 days. We are going to just customize this a little bit.  People who visited specific webpages and the URL has to contain, let’s say the word funnel. What this does is it lets you build some audiences on the words in the URL. And of course, the words in the URL have to do with the subject titles.

Setting Up Facebook Ads

Group Audience According to Engagement

You can basically put together buckets of people who just are on your website for funnels, or just ad management, or just woodworking projects, or just supplements, or whatever. So you can create silos of people doing something like this. Then we want to name the audience, and usually, I just have a denotation. Sometimes it’s like cold, warm, hot. What I’ve been doing lately is X1, X2, X3. They’re the levels of engagement. X1 is gold, X2 is warm, X3 is hot. We’re just going to say the X1 website. This is going to be a funnel of visitors.

We’re going to create that audience. It’s going to ask us if we want to create a Lookalike Audience or create an ad. We don’t want to do either at this point. We could. Then we have our audience up above and it’s populating. So it’s not available yet, but we can add it to an ad if we want.

Creating Ad Banners on Canva

What we’re going to do is we’re going to go over to Canva and we’re going to create an ad. And I actually created one yesterday. Is this the one I created yesterday? Yeah, automated profits. Let me just check and see what the size. 1200 x 628. So we’re going to download this guy because this is a Facebook level ad, it’s Facebook size. So we’re going to download this, and we can do all kinds of things. Like if you wanted to do some split tests, we can drop some different photos in the back.

We can drop some different photos. We want it to be the background. Then we can make this a little bit gradient. We can move this whole thing over, and maybe make this bigger. All right. So then I’m probably going to want to clean this up a little bit, so there. And then we’re going to move that over. And there we go. Not that that’s a great ad, but automated profits, click here to register.

Creating New Campaign using Ads Manager

Now we have a couple of different ads that we’re going to split test. All right. It looks like we got two. Our audiences are created, our ads are created, and what we’re going to do is we’re going to go over into Ad Manager here. We’re going to create a new campaign. All right, so Ads Manager. There we go. Now we’re going to just create, and so we’re going to load the creation process. Now, this is an image-based ad. It’s going to be facebook retargeting ads.

1. Create Campaign as a Traffic Ad

The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to set it up as a traffic ad. We can do engagement, we can do conversions, but traffic is always good to start with. Then we want to name the campaign. This is a retargeted ad. I’m going to call it an X3. The upper level of Facebook retargeting ads. This is going to be a funnel retargeted ad dynamically. We’re just going to set it up as dynamic because we have two images on there.

We have an ad set. This is going to be X3 – 45 to 64 males. Then the ad is just going to be X3 dynamic. But we’re setting this ad up from scratch. We’re going to hit continue.

2. Widget

Now we’re in our little creation screen or creation widget. This is our campaign name. The campaign looks okay. We’re going to do a campaign budget optimization. Then this is an auction, this is a traffic campaign. That’s all good.

3. Ad set

We’re going to set up the ad set. Because this is a Facebook retargeting ads campaign, it gets really, really simple. We’re going to add dynamic creativity here too, but because this is a retargeted campaign, there’s only one audience that we need to target, and that’s that X1 funnel visitor. That’s the funnel visitor that we just set up. Our potential reach is unavailable at the moment because it hasn’t got done calculating.

We’re going to take off the United States. It can be anywhere around the world, as long as they’ve been to a page on DoneForYou that has the word funnel in the URL. Then the age group, we kind of already defined it up top, but it’s going to be 45 to 64. 45 to 64, all genders, all demographics. Languages, I usually just have English. And show more options, you can get into these, but this is retargeted ads, so it’s going to be automatic placements.

These people already know who you are, so if it shows up on their mobile, it shows up in a video, it shows up on whatever, it’s fine, on an audience network, it’s fine. Then we’re going to click next. Here we’re going to set up the app. It goes campaign, then ad set, the ad, and here we’re going to scroll down.

4. Ad Images

We’re going to select the two images that we just grabbed from Canva there. We’re going to hit downloads. These are the two images that we just created. These are the ones we just pulled down, and neither one of them are particularly great, but they serve a purpose, which is just setting this thing up. Then optimize creativity for each person. That’s fine.

We’re just going to fill in the primary text. We’re going to fill in the headline. The headline shows up. Let’s see, we need to set the destination links. The headline is going to click here for more, the description is to learn more about sales funnels. This is not the best ad, I’m just merely showing you how to set one of these up in the system. HTTPS, doneforyou.com. All right, so there’s our ad. Then we have doneforyou.com. Click for more, that button, whatever. Facebook pixel. Then we can add some URL parameters here so we can track them from a UTM standpoint.

That’s it. In this particular ad, we can show some different primary text up top. We can add some different options, and that’s the dynamic part. Facebook is going to serve multiple images, multiple primary texts, multiple headlines, multiple descriptions.

It finds the best set of them, and then it basically reports back to you. Not reports, you have to go find it, but it’ll show you what combination of ads works the best. Then you can really drill down on those, and then pull out the non-performers, and then add more in. It’s super, super nice. Facebook rewards you for doing this by giving you cheaper clicks, cheaper leads, and all of that stuff, which we were really, really hesitant to do it this way at first because it’s like Facebook is controlling the split test, so we’re kind of worried that some of the data would get lost, we couldn’t actually see the winners, but it ended up working out really well.

The dynamic creativity is how we roll out a lot of stuff now.

Under the primary text, we can add a couple of different scenarios. What would another one be? I’m not real good at writing copy on the fly. Talking through it, obviously sitting down thinking about the copy, I can get it, but writing while I’m talking doesn’t work a whole lot.

Writing a copy for a new funnel. Let us give you some ideas. All right, there you go. When you preview this, so if we view more variations, then we can see that we basically have two levels of texts. We have two different things. So we go here, and then our second variation is this, writing copy for a new funnel. Let us give you some ideas. Then we have two images. One image is that, and then the next image is that, and Facebook is going to rotate this on-demand. Then we only have one headline, one description, one call to action.

If you scroll through these, you see all the different formats that this ad is going to show up under, Facebook in-stream video mobile. So this is just a mobile ad. This guy, to deliver the Facebook and stream video change the media for this placement to a video. So not all of these are viewable through this little preview tool, but you get a pretty good idea of how it all works. And then you just hit publish.

I’m not going to publish it. It’s just going to be a draft. I just wanted to set up the scenario for you. But by and large, you’re going to be able to set up some really, really great retargeted campaigns using Canva to design your banners, and thinking about your audiences. And that’s really the hardest part is just coming up with how the audience is going to be structured, what you need to do to ascend a prospect from one level to the next. So from somebody who just learns about you, just becomes aware of you all the way to somebody warm, they’re engaged, they’re interested, and then ultimately to somebody is turned into a buyer, who is a buyer. That ascension is where retargeted really comes into play.

With the Facebook setup strategies that I just showed you, you should be able to set them up pretty quickly.

For Questions and Guide

If you have any questions at all, if you would like some help, you would like to go through an action plan call where we look at your funnel, we look at your ads, look at your traffic sources, all that other stuff, go to doneforyou.com/start, set up a call with my team and me, and fill out the little form, which is going to tell us about your business so that we can do a little bit of research before we get on the phone with you.  That way when it comes time for the call, we already know what you’re doing.

Video Transcript: GSDdaily Episode 33

Hey, What’s up? This is Jason Drohn. Welcome to today’s GSD Daily. Today we’re going to talk about Facebook retargeting ads and I just got off the phone talking about Facebook ads. It’s been a little weird, but whatever. Today we’re going to be setting up a retargeted ad for one of our little mini-courses, one of our little offers. The biggest part of setting up a retargeted ad is just knowing how to sequence your pages. So if you can sequence your pages correctly, then really the hard work is for the most part done. Because people … how Facebook retargeting ads work is if they go to this page and they leave, then they see this offer, they see this ad.

Where somebody is going and what they’re doing after they leave, it’s the biggest thing. So the ad that we’re going to be setting up, so I’m just going to split this out into its tab so that I can share it with you. All right, so I’m going to stop sharing the screen there and we’re going to share the browser window.

All right. So, we’re going to go back to Canva. There’s a lot of different ways that you can create the Facebook retargeting ads, but we’re going to go back to Canva and look at the ad that I set up this morning that we’re going to be using as the ad for this retargeted offer. So yesterday we talked about setting up a cold traffic ad to an advertorial or to a video, which is great. And the cold traffic ad welcomes people into our world.

It’s people who don’t know us, they’ve never heard of us, maybe they’ve seen us, but they haven’t been on the website in the last 30 days. So once they come into our world through our cold traffic ad, then what we do is we show them a different ad. Now in this case, in the case that I’m setting up, basically what we’re doing is everybody who opted into our list but did not purchase the offer that showed up for them after they opted in, are going to see this ad.

Now, this offer is called, “Funnel Flow Made Simple.” So we’re going to go to Done For You and I’m just going to show you the page real quick that we’re going to be Facebook retargeting ads. So we can’t necessarily retarget directly to that same confirmation page because, in the sales [inaudible 00:03:47], you opt-in for the report, and then the next video says, “Thanks for downloading the report, blah blah blah. You’re going to learn such and such.” And then you transition into the next offer. With this though, what we’re doing is we’re going to go to products and funnel flow made simple. Same page layout, same type of page, slightly different video. So the video has that first 20 seconds lobbed off … or the first minute or so lobbed off. And basically, the front side of it is lobbed off.

So this is the sales page that somebody can go in and click through to buy the offer. Now, this page is going to be the website that we’re sending traffic to, and this “Funnel Flow Made Simple” is going to be the ad that we’re using on Facebook to send traffic here. And the ad is going to be showing up for everybody who was on our website but did not buy it. Does that make sense so far? Over in the chatbox, comment box. Just let me know. All right, cool. So it looks like it is good. Cool. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to log into the Facebook ad manager, and I’m just going to do that here. And then we’re going to go through and set this campaign up. Life, pretty exciting, right? I know, I think so at least.

For anybody who’s getting website traffic, Facebook retargeting ads are probably the best and easiest way of reclaiming some of those people and dipping your toe in the paid traffic world. Dipping your toe in digital advertising and paid advertising without necessarily going crazy for it. Do you know what I mean? Because if you’re just very simply … anybody who’s been to your website, if you’re just showing them Facebook retargeting ads for the thing they didn’t buy, but they’re already aware of, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re going to come back around and buy something. That’s just the fact of the matter.

Here I’m going to go ahead and download this ad. I don’t know if I downloaded it to this machine, so I’m just going to go ahead and download this guy. So we’re going to download it as a PNG. Yeah, it’s kind of ugly. I’m not going to lie, the ad’s kind of ugly, but it works out pretty well. So then we’re going to go, I’m going to switch the view here to look at the ad manager.

All right, so … now, for the most part, I use a different browser. I use Firefox a lot of times, just to do the ad manager stuff. Just because at the end of the day it’s just one browser that I can log into and I don’t have to get too sidetracked in the rest of the Facebook world, looking at newsfeeds and scrolling through stuff and all that other stuff. All right. Now, my browser is locked up for a minute. All right.

I was in the middle of showing my ad manager, we could get this retargeted ad set up here. Logging into the ad manager. I should be able to see it in a minute. What we’re going to be doing is we’re setting up this retargeted ad from scratch. Now we’re going to go into the “Create” button. I’m going to hit the “Create” button. If you remember yesterday we set up all kinds of different audiences and stuff. What we’re going to be doing is here we’re going to be doing a retargeted ad. Yesterday we named that these things cold, warm, or hot. We’re going to do the same thing. This is going to be a warm ad, and then we have … Let’s see. This is going to be, “A Funnel Flow Made Simple.” Funnel Flow Made Simple Course promo.

The buying type is going to be an auction. The campaign objective at first is going to be traffic. Like yesterday, we set it up so that the campaign objective was conversion … or was traffic to get started. And then once you have enough conversions, typically 50 conversions in a week, you can switch it to a conversion campaign and Facebook will only charge you for conversions. We went through that yesterday. But so our campaign objective is traffic. The daily budget is fine. The ad set name, we’re going to do “Retargeted website traffic.” And then the campaign ad is going to be “Ad.” So this is going to be just an image ad, version 1.1. So then what we’re going to do is we’re going to save it to draft.

The ad set up process is very, very similar to what it is for cold traffic or the same thing. It’s the same thing as what you’re used to there. Now underneath the setup, we’re going to go traffic and the buying type is going to be an auction, it’s going to be a traffic campaign. Once we get some data, then it’s going to flip to a conversion campaign. We’re going to go into the retargeted ad set, the RT ad set. We’re going to use dynamic creative for this guy. We set up our ad with dynamic creativity. We’re going to do the same thing today. Then this is where the retargeted ad is different than the cold traffic ad. This is the only difference in setting up the two different ad types, which is who the ad gets shown to.

In this scenario, we’re setting up the warm traffic ad. What we’re going to do is we are going to target our warm people. Yesterday I showed you how I set up audiences with basically cold, warm, or hot. So warm is our funnel factor leads. These are people who downloaded the report but did not buy it. So those are the only people to who we could be showing this ad. Now this course, this Funnel Flow Made Simple, is made to everybody who downloads this report. So they already know of this offer. We could add our video views here, we could add our website traffic for the last 30 days. I think I’m going to do that. So website traffic for the last 30 days.

Now this potential reach, they don’t give me a potential reach. So they’re not going to tell me how many people have been to the website or how many people downloaded. But I know the numbers. So they don’t give you the potential reach unless it’s an astronomically big number, anymore, for the most part. So these are the two audiences that we’re going to be serving Facebook retargeting ads to. The age group we’re going to keep pretty open. So 18 to 65 plus. What this does is it lets us not … if somebody comes to the website and they fall outside of our demographic characteristics, so they come to the website and they don’t like, let’s say, [inaudible 00:13:22]. Well, that doesn’t mean they’re not going to see this ad.

If they were on the website from search engines, then we understand that they are probably into what we’re talking about because they came from a search engine. So 18 to 65 usually. Sometimes we can go up to 25 or 30 if we want. It doesn’t matter. Then we have gender, most of our buyers end up being men. Although we’re going to end up having both males and females there and we’re not going to add any more detailed targeting. This is a retargeted audience. So these people are qualified because they were on the website, they opted in for something, they watched an entire video, whatever. And then that’s it. So the big thing, the big difference is we’re targeting people we know. People who know us, I should say. Automatic placements are fine, and then we’re going to go to the ad itself.

In setting up the retargeted ad, a lot of times with Facebook retargeting ads we do images at first, we don’t necessarily always do a video to set everything up. Images will work just fine. The identity is just a Facebook page, it’s going to be a single image or video. This is dynamic creative, it’s going to let us do a couple of additional things in the things that we’re going to upload. The banner ad that we just created in Canva at the beginning of this video. We’re going to grab downloaded items, Funnel Flow Made Simple. It’s uploading that into our mix here. We’re going to select it and then we’re going to continue. Now we have Funnel Flow Made Simple. We have the image. Let me scroll down a little bit farther. The primary text is the bit that goes above the image or the video.

So we have primary text. “Don’t miss out on the Funnel Flow Made Simple Course.” We’re going to add a different headline or a different text variation here. So this is going to be, “Funnel Flow Made Simple for only $4.95” and then we can continue adding different headlines there. And then the headline is what’s going to show up underneath the ad. So we’re going to say, “Funnel Flow Made Simple.” Then we’re going to say, “Save 90% today.” All right. So, “Click the button to learn more about the course.” And then we have our sales page. The sales page is … I’m just going over and grabbing the sales page link. Here we go. So … and [inaudible 00:17:10]. And the man missed it. There we go. Copy link location. Then we’re going to drop this guy in. It’s going to clear this error and show us something.

All right, so the Facebook retargeting ads would say something like, “Don’t miss out on the Funnel Flow Made Simple Course” and we can add different primary text headlines. We can add some headlines here. What does dynamic targeting, what it’s going to do is it’s going to split test these images and videos and texts and headlines for us. It’s a black box, we don’t know what’s going to win. And actually, I was just talking to a friend and we were discussing whether or not it’s because it knew what it was doing or because it was Facebook’s way of you doing what Facebook wants you to do. So it’s a little bit up in the air as far as which way that is going. But all in all the dynamic campaigns work pretty well. To display the link, we’re going to leave it there.

We can do a different one, sign up, book now. Yeah. Learning more is going to be the best one there. And then we’re just going to hit publish. I don’t think we have any errors. I think we cleared our errors. Yep. Cleared our errors. So we’re going to hit publish. Now, this ad is only going to show up to our retargeted audience. The people who have been to the website, the people who have downloaded a lead magnet, and then it’s going to send them directly to the sales page. And then so once they come back to the sales page, this funnel flow made simple sales course here, then they’re going to kick over into the order form. So order form, funnel flow made simple, there’s an upsell for access after this. And then there’s an upsell for some other stuff.

But this is one of our channels. We’ll add some additional retargeted offers for some of our other lower-end things like this convert book. There’s the create book, there’s some other lower-end stuff that we’re going to end up getting into. But all in all, that’s how you set it up. Now, earlier when I talked about setting up URL based things, so when you’re setting up your Facebook retargeting ads, you want to know where people are going. One of the ways to preclude who goes where is if we go to audiences, we’re going to set up an ad for everybody who hits our order form.

So we’re going to go to Funnel Flow Made Simple and we’re going to go to the order form. And so this is the order form for this funnel flow made simple course. Now to do shopping cart abandonment … so what we want to do is we want to see how many people clicked the ad and then how many people went to the sales page and then out of those people, who clicked over to the order form. The people who bought, it’s easy to figure them out because we have their email address.

They bought something, they hit a confirmation page or an order fulfillment page. But the shopping cart abandonment is an interesting thing because they’d hit this page and then they leave. So yes, we can trigger some emails and I’ll show you how to do that at some point. To do URL based marketing automation with email. But with Facebook retargeting ads what you do is you go into the audiences here and I’m going to create a new audience. And the new audience is going to be a custom audience that’s going to be websites. But rather than then show the entire website, everybody who comes to the website like this campaign. So this campaign down here is all the website traffic in the past 30 days, well we don’t care about all the website traffic. We just want to see how many people hit that order form.

And then so that we can show them an ad that says, “Hey, come back. Come back and buy something.” So we’re going to target people who visited specific web pages in the last 30 days. And 30 days is probably a little bit longer. That should probably be closer to 10 days. Think about yourself. When you buy something, typically you buy it … or let’s put it this way when you don’t buy something, you’re thinking about buying something. You usually pull the trigger on that thing within a couple of days or a week. You get hot on something and then you’re like, “Well, I’m going to buy it or I’m not going to buy it.” But after a week or after 10 days or whatever, your interest dies down.

So that’s one of those things. We don’t want to target the people whose interests may be dying down. What we want to do is we want to target the people who keep coming back to that checkout page or they keep coming to our thing again and again. So what we’re going to do, anybody who has visited our order form in the last 10 days and the URL is … so here’s another little secret Ninja strategy. So it doesn’t have to be the entire URL. It can be … it contains. If this URL contains any of these words, so in this case, it is /activation/systematic sales boot camp. What we’re going to do is we’re just going to paste this in and what that lets me do it now I can split test order forms without having to recreate pages or recreate the pixel information.

I can have systematic sales Bootcamp-V1 or systematic sales Bootcamp-V2. And this pixel is going to track it all because it’s contains a systematic sales boot camp, no hyphen. Does that make sense? Okay. It’s just one of those things. You run enough of these things and you’re like, “Well how can I make it easy the next time.” and when you’re split-testing a lot of pages, you either have to go in here and just go, “Boom, boom, boom.” And just add and come back and remember to edit it. Or you can just do contains at first and then just adopt a naming convention for the shopping cart abandonment. And then after that, it’s easy because this one pixel is automatically tracking everything and then you’re serving Facebook retargeting ads up to the people who hit the order form and they’re good.

Now, so you can continue dropping in. You can continue adding variables. So if they go to the sales page and then also to the order form, they get put into this audience. The order form is fine though. Then you just want to name it. So this is going to be … I would say this is a warm to hot person. So we’re going to say, “Warm Funnel Flow Made Simple.” Add to cart, ATC. And then we just hit create an audience. So what Facebook is doing now is it’s going back to creating the audience, looking at all of the data it has, and says, “Okay, how many people hit this order form?” Then let’s serve up some Facebook retargeting ads to those people. What we want to do is they become a very warm audience.

We can then create look like audiences based on this warm audience of people who hit the order form before we get enough data to create a lookalike audience of buyers. It’s just one of those things when you’re looking at audiences, you want to ascend your audiences. You want to start with, “All right, who are my cold traffic people? Who are people who raised their hand and said, ‘I want more information from you.’ Who watched the video?” The more and more action that they take, then that’s who you want to establish your lookalike audience from. Because every single time, every single step up that ladder, it becomes a more and more qualified person that you can then retarget and run through your conversion campaigns. So that my friends are how to set up a retargeted ad.

Not that bad. I mean Facebook retargeting ads are pretty easy to dial in. So it’s good. Any questions? So many questions over in the … all right questions? Perfect. All right, so let’s see where else we want to go. Talk about some retargeted traffic. We went through some dynamic sequencing in there. We talked about some shopping cart abandonment. I think we’re about good for today’s session. Tomorrow we’re going to do … we’re going to have a guest on and we’re going to talk about some optimization. So we’re going to talk about how do you take a campaign that is doing well and turning it into something that is doing even better. So that is going to be a lot of fun. Her name is Jennifer. She’s a new friend.

For Questions and Guide

We’re going to do optimization and I was thinking we do something data-driven. We look at some stats and how to figure out how you know if somebody is buying or not buying or opting in or not opting in based on age and demographics and stuff. This way you can optimize your campaigns even further. That’s always a lot of fun. I like looking at that kind of stuff, so. All right guys, thank you so much for watching today. If you have any questions at all, go to doneforyou.com/GSD. And if you would like to set up an action plan call, go to doneforyou.com/start and we will set up an action plan for your business and I’ll talk to you soon. All right. Thanks. Bye.

The post Quick Setup To Get More Conversions From Facebook Retargeting Ads appeared first on Done For You.

The costs of advertising are rapidly increasing, even as you read this. Retargeting pixels are more important than ever as an advertiser (merchant, marketer, or agency).  It would be best if you kept the cost of your retargeting and regular campaigns low and your return on investment high.

According to Wordstream, here are the benchmarks for the average CTR (click-through rate) and CPC (cost per click) sorted by industry.

The average CTR across industries is 0.90%, and the average CPC in Facebook ads across all industries is $1.72. The graphs also show CTR and CPC by sector, such as apparel, beauty, education, fitness, and healthcare.

These are the averages, and these averages might not mean anything to you if you don’t get your Facebook advertising and campaign management right in the first place.

To optimize your ads and get close to those averages, you’d need to set up your campaigns properly -- with the right kind of Facebook campaign setup, a firm offer, matching landing pages, smooth sales funnels, and marketing automation for following up with your leads.  The quickest way is to ensure your retargeting pixels are set up correctly.

We’ll be honest: Most businesses don’t get it right. They make blunders while launching Facebook campaigns. As if to rub salt in the wounds, many freelancers don’t launch Facebook campaigns correctly.

Regardless, it’s proven that you’d do better if you started with remarketing campaigns instead of launching regular ad campaigns first.

Note: You’ll need to set up audiences (such as an audience of all your website visitors or lookalike audiences of your existing customers or email subscribers) before you launch remarketing campaigns.

Here are the top reasons why you should start targeting campaigns first:

Retargeting Ads Make Sense

Since about 80% of your visitors don’t take any action when they visit your website and landing pages, retargeting is a natural and progressive way to get your visitors back. Retargeting ads are highly targeted, relevant, and timely.

Because your retargeting ads only reach out to people who’ve already visited your website and landing page, you are targeting a warm audience (as against a completely cold audience), leading to better results.

When your retargeting ads reach out to the audience already aware of your brand, products, and services, your audience is primed to take action. They are more likely to respond to your campaigns than cold audiences do.

Read more:

How Retargeting Helps Improve Your Conversion Rate

Retargeting: Smart Tips To Get More For Less

Refuel Your Funnels: Basics Of Retargeting You Can't Afford To Ignore

Get Considerably Cheaper Traffic With Retargeting Pixel Data

The cost of regular digital advertising for a few industries can go up to $50 a click or more (depending on the geographic location and the industry).

As such, with those vast rates per click, it becomes harder for a few businesses to run ad campaigns. When retargeting shows what it’s worth.

Apart from the fact that retargeting pixels helps with brand lift, brand recall, increase in traffic, and an increase in overall time spent on your website.  It’s also considerably cheaper than running regular campaigns.

Google’s Data reveals that if you used Google’s Display Network for retargeting, you could achieve a CPA (Cost per Acquisition) 2% less than the typical CPA on the search network.

Claire Pelletreau, for instance, managed to make $1.60 for every $1 spent, thanks to retargeting on Facebook.

Do you need more convincing than this?

Get Higher Conversion With Retargeting Pixel Data

According to an infographic from the folks at Invespcro, website visitors who are retargeted with relevant and timely campaigns are 70% more likely to convert than others.

Larry Kim of Wordstream launched remarketing campaigns (through the retargeting pixel) that helped increase repeat visitors by 50%, boost conversion by 51%, and increase the overall time spent on site by an insane 300%.

According to Neil Patel, you could boost your conversions to up to 128% or even more.

Retargeting campaigns are inherently brand-aware, instantly recognizable (because your visitors still remember you), and highly relevant.

Convert Shopping Cart Abandons

Shopping cart abandonment, page abandonment, offer abandonment -- regardless of what you try to achieve, the “abandonment” part of the equation is bleeding every business out there.

More than 96% of the people visiting a website leave without taking any action on the site that’s beneficial for the business. A whopping 70% of the people abandon their shopping carts (without ever buying anything).

While those are the overall stats of Shopping Cart Abandonment, the reality is that at least 80% to 90% of all businesses do not do anything to get those abandoners to come back and complete their transactions (or actions that benefit businesses in some way or the other helps you achieve the loop by specifically targeting people who view specific pages, service pages, pricing pages, or add items to their shopping carts but don’t complete their purchases.

Agreed that you have to get many things right to make them work -- such as targeting, ads, copy, your offers, retargeting specific sales funnels (or eliminate them?). But retargeting, if you do it well, retargeting enough are interested in the game-changer for your business.

Are you interested in putting the power of retargeting to work for your business? Please fill out this form and let our team contact you to discuss your needs.

Retargeting Pixel Data Is The Quickest Path To Cash

Whenever we look at campaigns, talking to clients, or at something of our own that we're going to roll out, I first ask myself, what is the quickest path to cash? What is QPC, the fastest way to money?

The quickest path to cash is often where we start because business is about generating revenue. The one that you have half done, sitting in a hard drive somewhere, or the half-baked thing, and you haven't thought about it in a little bit. Or the campaign you never entirely optimized, the Pixel that has been sitting on your website for six months, and you've never done anything with it.

Those are assets. Those are always the things we start with because your email lists may have gone unnurtured and un-mailed forever; those are always where we begin. The thing about the retargeting Pixels is they are constantly sucking in the information. They are continually pulling in all of the people who are visiting your website. They do that for up to six months, 180 days.

If you installed your Pixel, AdRoll Pixel, or Facebook Pixel three months ago and haven't done anything with it, all that data is still there. You can still reach out to those 7,000 people who showed up on your website because you have that Pixel information.

The data is the most important part of your ad campaigns. 

It's the hardest thing to get when we're starting from scratch, and it's always the thing that separates the campaigns that do well from those that take a little bit longer to start ramping up. The first thing we always look for is whether there is any data in the Pixel already. Has the retargeting Pixel been installed months ago, years ago? How can we separate that data? What are your sales pages, order pages, add-to-cart pages, and critical content pages? How are people moving through the pages that are already on your website?

Assign Buckets for Your Pixel Data

Suppose we can segment them into buckets, so this person goes to your website when they are looking to book an appointment. In that case, this person goes to your website when they're looking for more information so that we can put those into buckets and advertise to those buckets. Having the Pixel data makes all that possible because it's just identifying why somebody is going to your website and its purpose and then putting them into a bucket and showing them an ad. That is always a kind of step number one.

Upload Your Email Lists To Facebook

If you have a prospect list, then we can upload that to Facebook. If you have a buyers list, we can upload that to Facebook. We can create lookalike audiences from that. There's a lot of other things that people have done. They've given us an export of their Gmail and then cleaned it so friends and family weren't there. They've given us an export of their LinkedIn contacts because their LinkedIn contacts are business contacts. Then we've scrubbed that. LinkedIn is usually a treasure trove of information anyway, and then we've created a lookalike audience for that.

We can do some things there, but retargeting the Pixel and audience data is the key to a good campaign, at least starting. I'm scrolling through this article here, so retargeting ads makes sense. About 80% of your visitors aren't going to take any action whatsoever. They're going to bounce, leave right off the page, not going to click. Most of them will not be going to scroll down the page. They are not going to add something to their order form. They will probably not even watch a video; 80% will leave, which means you want to follow them around once they go.

Facebook Retargeting is Cheaper

You want to follow them around through retargeting. That's where retargeting ads come into play. That's where AdRoll comes into play, and Facebook retargeting is considerably cheaper than going after a cold person but not necessarily cheaper on a per-click basis. There's one thing you have to understand. Often, you can run a Facebook ad and get somebody to your website for 20 cents, 16 cents, 24 cents, or 42 cents.

Your retargeted click will probably be a buck, or a single 50 or two dollars, or 60 cents. It has to do with, first of all, the quality of the banner creativity, of course. The banner creative has to be clickable and noticeable and prevent banner blindness and all that other stuff, but think about it. For a retargeted ad to show, it has to override...

Whenever a page loads, all the ads all over the page load. For a retargeted ad to show, it has to outbid the ad that was supposed to be there. Ads show, say, each ad placement is 50 cents, and then the retargeted ad overlays it. Four, five, or six people bid to overlay that. Well, of course, the highest bidder wins. Your banner ad might be a buck a click. It's still all bidding.

How does retargeting work? Are they outbid the ads that show up on the page? Per click, your retargeted ad will be more expensive on a per-click basis, on a CPM basis, because you're overriding the ad that was supposed to be there. However, since these people know your company and the website, your click-through rate through the roof is beaten; it isn't the first time they've seen you.

Often, the seventh, 12th, or 30th time you your ad, the click-through rate is high. Then, the CPA, the cost per acquisition, is high, so that person is more likely to purchase from you. Your return on ad spend from a retargeted standpoint will be much, much, much higher on a retargeted ad.

When we're here, retargeting is considerably cheaper; we're significantly more affordable on a per-acquisition basis, not necessarily on a per-click basis, because if you marry the two up, if it's per click on cold traffic, per click on retargeted, retargeted is always going to be more expensive if you don't factor in the sale aspect of it.

Retargeting Gets Higher Conversions

Here, we go into your gets you higher conversions, and it does. Retargeting people, you will convert 6%, 8%, 12% of those people. It's not the first time they saw the offer. It's not the first time they saw the brand. They consciously chose to come back and purchase, and probably the most significant help is retargeting, which helps convert abandoned visitors to abandoned shopping cart folks.

If somebody adds something to your order form or shopping cart and then leaves, they should see a two- or three-day retargeted ad that pulls them back into the shopping cart. The same way they get emails, so your discount is expiring, your offer code is passing, blah, blah, blah. You're at risk of losing the deal, and so on. Retargeting is also set up to convert those abandoned shopping cart folks. Retargeting Pixel data is much more effective than a general per-click buyer.

Let's review our Facebook add-on, which is our ad audience. I'm just going to talk you through how this is all structured. If we look at some of our add-on audiences here, let me make this a little bigger. If you run Facebook traffic, you know of this audience panel. I use some naming conventions that have worked out pretty well. This is a lookalike audience, so lookalike US 1% of all Done For You website traffic in the last 30 days, so our ad audience is constantly updating from a lookalike audience standpoint.

Whenever they go to a VSL sales page, we tag them as part of a VSL sale or as a sales page. It might be a VSL. It might be a long-form sales copy, like a course sales page, so we can retarget them if they do not purchase. We have a VSL prospect; then we have buyers. If they hit a sales page but did not become a buyer, meaning they did not enter the buyer audience, we show them retargeted ads.

As soon as they cross over and buy, that retarget and buyer Pixel fires, they no longer see or shouldn't see ads. Sometimes, some things slip through the cracks, but whatever, so as soon as they hit that buyer Pixel, they shouldn't see ads anymore. We have video view campaigns, which is how this one is set up. Video views, they've watched 75% in the last 30 days, just 75%. If we edit this, you'll see that. This is people who have watched 75% of your video, and it includes 87 total videos.

If you look at this, we have many videos here that we can select. Book, for as long as that video is up, Facebook is tracking who is watching and how much they are watching. Then, if they manage more than 10 seconds, a through play, which is 15 seconds, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 95%, 100%, we can target them specifically with ads. This particular one is 75%. This is going to be our people who have watched an entire video or just fell asleep when they were scrolling, and it happened to be on one of our videos, and that is that.

Here, we have a sales audience, which is a buyer audience. Here, we have a warm audience, so this isn't cold... Somebody who has opted in for something has visited the website five or more times. Then, we have an add-to-cart, and ATC is added to the cart. We have had website visits in the last 180 days and the previous 30 days. We like keeping track of both of those numbers.

Let's What days for warm website visitors. What we try to do is we try to like, we try to timestamp them. Suppose they've been to the website in the last five days, 30 days, 180 days. Five days are hot, 3,0 days are warm, and 180 days are cold. Sometimes, it's worth advertising them for certain offers, webinar promotions, or anything that can quickly bring them back into the fold. Still, most of our activity centers around people who've been around for 30 days or less.

If we haven't seen them or watched anything in 30 days, they probably left the market, found other providers, or whatever. They are no longer within our ecosystem. We just let them go. They might come back, and if they return, they hit the website. Your audience will reactivate and then drip through the 30 days again. Does that make sense? All right, cool.

Now, let's go over to AdRoll. We talked about AdRoll yesterday and set up some banner ads to go to AdRoll. We also set up a couple of audiences. Here, we're going to look at audiences. I'm just going to open these up. We went through how to set up one of these guys yesterday. We'rehigh-intent a looking.

This is our high-intent audience. It's three days. They have been to the website for three days and are pretty warm. With the five days, they're a little warmer than our Facebook folks; then we have our... We have a total of website visitors, so we've got 22,000 in there. Cross-device insights, we've got 3800 in there. Then, we have different audiences.

Here's our heavy visitor. This wealthy visitor has viewed more than five pages in 20 days. This serious visitor audience will be more apt to do something, to purchase something, whatever. They have different banner ads going. Specifically, we'll probably go to the website and try to get tall visitors and an automated webinar. We have our all-visitors list, webinar, and registration visitors. We have many audiences, and Amazon is the audience.

There are many places in between, from setting up audiences and different ways you can do it. You can do it based on impression, so it shows at least how many images. You can do it by pages viewed, so one page, two pages, three pages, four pages, by the URLs visited, by the user event, or an iPixel match, which would be a mobile cross-device thing.

One of the nice things about AdRoll is their cross-device, soixel email-matching. They also have some excellent email-matching functionality. If they mail theitor's email address, they will email them on your behalf. Then you pay for the emails. So that is like email retargeting, and calm so that it will retarget banners and emails.

They also do some cold traffic banners now. They continue adding new and new and new things to it. Indeed, it is a fantastic ad platform, and they keep improving it. I have been using them for thinking time for clients and ourselves. In my opinion, there isn't a better all-around, all-planner platform, and one of the reasons I.. enjoyable, but one of the reasons I got into AdRoll in the first was...

Once you have data, then advertising is easy. As the audience becomes more extensive, you can segment them down more, but one of the things is... Let's say you have a client. They got many ads disapproved, denied, I should say, and their account got.

Well, what they can do is they can shut down the entire agency's accounts. They can shut down other ad accounts that are inside the same agency. There are lots of different things that can happen if Facebook deems you as a bad actor. When they shut down an account, the Pixel data can no longer access the Pixelis. No, nothing that you built up in the past is good.

If you have half a million visitors and your Pixels are gone, AdRoll will have a backup of Pixel Data. It also does Facebook, just general banner retargeting. My estimation was with AdRoll; I always have a backup of my Pixel data for 180 days. It's less ideal, but I still can reach out to the people who have been my backup or retargeting.

It almost became my backup, and now we run retargeting for our general web banners. Then we do retarget inside Facebook for Facebook folks. For us, it was a way of backing up all that information because Facebook does you bathers that have worked well. I threw that out in case you wanted a way of backing up your Pixel data.

Your Next Steps

For those of you who would like to get on a call and tome of this, talk about retargeting, setting up Facebook Ad campaigns, Google Ad campaigns, sales funnels, automation, all that stuff, go to do, you'll fill out that little form. Then, you can schedule a call on our calendar right after that. We will go and take a look at your business. We'll look at your offers, then figure out a per you.

If there's anything else we can do, go to doneforyou.com and hit this little chat in the lower right-hand corner. You're going to be able to type questions in here. You can pick up the delivery, show me the Done For You services, and deliver me. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Tomorrow, we will talk more about retargeting, if we will... We will talk mainly about setting up Facebook retargeting speakers to speak. With that, have a fantastic day. I will talk to you soon. All right, thanks, bye.

The post Skyrocket Your ROI: How Retargeting Pixel Data Can Transform Your Campaigns appeared first on Done For You.

Consider this: If you have an e-commerce website, only 2% of all your visitors will shop on their visit. The other 98% are just gone, according to Adroll.

Or maybe you wanted them to sign up for an offer you made on your landing pages or funnels or have your visitors contact you using your contact form.Perhaps you just wanted your visitors to create a free account for the SaaS product you just built.

Only 2% of your entire visitors will ever take action.

All the rest are gone, if you don’t do something about it, that is.

Retargeting helps you get those 98% of visitors back. It helps improve your overall conversion rates while simultaneously bringing your costs down. If you just threw money at a retargeting campaign and expect your users to come back to your site to finish what they started, it’s not going to happen.

Your retargeting campaigns will need the same diligence, attention to detail, creativity, and hustle for them to work for you. Here are some smart ways to make your retargeting work for you.

Build your audiences

Retargeting has everything to do with the kind of audiences you build on platforms. Facebook audiences, Google Ads Audiences, Adroll Audiences, or Retargeter audiences. Each platform allows you to build your audiences as you deem fit.

While we all know that there’s going to be at least one audience that’s a default audience (everyone who visits your website and/or landing pages). For the most part, the onus is on you to build specific audiences based on their browsing patterns, the URL paths you want them to take, or specific pages they visit on your site.

Depending on your website, you might want to develop audiences such as:

• People who visit all pages of your website (this is default)
• People who signed up as leads, downloaded a free document (PDF, eBooks), people who’ve contacted you, or people who signed up for an appointment.
• The complete list of your customers (always updated)
• List of customers who’ve added items to their cart but did not complete a transaction
• Potential customers who’ve initiated checkout but did not complete

Stay relevant

Relevance is big with retargeting and staying relevant (by showing the exact kind of content that your visitors would be interested in) goes a long way to make retargeting more effective.

By working with your audiences and with attention to detail, you could serve more relevant content with your retargeting campaigns.

If you had an e-commerce store, for instance, you could use Adroll’s Dynamic Ads to show your visitors the exact products that they were considering or those that they initially had an intent to purchase.

Here’s an example of an Adroll Liquid Ad:

Rework your creatives for retargeting

If you use specific ads and landing pages for your main paid campaigns, you shouldn’t use the same creatives for your retargeting campaigns.

Change your creatives (ads and landing pages) or tweak your main creatives to make it more relevant for your retargeting campaigns. In fact, if you could, create completely new creative assets for your retargeting campaigns.

Businesses that are serious about their retargeting campaigns generally create a dedicated set of ads and matching landing pages to launch specific retargeting campaigns.

Try retargeting email

The average shopping cart abandonment rate is at a whopping 67%, according to Baymard research.

That just hurts. A personal, engaging, and highly-effective way to try to counter the huge abandonment rate — and also boost revenue and profits — is to use retargeting email.

Email customers are at least 11% more valuable than your regular Twitter followers other social networks (with Facebook being the only exception)

According to Moz, email retargeting can give you 4X the revenue and 18X profits.

Leading retargeting platforms such as Adroll and Retargeter already provide you with features to send retargeting emails.

Include & exclude audiences

Don’t waste your budget by choosing “everyone” as an audience.

As you launch your retargeting campaigns, not everyone who visits your website and leaves is the apt audience. By including and excluding audiences, you get more control on who sees your ads and who doesn’t.

How you manage your audiences determines how effective your retargeting campaigns are going to be. For example, Shioban McGinty of HubSpot advocates that you should ideally exclude anyone who spends less than 10 seconds on your website (testing the time frame helps you identify your unique time frame, however).

By using “include and exclude” features available on every platform that you’d use for retargeting, you can:

• Identify and include high-intent audiences who are most interested in your business, products, or services.
• Include only those people who might have followed a specific path or pattern while on your website (such as people who read your blog, and then checked out your services page, and also landed on your contact page).
• Exclude people who might have already purchased your products or those that don’t need to see your campaign at the moment.
• Exclude people who “bounced”, “didn’t spend enough time on your website”, or those who might have accidentally landed on your website.

How do you manage your retargeting campaigns?

If you’d like help to strategize, launch, and manage your retargeting campaigns, or if you’d like to discuss your paid marketing strategy, our team is on standby and we’d love to talk. Hop on a call now. 

GSDdaily Episode 86

This entire week we’re going to talk about retargeting. It has been such an important part of our business and our clients‘ business because the people who see a retargeted ad, this isn’t the first time that they have seen you, or they’ve seen your videos, or they’ve seen your brand, or they’ve taken part in your message.

The people who see your retargeted ad have already been to your website. They’ve already seen a Facebook video or a live stream. They may have already interacted with you and your business at least once, and that is the power of retargeting. That’s why retargeting turns into such a fantastic marketing medium, especially when you’re just starting up or when you’re trying to scale because your retargeted budget is going to flip into cash a lot faster.

Somebody who has been on your website, they’re going to come back to your website, they’re going to go to your sales page, your offer page, whatever, and they’re going to convert that much more quickly. Because let’s face it, only about half a percent, 1%, 2% of people who are going to buy something from you the first time they see it or the first time they land on a website. Most of your sales though are going to come from your retargeted traffic, people who come back to your website and they purchase after they’ve had some time to think about your offer.

Today, we are going to go through a guide. Retargeting Campaigns: Smart Tips To Get More From Less. This is the article, I’m going to add it here to the chatbox. Here’s the post, and you should see that on Facebook and YouTube and wherever else you’re watching. For those of you who don’t know who I am, my name is Jason Drohn, creator of DoneForYou.com. We specialize in creating offers, building sales funnels, and setting up marketing automation and traffic campaigns, basically everything that you need to have in order to scale a digital business.

Retargeting Campaign

Today, and this week, we’re talking about retargeting. Mostly because it’s super easy to set up. It’s super easy to set up, it’s super easy to build retargeting campaigns from, and the software is really pretty prevalent. It doesn’t take too much to get going and you’re going to be able to get some success from it pretty quickly. We’re over here on the tutorial page here, Smart Tips To Get More For Less, this is the video that you’re watching right now, go ahead and hit that subscribe button right there and subscribe to future videos so that way, even if you miss the email or whatever, you still know the link for our daily live streams.

Now, retargeting helps you get all of the visitors back who come to your website. They don’t do anything or watch a video. They don’t convert. There’s a couple of steps. As you can see here, there’s a couple of scenarios. First of all, you have your prospect. Your prospect doesn’t know who you are just yet. Your prospect hits your website, and then they browse around, they click around. They’re tracked once they get there. There’s a little tiny, what’s called a cookie. That cookie that is installed in their browser, pixel fires is what it is, and now we have the ability to follow them around the rest of the internet.

We use a piece of software called AdRoll to do this, and I’m going to show you how to set it up. In a video this week, we’re going to talk about banners, and then we’re going to talk about setting up AdRoll, and then we’re going to talk about setting up the pixels. We’re going to go through and set all of that stuff up in the rest of the episodes this week. Today, I wanted to lay a good foundation for what retargeting is though.

Pixel Fires

When somebody hits your website, pixel fires and installs a cookie on their browser. Now, what that does is it lets your banner ads override all of the other ads that are on the websites that they’re visiting. If somebody comes to your website and then they go to Woot.com, let’s say. They go to Woot, and they will see your banner override whatever banner is supposed to be there. There are always banners that are circling, but basically what happens is that the retargeting overrides the banner placement, and you pay a little bit more because all of the banner ads are built on a bidding mechanism.

It overrides the banner that is there. You pay a little bit more, but this person is super, super hyperactive because they’ve already been to your website. They already know about you. This is their second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, twelfth impression. At the end of the day, they’re more likely to convert, and they do. Your return on ad spend from retargeted ads is the highest it is going to be in all paid advertising. When a prospect is tracked, then they leave, and then they see your ad on other sites.

Now what happens is when they come back, then it resets that ad. It resets that pixel. One of the things we do on Facebook a lot is we do, if they’ve been to the website in the last five days, show them this ad, if they’ve been to the website in the last 10 days, show them this ad and then exclude the previous five. You can use banner ads almost like an autoresponder, which is kind of cool.

Audiences

Retargeting has everything to do with the kind of audiences you build on platforms – Facebook audiences, Google audiences, AdRoll audiences.

Your audience is the people who visit a specific website or a specific landing page or a specific confirmation page or whatever. That is your audience. And your audience can be just the people who buy X products, or it can be just the people who signed up for Y lead magnet. It can be super, super specific, or it can be everybody who has been to the website in the last 30 days or the last 180 days. It can be very, very broad. You can have audiences of different sizes, and your use of audiences is how the banner network knows what to show and when to show it.

For example, you can have people who visit all the webpages on your website, people who signed up as leads, a complete list of customers, all your buyers. On Facebook, you can upload your buyer’s list and create custom audiences and build lookalike audiences from those. The list of potential customers who have initiated checkout, but did not complete, so will be added to cart or cart abandonment buyers, or cart abandonment prospects. What retargeting does really is let you stay relevant. People will be reminded of your brand whether they buy from you and do business with you or not. They’re reminded of your business and your offers.

There’s a lot of companies that we work with where sometimes their customers forget about them. Even big contract manufacturers and stuff, every once in a while, if the email list isn’t really engaged or the prospects don’t have a reason to come back to the website, they don’t. Then it’s out of sight, out of mind. What banner retargeting lets you do is for a very, very minimal budget, you can continue to show ads to your website visitors for up to six months. Seven if they’ve been to the website, they’re going to think you’re still everywhere. In the next six months, your audiences will continue seeing your ads as long as that cookie is still installed in their browser, which is awesome.

Banner Ad Sizes

What you want to do though, is you want to make sure that your creativity is on point. When you get into banner ads, which is what retargeting mostly is, or AdRoll retargeting, which is what I’m going to show you how to set up, it’s all banner ads. There are six sizes, six specific ad sizes that are the most popular on AdRoll, but they also have video ads, they have some odd sizes for websites that have odd placements. There’s a lot of different ways, but you need to have good creativity.

Designing Banners

We use Canva for a lot of our own projects for the stuff that we do because we test a lot of stuff. We use Canva, we use a lot of Photoshop. Canva and Photoshop are really kind of the big ones. Photoshop tends to be the place where we do a lot of very specific creativity. I have some Done For You ads running right now that are just simple ones done in Canva. It’s really just meant to test a bunch of different creative quickly and see what flies, then we can perfect the images and all the text and all that other stuff.

