Want to Boost Your Business without Google? Facebook Ad Tips From Expert Monica Louie

Have you been hesitant to use Facebook Ads?

Perhaps you've tried them in the past and had little success?

Well, in today's episode of the Niche Pursuits podcast, ad expert Monica Louie gives us the rundown on how to use ads properly to drive highly targeted traffic to your offer or site.

And her tips and tactics for Instagram and Facebook ads may even surprise seasoned vets.

So, whether you're an affiliate marketer, store owner, lead generator, or other, it'll interest you to hear her tips and strategies and consider whether they'd help grow your business.

She shares:

• The 3 most important things you need to assess before running your ad campaigns
• What types of offers seem to convert the best these days
• Best practices on ad placement
• How to start on a budget
• And a whole lot more...

Don't miss this great opportunity to add an important skill to your marketing toolbox and grow your business without solely relying on Google!

Topics Monica Louie Covers

• Her blogging history
• Her original ad strategy
• Common challenges for ad campaigns
• How the Facebook ad platform has changed over the years
• Her 2 main strategies today
• The kinds of businesses she targets
• Success tips for ad campaigns today
• Different ad formats and placements
• What a great offer requires
• How to test what works for you
• The differences between organic vs paid strategies
• How Facebook pixel works
• Best practices for targeting audiences
• Video vs image conversions
• Importance of ROAS and how to track it
• Content creator success story using ads
• Creating amazing returns on a low-ticket offer
• Conversion tips
• The future of ads
• How to avoid common pitfalls
• Lots of other interesting topics

Links & Resources

• Facebook Ads Starter Kit
• Monica Louie | MonicaLouie.com (@flourishwithmonica)
• Amy Porterfield | Online Marketing Expert

Sponsored by: Link Whisper

Watch the Interview

Read the Transcription

Jared: Welcome back to the Niche Pursuits podcast. My name is Jared Bauman, and today we are joined by Monica Louie with Team Flourish. Welcome on board, Monica.

Monica: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Jared: Yes, I am, uh, really glad to have you on as well. Excited to have you join us. This is a topic that we have not gotten into very much lately, and so it's gonna be really, really fun to hear your angles, uh, on this topic of, of kind of advertising as it relates to content creation and websites.

Why don't you give us a little bit of background. I know, I know you, um, you have some backstory in this industry a bit, so I I'd love to hear a little bit on what got you here. 

Monica: Sure. So I'm Monica Luie. I, uh, I have a Facebook and Instagram ads agency and education company. So we both manage ads for our clients and then also teach what's working and the strategies that are working, uh, in my program.

So I absolutely love Facebook ads and I actually stumbled upon it way back when, when I had my blog back in 2015. I ran my first campaign. I had a personal finance blog sharing our family's journey out of debt. So my husband and I paid off $120,000 of debt in Wow. Two years. Geez. All on a single middle class income.

So I like to stress middle class. Um, so it was a lot of hassle, a lot of focus, uh, but we did it. And so I was starting to learn about online business. Back then, we had two little bitty kids at the time, and I wanted to find a way that I can make money from home on my own schedule and, you know, be able to be around and have flexibility for the kids while they're little.

And, um, so I came across blogging. So I started off, we had this story. People were asking us how we were paying off the debt so quickly, and I was like, oh, that's what I can blog about. Mm-hmm. . So that's what I did. And through that, I started following people like Amy Porterfield, pat Flynn, and through Amy Porterfield, learned about the wonderfulness of Facebook ads and reaching a targeted audience through social media advertising for getting your offers in front of people who are interested in what you have to share.

So that's what I did. I had some great success with my own campaign. And then very quickly, my growing network in the personal finance blogging space was getting very interested in Facebook ads to grow their platforms. And so one by one people started reaching out for my help and I realized we were getting amazing results and I was having a lot of fun doing it.

And so I ended up selling that blog and transitioning Facebook ads 

and doing it. I was gonna ask you where the personal finance site is today, if you still had it . Yeah. 

Monica: Well, I, so I sold it at the end of 2016. Congrats. So, yeah, thank you. It wasn't for a lot of money, but it was nice to have that, you know, closure on it and get a little bit of money for all the time and energy we, you know, invested in it.

So, yeah. So it's still out there and still encouraging people to, to get out of debt and become, uh, debt free. 

Those were the, I don't wanna say the early days because it weren't the early days of, of Facebook advertising, but a lot has changed since then. Mm-hmm. . And so I'm, I'm sure we're gonna get into all that.

What do you think led to your ability somewhat outta the gate to be able to get ads to work so well? Especially for what sounds like a content site, you know, it's not like your typical maybe e-commerce product or, or some of the typical things you might see on, uh, on Facebook. 

Monica: Yeah, so well back when I started with my own campaigns, I was promoting my debt freedom training, my webinar.

And so that was kind of the example that Amy was giving in her, in her teachings. And so I followed it, you know, her teaching to a t and I examined the different types of ads as she gave, as as examples, and kind of use that to draft my ad copy and come up with an image. My husband was my graphic designer back then, so , and that is not his specialty, so it's very much, but it's better than I could do.

Uh, so we laugh at those, at those first graphics, but they worked. And then when people in the personal finance phase started to reach out for my help, their real goal was to grow their blogs to get more traffic to their sites. And they were monetizing with, uh, affiliate revenue and of course, you know, paid advertising, paid networks on their website.

And so the strategy that we started working on back then was just driving traffic. To monetize blog post. That was the main strategy. There was a little bit of, you know, grow your email list here to, to build that relationship and get people into your funnel. But back then it was like just grow, get traffic to the site and continue to scale it up.

And that worked really, really well. Wow. 

That's great. Yeah. It was also a time when I think, you know, organically Facebook and Pinterest and a lot of these social media platforms still had a lot of reach when it comes Yes. To organic traffic. So was there any crossover that you were seeing back then? And, and then we'll transition more into now.

Yeah. Cause I'm sure that's what most people wanna hear, , but yeah. Was there any crossover from, you know, the ads having an impact on the organic rankings, having an impact on the website rankings, having, you know, kind of this complete circle. 

Monica: Yeah, it was really, really cool. So, yeah, so back then Facebook still kind of pushed out, you know, PO organic posts from the pages, and so we could see that, we could see the ad impact of driving traffic to those specific websites and then having them, my clients would see on their backend, like the SEO O rankings, improving on those specific pages.

