I’m about to unveil a Facebook campaign we recently rolled out at Digital Marketer… and it’s not your average campaign.

I’m not only going to show you the ad copy and images we tested…

I’m also going to show you the exact Facebook split testing structure we used:

That allowed us to split test…

• 2 “Marketing Messages”
• 2 Audiences (for both marketing messages)
• 3 Ad Copy Variations
• 4 Ad Images

…for a total of 36 different ad variations within 4 different Facebook campaigns (144 ad variations total)!

This is how you find PERFECT Facebook Ad(s).

But, before I dive into the campaigns you need to understand a major change in the way Facebook organizes your ads…

How to Organize Facebook Ad Campaigns

On March 4^th of this year, Facebook rolled out a new “campaign” structure. The campaign structure is the way that Facebook organizes all of your ads within your account.

There are three “levels” to the structure:

1. Campaign
2. Ad Set
3. Ads

Think about it like Russian nesting dolls…

• The campaign is the “house” in which everything lives (the doll on the far left).
• The ad sets live within the campaign.
• The ads live within the ad sets.

Here’s a screenshot from our Power Editor to help you get a better idea.

You have multiple ad sets within a campaign, and multiple ads within those ad sets…

In the example above, you can see that we have 6 campaigns selected, within those 6 campaigns there are 18 ad sets, and within those 18 sets there are 72 ads total…

You get the idea!

Facebook created this hierarchy to help us stay organized.

They also (and more importantly) created this hierarchy to help us TEST!

So, why does this matter to you? You could have Googled this “Campaign Structure” stuff, right?

Well, one of the biggest questions we get inside of Digital Marketer Lab is, “How do I actually split test with Facebook ads?”…. and more importantly, “How do I test multiple variables at once?”

The way Facebook describes it is that you should test the “objective” (website conversions, website clicks, event RSVPs, etc.) at the campaign level…

That you should use the ad sets to test the audience, or targeting…

…and that you should use the ads to test your “creatives” (ad copy, image, etc. — all in ONE test).

But, what if you want to test ad copy and images at the same time? How can you run a proper split test if you’re throwing them all in the same ad set?

What if you want to test ad copy, creative, and targeting all in one campaign?

As digital marketers, we know that a simple tweak in ad copy, image, or targeting can have a MAJOR affect on your campaign.

Believe it or not… there’s a major performance difference between this ad…

and this one….

What’s the difference? The ad copy!! The first ad is generating leads for almost a DOLLAR less than the second ad.

So, if we’re not able to properly test all variables… how do we optimize the campaign to achieve the PERFECT ad?

Now let me actually show you how we overcame our testing frustrations with our “Double Your Sales” ad campaign…

Facebook Ad Split Testing Case Study: The Double Your Sales Campaign

Double Your Sales is a free, 6-week course presented by Infusionsoft and Digital Marketer. The course is aimed for business owners, and teaches them how to DOUBLE their business with one simple formula.

The ultimate goal of the course is to eventually sell prospects Infusionsoft (a CRM) and our email marketing product, The Machine.

When we first began planning the campaign – we knew we wanted to shoot for two different “marketing messages”.

One was more direct and spoke to the end results of Double Your Sales… the premise was “6 Ways to Double Your Business in 2015”. The images were to be more professional.

The second spoke to a pain point… “Is your business stuck?” We used images of cute animals that looked “stuck” and they were to be more light hearted and eye catching.

The marketing messages defined the ad copy and images for their respective campaigns.

So there we sat again, wondering the best way to structure this campaign to test as many variables as possible… and here is what we devised…

As you can see, the first marketing message is at the top, labelled “Double Your Business”. The second is below, labelled “Are You Stuck?”

We selected two audiences that we would target, and we wanted to run BOTH marketing messages to BOTH audiences to see which would perform better.

But, instead of using the campaign level to test “objective” (we already knew we wanted to optimize for conversions because we were running traffic to an opt-in form) we decided to use the campaign level to test different audiences.

So, as you can see in the green below – we have FOUR different ad campaigns set up, two for “Double Your Business” and two for “Are You Stuck?”. This allows us to test both marketing messages to two audiences at the same time.

Now, let’s talk about the “Ad Set” level. Facebook says that this should be used to test the targeting. Well, we used the ad sets to test COPY…

We created 3 different copy variations for both marketing messages. One was short, one was longer, and one leveraged the Digital Marketer and Infusionsoft brands (we’ll show the ads in just a bit).

This allowed us to run a DIRECT split test between three different copy variations. The copy variations are the same for both “Double Your Business” campaigns, and the copy variations are the same for both “Are You Stuck?” campaigns.

Now, let’s talk ads.

At the ad level, Facebook is actually going to optimize for the best performing ad and show that ad to more people. Although it’s not a “true” split test…. It’s the perfect place to test ad IMAGES.

The IMAGE is usually the first variable in an ad to fatigue, and having them all in one ad set allows you to decide a winner out of the gate, and be able to pause and give the other breathing room if the initial winner starts to fatigue.

For Double Your Sales, we created 4 ad images for each marketing message.

So, as you can see in the orange… we tested each ad image with each copy variation…. bringing us to a total of 12 ad images per campaign.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Do you see why this is so exciting!?

With only FOUR Facebook campaigns we’ve been able to test marketing message, targeting, copy, AND image.

I know this may seem a bit confusing. So, let me show you the actual ads we ran for this campaign, to give you a bit more context…

We’re going to look at each ad set for each marketing message to give you a peek inside.

First, let’s talk about the “Double Your Business” campaign…

Remember, everything for both of these campaigns (labelled Audience 1 and Audience 2) is EXACTLY the same, we are just testing two different audiences at the “campaign level”.

At the ad set level, we are testing 3 different copy variations.

The “short copy” ad set is punchier and to the point. This is the kind of copy we used when we started running Facebook ads a few years ago, let’s take a look…

The “short copy” still works, especially to people who already know your brand.

But, we are finding that as people see more and more ads online, they need MORE information, they need to be further persuaded to make the click, this lead us to our second ad set…

This ad set features very LONG copy (you can use Power Editor to extend the character limit). We’ve found that when running traffic to an offer that is going to require TIME from the prospect (a webinar, a mini class, a course) this long copy ALWAYS converts better.

Why? It’s a harder sell. This isn’t a traditional Lead Magnet. In order for the prospect to consume the information, they’re going to have to show up and they’re going to have to invest more than their email address.

As you can see above, we simply used the “short copy” and then added specific details about each lesson.

This takes us to the next ad set, the “DM & IS” copy. This is something new we wanted to test, especially since Infusionsoft was involved in the branding.

You’ll notice that this ad set was the “Short Copy” with “Brought to you by Digital Marketer & Infusionsoft” simply added below. We wanted to test to see if adding credibility from the brands would make any sort of difference.

Now that you’ve seen inside the “Double Your Business” campaigns, let take a look at the “Are You Stuck?” ads…

The structure behind these campaigns is identical to the “Double Your Business” campaigns, we’ve just tweaked the copy and ads to reflect the “Are You Stuck?” marketing message.

Here’s the first ad set, “Short Copy”…

Again, we were very punchy and to the point here. We added “Is your business “stuck”?” in order to immediately hit a pain point with the prospect.

The second ad set we tested was “Long Copy”…

Again, very similar to the long copy ad set from the previous campaigns, we’re hitting a pain point with being “stuck” and then really explaining what they’re going to learn in the course.

The third and final ad set was “DM & IS”…

Again, we’re maintaining the marketing message of “Are you stuck?” but testing how the use of brand names affects the ads.

Structuring our campaigns in the way I’ve revealed above allowed us to test 144 different variations in only FOUR ad campaigns. This allows for simplicity when scaling and optimizing.

When testing campaigns on Facebook, you should test variables that make sense for YOUR business.

What do I mean? Not every business should test using their name in the ad to see if it adds credibility. Some businesses don’t necessarily have that credibility yet (but you will)!

Think of other variables that you can test… should you try calling out your audience in the first few words? How about black and white images versus color?

The biggest takeaway here is to have a plan.

Planning and structuring your ad campaign is one of the biggest factors to success.

When you have an offer that you want to put in front of an audience, think about the most creative and interesting way to catch their attention…. but also don’t be scared to do the “boring” stuff, that’s usually what wins.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

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The post The Quest For The Perfect Facebook Ad appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

The 1^st Annual Traffic & Conversion Summit sold 258 tickets.

This year (the 7^th Annual T&C) we will host almost 3,000 entrepreneurs, business owners and marketers in San Diego.

But T&C isn’t the only event we put on at Digital Marketer. In fact, we hold so many events we have an entire team of people that do nothing but plan our events — and it’s up to the Marketing Team to sell tickets to those events.

