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Transcript of Today’s Episode

[00:00:06] This is the show where I bring you the best tips tactics and strategies for using paid traffic to grow your business on autopilot. You also hear what’s working and not working right now from the top minds in online marketing so that you can get more leads in sales every day without. Having to empty your wall in the process. All right let’s get to.

[00:00:28] Hey what is up. Everyone welcome back to the art of paid traffic podcast Rick Mulready here. This is episode number one hundred and fifty seven. Really appreciate you for giving me your time today. Hope all is going well. Whatever you’re up to today today going to be answering more of your questions this is going to be a part two of the Q&A episode I did just a couple of episodes back. I am now back in San Diego. Spent some time in New Hampshire as I mentioned a couple of episodes ago gave you an update about what was going on with my going back to New Hampshire. My mom is doing quite well. Surgery went really really well. She’s got a few follow up things that she needs to take care of but overall we’re really encouraged at the progress and how things went with my mom really appreciate all of your feedback and your well-wishes I got a lot of outpouring from all of you about my moms. I really really appreciate that. And then I went from there to Montana where I went fly fishing and it was really cold in Montana. It was great though because they went from super hot weather in New Hampshire to literally 26 degrees and snowing in Montana and I did fish in the snow and I froze. But it was fun. Now I’m back in San Diego or it’s you know 72 like it is every other day and every other day of the year. But anyway really excited to jump into today’s episode and answer more of your questions.

[00:01:50] And before I do that really really excited about a big announcement that I want to make to you I’m going to be doing another LIVE Facebook Ads implementation workshop here in San Diego. That’s right. FBA LIVE is coming back. It’s going to be in December so we’re going to be starting with the first night on Thursday evening December 7th with an opening night happy hour. And then we’re going to go two full days Friday and Saturday December 8th and December 9th. And as I mentioned this is an implementation workshop so we’re going to be actually working on your Facebook ad campaigns over the two days and we’re going to be having conversations around strategy and areas for improvement. For your Facebook ads campaigns so much has changed with Facebook ads right over the last few months let alone this year. And my goal for this event is to have you walking away with things set up the right way and improvements made to whatever you’re currently running. And this time I’m going be doing something a little bit different when you sign up for the workshop. It’s going to include access to or a large credit towards one of my training programs which is whichever one is most relevant to you and your business which you’re going to need to go through as much as possible prior to the event. And the reason I’m doing this is I really want this workshop to have the biggest impact for you. So this is not going to be a workshop for complete beginners. Now if you’re already one of my students awesome you’re getting at a big time discount off the cost of the event.

[00:03:28] Again this is so that we can have the biggest impact on working with you. And that’s why I’m also limiting spots limiting the number of spots for the workshop I’m going to be finalizing the details about FBA live over the next week or so. But I have put together an early interest page so that you can sign up to be the first to know when you can grab your spot. And that link is Rick Mulready dot com forward slash early interest again Rick Mulready dot com forward slash early interest. I love doing these live workshops hanging out with all of you for a few days and really moving your Facebook ads and business forward and really looking forward to seeing you in San Diego and December again one more time that link is Rick Mulready dot com forward slash early interest. You can go there enter your info and as soon as we finalize the details over the next week or so you’ll be the first to know to be able to grab your spot at FBA live this coming December. All right. My first question on today’s episode comes from Deseret Neville and Desiree’s says that I’m a beginner with Facebook ads. I have a small business which is a photography business and I’m not looking to do volume because it’s a small business. My list building is not very successful and I only have about 460 or so Facebook fans. I’m confused as to what my first steps should be. Deseret you are so not alone in this sort of question this is a really good question.

[00:04:55] Thank you so much for asking and the first thing that I would want you to do here is to determine your goal. So when ever we’re doing a Facebook ads campaign or any kind of pay traffic campaign for that matter or any kind of marketing campaign you want to determine your goal. What do you want to get out of the campaign. So in this case here what do you want to get out of your Facebook ads campaign. What is the ultimate goal. Because once you know what your goal is then you can work backwards from that goal. Right. OK. And then what is your offer. So once you understand what that goal is what’s the offer going to be. You know what are we going to use to attract our ideal audience. You know for a photography business it could be I don’t know a discount off of you know sitting some sort of a special package deal or something like that so making sure that you understand what that offer is going to be to attract your ideal audience and then Step number three for me here is really identifying who that ideal target audience is. So first three steps to determine the goal. You know what do you want to get out of your Facebook ads campaign so you can really work backwards from that goal and then figuring out once you know what that goal is. What’s the offer that you’re going to use to attract that ideal audience and what that ideal audience is really identifying who that ideal target audience is. Most people when I talk to them about you know do you understand who your target audience is. Generally I get the answer of oh yeah totally no problem.

[00:06:27] Then when we dive into it and we really dig into do they truly know who the ideal target audience is. There is always room for improvement. I have a really good understanding of who my target audience is but I’m always learning about that audience so be sure and identify who your ideal target audience is but also be willing to continue to learn more about them. Those are the top three things I would do to get started now I have a few more steps here for you as well then as far when it comes to putting your ad together you could use some of your photography that you are taking in your ads and I think you know something like using a carousel ad would be something that I’d be really I’d be definitely testing out. I think that could be really interesting. Maybe you do want a slideshow type of that you know like a video ad with different images that you’re using from or that you’re taking with your photography. Of course you want to get your client’s permission to be able to use their photographs in your ads. But you know after your right ear identifying your audience then you want to get into OK. What’s the ad going to look like. And then because you understand what your goal is and the offer that you’re going to make and who your ideal audience is that’s going to help you in speaking to that ideal audience about your offer.