But then also we could see the data of growing their pages, which led to more engagement on the page and more engagement on their organic post. And it was kind of this really nice, you know, multiple side benefits of driving traffic to the mo, to the monetized blog post. We could see that obviously traffic was increasing and they could see their affiliate revenue was increasing, which was the main goal.

But we saw these other side benefits back then that we were able to enjoy. 

Ah, so great. Side note. Little funny story about Amy Porterfield. I've never met her. My last business though, I, one time, it was like a Tuesday or Wednesday, started getting texts from a lot of friends in, in my business circles in the online marketing space.

And apparently one of the landing pages for a, uh, a free guide that we were using at my company to generate, you know, leads, um, yeah, had, had gotten used in an Amy Porterfield webinar. , that's awesome. As, as an example. So to this day, that's my claim to fame. When it comes to claim to fame. Fame. I love it.

That's awesome. Still never met her, but . Well good. So obviously landscape has changed a lot since then in terms of advertising. Why don't you catch us up on where your agency is right now, today and, um, you know, we're talking at the end of 2022, beginning of 2023. So where are you now? What is that? 6, 5, 6 years later.

Monica: Yeah, yeah, it's been, we're wrapping up our sixth year, uh, doing this. And so it's been quite the journey, but a lot of fun along the way. Definitely some challenges with Facebook changing, and last year the big thing was Apple rolled out the iOS 14 update, which impacted, you know, changed their terms of condit and conditions that all app creators had to abide by.

And so that meant Facebook, you know, obviously one of the big popular apps, um, had to kind of adjust its advertising strategies in order to still maintain their app on the app store. So that really, In response, Facebook changed up. The ads platform added a few more steps for us. So it was a little bit, you know, of a blip of needing to kind of figure out how tracking was going to work in this new world post iOS 14.

But we figured it out and, and we're getting amazing results with our clients. Still to this day, many of the strategies that we're doing right now are either going straight to a paid product, so we work with clients that have digital products and programs, and so we are either going straight to a sales page very successfully or getting leads into the sales funnel and then retargeting, um, with those paid offers on the backend.

So those are the, the two main strategies that we're using today. And then still top of funnel when it makes sense, driving traffic to content pieces, videos, blog posts, things like that to help kind of warm up those audiences to the offers down. 

Okay, good. I, I have a lot of questions already. Yes. ? Yes.

Taking notes over here. Oh. What's the agency at in terms of like the number of people you're managing in terms of the number of clients you have? Maybe, maybe give us a little tease of some awesome number, like the ad spend you, you manage or something like that. 

Monica: Yeah, so average ad spend, we've, we've managed, um, 4 million in ad spend, and right now it's about 50,000 a month that we're managing with across our multiple clients and.

and scaling up the clients that have the, the budget to do so. And so it's been really exciting. As far as our team, we're a small team managing those clients. We consider ourselves a boutique agency. Mm-hmm. , so we're not like one of those big admin agencies, which we really like. We've heard really great things about, about the way that we work with our clients, that we really pride ourselves in that premium level of service.

We tailor all the ad copy. There's no like templates that we're using, you know, for either ad copy or graphics or anything like that. Everything is customized, fully customized to our clients and their offers. And then that allows us to test a bunch of different things, which is really fun. 

What kind of, uh, businesses are you typically working with?

I mean, again, there's such a wide range of, of different people listening to the, to the podcast here that you're probably working with some people that are of the same kind of business of, of, of some listeners here. But maybe give us, do you have an avatar that is the perfect client avatar or is it, is it more spread out across different types of business?

Monica: Yeah, so early on the early days, it was definitely the people in the personal finance space. I, you know, was lucky to happen to have a growing network in that space and that really helped me niche down. Back then it was really helped me, you know, get off the ground and learn that space really well. But now we expand to really any online business that has digital products or coaching programs, courses, memberships, downloads, whether paid or free.

Things like that is really where we specialize to this day. So some of our clients, like one, we have a few actually in the craft space teaching people crafts and how to make super cool things. And then we have a really high-end photographer that we work with. And so she has courses teaching her photography techniques to other, you know, up and coming photographers.

Uh, we have a fun client in the home building space where his audience is building their custom homes and he's got a great checklist. It's a $47 checklist, and it converts like crazy because it covers all the things that you wanna make sure that you're, you know, You maybe don't know that, you might not know that you need to pay attention to as you're planning your custom home or working on your upgrades to your house project that you don't really wanna mess up and then have to pay thousands of dollars later to to go back and fix it.

So he's got a really great product there that converts really well. So kind of just all the gamut, but really we specialize with digital products and programs. Yeah. Yeah. Versus memberships, those things. 

Okay. Okay. I mean, let's get into a little bit of the nitty gritty. What at the, at the risk of being too broad with my question, like what does a successful.

Strategy or ad campaign look like in today's? I mean, uh, I'll say complicated, right? Like complicated kind of Facebook, uh, and, and social media environment. Like what, what's, what's the recipe, if you will, what are some of the success tips you can share for that? 

Monica: Yeah, yeah. No, that's a really great question.

And um, so it's something that I did figure out early on, and it still is true to this day. So, when I first started working, you know, outside of my own campaigns, working with other people and testing different offers, different strategies, and really figuring out, you know, well this one didn't really work out the way we wanted to, but this one really took off, you know, what happened over here?

Figuring out the similarities, it really comes down to three things. So three key elements that need to work together in order to have success with your. So the first thing is you've gotta have a great offer. So whatever that is that you're promoting in your ad, whether it's your, um, you know, lead magnet to grow your email list, your blog posts that you're driving, content, you know, traffic to your paid product, even if you're going straight to the paid product, whatever that is, it's gotta be a great offer that people want, of course.

Um, and then you get that offer in front of the right audience. And so Facebook gives us a lot of different targeting options, um, but we've gotta get the offer in front of people who are actually interested in that type of content. Mm-hmm. or, you know, That type. Um, and then you do that with a, with a high converting ad.

So there are lots of different ad formats. Facebook keeps adding, you know, multiple more placements. You know, nowadays we've got reels. You know, first off it was mostly the feed ad and then we added in stories and, you know, did more on Instagram and now we've got reels on Facebook and Instagram. So they keep adding a bunch of different ad formats and, and different places where our ads can show up.