We know a thing or two about putting “butts in seats.”

Today, I’ll share with you the paid traffic campaigns we use to sell tickets to high-ticket events.

But first, understand that…

Selling Event Tickets is DIFFERENT

They’re not your normal direct response traffic campaigns (although we were 855% ROI positive on our Traffic & Conversion Summit campaigns in 2015).

You can’t expect to set up one traffic campaign directly to your sales page and see results.

It takes an entire promotional strategy with multiple traffic campaigns working together to build a relationship and ultimately sell tickets.

Why?

Selling tickets to live events is different than asking someone to opt-in to a Lead Magnet or purchase a product.

Live events are the ultimate level of commitment. For someone to purchase a live event ticket, they’ll need to…

• Buy the ticket
• Arrange and purchase airfare
• Arrange and purchase hotel accommodations
• And commit to being “out of pocket” for the duration of the event.

A live event offer isn’t some digital product that will arrive in their email inbox to be consumed at their leisure. Or a widget that will ship to their doorstep.

It’s a major commitment to attend a high-ticket event like Traffic & Conversion Summit.

So… as with all paid traffic offers — the first thing to consider is…

What’s the Ideal Traffic Temperature?

Traffic temperature is a way of expressing the relationship you have with the audiences to which you’re running these paid traffic campaigns.

It’s difficult to run traffic directly to a “cold” audience (people who don’t know you or your brand) and expect them to purchase a ticket to your high-ticket, live event.

It’s like asking for marriage on the first date. It’s creepy. The relationship isn’t developed.

It’s best to only target your “warm” and “hot” audiences with ads that send the prospect directly to your sales page to buy a ticket.

The “warm” people are your acquaintances. They are..

• Leads that opted in to your email list (that you’ve uploaded to a traffic platform)
• People who have visited your website (and you pixeled them!)
• Facebook fans, Twitter followers, YouTube channel subscribers, etc.

Your warm audience is more likely to be interested in your event because they’ve already been introduced to your brand, maybe they’ve read one of your blog posts… they’ve consumed something of value.

Your “hot” people are your buyers. They’ve purchased from you. They are MOST likely to purchase event tickets because it’s the ultimate ascension path. They bought your product/ service and they liked it so much they’re ready to experience it in person.

Maybe you’re thinking…

I don’t have “warm” or “hot” audiences. How do I sell tickets?

Start early, if you can. 5-6 months before the event start running traffic campaigns to pieces of content that are “splintered”  from the event.

Content ideas:

• Guest blog posts from speakers
• Pieces of content that tease presentations at your event
• Speaker bios
• Video of past event presentations
• A crowdsourced blog post featuring a set of event speakers

Running traffic to these pieces of content will allow you to build warm audiences to then leverage when it’s time to start selling tickets.

Speaking of selling tickets… that’s why you’re reading this, right? Here are the 3 keys to success…

1. Use Audience & Message Segmentation

At Digital Marketer, we teach you to be specific in your messaging and targeting. This is even more important when promoting live events.

Running ads that simply state…

“Hey, World! Come to this event, it’ll be good”

… is NOT going to cut it.

You have to splinter out pieces of the event that will be attractive to your audience.

You also have to speak to different segments of your audience to create specialization.

For example, we run ads that just target Digital Marketer Lab members…

Notice that the image features a few forward facing Digital Marketer team members. Our “warm” audience probably wouldn’t recognize these faces (or care), but you better believe that our lab members (a hot audience) likely will…

With the photos we’re appealing to their desire to hear us speak in person.

If you’ve held the event in the past, running ads to past attendees is segmentation gold and super low hanging fruit. Simply upload their email addresses to the traffic platform and say “Let’s do it again”.

And why not segment by location? Running ads in the city where your event will be held is a no-brainer.

These people won’t have to worry about travel expenses, so the barrier to entry is lower.

Notice that we really highlighted the picture of San Diego in the ad image, we want to catch their attention as they scroll through their newsfeed… no better way to do so then to use imagery of their city.

Last year, Daymond John was the keynote speaker for T&C. We were able to “splinter” Daymond from the event and appeal to people who would be specifically interested in hearing him speak.

You don’t have to have a big name speaker to make this work. You can also segment out presentations or specific content focuses from your event.

For example, our event is about digital marketing but this year we’ll have a track that focuses just on podcasts.

You better believe we’ll run ads to the podcast community… essentially splintering out that track to attract people who are interested in that topic.

2. Use Ads to Create/ Reinforce Scarcity

Our promotional strategy for T&C is robust. We have different “tiers” of pricing that increase as we draw closer to the event…

This year, we started at $497… but we will increase as so: $697 à $997 à $1497 à $1997

It’s like a music festival. Ticket prices are always lowest when they’re first released. As long as there is demand for the tickets, they’ll only get more expensive as you get closer to the event.

It also gives you something to talk about. When we’re about to raise the price of tickets, we can email and run ads to let our audience know that the price is going to increase.

This creates SCARCITY. We sell most of our tickets during the 3-4 days before a price increase.

Why? If someone knows that they want to attend the event, and they know the price is going to increase $200 in a few days, they’re going to buy NOW.

Your traffic campaigns should function as a channel that is distributing these deadlines and moving people to take action — before they miss out.

About to increase the price of tickets? Run ads to your audience to let them know.

Here are a few examples… I simply switch out the 72 hours with the 48 hours, 48 hours with the 24 hours, etc…

The BIGGEST scarcity move you can make is when you’re actually closing down ticket sales completely. You’ll likely sell the largest chunk of tickets when you let people know that they’re about to be gone forever….

3. Use Retargeting to Bring Them Back to the Offer

As I said earlier in this post, the buying cycle for event tickets is very different from a “normal” traffic campaign.

People have to “think about it” – there are more factors then just money in play when deciding to attend an event.

That is why retargeting is SO important.

You have to stay top of mind. You have to continue to remind them about the evnet.

This is also the lowest hanging fruit and highest performing ads you’ll run in terms of ROI.

They’re also the easiest.

Last year, Ryan Deiss (our Founder and CEO) shot a quick video that said something like this…

“Hey there (arms waving), before you go, if you’re watching me right now it’s because you’ve heard of Traffic & Conversion Summit – XX discount is about to end, if this video is here then the offer is still active, BUT -you have to get it now!”

We ran this retargeting video on Facebook and YouTube. The audience was people who had visited the T&C sales page minus buyers.

Here’s the Facebook ad that we ran…

Notice that the ad not only reminded them to go back to the page, but also reinforced the scarcity aspect.

Our YouTube retargeting campaign was the most profitable and it took 20 minutes total to shoot and set up.

Here’s the simple video we used…

The campaign also had a 3,858% ROI!

The biggest takeaway here… think about WHO you’re running these campaigns to..

• How can you leverage your existing audience to sell event tickets?
• What content can you run to cold traffic to build that audience (and attract ideal event attendees)?
• How can you segment your ad campaigns to speak to specific segments… whether that’s by location, speakers, specific event content, etc.?
• Are you using your ads to create scarcity?
• Are you retargeting?

(A quick tip to wrap things up…)

Create a Facebook event for your live event.

On the thank you page after someone purchases a ticket, ask them to join this event and select that they’re “going” on Facebook.

Tell attendees that you’ll use this event for communication purposes (which you should). This is another touch point to get them excited before the event.

It also has a virality aspect. When people join the event, it will show up in their friend’s timelines, at no cost to you.

This is FREE advertising. You’ll also notice below that there’s a place to put a link to your tickets. Last year, we sold 62 tickets from this link alone – at no cost to us!

And that’s how we sell tickets to high-dollar events using paid traffic campaigns.

Have a question?

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The post How to Sell High-Dollar Event Tickets With Paid Traffic appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Scale is the hardest part of running paid traffic.

It can be (semi) easy to find your target market and run a successful campaign on Facebook to generate 50, 100, or even 500 leads.

But what about 5,000 – 50,000 leads from one single campaign?

You can only target the same group of people for so long before you start to notice fatigue.

So, how do you breathe life into your campaigns for VOLUME?

Facebook makes it drop-dead simple.

I’m going to show you how we’re using a tool to profitably scale our Facebook ad campaigns…. Using Facebook’s own data (all while playing by the rules :)).

But before I show you how to use the tool you need to know this…

It’s all about TARGETING.

No matter how captivating your image or copy – if you’re not putting your ads in front of the right audience your campaign will FAIL.

(To learn more about how to craft the right message and offer for your audience, click here).

We’ll show you how to use this tool to find your target audience on Facebook but, more importantly…

…we’ll show you how to SCALE your Facebook campaigns by locating and advertising to audiences similar to those that have already converted.

What does that mean? If you’ve already had success with one of your ad sets, this tool will give us data to help find where ELSE your target market is hanging out on Facebook (so that you can get in front of them there, too)!