[00:07:45] And so that’s where it comes into you know what the what the ad itself is going to look like the photography the images maybe you do a video of what it’s like to do a photo session with you. Maybe you’re including some happy Testim happy customer testimonials in there or something like that. And that’s also again understanding all this is going to help you write that copy as well to market what that offer is. So those are the first five things that you want to make sure that you understand where you’re going to be sending your traffic. So once people click on your on your Facebook ad where are they going or are they going to your Web site. They go into a landing page then you want to launch your ads and then this is the really really important not not these other seven steps aren’t important. But then you want to be tracking your numbers and knowing your numbers especially as a local business in a photography business here like we’re talking about knowing your numbers is going to be key. So not only what you know how successful are your Facebook ads but how many of those people are converting into paying customers and so forth. I’d recommend that you listen to episode 137 of the podcast here which you can find at Rick Mulready dot com forward slash 1:37 on that episode. I talked to I interviewed my friend Amy McHugh and she joined me to share how she uses Facebook ads to grow her local photography business. We dive into all of this stuff that we’re talking about here especially the numbers part one thing that really came out in that episode is how well Amber knows her numbers and because of that she can use her knowledge to run really profitable Facebook ads and be testing to find out what works and what doesn’t.

[00:09:23] So those are the eight steps determine the goal then number step number two is what’s the offer going to be you know discount off a sitting some sort of a special package whatever the offer is going to be to attract your ideal audience which in Step number three you want to be making sure that you identify that ideal target audience if you have an already set number four. What’s your ad going to look like. You know actually I’d say Step number four and five What’s your ad going to look like. Is it going to be images that are going to have you know photography from your from your business maybe do a video like a behind the scenes video of what it what it’s like to do a photo session with you in that video maybe include some some testimonials of happy customers then you want to make sure that you’re clear on where you’re sending that traffic website or landing page launching those bad boys launching those ads. And then obviously with the last part here tracking those numbers so that you can optimize your ads and again knowing your numbers is really key. And I mention as I mentioned episode number one hundred and thirty seven we dive into actually this exact example here with Amber McHugh and her local photography business so really good question. Thank you so much Deseret for that and I appreciate you listening to the show. The next question comes from Drew Swanson what’s up Drew. Andrew wants to know actually three different questions here. Number one how does a one man show map out a converting sales funnel.

[00:10:47] Number two what Facebook ad strategies work best to get leads without having to produce lead magnet content which may not even convert at number three what material works best for retargeting and I want to approach this question kind of from a few different angles here. For Drew and the first thing I want to mention here is around mindset you know how does a one man show Napo converting sales funnel. Well you look at your business and again kind of going back to the same thing we talked about with Desmarais is the first thing we want to look at is what’s the goal like what we want to get out of our Facebook ads campaign and from there we work backwards from that goal. What are all the steps that need to happen in order for that goal to be accomplished with our Facebook ads. And so you know whether you’re a one man show or whether you’re a 50 person business mapping out this converting you know quote unquote converting sales funnel we like We hope we don’t know it’s going to be converting until we start testing. But if we’re mapping out a sales funnel regardless of what type of business we are we want to start with the end goal in mind and work backwards from from there. Okay. And then secondly here what Facebook as strategies work best to get leads without having to produce lead content which may not even convert. I think this is a mindset thing. Andrew I really want to encourage you. You know you have to be able to or you have to be willing to I should say know your audience how you can help them.

[00:12:18] So again going back to what we talked about in the previous question with Desiree’s question is identifying who your target audience is and how you can uniquely help them. Right. And then once you know that then you can start to put together different offers and lead magnate’s and so forth. And if you’re not willing to do that then I would say you know I’m going to go a little bit a little bit extreme here and I’d say if you’re not willing to test out if you’re not willing to if you just want things to work overnight and I’m not saying that you know you expect overnight results but I’m getting a little bit of maybe resistance from this from the second part here where you ask what Facebook as strategies work best to get leads without having to produce lead content which may not even convert Well you’ve got to be willing to test different things out right in order to get leads you have to offer something in return. And what that offer is going to be is going to be different for everybody right. But that really comes with knowing your audience and how you can specifically help them. And then using that information to put together different offers to test out and lead maggot’s and so forth you’ve got to be willing to test. So you’ve got to have the right mindset around that. And then the third part of this is what material works best for retargeting. If you’re just starting out here I would start with the basic right. If you’re if you’re sending traffic from your ad to an opt in page for example you can just retarget people who come to the optin page but don’t opt in.

[00:13:51] And so we’re trying to get them to move further along our sales funnel if you are sending traffic from your ad to a piece of content like a blog post or for example you can retarget those people who visit that landing page with you know the ability to opt in or register or whatever. You know again we’re using retargeting to move people further along. Our sales funnel. Another another another real basic part of a retargeting is if you have a video you can create engagement audiences with with the people who are watching your videos and then retarget them based on how long they watch those videos. So lots of different ways to get started with retargeting that are actually quite quite simple there. But I’d say the biggest one around this question here Drew is the mindset. You’ve got to have the mindset that testing is going to be something that you’re going to have to do in order to see success with this. And you know how does a one man show a quote unquote map out converting sales funnel. You just you just start and you just get really clear on what you want to accomplish in your business using Facebook ads and then work backwards from from that goal meaning what are the steps that need to happen in order to take somebody on Facebook who doesn’t necessarily know who you are. Introduce them to you how you can help them build that relationship with them and then nurture that relationship into a sale. OK that’s how it approach everything. So thank you very much Drew for that question really good question there as well.