I try to put new creative up about once every 45 days to 60 days for us. That tends to be when it starts to play out a little bit from a retargeted banner standpoint. But anything less than that, you don’t necessarily reinforce the message. I was actually just kicking through AdRoll this morning, and that’s our project. That’s what we’re going to do is we’re going to create some new creative this week, and then I’m going to show you how to post it and show you how to set AdRoll up. That way you see actual retargeting campaigns going live, and then you’re going to see campaigns while you’re out and about because you’re on the website too. That’s going to be a lot of fun.

Include and Exclude Audiences

Now, one of the important things about AdRoll, is you want to include and exclude audiences. How that works, the exclusion tool is really pretty interesting, because the idea is you have your big whole. Your big whole is all of your website traffic. And then you want to not show your ad to certain buyers, and the buyer’s list is going to be just a smaller segment of the overall whole. You have your big pool, all your website traffic, and then a smaller group of people who bought. We want to exclude this group from our AdRoll, from our banner campaigns.

What ends up happening is, because you include the whole, you have all of your website traffic. You exclude your buyers, none of those people are going to see your ad. Now, all that’s left is everybody who hasn’t purchased. It’s just a math problem, basically. If you have 15,000 people who have been to your website and 2,000 buyers, then you’re going to be marketing to 13,000 people, 13,000 non-buyers. Your main audience, and then your buyers.

Then those 13,000 people are going to be seeing your ad until they buy. Once they buy, they’ve obviously put it into the exclusion list, then they don’t see you. That is how you start building complex kinds of retargeting automated sequences. You start doing things like abandoned cart sequences, and very specific segments where only certain buyers see certain offers. You can really go down a rabbit hole on it. Two segments that you need,

1. prospects
2. buyers

People who paid you money and people who haven’t paid you money yet.

The people who haven’t paid you money yet, you send to an offer. The people who have paid you money, then you can put them in the next offer, you can put them in some sort of onboarding or a webinar, or a customer appreciation, or discount code or whatever. There are lots of things you can do there. But that is really probably the simplest way to start setting up the audiences and the exclusions. That is kind of just a very broad-brush, as I hit my microphone, a very broad-brush explanation of retargeting.

AdRoll – Banner Retargeting Platform

Now, some of the things that we’re going to talk about this week, just to kind of set up the rest of the week is, there are a couple of things we need to do. The first is AdRoll is a fantastic banner retargeting platform. They actually do quite a bit more now, they do email retargeting, they have some cold traffic, they have some email matching stuff, but we’re going to be walking through setting up AdRoll for your business and your website. You can actually just grab an account first, and that way you already have it all set up for when we’re ready to dig into AdRoll throughout the rest of the week.

The setup is free. You can create an account for free. They will give you a pixel, and then you put the pixel on your website. As soon as the pixel is installed on your website, then it’s going to start tracking all of your audience, the people who are coming to your website. And with that, it’s going to track. Everybody who comes to your website, it’s going to pixel them, cookie them, and then it’s going to put them in an audience. It doesn’t charge. I don’t believe it charges any money for just putting together those audiences. It doesn’t start costing something until you start running ads to those audiences.

I am very much a believer in more data is a hell of a lot better than no data. Set up an AdRoll account, install the pixel, and start tracking the people who are coming to your website. We can always work with those audiences. We can always say, “If somebody landed on this webpage, then they are a buyer. If they landed on this webpage, they are a prospect because they signed up for something,” like a confirmation page. Or if they signed up for none of this stuff, then they are still just a prospect. We can always set up those audiences later, I will walk you through the audience set up this week. But you need to have audience data in order to set up those audiences.

Designing Banner Ads on Canva

The banner ads, we’re going to design in Canva. I believe it is also free to set up banner ads. There are paid plans where you can do animated gifs and stuff, which we do a lot of. In Canva, you can set up a banner ad, and we’re going to talk about sizes. There is some very specific kind of sizes. I believe 468 by 60 is the size. We’ll give you the sizes. Basically, how I ended up setting Canva up is I kind of start with one. I clone it and resize it to a bunch of different sizes. Then I drag the text and stuff around that it fulfills the needs I have for AdRoll. That’s how I do the banner ads.

And then we’re going to upload those banner ads into AdRoll. AdRoll also does Facebook, but we set up Facebook retargeting inside Facebook. That is the plan for the week. We’re going to use AdRoll for banner retargeting, we’re going to install the pixel. Well actually, you’re going to install the pixel today. And then tomorrow, we’re going to do some banner ad designs. We’re going to talk about some retargeting more in-depth on a banner creative level. For the rest of the week, we’re going to set up banner retargeting on your website. We’re going to do that by walking you through audiences, exclusions, inclusions, and then, of course, optimizing the ad campaigns.

For Questions and Guide

I hope you liked today’s presentation. If you have any questions at all and you want to go through a little action plan call where we actually book a time in the calendar, talk about your business, talk about your sales follows, your traffic strategies, your offers, your marketing automation, all of that stuff, go to DoneForYou.com/start, fill out the little form, and book a call on our calendar. If there’s anything we can do in the meantime, just go to DoneForYou.com. There’s a little chat box in the lower right-hand corner. Just click the little chat box and then just pick an option here. Fill in what we can help you with, and we’ll be happy to lend a hand.

That’s about it. I will talk to you soon, have a fantastic Monday. I’m looking forward to the rest of this week where we kind of uncovers retargeting.

The post Retargeting Campaigns: Best Tips For Selling More appeared first on Done For You.

Facebook is the most used social network in the world today, according to Edison Research. And when it comes to how to optimize Facebook Ads, there are some best practices for attracting and engaging prospects, if you know what you're doing...

More than 70% of Facebook users log in daily and spend time on the platform.

About 93% of marketers already use Facebook advertising regularly leading to Facebook reporting a cool $7.68 billion in ad revenue in the first quarter of 2017.

With the average CPC (cost per click) of Facebook ads still at $1.72, it’s a gold mine waiting for you to dig in.

For businesses, it’s not surprising why Facebook advertising holds promise.

Here’s how you can make sure your Facebook ads work for your business:

Don’t Start Without A Sales Funnel

When getting started with learning how to optimize Facebook Ads, with or without a sales funnel, it's like picking up diamonds and throwing them into the Mariana Trench, one after the other -- just doesn’t make any sense, does it?

Your sales funnels are a guide path for your visitors to take action and to finally end up buying from you. Then, you’d want that buying action to repeat.

If you need help with funnels, be sure to attend our webinar to get access to our proven sales funnels formula for converting your cold audiences into hyperactive customers.

You can also grab these ROI-driven sales funnels from scratch for free. There’s also a complete video series for Sales Funnels if you’d rather opt for that.

Work With Audiences

Most advertisers and businesses don’t use the strongest asset they have when it comes to learning how to optimize Facebook Ads: data.

In a rush to launch ads and campaigns (and because patience is rare), most people do not spend enough time with Audience Insights to get to know more about your existing audiences. Nor do they set up conversion tracking and custom audiences the way that more seasoned advertisers and people looking to optimize Facebook ads do. One of the first things we do when getting into a client account, before spending a penny on ads, is set up audiences and conversion tracking to use the data that they do have and build on top of it...

Audience Insights: With Audience Insights, you’ll be able to determine the demographic profile, gender, location, interests, and more. While setting up the actual Facebook campaigns, you’ll be in a better position to test one audience against another, to choose the right locations, to pick the exact kind of an audience profile, and more.

Target Audiences: Armed with the information you get from audience insights and from other sources you have access to (such as Google Analytics), spend time by carefully choosing your exact target audiences you want to target while setting up the campaign. This part, right here, is the most time-consuming part of launching Facebook campaigns and it’s also the most important.

Custom & Lookalike Audiences: You should be collecting various custom audiences such as those who visit your website, your blog, or your eCommerce store. You can also start profiling your visitors based on the pages they visit. On top of these audiences, Facebook also provides you with lookalike audiences where Facebook creates a completely new audience by trying to match the profile of an already existing audience that you choose.

Creating all these audiences helps you with customer segmentation and allows you to send out tailor-made campaigns for better relevance and explosive results.

The Ads, The Copy, The Bells & Whistles

Facebook is all about visuals (images and graphics). Your ads along with the copy is a critical part of your campaign. Create ads with a singular offer, tailor-made for your audiences.

While the image itself should be able to communicate what the offer is, use descriptions and titles to further entice your audiences to take action.

As Sophia Bernazzani of Hubspot writes, winning ads are visual, enticing, and those with clear calls to action.

Facebook, however, gives you even more. In addition to the image ads, make use of the various ad formats available to you such as the canvas ad, carousel ads, vertical videos, 360 degrees video, slideshows, and collections.

Split test your campaigns

The images you use in your ads, the copy, the audiences, and the landing pages that your ads point to -- each of these can be a/b tested, and you should.

You can also test different combinations of split tests, as Rocco Alberto of Social Media Examiner explains.

While you should be testing only one element at a time, you can test all the elements (including landing pages) continuously, one after the other.

Ensure Tight Automation

Since you can’t possibly send out an email to every lead who signs up for your offer delivered through Facebook ads, There’s no point linking ads to landing pages or funnels for your Facebook advertising without some sort of marketing automation in place.

If you launch campaigns with branding, reach, and impressions as objectives, you’ll at least want to make sure that your Facebook pixel is set up and working. This helps you track and sort your active audiences (see above).

For more focused campaign types such as those with objectives of conversions, Facebook lead ads, etc., you’d want proper emails to go out to those leads as soon as they sign up. Those would be your marketing automation workflows.

Promising a free digital download or lead magnet on your ad? Your first email should thank your leads for signing up and then deliver the free download (also applies to free trials and coupons). You could also send welcome emails and other transactional emails (as the case may be).

If your campaigns are set up for a lead nurturing campaign with longer and more elaborate workflows, be sure to set up your marketing automation in that regard and create tight and impactful automation emails aligned with your goals.

Retargeting is not an option

Retargeting is the hottest thing that ever happened to advertising technology. But that’s not the only reason why you should consider using it mandatorily for your Facebook campaigns to work.

Since more than 80% of your visitors leave your website (or abandon shopping carts) without doing anything, your retargeting campaigns have a chance to get those same visitors back.

According to Giselle of Cmo.com, retargeting helps lift in search activity, boosts visibility, improve positivity towards your brand, and can boost ad response by 400%. Website visitors targeted with retargeting campaigns are 70% more likely to buy from you than otherwise.

Optimize your Campaigns. Continuously

Facebook ads are never “set it and forget it”.

If you think about it, Facebook ads are particularly hard to optimize and to ensure the longevity of your campaigns thanks to realities such as ad blindness and overexposure of your target audience to marketing messages and ads.

Add an ever-increasing complexity of consumer behavior and multiple touchpoints of an average purchase by a customer today, and you have it harder than ever.

As such, you’d want to optimize your ads to increase your click-through rates, lower your campaign costs, reach more audiences that provide you with higher ROI, and to lower your cost of acquisition.

Load up on all sorts of customization hacks or do it diligently with plain, data-driven decisions.

No matter how you choose to do it, optimizing your campaigns continuously helps you work towards the perfect lead generation or sales strategy for your business.

If you'd like us to take a look at your Facebook Ad Campaigns, marketing automation, and sales material; make sure to book an Action Plan call with us here... I bet we can point out at least a few things you're missing in the first 10 minutes we're on the phone :0)

Next Step

These new ad types are the key to starting or saving your Facebook campaigns. Rocking these things early on will launch you out of the gate fast and put a lot of audience data behind you. If you've got campaigns that are cooling off - then working some of these new ad formats may be the key to bring your supplement sales back in line.

Either way, if you need more sales, Facebook Ads are a great way to get them. And, we can help. Watch this short video and you'll see exactly what to do next!

Video Transcript:

What's up. This is Jason Drohn. Welcome to today's GSD daily. This is episode 60. We are going to talk about going through... We are going to optimize Facebook ads campaigns, so, or one optimize Facebook ads campaign in particular. So what today's kind of to-do, what we're going to be up to is we're optimizing a dynamic creative campaign inside Facebook, a couple of different videos, images, some different texts and headlines that we're going to go through and figure out how that... We're just going to kind of figure out what's bringing in conversions, and then we're going to talk to that a little bit.

So for those of you who don't know who I am, my name is Jason Drohn. I am the creator of doneforyou.com. We specialize in three things, building and creating offers, creating sales systems and sales funnels, and then also the marketing automation that drives it all. So today is kind of a piece of marketing automation, in that you need the traffic to turn the people who are coming to your website, or you need the traffic to get... To sell anything. So you can't have a website up and try to sell something and not get traffic, because, at the end of the day, a person is on the other side of the screen, that is who is pulling out a credit card and buying stuff from you.

So you always, always, always need to keep that in mind when you're building sales funnels, when you're doing email marketing, when you're building anything online, is that it is going to be read, and it's going to be read by another human being. So you have to write to them. You have to sell to them. You have to market to them. So it's kind of the idea. Now, right now, let's see. So the first is this... Today's episode is a kind of brought to you by this blog post. So this is a blog post that was written quite a while ago called, to optimize Facebook ads on the fly using their data. So it got me thinking about this topic for today's show. I was going back through some old stats and stuff.

The beautiful thing to optimize Facebook ads and the thing that a lot of people don't necessarily understand is that you're using Facebook's data to optimize your campaigns. So you are all the 2,000 data points that Facebook is attracting or Facebook is collecting on everybody, on you, on me, on everybody who has a Facebook account, all of the places they go, all the websites they visit, everything. Facebook is making that data available to you as an advertiser to help you opt-in, to help you build your audiences, to help you sell more, to help you market more effectively. After all, by letting you use that data and by allowing you to market more effectively, giving you the tools, then what it's doing is it's ensuring its future success because you're never going to use a different ad platform other than Facebook if you're finding success on Facebook.

So that's why they make the data available to you, and there's just so many different things that they collect that you can use as an advertiser. So you can... One of my favorite things to use in certain niches is life events. So somebody who is just got engaged, just got married, is having a baby, those are different life events that all trigger certain things, certain economic things that happen in the real world. So if somebody is having a baby, then chances are, they're probably looking for a new house. If they end a marriage, they're selling one house and buying two. There are all kinds of ways to interpret life events inside optimize Facebook ads data.

When you think about how an advertiser, how a marketer can use, or how a business can use these life events, then it makes a lot more sense to... From an advertising standpoint. So when you optimize Facebook ads, you want to, on the fly at least, you want to start... So you don't want to start with the sales funnel. the optimization or the ads themselves start with the audiences. They start with the people who make up those audiences. So the ads, the copy, the bells and whistles, all of that stuff is really important, having the right images, having the right video, having the right text and all that stuff, but you need to make sure you're targeting the right user, the right demographic, the right psychographic, the right type of person to get your ads working well.

Most importantly, though, is you need to split test your campaigns, so you can test different audiences. You can test in different images, different videos. There's a cool way to optimize Facebook ads made available not too long ago, well, kind of a long time ago, but in ad speak, it was six months or a year ago, but it's called dynamic creative. What dynamic creative is, is it allows you to split test different images, images, and videos with different headlines and different texts and different URLs, and then it does it all on the fly. So it does two things well. It lets you set up an ad once, and then it tests a bunch of different things for you. Then two, it also rotates things out so that as your ad is getting impressions, so it's going to show to the same person one, two, three, four, five times, and as it shows, it switches up little elements of the ad.

So it might switch up the image. It might switch up the text. But what it does is it gives a prospect a lot of different looks at your product and your business. There's kind of this rule taken on dating. So in this dating rule, like a pickup artists kind of dating stuff, but if you've ever done any work in the dating space, you're familiar with this, but basically in the dating space, there's this idea that if you meet someone and then you see them behind a bunch of different backgrounds. So like you're in front of the bar and then you're in front of the dance floor and then you're in front of the outside patio or whatever, then you feel, even though you might already know this, only know this person for like 20 minutes, you feel like you've known them for a long time because you've seen them in a lot of different contexts.

So dynamic creativity does the same thing to optimize Facebook ads. I mean, you see the same person, the same type of ad, the same brand in a lot of different contexts quickly. So it makes you feel like you know them better, which is a really powerful, powerful thing that a lot of people, I don't know that a lot of people would realize that that's happening, but one of the things we've done in testing dynamic creative, I've gone in and just whacked all the non-performing images. But then in whacking all of the non-performing images, the conversion drops, which doesn't make sense, but it only... Well, it makes sense only under the pretext that they had to see two videos or two images or whatever to get the full effect of the thing, the ad.

So they might see the ad and then tomorrow they come back and they see it, the same type of ad with different texts, the same type of ad, different image, and then it was only after they saw the second thing that they converted. So it's a kind of weird thing to think about. Then I've gone in and added some videos back in, and then all of a sudden conversions start to take off again. So it's not even... It's like they had to see the video first and then the image in the same campaign or you can split it on a retargeting campaign. So it gets all fucking weird. But it's one of those things you just got to think about like from a buyer standpoint, what are they doing? Do you know what I mean?

So you want to really... You want to ensure you have some nice tight automation. So somebody comes in, they sign up for a lead magnet. Then they go through a sales funnel and retargeting is not an option. I mean, we've talked a lot on this show about cold traffic and warm traffic. You need to make sure that you're bringing cold traffic into the mix, into your silos. So you have your feeder campaigns and they are coming down into your mix. Then once they are in your funnel, they're seeing retargeted ads to that warm audience, which kicked them out to be buyers or warm traffic. So that is, I mean, it's paramount to your success as cold and warm.

You want to optimize your campaigns. So, and the optimization is if you're spending a bunch of money, I mean if you're spending 100 bucks, 200 bucks a day, you can optimize pretty quickly. I mean, you can go through and split test a lot of stuff pretty quickly. $1,000, you can split test in an afternoon because you have that much traffic that is hitting your site. However, if you're spending $10 a day, it's going to take a week, week and a half to find any sort of meaningful data from the split test. So that's one of the things that is like we talked a little earlier in the week about optimizing through visual website optimizer. So you want to make sure to have that statistical significance. You want to make sure that you have enough visitors who hit that page to give that number merit. Usually, it's like 95% significance is what you're looking for. But 99% is better.

So what we're going to do is we're going to kick over to optimize Facebook ads campaign. I'm going to walk you through, this is an ad campaign we've talked about before. So if we go in, we're going to look at this lead magnet conversion. Now, just to kind of refresh your brain a little bit, let me throw off. So here we go. All right. So this campaign converts. So we're generating leads off of this campaign at about 55%, 52% to 55%. We've talked about this thing a couple of times in a couple of different contexts. The first was we've gone through and looked at this campaign. We've talked about some of the sales material behind this campaign. But what I want to talk about today is these dynamic ads.

So how this campaign is structured, this is a cold traffic campaign and then the cold traffic campaign is broken out into... So I broke them out into 10 year age groups for males, and then for females, it's a 30 year age group. So it's from 35 to 64. Then I've tested quite a bit back and forth. So basically this, we have our... This is 55 to 64, a desktop, male. Then we have 45 to 54 US male, and then we have 35 to 64 female. The ads are a little different. They have a little bit of different language in them. But if what we do is we break down this campaign, so these are dynamic, the top two are dynamic ads. So what we're going to do is we're going to back out to the last 30 days and we will see that, so this, all in all, we've got 964 leads through this campaign in the last 30 days. We've had 93 sales.

So it's a little bit less than the 10% conversion on the front end offer. We've tested. We've gotten quite a few leads, quite a few sales calls like that kind of thing, but all in all, we've spent $5,552 on this thing and we have generated about that on the front end sales. So if we look at, there's the data. Now, if we go in here and we break this campaign down by, so we're going to break this down, all right. So we're going to go into this one. Then we're going to break down by dynamic creative assets. So there are lots of different ways that we can segment this campaign out.

But basically, we can break it down by delivery. So we can look at the age and gender. This is all stuff that is super... I look at this stuff quite often. So we have 35 to 44, 45 to 50. Then so if there is something, some way that we can get these folks... So right now in this market, 45 to 54, we've got 26 sales from that segment. So it would make sense to... So if we continued scrolling over, let's see what our... So we have spent $700 in the 45 to 54 market. We've spent $700 to get, let's see, $700 to get 26 sales, which is awesome. Now, look at the other parts. So we've spent $638 in the 55 to 64 segment to get six sales. So that is not good. So obviously we need to disable 55 to 64 and 35 to 44.

We can re-enable them with some different ads. We can try something different. But this one is clear, obviously, this one right here is a clear winner and the other two are sucking, so they need to be disabled. So this is all part of optimization. As you can see, I haven't optimized this campaign. I was like, we might as well do it live together on this. Do you know what I mean? So, all right. So that's for the age group.

Now let's see. If we go down, so we can also look at the impression device. So let's look at platform and device and see if there's any kind of takeaways here. There might be. There might not be, I don't know. So it looks like we have eight conversions on Android Facebook, five on an iPhone, four on Android Instagram, and 14 on iPhone. Now let's go look at those numbers. Let's go look at the dollars. So we spent $234 to get 14 sales. So that might, I mean, like these where there are the outliers, we might be able to just show different ads on different segments and then scale from there. So this one, we've got eight sales on Facebook Android. Let's see what that number is. How much have we spent there? $600. So there might be something in there that we can kind of exploit. I don't know. That might be a little bit granular. But it might not be. We might be able to pull out.

So the big thing, the big thing I wanted to kind of get into in optimizing this for the dynamic creative is if we... Hold on, we're going to go here. Now let's look at dynamic creative image video. So the dynamic creative, how it's set up is you can put different images and different videos in, and then swap it, it rapid fires the different creative. So right now we have... Let's see. So in the last 30 days, I'm just going to go back to the last 14 days. All right. So in the last 14 days, we have had, so this is a video, video, video, video, video, image, video. So this is the one I was running for quite a while.

Then if we look at just the sales, so this image is still pulling higher than anything else. We've got four sales from this guy. So, which was just pretty good, right? So four sales from this image, and then we got three sales from this video, three sales from this video, two sales from this video, zero from this one, despite it having more results and more reach than most of the others. Then this one is just, hasn't been playing a whole lot. So it would be advantageous to pull probably this one out, because we're at $9.51 per lead, and then pull this one and this one out because they haven't sent any sales at all. So it would make sense to pull these out.

Now, if we look at, I don't know, so the website URL is the same regardless. The text, I think, I did switch up the text a little bit. So the winners in the text were this one, expanded to 274 pages, this sales system master guide. So that had six sales as compared to three, two, one and one. So we could pull out these bottom two and let the top ones just continue testing. I think that was all I had. I don't think I tested any different headlines or anything. Oh, no, I did, headlines. Yeah. So this one with the email, little email icon thing has four sales, three, three, and three. So there isn't necessarily like a clear winner there.

So, and then you just continue refining the ad campaign. Do you know what I mean? So you just kind of keep breaking everything down until you have... Oh, look at that. Don't get frozen out. So that one has seven sales. So all the low performing stuff, pull it out in this dynamic creative ad and then let it run a week and see how it is running in a week. Maybe we'll come back and show some optimization stuff after that.

Any questions? You guys have any questions at all? We went through and optimized a campaign, pretty fun stuff, right? So let's see. Does it work with images too? Yeah. So your dynamic creative campaign is going to work with images. So one of the things we do with quite a few folks is, especially the retargeted ad, we will upload the images, we'll upload four or five different images that we create on Canva. So Canva is a nice photo editor or image editor. You can log into Canva. It's where I create all kinds of stuff. I create even these GSD graphics that are created in Canva. It's a nice template-based. I mean, you can log in, you can search for a optimize Facebook ads, and then it'll show you a bunch of Facebook ads that are pretty looking.

Some of them pretty, some of them ugly. You don't want to go all pretty and all ugly. You kind of want to test a couple of different things. You have to keep your target market in mind. If you're advertising to females, think of the female design aesthetic. If you're advertising to male, think of male design aesthetic. Keep consistent colors and stuff with branding. So that's the important part. But overall, you can do that dynamic creative ad. You can set it up with images. You can set it up with a video. You can split-test different headlines.

The one thing that we have seen to work well is to use emojis. So if you type in Facebook emojis, so here, any of these, I think this one is the one that we normally use. Yeah. So these are copy and paste emojis, so basically if you want to paste in a smiley face, you just literally you highlight it, you hit copy, then you go and you paste it and it'll paste it into wherever you're going. So then that's how you set up the emojis for the ads. You can see just in this creative, this one right here doesn't get frozen out. We got seven sales from this. There was this one, we got one sale, we got four sales from the phone. [inaudible 00:20:58] not just leads. I mean, we got 69 leads from this don't get frozen out. Of those 69 leads, seven of them turned into sales. So it's just all in how you set up your analytics and your KPIs, which we talked about KPIs yesterday.

So yeah, if you have any questions at all, go to doneforyou.com/start, fill out the application, and then we'll jump on a call together. We'll talk about your sales funnel, your traffic. We'll design something out for you. If there's anything else we can do, just let us know. All right, thanks. Bye.

The post Optimize Facebook Ads On The Fly Using Their Data! appeared first on Done For You.

Video Transcript:

Hey, what's up? This is Jason Drohn. Welcome to today's GSD Daily. So today we're going to talk about setting up the Facebook conversion pixel, tracking, and digging into data. So this has been Facebook ads week, where we dig into... So basically Monday we talked about building the marketing funnel, then we went into building a cold traffic advertising campaign, kind of step one of the marketing funnel. Step two of the marketing funnel is the retargeted campaign. The warm traffic campaign, so the people who are coming to your website, then they leave and then they see your ads.

Yesterday, we went through optimizing an ad campaign from scratch. So we have a guest on the show, Jennifer, and we went through and optimized her photography lead generation campaign. So that was a lot of fun. And today, we're going to talk about data. So analyzing data in metrics. And a good friend and a client told me that basically, I need to start these live streams with what I do. Because a lot of times just listening to me speak is like drinking from a fire hose sometimes, which dude, I get.

So basically what I'm good at is clarifying people's message, building sales systems and sales funnels, and then also analyzing the data and tweaking all of the above for that. So that's really what I do. It's what I'm good at. And everything that we do is some version of that. So today we're going to talk about data and how to read data in a way that tells a story, which oftentimes is the challenge in building sales funnels and automation that work because you never know.

So what we're going to do over in the comment box, just let me know if you have any questions as we go through here. And then I'm going to dig into an ad campaign. And we're going to look at some of the demographics and some of the information that will make this campaign run, or not work or not. So all right, so we're going to dig into an ad account. And here, what we're looking at is we're looking at one of our campaigns. So this is a conversion campaign. Yesterday in the optimization that we did, we set up a conversion campaign.

And today, we're going to dig through some of the sets, not of that exact campaign, but a conversion campaign. So just to kind of bring you back to the very, very beginning, to what we covered earlier in the week, there was an of different things that we had going on. So we have this cold traffic campaign that is running, and the cold traffic campaign is built around lookalike audiences. So if we dig into this, we have some lookalike audiences which are buyers, prospects, leads, basically, people who raised their hand and said, "Yes, I'm interested in learning more," or "I'm interested in what you do."

So once they become a lead, once they qualify themselves, then they're assembled into this audience... That the point of the Facebook conversion pixel! Next, we create a lookalike audience and now we're reaching out to everybody else that is who Facebook thinks is like that. And then we're putting an ad in front of them. So that ad is this ad. So it's a dynamic ad that it's a collection of videos and images that recycled. And how that ad is set up is we have a couple of different variations of text. We have a couple of different images in a couple of different videos. You can see there's one of the videos. Let me open up this. So I'm going to preview.

There we go. So let me check out the variations here. So this is one variation. So then we have another variation where the ad where the image is switched. Then we have a video or an image where there is a sales video, or not a sales video, but just a marketing video. So you can see there's a video of me and then we have another one which is another video. And then so there are lots of different variations here. This one I'm testing out different emojis. So here I have a little download guy or a little a download envelope.

And then here I have a Superman cape, like a Superman, super whatever. And then just some arrows. So with this dynamic creative, it is going through and just going, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's split testing all of these ads and it's not telling us what is winning. They wouldn't do that because they want us to continue spending money on ads. But what it is doing is optimizing the creative in the background. And it's also showing slightly different versions of the ad to people who we are seeing the ad. So that is keeping it fresh in our prospect's minds. And then also kind of reinforcing our message through lots of different ads.

So that is why dynamic creative works well. So that is our cold traffic ad. Now on Wednesday, we set up a retargeted ad. And if you remember, the retargeted ad was... Let's see. So if I go in, I'm going to check out the ad creative, it's just an image. This is just an image. Nothing too crazy. Funnel flow made simple with just a graphic. But if we look at the audience of this, you can see that this is only showing to people who have been on the website in the last 30 days, and people who they signed up as a lead.

So they're familiar with us in one way or another. And that's who sees the ad. And the audience isn't huge. The potential reach is still available because it is a smaller audience. After all, they've either been to the website or not. And then we kept the targeting pretty open. So 18 to 65, that way if somebody came to the website and they weren't necessarily in part of one of our interests, then the app would still show it to them. So they retargeted ad is left open for a reason.

Let's see. So those are the two campaigns. We've got the cold traffic campaign and then we have the warm traffic campaign. Now what I want to do is I want to go in and look at the data. So there are lots of different kinds of ways that we can check this out. One of my favorites though, so we have our conversions set up. So to set up conversions you go into... Let's see. If we go down, so pixels are where we set up our pixels. And we can set up a conversion pixel in here. So basically what we do is we cookie a page. So if somebody hits a page then they get added to an audience. And then we have our audiences here.

So we have our lookalike audiences, video views to 10 seconds, video views to 15 seconds, video views to 50%. So all of those are the different audiences that we're going after. And then if we go into custom conversions, this is where we set up our conversions. So one of the custom conversions that I have set up is for this right here. So it's a $4.95 video course. That's the course we're retargeting. Then this is the URL that we're targeting. So if somebody hits this URL, that means they successfully purchased the video course and its increments, it adds the conversion into the sequence.

So when setting up the reporting, basically what we do is we add that reporting into the mix. So we say, "Okay, we are looking for this particular piece of information." Here, let me just go there. So I'm going to ad manager, and then if we go here into our cold traffic ad, we see. So I'm just going to pull the special report that I have, and now this right here is the number of buyers that resulted from those campaigns. So this one right here is showing us, 11 buyers. Now the interesting thing is if we break this down into by delivery, age, and gender, then we get to see a very interesting look at our data.

So here we go. We're just going to grab this, then break down age and gender. And then here, right there. So you'll see that of our age groups, 35 to 44 female, we got some reach, some impressions, no buyers. Then we have 35 to 44 male. We have one lead, 202 reaches, 360 impressions. And our cost per result was $16.61 per lead. So that's out of control. I mean $16.61 to get one email address. That's nuts. Now, if we go down here and say, "Look at this data." So we have a 55 to 64 male, we have 18 leads within this time. Those 18 leads, there was 401 people saw the ad. There were 899 people impressions, and then the cost per result was $3. So it ended up being $3 per email lead for this 55 to 64 male. Of those 18 people, 11 of them purchased our little $4.95 course.

So, what that means is that all of these other demographics, all of these people who could have potentially bought the course but didn't, and also were much more expensive from a lead cost, that means 55 to 64, they were our people. They were my people. And I found this in quite a few iterations of the stuff that we sell, but typically 55 to 64 male just worked well with us. And this is conclusive data that this is true. Do you know what I mean? So what I did in knowing this, I said, "Okay," let me just hit none here. So if we look at these audiences, what I did was I broke it down and said, "Okay, now since I know 55 to 64 male is my audience. So they're my buyers. Then let's create an ad set for each of them."

So now we have an ad set for 55 to 64 US dynamic. Then we have 35 to 44 males, which I mean this budget is next to nothing, but it's good to have them there just to see if they pick up eventually. So then we have a male 55 to 64 mobile. So also... Here's another kind of another little interesting tidbit here. So which one was it? Yeah, this one. So this ad set here, this is the one that sent the 11 sales. We're going to go into this ad set. I just want to show you something real quick.

So if we go into this ad set, you see that the ad set is only on desktop. So in this particular ad set for whatever reason, we have manual placements checked, and it's desktop, and it's only Facebook. So no Instagram, no Messenger, no audience network. Actually, on desktop, you can have Instagram or Messenger, you can't have an audience network though. So our buyer's 55 to 64 on a desktop, using Facebook conversion pixel. That's our magic sauce.

And again, I haven't seen this quite a few times, like throughout doing business online is our people tend to be that 55 to 64 segments on desktop. That's not discounting mobile. So mobile, what often happens is somebody will opt-in on mobile because they're on their device on mobile. But then they get the email, and once they get the email, that confirmation email that sends them the report or their link or whatever, then oftentimes they will click the link in the email on a desktop if they're into it, and then they'll come and buy.

So you want to make sure that the emails that go out, they have the lead magnet link and then also the offer link if there's an upsell afterward or whatever. So it's just kind of an interesting little data play that you just want to make sense of. Does that help? Does that make sense? Okay, cool. So let's see. It looks like grace said hi. Hi, grace. And then we have, let's see... It just says Facebook user, unfortunately, but hello to the person who replied good morning to me. So hello.

Let's see. Okay, so data, campaigns, ad sets, all of that stuff. Where else can we dig into the custom conversions? So I think probably the other thing I want to talk about is just these video view campaigns. So one of the best ways that we end up assembling audiences for startups, for folks who we just kind of start working with, and we start from scratch. Are we do these video view campaigns, and how you set up a video view custom audiences, you go custom audience, then you use Facebook conversion pixel sources.

So when you use Facebook conversion pixel sources, we have video and then people who watched at least three seconds of your video, 10 seconds, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 95%. The person who watches more of your video, they're more engaged. So at the end of the day, that is helpful. It's great to know because somebody is not going to watch 30 seconds into your live stream if they don't care if they're not engaged if they're not reasonably interested in the thing you're talking about. Things on Facebook move quickly, especially when you're just swiping down.

Gary V. says, "Well if they're not interested in it, it took them a fraction of a second to think that they weren't interested and then just continue swiping." So it's fine. So the person who watched 30 seconds or more of your video, or 15 seconds or more of your video, they're interested, which means that we should be showing them additional ads. So how we set this up from a marketing funnel standpoint is we say, "Okay, the engagement is 15 seconds or more of any of these videos."

So a 15-second video play on Facebook is called the ThruPlay. Now we're going to choose these videos. So this particular video has gotten 11,200 views. Then we have these, got 2,600 views, whatever. So you go through and you just choose all the videos that you want the Facebook conversion pixel to keep track of. Might be promo videos, it might be ad videos, it might be live streams, whatever it is you want them to do. Then we're going to hit confirm. We're going to select those videos, and then we're going to tell Facebook how far back we want it to go.

Now, if you're creating an audience from scratch and you're just kind of getting started, 365 days is fine because we want all the data we can. Some data is better than no data, but more recent data is the best data to evolve. So if we do the last 30 days, then the last 30 days ends up being our warm market. So those people, 30 days, they might remember us. 10 days, they remember us. So what we're going to do is we're going to call this our video views. 15 seconds, 30 days. So then when we create this audience, basically what it's going to do is say, "Okay, do we want to create an ad with this audience, or do we want to expand this audience?"

So we are going to create a lookalike audience of the people who watched 15 seconds or more of our video. Do you follow me? So Facebook conversion pixel is going back and saying, "Okay, all the people who watched 15 seconds of the video, now go find me 2 million people just like them. 2 million people just like the people who watched 15 seconds." And then like we did in our optimization campaign yesterday, we take those 2 million people and we drip them down. So we go from 2 million down into a geographical location, which could be a town or city or state or whatever, or it could just be the country. And then it's all 2 million people. And then we go interest group, and then we go gender, and then we go age and all of those other selects. So that it whittles those 2 million algorithmically perfect people down into 50,000 or 100,000 or 200,000 people.

So that's the scenario of this kind of video view campaign. The reason it works so well for people who are starting, kind of startup business owners, or startups, or new digital course creators or whatever, is because we're using Facebook conversion pixel data to build all of this. We're using Facebook, we're using all the algorithms, and the social profiles, and all the data that Facebook is gathering about all of us. And we're using it to build our customer avatar. And before we know who needs to give us their email address and who we need to target from an opt-in standpoint, we can use the tools that Facebook already has, that Facebook has made available to all advertisers, and everybody who's creating content, we can use those tools to dial in our target market.

You don't even need to be an advertiser to do this. If you have a page and you're putting videos on your page, Facebook conversion pixel is tracking and Facebook conversion pixel is keeping track of who watched your video in the last year. So you could go and create this audience inside your ad account. Even if you've never created an ad, and Facebook conversion pixel will have data for you chilling back here, ready to build your audience for you. So if you use a lot of videos and you've never done this before, then you probably already have a treasure trove of data that you just haven't used yet.

So it's important to know that if you're doing anything with video, video is such a great tool. Then you're going to be able to leverage that stuff automatically. So I think that's really about it on the data and lookalike audience front. So this week we walked through Facebook conversion pixel and Facebook ads. We walked through a marketing funnel on Monday, we walked through cold traffic ads on Tuesday, we walked through retargeted traffic on Wednesday, campaign optimization on Thursday, and we walked through data today. Is there anything else you can think of that you want me to kind of kick through in the next couple of minutes? Because I have another show at 11 called the Sales Systems Experts.

So I think we're just going to kind of dive into that. That we're going to talk about conversion. Five killer tips for conversion or something like that. So I think that's it. With that, Monday, I think we're talking about offers. I think next Monday next week, and probably the next two weeks are going to be creating digital offers. We're going to go through and talk about eBooks, video courses, memberships, software systems, basically doing a software boot camp. Or not a software boot camp, but an offer Bootcamp. I think that is going to be the plan, which is pretty exciting. So let me know if you have any questions, go to doneforyou.com/GSD to ask questions. Or go to doneforyou.com/start to book a call and talk to us about an action plan. And I'll see you soon. All right, thanks. Bye.

The post How To Set Up The Facebook Conversion Pixel And Ad Campaigns appeared first on Done For You.

JD:
Hey, what’s up? This is JD. Welcome to today’s presentation of GSD Daily. Today, we’re going to talk about how to optimize Facebook Ads! So first of all, I am joined here today by Jenn. How are you doing, Jenn?

Jenn D:
I’m doing fabulous, Jason. Thank you.

JD:
That’s awesome. So a couple of days ago, she texted me or sent me a message or whatever and said, “Hey, can we optimize Facebook ad campaigns?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure. You want to do it on our Daily?” And she was like, “Yeah.” So, that’s how it started.

Jenn D:
Yes.

JD:
Tell me, as my cat’s running around here. First of all, I am sitting today because I’m doing something different with my whole standing desk setup, which is exciting. Jenn, tell me a little about the campaign, who you’re targeting, what it’s for, what leads you’re getting, and then we’re going to dive into the actual ad account and move around all of that stuff.

Jenn D:
So right now I’m running a giveaway on. I’m a photographer, and I am doing a boudoir giveaway. And I have been doing this for I think maybe two weeks now, and I have had a lot of success with the ads currently and I’m trying to figure out to take them next. I am looking for a very distinct type of lead for this, and so I’m guessing is that I’ve used my Pixel for several years, and it’s broken in per se.

JD:
Right.

Jenn D:
I feel there’s more I can be doing with this ad than just right now it’s wide open to a big audience, and so I’m wondering how can I best change what it needs to be changed so that we can optimize Facebook ads for the people that are seeing it and clicking on the links.

JD:
Right, totally. So who is your ideal person? Your ideal buyer, if you were to, first of all, describe them, age, demographics. What happened in their lives to bring them to you? That kind of stuff.

Jenn D:
I’m looking for obviously a woman, and typically they’re probably in their 30s to 50s. These women are probably most likely people that enjoy investing in experiences in their life. So they like to shop, maybe they like some luxury brands. They like to maybe go to experiences like concert venues, and they’re the ones that buy the VIP tickets, and I’m trying to just think travel a lot.

My clients like to travel. So people that like experiences. Coming to a portrait studio is an experience in itself. In a nutshell, those are the type of my people that are typically married. They have a couple of kids, and they’re not feeling like a woman anymore. They’re feeling mom syndrome hard. That’s who I’m looking for.

JD:
Got you, cool. So let’s dig into the campaigns and see what we are working with in terms of going there. So we’re going to drop into the campaign. I should probably share it on my screen. All right, there we go. Okay, so make this a little bit bigger hopefully, okay. These campaigns are live, and Jenn, can you just describe your naming convention here. So this is, if we go out to the campaigns, we have luxury boudoir, traffic campaign, and then underneath ad sets. So if you need to just talk through your naming convention there.

Jenn D:
It was pretty much just so I would know which image, which… The only thing I changed, this is five ads and the copy is the same on each ad. The only difference is the image. So the naming of this is one of my audience, age demographics, so you can see 24 to 52. The location I used was Erie DMA and then the rest of it is the image reference.

JD:
Is the image, right. Yes, totally. One thing that we can do is, so let’s look at these ad sets real quick. The campaign is the dominant campaign, the campaign that all of the ads are in. Then the ad set basically what it does is it establishes the demographic and the target interest and says, okay, all of these people are going to see these ads. And then the ads, you can have multiple ads within that ad set, all targeting the same people, which tends to get you a little bit better results because you’re split-testing against the same people. So let me look at this real quick. So if we dig down into these ads. Looks like we’re excluding some folks, which is great.

JD:
We have women 24 to 52. You have no detailed targeting which is super interesting. So you’re just casting the widest net, the super-wide net, and saying, “If you are breathing and a woman with between the ages of,” what was it? 24 and 52?

Jenn D:
Yes.

JD:
You’re going to see this ad. So boom, so there is an opportunity there. We’re using manual placements, which is fantastic. We’re using Facebook, just Facebook and we’re using all devices, so desktop and mobile on only Facebook currently. So, all right. And then this ad set is going to be the same, right?

Jenn D:
They’re all exactly set up the same just like what you just saw. The exclusion is actually… those are my pages that they click on. So I don’t want people coming and seeing that ad again if they’ve already been to those pages.

JD:
Correct. Yes. Perfect. And these are your confirmation pages then?

Jenn D:
Yes.

JD:
Okay, perfect. Okay, so I think what-

Jenn D:
Campaign right now, so I’m not sure, I was wondering if this needs to go to a conversion campaign.

JD:
Well, you are getting conversions, right?

Jenn D:
Well, yeah.

JD:
You’re getting leads. They’re clicking through to the conversion campaign. The conversion page.

Jenn D:
Yes. I just don’t know. And if you go to the columns where it says columns performance, I have one that says… “Oh, I see.”

JD:
I won’t see it, but we can make this little customer report real quick. So is it set up on a … Oh, there it is. Custom conversions. Look at you go.

Jenn D:
I don’t know where you’re at.

JD:
Oh yes.

Jenn D:
Set up in here already for…

JD:
When you’re creating a new ad, basically you can grab the columns and you can go through and select different columns. So then you would just customize the columns and then that brings up all the different ways that you can customize the columns, all the different columns you can bring in. And if you click custom conversions, your custom conversions are set up right here.

Jenn D:
Those are the two that I was looking at to see what I’m paying for the people making it to those pages. Correct?

JD:
Yes. So we are going to pull that report just real, real quick. So we’re going to pull the report and it looks like… Holy shit, we got a lot of conversions. This is nice.

Jenn D:
I don’t know what you mean by that. The impression are you looking at-

JD:
So it’s saying we have a luxury boudoir, thank you. 91 conversions from this first ad, 43 conversions from the second ad, 63 from the third, and 56 from the fourth. Does that sound about right?

Jenn D:
Yes.

JD:
You’ve generated 316 leads-

Jenn D:
Yes. That’s right.

JD:
… off of $232 in ad spend. That is ridiculous.

Jenn D:
Is it good?

JD:
That’s ridiculous. That’s so good.

Jenn D:
wide-open market

JD:
The wide-open market, I mean, first of all, you’re doing awesome from a lead conversion standpoint. The wide-open market though is it might detract from the avatar that you started with. The person who is into experiences. I mean, we both live in Erie, Pennsylvania, so all of the people that are seeing this ad are not into that stuff, you know what I mean?

But if we wanted to cut and tighten down that market a little bit and I think we could still generate the same lead costs, even with a tightened down market. Do you want to set up… I don’t want to do anything with this campaign the way it is because we’re generating leads with it, so I don’t want to mess with any of these, but what I would like to do is set up a second ad set, then add those ads underneath with maybe a dynamic campaign and some better targeting and see if we can beat this thing you got going on.

Jenn D:
So we just duplicate what I have there and then you-

JD:
Yes.

Jenn D:
Okay. That’s what I thought.

JD:
So what we would do is we would… so do you want me to go ahead and do it?

Jenn D:
Let’s do it. So we’re going to run just as they are and we’re just going to make a couple of new ad sets or do you make five new ad sets?

JD:
I’m just going to make one new ad set and put five ads in that ad set. Only it’s going to be a dynamic ad set. So a dynamic campaign. I set it up on our Tuesday GSD Daily, a dynamic campaign like this, but basically, it’s one ad set and one ad, and that one ad has the five different creatives in it. And then it is up to us to optimize Facebook ads as opposed to looking at these guys or having to manually look at these and say, “Okay, where’s my best cost per lead?” Do you know what I mean?

Jenn D:
Let’s do it.

JD:
Okay. Cool. So where is your best campaign here?

Jenn D:
I think it’s the first one.

JD:
Yes. 48 bucks for. Shit. That’s awesome. All right.

Jenn D:
I think it’s, yes, I don’t know. I guess it has the most.

JD:
So we’re going to start a new campaign, and we’re just going to nest it inside this original ad set here. We’re duplicating the ad set and the ad, we’re going to give it a different name. We’re going to call it the DFY dynamic ad set.

JD:
We could also do a conversion campaign. Let’s do that. We’re going to do that. I’m going to discard this draft. What I’m going to do is I’m going to set it up as a conversion campaign. It’s a track, we have plenty of conversions for it to know who to target. And what it’s going to do is rather than charge you per campaign or per click, it’s going to charge per lead. So it’s also another way of getting a per lead cost reduction down. So let’s go to-

Jenn D:
per lead? Do you mean what exactly?

JD:
Per the email address?

Jenn D:
Okay. So it will know who entered their email address.

JD:
Correct. Because you have that conversion pixel set up. Basically, what we’re doing to optimize Facebook ads is looking is these 316 people right here, Facebook’s algorithm is built in such a way that it can go out and find many more people just like these people or it will you per email conversion.

The reason this makes sense when we optimize Facebook ads because, with its algorithm, it can show the ad to fewer people knowing that those few people will convert at a higher rate so it has more ad inventory to then sell to everybody else. Do you know what I mean?

Jenn D:
Yes.

JD:
That’s why they do it. It sounds counterintuitive. It sounds like, “Well, you’re not going to lower my cost per lead,” but it truly is all a function of cost per thousand impressions. Here’s always that dynamic scale on the background. Before we do this though, what I want to do is I want to go create a Lookalike audience since we’re doing a conversion campaign. Let’s go see what you got set up in the audience section.

Jenn D:
Okay. It’s a mess in there.

JD:
It’s okay. So step two is that your conversion?

Jenn D:
So step two is the page that they enter their information on. And step thank you is when they enter, enter like they’re submitting it

JD:
So step two is probably a little bit more qualified.

Jenn D:
No, I think the thank you page is the [crosstalk 00:14:07] page.

JD:
Probably the most qualified?

Jenn D:
The thank-you page is the last page you’ll see. So that’s where the submit button is. So step two, they enter their name and email and everything, and then they are taken to the thank you page.

JD:
Okay, cool.

We’re going to create a Lookalike ad or a Lookalike audience for the thank you because it’s the most qualified.

Jenn D:
Those are the people that finished the process.

JD:
Right. Yes. So we’re going to select the United States for the location and then we are going to… so it’s going to find 2.4 million people just like this set. We created it and it’s populating it now. So this is ready and once this thing, it usually takes half an hour to find all those people. But what we’re going to do is we’re going to go create an ad using this Lookalike audience, and then we’re going to filter them down through some of the experiential things that Jenn described that her best clients use.