Last year, Facebook released “Audience Insights”, an intelligence tool that allows you to uncover demographic and behavioral data on audiences before you ever target them with ads.

Audience Insights allows you to do research on your custom audiences including…

• Email lists
• Website visitors
• Customer phone lists

It also gives you interest targeting data including…

• FB pages of competitors
• influencers in your niche
• … and even a combination of both.

Audience Insights allows you to leverage Facebook’s data to discover other pages that your target market is most likely to “Like”… these are pages that you wouldn’t have thought to target before.

This allows you to find other people similar to those that…

• Converted on your web pages
• “Liked” your fan page

It will allow you to do something very important in media buying — SCALE…

In this blog post, I’ll show you exactly how we’re using Audience Insights to scale our Facebook campaigns.

Don’t worry, it’s easy.

(Watch this quick YouTube video for more info about the different Facebook Targeting options.  Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.)

How to Use Facebook Audience Insights

You’ll find Audience Insights on the left hand side of Ads Manager:

The first step for using Audience Insights is to input your custom audience or group of interests.

If you’re running an ad campaign to your custom audience and want to scale that ad, you’ll enter that.

Running the ad to a group of interests? Enter that list of interests.

The first arrow below is where you’d input your custom audience; the second is where you’d input your list of pages.

In this example, I’m going to use a campaign that we ran to promote our Ultimate Social Media Swipe File lead magnet.

We found a list of interests (with a potential audience size of ~500,000 people) that was converting really well after 5-7 days.

We wanted to scale to find MORE people most like this interest group so that we could generate more leads and sales, quickly.

So, we plugged those interests into the “interests” box in audience insights (along with the countries where we were running traffic)…

As you can see, this pulls demographic information on this particular audience including…

• age
• gender
• relationship status
• education level

This demographic information is interesting, but nothing like what you’ll find under the “Page Likes” tab…

The first section, “Top Categories” displays a wealth of new interests you can use to scale your campaigns including…

• Websites they “Like”
• Magazines they’re reading
• Software they’re using
• Public figures (actors, politicians) they follow
• … and a whole lot more

… this is KEY when finding other people that are most like your audience that is already converting.

Even better, when you scroll down the page, you’ll find a list of Facebook pages that are MOST LIKELY to be “liked” by your audience.

This is a gold mine.

Facebook is giving you a list of new interests to target that are MOST like the ones already converting…

So, what did we do from here? We created three new ad sets using the same copy and images that we used for the successful Ultimate Social Swipe File campaign that I mentioned above.

We took this list of pages that are MOST LIKELY to be liked by those people, and we started to create ad sets combining these interests to create audience sizes of 500,000 – 1,000,000 each.

For example, Mashable Social Media – Amy Porterfield – Mari Smith.

See what we’re doing here? We’re simply using Facebook’s data to scale campaigns by finding MORE people that are most like those that are already converting.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

One More Trick To Scaling: Lookalike Audiences

If you’re using a conversion pixel to optimize for and/or track leads, this method will work even better.

Even if you just have a website custom audience pixel installed on your thank you page (most effective when designating for leads, since they happen more often then sales down your funnel and will have collected the most data), you can create Lookalike Audiences.

You can even create lookalike audiences based off of your customer list, email list, etc.

The trick here is to create the lookalike audience in the country where your market is most likely to live, for example, we created a Lookalike Audience based off of people who hit our Ultimate Social Media Swipe File conversion pixel (they opted in).

We wanted to find more people like those who had opted in so that we could scale.

Here’s exactly how this looked…

This audience came out to be over 2 million people. From our testing, we’ve found that audiences around 500,000 – 1,000,000 perform the best (especially for scale). So, we need to decrease the size of this audience.

We also need to add in a layer of targeting in order to make this audience more relevant. Yes, they may be like the audience of people who have opted in based off of 3-5 data points on their Facebook profile, but that doesn’t mean they’re interested in social media.

To overcome these two objections we simply pair this lookalike audience with a big, broad interest when we go to set up our targeting for this new ad set.

It looked something like this…

…and allowed us to target a new group of 500,000 people that are similar to those who already converted BUT also have interest in social media.

The “big” interest of Social Media Marketing which had 13 million + people allowed us to ensure we were running a targeted ad set.

This “lookalike” ad set is still outperforming all other ad sets in that campaign.

Even cooler? Input your lookalike audiences into audience insights for even more data…

With audience insights, Facebook is handing you a database of information for you to create the most targeted campaigns possible for SCALE.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Have a question?

Ask the DM team and 9,036 other members in the DM Engage Facebook Group!

Not a DM Lab Member? Learn more here.

The post How to Leverage Facebook Data to Scale Your Ad Campaigns appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

It’s no secret – Facebook is our favorite advertising platform (by far :)).

We love Facebook ads because of their ease of use, vast targeting options, and simply because they generate the most leads and sales for our business.

As direct response marketers who love the Facebook platform… we were REALLY excited when, on June 25^th, they announced a new ad type: Facebook Lead ads.

We were even MORE excited when they started rolling out this new ad type to advertisers last week.

(Not sure if you have access to Facebook lead ads? Check by clicking “Create Campaign” in Power Editor – “Lead Generation” will appear as an objective. )

Of course, as soon as we were granted access to the Lead ads, we started running as many tests as possible (that’s what makes us different – we actually do this stuff and share the results with YOU :)).

But, before we share our data and findings… let’s talk a little bit about Lead ads… what are they and why is this so exciting for marketers?

What are Facebook Lead Ads?

Facebook rolled out Lead ads to help overcome people’s apprehension to filling out forms.

They explain…

“You know what no one’s ever said? “I love filling out forms.”

Which is a shame, because forms are pretty useful things. That’s why we’re testing Lead ads, a new, simpler way for people to fill out forms on their mobile devices….

…Lead ads make the mobile signup process easier by automatically populating contact information that people have given Facebook, like email addresses.

Simply put… Lead ads allow advertisers to collect information from prospects directly from mobile ads.

Instead of sending traffic to a landing page where people manually fill out a form and press submit, they click on the ad, their information (name & email) is pre-populated, and they hit submit. All within the Facebook platform.

Let’s take a look at an example…

Facebook Lead Ads: An Example

The ad looks like a regular ‘ole link ad in your mobile newsfeed.

Notice that we made the ad copy more “long form” (you can exceed the normal character limit if you set ads up using Power Editor).

We added more copy than usual to this ad because people WILL NOT be visiting your landing page to learn more about your lead magnet (or whatever you’re collecting their information for).

They’re making the decision about whether they want to take action based off the information you are giving them in the ad.

Keep that in mind… it’s very important. Notice that we took some of the sales bullets from the landing page and simply used them as part of the ad copy.

Once users click on the ad, they’re prompted to fill out the form within the Facebook app.

Here’s how the form appears to the end user (notice that my information was already populated):

FYI: There are more form field options than just name and email when setting up these ads… depending on your type of business and the goal of your campaign, the sky is the limit here – there’s even a “customize your question” form field option (see below)!

Not to mention, there are form field options available in the categories of…

• Work information
• Automotive
• Education
• ecommerce
• B2B
• Professional services
• Health insurance
• Auto insurance
• Need help
• Purchase intent
• and more!

Once the prospect hits “submit” – you’ve now collected their contact information!

They’ll visit a screen that looks like this…

If the prospect clicks “visit www.digitalmarketer.com “ they will be taken to a page to download the resource they opted in for.

On the same page, below the download, we also make a low dollar offer to try and convert the lead into a buyer.

Keep in mind – they are not automatically redirected to your site after they submit their contact information, so make sure you are delivering whatever you promised via email, too.

That’s it – that’s how simple it is to have someone submit a form directly on your ad.

I know you’re thinking…

How Do I Access My Leads?

Where do you go to actually retrieve the leads you paid for?

You can find CSV files of user information by clicking “publishing tools” on the admin side of your Facebook page, and then “forms library”.

Now that you understand Lead generation ads and how they work, let’s look at a couple of tests that we ran to see how they perform.

At Digital Marketer, when running Facebook campaigns for lead generation, we’ve always used the Website Conversions campaign objective (based off of lots and lots of tests).

So, when the lead generation ads rolled out – we figured that’d be the perfect split test.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Website Conversion Objective vs. Lead Ad Objective

Facebook Lead Ads Test 1 – Blog Post Template Lead Magnet

The goal of our first test was to see which campaign objective generated the lowest cost per lead.

We used the same exact ad copy, creative, placement (mobile) and targeting for both campaigns – the only difference being the campaign objective.

We optimized for a freshly installed pixel for the website conversions campaign (in case any data collected on the pixel would affect the campaign).

Both campaigns ran for a week.