[00:15:25] The next question comes from Joel lezzy Esky I think I’m pronouncing that right Joel. Joel says I’m starting a small Facebook Ads agency from zero and I want a niche down to local fitness businesses and Vancouver B.C.. For those of you guys who have given me a hard time to jokingly give me a hard time about knish and niche because I always used to say niche I would like to take note. I am now saying Neech pretty much across the board total sign out there and say what he wants and needs down to local fitness businesses and Vancouver B.C. And he says what would be the first three things that you tackle out of the gates to get started. Free service for Case Study. My own Facebook ads targeting potential clients cold email inquiry. Where would I start. And the first thing I’d want to know to really answer this question for Joel is to understand you know how well do you know Facebook ads. I’m assuming that since you’re saying I’m starting a small Facebook ad agency from zero I’m guessing that you don’t have a lot of experience with Facebook so I’m going to answer this question with that sort of assumption here. In that case I would offer you a free service for in exchange for a case study and testimonial maybe one or two clients in the end this year the local fitness business Neech there in Vancouver. OK. And so I would I try to get maybe one or two and that really depends on how comfortable you are and how quickly you can get comfortable with running Facebook ads for this type of business. OK.

[00:17:09] And when you’re doing that you know I’d really recommend testing out different offers to really see what works for this. For this Neech because then you can use that case study or case studies and testimonials to get other local fitness clients that are just like the ones you started to started to work with. And I might do you know I might be willing to do a free trial for maybe two to four weeks working with working with somebody spending you know a smaller budget on that. But that conversation really has to be around look like I’m willing to do this. And again if you are just starting out I would be up front with them and be some you know say something like You know I’m looking to. This is my experience I’m looking to get more experience and I think it could really help you and willing to do this for you for whatever length of time that you want to do say two to four weeks for free. All you have to do is pay for the actual Facebook ads. And I would say you know what this is going to cost you for an ad spend this is say $300 for the month something like that. And it’s really up to you. You know how you want to do that in that case obviously we’re talking about $10 a day or so $300 for the for the month and then you have a cost and you let them know look we’re going to have a conversation at the end of this free service trial and we’ll talk about possible next steps of working together. OK.

[00:18:30] And again then you can use that case study and testimonial to get other local fitness clients from there in as far as how do you get them. I would first identify who you might want to start working with and walk in and talk to the manager. Identify those businesses find out who the manager is or or just walk in and speak and ask to speak to the manager. I wouldn’t go in at peak times. You know earlier in the morning or in the evening after work I’d probably go in the middle of the day when it’s a little bit less busy in the gym and the manager’s probably a little bit more accessible at that point. So that’s how I would approach I would approach that. Also another resource here for you definitely listen to episode number one hundred and twenty six of the podcasts here. That’s where I interviewed one of my original students Rob Bailey and he does exactly what we’re talking about here as far as anything down in the local fitness business area. He’s actually here in San Diego and he’s done an amazing job building a really really great business. Multiple six figure business with with that so we check that out. That’s episode number one hundred and twenty six. All right. Now the next question lots of people have been asking about the updates to the bidding options that you see in the optimization and delivery section of when you’re setting up your ads at the asset level and these two are two new options are called ones called lowest cost and the other is called Target costs. Let’s break down what each one of these things means now lowest cost.

[00:20:03] Basically what Facebook used to call automatic bidding. Now don’t freak out because there’s new updates. You know there are new names to these things. Really Facebook is just trying to rename them to sort of better better explain what the functionality actually is. So it’s not a big you know it’s not a big difference from what it used to be. OK. So lowest cost is pretty much what Facebook used to call automatic bidding. So with this option Facebook is still going to try and get you the lowest cost automatically. Right. So you’re basically telling OK Facebook based on the what I’m optimizing for let’s say conversions or whatever. You’re telling Facebook get me as many conversions for the lowest costs. OK. Now you can also now set up a bid cap. So if you want if you know your numbers and you want to make sure that you that Facebook doesn’t bid more than a certain amount for the result that you’re looking for you can set a bid cap. OK. So this is the lowest cost option this is what Facebook used to call automatic bidding. Now the other new cost here is called target cost. And this is more of what the manual bidding option used to be. And this is available you’ll see it in your ads Menger your setup when you’re using the app install objective the conversion objective or the product catalog sales objective. So if you’re doing e-commerce. OK. If you’re not using one of those campaign types those objectives then you’re not going to see target cost.

[00:21:41] And this is really for when you’re looking to maintain a stable average cost per result. Right. So if you’re looking for an average cost per. Conversion. At your desired target costs Okay. So if you’re looking for stability even as you’re increasing your spend this might be an option for you. Now hang with me here and second talk through this a little bit more and this is going to make more sense. Basically when you choose to target cost Facebook is going to try and get as close to that target cost as possible. After about 50 of the results that you’re looking for meaning what you’re optimizing for like conversions for example. Okay. And so what you do is you enter in what your target cost per that action that you’re optimizing for like conversions and Facebook will bid in the auction. Remember we have to remember that Facebook is a the whole platform is a bidding is an auction platform and Facebook will bid to try and meet that cost that you have put in there. Right now keep in mind this is going to be an average meaning that some bids might be more some bids might be less but on average Facebook is looking to get you stability in whatever cost that you have put in there right now with that option if you choose if you choose the target cost option. You have to remember that again you might have higher or fluctuating cost until that first 50 or so conversions are the actions that you want is complete maybe you might not be able to spend your full budget if your target cost is too low.

