![[QUĀY.jo]](https://theartofonlinebusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AOOB-Logo-White-150x118.png){kind=logo}
We break down common Facebook & Instagram ads mistakes and offer practical strategies for making your ads profitable.
You’ll learn how to fix the other common funnel mistakes that hurt your funnel revenue. Plus, we discuss why it’s crucial to have your offer converting organically before spending on ads.
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel!
Please click here to give an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes! Thanks for your support!
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Apply for Kwadwo’s Facebook Ads management services
- Get 1:1 Meta Ads Coaching from Kwadwo!
- Watch the previous episode: Boost Online Course Sales Ethically Using Urgency with Jacques Hopkins
Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie’s Links:
Jamie Sampany-Kessie’s Links:
- Say hi to Jamie on Instagram
Speaker 1:
Okay, so hear me out. If you’ve run Facebook ads before and you’ve ended up losing money, you’re not alone, and it’s not that Facebook ads don’t work. Here’s the truth. They’re actually really hard to run, and so in this episode what to do if you’ve tried Facebook ads before and lost money we’re gonna demystify some things about Facebook ads and give you some hope to try again, but tell you the right way. And we’re also going to jump into the kind of pricing you should have on your offers so they can sell. And if you’re like, but Quajo, I have pricing that’s higher than something I could run ads directly to. Well, I’ll also give you an idea of three different types of funnels that could sell your offer. All that and coming up in this episode of the art of online business.
Speaker 2:
So by the end of this episode, you’ll understand the common mistakes that course creators make when they are running Facebook ads, what it takes to run them profitably and how to know if you’re ready to try again with the right strategy this time. So I want to clarify what does I’ve tried running Facebook ads really mean, because I we’ve heard that so many times from people. Or I’ve gotten burned or I’ve tried it before, but I just want to talk about and clarify what that means. So when someone has claimed that they have tried Facebook ads, maybe it’s you, but in reality, maybe you just boosted a post on Instagram or on Facebook. It popped up and you’re like, hey, I can get some more reach with it.
Speaker 1:
And it really sucked because like I mean, like we’re laughing, but like I’ve been there, Like putting my hard earned cash into Facebook or Instagram ads the wrong way Like it does suck. So I just want to tell you that I can empathize with many of dollars that I’ve paid in ignorance tax.
Speaker 2:
Actually, Right, right. I feel like all of us at some point have boosted a post because it just seems so easy and like, oh, I can do that. But really that’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall and just seeing what sticks right. So that’s not what I mean when I say you’ve tried Facebook ads, but perhaps you have run ads to an offer that wasn’t already converting well, organically.
Speaker 1:
You want to make sure that your content is already performing and how would you know if an offer is converting well organically already, if people are already signing up for your lead magnet, or you’re getting likes, you’re getting shares, comments.
Speaker 2:
all of those things are showing that, that people are engaging well with your content, or is your offer converting when you try to sell it on Instagram stories?
Speaker 1:
Are you making sales? If you’re having to sell it inside of your DMs. Are you making sales profitably if you’re launching your offer or if you’re selling to your email list, for example, every month? Is it selling? That’s what we mean by. Is it converting? Well, organically.
Speaker 2:
Right. Also, possibly you could be running poorly set up ads to your lead magnet or your launch. There are so many settings inside of ads manager that could go wrong, even as ads managers and we’re in accounts all the time, and it’s so sneaky, right, these little buttons that are already clicked or that you need to click on, and it can be really kind of tricky.
Speaker 1:
And so if things aren’t set up in here, yeah, go ahead and just say that buying a course about Facebook ads and Instagram ads and then setting up your ads to that like according to however they taught you in the course is one thing. Learning how to read the signs and manage your ads is a completely different thing.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And I mean I have a course that teaches you how to set up lead generation ads for Facebook and Instagram and I have a one-on-one coaching service.
Speaker 1:
And I say this because I have coached one-on-one with folks who purchased another course.
Speaker 1:
They just weren’t quite sure exactly how to follow.
