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Facebook, Instagram, Apple and Google Apps Search Ads Secrets – Make Money From Your Products
A bit about search ads first.
There are billions of Apps and products out there and it is becoming harder and harder to stand out. You don’t want to spend countless of hours developing your dream app or products just to have close to zero sale per month.
This blog is an aggregate of the best secrets of Apple and Google Apps search ads for successful App developers.
This blog also includes tips and tricks for successful Google Search Ads, Facebook Search Ads and Instagram Search Ads for any product.
Apple Search Ads uses a Cost-Per-Tap (CPT) model, meaning that advertisers need to pay Apple every time someone “taps” on a Search Ad listing after performing a keyword search. While on other traditional mobile ad networks such as Google UAC or Facebook Ads, the advertiser usually pays per app install (Cost-Per Install model, or CPI) after a user saw or interacted with an ad.
Apple offers 2 types of search ads – basic and advanced. Which one should you choose?
I guess it depends upon the type of app and installs you want. Basic is CPI based vs Advanced is CPT based. This might make you think that Basic is better because you only pay when you get an install BUT that’s not the best way of looking at it. Basic has a much higher cost per install CPI than the cost per tap CPT you have from the advanced one. So unless your user either buys an IAP or paid app which makes more money than the CPI you paid to acquire that user, you might lose money.
Also, advanced lets your focus on specific keywords whereas Basic is mostly Apple’s own hidden algorithm showing your ads. Focusing on specific keywords is important because you don’t just want user to download the app, you want them to open and use it too. Since we don’t know how Apple will show your ad for basic, you have no clue whether your app is getting perfectly targeted.
So you may or may not be paying more money for the install using Basic vs Advanced as advanced can get you a lot more impressions of the ad (and more downloads if your metadata is on point).
Apple Search Ads is an intent-based channel
This is important in the post-IDFA era because Apple looks at the context of a particular search to target ads based on keywords. By its very nature, ASA does not rely on IDs to target individuals. Attribution models already have an advantage over other channels that rely on IDs for individual behavioural targeting.
With Apple Search Ads, you can tap into user intent signals that match your offerings and attract higher-quality users. That’s why Apple claims such impressive performance numbers, such as 50 percent average conversion rates and 65 percent download rates.
A bit about search ads first.
I personally would never run Basic for a free app (even if it has IAP) as the CPI is very high and unless I have a high conversion rate for the IAP, I would be losing money. For a paid app, it might work well though.
I have mostly tested Advanced. I did run Basic but the CPI was way too high so I stopped it. For advanced, I would advice:
Start small but not too small. Like don’t set a daily budget of under $5 or over $20. Start with lets say $10 and keep it like that for 1-2 weeks and see how it works. Adjust the keywords in the search ad, adjust your screenshots, icon and other metadata to make it look more attractive if you notice people are clicking on the ad but not tapping the download button etc.
Before running search ads, make sure you have your freemium app monetization and DAU (active users) absolutely down. Like if you only have banner ads in the app and no way for user to buy the in app purchase, don’t bother with search ads yet if your cost per acquisition is too high. For example if your CPA is $2 in an extremely competitive app category, and you spend $2 to acquire a new user or you waste $2 on a user who taps on the ad but doesn’t hit download. You may never make your money back from your ads in the app. Banner ads aren’t even worth it imo unless you have thousands of active users. They hardly make a few pennies per 1000 impressions. Interstitial ads are better and make more money and Rewarded ads are even better. But still, you need to look at numbers to see whether you are at least breaking even.
Apple and Google gives you $100 credit for free to try it out, so use that to test it out and look at numbers, make changes etc.
Set the search ad settings correctly. There is an option for targeting audience – whom would you like to see your ad and options are “People who already have your app“, “People who don’t have your app” etc. Of course you don’t want to select the first option because they already have your app. You want to acquire new users. You can also choose the age of the audience. So for example, if you have an app which you is meant for people who own houses, you don’t want to target people under 25 or even 30 years old because most of them won’t own houses.
If you are getting taps (you spend money per tap) but not conversions (downloads), that means people are finding something on your app store page which they don’t like. This could be bad or missing reviews, bad screenshots, bad metadata etc. So get honest opinion from non-friends to see what they think of your app store page.
Search ads for paid apps OR apps with in app purchases is different than search ads for free apps. You should make sure your paid app OR IAP is priced right so that you can at least break even and preferably make a profit for every cost per acquiring the customer. For example – if your cost per acquisition is $5 (this can be pretty high for paid apps as a lot of people will often click and ad but then decide not to download the app maybe because of the pricing or some other metadata) and you have priced your app at $2.99, you are just burning money. Be intelligent.
Using keywords of other app names in same category might work for you. But I won’t suggest setting keywords for trademarked apps OR of popular apps which have nothing to do with your app category. This can get you called out for IP/Copyright/Trademark violation. This also won’t convert well because when people are search for a specific app (let’s say Facebook) and your calculator app shows up in the ad, no body is going to click on it as the user obviously is only looking to download Facebook.
I personally don’t like running ads in developing countries as – Admob pays very little in those countries, people don’t buy IAP much, people don’t buy paid apps much.
Don’t bid for keywords which have high competition OR very high CPT. Companies with deep pockets will kill you.
I am not a fan of the option “Search Match” (Automatically match my ad to relevant searches) which Apple gives you. I always disable that option.
Search ads are good if you can afford it and if you have an app which fits the profile. It may or may not work for every app. Always look at numbers.
I’m guessing search ads are the ads you see in the App Store when you are searching for specific apps?
Yes, search ads are for the app store search. So if someone searches for a keyword which you have targeted your ad towards and you win the bidding battle for the ad space for the same keyword against someone else, your app’s ad gets shown.
Is there an average price per click that you pay?
Yes, Apple search ads are CPT based. Cost per tap. So if someone taps your ad, you pay what you won the bid for against some other person’s ads bid. For example – If you bid for a keyword “car” and you have set the maximum CPT at $0.20 and Bob who is also an app developer and is running ads and has set his “car” keyword at a CPT of $0.10, you will pay $0.11 because that’s what it took to win. Of course there are more factors – level of competition for that keyword, higher levels of CPT being bid by others etc which can drive the average CPT higher for you. That’s why you get to set the maximum you are willing to pay per keyword.
How many people searching for apps, see my game as an ad, and click on it per day for $10?
There is no general range of how many people might. You can use the maximum CPT to control the amount you spend per tap and you can also set an optional CPA (cost per acquisition) to ensure you don’t run at a loss. However, the first 2 weeks should usually be experimental and test it out with low budgets.
A very important thing to remember – you pay per tap – NOT per download. So if someone taps your ad and notices your screenshots look like crap and doesn’t download your app, you just lost money. This is why you need the metadata to be perfect and use the CPA field after 2 weeks to make sure you don’t run at loss.
Along with that, do you only pay for clicks? Do you pay more if they download your app after the click?
Yes you pay per click (tap to be technically correct). You don’t pay more if they download.
I’m assuming you are constantly tracking How many active users you have and how much revenue you are generally getting to be able to ball-park any change in these numbers based off your ads being displayed.
Yes, I always monitor my ad spend and compare it to how many downloads I got (if this is for a paid app) or how many people bought the IAP and how much revenue I am making per day via Admob. I do this every morning. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t seem to let me track how many of those ad conversions converted into buying the in app purchase. So this throws me off a bit.
So, your CPA. Is this your cost for running the ads per download?
Regarding CPA. They let you set an optional CPA goal when running your ad campaign. Determining it is a bit of work. Like when I am starting out, I don’t have any numbers to look at, so I leave the CPA blank or set it as the same price as my IAP or paid app price. Basically I don’t want the cost per acquisition to exceed the IAP or paid app price because that would mean I am burning money and running at a loss instead of profit. However after running the campaign for 1-2 weeks and looking at the numbers for each day, I can guess a better CPA and if I think I definitely don’t want to exceed a certain number because it would make me lose money instead of break even/profit, I will set it. You don’t want to set the CPA too low – at least initially because then you won’t even get any impressions of your ads. For example: Looking at one of my ad campaigns right now, I have default CPT of $0.10 (cost per tap as you pay every time someone taps your ad – doesn’t matter whether they download or not). They let you set CPT on a per keyword basis too which overrides the default CPT. NOTE that CPT is the maximum amount you are willing to pay for the tap. This means that if you are at a battle with someone else who also wants the same ad space, you can win the battle if your CPT is even a cent higher. You only pay whatever amount it takes to win the battle, not the highest one which you have set your CPT at. So often, your Average CPT will be lesser than what you set it at which is good. So for this campaign, my default CPT is $0.10 and I have a few keywords with custom CPT of $0.20. After looking at my numbers for the past few weeks, I see that for most of my keywords, I have Average CPT of $0.15, $0.16, $0.19 and average CPA of $0.15, $0.33, $0.29. So if I want, after testing it for couple weeks, I can lower the CPA to $0.50 so that I never run it at a loss.
So if I spend 10 dollars in 1 day and 5 people downloaded the app, that would be a $2 CPA? Yes.
And I will repeat my previous statement: I always monitor my ad spend and compare it to how many downloads I got (if this is for a paid app) or how many people bought the IAP and how much revenue I am making per day via Admob. I compare and set the CPA based off of these. I do this every morning. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t seem to let me track how many of those ad conversions converted into buying the in app purchase. So this throws me off a bit.
Have you been able to verify your numbers and whether or not you are profiting based off these ads? Why not bump your ad spending even higher?
I have made money from certain types of apps and lost money by doing stupid stuff (running ad campaigns for a free with ads app but not having an IAP to remove ads, running ad campaigns for apps with only poverty banner ads and no full screen/interstitial/rewarded video ads which at least make some money, running ad campaigns for apps with generic keywords which are very high competition and gets out-bid by much bigger players with much deeper pockets, running ads where my CPA was higher than the money I was making off of the IAP or Paid app, running ad campaigns with a keyword which was for an app not even in my category which made users tap my ad, lose money and then they won’t download, running campaign with a keyword which was trademarked etc).
Basically, be intelligent, research, start slow and experiment with the $100 credit Apple gives you.
A few people asked me about rewarded ads vs interstitial ads for monetization. This is a bit off topic but I will throw this in.
Rewarded ads have a higher eCPM than regular interstitial ads, meaning you get paid more. Of course how high depends upon the type of app, number of users, placement of ads etc. I use Admob’s rewarded ads to mostly unlock features or number of XXX item usage in the app. There are other companies which offer them too. You can read a few points here for example:
The high eCPM is good. What’s even better about them than regular interstitial is that they just provide a better user experience and less negative reviews. This is because the user is willingly choosing to watch an ad instead of their game getting randomly interrupted. And in return, the user gets some type of in app reward – more coins, unlock some feature etc. So this is a win win for the developer and the user.
How do you determine your CPA for an app with IAPs? (Like does iTunes Connect tell you this information?)
They let you set an optional CPA goal when running your ad campaign. Determining it is a bit of work. Like when I am starting out, I don’t have any numbers to look at, so I leave the CPA blank or set it as the same price as my IAP or paid app price. Basically I don’t want the cost per acquisition to exceed the IAP or paid app price because that would mean I am burning money and running at a loss instead of profit.
However after running the campaign for 1-2 weeks and looking at the numbers for each day, I can guess a better CPA and if I think I definitely don’t want to exceed a certain number because it would make me lose money instead of break even/profit, I will set it.
You don’t want to set the CPA too low – at least initially because then you won’t even get any impressions of your ads.
For example:
Looking at one of my ad campaigns right now, I have default CPT of $0.10 (cost per tap as you pay every time someone taps your ad – doesn’t matter whether they download or not). They let you set CPT on a per keyword basis too which overrides the default CPT. NOTE that CPT is the maximum amount you are willing to pay for the tap. This means that if you are at a battle with someone else who also wants the same ad space, you can win the battle if your CPT is even a cent higher. You only pay whatever amount it takes to win the battle, not the highest one which you have set your CPT at. So often, your Average CPT will be lesser than what you set it at which is good.
So for this campaign, my default CPT is $0.10 and I have a few keywords with custom CPT of $0.20.
After looking at my numbers for the past few weeks, I see that for most of my keywords, I have Average CPT of $0.15, $0.16, $0.19 and average CPA of $0.15, $0.33, $0.29.
So if I want, after testing it for couple weeks, I can lower the CPA to $0.50 so that I never run it at a loss.
So essentially with $2,000 its possible to have 10,000+ people click on your ad? That seems like a solid conversion rate if at least 1/10th of them download the app.
Depending upon the type of app, your CPT can vary. For me most of them have been about 20 cents. So yes, 10000 taps from $2000 is a good estimate. However – these are taps – not downloads. For downloads, you need to make sure your metadata is on point! Also you need to have monetization is place – IAP, paid apps etc to make sure you are actually making money off of these users which you are spending money to acquire.
How long did it take for you to start seeing impressions? We have pretty competitive keywords so i’m using extremely high CPT. $10+ and i’m still not seeing any impressions. It’s been 24 hours.
If you haven’t setup scheduled ads, it should be quick. I had mine within an hour if I remember right. I would suggest trying for less competitive keywords though.
What’s your experience and tips for driving iOS game app downloads via paid ads platforms like Facebook Ads, Apple Search Ads, Youtube ads, etc…?
No experience but as a iPhone user i often see myself downloading apps while browsing instagram. So I’d assume you’ll be spot on with instagram/snapchat/tiktok or maybe even youtube shorts.
App Store search ads keyword match types
Search Ads involve three different types of keyword matches.
They are ways for you to tell Apple whether you want to bid on keywords exactly as you enter them or more broadly. This is influenced by campaign goals and will ultimately determine campaign results. So you must first understand the different types of keyword matches Apple offers.
Broad Match
Broad match is the default keyword match type. By selecting broad match, you are telling Apple that you want to bid on the keywords you select and other keywords that are broadly related to them.
Broad match includes misspellings, plurals, closely related words, synonyms, related searches, related phrases, and translations.
For example, when you type “Friends,” Apple also considers variations of “Friend,” “Amigo,” “Freind,” and more.
Exact match
Exact match helps you narrow your ad bid spread. By choosing exact match, you’re telling Apple that you want to bid exactly as entered for the selected keyword.
Common misspellings and plural forms will also be taken into account.
For example, when you type “friends,” Apple will consider “friends” and “friends.
Search matching
Search matches are best suited for keyword discovery. By selecting Search Match, you allow Apple to use its metadata to automatically match your app to relevant keywords and search terms.
For Search Match to work, your app’s metadata needs to be up to date and optimized. This means that App Store optimizations have been completed and recently updated. In this way, Apple can easily pull information about your app and generate the best and most relevant keywords.
App Store Search campaign types
When creating an account to start keyword bidding, ASA best practice is to split your keywords into four different campaign types: Generic, Branded and Competitor, and Discovery.
Generic Campaigns
Typically set to broad match, generic campaigns use keywords that are relevant to your app. For example, if you have a fitness app, you should include keywords such as “fitness” or “exercise” in this campaign. The purpose of the general campaign is to attract high intent app store visitors.
Branded campaigns
You will want to use a brand campaign to reach a more specific audience searching for your brand in the App Store, drive reinstalls and brand protection. Your keywords in this campaign will be keywords related to your brand name or a variation thereof. By bidding generously on your branded keywords, you ensure that your competitors don’t take this valuable space away from you.
Competitor activity
Set up exact matches, competitor campaigns to target App Store users who are searching for competitors. Keywords for these types of campaigns include your direct competitor’s name or a variation of their name.
Discovery campaigns
You need to set up a discovery campaign to discover new keywords or find alternative keywords that you are not using in other campaigns.
To maximize the effectiveness of a Discovery campaign, new keywords from Discovery should be added as exact match keywords to the other three campaign types, and all keywords from branded, generic, and competitor campaigns should be added as negative keywords in Discovery.
Best practices for using Apple Search Ads
Getting started with Apple Search Ads isn’t a problem. But you need to make sure you adopt some best practices that will ultimately help you make the most of your investment. Here are some App Store advertising best practices you should follow when using Apple Search Ads.
Review app metadata before launching a campaign
Before launching a new campaign, you’ll want to visit App Store Connect and take a closer look at app metadata. The appearance of your ads will be based on your app’s metadata, and you won’t be able to change it later. Keep in mind that the same ad is unlikely to be shown to every user. Some people may get a simple description of the app, while others will see screenshots and preview videos.
USP-based targeted keywords
This is very important for marketers using ASA Advanced. You need to do some research and identify keywords that will increase installs. For example, if you have a fitness tracking app, use keywords like “fitness tracker” or “diet plan” as keywords. You must understand the search patterns of your audience because it can greatly improve your conversion rate.