[00:23:18] Right so if the target costs you put in there is too low and the bidding you know of what of the audience that youre trying to reach is way above that you’re not going to spend your full budget. And also you’ve got to remember that your cost per results right. It is being optimized for maybe higher. With this strategy. Okay this is more of an advanced option. So if you if if for those of you guys who are listening who really know your numbers and you know what your lead cost should be and the value of a customer is to your business this might be an option that you might want to test out. So again this is very similar to the manual bidding option that Facebook has had for a very long time. They’ve now called it target cost. Okay. And again this is more of an advanced option what we can see here is because with the target cost there and also with the lowest cost option which is the first one I talked about the automatic bidding basically where Facebook also now allows you to set a bid cap what this really comes down to is you can see a shift here where like I talk about a lot here in the podcast is about knowing your numbers and Facebook is really shifting towards that. The more you know the data the more that you know your numbers the more that you know what your return on ad spend should be. The lead CATIA be the value of a customer knowing your numbers from start to finish. You can really use that to put that information into when you’re setting up your Facebook ads and let Facebook’s ads algorithm get you the results based on your numbers.

[00:25:00] Right. And don’t forget you have the r o s option when you are when you’re looking at the data. This is the return on ad spend option and this will help you determine the value of the leads whenever possible this means basically that you can put the value of the sale whatever you’re selling which is say you’re selling a $97 program you can put that $97 within the Facebook pixel on the thank you page of the sale conversion and then you can look at the return on ad spend right there within as manager. OK. So the more data you can have the more of the numbers that you know for your campaigns you can use that information to try and manipulate if you will. Facebook’s algorithm to get you the results that you’re looking for. OK. But again target costs this is more of the manual bidding option that has been around for a long time. This is more advanced and then the lowest cost option is more of that automatic bidding. And remember for the target cost you’re only going to see it when you’re using the app install objective the conversion objective or the product catalog sales objective. Now if you’re look if you listen to this you like Rick I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen this option yet. You’ll see it there in your ads manager set up at the ads set level and Facebook does a really good job of explaining this so if you’re kind of you get in there you’re kind of lost. You can just have like little learn more links that you can check out.

[00:26:28] So definitely do that if you are listening to this and you’re like Rick I have no idea who you’re talking about. All right let’s move on to the final question and this is also another one I’ve been getting a lot of from people and it has to do with ad costs. And people are wondering should we expect a big increase in ad costs now that the holidays are upon us. I can’t believe I’m saying that right now but we are here in the middle of almost in the middle of October and. Yes. Well first of all before I get into that. First off I’m going to be doing a whole episode here coming up on the podcast all about holiday advertising on Facebook and how you can take advantage of that so stay tuned for that. But talking about the cost and we’ll talk more about it during that episode as well. But with the costs. Yes absolutely. Costs are going to be increasing for the holidays and costs have been increasing for a while now. On the Facebook platform it has become more competitive and so because of that costs are increasing there’s five million advertisers now on Facebook. And you know in Facebook only has so much inventory right to to be to be running ads through. So once the competition goes up that’s when the costs are going to increase as well. So with the holidays here costs are definitely going to be increasing from pretty much now through the end of the year. Maybe at the end of October through the end of the year.

[00:27:56] So just to kind of try and give you a couple of you know sort of specifics here if you’re doing conversion campaigns I might be ready for doubling what you expect to be paying. If you’re looking for app installs applet app installs is a big time initiative and strategy here. You know during the holiday season I might be expecting triple what you know be ready to be for for triple what you might expect to be paying so conversions. You know the costs are going to be going up as well as the app installs. But you know look this should not stop you from advertising during the holiday season if you’ve got a good product if you’ve got a good service if you have you know whatever offer you have out there to be helping your ideal target audience. And again it really comes down to knowing your numbers. But don’t let this stop you from advertising on on Facebook during the holidays but just be aware that you know pretty much from now through the end of the year maybe that at the end of October definitely after the end of October through New Year’s costs are going to be are going to be higher because of the holiday season. So I do hope this was really helpful for you. I love answering your questions and talking through all these things for you so keep the questions coming. If you have I haven’t talked about this in a few episodes here if you like to win a 30 minute strategy call with me all you have to do is go over to Facebook Messenger and give me your feedback on this podcast.

[00:29:28] And specifically I’d like to hear what you like to hear more of like topics guests style of the show frequency length whatever. Any kind of ideas you like to share with me. I’d love to hear them so to share your ideas and feedback with me. Message me over on Facebook. You can go to Rick Mulready dot com forward slash messenger and that will redirect you that pop your messenger. And you can message me right there with your ideas and feedback. And at the end of each month are going to be picking one person at random at the end of the month to win a 30 minute strategy call with me during that call we can talk about whatever you’d like your Facebook ad strategy growing your business online marketing strategy growing your team whatever it is they like to talk about. So let me know. Shoot me a message over on Facebook Messenger. I’ve set up an easy link which will allow you to message me right there on Facebook. Rick Mulready dot com forward slash messenger actually it read the I’m going to be when I’m wrapping up here I’m going be messaging the winner for September right after this and rescheduling that’s that call with that person and then sharing that strategy call right here on the podcast with you. So really looking forward to your feedback the feedback so far has been amazing we’ve created a massive document taking in all this information and it’s really playing into how this podcast is evolving for you. Because that’s the way I do it right. I want to bring you the best information so that I’m able to help you grow your business quickly and efficiently.

[00:31:01] So thank you again in advance for doing that and thank you so much for hanging out today really appreciate it.

[00:31:06] Got lots of great episodes lined up for you in the coming weeks here on the podcast so until then my friends keep testing your paid traffic to find out what works for you and your business. And then knew more of what’s working. And I’ll see you in the next episode.

is is the show where I bring you the best tips tactics and strategies for using paid traffic to grow your business on autopilot. You also hear what\’s working and not working right now from the top minds in online marketing so that you can get more leads in sales every day without. Having to empty your wall in the process. All right let\’s get to.