Both ads looked like this:

The results…

vs.

1. The website conversion campaign was 45% cheaper than the Lead ads campaign.
2. The website conversion campaign generated almost double the amount of leads than the Lead ads campaign.

Facebook Lead Ads Test 2 – Facebook Ad Templates Lead Magnet

The goal of our second test was to see which campaign objective generated the lowest cost per lead.

We used the same exact ad copy, creative, placement (mobile) and targeting for both campaigns – the only difference being the campaign objective.

We optimized for a freshly installed pixel for the website conversions campaign (in case any data collected on the pixel would affect the campaign).

Both campaigns ran for a week.

Both ads looked like this:

The results…

Vs.

1. The website conversion campaign was 16% cheaper than the Lead ads campaign.
2. The website conversion campaign generated almost 8x the amount of leads than the Lead ads campaign.

The Takeaway?

From our initial tests, it looks as though we’ll be sticking to website conversion campaigns for the time being.

But, let’s not chalk Facebook’s Lead ads up as a loss.

There are plenty of marketers who are having success with these ad types and seeing great results from … that’s why it’s ALWAYS important to run tests within your own business.

Different traffic platforms and ad types are going to work differently for some businesses based off of their products/services and their overall goals.

Keep in mind that these ad types are BRAND NEW!

When talking to our Facebook Partner Manager, I made sure to give him specific feedback about the ads and changes that should be made to provide a better experience for advertisers… here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. When users submit their information on a Lead ad, they have the option to visit your site, but it’s not forced. This not only causes confusion on where they should go to redeem whatever they opted in for, it also causes a BIG drop off in your marketing funnel.

There is no language that makes them think they should click on “Visit www.digitalmarketer.com” (as shown above) to redeem whatever they opted in before. The language makes it sound as if they’re visiting our home page, or blog…

Instead of someone visiting your landing page, opting in, and immediately hitting a page where they can download what they opted in for and possibly buy something else, you’re missing out on a huge percentage of these visitors. This causes very low ROI on funnels that begin with a lead gen ad.

2. You may be thinking…. Ok, so if they aren’t clicking over to download page.. why don’t you follow up with email? That’s another issue. There are yet to be integrations between CRMs or email service providers to the Facebook platform (unless you’re using a third party tool like Driftrock).

(For more on using Driftrock, check out this Office Hours call exclusive to Digital Marketer Lab members! Learn more about becoming a lab member here.)

So, this forces us to constantly export CSV files of contact information. This doesn’t allow for automation and follow up in regard to lead magnet download or to make the prospect another offer.

3. These ad types should be available on desktop. Our highest ROI campaigns come from people who click on desktop ads. Enough said.

Overall, it’s a very exciting time for marketers on the Facebook platform. Although the initial results yielded a high cost per lead than we’re able to generate using website conversion campaigns, Lead generation ads are still a game changer on the Facebook platform.

These ads show a change in the eyes of Facebook.

It shows that they’re willing and eager to serve direct response marketers.

It shows that they understand that businesses are using Facebook ads to make money… to generate leads and sales, and – that they’re ok with it.

That makes us at Digital Marketer very, very happy.

Test the new lead ads for yourself and let us know how they’re performing in the comments below.

After a few tweaks and further development of this ad type, I have no doubt they will revolutionize the platform.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Have a question?

Ask the DM team and 9,036 other members in the DM Engage Facebook Group!

Not a DM Lab Member? Learn more here.

The post [Test Results] What You Need to Know About Facebook Lead Ads appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

You buy traffic for one of three reasons…

1. you have no traffic and you need to generate leads and sales
2. you want more qualified traffic than you currently have (people who will actually BUY your stuff)
3. you want a steady, reliable source of traffic

In the end, it all boils down to this…

The purpose of buying traffic is to put your message or offer in front of the right audience.

It’s called ad targeting.

And the truth is (assuming you have a product or service that people want), the biggest reason that your traffic campaigns are failing is because the targeting is off.

But Facebook’s targeting just got a whole heck of a lot more powerful…

Introducing Facebook Flex targeting

The key to solid targeting is SPECIFICITY.

A few weeks ago, Facebook released a revolutionary new way to target your audience.

It’s called “Flex And-Or Exclusion” targeting. Although this feature has been available via the Facebook API and third party software for some time now, it’s just now rolling out to the general public.

To check out the new targeting, you must be using Power Editor (for the time being).

You’ll see the options in the “Detailed Targeting” section when setting up your ad set.

This is one of the most revolutionary changes to the Facebook ad platform to date.

You can now choose to include people who match more than one interest, demographics, or behaviors at a particular time.

You can choose to EXCLUDE particular demographics, interests, or behaviors.

It allows us to get SPECIFIC.

Facebook explains the new targeting options using the example below…

Here’s what the final audience would look like in the example above:

• People in the United States
• Who are between the ages of 15-35
• And are also men
• They must also use either an iPhone 6 OR an iPhone 6 Plus
• They must also be interested in action games to be in my audience

However, if they meet all of the above but have a 2G network connection, then they’ll be excluded from my audience.”

Here’s an image for those of you that are more visual…

Are you starting to see the power of this?

Before, there were no “and” statements.

When we would enter new interests, demographics, or behaviors we were choosing to target everyone who fit ANY of those qualifications.

It was way more BROAD. This allows you to get specific. Refer back to the graphic above…. the orange area in the middle is your sweet spot.

Before, we would have had to target everyone in that image all at once.

Let’s think about this new feature in terms of the way we teach targeting here at DigitalMarketer.

We call it the “But No One Else Would” trick

When we’re looking to run ads to a new offer, or in a new market, we first start by doing a TON of research on the target audience.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Where are these people hanging out online? How can we find the people that love this market SO much that they want to spend their money on it?

We answer questions like these….

• Who are the authority figures, thought leaders, or big brands in your niche?
• What books, magazines, newspapers does your ideal customer read?
• What events do they attend?
• What websites do they frequent?
• Where do they live?
• What tools do they use?
• What’s SPECIFICALLY UNIQUE about this group of people?

The most important question above is the last, what’s specifically unique about these people? Where would they be hanging out that NO ONE else would?

Facebook Flex Targeting: Example 1

Let’s look at a targeting example in the golf niche.

Say you’re selling golf equipment.  You want to run ads to people who actually PLAY golf… frequently.  And, therefore, buy lots of golf stuff.

Most people would hop into Facebook (or any traffic platform) and quickly fill out the targeting section.

They may target Tiger Woods.  Why not? He’s probably the most famous golfer of all time.

That’s a mistake.

Tiger is too well-known. He is an international celebrity. Most people know who Tiger is, whether they watch or play golf at all.

It’s too broad.

So you start to think…

How about Phil Mickelson?

He’s definitely not as well known as Tiger, but he’s still pretty famous.

I don’t play golf, but I know who Phil Mickelson is because I’ve watched the Master’s with my dad.

Still not specific enough.

So then you get to the “But No One Else Would” trick….

Who or what can we target that ONLY golfers would be interested in?

What about a more mid-level golfer?

“A golf enthusiast would know who Bubba Watson is, but no one else would.”

Although Bubba is a big enough name to have a following that you can target on Facebook, he is still lesser-known and therefore would attract people who actually watch golf, play golf and… yep… buy golf stuff.

Apply this to other areas in the golf niche…

• What events do golf enthusiasts attend, but no one else would?
• What magazines do golf enthusiasts read, but no one else would?
• What books do golf enthusists read, but no one else would?

If you use this simple fill in the blank sentence when planning out your targeting, it will ensure that you’re actually reaching a relevant audience!

A ___________ would know who ___________ is, but no one else would.

What does this have to do with Facebook’s new targeting options?

SPECIFICITY!

Now, you can still leverage those “broader” interests like Tiger Woods without worrying about them being too broad…. You just have to qualify them with an “and” statement.

Like this…

Instead of people that just like Tiger Woods – we’re targeting people who like Tiger Woods AND Bubba Watson.

It’s allowing you to tap into the part of Tiger’s market that would be still be hyper- focused.

In the past, we only had two options:

• Target Tiger Woods
• Don’t target Tiger Woods

(RELATED: [DOWNLOAD] Customer Avatar Worksheet: Finally, Get Clear on WHO You Are Selling To! )

Facebook Flex Targeting: Example 2

Let’s say we’re wanting to target people who really LOVE the royal family.

Before, you maybe would have targeted Prince William and Kate Middleton together:

Now, you can target people who like Prince William AND Kate Middleton…

Talk about hyper targeted!

We’re still testing the new targeting options and I’m excited to report back very soon with more data.

For the time being, take advantage of the further specificity that Facebook Flex Targeting has given advertisers.