You can always expect higher competition with general keywords, but if you can find more specific keywords, they will not only be cheaper to bid on, but will also have a higher conversion rate.
Tip: Use the keyword research in your ASO strategy to understand your options and sync your goals!
Use the 80/20 budget allocation method for App Store promotions
When comparing keywords, you must split your keywords between broad match and exact match. 80% of your spend should go to exact match and the remaining 20% should go to broad match. Both will be used primarily for discovery campaigns to identify keywords that perform better than others.
Exact match keywords will allow you to attract and convert interested users. They will be easier to convert and more likely to generate more revenue. They may cost more, but they will also pay off. Ideally, you should allocate an 80/20 budget to get the maximum return. Once you start generating interest, you can also reduce your budget allocation.
How to leverage your app business within ASO and ASA on iOS app store?
The great thing about Apple Search Ads is that you can use the search match feature to identify new keywords. When Search Match is enabled, your ads are automatically matched to new search terms based on metadata in your App Store listings, information about similar apps of the same type, and other available search data.
The ability to check keyword relevancy is an invaluable part of Apple Search Ads. In just a few hours, you can run a small test campaign to collect data and get a complete picture of which keywords to optimize for in your ASO efforts. By analyzing Tap Through Rate (similar to Click Through Rate on the web), in-store conversion rates, and actual downloads, you can begin to develop a more effective ASO strategy. In addition, you can use attribution tools to explore the LTV of each keyword for campaign analysis.
ASA can help you narrow down your ASO strategy, but it’s not a gold mine; ASO is a long-term strategy, and your goal should be to keep increasing natural downloads. A key learning point is to look at ASA data from a longer-term perspective so you can see the true trends and performance of each keyword.
Apple Search Ads only work if you know how to properly target your keywords. To ensure maximum app visibility and download rates, you need to target specific and general keywords and carefully determine how much you are willing to bid for each keyword. An easy way to find keywords is to use a tool that automatically compiles a list of targeted keywords. You should increase your bids until you reach your cost-per-acquisition target and start winning downloads from popular keywords related to your niche.
Unfortunately, simply outbidding your competitors for high-volume keywords isn’t enough to win the number one spot, because Apple also considers the relevance of your app to the keyword. To ensure you always rank #1, you need to combine winning bids with ASO optimization. Factors that affect your ASO include app name, URL, description, reviews, and ratings.
So, how should you optimize your Search Ads campaigns for profitability?
1. Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) Goal:
The first thing you need to determine is how much you can afford to spend for every Search Ads install, so how much your target CPI (Cost-Per-Install) or Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) Goal — as Apple names it — should be. Note the difference in naming here: unlike other networks, Apple uses the word “Acquisition” and not “Install” because they actually only measure when users hit download and not when they have actually fully installed the game (we will hear more on that important difference later in this article).
To do this, if you are already running campaigns on other networks, you know your customer LTV (lifetime value), or how much every user will spend on average in your game.
Let’s say your game net LTV is $6 for iOS users in the United States.
On Apple Search Ads, you can either set your bids based on a Max CPT (Cost-Per-Tap) you are willing to pay or choose a CPA Goal, which means Apple will try to display your ads automatically and maximize conversions. But we don’t recommend that option because, while it will make sure you don’t go above your target CPA, it will limit your impressions quite a lot so you will miss out on several opportunities to convert.
So, for Max CPT, we usually apply a 30% ratio of the LTV of the game we’re promoting, because we normally observe an average 30% conversion rate (from taps to installs) on Search Ads.
Now comes the most important part: What’s the revenue generated from your Search Ads campaigns?
Apple doesn’t track (or share) any detailed activity coming from the Search Ads installs they have provided you. So you will have to use your MMP for that.
Depending on the LTV curve of your game, you’d be looking at your Day 7, 15, 30 etc. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) on a campaign, ad group or keyword level.
Cohort Reports for Search Ads Campaigns in Adjust
Let’s say you use Day-7 as a goal, you will then be doing this calculation:
Day-7 ROAS = Day-7 MMP Revenue / Search Ads Spend
And then compare that your Day-7 ROAS goal. If it’s above that, that’s a good sign and you should keep your campaigns/ad-groups active but make sure you monitor the retention of these users in the long run to validate their good performance.
If it’s below your goal, let’s say by more than 25%, then you should consider pausing or reducing the spend on these ad groups or campaigns.
That’s the formal way of assigning and reporting revenue coming from Search Ads.
But you have to take into consideration the installs that are not seen by your MMP and which may have also generated revenue.
ROAS = ((Revenue) * (1 + LAT Rate x 50%)) / Search Ads Spend
Bid Optimization:
Once you have launched your campaigns, give it a few days and then look at the performance of the ad groups you have created.
The first thing you need to check is if the keywords you have selected convert to installs. If there are ad groups with a Conversion Rate below 25%-20% it means that the keywords you have chosen are either too broad or not relevant. You should then consider pausing or reducing the bid on these ad groups.
On the contrary, for ad groups and keywords that have a high Conversion Rate, for example anything above 30%, you should increase your bid for as long as it’s aligned with your projected ROAS. In order to know how much is necessary, in the Search Ads interface, Apple suggests a bid range to have an indication of how much you should spend to match or beat your competitors. You should adjust your bids for every keyword that are are below the suggested bid ranges (as long as it stays within your target CPA goals).
Many factors affect how your Apple Search Ads Basic app promotions perform, including relevancy, your maximum cost-per-install (max CPI) amount compared to your competitors, and user response to your ad. The following best practices can help improve your app promotion results.
Review your metadata in App Store Connect to ensure it’s the best representation of your app. Your app title, descriptions, and keywords are all considerations Apple Search Ads uses to assess your app’s relevance for specific search queries, so you should take great care in crafting them. Apple Search Ads Basic also uses the app name, subtitle, description, preview videos, and screenshots approved for your App Store product page to create your ad. Take the time to review your app metadata in App Store Connect before you start using Apple Search Ads Basic.
Note that if you change your App Store metadata, it can take up to 24 hours to be reflected in the ad preview within your account, and up to two hours to be reflected in your ad on the App Store.
Take a look at your ad creative. It can play a key role in your app promotion performance. Because Apple Search Ads uses the app name, subtitle, description, preview videos, and up to the first three screenshots approved for your App Store product page to create your ad, you may want to consider adjusting these assets if your ad isn’t performing well.
Consider your product page, too, as it can also help drive installs. With three app previews, 10 screenshots, and new text fields, product pages offer more opportunities to showcase your work.
If your ad isn’t delivering results, try raising your max CPI to increase the likelihood of your ad being shown. You can use the suggested max CPI in your dashboard as a guide to help determine the right amount.
Consider running your app promotion in all the countries and regions where your app is available. This will give you more opportunities to reach interested customers. Check your monthly budget to make sure you’re reaching as many customers as possible. You may need to increase your budget, especially if you’re running app promotions in multiple countries and regions.
Make sure you’re using the right business model. The right business model for your app balances your goals with the expectations of key audiences, and can also affect the performance of your app in App Store search, including with Apple Search Ads. If you’ve tried the above and still aren’t seeing results, it’s a good idea to review App Store best practices. Learn more here…
Tips for Scaling a performing Google Search Campaign
Don’t dedicate an entire campaign for a top-performing keywords.
How long did you “test[ed] simply raising budget” for? Are we talking about a week, month, multiple months?
Here are some other options for you:
Review your Impression Share and top of page rate metrics (Impr. (Top) % and Impr. (Abs. Top) %). Are these trending in the right direction? Are you losing out due to budget on high-performing campaigns? How do your ads perform when you’re placing above organic search results vs below (aka “Other”)?
Look at 30-, 60-, and 90-day windows for things like audiences, demographics, and locations. Are there options here that are high-spending but underperforming, and could be excluded? This would allow, moving forward, al of the budget to be spent on better-performing targeting options.
Consider testing new ad copy. If you can achieve stronger CTR, this allows you to generate traffic within the existing impression volume.
My preferred setup is to group keywords by a shared intent. I have B2B SaaS clients, so the majority of my campaigns are all focused on very high-intent searches that contain both context (around my clients’ services/solutions/vertical) and intent (keywords matching to search terms including “software”, “platform”, “solutions”, etc). To scale traffic, I’ve created a separate campaign that bids on keywords that contain just the contextual terms, but not the software-intent, with lower (manual) bids, using negative keywords to appropriately filter traffic. Considering splitting out your campaigns/ad groups by high-intent vs low-intent keywords, with budget given to higher performers.
Example: Let’s say your client offers a software for enterprise businesses to manage their cybersecurity. A high-intent keyword would be something like “enterprise cybersecurity software”, whereas a low-intent keyword would be just “enterprise cybersecurity”. We still require the user to use “enterprise cybersecurity” in some context, but that short-tail keyword does not require any specific intent like looking for a third-party tool/platform.
The keyword “enterprise cybersecurity software” will likely be significantly more expensive, and likely lower search volume/impressions, but has a clear, higher intent. The shorter-tail keyword will get you a larger number of impressions, but has a higher likelihood of leading to potentially lower-quality searches and clicks. I’d recommend starting out with trying to capture the high-intent searches first, but when you’re looking to scale, that’s where I’d add in the low-intent keywords, but separated into their own campaign, or at least a separate ad group.
On average, you spend a good amount of money on Google Ads, but still not worth the money results. So, spending the money without having the proper knowledge is a waste! And spending money with no results hurts, right? Don’t worry! We will tell you how you can get the value of your money. We will discuss tips and tricks to improve your Goggle Ads conversion rates.
Follow the ways below to improve your Google Ads Conversion Rates:
• Lead With an Attractive Offer or Value
The book cover is the Book’s first impression. And, you might have heard- “don’t judge a book by its cover”. Well, that’s exactly what we all do. We take a look at the book cover if it doesn’t please our eyes, we move on to the next.
Similarly, the headline is the first impression of your content. If it doesn’t please the eyes of your visitor, he/she won’t take an action on it. Hence, use some catchy phrases to create an attractive headline that will lead your content.
• Refine your CTAs
You need to tell your visitors what to do, otherwise, they won’t turn act! Yes, that’s true! It’s you who have to direct your website to take an action by generating a need for it.
Studies show that the most used CTAs by top-notch brands are- “get”, “buy”, and “shop”. Phrases like these, create an urge to take action, and that’s what improves your conversion rate.
• Boost your CTRs
Create content copy that can convince a reader to click right through your product. Write blogs or Ad copies that can convince your visitors to click. And for this, understand your audience. Convince them that they are missing something big and your product can fulfill that crack.
Don’t try to hurry them up to buy your product. Remember, in this step you just have to convince them to walk through your content and not buy your product. Use soft tone phrases like “get a quote”, “get more details”, etc.
• Align your Ad with an Accurate Landing Page
The general mistake we do sometimes is not checking up on our landing page. Whether we aligned our ad to the right landing page or not! Or, is the ad redirecting to the correct landing page or order! If you won’t do this right, you can lose a large audience.
For example, Your ad is about American diamond earrings, but the ad is aligned to a bangles landing page. This is not fulfilling the purpose of your Ad, and you will lose your potential customer here only.
Create a landing page for every segment and align them with the Ad properly.
• Work on your Quality Score
When you create or run a Google Ad, your Ad gets a ranking which is called Quality Score. This score is given based on the performance of your product. How much your Ad is impacting the audience, how it is performing in the market, how effective it is, and what value it’s giving out!
All these factors decide your Ad’s quality score.
According to studies, the more the quality score the lesser the overall CTR cost. This quality score can be improved by three factors- the landing page, the CTR, and Ad relevance.
• Don’t Miss out on your Social Proofs
People trust reviews. They are afraid of being the first one to use or buy anything. They look for the assurance and experience of others to rely on! Hence, putting out your social proofs is very important. Include the brands or firms you have worked with, put their reviews, and that will make you look authentic and preferred. This will attract and convince the visitors to be your potential loyal customers.
• Step-On your Competitors
Sometimes, not getting enough conversions via Google can be a targeting issue. And to sort that, you should focus on the audience’s intent. Like, what they are looking to buy, what is their need, etc. And, a clear way of doing this is branded keyword search.
Branded keyword search is when a person looks for something brand specific.
For example: “dresses on Myntra”, “Sports shoes on Reebok”, etc.
When a person will search the above keywords, he/she will not only get the results for the brands above but the Ads of alternatives too. That’s what stepping on your competitors is! Run your Ads on the brand keyword research of other competitive brands. I know, it’s something that sounds illegal but isn’t!
• Enhance your Landing Page
Optimizing Ads is not just enough! You need to work on everything else. One of the major things is the landing page. By having visitors directed to your landing page, you will have a task to fulfill what a visitor is expecting from you. Your landing page should have all the information needed in an organized manner. Don’t fill it heavily, but keep it on point.
Put product videos or video testimonials of the product or service, they tend to have greater chances to hook your visitors. And, the videos can help you better with conversion rates.
• Run Mobile-Friendly Ads
With the world going mobile, it’s important that you run mobile-friendly Ads. Keep the dimensions of your posters or Ad copies that can fit a mobile screen efficiently. Make it easy to access for the visitors. The only-desktop specific Ads will not look good on the mobile screen, and you might lose a great set of audience as most people access things through their mobiles.
Hence, move with the trend.
• Use Remarketing
We often forget how important remarketing is! Many times, a customer leaves the product in the cart or wishlist and forgets about it! Remarketing can help you catch back such customers. Look for Ads that performed great and are older. Run then again, they will lead your old visitors as well as create new leads as well.
Google Ads can be a whooping asset to convert your visitors into customers. You just need to do things right! If you will implement the above tips in the right manner the Google Ads conversion rate will definitely go up!
If anyone of you bright people has more tips to add, please feel free to add your opinions and suggestions. It’s always great to learn.
Another way to get good quality score on your ads these days is to write really awkward headlines that include the keywords, and then pinning any discounts. Kinda sucks but it’s been working better for me than traditional CTAs.
Quiz1: Jim Has Created A Google Search Ad With A Bid Of $5. Two Other Advertisers In An Auction Have Bids Of $2.50 And $2. How Much Would Jim Pay For The First Spot In The Auction?
Answer1: $2.51
Quiz2: True Or False? Google Audiences Are Updated On Every Impression, So Advertisers Can Reach Only The Most Relevant Consumers On YouTube Answer.
Answer2: True
Quiz3: On which social network should you share content most frequently? Correct Answer
Answer3: Twitter
Quiz4: You Want To Find New, High-Value Customers Using Their Data. Which Audience Solution Should You Use
Answer4: Similar Audiences
Meaning of key terms used in this blog:
Avg CPA: The average amount you’ve been charged for a conversion from your ad. Average cost per action (CPA) is calculated by dividing the total cost of conversions by the total number of conversions.
For example, if your ad receives 2 conversions, one costing $2.00 and one costing $4.00, your average CPA for those conversions is $3.00.
Average CPA is based on your actual CPA (the actual amount you’re charged for a conversion from your ad), which might be different than your target CPA (the amount you’ve set as your desired average CPA if using Target CPA bidding).
Use performance targets to set an average CPA target for all campaign in a campaign group.
Avg CPT: This is the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for a tap on your ad.
Your default max CPT bid applies across all keywords in your ad group unless you specify a max CPT bid at the keyword level.
When calculating the amount of your max CPT bid:
Decide what amount you can afford to spend on a new customer or action. Let’s say it’s $2.50 (U.S.).
Estimate the percentage of customers who tap your ad and who you think will download your app or take your desired action. In this case, you estimate 40%.
Calculate what you can afford to pay up to 40% of $2.50 (U.S.) — or $1.00 (U.S.) — for each tap. Therefore, set your starting default maximum CPT bid to $1.00 (U.S.).
Avg CPM: Average cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) is the average amount you pay per one thousand ad impressions on the App Store.
CR: The conversion rate (CR) is the total number of installs received within a period divided by total number of taps within the same period.
Dimensions: A dimension is an element of your Apple Search Ads campaign that can be included in a custom report. For example, campaign ID or CPT bid. Dimensions appear as rows in your custom reports.
Impression Share: The share of impressions your ad(s) received from the total impressions served on the same search terms or keywords, in the same countries and regions. Impression share is displayed as a percentage range, such as 0-10%, 11-20%, and so on. This metric is only available in predefined Impression Share custom reports and on the Recommendations page.
Impressions: The number of times your ad appeared in App Store search results within the reporting time period.
Installs: The total number of conversions from new downloads and redownloads resulting from an ad within the reporting period. Apple Search Ads installs are attributed within a 30-day tap-through window. Note that total installs may not match totals of LAT Off and LAT On installs, as additional downloads may come from customers using iOS 14 or later.
LAT Off Installs: Downloads from users who are using iOS 13 or earlier and have not enabled Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) on their device.