Jenn D:
So I have a question, why do we not do the Lookalike audience in the market that I’m marketing versus doing it in the ad.

JD:
So we’re going to do it in the ad, we’re going to create the Lookalike audience, and then we’re going to segment down into the zip code or the city of Erie. And then we’re going to segment down into interests so that by the time we’re done, we’re going to have a group of 15,000 people.

We’re going to duplicate this campaign. The reason we duplicate the campaign is it’s easier than creating one from scratch. So we’re going to duplicate this guy. We’re going to delete everything else we don’t need. And then we’re going to… so these guys, we’re just going to go ahead and delete these. All right. So I’m just going to delete these guys. All right. Deleting. And delete the last one.

Now to go from a traffic campaign to a conversion campaign, there’s a little setting you have to click. So the first thing is we’re going to go through and rename the campaign, was going to say DFY, B-O-U-D-O-I-R conversion campaign. So, and then we’re going to go down and pick the conversions campaign objective, which is going to tell us we need to do something different on the ad set, so we’ll take care of that when we get there. We’re doing campaign budget optimization.

That’s a big trick when it comes to how to optimize Facebook ads. So that is one campaign budget for everything that is in that campaign. And then if you want to target the ad set, do you want to do a different budget per the ad set and we can set that up. We’re just going to set it up at 10 bucks for right now just to see if we can get better numbers than the campaign that’s already set up. Next-

Jenn D:
his one ad?

JD:
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So we can change the budget once we’re done.

Jenn D:
It’s not going to affect the other one or anything to do with the other one.

JD:
No.

Jenn D:
Okay.

JD:
No.We’re going to keep DMA. All of the images are going to be rotated inside of the ad campaign now. I usually have LA for Lookalike, so that way I know it’s all driven from a Lookalike campaign and then interests. That way we know that this is an interesting campaign.

Now the conversion events, so this is that thing where we’re… so we’re looking to optimize Facebook ads – for Facebook to get us to thank yous, right? So luxury boudoir thank yous?

Jenn D:
Yes.

JD:
Okay. So that is now the conversion event. That is what we trying to do – to optimize Facebook ads – for all of your traffic. They want to just get people to that thank you page for you. And they know what kind of people have been hitting that thank you page so they know how to optimize Facebook ads from this point forward. We’re going to use dynamic creative, so that way Facebook sets everything up in the background.

To optimize Facebook ads, it’s going to be taking one ad or mixing and matching a bunch of different images and ad texts and stuff into the ad itself. And then dynamic creative is good. Then let’s see. Oh man, it looks like Mars is here and the bill is here. I haven’t even checked out the category, the thing. So that’s cool. The comments, so budgets we’re going to start today. So when you’re setting up a campaign to optimize Facebook ads budget, then this is where you set your spending limits. So right now this is saying that it’s $5 maxim per day. It’s $10 for the campaign and we’re only doing one ad set in here. So we’ll just delete that for now.

Now, this is where it gets exciting though. Here we are going to start pairing our audience down. We want to start with our Lookalike audience. So the Lookalike audience that we just set up was those 180 thank yous. So we have a couple of Lookalikes in here. Website page view and Mailchimp subscribers. Those are fine. We could use those, but they are lesser qualified than our new leads. People who have just been to the website, haven’t opted in for anything, they might be a little bit older. So we’re going to use this group. We’re still going to exclude the thank you pages. So out of your last, let’s say a handful of clients, how many of them have been below 30?

Jenn D:
I mean, I can tell you that real quick if I can only start the [inaudible 00:20:57] with what looks like. Oh, there’s quite a bit of them. Actually no, there’s only 32.

JD:
That has opted in underneath 30?

Jenn D:
Yes. Oh, under 30 there’s been, hold up, quite a bit. Okay. So out of the 300 leads, I have 86 of them under the age of 30.

JD:
Okay. So how often do you sell something to somebody under 30? Let’s put it that way.

Jenn D:
Well, I just started this, I don’t have a lot of data.

JD:
Okay, so let’s approach this a different way. So if you had to put one 10 year age group, who is that best person?

Jenn D:
Okay. So what they’re seeing when they do this is they do have to tell me their age. So I have a grouping of 31 to 40-year-olds and then that is the bulk of it. And then 41 to 50. So I would say 30 to 50. I went a little bit above 50 because the women above 50 have more discretionary income because their houses are usually paid off, their kids are out of school. And I’ve gotten quite a few 50 pluses, which I was surprised. I did it to test it, but I would say, about 40 of the 300, and some are in that 50 plus, but the majority is in that 30 to 50 range.

JD:
Okay. So once these people start coming in for sessions and you start selling stuff, then we should probably alter these campaigns because I guess that somebody at 35, somebody between the ages of 35 and 45 are going to be your biggest, most hyper-active buyers. Then you’re going to have the other age groups outside that are going to fall off a little bit.

JD:
Now, it still makes sense to advertise to them, but it’s going to cost more per sale, not per lead, but the sale. And when you make that sale is going to be a higher dollar figure, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of times we’ll run this optimization and we’ll see that… even for our stuff, 55 to 64 male is our number one buyer to the point that they buy three times more often and they spend three times more money. So there are buyers all over the spectrum, but if we are discretionary with our ad spend, that is who we’re going to be going after is that hyperactive buyer, you know what I mean?

Jenn D:
And everybody that has booked from this ad so far has been in that 41 to 50, except for one person.

JD:
Okay. All right. We’re just going to do this and so we’re going to kick this up 40 to 50 just to see what shakes out of 40 to 50. I mean, we’re spending so little money daily that we’re not able to reach everybody anyway.

Jenn D:
Yes. And it says the reach over there is 300 to 900 people?

JD:
Yes.

Jenn D:
Are you looking for a number there?

JD:
No. So that’s daily rates. The potential reach is unavailable. It’s not going to tell us because the Lookalike audience hasn’t finished calculating it so it doesn’t know what the top end is. This is what’s our $10 a day will give us, and then it’s saying that we’ll get about 10 conversions on $10. It’s all just conjecture at this point. And then for detailed targeting, so we’re targeting Erie, and then we’re going to go through and detail targeting. So we’re going to go through and add some interest. Now people around here, our higher net worth folks, so where do they shop at a grocery store?

Jenn D:
Wegmans.

JD:
Okay. So this is going to be the interest category. Where would they shop for department stores, do you think? You don’t have any anymore.

Jenn D:
So a lot of these clients are driving to Cleveland and Buffalo to go to the Galleria to go to the legacy village, I would say vendors are-

JD:
Like coach persist.

Jenn D:
And the ton is popular with this market.

JD:
There it is.

Jenn D:
There you go.

JD:
All right. There we go, in interest. All right. So let’s see what else? Prada, Chanel, Burberry. So I just hit the suggestion box. Trader Joe’s, I think, well we don’t have any Trader Joe’s around here-

Jenn D:
We don’t… I would say given how sponsored this is, so I know there are local places here like but any type of salon or spa service. I don’t know if that’s helpful. Erie just really doesn’t have a lot of luxury shopping places.

JD:
Yes. All right. So let’s do it this way. So Louis Vuitton. Lots of those people have American expresses, American express very much caters to that higher-end person. We got 52 million in there. So our reach is 126 to 363 now. Let’s see what else do we want to do. Visa and MasterCard, none of those guys. Chanel, Gucci, Hermes, Trader Joe’s. I think this is fine for now. Whole foods, so people do like whole foods and Trader Joe’s, even if they’re around here.

Jenn D:
If I were doing this, I would swap Dior for Gucci because Gucci is very, very popular here as well.

JD:
There we go.

Jenn D:
And are we just looking for interests or is there a way to target college grad or a job type thing or …?

JD:
So there is some of that. So what we end up doing is there are two different things and not many people use them. There’s this narrow audience field here and if we narrow the audience down, we can then add additional classifications. So let’s see, a college grad right there. It doesn’t do too much to our reach, but again, qualifies us a little bit better so we can add demographic information. So education, financial demographics, we can add some income, household income, top 10% of zip codes US.

JD:
Now, remember this is filtered down from the top, so we start with the Lookalike audience and then we go down into age and then female, and then we go down into the interest. So these people are going to be your people, people similar to the people who already opted in. Let’s see, what else can we throw in here?

Jenn D:
So the more you fine-tune this, does the ad cost go up or …?

JD:
The ad cost is going to go up a little bit probably, but we don’t know until it’s live. My guess is the ad cost is going to go up a little bit, but your lead is going to be better and your lead might end up working itself so that it ends up being cheaper because the ad is being put in front of fewer people.

Jenn D:
I’m just wondering, once you start using these filters, the demographics and stuff to optimize Facebook ads like, “Oh, the more you enter here …?”

JD:
No.

Jenn D:
No, no. Okay.

JD:
No.

Jenn D:
So you get in here and make your own little …

JD:
You can go nuts with it. I mean, we still have good reach, but there are times where you can go in and say, we have some clients who do business development stuff. So when we used to do revenue targeting or industry classification, sometimes you would add a classification that would make an ad more expensive but that was also because there was a lot of competition in those sectors. So photography tends to be a pretty cheap niche to advertise in or for.

The other thing you can do is you can hit this little button and this is reaching people beyond your detailed targeting selection. So to optimize Facebook ads with its algorithm thinks that there are people outside of the people who you are explicitly targeting that would make sense for this offer, then they will show the ad to them. So we’re just going to click that.

We’re going to do automatic placements. So when you have a lot of conversion data and when you have a lot of conversion data, Facebook knows who to find. So automatic placements are usually a really good thing. And then if it’s not, we can always come in and just hit manual placement and then just do Facebook. That how we optimize Facebook ads at least.

But right now, this way, this ad shows up on Instagram, it shows up in messenger. So it’s going to show up across the board. I’m not crazy about audience network, but the way we’re going to be set up this ad audience network is okay. So this is good. This is our ad set.

Jenn D:
Where does the audience network?

JD:
So the audience network is going to be under manual placement right there.

Jenn D:
And what is that?

JD:
It’s all of Facebook’s partner websites. So people in apps that use the Facebook ad platform to monetize their games or they’re whatever. It’s usually on, it’s a lot of mobiles. And then when we optimize Facebook ads, Facebook serves the ads up into this audience network. It’s a Catch-22 sometimes. Sometimes you get cheap traffic, but oftentimes that cheap traffic doesn’t convert. If Facebook has all of the audience data that it needs or all of the conversion data that it needs, it can make the audience network work well, but it won’t work for just cold traffic.

Jenn D:
And I’m sure you’ll say it later, but I’ll be able to see where those conversions are happening?

JD:
Yes. So I think we’re good on the audience now. Now the fun begins. So actually this is going to be pretty easy. Oh, you know what? I don’t think I’m an admin on your page. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to add my page here and then we’re just not going to publish this adhere. Because I’m not an admin on your page, which means I can’t attach your page to an ad even though I’m an admin in your ad account. So we’ll figure this out after the show. Yeah, so we have our ad now you’re…

JD:
Here’s looking for a single image or a video which you have, the dynamic creative. What we’re going to do is we’re going to give it multiple images in multiple headlines, and then Facebook we’re going to end up running that split test in the background. We’re going to add split or select images here. So is it this one?

Jenn D:
Yeah.

JD:
Which images is it?

Jenn D:
Yes, that one. The girl in the second row, the second one in, and the first one, the first and second one. Those two did well. How many do we need?

JD:
We can have up to 10.

Jenn D:
Oh, okay. And then we can use that. Oh, that second one has a yellow triangle, I’m not sure why.

JD:
Marked on the mobile newsfeed, the tallest support. Oh, it’s too tall in the mobile newsfeed.

Jenn D:
Yeah. And then the four, five, six-one in on the top row, the other ones got denied, to be honest.

JD:
Okay. Yeah. Well, I can understand that. Yeah. All right, so these we’re going to run with. My mic is right where the continue button is. Okay, cool. So now we have these images and to optimize Facebook ads – Facebook is going to be split testing these images in the background.

We just hit that allow optimizations. This is a great ad copy. I mean really, there’s nothing to change there, you even got the little Bitly link in there. The headline is good. You’ve got the emoji description. Good. We have a Bitly website URL there for tracking. The display link is good and learns more is good. Conversion tracking is good. The rest of this is all good.

JD:
I mean, basically what we did was, we turned your ad into a conversion campaign. I’m going to go through this, just get out of here. We’re going to close. All right. So we can review and publish that after this. We went through, we changed your conversion, your ad campaign from a traffic campaign into a conversion campaign.

We set up a new ad set based on a Lookalike audience that then pulled people down into the interests and then squeezed the age group a little bit to see if that was a more profitable age group. And then we set up a dynamic creative ad with a creative already. I mean, when we turn this on, I mean, it’s going to be a little bit more expensive today. So from a lead cost standpoint, it’s going to be a little bit more expensive today as it gets going, but tomorrow you should see leads cheaper than what your existing campaign is. So that’ll be fun.

Jenn D:
Yay.

JD:
Yeah. So maybe we’ll do a little update video or something and see what the results came in as.

Jenn D:
Yeah. And how long would you give that? I guess is it just those first 24 hours to have that ad to work?

JD:
I would say probably a week. Usually, it takes 24 hours for a campaign to settle, especially on the low budget. I mean you have 300 conversions in there, so to optimize Facebook ads – Facebook knows exactly who to go after. So I think within 24 hours you should see that we’re going to have a good conversion cost.

I would say within the next four or five days, think about disabling that traffic campaign, and as long as this one is good and then you can start jacking up the ad costs on this guy.

The thing about this one is it’s built to scale because of that dynamic creative. So you can go from 10 to 15, 15, 20, 25, 30, and you can go up to 50. If you want to continue generating a bunch of leads, then this campaign is built to do it in a way that the other ad sets aren’t because to optimize Facebook ads, those images in the background, it’s showing.

When somebody sees your ad, they don’t just see the same ad four times. They see the same copy with different images, four times. It’s constantly optimizing into the background.

Jenn D:
Yeah. I guess it’s based on those 300 people that already converted, but how does it know just to keep it in the Erie area?

JD:
So we put that filter on top of it.

Jenn D:
Oh, we did, we just have the Erie DMA. Okay.

JD:
Yes. We have the Erie DMA. Yeah. So I mean if you wanted to open a studio in Buffalo, literally we clone this ad campaign and then we go to Buffalo and just drop 25 miles around Buffalo or Pittsburgh or whatever.

Jenn D:
Yeah. Perfect. I’m excited to see how this does.

JD:
I know. It’s going to be exciting.

Jenn D:
What will we look at in my ads manager to track specifically, what column? So can we go back there?

JD:
Totally.

Jenn D:
Because I have not been used to watching for this type of, is it the same? Would I still be watching that thank you page?

JD:
So the only thing that you’re going to be looking at, so this results in a tab right here, right there. The result of this campaign is going to be conversions. So literally it’s going to say 12 conversions and then your cost per result is going to be your lead cost.

Jenn D:
Okay. So what I want to compare that cost per result to the traffic campaign?

JD:
Right, right, right, right. Yeps. So here, like this one, so today you got 12 clicks at 32 cents, and then for you to see what results that got you, you have to go in and add that… so we have to add that custom event.

Jenn D:
That’s why I was wondering, it is still the… Okay. So those are the two I’m still looking at.

JD:
So you got seven leads off of $3 and 88 cents in ad spend. So 13 clicks got seven leads so far today. I mean that might be different a little bit later. And then so this one, it would just say your lead cost X and then this is the amount you spent today.

Jenn D:
Okay. Yeah, I just want to know how to compare these two once they get going.

JD:
That’s how you do it.

Jenn D:
Wonderful. I can’t wait to see it.

JD:
I know. Well, and the other side is, so it might be a little bit more per lead, but I would imagine that these people are going to book quicker, more quickly with you and they’re going to spend more money once they come to you. So there’s just something to think about there.

Jenn D:
Yeah, no, I mean, I am shocked that my… I’m worth [inaudible 00:40:30] 35 cents right now for …

JD:
Yes, totally.

Jenn D:
And what is a typical good range? I mean, I know we’re in a weird time right now and ads are a little bit less expensive, but typically where are you looking that you’re to change your budget or to see if I’m spending too much on this ad or this ad isn’t converting as well. What is a good range to know you’re doing okay with your ad?

JD:
Everything is different. I mean, for the most part, if you’re generating leads for under $2, you’re doing awesome. Email leads for under $2 is incredible, but then it’s all about how much they’re worth to you once they get to you. So let’s say, so we generated 300 leads here, 300ish, so you spent 300 bucks about to generate 300 leads. If one of them comes in and spends $3,000 with you, then you made 10 times your money. So how many times do you want to do that? At the end of the day, that’s always the question, you know?

Jenn D:
And I guess my thinking is if I throw more money at this, I’m going to get just more visibility-

JD:
Right.

Jenn D:
… or is that how it goes

JD:
Well, yeah. More awareness. Totally. So you’re going to get more awareness. So the way it was set up previously, you’ll get more awareness, Erie wide, everybody in Erie. In this way, you’re going to get more awareness in the circles that you want to gain awareness in.

The other side of this is with this new campaign, you can always target Buffalo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh and people can drive here, which is that something that Erie so desperately needs and doesn’t ever do, which is everybody tries to sell to Erie when we could… We have Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cleveland within 90 minutes’ drive of us. There are times my wife and son and myself will just jump in a car and go to Buffalo just for the ride. And so …

Jenn D:
Because it’s not unusual for me to get clients from outside of the region. And so this was one of the things that I wanted to figure out how to market. I knew there are markets in Mentor Ohio, which is a suburb of Cleveland, and how to get in front of them. So yeah, I’m going to be doing more market.

JD:
Whatever brings money here, and with this campaign, literally you clone the campaign, you drop a new zip code in it and then the rest of it is done. You just let it optimize Facebook ads for you, and you create maybe some new landing pages for that city.

Jenn D:
It’s a lot to think about, so every time you want a new city, I should do a new ad set?

JD:
I would, I would. I would do a new one. So what you would do is-

Jenn D:
Adding those cities to Erie, Buffalo, Cleveland, every ad set I do, I will do for every city.

JD:
You can duplicate and then add the new zip code in. So, and the rest would just be the same. So yes. I’m looking at my screen you guys can see it. Hey Matt. Matt said awesome stuff. You gotta come over and check out my creek behind my house, by the way. He fishes, he’s a fisherman. All right, cool.

Jenn D:
I’m new to optimize Facebook ads correctly, so-

JD:
It’s good. It looks awesome. I mean, the ads look good. The targeting, that’s always it. So once the ad is up and works, it’s how do you get more of those people, how do you get more of your perfect buyers. And the nice thing now is that to optimize Facebook ads, we just need to use Facebook’s tools that they make it easy if you use them, with that dynamic creative and with the Lookalike audiences and all that stuff. So it’s pretty powerful.

Jenn D:
Yay.

JD:
All right, well we went a little bit long today, so did you learn something?

Jenn D:
Me?

JD:
Yeah, you.

Jenn D:
Of course, I learned something.

JD:
Good.

Jenn D:
I learned a lot.

JD:
Awesome. So yeah, I don’t know, maybe next week we’ll jump back on and see what the results are and then what’s next, you know what I mean? So what do you want to do? What is the next iteration of this? Are people coming in and spending more money and so on.

Jenn D:
I’m completely fascinated by looking at spreadsheets right now. I look at this every day and I never dipped out on ads before but I’m like, “This is fun.”

JD:
Thank you.

Jenn D:
so I love it

JD:
Cool. All right, Jenn. Well, I will talk to you soon. Everybody else has fun. If you need any help, just go to [inaudible 00:45:41].com/start and we’ll get you taken care of. Cool. All right. See you all later. Bye.

The post Strategies on Enhancing Facebook Ads For Your Business appeared first on Done For You.

Today, we’re going to talk about how to set up a cold traffic Facebook targeting ad from scratch. I am going to walk you through all of the steps in doing so.

We are going to be linking to an advertorial or a blog post. That blog post is then going to link to a sales page. Thus, what we were going to end up doing is moving a customer or cold traffic person. Not directly to a sale but through a side door where we’re getting a click. Instead, we’re sending them somewhere else.

We’re letting them learn about us, read about us a little bit, and then off into the mix of the next, often, to something else. Well, first of all, this is the GSD growth plan that we are following this week. This is a weekly checklist that walks you through an organic and paid traffic strategy. What we’re going to do is, we’re going to walk through the cold traffic setup today, which I think is on the second page of that.

To demonstrate, we’re going to go over to a Google doc. I’m going to show you what we’re doing. I’m looking through a bunch of our funnel setups, finding one that’ll work nicely for what we’re talking about. We’re going to drop this over on this page and then we’re going to share this screen. All right. I’m going to stop sharing the screen. Thank you for the hearts. Appreciate that. This is where we are.

This is a video sales letter funnel that we move, that we adopt for quite a bit of stuff. We massage this thing to work in a lot of different markets like our fully qualified leads, sales video. The sales funnel falls out of this. Anything low ticket tripwire, anything fully qualified lead generated. All is a mashup of this sales funnel.

Facebook Targeting

What we’re going to do, today, we’re talking about Facebook targeting. We are looking at Facebook targeting and traffic right here. We’re kicking into a landing page or an advertorial. In this particular instance where we’re kicking into an advertorial, that advertorial is going to be this page. It’s a video.

A month ago on GSDdaily, I launch funnels. They go through this video, which is 100% content, 28 minutes of nothing but content, and then there’s a little button underneath. When they click on the button, they go into the sales video. You can see it follows this framework.

We have a Facebook targeting ad into an advertorial. In this case, it’s a video landing page. No opt-in. Some people call it sandwich squeezes. There are lots of other things that you can call it. They go into the video sales letter. Then once they do that, they fill out this little form. They go into the lead confirmation. In our case, they’re sent to the call scheduler, the calendar software.

It follows this framework exactly to a T. I’m not going to show you the email stuff setup, the email setup because that’s writing an email copy, scheduling the email. We talked quite a bit about email copy last week, but this is the general framework. Are we good so far? In the comments, just let me know if we’re good so far.

1. Create Facebook Ad Layout on Canva

What we’re going to do is, we have a Facebook targeting ad. In that Facebook ad, we created in Canva. I think we talked about it yesterday, setting up the Facebook targeting ad. This is the Facebook ad that we’re going to run. It is going to direct traffic to this page. We’re going to go through and set it up, which ultimately sends them to the sales video.

2. Create an Ad on Ads Manager Account

We’re going to go into Facebook now. Let’s go into our ad accounts. Then, I’m going to switch screens for this. Then we’re going to go here. I’m going to remove this. Share another screen. Let me go into the ads manager. This is my ads manager account.

What we’re going to do is, we are going to hit create an account or create an ad. Now, the primary purpose of this ad is a cold traffic ad. We’re looking to attract and engage people who don’t know that we exist just yet. What we do is, we label it. Cool. It’s going to be cold. We’re going to be promoting a launch funnel. Yeah, it’s a launch.

What is this thing? It’s a launch funnel video, how to build a launch funnel. Launch funnel, ABV for advertorial. We’re going to go down, going to be an auction. The buying type is going to be an auction. When you first start, it’s going to be traffic. Ideally, it shouldn’t be traffic. Ideally, it should be conversions, but basically, what we’re going to do is, we’re going to start by running traffic.

3. Set Ad Settings

Once we train the pixel, the Facebook targeting pixel, to about 50 conversions a week, then we’re going to flip off into a conversion campaign. We are setting up campaign budget optimization. That is one budget for the campaign and all of the ad sets underneath take from that budget. For each of the ad sets, you can then stipulate ranges. You can go from there. We’re going to create a new ad set. For the ad set, I usually make a descriptive. This is going to be look-alike audiences, male, 35 to 54 Facebook.

We’re going to do all. We’re going to let the Facebook targeting engine work for us. The ad name, we just have one ad. Normally, when we start a campaign, we have between five and seven ads, five and seven images. We do dynamic ads, but let Facebook targeting pick the dynamic ads because we ended up getting away cheaper traffic than anything else.

Today, what I’m going to show you is just setting up one ad. We’re going to save this as a draft. This is going to create a framework for it. It’s going to create the campaign, the ad sets, and the ads. Are we good so far? You can see my screen okay? All right. Cool. We go here and then we go into the ad set.

4. Set Ad Budget

It’s good to run as it is. Our daily budget, it’s going to start at $100. We can go up or down or pick a different one or whatever. The ad set itself, we want it to run on the website. We’re driving traffic to our website. We are not driving traffic to an app or WhatsApp or Messenger. We’re going to do dynamic creative.

We’re going to pick dynamic creative and hit okay. Hit continue. What it’s going to do is, Facebook is going to split test a ride for us. You can do a bunch of different images, a bunch of different videos, a bunch of different headlines. We’re just going to set that up because I think it’s probably the best way to set it up the first time out. I’d rather take an extra three or four minutes and show you the right way or show you the most current way, I should say.

Here, underneath audiences, this is where we start to pick who we want to see the ad. I just had a call with a client. We went through all of his audiences. We always set up cold traffic audiences. Your cold traffic audiences, especially when you’re starting a campaign or the people who don’t know who you are but who you want to.

5. Set Audience

If you’re a sales guy, if you’re selling sales training, then you want Grant Cardone’s audience. If you are selling internet marketing software, you want Russell Brunson’s audience. What you do is, you go through and you pick audiences. You lay your audiences in. If you have been around for a while and you have your audiences, then you can create custom audiences and lookalike audiences based on those custom audiences and then that ends up being sets of people who are like your buyers or like your leads.

We have lots of audiences because this is one of our accounts. For now, we’re just going to create … we’re going to grab lookalike audiences. They’re going to be warm leads or hot buyers, let’s say. Those are going to be our two lookalike audiences and then we’re going to go down to the age group.

5. Set Campaign Location

Additionally, the locations that I normally set up for Facebook targeting are anybody who was selling business development, business stuff, anything that isn’t segmented to the country is the United States specific. The segments that we’re looking at, the segments we want to try to hit are United States, United Kingdom, anything internet. If it’s the internet, it should be the United States, United Kingdom. Canada is the next one, New Zealand. All of our buyers come out of these five countries. Australia. Okay. All right.

6. Set Age Group

We scroll down here a little bit further. Age groups. Now, the age group is a tricky thing. When you’re starting and you don’t know what you’re doing or know who to start, go 35 to 64. If you don’t have 35 to 64, if you don’t have any, “This is my buyer. My buyer is 50 years old who blah blah blah” and you know that empirically, because for the most part, anybody under 35, they don’t buy shit on Facebook. If they’re older than 65, they don’t buy shit unless it’s golf, usually. There are some markets that they buy a lot. That’s where our sweet spot is.

Now, our sweet spot, I know our sweet spot is between 55 and 64, but this is a new campaign, a new offer. We’re going to see if it opens it up anywhere else. What we do is, go into detailed Facebook targeting. Usually, inside Facebook targeting, I set up either male or female. This one, we just not believe it. Now, your detailed targeting is where you’re going to layer your interest.

For this purpose, let’s say, this is a sales phone course or sales funnel advertorial, sales funnel video. Here, we’re going to talk or we’re going to put Ryan Deiss. In here, we’re going to put Russell Brunson. In here, we’re going to put Perry Belcher. Here, let’s see who else. Who else do we want? Mike Koenigs. I may not be spelling it right. Mike Dillard is another one. Let’s see, Brendon Burchard.

You can just kick through here and then add anybody who you want to hit with Facebook targeting. I always narrow the audience by at least one. What we’re doing is, we’re saying if they like any of these people and then they also like any of these or any of these things or these people, then show them the ad. Usually, what I try to do is, I layer in people in a thing. The thing might be Infusionsoft or FreshBooks, which is invoicing software or QuickBooks.

What we’re doing is, we’re layering in things people have to pay for, pay for when they are in business. Not only do they like somebody in business, but they’re also paying something, pay … Bill said, “Jason Drohn, he’s huge, haha.” Funny, funny. Not only do they like people in a market, but they also pay for something in the market to help with their business. You can just hit suggestions and accounting software into it; MailChimp, HubSpot. HubSpot is a big one. Salesforce is another one. What we’re doing is, we’re saying, “All right.”

Let me qualify this a little bit from an ad set standpoint. We’re looking for only cold people. Also going to exclude people who bought from us or are on our list currently. We’re going to exclude all of our warm leads, all of our buyers, and all shopping cart abandonment people. We’re opening it up to the market and we’re throwing out everybody who has already seen us.

We are saying, okay, of the people who are left, the people over here, then we’re going to drip them down into the country. We’re going to go through and we’re going to say, of all those people in the country who is between 35 and 64 and of all of those people who like Brendon Burchard, Mike Dillard, Perry Belcher, blah, blah, blah, and likes HubSpot, Infusionsoft into it.

What we’re left with is the number that we were left with was 150,000 people. In addition, this number doesn’t populate the way it used to. This is a great place to start. It was great for a cold traffic ad to start. Don’t worry about the hidden detailed Facebook targeting expansion thing just yet. We will get there. If you start increasing ad budget and you start running out of people, then that’s a good thing to do, but we’re not spending enough.

Even at $100 a day, $1,000 a day, we’re not spending enough to get in front of these people. Also, for automatic placements or where the ad is going to show up automatic placements, I go back and forth. I’ve talked to some people and they’re like “Automatic placements, shit. Yeah, that’s where you need to go.”

Generally, what I’ll do it, I’ll do manual placements and pull out audience network because I think audience network is shit traffic, but I have heard other people who run a ton of traffic say that audience network is great. I think the audience network is only great if you have a bunch of conversion data to back it up. If Facebook knows who they’re doing Facebook targeting, then the audience network is great, but if Facebook doesn’t and it’s a straight-up cold campaign, then pull out the audience network.

The other thing I would also recommend you do is, you could perhaps pull out devices too. You can just advertise on Facebook or just advertise on the desktop or just advertise on mobile. This is all your placement. That is all of that stuff. I have a call in 10 minutes. I’m going to have to get through the rest of this stuff here pretty quick. That’s a good thing. Our ad set, for the most part, is set up. We’re good there.

For this reason, we’re going to go over our image. It goes campaign, ad set, image. You can have many images inside of an ad set. As many ad sets inside of a campaign. Furthermore, you can only have one campaign. You know you can have many campaigns inside of an ad manager or in that account. With this particular image, the one that we’re using, we’re going to go ahead and upload that.

It is going to be a single image or video. This is also where you would upload a video. We’re going to select the image. The image is going to be good. I already have it up here. It’s my son, Sebastian, messing around with computers. There is our image. You can see it here. We’ll link it up to a Facebook page. We could do a carousel, but we’re just doing a single image in a video.

We selected the image and crop the image from here if we wanted. If you remember, then what we have to do is, we need to tell it where we’re going to send traffic to. This was the page we were sending traffic to here, the launch funnel page. They go from Facebook and hit this page. They go from here into the sales video when they hit that button. We’re going to grab this link over to our image.

We’re going to set up the text, the headline, the description, but we’re going to drop that URL in right there. Now, it’s showing us our ad. It also pulled out the headline. If we want to let it use the blog subject as a headline, we totally can do that, but the reason I wanted to set up a dynamic campaign was to show you some of this functionality.

First, the primary text is what goes above the image. You can see it up. See, FDF. We’re going to use how to sell higher-end products on demand. Now, if we wanted to split test this headline with another one, we’re going to just hit add another option and secret formula reveals. The true strategies or ad conversions, whatever. Your s-i-o-n-s. Okay. We have another one. Download my stuff. Awesome. All right. What Facebook is going to do is, it’s going to split test between these headlines for us. We have no control over how it split tests, what it shows.

We have no control over any of that. All we can do is just set it up and let it go and trust that Facebook’s algorithm is going to win. However, Facebook’s algorithm always wins. Not always, but I mean Facebook’s dynamic campaigns oftentimes beat stuff that we have tested forever. I think it’s because Facebook just gives preferential treatment to the ads that it runs.

Consequently, we have our headlines. Our headline isn’t a bad launch funnel, how to sell high-end products, but we can split test this guy. How to sell higher-end products on demand. Maybe we just do another headline that is with a launch funnel or something like that. That’s not bad. With a launch funnel and then our description. Click here to read the article. That is our ad. Furthermore, if we look, hopefully, these things stop bouncing around and loading. We’re going to go and look at these things. We’re sending them to a website URL. We have a display link and we don’t need to worry about that. We have a button to learn more, the call-to-action button. You can also add your URL parameters for your UTM variables.

Accordingly, we’re going to just go check out some variations. There’s a mobile newsfeed. We have 18 variations of this ad. Now, we only have one image, but there are 18 combinations between the text and the headlines and everything that we had set up. Check this out. Here we go. How to sell higher-end products on demand? We’re going to refresh. I’m not sure what outdated there. Maybe nothing. There we go. Launch funnel, how to sell higher-end products on demand. There are lots of different ways that this thing ends up split testing.

We’re going to go back to the desktop. How to sell higher-end products on demand. The next version of this is going to be a secret formula that reveals the true strategies for ad conversions. The next setup is going to download my stuff. We can have different headlines.

Facebook will go through and test all these for you. It will continue running the best performing variation. It doesn’t tell you what that variation is though. It’s not like you can lock it in and then go do it again. Yeah, that’s how to set up a cold traffic Facebook ad using dynamic ads inside Facebook. Did you like today’s presentation? You should because it was awesome.

I have four minutes left and a couple of caveats. If you use a video in this sequence, so if we go through and we change, we can add a video into this mix. We’re going to select a video to split the test against. This is not a video for this particular advertorial, but if we use a video for this, then what we can do is, we can create a custom audience based on how much of a video somebody watched.

Videos are way, way more powerful than images, but we have seen images work well too. It just totally depends on your market. It depends on what you’re running, but with these dynamic ads, you can set it up so that Facebook does the testing for you. You can have a couple of images, a couple of videos, and then the winner wins all the time, or the winner on the Facebook side wins.

Videos are going to let you acquire audience data that much faster because you can, inside the ads, so I’m going to go in, check out. I’ll show you the audience. You can create a custom audience of people who watched 15 seconds of your video, 25% of your video, 50% of your video, and so on. You can use that data again for the longterm.

Moreover, this is all video views of 10 seconds or more and it’s 4,600. We have these 1,400 video views there. There are lots of different ways to use that material. That’s number one. Once they hit the website or watch a video or opt-in, hit the website in any fashion, then we move them (inside the Facebook targeting) to a retargeted ad. That retargeted ad, then, is what we’re going to set up tomorrow.

Today, we set up the cold traffic ads, and tomorrow you can see them right there. Also, we set up the cold traffic ads. Tomorrow, we’re going to be setting up the warm traffic as the retargeted ads. Same scenario, different ad sets. Also, a few different images. Moreover, a lot of times, for the Facebook targeting / retargeting ads, we use just images which is a little bit different. Today, we talked about the cold. Tomorrow we’re going to talk about warm, setting up your retargeted ads, your warm retargeted ads. Thursday, we’re going to talk about hot ads, shopping cart abandonment, when that needs to fire. On Friday, we’re going to wrap it all up. I think that’s it and I got to go jump on another call.

For Questions and Guide

Do you guys like today? Yeah? Did you enjoy today’s presentation? All right. Cool. If you have any questions at all, make sure to go to doneforyou.com. Questions, go to doneforyou.com/gsd, and then we’ll make sure to answer the questions on a future presentation. If you would like to chat with us about setting up an action plan to talk about your traffic, to talk about your sales funnel, and get some stuff going for you, go to doneforyou.com/start. Fill out the little form and we will talk to you soon.

The post How To Create Facebook Targeting Ad Campaigns appeared first on Done For You.

Today’s GSDdaily will be about setting up a Facebook Marketing Funnel. This entire week we’re going to talk about building a marketing funnel. What we’re going to do is I’m going to walk you through our process of cold to warm traffic. Basically, how do you go from getting somebody cold with you, they have no idea who you are, you find them on the internet or they find you I should say. They don’t know who you are, they don’t know who your brand is, they don’t know what your brand is and you attract them.

You engage them and you engage them oftentimes through content like this. Whether it’s a live stream or whether it’s a blog post or whatever. There is a way to manufacture that engagement by dripping them through a marketing funnel.

The marketing funnel starts by understanding that people are going to find you and they’re going to be cold.

After they watch your video, once they read a blog post, once they do something online, they enter into your warm market. In your warm market then, they see different ads. They see ads for buying stuff, purchasing stuff, engaging with your brand a little bit more deeply. So that is the idea of the marketing funnel.

Facebook Marketing Funnels

First of all, I’m going to drop the Facebook group here. This is the traffic Facebook group because this entire week is going to be about traffic. We’re going to be talking about Facebook ads. We’re going to talk a little bit about live streams, a little bit about video and all that stuff. In it, we talk a lot about Facebook Marketing Funnels. So go ahead, join this group.

You will be happy that you did. Here we end up talking about anything traffic-related. It’s just really kind of the first traffic series that we’ve done. Let me also find a report for you that you will be able to download. You’re going to be able to download this guy.

Growth Plan Checklist

This is what is called our growth plan checklist. You may have seen it in a previous live stream, but the growth plan checklist is it’s our process for putting together organic and paid traffic strategies that work well. I’m just going to test it out make sure this is the right page. It’s called the GSD growth plan checklist. I’m going to enter this link here, so GSD growth plan.  So there’s a little PDF that you can use. It’s a pretty complete document, I think three pages. I’m going to walk through the checklist of the organic and paid traffic strategies that we’re going to talk about this week. We’re not going to get into the organic strategies this week because we’ve already documented the shit out of it in these previous GSD dailies.

Organic Materials

But basically, it is a live stream but then you transcribe.

• Transcription goes on the blog
• You embed the video
• The video ends up going out as a podcast

That’s the organic piece and what we’ve seen is that it is increased to traffic now about 20% week over week. So it’s growing and growing and growing. It’s catching on like wildfire. And the paid traffic piece of this. So let me pull this up and then I’m going to open up a window so we can go through this plan together.

Paid Traffic Strategy

Now, this is the strategy. This is the GSD weekly, the paid traffic strategy. So we’re just going to go through this quickly. But that link I just dropped. It’s a weekly action plan for expanding your audience and scaling the growth of your program. You’re attracting more and more people into your world.

The goal of this plan is to engage as many people as possible without spending a lot of money.

If you are just getting started, you’re just launching a program, a product, or a course or whatever, then what we want to do is we want to engage as many people or as we can. We want to engage as many people as possible for free and then retarget them into the things that we want them to go into.

1. Start With Content

What we do is start with content. The content piece is pretty simple. You record a live stream. I’m using a stream yard right now. I recommend doing this three times a week. I go to hell with the joke as with most things, and I do it five times a week with these GSD dailies. Then you get the videos transcribed at rev.com. You create a blog post, all that stuff. What we’re going to be going through this week though is this paid advertising piece.

2. Cold Traffic Facebook Marketing Funnels

Now, this paid advertising strategy. What it is, we step from cold to warm. We start with Facebook ads for our marketing funnel. We start with cold traffic Facebook marketing funnels, and we promote a piece of content to those cold traffic Facebook ads. It’s roughly 50% of our ad budget.

That might be if we’re spending a hundred bucks a day, it’s going to be 50 bucks for cold traffic. If it’s $1000 it will be $500 for cold traffic per day. And what we’re doing is we’re promoting that live stream, whatever the newest live stream is in the mix, we’re promoting that live stream until the next live stream goes live. So if you’re doing this once a week then you can promote that thing until the next one goes live.

If you’re doing it two times a week or three times a week, then you just promote till the next one goes live. I personally with these GST dailies, because I do them daily, we kind of do the best ones. Like if there’s some great stuff, then we’ll drop it to cold traffic. If it’s timely or if we get a bunch of engagements. So if you were to say hi through the comments right now, then it’s probably something we would drop to pay traffic.

Warmer Traffic Sequence

With a Facebook marketing funnel, when anyone watches more than 25% of any live stream or any video or visit the website, that’s when they go into this warmer traffic sequence. What they do is we’re using the live stream, blog posts, websites, and everybody who raises their hand and says. I am interested in the thing that you are doing by visiting, by watching a webinar, a video and by watching a live stream. If you’re just getting started, it can be 15 seconds. It doesn’t have to be 25% of a live stream because you might not necessarily get to the volume if you’re not spending a whole lot. So maybe it’s 15 seconds. It’s a Facebook thruplay.

But as soon as that trigger is tripped, as soon as somebody crosses one of those thresholds, they come to the website, they watch 15 seconds or more of a video, whatever. They opt-in, then they are put into this warmer traffic.

Promote a CTA offer

With this warmer traffic, what we do is we promote a CTA offer like a webinar or a lead magnet, whichever is getting better leads or cheaper leads. Or we might even go directly to like a tripwire, 495 offer at this moment, if we’re looking to qualify buyers and we know we have the ad budget to support buyer traffic so we might even go right there.

Usually, that warmer traffic space is like 35% of the Facebook marketing funnel budget. So, by and large, that tends to be kind of where it is. Now the next step, you have cold traffic and then you have your warmer traffic.

Warm Traffic

Warmer traffic is like your people. That’s your tribe. You’re engaging them, you’re growing them. They moved from cold to warm then once they’re in warm, we’re nurturing them and trying to get them to then move into an offer. So the offer is the hot traffic audience. These are like shopping cart abandonment.

People who attended a webinar, basically somebody who not only raised their hand and said yes I’m interested, but they also engaged with you and your brain and they said, yes I’m interested in you. Because if they said that then they are hot traffic. They’re people who we can show offers to and they will buy those offers. Now one very, very simple distinction here. As you’re moving, as you’re stepping people through this Marketing Funnel, you want to segment out to exclude everybody in the lower levels.

All of your hot traffic people, should not be seeing your warmer traffic ads and they should not be seeing your cold traffic ads. As they ascend into the level, we exclude them from everything downstream.

• If they’re cold, they’re cold, if they’re warm, however, they should not be seeing any more live streams.
• They should only be seeing retargeted ads. If they are hot, they should not be seeing your warm traffic or your cold traffic.

This week I’m going to show you how to set all this up. I’m going to show you how to exclude audiences, include audiences, build your cold audiences, your warm audiences, set up Facebook marketing funnel videos and image ads, and maybe do some dynamic ads and stuff like that.

That’s kind of the goal of this week. That’s what we’re going to talk about. The other piece of this is Google ads, which we’re not going to get into this week. Maybe next week we can get into Google or down the road a little bit. But Facebook marketing funnel tends to be always the place that we’re kind of starting with. And then we have our email nurturing here so you know how to nurture your email list.

Once they kind of hit that warmer traffic, then they opt-in. So now these people are seeing you from both Facebook marketing funnel on your cold campaigns and then also from targeted ads if using like ad role. And then they’re also seeing you from email as well. So that’s the idea. That’s the idea of the Facebook marketing funnel mode, called “retargeting.

Software for Creating Ads

Now, some stuff that I want to talk about is tools that we’re going to need to pull all this off. So what we’re going to do, we’re just going to go on a trip. We’re going to take a look at some different software that we can use, that we will be making use of this week in creating these ads.

1. Canva

Now the first one we’re going to talk about is a piece of software called Canva. Can it be an image editor? It is badass software, especially if you don’t have a designer or somebody like in the mix. So Canva lets you create Facebook ads for your marketing funnel. It does some video, but it doesn’t do like, you know when your Facebook ads. I just created a bunch of these this morning. Crawling and segmenting groups of folks. Retargeting nice. Canva is a great software platform for creating ads.

If you just go in and you have to have an account and an account is free, although I have the pro version just so there are all the images and stuff, what you can do is you can log in and just say, I want to make a Facebook marketing funnel ad. And then they have all kinds of really, really great Facebook ads.

I used something like this a little bit earlier. Just set up some image-based ads for a dynamic audience that we’ll teach you about how to do that a little bit later. But this is not a bad looking ad. I don’t sell pizza so there’s that. So I’m just going to drop a picture that I used this morning. This is my son shooting a bullseye and I used this as an ad. Then we have our little text block here. Now we can get rid of this text block and then I’m going to find a different text block. Elements text. There we go. We’re just going to use this big cheers thing. So buy my shit. Awesome.

All right now cool. We got that. Now, this could very well be a Facebook marketing funnel ad. Although, so with Facebook, it’s off. You don’t want to have any more than 20% text. It’s kind of a rule that kind of stands and kind of doesn’t. You want to have some text but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. Well, the less text the better. But you still want to have text if possible.

You also probably don’t want to say shit in there. So stuff. So buy my stuff and then maybe you want to space this out a little bit. Give it a little bit different line-height. And then let’s say you wanted to throw a block in behind it. So there it goes. So we’re just creating this little adhere. All right, cool.

Then we want to change the color to. One of the nice things about Canvas they did was color matching, which is kind of cool. So like that brown is in the image somewhere. So is that orange. It was just kind of sweet. So buy my stuff and then what we do is we just publish it. So this is done for a Facebook ad. Now I can’t say that this Facebook marketing funnel ad is going to sell a whole lot, but it’s there.

Do you know what I mean? So you can do anything you want with this guy. Usually what I’ll do is one of the pro features for Canva is you can then also resize this into a bunch of different sizes. So we’re going to resize. Let’s say we want to resize into, let’s see, 160 by 600 which is a banner ad format. And then we’re going to resize into 250 by 300. It’s going to be 300 by 250. 250. Then we’re going to do 468 by I think it’s 60 is the other one.

We’re going to just copy all these and resize them. Check this out. We’re going to continue to resizing. We need to add this. So always allow popups. And then we’re going to hit the resize button. So it’s going to make me do it again. There we go. So watch. Tink, tink, tink, tink. That’s required. You have to say tink, tink, tink, tink when it resizes like this. Haha. That’s funny. All right, so this is our Facebook marketing funnel ad, but then this is also our Facebook ad, but then we have this ad. So this ad we can go through and then we can drag it in here. We can make him just like this. I’m going to hit enter and then we have the buy my stuff and we’re just going to group this image right here.

We’re just going to duplicate. We want to group. Here and then group and then we make this big. Buy my stuff. Now there probably should be a banner, like an image or a button or something in there.

This is an image ad that ties right with our theme that we can then put into like adroll, which is a great retargeting platform. If you want to go look at adroll it’s A-D-R-O-L-L .com. We’ve got this one and then we have this one. I think this size was 300 by 250. So a different banner ad style. We’re going to group these guys together and then we’re going to make this big and so different banner ads size that we can run with. And then here again we have a different banner ad so we can just kind of, that’s kind of cool right there. So we have Sebastian’s big noggin then.

Then we’ll just group these guys and there we go. So now we have a bunch of different banner ad sizes from that one Facebook ad which is super, super … It’s well worth like the 18 bucks or whatever that Canva charges for it. But these banner ads you can import them directly into adroll which then gives you the retargeting around the internet. So, of course, you need to set up the targeting and the segmentation and all that kind of stuff. But it works out well that way.

Canva is probably the easiest place to go and start setting up Facebook ads. However, most Facebook ads anymore are video-based.

2. Promo.com

There is a tool that we like, we don’t use it, although we did and I think it was promo.com now. It was promo-by slightly forever for the longest time. Promo.com it’s a marketing video maker. It drops a couple of videos together and then lets you write text over it and puts a sound on it. We used to use this a lot, but it didn’t let you upload audio. I think it does now, but it didn’t before.

The videos it created were great and it was text-based and you got the benefits of using a video. You could track how much engagement you got. You could track how many people watched it. But there are some things you couldn’t do.

3. Apple iMovie

What I ended up doing, over the last couple of years, I got good at making videos using iMovie. If you don’t have iMovie or you don’t have an Apple, then you should get one because I can’t help you on Windows. Windows video making things. The one tool that I use or have used on Windows for the video was Camtasia. And Camtasia is great software. It also works on Mac.