It’s as easy as 1,2,3

1. Find the enthusiasts in your market using the “But No One Else Would” trick
2. Use Facebook’s new AND-OR targeting to laser focus on them
3. Exclude the rest

Have you started playing with Facebook’s Flexible Targeting?  What questions do you have?

Ask the DM team and 9,036 other members in the DM Engage Facebook Group!

Not a DM Lab Member? Learn more here.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

The post Facebook Flex Targeting: Now You Can Have Your Cake AND-OR Eat It Too appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

2015 has been a year of growth for DigitalMarketer, especially when it comes to acquiring leads and customers with paid traffic.

At the end of 2014, we wrote an article highlighting our best Facebook ads of the year.

Here’s an excerpt from that article…

“We’ve created 567 Facebook ad campaigns in the past year and were just talking campaigns. Campaigns usually contain AT LEAST 2 ad sets and 8 ads.

That means we’ve created AT LEAST 4,500 different Facebook ads in the past year. Phew.”

(Note: The full version of the 2014 version of this article appears below this article.)

We definitely upped our game in 2015.  We’ve run 1,140 Facebook ad campaigns over the last 12 months or so.

But our growth isn’t just in the number of campaigns!  In 2015, DigitalMarketer went from simply creating “ads” to creating “ad campaigns”.

What do I mean?

We developed an automated system for acquiring new leads/customers and monetizing our existing customers.

We quit running “one hit wonder” ads that generate results right out of the gate, but quickly die and provide a poor experience for the end user.

As you’ll see in the ads below, we’ve grown and learned so much in every aspect of what it takes to run successful ad campaigns including…

• making the right offer
• improving the design
• honing the sales copy
• focusing our targeting
• scaling winning ads

… and more.

We took what worked in 2014, made it better, and we weren’t afraid to scale a winning campaign.

The change and growth from 2014 to 2015 wasn’t just about us… traffic platforms are also maturing. They’re rolling out new ad types and features that make it easier for us to obtain success.

If you have an offer the market wants, and create ad images that appeal to that market, AND refine your targeting to make sure you’re putting that message in front of the right audience, you will win.

We appreciate you all for joining us on this journey and experiencing this growth as it happens… and we wish the same for your business.

Without further ado… here are DigitalMarketer’s best Facebook ads from our highest performing ad campaigns of 2015:

1. Newsfeed Ad to a Lead Magnet #1

Ah, The Ultimate Social Media Swipe File… our highest performing Lead Magnet of all time. It also happens to be the first Lead Magnet we ever ran to cold media here at DigitalMarketer.

You’ll notice that The Ultimate Social Media Swipe File made it onto this list last year (#9 below) which is a testament to having a good offer. Once you create a solid Lead Magnet, it can benefit you for (literally) many years to come.

The Ultimate Social Media Swipe File campaign from 2014 finally tired out.

This was the 2014 version of this ad…

But, we knew this offer still had life.

In July of 2015, we created completely new ad campaigns for the offer.

Here is the highest performing ad from those campaigns…

You’ll notice we refreshed the copy and images.

We wanted to scale this offer to an even broader market than before, so we went with the newspaper theme because someone outside of “online marketing” would still understand a “headline” in reference to a newspaper.

We tested these images with color variations and the black and white outperformed all the rest.

The copy works for a few reasons…

1. we lead with a call-to-action to “copy & paste”. Using the words copy & paste also express the ease of using these headlines.
2. “72” creates specificity and shows the abundance of headlines they’ll receive.
3. “Get more clicks” speaks to the end result of using the headlines.
4. “Facebook, Twitter, and your own blog” helps to explain the application of the headlines so that the end user doesn’t have to even wonder WHERE they would use these headlines.

In 2014, The Ultimate Social Swipe Campaign produced 33,000+ leads for the business. At that time, it was our highest performing advertising campaign to date.

In 2015, our new ad campaigns for this offer (went live July 21st, 2015) has generated 72,033 leads in 2015 alone. (That’s more than double last year)!

2. Newsfeed Ad to Lead Magnet #2

The second ad on our list for 2015 is for our 60 Second Blog Plan Lead Magnet.

This Lead Magnet appeals to bloggers and content marketers.

Notice the ENGAGEMENT on this ad! When you have high positive engagement on an ad (likes, shares, comments) it helps increase your Facebook relevance score. When your relevance score is high, you pay less and your ad is more likely to be shown to your target audience.

Why was this ad successful?

We really, really thought about our target market here.

The ad image looks like the WordPress admin panel, which would immediately appeal to most content marketers. This is what we used to catch their eye. We also tied the “60 second” aspect of the offer into the image with the clock.

A major pain point for content marketers is having the TIME to create all of the content needed. We really played on that “hook” with this ad.

In terms of the copy, this worked because we used language like…

• “YOU can create a Blog Content Plan”.
• “60 seconds or less by filling in these 5 simple blanks” was used to highlight the speed and simplicity.
• “YES, IT’S REALLY THAT SIMPLE” was added to help overcome any objections and add some brand voice to the piece.

This ad campaign produced 68,830 leads for DigitalMarketer in 2015.

3.  Retargeting with a Video Ad

Facebook added video ads to their platform in 2015… and what a blessing they’ve been.

There’s so much more that can be said in a video ad than in an image, and if used correctly video ads can not only work to cold traffic, but also for retargeting.

The beauty of Facebook videos ads is that you can now create website custom audiences of people who watch the video and retarget them with other ad campaigns (perfect for cold traffic).

You can also use video ads to retarget people who have visited your site or visited certain pages on your site.

That’s exactly what we did with the ad above.

We hold an annual event called Traffic & Conversion Summit. The above ad was used to retarget people who had visited the sales page to buy tickets but didn’t actually buy.

Ryan Deiss (our Founder and CEO) shot a quick video that said something like this…

“Hey there (arms waving), before you go, if you’re watching me right now it’s because you’ve heard of Traffic & Conversion Summit – XX discount is about to end, if this video is here then the offer is still active, BUT -you have to get it now!”

There was incredible ad scent here because the sales page for the event features a video of Ryan.

So, we thought that seeing a retargeting ad with Ryan speaking to them again would definitely make them stop in their newsfeed.

We were right.  

This campaign had a 3,858% ROI!

The best part? It only took 20 minutes to shoot the video, upload it, and set up this retargeting ad.

This was VERY low hanging fruit… retargeting is simple to set up and you’re leaving a lot of money on the table if you aren’t following up with your prospects and customers.

4. Newsfeed Ad to Blog Content

This ad was to cold traffic (people who were not connected to DigitalMarketer in any way).

We sent traffic to a blog post first to introduce ourselves to the audience, give value first, and to “pixel” people who clicked so we could retarget them with a relevant offer.

The copy for this ad is lengthy… which we recommend for any ads you’re using to send traffic to content.

It shows the end user that you’re going to provide value. Because they’ve never heard of you before, you need to really explain yourself and give them a reason to click.

You’re investing money INTO the relationship bank with your prospects by giving them value first BEFORE asking them to give you their contact information or buy something.

Revealing the formula in the ad copy creates curiosity to get people to click.

We use the verbage “Your business” to qualify the audience. We want people who own businesses to click.

The promise for the ad is incredible… we will teach you 4 ways to double your sales. This ad shows that a good promise/ offer can even outweigh a mediocre message or image.

This ad generated 50,000 clicks to the blog post in order to prime the pump for this next ad…

5.  Retargeting with a Newsfeed Ad to a Mini-Class

This ad campaign was used to generate leads for Double Your Sales, a free training course we released this year in partnership with Infusionsoft.

Double Your Sales isn’t your typical “Lead Magnet”. It’s a 6 week mini-class that takes dedication and time… it is not easily consumable.

That’s why this ad looks a bit different than our normal “Lead Magnet” ad.

Notice how long the copy is. We tested three variations of copy for this ad campaign (one was very short) and the long copy outperformed the others every time.

Why? Because this course is more of a commitment, we really have to sell someone with the ad copy.

We not only use the promise of teaching them 6 ways to double their business, we also give specifics at to what they’ll learn each week.

The image is super engaging and plays off of the message of there being 6 ways to double your business… and the finger pressing the button makes you want to ACT and actually click the ad.

This ad campaign has produced over 20,000 leads for DigitalMarketer in 2015.

6.  Carousel Ad to Blog Content

Ah, carousel ads! Another new ad type that Facebook rolled out in 2015.

When scrolling through the newsfeed, you actually see the first image with an arrow pointing to the right that you can click on to scroll through the ad.

Carosel ads are awesome. Not only do they stand out in the newsfeed, they’re great for multiple reasons… you can use each square to talk about a different benefit of a specific offer (all of them clicking over to the same page).

You could also use them to highlight different testimonials for your business or product and retarget people who visited your sales page but didn’t buy.