LAT On Installs: Downloads from users who are using iOS 13 or earlier and have enabled Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) on their device.
Match Source: This identifies whether your impression was the result of Search Match or a bidded keyword.
New Downloads: These represent app downloads from new users who have never before downloaded your app.
Rank: How your app ranks in terms of impression share compared to other apps in the same countries and regions. Rank is displayed as numbers from 1 to 5 or >5, with 1 being the highest rank. This metric is only available in predefined Impression Share reports and on the Recommendations page.
Redownloads: Redownloads occur when a user downloads your app, deletes it, and downloads the same app again following a tap on an ad on the App Store, or downloads the same app on an additional device.
Search Popularity: The popularity of a keyword, based on App Store searches. Search popularity is displayed as numbers from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most popular.
Search Term: Search terms are keywords and phrases that people have used to find the particular type of app they’re looking for.
Spend: The sum of the cost of each customer tap on your ad over the period of time set for your reporting.
Taps: The number of times your ad was tapped by users within the reporting time period.
TTR: The tap-through rate (TTR) is the number of times your ad was tapped by customers divided by the total impressions your ad received.
Keywords: Keywords are relevant words or terms someone may use when searching for an app like yours on the App Store. With Apple Search Ads Advanced, you bid on keywords to trigger and include your ad within relevant App Store search results — so when an App Store customer types in a search query that uses one of your keywords, your ad could appear.
Apple Search Ads knows a lot about your app and its genre, and will provide a list of keyword recommendations to save you time when you add keywords to a search results ad group. You can also add keywords of your own, and Apple Search Ads will suggest a further set of keywords related to the ones you’ve provided. To add any of them to your ad group, simply click the plus sign next to them.
Adveronix is a handy Google Sheets add-on that allows you to export data from Facebook Ads, Google Ads, or any other channel automatically into a spreadsheet daily. You can then connect this spreadsheet to Google Data Studio and have a free connector for most media channels.
Polymer Search has been one of my latest finds and a beneficial tool for creative analysis (and a few other things). For example, I usually test new creatives on Facebook Ads using dynamic creative testing campaigns.
I can then simply export my Facebook Ads data into a spreadsheet, connect it to Polymer Search, and immediately see which creative elements are working the best and which ones aren’t. The Auto-Explainer tool uses AI to immediately sort “Above Average” and “Below Average” creatives.
There’s also a ton more this tool can do – massive potential for media buyers.
Before taking on any new client, one of my first steps is always to look at their website.
Suppose I don’t see anything like Klaviyo, Google Analytics, the Facebook Pixel, or any other marketing-related tech. In that case, this is usually a sign the client might be in a too early stage for me to help them out.
BuiltWith also helps you look into competitors and see what sorts of software they’re using.
The Ad Creative Bank is one of my top sources to find creative inspiration for new ads. It’s pretty simple: just look into the type of ads you want to create and browse through their well-organized library of great-looking ads.
If you’re anything like me, your Google Chrome browser has +10 extensions cluttering your view. In short, One Click Extensions Manager allows you to organize all extensions into one single icon near your search tab, which makes everything feel a little more organized.
VidTao.comYouTube ads searchable by adspend over time. Perfect for modelling and competitive research.
Most of these mistakes were from ad accounts that are in the early testing stage and spending under $100/day. The majority of these mistakes are related to what NOT to do during the testing stage in an ad account. I had a few people get audits that were spending higher amounts ($500/day and above) but their situation was very specific and the solution I provided was also specific so it most likely wouldn’t add much value to share that scenario.
Multiple interests and/or behaviors in one ad set (aka stacked audiences)
Doing this defeats the purpose of testing because you don’t know which interest is bringing in the results. Many other reasons to not do this during testing including you could have a great interest stacked with a bad one and that could skew the potential results. There are some instances where maybe it would be okay to have 2 stacked interests if the audiences are very small, but what I was seeing people do often is stack over 10 interests and behaviors into a single ad set.
2. Using CBO (campaign budget optimization) too early
CBO is not recommended for testing stage in Facebook ads. I’ve seen a couple of people do fine with CBO for testing but it logically doesn’t make sense because you don’t have much control over the budget allocation. This is why ad set budget is better for testing because when you want to put $20/day into one and set and $20/day into another, you know that the test is even. CBO will most likely not even out that budget. Even with setting ad set budget minimums and all of those constraints, which is sort of redundant. Facebook will recommend doing CBO by giving you messages inside of the ads manager but most of what Facebook says in their ads manager is not based off your current situation. They don’t know that you are in a testing phase and don’t have enough data to do a CBO, they just see that you are trying to spend a certain amount per day and they recommend CBO. Facebook’s ad manager isn’t smart enough to say “I see you are testing headline combinations – you should switch to ad set budget” or “I see you are trying to scale your store – you should use a CBO campaign”. You should use CBO once you’ve properly tested at least 4 audiences with ad set budget optimization.
3. Creating Lookalike audiences with low-quality data as a hail Mary
Yes, lookalike audiences are pretty neat. When you don’t have enough purchases, there are other source data pools that you can create them with. Video views, website traffic, page engagement, etc. The problem is you are pretty much creating a lookalike audience based on people who DON’T buy. Especially if you don’t have anyone buying your product. There is probably something wrong with your targeting as it is and you need to stick to interest targeting and optimizing for purchase conversions. I’ve seen people run a traffic campaign, get a few hundred clicks, and zero sales. This is because you are getting very low-quality traffic from Facebook and creating a lookalike is just going to find more people similar to that low-quality data. If you have a sort of “niche product” and you think that you can’t target them based on interests then you are not thinking outside of the box enough to find interests to test (more on finding the right interests in a later section).
4. Spreading too little per ad set and running multiple ad sets (I’ve seen as little as $3/day budgets)
For the campaigns that I audited, I gave them each a different recommended daily spend per ad set depending on their budget, niche, etc. so I don’t want to say that you should spend X amount per ad set, but $3/day is way too low. If you have a small budget, then you are better off testing less and spending more per ad set. So if you are doing $3/day to over 10 different ad sets to try and test 10 different audiences, you are going to get better data from spreading that same amount across 2-3 different audiences.
5. Interests narrowing and exclusions
I’ve seen some exclusions that make sense like excluding AliBaba and dropshipping whenever they were getting comments on the ads, but I’ve seen this done where the audience they were targeting needed to have interest in fashion AND apparel. Doing this is trying to target better than Facebook which is usually not a good idea to do unless you’ve tested both audiences on their own and if they are different categories of interests (music taste w/ hobby, industry interest w/ behavior targeting, etc.). At a testing stage this will cause CPM to be higher than needed.
6. Trying to target high-income people
This is on par with the previous mistake, but I wanted to make this its own blurb. Just because someone has a lot of money doesn’t mean they are going to shop at your store. You aren’t going to have better luck targeting the top 10% of zip codes based on income for your $20 sunglasses. Higher income people resonate better with name brand products that have credibility behind them so you would probably need to build up credibility, stellar branding, and high-quality products before attempting to target high-income people on Facebook.
7. Targeting interests that are too obvious
Your target demographic has many layers to their personality and social media behavior. When you sell a certain product and you only target the interest that is literally named the same thing that your product is, then you are limiting yourself to interests that your competition is probably targeting as well. Some of the best interests I’ve ran ads towards with Facebook ads are two or three degrees of separation from the product. I’ve sold supplements that were geared towards people who engage in certain activity, so instead of just targeting “supplement” I targeted “activity” interests. I’ve targeted music interests based on certain elements of a product that I’ve ran ads for, and the product wasn’t a music related product at all but people who liked that product typically listened to a certain type of music as well.
8. Focusing on cheap link clicks instead of purchases
The amount that you pay for a click does not matter if you are getting little to no sales. You want to pay more for expensive clicks from people that Facebook deems as likely to make a purchase or whatever action you are wanting them to do. I’ve audited a few campaigns where they ran two ad sets and the owner of the ad account concluded that “Ad Set 1” was better than “Ad Set 2” because it got clicks for half the cost. But neither of them got a sale, so neither is better than the other. Or I’ve audited campaigns where the store owner says “this ad did well, it got over 1,000 clicks” but it got zero sales. Typically this was done with an improper campaign setup anyway so none of those clicks were going to convert either way.
9. Not testing ads/audiences long enough
One campaign that I audited turned off an ad after just a few hours of letting it run because Facebook was spending the money too fast. I recommend letting a test run for at least 5 days. If the ad is setup properly then you will have some good days, some bad days, and some okay days. I’ve seen many times where the best day ever is right after a very bad day. Know that a bad day is still data for Facebook because it is learning what NOT to do.
10. Hanging on to an audience that stopped working
Audiences, ads, and campaigns can eventually stop working after a certain amount of time, regardless of how well they worked at one time. There are many reasons for this to happen which would be a whole post on its own, but if you’re struggling to get an audience to work then just move on and try again in the future. I audited a campaign that was running ads to a specific lookalike audience that was setup very odd and it wasn’t producing them very good results recently anyway, so I obviously recommended that they turn it off and try setting it up a different way that would be more likely to work. The user did not take the advice because that was their best performing audience many months ago. This is why you want to be diverse with your targeting so that when an audience stops working, you don’t cling onto it like overly attached girlfriend meme.
11. Setting up a funnel that is filled with low quality data
Running traffic campaigns is just going to get you a ton of traffic that is most likely not going to turn into a purchase. You are more likely to get a purchase from 100 high quality clicks than you would 1,000 low-quality clicks. Traffic campaigns give you the absolute bottom of the barrel traffic that Facebook has to offer. What I see people do is setup a funnel with traffic campaigns at the top, and retargeting at the bottom with a campaign optimized for conversions. This makes sense in theory, but in practice you are just continuing to retarget the low-quality traffic. And it just costs too much money to spend going after those low-quality clicks over and over again when you could just go straight for the purchase conversions campaign traffic. Those are the ones that are more likely to purchase without needing to see the ads 5 times. There are a lot of impulse buyers within those campaigns. Do this even if your store has zero purchases.
12. Worrying about 4 steps ahead when they are still on step 1
“I’m spending $50/day but what should I expect when I am scaling and spending $1,000/day?” That is going to be different for everybody but this is one of those situations where they are trying to solve a problem that hasn’t even happened yet and you’re essentially taking focus away from the step you are at right now and projecting it into a future scenario that may or may not happen.
13. Thinking the cost per purchase that they got on their own is what they’ll continue to see
If you are doing things incorrectly with Facebook ads, then you should expect to see results that are not very good. It’s one thing to have a frame of mind like “I’m not getting good results on my own but I think they could be better” as compared to “I’ve been running ads for two weeks with little to no experience and I’m paying too much to get a customer so Facebook isn’t worth it”.
For me, it feels as if Facebook likes to have the account even more structured than previously. I rarely ever now use Cost Caps because of the delayed sales coming in and generally tend to have an account structure like this:
1 – TOF Scaling Campaign
2 – TOF Testing Campaign
3 – MOF/BOF Campaign (Try combining MOF/BOF in 1 Campaign if possible)
All in all, I try to consolidate my spend into as few campaigns as possible, and I still leverage Broad Targeting (No targeting at all). It has been working quite well for me on most accounts.
If you’re spending less than $500/d, I’d say Look a likes also are impacted. They are not getting as many data points as they were getting before, and therefore generally now have a lower value than before.
If you’re at the sub $500/d range, try Big Interests or just Broad Targeting if your look a like audiences are struggling.
2. Retargeting
Retargeting has changed a lot for me.
Especially at lower budget accounts, I broadened that retargeting window. Where I previously had 14D ATC, it is now 60 days. I also often combine multiple retargeting audiences, such as Add to Cart and View Content.
All in all, I try to have as few exclusions as possible since even if you e.g., exclude purchasers, those people see the ads. I’ve noticed this because a lot of new TOF Ads are getting comments from people who bought within the last 1-2 weeks from the brand.
So, with exclusions not being as effective, you want to prevent overlaps in retargeting audiences, which is why I consolidate.
3. Patience
Overall, tracking purchases has never been more challenging, and it feels to me as if Facebook is only tracking 40%-60% of all purchases from Facebook. This is why it is now super essential to look at your overall ROAS (Revenue / Ad Spend)
If your revenue increases when you scale up, but your ads manager is not showing up any purchases, they most likely come from your ads (Unless you’re running a big email promotion, got featured on a big magazine, or something like that, of course)
Purchases tend to show up in bulk for me in the ads manager after a few days, so don’t freak out if you see a low ROAS on your side, as long as the revenue is there. Make fewer day-to-day changes and keep an eye on results for a longer time.
March 2022 Update on this: For those just seeing this now, Facebook has become significantly harder, but the general strategy here still works. And that’s testing LOTS of creatives, not fancy hacks. We’ve since started spending over $10K+ per day on Tik Tok as well and it’s doing WAY better than facebook for us.
What’s up everyone! Just wanted to drop in and share some insights into what it takes to manage $20K-60K+ a day in spend on facebook in DTC ecom. (I’ve done $150K-250K revenue days on facebook, personal best in terms of ROAS was a bit over $200K in revenue at about $60K in spend on a single one of our brands, not including black friday which was insane)
Just a caveat here, how I run ads might not work for you, especially if you’re super low in spend. Different brands require different strategies, and most importantly, my own strategies are constantly developing. How I test and scale on facebook now is completely different than how it was 6 months ago for example. Also another caveat, some of the tactics we use are really only necessary at a super high level as you’ll see here, if you’re a mom and pop shop they won’t be necessary (for example running multiple facebook pages which I’ll get into).
When I first got started in online advertising, I was always searching for the ‘perfect’ way to run ads through shitty gurus, and honestly there is NO perfect way. I recommend learning the basics and devising your own strategy, which is what I ended up doing. Another thing, at lowish spend (less than $5K-10K+ a day I would say, you’re usually going to get decent fluctuations in performance day to day on facebook. Consistency on facebook comes from high spend and feeding the algo as many data points as possible.
I’m fortunate enough to be in a network of the most elite DTC brand owners so I’ve accumulated a ton of knowledge about what works at this level of scale, but this game still requires constant learning! This isn’t set in stone but its just what I’ve found works for me, so here it goes.
Naming Conventions
Consistent naming conventions are super important for analyzing data in ad reporting at a glance. You can figure out your own but here are mine if you’re looking for a quick idea:
Campaign Names:
TOF: Prospecting (Top of Funnel)
BOF: Retargeting
T: Testing
S: Scaling
SS: Super Scaling (these campaigns are typically $2K-10K daily budget)
X.XX numbers at the end of campaign names or ad sets names: date of launch, i.e. 5.15 is May 15
Campaign name example: SS – TOF – CBO – Beast – 6.05
Ad set names:
Targeting – Countries – Age – Placement – Attribution – Date of launch
E.g. Broad – US + CA – 18+ – Auto – 7dc1dv – 3.15
e.g. INT – Theme parks – US – 18+ – Auto – 7dc – 3.24
E.g. LLA – Lookalike (US, 10%) – 2+ Purchase 180 Days – US – 18+ – Auto – 7dc – 2.16
Ad Names:
Brand – FB Page – video/image number – ad copy number – lander/advertorial number – post ID – date of launch
Testing random interests found in facebook audience insights, similar interests to winning interests, etc using best 2-4 post ID’s to “feed” the pixel data
Audience insights is phasing out so this might not be useful in the future
Small budget ad sets of $30-50
Can dupe winners out 2x in same campaign at slightly higher budget of $50-60
I do this with lookalikes too but I do not run interests or lookalikes with any real budget whatsoever nowadays. I literally run all creative testing and scaling with completely wide open targeting
T – 1 – Creative – TOF – ABO – Broad – 2.18
Phase 1 testing campaign
All new videos/images get launched here
I like to do them in batches of 3-4 new videos/images at a time in a single broad ad set with the budget set to 1.5-2x AOV
Broad targeting (US + CA, 18+ so we determine how effective the creatives truly are without being skewed by very good lookalikes/interests etc. In the case of more niche products, can try broad interest targeting, like interest ‘fitness’ if selling fitness apparel or ‘coffee’ if selling coffee product, with detailed targeting expansion checked ON)
Using best copy variation, best offer, best lander/advertorial
Winners graduate to testing phase 2
T – 2 – Ad Copy – TOF – ABO – Broad – 2.19
Phase 2 testing campaign
Take each winning winning creative from phase 1 and put it into its own broad ad set in this second campaign, testing 4-5 different ad copy angles (separate ad), still using best lander
E.g. ad set naming convention:
img192 – Broad – US + CA – 18+ – Auto – 7dc – 3.02
Means img192 is the constant image across the 4 ads, with 4 different copy
Winning ad copy variants graduates to step 3
T – 3 – Lander – TOF – ABO – Broad – 2.19
Phase 3 testing campaign
Here’s what differentiates us from most ecom brands. We test a TON of advertorials, like 3-5 new advertorials a month focused on different angles. Seriously at scale this is what separates winners from losers. In this campaign I’ll also test running direct to our top sales lander as well as one of the ads. We NEVER run direct to a shopify store, we have a subdomain with dedicated landing pages/advertorials that we run to with custom checkout that converts MUCH higher and has a much higher AOV with it’s upsells.
