Oh, the wonderful world of Facebook Ads. Should you run one? Should you not? Let’s take a deep dive.
So, there are two different types of Facebook Ads that you can run. The first is the extremely surface level kind of ad – this is the one where you click “boost” or “run an ad”. These are the types that we want to steer clear from.
While, yes – they will push your post out in front of more people – that’s all they’ll do. It’s just a post with some money thrown behind it. No tracking, no real customization. Just surface level garbage. It’s more of a money grab on Meta’s part, (sorry Zuck).
The proper way to run Facebook Ads is actually from the Ads Manager section of Facebook, and boy does it go in depth. You have a multitude of choices when it comes to which type of ad you’d like to run.
I’m going to be covering using a direct purchase Ad. In this type of ad, you have a lot of control over the information that you’re receiving and can use it to make educated decisions. Let's look at how to run a successful Facebook ad campaign.
So, you’ll be directing folks from the Ad to a purchasing page, where it’s extremely quick and easy to make the purchase. The big thing to remember here is that this works best if it’s for a low ticket item.
For example, we did this for a campground this summer. What were we selling? Day passes to their water park. What was the cost? It was twenty five bucks a pop. Now, by paying attention to the growth of the ad as well as the amount of purchases being made, we were able to bring in just over 10k in profits over the course of just 3 months, with our ad spend sitting at $900.
At $25 per purchase item, that’s a pretty good ROAS. So how did we do it? Let’s break it down.
Every time we build out an ad campaign, we’re going to be making 3 different ads to test against each other. Generally, you’ll want to have 2 video ads and one photo. You’ll build out each ad, and change the copy body as well as titling and CTAs in each one.
In this case, we let the ads run for about a week. At the end of that week, there was one clear winner. We turned the other 2 ads off, and let this one fly – so that all of the budget would get pushed its way.
A good general rule of thumb is that if an ads success is growing, continue to increase the daily budget by about 30% each time. We did this every few weeks, and the profits continued to grow.
So why was this ad so successful? Let’s run through the list.
1. Water park admission is a general interest, so we didn’t have to get too specific in our messaging or targeting. Literally anyone can benefit from hanging around the pool for the day.
2. The purchase price was extremely low, so there was little resistance from consumers and little chance for buyer’s remorse.
3. By installing a pixel on the purchase site, we were able to track our purchases and success of the ad, thus allowing us to increase the budget for growth accordingly.
All in all, what a success! We were super happy with this one. Now, let’s take a look at an example where Facebook Ads did us dirty.
So another one of our clients is a construction company. The owner is really open to marketing efforts – so, we decided to try out an ads campaign. While I did reiterate from the start “I have literally no idea how this will go.” He was still open to it.
So what we did was run a Facebook Leads Campaign, where we shared a form with potential clients to fill out. We collected their names, Cities and contact information.
Now, while the contact form itself went great – the quality of the leads was just shit.
We followed all of the same steps as the campground’s campaign. Including creating 3 ads for comparison, getting more specific about our messaging, turning off 2 of the ads when there was one clear winner and gradually increasing our budget as more forms were filled out.
However, when contacting the leads to further discuss working together, the contractor found that every single one of them were either tire kickers, or they just didn’t get back to them.
What’s the big takeaway? Why did this happen? Well, I’d say it has to do with the level of investment and commitment. These are really big ticket items. I mean we’re talking anywhere from 250k to 600k. That’s just a little bit more than a $25 day pass.
Also, Facebook Ads are a cold lead gen. platform. Basically, we’re placing a message in front of a bunch of strangers and hoping that they’re interested, click on what we’re offering, and then can be converted into paying customers.
But doing this and being successful on purchases that are hundreds of thousands of dollars? Not a chance in Hell.
So, what would I recommend? What am I getting at here? I would say that if you’re selling low ticket items (ie. 25 bucks to low hundreds, and even up to 10k at the most), then go for it. Facebook Ads are your best friend. If you’re getting up into the range of high ticket items, then forget it.
If high ticket items are your game, then I would suggest leaning on a platform where potential clients are warm – yep, I’m talking Google, which is exactly what we’ve done.
For this construction client, we’ve continued to post on social media organically, however we’ve now doubled down on Google SEO as well as a small paid ad on that platform. We’re writing blogs and working on key wording.
The idea is that if someone is on Google searching for contractors, renovation companies or remodel companies – then they’re already warm. They want to hire a contractor, now they just need to figure out which one.
So, to summarize: low ticket item = Facebook/Instagram (Meta), high ticket item = Google.
Now you can do all of this yourself. There’s never been more resources online to help with these processes than ever before, but if you’re a small business and could use a hand with this world, then four32 MEDIA is always here to help. Reach out today and we’ll chat about your goals.
To Your Success,
Jay Ashcroft
four32 MEDIA