[00:00:28] Hey what is up. Everyone welcome back to the art of paid traffic podcast Rick Mulready here. This is episode number one hundred and fifty seven. Really appreciate you for giving me your time today. Hope all is going well. Whatever you\’re up to today today going to be answering more of your questions this is going to be a part two of the Q&A episode I did just a couple of episodes back. I am now back in San Diego. Spent some time in New Hampshire as I mentioned a couple of episodes ago gave you an update about what was going on with my going back to New Hampshire. My mom is doing quite well. Surgery went really really well. She\’s got a few follow up things that she needs to take care of but overall we\’re really encouraged at the progress and how things went with my mom really appreciate all of your feedback and your well-wishes I got a lot of outpouring from all of you about my moms. I really really appreciate that. And then I went from there to Montana where I went fly fishing and it was really cold in Montana. It was great though because they went from super hot weather in New Hampshire to literally 26 degrees and snowing in Montana and I did fish in the snow and I froze. But it was fun. Now I\’m back in San Diego or it\’s you know 72 like it is every other day and every other day of the year. But anyway really excited to jump into today\’s episode and answer more of your questions.

[00:01:50] And before I do that really really excited about a big announcement that I want to make to you I\’m going to be doing another LIVE Facebook Ads implementation workshop here in San Diego. That\’s right. FBA LIVE is coming back. It\’s going to be in December so we\’re going to be starting with the first night on Thursday evening December 7th with an opening night happy hour. And then we\’re going to go two full days Friday and Saturday December 8th and December 9th. And as I mentioned this is an implementation workshop so we\’re going to be actually working on your Facebook ad campaigns over the two days and we\’re going to be having conversations around strategy and areas for improvement. For your Facebook ads campaigns so much has changed with Facebook ads right over the last few months let alone this year. And my goal for this event is to have you walking away with things set up the right way and improvements made to whatever you\’re currently running. And this time I\’m going be doing something a little bit different when you sign up for the workshop. It\’s going to include access to or a large credit towards one of my training programs which is whichever one is most relevant to you and your business which you\’re going to need to go through as much as possible prior to the event. And the reason I\’m doing this is I really want this workshop to have the biggest impact for you. So this is not going to be a workshop for complete beginners. Now if you\’re already one of my students awesome you\’re getting at a big time discount off the cost of the event.

[00:03:28] Again this is so that we can have the biggest impact on working with you. And that\’s why I\’m also limiting spots limiting the number of spots for the workshop I\’m going to be finalizing the details about FBA live over the next week or so. But I have put together an early interest page so that you can sign up to be the first to know when you can grab your spot. And that link is Rick Mulready dot com forward slash early interest again Rick Mulready dot com forward slash early interest. I love doing these live workshops hanging out with all of you for a few days and really moving your Facebook ads and business forward and really looking forward to seeing you in San Diego and December again one more time that link is Rick Mulready dot com forward slash early interest. You can go there enter your info and as soon as we finalize the details over the next week or so you\’ll be the first to know to be able to grab your spot at FBA live this coming December. All right. My first question on today\’s episode comes from Deseret Neville and Desiree\’s says that I\’m a beginner with Facebook ads. I have a small business which is a photography business and I\’m not looking to do volume because it\’s a small business. My list building is not very successful and I only have about 460 or so Facebook fans. I\’m confused as to what my first steps should be. Deseret you are so not alone in this sort of question this is a really good question.

[00:04:55] Thank you so much for asking and the first thing that I would want you to do here is to determine your goal. So when ever we\’re doing a Facebook ads campaign or any kind of pay traffic campaign for that matter or any kind of marketing campaign you want to determine your goal. What do you want to get out of the campaign. So in this case here what do you want to get out of your Facebook ads campaign. What is the ultimate goal. Because once you know what your goal is then you can work backwards from that goal. Right. OK. And then what is your offer. So once you understand what that goal is what\’s the offer going to be. You know what are we going to use to attract our ideal audience. You know for a photography business it could be I don\’t know a discount off of you know sitting some sort of a special package deal or something like that so making sure that you understand what that offer is going to be to attract your ideal audience and then Step number three for me here is really identifying who that ideal target audience is. So first three steps to determine the goal. You know what do you want to get out of your Facebook ads campaign so you can really work backwards from that goal and then figuring out once you know what that goal is. What\’s the offer that you\’re going to use to attract that ideal audience and what that ideal audience is really identifying who that ideal target audience is. Most people when I talk to them about you know do you understand who your target audience is. Generally I get the answer of oh yeah totally no problem.

[00:06:27] Then when we dive into it and we really dig into do they truly know who the ideal target audience is. There is always room for improvement. I have a really good understanding of who my target audience is but I\’m always learning about that audience so be sure and identify who your ideal target audience is but also be willing to continue to learn more about them. Those are the top three things I would do to get started now I have a few more steps here for you as well then as far when it comes to putting your ad together you could use some of your photography that you are taking in your ads and I think you know something like using a carousel ad would be something that I\’d be really I\’d be definitely testing out. I think that could be really interesting. Maybe you do want a slideshow type of that you know like a video ad with different images that you\’re using from or that you\’re taking with your photography. Of course you want to get your client\’s permission to be able to use their photographs in your ads. But you know after your right ear identifying your audience then you want to get into OK. What\’s the ad going to look like. And then because you understand what your goal is and the offer that you\’re going to make and who your ideal audience is that\’s going to help you in speaking to that ideal audience about your offer.