In this case, we used the ad carousel ad type to promote 4 different blog posts (each square goes to a different URL).

This is the first panel…

… and this is the second panel that someone sees if they click the arrow to move the carousel…

… and the third…

… the 4th…

… and the 5th…

We ran this ad to cold traffic and allowed people to select which topic they were most interested in.

The best part of this is that because of retargeting, we were able to follow up with these people with offers that were most specific to the blog post they clicked over to.

If they clicked on the blog post about Facebook ads… we retargeted them with an ad for our Lead Magnet about Facebook ads.  If they clicked on the blog post about email marketing, we retargeted them with an ad for our Lead Magnet about … you guessed it… email marketing.

This ad sent 15,000+ clicks to various blog posts.

7.  Newsfeed Ad to Perpetual Product Launch

This ad sends traffic to a perpetual launch for our email marketing product called The Machine.

Last year our ad for this product targeted people that already knew the benefit of an email list or those that had an email list.

We wanted to broaden the marketing message to take this product to a different audience.  So, we developed a new campaign.

The message of the 2015 campaign boils down to…

 “the average adult receives 147 emails a day”

… and called out to business owners by asking them how they were going to stand out in the inbox.

Here’s the ad…

This new messaging was all about broadening the marketing message and it WORKED. We also use a quote (that reads like a story) in the newsfeed description that stops dead in the middle and creates curiosity.

“We can help” makes them feel like they are apart of something bigger.

The ad image appeals to most people because everyone knows what that blue email icon means and sees it daily… and having almost 5k emails in your box would stress most people out.  The image is eye catching and speaks to a pain point.

This campaign has put more than 20,000 people into a perpetual launch for our product, The Machine, and is consistently running at 80%+ ROI positive.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

But don’t stop there! Check out all the lessons we learned in 2014…

1.  Newsfeed ad to Lead Magnet #1

This ad is for our 212 Blog Post Ideas Lead Magnet.

This is one of our all time best ads. It’s generated over 30,000 leads for less than $2.06 a piece.

(Want to learn our optimization strategy for generating those 30,000 leads? Click here.)

Why does it work?

The Image: The image features a person (and although this is Ryan Deiss, we ran the ad to a TON of audiences who have no idea who he is).

The person is looking at you. That’s eye-catching. Any ad where a person is applicable, we suggest using them in your image. Either make sure the person is looking forward or looking towards a part of the image you want them to pay attention to.

Also, the chalk on the chalkboard is unique – we found the chalkboard on dreamstime and photoshopped the “212 Blog Post Ideas” on there.

The Copy: “Writer’s block? Boost your content with theses 212 blog post ideas, applicable to any niche”

This ad is speaking to people who blog. With the copy, we wanted to speak to a pain point – writer’s block.

We then gave them a benefit for clicking with the “Boost your content with these 212 blog post ideas”.

Lastly, we overcame the objection that these ideas may not work for them by adding “applicable to any niche”.

2.  Newsfeed Ad to Lead Magnet #2

This ad is for our Social Media Headline Swipe file. It’s the biggest ad campaign we’ve ever run on Facebook. It’s a similar ad and funnel (designed to put people into our DM Lab continuity program) to the 212 Blog Post Ideas that I covered above.

This ad has generated over 33,000 leads for an average of $1.70 a piece.

Why does it work?

The Image: This image is distinctive. From the mouse patterns in the background, to the contrasting colors, it makes you want to look. It also makes you want to look without being overly obnoxious.

That’s what’s important about this image. Gone are the days of running ads with obnoxiously loud colors and arrows just for the sake of grabbing someone’s attention.

That screams, “I’m going to ask you for money if you click here!” Not that standing out isn’t still important, but – make sure your ad makes sense from a design standpoint. You can hire someone on Fiverr or oDesk or create an ad using Canva.

The Copy: “Want more clicks from your Social Media posts? Download our 72 headline swipe file.”

This ad is speaking to people who are social media managers or are interested in social media. With the copy, we wanted to speak to a pain point – no one is clicking on my posts!

We then gave them a solution… “Download our 72 headline swipe file”.

If I were to optimize this further, I would have added “applicable to any niche” as you saw in the 212 blog post ideas.

“Steal Our Swipe File” was important copy to have on the image. Telling someone to steal from you is certainly an interruption as they scroll down their newsfeed.

3.  Newsfeed Ad to High-Ticket Product Lead Generation

This ad generated leads for a launch of our product called The Machine. We were giving away our email marketing game plan in exchange for email addresses.

This ad generated 7,422 conversions at $1.54 per lead.

Why does it work?

The Image: After looking at demographics for the audience of website visitors that had already hit this product’s website, I noticed that over 90% of visitors were male.

It was also late summer/early fall and football season was starting. In order to tie in with the “game plan” aspect of the offer, we went with a football field.

Tying in a theme that would relate to your target audience is a great way to relate.

The image’s color (yet still not obnoxious, see my comments on the previous ad) and the football field/formation makes you STOP, it also ties perfectly with the offer being a “game plan”.

We wanted to make sure email marketing was still tied into the theme of the image, and that’s why the “Email Marketing Game Plan” copy is on the field along with the red envelope.

The Copy: “Do you have a game plan for your Email Marketing? Don’t hit the field without one…”

This ad ran to people who were interested in email marketers, mostly males. Again, as most of our successful ads do, the copy began with a question.

This copy appeals to someone’s urge to have a plan and to be prepared.

Also, even if you do have a plan for your email marketing, you can always improve upon it…

4.  Newsfeed Ad to Lead Magnet #3

This ad is part of a bigger campaign for our Gain, Logic, Fear email template campaign. We’re giving away a 3 part email series that users can copy and paste into their email service provider in exchange for their email address.

This ad has generated 4,441 leads for $1.90 a piece.

Why does it work?

The Image: What makes this ad so successful is the strategy behind it, not necessarily the image.

This image goes against the statement I made in ad #2 that people are catching on to the obnoxious colors and arrows that scream “BUY SOMETHING FROM ME”! If I were to do this over, I’d still use the text/word document screen shot but have a designer make it look more professional.

(2015 Update:  As you can see in our most recent ads, we have moved WAY beyond this type of image in our ads, but this strategy still works.  Just be careful that you aren’t calling out to the audience about something that is against Facebook’s ad policy such as identifying the person by name or mentioning a disease they might have. )

It shows them EXACTLY what they’re going to get and how easy it really will be to just copy and paste these templates.

But like I said, the strategy was the most important part of this campaign…

The Copy: This campaign had multiple ad sets that targeted different email service providers via interest targeting… Mailchimp, Aweber, ConstantContact, Infusionsoft, Getresponse, etc.

Each ad set had different ad copy. This examples shows the ad copy for GetResponse.

“Use GetResponse? Copy and paste this FREE email series into your account today.”

Replace “Use________?” with the email service provider I was targeting in each ad set and that was the copy for each of these ads…

The copy was VERY targeted and specific.

The “Copy & paste this FREE email series into your account today.” made people think:

• The email series was specific to their service provider so why wouldn’t they use it,
• The email series is FREE, you’re not going to be asked to buy something on the landing page,
• This is something I can USE today… I don’t have to wait to implement or learn something and then do it. I can simply copy and paste…

Think of a way you could apply this tactic to your ads. How can I take this one Lead Magnet or offer and slightly alter the targeting and copy to become even more specific?

5.  Retargeting Ad to a High Dollar Product

If you’re ever selling something that is timely, that won’t always be available, you HAVE to run an ad like the one above.

We ran this ad to everyone who had hit The Machine website or opted in during the pre-launch of that product.

Once we were about to close registration for the class, we ran this ad for 72 hours. Boy, do people jump for things that they think are going to be gone soon…

We spent $3,196.15 on this ad and saw $211,682 in return.

That’s the most profitable 3 day ad we’ve ever run :).

There isn’t much to discuss in terms of image or copy for this ad other than the ad maintained the same design/feel that we had used to introduce them to The Machine (the football field ad for example). Also, the ad was eye-catching (of course) and would have stopped them in their tracks while scrolling through Facebook.

The most important take away from this ad is the scarcity.

“The Machine is Closing! Don’t miss out…” and “We’re Closing it Down”.

6.  Retargeting Ad to a Low Dollar Product

Look familiar? This is a retargeting ad for the funnel I introduced in ad #1 above.

This ad runs to people who opt in for the 212 Blog Post Ideas Lead Magnet but don’t take us up on our $7 Tripwire offer for our 1,000 Blog Subscribers execution plan.

Why does it work?

The Image: You’ll notice that the ads are VERY SIMILAR. You want to catch their attention by showing them something that they’re familiar with, but create a bit of variation so they don’t think it’s the same ad.