Speaker 1:
Like the instructions in the other course, or the other course taught them how to set up their ads, but it still wasn’t clear if they were doing it right, nor did they know how to continue to manage those ads, and I feel like that’s where a lot of courses go or fall short is they don’t show you how to look at the signs or for you to figure out over time, like how those ads are performing, and so there could be a bunch of scenarios where you have tried Facebook ads and you feel like they didn’t work out, and it really I just want you know there’s hope and you can use Facebook ads to sell your offer and if you need the help, reach out to me.
Speaker 1:
Like this is a service I provide not just ads management but one-on-one Facebook ads coaching and we can get your ads working, especially if you’re trying to sell a course that has already been selling, that could be you need launch help prepping your ads or you need help getting your SLO funnel to work. Like this is the kind of help that I love to give right.
Speaker 2:
Sometimes we just need someone right there to just.
Speaker 2:
I just need someone to walk me through this right and figure it out for my offer specifically and what’s gonna work for me. So why does it matter to have an offer that is selling organically? If your offer doesn’t sell organically, then your ads won’t magically make it profitable. You can’t. We always have the saying here that Jesus saves. Ads do not, and so you can’t just say, oh, I have this offer and it’s not really converting. Well, it’s not selling, but I’m gonna throw some ad money at it and see if that will help. You don’t wanna do that, you hear, but I’m going to throw some ad money at it and see if that will help.
Speaker 1:
You don’t want to do that. I want to get more eyes on my offer or get it in front of more people, and it’s not that it’s that the messaging needs to change on your offer to make it sell, or maybe the value you provide in the offer needs to change. It’s really just that you need to lower the price but still follow the signs, as in when you, like I said before, post it on Instagram, or when you sell to your email list, like does it sell? When you launch, does it sell? And what sign is really important?
Speaker 1:
Look for the amount of revenue you generate per the number of leads that you had your offer in front of so you can get this number. We talked about it in the previous episode, which we will also link up in the show notes below, but so that you can arrive at this number, that’s called earnings per lead, and the higher that number the better, like $15, $20, $30 because inevitably, when you buy leads with Facebook Ads or Instagram ads which what you’re doing you have profit in there for your offer. So let’s talk price shall Right.
Speaker 2:
So what is a good price point that you should be targeting?
Speaker 1:
If you’re running Facebook and Instagram ads directly to a low ticket offer, then this section is for you. So I just want to say, like, low ticket for me is something that’s $67 or lower and you want to make sure that your value is clearly above whatever price point You’re selling it at it now. The reason we can run ads successfully to low ticket offers is because Somebody who has never heard of you before is not going to spend like $900. It just doesn’t work like that.
Speaker 1:
Right and so your offer needs to be priced pretty Inexpensively. As an ads manager over the past you know, four years now the most expensive thing I’ve ever run ads to Directly and had it sell profitably for a client was a hundred and twenty seven dollar offer. But that clients that was really hard. First of all, roas return on return on spend, as in I give Facebook $1 and it gives me back $2. The ROAS was not super high and it was just it was really hard to do. I recommend, you know, if you’re going to try to run ads directly to an offer, then you should have that offer be priced at $37, $27, $47,. You know, the higher the price, the better your messaging has to be, the more you have to understand the pain points that your target market has, or ideal client has, surrounding that offer, and they can’t be pain points that you came up with by yourself. They have to be researched, proven pain points that they actually have.
Speaker 1:
Now there’s something that you also need to understand that if you run ads directly to an offer, in Order to make this work for you, you will want to have an order bump that’s aligned with that offer. An order bump just means on the checkout page, there’s this little, even cheaper thing. That’s $17 maybe, and you can toggle it off and on. It’s like would you also like to get this? That’s the order bump, right, and then you should have an upsell. That is on the next page, and then the upsell can be another offer, another program, if you will, that’s priced anywhere between, say, $100 and $497. And by having an order bump and an upsell, you are going to increase what’s called your average cart value, the average amount that each purchaser, customer, spins with you.
Speaker 1:
And it’s by doing that that you can have a successful self-liquidating offer funnel ie run ads directly to an offer. If you don’t have an order bump or an upsell, you’re leaving lots of money on the table. The stats are that 15 to 20% of the people that are getting your core offer also get the order bump and another 5 to 10% will get the upsell. So make sure you have those in place and your chances of making money running Facebook and Instagram ads directly to an offer go higher or go up.
Speaker 2:
So, kwejo, what if you have an offer that is more, say, it’s $4.97 or higher? Even, what do you do?