So you've gotta, you know, stop the scroll and grab attention, but then also entice people to take action. So in order to do that, you've gotta get, have a great ad, get it in front of the right people, and of course it's gotta be with a great offer. 

So let's talk about the first one, the great offer. That's the first one you mentioned and the great offer.

Yeah, I mean, that really comes down to the product you're trying to sell, right? 

Monica: Yeah. Well, so if you have a paid product that you're trying to sell, and that could be the offer that you go straight to, or it could be the lead magnet at the beginning of your sales funnel, or it could be that piece of content that really needs to, you know, kind of open people's eyes to the, the sales funnel path.

So, um, whatever, whatever that initial, you know, initial, uh, conversation needs to be, that's what you wanna get in front of people. 

Almost, it sounds like top of the funnel, middle of the funnel. Yeah. Bottom of the funnel, kind of kinda marketing. Yep. , yeah. To borrow HubSpot and, and dozens of other marketing companies.

What, which, which one is, is there one that's working better, um, than the other? Like, uh, I could see for people listening who are content heavy, a lot of our listeners are content heavy, right? Mm-hmm. and certainly don't yet have their own products, and so they might want to drive. Advertising to either traffic or to a lead gen offer to move them over to an email list.

And that would be, obviously not having their own product at that point, but driving the other two types of, of, of channels. Are those as successful, um, and easy to convert on? Do they, do they make sense in terms of the revenue versus it, or is it more beneficial to just try to drive straight for, you know, your, your product?

Monica: I guess I, I would say that's a great place to start and I think when people are new to Facebook ads, starting with those top of funnel type strategies is gonna help you under learn and understand the platform and learn what's, what resonates with your audience in. You know, meeting them in this, in this way.

So, um, you know, meeting them on social media, on Facebook or Instagram through their feed mm-hmm. , um, when they're not, you know, most content creators are trying to optimize for sel, you know, searching for, you know, giving, having those keywords for that solution that people are typing and searching for, whereas now with social media, you are getting in front of them as they're just scrolling.

So your offer has to stand out, your ad needs to stand out and then kind of meet their pain point or make it clear that you are talking to them in their specific issue. So I think those strategies are great to start off with when I, I mean, One of the main strategies that I teach is driving traffic to a monetize blog post, for example.

And because I think you can, well, you can start with a smaller budget, five to $10 a day is all you need. Wow. Really? Okay. And you can get a lot of results for that small budget. So really you don't need to, you know, do an arm and a leg, the ads manager, you know, hoping that it all goes well. You can really learn a lot with those smaller budgets when you're using a strategy like that.

So I would say, you know, take your piece of content and maybe you know that it converts really well with your, you know, top affiliate or affiliates or, um, It does really great at getting people onto your email list. Um, you know, whatever, whatever your main goal is right now, choose a piece of content that helps support that goal already, and maybe it does well, you know, and already get some organic shares when people share it on, you know, Pinterest or social media so that you know that people are resonating with that, with that piece of content.

And then I would test that in an ad and really five or $10 a day test a couple different audiences test, um, maybe, you know, one or two simple ads. And for the traffic strategy, you only need a very simple ad. You don't need to have a lot of copy, really a little bit of copy. One or two lines is all you need.

And then a lot of times for that strategy, we use the stock image, um, that's relevant to the. And that converts really well. So it's really fast and easy to get up and get going, and then you can learn a lot about, okay, how did that work? You know, what was the click through rate? How did people engage with that ad?

Did it get attention? Or do I need to test a new headline or maybe another, you know, another, um, ad copy version to try and hook people in to actually clicking through to my site. 

It's a good point. You know, I love that you brought it up. I wanted double down on it that, you know, if you are spending your time creating content with, um, with an SEO focus, right?

Then you're really optimizing the content for people that are already typing those queries in. They're, it's very different than people who are on Facebook. They're not necessarily actively looking for your product, your article, your information at that time. And so the ad copy and the, the offer, it's so different than maybe what you might get used to from a, from a, a search focused approach.

Yeah. 

Monica: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what I would do though, if you, you, so let's say you've got this, this article, it's already getting decent traffic from the people who are searching for it, you know, searching for that content. It's getting, it's getting some traffic organically, some engagement. I would create an audience of people who visited that specific blog post and then create a look, look-like audience of that.

Mm-hmm. . So the lookalike audience is where you tell Facebook, okay, here are the type of people that we think are interested in this offer already. So in this case, the blog post, these are the people that are already engaging with the blog post. So let's find more people. And we put the work on Facebook to help us find more people who are interested in that content, interested in that topic.

And Facebook, of course, they know, you know, way too much about us, but as advertisers we can use that to get our content, u get our offers in front of the right people who are interested in what we have to 

share. And this is mostly being done in the case of an audience and really building your audience out in Facebook, is this vital that you're using the Pixel?

And maybe explain a little bit about that and talk people through, um, just from a high level how to get that and where it would go on their website, and then what it does for 

Monica: you. Yes. Okay. So I am definitely not techy. I always like to say that. So the pixel, um, if you, if you're not techy like I am, it can sound a little intimidating, but if you are techy, then this is gonna be a piece of cake

Um, so the pixel is a piece of code that Facebook gives you, and it's unique to your ad account. And so you can find that in the business manager in Facebook, in the events manager page, you can find your pixel and all you need to do is copy the piece of code and then paste it into the header section of your website.

And then as long as you put it in your main website, it should be across your entire domain. If you use other landing page builders like Leadpages or other, you know, course creation tools, things like, like teachable, things like that, then you wanna install it in those other places as well. But for your main website, it should be just one and done, put it in there and it should be good to go.

And so that allows Facebook to kind of see who is engaging on your website so that as people. You know, come to your website, whether it's through search or other other means of traffic, they come to your website. If they don't opt into your email list so that they can stay in touch with you, you can get back in front of them with an ad.

So you can create an audience of those people who've recently been to your website and then they'll use the lookalike example, um, where you can say, okay, Facebook, these are the people visiting my website. I know they're interested in my content. Help me find more people like them who are gonna be interested in my content as well.