4. Camtasia

Camtasia is a screen recording software. It records screens, it records your camera, it records the audio and then you can go through and edit everything together. So basically it layers it in its tracks and then you can slice and dice and move it around and edit stuff. Nice stuff. These screen recording software were how I learned how to edit video. Once you understand that video layers like a Photoshop document, then you can move it around pretty well. You can cut and paste and pull stuff out of one video and put it into another video. It ends up working out pretty nicely. So TechSmith is, or Camtasia is a great tool to use. If you’re on a Mac we prefer ScreenFlow.

5. Screenflow

So I have ScreenFlow on all of our computers. It’s a little faster it seems than Camtasia, although I haven’t been in Camtasia in probably three or four years. And then once you get to like the big boy video editing space, Final Cut Pro is probably where you want to be. It’s super nice software. It’s like iMovie only you get like all of the pro editing kind of features on it. So that works out pretty nice. And I think the last tool to kind of talk about.

All of these videos you can record them with a webcam. This is a webcam that you’re watching me on, which the video probably sucks right now. It’s not that bad. So no, I’m freaking clear. Wow. I’m not usually ever clear because I usually move around and stuff like as we get to this point. It doesn’t work out all that well, but whatever. So, but you don’t need anything fancy. An iPhone will work just fine. So this is newer, it’s not the newest but an iPhone will work just fine from a video editing standpoint. This is a webcam. It will work just fine. The webcam is sitting on top of a standing desk right now.

I’m not going to do a whole lot with video capturing stuff this week, although we will do some. It’s fricking difficult to do this life from a video captured standpoint. So we’re going to do some video stuff. All the video things that we’re going to do are going to be redone.

Not redone but I will have a couple of videos that we will create ads for. So for this week to go through the process and then we’re going to do some live streams. So we’ll start from scratch there. We’ll boost probably this live stream and kind of just work on what I do, how I boost this thing. And that’s about it. So like I said, Marketing Funnel, one-on-one stuff. Tomorrow we’re going to work on the cold audience and so we’re going to be boosting in post. Boosting blog posts and we’re going to be boosting live streams. So we’re going to be working on that cold traffic segment.

Then I think on Wednesday we’re going to do warm and then on Thursday we’re going to do hot and then on Friday, we’re going to wrap it up. I think that’s probably a pretty solid workflow. We’ll do that.

For Questions and Guide

If you have any questions at all, go to doneforyou.com/GSD and then ask questions there and we will get to them as we go. And then if you have any questions at all schedule a call at doneforyou.com/start. We will put together an action plan for you.

For your sales funnel, for your Facebook rollout, for your launch, for your Marketing Funnel, all of that stuff. It’s the quickest way to go from where you are to do.

The post How To Build A Facebook Marketing Funnel appeared first on Done For You.

TRANSCRIPT: Hey, what's up? This is Jason Drohn. Today what we're going to talk about is paying for traffic. Now, I know this is kind of a touch and go subject because paying for traffic is awesome when you know how to do it and sucks when you don't, or sucks when you don't have somebody to do it for you. Now, I want to kind of get into this clip that I pulled out of one of our courses called Funnel Formula. So we're going to go through this and then we're going to come back and kind of talk, expand on it a little bit. You got to rank for keyword phrases. I would get eight listings on the first page of Google for the same site, for one keyword phrase. There were keyword phrases that they were literally worth like $60,000 a year to me because we would get ranked for them and then we sell a bunch of affiliate products and then get paid commission.

So I loved free traffic. Now I love free traffic about this much. I think of free traffic as a bonus in all cases, but I do not build businesses. I don't consider it a foundation for a business, because what happened was is I had sites that were doing 20 and $30,000 in revenue, multiple sites, and then within a month, all of that revenue vanished. Google went through an update of their algorithms and all of a sudden everything that was working from an SEO standpoint didn't work anymore. All the link building, all the article marketing, social sharing, all of that stuff just didn't work. So overnight, the link network that I spent 10 or $15,000 building, all the content, all the sites, everything just disappeared. And what I was left with was some sites that got no traffic and they were pretty hideous, I mean, just because there were written for the search engines.

After you go through and you have the websites and you have the sales copy and have the sales funnel and your architecture is dialed in and everything is solid and you're ready to go, you're ready to launch, then you get to this point right now, this very second, this point, and you're like, "How do I get traffic?" Well, there are lots of ways to get traffic, so the thing you have to ask yourself is, do you want traffic fast? Do you want to traffic slow? If you want traffic fast, as in like right now, then you have to pay for it. Well, regardless, you're going to be paying for traffic. But if you want it right now, you're going to be paying for it. You're going to be paying per click, Facebook ads, Google ads, native ads, whatever. If you want traffic slow and you want it to be cheaper, then you go the organic content marketing route.

All right, so the reality of traffic is you're paying for it some way. You're paying for it in time or you're paying for it in dollars. So even SEO and content marketing, you're still paying for it in dollars. I mean, you're paying outsourcers, you're paying writers to write content for you. And this a lot of times isn't a cheap date. So you're paying bloggers, like Filipino bloggers, they'll charge you 25, 30, $50 per blog post, sometimes more, sometimes less. A really great writer is going to charge you 200 to $300 a blog post for a super awesome blog post, like 2000, 2500, 3000 words. They're books basically. They're well-researched. They got a bunch of images, they rank well, but they're also crazy expensive.

So no matter what you do, and if you write the blog posts yourselves, you're investing your own time. So how much is six hours worth to you when you're writing a great blog post? So there's always this time, cost, money trade-off when it comes to traffic. So you need to do something that you like, that you enjoy, that you're comfortable with, like these videos. This is kind of one of our traffic generation strategies. So doing these videos, getting them transcribed, getting ranked in the search engines, using the content on other social media platforms, it is a way that we can kind of expand our reach and go after a lot of new people who don't necessarily know about done for you and don't know what we do, which is awesome.

At the same time, could I spend 15 minutes kind of recording this and editing it? Could I spend the time a little bit differently and do something else? Absolutely. We also have paid traffic strategies where we are running traffic to our own advertorials, our own blog posts, our own lead gen, lead magnets and everything else, which also works really well. So we use both approaches. Now, the reason we do both is that we know that paid traffic is going to give us a quick hit and it's going to give us traffic whenever we need it. We can scale up, scale down, whereas organic traffic is always going to be there. Now we have thousands of people coming to the website that I can't even shut it off if I wanted to, which is awesome, because it's all good, solid traffic rooted in great search rankings and we're not doing anything weird like link building and keyword stuffing and all the stuff that we used to do way back in the day.

So traffic, it's an investment that you have to make one way or the other. You literally can't do anything. If you do nothing, you're going to get nothing, which is what a lot of people assume, that, "Well, I'm just going to put a website up." Well, the reality is there are a couple of billion other sites out there. It's not even like people are driving by your site every day. They don't know. They don't see it. You're completely transparent, unless you're letting people know that you're out there and letting people know is posting content, showing up in social media, running traffic. Those are all of the ways that you're paying for traffic, you're making the investment in traffic, not to mention, I mean, no matter what you do as a write-off, so these are all business expenses, so advertising when you're advertising, you're planning that you're growing your business. It's an investment. That's what advertising is.

So no matter how you choose to pay for traffic, just do it some way. Invest in traffic. Invest in the future of the growth of your business. It will pay in spades. If you have any questions at all, click here to book an Action Plan Call with my team...

And if you would like to learn how to build a sales funnel and run traffic, click here to learn more about the Funnel Formula Masterclass!

The post The Myth Of Free Traffic appeared first on Done For You.

TRANSCRIPT: Hey, this is Jason. One of the things we rely on the most when it comes to paid traffic is custom conversions. So inside Facebook, there are a couple of different ways that you can track conversions using the Facebook Pixel. And one of the things that we do is we'll set up custom conversions for important pages in our website. So what that does is when you set up a custom conversion and somebody hits that page, then it will go through and track where that person came from, what ad they clicked, and it will give you some reporting based on the numbers you're looking for. So for instance, if we have an advertorial that is linking to a sales page, then we'll run Facebook traffic, maybe a video to the advertorial. They click the advertorial... Well, the advertorial is a key content page.

So they will read the advertorial, click the link in the advertorial, and then go to the sales page. Once they are on the sales page, then they click the add to cart button, or the call scheduling button, or whatever and they go to the next page. So if each of those pages are tracking with a custom conversion or tracking with the Facebook Pixel and a custom conversion is set up, you can create a lookalike audience based on that person and you can also re-target them based on that custom conversion. So there's a lot of really, really great things that you can do when you're using custom conversions outside of just your audiences. So this little clip is from the paid traffic module, a funnel formula, and it walks through how we use custom conversions. And then you want to create custom conversions for main pages.

So all of your add to cart pages, you want to create a custom conversion. All of your landing pages, you want to create a custom conversion for those. Your lead magnet confirmation pages, your sales confirmation pages, and your key content pages like your blog posts, your advertorials, any of these content-based assets, which we already learned about, you want to make sure to set up a custom conversion on all of those pages. So Facebook knows when somebody hits this page, this is what they are. When somebody hits this page, this is what they are. They are buyers, they are prospects. This was a key content page. This was an add to cart, a shopping cart abandonment. You want Facebook to know all this stuff because then they can automate your marketing for you. They can actually automate the ads and do all kinds of crazy stuff and getting that person back into your funnel.

Now whenever we launch a client's page traffic, we always roll out the campaigns, we install the Pixel, we create the audiences, all the audiences that we have at first. And then we create the custom conversions we go through in all the key pages. It's a shopping cart page, it's a blog post, it's an advertorial, it's an order form, whatever. We make custom conversions for all these pages so that we can track, and that ends up being a crucial kind of metric KPI strategy for the campaign. It's something that we can look at quickly just by logging in to the Facebook Ad Manager, glancing through, seeing all of the conversions, seeing what's happening and how our ad campaigns are influencing the conversions, and then going from there.

So if you would like to go through and learn how to run traffic for your funnels, check out the Funnel Formula Masterclass here.

And if you would like to get on the phone with us and talk about paid traffic or talk about putting together a sales funnel for you, click here to schedule an Action Plan call!

The post Why You Should Be Using Custom Conversions For FB Ad Tracking appeared first on Done For You.

The newest type of advertising funnel is the Facebook Funnel, which gives you access to cold and warm buyers. Here's how to set it up.

Every month, more than 2 billion people are active on Facebook. That's a lot of people that could be in your Facebook Funnel. These users go to Facebook in search of something. Some come to connect with friends and families. On the other hand, some of them need information about specific products or services.

With this vast number of users, Facebook creates a great marketing opportunity. Facebook's average CPC (cost per click) is still low compared to other advertising platforms.

Facebook Ads, for instance, is one of the marketing tools you can use to reach your campaign objectives and goals, whether they be acquiring fresh leads or increasing sales.

For example, a sales funnel through Facebook Ads can help you create brand awareness. It can also aim to attract new leads or boost traffic to your business website (although traffic only is not a well-thought sales funnel goal). Note that Facebook Ads can allow customers to redeem your offers instantly. That means instant sales!

Ads can boost engagement between these customers and your business, too. Most customers are attracted to companies that respond to their issues and provide solutions. Therefore, you should take advantage of Facebook Advertising to keep customers updated.

How is Facebook Ads different from other PPC platforms?

When you compare it to Google Ads, Facebook needs to be approached differently. Facebook is not about buying impressions for keywords that people search for. It goes beyond that. It can target behaviors, demographics, and interests.

The truth is that most people will not make instant purchases when they come across your ad on Facebook. So, relax, do not yell at people, "Buy now!"

Instead, craft a Facebook Ads sales funnel. However, your funnel should be as intelligent and authentic as possible. By doing so, you'll be successful with Facebook Ads.

But what is a Facebook sales funnel all about?  And how do you sequence up the advertising funnel to convert more buyers?

What does a sales funnel (i.e., advertising funnel) entail?

Many businesses are offering the same products as yours. Have you ever wondered how customers connected with your business in the first place instead of choosing your competitors? Maybe you can do some research here and find the origin.

Take a moment and think of how customers found your business. It could be that you shared content from your site, a piece of content went viral, or a Facebook advert caught their attention.

Either way, there are some steps you can follow for people to connect with you and for them to notice your business. These steps include:

• Awareness in terms of engagement, tips, and sharing content.
• Consideration through videos, long/detailed content, and special offers.
• Conversion via webinars, testimonials, trials, and remarketing.

Then, there is retention and upselling by providing more value through consistent marketing efforts.

Having listed these basic automated sales funnel steps, let's now check out how to build your Facebook Funnel.

Step 1. Start Your Facebook Ads Funnel by Installing The Facebook Pixel

The first step is to download the Facebook Pixel and install it. Facebook Pixel comes in the form of a code snippet that you place on your site. Its role is to track the activities of your visitors on your website. This tool is potent in retargeting and monitoring traffic – you can't afford to miss it.

Apart from tracking traffic, your Pixel will collect data as well. It will do so even when you don't have any ads.

For any person who visits your website, the Pixel will track their activity. Hence, you'll be able to know how many people visit your site and what they do. Further, you'll learn of the interaction you get in your social profiles, and it'll timestamp prospects in your advertising funnel.

Do you need an advanced analytics tool with behavioral tracking features to map exactly what people do along your funnel's steps?

Is tracking visitors the only thing the Pixel can do?

Of course not! The Pixel will guarantee that your Facebook adverts are visible only to the right audience. Therefore, you'll be able to segment your audiences and utilize Facebook Ads in your Facebook Funnel more sophisticatedly.

Step 2. Develop captivating content for your Facebook Funnel

For leads to progress through your sales funnel with the lowest friction possible, you must facilitate the leads' journey with compelling content. There are different content needs for each stage of the Facebook Ads sales funnel. Read this post about how to create the right content.

It would help if you contented specifically for different audience segments. For example, how you address cold traffic differs from warm leads. Promote your top-ranking content to cold audiences and narrow it down to problem-specific solutions as you start to define the interests and behaviors of hard leaders.

Apart from installing the Pixel and creating some content, you should create epic content. Read this post on how captivating content will undoubtedly attract people's attention.

Step 3. Concentrate on warm audiences

About warm audiences, audiences that know your brand and have indicated that your product might be a good fit for them are audiences that you could advertise directly to.

You can start with your warm audiences. Add them as custom audiences in Facebook Ads and include them in your marketing campaigns.

Here's a video about custom audiences and how to create them to serve your Facebook Funnel.

Here, you can try a few things. For instance, you can send people directly to your product page. Then, see what trend your conversion rate takes. Or maybe send them to a limited-time offer page. As a result, you'll note that certain products yield incredible results – especially when aiming for an intuitive low-price purchase.

Nevertheless, you shouldn't take the same approach with your products - specifically if they are expensive and people know little about them. Typically, people won't buy spontaneously, so running a campaign that sends traffic directly to your sales page won't help your bottom line. Instead, it could consume your advertising budget in an instant.

What you can do instead is what we describe in this article: create a Facebook Ads sales funnel. And in the next section, we will explain how that looks.

Step 4. Attract similar audiences

So, you have installed the Facebook pixel and have created unique content for every step of the funnel. You have also separated warm leads as custom audiences.

Now, it's time to use lookalike audiences to reach out to a larger group of people on Facebook.

You can use your custom audience data to classify visitors and build lookalike audiences. Read this guide to learn how to make these expanded yet targeted audiences.

See the power of similar audiences? Users in the new audience will have similar interests and attributes to those already buying and interacting with you. Facebook knows the characteristics of your buyers (from your custom audiences) and can expand this group to include more people with similar demographics, interests, and behaviors (lookalike audiences).

Now, to paint the picture, your Facebook Funnel should look like this:

EXAMPLE OF A FACEBOOK ADS SALES FUNNEL

Top of Funnel

Cold traffic to your epic content coming from basic demographic and interest targeting.

Middle of Funnel

Warm traffic to conversion-optimized content that provides a solution.

Traffic is coming from custom audiences that have already visited your pages.

Bottom of Funnel

Hot traffic to a conversion-optimized product or sales page.

Traffic is coming from lookalike audiences and has the purchase as an objective.

This indicative Facebook Ads sales funnel will help convert cold traffic into warm leads and buyers.

But is one more step in the Facebook Ads sales funnel missing?

Step 5. Focus on retargeting

If you stopped in our previous step, you would miss out on a great opportunity. Remarketing.

Most of the time, even if people have gone through your complete sales funnel, they are not yet ready to buy. Sometimes, force majeure makes them leave products in their shopping cart. And you don't want them to forget to come back.

By the way, we have a done-for-you cart abandonment email sequence readily available for you to download and plug into your autoresponder. This can work with your Facebook Ads remarketing to get forgetful buyers back to your checkout page.

Also note that, as some marketers say, people will see your products and brand at least seven times before they make a purchase decision. Buyers are also hesitant even to enter their card information.

This is precisely why you must add another step to your Facebook Funnel. Retargeting campaigns that will show ads to people who have interacted with your other campaigns. For example, you can set ads for abandoned carts or different bottom-of-funnel audiences, e.g., people visiting a product category page. Also, you can run ads for middle-of-funnel leads to inform them of new, exciting content you just published.

Here's a guide by Facebook that explains how you can create remarketing ads for your products. We wrote This piece about advanced advertising strategies to build a high-conversion Facebook Ads sales funnel.

It would help if you kept remarketing to people who visited your site but never made a purchase until they do or you decide you don't want to deal with them anymore.

Warm Traffic VS. Cold Traffic in your Facebook Ads sales funnel

Keep tabs on the inside of your advertising funnel. It is interesting... Mainly because your ad funnel starts with cold traffic. They're They'reen they see an ad or experience your brand.

Then, the advertising funnel warms them up, so ...

The Cold Traffic Progression

We build all of our advertising for our clients this way. There is always a set of ads that is specific to cold traffic.  Your cold traffic audience comprises those who don't know who you are. They've heard of you. In the Facebook world, they aren't even searching for the solution that you provide. They go to Google and type in a keyword phrase because Facebook traffic is interruption-based.

In the Google world, they go to Google and search for the keyword phrase you are advertising for or related to your business. So that is one of the differences between Google and Facebook and how they are similar in the cold traffic sense.

But this cold traffic person doesn't care who you are. They've never heard of your business because if they'd heard of you, they'd be warmer. You know what I mean?

Warming Your Target Market Up

The advertising funnel works because folks see an ad as a cold prospect. Then, they take some action... That action might be:

• Watching a video for 50% of its length, 75% or more...
• It might be clicking on the ad and going to your website.
• It might be opting in for a report for a lead magnet.
• It might be just full-out buying something.

But that cold prospect is, in their action, warming up to you... Warming up to your brand. So, that is what the advertising funnel is all about. When we warm them up, we can do additional things with them.

Now, The Transition In Your Advertising Funnel

So after they do something, they are no longer cold prospects.

They move past that cold traffic ad, and now they see a retargeted ad because they did something... They watched the video. They clicked the link. They landed on a page. They opted in. They bought something. They're They're cold. They are warm and friendly and see a different type of ad from you.

So, with Facebook Advertising, it might be a welcome back or shopping cart abandonment ad. It might tell them about a product they might be interested in that they didn't didn't purchase.

So, you can there carry out this retargeting campaign in many ways.  One of the things that we like to do is, once they move from cold traffic to warm to a retargeted ad, we also acknowledge that they are probably getting warmer or colder within our sphere of influence. So, we might have a retargeted ad that shows a lead magnet for days 1 through 4.

So if they land on our website, then, for these four days, they see something on our ... They see a Facebook  Video Ad talking about a lead magnet, and then if they don't do anything, days 5 through 8, we give them something else. Maybe it's a titlist, or we promote a different product or newsletter.

Then, on days 9 through 13, we do something a little different.

When Prospects Cool Off

With the understanding that they're they're colder. The longer they go without doing something, the harder they are getting. They are moving past what we do because a buyer is only hot for a concise amount of time. It might be a week, three days, or three weeks, but they usually buy and consume a bunch of stuff in the same period and then move on.

Think about your own experience. Let's say you're looking for a piece of software, like a video-hosting platform. Chances are, you recognize that you need a video-hosting platform like Wistia or Vimeo or whatever.

...So you do a little research and find all the companies in the market.  That might not have even been triggered by you internally but by an ad. Maybe you saw a Wistia ad and think, "Wait, it makes sense. I need to keep my videos private. So, who else has this technology?" Then" you do a little research, and then you buy. You do free trials, but you've decided in the first week or two.

How It Relates To Your Buyers

So, that's that's how buyers react. That's what's buyers react. So understanding that they're they're then they're they're then they're you...  And you can engage those customers differently through your advertising funnel with different ad types.

Now, Facebook is a little bit different when you're using these advertising funnels because:

1. You can do a lot with Facebook Video Ads.
   1. You get cheap clicks.
   2. You can do video view campaigns and then target people based on how much of a video somebody watches...  Which is essential for capitalizing on the momentum and moving somebody through this advertising funnel.

But it all returns to the targeted website traffic from the Facebook pixel. That's how you increase website traffic fast...  It's b. It's using paid traffic sources the right way.

So, on Facebook ... You add the Facebook pixel to your website, and then that pixel tracks:

• Which pages do your prospects visit
• Where do they go on your website
• What your conversion events are
• Ads send you leads, sales, and, ultimately, conversions.

So the pixel is essential in this entire makeup, and that's what up the staggered Facebook Ad Funnel process where you target different creative for:

• Day 1 through 4
• Day 5 through 8
• Day 9 through 13
• And so on...

We say, "Okay, if"somebody is brand new to this audience because of the pixel, show them this ad. Show them this ad if they're five or eight days old. Show them this ad if they're 9 and 13 days old."

Progress Lookalike Audiences Based On Your BEST Segment

It's all based on the pixel and the audience that that pixel creates.

And from that audience, we create lookalike audiences of our most successful segment of folks. So first, if we have no data, we're a lookalike audience based on the people who watch 50% or more of a video or 75% or more.

Then, suppose we get a significant population of people who hit a webpage or opt-in for a report or buy. In that case, that's the next lookalike audience we're we're we're constantly creating a new lookalike audience based on our best data set. Then, we're moving all ads to that audience. So, we're continually optimizing the audiences and letting Facebook know precisely who we want to get in front of.

So, all of this stuff is important for your advertising funnel. As protests progress, the ad funnel must align with your sales funnel. The sales funnel, your landing pages, your automated webinars, your VSLs, all of that stuff comes out to party in these Facebook ads. We like video a lot. We do a lot of video view campaigns.

DIY or DFY Facebook Ads sales funnel

As you try out different strategies and mix up sales funnel elements to create the perfect recipe, always keep track of your conversion rate. Conversion rate is arguably the best indicator of the success level of your campaigns.

If you want to run your business and you are not a DIY kind of person, then our team at DoneForYou is equipped with all the skills and tools to create high-conversion sales funnels for you, ones that start with Facebook Ads and end with filled-up shopping carts.

Schedule a call to discuss how we can create a funnel that serves your business goals and adds to your bottom line.

The post How To Create A Facebook Funnel For High Conversion Advertising appeared first on Done For You.

Regarding paid traffic sources, Facebook and Google are the indisputable big bad boys on the media buying scene; several other great paid traffic marketing channels are available to advertisers and marketers if you know where to look.

To give you a little bit of history on me, though...  And my convoluted journey into paid traffic marketing.

I've been doing this for 14 years and long thought I was allergic to paid traffic marketing. I gamed the search engines as hard as I could game them.

Despite going through all the paid traffic training and courses, I couldn't get myself to spend money on traffic...

I mean, we had EIGHT of the TEN rankings on the first page of Google for one keyword phrase back then. It is pure domination. Then Google got wise and updated their algorithm - i.e., the Penguin and Panda updates.

Those of you who have been around for a while know what I'm talking about because everybody's dreams were shattered at the exact moment, all across the globe, when those updates went live.

I had websites that were making $20,000 a month that just disappeared. The hat was the reality of those updates. Since then, I became very wary about building a business foundation on anything I didn't directly control.

Search engine traffic is fantastic, but if and only if it is thought of as a bonus. Our business should be built on paid advertising that you control and not 100% built on free traffic and things you luck into.

Now, content marketing and content optimization have changed. To rank and get quantifiable free traffic (when all you're doing is organic SEO), you need:

• Hundreds of blog posts
• Hundreds of videos on YouTube
• Hundreds and hundreds of pieces of content to get any economy of scale in terms of free traffic.

That content needs to be optimized to the hilt. t needs to be shared socially. Here are many things that make SEO and search rankings very difficult anymore.

So we turned to paid traffic marketing to scale our client's businesses.

With paid traffic marketing, you set up an ad, it gets approved in a couple of hours, and it gets turned on...  Then you're live!

After that, it's just ensuring the ad campaign and automated sales funnel are optimized. It's reading the analytics, making sure people are moving through the inbound marketing funnel the way they should, opting in, purchasing from a sales video, converting in the shopping cart, and getting fulfilled as a customer.

According to Ana Gotter of Adespresso, the average CPC (Cost Per Click) of Facebook Ads for all countries is about $0.97.

Of course, it's higher for some countries, while the CPC is lower for others.

If you are in countries that do see a higher CPC for Facebook (and likewise for Google), you'll do well to have alternatives. Furthermore, you are out of luck if your business ads do not comply with Facebook's or Google's Ad policies.

Also, for discerning business owners and tight-fisted marketing budgets, there's a world of paid traffic sources outside of Facebook Ads and Google AdWords that you should consider. Also, a worthy addition to your arsenal are well-crafted promotional products...

We've got to get into Facebook and Google, though...

1. Facebook Advertising

With most of our clients, we're BIG on Facebook advertising. We believe Facebook advertising is one of the best-paid traffic sources because it gives you instant access to excellent prospects and buyers. It is not as good as it used to be, though...

Facebook ads are much more expensive than they used to be, even a year ago. They took away a lot of the targeting we used to use. There have been many ways that they've made the platform less reliable than previously.

However, Facebook advertising is still fantastic, BUT only if you use video campaigns. Ideo views campaigns are our bread and butter. I just recorded a little Facebook Video Ad example here. e create video view campaigns or video conversion campaigns for our clients, and there are two things we are looking for:

• Cheaper clicks from video view campaigns
• A quick way of putting together lookalike audiences and retargeting audiences

Facebook's Video Ad Campaigns are great for both. If somebody watches 50% or more of the video, they get put into an audience, and we can build lookalike audiences based on that.

That is why we love video campaigns. We run video campaigns for our clients, especially for cold traffic ads. Sometimes, it will be cold traffic as a video view campaign, and then the retargeted ad will be image-based. It just depends on as much video as we can run.

2. Google Advertising

About a year and a half ago, we started pushing our clients to move some of their ad budgets off of Facebook because ad approval and overall campaign effectiveness started getting convoluted. If you've run Facebook Ad Campaigns in the last few years, you know it's much more expensive now than it was.

So, we moved clients back to our Google Ad Management Service.

Now, Google is our number two platform.

Google Ads represent a different type of traffic to advertisers.

Facebook Advertising is 100% interruption-based. Somebody is scrolling through their newsfeed, and then they're interrupted by your ad video/ad image/story, they click it, and then they're off and going down your automated sales funnel.

It's 100% interruption-based, and Facebook relies on interest targeting to ensure it serves the ad that people want to see.

Google Advertising is keyword-based.

So, if somebody goes to Google and types a query into the search box, they hope to find an answer to their problem. They're interested in a solution. Your ad pops up, and they assume that Google showed them that ad because your company fixes issues like theirs.

So, everything on Google search is intent-based.

Somebody has a problem; they search for an answer, and then 'boom,' your ad shows up.

Google Advertising is a solution-based ad network instead of Facebook Ads, which is interruption-based.

... Which means two different types of traffic.

Neither is better. Google tends to be a bit more expensive, usually on a fully qualified lead basis, than Facebook is...  But you typically get a better lead on Google. It depends on what you're looking for.

I think the best strategy is to do both. You have a Google campaign and a Facebook campaign, and then you're hedging your bets by leveraging two of the biggest ad platforms in the world.

And then, we add a third platform for retargeting.

3. Banner Retargeting

One platform we use for retargeting ad management clients is Adroll.

Adroll is a retargeting network. It's all they do - banner retargeting.

Inside Adroll, you throw your banners up, and then they serve the banners to your retargeted audience through 70 or 80 other ad networks...   Your banner ads appear when somebody has your cookie in their browser and visits most other websites online.

Now, Adroll also has Facebook retargeting advertising. e generally do not do Facebook retargeting in Adroll. It's cool, but the features pale compared to what's available inside FB.

... The nice thing about Adroll is it's an independent platform. Even if Facebook were to shut down your ad account, you wouldn't lose all your retargeted data. You'll still have it in Adroll.

4. LinkedIn Advertising

The following paid traffic source that is useful for this article is LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has some excellent new retargeting behaviors that are coming out, like retargeted InMail. When somebody lands on your website, you can send them an InMail a few days later.

LinkedIn advertising is also interruption-based, but the prospect you're getting in front of on LinkedIn is so good when selling a B2B product. The downside is LinkedIn Advertising is expensive. d costs start very high per click, which means it might cost you 18 or $20 to get an email lead. Not all the different from radio and TV advertising prices!)  On Facebook, it might cost $3 to get an email lead.

If your business serves other businesses, you are lucky with LinkedIn Advertising. LinkedIn has been quietly building a massive and active database of professionals, employees, and business owners for a long time.

While LinkedIn appears largely passive (compared to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), it's the most extensive database of working professionals, company founders, and self-employed professionals worldwide.

LinkedIn Ads has a self-serve ad platform allowing you to launch campaigns and efficiently target your relevant buyer persona. While LinkedIn might seem expensive at first glance, using appropriate sales funnels, staying tight with your budget, optimizing, and testing will get you the desired results.

5. Twitter Advertising

While Twitter isn't like Facebook regarding the "stickiness factor," it's still an extensive and active network.

Twitter Advertising is as good as new since there aren't many advertisers on the platform yet, meaning there's a large inventory available for you to do paid advertising (just how many personal Twitter feeds did you think you could reach?).

Twitter Advertising was also the pioneer of the Facebook Lead Generation type campaigns where all that Twitter advertisers have to do after they see your ad (or offer) is to click on a button to sign up as a lead.

6. Mobile Advertising

Almost all of your customers have a mobile device. Even for Facebook, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, a large percentage of engagement -- with ads or otherwise -- happens on mobile.

But that's not what we are talking about. Social, mobile PPC is one thing, but there's more mobile advertising inventory available than you'd know what to do with.

Large mobile advertising networks such as Chartboost, AdMob, Adcolony, Leadbolt, and Unity Media are available -- with their inventory of mobile publishers (apps, games, mobile websites, etc.).

You also have access to real-time bidding networks for mobile; self-serve mobile ad platforms, such as PocketMath, and so much more are there for you to use if you want to.

7. Native Advertising & Native Traffic

Two of the most extensive native ad networks, or native traffic sources, are Outbrain and Taboola.

Outbrain and Taboola just published that they will merge, creating a vast ad network for native ads.

If you're not familiar with native ads... Native ads appear at the bottom of blog posts and articles disguised as 'related content.' They look like featured content or related posts on a blog.

One of the nice things about Outbrain and Taboola is that their policies are pretty lax. You can get some things approved in Taboola and Outbrain that you can't get approved elsewhere.

At the time of writing this, native advertising has also gone on to mobile in a big way and now has more formats than ever.

You could quickly get started with native advertising by promoting content, a blog post, or an article to get more targeted traffic instead of an actual ad.

As a paid traffic source, native advertising has potential simply because ads look like "article recommendations." Popular native advertising self-serve networks include Outbrain, Revcontent, Taboola, and Gravity.

8. Locial Forum Advertising

Suppose you've ever tried to get on Reddit (or one of its subreddits) and post a link to an article or a blog post in the hope of getting some traffic. In that case, you know just how arrogant online community forums and communities can be if you try to do that without first providing value.

Using online communities and forums like Reddit and Quora requires much time, effort, and altruism.

But with social forum ads such as Reddit and Quora ads, you don't have to spend time writing or trying to build a community. They must use their respective ad platforms and have access to millions of like-minded, passionate people.

The key to making your paid traffic sources work -- regardless of which traffic source you choose -- is to use proper sales funnels along with a judicious application of design, copywriting, and more.

Would you like to get on a call to discuss your AdWords Management, Funnels, or Marketing? Get in touch with us now!

Which platforms or paid traffic sources will you work with next?

So, if you have any questions on driving traffic managing ad budget and want us to do it for you, click below!

The post Navigating the Best Paid Traffic Sources: A Comprehensive Guide appeared first on Done For You.

Your path to increase website traffic is usually a marathon, not a sprint.  It's possible to increase website traffic FAST, but you don't want to risk exploiting some short term gain or some 'loophole' that's here today and gone tomorrow.

But sometimes you just want a quick traffic boost for your new blog post.

The secret to pulling loads of traffic fast is doing what other site owners are not doing. This post will give you a few surefire ways to increase website traffic in under 30 minutes.

These traffic tips are simple to grasp, easy to implement and effective in bringing in highly-targeted traffic.

Here's the thing though - you can't ever ease up.  Free traffic requires content.  Paid traffic requires constant management and testing to optimize performance.  To run a successful digital business, you need to make sure that traffic is something you're prioritizing!

... Otherwise, all of your sales and revenue dries up.

Try them out and watch the number of visitors increase faster than ever before.

1. Promote massively on social media

When you think of traffic, what is the first method to come to mind? Right, social media. Almost every website owner has at least one social media profile.  Linkedin.  Facebook.  Instagram.  Twitter.  Youtube.  Each 'channel' has its users - many of whom are your buyers!

Promoting your blog content on social media is like trumpet calls to their digital doorstep. Every person who sees your site link on social media and is interested in the topic will want to click. The result? Instant boost in traffic.

When you engage with social users—directly or publicly by liking or re-sharing their posts, or just by engaging them in conversation—you introduce them to your brand. It takes some up-front work, but you could probably build an audience of thousands within weeks to serve as a scene for even further audience growth.

Start by sharing interesting content—your own blog posts, those of peers in your industry who've impressed you and anything that you feel has a chance to go "viral" and earn sharing from others.

For best results and really fast traffic, focus on the leading social networks:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn

You must’ve seen people insert different hashtags into their social media updates. Use trending hashtags and a link back to your site for an instant traffic boost. Hashtags expand the reach of your social media posts beyond your direct followers and help you reach new audiences.

Here's a tool top-hashtags.com to help you find the top hashtags to add to your posts for maximum exposure.

Now, what about some advanced ways to grab traffic from social media? A surefire way to increase website traffic fast is to tweet 15 to 20 influencers about your latest article. It won't take more than 30 minutes to send direct messages to a list you have previously compiled.

Choose influencers carefully. They need to be active, have a massive following and broadcast about topics that are closely related to your niche.

Use Buzzsumo's Influencers feature to find influencers in different social networks.

Another way to maximize your results from Twitter is to set a schedule to tweet your post six times over a 24-hour period.

Your tweet has an average life of fewer than 24 minutes. After that, your followers are not likely to see it. Tweet your link 6 times a day to attract as many eyeballs as possible.

Use a free service called Recurpost to schedule recurring posts.

Other premium tools that might help you schedule your posts and save time are CoSchedule and Hootsuite.

2. Use paid ads

Paid advertising works like a charm when you want to increase website traffic fast...  as fast as possible!  ie. Instantly! Paid ads require a budget and there's definitely a formula you should employ to get leads, but it’s totally worth spending money if you know who you want to attract and where you have them land on.

If you just run a Facebook ad with no strategy or sales funnel behind it to back it up, then you’ll receive inbound traffic to your site, but once you withdraw that budget, your traffic will disappear.

What you can do instead is:

• Choose very carefully who you target with your ads,
• Send people who click on your ads to a highly-relevant blog post,
• Put advanced lead-generation and conversion tactics to keep new visitors on your lists. Such tactics are content upgrades, list building plugins and exit pops, and browser notifications.

All in all, advertising is a good strategy that is both profitable and fast. Here are some good options for fast paid traffic:

• Facebook Ads
• Instagram Ads
• Twitter Ads
• Outbrain/Taboola Ads
• LinkedIn Ads
• Google Adwords
• Bing Ads
• StumbleUpon Paid Discovery
• Reddit Ads

3. Participate in question and answer sites

Quora is an online platform where people post their questions and seek answers. You can find questions on practically anything.

Quora is currently number 79 site in the US and number 133 in the world in terms of incoming traffic (source: alexa.com, January 2018). You don't want to miss out on potential traffic from a site that attracts hundreds of thousands of users per month.

To increase website traffic quickly, go to Quora and start answering questions that are directly related to your blog posts. At the end of each of your answers, post a link back to the most relevant blog post. This is free publicity for you and your brand right in the middle of a targeted audience.

Be careful though. Don't spam people with your links. You always need to be genuinely helping people with your answers. And then, at the end of the answer, give them a resource to learn more.

A lot of experts will jump in and answer a question extensively. So, don't be lazy; do your best to present a well-thought answer if you want to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise.

The best strategy with Q&A sites isn't to answer every single question that appears on your feed, but rather, to strategically offer high-value answers to the community. You can do that by spotting questions that are more difficult to answer, thus, get a small number of answers.

That kind of question is more likely to rank well for on-site search queries or on Google, and also get more social traffic or referrals from blogs. If you stick to the strategy of providing remarkable value to anyone who's honestly curious you will see an instant and long-term benefit to your blog.

Some people walk the extra mile and create a blog post to tackle really important questions. Quora is also an effective way to find blog post topics; Each good question gives you a topic that folks are heavily interested in.

4. Run contests and giveaways

Giveaways and contests are somewhat similar to paid advertising methods in the sense that you’ll need to invest some money upfront—usually in a hot tech product, an Amazon gift card, or something of value that your audience will crave.

Then, you run a contest where you ask the participants to perform some action to be entered into the giveaway. For example, you might ask them to share your contest page on social media.

Contests will have a big impact on growing your email list and boosting your blog traffic because folks simply love to get free stuff. A good contest will go viral and spread the word to more and more people, so it’s a perfect way to get widespread brand visibility faster than ever.

Make sure you follow up with all the new subscribers that will opt in for your mailing list so that you reap the long-term traffic benefit as well.

Rufflecopter is a full-featured tool that makes it simple to launch and manage a viral giveaway on any website.

5. Get visitors to come back to your site

Don’t let the anonymous user browse your site and then never come back. There are a bunch of tools today, that you can employ to grab people's email or cookie them, so you can get back to them at a later time.

This is a long term game right here.  With this model, it's about capturing website traffic and making sure you can reach out to them.  After that, you're able to increase website traffic instantly by simply posting something new - or sending an email!

People don’t bookmark sites anymore. If someone drops by your blog and finds it pretty interesting, you have a slim chance of them coming back anytime soon. That sucks and it shouldn't be the case. People are exposed to tons of information every day and they have busy lives. It’s impossible to remember every new resource we find online.

To tackle that issue and pull back some of these potential prospects, employ the following tactics:

• Enable subscriptions via RSS Feed. This can be done using Feedburner on the sidebar of your site.
  Grab their email address. Use optin form inline or at the end of the posts. Use welcome mats to grab the whole screen. You can use Sumo to do all that.
• Ask them to allow browser notifications. PushCrew is a popular to that help you implement push notifications for mobile and web browsers
• Use a Facebook Messenger bot. ManyChat is a simple tool that helps you create a chatbot and have people automatically allow Messenger communication and broadcasts.
• Enable Facebook Page chat on your site. Facebook Customer Chat is a WordPress plugin to help you do exactly that. People are *always* on Facebook, so why not give them an easy way to chat with you using the service they’re already logged in?
• Start building an email list with exit pops, content upgrades and so much more...

Once you've set up any of those tools, ideally all of them, you'll see an exponential growth in your subscriber base—no matter the medium. In time, you’ll be able to track which one of these strategies bring you more traffic. Finding out what plays well for your audience can help make fast traffic work in the long-term as well.

6. Guest post

When you’re looking to increase website traffic fast, what you need is an audience expansion. Guest posts are a good strategy for fast traffic gain because guest posts connect you and your brand with a new, laser-focused audience.

Guest blogging serves multiple functions but the most important fact is that a single guest post may give you instant access to an authority’s established audience.

The minute the guest post is published you get a possibility for direct traffic; The blog owner will most like promote that post on social media and send a link to their email list.

Frequent visitors will also see the new content and some of them will click your link to learn more about you and your services. Plus, as a long-term benefit, guest posts will help you in both SEO and content marketing.

Great content is a prerequisite for any effective traffic strategy. Given the limited resources that every entrepreneur has, you need the proper tools to make your content marketing as simple as possible.

So, in essence, guest blogging is one of the most effective strategies for quick traffic because new people who have never seen your work before getting exposed to your brand and ideas. You also get quality backlinks and references, which are a key part of the way search engines algorithm work.

Now, how do you find those guest posting opportunities for a quick traffic boost?

There are numerous smart methods to find blogs that accept posts for instant traffic but we will show you the easiest one:

Go to google and type in your niche and any of the following:

• “Submit a guest post” / “Submit post” / “Submit blog post”
• “Submit an article”
• “Write for us”
• “Become an author”
• “Contribute to our site”
• “Become a contributor”
• “Become guest writer”
• “Suggest a guest post”
• “Send a guest post”
• “Add blog post”
• “Guest bloggers wanted”
• “(Write for our) guest column”.

7. Be interviewed

Think of interviews as video or audio guest posts. There are advantages to getting interviewed on niche sites, podcasts, and vlogs.

Obviously, an interview published on another site will help you capitalize on their audience. This increases your website traffic, but more importantly, it helps your brand be seen by more people. It also adds to your efforts to be established as an authority in your niche. Why would anyone spend their time interviewing a professional if they're not important?

Because you will be perceived as an expert in your niche, people who come to check out your blog will be more likely to subscribe to your list and come back.

Use HARO to find an interview opportunity. HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out and is a service that used by news agencies like ABC and FOX.

When you sign up for HARO, which is totally free by the way, you will receive queries in your inbox every day. These queries come from bloggers, PR specialists, and reporters who are looking for expert insights, data, and opinions. You will often find opportunities to be interviewed or be part of an expert roundup.

Increase Website Traffic Fast WITH QUALITY VISITORS

Keep in mind that “fast” traffic might not always be good traffic—it’s possible that you don’t get a good ROI.

Whatever action you take on acquiring traffic fast, do your best to laser-target the audience that will see your brand. Whether it be niche blogs or targeted Facebook advertising, you are more like to get a good ROI on every dollar spent, when you know where your brand stands and who you want to attract.

And then, when it comes to the long-term benefit from your traffic strategies, SEO and content marketing are the top to utilize.

Never forget to publish good, valuable and search engine optimized content to position yourself strategically and be found organically.

Think of long-term traffic strategies and planting seeds to grow your own garden versus buying the vegetables directly from the farmers’ market.

So, try to keep these quick traffic methods in balance with your long-term tactics to reap the benefits of a 360° traffic strategy.

The post How To Increase Website Traffic Fast appeared first on Done For You.

At DoneForYou.com, clients often ask where to buy the best-targeted website traffic. As you may know, we provide done-for-you sales and marketing services since you're reading our blog. We help businesses acquire more leads and traffic and sell more to new and existing clients by leveraging technology and marketing and building automated online systems.

When we often work with a client to build their sales funnel, we also figure out the best new traffic sources to feed targeted visitors into their funnel.

That is why we get so many questions like:

• How do I drive free targeted traffic to my website?"
• What's the best place to buy quality, targeted website traffic?"
• How do I get more visitors from the US to my website?"

These are all valid questions given that every business wants more leads and clients; unfortunately, there's a veil that covers traffic generation tools, sources, and strategies. That is why we've put together this traffic generation Q&A article to lift the veil on traffic, debunk some common myths about targeted traffic sources, and save you some money you might waste buying fake traffic due to a lack of proper information.

Therefore, in this article about free and paid targeted traffic, we will answer all your traffic generation FAQs and more... Find anything missing. Shoot us a quick message on Facebook, and we’ll update this Q&A article automatically!

Where To Buy The Best Targeted Website Traffic For Your Sales Funnel

To begin with, let's briefly discuss why targeted website traffic is essential to a revenue-generating sales funnel. The purpose of having a funnel is to attract more leads, nurture them into qualified prospects, and finally convert them into paying customers. So, having targeted traffic, instead of generic visitors, coming you will be a resource saver. Not only will you spend less time and targeted visitors, but you will also have higher conversion rates and more sales in a shorter period.

Two Basic Types Of Website Traffic

But wait... What exactly is traffic? Put, web traffic is the internet users who visit your website. The higher the traffic volume, the more visitors your site gets. Accordingly, when you want to generate traffic, you want to attract more visitors to your website.

From a bird's eye view, there are two basic types of traffic: Paid and free.

Free traffic is when a visitor comes to your site in either of these two ways:

1. finding your pages in Google search results or
2. discovering your brand on other websites or social media.

Free traffic is often called organic traffic; sometimes, you can see it as search traffic or viral traffic.

Paid traffic is when you purchase...

• advertising space on others’ websites
• Search engine result pages (SERPs)
• ad clicks from social media or email lists

... of driving traffic to your site. You might hear this type of traffic referred to as PPC or SEM, among other terms.

How To Drive Free Web Traffic

Turning to the actual ways to drive web traffic, a question we always get is, "How do I drive free targeted traffic to my offers?"

This is indeed one of the most popular questions.

Free organic traffic is arguably the best web traffic your web content must appear in SERP source for targeted leads. However, your web content must appear in SERPs to get to the point of a new visit.

But is this kind of traffic-free? Although you cannot buy organic visitors, you must spend money on content creation to rank on Google and eventually attract free targeted website traffic.

The myth lies in the idea that organic traffic has zero costs. This is not true. You do need to pay for content creation.

But what if you could create and publish content yourself? Wouldn’t that bring in free traffic? Well, yes, that's one way to look at it. Another way is that your time also costs money. So, traffic is not accessible because there is an opportunity cost involved.

So, why do people call organic traffic “free traffic?”  That is because they do the work ahead of time to reap lasting results in the long run.

Similarly, when it comes to free viral traffic, meaning traffic from content that becomes popular on social media, you probably need to hire someone to create engaging content that will have a chance to go viral.

Creating good content might require an upfront investment; however, it paves the path for generating perpetual free targeted web traffic in the future.

Where To Buy The Best Website Traffic (And Why...)

This point takes us to the question, "Why is it a wise decision to buy web traffic?" Purchasing ad views or clicks is the best way to generate unlimited traffic quickly. Buying clicks is the fastest way to bring new visitors to your website.

While Search Engine Optimization (SEO) takes time to bear fruit, Pay-per-click (PPC) will immediately boost page views.

Our advice? Paid traffic is the way to go if you have the budget.

You can get clicks to your ads even on a small budget. We will look at how you can accomplish that further in this post, where we talk about inexpensive traffic.

If you're wondering where to buy the best-targeted website traffic fast, read this helpful guide to learn advanced strategies to help you scale your business with Facebook Ads.  We will talk about where to buy the best website traffic down below...

First though...

Real human traffic vs. fake bot traffic

Before we dive further into answering more traffic FAQs, let us briefly debunk another myth. You might have come across sites that sell traffic or clicks, presumably from real human users on the internet. When you see advertisements such as these, you need to be cautious.

Some sites place your ad before the eyes of real people. So, for example, there might be a network of users who agree to receive email marketing messages. In return, they can send their email blasts to other users. This network is called a “safelist,” and the procedure is called “traffic exchange.”