Speaker 1:
And you’re saying you can’t sell like a cheaper low ticket offer.
Speaker 2:
Right If someone has just like a high ticket item.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so in that case you want to think of a funnel, traditional funnel, to sell that offer and we will outline, let’s talk through three funnels. Let’s say this offer, fictitious offer, that we’re gonna make up now is 497. Like, how do we sell that? Wanna get into it.
Speaker 1:
Let’s do it Cool before we do. If you’re watching or listening to this and you have lost money before and you don’t want to lose money again and you have an offer that’s selling organically, then head down to the link in the descriptions on YouTube or show notes on whatever audio podcast platform you’re listening to, and click on that link to book a one-on-one coaching call with me, because I will walk you through setting up your ads the right way. We both look at ads day in and day out for hours, and so there’s just a lot of experience that we have and we’ve been running Facebook and Instagram ads combined for over four years, so that you don’t have to do all that. You can benefit just with coaching with us. So that link is in the description below to book your session. So here’s three funnels. Let’s talk about the webinar funnel.
Speaker 1:
You wanna break down the components of a solid webinar funnel.
Speaker 2:
Sure, so you’re gonna run your ads, they’re gonna go to an opt-in page and then from there that person is going to get your reminder email. Then they’ll go to your webinar and then from there you will sell on the webinar, of course, but then after that they’re also gonna get sales emails if they don’t purchase right there on the webinar, and then those sales emails obviously will take them to your sales page.
Speaker 1:
Right. So it’s your typical webinar system and of course, there’s a lot here that you need to get right. For example, is your opt-in page set up correctly and the messaging is set up right, so it will convert, you know, 30% or above. Can I insert something really quick?
Speaker 2:
For the opt-in page. You want to make sure that the only thing they can do on that page is sign up for your webinar. You don’t wanna take them to your website. You don’t want them to be able to click around in a bunch of different places and get lost and get confused at what they’re actually doing. Give them one task, and one task only on that opt-in page, which is to sign up for the webinar.
Speaker 1:
Yep, yep, yep, yep and same thing. You wanna make sure that the messaging in your emails is pretty good and that you’re actually selling in the email, not just providing. Here’s a mistake you wanna avoid. Don’t just provide more value to supplement your webinar in the emails. Those follow-up emails are to sell and to sell and to sell. Otherwise, you’re just going to end up being like a professional educator and people will just keep getting free education from you and they’re not going to buy your offer we talk about.
Speaker 1:
We usually have guests that talk about online business things, and our Friday show tends to be about ads. But you forget, like we are in somebody’s funnel usually when we’re running Facebook ad and Instagram ads. But you forget, like we are in somebody’s funnel usually when we’re running Facebook ad and Instagram ads for them. Plus, I’ve been coaching established online course creators, you know, with revenue between like $600,000 and over $1 million like for over a hand, no, about a handful of years now. So there’s a lot of wisdom that we have that we just don’t normally talk about.
Speaker 1:
That comes to funnels. This your basic webinar funnel. The next kind of funnel that you could use to sell your 497 course would be like a lead magnet to an email like well, this would be where you have a lead magnet, and then you have emails that sell right. And so the trick here is you have a lead magnet that delivers a quick win and that quick win is highly aligned, or the problem that that lead magnet solved is highly aligned with the problem that your paid offer solved. Let’s say that your lead magnet solves like one problem, but your paid offer solves 10 problems.
Speaker 1:
Well, the key here, in a non-triggering way, is to solve that issue for the lead magnet, but then in the follow-up emails be those case study emails and also sales emails let the person know that this is just one issue. Along the way, there’s other issues that they will experience as they want to get this success that your core offer does provide. And so then you’re going to be selling that offer inside of a lead magnet funnel. We had Jock on our podcast, who he coaches course creators how to do this, and he was sharing some decent insight there. We’ll link this episode up below, and he was sharing some decent insight there. We’ll link this episode up below. The reason I mentioned Jock is because he explained how to sell in like this follow-up email sequence ethically using urgency ethical urgency, if you will.
Speaker 1:
It was a really intriguing episode and he explains how to have a discount or a bonus that goes away but when it goes away it actually goes away and the way you can use a timer ethically to add urgency and achieve that which will move more people off of the decision fence, if you will, and into your offer, where you can help them.