It's really remarkable what you're able to do when you start thinking about the types of audiences you can get in front of with technology like this. . Yes. Um, what Audi, um, you know, moving into audiences and let's say that you've determined what type of offer you want to go with, uh, or that you want to test with, um, and talk people through the audiences that are working in today.

And again, there, if you're not familiar with Facebook, right, like there's a lot of different choices you can use for how you target the ad, who you put it in front of. It's, it's very similar by the way, if you're doing Google ad words, like you have to kind of pick where your ad's gonna be served, , and, um, I can only imagine how complicated it is now with Facebook and, and, and maybe how they've changed some things in the past, in the past couple years.

Like, how are you approaching audiences now and what's working in today's environ? 

Monica: Yeah, so it depends on, so we always look at what is the offer, what is the goal? So if the offer is, you know, a paid product, and if it's a higher paid product, like a higher, you know, higher price paid product, then we may wanna only serve that to our warm audiences.

So that's where we'll create the audiences of, you know, will upload our email list of people who, you know, have engaged with us, they're on our list, but they haven't yet purchased. We'll also, you know, create those website visitors, audiences, like we talked about with the pixel. And then we can create some engagement audiences for those who've engaged with us on Facebook or Instagram.

Um, so we can get back in front of those people. So that would be our warm audience. If it's like, the goal is to expand your audience and grow your audience, so you wanna drive traffic to the blog post like we were talking about, or you wanna grow your email list and offer your lead magnet, then that's where we would also target our warm audiences and then just exclude the people who've already opted into our email list, for example.

But, Then we can use those lookalike audiences. So we can say, okay, these people are on my email list. I wanna find more people who are interested in being on my email list. So let's create a look like there, if you have a small audience, so you're just starting out, you don't have a lot of traffic right now, your, your email list is pretty small.

Then I would say also test, or you can start off with testing, uh, detailed targeting audience. And so that's where you can plug in keywords for your niche, um, in there. And then I'll, so I'll enter a couple of keywords related to the niche where we're targeting, and then I click on the little suggestions box, uh, or button.

And then it gives me a dropdown of some other. Suggestions, uh, that Facebook thinks might be relevant for your audience. And so that can be really helpful. Just be careful to make sure that they actually are relevant and related to the audience that you're trying to create. But that's how I'll start to create an audience of people that I think are gonna be interested.

So back when I was having my debt written blog, sharing our debris story, um, I tested, look like I had a very small Facebook page. Um, I think maybe like 400 people, maybe about, you know, 2, 300, 400 people maybe on my email list. Very small. Mm-hmm. . So I tested those lookalikes and then I also tested, uh, a detailed targeting audience of people following Dave Ramsey and then other, you know, related brands and, and keywords and created an audience that way.

So those were the different types of audiences that I tested, even when I was just starting out when I had a really small audience. So that's what I would do. If you have the budget to work with, to test multiple audiences, then I would definitely recommend testing a lookalike audience if you can. And then a detailed targeting audience.

I was gonna ask you about that. So if I have competitors of my website, can I target, uh, say they're followers or would I be, would I be targeting their followers? Would I be just targeting people that show that as an interest? How does that work right now if I know my competitors or I know, maybe, you know, you mentioned the, the home builder.

Maybe I could go after like a home builder magazine that I know is really popular or something like, how are people maybe able to embrace those 

Monica: kinds of topic? Yeah, those are the things that I would, I would type into the details writing. Okay. And see if they come up as an option. So some, it's, there's no rhyme or reason as to who shows up or which brands show up to target their audience.

And so some are really large and you would think, for sure this is gonna be an option, and then it's not. And then there are some smaller ones and they're like, oh, I was surprised that this was an option. But, okay. So , you might be surprised, you might not be able to target all of the, all of your competitors, but yes, I would definitely see which of your competitors or related resources that mm-hmm.

you know, your audience is checking out and engaging with. And then see if those come up in that detailed targeting section. 

Let's talk a bit about where to place these ads. . Back in the olden days, it was pretty easy. Either we're in the newsfeed or what the sidebar I think they called it. Right? Or, yeah.

And now like you mentioned, there's so many different places that you can put your ad. I mean, are some more successful than others? Are some more for certain types of offers than others? Maybe give people a little bit of guidance as they're trying to figure out what type of placement to, to be. Um, sure.

To take over their. 

Monica: Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great question. And it, it does depend on your strategy and your goals. So if you are, you know, driving traffic to your blog post, then what we've found is that the cost per landing page view is higher on Instagram than it is on Facebook. People on Instagram just aren't used to consuming as much content that way, clicking over to an article.

Whereas Facebook people have been doing that for, you know, years. And so it's easy to get, easier to get the click through, uh, people's Facebook feed. Mm-hmm. So for when your goal is to drive traffic to a blog post, then I would stick with Facebook. But if your goal is that conversion, either that opt-in to your email list or that paid, you know, purchase, um, then I would test both Facebook and Instagram and all placements there.

So when you're just starting. Then I would do the all placements, recommended placements, um, that Facebook has in, when you're setting up your, your campaign and then as you are testing, you know, multiple, you've done a few campaigns, then you can really test the different placements. Generally when working with our clients, we will do the all placements unless we have done a test to see that.

Okay, this one really does seem to convert better over here versus this placement. So one of our clients, um, they were interested, they wanted to know, you know, how does my audience respond on Facebook versus Instagram versus the feed placements versus stories in reels. And, and so we did, we took one of our ads that was converting really well in, in just the all placements, um, option.

And then we separated it out when we. We restructured the campaign, we separated it out so f so we could see the results. Mm-hmm. from Facebook feed and then Instagram feed. And then we did stories and reels and we found okay, um, for that offer . So it was, it was quite the test, but for that offer, the, uh, it converted better.

And this was for a paid, paid product. It converted better just going on the feed ads on both Facebook and Instagram. So that's how we've moved forward with that offer since then. But in most cases, I would stick with all, unless you're doing the traffic campaign. Unless you're doing 

that. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

That makes sense. Yeah. I run a, uh, a marketing agency myself. We don't do ads actually. It's all organic stuff, but I work a lot with businesses that also have an ad account manager with 'em, and I will second that. Testing is so important. It's amazing how, you know, one company, one offer does really well with this type of ad, and then you go to the next company and you're watching their offer on a totally different, you know, platform or, you know, so it's just a lot of testing

Yes. Yes. Uh, okay. Um, speaking of options, let's talk a bit about video. as it relates to advertising on, say, a Facebook and on Instagram. I mean, Instagram announced, I believe it was either earlier this year or last year that in general they consider themselves be a video first platform. Now, yes, certainly Facebook is, has a lot of a, uh, video in it.