Then, there are online services that promise to send you actual clicks, but what happens is that they use bots to emulate human behavior online. So, these bots, computer programs, in essence, click on your links and browse your sites as if they were human. That is why bots like that might appear in Google Analytics as real users, usually with a high bounce rate. Unfortunately, traffic scammers have improved in recent years. They can now deliver fake traffic with low bounce rates and seemingly accurate data, like source of traffic, country, type of browsing device and operating system, and more.

It would be best if you remembered that any service provider who cannot explain how they generate low-cost traffic is, in all likelihood, a con artist.

In brief, you should avoid spending your money on these types of services because, even if the users are real, they're not interested in what you offer. They're probably clicking on your links only to get some benefit as part of a safelist, and they won't pay attention to your offer.

Where To Buy The Best Targeted Website Traffic

Now that we've cleared up the myth of  “cheap clicks,” you are probably wondering where is a good place to buy website traffic.

There are different options. Let's look at the best places to buy targeted traffic that converts.

A. Google AdWords

Well, what can we say about Google? The search engine giant also dominates advertising.

A recent report estimates that Google and Facebook account for 73% of all digital advertising in the United States.

When setting up an ad on Google AdWords, you buy search or display traffic.

If you’re advertising for search, your ad will appear on SERPs when people search for your keywords.

On the other hand, display ads are mainly for displaying banners on third-party sites and for retargeting website visitors - meaning you'll have your ad shown to people who have already visited your site at least once.

Remembering that Google AdWords is one of the best ways to drive targeted traffic to your site would be best. Why? People who type in a search query are simultaneously expressing an interest in your keywords and intent before they finally click on your ads.  If your business solves a high-ticket problem, Google is one of the best places if you're wondering where to buy targeted website traffic...

B. Facebook (and other social media)

Now, with social advertising, which is advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other networks, you also get targeted traffic, although it’s not search-based traffic. Who sees your ads on social media has to do with their demographics, profile, and declared interests. For example, you can target men aged 20-35 who have liked car-related business pages on Facebook. Or, you can target engaged women whose zodiac sign is Gemini.

“So, Google doesn’t have this kind of data?” you might ask. Of course, it does. With demographic targeting in AdWords, you can reach a specific subset of potential customers likely to be within a particular age range, gender, parental status, or household income. How does Google determine demographic information? Most people have a Google account, so Google knows more about their demographics and behavior than you would expect.

Compared to Facebook targeting, the difference is that you use demographics to narrow down your target audience. For example, while the trigger is a search query, you can filter out men from seeing your pregnancy yoga advertisement.

Another significant difference is that social advertising is still relatively cheap compared to Google Adwords. If you're on a small marketing budget, advertising on Facebook is an excellent alternative source of targeted traffic.

C. Outbrain/Taboola

Are you looking for alternative sources of affordable traffic? You know, sites where you can buy targeted website traffic off the beaten path?  There are content promotion networks, like Outbrain and Taboola, which can help your business attract a targeted audience.

Content promotion networks (or content discovery platforms) work by displaying your ad on blogs and other sites with related content, usually below a blog post. In this way, services like Taboola enable advertisers to attract engaged audiences while, on the flip side, these networks give the ability to publishers to monetize their online properties.

D. Solo ads

For marketers and business owners promoting products and services in niches such as...

• making money online
• network marketing
• MLM schemes
• Affiliate products
• business opportunities

...solo ads are arguably the best way to go.

You can do email marketing using other people’s lists with solo ads. How it works is that you have a lone ad provider email their subscribers with your email copy, and you pay them by the number of link clicks you receive from that particular email blast.

Solo ads can be an affordable way to draw targeted visitors to your offer, but not all isolated ad services are legit. Again, there are fraudulent services that use bots to deliver fake clicks. How do you go about finding high-quality solo ad sellers? The simple answer is real-buyer reviews. Visit sites like udimi.com, a marketplace for solo ads. There, you can see reviews from previous buyers under each seller’s listing.

We will give more ideas on how to find quality solo ads further down this article.

Where Is The Best Place To Buy Targeted Traffic?

Now that we’ve explained the primary sources of targeted web traffic, it only makes sense to talk about how you can choose the best traffic source.

First, the best way to generate traffic is to try and test different sources. It’s a good practice to distribute your budget across various advertising media so you can find out which one delivers the best results to your business regarding conversion rate and sales revenue.

However, we understand that trying out different traffic sources is not always possible. In this case, if you're looking for the best place to buy website traffic, we must say that there's no single answer. It heavily depends on your industry, goals, budget, and other factors. If we had to put together a list of the top places to buy the best-targeted traffic, we would rank Facebook Ads and Google AdWords on the top 2 positions on that list, though not in a particular order.

The best way to do it is to schedule a free strategy call with us to help you clarify your paid advertising options. As soon as we know more about your niche, product, and budget, we’ll be able to capitalize on our multifaceted experience and determine what traffic source would work best for your business.

How do I go about buying targeted traffic that converts?

Targeted traffic doesn’t always convert well. For example, people subscribed to solo ad lists might suffer from email promotion fatigue (meaning they are constantly bombarded with offers via email and are likely not opening certain kinds of emails anymore). So, in some cases, even if those subscribers click your solo ad link and land on your page, they won’t convert. They’ve seen so many similar offers and even bought some of them that they’re overwhelmed or disappointed from not seeing the promised results.

Where can you find the best targeted high-converting traffic?

Again, the answer lies in the two leading paid traffic sources, Facebook and Google. Other PPC sources, like Bing Ads and Yahoo Gemini, can also bring you quality traffic - note that these networks have a smaller audience reach than Google AdWords.

According to recent stats, Google controls nearly 75% of the search market, while Bing and Yahoo are between 5% and 10% each.

That is why the advertising cost per click is usually cheaper on Bing and Yahoo compared to Google.

Another factor you need to consider when buying the best-targeted traffic that converts is where your audience finds themselves in the buyer’s journey continuum.

Let’s briefly go back to theory and explain how people go through stages before buying your product. The steps of the buyer’s journey are awareness, interest, consideration, evaluation, and purchase. In these two articles How to Create Content for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey  and How Content Marketing Drives Sales Throughout Your Buyer’s Journey we have explained more about these stages (although you might find some differences in the categorization) - and the point is this:

When you drive cold traffic to your offer, meaning visitors who have never seen anything about your brand before, it’s harder to drive conversions than to display your request to a warm audience. A friendly audience has come across your company's marketing material, and it’s even warmer if they interact with your brand.

So, a mistake you might make when looking to attract the best-targeted traffic is to expect a high conversion rate, even though these people have never heard of your brand before.

What you can do instead, if you want to see better conversion rates, is to deploy a sales funnel (also called marketing funnel) that will help to convert cold traffic into warm leads and advance people from the awareness stage to the evaluation and purchase stages.

What is the best web traffic source for targeted leads?

If your goal is not sales but leads, i.e., people interested in your offer who will subscribe to your mailing list, then cold traffic can convert well, given that your landing page is carefully designed.  That's one of the big things people wonder where to buy the best-targeted website traffic.

For example, our templates you can find inside your Scriptly account have proven to convert at a rate of 42% to 54%, depending on the niche, which is excellent performance.

To summarize, concluding the best traffic source for targeted leads is tricky because it depends on your niche, budget, and product. To reiterate what we’ve said before, it would be Facebook Ads or Google AdWords if we were forced to pick the top finalists for generating paid leads.

I’m only shipping to the States. How can I advertise on a USA traffic website?

If you want to restrict paid traffic to USA traffic only, it is certainly possible. In the case of USA traffic, there is the option to limit the origin of clicks to your ads, whether you’re buying solo ads, search traffic, display ads, or social network ads.

In other words, all platforms and advertising networks allow you to choose where you want your web visitors to be.

Traffic from “rich” English-speaking countries might also be referred to as “Tier 1 traffic,” indicating the tendency to consider USA, UK, Australian, and New Zealand traffic of higher quality because, as most marketers would agree, people from Tier 1 countries spend more money online on average.

What are the best websites to buy quality traffic?

Another question we often get is, “What are the best websites to buy quality traffic?” We need to know two fundamental pieces of information before answering this question: What do you mean by “best websites” and “how do you define quality traffic?”

Then, we need to know what your business goal is. Are you trying to acquire more leads, or are you trying to drive instant sales? Then, the conversation might lead to “How much is a lead worth to you?” All these pieces of the puzzle will help us paint the picture of “What are the best websites to buy quality traffic?”

Again, the best way we can offer personalized help is to discuss your particular needs over a free strategy call, which will give you clarity about the best advertising strategy for your product.

Sometimes, the same question (“What are the best websites to buy quality traffic?”) comes from marketers promoting MLM or network marketing offers. Also, affiliate marketers might pose a similar question. In this case, websites as traffic sources might refer to solo ad marketplaces.

Many affiliates also visit Facebook groups where buyers post reviews of solo ad sellers. This way, you can see what others are saying about ad sellers, and you’ll be able to pick the ones who seem trustworthy.

Is there a way to buy website traffic using a free trial?

We recently received the above question and thought it was pretty strange. "Where to buy the best-targeted website traffic with a free trial?" What could that mean? The client said he wanted to try different paid traffic methods before taking hard out of pocket. Before spending money, he needed proof that the traffic system worked.

As explained earlier in this article, free trials and promises of free premium traffic are often a hideout for scammers.

There are con artists online trying to take advantage of legit business owners who want to drive quality traffic to their sites. These scammers use traffic bots, i.e., automated programs that open your page and are misinterpreted by Google as real visitors, although they’re just machines.

So, be careful when you read claims like “free premium quality traffic” unless you generate traffic from posting your content on social media.

Unfortunately, some people want to persuade you to believe that they’re sending real traffic to your site while all they’re doing is sending fake clicks.

Again, social media posting and engaging with your audience is an effective way to get free traffic. When coming across other supposedly free traffic methods, please be cautious and ask for proof.

It’s always better to invest your small budget in a traffic source you can verify (Facebook, for example) than to waste your dollars on something seemingly inexpensive that will cost you much more money, time, website reputation, and sanity.

How to buy cheap website traffic

Low price might be your top deciding factor if you’re marketing your business on a small budget.

In our experience, Facebook is the best way for inexpensive website traffic.

How people understand the meaning of “inexpensive” is subjective. Different people mean different things with “cheap traffic.” Some affiliate marketers who run solo ads consider a $0.35 per click cheap. But what if y000 clicks and converts none of those into sales? What if the leads you get are “dead,” meaning non-responsive to your emails?

So, what “cheap website traffic” or “cheap targeted web traffic” really means is that you can attract web visitors and convert them into profitably paying customers. If you can’t make money from the traffic, “cheap” suddenly becomes “expensive.”

So, how do you know if your traffic drives profits? To be profitable

“Revenue Attributed to PPC” must be higher than “Total PPC Cost.”

Here’s how you can calculate those numbers - you can also find additional help in this article: Early-stage SaaS Startups Should Track These Important KPIs

CPC X Number of Clicks = Total PPC Cost

Number of Clicks X Customer Conversion Rate X Average CLV = Revenue Attributed to PPC

Here’s another post in case you want to learn more about handy metrics for paid advertising.

How to buy AdSense-safe traffic

This question comes from website owners who monetize their online properties using Google AdSense. You probably know that Google can be harsh with publishers who don’t conform to AdSense policies. If Google detects fake traffic to a website part of the AdSense network, it will immediately and irreversibly close that account.

With that in mind, the best way to go about AdSense-safe traffic is to invest in good, search-engine-optimized content, which will slowly but steadily attract organic traffic.

Our advice is to never buy website traffic with the sole purpose of getting ad clicks. It would be best to look at ad clicks as a byproduct of quality traffic.

How do I boost traffic to my website?

Now, whether you need to get a decent amount of ad clicks or a significant revenue increase, you must find ways to boost traffic to your website. We’ve written two solid articles on how to get more visitors to your site fast, and you can find them here and here.

In those articles, you will find actionable advice on instantly boosting your traffic, even if you have a newly built website.

How to generate traffic for an affiliate offer

Facebook doesn’t like affiliate marketers. Period. Why? Many affiliate marketers have abused advertising channels to drive traffic to deceiving offers, like push-button money-making methods and weight-loss programs with guaranteed results.

Having said that, if your affiliate offer abides by the advertising guidelines, there’s no reason you can’t use Facebook to drive traffic to your affiliate offers.

Also, note that many email marketing platforms will ban accounts for including affiliate links in their emails. AWeber is arguably the friendliest platform for affiliate marketers since it lets you have direct links to affiliate offers in your email copy.

So, how can you generate traffic for an affiliate offer without the risk of losing your email or ad account? Experienced marketers often create a written or video review of the software, course, or product they want to promote as affiliates. They also spice it up with valuable bonuses. Then, they use paid ads to drive traffic to that content.

Take Amy Porterfield as an example. Amy is open about being affiliated with Marie Forleo’s B-School, an exceptionally successful online program for people wanting to build an internet business. During annual B-School launches, Amy publishes content in different forms and on various media to increase sign-up to B-School for a chance to get a significant commission. Here’s an example of such content.

She’s even created a dedicated Facebook group to engage her audience further.

Here’s another excellent example of how you can promote affiliate offers - and this example comes from our posts. This post highlights the value of email marketing and the importance of choosing the best email marketing software. It provides an honest review and a comparison of different platforms, allowing visitors to sign up for those services via our affiliate links.

We hope these examples helped you get ideas on how you can promote affiliate products effectively. If you want to dive into more related content, here’s a post with ten ideas for promoting a digital product and another specifically for marketers who want to generate traffic for an affiliate offer.

Finally, this resource explains more about where to buy targeted website traffic.

How do I retarget USA visitors on my website?

Some of our clients, who have spent time educating themselves on traffic, often ask us about retargeting subsegments of web visitors.

Retargeting (or remarketing) is indeed pure gold; it’s essential to conversion rate optimization (CRO). In other words, to achieve the highest possible conversion rates from the same traffic volume, you must add retargeting to your marketing arsenal.

Before explaining how you can retarget USA visitors on your website, here’s a complete guide to CRO with retargeting.

Now, assuming a part of your incoming traffic is from the US, you need a way to retarget those people to promote a product that you ship to the US addresses only. Or perhaps simply because you want warm Tier 1 traffic returning to your site.

To do that, you can use either Facebook or Google paid advertising. Both services give you a tracking code (Facebook calls it a “Pixel”), which you must set up on your website before running retargeting campaigns. When the code is set up correctly, the advertising platform drops a cookie in the user’s browser. After this happens, you can retarget them. With retargeting, you can also narrow the target audience to include only people from a specific country.

Retargeting via AdWords

Here’s how it’s done in AdWords:

When you’re creating a new campaign, choose “Display”:

Then, in the next step, you’ll be asked about the campaign goal - and you can choose anything as long as it is a “Standard display campaign.”

Then, on the next page, you’ll be given the option to choose what country you want to retarget…

At the bottom of the same page, you must choose "remarketing." That’s it.

Retargeting via Facebook

If you want to retarget USA visitors on your website using Facebook Ads, then what you need to do on an Ad Set level is first to choose a custom audience and then the location.

Your custom audience will be extracted from your Facebook Pixel, and then by choosing a location, you can narrow down your remarketing audience to include US residents only.

More web traffic questions?

So, that was it! A complete Q&A session about where to buy the best-targeted website traffic! We hope we answered your most pressing questions about free and paid traffic, how to get quality traffic fast, and how to choose the best source of targeted traffic for your business. We also gave you some tools and resources for further reading and the chance to book a free call with us to design your traffic generation strategy in a way that will bring measurable results.

Don’t forget to join us for a free webinar where we’ll show you how to convert a cold audience into hyperactive customers!

Have we missed something? Is there a traffic generation issue that we haven’t tackled? Send us your questions on Facebook, and we will update this comprehensive Q&A article to address your traffic questions quickly.

Are you looking for a complete, done-for-you marketing and sales solution? Read more about how we can help.

Or, if you'd like to get us to run your digital traffic, watch this video!

The post Where to Buy the Best Targeted Website Traffic: Secrets Finally Exposed! appeared first on Done For You.

Tell us this: What can you do (right now) in six seconds? Maybe you took 6 seconds to read and process this question. Or perhaps you have time to look up left or tight, scratch your chin, and you are back to read this.

But a lot can happen in 6 seconds. Take Six-second video ads, for example. In 2017, many brands made a big impact with these 6-second or YouTube bumper ads, as they are known.

What's a Bumper Ad, You Ask? According to the folks at Google,

“A bumper ad is a six-second video format ideal for driving brand reach and frequency. They are available through AdWords as an add-on to traditional campaigns and sold on a CPM basis. Bumper ads can both extend the reach of an existing campaign and complement broader messaging.”

Think of Bumper ads as fun and "snackable." They are short on form but long on impact. They help with brand lift, and they don't take up much in terms of viewing time.

Youtube Bumper Ads are all about dominating at the top of your sales funnel.

ThinkWithGoogle has an entire collection of various top Bumper ads that you can check out for inspiration.

Here are some of the best Bumper ad examples to get your creative juices flowing.

Duracell (Slamtone)

With only six seconds to make a difference, Duracell had to rethink story-telling with the severe time constraints. It wasn't about cutting a longer video short.

They couldn't just get away with trimming and shortening video length. Since Duracell had to tell a story within six seconds, make an impact, and boost its brand lift, it decided to tell a story differently.

Duracell decided to make their product the "hero" and celebrate it.

Samsung #GalaxyS8Plus

With the cutthroat competition for smartphones, Samsung had its work cut out. Samsung Galaxy S8 -- with its infinity plus feature -- had a video featuring what it can do with the infinity display (with the part being shown twice within the six-second time frame) along with the call to action "Pre-book Now."

Making the product the hero again, Samsung decided to showcase the product creatively, trying to maximize the impact it can have -- all in six seconds.

Hefty Party Cups

When you have six seconds for a Bumper ad, and you want to make viewers think either about parties or the cups you'd need to host the party, you don't need to do anything more than show a party (with the cups making a presence) for six seconds flat out.

That's precisely what Hefty Party Cups did with their six-second YouTube bumper ad.

IHOP | Strawberry & Cream Pancakes

When you showcase it well enough, food can make us all hungry. When you are hungry, you will bolt. That's for sure.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a YouTube bumper video Ad worth? It's priceless.

For IHOP, their strawberry and cream Pancake ads did pack in a punch with a short video showcasing their Strawberry Pancake (a hot cup of coffee to boot)

AirBnB | Live There With Your Family

Nothing makes you smile more than the thought of jet-setting away to an exotic location (family in town).

AirBnB capitalizes on that with their YouTube bumper Ad showing all that fun (along with a kid in a pool frolicking away).

With the ad, AirBnB brings in a single point home: You could be hosted (by an AirBnB host) in a foreign land, but you can have all the fun you want to have.

Mercedes

When you have a super fast car to showcase in six seconds, it's a match made in heaven -- at least it is for Mercedes with their fantastic ad for their Mercedes AMG GT S lineup.

You have to give it to the creative folks at Mercedes to match an ad format (like the YouTube bumper Ad format) with precisely the right thing to say for their matching supercar lineup.

You don't always have to limit your creativity to Youtube Bumper Ads.

You can also use these ideas as inspiration to create absolutely any kind of video ad (Facebook or Instagram, anyone?).

The post Bumper Ads That Make an Impact: 6 Brands Nailing Six-Second Video Ads appeared first on Done For You.

Having a Mobile App Funnel that converts is similar in some ways to a more traditional Done For You Sales Funnel...  But, there are some notable differences due to App Stores.

According to MarketingLand, by the year 2019, 72% of the entire digital ad spending in the US is going to be on mobile advertisements.

Another exciting statistic making waves in the industry is that almost half of customers start their search for a product or service from a search engine while one third go the website directly.

Newer metrics indicate that there are 1 million new Internet users per DAY, due largely to smartphones.

Looking at all these numbers, it becomes quite evident that investing in mobile app marketing is the smartest thing a business can do at the moment. And, when it comes to marketing the first thing that instantly pops up into the head is marketing funnels.

In today’s post, we will share information on mobile app marketing funnels and how they differ from the usual marketing funnels. Plus, we will also touch upon the topic of how marketers can leverage marketing funnels for their business to good effect.

So, let us begin.

Mobile App Marketing Funnels

A mobile app conversion funnel is similar to a traditional marketing funnel; the entire process is divided into 5 stages in the mobile app marketing funnel, as well.

Stage 1 – Exposure and Discovery: Making the Customer Reach Your Business

The biggest difference between a traditional marketing funnel and the mobile app marketing funnel lies in the first stage. The reason for this is simple.

In mobile app marketing, downloading a paid app is the ultimate purchase decision that the user has to make, whereas in traditional marketing the final purchase decision is buying the product or service. Time taken in the former is much less when compared to the latter, usually.

However, there is no denying that the next stages, i.e. the exposure and discovery stages, hold prominence in the mobile marketing funnel.

Now, the one question that lurks around in the case of the mobile app conversion funnel is: How do the users find the apps? Here’s a graph that gives you all the numbers:

So, you can see that app store searches are the number one way for people to search and find an app they are looking for.

Strategies for Stage 1

Both paid and organic marketing strategies can work great to get your app to reach a greater number of people. Some of the strategies that marketers can use here include:

Organic strategies

• Word of mouth publicity
• App store optimization
• Social media marketing
• Social bookmarking, internet forums and more

Paid strategies

• Affiliate marketing tactics
• Retargeting
• App advertising

Stage 2 - Consideration: Building Trust Signals

How does a business build trust signals? By showcasing its achievements and customer satisfaction, right?

The same thing rings true for mobile apps, as well.

For a mobile app, app ratings are the best way to showcase how good it is. Ratings build social proof, and studies show that social proofs go a long way in enticing the customer to download the app.

Studies show that more than 85% of customers won’t download an app from the app store if it is rated 2 or below.

Strategies for Stage 2

Build an app page

App stores allow you to add information about your mobile app by creating a dedicated page. You can even add a video. So, use it to your best possible advantage.

Ratings and reviews

As stated above, getting your user rating to 4 stars or above can serve as the biggest trust factor. You need to work towards achieving this goal.

Stage 3 – Conversion: Getting Them to Finally Download the App

Although the primary goal of conversion in mobile app marketing is to get the customer to download the app, its meaning may vary depending on business needs.

For some conversion might be an in-app purchase while for others it could be a subscription to the app.

Based on what the definition of conversion is for your business, you need to work on the strategies for mobile app marketing.

Strategies for Stage 3

Here are some of the tactics you can employ to build a better conversion rate –

• Smooth onboarding – create a meaningful flow so that the user can download the app as smoothly and effortlessly as possible
• Visual design elements – close to 40% of the users part ways with an app because of poor user-interface. So, you know what to do

Stage 4 –Relationships: Providing Value in the Long Run

Just like traditional marketing, the mobile app conversion funnel also revolves around building relationships. The only thing is that you get a little less opportunity to interact with the customer.

As an app marketer, you need to make the best use of whatever little you get.

Strategies for Stage 4

• Finding the right moment – whenever and wherever possible, ask for feedback. Focus on customer service and the users' experience with using the app.
• Personalize communication – use customer data to personalize your mobile app communication, and you can easily win the customer over.
• In-app messaging – in-app feedback, message center options, and similar other strategies can work great for the success of your app. So, make good use of them!

Stage 5 – Customer Retention: Offering Them a Great Experience

It is an age-old fact that, in the world of marketing, acquiring a new customer can cost a business many times more than retaining a customer.

The same is the case here.

Great customer service and making sure that you are in constant touch with your customers are great ways to achieve this.

Strategies for Stage 5

To master Stage 5, here are some strategies you can try.

Ask for feedback – studies show that 98% of users respond positively when asked for feedback. By asking for feedback, you are staying in constant touch with the customer, and also getting to know how you can improve.

Reward programs – another great way to keep your customers using your mobile app for the long haul is by offering special reward programs for mobile users; for instance, encourage them to use mobile apps to make a purchase and, in return, give them a great discount.

Building & Launching a Mobile App Funnel

An app funnel is a kind of like a traditional marketing funnel in a lot of ways.  The main notable difference is your reliance on the app stores to fulfill your app and, in a lot of cases, bring in new users.

Now we've worked with a couple of different mobile app publishers and Android/iOS development organizations that create apps for companies as a service. Because of that, we know that mobile app funnels are very different beasts than a traditional marketing funnel with trigger marketing and marketing automation. One thing is for sure, you'll need a lot of email marketing to pull it off!

At the end of the day, you have a bunch of people who are downloading your app from a marketplace.  Then, you have a smaller subset of people who are buying something through in-app purchases. They are paying money for the app, functionality, or something delivered within the app itself.

So what is the mobile app funnel?

The Mobile App Funnel

The difference with app marketing is that marketplaces are the biggest traffic sources originally.  You can drive your traffic, which we'll talk about, but a lot of app developers are simply hoping that their app takes off in the app store itself.

Here's what I mean.

Most mobile apps are going to be installed on either Google Play or from the iOS app store. That's where the apps are going to physically be located and fulfilled.  When you're promoting your service or product, you are responsible for setting up your fulfillment.  With an app, the platform syncs it with the mobile device.

The marketplace has a LOT of traffic. People go to the marketplace in search of apps. However, I was just reading a study the other day that only 12% of people go and install a new app on their phone every 30 days. So the number of people who are installing apps on their mobile devices is drastically decreasing!

Unless a mobile user is looking for additional functionality a new way of doing something, your app will fall by the wayside if you rely exclusively on the App Store for your users and traffic.  People aren't playing around in the App Store trying to figure out what else they can put on their device, which puts some of the responsibility on the publisher in terms of driving traffic.

Driving Traffic To Your Mobile App

It never used to be that way - where you had to drive your traffic to your mobile app.

It used to be as simple as putting an app in the app store and all of a sudden you were getting downloads and installs!  People were coming through the front door, and you could monetize them through in-app purchases.

Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. You need a mobile app funnel.

Your app funnel is comprised of a couple of things...

You have mobile app advertising. With Facebook and Google, you can drive traffic from those ad platforms specifically to your app marketplace listings. And sometimes that conversion goal can be an app install, which means you are paying per app install.

The bad part though is that now you have real money at stake in promoting your app...  This means that your app needs to start generating cashflow!

Simplify Your Mobile App Onboarding As Much As Possible

There were a few clients that we worked with who was driving good traffic and getting great downloads...  We were spending money to promote their app. They were getting lots of signups (ie. leads), but they had these long terms of service page that needed to be agreed to before they could get in...

Immediately after you put your email address, you were redirected to a page that made you read through the Terms.  It was quite a few scrolls down!  You can guess what happened.  People jump ship, never to open the app again.

All these app downloads were coming in and then these users just never clicked through to even create their first session!

So what we ended up having to do was retool the app to be a single opt-in and a quick TOS checkbox.  From the user setup standpoint, it helped bypass the chokepoint that the terms of service were presenting, and folks were able to download the app and get into it faster!

You, for sure, will see something similar in your app funnel.  When there's a bottleneck, it's up to you and your app development team to optimize the app funnel and the sales process. You want people to download the app, install the app, use the app, love the app, and then ultimately process in-app upgrades that end up generating revenue for you.

And then once you figure that out and you've put together some data, you can go to some of these other app ad platforms to start driving traffic!  With the new traffic and optimization, your app funnel is positioned to take off and a bevy of new users will flood through the platform.

In short, though, don't rely on ONLY the marketplaces anymore!

Conclusion

To sum it up, all we have to say is that an app marketing funnel, whether it be traditional marketing or mobile app marketing, involves a similar set of strategies, yet is different to quite a large extent.

To master the mobile app marketing funnel, you need to think of a mobile app from a user-only perspective. And, that’s where the difference lies.

Everything mentioned above paints a clear picture of how you can master mobile app marketing funnels and bring great results for your business.

So, are you up for it?

The 3-part Sales Funnel Formula

Are you looking to develop a highly-profitable sales funnel?

Read more about the exact sales funnel formula that we use to drive tons of targeted, high-converting traffic to our business and our clients’ business in our brand new version of the Funnel Factor report.

No time to read? Register for our on-demand Sales Funnels webinar that you can watch at any time from the comfort of your home.

The post Mobile App Marketing Funnel: Tips For Generating Sales From App Downloads appeared first on Done For You.

How much easier can paid traffic get, right?

Just put up an ad for a targeted audience (on Facebook) or throw in a bunch of keywords your potential customers might be using to search for your business (on Google), and you are good to go.

It feels like a faucet: When you want results (like leads and sales), all you have to do is to open the “faucet” and you’ll have a Tsunami of results pouring in.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while now, you know that none of that is true. In fact, it’s almost deceptive how easy it might seem to go and launch campaigns on Google or Facebook.

Deceptive it is; easy it isn’t.

If you aren’t careful enough, you could soon lose thousands of dollars with your paid ads and have nothing to show for all that money.

Either you work with professionals to make sure your paid traffic campaigns work or you should start with a solid content marketing strategy first (which can also be an awesome foundation to your paid campaigns later).

We are assuming that you don’t want to waste your ad dollars, that you want your marketing to work for you, and that the last thing you want is to have marketing dollars unaccounted for or with no results to show for all the time, money, and effort you took.

For that reason, here are a few reasons why you should seriously consider organic traffic to your websites and/or landing pages:

Sweat & tears = Long-term potential

The key to making your content marketing work is to produce content on a consistent basis. On schedule, for a long time.

Mediocre content won’t help, so you’d have to create exceptional content to make it work for your business and to stand out from the avalanche of content that’s flooding the Internet as you read this.

Creating organic content doesn’t take money (at least not directly). If you can write, you’d only have to spend time and efforts to get started with blogging, content marketing, content curation, and to create various forms of other content such as Infographics, podcasts, and Youtube videos.

If you can’t write (or don’t want to), you might have to hire writers, content strategists, or bloggers who can help create content for you on an ongoing basis (and this, you’ll need).

Once you create a piece of content, it works to get you traffic for a long time to come. So the investment you are making (in the form of time and effort or in terms of money) will pay off over the years to come, often on a compounding basis.

Content marketing as almost free money

Initially, content marketing could be unforgiving, back-breaking, and undeniably boring.

It takes a lot of effort to create content and then to distribute content on an on-going basis.

However, once your content starts getting readership or viewership or both, you start getting traffic to your websites or landing pages every single day, forever and ever.

See this example sourced from Klipfolio. Just how much money do you think you’d have had to invest in Facebook ad campaigns or Google ad campaigns to get about 325,000 people to your website?

Think about it.

Source: Klipfolio

Over the years of working to produce content, optimizing each piece of content for SEO, and simultaneously sharing or distributing your content on social media will start attracting visitors to your website on a daily basis. Eventually, good content marketing has positive payoffs.

If you do it well enough, the traffic you’ll be able to receive on your website and/or landing pages could be staggeringly more than you’d ever hope to receive with paid campaigns.

Content marketing is more trustworthy than ads

Content — in any of its formats such as text, text + images, or video + images + text — helps build up trust. Since you develop content with the intention to educate, train, inspire, coach, or to inform, you establish authority. Your readers or viewers learn from you while you help them make informed decisions.

All that content, on an ongoing basis, can help build trust in you (or your brand) which breaks down the friction your potential customers have before they whip our wallets out of our pockets.

Do content marketing well enough and you’d have customers for life. Compared to ads which can only bring you results for as long as the campaigns are on, content marketing is a long-term game and can bring you customers, forever.

Further, content marketing working backstage while your advertising puts up the game face on the front allows your potential target audiences to see the full picture behind your paid ads, if they want to (and most people will want to see what’s behind the ad).

Organic growth: Content marketing has other benefits too

With ads, it’s as simple as it gets. Ads point to landing pages or funnels where you’ll generate leads. You’ll then nurture those leads over time until they purchase.

Depending on how your products and services are, you could sell again and again or maybe just once per customer.

Either way, ads have a linear path.

Content marketing — thanks to all the types of content you’ll produce — isn’t linear. In fact, there are many possible positive outcomes with content marketing.

While you can use your blog (or company blog) for direct benefits such as to grow your email list or push traffic on to other pages or your own sales funnels, there are indirect benefits such as getting book deals, being asked to speak at events, or being invited to podcasts.

Here’s an example: NomadicMatt is a travel blogger. After blogging for several years, he had the opportunity to sign book deals.

Side benefits like that can help boost your credibility, help establish authority, and help you to build your brand.

If you think about it, you could never hope to get to speak at events or sign a book deal with an ad now, can you?

We’ve always believed that the best kind of digital marketing is to use all of the available channels available to all of us — content marketing, content curation, social media, email marketing, search optimization, paid traffic, sales funnels, and marketing automation.

You could always pick the best channels that work for you, but ignore one type of channel at the exclusion of something else isn’t doing justice to your marketing efforts.

If you need help with your organic growth strategy, to help manage your paid ad campaigns and more, fill out this form and we’ll get in touch with you pronto.

The post Why Is Organic Traffic Sometimes Better Than Paid Traffic? appeared first on Done For You.

If a million people swear by a brand, you’ll swing towards that brand sometimes even without thinking much.

The more popular a company stock is, which means more people have positive expectations, the more likely the price is to increase — and you’ll invest in it anyway.

See what’s happening there?

It’s called social proof — it is powerful but overlooked despite the fact that we all know intuitively how effective it is.

According to studies, nearly 70% of consumers look for online reviews or some sort of validation before they make purchases. Product reviews left by other customers are at least 12 times more trustworthy than product copy or advertisements.

Are you ignoring the power of social proof?

Your ads are probably not suffering from low-quality design, less powerful copy, or bad execution. It just so happens that you are completely ignoring the power of social proof and you are just as likely not using it for your ad campaigns.

If you are trying to make your gorgeous-looking Facebook ad or purposefully-written Google ad stand out all by itself in isolation and you’ll realize that it’s incredibly hard to do.

Now, social proof applies everywhere — from websites to landing pages; from funnels to ads; from general copywriting to ad copy.

Specifically for your paid ads, social proof goes a long way to help you squeeze more from your ad campaigns.

Sprinkle some social proof on the ad though and you’ll be able to make your ads work that much harder and your ad campaigns will turn fruitful.

Types of social proof for advertising

There are various types of social proof you can use for your ads, landing pages, and funnels — depending on your business. Here are some of them:

• Customer testimonials — applies to almost every business out there.
• Certifications
• Logos of previous & existing clients
• Associations with other organizations, such as governing bodies, communities, etc.
• Expert or celebrity endorsements
• Proof that a few others recently purchased items
• Real-time statistics that show how many people are viewing or buying something. These are popular with travel websites, hotel booking, airline websites, etc.

Now that you know what kind of social proof you could use, here’s how to make your ads work harder, social proof in tow:

Adapt and use social proof, depending on ad formats

How you use social proof will depend on the ad type and the platform you are creating. Google ads restrict the number of characters you can use within your ad. Using customer testimonials might not work for the actual Google ads.

You could have used Google’s review extensions (but Google is sunsetting the feature soon) and that would make for a great addition as social proof.

Let’s assume that you are going to use Google ads. You can still add social proof to your Google Ad in the following ways:

• Use sitelink extensions pointing to a dedicated page on your website full of customer testimonials
• Use the callout extensions to add a small phrase from an actual customer testimonial.

Just be sure not to overdo the promises or the claims you make. You know? Things like “The Absolute Best CRM in the world” or “Lose 140 kilos in 10 Days” — Google won’t allow that.

As for using banner ads, Facebook ads, etc., using social proof is a lot easier with these platforms.

Use customer testimonials as ad copy

Use customer testimonials in your ads. Then, test this ad performance against your regular ads.

For instance, if you were creating a Facebook ad, you could create an ad with just the face of the customer and what they think about your business.

Image Credits: Adespresso

By doing this, you are using social proof in your ad and you’ll also end up using a picture of a real person (which helps boost click-through rate).

You can use customer testimonials as ad copy in a few ads and then test these ads against the regular ads that you run. You can also experiment with short video testimonials against simple image ads.

Promote customer stories

Image credits: Adroll

Insight #1: We humans love stories. If you can weave in your products or services within the story, you have a double-barrel shotgun.

Insight #2: Promoting your stories will ensure that the retention, engagement, and click-through rates are higher, especially for ads.

Insight #3: Using visual medium to narrate stories takes your game up several notches higher.

With the three insights above, you can clearly see why using customer stories as “ads” (as against regular ads that make an offer) can be a lot more engaging. You are not only getting eyeballs, engagement, and clicks on your ads but you’ll also be able to make your ads “sticky”.

Using stories to get results for your business is now all the more easy with Youtube’s Trueview ads, Instagram stories, and Facebook stories already available for you to tap into.

Need help with your ad campaigns, sales funnels, and landing pages? Do you want to ensure a better ROI for your ad campaigns? Fill out this form now and we’ll get back to you.

The post How And Why Adding Social Proof To Ad Campaigns Boosts Your ROI appeared first on Done For You.

LinkedIn is perfect for advertising your business whether your goal is to generate leads (download our lead generation template for free), find business partners, attract talent or grow your following.

Let’s find out about the 9 different advertising ways available to you on LinkedIn.

1. Self-Service PPC Advertising

This self-service pay-per-click (PPC) advertising solution allows you to create and show ads on popular pages and page locations on the LinkedIn.com website. You specify which LinkedIn members (your target audience) view your ads by setting filters like: country, age, gender, job title, job function, industry, company name, company size, or membership in a LinkedIn Group.

Your Self-Service LinkedIn campaigns will show as text ads. They will show at the top of the LinkedIn web pages, and, additionally, they will be featured in the right sidebar as full ads with an image.

2. Sponsored InMail

Sponsored InMail is a type of LinkedIn advertising that allows you to use LinkedIn InMail (direct messages to members) to deliver highly relevant personal messages to your target market. Sponsored InMail is much different from the regular InMail message, and also much different from other types of advertising on LinkedIn.

The sole purpose of a sponsored InMail is to encourage the person to respond. You need to establish communication with the person first before you send them a marketing message. So, use InMail to entice people to respond.

Sponsored InMail ads are always delivered (100% deliverablitity) to the top of the member’s inbox, increasing open rates, visibility and response rate. Sponsored InMail has an average open rate of 20% and a 20% click-through rate on the call to action (CTA). These open and click-through rates are well above the industry standard.

You can use Sponsored InMail together with LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. Read the article we wrote about lead generation with LinkedIn.

3. Content Ads

There’s another way to advertise on LinkedIn, and that is Content ads. Content ads resemble a mini-website that lets you show multiple ads in one sidebar widget. They look like those rotating billboards you find on highways that display three different advertisements as the panels turn.

With LinkedIn Content ads, you can display up to four advertising messages in different media formats, so you have more chances to catch the viewer’s attention. For example, you can display YouTube videos in one tab, your live Twitter feed in another, and custom ad copy in the last one. You can mix and match information to make highly engaging campaigns by offering or displaying digital downloads, podcasts, white papers, flash or image banners, or videos.

Content ads on LinkedIn are a great way to reach many different customer personas with just one ad.

4. Social Ads

LinkedIn Social Ads are an effective way to invite LinkedIn members to share information and recommend your products or services. Social Ads use the same type of targeting like other sorts of LinkedIn advertising but they allow you to leverage social proof throughout the LinkedIn network. The recommendations of trusted contacts are a highly reliable way to add impact and credibility to your brand message.

LinkedIn’s considerable range of social ads is designed to leverage the way LinkedIn members use the network to share tips, information and ideas. Social Ads make it simple for members to endorse your company and spread the word about your products. This way of advertising on LinkedIn gives your content a better chance to go viral across the network.

5. SlideShare Content Ads

SlideShare is a LinkedIn service for PowerPoint presentations, documents, infographics and articles. It provides an excellent way to encourage member engagement.

With SlideShare Content Ads, you can promote your SlideShare content in sponsored LinkedIn updates. This way, you can share your best content with an audience that is looking for expert insights. Normally, your SlideShare content is displayed within your LinkedIn profile, under the Summary section or in the Experience section.

6. LinkedIn Group Ads

An effective way to advertise your business is LinkedIn Group ads. This type of ads is more personalized, targeted and relevant because it focuses on specific communities. The goal is to promote and drive membership to interest-based LinkedIn groups.

LinkedIn Group ads come with viewer-specific social graph information within the ad to build a user-specific message, deliver Group recommendations, and build trust through a co-branded template that implies LinkedIn endorsement.

7. Featured Company Ads

LinkedIn’s Featured Company campaigns are quite similar to Follow Company ads (see below). The difference is the Featured Company ads are directly associated with your business page and lets you showcase links to the Jobs pages and Product Showcase on your LinkedIn Company page.

This type of advertising is an organic-looking promotional tool that helps generate awareness and engagement for Company Pages. It encourages interaction directly from the way the ad is built. It also leverages the network connections of members to drive interest. The Follow Company ads only let the viewer click on the Follow Company link.

8. Follow Company Ads

LinkedIn Follow Company Ads, as also mentioned above, are a unique set of display ads that take advantage of a member’s profile information to deliver a personalized message and generate interest in your Company Page.

These campaigns enable brands to target professionals, create awareness for their Company Page, and convert people into active followers.

9. Spotlight Ads

Last but not least, a Spotlight Ad (part of the Dynamic Ads feature) is a fully customizable type of ad that leverages the LinkedIn profile image but can link to the advertiser’s landing page. These ads resemble normal content on the page and don’t use the typical ad formats. Because Spotlight Ads blend in with the network’s content, LinkedIn members often click on them not realizing they are looking at ads.

Spotlight ads let advertisers showcase events, products, services and more. When members click on your ad, they will instantly be redirected to your landing page or website.

Spotlight Ads were created with the aim to help a job seeker land a job by associating their profile image with a business logo. This is how these ads work: they show a member’s profile picture in the ad under the ad headline, “Picture Yourself at Company” and their new job title under their name. This helps people visualize themselves at your company.

How to get started with LinkedIn Advertising

If you are looking to have a team of experts create effective advertising campaigns for your business, don’t hesitate to contact us. We have a professional PPC team that will review your requirements and create campaigns that drive results.

If you want to explore LinkedIn advertising, visit this link or sign in to your profile to start a new campaign. For each campaign, you can create variations to test different ad copy, images and landing pages.

It is important to carefully define your target audience. You don’t want your ad to be shown to anyone; you should define an audience who is interested in and needs your product, and who is more likely to convert into a lead or customer once they click through your ad.

The post 9 Ways To Convert Business From LinkedIn appeared first on Done For You.

Whether you choose to work with organic or paid methods to attract web visitors, all that traffic should be sent to landing pages and sales funnels to make the most out of your efforts and budget. Landing pages and sales funnels ring it all together by collecting leads, nurturing them, and making sales happen while building a pipeline of highly-interested, potential customers.

But not every business has the funds and tools needed for a full-blown paid advertising campaign that brings results. At least, they don’t initially when most businesses bootstrap and struggle to stay afloat.

Your best bet (whether or not you do paid advertising) is to ensure that you always invest in ongoing organic digital marketing efforts such as blogging, social management, content marketing, content curation, search engine optimization (SEO), and growing your email list naturally.

Think of doing organic digital marketing as your base, a foundation to maintain and continue. This is your long-term game.

In our experience, about 80% to 90% of organic traffic will come in thanks to your search engine optimization efforts. While the SEO landscape is always changing and becoming more and more competitive, you don’t have to stress yourself over it.

As such, you don’t need to overdo your SEO. Do everything else pertaining to organic digital marketing such as social media management and continue to grow your email list by tapping into the traffic you are already receiving.

Here’s how you put in continuous effort to up your SEO game in 2019:

Optimize your website for SEO friendliness & user experience

Too many marketers and businesses focus on SEO hacks and growth hacking tricks while completely ignoring the basics. A good digital marketing strategy starts with how your website is built and optimized for search.

At the outset, host your websites on servers that are optimized for speed, security, and long-term reliability.

When visitors arrive on your website, it should be immediately clear as to what your business is. Then, as they “dwell” on your site, consume content, scroll through each page, and visit multiple pages, it’s the user experience that really matters today.

Google made it clear that user experience is paramount to the search engine giant. So much that it also introduced RankBrain — a machine learning system that continuously monitors your web pages for user experience, the average dwell time (time spent on your site), and the “stickiness” factor of your content.

RankBrain monitors how users interact with search results and links leading to your site and then how well your website delivers the information that your potential visitors are looking for.

RankBrain is of the top factors for Search engine optimization today (more so in 2019 and beyond) and all of it centers around the user experience on your site.

Ensure faster web page loading speed

How important is “speed” when it comes to websites and online stores? According to BigCommerce, if an online store makes $50,000 a day, a 1-second delay in page load time causes about $1 million in losses per year. Each second delay causes 7% loss in conversion.

The faster your web pages load, the more money you will make. Period.

According to Billy Hoffman who wrote for Moz, your website backend performance has a direct correlation with your search rankings than your website’s frontend performance. While frontend performance matters for user experience, the backend performance affects your search rankings.

In a nutshell, you’ll need faster websites and user-focused design to make it all ring together.

Use the following free tools to see how your website performs:

• Conduct quick web page speed tests with Pingdom
• Test your website’s mobile-readiness with TestMysite from ThinkWithGoogle
• Get your page speed load time and recommendations from GTMetrix 
• Use Google’s Page speed Insights & the entire suite of tools Google provides for page speed optimization
• Rigor’s Free performance report

Then, take the necessary steps to increase your page load speeds.

Note: Shared hosting sucks and penny-pinching here would mean that your site is vulnerable to hacking, susceptible to malware and vulnerable scripts, and your web pages will load slowly

Start before you really need to start

Everything you need to do with organic digital marketing such as search engine optimization will take a significant amount of time. As such, it’s critical that you have time on your side before depending on SEO to produce results for your business.

According to Jeff Baker of Moz, it’ll take you about 90-100 days or more for your new content to start ranking and to realize its full potential. It’ll take anywhere from 3-5 months for your new content to perform and fully-mature.

So, despite doing what you do with regards to content marketing, you’d also have to give it all the time in the world. What this means for many businesses is that they’d have to start working on SEO at least 6-9 months prior to the period of time that you actually expect results.

Since most businesses barely have the time and patience to wait, we always recommend starting to put in all the efforts even before you officially launch.

This is an incredibly effective strategy that allows you to not only take advantage of the traffic resulting from your organic efforts but also allow you to build an audience even before you launch your business.

Produce and distribute content systematically

The biggest open secret when it comes to SEO is to produce and distribute content across channels consistently, regularly, and with a predictable frequency over long periods of time. You should:

• Create blog posts published with a regular frequency (usually weekly)
• Update your social feeds with your published content, other relevant content from non-competing sources, and to maintain those conversations on social networks.
• Produce other pieces of content such as curated lists, infographics, podcasts, and videos along with your main blog posts and social updates. Then, distribute these content pieces along with your main content.
• Repurpose your existing content into other formats. For instance, you can repurpose a long list-type blog post as a slide deck. You can then share your slides on LinkedIn SlideShare.
• Use content curation to not only create content quickly but also provide huge benefits to your readers or visitors. Content curation also helps you with link building and rapid growth.

Each of the points above will demand continuous production of content and consistent distribution. Use marketing tools (software and apps) or people or a combination of both to achieve results.

Keep updating your old content

This might seem obvious, but it isn’t. Updating your previously published blog posts is like your content marketing Swiss army knife with multiple benefits.

First, updating your old content helps keep your content updated, informative, and most relevant.

Second, as you update your blog posts, you’d end up adding more juice to your existing content and inch towards creating long-form content which is great for optimizing for search results.

Third, you’ll help add more statistics, contributor quotes, research, social proof, outbound links, and inbound links as you go big on quality by updating your top performing blog posts.

Use videos as a part of your content

User behavior when it comes to consuming content is changing fast. More than 43% of your online visitors demand video content. Video plays a huge role when it comes to user engagement, how long people will spend on your site, and how they consume content.

Further, video ranks well while making it easier for your visitors to consume content. Cisco predicts that by 2022, more than 82% of all traffic will be video-driven.

