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Let’s explore two main strategies for setting up ad visuals: direct and indirect selling. Using a client case study, we discuss the specifics of each method.
You’ll learn examples of using a straightforward “buy now” method versus incorporating value propositions subtly before presenting a sales pitch. Plus, we talk about how to keep your audience engaged without overwhelming them, making sure your ads stay fresh and relevant.
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Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie’s Links:
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Jamie Sampany-Kessie’s Links:
- Say hi to Jamie on Instagram
Speaker 1:
This episode is about Black Friday and we have some clients with Black Friday promotions and there’s tons of sales happening. And while working on ads for a client’s Black Friday sale, well, jamie noticed something fascinating about the two ways that you can set up an ad to go for a sale, directly or indirectly. Both can work, but the key is knowing when and how to use these different ad visuals or ad approaches.
Speaker 2:
Right. In this episode I’m going to break down how to sell both directly and indirectly, whether you’re running ads or you’re posting just organically, and how to figure out what works best for your audience.
Speaker 1:
So and when I say indirectly, what we mean is one is like buy this now, Black Friday sale, and the other one is maybe a value ad post and there’s a call to action at the end of that value ad post that says get this thing. That can help you.
Speaker 2:
Right, exactly, some people like to call it backdoor selling, or there’s lots of different names, but so what happened was I was looking at ads for a client and they wanted to promote their Black Friday sale. Today is Black Friday, so if you’re listening to this recording, it might be later, but they were using an organic Instagram post, and so for their other offers, it was just a straightforward direct post that you know, black Friday sale, 40% discount or whatever but then for this one, the post that they wanted me to use, I actually didn’t even see it. I initially missed it because it was so subtle, and so it was setting up their ads right.
Speaker 1:
You missed the indirect one.
Speaker 2:
I missed the indirect post because I was like, where’s the Black Friday deal? And so the indirect posts can be engaging, but they can be easy to overlook, and so the post was a carousel with. I had just bold, simple text on the first slide, a subtle teaser, if you dream of this, to read on, and so I love that. The first slide initially made that emotional connection with people. It was starting to tell their story and making people think, hey, I kind of want in on that too. And then it also, in that first slide, weeded out people that weren’t interested right, because your offer is not for everyone and so the people that were interested could move on to the next slide and it had that sequential one, two, three sequence, that with some visuals and the story progression, and so you kind of knew what was coming. And then at the end was the call to action on the final slide with, you know, the 50% Black Friday discount, with a comment to start, and that call to action was connected to the mini chat automation.
Speaker 1:
And so interaction like on that post.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was fantastic. There was tons of likes over over 100 comments showing that there was strong engagement and alignment with what that audience really desired and wanted.
Speaker 1:
And you said they had like mini chat hooked up. Right, yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 2:
So person comments start and then they automatically get the link sent to them for that special Black Friday discount.
Speaker 1:
So you want to contract that with a direct post? Automatically get the link sent to them for that special Black Friday discount.
Speaker 2:
So you want to contract that with a direct post.
Speaker 2:
Right, a direct post is just on that very first image that someone sees, whether it’s a carousel, a reel on that very first page, or slide Right there, they’re going to see Black Friday sale, special for you, or whatever it is Works better.
Speaker 2:
I think they can both work special for you or whatever it is Works better, I think they can both work. And so, like I said, I initially missed the post just because it wasn’t that direct sale like the other ones were, and so that’s what I was initially looking for. But I think, based on, obviously, that post had that you know, kind of organic storytelling type post, had a ton of engagement on it, and so that tells me that people really resonated with that, and so I think they can both work really, really well. You know the direct sales is going to immediately grab your attention. Some people just want to know hey, there’s an offer, but you can run ads to both direct and indirect and just see which one performs better. Sometimes your audience needs just like that straightforward approach and other times they connect more with a story.
Speaker 1:
I feel like we should talk about how to see which one is performing better, because it’s not just looking at metrics inside of like on your cell phone, inside of Instagram, Like when we. When you say performance, you’re talking about which one is resulting in better sales, right or better like lower lead costs.
Speaker 2:
So I wanna get into that moment.
Speaker 1:
But before that, this episode is sponsored by my course, the Lead Gen Cheat Code, right, and if you’re listening right now and you’re running your own ads and you want to have them work better that is, get in better quality leads for a lower cost or make more sales and basically you want to leverage all the knowledge that I have running ads for over four years, having managed over three and a half million dollars in client ad spend so that your ads can work better. That’s what this course does. It helps you cut your lead cost in half and get better quality leads, and you can find out more about that and get it from the show notes below. And, by the way, thank you for being here.