Take winning video/images + copy combo and test 3-5 different landers/advertorials as mentioned
E.g. ad set naming convention:
vv65 – adc220 – Broad – US + CA – 18+ – Auto – 7dc – 3.21
Denotes that vv5 and adc220 were the winning variables from previous test, now testing 3-4 different landers/adverts with these two winning combos
By now the creative has run through 3 different testing campaigns/phases. If still performing, it can be moved to bigger budget testing to see its scaling potential
Can also be moved to optional step 4 for generating more winning post ID’s
Also optional: Winner of this test can be moved back to step 2, testing more ad copy focused around the advertorial if a specific advertorial won during this test
T – 4 – Page – TOF – ABO – Broad – 2.19
Optional step 4
This is another tactic that I don’t see many bigger brands using. In this campaign I’ll take the winning ads from the previous steps, and re-create them on 3-4 different facebook pages that aren’t our main brand page. These are ‘blog’ style pages. For example the name of one of the pages if you own a furniture store might be “Home Decor Insider”. What you don’t want to do is create fake influencer pages like “Katie’s Home’s” or something like that as that’s not allowed.
Take the winning video/image + copy + lander/advert combo and test it on 3-4 different facebook pages to generate more winning post ID’s as mentioned.
The point of this is multi-fold:
Generate as many winning post id’s as possible because at scale you’ll need them
Distributes negative feedback score away from your main brand page (negative feedback can become an issue at scale, especially last year with covid shipping delays)
Different pages perform differently in the auction, some page names may resonate with people more and get cheaper cpc’s and cpm’s.
As you can see here the point in all this testing is generating as many winning post ID’s as possible.
BPA – TOF – ABO – Broad – 2.19
BPA meaning best performing ads
This campaign is for testing all the winning post ID’s from steps 1-4 at higher budgets.
Like to do them in ad sets with batches of 2-4 ads
Also broad ad sets, but can also try with different LLA’s or broad interests
Budget 1.5-3x AOV, and scale it but dupe. I.e. start the ad set at $300, if doing well over the course of 3 days or so, dupe out at double $600. From here you’ll get a sense of how it does at higher budgets. Sometimes it can do very well in the smaller 1-4 step testing, but falls flat here. If it was getting decent metrics in testing, but falls flat here, you can try duplicating the ad set and trying it again, or testing with a couple different audiences.
DCT Testing (if applicable)
DCT seems to work better with lower CPA products, or requires a very high budget for higher CPA products
I haven’t had much success with dynamic creatives for testing, and especially now with the ios update facebook doesn’t show in breakdowns which creative variables are getting the purchases so they seem essentially worthless.
If i were to do creative testing for DCT I would do something like:
One broad ad set for each new video/image
$100-300 budget
1x new video/image, 2 best copy + 1 new copy, 1 best headline + 1 new headline
Pull winning post ID’s out, follow testing steps 3-4 above to test different landers/adverts/offers/fb pages
What i DO like dynamic creative for lately is time sensitive sales, like black friday where I don’t have a ton of time to test stuff. What I usually do is toss in a ton of my existing winning videos/images/copy/headlines (I might just add a black friday sale specific line to the top of the ad copy) running to my best advertorial/lander and let it rip at about $1000 a day budget. If it does good after 1 day I’ll duplicate it out into a cost cap/bid cap at $5K-10K a day or whatever
CBO Angle testing:
This is a CBO with 5-7 ad sets, each ad set is a separate angle containing winning ads from the above campaigns, that get added to their respective angle ad set. Budget is about $1K per day for me. All ad sets wide open broad targeting
SCALING!!!
Here’s the fun part. My methods of scaling nowadays have evolved with what works on facebook. The good thing is with this level of spend I learn quickly what is or what does not work on facebook anymore so it keeps me current. I have a few different scaling campaign structures that I’m currently running simultaneously. This is what I’m finding works right now:
Scaling Campaign 1
Lowest cost CBO -> 1 ad set (completely Broad) -> Best 6-10 post ID’s from testing campaigns. I’ll add new post ID’s/turn off ads if performance is on a decline over a week period. I will increase the budget by 20-30% a day if performance has been consistently good over a 2-3 day period.
Scaling Campaign 2
Same as above, except this campaign is made up entirely of non-brand page post ID’s from the page testing campaigns
^ These campaigns are both often running at $2-5K+ a day
Scaling Campaign 3 – Bid Cap ABO
I duplicate the best ad sets 3x from the CBO angle testing campaign into a separate ABO campaign, each running at a different bid. Ad set one’s bid cap is set to target CPA + 25%. So if my target cpa for example is $50, the bid cap would be set to $62.5. Ad set two is set to +50% ($75) and ad set 3 is set to +100% ($99.99, I round down in this case as my theory is if i set the bid to $100, I’ll be put into a higher tiered auction pool and may get outbid, dont quote me on this lol)
I set budgets at about $1K-5K per ad set here. And because you can have one of these campaigns for each angle, you can see how quickly scale can build up here.
Scaling Campaign 4 – Cost Cap ABO
Same as above, but the cost caps for this campaign will be +15%, +25% and +50%
Scaling Campaign 5 – Cost Cap CBO
4 completely broad ad sets duplicate of each other, all with the same cost cap. This campaign contains the best 6-12 post ID’s overall from all testing campaigns. You’ll have to play with the cost cap here to get it to spend properly. This campaign is generally a big one for me usually with a $10K daily budget. I’ll also have a minimum ad set spend of about 3-5x the CPA set for each ad set
The point in having so many scaling campaigns is multi-fold:
Prevents reliance on a single scaling campaign on poor days. For example one or two of these campaigns might do mediocre one day, but the rest are crushing and make up for it
Optimizes differently and hits different points in the auction by utilizing both CBO and ABO
If you want to go crazy you can also take these exact scaling campaigns and scale them across multiple accounts as well. For that $200K day I had $10K+ cost cap campaigns scaled across like 4 different accounts.
And that’s it! Like I said this is not end all be all of running ads, just what I’ve evolved to do after spending high budget day in and day out for single brands
The most important thing about scaling with this level of spend and what separates the brands who do great online and those who don’t is content. We’re testing about 10-15 NEW video ads per WEEK + variations of winning videos on top of that (different hooks for example)
Audience “hacking” is no longer really a thing and hasn’t been for a while. I don’t run any interests at scale for the most part and lookalikes I barely use nowadays either (they worked great last year up until Q3-Q4). literally just wide open 18+ targeting. broad targeting might not work as well if you have a super niche brand
It’s true that nowadays facebook has certainly become a lot more difficult. We aren’t spending as much on it compared to last year (though still a lot and it’s our primary DTC revenue driver still), we’re trying to crack other traffic sources to diversify for cold traffic, especially with Tik Tok, Youtube, GDN and Snapchat. Snap is spending about $3K-5K a day at so-so ROAS.
Having a defined structure and strategy is essential to a successful Facebook ad campaign.
I run an ads agency and one of the biggest mistakes I see with Facebook ads is a complete lack of structure. Many business owners and advertisers treat Facebook ads like darts, throwing hail Mary’s at the board and hoping for a favorable outcome. This is especially apparent when it comes to scaling, I think this is what people struggle with most.
In this post I will give a complete overview of how to structure your Facebook ads, from TOF prospecting to BOF retargeting.
Quick disclaimer, this is just a general overview of strategy and structure. Every ad account should be approached differently and it’s important to tailor your strategy to your brand.
This is what it should look like from a birds-eye view:
TOF – 1 Testing Campaign & 1 Scaling Campaign
MOF- Retargeting Campaign for Soft Interest (Landing page view, video views etc)
BOF – Retargeting Campaign for Heavy Interest (ATC, IC etc)
BOF Post Purchase (Optional) – This is brand dependent and isn’t applicable for all. This is post-purchase retargeting.
TOF – Testing and Scaling
This stage of the funnel should ideally be split into two campaigns, it may require more with bigger accounts.
This entire stage of the funnel only involves cold audiences, a majority of your budget should be allocated to TOF.
Testing
The first campaign is the testing campaign. It’s important to test EVERYTHING. This campaign should be ABO and every ad set should be allocated an equal daily spend. Test audiences and creatives for 1 week, kill ad sets that aren’t performing, winning ad sets and and creatives will be moved to the scaling campaign.
It’s also possible to scale ad sets vertically in the testing campaign. However, be careful to not get overzealous as you risk sending the ad set back into learning. To scale vertically, slowly increase the ad set budget by 10%-20% every couple of days.
Scaling
All your winning ad sets from the testing campaign must be duplicated into the scaling campaign. Sometimes ad sets will perform vastly different when duplicated so this is why we also scale vertically in the testing campaign. Sometimes it may just be a matter of duplicating the ad set twice before it performs. This is a result of Facebook’s learning phase always being different.
Now, this campaign should ideally be CBO as your goal is to maximise results. You should still be introducing new ad sets from your testing campaign, some people even introduce new ad sets directly to the scaling campaign. At this stage of the funnel, keep an eye on frequency as you don’t want to risk audience fatigue. It’s important to keep introducing new creatives to combat audience fatigue.
The TOF campaign should include both cold interest audiences and cold LLA audiences. As I said, test everything. It’s also important to start with logical audiences. Once you start getting traction you can begin introducing some more obscure interests.
Your copy at this stage should also be problem/solution focused, you are selling your product at this stage.
MOF – Retargeting Soft Interest
This stage of the funnel will only be effective if your cold campaigns were optimised for purchases, otherwise, you will be wasting money retargeting low-quality audiences.
The targeting for this stage is simple. It’s important that you exclude audiences that you will be targeting later down the funnel, such as ATCs, ICs, and Purchases.
The copy is really important at this stage of the funnel. You have already somewhat sold them on the product, hence why they clicked. I’ve found that trust-building copy and creatives are effective. Customer reviews/testimonials can be leveraged to build trust with your audience and convince them that your product delivers on what it promises, or at least, has a real customer base. People like to follow the herd, convince them that the herd buys your product.
Some advertisers skip this stage of the funnel completely, or combine it with the bottom of funnel retargeting. This is ok, but I like structure and separating the campaigns is much more orderly. It also allows you to ensure copy and creative is consistent with the funnel stage.
BOF – Retargeting Heavy Interest
This is the campaign that should provide you with the best results in terms of ROAS and CPA. However, as the audience will be much smaller, the daily ad spend will be relatively low.
It’s important that you exclude the MOF audiences, as well as purchasers.
Creative and copy should involve a strong CTA. This audience has already been involved in the purchase process and thus, have shown strong interest in your product. We often use discount codes at this stage as a CTA.
You can also get creative with your copy. Remember, this audience already knows your brand and product.
BOF Post Purchase – Optional
This is only applicable for brands with multiple products for sale. Only a very small budget should be allocated to this campaign.
Again, this audience is already very familiar with your brand so use this to your advantage.
As mentioned in the beginning, this is just a basic structure and there are many variations. It’s important that you take your own situation into account when setting up your Facebook ads.
I hope this post has been helpful, it’s not as granular as my previous posts but I think it’s important that people understand how to structure an entire Facebook ad strategy.
Top 10 CPM’s most expensive/cheapest Facebook
Here are the top 10 most expensive CPM’s for February-March 2022:
Australia – $19.57
Denmark – $18.98
Norway – $18.19
United States – $17.26
Singapore – $15.43
Israel – $14.68
New Zealand – $14.23
United Kingdom – $12.40
Canada – $11.86
Sweden – $11.71
Here are the top 10 cheapest CPM’s for February-March 2022:
If you are experiencing poor results with your Facebook Ads and have a “quick fix” in mind, please read this post before you attempt to fix it.
When you create Facebook ad campaigns, you know that there are just so many different ways that it can be set up.
Like a dozen different campaign objectives… Many conversion optimization options… Hundreds (maybe thousands, idk) of interest you can target… Lookalike audiences… The different platforms you can place your ad on… Video vs. image… Square vs. rectangle… Long copy vs. short copy…
And the list goes on and on.
So whenever you launch a campaign on Facebook and it isn’t working after 5-7 days, you can see how many different things can be adjusted in an attempt to fix it.
I’ve worked on hundreds of ad campaigns on Facebook and have had thousands of conversations about Facebook ads with either my clients or with people who are needing help running their ads and they come to me for consulting or to have me personally launch and scale their ads properly. Sometimes they will tell me what they think is causing their issues and what they say ALWAYS falls into two categories. They either say “I have no idea” or they say that they think the fix is just one thing like “I just need better targeting” or “my ads don’t get enough likes” or “I’m just not sure how much my daily budget is, that’s my main problem”
And I’ve made the mistake of taking their word for it so when I dive into their ad account, I go in with the expectation of just making that easy fix and everything else in the ad account being setup properly. Just fix their targeting or budgeting and it’ll all be smooth sailing from here. Nope. There are always many more problems I see as I go in their ad strategy and setup.
I’m going to go a bit deep here… people often emulate this type of thinking with a lot of things in life that are big problems but think the solution is super simple. When people need to lose weight, they’ll say “If I could afford healthy food and a gym membership, I would be in great shape” but there are so many other problems like their consistency or workout routine… their opinion of what “healthy food” is could be inaccurate. Get them free unlimited healthy food and free gym membership and they’ll still be out of shape. And people think “if I had a million dollars, I would be happy with my life” but then they win the lottery and are still miserable.
Maybe there is some sort of psychological pattern that people do to themselves to feel less overwhelmed with their problems? I’m not an expert in that area!
Here’s the point I’m trying to make: the fix for your low performing ads is MUCH more than just one single small little fix. It’s either a lot more little fixes or one big fix.
If I dive into your Facebook ad account and I see horrible campaign structure, improper budgeting, confusing ads, and terrible targeting… turning on “target people connected to Wi-Fi” is NOT going to fix your campaign. Find the “perfect interest” to target won’t fix it either. But this is the type of thinking that people have that I talk to with broken ads.
When it comes to fixing broken Facebook campaigns, all of the solutions fall into two main categories, each having their own criteria that MUST be met.
The categories
Campaign structure
Product (or offer)
The criteria that both must be met for a winning ad campaign
The campaign structure must cater to what Facebook prefers
The product must cater to what your target demographic prefers
Some things do overlap a little bit into both categories. For example, the ad design needs to be social media friendly so that Facebook doesn’t throttle your reach with high CPM and your ad must cater to your target demographic by being easy for them to understand what you are selling. So that’s a little bit of both Facebook and target demographic in that situation. And then in the scenario where your product can’t go against Facebook’s ad policy is clearly something that must cater to Facebook’s preferences.
I could write a book going over all of the things that fall into these categories that will fix a failing ad campaign, but here are a few real examples I’ve seen inside of ad campaigns over the last few weeks.
1. Budget spread too thin among ad sets and/or ads
An ad account I started working on last week was using dynamic ads with as many ad variations as possible. Maxed out number of creatives, maxed out number of ad copy, and headlines. The amount that they were spending on this dynamic ad was about $100 per day, however because they had so many dynamic options, they basically had like 200+ ads in one ad set. Put $100/day into that and you’ve got 50 cents per day per ad. That’s not nearly enough budget to give Facebook with any ad. If you are going to use dynamic ads or multiple ads in one ad set, try to give each ad a range of $5-15 per day.
2. Ad talks more about the business or brand instead of the product
This one broke the rule of having the ad and product cater to the target demographic. Especially for newly established brands, your best target demographic are impulse buyers. They don’t typically care about how long you’ve been in business or how your product is made. Now I’m not saying you should never put that into an ad, but I would recommend talking about the product or special offer at the top of the text in the ad and in the headline which is the first thing that a viewer will read.
3. Targeting is far too restricted and narrowed down
A rule of thumb when it comes to Facebook’s targeting is you want to make it easy for Facebook to find who it is you are looking for. When you add too many constraints on your targeting, it requires Facebook to work extra hard on figuring out who to put your ad in front of and Facebook makes you pay for that extra work it has to do by raising your CPM substantially. The ad account I worked on had 5 interests in the first level that were entertainment based, then narrowed down to 3 more interests that were hobby based that must match, and then finally was narrowed down again towards engaged shoppers. So when Facebook finds someone in that first level of audience, it needs to check if they match the second level, and then the third as well. For best results, just test out one or two interests in each ad set starting out.