Create dedicated videos for your YouTube Channel. Create videos to explain concepts or to share your screen while you write your blog posts. Use a bunch of related videos and use them to create a free course which works as an awesome lead magnet to help you grow your email list.

Integrating videos with the rest of your content marketing strategy is the single best thing you’d do for your business in 2019.

If you’d like us to help you with your digital marketing strategy, sales funnels, landing pages, and paid advertising campaigns or if you’d like to know how to best position your marketing strategy for results, fill out this form and we’ll get in touch with you right away.

The post How To Ramp Up Your SEO Game In 2019 And Beyond appeared first on Done For You.

While it might seem easy to create profitable Facebook campaigns , it’s not.

Facebook’s ad interface is complex with tons of options for advertisers. Of all the options available, Facebook Lead ad campaigns are one of the most promising ones that help advertisers generate leads and nurture them till they become customers.

While Facebook Lead Ads (now used with Instant Forms) might seem all easy to set up, there are a few practical considerations and a few strategic practices for you to think.

Here’s how you run Facebook Lead ads properly:

Profitable Facebook Lead Ad campaigns: Be sure to set up & test the Pixel

The Facebook Pixel is the all-powerful piece of code that you need to add to your website and landing pages. The Pixel comes in two parts:

• The base pixel, and
• The event code (for leads, conversions, page view, purchases, initiate checkout, etc.) — choose the event code that makes sense for your campaign.

While the base pixel has to fire on absolutely every page of your website, the event code part of the pixel should only fire on pages that show up when a conversion event happens. Examples of these pages are a thank-you page that loads after a lead signs up or a purchase-confirmation page which comes after a purchase has been made.

Additionally, there are several other events you could track, such as “initiate checkout”, “pageview” and “content view” if you want to better understand how your Facebook Ads perform.

Be sure to place the pixel properly on your website and/or landing pages. You can use the free Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome extension to test your Pixel placement.

Think of an offer to make

No one is going to click through and sign up on your Facebook Lead generation Ad forms (Instant forms) if you don’t make an offer.

If you don’t make an offer, there’s no incentive for your target audience to sign up. You want people to click through the ad and sign up for something you are giving away for free (just like a traditional opt-in offer).

Here’s what HubSpot does to generate leads for their business:

If you notice, HubSpot targets very specific audiences of startup founders and co-founders, marketing managers, agency owners, and other similar audiences to make a very specific offer — an Email Marketing Kit.

For Facebook Lead generation ads, it’s absolutely important to make an offer of some sort — a free eBook, a set of free videos, a whitepaper, a free online course, a free online membership, a free demo, etc.

You get the drift.

One form, two ads

For each campaign, you will essentially have one instant form created for that campaign and two ads (in pairs, so that you can test one ad against the other). You could also split test forms if you’d like but we suggest you only test forms after you already generate several leads with the one you first created.

Ads, however, are easier to test within each Ad set. So, start with ads A & B within the same ad set and test ad images or videos, ad copy, etc.

Be sure to add a “privacy policy” link to your Lead Instant forms, check for grammatical errors, and let it roll.

Note: You can add Instant forms or lead gen forms for your regular image or video campaigns too so that you can generate leads, just in case.

Bidding strategy for profitable Facebook Lead Ad campaigns

When you first launch your campaigns, Facebook will put your campaign through a “learning phase” where it’s trying to determine the best possible and most responsive audiences for the exact objective you’ve chosen (such as link clicks, conversions, landing page views, or leads).

Normally, Facebook needs about 50 “conversions” — depending on what you’ve set as conversions here — to make a learned decision about your campaign and then use their massive data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to show your ads to the exact audience you seek.

For Facebook to do this, it needs data.

According to Facebook,

“A good time to check to see if an adjustment is necessary is after your ad set has got about 50 optimization events. At that point, its delivery should be relatively stable, so you can get a pretty accurate sense of its performance.”

Most businesses and marketers start with their Lead generation ad campaigns optimizing for leads (obvious enough) but for “lowest cost” possible.

While it might seem like the sensible thing to do with Facebook Lead generation ads, it really isn’t.

Opting for the “lowest cost” makes your costs of acquisition go up over time. In short, you’ll let Facebook determine what the best cost of acquisition is. This is fine for the initial stages of your campaign but it gets more and more expensive as time goes by.

A better way to use the “lowest cost” bidding option is to set a cap — a price point which is near or equal to the actual cost of acquiring a lead for your business.

You can also use the “target cost” method if you know the cost of acquisition of a lead.

So, once you set up a lead generation campaign:

• Think of an offer and create two ads based on your offers.
• Double-check your ads, copy (and also for grammatical or design errors).
• Your Facebook lead generation campaign will be optimized for leads.
• Determine your daily budget (stay at a comfortable amount — not too high, not too low), a schedule, and launch your campaign.
• Instead of choosing “lowest cost”, choose the lowest cost with a bid cap or a target cost.
• Wait for Facebook’s learning phase to complete (usually around 50 conversions).
• Make significant edits (such as changing ads, copy, or bidding strategies) only after the learning phase. Note: Making significant edits will reset the learning phase thereby extending the time you need to run the campaign.

Connect your lead form with a CRM

On clicking the ad, an instant form pops up collecting basic information (or pre-set questions used for lead qualification and is set by advertisers).

The form is pre-filled with customer data (Facebook automatically inserts some basic information like names, phone numbers, and email addresses).

Your potential leads will fill up any other questions you might have included in your Instant forms.

All of this data is captured by facebook (and you can later download this data as a .CSV file). Thankfully, Facebook also integrates with several CRM providers and this helps you to avoid the manual work of downloading and uploading data.

If you are lucky enough to work with a CRM that Facebook already integrates with, the data is automatically synced with your CRM or email service provider such as MailChimp.

Depending on your setup, you can immediately trigger email autoresponders, marketing automation, and other email sequences after your leads submit the instant form.

Use email autoresponders to welcome your leads, or deliver what you promised (free coupon or free eBook?).

Manage your audiences

If you remember, you’ve already set up the Facebook Pixel on your website. One of the wonderful things you could do with your Facebook pixel is to create audiences.

The types of custom audiences that you create depends on your business (things are different for a service-based business compared to e-commerce business, for instance).

Sticking to lead ads campaigns for regular businesses and integrating with an email service provider like MailChimp are not enough. There are a few more things you must do:

• Create custom audiences for all website visitors or visitors to specific pages that are important to your business (such as pricing pages)
• Upload your existing email subscribers list to Facebook and name it as another audience.
• If you have a list of customers, make a separate list and create another audience for them on Facebook (you can also use the special LTV (Lifetime Value) based audience on Facebook for this.
• If your email marketing automation system allows for direct integration with Facebook, you can also automate things in a way that after each lead signs up through your campaigns, you could automatically add them or remove them from one of your custom audiences.

You could then include or exclude custom audiences depending on how you structure your campaigns.

An example of a simple use case might be that you don’t want to include your existing email subscribers for your Facebook lead generation campaign since they’ve already signed up for your offer. You might also want to exclude your customer list from these campaigns.

Managing your audiences by including or excluding them is essential for running targeted Facebook lead ad campaigns, to stay relevant, and to keep your costs low.

If you need help with your Facebook Lead Ad Campaigns, please feel free to fill out this form and we’d love to discuss your strategy with you.

The post 6 Steps To Profitable Facebook Lead Ad Campaigns appeared first on Done For You.

“Google Ads is a monster — whether or not it works for you, depends on you”

The monstrous complexity of Google Ads interface is no news for you. Maybe you logged in and logged out? Maybe you tried to dabble with it? Heck, you might have managed to launch a campaign or two on Google too?

The Google Ads application is just like Photoshop — the complexity never ends. For most users, that complexity isn’t even required. But the software is kept the way it is so that users of all experience profiles can use either of those.

We’ve covered a lot on Google Ads for a while now. Here are a few posts, for your reference:

How to Start & Run Your Campaigns On Google Ads
Lesser known features of Google Ads To Get You More Results For Less
Mandatory Reports Within Google Ads To Help Maximize Your ROI
How Now to Drain Your Google Ads Budget

Before you go deep into Google Ads and start working on your campaigns, there are a few things you should do:

You’ve got some numbers to crack first

You don’t just log into your Google Ads campaign manager and launch campaigns. That’s just not how it’s done.

Before you go anywhere near Google Ads, you’ll have to calculate a few numbers.

This depends on your business, products, services, and your pricing. But let’s take a dig at it:

Make certain calculations (since each digital channel has variable conversion rates). For instance, incoming phone calls convert higher than leads generated on landing pages. Or email converts better than social. Or Facebook Messenger converts better than email.

• What price point do your products or service sell for?
• What’s the profit margin on each product you sell?
• What’s the average lifetime Value of every customer you get?
• What is each lead generated on my landing page worth? If you have multiple products at multiple price points, calculate an average lead value for each.
• What is each incoming phone call worth?
• What’s each chat (followed by email capture, and then meeting booked) on your live chat software worth?
• What’s the maximum I can spend on generating a lead (across the above channels)?
• If I spend X, how many leads do I generate to create Y revenue, and hence Z profits?

Once we have all the information we need for your business, you can plan our campaigns better, spend only what we need to, and do what we can to generate leads, phone calls, shopping sessions, etc.

Set up your campaigns right

We’ve written about how to set up your Google Ad campaigns right earlier.

Whatever you do with your Google Ads campaigns, don’t use the defaults. It applies to everything from choosing your locations, excluding locations, rotating ads, applying budgets (CPC, for instance), and how you add your keywords for your campaigns.

As a ready reckoned, here’s what you should typically do while setting up your campaigns:

• Start with the lowest possible budget (just enough to move the needle)
• Instead of choosing an entire country (such as the United States), choose only major cities.
• Choose “People Living In…” your [Chosen Location] and not the default “People Interested In…”
• Always create your Ads in pairs (for split testing).
• Depending on your business, make good use of day parting ( the ability to show your ads during particular days of the week or hours of the day)
• Since you are split testing your ads, don’t choose the default “Show the best ad….”. Instead, “choose to rotate ads evenly…”

There are many default Google Ads settings that you should be careful about [that makes it a completely new post for later]

Use extensions

We cannot stress the importance of using ad extensions while launching your Google Ad campaigns.

While it’s the easiest thing to do to maximize the impact of your ads, it’s also the most neglected. More than 70% of the Google ad accounts we see here at DoneForYou don’t have extensions.

That’s literally throwing money out into the drain.

Look at the Google ad above.

Do you see how those extra links give more juice for your ad? Do you realize that just by using extensions, you are able to increase the real estate your ad takes up on the Google search results page?

Ad extensions let your ad take up more space, look bigger, provide more context to your ads, and they don’t cost you a dime more.

Track Your Inbound Calls

Say you did pay attention and use your “call extension” on Google ads. So, what exactly happens when you include the call extension on Google Ads?

Some of your potential customers could look at the number and place a phone call.

With thousands of potential customers seeing that number and placing phone calls, how do you track those phone calls and attribute conversions to those?

Most businesses don’t.

Did you know that the humble mobile search alone drove approximately 73 billion phone calls in the year 2018?

Now, that number will only get bigger as we go by.
But then, it’s shocking to see just how many businesses don’t track their incoming phone calls. According to BIA Kelsey research, around $64.6 billion is being spent on localized ads that are meant to generate phone calls for businesses.

With over 150+ billion being spent on local advertising in the United States, about 12.6 % of that spending is on pure-play mobile ad spend.

Put your phone numbers on your website, your Google Ads (and also on Facebook ads). Then, use a good phone call tracking software to track incoming calls along with all sorts of other caller data such as the name of callers, duration of calls, the source of calls, and more.

Make no excuses with email (and marketing automation)

Email gets you an ROI of 4800%. Just stop there and think about it.

Email Marketing automation isn’t complicated at all — it might look like it is, but it isn’t. You don’t have to be a tech genius to figure out and use marketing automation for your business.

With the kind of technology available for business of all sizes, your excuses are no longer valid. There are all sorts of marketing tools (that’ll make up the most of your marketing stack), there are specialist agencies that can help you with it all, or there are specific solutions even for agencies, large businesses, and enterprises.

Marketing automation helps take your hands off a few aspects (where possible).

Embrace text messaging

In the rush of everything digital, we all conveniently forgot about the humble SMS. Your potential audience could miss your push notification messages, emails, social updates, the latest blog post, and pretty much everything else you throw at them.

Chances are that they won’t miss reading their SMS messages. Some companies like Skipio claim a whopping 98% open and read rates for SMS messages.

Wishpond has an infographic that shows you just how effective SMS can be as a channel and explains over 25 different marketing automation use cases just by using SMS.

You could use this channel well if you take care not to come across as spammy and shady. Not every SMS message you send should be a pitch.

Instead, use SMS as a channel but use email marketing best practices such as meaningful engagement, asking questions, and providing value.

Get professional help

Google and Facebook want you to truly believe that rolling out an ad is incredibly easy, and it is. There’s no denying just how powerful these platforms are (under the hood) while making it seem so easy to launch a campaign.

If you aren’t too careful, you’ll only end up spending your money for nothing.

Google Ads management is a full-time job — it takes a lot more than you think and it’s not for the faint-hearted. There’s the right way to setup campaigns (above), an effective way to use keywords, arrange your ad groups, managing budgets, and more.

Plus, there are landing pages, funnels, email marketing automation, split testing, optimization, and tweaking your campaigns continuously.

Don’t try it at home.

Looking for help with your paid marketing campaigns, landing page funnels, ads management, and your digital marketing strategy? Fill out this form now and allow us to help you out.

The post Google Ads Management: No-Brainer Steps You Should Take (Right Now) appeared first on Done For You.

If you pick up a gig and leave it halfway, you won’t get paid.

If all of that is true, how do you suppose you can get away with paid traffic campaigns that are not completely implemented?

How is it possible for you to:

• Create just one ad and point it to a website and wait for sales to roll in?
• Launch a random paid traffic campaign on Facebook or Google, throw money at it, and expect it to get you results when your potential audience has no guidance or a workflow to follow?
• How can you make sales when there’s no call to action for your potential audience to follow through?
• How do you get results in the very instant someone clicks on your ad? What were you expecting? That your potential customer sits on a chair with his or her wallet wide open, a credit card in hand, waiting to buy right off of your ad?
• Not everyone buys today and right now. Many people buy later, when the time is right, and when they need your products. So, where’s the pipeline for your business? What happens to everyone who sees your ad but doesn’t take action while your campaign is live?

This is how most paid traffic campaigns are set up.

Be it Google ads, Facebook ads, or LinkedIn ads — most businesses and even full-fledged “ad experts” don’t set up campaigns the right way.

It’s almost embarrassing but it’s no fun to watch a business losing money just because they did not take the time out to set up their campaigns properly.

Here’s how to plan your paid ad campaigns (regardless of the platform):

Ask yourself the right questions

Remember: If you have a crappy product, no amount of advertising can help. Just saying, so this is out of the way.

You don’t think about ads, campaigns, funnels, and landing pages first; you must think about your own business.

Not all businesses are the right fit for either of the leading platforms such as Google and Facebook.

If it costs you $2 per click on Google Ads, your dropshipped products with a profit margin of $12 per product might not be a good fit.

You’ll never make money promoting products with low-profit margins using paid advertising channels. Some business types are not even allowed (firearms, alcohol, etc.). Particular platforms might disapprove your ads if they contain certain words or specific kind of language style.

So, ask yourself:

• What’s the price point at which you sell your products on average? Have multiple products? Calculate this value for each.
• What’s the average profit margin for each product you sell?
• What’s the cost of your customer acquisition? Take all overheads, business costs, cost of producing goods (including ad budgets, actuals spent on marketing tools, etc.) into account.
• What’s the cost of acquiring a lead?
• How many sales should you make to break even and to profit?
• What might be the right platform for marketing your products? Facebook? Pinterest? Google? Twitter?
• What’s that juice offer that you can give away for free to entice your customers?
• What’s the singular action you want your potential customers to take?
• How will you communicate all this on an ad, followed by a landing page, and then followed by a sequence of emails?

Don’t even start your campaigns without answering these questions for yourself or with your team.

Choose your platform

Depending on where you are located, your budgets, products, and by taking all of your answers (above) into consideration, you’ll now have to choose one or more platforms for paid traffic campaigns.

Facebook is passive advertising and works great for practically all kinds of business, but it’s even better for B2C type of businesses. If you sell products that individuals can buy (including events, entertainment, tickets, etc.) or if you are launching completely new products within a new niche, Facebook is where you should advertise.

Google is more intent-based and works great for all businesses that people might be looking for by using search.

Pinterest is more image-driven and Twitter or Quora is best if the niche you are in brings out a lot of conversations among social communities.

Perry Marshall has handy tools to help you decide which platform (at least between Google and Facebook) might be the best fit for your business.

Google Ads Scorecard
Is FB For Me?

Just a point to note: You can test out any number of platforms available to see what works for your business and what doesn’t.

Here’s a much more detailed guide on when to use Google or Facebook

In fact, if you wanted to up your game, you could certainly use both Google and Facebook to make the most out of both the platforms.

Create your paid traffic campaigns

Ads are always created in pairs.

Not 12 or 15. Not just 1.

When Ads are in pairs, it’s easier to split test your ads (or A/B testing as it’s called). Now, not everything has to be tested.

Also, you’d need enough data to come to any meaningful conclusions from your tests, assuming you started out by testing the right things and with a viable hypothesis.

When there are two ads pitted against each other, it’s easier to see what’s working and what’s not.

Build landing pages or funnels to match your ads

Don’t point ads to your website — there’s just no point in doing that. There are way too many distractions on your website or e-commerce store and people clicking through ads to reach your website don’t have the patience to browse through every page on your website.

Eliminate distractions by pointing traffic to a landing page, multiple landing pages in sequence, or sales funnels.

This way, you’ll be able to match the offer on the ad with the right copy on your landing page, allow your audience to take action (such as signing up for your offer), and then have an opportunity to nurture your audience.

Link up email marketing or messenger bots

If you think setting up funnels and landing pages is a complex affair, you have the new age methods of sending people straight to a conversation by using Facebook messenger chatbots.

Using Facebook Chatbots allows you to automate parts of the conversation, help build a separate and dedicated list of Facebook Messenger subscribers (to whom you can send out regular messages, promotional campaigns, and more).

Finally, you may also use other live chat software on your website or landing pages.

For instance, you can use Drift to instantly engage with your website visitors. Or you could use Freshmarketer, Intercom or GoSquared.

How you really connect the dots is up to you, and also depends on your business, but you can see that your campaign isn’t just based on the ads by themselves.

There’s a full sales machinery at work here beyond the click, so to speak.

Tracking & analytics

You’d want to make the most use of Google Analytics (and other analytics tools you’d be using) in combination with your traffic sources (such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads).

To do that, the most basic tracking you should be using is UTM (Urchin Tracking Modules) which produce a messy tracking link on top of your main landing page link or website URL link that you’ll use for your ads.

Use this free UTM builder or UTM.io to create your tracking links for absolutely everything — from the links you use for your ads all the way to regular links you might place within your blog posts and other places online.

Be sure to link your Google Ads to Google Analytics and use UTM links to track incoming traffic from Facebook to see all the incoming data within Google Analytics after your campaigns go live.

Without this, you’ll have a hard time trying to figure out where your leads and/or sales come from.

This is the basic setup you need to make your paid traffic campaigns to work. Without doing this work up front, don’t expect your ads to perform as well you expect them to. Too many businesses and agencies miss out on this setup and hence don’t perform.

We know that paid traffic management such as Google Ads management or Facebook ads management is a full-time job.

If you’d rather focus on your business and let professionals handle paid traffic campaigns for you, fill out this form and we’ll discuss the best way forward.

The post How To Run Paid Traffic Campaigns That Are Built To Perform appeared first on Done For You.

With more than 2.23 billion + active users on Facebook, we really don’t know what else can match the might of the social media monster. More businesses and advertisers are taking to the platform than ever.

When it comes to eCommerce stores and straight to Amazon clicks, a lot of advertisers are still approaching Facebook ads the old way. eCom store owners and advertisers are still trying to get the humble, tried-and-tested “single image ads” to work like they used to.

As a supplement vendor, you’ve got LOTS of creative.  Bottles.  Models.  Action shots (like in the gym).  Events.  You have visual assets that you can use (lots of them) — product images, product videos, and several products to advertise.

Facebook knows that, and it’s been slowly working on its ad platform to give you not only a worldwide audience of billions of people but also some fantastic ways to showcase your brand, products, and services.

Image ads on Facebook and Instagram used to work well.  Now, it’s very hard to attract a cold visitor with image ads alone.  Not to mention, video and other ad types give you audience-building benefits that you can’t get any other way!

Boost CTR To Your Store With Images As Video Slideshows

Curious about what the average CTR (Click through rates) on Facebook is? Mark Irvine of Wordstream has a handy post listing out the average CTR of Facebook ads across industries.

Now, whatever benchmark you saw on Mark’s post, expect a higher CTR when you use video. Video works better than images in most cases (and we can tell you that without even testing or wasting time running several campaigns).

If you have more than one image or image ad available for Facebook Ads for supplement sales, it’s a no-brainer to convert those images into a video slideshow.

No, you don’t need any software, fancy editing skills, or a video team of any sort. Facebook allows you to turn your images into a video slideshow from right within your ads manager.

More Ad Imagery With Carousel Ads

One picture is worth a thousand words. So, what are several images really worth? Facebook’s Carousel ads — which consist of several cards scrolling horizontally — are perfect for supplement store owners.  You can use images of the bottle, athletes, workouts, whatever.  The collection of images come together to create an emotional connection that you want with your audience.

In fact, carousel ads have been specifically created for eCommerce businesses so that you can show several related products in the same ad.

Each image card consists of space for a product image, copy (text) for that particular image, and a URL pointing to the product page.

Note: Just in case your ad isn’t getting as many clicks as you expected, Facebook even has an option to create an “audience” with people who interacted with your carousel ads (even if they just scrolled but didn’t click).

Instant Experiences (Collections)

Collections are just the thing made in heaven (or Facebook) to help you showcase your supplements. See your conversion rates soar by creating immersive experiences for your potential customers from within Facebook by using your product images and videos along with Facebook’s interactive elements.

Collections are built for eCommerce, as you can see. Using images or videos as the first thing your potential customers see, you are immediately led to explore products and shop for them by browsing within the collections element, full screen and mobile-optimized.

With a call to action at the end (and for each of the products displayed), you can’t deny the sheer pull visuals have over your prospective customers.

Video Ads for Supplement Retailers

Facebook is big on video. And so are we for our Ad Management Clients. With video, you get cheaper clicks, brand exposure, and you also get to build an audience on Facebook’s back of people who watched more than X% of the video!

It allows you to use regular videos, vertical videos, and 360 degrees videos, and you should be big on video too.

Today, you can shoot simple videos with your smartphones. You also have access to several video tools available for you to make product videos, talking head videos, stop-motion videos, animated videos, and more.

Make use of what you have for Facebook Ads for eCommerce, create videos, and use Facebook to let the world know.  Your supplement sales will start skyrocketing!

Canvas: The Immersive Experience

Consider this: More than 95.1% of the entire user base of 2.23 billion on Facebook access the platform on their smartphones.

[Img Courtesy: Statista]

Facebook knows that and it wants you (the advertiser) to focus on mobile more than anything else. As such, there are some ad formats that were built for the “immersive mobile experience”.

Canvas is one of them. Canvas is a truly flexible and immersive experience, right on mobile, and without users having to leave Facebook.

Here’s an example of Jack In the Box (Burger in a Box) advertisement letting users explore using multiple interactive elements, including images, video, 360 degrees video, and more. Users also have the option of uploading photos and to find a store near them

Next Step

These new ad types are the key to starting or saving your Facebook campaigns.  Rocking these things early on will launch you out of the gate fast and put a lot of audience data behind you.  If you’ve got campaigns that are cooling off – then working some of these new ad formats may be the key to bring your supplement sales back in line.

Either way, if you need more sales, Facebook Ads are a great way to get them.  And, we can help.  Watch this short video and you’ll see exactly what to do next!

The post Facebook Ads For Supplement Sales: How To Dial Up eCommerce Sales Fast appeared first on Done For You.

Jacob Baadsgaard of Search Engine Journal analyzed over 2000+ Google ad accounts — millions of dollars in total ad spend, 100 billion ad impressions, and at least over 500 million ad clicks — and concluded that at least 76% of ad accounts have wasted ad spend.

That number could be higher, since not every ad account has been audited. Chances are that you don’t even know if you are doing the right thing with your paid ads.

Here are a few instances where you can bet that your paid ads won’t work no matter how much money you throw at them.

1. Spending too much, too early

The trouble with all of us? Give us hope, and we are willing to jump right off the cliff. So, much that we’d jump even without a parachute.

Too many businesses spend too much money, too fast.

When you first get started with Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or with any other paid advertising channel, it is critical to keep your budgets low.

Starting with low budgets gives you breathing room, more mileage (as far as time that the campaigns are live is concerned), and allow you to split-test ads and funnels (see below).

2. Ads pointing to your homepage

If you are already running paid campaigns on Google Ads or Facebook Ads, check to see if your destination URL is that of your homepage or a random page on your website.

If so, you’d be lucky to get any results at all. Even if you do manage to convince your visitors to take action, it will basically be out of sheer luck. However, luck is not strategy.

As you get more web visitors, you will need a more compelling, focused, and absolutely relevant landing page to nudge your visitors to sign up for your offer.

Pages with distracting elements, like other links to click on, social buttons, irrelevant images and anything else that takes the focus away from what you want web visitors to do on your page, are a major mistake.

To make the most out of your paid traffic you need landing pages. Any campaigns without relevant landing pages, that match your advertising message to a targeted audience, are likely to fail.

3. Campaigns with no offers

Customers have choices today. More choices than anyone could have ever imagined. Within your own industry, your competitors are already wooing your potential customers with all sorts of offers, discounts, or some sort of value addition upfront even before asking them to part with their money.

Campaigns that focus on direct sales by pointing to pages with a “buy now” button on them, campaigns that try to get to a sale before trust is established are bound to fail. You’d be lucky if you get sales this way, but not before hundreds or thousands of dollars are spent on your campaigns.

There’s only one sustainable and dependable way to run campaigns: generate leads first.

Then, use email marketing campaigns, upsells, or cross-selling to achieve your goals.

4. No funnels. No campaigns.

If there is a paid ad out there, that ad should have a singular goal: capture details of the person interested in your ad. This is lead generation at its most basic, and there’s no escaping that path.

Transactions happen when your customers are convinced that your products, services, or your brand is the solution to their problem. Customers need to be convinced that you are better than your competition and that you have enough chops that your customer can trust you with their hard-earned money.

For a business to develop trust, the window of opportunity from an ad to a landing page is too short. You need to do more with nurturing and to establish trust.

Sales funnels exist for that reason. Sales funnels could be built in any way that makes sense for your business.

Here are a few examples:

• Ad > Landing Page > Email Autoresponder sequence
• Facebook Ad > Facebook Messenger > Chatbot message sequence
• Google Ad > Landing Page > Intercom chat
• Ad > Landing Page > SMS messages

No matter how you build your sales funnels, the premise of your sales funnels is to push visitors down the path to a purchase.

5. No tracking & analytics

Someone wise said, “You can’t improve what you can’t measure”. Most businesses don’t bother with the unending list of things to do to measure, track, and analyze campaigns.

Both Google and Facebook have robust tracking and analytics tools built-in. You have Google Analytics, our own Advanced Analytics Engine, and plenty of other third-party tools such as Mixpanel, Visual Website Optimizer, Mouseflow, and Hotjar.

Starting with Google Analytics and then using other analytics and tracking tools will help you stay on top of your campaigns, analyze what works and what doesn’t, and make decisions based on data (and not opinions, whims, or preconceived notions).

Good tracking and analytics practices allow you to practice data-driven marketing.

6. Not split testing (a.k.a. A/B testing)

There’s no way in the world to know if your existing ads, landing pages, funnels, audience selection, or any other elements of your campaigns or sales funnels are the best they could be. The only way to know is to use data to make high-impact decisions to make your advertising work for you.

By split testing your ads, creatives, assets, landing pages, and funnels, you embrace data-driven marketing without letting emotions get in the way.

If you don’t test ads, for instance, you’d never know if one ad performs better against another. Not doing A/B testing is one of the reasons why most paid ads never see the light of the day.

Don’t let your marketing dollars go waste. Get professional help to help manage your campaigns. If you’d like our help, click here to learn more about how our experts can help optimize your campaigns.

The post 6 Reasons Why Your Paid Ads Don’t Work appeared first on Done For You.

For B2B businesses, there’s no source of business that’s better than LinkedIn.

According to Josh Gallant of foundation inc., LinkedIn now has over 500 million users with at least 260 million of them signing in every day.

LinkedIn is a professional network with senior executives, freelancers, agencies, companies, and almost everyone else who means business.

If you have a B2B domain, you’ll want to take a serious look at LinkedIn.

An infographic by LinkedIn Business Blog reveals that more than 61 million members of LinkedIn members are senior-level influencers.

There are over 40 million decision makers on LinkedIn alone. LinkedIn happens to be the most-used social media platform for Fortune 500 companies (not including several other millions of small businesses and self-employed professionals).

Over 59% of marketers use LinkedIn for lead generation. More than 80% of all B2B marketing leads sourced through social media come from Linkedin. At least 46% of all social media traffic to your website comes from LinkedIn.

If you are familiar with (or at least heard of the popular Facebook Lead Gen Ads), LinkedIn has a similar product called LinkedIn Lead Generation ads.

Did you know that 9 out of 10 customers reduced their cost per lead with LinkedIn Lead generation forms?

Using pre-filled Lead Gen Forms on LinkedIn, companies like IR Prognosis saw a 2X increase in conversion rates and about 44% reduction in cost per lead.

Setup your LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads

Source: Adweek

LinkedIn Lead Generation Ads work just like Facebook Lead Generation Ads. What may seem like a regular ad opens up a form which will be pre-filled with the LinkedIn members’ information such as name, phone number, and an email address.

LinkedIn Lead Gen campaigns can be standalone campaigns. But your lead gen forms are also available with LinkedIn Sponsored InMail and LinkedIn Sponsored Content.

Using LinkedIn’s campaign manager, you can easily set up your LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads. Julbert Abraham of Social Media Examiner explains how it’s done in detail.

Note: All the information that’s pre-filled into your Lead Gen form on LinkedIn is the information of a member (your leads or prospects) as it exists with LinkedIn.

Where will the leads go?

All the leads that you generate can be downloaded as a CSV file. If you run Facebook Lead Gen ads, Facebook now has an expansive list of third-party CRM software and email marketing service providers that you can use to send lead data to.

LinkedIn, however, provides limited options — in terms of third-party CRM software and email marketing systems — for you to choose from. LinkedIn only has options such as Driftrock, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 365, and Zapier and a few others.

Now, thankfully, you can use Zapier to connect your lead data to any third-party tool you are using at the moment.

Create an offer and a workflow

Just as it always is with most ad campaigns (across platforms), the success of your LinkedIn Lead Generation campaigns depends on the offer you are making and how it all flows together from the moment someone clicks on your ad.

Source: LinkedIn Business

Make an offer that’s relevant to your audience. Think about your offer much ahead of the campaign. What will appeal to your audience? Would you be giving away a free consultation, a guide, a report, or a whitepaper?

After they click on the ad, what kind of information are you asking for? [Hint: ask exactly for what you need]

Next, how are you going to follow up with your leads? Send them an automated email? Call them up?

Think about your offer and how it’s going to flow even before you get anywhere near LinkedIn’s campaign manager.

Track your campaigns

Not everyone who sees your Lead Gen Ad on LinkedIn will actually sign up.

Interest levels on your ads could go from “Yeah, I saw it” to “I am In. I am so interested”.

Now, LinkedIn knows that your audience could have varying degrees of engagement with your lead generation forms, apart from the actual leads generated.

For instance, you get metrics such as lead form opens, lead form completion rate, cost per lead, total budget spent, and more.

Depending on whether your campaign is an exclusive lead gen campaign or if your lead gen forms are triggered from a LinkedIn sponsored post or sponsored Inmail, you also get access to metrics such as conversion rate, return on ad spend, Cost Per Conversion, total conversion value, etc.

If you have sales funnels, lead generation workflows or email marketing, autoresponders, and any sort of marketing automation set up, you can also use our patent-pending Advanced Analytics to get real-time data on the numbers that mean business.

Did you run LinkedIn lead generation campaigns? Would you like to run direct lead generation campaigns on LinkedIn and target high-value, professional audiences?

Learn more about how our experts can help your business grow through paid advertising.

The post The Whys And The Hows Of LinkedIn Lead Generation Ads appeared first on Done For You.

Facebook is always innovating and building the perfect machine for advertising and lead generation. There’s never a single day that goes by without some sort of modifications, changes, or introduction of new advertising features within the Business Manager which is Facebook’s ad management home.

Here are some of the latest developments with Facebook Advertising and why you should use these new tools now:

Video Creation Kit

The time is up for Youtube that used to be the number one destination to watch online video. It’s now Facebook video that tops the charts. More than 2.27 billion monthly users are hungry to watch videos on Facebook.

They’ll take whatever you throw at them, and they won’t stop watching.

Scott Ayres of Agorapulse notes that native videos on Facebook command as high as 86% reach.

Make no mistake: Facebook is heavily investing in the future of video and it wants you to create content as a business, a publisher, or a creator. On the other side, it wants to keep that retention power of Facebook native videos.

But Facebook also knows just how intimidating it is for most marketers and business owners to create video content.

That’s why it launched Video Creation Kit. With the brand new video creation kit, you don’t have to spend on big (or small) budget production videos. No, you don’t even need to create any videos with your smartphone.

Just take your existing images and text and create videos from within Facebook’s ad manager. The video creation kit comes with simple templates using which you can showcase your products and services. Just add images, your logo, add some text, and you are good to go with smart videos that play anywhere from 6 to 15 seconds.

Note: Facebook also provides you with a “cropping” tool to help you optimize the video for platforms like Instagram.

Shopping in Stories

Interactivity, visual appeal, and engagement — all three score high on Facebook. That’s exactly what social media is for, right? Facebook already has Instant forms (for Facebook Lead Ads), collections, and full-screen experiences built inside of your Facebook ads manager. More recently, Facebook launched Shopping in stories.

Shopping in stories allows you to create immersive, interactive, engaging, and visually-rich creatives letting your audiences just click on your story and get more product details, prices, more imagery related to products, and the important option to tap and get to your shopping cart, straight from Facebook.

Augmented reality

The forecast for the augmented reality and virtual reality market reveals that it’s going to be $209.2 billion US by 2022. Facebook isn’t just going to sit there and let this pass by.

Facebook does what it does best, and it launched Augmented Reality ads (not available for all markets, available only for News Feed, and it’s in Beta right now for U.S).

The idea of Facebook’s Augmented Reality ads is to provide for a much deeper and an almost physical experience on Facebook.

Consumers could interact, try, play around with, and get a much better sense of products advertised.

Facebook Stories Ads

Instagram stories are already a huge hit. Big brands (and small) are lining up to make use of this window of opportunity called Instagram stories. Instagram (although owned by Facebook) beats Facebook when it comes to ad spend.

A Merkle report reveals that brands are spending 23% more on ad spend on Instagram than with Facebook itself, and that’s because of Instagram stories.

More than 400 million people watch Instagram stories daily, at least 30% of those who watch stories purchase a product, and you get massive real estate with Instagram stories ads.

Now, imagine all that coming back to Facebook.

With Facebook Stories, you can expand your digital footprint across both Instagram and Facebook (and not one, at the cost of another).

Playable Ads

Why shouldn’t gaming companies have more fun? Facebook realizes that games are an integral part of the Facebook experience. Gaming companies and independent game developers now have special ads (on top of mobile app campaigns or other campaigns) available for them to reach out to a huge, global database of potential gaming enthusiasts.

Riding on the runaway success of games such as Texas Holdem, Candy Crush Saga, 8 Ball Pool, Subway Surfers, and several others, Facebook decided to launch what it calls as “Playable ads”.

The ads help advertisers provide a “try-before-you-buy” experience for its end users and make ads not only business-oriented but enjoyable as well.

Would you like to have a team of experts launch, manage and optimize your Facebook Advertising Campaigns? Learn more about our Ad Management services. Are you an agency looking to outsource part of your work or a complete project? Read more about our agency marketing and analytics services.

The post 5 New Facebook Advertising Features And Tools You Should Use appeared first on Done For You.

It so happens that we are stuck in the era of industrial revolution where you’d just create products and your potential customers will line up to buy (Remember the Ford T-Model car?).

The “industrial revolution” kind of marketing won’t work anymore, for obvious reasons. Customer behavior changes faster than the clouds over Oklahoma.

Businesses can’t just choose to show up and make money. Your customers have way too many choices.

With ever-increasing content, a never-ending tsunami of ads, and decreasing attention spans, how do you stand out? How can you make an impact? What are you going to do to ensure that your own sales pipeline stays profitable?

Narrate stories with video

As a brand, you have to give your audience what they want. HubSpot research clearly points to videos as the most preferred medium that audiences want next only to emails, social graphics, and social videos again. Videos combined (across media) make up for over 80% of content that’s in-demand.

Video reigns supreme when it comes to storytelling. There’s just nothing that beats video when it comes to reach, impact, and how easy it is to narrate stories with videos.

You can bring in the human touch, make your content memorable, and wield greater power with much less content.

Communicate stories with blog posts

Your blog posts don’t always have to communicate tips and insights. You can also use blog posts to narrate stories.

Giving a little peek behind the scenes, an inside story, or bringing in a personal touch related to your business goes a long way to open the doors to your audiences.

Here’s what Wistia did when they opened up an inside story on how they refused to sell the company and take on $17 Million in debt instead or how Unbounce stopped blogging for 2 weeks and got 700 leads in that time.

Communicating in the story format brings in the human touch. It’ll make audiences understand that you are just as human as they are, you make mistakes too and that you learn from your mistakes.

Practice storytelling with ad sequencing

The irresistible power of classic storytelling is no secret.

We humans have been communicating using stories for several thousand years. Several businesses spend fortunes on trying to use stories to draw attention and to make sales.

Businesses use stories in ads, in presentations, and in every conceivable way left to communicate.

Harrison Monarth of Harvard Business Review writes:

Data can persuade people, but it doesn’t inspire them to act; to do that, you need to wrap your vision in a story that fires the imagination and stirs the soul.

Think of sequencing as rolling out ads in a sequence. No, you won’t be using a single ad. Not even a series of ads. None of the ads will go right out and say “buy now”.

Instead, you can use sequencing as a way to gently introduce your brand to your customers. A common example could be:

• general ads that can get the attention of completely cold audiences,
• ads for warm audiences, and
• targeted ads that are meant to move the needle to make hot leads buy.

In a combined study by Facebook, Adaptly, and Refinery29, it was clear that brands that focus on telling stories have better results with their ads than companies that just launch ads to get others to take a specific action.

According to the report,

To make campaigns more effective, there is great value in developing a creative strategy that first builds awareness and consideration before driving to conversion.

Here’s how Adaptly and Refinery29 planned their sequenced ads campaign in 2014, as explained by Adespresso:

The ads were lined up in a sequence and one set of their chosen audiences (including a lookalike audience of over 2 million Facebook users).

One audience set only saw a regular Facebook Ad for 12 days straight while the other set sees a set of sequenced ads, with each ad showing for a pre-defined number of days.

Sequenced ad A:

Introduces customers to Refinery29 to help them build an emotional connection with the brand. (Shown to customers on days 1-4).

Sequenced ad B:

Builds on that connection, and suggests how customers might interact with Refinery29. (Shown to customers on days 5-8).

Sequenced ad C:

Strongly suggests users click the call-to-action. (Shown to customers on days 9-12).

Thanks to the “storytelling” approach taken by Adaptly and Refinery69, the campaigns saw a whopping 87% increase in landing page visitors who saw these sequenced ads, compared to being shown just a single ad.

For sets of audiences that saw the sequenced ads, subscriptions increased by 56% (compared to when audiences saw a single ad).

Particularly interesting is a finding that people who saw all three of the ads converted at much higher rates than those who happened to see just an add or two.

Other ideas

Your ad sequencing doesn’t always have to follow a path. Ads don’t have to be launched in the same way that Refinery29 did.

You could get creative or smart or both with using storytelling. Here are a few other ways to use storytelling together with ad sequencing:

• Just have ads in a sequence (instead of three). Use your first ad for introducing your brand to cold audiences and the second ad to have your audiences click on a CTA.
• Use video ads for cold audiences, create custom audiences for those watch your videos at least 95% of the time, and then show specific ads to those who watched your videos.
• Launch ads to those who engage with your carousel ads.
• Collect leads using Facebook Lead Ads and then launch direct campaigns to your leads exclusively.

Do you use storytelling?

How are you narrating stories for your business? How are you getting closer to your potential customers? And finally, how do you make an impact?

If you need help with your digital marketing strategy, Facebook ads, Google Ads or sales funnels, fill out this inquiry form, and a member of our team will contact you to schedule a discovery call.

The post Why Storytelling Is A Smarter Way To Marketing Success appeared first on Done For You.

As with most businesses, your resources are limited. You can’t afford to throw money out willy-nilly, spray and pray, and just “try it out”. This is hard cash, and it needs to be taken care of.

Before your Facebook ad budgets spiral out of control, check out these simple ways to keep your Facebook ad campaigns running while keeping your Facebook ad budgets consistently low.

Start with low budgets

We aren’t sure if it’s the “keeping up with the Jones Syndrome” but the first tendency with Facebook is to throw what you can and see what sticks. This isn’t outdoor advertising or newspaper advertising — there’s no need to spray and pray.

Start with relatively lower budgets to start with since:

• Facebook puts your campaigns into a “learning” phase. What’s the point in blowing millions of dollars while Facebook is “learning” and “figuring out”?
• You need enough time (and a budget to last) to experiment, to test things out, to try split testing, and to optimize your campaigns.
• You’d be doing mistakes while you are launching your campaigns.

Start low. Find out what works. Scale up.

Use Custom Audiences

If you’ve been building up your audiences visiting your website and/or landing pages within Facebook by using Facebook Custom Audiences, by using the Facebook pixel (hopefully, you are), be sure to start from the start and build up a sizeable audience (even if you aren’t really launching any Facebook ad campaigns).

By doing so, you’ll have your custom audiences (such as website visitors) ready for you when you want to use it.

By including your custom audiences within your ad sets for your campaigns, you’ll automatically reduce your cost per click per campaign or ad set and thereby reduce your overall spend.

Meanwhile, targeting your custom audiences would mean that you are reaching out to all your visitors who’ve visited your pages, read your blog, checked out your products, etc.

Constantly refine (& redefine) audiences

Fact #1: Most business (and even agencies) don’t spend enough time on “audiences” while creating campaigns.

Fact #2: They repeat Fact #1 for every campaign they run.

One of the reasons why most ad campaigns have a low relevance score, high Costs per click, and hence campaigns quickly go “expensive”, is because most businesses and advertisers don’t bother to take their time to create their audiences.

The right way to do it is this:

Build your customer persona: It’s easy enough to read this but we can bet you’ll skip this step.

Pamela Vaughan has a free template and detailed instructions on how to build your buyer persona along with 20 questions to ask to help you define your buyer persona by Lindsay Kolowich of Hubspot.

Go beyond the obvious: For a real estate merchant, you might rush in and think that Facebook’s audience that says something like “looking to move” might be the right fit.

We’ve seen Facebook audiences with nothing else but a location and just one or two insertions for Facebook audiences like “ Household Income above 25%… ” and “Looking to move”.

Instead, for a particular location and demographic type, you could target not just the obvious options but also things like magazines they read, newspapers they read, TV shows they watch, groups or communities they might be associated with, and more.

Use Facebook Audience Insights: Facebook has everything you need to at least give you a jumpstart to let you know who your ideal audience is already, even before you get anywhere near launching your campaigns.

If you have a large enough visitor base and healthy engagement on your Facebook page and on your website, Facebook Audience insights can provide you with information on gender profile, demographics, locations, interests, other pages your audiences like, and so much more.

Use it. It’s free.

Take your time out to create a comprehensive list within Facebook Audience section with the help of your own construction of the buyer persona that best fits your business.

Boost your Relevance Score

The devil is in the details. It’s all good to check your Facebook statistics to see how your campaigns are performing and only look at those metrics that make you feel good such as “website purchases”, “leads”, and results.

Before you get to results, you need to keep an eye out for the relevance score. After Adespresso’s analysis of over 104,000 ads, the rule is as simple as it gets:

“The Higher the relevance score, the lower the CPC is”

Although there isn’t a secret rulebook that tells you how to boost your relevance score for your Facebook campaigns, Greg Swan of CPCStrategy recommends:

• Know your target audience
• Keep changing your ads frequently (see point above)
• Be sure to create ads and copy tailor-made for the exact target audience you are aiming to hook in.

Get brutal with high frequency of ads

Frequency, simply put, is the average number of people who see your ad. It’s an average (which it’s not absolute and that one particular person could have seen the ad more than what the number tells you).

With a high frequency of ads, your Cost per Click takes a massive hit. According to Adespresso, at a frequency of 9, the average cost per click increase by 161% compared to the beginning of the campaign.

If your frequency is high, you’ll not only end up spending (a lot) on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis but also your ads are subjected to banner blindness. Your ads, with a high frequency, could also be boring the heck out of your audience and maybe even irritate them.

Which of these tips are you following to make your Facebook Ad campaign costs stay low at all times?

Visit our Ad Management Services page to learn more about how we can help with your Facebook Ad campaigns. If you’d like some strategic input, be sure to fill out this short form, and member of our expert team will contact you to schedule a call.

The post How To Keep Your Facebook Ads Budget Consistently Low appeared first on Done For You.

That’s why, when we talk about Facebook Ads, we normally talk in terms of funnels.

Usually, Facebook Ads lead to funnels. Leads are generated. Email marketing automation kicks in at that point and leads are nurtured continuously with autoresponders and email marketing campaigns.

Funnels are too elaborate. If you depend on funnels, you’d have to wait until your leads (or pipeline) reaches a critical mass before you see results. That’s the norm, but very effective.

Given the chances, businesses would like to go ahead and start selling. Like, right away. It’d be nice not to wait for lead generation, nurturing, and then selling.

Particularly during holiday sales, special occasions, when you have a reason to provide discounts, or when you just have to make sales happen.

The larger (or the more popular) your brand is and the more social proof you have, the easier it will be for you to set up direct sales campaigns. Even for the smallest of the businesses though, direct selling Facebook ads are certainly a possibility and you can launch them straight away pointing your target audiences to product pages, subscription pages, or your sales pages to get sales right away.

Here are a few examples of how brands launch Facebook ads meant to get sales (as compared to brand awareness, reach, lead generation or other ad objectives):

M. Gemi

M. Gemi is a brand owned by RCW, Inc., and the fashion retailer specializes in Italian footwear fashion for men and women. They sell a range of fashion footwear ranging from sneakers, oxfords, leather boots, and more.

Nothing tells a story better than a product doing what it does best. In the case of M. Gemi’s footwear collection, this Facebook ad clearly puts the emphasis on the product in action, right where you’d expect it to be.

The vibrant colors, the typical Italian design, and the minimalist way to showcase products works great with Facebook’s emphasis on visuals and design.

CreativeLive

The digital education industry is going to be worth a whopping $243 billion US dollars by 2022

CreativeLive is a passionate community of creators, artists, educators, and specialists making a difference to 10+ million students with 1500+ curated classes. It boasts of 650+ world-class instructors on its platform.