Speaker 1:
We are the host and co-host of the Art of Online Business podcast, where we help you with tips, tricks and strategies to grow your online business from, say, mid five-figure months up to high six-figure years and, of course, give you behind the scenes peek at what we’re seeing works with Facebook ads, which is the kind of episode you’re listening to right now. So, jamie, talking about testing and tracking, what is your approach to testing? How would you test both of these kind of posts?
Speaker 2:
So, first of all, you need to, you need to try, if you’re running organically and just posting, make sure that you do both the direct and the indirect kinds of posts, and post often, like at least two times. Like don’t just post once and assume that everyone has seen your ad. Your entire audience, like your followers, are going to miss it, and so you just want to make sure that you are posting frequently. And then, if you’re running ads, one of the metrics that we check is called frequency. Right, this is the number of times that someone sees your ad in a given time frame. So if you are running to a cold audience, they want to see it one to two times, or if it’s your warm audience, up to four to five times. If their frequency is too high, then your audience is going to burn out. They’re just going to be like I’m tired of you, I’m tired of seeing you.
Speaker 1:
So what’s the sign, Jamie, that the listener can look for that might hint that their audience is burning out.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, If you notice that your lead cost is starting to go up and trending upwards, then they’re kind of like yeah, I’m done seeing you.
Speaker 1:
I like that you said trend, because sometimes from one day to the next the cost can jump. But you do have to look at the trend and see are we actually having a problem here or just a momentary blip? Right, right, and you can combat this too, right? Just by having more ad creative and more ad visuals, so to speak. And then that can cut down the frequency that somebody sees any given post, and that filter of I’ve seen this before isn’t triggered, and thus people are more receptive to the message.
Speaker 2:
Right. And then, on the other hand, though, if it’s too low, people just simply aren’t seeing your ad enough, and they might not notice or act right. Usually, we do need to see something several times before we’re kind of like you know what?
Speaker 1:
I keep seeing this, and I think I’m now ready to buy, so yeah, yeah, it’s all about monitoring the metrics that matter, and the metric that matters the most is cost per result. You know, cost per lead, cost per sale. Monitor that and see how your ad is working. One thing that Jamie was sharing that I want to go back to and make sure you as a listener understand is, in this case, a client had a organic post that the client wanted us to turn into an ad.
Speaker 1:
Now in another upcoming episode we’re gonna talk about not boosting posts. It’s much better to take that post and quote unquote, set it up inside of Ad Manager, because it allows for much more accurate targeting. You can actually use the kind of objective where Meta, on your behalf, is looking for leads instead of just sending traffic kind of indiscriminately, and we’ll get into more of that in the next episode. But I just want to drive this point home that if you’re going to try to sell something or promote something, link in bio is dead. People are not responding much to that anymore. You need to have this tool called mini chat. There’s some other tools, but mini chat is cool because it actually has an official partnership with.
Speaker 1:
Instagram and Facebook meta if you will, and you’ve seen this functionality before. But on the post somebody comments a word or a key phrase and then they receive a link in their DMs. So if you have that functionality set up, then if you’re trying to sell something, you can look at the cost per purchase or the ROAS return on ad spend metric inside of Meta Ad Manager, and if you’re just getting leads for a lead magnet, you can still look at the cost per lead inside of Meta Ad Manager and then test and test and test to see what’s working Right. So I guess it’s time to wrap this episode up, huh.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Any final thoughts you want to share?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think the key takeaways are to use both, and use both direct and indirect selling, see which one works better for your audience and then track those results to see where your sales are coming from. Are they from those? Straightforward? Hey, I have this sale, I have this offer going on. You can use this, for right now it’s Black Friday, but you can use this for Christmas, new Year’s or your birthday, anything anytime, your launch, whatever, whenever you are selling. But track your results to see where they are coming from and what’s resonating with your audience, and then also resonating with your audience. And then also, don’t post your ads. Don’t post, sorry, just one time and hey, here I have the sale, that’s it right. Like you need to do it a few times. And then, if you’re running ads as well, like we’ve talked about, you know, test which one is working, track your frequency and refine it from there.
Speaker 1:
So, Well, until the next time you hear from us or see us, take care, be blessed, and we’ll see you in the next one.
Speaker 2:
Bye.
Speaker 1:
Bye.