Do, do people who advertise need to take video into consideration Now, is it an advantage? Is it, um, is it, is it not much of an advantage is and, and really just go with whatever is best, whether it's a, a static prototype ad or text type ad versus a video ad. I'm just curious to get your thoughts on video.

Monica: Yeah, so we have been doing more with video for sure, and we have, some of our clients are doing reels very consistently, reels and tos. And so for those clients we are testing those as the creative, those, you know, short form, highly engaged. Mm-hmm. videos as the creative in the ad and they're converting like crazy.

But I would still say that we are still seeing really great results. Image ads, and we're doing a lot with, um, animated image ads. So we use Canva for most of our graphics, and Canva has made it really easy. You can add a little bit of movement on your graphics, you can create your graphic about your offer and then just have a little bit of animation, whether it's like a circle going around, you know, a little bit of movement can help to catch the eye.

Um, and it helps, I think, push it out and get more engagement on the ad. Um, so we, we still do a lot of image ads. Those can be the fastest type of ad to get going. Yeah. Um, so we still, we still test those out. And what we've done, um, with one of our clients, we saw that he does great with video. So he provided some videos.

We pushed out the videos, but we also had these image ads. And when we looked at the numbers of the image ads, The conversion rate was so much higher than the video ads. Hmm. The video ads got a lot of engagement, so Facebook was like, Hey, let's get more eyes on these. Um, but they weren't pushing the, with the way that we had our campaign structured, they weren't pushing out the, the image ads as much.

So what we ended up doing is we separated out the image ads and the video ads into separate campaigns so we could better control the budget going to each type of ad. And so that's the way we did that a few months ago now, gosh, almost six months ago. And, um, and. It's allowed us to really be able to scale up because the image ads are still doing really great and we're able to give them more budget, but the video ads are still doing really great and we're able to, you know, give them a, you know, necessary budget, but it's a little bit more balanced now and we have more control over it.

So anyways, so that was a really big win for us and we saw that even by doing that, the conversion rate is increasing all across the board. Um, and we're able to scale up where it makes sense because we have more control over the. 

So I don't know much about this, but let me ask you a question about the scenario you just went for, went, went forward with, and just, yeah, either tell me, don't worry.

Uh, you don't have to be, uh, worry about embarrassing and you can tell me I'm totally wrong, . It's okay. Um, but think hearing you talk about that, what about like, would it make sense to maybe lead with a video ad because it's so engaging and then retarget everyone who clicked on the video ad with your image ad because it's so much better converting.

Does that work or is that over complicating it? 

Monica: So I think for this particular offer, it converts so well going straight to the sales page that. We don't need to do that. Okay. But I think that can be a good strategy that, so that's where it could be like a top of funnel video and then those people who are watching the video, you retarget with the next ad that, you know, converts well and helps them to the next step.

So I think that can be a valid strategy. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So yeah. If, when people need warming up for this product though, that we're offering, it converts like crazy and so we're just scaling, scaling and scaling and, right. Okay. That's what we're focused on 

for that. So your scenario, right, you were running video ads and image ads to the product.

To the sales page and noticing and comparing how they both did versus what I was saying would be more run your ad to a very top of the funnel type product if you want to go that route. Or yeah, maybe even just a piece of content and then, then maybe retarget that. Okay. That's good. That's a good distinction there.

Okay, so I, I, and I definitely want to get into some of the success stories that, that you had shared. I wanna, I wanna have those shared. I, I just have a couple more questions that I think people might have. I wanna make sure everyone knows the, what I consider to be the best buzzword of the ad agency world.

So again, as someone who works with ad agencies, as long as you know how to drop this acronym within the first two minutes of talking to an ad agency, you're instantly in. And that's Roaz . Yes. Now talk through Roaz, talk through its importance and maybe talk to people about why they need to pay attention to this, if there are, if they're running ads.

Monica: Okay, so ROAZ stands for return on ad spend. And so when your goal is to make sales from your ads, which many of us that's, that would be the, you know, the driver for, for running ads. You wanna know what your return on ad spend is. How much are you putting up, you know, toward Facebook, how much ad spend are you spending versus what is the revenue generating from those ads, from those campaigns?

And so your row ads is your revenue divided by your ad spend. So anything. More than one is profitable. I've heard you're making money. Roaz is one. Yeah. Then you're breaking even. So our goal generally is to shoot for at least two roaz and then we'll turn anything off that's just not hitting that mark.

And then of course, scaling up on the, on the ads and the, the campaigns that are doing much better than that. So that's our approach to using ROAS strategically. So if you set up your campaign the right way with the pixel, um, then Facebook can track the sales that are happening from your ads. So you've gotta make sure that you have your pixel installed and you've got your campaign set up in order to track that.

But then Facebook will tell you what your ROAS is by campaign. By audience. We put our audiences in the, in the ad set and kind of organize 'em that way. And then by ad also. So then that's how we can see, okay, that's how we saw that the image ads were, you know, bringing in a much higher ROAS than the video ads when we had them structured in the campaigns previously.

And now they're a little bit more neck and neck and sometimes, you know, one does better than the other. But we're able to make adjustments now on the budget with this new campaign structure that we did based on the roaz 

numbers. Perfect, perfect. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, well, at the end of the day, obviously you need to be above one, but what would you recommend for people who aren't selling a straight to product?

Like how do you, how do you look at Roaz when you're either on a more complicated type of funnel or you are kind of going straight to a, uh, like a lead gen offer for your email ad uh, your email list, or even just content? I mean, where does ROAS come in? 

Monica: Yeah. Yeah. So that can make it more challenging. So with, um, so we have, one of our clients, um, does multiple funnels with webinars.

So she'll do an evergreen webinar and then she'll introduce her paid product. Most of 'em are courses. And then, um, and then we'll follow up with a retargeting ad going straight to the paid product. But what we see is that a lot of people buy on the webinar, so the lead gen ads that are just all it's promoting is the webinar are bringing a really great roaz, um, because people are buying so quickly now, since the iOS 14 updates last year, the, um, the attribution window.