4. Creative is not social media friendly
Your ad doesn’t need to be “good” as much as it needs to be designed in a way that Facebook prefers so that it shows the ad to a lot of people. This is the first warning sign that I encounter when I look at an ad in the ads library for a Facebook page. I was on the phone with someone consulting them on their Facebook strategy and they said “My biggest problem is the targeting. I have no idea what interest is the right one,” but then I look at their ads in the ad library and it doesn’t matter who they target with that ad, Facebook doesn’t like the ad. Too much text on the ad and low quality image is the common one I see for this one. The 20% text rule is no longer in effect, however if you put too much text on an ad it will throttle the reach and increase the CPMs (usually by a TON to where it is nearly impossible to counter) If you have some big bold text you want to put on the creative, just put that in the headline of the ad instead.
And there are many more errors that I have witnessed but I’m sure that a lot of people who read this post are making similar errors to just the few examples I’ve mentioned and I hope this can help them fix their ad account at least a little bit.
I’ve audited hundreds of ad campaigns, from huge organization like Greenpeace to startup drop shippers.
There are 9 areas I pay attention to when doing these audits:
Structure
Objectives
Targeting
Placements
Customer Avatar / Personas
Copywriting
Visuals
Landing Pages
Funnel / Strategy
Here are the most common mistakes I see businesses make with each of those Pillars, that hold them back from the ROI they need if they are to grow.
Pillar 1 – Structure
Biggest Mistake: Not using clear naming protocols.
Explanation: This is possibly the least sexy area of FB ads, but if you don’t name your campaigns, ad sets and ads consistently, you end up with unclear names for things and everything takes longer when trying to find your way around your account, look back at results, or compare performance of two campaigns/ad sets. Look at this example…How to avoid making the same mistake: The naming convention I recommend is as follows:Campaign:Objective | description | date i.e. “Guide download | Overwhelm | Jun 2019” Ad Set:Description | date | testing variable i.e.ad set 1: “Overwhelm | Jun 2019 | email lookalike” ad set 2: “Overwhelm | Jun 2019 | Interest: Moz” Ads:Description | date | testing variable | creative variable i.e.ad 1: “Overwhelm | Jun 2019 | email LLA | H1C1V1“ ad 1: “Overwhelm | Jun 2019 | email LLA | H1C1V2“ (H= headline, C= ad copy, V= visual)
Pillar 2 – Objectives
Biggest Mistake: Not using the conversion objective
Explanation: I think this comes down to people not quite understanding how Facebook’s targeting and objectives work.
Here’s an (over-simplified for the sake of clarity) overview:
There are two main factors that affect who sees your ads, your targeting and your objective. By choosing targeting options, you narrow down your potential audience from ‘Everyone who uses Facebook’ down to (for example) ‘people who like pages related to surfing’ or ‘women over 40 within 10 miles of my business’.
Then Facebook takes that group of people, and ranks them in order of ‘most likely to complete the objective you’ve chosen’ based on the huge amount of historical data they have on everyone. This means that if you’ve selected an audience of 100’000 people, and chosen the ‘traffic’ objective, then Facebook will decide who of those 100’000 people are most likely to click your ad (based on things like how relevant they think this ad is to them, and how often they’ve historically clicked on things like this), and show it to them in rough order, from person 1 to person 100’000.If you chose the ‘video views’ objective, then Facebook will decide who of those 100’000 people are most likely to watch your video (based on things like how often they watch videos like yours), and show it to them in rough order, from person 1 to person 100’000.So…
By choosing different objectives – your ads will show to different groups of people within your audience. This isn’t a big deal if you have an audience of 30’000 because your ad will likely show to all of them in a short timeframe, but if you’ve got an audience of 2 million people, then you want to show it to the people most likely to do the thing you want. And typically, when you’re sending someone to your website, it’s because you want them to do something when they’re there – i.e. download a guide, or buy a product, or book an appointment. So by not choosing the ‘conversion’ you are likely getting worse results than you could be.
How to avoid making the same mistake:
Read through the following paragraphs to learn when to use the most common objectives:
Traffic – Use this when you’re sending people to your website but don’t have an action for them to do when they get there, or can’t track what they do when they get there – I.e. a blog post/ press release/ new thing you’re doing, or when promoting third party content (where you don’t have access to a tracking pixel on the end site).
Conversions – Use this when you want to send someone to your website AND have them do an action – i.e. getting them to buy something, sign up for an event, or download your awesome guide.
Within conversions – you can set up different objectives. Best practice is to start with the end goal you want, i.e. purchases, and then move back along the customer journey (purchase > initiate checkout > add to basket > view content > view landing page) if you don’t get results.
Page Post Engagement (PPE) (This is the same as boosting a post) – Use this when you want to get comments/likes/shares on a post – i.e. content that doesn’t require an action/ for a competition/ getting people to tag their friends. These are also great when you have a messenger bot setup, triggered by a comment.
Video views – If you’re building an audience of people to retarget, then video is likely to be the cheapest route, because you can track anyone who watches 3 seconds or more of your video. Also if you want to get cheap awareness of something that doesn’t include a direct action you want someone to take.
Lead Generation (Lead Forms) – These seem undervalued by many advertisers, probably because getting the leads from the form into anywhere useful like your CRM, isn’t as easy as it should be* – but if you want to get people to sign up for something, or give you their details, and you they are already qualified, then Lead forms can work great. For local businesses who want leads (i.e. gyms or cleaners), lead forms consistently get me the best results. * Use Zapier to easily get the info people fill in sent to your email/phone instantly.
Reach – Using the reach objective is telling Facebook to not worry about any end objective, but rather to just show your ads to everyone in your chosen audience. This is useful when you’re targeting a small number of people (e.g. retargeting the 2000 people who’ve watched a specific video of yours), or if targeting a small geographical area (e.g the 5km radius around your business)
Brand Awareness – An underused objective – presumably because it doesn’t produce a very measurable end ‘result’ but brand awareness ads are actually very powerful. Facebook will choose who to show your ads to based on who is likely to remember your brand in a couple of days time. This means it can be very useful for ads going out to a broad cold audience, with a view to retargeting them. HOWEVER – I’ve also found it to be one of the most profitable objectives to use for retargeting in multi-tiered campaigns (i.e people who’ve visited your website but not signed up for your course yet)
Pillar 3 – Targeting
Biggest Mistake (Non-Local): Ignoring custom audiences. Explanation: The following order of targeting options are (broadly speaking) the preferred, because they go from warmest to coldest:
Custom audiences
Lookalike Audiences (LLA’s)
Interest targeting
Location
Age & Gender
And obviously, the warmer the audience, the more likely they are to buy from you.
Yet I see a lot of businesses just constantly pumping out ads to a cold audience, and ignoring the people who have already watched their videos / been to their website / added a product to their cart. In – businesses, a retargeting campaign, going out to people who have added something to cart but not bought is the highest ROI campaign 9 times out of 10, and it’s the same no matter what you sell.
How to avoid making the same mistake: Plan out a proper customer journey. What are all the different steps that someone goes through between first coming across your business and becoming a long-term customer?
Downloading a guide and getting on your email list?
Watch a video of you explaining how your process is ideal for them?
Browsing your website?
Scheduling a call with you personally?
And then create ads for each relevant stage to help guide them along that path. Remember, as they become more familiar with you, you will also speak to them differently.
Pillar 4 – Placements
Biggest mistake: Wasting money on the audience network.
Explanation: There are over a dozen different places where your ads can show. But not all of them tend to be equally effective, and Facebook will often push a high amount of traffic to the audience network because it is less saturated. The audience network is a huge number of websites and apps where Facebook also show ads. There are times and places when the audience network is great – I’ve seen it work well for link clicks to blog posts, and as part of a retargeting campaign, allowing you to ‘be everywhere’, but too often it’s not the right choice.
In recent times (since sometime in 2019) Facebook’s ability to choose the right placement has seemed to massively improve, to the point where I often leave placements on ‘automatic’ because I end up with a better end ROAS, but the audience network is the most common culprit for wasted spend, especially if you’re looking to get video views from a cold audience.
How to avoid making the same mistake:
Go to the ‘Performance and Clicks’ pulldown menu in ads manager, and then use ‘Placements’ in the ‘Breakdown’ pulldown menu to see if there are any Placements which are performing above or below the average.
If you see that you’re spending lots on the audience network and not getting results, then you might want to turn it off in future.
You do this at the ad set level, select the ‘Edit placements’ radio button instead of ‘Automatic’ and untick the placements you don’t want. Caveat – As mentioned, this is an area that I am encouraging people to play around with a bit less recently – it’s worth testing, but I’ve seen many examples of CPM’s increasing significantly when you remove too many placements.
Pillar 5 – Customer Avatar/Personas
When it comes to defining their customer clearly (if you don’t know who you’re selling to, it’s hard to speak to them in an appealing way) there are two related/intertwined mistakes I see made most often.
Biggest Mistake: They don’t define their target customer at all in the first place, and just use generic language that (sort of) appeals to everyone.
If they have defined an avatar, they’ve lumped everyone in together, to some amalgamation of all their customers.
Explanation: Generic language speaks to (and disqualifies) nobody. Buying is first and foremost an emotional decision, and if we don’t trust the person selling to us, we’re not going to buy, so you need to show that you UNDERSTAND THEM, and UNDERSTAND THEIR PROBLEMS.
How to avoid making the same mistake: First, define all the different groups of people that buy from you, there should be at least 3, but if you’ve got loads, then just identify the biggest few. Each of these personas will have different opinions/goals/pains etc, so once you’ve done that, ask yourself the following questions for each one:
For each one we want to know the basic demographics that define them:
age,
gender,
location,
income…
Then the psychographics that relate to what you’re selling:
What do they want?
What do they care about?
Who are their enemies?
What are their dreams?
What do they believe?
What are their suspicions?
How have they failed before?
What are they afraid of?
Then when you create an ad campaign, create it for just one persona at a time, and craft your message and your offer to match them.
Pillar 6 – Copy/Offer
Biggest Mistake: Copywriting is a huge topic, but you don’t have to be a world-class copywriter to get results from Facebook ads – the biggest mistake I see being made is talking about you, not about your clients.
Explanation: This follows on from the above customer persona section – because if you don’t have a clear picture of who your ad is for, then you can’t write for them. But you need to write for them, because talking about yourself is NOT going to appeal to them. “We are the biggest supplier of…”“I am a skilled teacher and can do…”This isn’t interesting to the reader, and will not get them to click.
How to avoid making the same mistake: WIIFM – Every time you write a sentence, read it back and ask yourself (from your reader’s POV) “What’s In It For Me?” If you have a clearly defined picture of who you’re writing for, then you can go through everything you write and make sure that it’s relevant to them, their hopes, dreams, goals, objections, fears…
Pillar 7 – Visuals
Biggest Mistake: Not testing them.
Explanation: The PRIMARY job of the image/video that you use is to get enough attention to stop someone scrolling for a split second, so that they can scan the ad copy to see if it’s relevant/interesting.
If you just chuck up one photo and never try anything else, who knows how much money you’re leaving on the table.
How to avoid making the same mistake: Effective attention-getting-visuals tend to fit into one of 3 categories:
The target market Show an image/video of the type of person you’re speaking to – they will pay attention because it’s relevant to them. For example – if you run a food truck, then a photo of your customers eating an awesome looking burger in front of a recognizable place/landmark in your town.
The problem/solution/aspirations Demonstrate either the issue at hand, or your product/service solving that issue – again, people will pay attention because it’s relevant. For example – If you sell waterproof hiking shoes, you could show someone with wet socks looking miserable.
A pattern interrupt. Something that just seems out of place will get attention (read Purple Cow by Seth Godin), but beware using ‘wacky’ but irrelevant images/videos for the sake of it. these might get people to stop/click, but it’s likely doing nothing to qualify the right people. For example – I saw a FB ad a while back that was just a picture of a cute dog, with a headline along the line of “Instead of you seeing a boring advert, I’m paying to show you this pup” – it got my attention, but that was that.”
So find (or create) a bunch of images and video that fit those categories and see which gets the best Click-Through-Rates and the most conversions.
Caveat- you can of course, also use the video in your ads to teach/inspire/sell directly, but remember that without getting initial attention, your efforts will be passed over, and you still need to be testing different variations.
Pillar 8 – Landing pages
Biggest Mistake: S L O W loading times.
Explanation: Your landing page is the page that you send people to if they click on your ad. It could be a simple blog post, a product page on an e-commerce store, a booking page for a cafe, or an opt-in page where someone can give their info in exchange for a download/course/freebie.
Landing pages are consistently given less attention than they need especially compared to the ads sending people there, which is crazy because it can easily increase/decrease the ROI on your ads by 100-500% or more. and the biggest culprit is loading speed – how long it takes for your website to load for the viewer. According to Neil Patel “Nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and they tend to abandon a site that isn’t loaded within 3 seconds.”
How to avoid making the same mistake: Google ‘pagespeed insights’ and click the top link, then enter your website/page. All those things that appear, they are all costing you money. ‘Eliminate render-blocking resources’ ‘Defer unused CSS’ ‘Properly size images’ – it’s all geeky stuff, and it all counts – so find a website developer and pay them to fix it. The great thing about speeding up your site is that it’s going to pay for itself over and over and over. If you’re paying money every month to run ads, then it’s worth paying a one-off fee to increase your conversion rate overnight.
Pillar 9 – Funnel/Strategy
Biggest Mistake: Randomness
Explanation: To put it bluntly – most businesses don’t have a plan when it comes to FB ads. They tried a couple of ads that worked, but now they aren’t working so well, and they just keep throwing things up without much of a clue.
How to avoid making the same mistake: It’s not complicated, not groundbreaking. but it is effective. You find an established business like yours, that’s already running ads, and you ‘model’ what they’re doing.
And the great thing that came from Facebook’s privacy stuff is that all this info is publicly available. Here’s how to you find it:
– Find known successful companies on FB – OR search keywords for your niche – Look for the ‘Page Transparency’ box on the right.
– And if they’re running ads, Facebook will tell you.
– You click on ‘Go to Ad Library’
– And there you go, all the ads that they’re currently running.
– You can click on them, follow their funnel, see what they’re doing.
– And model it for your business.
This isn’t perfect, and you can’t just copy/paste a funnel from another business, but it gives you a starting point, and if you model what a similar business is doing, adapt it to your own products & clients, then test from there, you’re likely going in the right direction, rather than driving around without a map.
There you go – avoid these 9 mistakes and you’re probably halfway there.
The hardest part of working on Facebook is working with Facebook.
Set your conversion objective for business goal, even if you can’t exit “Learning Limited”. Cheaper results.
You can get incredible results if you go “Broad” targeting. This means no targeting parameters. But first you have to groom your Pixel Metadata with Lookalikes, retargeting, etc.
Videos are gold.
Play it white hat. The “gurus” who teach you “scaling tactics” with duping and running small ad sets either haven’t advertised in 3 years or they are just saying what someone else told them.
These 5 rules will help any budding FB Advertiser.
What’s your favorite FB hack?
Before running an ad for my target country, I run the same ad for low-cost countries like African and Asian countries to gather insane amount of Likes, Shares, and Comments.
Then I use the same ad to run for my target country. The likes and shares serve as a social proof that the ad is worth watching.
This is a common strategy 🙂 But you don’t have to run the ad to third world countries – you can simply run it optimized for Engagement in the US (or wherever your target market is). Engagement-optimized campaign CPMs go as low as under $1.
It’s always better to accumulate social proof (especially comments) from your native country’s users.
In the brand I’m using in this example, the purchase flow looked like this:
Homepage – Offer $120 AOV Product Bundle (they have the option to add to cart here) – Product Page – Add to Cart – Cart Page – Checkout – Purchase
—–
Which in itself is a rather long flow with a high AOV. Generally speaking, you want to keep your purchase flow as short as possible to prevent drop-offs.
Note: You might want to add upsells on the cart page, so this flow is not always ideal. It could also very well be that you need to explain your product to convince people to buy it, which is why e.g., sending people to a homepage or specific landing page can also be better than sending them straight to the product page. You need to test here.
So, the landing page from people who came from Facebook was the homepage combined with a relatively high AOV product bundle (2 products) for $120.
This did a decent job at selling the product, and the conversion rate was 1.38%, with an AOV of $120.
So our revenue from 100 visitors looked like this:
(100*0.0138)*120 = $165
So, our RPV (Revenue per visitor) was $1.65 ($165/100)
This offer was not profitable for the client. The overall ROAS was way below the ROAS Targets, and I knew I needed to change something. However, on the ads side of things, everything looked great.
So, here’s what I changed:
Landing Page
First of all, I started by redirecting the traffic to the product page to see if this affects the conversion rate.