Creativelive ads pick a target audience that’s likely to be interested in a particular class (like portrait photography class, in this example), and target them with an ad that communicates precisely just what they want. Also, did you notice how both the image and the copy are minimalistic and succinct?

Lazada

E-commerce stores are usually the incumbent heavyweights that use product display ads, carousel ads that showcase products, and Facebook ad “collections” — all designed for making sales happen through Facebook ads instantly.

Headquartered in Singapore, Lazada Group is a Southeast Asian e-commerce company founded by Rocket Internet in 2012 and is owned by The Alibaba Group.

Operating business in Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand, Lazada sells over 300 million products — from electronics to home appliances and from sports equipment to groceries.

As expected, their Facebook Ads are concise, hyper-targeted, local (to each of the countries it operates in), and simple. In the example above, Lazada uses product feeds to create Dynamic, Product Display ads — all of them complete with attractive offers and awesome product images.

ThinOptics

ThinOptics is an e-tailer featuring several designs for your reading classes — from flashcards to cases and even keychains.

Being a niche product, they’d do exceptionally well when they have several ways to tell a story (featuring their product)

Of the many types of ads ThinOptics runs on Facebook, their video ads truly standout.

Notice a slight tinge of humor in their ads, simple and effective copy, and an offer like “Lifetime Replacement Guarantee”

M3D – Micro 3D printer

If you ever thought that Facebook ads are best for businesses that sell toys, events, and tickets to the movies, you are so wrong.

You can run ads that sell 3D printers too, just like PrintM3D does. M3D is a tech-startup that’s trying to bring 3D printers to the desks of Individuals. Why should only corporate giants have all the fun?

M3D’s Facebook ads are out to make sales. A straightforward ad with an image showing their 3D printer on a desk with a simple offer, a coupon code displayed upfront, and that’s all it takes to make your ads work sometimes.

DailyBurn

DailyBurn features more than 1000+ certified expert-taught fitness workouts regardless of where you are on the fitness spectrum. Whether you have just 30 minutes or a couple of hours during the day for your workouts, DailyBurn has a plan for you.

DailyBurn uses single image Facebook ads, Video ads, and also carousel ads to make an impact, generate leads, and often launches direct campaigns to make sales (like the example above).

A single image with a bright-colored background featuring an image of an actual Dailyburn customer goes a long way to drum up engagement for the ad. Further, the ad doesn’t waste any time and comes straight to the point: for a limited time only, subscribe for just $14.99 per month.

EyeBuyDirect

EyeBuyDirect sells prescription eyeglasses, sunglasses, and other products with a special focus on research, design, and production in-house.

Facebook ads from EyeBuyDirect’s creative team scream minimalism while following all the best practices in the book.

Using Images of real people wearing one of the thousands of prescription eyeglasses and frames in their inventory, using numbers (brain food for us humans), making simple and direct offers, and setting expectations right — they are all right on the list of best practices making these ads just work.

Would you like to create high-impact Facebook Ads that work for your business?

Or maybe you need help with your existing Facebook ad campaigns. In either case, send us an inquiry and we’ll take it from there.

The post 7 Stunning Examples Of Facebook Ads For E-Commerce appeared first on Done For You.

According to Facebook, car manufacturer, Mazda managed to get 5X more leads while reducing their cost per lead by 85%.

Secret Escapes acquired twice as many leads at 52% less cost than regular Facebook advertising.

Peloton — a lifestyle and fitness product company — used lead ads to drive 15% more leads for their products while massively benefiting from 67% lower cost per conversion.

Lead Ads, as a product, has evolved from a simple form to a complete suite of options available for businesses and advertisers to generate leads.

Facebook Lead Ads can be shown as a context card (as an extra tile before users get to a form), on Desktop on Mobile, leading to a native form built on Facebook, as a part of Canvas Instant Experience.

Lead Ads work great when you have something of value to give away (also called as lead magnets or lead magnet funnels).

The objective of lead ads is simple: make your targeted users take a very specific action, with a clear offer.

Clicking on the ad will reveal either a context card and a form, or just a form with each facebook users’ information pre-filled into the form.

As Facebook puts it,

“Unlike other ad types, lead ads include a contact form, called an “instant form,” that lets people show their interest in a product or service by filling out the form with their details and allowing a business to follow up with them.

On your lead ads instant form, you can request email addresses or contact information from people who click on your ad. You can ask people custom questions. Lead ads can be used to collect sign-ups for newsletters, price estimates, follow-up calls, and business information.”

With two clicks or less, leads are generated and passed on to you.

The advantages of Facebook Lead Ads are huge: you don’t need a separate set of landing pages, the instant forms or contact forms are built within Facebook or Instagram and are tied in together with your ad, native to the platform.

Here’s how and why you should use Lead Ads campaigns:

Start with a strong and clear offer (Hint: Provide value)

You are well aware of how to use lead magnets and offers to generate leads. You are probably using some of those tactics right now.

Unlike regular Facebook advertising or Google Ads (or any other advertising platforms), with Facebook Lead Ads you can’t just have an ad that requires people to click through to a landing page. Instead, you have to make specific offers right away. Your Facebook target audience is going to sign up for the offer by filling out the form that’s attached to your ad or your instant experience on Facebook.

Here’s an example of a lead ad from The HOTH

Put in the work for Facebook Lead Ads

Clicking a few buttons, creating a form, adding an image, and launching a Facebook Lead Ad campaign makes it easy but not necessarily effective.

Facebook would want you to believe that it is easy enough.

But just like regular Facebook Advertising, your Facebook Lead Ad campaigns will take work, investment resources, planning, optimizing, and split testing to get you the results you seek.

As Rikke Thomson of Sleeknote writes, you’ll need to prepare to make a strong offer, use relevant images, write impactful copy, and place a strong call-to-action button to make your Lead Ads work well.

Ask the right questions

Simplicity and minimalism are key to be sure that your forms will work on lead ad campaigns.

The number of questions and the exact type of questions you’ll ask will depend on the campaign idea, campaign objective, the offer you are making, or the kind of leads you are looking to generate.

Here’s what Facebook recommends:

• Don’t ask for anything you don’t need
• Just because you can add form fields and questions doesn’t mean you should.
• As with any kind of good old conversion principles, fewer questions means less friction which in turn means higher conversions.
• Keep Instant forms minimalistic

Use Lead Ads with Instant experiences

Facebook Canvas campaigns have been rebranded as Facebook Instant Experiences. They are a great way to make your campaigns work harder for your business.

Given that Instant Experiences are visual, built for mobile, they get you higher CTR (click-through rates).

This falls directly in line with Facebook campaign best practices such as using relevant content to show to your target audiences, using thumb-stopping creative, and to be mobile ready.

Don’t forget to make it clear from the start as to what you are offering and what you want your potential audience to do.

Further, since you are asking for information (like email addresses and phone numbers) from your audience, be sure to keep your brand identity front and center.

Manage audiences right

As you’d do with any Facebook ad campaigns, spend a lot of time trying to create the best possible audiences for your campaigns.

Don’t rush through this. Don’t pick audiences at random. Do your research with Facebook Audience Insights, your own Google Analytics data, and use common sense to try to identify the best target audience for your campaign.

Opt for “extended reach” for your audiences while setting up your targeting.

If you have already run Lead Ads for a while and have generated leads or managed to make sales happen, exclude these audiences from your new campaign.

However, be mindful of audience overlap. Audience overlap happens when you try to show your ads to more or less the same audiences as with your existing ad sets.

Respond to tour leads

There’s really no point collecting leads through a done for you lead magnet if you don’t have a way to nurture them from the minute they sign up. The time it takes you to follow-up has a significant impact on conversions and your bottom-line.

If your campaigns (and hence lead forms) require phone numbers and instant follow-ups, be sure to run your campaigns during your business working hours by using day-parting features within your Facebook campaign setup.

Make use of one of the native CRM integrations that Facebook provides to connect your CRM or your email marketing autoresponder so that an email can trigger each time leads signup with your form.

If your existing CRM or email marketing tool isn’t a part of Facebook’s native CRM integrations, make use of Leadsbridge, Connectio, Automate.io, or Zapier.

Are you running Facebook Lead Ads? How are they performing? If you need help with your lead generation campaigns, feel free to contact our experts and we’ll help you craft an effective strategy.  We can even build out a Done For You Lead Generation System for you so you can watch the leads roll in (and convert to sales) while you focus your energy on running your business!

The post Facebook Lead Ads: How To Generate And Manage Leads appeared first on Done For You.

Creating a Facebook ad campaign is easy; making it work to get you a positive ROI is harder than it seems.

Since Facebook tries to make it really easy to set up ads, more businesses and marketers than ever are using the platform.

Facebook ads can be a monstrosity as far as platform complexity is concerned.

Yet, the closer you get to what you want your Facebook Ads to do, the easier it gets to make your campaigns perform better for your business.

Since Facebook Ads has plenty of features, various objective types, and several options within campaign setup and management, here are a few Facebook Ads tips to put you on the right path with your campaigns:

1. Say “No” to stock photos (Facebook or other sources)

As you begin to set up your ad campaign, Facebook will ask you to upload images to complete your ads (along with adding copy and links).

Do yourself a favor and don’t choose any of the images available inside Facebook’s inventory of stock photos. If you are looking for images on other sites like Pexels, DepositPhotos, for instance, be choosy about what you pick.

From experience, we know that images of a particular kind always work better than others as far as Facebook ads are concerned:

• Photos of actual people in them, front and center (with some contrast to make those pictures stand out).
• Images of the actual products you sell
• Illustrations or custom graphics

You can take parts of stock photos or just use better photo depositories such as Unsplash for your Facebook ads.

In fact, anything will do better than a cheesy stock photo with three suits and a hand-held banner.

2. Exclude irrelevant audiences

Just by excluding audiences that don’t make sense to your Facebook Ad campaigns, you’ll save several hundred or even thousands of dollars. A few excluded audiences from your campaigns could be:

• Audiences that signed up for your offers from previous campaigns
• Your existing customers
• Your existing free trial users
• Groups of audiences with low potential to convert
• Your email subscribers

It’s worth spending more time on defining your audiences than anything else you do for your Facebook campaigns. Think through your audience sets carefully to decide what to include and exclude.

3. Use instant experiences

If you are skipping the “Use Instant Experience” option while creating your ad with your Facebook Ad Manager, you are missing the boat.

Instant experiences within Facebook are all about using visuals to persuade, invoke an action, and to give your ads some life.

When you create an Instant experience, you are essentially creating a full-page, mobile experience for those that click on your ad.

This allows you to add more information, visuals, context, and push your audiences to click through.

Use Instant Experiences to acquire new customers, establish your brand (and warm up your audiences), or directly sell your products by showcasing them. Facebook provides templates for you to start with. Alternatively, you could create a custom Instant Eperience.

While it’s perfectly fine to use a single image ad and nothing else to make your campaigns work, it’ll help when you test a single image (or video) advertisement with instant experiences.

Video can help, but if you don’t have one, it’s alright. Instant experiences will work even if you had a couple of images.

Note: Facebook now allows you to not only use Instant Experiences but also their Lead Generation forms (see below).

4. Lead generation campaigns & forms

If you are generating leads, use Lead Generation Ads with Facebook ’s native “forms”.

Creating landing pages, trying to push Facebook’s audience to click through and get to another page, and having them fill up their information to sign up as a lead — these are all extra steps for a potential customer to go through.

Instead, you could use lead generation campaigns with a form that opens instantly and the forms are instantly pre-filled with information that people have shared with Facebook.

5. Always edit Facebook ad placements

Facebook, by default, will automatically place your ad across their network (including audience network, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, and on Facebook itself).

For most advertisers, you don’t need that kind of exposure.

Audience network could be hard to manage or to extract a positive ROI from, and the effectiveness of placing ads on the Facebook Marketplace is still unknown.

Instagram is a totally different platform with a different set of users compared to Facebook (while there could be an overlap). Also, Instagram is on mobile devices.

It’s much simpler and easier to “edit” placements instead of opting for “automatic” placements and tighten up your Facebook ad spend by gaining control.

6. Use custom scheduling to save money

Image Credits: Adespresso

While your website — and your existing strategy to generate leads off your website — can work round the clock, as far as ads are concerned not all businesses need to be open 24×7. Local businesses, for instance, don’t need to have Facebook ad campaigns running all the time.

If you are on a tight budget and if you’d like to save some of your cash, use custom scheduling and set your ads to run during your business hours. You could skip the weekends and all the extra hours each day when you think it doesn’t suit your business.

Need help with your Facebook Ad Campaigns? Want to see your campaigns fly off and get you the results you seek for your business? Get on a call with us now.

The post 6 Quick Tips To Make Your Facebook Ads Perform Better appeared first on Done For You.

That search could be the beginning of a profitable relationship, if only you manage to show up at the right time.

You already know that the Google Ads platform is a fairly complex one (it reminds us of Adobe Photoshop). That also explains why many businesses miss out on some fantastic features that aren’t so obvious when you log into the platform.

Here are a few Google Ads features that you can use to get better results with minimal work:

Explore & use Gmail Ads

Gmail Ads is now an evolved product and it can help you get the results you seek.

However, it’s critical to note that Gmail Ads don’t exactly work like your typical Google Search Ads. For that reason, you need to set the right expectations when working with this ad unit.

Gmail Ads work a little higher up in your funnel — best used for branding, product launches, or for introducing your brand to your potential audiences.

Here are a few quick tips to make your Gmail Ads work for you:

• Use competitor domains for targeting users who get emails from your competition (also known as competitor conquesting).
• Use Similar Audiences, RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads), or In-market audiences to fine tune your targeting for Gmail Ads.
• Take advantage of your own Gmail Inbox to find subject lines that you could use for ads.
  Adding topically relevant emojis (not just smileys) can help boost your Gmail Ad CTR (Clickthrough Rate)

With the possibility of adding your own email subscriber lists to run Gmail Ads, you do have interesting ways to target audiences and get more potential customers for your business.

Need an example? See what LifeSports achieved with Gmail Ads for their Black Friday campaigns. According to Think with Google, LifeSports managed to achieve about 75% less in terms of Cost-per-sale than their usual targets.

Over 40% of those sales came directly from Gmail Ads’ “Customer Match” — a way to target completely new customers based on datasets of existing customers.

RLSA (Remarketing lists for search ads)

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) has been around for a while. It’s a great strategy to:

• Target users who’ve already visited your website pages
• Be able to bid on broader keywords while choosing to target only qualified or high-intent user
• Bid on your brand name but limit exposure only to qualified users instead of letting the whole world see it (regardless of qualification).
• Tailor your ad copy to make it more relevant to users who just visited your website. This makes your ads more contextual and focused.

Using RLSA allows you to deliver more personalized, effective, and targeted ads to get you the results you seek. How do you get started? Here’s a handy guide on RLSA by WordStream.

Note: You’ll need at least 1000 unique visitors for the time-frame you choose to collect the audience for RLSA to work.

Similar Audiences for search

You are already of aware of retargeting (or remarketing as Google likes to call it). Retargeting helps bring back potential visitors who’d have been your customers and allows them to convert.

But what if you want to target separate audiences very similar to your existing remarketing audiences (people who showed interest in your web pages, services, products, or your brand)?

Similar audiences for search within Google Ads allow you to expand your target base of customers by letting Google find people with similar search behavior as those of your existing remarketing audiences.

John E. Lincoln of Search Engine Land explains Similar audiences in a lot more detail and writes that while features such as Similar audiences have been around for a while, many businesses don’t take advantage of it.

Chrysler, as John points out, achieved 22 percent more conversions, 14 percent lower cost per acquisition (CPA), and 11 percent increase in click-through rate (CTR), all thanks to using similar audiences for search.

Audience targeting

You could just skip audience targeting completely while building your Google Ads campaigns, and that’d be leaving money on the table. Audience targeting works just like Facebook’s audience targeting and you can specifically target people who are “in the market” for specific products or services.

For instance, you could choose to target “gamers”, “travelers”, “pet lovers”, “technology nerds”, “gadget lovers”, and more.

Depending on your business, you could zoom in to an audience that’s most likely to be interested in what you sell.

Audience targeting is available for GDN (Google Display Network), search, and Video (YouTube) and it also gives you various options such as affinity, custom affinity, customer match, and similar audiences (as explained above), depending on the network type you’d select.

Here’s how it’d look like, according to Google.

Best Google Ads features?

Which of these Google Ads features are you using (and not)?

If you need help with your Google Ad campaigns, Facebook Ad campaigns, landing pages, and sales funnels?

Hop on a call with us now.

The post Google Ads Features That Get You More Results (for Less) appeared first on Done For You.

With more than 2.23 billion + active users on Facebook, we really don’t know what else can match the might of the social media monster. More businesses and advertisers are taking to the platform than ever.

When it comes to ecommerce stores, however, we still don’t see that kind of action yet. If any, many ecommerce store owners and advertisers still stick to the humble, tried-and-tested “single image ads”.

If you are into ecommerce, chances are that you have visual assets (lots of them) — product images, product videos, and several products to advertise. Facebook knows that, and it’s been slowly working on its ad platform to give you not only a worldwide audience of billions of people but also some fantastic ways to showcase your brand, products, and services.

Image ads on Facebook work well. But you won’t know any better if you don’t test it against several other ad types (because they are very much there, and they are fantastic).

As far as the options available to you Facebook Ads for ecommerce, there was nothing like this before.

If you aren’t already doing it, these are various ideas available for you to use while running Facebook ads for your ecommerce store.

Boost CTR with images as video slideshows

Curious about what the average CTR (Click through rates) on Facebook is? Mark Irvine of Wordstream has a handy post listing out the average CTR of Facebook ads across industries.

Now, whatever benchmark you saw on Mark’s post, expect a higher CTR when you use video. Video works better than images in most cases (and we can tell you that without even testing or wasting time running several campaigns).

If you have more than one image or image ad available for Facebook Ads for ecommerce, it’s a no-brainer to convert those images into a video slideshow.

No, you don’t need any software, fancy editing skills, or a video team of any sort. Facebook allows you to turn your images into a video slideshow from right within your ads manager.

More real estate leads with Carousel Ads

One picture is worth a thousand words. So, what are several images really worth? Facebook’s Carousel ads — which consist of several cards scrolling horizontally — are perfect for ecommerce stores (it can be used for any kind of a business though). In fact, carousel ads have been specifically created for ecommerce businesses so that you can show several related products in the same ad.

Each image card consists of space for a product image, copy (text) for that particular image, and a URL pointing to the product page.

Note: Just in case your ad isn’t getting as many clicks as you expected, Facebook even has an option to create an “audience” with people who interacted with your carousel ads (even if they just scrolled but didn’t click).

Instant experiences (collections)

Collections are just the thing made in heaven (or Facebook) to help you showcase your products. See your conversion rates soar by creating immersive experiences for your potential customers from within Facebook by using your product images and videos along with Facebook’s interactive elements.

Collections are built for ecommerce, as you can see. Using images or videos as the first thing your potential customers see, you are immediately led to explore products and shop for them by browsing within the collections element, full screen and mobile-optimized.

With a call to action at the end (and for each of the products displayed), you can’t deny the sheer pull visuals have over your prospective customers.

Videos in Facebook Ads for ecommerce

Facebook is big on video. It allows you to use regular videos, vertical videos, and 360 degrees videos, and you should be big on video too.

Today, you can shoot simple videos with your smartphones. You also have access to several video tools available for you to make product videos, talking head videos, stop-motion videos, animated videos, and more.

Make use of what you have for Facebook Ads for ecommerce, create videos, and use Facebook to let the world know.

Canvas: The immersive experience

Consider this: More than 95.1% of the entire user base of 2.23 billion on Facebook access the platform on their smartphones.

[Img Courtesy: Statista]

Facebook knows that and it wants you (the advertiser) to focus on mobile more than anything else. As such, there are some ad formats that were built for the “immersive mobile experience”.

The Canvas is one of them. Canvas is a truly flexible and immersive experience, right on mobile, and without users having to leave Facebook.

Here’s an example of Jack In the Box (Burger in a Box) advertisement letting users explore using multiple interactive elements, including images, video, 360 degrees video, and more. Users also have the option of uploading photos and to find a store near them

Next Step

These new ad types are the key to starting or saving your Facebook campaigns.  Rocking these things early on will launch you out of the gate fast and put a lot of audience data behind you.  If you’ve got campaigns that are cooling off – then working some of these new ad formats may be the key to bring your supplement sales back in line.

Either way, if you need more sales, Facebook Ads are a great way to get them.  And, we can help.  Watch this short video and you’ll see exactly what to do next!

The post Facebook Ads For Ecommerce: Are You Missing Out On These Ideas? appeared first on Done For You.

You not only have to manage the creative and technical side of your campaigns but also manage yourself emotionally to control your natural tendency to make decisions on the fly or maybe to stop or start campaigns on the whim.

Not that you can’t, but there are better ways to make this work instead of killing the switch on your campaigns every time you think your campaigns aren’t working.

Plus, your Google Ad platform is constantly changing and there’s a lot to manage even if you wanted to launch the simplest of ad campaigns on Google.

How about an even better idea? Do all that you can to make them work better.

Here are a few ways to Juice up your Google Ad Campaigns:

Start with Google Audiences (not Campaigns)

Most businesses — and even marketers and agencies — jump right into the campaign set up and go about launching campaigns. With Google Ads, there’s a lot that needs to be done even before you get there.

One of the first stops you should be Google Audiences (just like Facebook Audiences).

Within Google Audiences, it’s imperative that you add the Google Audiences tag and ensure that you are tracking your audiences as they visit your website and/or landing pages.

While the obvious fallout of this is to get into the possibility of “remarketing” to your existing audiences on Google, there are several other ways for you to use your Google Audiences.

Don’t skip the basics

Using Google Ads comes with its own set of rules

With Google Ads, a lot depends on your campaign settings, how you set up your ad groups, the keywords you select, the keyword match types you use, the bidding strategy you select, and more — all this even before you go about creating your actual campaigns (like ads, landing pages, and sales funnels).

First, set up your Google Ad campaign the right way (Skip Google’s Defaults).

Note: While we are on the subject of Google Ads Basics, here’s a detailed post explaining how to squeeze more out of your budget  as you run your Google Ad campaigns

• As seen above, don’t choose both “search network” and “display network” — those are the defaults. Just pick “search network” and uncheck “include search partners”.
• Specifically, enter the exact locations you want to target for your campaign (depending on your business). In “location options”, select “people who live in this location”. In some business cases, like car rentals, apartment rentals, travel, or tourism, you might want to use “people who are interested in this location”.
• Choose the lowest budget possible for your campaign. You’d need to start with a low daily budget because you need time to do split testing, optimize your campaigns, and make several tweaks before you go all out and spend.
• Be sure to stay on “standard” delivery for your ads (and not “accelerated” — unless you are promoting an event or something else for which the promotions are time-bound).

Use extensions (No, they are not optional)

If you aren’t using extensions within Google Ads, you are missing out on opportunities. Adding extensions help give each of your Google Ads tons of context and more real estate each time your ad shows up on search (for your keywords).

Extensions, by themselves, are pretty useful to add relevance to your users and provide them with more information for your business. Google gives you tons of options for extensions, as shown below:

When you use extensions the right way, it’s like your ad is on a booster shot. Here’s how an ad with extensions looks like:

See how your basic Google advertisement now looks bigger, with a lot more content showing as reviews, phone numbers, hyperlinks (leading to specific pages on your website, reviews, and more?).

Choose keywords. Use match types judiciously

One of the fundamental reasons why most businesses lose their ad budgets faster than they can launch a campaign is because they conveniently miss out on keyword match types.

By default, they go for “broad match type” which will trigger your ads for absolutely anything closely related to your keyword.

Google Ads provides you with Match types to help you control how and when your ads are triggered based on how users input keywords. Google gives you four basic match types to choose from: Broad match, Broad Match Modifier, Phrase Match, and Exact Match (as shown below):

If you are just starting out, pick out the most relevant keywords appropriate for your business and use “phrase match” or “exact match”.

Sort keywords into appropriate Ad Groups

With Google Ads, you don’t just dump keywords into ad groups without reason. The more strategic you are with adding and sorting your keywords into ad groups, the more successful your ad campaigns will be.

Group your keywords into tight themes and then put them into appropriately named ad groups.

Here’s an example:

Create Objectives, Workflows, & Funnels

Don’t start any Google Ad campaigns without making sure you have your objectives sorted out first. You won’t be able to create workflows and sales funnels without deciding what your campaign objectives are.

• What are your objectives for your Google Ad Campaign?
• Are you trying to just get traffic to your brand new website?
• Are you looking to generate leads?
• Do you want your potential customers to call you?
• Would you like your customers to directly shop for your products and services after they search on Google?
• Are you trying to promote an app?
• Do you want to use simple text ads, banners, or video ads?

How you launch your campaigns, the Google Ad platform features you’ll use, and everything else about your campaigns will depend on your answers to the questions above.

Don’t skip this step.

Write ads in pairs for A/B testing

So, you’ve picked up the keywords most appropriate for your ads and you’ve created appropriate ad groups for your keywords. The next step is to create ads for your Google Ads campaigns. But don’t just create a random number of Google ads (or even worse, just one single ad).

Instead, create ads in pairs. You can then use these pairs (for each ad group) to test your ads out so that you know what works and what doesn’t.

Point ads to landing pages

The reason why find ourselves repeating this point is only because, despite the repeated advice, many businesses still don’t use landing pages for their campaigns.

Landing pages are focused, easily editable, and can be built to match the message or offers you make on your ads. Landing pages are the starting point of your sales funnels.

You’ll understand this better with an example. Let’s assume that you are giving away an Apple Watch as a freebie to generate leads for your business.

Your Google Ad could look like this:

This ad should point to a landing page, as shown below: (Courtesy: Leadpages)

As you can see, the landing page:

• Puts your focus right on the watch itself and a button for you to click.
• Has no navigation menus or other links (like social links) for you to click on. No distractions.
• Has a countdown time to urge you to take action due to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

Funnels & nurturing

The meat of marketing is in the follow-up. In the case of paid advertising, it’s email marketing automation that allows you to follow up (albeit differently), consistently, and it’s almost automated.

Using email autoresponders, you have the ability to nurture and engage your leads without pushing them too much. Nurture your leads with more information, insights, helpful tips, and an occasional push to allow your leads (or subscribers) to buy your products and services.

If nothing, there’s at least brand recall and familiarity being built up as you keep sending your email newsletters, RSS-to-email campaigns, and broadcasts on top of your autoresponders.

With an ROI of 3800%, email marketing is the true money-maker you might not be using at the moment.

How are you running your Google Ad Campaigns? As you can see, there are a lot of moving parts in a single campaign not counting split testing, creatives, landing pages, and optimization.

Need help with your Google Ad Campaigns? Get on a scheduled call with us now.

The post Google Ads: How To Start And Run Your Campaigns appeared first on Done For You.

Relevance score defined

Relevance score is a metric measure of engagement level and quality of ads on Facebook. It is vital in that it determines how frequently Facebook users will view your ad and also determines the cost per click (CPC) of the ad. It is how Facebook decides whether an ad is great or junk.

Relevance score is one of the most critical yet often overlooked metrics for Facebook ads. It is calculated based on implicit and actual engagement that Facebook expects the ad to receive. The score is refreshed as people engage with the ad (comments and likes) and click the link (or not).

When Facebook users do not mind the relevance of an ad to them, then the marketer does not get anything for having an ad viewed by someone out of the target audience.

The metric itself is simple: a score of 1-10—10 indicating that your target Facebook users find your advertisement super relevant to their needs and interests.

Ads are usually taken to be highly relevant or useful to the audience if they hit a score of 7 out of 10.

What Facebook Ads relevance score is NOT

Note the wording. Relevance score, not quality score.

The scope of this metric is not to evaluate how good your image or ad copy is. Facebook’s main goal here is to give you a good idea if your ad’s demographic target is holding your message directly related to them and thus engaging with your ad.

How to locate the relevance score of your Facebook Ads

First go to your Ads Manager or Business Manager. Click on a campaign and then an ad set. Now you will be able to see the different ads.

Here’s an example of what you might expect to see:

If you don’t see the relevance score column, then click the “+” symbol on the last column and then “Customize Columns.”

The next screen you will be taken to will look like this:

Here you have the ability to choose the columns you want to appear and also add relevance score to your Facebook Ads dashboard. Don’t forget to hit the Apply button for the changes to take effect.

Benefits of a high relevance score

Over the recent years, advertising through social media has grown to be a big deal. This also led to a number of companies taking the same trend to market themselves and catch new potential clients.

However, some consumers became unhappy about being bombarded by certain Facebook ads. Facebook decided to create a standard score known as the relevance score. They introduced it back in 2015. The purpose of this metric is to make both users and advertisers happy.

With a high relevance score, the cost per click for an ad is reduced. By having high relevance scores, you know that you are hitting the target audience making your online marketing better and efficient.

Low relevance scores will damage your returns on investment which is very bad especially for a small business.

How to increase Facebook Ads relevance score

To get more views on an ad, here are some tips that will help you to improve Facebook Ads relevance score.

1. Understand your audience properly

To deliver your message properly, you will need them well. It is vital to understand an audience as well as knowing your product.

You could make use of the Facebook’s saved audience, custom audience or lookalike audience. By so doing you will reach your message to both the existing audience and to the new audience base. To do so, you deserve information on some things about your potential client or customer including:

• Their preferences.
• Social class and status.
• Phrases and keywords that could arouse their reaction.

With you have figured out the ideal audience, it will be easier to reach the message to your targeted group and in turn raise your relevance scores.

The takeaway here is to design campaigns based on buyer personas. Here’s how to do it.

Having a hard time to define your ideal audience? Click the image below to be taken to a free Scriptly trial. With Scriptly’s Customer Avatars feature you’ll be able to define the exact personas you want to target.

2. Be specific with your audience

Upon knowing the audience you are aiming for should now even be more specific with whom you want to get the ad.

Companies collect user data for them to use it for more personalized advert targeting. Try to use the available information to find out and determine who views or interacts with your posts most. Such people are key to help you get a good relevance score.

An example is that in case someone likes your sports T-shirt, there is a good chance that he or she will react excitedly to an ad on sports shoes.

By making your target more specific, you get better relevance scores.

Use Facebook’s Audience Insights to get a good grasp of what your ideal persona’s interests look like on the world’s largest social media platform.

This built-in tool will help you learn your customers better and also create new Facebook audiences that are more relevant to you.

You can also utilize Facebook pixel to create custom audiences from people who have already visited your site. Then, you can use these custom audiences to create lookalike audiences—a way for Facebook to name augmented audiences that are similar to your web visitors. Here’s more information on custom and lookalike audiences.

3. Make use of split testing (also known as the A/B test)

Most of the Facebook users are known to scroll down the news feed on their phones til they see something that will capture their eyes. Mostly it is an image that users check after scrolling the rest of the feeds.

Therefore by making use of attractive images to lure your targeted audience, your chances of having a higher relevance score will improve. However, you should consider taking the A/B test before making the ads.

The test is crucial since you do not want the target audience hitting the “Hide Ad” button which will ruin your return on investment.

A/B testing involves taking two audiences and showing the same ad to them or taking two different ads and showing them to the same audience. From there you can take into note the comments and reactions of the audience towards a certain ad. You will also find out which ad will perform better when posted on Facebook.

By deciding which image to go with, you minimize the rate of the targeted audience disliking your ad or post.

4. Make use of Call To Action (CTA) buttons

Call to Action buttons are used by online marketers to lure the user(s) to take an action. To ensure your CTAs are the clearest possible is by being relevant to the target audience.

For instance, in an eCommerce ad there can be a CTA reading,” Shop now” or for a job providing company, it could read, ”Apply Now”.To make a good relevance score, you will need to analyze your CTAs.

If the CTA is creating ease of the users understanding your Ads’ objectives, then know you have a good relevance score.

Here are the options you have when creating a Facebook ad.

5. Make use of video ads

For ages, images have been appealing but right now videos are gaining popularity in advertisements mostly online.

Some marketers using video content are making better conversions. By using the newly introduced video view feature on Facebook, you can manage to have your ad viewed by users who are likely to react excitedly to it.

You also will get to know at what point in the ad do the people begin too loose interest, hence you can rectify before it is late. Using video ads will raise relevance score but however, you need to do it right.

6. You need to add a sense of urgency in your ad

Most Facebook users will either convert between the first twenty minutes of viewing the ad or will not convert at all. Hardly will someone see an ad, leave it without taking action, and then come back later in the day and try to follow up on the peoples’ previous thoughts. As long as people keep posting stuff then, any user, upon logging into his or her Facebook will check on the current posts.

The main aid of adding a sense of urgency is to have as many people convert on viewing the ad post. There are several ways of having people take action on an ad but the usual one is offering a discount or a limited time coupon.

Offering a discount and adding a statement reading “Discount Ends Midnight” or, “Discount For The First Twenty”, will get the users who can afford to rush to convert. Make it short and simple and having hit the right audience will yield great results.

7. Optimize your landing page

You need to keep congruence along the path as the user enters your sales funnel and follows through.

When users see your ad and click, they establish some expectations of what they are about to see on the landing page that follows the click. If your landing page headline is NOT a continuation of the advertising message, the user experience is disrupted and the visitor is more likely to abandon the page.

The more consistent an ad image and copy are with your landing page headline, images and copy the more likely you are to increase your Facebook Ads relevance score.

See more landing page tips that will help you build high-conversion pages and add to your relevance score.

You may also want to try Scriptly’s Page Builder module which allows you to create optimized landing pages that are already proven to convert. What’s more, with Scriptly you get pages that practically write themselves.

Get better ads for less

As we explained, achieving a high relevance score will help you pay a lower CPC, thus get your message in front of the right buyers at a lower total cost.

Because Facebook ads are becoming more competitive, you need to make your marketing as cost effective as possible. When multiple ads (that you and your competitors are running) are targeted to the same Facebook audience, a high relevance score will help your ads stand out from the competition.

Also, when you are testing different ad variations and want to choose a winning ad to scale, you should be looking for ads with a 9/10 or 10/10 relevance score. They will be more cost effective and easier to scale.

The post How To Improve Facebook Ads Relevance Score appeared first on Done For You.

As such, Facebook Ads aren’t as easy to run as it might seem at first glance. Although we must give credit to Facebook for trying to make it easier for advertisers to flourish on the network, it’s just in the nature of the beast that the more powerful it gets, the more complicated it’s going to be for advertisers to make good use of Facebook Ads.

As a business owner or a marketer, your only real goal with c is to inch towards a positive ROI. You want your ads to work. You want to pack in a punch.

Forget trying to waste time, money, and precious opportunities with needless split testing (when you don’t have to).

Here are a few tips to make that happen:

Give, don’t ask

There are way too many businesses out there just “asking” for the sale.

Asking people to part with their cash in the fleeting moment they see your ad is a huge ask. Yet, every business that we know of is doing just that.

Doing what doesn’t work really.

No one is about to buy from you. It’s not like they wake up every morning, credit card in hand, waiting to swipe.

It’s time to stand out from the crowd. Don’t make ads that say “Buy now”. Instead, give away something.

No offer. No ad

If you don’t have an irresistible offer to make, you shouldn’t even be creating an ad, launching a campaign, or building a sales funnel. Your customers have choices and for them to consider buying your products or services, you have to make an offer.

It’s for no reason that books like The Irresistible Offer by Mark Joyner are popular.

Download the book for free in PDF format, thanks to Hubspot.

The idea is to give stuff away (not ask), and then nurture your leads, grow trust, and then make sales on a continuous — and almost predictable — basis.

Use videos instead of images

Consider this: 57% of customers watch product videos while in store. Retailers report a 40% increase in sales because of video.

Plus, potential customers who view video ads are 1.81X more like to purchase than those who only check out text or text plus image combinations, according to Adobe.

Videos work like a charm. They pour life into your ads (and also into your potential customers’ newsfeeds). Plus, videos just convert (there’s no need to split test this, trust us).

Make ads more human

The problem with “corporate style” writing is that it’s too stiff. Companies convey messages (in ads or otherwise) with some sort of pseudo superiority complex. It almost feels as if they talk down to the customer.

Either that, or the ads lack any character, style, or attitude. No one likes to see an ad with nothing but a company logo on it.

Make your ads more human. Your copy should talk on a person-to-person level. Write your ads like you write to a friend.

Split test like you mean it

Don’t do split testing for the sake of doing it or because you always keep reading about it. You want to split test because you want to find your champions among ads, sales funnels, email copy, and more; not because you thought it’d be great to do it or just because you can.

Andrew Tate of AdEspresso has clear, succinct, and easy to follow advice:

• Wait a few days before evaluating your results.
• Wait to confirm your results until you have at least 95% statistical significance.
• Stick to testing one variable at a time.

To make any decisions that mean something for your campaigns, play the “waiting” game. Ensure that you have enough data before you make any decisions about your ads, landing pages, or sales funnels.

How do your Facebook Ads (…or LinkedIn Ads or Google Ads) look like? Are you packing a punch in your ads? Get on a scheduled call with us if you’d like to take your paid advertising campaigns to the next level.

The post How to Make Your Facebook Ads Pack More Punch appeared first on Done For You.

It’s a given. It’s the cost of doing business. It’s an investment you’d make to get the profits you seek.

Not all of that ad spend wastage is justified though. Some of that wastage can be saved.

Money saved is money earned, right?

It’s alright if all the ads reach your “intended” audience, all them see your ads, a few of them click through, and only a certain percentage of them convert on your landing pages or sales funnels.

That kind of a scenario is expected.

What’s not all right with the ad spend wastage when it comes to your Google Ads is all the “unintended” activity that happens with your campaigns if you aren’t careful enough.

For instance, you launch the campaign intended for audiences in the United States but your ad is being shown to people in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and many others. Or, you intended your ads to show up for a particular set of carefully chosen keywords but your ads trigger for several other keywords that your ads were not intended to show up for.

That kind of ad spend is purely wasted, and if you are not careful, you’ll burn your advertising budget before you see any meaningful results from your campaigns.

That’s why, it helps to keep a close eye on a few reports that you’ll find within the Google Ads platform while your campaigns are live.

Here are some of them:

Search Terms Report

Google does its best to try to show your ads only when your specified keywords are searched for. Yet, it doesn’t always get it right.

Even before you start, it’s important to be careful enough to use the right keyword match types such as:

• Broad Match
• Exact Match
• Phrase Match
• Broad Match Modifier

After that, once your campaigns are live, look for the “search terms report” to identify certain keywords that are triggering your ads to show up. You are bound to find some unintended terms that are still triggering these ads.

As you find keywords that you don’t want your ads to show up for, add them to your negative keywords list on the campaign level or ad group level. You can also go further to add negative keyword match types to control your negative keywords list, as in:

• Exact Match Negative
• Phrase Match Negative
• Broad Match Negative

Be sure to incorporate this work into your daily campaign management and always reevaluate your keyword strategy based on the search terms report.

Geographic Report

Even if you choose one single country as an intended target for your campaigns, the geographic report will often show you just how many people from other countries also see your ad and hence click on them.

If you don’t set up locations in your campaign settings right (because there are options there), this is likely to happen.

As for locations, Google Ads gives you options such as:

• Physical location (Users who live in this location)
• Location of Interest (Users interested in this location)
• Both the above (combining 1 and 2 above)

Inadvertently choosing location of Interest when you actually wanted to pick Physical location instead (like all people who live in the United States Vs all people Interested in United States) leads to your ad showing up to almost all the people in the world (and that wasn’t what you intended).

If you only wanted people “living” in U.S, check the “Geographic Report” and be sure to select target location as “United States” while being sure to add other countries you found in your geographic report as excluded locations.

Control The Networks

If you use Google Ads, chances are that your ads are also showing on Google’s search along with search partners and other third-party networks that Google has associations with.

This is the default setting (like most others above) when you first set up your campaign, and if you aren’t careful, your ads will be shown across Google’s network which usually means lots of clicks (and hence money spent) without proper results.

Recurring tweaks. A wee bit of due diligence. Continuous monitoring of your campaigns. Attention to detail. That’s all that you need to do to make sure your campaigns have a better chance of winning and getting you the results you seek.

How do you manage your Google Ads campaigns? If you need help or if you feel that your Google Ads campaigns aren’t giving you the results you seek, please feel free to schedule a call to discuss your campaigns, your keyword strategy, and more.

The post Google Ads: Use These Mandatory Reports To Maximize ROI appeared first on Done For You.

While it’s that powerful, most businesses don’t use Google AdWords to its potential.

In fact, because of false starts and being uninformed, most small business owners tend to get excited with the possibilities, launch right away, and end up draining their complete budgets in less than a few hours of launching their campaigns with nothing much to show for it.

Meanwhile, your aim is to squeeze the most out of your PPC ad spend.

Google is a business like any other, and their default settings are built to make “them” money, not you.

To succeed with Google AdWords, you’d need strategy, due diligence, and attention to detail. There are rules for Google AdWords that you just have to follow.

Above all, you’d have to make sure that you don’t end up spending money on Google AdWords for nothing.

Here’s how to be absolutely sure that you aren’t going to waste your money on unnecessary clicks and false starts:

No offers? No campaigns

There are a lot of businesses just like yours (your competition) and they are all out there trying to woo the same kind of customer — you know? The customer who can pay.

You might have a USP, your products might be the best out there, and you could truly be the best solution for your customers’ problems.

There’s only one problem: your customer doesn’t know you yet. To get your customers through the door, you need to make an offer (and it doesn’t have to be a discount).

Your offers will give your customer a reason to consider your products or services. Google ads are fickle affairs and launching campaigns without an offer doesn’t give your customer any incentive to click, to sign up, to consider, or to think about why you are the best at what you do.

Say no to Google’s campaign managers

Did you ever get a call from Google’s offices volunteering to help you run and manage your campaigns?

There’s only one good reason why you should let these Google AdWords’ campaign managers handle your account for you: when you truly don’t have the time or resources to do so or when you have an unlimited budget to spend.

In most cases, we’d never entertain these campaign managers for the simple reason that they had never spent any of their own money to run their campaigns.

People who don’t learn by spending their own money or putting their own skin in the game don’t know a thing about running paid campaigns. Period.

Campaigns are flush tanks without sales funnels

Paid advertising (Google or otherwise) makes you believe that it’s incredibly easy to launch a campaign, and it really is.

But if you just went ahead and launched campaigns the way you are made to believe, you’ll spend your budget in less than an hour – flat out.

You’d need sales funnels — the complete setup from ads making a specific offer (see above) to landing pages, and from landing pages to email marketing automation. Without sales funnels, your campaigns are guaranteed to fail

Learn what sales funnels are and why you need them. If you need help building sales funnels, just schedule a call with us and we’ll take it from there.

AdWords Express is for the lazy folks

AdWords Express (a simpler version of Google AdWords) lets your ad show up with just a few clicks; no need to mess with ad groups, multiple ads, landing pages, and all that jazz.

For an absolute newbie, AdWords Express makes it just as simple as popping open a soda bottle. It’s easy, quick, effortless, and an absolute cakewalk.

But a good campaign is not a cakewalk.

AdWords Express doesn’t let you control anything. You can’t determine how your ad should show, what keyword combinations should trigger your ads, and any of that deep stuff, like testing Ads, landing pages, A/B testing, and more.

If you want good results — like really good results — don’t touch AdWords Express.

Don’t touch Google’s defaults

Google’s defaults are built to make Google money.

Drop a keyword without modifying or controlling how or when it’s shown and you are in for trouble. That’s because your keywords will start showing up for absolutely every instance of your keyword being used. That’s why your ad budgets drain so fast.

In another instance, the way Google works is to show your most popular ad more often than others (and that’s a default setting).

If you let Google do this, how will you control and test your ads? For good A/B testing practices, you’d need to have two ads show up equally (with almost equal impressions). With such a setup you are able to distribute traffic equally to both the ads.

The right option to choose (instead of default) is “Rotate all ads equally.” This option will make Google show all your ads equally so you have the ability to split test your ads.

How do you think you are draining your Google AdWords’ budget? If you are draining your Google AdWords budget faster than you can read this line, it’s time to get on a scheduled call with us.

The post How To Not Drain Your Google AdWords Budget appeared first on Done For You.

While LinkedIn might seem passive compared to other social networks, it’s the social network where you’ll normally find decision makers, founders, entrepreneurs, CXOs, and several other professionals available and within reach.

With more than 500 million users (and over 50% of those are active users), LinkedIn is a highly-targeted, concentrated, and ever active professional social network.

LinkedIn is purely business-centric, and fires off in so many different directions for businesses – You could…

• hire people
• connect with others in your industry
• check out competition
• build relationships with others
• maintain thought leadership (with regular updates and with LinkedIn publishing)
• engage in direct social selling
• and so much more…

Of course, you could also advertise directly on the LinkedIn network. The self-service LinkedIn advertising product gives you options such as:

• LinkedIn Sponsored ads
• LinkedIn Carousel
• Lead Generation Forms (just like Facebook)
• LinkedIn text ads and
• LinkedIn Sponsored InMail.

While the cost per click on LinkedIn is slightly on the expensive side as Igor Belogovsky of Kissmetrics points out, with the average CPC starting at $1 or $2. The actual cost depends on your target locations and click-through rate among others.

Maximizing LinkedIn Ads impact and ROI

If you are considering LinkedIn Ads, take note:

• You want the maximum bang for your buck. From the start, you’d have to focus on the value of your offer, the ad images, and the ad copy. Being mediocre on LinkedIn can get really expensive.
• Make use of dedicated landing pages and sales funnels for your LinkedIn Ad campaigns. Get on a call with us to allow us to help you formulate the right advertising strategy.
• Consider your LinkedIn Ad format options based on your campaign objectives. You can’t be random about it.

Types of LinkedIn Ads

With that out of the way, here are various LinkedIn Ad types and how they can help your business:

Use LinkedIn Sponsored Posts for high-impact content

Let’s say you have a blog post that performs really well to get you what you need (leads, branding, building authority, etc.). You could use LinkedIn Sponsored Posts to promote your content.

These campaigns are clearly top of the funnel campaigns and are best used for branding, getting traffic to your website and/or landing pages. For LinkedIn Sponsored Posts, you could just use one of your blog posts; an actual ad with an image, copy, and a link to your landing page; or a video ad.

LinkedIn Sponsored Posts are the staple of LinkedIn advertising. Chances are that this is the ad type that you’d want to start with.

LinkedIn Lead Gen forms

You can add LinkedIn Lead Generation forms to your LinkedIn Sponsored Posts or ads or you could also use LinkedIn Lead Generation forms with your Sponsored InMail.

Using LinkedIn Lead Generation forms improves your conversions by 2X or 3X compared to standard campaigns. Some companies are known to have increased lead generation from their ads by over 400% and up to 20% conversion rate, according to LinkedIn’s Official Marketing Solutions blog.

As with any form used for marketing, “less is more”. Keep your ads direct, and don’t add too many fields or questions for your prospects to ask.

Sponsored InMail

LinkedIn’s InMail — by itself — allows you to craft highly-customized emails that you could use to reach out to absolutely anyone within the LinkedIn network. You’d use this type of LinkedIn Ad to reach those who are out of your 1st degree or 2nd degree network of contacts.

You could also use InMail for hiring, for sales prospecting, for publishing outreach, and more.

Sponsored InMail is like direct mail on steroids. With Sponsored InMail, you can craft personalized messages to drive up conversions.

You can reach audiences that matter the most to your business on both desktop and mobile, and you can also A/B test your subject lines, offers, or InMail copy to see what clicks with your audience.

Humble LinkedIn Text Ads

Just like text ads on Google AdWords and on other third-party publishing networks, LinkedIn also gives you access to a regular inventory of ads. As you’d expect, you can create simple text ads that will show on the sidebar and other areas of your LinkedIn user  interface after you login.