[00:07:45] And so that\’s where it comes into you know what the what the ad itself is going to look like the photography the images maybe you do a video of what it\’s like to do a photo session with you. Maybe you\’re including some happy Testim happy customer testimonials in there or something like that. And that\’s also again understanding all this is going to help you write that copy as well to market what that offer is. So those are the first five things that you want to make sure that you understand where you\’re going to be sending your traffic. So once people click on your on your Facebook ad where are they going or are they going to your Web site. They go into a landing page then you want to launch your ads and then this is the really really important not not these other seven steps aren\’t important. But then you want to be tracking your numbers and knowing your numbers especially as a local business in a photography business here like we\’re talking about knowing your numbers is going to be key. So not only what you know how successful are your Facebook ads but how many of those people are converting into paying customers and so forth. I\’d recommend that you listen to episode 137 of the podcast here which you can find at Rick Mulready dot com forward slash 1:37 on that episode. I talked to I interviewed my friend Amy McHugh and she joined me to share how she uses Facebook ads to grow her local photography business. We dive into all of this stuff that we\’re talking about here especially the numbers part one thing that really came out in that episode is how well Amber knows her numbers and because of that she can use her knowledge to run really profitable Facebook ads and be testing to find out what works and what doesn\’t.

[00:09:23] So those are the eight steps determine the goal then number step number two is what\’s the offer going to be you know discount off a sitting some sort of a special package whatever the offer is going to be to attract your ideal audience which in Step number three you want to be making sure that you identify that ideal target audience if you have an already set number four. What\’s your ad going to look like. You know actually I\’d say Step number four and five What\’s your ad going to look like. Is it going to be images that are going to have you know photography from your from your business maybe do a video like a behind the scenes video of what it what it\’s like to do a photo session with you in that video maybe include some some testimonials of happy customers then you want to make sure that you\’re clear on where you\’re sending that traffic website or landing page launching those bad boys launching those ads. And then obviously with the last part here tracking those numbers so that you can optimize your ads and again knowing your numbers is really key. And I mention as I mentioned episode number one hundred and thirty seven we dive into actually this exact example here with Amber McHugh and her local photography business so really good question. Thank you so much Deseret for that and I appreciate you listening to the show. The next question comes from Drew Swanson what\’s up Drew. Andrew wants to know actually three different questions here. Number one how does a one man show map out a converting sales funnel.

[00:10:47] Number two what Facebook ad strategies work best to get leads without having to produce lead magnet content which may not even convert at number three what material works best for retargeting and I want to approach this question kind of from a few different angles here. For Drew and the first thing I want to mention here is around mindset you know how does a one man show Napo converting sales funnel. Well you look at your business and again kind of going back to the same thing we talked about with Desmarais is the first thing we want to look at is what\’s the goal like what we want to get out of our Facebook ads campaign and from there we work backwards from that goal. What are all the steps that need to happen in order for that goal to be accomplished with our Facebook ads. And so you know whether you\’re a one man show or whether you\’re a 50 person business mapping out this converting you know quote unquote converting sales funnel we like We hope we don\’t know it\’s going to be converting until we start testing. But if we\’re mapping out a sales funnel regardless of what type of business we are we want to start with the end goal in mind and work backwards from from there. Okay. And then secondly here what Facebook as strategies work best to get leads without having to produce lead content which may not even convert. I think this is a mindset thing. Andrew I really want to encourage you. You know you have to be able to or you have to be willing to I should say know your audience how you can help them.

[00:12:18] So again going back to what we talked about in the previous question with Desiree\’s question is identifying who your target audience is and how you can uniquely help them. Right. And then once you know that then you can start to put together different offers and lead magnate\’s and so forth. And if you\’re not willing to do that then I would say you know I\’m going to go a little bit a little bit extreme here and I\’d say if you\’re not willing to test out if you\’re not willing to if you just want things to work overnight and I\’m not saying that you know you expect overnight results but I\’m getting a little bit of maybe resistance from this from the second part here where you ask what Facebook as strategies work best to get leads without having to produce lead content which may not even convert Well you\’ve got to be willing to test different things out right in order to get leads you have to offer something in return. And what that offer is going to be is going to be different for everybody right. But that really comes with knowing your audience and how you can specifically help them. And then using that information to put together different offers to test out and lead maggot\’s and so forth you\’ve got to be willing to test. So you\’ve got to have the right mindset around that. And then the third part of this is what material works best for retargeting. If you\’re just starting out here I would start with the basic right. If you\’re if you\’re sending traffic from your ad to an opt in page for example you can just retarget people who come to the optin page but don\’t opt in.

[00:13:51] And so we\’re trying to get them to move further along our sales funnel if you are sending traffic from your ad to a piece of content like a blog post or for example you can retarget those people who visit that landing page with you know the ability to opt in or register or whatever. You know again we\’re using retargeting to move people further along. Our sales funnel. Another another another real basic part of a retargeting is if you have a video you can create engagement audiences with with the people who are watching your videos and then retarget them based on how long they watch those videos. So lots of different ways to get started with retargeting that are actually quite quite simple there. But I\’d say the biggest one around this question here Drew is the mindset. You\’ve got to have the mindset that testing is going to be something that you\’re going to have to do in order to see success with this. And you know how does a one man show a quote unquote map out converting sales funnel. You just you just start and you just get really clear on what you want to accomplish in your business using Facebook ads and then work backwards from from that goal meaning what are the steps that need to happen in order to take somebody on Facebook who doesn\’t necessarily know who you are. Introduce them to you how you can help them build that relationship with them and then nurture that relationship into a sale. OK that\’s how it approach everything. So thank you very much Drew for that question really good question there as well.