This, however, wasn’t a success because the conversion rate didn’t increase significantly. In addition, the Facebook Ads were still unprofitable, and I knew a greater change needed to come. So, I built my specific landing page for that product bundle.
Since I’m not the greatest at building landing pages or writing landing page copy, here are two excellent guides where I learned a lot:
How My Landing Page Structure Looked Like In Order:
Hero Banner (With a button that automatically scrolls to buy section)
“Featured In” Part
Why “Product” Part
Reviews Part
Guarantee
Product Buy Section
Reviews
—
How The Purchase Flow Looked Like:
Landing Page – Scroll Down – Add to Cart – Cart Page /w new Upsell – Checkout
—
I follow the structure from the 2 guides above, so if you’re interested in building your own landing page, I highly suggest you check them out!
Note: I always use GemPages for landing pages, so if you’re a Shopify store owner, I’d suggest you use GemPages to build your Landing pages. ShoGun is also pretty good, but I prefer GemPages.
While the new landing page did a slightly better job selling (Conversion Rate increased from 1.38% to 1.7%) than either the product page or homepage, this still meant the Facebook Ads were just barely even profitable. So a more significant change needed to be made.
I changed the offer.
2. The Offer
Before, we were selling a product bundle upfront for a $120 AOV with now a 1.7% CV Rate, which meant we were getting a $2.04 RPV (Revenue per visitor)
Here’s what I changed:
I advertised a lower-priced AOV product with a discount on the landing page (core product) and instead created an in-cart upsell with the old 2nd bundle product. So if customers bought these 2 products, it was basically the same bundle as before.
How the numbers changed:
AOV: Decreased by 10% (which was to be expected) from $120 to $108.
CV Rate: Increased from 1.7% to 3.15%
RPV: Increased from $2.04 to $3.78, which is a huge change.
So from the start ($1.65 per visitor) to the end ($3.78 per visitor), I was able to increase the revenue per visitor by $2.13, which is an increase of 129% just by changing the landing page and offer.
TL;DR: By changing the Landing Page and offer from a brand I was able to increase their revenue per visitor by 129%.
I hope I could show you with this post that it’s not only your Facebook Ads you need to work on. In the end, your ads + homepage are connected, and even something as simple as the offer can have a significant impact on your conversion rate.
Campaigns will be affected in a variety of ways including:
Delayed Reporting: Real-time reporting for iOS devices will not be supported, and data may be delayed up to 3 days.
No support for breakdowns: For both app and web conversions, delivery and action breakdowns, such as age, gender, region, and placement will not be supported.
Attribution Changes: The attribution window for all new or active ad campaigns will be set at the ad set level, rather than at the account level. Additionally, going forward, 28-day click-through, 28-day view-through, and 7-day view-through attribution windows will not be supported for active campaigns.
Targeting Limitations: As more people opt out of tracking on iOS 14 devices, the size of your app connections, app activity Custom Audiences, and website Custom Audiences may decrease.
Dynamic Ads Limitations: As more devices update to iOS 14, the size of your retargeting audiences may decrease.
Limited to 8 conversion events per domain: You’ll be restricted to configuring up to 8 unique conversion events per website domain, and ad sets optimizing for a conversion event that’s no longer available will be paused when Facebook implements Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework. Businesses that use more than 8 conversion events per domain for optimization or reporting should create an action plan for how to operate with 8 events maximum. (Note: Facebook will automatically configure the events most relevant based on our activity)
(There’s more, especially for mobile campaigns, but you can read about it at the link at the bottom of my post)
Action Items:
We’ll want to preemptively verify our domain ownership in Business Manager. This will allow us to have authority over which conversion events are eligible for our domain should we choose to do so: Apple dev verification
We’ll have to be vigilant in terms of keeping these changes in mind when assessing campaign performance. For example, our FB ROAS will likely appear to be lower in the coming days and we may not be able to simply look at yesterday’s data when assessing performance. Instead, we may need a 3-day window.
This will likely affect Google Ads as well, but I have not seen Google release a document outlining the specific impacts this will have. For now, we can assume that what’s happening to Facebook will be the same for Google.
Knowing how to make a good landing page makes a massive difference to your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. When you design a landing page that offers a better user experience, you’ll see marked improvements in key metrics, including your Ad Rank (Quality Score & CPC), bounce rate, and conversion rate. As these factors improve, your costs will fall, ultimately helping you earn a higher return on investment (ROI).
In this guide, we’ll show you how to make a good landing page, covering each vital step to make it easy for you to deliver an experience people won’t forget.
What are the most critical aspects when designing a landing page?
When you’re learning how to make a good landing page, you should focus on the following:
Relevancy of landing page
Define your unique selling point (USP)
Show your product/service in action
Tell people what they need to know
Make your landing page mobile-friendly
Simplicity
Make your call to action clear
Remove distractions
Provide transparent policies
Leverage social proof
Minimize loading times
Build engagement
Optimize for voice search
Social Sharing & Feeds.
Test and update
Let’s look at each one in more detail.
1. Relevancy of landing page
Here’s a common mistake in PPC advertising:
You promise one thing in your ad, but when people click it, your landing page fails to deliver that promise. For example, your ad may offer a 10% discount on brake pads, but when people arrive on the landing page, it offers a 5% discount on brake discs.
This inconsistency will deter users, and your business will lose out on possible leads and conversions. You must create relevant landing pages that align with your ads — and with user intent.
2. Define your USP (unique selling point)
Is your ad and landing page closely aligned now?
Good. Now, it’s time to define your unique selling proposition, which is how you differentiate your offer from your competition.
Your ad may address a problem that your target audience needs to solve. With a strong USP, you can show prospects that your product or service is the best solution available.
For example, if you are a quality pizza delivering company and you are best at coping with your delivery time you must emphasize your quality and your delivery time on the landing page.
3. Show your product or service in action
Humans are visual creatures. If they see products or services in action, their appreciation and desire to have it will increase.
You can experiment with these ideas to improve engagement on your landing page:
Still photos
Animated explainer video
User tutorial video
Carousel shots that highlight specific features
Infographic
Also, it gives you a chance to explain the product or service in more detail, answering any common queries, and dispelling doubts before they arise. For example: if your landing page is having steps to complete by the user, escort them in a way that keeps the interest active for the user. Like:
Step 1: Fill the form
Step 2: Get the offer
Step 3: Get Paid
4. Tell people what they need to know
Nowadays, there is zero room for fluffy content, especially in paid advertising. Your ads and landing pages must get to the point – fast!
Use your landing page to explain only vital information that prospects need to know, such as:
Benefits of your product or service
Pricing and purchasing options
Business contact details including physical location and phone number
Social media channels and email address
Focus on the essential information to maintain interest and build credibility with your landing pages.
5. Make your landing page mobile-friendly
In the mobile age, nobody wants to deal with confusing websites. Therefore, you must create landing pages that offer smooth and straightforward navigation, right to the point of sign-up.
Make your landing pages mobile-responsive, so users on smartphones and tablets can quickly scan through the page, and complete any action that’s required.
Here are a few pointers:
Compact images – Make your images small (in dimensions and file size). This will speed up your loading times and make pages easier to view.
Reduce typing demands – Keep things simple for users.
Avoid auto-downloads – This annoys users by taking up space in their device.
Avoid auto-play videos – Intrusive audio can embarrass or annoy users, especially if they are watching videos in a public place.
Minimize animations – Use color effects and GIFs sparingly to speed up loading times. Provide animation if it is really required to show some demo otherwise don’t use it.
6. Simplicity
Learning how to make a good landing page may seem scary, but here’s the best tip of them all:
Keep it simple.
Here’s how:
Simple and direct copy
Clear, direct headlines
Minimalist design with plenty of white space to enhance the information rather than hiding it.
A clear call-to-action (CTA) that tells users what you want.
Fewer colors
High-readability
Here is the example of clutter vs. simple and clean landing pages.
Keeping it simple will lead to better results in terms of engagement, clicks, and conversions.
7. Make your call to action clear
No landing page is complete without a strong CTA.
Whatever your product or service is, and however you make your offer, you need CTAs at decision points on the page to drive action.
Consider these strategies for better CTAs:
Less is more
It’s a good idea to avoid having too many CTAs. It may be best to use just one at the very bottom of the page. That being said, having another CTA above-the-fold is a popular choice.
If you decide on that, make sure you also include vital information above-the-fold, so users have those details to guide their decision.
Make it count
Have you ever seen an action button with the word “submit” on it?
This is a common choice, but not a great one because it lacks strength and inspiration. Instead, you want to incite action.
Create a stronger CTA that gets people to react. For example, “Don’t miss out on your FREE download” is better than “download now.”
Step-by-step structures
Outline how easy your visitors will find your product or service to use. With clear, easy-to-follow directions, the value of your offer becomes undeniable — and often, irresistible.
8. Remove Distractions
Here’s something you should keep in mind when you want to know how to make a good landing page:
You must focus on a single conversion goal. Just one.
Therefore, anything else that distracts from your goal is surplus. Get rid of all distractions, external links, and unnecessary CTAs, images, or information that dilutes your message or invites users away from your landing page.
Ideally, you want to streamline the journey on your landing page to funnel leads to your final CTA.
9. Provide transparent policies
As we move into 2020, consumer privacy matters are at an all-time high. The data breach scandals of Facebook, Yahoo, and Quora caused panic, and the General Data Protection (GDPR) regulations have taken effect across the globe.
Now, you must be transparent with the processes and practices you use for collecting, storing, and sharing consumer data. If people can’t trust your brand, you’ll never make a sale.
Follow these tips to nurture trust with people:
Use cookies toolbar to notify people that you track on-site behavioral data.
Use terms and conditions page to outline what your business is responsible for, and what it’s not.
Share your privacy policy, so people understand how you use consumer data.
Publish an FAQ page that answers common questions people may have about your brand, and your products and services.
10. Leverage social proof
Imagine your company provides analytics services to major corporations. Once you have one or two big clients in your portfolio, you can leverage those relationships to convince others to convert.
By getting positive reviews, you’ll have strong social proof from happy customers — that pay well. That can be enough to sway other top-tier clients.
To maximize this strategy, try to get video testimonials. Video content is much more engaging, and it will be a high-impact addition to your landing page.
11. Minimize loading times
Speed is crucial in the customer journey. Nobody wants to wait around for a slow website to load, especially on mobile.
Here are some tips to slash your loading times:
Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), as this is an important ranking factor of Google’s Mobile and Desktop Indexes.
Use compact-sized images and files.
Minify your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
Opt for client-side scripting rather than server-side.
Use CDNs (content delivery networks)
Reduce redirects
Enable compressions
12. Build engagement
Shoppers have a lot to choose from online. You need to work hard to convert prospective new customers, tailoring your marketing tools and techniques to engage your site visitors in ways that they appreciate.
For instance, you can harness data insights with a live chatbot feature, or utilize pop-up discounts that cater to each visitor’s interests.
These techniques keep people on your page and make them consider your offer or brand as an option.
13. Optimize for voice search
In 2019, voice search enjoyed significant growth, primarily driven by the improvements in voice-enabled technology. Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant are battling it out to be king in voice-enabled devices, and with it, they are changing search engine optimization.
How?
Well, people who use voice search tend to do things a little differently than those who do a regular text-based search.
So, when you’re thinking of how to make a good landing page in 2020 and beyond, you should think about the following:
Focus on user intent
When people use voice search, they usually have a particular need, such as:
The address or opening hours of a store.
The price of a specific product.
Whether a business offers a specific type of service etc.
Keep user intent in mind to create content that answers specific questions, providing answers to things people want to know.
Google may be a smart search engine, but it needs all the help it can get. The better you optimize your content, the easier it will be for Google to analyze it — and promote it.
Use schema markup
Schema markup makes it easier for search engines to comprehend the content of a webpage. Consider your website, your audience, and the CRM editing capabilities to use the right schema markup that will help you get noticed by voice searchers.
Use long-tail keywords
Voice search queries are typically conversational in style, often framed as questions or full, grammatically-correct sentences.
You can incorporate these long-tail, conversational keyword phrases into your landing page content to attract targeted traffic. As a bonus, this defined traffic is often cheaper.
14. Social Sharing & Feeds
Show your social feeds and tweets on your landing page to show your presence on social media. Once visitor purchase or do some conversion, make it easy for them to brag about their purchase and share their experiences by adding links to all types of social media. It will increase your credibility and presence on social platforms.
15. Test and update
Like everything else in PPC advertising, your landing pages are not a set-and-forget task. Once you publish your landing pages, you must keep an eye on the analytics to gauge their performance.
Try A/B testing several ideas to determine the most effective version of your landing page. For example, you could test out two versions with different:
Headlines
Benefits
Images
CTAs
CTA positions
Run variants for a while, gather the data, and then analyze it to identify which version generates more clicks, leads, and conversions.
This process of testing and monitoring should be ongoing, helping you continually update and improve your landing pages, eliminating flaws, and optimizing strong points to create the best possible user experience.
Remember only to change and test one aspect at a time. This makes it easier to determine the impact of the change. For example, test images one week, then pick the best image. Next week, test headlines, then select the best headline. The following week, test CTAs, etc.
Wrap Up
So, now you know how to make a good landing page. By analyzing these areas and putting in the time and effort to optimize each one, you’re sure to see dramatic improvements.
PPC advertising requires patience and strategy, more so than a big budget. Learning how to optimize your landing pages is crucial to maximizing your ROI.
From my experience Google ads cost me $0.80 per click. Of course it depends on the niche. So it might vary.
Now for $10 I can find someone on Upwork who writes me a 1000 word blog post. Again it depends on the niche. But that’s been my experience.
So $10 spent on Google ads will give me 12 clicks. Wouldn’t a $10 blog post give me much more traffic than 12 clicks over the years? Assuming it has a good headline and maybe some tags.
If I had to bet, I would bet that the blog post over time would far outperform the Google ads. But I don’t yet have the data. So I’m curious what you think about that?
Answer:
The blog probably would get more unique visitors, yeah. But are they qualified, are you selling them in the blog post, does your $10/article writer understand their needs and have experience on writing copy that converts?
With ads you can filter your keywords to find customers who are warm and are actively looking for a solution, it’s a little harder for articles on that front. E.g. a search for ‘welders in hackney’ would be a solid term to target with ads, but an article written on that topic probably wouldn’t rank well enough without a lot of research on the companies, finding out their pricing, services offered and enough unique and smart content to rank above those services own websites.
If your plan is to replace every advert keyword you’re targeting with a $10 blog post, you’ll end up with hundreds of really low quality articles that Google will recognize as low-effort and out of sync with the searcher’s intent and you won’t rank for anything.
Blog post with SEO included that ranks for specific keywords will have a good roi. But just make sure it is quality content as $10 content is likely to be worth exactly that.
Working on an actual account will teach you more thing s than a course
Take a course only to cover the basics for developing strategies work on an actual account
Always look out for new features in ads manager, as Google is often biased towards new features and provides results at cheaper costs
Courses are a great start but nothing beats just running ads. Personally I think there is more than enough free info on YouTube to last a lifetime…..and good info too.
Learn the basics. Understand each feature in the dashboard. You’re general marketing experience with FB will help you.
I would recommend taking a client up on the offer or running ads for yourself to learn.
The best way to learn google ads is by doing so. Do not buy a course! Google has some beginner courses (skillshop) take some of these and than ask an ngo if you can work for them. For ngo‘s google ads is free so it is a nice why to get to know the interface and everything around. And after than maybe you are able to go to an agency, there you could learn a lot.