That Facebook was able to provide has shrunk. Mm-hmm. , so it used to be they could provide data and results based on a 28 day timeframe. So when people saw the ad, it could report data, you know, up to 28 days later. Now it's only seven days, so we have a seven day window for Facebook to be able to share results based on people interacting with the ad.

So that's why we have the retargeting campaigns going so that we have a seven day window with the lead ad. And then depending on how long the funnel is, we can also have another seven days once people see our retargeting ad. So that kind of resets the clock and then we can see how many sales are coming from that seven day window with the retargeting ad.

And of course, getting back in front of people who are visiting the sales page and you know, encouraging people to, you know, kind of go along the, the customer journey and make that decision. That's a 

lot shorter. That's a bummer. Yeah. Yes. Changing privacy laws, that's a bummer , because I bet there's people who watch the webinar, but you know, you have a longer than seven day purchase window that you kind of get lost now with.

Monica: Yeah, it's true. And that's why, that's why we wanna make sure that we've got those retargeting ads coming, you know, going so that we can have another touchpoint with people. Yeah. Um, but then also we just are setting proper expectations with our clients that, you know, the ROAS and the return of this, all we can share are minimum numbers.

Right. They're always, no actual effect is probably much better than what we're 

able to share. Right. They're gonna be cons, more conservative, I suppose, in that nature. Yes. Assuming some probably got swallowed up in the, the distribution between the seven day and the old 28 day. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, inspire us a bit. Like do you have any stories or, or case studies? Um, and if you have any of like, uh, bloggers, right. Um, anybody who might be in the content creation business, I would love to hear you share some of the, uh, like, you know, see, hear this kind of played out in practice. 

Monica: Yeah. Okay. So one of my clients, um, she, we wrapped up last month, her second summit.

Um, she is a blogger, content creator. YouTuber. She's kind of all the places. Um, and she's in the craft space. And so she had this summit that she put together. Um, she did the very first one earlier this year, and it was a smashing success. She had a bunch of speakers come in, and of course she spoke and presented and, um, all her offer was, was the free ticket to the summit.

So you could watch, you know, in real, All of the speakers and then get their, you know, get access to their freebees and downloads and things like that. Um, or you could pay, so you get that and then you could pay a little bit, um, for the all access pass, um, or the v i p pass as she's calling it now, um, where you get access to the recordings.

And so she had different price points for that based on when you purchased your ticket for the v i P access pass. Um, and so, but really we're talking, uh, I think 39 up to $97 for this ticket. And that was the only thing she was offering. And she made more than 200,000 in the first summit and then did it again, more than 200,000 in the second summit.

Wow. And, yeah, using ads, and we were able to bring in leads. At 78 cents per lead for that free ticket. But then our roaz was through the roof. During this time, we were retargeting people for that low ticket offer, um, for the v I P access pass. And so many of our ads had more than 12 roaz, so 12 times what she was paying on ads.

So we were just really at a place of trying to encourage her to spend more and she did greatly increase her budget from what she was originally planning on spending. Um, but yeah, so it was, it was a really fun, um, project to work on. It was a very short time, and of course a lot of work on her end to get that summit off the ground, but it worked really well.

So now she's incorporating it as just a standard part of her business. She does summits twice a year in addition to her evergreen funnels and Evergreen. 

And so in that, in that situation, you're just running ads straight to a free signup for this mm-hmm. , um, this, this, uh, like it's a summit, right? It's like an all day.

Yeah. It's like an all day webinar, I guess. , yeah. 

Monica: It was like, it was like over the course of a week, she had multiple, I think 30 something speakers and um, yeah, so it was just a free ticket. You know, to, to join the summit. And she had a Facebook group and so people were highly engaged in the Facebook group.

Um, and then we had ads retargeting people who opted in for the free ticket to let them know about the, you know, the, the v i p access pass. Um, so that they, they could take advantage of that. Um, we had various phases cuz she had different price points based on the timing. Um, but it worked really well. And so, um, that can be something, you know, if you know people in your space and you wanna create a lot of great content.

I mean, she grew her email list tremendously because all the speakers were promoting it, but then also she was able to make quite a great return, um, from just this low ticket offer. And now, ever since she's been doing the summits, all her other products Yep. The Roaz has greatly increased on all the other Evergreen products as well, because she really grew her audience.

So, um, yeah. And so this year she hit seven figures, uh, in her business for the first time ever. And it was just a fun, fun for us to be a part of it and to, to help her with that. It 

really begs the question, if you don't have a product that you can sell, if you're relying on say, advertising income, affiliate income, I mean how, how much opportunity is potentially being left on the table for a website owner that has traffic, um, and is getting, you know, monthly traffic mainly through search.

Like, are they leaving a lot of potential on the table by not figuring out a way to develop, um, a product, a course, uh, a downloadable, and then going after these types of strategies? 

Monica: I would, I would say there's probably being a lot left on the table and with, as you're building your audience, those people are, and they, you're building the relationship.

You know, they're building the relationship with you and your brand, and so I would take advantage of that and just test. A low priced offer. So my client, um, in the home billing space, he has a $47 checklist. And so, you know, that's A P D F, I think it's 17 pages long. And so he put it together at once and it sells like crazy.

So think about the questions that you keep getting and see how you can make a resource for that, you know, to address those questions. Or at least the most common question. And just try it. It could be, you could test it as just a trip wire on the back of your, uh, you know, free lead magnet, just, you know, as a low priced offer.

Just see how that goes. And then, you know, test the waters that way. But then you could try going straight to the sale, you know, have it posted on your website throughout, um, have a sales page. And it doesn't have to be a long sales page, especially for a low price product like that. Um, it could be, you know, something very quick and easy to get up and, and get going, and then test the waters, you know, send a few emails about it.

Um, but test it out and see how it goes. Um, I would, I would highly recommend people to do that because you've got their attention. You've got. The relationship with them. And right now your strategy is to be an affiliate for other people and have, you know, other advertisers on your site, uh, that you're pointing traffic to.

And I think there's a really big potential for scaling up when you develop your own 

products. What, um, what are some tips you have for conversion? You know, I mean, I, I'm thinking about, uh, a blogger who, uh, sits down and says, you know, I do have a lot of expertise in this space. Let me go ahead and put together a $47 checklist or guide.