You’ll also notice that second ad says “1,000 Blog Subscribers” –- this is because the Tripwire teaches you how to get your first 1,000 blog subscribers.

The Copy: The most important thing to keep in mind is the copy. We use “Did life get in the way? You forgot to take advantage of this deal?”.

This is the SAME COPY we use for EVERY retargeting ad. It saves you from writing a ton of copy and it is always applicable.

It also assumes that they didn’t say ‘NO’ the first time and there is an important psychological principal at play here.

The words “Did life get in the way” and “You forgot…” give the prospect a reason to reconsider the offer.  Because if they said “NO” to the offer — you’re asking the prospect to admit they were wrong the first time — and that isn’t easy.  With this ad — we assume they didn’t have their credit card last time, their children distracted them, they went to dinner and forgot, etc.

Here’s another example of a retargeting ad, this one retargets people who opted in for the social swipe file (ad #2 in this blog post) but didn’t purchase the Tripwire from that funnel:

To learn more about how we dynamically retarget throughout our funnels using Facebook Website Custom Audiences, click here.

7.  Facebook Offer Ad to High-Ticket Event

This is a Facebook offer. Facebook offers are a certain kind of ad for discounts, flash sales, etc. They appear differently in the news feed with a “Get Offer” Button in the bottom right hand corner of the ad.

When they click the process is different, too. There’s a pop up that thanks them for claiming the offer, and then they’re given the link to claim the offer and it’s ALSO emailed to them!

The link that we use for the offer is always to a landing page.

For example, the ad above was 82% off tickets to TNC.

Why does it work?

Facebook offers are shared a ton and receive awesome organic reach because people want to share deals with their friends. Also, the email touch point is BIG.

The Image: This image shows a highly engaged conference. It catches people’s attention and shows them that Traffic & Conversion Summit isn’t a borefest.

The Copy: The copy displays the benefit… 82% off the event and also establishes credibility by says that Traffic & Conversion was recommended by Forbes, a credible source.

When used appropriately, offers are powerful Facebook advertisements.

Remember, advertising is all about placing the right message in front of the right audience.

This blog post gives you 7 examples of how to create the right message with your Facebook advertising.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Have a question?

Ask the DM Team and 7,856 other members in the DM Engage Facebook Group.

Not a DM Lab Member? Learn more here.

The post 7 Lessons Learned from 1,140 Facebook Ad Campaigns in One Year appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Almost two years ago we released the first edition of our “Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising Targeting Options”.

With over 25,000 page views, this article was a big success… and we’re proud to have helped that many people better understand Facebook targeting.

But since then, a lot has changed…

… as it usually does in digital marketing, especially when it comes to Facebook advertising :).

It was time to update this article with the most relevant Facebook targeting tactics and options…

I’m about to explain not only our research process for selecting the most effective targeting options to reach your target market (people that will actually BUY your product(s)), I’ll also list ALL of the targeting options available on the Facebook platform so that you don’t have to waste time digging around…

But first…

Why is Facebook’s targeting so effective?

Facebook has well over 1.6 billion users. Meaning, you can reach almost any group of people that you want.

I bet you can only list a handful of friends that DON’T have a Facebook profile.

If your target market is a human, you can reach them on Facebook.

For example, there’s a common misconception that Facebook won’t work for companies that are B2B… WRONG!

It’s interesting because DigitalMarketer actually markets to other businesses… and Facebook is our biggest traffic source.

A CEO of a company probably has a LinkedIn profile, yes, but they also probably have a Facebook profile. They just have different uses for each platform. It doesn’t mean that you can’t put an ad in front of them on one or the other.

Also, Facebook knows A LOT about us… more than any other traffic platform out there.

Facebook has more interest based data than anyone else in the world – and it’s about things that actually matter to us as marketers.

Thanks to that good ole “Like” button, Facebook knows what you’re interested in: restaurants you like, the TV shows you watch, the music you listen to, the causes you believe in, the people who inspire you. On and on…

The Facebook platform, like no other, knows what moves you. They also know most of what you do when you LEAVE their site…

Thanks to the Facebook Pixel, which is now installed on most businesses’ website that advertise on Facebook, Facebook can actually track most of your online activity… what you purchase, what you read, etc.

Don’t believe me? Use this Chrome plugin, Facebook Pixel Helper, and visit a few of your favorite websites. I bet most of them have this pixel installed.

This data is far more valuable than basic demographics information like age or gender.

In short, Facebook is able to collect a ton of data on its users and it’s all accessible to marketers. You just have to know how to use it.

Luckily, Facebook makes targeting fairly easy – especially if you follow the advice in this post.

Facebook’s Targeting Options Explained

First, I want to explain the different targeting options that are available and list out the possibilities within each category… it’s important for you to first understand ALL of the targeting possibilities, and then we will discuss which ones are best for your business.

Every time you create a Facebook ad, you’ll see these categories:

Here’s what lies beneath each category:

Custom Audiences

Custom Audiences are created by uploading your customer database of…

• email addresses
• phone numbers
• Facebook user IDs
• app user IDs

…Facebook will match this data to as many user profiles as possible.

(RELATED: Perpetual Traffic Episode 22: Create These 4 Facebook Custom Audiences First)

Lookalike Audiences are also found within the same box.

Lookalike audiences are a way to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because…

• Their profiles are similar to custom audiences you have uploaded.
• They’re people who have visited your website.
• They’re people who have hit one of your conversion pixels.

You’re telling Facebook that you want an audience created of people that are most like your email list, website visitors, people who have hit one of your conversion pixels, etc.

Facebook will create an audience based off of data points on a Facebook profile that would denote similarity.

This is what creating a lookalike audience looks like in Ads Manager:

In this example we’ve created a Lookalike Audience of people who have visited DigitalMarketer.com, located in the U.S., with an audience size of 1% of the population. This gives us a group of people just under 2 million who are most like the people who have visited our website.

Locations

This option is HUGE if you have a local business.

Enter…

• one or more countries
• regions
• states
• cities
• postal codes
• addresses
• Designated Market Areas®…

…to show or exclude your ad to people in those locations. Just know, location targeting is not available in all countries.

As a general rule, run ads in countries, states/regions, cities, or postal codes where you can actually sell your product.

When selecting locations at DigitalMarketer, we usually concentrate on the top four or five countries where people live that actually buy our products.

(RELATED: Perpetual Traffic Episode 28: 7 Ways to Grow Local Businesses Using Paid Traffic)

Age

Select the minimum and maximum age of the people who will find your ad relevant.

In terms of Age (and Gender), a big misconception a lot of people have is that they MUST define their audience by these parameters.

Most of the time, if you do this, you’ll actually hurt your campaigns by making the assumption of the age/gender of your audience.

For example, our sister company Survival Life thought their target market was older, white males, and that’s who they were targeting on Facebook. But one time, on accident, they forgot to select males as the target (so they were targeting both men and women).

Do you know what they found?

Their best converting ads in that campaign were from women — the more you know…

That’s why, whenever we set up ad campaigns in new markets, we leave the Age and Gender options totally open and…

….let the data and the results tell us the age and the gender of the people who are actually going to convert.

Obviously, there are circumstances where age and gender really matter, like if you’re advertising to college kids or you’re advertising retirement services. So all of this is situational, and you have to think about how age and gender apply to your market and the products you sell.

Gender

What is their gender?

All/men/women — see above and learn from our mistakes!

Languages

What language do they speak?

Detailed Targeting

This is where the magic happens.

Let’s take a thorough look at what Detailed Targeting is, and how we recommend approaching this powerful feature.

Within the “detailed targeting” box lies four different types of targeting…

• Demographics
• Interests
• Behaviors
• More Categories

We have LOTS more on our approach to use Detailed Targeting that we’ll get to in just a minute.

This is the most powerful option when you’re entering a new market or going after cold traffic — people that have never heard of you before.

Detailed Targeting lets you further specify your audience beyond Location, Age, Gender and Language.

Demographics

Reach people based on education, employment, household and lifestyle details. Some data is available for the US only.