I’m currently developing an iOS game and recently launched a TestFlight beta, which has brought in 60 users in the first week. While I believe crowdfunding could eventually be a viable option, my community is far too small to attempt that right now. I’ve been considering options like pitching to a game publisher or seeking seed funding to help finance marketing campaigns and additional development… However, I’m also wondering if it just makes more sense to continue developing at my own pace, relying on free methods to grow the community, as I’ve been doing so far?? Has anyone faced a similar situation? How did you approach funding with a small community? Any insights into pitching to publishers, seed funding, or alternative strategies would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! submitted by /u/Seedani [link] [comments]
Every state in the US is an "at-will" state. You can wake up the next day and be fired for literally any reason, and employers WILL find the pettiest reasons to fire people like me (autism/ADHD). I have done great whenever I've worked for myself, and left a minimum wage job within less than a month; it was so damn unbearable. Your boss liking you is what determines how much money you make, your promotions, and the constant workplace politics are awful and disorienting, I don't care to ass kiss, I hate the idea of being a leader; I work far better alone where I can focus on deliverables and not social climbing my way to six figures. Nothing about corporate or "regular" jobs feels secure when so much of your success in them is determined on social politics and not on hard work and can be taken away from you like it's nothing so quickly. When you're meant to be an entrepreneur, you really will just know. Plus, you have full control over your time (to an extent) and can create multiple income streams with your abnormal working schedule. That makes me feel way more secure in my ability to support myself, the fact that my employment is in my own hands, than any job offering unlimited PTO that they're gonna make difficult for you to actually take anyway. submitted by /u/RussianAsshole [link] [comments]
I want to invent a workwear range in Australia. My design is tight elasticated pockets to prevent pens and screwdrivers falling out. I would like it to be arc flash rated initially for electricians and geta a prototype made. I've made some enquires on made in China sites. No reply yet. I think it's a simple yet good idea. Any advice? submitted by /u/garyv88 [link] [comments]
This year has been like the renaissance of Gen AI. There were so many amazing video and image generation/enhancing models. What industries or models do you think will surge in 2025? (humanoid robots perhaps?) submitted by /u/Hungry-Scholar2022 [link] [comments]
Hi, we want to set up a channel where we could manage our Beta users, get feedback etc. Slack seems a bit expensive at $10 per EVERY user. But one thing I don't fully understand is, "single channel users" that come free. So does that mean, that I can have unlimited single channels and have my clients in those single channels, and then only pay for my team members (that will be into all the channels) as active users? Or maybe you know better alternatives? Thanks a lot submitted by /u/niuhas [link] [comments]
I've been posting alot I get it. But i don't have a mentor or coach. I have come up with the idea of posting on YouTube shorts and Tik Tok for a call to Arms to enlist possible CoFounders for my project. I am so motivated and excited to make this work I want to share my plan with everyone. Thoughts and ppossible problems? submitted by /u/KillingwithasmileXD [link] [comments]
I’m currently looking to sell a Facebook Buy Sell Trade group and I was wondering if anyone has had any experience doing this? It’s located in Ohio with 19.3k members and I’m curious as to how does one figure out the value of a group? submitted by /u/AstronautSerious7646 [link] [comments]
As the title states, I’m looking for some manufacturers that I can trust with making the product I envision, I will obviously be making my own prototype but after that I want manufacturers to be doing that part of the job for me. Any recommendations please? preferably ones in the UK. Thanks. submitted by /u/Awkward_Fig_5846 [link] [comments]
I target different locations, in some I can charge higher rates because the prices are generally higher. Generally I give my fees once they contact me. So it is considered a conversion because they clik my contact form on my website, but it is actually still fact finding for me and it might or might not turn into a conversion I can actually target slightly different types of clients in certain locations and offer more (or less) expensive services. At the moment I have only one ad targeting all of them, and then once they contact me and based on what they ask for I differentiate, so I get a lot of really useless, generic leads. Should I create different ads and perhaps separate campaigns for each location, even the product is the same? submitted by /u/Temporary_Craft5078 [link] [comments]
Hello everyone, I hope you’re all doing well. I am a manufacturer of handmade carpets and rugs based in India. My family and I have been crafting these beautiful pieces for many years, and we take great pride in our work. However, recently, I’ve noticed a decline in the number of custom orders from interior designers, which has been quite concerning. I’ve tried reaching out via email to various designers, but unfortunately, I haven’t received any responses. I’m really looking for some advice on how to better connect with interior designers and attract more clients who appreciate the craftsmanship of handmade rugs. If anyone here has experience in this area or can offer any tips, I would greatly appreciate it. Additionally, if there’s anyone who can help me secure larger orders of handmade carpets and rugs, it would be incredibly beneficial for my business. Thank you so much for your time and support! submitted by /u/Dear-Implement-6853 [link] [comments]
I've been running lead gen campaigns from 3 months for my company here in India. Initially with Max clicks, the performance was great! we were getting about 15-20 Leads with a $25 per day budget. I would say the lead quality was good. Approx 75% were qualified leads. This was without conversion tracking btw. However, from past 30 days, the performance has tanked. I have enabled conversion tracking as well and its been tracking data from past 30 days. I'm still using max clicks without any cost cap. I am however getting about 16-22 leads but now the budget is $65 dollars. This is a new campaign and i wanted to give it sometiem to warm up, its not improving and still consistently giving about 18 leads per day. I've been hit wit the "Limited by bid strategy" error on my campaign now. What steps shall i take to improve the performance? I'm no expert in Google ads but i know how to go about. Shall I change the bid strategy to Max Conversions with TCPA or just stick with Max clicks? Conversion tracking is in place and so far it has tracked 250+ conversion in 2 weeks. submitted by /u/PitifulReserve1901 [link] [comments]
I barely open my personal account for advertising purpose. Now when i opened i have this error message saying " You're Restricted From AdvertisingYou can't run ads or manage ad accounts", when i clicked on 'See Details', i don't see any violations, no ads rejection nothing. I don't have a chat or email option to contact the support team neither. I've the 2FA enabled already. Can someone help please? submitted by /u/Fun_Faithlessness990 [link] [comments]
Do you think checking out competitor ads really makes a difference? I'm curious if anyone has found it genuinely helpful or if it's more of a waste of time. Have you been able to gain any useful insights or inspiration from it? I'd love to hear your experiences! submitted by /u/ManagementBudget23 [link] [comments]
I set up conversion tracking for a client back in June and tested everything myself. Their website form is from hubspot. On my side in Google Ads it is reporting up to x4 the number of leads as hubspot. Things I've already looked at: tag manager doesn't seem to be double counting any leads. in Google Ads, conversions are counted once per user and not 'every time' a form is filled by the same user Has any one else in this subreddit resolved a similar issue? Muchas Gracias submitted by /u/doireexplora [link] [comments]
Just like the title says. I'm planing to move to the capital of my country, I have zero connections but I do know How to be a Personal Trainer very well and I know I can succeed. But is there a way to start from scratch without working for a Comercial Gym first ? Do I build a Landing Page, logo and social and use ads ? Do I knock on doors and give out cards ? Both ? I have a Campervan so I can use the mentality of a startup and cut costs on rent. Would really appreciate your advice. submitted by /u/notsolurking [link] [comments]
We have more than 8 accounts active and have a substantial monthly spending. Facebook offered monthly invoicing. At that moment I felt wow few months ago. When I paid my first I never received a response that they received it. I open several support cases and found out it bounce back upon my investigation. Now again I paid, and the case is with internal team and only answer is they are investigating and cherry on the too they disabled my accounts and I can’t pay through Cc. Have anyone face similar issue with them and what you did and how much time they took for simple check. Even emailing them every day they don’t have new response. Now i feel like hitting my head against the wall. Please meed your precious input and suggestions. submitted by /u/easyppc99 [link] [comments]
I'm launching a big project and I need help. It's an organic mini farm and Wedding Venue. I understand this is more than I can do alone and I need outside funding. Im looking to take on at least 10 CoFounders to help with this project. I feel that it's only fair to offer equal equity in the project as I expect everyone to contribute. Im looking close to a 2 million dollar investment. I need Marketing, Sales Lead, Grant Writing and legal, land management, Gardeners and Farmers, HR, Technology Support, etc. Together we are going to write a fool proof business plan to pitch to investors and Apply for Grants. We will also focus on producing our own capital towards the project. I plan on making it upscale. In my community there is a lack of what I am wanting to offer. I plan on creating jobs, and providing a family friendly environment for the community to visit. I will have a store front, and I plan on Marketing to upscale restaurants, stores, and people in the community. I will have a large online presence. I plan on being to standard for wedding venues in my area. I feel that i don't deserve more than my CoFounders because I recognize what others can bring to the table. I know I'm not more qualified than anyone else. Is it reasonable to offer equal shares? submitted by /u/KillingwithasmileXD [link] [comments]
Hello guys, my client is in a niche business and competitors are not very much, however, it’s a business where they are willing to pay $100-200$ per qualified lead, and given the landing page only accepts work official emails, my funnel is very solid, but I am uncertain if my bid is correct. I’m using broad match given the niche nature of the business and optimizing negative keywords almost daily, however, it seems that I am unable to identify the most optimal TCPA, any advice ? My impression share loss per budget is 0%, but absolute top is at 80% loss. What is your advice in identifying ? And one more question: can the budget stay the same even if I increase TCPA? Budget is 120$ and TCPA is $100 (for one campaign) I want to make sure that my strategy is correct before going over the budget. submitted by /u/The-moe-reyouknow [link] [comments]
Running a display remarketing campaign. I want to know if ads are serving as sponsored Gmail ads. In the ad creator it shows a preview for Youtube and Gmail. But in the ‘Where your ads showed’ report I can’t find any reference to Gmail (it’s all made up of websites and Youtube.com). Note I do have all 140 mobile apps excluded at account level but Gmail ads should still serve on desktop. What’s the closest thing I can see in the ad platform that shows ads are showing as sponsored messaged on Gmail? submitted by /u/tcsotm [link] [comments]
It's been about 1 year of running a software business, and my revenue has been stagnant for the past 8 months. Deep down I know I should be grinding to get my revenue to levels that I am aiming for, whether that may be updating the software, writing content for my blogs, reaching out to potential clients, etc, but for the past few months I really don't know why but I cannot focus. I can't seem to sit down and just 'work'. All I do is binge on some Alex Hormozi-type entrepreneur dopamine content on YouTube and Twitter, infinite scrolling. But it's not that I don't have a goal or anything. It's more like, when I am writing a new blog, in my head I think about "hmm maybe it's rather better to spend this time programming". And similarly when I code, in my head I think about "why am I wasting so much time for this little feature, why not just reach out to more clients". And the loop goes on and I eventually not achieving anything. The worst part is, after a few weeks I regret not focusing on anything. Just wondering if anyone has been in a similar place, and if any solutions worked. I really want to get out of this loop and start making progress. Thanks guys. submitted by /u/make-dough [link] [comments]
https://preview.redd.it/5bncmh8i92ud1.png?width=1166&format=png&auto=webp&s=076d1c24667519b9f43b300272b5a4b3cc047ec7 https://preview.redd.it/wn7wsi8i92ud1.jpg?width=1240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b4062efe41388912f395eb31f83f1bf6c63f8a6 https://preview.redd.it/jav00k8i92ud1.png?width=620&format=png&auto=webp&s=487bd574d32706496db0ad7897bcd444b7c1f52e Montana Knife Company: Three Years to Eight Figures This is how you build a business. Make an amazing product. Shake your customers hand. Charge what its worth. Let’s get into it! Josh Smith started making knives when he was 11 years old. By 12 he joined the American Bladesmith Society. When Josh was 19 he undertook the test to become a Master Bladesmith (didn’t know that was a thing!). It included crafting a knife that could cut through a one-inch rope, chop through a 2x4, shave hair and bend 90 degrees without breaking (wtf?). He passed and became the youngest Master Bladesmith in the world. The next period in Josh’s life was anything but certain. It never seemed time to start the knife making company he dreamed of. The years passed. He did custom knives, took a job as a lineman, got divorced and raised four kids as a single dad. But the dream stayed alive and he took a few prototype knives to an event in South Carolina where he met Brandon Horoho. At first Brandon just worked on the website and marketing materials, but Josh quickly realized Brandon was an asset and offered him a partnership. In the fall of 2020 the Montana Knife Company was officially launched. Boom! Here you have one of approximately 120 master bladesmiths in the entire world leading a knife company. Not a suit with an excel spreadsheet. And what comes out of the factory? The first knife was the Blackfoot 2.0. A fixed knife that would be a work horse for hunters. They decided to launch them as weekly drops and the first one sold out in 14 minutes. The business quickly grew and with the pandemic shutting down supply chains they struggled to get enough of the high quality 52-100 ball bearing steel they used to make the knives. But they kept at it and continued to grow. They didn’t use ads. Instead they travelled to hunting expos and archery events. The thought was that the quality was so high that if someone held it they would buy it. It worked. Side note: in a world where product companies pride themselves on throwing money at Meta I find this refreshing. If you have an amazing product it can become the marketing (or at least a major part of it). Within three years they reached over $10 million in sales. They’ve expanded into 12-13 skus that are sold in the same six colors and recently started making chef’s knives. This is super interesting. Did Josh just launch his own chef’s knife? I mean he’s a Master Bladesmith… Nope. He worked with Mareko Maumasi, one of the country’s best culinary knife makers. How’s it going? Based on the website, where every culinary knife is sold out… I’d say it’s going pretty well. Oh and they cost $300-500 each. Other Interesting notes from the DTC Podcast with Brandon Horoho: •They drop knives every week now and are scheduled out for 18 months •The day they launched their “in stock” knives they had the largest increase in customers ever, some customers don’t want to participate in the “drop” model •“Branding is more about saying no to things than saying yes to things” •Want to have a knife from first blood to last bite •They’re seeing less teens hunt •Collaborations have worked well •First chef knife drop sold out in three minutes •Weekly vlog that covers what is going on with the company and in the shop is doing really well •They’re expanding into folding knives (which account for 90% of sales for other knife companies) •Look to brands like Rolex that make products to pass down to your kids •Want to grow to $50-100 million, but not in the next 2-3 years Want more entrepreneur stories for entrepreneurs? Sign up for the Capital Friday Newsletter! submitted by /u/capitalfriday [link] [comments]
So I wanted to test my skills and was going to spend like 15-20$ a day on Google ads. I don't have any products to sell or any services currently, so what should I advertise? So anyone got any advice or tips for me? submitted by /u/Few_Analysis3388 [link] [comments]
As stated in the title, I have some extra cash, which is a situation I'm not really used to being in. I have 100k in cash that I want to use to diversify my income. The business I own is in the sign and graphics industry, and I work a typical 40-50 hours per week most of the time, with the occasional 60+ during our busy season. I'd like to use the capital to start another business that maybe takes a little elbow grease on the setup, and is low maintenance for the rest of the time. I could dedicate 5-10 hours per week, but would like to keep it closer to 5. I'm okay with a little risk. Franchises seem pretty nice but I don't know anything about the food industry and would prefer to stay out of it unless the opportunity was right. What are your experiences with a business that fits this description, and what would you do? submitted by /u/dutythink2654 [link] [comments]
I (24m) was doing research on a business to buy and I cane across pool routes. I recently got a second job as a pool cleaner to see if I would like it and have been doing it for 3 months. I like the business and I like the job. What are the next steps I should take to buying a pool route, and can someone who has experience in this business give me advice? I have 50k in my savings, didn’t go to college, single, don’t mind moving across the country, and don’t mind working until I can hire employees. submitted by /u/WearYourSeatbelt_ [link] [comments]
Reading stories of successful entrepreneurs always gave me courage, so I’m sharing my story for anyone who needs a push! I was a busy service provider and decided to leave my toxic environment during peak Covid (June 2020). I opened my business with one book of clients (my own) and one employee (my assistant). Today I have 7 employees that bring home the top 1% in my industry with 4 day work weeks (no weekends), unlimited time off, and company matched health insurance and 401k’s. My GP is around 30% year over year & I’m personally taking home over $250k. It may not be much to some, but I’m fkn elated!!! Just here for any advice going forward, inspiration, and to answer any questions that may be helpful. All the best! submitted by /u/mustbethepapaya [link] [comments]