Speaker 2:
So what’s the last one we have is a low ticket offer funnel or a tripwire. So you wanna break that down for us, Guajin Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:
This is like it’s similar to when you’re running ads directly to an offer. But the key difference is is this offer? You’re not running ads to it, you’re running ads directly to a free lead magnet, and on the thank you page of that lead magnet is the trip wire, which I don’t like that terminology. I tend to use a welcome offer. But everything we said about a low ticket offer applies to the trip wire. You want it to be priced between 17 and, let’s say, $57, right there on that Thank you page, and then you must have an order bump that’s aligned with the welcome offer and the upsell. That way, when somebody does buy the core offer, the tripwire offer, the welcome offer, you’re not leaving money on the table by not having an order bump and an upsell.
Speaker 1:
Now there is one issue here. It would be incorrect to assume that if you take a self-liquidating offer funnel, as in an offer that you would run ads direct to, and put it on the back end of a free lead magnet, you will not make the same amount of money. It just won’t happen. So there’s a benefit here, but there’s also a downside. So here’s the pros of taking a, here’s the pros of running ads directly to an offer you can have that be profitable and you can be getting paid to add buyers to your list. Those are the best kind of new people to subscribe to your email list. Now the cons are that if you run ads directly to a low ticket offer, there’s gonna be plenty of people who are interested and they will not buy. Those people will not be added to your email list, and so you are missing out on a lot of people that you could nurture.
Speaker 1:
Now here’s the pros of setting up a tripwire, if you will, where that means you’re going to run ads directly to a lead magnet and the offer will be on the thank you page. So everyone who opts into the lead magnet gets onto your email list, whether they buy the offer or not. Now the cons is that maybe 2% of the people that opt in for the free lead magnet are going to buy your offer. You’re just gonna get fewer people buying that offer because they came to you with a freebie mindset and then when they see something for sale, they’re just not in the mindset to buy. Therefore, most will not buy. So you have to decide. I recommend test both, but they each come with their pros and cons. For example, I will say that I have never seen a tripwire be profitable. At best I’ve seen an offer on the thank you page of a freebie sell and maybe recoup like 50% of that ad spend. The number that’s really coming up for me is 40% at best and that’s huge right.
Speaker 1:
That means you had something so good with such good messaging that people who are coming to you for something for free instantly change their minds on the thank you page and decide to pull out their credit card and buy right. Like that’s the challenge here. So don’t expect that you’re going to make 100% of your lead magnet ad spend back if you put a tripwire on that thank you page. That would be just an unhealthy expectation. However, the higher percentage of ad spend you can get back, the better. So why not put that offer there but also test it as running ads directly to it?
Speaker 2:
Right, you just have to decide which strategy you want to do. It depends on your offer, your audience, your price point, all of those things. So just plan that out, what you’re going for.
Speaker 1:
So let’s talk a little bit. I know we started off this episode chatting about, you know, if you quote unquote, tried Facebook ads and lost money. But here’s some ways that you can optimize your funnel and not lose money. Huh, or make more money First and the one. Jamie, you want to start us off.
Speaker 2:
Right, you want to make sure that your messaging in your ads aligns with your funnel content. So it can be really tricky if your ad is saying one thing and then they get to, you know, the opt-in page, the thank you page, and they’re like it’s saying something different here. So you really want to make sure that those are aligned in your messaging.
Speaker 1:
And then that funnel content. It needs to bridge the gap between what they got as a lead magnet and what you’re trying to sell. You’d be surprised when that’s not addressed, and specifically what I mean here. One example is like if you have a case study, the best kind of case studies are people who bought your core offer and then struggled with a pain point. That’s, I guess, a pain point that’s in between, or a pain point that somebody might have after they’ve consumed your free content and that leads into the core offer.
Speaker 1:
For example, maybe you sell a dog training course and your free content was just some simple steps to get your dog to sit here. Well then, like, your case study should probably be about someone who had a dog and that dog like kept biting people, or that dog was chasing kids, you know, or maybe it took them, maybe they hadn’t been able to train their dog to sit for like five months after trying, and then they got your course and they were able to train their dog how to sit, like in two weeks, right. So, like, this kind of alignment is really really good. Also, we talked about this in the previous episode, right? Jamie Funnels with too many steps.