[00:15:25] The next question comes from Joel lezzy Esky I think I\’m pronouncing that right Joel. Joel says I\’m starting a small Facebook Ads agency from zero and I want a niche down to local fitness businesses and Vancouver B.C.. For those of you guys who have given me a hard time to jokingly give me a hard time about knish and niche because I always used to say niche I would like to take note. I am now saying Neech pretty much across the board total sign out there and say what he wants and needs down to local fitness businesses and Vancouver B.C. And he says what would be the first three things that you tackle out of the gates to get started. Free service for Case Study. My own Facebook ads targeting potential clients cold email inquiry. Where would I start. And the first thing I\’d want to know to really answer this question for Joel is to understand you know how well do you know Facebook ads. I\’m assuming that since you\’re saying I\’m starting a small Facebook ad agency from zero I\’m guessing that you don\’t have a lot of experience with Facebook so I\’m going to answer this question with that sort of assumption here. In that case I would offer you a free service for in exchange for a case study and testimonial maybe one or two clients in the end this year the local fitness business Neech there in Vancouver. OK. And so I would I try to get maybe one or two and that really depends on how comfortable you are and how quickly you can get comfortable with running Facebook ads for this type of business. OK.

[00:17:09] And when you\’re doing that you know I\’d really recommend testing out different offers to really see what works for this. For this Neech because then you can use that case study or case studies and testimonials to get other local fitness clients that are just like the ones you started to started to work with. And I might do you know I might be willing to do a free trial for maybe two to four weeks working with working with somebody spending you know a smaller budget on that. But that conversation really has to be around look like I\’m willing to do this. And again if you are just starting out I would be up front with them and be some you know say something like You know I\’m looking to. This is my experience I\’m looking to get more experience and I think it could really help you and willing to do this for you for whatever length of time that you want to do say two to four weeks for free. All you have to do is pay for the actual Facebook ads. And I would say you know what this is going to cost you for an ad spend this is say $300 for the month something like that. And it\’s really up to you. You know how you want to do that in that case obviously we\’re talking about $10 a day or so $300 for the for the month and then you have a cost and you let them know look we\’re going to have a conversation at the end of this free service trial and we\’ll talk about possible next steps of working together. OK.

[00:18:30] And again then you can use that case study and testimonial to get other local fitness clients from there in as far as how do you get them. I would first identify who you might want to start working with and walk in and talk to the manager. Identify those businesses find out who the manager is or or just walk in and speak and ask to speak to the manager. I wouldn\’t go in at peak times. You know earlier in the morning or in the evening after work I\’d probably go in the middle of the day when it\’s a little bit less busy in the gym and the manager\’s probably a little bit more accessible at that point. So that\’s how I would approach I would approach that. Also another resource here for you definitely listen to episode number one hundred and twenty six of the podcasts here. That\’s where I interviewed one of my original students Rob Bailey and he does exactly what we\’re talking about here as far as anything down in the local fitness business area. He\’s actually here in San Diego and he\’s done an amazing job building a really really great business. Multiple six figure business with with that so we check that out. That\’s episode number one hundred and twenty six. All right. Now the next question lots of people have been asking about the updates to the bidding options that you see in the optimization and delivery section of when you\’re setting up your ads at the asset level and these two are two new options are called ones called lowest cost and the other is called Target costs. Let\’s break down what each one of these things means now lowest cost.

[00:20:03] Basically what Facebook used to call automatic bidding. Now don\’t freak out because there\’s new updates. You know there are new names to these things. Really Facebook is just trying to rename them to sort of better better explain what the functionality actually is. So it\’s not a big you know it\’s not a big difference from what it used to be. OK. So lowest cost is pretty much what Facebook used to call automatic bidding. So with this option Facebook is still going to try and get you the lowest cost automatically. Right. So you\’re basically telling OK Facebook based on the what I\’m optimizing for let\’s say conversions or whatever. You\’re telling Facebook get me as many conversions for the lowest costs. OK. Now you can also now set up a bid cap. So if you want if you know your numbers and you want to make sure that you that Facebook doesn\’t bid more than a certain amount for the result that you\’re looking for you can set a bid cap. OK. So this is the lowest cost option this is what Facebook used to call automatic bidding. Now the other new cost here is called target cost. And this is more of what the manual bidding option used to be. And this is available you\’ll see it in your ads Menger your setup when you\’re using the app install objective the conversion objective or the product catalog sales objective. So if you\’re doing e-commerce. OK. If you\’re not using one of those campaign types those objectives then you\’re not going to see target cost.

[00:21:41] And this is really for when you\’re looking to maintain a stable average cost per result. Right. So if you\’re looking for an average cost per. Conversion. At your desired target costs Okay. So if you\’re looking for stability even as you\’re increasing your spend this might be an option for you. Now hang with me here and second talk through this a little bit more and this is going to make more sense. Basically when you choose to target cost Facebook is going to try and get as close to that target cost as possible. After about 50 of the results that you\’re looking for meaning what you\’re optimizing for like conversions for example. Okay. And so what you do is you enter in what your target cost per that action that you\’re optimizing for like conversions and Facebook will bid in the auction. Remember we have to remember that Facebook is a the whole platform is a bidding is an auction platform and Facebook will bid to try and meet that cost that you have put in there. Right now keep in mind this is going to be an average meaning that some bids might be more some bids might be less but on average Facebook is looking to get you stability in whatever cost that you have put in there right now with that option if you choose if you choose the target cost option. You have to remember that again you might have higher or fluctuating cost until that first 50 or so conversions are the actions that you want is complete maybe you might not be able to spend your full budget if your target cost is too low.