To my fellow small business owners, Many of us are already aware of the damage Yelp has caused to our businesses. Like so many of you, I’ve experienced the frustration of watching Yelp distort the hard-earned reputation of my business, and I’ve decided it’s time to stand up and speak out. We know the issues with Yelp’s algorithm: Yelp’s algorithm disproportionately highlights negative reviews while hiding the majority of positive ones. In my case, out of 101 reviews, only 37 are visible, and nearly half of those are negative. Meanwhile, 64 reviews—97% of which are positive—are hidden in the “not recommended” section. These reviews are buried and invisible to most prospective customers. It’s a system that misrepresents our businesses and distorts the truth. We work hard to serve our customers, and Yelp’s algorithm completely undermines that effort. It gets worse: When potential customers search for my business, Yelp consistently shows up in the search results. Worse still, it immediately displays my 3.0 rating, a number that’s heavily skewed by the way Yelp hides positive feedback and emphasizes negative reviews. This misleading rating is often the first thing people see in search results if they don't look in GMB, and it hurts my business. I’ve even seen Yelp accused of using pay-for-play tactics, where businesses are pressured to purchase ads in exchange for better visibility of their positive reviews. These accusations have been explored in the documentary Billion Dollar Bully and countless Reddit posts. For many of us, this feels like an impossible choice—pay up or have your reputation distorted. What I’m doing about it: I refuse to engage in this pay-for-play system. Instead, I’ve updated all my business descriptions and responses to explain to customers what’s happening. I want to ensure they’re informed, and I encourage them to check the 64 hidden reviews—only 2 of which are negative—to see the full picture. I also guide them to Google Reviews, where my business has a much more accurate reflection of customer satisfaction—4.6 and 4.7 stars from hundreds of reviews. This gives a far more honest representation of the quality of our services than Yelp’s skewed 3.0 rating. For positive reviews, I take the opportunity to thank customers, but also inform them that 97% of our positive feedback is hidden by Yelp. I encourage them to watch the documentary Billion Dollar Bully and search for “Yelp hiding reviews” to learn more about these troubling practices. The reality is bleak, but fuck Yelp: Yelp refuses to allow businesses to delete their pages, claiming that "Business pages on Yelp are maintained as a matter of public record." So, like many of you, I’m stuck with a Yelp page that does more harm than good. This is not a decision we made lightly—we built our businesses from the ground up, and having our reputations manipulated like this is unacceptable. I know many of you have experienced similar issues. This isn’t just about one company; it’s about how Yelp’s practices are affecting small businesses across the board. We don’t have the resources to fight this on their terms, but we can take a stand by educating our customers and calling out Yelp’s unfair practices. TL;DR: Yelp’s algorithm hides 97% of my positive reviews and prominently displays a 3.0 rating despite having 4.6-4.7 stars on Google Reviews. I refuse to participate in Yelp’s pay-for-play system and have updated my business description, and review responses to educate customers about Yelp's practices. Fellow small business owners, we need to stand together and push for change. submitted by /u/the__poseidon [link] [comments]
I started a dog walking/pet sitting business one year and 10 days ago with my wife. It's organically built up to where a lot of our days are two or three hundred dollars a day. Busy days are $500+. However, today, we just had our first $600 day. And by 3:30PM all the hard work is done... We started with no business experience, limited knowledge and no special degrees or certifications. I feel like I'm finally in charge of my own destiny. Hoping a year from now I'm breaking into the thousand dollar a day territory. Had to tell somebody! submitted by /u/PureWizardry [link] [comments]
Im trying to fill Google Ads Certification but nothing suits for clinics or hospitals. Anyone has achieved that certification? I tried by filling as telemedicine provider but it takes me to Legit Script and makes you paid $1k and that doesnt really makes sense. submitted by /u/OutsideRevolution254 [link] [comments]
Hi, Google Ads recommends not setting min/max bids when using tCPA, however I dont trust much of what Google says and almost never give them control of my CPC. Do you guys leave the min/max bids blank when using tCPA or do you set limits? submitted by /u/Confident_Nail_5254 [link] [comments]
Has anybody experienced the “product_undefined” url and do you have any insight into why we are seeing some large numbers of people seeing this? The strange thing is, if we were to click of a test email. This will sometimes show us the white page of death with product undefined in the URL but at times it will direct us correctly to the PDP. This issue is so inconsistent. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! submitted by /u/moontowers [link] [comments]
I have new banners every month for my performance max campaigns. I've been creating a new asset group monthly with the updated banners and have noticed low performance. Wondering if doing that causes the system to learn again based on 'new' signals. Is it better to use the same asset group monthly and replace banners within one? Has anyone tested this vs creating new asset groups? TIA! submitted by /u/desdiaz7 [link] [comments]
I typically see people talking about taking outside money or not, but not about WHOSE money to take & how much equity to give up. Those who raised money and had a successful outcome, what criteria did you look for in the investor? Over a year ago I was a co-founder of a SaaS startup. I’m a CMO with multiple successes under my belt. The technical co-founder was from another country and ended up screwing me out of equity once I grew the platform to six figures in MRR on a shoestring budget. I’ve since accepted my losses and decided to launch on my own. (You live and you learn). I hired devs who I’m funding out of my own pocket as we build a better version of that first SaaS. It’s about 70% complete I think. Now here’s the real question. Like 6 people already have told me to raise money. However, it’s hard to justify why and no one can provide a solid reason besides “just because”. So far dev costs have been somewhat manageable. When we launch MVP, I technically only need to repeat what I did last time. Bring a few hundred paying users at low to no cost with viral growth hacky stuff, and then reinvest the first MRR into paid ads. Same strategy I’ve always done. Then ads run at a loss or break even but each week MRR is higher than the last. And the longer you run ads, you get earned PR & word of mouth catches up. It’s always been like that. Yes, it’s slower, but with this approach I don’t give up equity. So what is the actual added advantage? Someone I spoke with said “guidance and advisement” but they just wanted to throw money our way and take 25% of the company. Wouldn’t a low interest loan be better at that point? I genuinely appreciate any advice. Never raised before and always bootstrapped/self-funded. Is there some secret club I’m not privy to? Does raising money open a bunch of doors I’m not currently accounting for? Sure, it would be nice not to fund this out of pocket but is that really why every founder is trying to raise? Thanks for any feedback or experience you can share. submitted by /u/HappyHippo95 [link] [comments]
I have over 14 years of work experience in marketing and sales. Last month, I made the big decision to quit my full-time job to focus entirely on my own digital marketing agency. My philosophy was very simple: offer the best services, ensure 100% client satisfaction, and be as transparent as possible. I believed this would help me grow. I created multiple marketing packages like social media growth, more brand visibility, lead generation, etc. One of them was a basic social media package for $99 per month, managing 4 accounts with daily posts. But now, I’m facing a harsh reality. Most prospects are trying to bargain me down to $30 to $20 a month. Can you imagine? The market rate for what I offer starts at $500, at the very least. I’m shocked and honestly heartbroken. Now, I’m seriously considering going back to my full-time job. It feels like no matter how hard you work or how exceptional your services are, people only care about saving a few bucks. PS: And these clients are from tier-one countries, which makes it even more surprising submitted by /u/GRSolution [link] [comments]
Hey I'm targeting business broker leads for my Meta Ads. I'm sharing the image with the interests, behaviors and demographics I'm adding. What's your feedback on it?Interests submitted by /u/Glad-Rip-9679 [link] [comments]
Has anyone run Google Ads for real estate agents or brokerages? I had a real estate agent reach out to me about running Google Ads for them, curious if it's a good marketing channel for them. Specific questions I'd love answers to: Is there a good way to track offline conversions with them? Do LSAs work well? Have you seen success with top-funnel campaigns like YT, PMAX? Did you see a lot of spam? Has general performance gotten better / worse lately? Are there any good agencies that specialize in it? Anything else I should know about working with agents / brokerages? submitted by /u/Unusual_Lie3700 [link] [comments]
TLDR: P Max is a seemingly random shit show and I'm struggling to scale a 150+ product feed. Can anyone recommend resources on how to scale an account with a large product feed? So, I've been using Performance Max with one of my clients (CPG, 150+ products with 3-4 variations each) for the last two years. We have tried everything... Feed only campaign (the client launched this himself with no assets, signals, nothing and it pushed 800% ROAS at low budget) Product-specific asset group campaign + various audience signals (some products outperformed when matched with a "competitor traffic" signal) New customer acquisition campaign + various asset group/signal pairs (this worked well until it didn't) Most recently, I found an interesting "trio" that worked well... Campaign 1: All SKUs feed only Campaign 2: Product specific asset groups for each SKU (unique headlines, images, etc) Campaign 3: Bid on new customer's only, All SKUs, asset groups with general product copy + signals (customer list worked best) This came crashing down in recent weeks as new SKUs were added to the website and campaigns. Now, I'm left wondering where to go from here. submitted by /u/ThyPrinceLoki [link] [comments]
Hey guys, It's my first proper campaign and there are lots of things that are unknowns right now, but probably the most baffling one is the engagement time. Is it normal for users to spend such a short time on the page? It's like they click and then immediately click back, or click another link in the span of 2 seconds and once there, they close the page. Might be important to mention, I didn't want to install the google tag on the landing page (only on the conversion page), and I'm making due with a make-shift tracker that I quickly put together. Thank you! submitted by /u/svvnguy [link] [comments]
Hi everyone! So, I reallocated some budget by pausing couple of useless display campaigns and giving the budget to two search campaigns (sharing a budget) and also increased budget of another search campaign. All 3 campaigns are under Max Conversions bid strategy. None of these campaigns were limited by budget earlier. I took a call based on search impression share lost (budget) and slightly increased their budget by 10-15%%. I noticed today that the two campaigns (which share a budget) started showing "Limited by budget" and the other, third campaign went into "learning phase". Is this normal? I mean earlier they were fine on lower budget. And now, they are limited? Also, is it normal for a campaign go into "learning phase" on increasing its budget? submitted by /u/thefourthidiot [link] [comments]
My team saw a 20%+ decrease in qualified leads from our Google Ads campaigns between end of August 2024 and start of September 2024. I was wondering if this was related at all to the announced third party cookies (3PC) decrease- but stumbled on articles stating this was on pause https://cookieinformation.com/resources/blog/end-of-third-party-cookie/ Is this true? There weren't any changes to 3PC at all in Q3 2024 this year? Looking through the account, there weren't any major changes in August besides an auto apply DDA attribution model change (from last click to DDA) and one of the PMax campaign budgets decreasing. DDA attribution may send our campaigns into a learning period, but I feel like it would cause a decrease in general leads rather than a decrease in quality leads (if anything, DDA is supposed to increase our quality of leads, right?) As far as I'm aware, a decrease and budget means less eyes see the ad, but I wouldn't think it necessarily means a decrease in lead quality. (Especially when PMax campaigns, to my knowledge, seem to be better for impressions and awareness than conversions and lead gen). Any troubleshooting thoughts as to why this might occur? submitted by /u/LeastResearch7213 [link] [comments]
I'm a senior developer. For the last two years, I've been starting projects, working on them for a few months, and then for one reason or another, they never see the light of day. I work for a major multinational company, leading an AI project that's promising, but honestly, I feel empty working for someone else. I want to start a side hustle, something that I can launch quickly, iterate on, and see results. But right now, it feels impossible to put something out there in less than a week that people actually care about in a genuine way, not just because of hype. I know the block is inside me, but I feel like a failure and that I'll never have the life I dream of. A nice house, my dream car... Maybe I'm just another victim of the social media hype from the past few years, but I wanted to share my feelings in case anyone else is feeling the same way, and maybe we can support each other. submitted by /u/InmortalKaktus [link] [comments]
My business coach launched the EXACT program that I was talking to him about as my next project and he would be coaching me to launch. When I first told him about my plans he was very excited and supportive and kept asking me questions about it in the following weeks. I thought I could trust him with my intellectual property and liked to have someone to bounce my ideas at and to help me perfect my plans. Imagine my surprise when less than a month after our last session I see a new launch on my coaches website, where he's launching MY idea!!! Down to the very last detail! Nothing I can do about it of course, but I will never share stuff like that with anyone anymore or hire a business coach ever again... submitted by /u/Classic-Impress-2809 [link] [comments]
Hello, Reddit community! I’m reaching out to invite anyone who has experienced issues with Google Ads to join me in organizing a class action lawsuit. Why We’re Coming Together: As many of you may know, using Google Ads can be frustrating. Like myself, I’m using Google Ads for my business, but I’ve noticed that Google is scamming us at times. Google makes billions of dollars from advertising each year while doing nothing about the algorithm that seems to just take our money. I don’t want to say everything is bad with Google Ads because I do get customers from it, but sometimes I feel like I’m just throwing money out the window. It’s our money, and we need to know where we are spending it. The analysis Google provides doesn’t make sense. For example, Google may say you have a certain amount of clicks, but when you check the search terms, they don’t show you all the clicks; they only display the terms used by a significant number of people. What? I’m spending my money, and you’re not showing me every search my money goes to! Click Fraud and Customer Service Issues I’ve seen a lot of complaints about fraudulent clicks in various posts, and it’s happened to me too. But when we ask Google to refund our money, they request a lot of information (like web log reports), and in the end, they still often refuse to refund us. They claim to have their own algorithm to combat this, and while they say they’re refunding invalid clicks, I’ve noticed the amounts are alarmingly low—often less than $1 or $2—when I’m spending an average of $10 per click. There was even a day I averaged $70 per click, and I’m pretty sure they double-charged me because I had just one impression and two clicks. I know some people may try to discourage us in the comments (perhaps they work for Google), as I’ve seen this a lot in discussions about suing Google. But for those who feel they might be affected, please join this Facebook group, and we will start this class action against Google. If we don’t take action, they will continue to do what they’re doing because it benefits them. The problem is that Google has monopolized the advertising industry, and while other platforms may not perform as well, we often have no choice but to use Google. They are taking advantage of this situation. Additionally, I can’t stand Google’s customer service—it’s the worst I’ve ever encountered. just a bunch of people who don’t know anything and don’t have access at all. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even speaking to a real person because the responses are always the same. What You Can Do: I’ve created a Facebook group called Google Ads Class Action Lawsuit 2024 to bring together those affected by these issues. In this group, we aim to: Share our experiences. Stay informed about the progress of our potential lawsuit. Work together to gather evidence and build a strong case. If you’ve had similar experiences or are simply interested in supporting this effort, I encourage you to join us! How to Join: Click [here] or comment interested or inbox me i will send you the link to join the Facebook group and be part of this collective effort. Your voice matters, and together we can make a real impact! Call to Action: If you find this post resonates with you, please upvote it and share it with anyone who might be interested. The more visibility we get, the stronger our movement will be! Thank you for your time, and I hope to see you in the group! submitted by /u/mouhamedseye [link] [comments]
Seems to me like split testing on meta is pointless and obsolete nowadays. What do I mean? Well, suppose I have 5 creatives and I'm not sure which is better. I could do one of three things: manually split test by putting each one in a different ad set, and give each ad set the same budget. then after seeing which performs best, scale that ad. use meta's built in A/B testing function. not bother testing at all and just put them all in the same ad set and let meta's algorithm scale winning ads on its own. Seems like the last option is the most efficient. You get through the learning phase quicker, and since it's an algorithm running it you don't waste any money on poor performing creatives. I'm new to this so am I missing something? submitted by /u/burner150 [link] [comments]
Hey all, We’re currently losing about 80% of impression share due to rank on one of our Google Ads campaigns, and I’m trying to figure out why. The keyword quality score is 10/10, and the breakdown of the other metrics is as follows (see attached): Landing page experience: Above average Expected CTR: Above average Ad relevance: Above average We’re also using the Maximize Conversions bidding strategy. Given that the quality score and other metrics seem to be in great shape, I’m a bit puzzled as to why we’re still losing so much impression share. Could this be due to a budget limitation, competition, or something related to the Maximize Conversions strategy? Would appreciate any insights or suggestions from those who have come across similar situations! Further Question - If it is a case of raising the budget, but we are not happy with the current CPA to do so - would it be a case of implementing tCPA, making adjustments based on data until we are happy with it and then upping the budget. Thanks in advance! submitted by /u/Cjpk123 [link] [comments]
Has anyone else noticed that lately Google Ads browser mode has been super slow and crappy. Especially after they forced the new UI. Have disabled adblock etc. and its constantly getting stuck loading, most of the time when navigating to reporting/dashboard section it just loads blank. submitted by /u/theytakemydragons [link] [comments]
Hi all- we just hit $100K in ARR and I wanted to share some lessons and strategies we used to help fellow Redditors. I know this might sound a little counter intuitive and aggressive but this is my own lessons from failing miserable for the last 5 years till we found product market fit. Markets Always Win: Always pick a market where there are lot of potential buyers badly needing a solution. If you have spent a whole week on trying to sell your product and nobody has paid you yet, it's probably a bad market. Pivot. Find your first 100 customers manually: You should ideally find your first 100 customers manually and not use scalable tools like Ads etc. I suggest using strategies like DMing potential customers directly etc. Be creative here since each startup usually use a very unique way of getting their first 100 customers Define your ICP: Once you have acquired 100 customers, clearly understand who your best customers are define them with high precision so that you can find similar ones at scale. An example would be "CTOs of SAAS companies with 50-100 employees based in United States with a degree in computer science or math" Find a growth level after 100 customers: Now once you get to 100 customers & know your ICP, it's extremely important to find a growth level. That is, a marketing strategy that works at scale. This can be google ads, cold emails etc. All these can be automated. If you are not able to find a growth lever that scales at this point, it's problematic cause you might get stuck as a small business. This might be a market problem and is worth pondering if you wanna take a step back. Invest in SEO early: SEO is not just about finding new customers. It's also for existing leads & brand recognition. If someone hears about your company X and searches X on Google, if the results are not filled with links to your website, you lose the lead. As simple as that. We named our company quite unique so that at least the first result was our own domain. Then we used AI tools like Wosily to automatically write blogs weekly so that all the 10 results on the page was pointing to our website. Track retention closely: Lastly but not least, ensure your paying customers are retaining. If more than 10% of your paying customers cancel after 1st month, ensure your ICP is correct. If ICP is canceling at >10% rate, either the ICP is wrong or your product is not solving the problem or the worst one is, the problem is not real. And that's about it. Hope this helps. LMK what you all think in the comments below or if you have similar lessons 🙂 submitted by /u/emilyxhug [link] [comments]
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