Yeah. Let me put together, uh, a little mini course, uh, that basically just is a course on all this stuff I've already written about. Right. And they put it all together and they start doing this. What tips do you have for, um, selling, if you will, like in the copy on the landing page? Um, uh, any conversion tips for, for across.

Monica: Yeah. So I would think about when you're thinking about the title of your product, think about what is the pain point? What is the biggest pain point your audience faces? And so for my client that has the home building checklist, he has in big text, um, not at the very top, but kind of, you know, a third of the way down in the main screen, it says, you only have one chance to get it right.

So he's calling out the fact that if you, you know, miss something when you're building your home, it could be very costly or just a pain in the neck to have to deal with it down the road. Um, and so you wanna make sure that you get it right the first time. So think about, you know, what is it that people are going through?

What are they struggling with? What are the things that they commonly miss or don't know about that you can help address that can either, you know, save them time or money. Um, people will, you know, spend money to save time and money. So, um, so think about that angle. And then as far as putting together the.

Sales page. It doesn't have to be a long one. Make sure that it's mobile friendly, especially if you're running ads. But even if you're not running ads, you know, in these days most people are engaging in content, you know, with content on their phone. So make sure that it's really nice and easy to scroll through on the mobile device.

Um, make sure that you have testimonials. If you, you know, if it's brand new product, then it may take you a little bit of time to get some testimonial specific to that product. But maybe it's some testimonials, vouching to your credibility in the space. Um, maybe it's some other experts or other people in your space that you can have, right?

You a testimonial. Say, you know, ve verifying that you know what you're talking about, um, and that you're a great resource for this. Um, and so gather some testimonials. The more testimonials you have, um, then the more that helps to build trust with people when they're getting ready to hand over their credit card.

Let's talk a bit about challengers coming up in this advertising space. Um, you mentioned iOS updating to Yeah. iOS 14, and that was a challenger. Did that cause ad rates to go get more expensive? Were they just less effective? Um, and then what about some of the upcoming cookie changes that are on the table and might go through?

Is that gonna make things more expensive or what's that gonna do to, um, to, to add, perform? 

Monica: Yeah, so it's been interesting, you know, these past couple years with Covid and, um, you know, all that's happened. And then of course the unknowns with the economy, there's always gonna be a new challenge. Um, so it was interesting when Covid hit, and of course, you know, the world was kind of like, what's happening, you know, uh, in a panic of, you know, just major uncertainty.

Um, a lot of digital products, a lot of education companies did really well during that time because all of a sudden people had a lot of time on their hands. Yeah. Um, especially in the hobby space. Peop those sales went through the roof. Um, so it can be, but a lot of, a lot of advertisers pulled back on their ad spend during that time because of the uncertainty.

So that made our ad. Drop. So we got better results for, you know, lower ad spend, um, during that time. And then last year in, uh, during the fourth quarter, fourth quarter, you know, that's when people are really pushing for their year end sales, holiday sales, things like that. So we see a lot more competition in the ad space.

Um, and so costs generally tend to rise during that time. Um, this time we saw that a little bit, this fourth quarter. Uh, we saw that a little bit, but not as much as we have in other years, especially, um, when during 2020 where people were kind of coming back at the end of the year into advertising and it was an election, and just lots of things going on,

Um, so anyway, there's always gonna be kind of those ebbs and flows. With iOS 14, we needed to kind of figure out, it took a little bit to figure out how to track in this new world where we had the limited window and all of that. But, um, as time has gone on, tools have adapted. So, um, it's. Other tools, like third party tools like shopping carts, thrive carts, SamCart, um, other things have made it easier to track those conversions now that they kind of figured out what Apple was allowing.

Um, they've made updates, so that will always happen. That, you know, uh, tools and platforms that we're using will make adjustments. Because they want, they wanna help their customers, um, have those and see those conversions through their tools and their products. Um, so going into, you know, 2023 with, you know, who knows what's gonna happen with the economy and, um, and that could, you know, if the economy tanks and there's, you know, recession, then that could mean that it could be actually a really great time for those of us who are still advertising to kind of jump in and capitalize on those lower ad costs.

And of course, you know, Facebook, um, is going to adjust and encourage people to advertise, um, because that's their, you know, that's our main bread and butter. Um, with the metaverse coming along, um, you know, there's gonna be a lot more. Placements for ads we've already seen. We haven't seen it in the Ads Manager where we can actually put ads in the metaverse yet.

Um, but we think it's coming soon because in the data charts that Facebook gives us, um, I saw Oculus as an option for in placement. Interesting. So we think that's on the horizon. So I think there's a lot of potential still. And even though like we first talked about, you know, Facebook and Instagram ads kind of had their heyday way back when it was very popular.

I still think there's a lot of potential, um, with what's coming and going into the new year and, you know, there's always gonna be those ups and downs, but I think there's a lot of potential with what we're seeing. You know, 

you bring up a, uh, something that I hadn't thought about, uh, until you were just talking about a lot of people who are running their own content websites will be making money off of ads on that site.

And those ads are typically measured in terms like RPMs, which is basically an overlay general way of. Looking at what advertisers are willing to spend to have their ad placed on that person's website, right? Mm-hmm. , and it's almost, uh, in many ways the inverse, right? Like, uh, it's almost a great balancing tool to be using advertising to drive revenue to your site when you also rely on ad revenue on your site.

Because as RPMs go up, your ad costs on say, a Facebook might go up, but what you're earning from the traffic to your website will also go up. And then as RPMs go down, which is something that website owners are talking a bit about right now, that, you know, RPMs are down a bit, uh, right now, well, hey, that, that, that does bode well for cheaper advertising when you want to push your product or your lead gen campaign on a Facebook ad.

Monica: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So the more, um, you know, the fewer advertisers that there are, then the better cause is really gonna be for the rest 

of us. So in many ways, if you're bummed about those low RPMs, that might be the perfect kick in the pants you need to, to try some Facebook advertising out. Uh, okay.

Um, let's see. So what would be the next steps you think, for someone who is a blogger, um, to take, just to kind of wrap it up here and, and kind of put a fine point on a lot of the different things we've talked about. And then I have one more question about just what, you know, what people should be on the lookout for that could really sync their campaign.