Speaker 2:
Right. If it’s not clear or they have too many things to click on, the call to action isn’t clear, then they’re they’re just gonna be lost. They’re gonna be lost on your website or not really sure where to go. So make sure that your funnel is just very simple and very clear. So lack of follow-up is next on the list.
Speaker 1:
Yes, Follow-up, my gosh over the years, the number of people who I’ve coached and then just seen or met. They have a lead magnet and they don’t email after that. It’s like, you deliver the lead magnet in one or two emails, and then that’s it.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And then the people sit on your email list and maybe maybe you send out one email a week about your weekly podcast. That is not following up. We need some sales emails in there. We need some nurture emails, some case studies. You need to be pointing folks to your podcast, yes, so they can hear you and understand all the value you can offer and build authority, but let’s follow up with sales emails that pitch.
Speaker 2:
They say the fortune is in the follow up. We’re learning about that pitch. They say the fortune is in the follow-up.
Speaker 1:
We’re learning about that too.
Speaker 1:
We are also.
Speaker 1:
I am guilty as charged Like if you, for example, if you download my lead magnet here’s a very meta place to pug a lead magnet about meta ads but if you download it because you want to discover the seven biggest mistakes that course creators are making with their Facebook and Instagram ads, so you can save money on your Facebook and Instagram ads, then you will see other emails that come out and they give you some value and they also give you an opportunity to buy my course called the Lead Generation Cheat Code, my course called the lead generation cheat code.
Speaker 1:
So that’s, you can get that lead magnet and see exactly a decent way to provide value and sell. But selling is serving and so if you’re not selling, then you’re not serving, as we used to here in another business way back in the day circa 2008. Open mouth, open business, right. Why funnel optimization matters for ad success? This is all about the gap that you need to play in between earnings per lead and your cost per lead down here. If you’re watching on the YouTube channel, you can see my hands waving around, but when you run ads, you’re paying for your leads and you want the amount of money that you make per lead to be way higher than the amount you pay for leads right.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
If your funnel is optimized, then a higher percentage of people that come in as a paid lead will convert, and that can drastically improve your profits, thus making you and your family happy.
Speaker 2:
Exactly those small tweaks in your funnel. Improving your training like getting some training on how to do your webinar, fixing email copy and your messaging, and just those little things like that can actually make a really big difference, Right this?
Speaker 1:
is something I touch on with every one of my one-on-one ads coaching clients. We spend the first call going through their funnel and I just use my experience and give them quick insights of where they could like swap this, change that, tweak this and improve their funnel profitability. So what are the takeaways for this episode, Jamie?
Speaker 2:
So, first of all, don’t judge your ads based on an offer that didn’t convert organically. Hey don’t say I tried Facebook ads and it didn’t work for me, but make sure you have your offer that’s already converting organically. Next one would be avoid running ads directly to a high ticket offer without a funnel. Remember that’s gonna be really really difficult to do if you have an offer, impossible to do.
Speaker 1:
You might as well just burn your money. So, don’t put the choose a funnel strategy thing in there. Just remember that optimizing your funnel is also just as important as running your Facebook and Instagram ads Right. If you need hope and help, I’ll give you the help and I’ll give you the hope as I help you improve your funnel and get your ads running exactly like we would run them as Facebook and Instagram ad managers. That link is in the description below.
Speaker 1:
Until the next time. I just want you to know if you have a dog. I love you. I’m just allergic to dogs.
Speaker 2:
And it’s all sneezy and watery.
Speaker 1:
I did’s enough to have I did have a dog, when I was little actually, but it was a mutt and I’m sure I loved it, but I’m sure my parents did not, which is partially why I won’t get my kids dogs they would love to have a dog.
Speaker 2:
They would go insane for a dog? Absolutely would not going to happen in our house, so rather I would rather buy you candles you can slowly burn.
Speaker 1:
we’re’re near the Christmas season. Instead of our money, burn candles, not dollars. Burn candles.
Speaker 2:
All right, that sounds good, all right.
Speaker 1:
We’ll see you in the next episode. Take care, be blessed.
Speaker 2:
Bye, bye.