[00:23:18] Right so if the target costs you put in there is too low and the bidding you know of what of the audience that youre trying to reach is way above that you\’re not going to spend your full budget. And also you\’ve got to remember that your cost per results right. It is being optimized for maybe higher. With this strategy. Okay this is more of an advanced option. So if you if if for those of you guys who are listening who really know your numbers and you know what your lead cost should be and the value of a customer is to your business this might be an option that you might want to test out. So again this is very similar to the manual bidding option that Facebook has had for a very long time. They\’ve now called it target cost. Okay. And again this is more of an advanced option what we can see here is because with the target cost there and also with the lowest cost option which is the first one I talked about the automatic bidding basically where Facebook also now allows you to set a bid cap what this really comes down to is you can see a shift here where like I talk about a lot here in the podcast is about knowing your numbers and Facebook is really shifting towards that. The more you know the data the more that you know your numbers the more that you know what your return on ad spend should be. The lead CATIA be the value of a customer knowing your numbers from start to finish. You can really use that to put that information into when you\’re setting up your Facebook ads and let Facebook\’s ads algorithm get you the results based on your numbers.

[00:25:00] Right. And don\’t forget you have the r o s option when you are when you\’re looking at the data. This is the return on ad spend option and this will help you determine the value of the leads whenever possible this means basically that you can put the value of the sale whatever you\’re selling which is say you\’re selling a $97 program you can put that $97 within the Facebook pixel on the thank you page of the sale conversion and then you can look at the return on ad spend right there within as manager. OK. So the more data you can have the more of the numbers that you know for your campaigns you can use that information to try and manipulate if you will. Facebook\’s algorithm to get you the results that you\’re looking for. OK. But again target costs this is more of the manual bidding option that has been around for a long time. This is more advanced and then the lowest cost option is more of that automatic bidding. And remember for the target cost you\’re only going to see it when you\’re using the app install objective the conversion objective or the product catalog sales objective. Now if you\’re look if you listen to this you like Rick I have no idea what you\’re talking about. I haven\’t seen this option yet. You\’ll see it there in your ads manager set up at the ads set level and Facebook does a really good job of explaining this so if you\’re kind of you get in there you\’re kind of lost. You can just have like little learn more links that you can check out.

[00:26:28] So definitely do that if you are listening to this and you\’re like Rick I have no idea who you\’re talking about. All right let\’s move on to the final question and this is also another one I\’ve been getting a lot of from people and it has to do with ad costs. And people are wondering should we expect a big increase in ad costs now that the holidays are upon us. I can\’t believe I\’m saying that right now but we are here in the middle of almost in the middle of October and. Yes. Well first of all before I get into that. First off I\’m going to be doing a whole episode here coming up on the podcast all about holiday advertising on Facebook and how you can take advantage of that so stay tuned for that. But talking about the cost and we\’ll talk more about it during that episode as well. But with the costs. Yes absolutely. Costs are going to be increasing for the holidays and costs have been increasing for a while now. On the Facebook platform it has become more competitive and so because of that costs are increasing there\’s five million advertisers now on Facebook. And you know in Facebook only has so much inventory right to to be to be running ads through. So once the competition goes up that\’s when the costs are going to increase as well. So with the holidays here costs are definitely going to be increasing from pretty much now through the end of the year. Maybe at the end of October through the end of the year.

[00:27:56] So just to kind of try and give you a couple of you know sort of specifics here if you\’re doing conversion campaigns I might be ready for doubling what you expect to be paying. If you\’re looking for app installs applet app installs is a big time initiative and strategy here. You know during the holiday season I might be expecting triple what you know be ready to be for for triple what you might expect to be paying so conversions. You know the costs are going to be going up as well as the app installs. But you know look this should not stop you from advertising during the holiday season if you\’ve got a good product if you\’ve got a good service if you have you know whatever offer you have out there to be helping your ideal target audience. And again it really comes down to knowing your numbers. But don\’t let this stop you from advertising on on Facebook during the holidays but just be aware that you know pretty much from now through the end of the year maybe that at the end of October definitely after the end of October through New Year\’s costs are going to be are going to be higher because of the holiday season. So I do hope this was really helpful for you. I love answering your questions and talking through all these things for you so keep the questions coming. If you have I haven\’t talked about this in a few episodes here if you like to win a 30 minute strategy call with me all you have to do is go over to Facebook Messenger and give me your feedback on this podcast.

[00:29:28] And specifically I\’d like to hear what you like to hear more of like topics guests style of the show frequency length whatever. Any kind of ideas you like to share with me. I\’d love to hear them so to share your ideas and feedback with me. Message me over on Facebook. You can go to Rick Mulready dot com forward slash messenger and that will redirect you that pop your messenger. And you can message me right there with your ideas and feedback. And at the end of each month are going to be picking one person at random at the end of the month to win a 30 minute strategy call with me during that call we can talk about whatever you\’d like your Facebook ad strategy growing your business online marketing strategy growing your team whatever it is they like to talk about. So let me know. Shoot me a message over on Facebook Messenger. I\’ve set up an easy link which will allow you to message me right there on Facebook. Rick Mulready dot com forward slash messenger actually it read the I\’m going to be when I\’m wrapping up here I\’m going be messaging the winner for September right after this and rescheduling that\’s that call with that person and then sharing that strategy call right here on the podcast with you. So really looking forward to your feedback the feedback so far has been amazing we\’ve created a massive document taking in all this information and it\’s really playing into how this podcast is evolving for you. Because that\’s the way I do it right. I want to bring you the best information so that I\’m able to help you grow your business quickly and efficiently.

[00:31:01] So thank you again in advance for doing that and thank you so much for hanging out today really appreciate it.

[00:31:06] Got lots of great episodes lined up for you in the coming weeks here on the podcast so until then my friends keep testing your paid traffic to find out what works for you and your business. And then knew more of what\’s working. And I\’ll see you in the next episode.