But maybe let's just outline it, probably a bit of a recap. What are the next steps for someone who's never advertised before but has a content, maybe has a product, or could create a product? What should they, what should they do to get. 

Monica: Yeah, I would get really clear on your goals. So if your goal is to, you know, scale up your traffic to your site, then you may wanna test out the waters with a traffic campaign.

If you know that you make a lot of money through your email list and it's worth it to you to grow your email list and continue to, you know, um, feed your newsletter, um, and you make affiliate or you know, or your own sales through your, through your email list, then I would focus on growing your email list.

Those are the two places that I would start. Mm-hmm. , if you're brand new to Facebook ads, just so you can kind of test it out with a lower budget, um, see how it goes. Learn, you'll definitely learn a lot, um, from testing out those different audiences, the different ads. Um, and then you can take that and then when you do have a paid product to offer, you can see, you know, what is my conversion rate organically for my paid product, and is it high enough where I think I should, I could test a little bit of ad spend going straight to the sales page, or do I need to develop a funnel?

Right. If it's a higher price product, then you probably need to develop a funnel for 

that. And what are the things that people need to make sure they pay attention to so they don't fail at this? I mean, obviously I'm sure that certain products do much better than other products. Certain offers do much better than other offers.

Certain niches do better than other niches. But in general, what are some common stumbling areas that people can look out for when they're setting up their first campaign that they wanna avoid? Uh, to avoid some. 

Monica: So I would say make sure you know what, what the different options are. So, you know, get that education piece under your belt so that you know how to set up your campaign in the right way.

I do have a free Facebook ad starter kit, if I can share that, that one. Oh yeah. Great People through the six simple steps for creating your campaign. So that helps you map out all of the different things you need to think about before you dive into the Ads Manager. So you're ready to create your campaign so you're not just trying to figure it out on the fly and then hoping for the best you've actually thought through your strategy and your goals and how you're going to, um, do your targeting and create your ad and all of that.

So that's all in the starter kit. Um, people can find [email protected] slash np. So I would say get the education piece under your belt so that you know what you're doing. Um, when going into the as manager, cuz there are a lot of. Gosh, so many different options in there, , and of course they keep adding more.

Um, and so if you don't know what an option is or what it means or how it can affect your results, it could be that, you know, if you don't get the results you're looking for, it's just because you had a setting that wasn't properly optimized. You know, you clicked this and it should have been that in order to help you better achieve your goals.

So all of that stuff can really have an effect on your results. Um, so, and then also I would say, you know, the testing test different audiences, test different types of ads, um, different, you know, graphics, dif you know, static image versus video, short ad copy versus long ad copy. Um, test all those different variables because, uh, uh, pr you know, pretty soon you're gonna figure out what really hits and what really resonates, but you don't know unless you're testing.

Um, and then I would say stick with it too, so you don't have to spend a lot of money on ads, but you do need to be consistent about it. Mm-hmm. , um, about doing it. So the people that are, that waste the most money on ads, um, are the ones that are like, oh, I'm going to, you know, promote this here. I'm gonna dabble here, I'm gonna dabble there.

A lot of my students come to me and say, yes, I've been a dabbler, you know, but I'm ready to like, figure out how to do it. Right. Um, and then that's when they end up seeing, seeing the results. They're, they're looking for, 

Sounds a lot like growing a website. Yes, consistency matters. Consistency matters.

Absolutely. Good. Okay, so you teased a free download. Where can people get that and tell us a little bit more about it. I think you said Monica louie.com/np, is that right? Slash np? 

Monica: Yes, I got it. Okay. Yeah, you got it. So I think it's really cool. It's a Facebook ads starter hit. I've gotten great feedback on it.

It takes you through the six simple steps for creating campaigns that convert, so you know exactly step by step what you need to think about as you're creating your campaign. If you're new to Facebook ads, Facebook has its own language, so I've got a little glossary in there so that you can, you know, be clear on what some of the T key terms mean.

And then there's a checklist because I love checklist and being organized, um, having my plan all mapped out. So there's a checklist in there. So help you, you know, go through the six steps, make sure you've got everything you need as you dive into the Ads Manager for 

your ad agency. How do you guys, uh, work with clients?

Is there a minimum ad spend or, um, is there a threshold for amount of traffic that you, that you have to have? Like what if somebody. Maybe he is been doing their own ads for a while now, but, but is looking to take the next step and wants to get that off 

Monica: their. Yeah, so we've had, um, students go through our course and then say, okay, I'm ready for you guys to just take this off my plate.

You know, I've figured it out, it's working, but I'm ready for you guys to take it and scale it up. Um, and so that's where we come in where you know that you've got offers that convert and you're ready to scale up and go to the next level. So our minimum suggested ad spend for our clients is 100 to $150 a day.

So we have enough to room for the testing so that we can test the different audiences, the different ad formats and different offers so we can focus in on what's working and then scale from there. 

Makes sense. Makes sense. Good. Um, that was a lot. We just covered a lot of ground in an hour. I feel unfortunately.

A little bit, uh, restless. I feel like I, I do feel like I, um, I'm leaving some stuff on the table by not harnessing advertising for, for some of the assets, the, the website assets I have myself. That's a good sign cuz that means that what you shared was really compelling. So , I know that's, that means that, um, that, that there was a lot shared and there's a lot of 

Monica: potential.

That means there's a lot of potential. Yeah. Right? 

It does. It does. I mean, it, it's exciting to think about and you really open my eyes to a lot of possibilities. Um, I think probably the most. I don't know, the most not important thing, but maybe the most insightful thing you said is how it really, you can start with such a little amount if you are consistent about it and you actually are testing to, so you can kind of learn what does and doesn't work If you're willing to set aside, I mean, five or $10 a day and then put some time towards it, I mean that's a really compelling idea cuz it's not a huge kind of all in sort 

Monica: of thing.

Right, right. And I definitely suggest starting small. I mean, you know, my background is in helping people get out of debt, so I want people to be smart with their money and where they spend their money. So start small, do some testing, figure out what works, and then scale from there. 

Monica, thanks for joining us today and um, I really appreciate you coming by and sharing so much good stuff about where ads are at today and how website owners and content creators can, uh, can, can use ads to, to help add to their revenues.

It's been great. So thanks for coming. 

Monica: Thank you so much for having me. This is a lot of fun. Sure 

thing. Talk soon. 

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