Charged by the click or for impressions, these text ads are often the most simple to create.

But to benefit from text ads, as usual, you’ll still need complete sales funnels set up.

While LinkedIn Ads might be slightly expensive, they’re still uncrowded; With LinkedIn Ads, you are likely to not only target very high-intent audiences but also open another channel of opportunities for marketing your business.

Would you be interested in discussing how LinkedIn Ads might be a great addition to your PPC strategy and quality lead generation? Get on a scheduled call with us.

The post LinkedIn Ads: Advertise On A Network That Means Business appeared first on Done For You.

More than 93% of marketers use Facebook Advertising regularly, but that’s not to say that all those merchants are getting Facebook ads to truly work for their business.

That’s the trouble with paid advertising: you won’t win from it just because you do it. You win from it when you put in blood, sweat, tears, and use some features in Facebook ads that you should be using.

Facebook Audience Insights

Let’s assume that you wanted to launch a retargeting campaign with a very specific offer for all the visitors of your website, what would you do?

If you were like most marketers and businesses, you’d just pick that specific audience. Hopefully, you’ve let the Facebook pixel fire and have let Facebook build this audience in the first place.

Then, you launch.

You could do even better since not all visitors to your website are your potential customers. Using Facebook’s Audience Insights, you’ll get a much more granular view of who exactly visits your website and then use those insights to define who among your custom audience should see your ad.

Facebook Analytics

Facebook’s very own Analytics tool inside your Business Manager is a gold mine but most businesses don’t even know that it exists – thanks to the quiet roll-out.

With Facebook Analytics, you have a way to understand the entire customer journey across Facebook’s channels. Typical Facebook marketing channels are: desktop, messenger, and apps. Typical ad goals are: post comments, shares, clicks and page likes.

Facebook Analytics allows you to make sense of all those social comments, likes, and shares that happen on your paid or organic content on Facebook. With the “funnel” feature within your Facebook Analytics, you can actually see how regular engagement on a Facebook page works to benefit your business.

Here’s a funnel example by Paul Fairbrother.

In the example above, about 36% of people who commented went on to view the website. Over 10% of them went on to make a purchase.

See how it works?

Sometimes you need a website tool to quantify the benefits of different sources of traffic. If you’re using different paid traffic methods, Facebook Analytics won’t do the job — that’s where Google Analytics or some other Analytics application comes in…  We like KissMetrics or Heapanalytics for our clients…

Lookalike Audiences

Most businesses barely get anywhere near to using Facebook’s native audiences feature. By default, Facebook allows you to create audiences (as specific or general as you’d like). Too many brands are busy pushing out ads for a week and then completely forget about audiences.

If and when you go past that general state of Facebook advertising, you’ll be welcomed into the world of audiences. You can specify and collect highly specific audiences from which you can target and profit.

Lookalike Audiences are a collection of Facebook users that “Facebook” seeks, organizes, and enables for you to reach that you’d otherwise have missed. Facebook creates Lookalike Audiences based on “audiences that you already have.”

For instance,

• Have an audience of all visitors to your websites and/or landing pages for the last 90 days? Facebook can create a Lookalike Audience of people who match this existing audience. This would be a completely new set of people who share the likes, interests, locations, and other attributes common to your existing audience.
• Have a list of previous customers? You can let Facebook find a matching (but completely new) group of potential customers for you. It also has the option of narrowing down this list by LTV (Lifetime Value.)
• Do you have an audience of about 10,000 blog readers per month? Facebook can find another 100,000 completely new blog readers for you.

Lookalike Audiences are truly underrated if you ask us.

Not using Lookalike Audiences yet? Start doing it today.

Facebook Messenger Campaigns

Facebook Messenger isn’t just for us to chat with friends and family. With more than 1.3 billion users actively using Facebook Messenger and with more than 2 billion messages shared between individuals and brands, Messenger is a channel that truly has potential for your business.

It’s  not surprising that Facebook has a separate ad objective to allow you to launch campaigns specifically for Facebook Messenger. Alternatively, you can choose Facebook’s native “Send message” button on any campaign.

Your primary goal? To get people to talk to and engage with your brand.

The more they engage, the better your conversions are going to be. Small talk helps you win big.

Creating Automation Rules

Facebook allows you to create as many rules as you’d like to help monitor your campaigns and take actions that you see fit each time a trigger happens. A few of those triggers – actions could be:

• Stop an ad if the frequency of the ad is more than 7.
• Pause ads If the CPA (cost per action) is above $X for an ad or ad set.
• Adjust daily or lifetime budgets (increase or decrease or scale) based on the criteria you set.
• Adjust bids (increase or decrease) by percentage values when certain conditions are met.

Of course, you’ll also get notifications for various events that happen when you launch your Facebook ad campaigns.

When it comes to running and managing a large number of Facebook ad campaigns, this feature will help you save tons of time and increase your efficiency.

Next Step

These Facebook Advertising Strategies are the key to starting or saving your Facebook campaigns.  Rocking these things early on will launch you out of the gate fast and put a lot of audience data behind you.  If you’ve got campaigns that are cooling off – then working some of these new ad formats may be the key to bringing your sales back in line.

Either way, if you need more sales, Facebook Ads are a great way to get them.  And, we can help.  Watch this short video and you’ll see exactly what to do next!

The post Facebook Ads: Top Features You Should Start Using appeared first on Done For You.

The trouble with us humans is that we tend to have a lot happening inside our heads (including all of the above) when it’s time to make decisions.

Each of those parameters serves us well in the normal course of our lives. But when it comes to certain things such as contemporary marketing and financial planning, all of those have the potential to throw a wrench into a successful decision-making process.

If you wanted to decide which place to go on vacation, you’d do your research, but ultimately let your heart decide where you’ll land.

It’s not exactly that simple with digital marketing. But then, why should you even stress yourself when data gives you all the answers you need to help make decisions?

Here’s why you should let data dictate your decision-making and not your emotions, feelings, likes, dislikes, or preconceived notions:

Develop precise marketing strategies

With the cost of ads high at the time of writing this, and given that you are taking risks with every PPC ad campaign you run, you can’t afford to work on whims. Gut feelings are good but they aren’t good enough to ensure profitable PPC campaigns at all times.

To develop precise marketing strategies, you’ll need precise data.

Before you even launch your Facebook ad campaign, for instance, spending enough time with Facebook Audience Insights, Google Analytics, and Facebook Analytics for your web property (confined to your respective targeted locations and demographics) provides you with a wealth of data on which you can act.

While running Google AdWords, checking out other characteristics of your targeted user base on Google such as “In-market,” “affinity audiences,” “publications they read,” “income levels,” and other attributes – on top of your regular keyword research – puts you in good stead.

Good data allows you to build laser-targeted, focused, and effective PPC campaigns. Period.

Data is a digital marketer’s gift

One of the reasons why digital marketing truly trumps traditional marketing is its ability to let data flow in for us marketers to make decisions that matter. You have an ability (with digital marketing) to know exactly what’s working and why.

You’ll have a way to clearly see where your visitors come from (and how many), how long they spend on your web properties, what they do when they visit, which parts of your web pages are viewed the most (heat maps), and so much more.

You’ll be able to analyze which parts of your page are viewed most, where those clicks happen, and zoom in on which elements of your sales funnels are working better than the others (A/B testing).

No other form of marketing gives you such a wealth of analytics and data. There’s virtually nothing else — in marketing — that can help you make informed decisions without breaking a sweat.

For businesses and digital marketers, data is a gift. It only makes sense that we learn to use it well.

You never know what markets want

There’s a reason why every startup idea needs to be validated. There’s also a good reason why you can’t just create an ad and point the ad to a landing page. When you do it this way, you don’t get the complete story.

Digital marketing is an inexpensive way to validate your ideas, ads, campaigns, and sales funnels. In as much as a week’s time, you’ll know whether or not an idea can work or whether a campaign can be successful.

Since consumer behavior is complicated today and because you can’t just sit there and “assume” things, data-driven marketing helps you identify exactly what your market wants and then help you build products or services that serve these markets well.

Your instincts work…until they don’t

It’s only natural that we rely on our instinct, experience, and know-how to solve problems. Those basic instincts will also lead you to make your own decisions when you are about to create Facebook or Google ads, create landing pages, build sales funnels, and more.

According to ThinkWithGoogle,

Data analytics can work wonders. Highly data-driven organizations are three times more likely to report significant improvement in decision-making, according to PwC research. Yet, 62% of executives still rely more on experience and advice than data to make decisions.

The trouble is this: Your instincts work great, until they don’t. When they fail, as they’ll inevitably do, you have no recourse. Data, on the other hand, is reliable and more effective in helping you make decisions that will stand the test of time.

Do you use data to help yourself build precise marketing strategies and PPC campaigns? Do you use do data-driven marketing? Tell us about it.

The post PPC Campaigns: Why Data-Driven Decisions Are Mandatory appeared first on Done For You.

The fact that 51% of businesses have a well-defined, digital marketing strategy is a reflection of how things have changed over the last few years. And, the remaining 49% are doing digital marketing, but with no strategy.

How does click fraud come into the picture?

As we all know, companies spend huge amounts of money every year on their marketing campaigns. As a result, online activities have also attracted scammers who are here to eat up your marketing budget with fraudulent clicks. These people might try to sell you fake clicks, which means that you think you’re getting real human traffic to your website, while the truth is that it’s only automated bot visits.

You might be shocked to know that, in 2016 alone, marketers lost $7.2 billion to digital ad fraud. And, the loss is growing at a rate of 50% per year.

This is why click fraud is a major concern for marketers and business owners. You might think your marketing campaigns are working, because they bring in traffic, but in reality, all you get is fake clicks!

So, how can you identify click fraud?

Well, here are some of the most common red lights that should worry you and have you wonder about the quality of the clicks you’re getting:

• Repeated clicks coming from similar IPs
• Large search costs with extremely low conversions
• Anomalies in Google Analytics or other traffic data for no reason

If you’re facing any of these issues, then your marketing efforts might be compromised by click fraud.

Now, the question that arises is “How can you eliminate click fraud?” Is there a way to battle traffic scammers? Yes, there are… more than one! Let’s look at them:

1. Keep an eye on any anomalies

As already stated, if you find some weird numbers in your ad marketing statistics it could be the first signs of your marketing budget going in the wrong direction.

As a matter of fact, one of the first things you need to do in order to minimize the impact of click fraud and reduce it to minimum is by keeping track of everything that’s happening in your marketing campaigns.

Once identified, you can eventually take some strong steps to prevent the click fraud which we are going to discuss in the next few points.

2. Plan your advertising campaigns better

Where are you marketing your business? This one thing matters a lot!

Are you using Google advertisements? If yes, and you are not getting results, an intelligent trick that you can employ to fight the click-fraud elements is being smart in planning your ad-campaigns.

One of the many ways you can choose to plan it better is by setting different prices of the bid for different targeted sites. For instance, limit your posting to only relevant sites rather than just going on any website.

Or perhaps you can limit your ad campaigns to only reliable websites like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn based on your niche and target audience availability.

3. Don’t let your competitors do the damage

As annoying as it might sound, the fact of the matter is that the majority of businesses are not shy of employing this dirty tactic to destroy their competitor’s marketing budget. Therefore you cannot even think of ignoring your competition.

It has been found that many businesses are taking advantage of this strategy to damage their competitors by eating up their marketing budget.

A shocking statistic that might capture your interest here is that Methbot, one of the click fraud operations out there in the market, manages to generate $3 to $5 million in fraudulent revenue every single day!

So, can you check analytics data to figure out how many clicks are coming from your competitor’s IDs? If there is something that seems fishy, then you can take the required steps to reduce the damage done.

4. Turn to IP exclusions

The best way to identify and bring down these click frauds is to track the IP addresses. Once you have identified various addresses where you can see some notoriety happening, you can take this simple action – block them!

Reduce the chances of wasting your money on click fraud is by turning to IP restriction – it’s as simple as that!

This is something that does not require any technical expertise or any investment of any sort. All it requires is a little conscious effort on your end, plus a little situation-awareness, and you can easily end up saving quite a lot!

5. Stay updated with the latest technology

The best bet to keep your business safe is by befriending technology.

There is quite a number of software and tools available out on the market that can help you detect click frauds and save your business from overspending your marketing budget.

In fact, such software provides you a detailed report of the notorious elements that can come in handy in case you have to prove your case to the competitor firms or search engines.

All the major search engines are doing something against click fraud as well!

The good news for businesses is that looking at the seriousness of the issue, all the major search engines have started their mission to root out this problem.

For instance, Google plans to come up with its own campaign to fight click frauds. Google’s Ad Traffic Quality team has also planned to conduct manual as well as offline analysis of the clicks to ensure that advertisers don’t get robbed of their marketing budget due to these fraudulent click elements.

Keep calm and stay cautious!

But until there is something concrete to root it out, it becomes your responsibility to show awareness and keep your guard high against these fraud-clicking notorious elements.

On a concluding note, all we have left to say here is that the safety of your business and the success of your marketing campaign lies in your hands. More importantly, it lies in the awareness you show against fighting something like click-fraud.

So, are you up for it? Are you ready for some action and to start this battle against fraud-clicks for the betterment of your business?

The post 5 Powerful Ways To Eliminate Click Fraud appeared first on Done For You.

In fact, more than 98% of all ad spend is wasted amounting to billions of dollars in wasted ad spend, according to Lucy Handley of CNBC.

As a small business, you don’t want to throw your money into the drain. You want every dollar to work hard for you and to get the results you seek. In short, you want to make your Google AdWords campaigns work for you.

Start with these tips to squeeze the most out of your Google AdWords campaigns and PPC spend.

Start with a low budget

There’s no telling what the results of your campaign are going to be. No one saw the future, for one. Secondly, no one knows how the markets behave. Third, consumer behavior today is more complicated than rockets could ever be.

Your initial play with campaigns shouldn’t even be about results – it should always be about data. By running campaigns, testing them out and gathering data, you’ll learn how your campaigns perform, how they stack up and what works (and what doesn’t).

Since your aim is to do initial A/B testing and optimization for your campaigns, it doesn’t make sense to throw out thousands of dollars per day when you should only spend $10 or $20 per day.

Don’t ignore message matching landing pages

One of the main reasons why most campaigns don’t work properly is because despite the rallying cry to “not” point ads to websites, most paid ad campaigns are set up exactly that way. Let’s assume that you are (hopefully) not doing that and that you are pointing to well-built and focused landing pages.

Even then, you might be missing out on something not only crucial, but also something that’s easily overlooked: message matching landing pages.

Message matching landing pages continue the story that your ads start. If you are promising something in your ad, your message matching landing page ensures that the promise is carried over to your landing page.

With message matching landing pages, there’s a match. There’s relevance. There’s continuation. And there’s a vote of confidence.

Information on landing pages: Too much? Or too little?

Having a landing page with no information on it is just as bad as having a landing page with way too much information on it (long landing pages; do they work?).

Your aim is to only have as much information as needed to persuade your visitors to take action.

Make your landing pages too long or too short and you miss out on potential conversions, leaving money right there on the table.

That’s why creating landing pages that convert is a delicate balancing act between piquing curiosity while still eliciting interest.

The good old advertising principles, like AIDA (Attention. Interest. Desire. Action), still apply.

Use dynamic keyword insertion on landing pages and ads

When you create ads on Google AdWords, you have the option to use keyword insertion to ensure that your ads show up as highly relevant, targeted, clear and almost as if on cue.

Let’s say you were an exotic car rental service in New York; your keywords could be “exotic car rentals,” “rent exotic cars,” “rent supercars,” “supercar rentals.”

Your ads will normally show when any of those keywords are used to search. But your conversions will go through the roof when you append the exact keyword your users type in to find your ad.

Google AdWords lets you do this by using “keyword insertion codes” within your ads.

The keyword code will look like this:

Rent {keyWord: SuperCars}

Buy {keyWord: SuperCars}

Ride {keyWord: SuperCars}

Experience {keyWord: SuperCars}

Similarly, your landing pages can be tweaked dynamically each time a user visits your landing page using Dynamic Text Insertion. Make your landing pages hyper relevant by making a part of your copy rephrase what your visitors typed in to find your landing page.

Use IF, THEN functions and other special conditions

It’s not just plain old and boring text with Google Ads. Google AdWords allows you to use conditional logic while you create your ads, specifying that certain words are used when a user searches on a mobile device versus searching on a desktop, for instance.

Using If, then conditional logic, it’s possible to show one type of a message to mobile users compared to those who search using a desktop.

You also have countdown timers and other condition types that can make use of your business data, audience data and more.

Take time to use these functions within Google AdWords. Just the fact that you are using them already enhances the way your ads will work.

Don’t ignore extensions

See how MailChimp’s regular ad on Google now looks bigger, with two extra links “pricing plans” and “advanced reporting” showing up on Google?

These are ad extensions.

By far, extensions are underrated and often ignored, even by some of the more experienced marketers. Businesses that advertise on Google AdWords immediately get access to more real estate on search results pages – just by using one or many of the extensions available within AdWords.

You can call extensions, site link extensions, call outs, review-based extensions and so much more.

It takes 15 minutes more to use extensions than just launching your regular ad. Those 15 minutes will make a world of difference to your ad performance.

If you’d like to learn more about lead generation (through AdWords or other traffic sources), be sure to check out our ultimate lead generation template.

Rather, would you like to get on a call to discuss your AdWords Management, Funnels, or Marketing? Get in touch with us now!

How do you run your Google AdWords? Tell us about it!

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This officially makes Google AdWords the most powerful advertising channel as far as your business or brand showing up when your potential customers look for you.

Powerful as it might be, Google AdWords is also intimidating. It may have potential, but most advertisers and businesses don’t make much use of all that power. Google AdWords is capable of delivering ROI, but you have to know how to make it happen.

Contrary to what most people seem to think, managing Google AdWords campaigns is no joke. To make Google AdWords work for your business, you have tons of work to do. But even before you roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty, there are certain rules to follow. Miss these rules and whatever you do afterward is abortive.

Here are some of those rules:

Default settings favor Google, not you

When you start with the campaign setup, Google AdWords has default settings that you’d normally just leave as is – if you didn’t know any better. Here’s the thing: Google isn’t a non-profit organization. It’s smart. Google AdWords, when you leave it on with the default settings, is designed to make Google money, not you.

Work with the default settings and make changes as you deem fit, with a few other important changes. For instance, a few settings right off the bat, could be:

1. You should roll out one campaign per country or closely grouped countries (say United States and Canada).
2. Don’t choose all locations. Choose specific countries (and cities are even better for each country).
3. Change the default setting for locations to “people living here.”
4. Set to rotate ads “indefinitely” and not “show best performing ads.”
5. If it makes sense for your business, use “Dayparting” — setting your ads up on a schedule so you specify exactly when your ads are shown.

It’s all about keyword arrangement

With Google Adwords, you’d start with some of the most pertinent keywords that relate to your business.

Create ad groups. Create ads. Go live. Your chosen keywords are arranged in Ad Groups. Most businesses just stop at this level.

There’s a lot more to this setup than just merely arranging keywords in ad groups. To make your ad more relevant, you’d do well to arrange your keywords in ad groups in such a way that one primary keyword, and its immediate variations, are the sole focus of a single ad group (with the name also the same as the primary keyword).

In effect, this is how it should look when you do it right:

Match made in AdWords

Most businesses go out there, dig their head into Google AdWords and just drop keywords into ad groups without considering the “match type” functionality within keywords.

You have the following match types available:

• Broad match (default)
• Broad match modifier
• Phrase match
• Exact match

Unless you suffer very low search volume or if your goal is to be show up for absolutely every keyword typed in, use broad match. For all other cases, consider the other three. In fact, we won’t even suggest broad match modifier unless you have deep pockets or you really don’t care.

If you are just starting out (or even if you aren’t), using phrase match or exact match is a safer bet.

Phrase match keywords are within quotes. Like, “your keyword” and exact match keywords go with parenthesis, such as [your keyword].

Using match types enables you to control and regulate how your ads are triggered. Use them.

Negative keywords are mandatory; not optional

While it may look like using negative keywords is optional (AdWords certainly makes it look like that), not using negative keywords is a surefire recipe to blow your budget in no time. Regardless of your business and the keywords you use, there are bound to be related but non-essential or irrelevant keywords that don’t make sense for your business.

Be sure to add those irrelevant keywords or keywords that you don’t want your ads to appear for as negative keywords either at the campaign level or at the adgroup level.

Don’t launch without AdWords extensions

Google AdWords extensions are hidden gems. They allow you to expand the footprint of your ad without you having to pay extra (you’ll only pay for clicks). Extensions allow your ad to carry a lot more information and reeks of some credibility.

Adding extensions to your AdWords campaigns doesn’t take more than 10 minutes or so, and it’s incredibly easy to do. That, officially, drains you of all excuses you could ever make.

AdWords allows extensions, such as call extensions (add your phone number), call out extensions (use a call to action), sitelink extensions (add more information with respective links on your website), review extensions (let those shining reviews on Google+ or Google My Business show up within the ad), and more.

While Google takes the call on what extensions to show when your ad is displayed, it’s a no-brainer not to use them.

Ads should point to landing pages

Is your business running a Google AdWords campaign with the ads pointing to your website (or something else, like a Facebook page)?

Stop.

If you have an ad out there, it has to (and we’ll repeat it for effect: it has to) point to a landing page. That’s the top of your sales funnel. That landing page should not try to do what it can’t (like have an ecommerce button to enable sales).

If you need help building landing pages or if you’d like to get on a call with someone on our team, schedule a call now.

The post Google AdWords Rules You Can’t Ever Afford To Ignore appeared first on Done For You.

“Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.” – William Bernbach

Advertising a SaaS company, as easy as it might sound to some marketers, is a hugely cumbersome process. To make advertising work for your business you need to take care of so many things; Best practices in your industry, branding, media buying, action plans, campaign monitoring, ROI calculation and what not.

The toughest part is that you need to keep coming up with new, creative ideas on a constant basis to be on top of the changing market trends. In fact, according to the 2016 Digital Trends Report by Adobe – “more than 76% of the people believe that marketing has changed more in the past couple of years than it did over the previous fifty.”

With so much volatility floating around, it becomes inevitable for a SaaS business to make mistakes while planning or executing an advertising campaign.

If you are running a SaaS business, you need to avoid certain basic advertising mistakes that are typical to tech companies. What are those mistakes, and how do you avoid them?

Going with the ‘one size fits all’ approach

Multiple marketing channels plus same ad-campaign equals failure! That’s the story of almost every marketer’s life.

When it comes to advertising a SaaS business across different channels, the ‘one size fits all’ approach won’t work. That is because –and that’s a basic marketing principle– the advertising message needs to be adapted to serve different mediums.

In other words, you need to optimized your SaaS advertising strategies to fit:

• the typical features of each marketing channel
• the profile of the typical customers on each channel

If your marketing strategy worked on one platform it does not mean it will have the same impact on other mediums as well.

Ignoring familiarity bias

It makes sense for a SaaS business to look at the returns it gets from the money it spends on advertising.

Now, there are two ways to look at it – returns in the short run and returns in the longer run.

Some SaaS businesses fall into the trap of looking at the immediate returns, therefore, they don’t focus on creating campaigns that will either expand brand awareness or take the sales cycle into account.

What this means is that not every advertising campaign needs to have immediate conversions as a goal. Sometimes you want to have more people notice your brand, and create interest and curiosity. Other times, you do want prospects to convert, but you have to acknowledge the fact that people don’t always purchase a SaaS plan immediately; it might take them weeks or months to decide.

In order to get the maximum returns from each marketing campaign, you need to clarify your goals and expected results. If you are a SaaS startup, then you might want to create a strategic plan to spread the word about your brand. After building awareness about your business and getting the first sign-ups and paying customers, then you can use the power of familiarity bias to convert more customers through your SaaS campaigns.

In psychology, familiarity bias (heuristics) refers to the phenomenon where people opt for the more familiar options, even though these often result in less favorable outcomes than available alternatives.

Relying too much on organic traffic

Paid marketing has become the go-to option for growth marketers. With so many SaaS startups seeing the light of day, each founder wants a slice of the user base pie as quickly as possible to validate the product/market fit.

With competition soaring high in SaaS industry, you need to blend organic efforts with paid marketing in order to survive. This is quite evident from the statistics as well – nearly 70% of the CMOs suggest that they are ready to increase their spending on digital advertising. (Gartner)

If you were thinking about mastering only the organic part and leaving paid advertising for later, then it is time to change your SaaS marketing strategy.

Not leveraging the power of social proof

In an online world marred by hackers and spammers, social proof could be the savior for your business.

Close to one-third of people online look for user reviews before making a purchase. This clearly puts the value of user-generated content into the limelight.

Therefore, the advertising strategy for your SaaS company shouldn’t be limited to the content YOU create; you should have a plan for leveraging user-generated content as well.

Trust plays a massive role in getting consumers to buy a SaaS product, or any product whatsoever. To gain trust you need to be able to generate as many genuine reviews as possible for your brand.

Ask satisfied customers for a review, and share that review on your website at a prominent place. Maybe some customers are willing to shoot a quick video review? That would be even better, because you could post that review on your YouTube channel and on Facebook.

Overlooking customer retention

The probability of a reselling to an existing customer is 60-70% higher than roping in a new customer. As a matter of fact, studies reveal that 80% of your future profit will be generated from 20% of your existing customers.

Still, a lot of SaaS businesses tend to make the mistake of neglecting customers while they’re trying too hard to acquire new ones.

To reduce churn rate, you need to keep users involved. Rather than just building all your marketing campaigns around new customers, planning your advertising efforts in a way that they attend to existing customers as well must be on your radar.

Announcements, case studies, new features, benefits of your SaaS tool are some examples of content you can build to entice existing users to stick around. SaaS users want to see that you are actively improving your product, and that your customer support team is responding fast to inquiries.

Not protecting your marketing budget

Click fraud and ad fraud have become a massive problem, and many businesses are still unaware of how this problem can affect their advertising campaigns.

What click fraud means is that the traffic you’re getting from your campaign might not be real. This can ruin your marketing campaign and drain your budget completely. Read this article we wrote about sources of targeted traffic; it will help you get answers as to what you need to know when buying traffic.

To ensure success of your SaaS advertising efforts, you need to be cautious and smart about click fraud. There are plenty of tools out there that can help you stay protected against click fraud; and the best way to stay safe is to advertise through safe media like Facebook and Google.

As they say: prevention is better than cure. Invest in reliable traffic sources from the get-go to achieve the best ROI from your marketing.

Not creating a sales funnel

Not having a sales funnel is one of the top mistakes that SaaS businesses tend to make. Marketing is all about strategizing for the long-term and acting step by step to achieve your goals.

This is where the concept of sales funnels comes into the picture. By using a sequential approach to creating an orchestrated inflow of customers, who are then nurtured throughout their buyer’s journey, you can eventually succeed in your marketing goals.

Harmonizing your CTAs, connecting them to your content and then finally leveraging them to entice the buyer into your sales funnel can help your business grow at a much faster speed.

So, leverage the power of a sales funnel in order to make your marketing strategies work.

Conclusion

We have listed the top mistakes that marketers and businesses are making when promoting their SaaS services.

Advertising to grow your user base is all about amalgamating different tactics and sewing them together in one thread to drive sign-ups.

It is okay to make mistakes, but you need to learn from them and never repeat them. When advertising your SaaS company you also need to learn from the mistakes that others are making.

Need help with creating an effective inbound strategy for your SaaS business? Here at DoneForYou.com, we have helped dozens of cloud-based companies, software startups and SaaS platforms to market to their target audience, acquire more leads and grow their business. How do we do that? By devising and building customized sales funnels that work! Download our Funnel Factor report to learn more, or schedule a free strategy session call to discuss your needs with one of our marketing and sales experts.

The post Advertising Mistakes SaaS Companies Make All Too Often appeared first on Done For You.

Here is some data to support this claim –

According to Marketing Sherpa 95% of the people from the age group 18-34 years follow a brand via social networks. With more than 2.8 billion active users, and a penetration of more than 37% social media proves it worth as the most powerful and important tool for businesses.

Now the question that arises here is how can you make the most out of social media for your business? Or, in simpler words – you want to know how to promote a product on social media to get maximum sales, right?

Here are some tips on how to promote your product on the top social media channels –

How to Promote a Product on Facebook?

Facebook is a haven for businesses to promote their product. With more than 2.2 billion active users it is certainly a place from where you can fetch quite a lot of traction for your business.

But the million dollar question is “how?” Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered –

1. Build a Facebook Business Page – you can directly import your online business page (if you already have one)
2. Start sharing content to build a community – content is the king of social media, make the most of it and don’t overdo it
3. Build connections – there is no point in having a social media page for your business if you don’t have an audience
4. Engage the followers – you should generate interest within the audience, keep them engaged so that they want to keep coming back for more

And, if all else fails you have the option to use Facebook paid ads. Often times, even if your business page is successful, running Facebook Ads can help garner more success.

How to Promote a Product on Twitter?

These days, having your presence on one platform is simply not enough. It is crucial to leverage more than one platform in order to effectively promote your product. So, the second target you can hit to promote your business on social media may be twitter. Here’s how you can do it –

1. Tweet, don’t sell:direct selling can be a big turn-off for the customers. Share tweets that build interest, and the users will want to engage your business
2. Use the power of visual content: another great way to promote a new producton Twitter is to use the power of visual content. Statistics show that it gets way more traction that textual content.
3. Offer rewards: gifts, promotional offers, and rewards get people talking about things on Twitter. So why not use this to your advantage? Run promotional campaigns asking people to share your new product and offer them rewards. This can reap serious results!

How to Promote a Product on Instagram?

Another powerful platform that a business cannot afford to ignore, especially when it comes to making an impact on social media, is Instagram!

This platform is dedicated specifically to visual content, which means it is no surprise that Instagram has more than 700 million users! As we said before, people love visual content.

It should be obvious to see that making a presence on Instagram could actually be a great thing for your business, as well for that new product that you are planning to launch.

Here’s how you can effectively leverage Instagram –

1. Instagram Stories – this is one of the most innovative features to promote your product on Instagram. Simply add links to your products in stories to get people to visit your business website and check out what you have to offer.
2. Find influencers and connect with them – another popular way to use Instagram effectively for promoting your new product is to get influencers to vouch for you. Since they already have a huge audience, this can work splendidly for your new product’s visibility.
3. Using editing tools – as already stated, Instagram is all about photos. With millions of photos posted on the platform, it can be quite difficult to get your business to stand out. This is where using editing tools can become your savior.

How to Promote a Product on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the biggest social media platform for professionals. Although not every product can be promoted using LinkedIn, considering the fact that it is a strictly professional network, you can still use it to build a business presence in the professional world.

Here are the secrets to the platform–

1. Build a company page – like other social media platforms, LinkedIn also allows you to build a company page which you can use to promote your business and services
2. Create a content strategy – unlike other social media platform, LinkedIn requires a more intellectual approach in terms of generating content. Study a few of the top players in your niche who are active on LinkedIn, and build a content strategy in accordance to what you’ve learned from them.
3. DO NOT promote – LinkedIn has very strict policies against promotional posts, therefore you need to be smart enough to build engagement, rather than self-promoting your products on LinkedIn.

“Want to get more visitors to convert into paying customers? Check out this freebie – https://doneforyou.com/reports/funnel-factor-lander/ and see how it can help!”

How to Promote a Product on Pinterest?

Last, but certainly not least, is Pinterest. It is one of the most highly underutilized social media channels for businesses. However, it is worth mentioning that there are more than 200 million active users on Pinterest.

So, how can you promote your product on Pinterest? Follow these researched tips –

1. Know the most popular categories – by knowing the category related to your business in which people are most active on Pinterest you can easily promote the product.
2. The right size does the magic – pins with the size of 736×1102 pixels are the most shared on the Internet. Make sure to follow this trend.
3. Optimize your pins – just like everything else, Pinterest optimization is also something you need to learn to effectively use this promotional medium. Using the right keywords and product descriptions is key, and learning the intricacies of this platform will lead to greater success.

There you have it – a brief introduction to getting your products and business featured on the top social media platforms and using them to promote your new product.

Using social media to promote your products is not rocket science, but it requires a basic understanding what people are looking for. If you know your business and your audience well, it is not going to be a big challenge for you to use the power of social media to effectively promote your business.

Now that you know how to use social media, are you looking to create a complete sales funnel to capitalize on the traffic from social media and increase your income on auto-pilot? Watch this video to see how a done-for-you product promotion strategy can help you convert cold (and warm) traffic into repeat customers.

The post How To Promote A Product On Social Media appeared first on Done For You.

Stop and consider that for a moment: You could be selling toys to giant locomotives or hairbrushes to complicated B2B software systems. If you have a business, there’s an audience on Facebook and Instagram for your business.

If you told us that Facebook was just for B2C (and not B2B), we could agree back in the old days. But not anymore.

Almost everyone is on Facebook or Instagram or both. If you are serious about driving traffic to your website, you might have considered Facebook advertising. More than 93% of marketers are already using Facebook advertising, according to Social Media Examiner.

But things are changing so fast with Facebook advertising that we could all be easily lost in the breakneck speed at which Facebook makes changes to its advertising platform, introduces new features, and works on adding new ways to reach your audiences.

Managing Facebook ads is not easy, thanks to all those different ways available to advertise on Facebook. There are so many mind-numbing decisions you have to make such as choosing the right objective, choosing the right format for your ad, and making sure you are doing everything right with your ads and sales funnels, and more.

As things change fast, it may be that you missed the boat on a few Facebook and Instagram ad formats which work exceptionally well and are also great in terms of your audience’s experience with ads. Here are some of them:

Facebook Video Ads

We are aware that you know video is singularly the most important medium for advertising (and many other use cases).

We can bet though that you aren’t using videos as well as you could. We are willing to extend that bet to using videos for Facebook ads too.

Facebook allows you to snap two or three images together to create a slideshow (this is built into Facebook and is as basic as it gets). Or you could create your own branded videos as ads and launch campaigns.

Using video gets you better engagement and makes your ads that much more “sticky”. Facebook allows you to use the regular video format (landscape), the vertical video format, and also the 360 degrees format.

Facebook Collections

With more than 1.12 billion mobile users on Facebook, it’s an audience that checks Facebook on mobile everyday. About 19% of all the time spent on a smart phone is on Facebook, on average.

If you are a retailer, an e-commerce store, or a business that sells products and services,
Facebook collections are immersive experiences (built for mobile) that can make your ads very interesting, engaging, relevant, and built exactly to engage with Facebook mobile users.

Facebook collections are built for e-commerce and they usually start with a video, an attractive image, or a 360 degrees image followed by individual product images. On click, users are sent straight to your online store where they can make a purchase (which is attributed and tracked from inside your fa or Power editor).

Facebook Canvas

With a huge push to attract Facebook’s ever-growing base of mobile users, Facebook Canvas is suitable for all businesses to showcase products or services or to create interactive experiences to let the world know more about your brand.

Facebook Canvas ads look like a regular image or video ad until users click on them. Once they do, the ad opens up into a full-screen mobile experience revealing a mix of multimedia (including headlines, copy, and Call to action buttons).

Essentially, Facebook Canvas is a full-screen, completely mobile-optimized landing page experience (and you can create the landing page from scratch with exactly what you want on it).

Instagram Stories

Instagram stories — it’s easy enough to guess — was built for brands and businesses to showcase their services, products, or brands on Instagram.

More than 20% of Facebook’s ad revenue comes from Instagram (in case you were second-guessing the platform).

According to GetMeasured, engagement rates for content are 15 times higher than on Facebook (and 20 times higher than on Twitter).

The basic format of Instagram stories combines the “vertical video” format or the “square video” format embedded into the stories feature of Instagram. On Instagram, it’s a full-screen vertical format and brands use Instagram stories in various ways to gain reach, engagement, clicks, leads, and sales.

Each of the ad formats above are high-impact creatives that can easily help you engage with your potential audience better than regular ads can. Agreed that you’d need the necessary creatives and the commitment to see these campaigns take shape but if and when you do, your advertising efforts get to another level.

Which of these Facebook and Instagram ad formats have you used? If you did, what were the results like? Please do share them with us.

Next Step

These new ad types are the key to starting or saving your Facebook campaigns.  Rocking these things early on will launch you out of the gate fast and put a lot of audience data behind you.  If you’ve got campaigns that are cooling off – then working some of these new ad formats may be the key to bring your sales back in line.

Either way, if you need more sales, Facebook Ads are a great way to get them.  And, we can help.  Watch this short video and you’ll see exactly what to do next!

The post High-Potential Facebook And Instagram Ads You Are Probably Missing Out On appeared first on Done For You.

If you’re a B2B professional, LinkedIn is the ideal place for you to connect with your target audience, develop relationships, and drive traffic back to your blog. With over 500 million professional members, LinkedIn makes it a great opportunity to generate traffic and new leads for consultants, coaches, and B2B service providers.

LinkedIn traffic compared to Facebook traffic

Why choose LinkedIn over Facebook if you’re looking to increase traffic? Everybody is on Facebook, right?

Well, the atmosphere and the intention are different between the two networks. LinkedIn is a professional community, so when people are around they’re talking business. On Facebook, however, people tend to be more relaxed, look for fun stuff and catch up with their friends and family.

Also, LinkedIn can be a better source of targeted traffic, because it has a set of powerful tools for generating leads, enhancing the overall online presence for your brand, gaining new customers, and building brand awareness.

Finally, LinkedIn allows you to see extensive information on users, while on Facebook, profiles are most of the time incomplete and sometimes even fake.

If you’re a consultant, coach, a course creator, an agency or any sort of business service provider, LinkedIn is where you can connect with your market.

To put it in real-world terms, what LinkedIn essentially does is bring business networking online. To connect with high-paying clients for your coaching or consulting business, you’d be attending conferences and business networking events.

LinkedIn traffic for consultants, coaches, and B2B service businesses

Likewise, when online, you’d be using LinkedIn Groups, Sales Navigator, Articles and other amazing features that we’ll discuss in this post.

1. Company page

To increase brand awareness and drive more LinkedIn traffic to your B2B website, your professional profile is not enough; You need to build a company page too. Your page will give you space to define your brand and showcase your products or services. Designing a company page can boost traffic back to your coaching or consulting website, and enhance user engagement.

Setting up a company page is easy to do. Visit this link to learn more about it.

It’s important to add a detailed description and overview to your page.

Also, keep in mind that you need to optimize for search. Company pages are SEO-friendly. They appear in Google search results and on search within the LinkedIn platform. Make sure that your description leads with powerful, keyword-rich copy of fewer than 160 words. That would be the part which will appear in Google search results.

Add your logo, banner and product images for a stunning visual result.

Current employees

To attract your ideal customer avatar to your page you first need to create traction. Begin with your company’s staff and have them add your LinkedIn page and company details to their LinkedIn profile. Motivate them to like, comment and share future business updates to increase your brand reach.

Post timely and relevant updates

Just like other social networks, it is adviced that you post company page and profile status updates consistently. Updates work as a reminder of your brand and help strengthen relationships with your network of professionals. Aim at publishing meaningful, relevant, and unique content.

Regular updates can directly boost your potential audience reach and end up being viral. Viral posts will bring more traffic to your coaching or consulting practice. You can also share third-party news and articles if you feel they contribute to your brand message. Your updates will appear on the company feed page and your connections’ homepage.

Advanced tools for traffic

Moving away from a basic presence like a Company Page, LinkedIn has a pool of awesome marketing tools that are hard to find on any other platform. Out of all the features that LinkedIn has to offer to consultants, coaches and B2B service providers who want to generate traffic, we are going to focus on the following:

• Ads
• Groups
• Articles
• Sales Navigator, and
• SlideShare

Before you get started with these advanced features, as with any marketing strategy, you need to first define your audience, goals and marketing funnel.

Define your customer avatar

LinkedIn profiles are a rich source of information. Before initiating an outreach campaign for your coaching or consulting practice, you need to know who your potential customers are.

Define your ideal customer avatar using their location, industry, name, position, age, gender, skills, experience etc.

A great idea is to use Scriptly’s wizard to create your ideal customer avatar.

Scripty has a lot of value-packed features, but when it comes to buyer personas, it gives you an easy-to-use tool that helps you define your ideal customer avatar in minutes not hours.

Create landing pages

After determining your prospect profile, you must decide on how you’re going to market the services of your consulting or coaching business. To do that you need a sales funnel in place.

A sales funnel is comprised of a set of pages and tools for capturing your leads and communicating with them.

Scripty does an amazing job in helping you design landing pages fast even if you are a complete beginner.

Landing pages need to be audience and service-specific and to demonstrate the benefits for people who will take you up on your offer. Usually, the entry point for a funnel is a squeeze page where you offer your leads a freebie in exchange for their email address.

Promote your squeeze page by sharing the URL on your profile, company page or LinkedIn groups. You can also run paid campaigns to attract a well-defined audience to your lead magnet.

2. LinkedIn Ads

This point brings us to Ads as an effective traffic source for the small business owner, coaches, consultants and entrepreneurs.

LinkedIn Ads are an excellent marketing tool for B2B service providers, like coaches or consultants. You can engage in precision targeting by using demographics such as location, job title, function, company size, industry, or seniority, among others. There are different types of campaigns you can create. You can use:

• Sponsored Content, which essentially boosts your posts,
• Sponsored InMail, which is all about contacting professionals directly through LinkedIn Messenger,
• Text Ads -these are the typical pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) ads
• or a mix of all three.

As with all advertising channels, there’s no one best option for your ad format. What campaign type you choose depends on your goals, budget and target audience. For example, you can use sponsored updates to raise brand awareness and build strong relationships with potential customers, while at the same time you might want to bid for text ads to reach out to an extended pool of leads and drive quality traffic to your coaching or consulting business.

Try different advertising mixes to find what works best for you. No matter what type of LinkedIn promotion you choose, it will help drive more traffic and subscribers to your coaching, consulting or other service business.

To create a LinkedIn Ads campaign, go to www.linkedin.com/ads, and click on the “Create Ad” button.

3. LinkedIn Groups

Groups are one of the most powerful networking and marketing tools for consultants, coaches, and entrepreneurs on LinkedIn. They’re also completely free to create or join.

A single LinkedIn group can help you get your message across thousands of highly-interested people, and build an entire business. Groups are perfect for you, if you intend to market B2B services, sell tickets to paid events, and be established as an authority in your chosen niche.

You can create your own groups or join interest-based groups of professionals by visiting this page www.linkedin.com/groups.

Choose the group name carefully, since it’s an important aspect that can help attract the right audience. When deciding on a group name, consider the different keywords that people are likely to search. Do some research yourself to discover other competing groups that exist on LinkedIn and see how they use relevant keywords in their title.

When you join groups that were created by other professionals, be sure to contribute to discussions. Be active by commenting and answering questions, or start your own discussion to boost awareness of your brand or survey potential customers for your consulting or coaching B2B services. Keep interacting with others and provide as much value as you can to present yourself as an expert in your field.

To facilitate quality and reduce spam, LinkedIn has implemented some limitations. Here’s more information about group limits.

4. LinkedIn Articles

LinkedIn became a powerful publishing platform when they introduced Articles a couple of years ago. With LinkedIn Articles, influencers and professionals, like owners of service-based businesses, can clearly demonstrate expertise and establish authority in their community.

The ability to publish articles is not available in all geographic locations, but once you’re given publishing capabilities, you’ll have access to Articles from your LinkedIn homepage.

When you publish an original article, your content is displayed in the Articles section of your professional profile. Your current and future connections will be able to see it. Also, your article is visible to your followers in their news feeds, and sometimes through notifications.

Members who aren’t already connected with you can start following you from your article, which in turn helps you expand your reach. Your next article will appear in more people’s feeds.

Accordingly, your article should be optimized for SEO, since it is discoverable both on and off LinkedIn, depending on your settings. Having your public profile visibility set to “everyone” will allow your articles to be crawled by the search engines.

5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Now, let’s talk about another powerful tool that service businesses use to discover new leads and close sales. It’s called LinkedIn Sales Navigator and it makes prospecting easier than ever. It is part of LinkedIn’s premium plans which are outlined in more detail on this page.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps you discover the right B2B prospects fast. With LinkedIn’s sophisticated algorithm, this prospecting and sales tool gives you the ability to use filters and narrow down searches in a tailored way.

You can easily save leads, and contact them with direct InMail messages to warm them up. With Sales Navigator, you also get access to insights on your accounts, like job changes, company growth, and more.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is basically designed for sales professionals. Having said that, every solopreneur is required to be involved in sales, right? Even if you don’t like sales and cold calling, LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes it easy for you to find new targeted leads for your service business and contact them on the spot. That way you can build lasting relationships with a broad network of professionals.

The more customized your initial message is the better response rate you will get. Instead of trying to sell something from the first contact, aim at building a relationship by providing valuable content.

Why not send your prospects a link to an interesting piece of content that you’ve published on your site? Not only will that action increase traffic, but also your connections will appreciate the information and will want to learn more about how you can help them.

It’s common knowledge that the sales cycle for coaching and consulting services can be long; make sure you nurture your relationships and be there when the prospects are actually ready to purchase.

6. SlideShare presentations

Last but not least, there’s one more traffic tool in LinkedIn’s arsenal that you can start using right now. It’s called SlideShare. SlideShare is a standalone service which was acquired by LinkedIn back in 2012.

LinkedIn SlideShare is today a global hub for professional content. It’s one of the top most-visited websites in the world, with over 80 million users and 18 million uploads. On SlideShare, you can view and upload:

• Slide decks
• Infographics
• Other document formats, and
• Videos

If you’re looking to increase traffic to your consulting or coaching website, SlideShare should be one of your top picks.

Presentations are one of the basic ways through which service businesses demonstrate authority and trustworthiness. Coupled with a popular search-engine-optimized site like SlideShare, you get a huge source of free, high-quality traffic for your small business.

SlideShare presentations also enable small business owners, like coaches, agencies or management consultants, to seek and discover new connections with experts, gain the insights they need to become more productive and successful in what they do. This is why SlideShare aligns perfectly with LinkedIn’s mission to provide professional networking tools.

On the side of the publisher, individuals and businesses all over the world use SlideShare to:

• Reach a large audience,
• share insights,
• attract new leads and
• drive traffic to their site.

Most importantly, with SlideShare you can reach a laser-targeted audience because most of your SlideShare viewers will come from the search engines, which means they’re actively searching for information on your subject matter.

With SlideShare you also create powerful backlinks, SEO-wise, which will boost your site authority and search-engine visibility.

LinkedIn: A powerful toolset for coaches, consultants and service businesses to generate traffic

So, that was it! Let’s wrap up! If you’re selling any kind of B2B services, LinkedIn is the place to look for high-quality leads. LinkedIn is the largest professional network, and a comprehensive platform for traffic and lead generation.

Also, LinkedIn provides a handful of professional tools you can use to increase traffic and grow your consulting or coaching business. These tools are basically ideal for any type of service-based business that wants to grow their LinkedIn traffic and lead generation process.

The basic traffic-generating tools that you get access on LinkedIn are:

• Profiles
• Company Pages
• LinkedIn Ads
• Groups
• LinkedIn Articles
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and
• SlideShare

A basic membership for LinkedIn is free but if you want to get access to advanced features, like the Sales Navigator, or you want to create advertising campaigns, you need to invest a monthly budget.

The post LinkedIn Traffic For Consultants, Coaches And B2B Service Providers appeared first on Done For You.

Before you start putting together an effective online marketing strategy, you need to know the following:

• What is an online marketing channel?
• What different marketing channels exist on the Internet?
• What media do most marketers and business owners prefer?
• Which channels will bring in the highest ROI for your online business?
• What is the best way to choose your channels?

We’ll try to answer all of these questions and give you a checklist of the factors you need to consider before you make a strategic decision.