• What’s their education level? (Associate degree, college grad, Master’s degree, Doctorate degree, high school grad, in college, in grad school, in high school, professional degree, some college, some grad school, some high school, unspecified)
• What was/is their field of study? (Marketing, culinary, finance, etc.)
• What school did they attend? (High schools, colleges, etc.)
• What years were they in undergrad? (Select a range of years people graduated)
• Ethnic Affinity (African American (US), Asian American (US), Hispanic (US – All), Hispanic (US – Bilingual), Hispanic (US – English dominant), Hispanic (US – Spanish dominant))
• What is their income range? ($30,000 – $40,000, $40,000 – $50,000, $50,000 – $75,000, $75,000 – $100,000, $100,000 – $125,000, $125,000 – $150,000, $150,000 – $250,000, $250,000 – $350,000, $350,000 – $500,000, Over $500,000)
• What is their net worth? ($1 – $100,000, $1,000,000 – $2,000,000, $100,000 – $200,000, $200,000 – $500,000, $500,000 – $750,000, $750,000 – $1,000,000)
• What generation do they belong to? (Baby Boomers (US), Generation X, Millennials)
• Are they: Renters, Homeowners or First time homebuyers?
• What type of home do they reside in? (Apartment, condo, multi-family home, single)
• What is their home worth? (10 different segments from fewer than $50,000 to over $2,000,000)
• How many acres is their property? (11 different segments from .26 – .59 acres to > 40 acres)
• What’s the square footage of their home? (13 different segments from fewer than 750 sq. ft. to 6,000 – 6,999 sq. ft.)
• When was their home built? (11 different segments from 1900-1909 to >2011)
• What is their household composition? (Family-based households, grandparents, housemate-based households, new parents, veterans in home, working women, young & hip, young adults in home)
• Life events? (Anniversary within 30 days, away from family, away from hometown, long distance relationship, new job, new relationship, newly engaged (3 months), newly engaged (6 months), newly engaged (1 year), newlywed (3 months), newlywed (6 months), newlywed (1 year), recently moved, upcoming birthday)
• Who are their friends? (friends with the newly engaged, friends with the newlywed, friends with someone who has an anniversary within 30 days, friends with someone who recently moved, friends with someone who has an upcoming birthday)
• Are they a parent? ((0-12 months) new parents, (01-02 Years) parents with toddlers, (03-05 Years) parents with preschoolers, (06-08 Years) parents with early school age children, (08-12 Years) parents with pre-teens, (13-18 Years) parents with teenagers, (18-26 Years) parents with adult children, expectant parents, parents (All))
• Are they a mom? What type? (Big-city moms, corporate moms, fit moms, green moms, moms of grade school kids, moms of high school kids, moms of preschool kids, new moms, soccer moms, stay-at-home moms, trendy moms)
• What’s their view on US politics? (Are they likely to engage in liberal or conservative politics? Are they likely to donate to liberal or conservative causes? Do they identify as: conservative, liberal, moderate, very conservative or very liberal?)
• Who are they interested in? (Unspecified, men, women, men and women)
• What’s their relationship status? (Civil union, complicated, divorced, domestic partnership, engaged, in a relationship, married, open relationship, separated, single, unspecified, widowed)
• Who is their employer? (Apple, Target, Dell, etc.)
• What industry do they work in? (28 categories from administrative to legal to US veterans)
• What is their job title? (Doctor, store manager, marketing coordinator, etc.)
• What type of office do they work in? (Home office, small office, small business)

Interests

Reach specific audiences by their “interests”.

This includes:

• posts they share on their timelines
• apps they use
• pages they Like

Not surprising, the Interests section includes the most targeting options — start typing ANYTHING and you’re likely to see results.

There are also many categories with many, many subcategories. We’ll show you the main categories, but this is a section that will require exploration on your part.

• Business and Industry: What business or industry are they interested in? From advertising to nursing to small business.
• Entertainment: What do they do for entertainment? From games to movies to TV.
• Family and Relationships: What are their interests in regards to family and relationships? From dating to friendship to weddings.
• Fitness and Wellness: Are they interested in bodybuilding, meditation, Zumba (etc.)?
• Food and Drink: What food and drink do they like? From adult beverages to restaurants.
• Hobbies and Activities: What hobbies and activities pique their interest? From acting to pets to vehicles.
• Shopping and Fashion: Do they like men’s clothing, tattoos, cosmetics, shopping boutiques?
• Sports and Outdoors: What outdoor recreation do they like to do? From boating to hunting to surfing? What sports do they like? From American football to golf to volleyball.
• Technology: What technology do they like? From computer monitors to free software to audio equipment to televisions.

Behaviors (often from third party data)

Reach people based on purchase behaviors or intents, device usage and more — some behavior data is available for US audiences only.

Like Interests, there are many, many Behaviors and even more subcategories to target. We’ll show you the main categories, but this is a section that will require exploration on your part.

• Automotive: What kind of vehicle do they drive? Is it used or new? What vehicle are they shopping for? Etc.
• B2B: People who are owners or employees and what’s their company size, what’s the industry and what’s their seniority?
• Charitable Donations: Do they donate to charitable organizations, and if so, which ones? From animal welfare to children’s causes to world relief.
• Consumer Classification: People who are predicted to prefer mid to high value goods.
• Digital Activities: Are they console gamers? What Internet browser do they use? Are they early or late technology adopters?
• Expats: People whose current country or residence is different from their birth country. For example: People from Argentina living abroad.
• Financial: Indications of what kind of bank they belong to (such as a credit union), if they’re likely to invest, if they’re likely to be high spenders, have multiple lines of credit, etc.
• Job Role: People’s whose activities strongly suggest they have a particular job role.
• Media: Households with people who are likely to listen to Internet or satellite radio. Households who are likely to watch a particular genre of TV show – from action to comedy to health shows to travel shows.
• Mobile Device User: What brand of mobile device do they use? Do they use a 3G or a 4G network connection? Are they new smartphone or tablet owners? Etc.
• Purchase Behavior: When they make a purchase do they use a coupon? Do they shop from department stores or luxury stores? The kinds of products they heavily buy: clothing, kids’ toys, athletic gear, etc.
• Residential Profiles: How long have they lived in their home? Are they likely to move or have they recently borrowed money to buy a home?
• Seasonal and Events: People who are engaging in seasonal content, from baseball to rugby.
• Travel: People’s actives that indicate they are likely to be frequent travelers, travel for business, take family vacations, have recently returned from a trip, etc.

More Categories

Find any Facebook or Partner Categories you’ve requested access to here. Some data is available for US audiences only.

Now that you have an understanding of the Facebook Targeting Features, you should be ready start your own campaign!

But first, let me give you some advice so you don’t cripple your campaign and waste your time and money.

(NOTE: Want to get clear on WHO you are targeting on Facebook? Download our Customer Avatar Worksheet now.)

How DigitalMarketer Does Targeting Research

Before you ever hop into ads manager… you MUST do your research!

Targeting is VITALLY important to the success of your advertising campaign.

You can build the best advertising campaign in the world, but if you put that campaign in front of the wrong audience – it will fail.

That’s why our team devotes so much time to researching the best targeting options for each and every traffic campaign.

(RELATED: Perpetual Traffic Episode 33: The Ad Grid: How to Build Campaigns that Convert and Scale)

Before we hop into our research process, it’s important for you to first understand HOW we think about targeting at DigitalMarketer…

The key to successful targeting is SPECIFICITY.

You must ensure that your targeting isn’t too BROAD, that you’re really narrowing in on the avid part of your market… the people that actually want to BUY.

Let’s use the golf industry as an example.

If I’m selling golf products, I may think to target “Tiger Woods,” “PGA” and “ESPN” because if people have these interests, they’ll probably buy golf equipment.

But… that’s not specific enough.

It’s too broad.

In terms of specificity, think of it like this…

(RELATED: Perpetual Traffic Episode 30: Ad Targeting: A B2B & B2C Case Study)

The “But No One Else Would” Trick

A [enter your market here] enthusiast will know who XYZ is, but no one else would.

A [golf enthusiast] would know who Bubba Watson is, but no one else would.

Think of it like this: Although Tiger Woods is a golfer, he’s also an international celebrity.

Woods is so much bigger than golf, and he attracts people who are non-golfers — who would also be non-buyers.

Check out the second circle in the image above, Phil Mickelson.

A casual golfer, someone who knows a little more about the industry, would know who Mickelson is. And not that he would be a terrible person to target, he’s more specific than Woods, but he’s not as specific as we can get.

The central circle of our diagram has Bubba Watson.

Now, he’s become a little more famous since we created this graphic, but if you think about it…

Who is someone that really follows golf would know?

For instance, a mid-level golfer that’s won a few tournaments and has a following, but not someone who’s name has been plastered across the headlines and has become a cultural icon.

This is how specific you need to think in your market to really get to the core of it — to get the people who will actually buy.

This trick will apply across the board, from influencers to events to magazines to brands in your market…

• A [enter your market here] enthusiast will read XYZ magazine, but no one else would.
• A [enter your market here] enthusiast will know who XYZ is, but no one else would.
• A [enter your market here] enthusiast will attend XYZ conference, but no one else would.

Adapt this mindset because it will help with actually…

Conducting the Research

We do a ton of research for every ad campaign we create — and we use a systematic checklist to do it.

We use the Facebook Ad Checklist when rolling out new offers, or to new markets and if we’re targeting people that we haven’t gone after before.

It’s all about getting inside the mind of your target market…

Who is this person?

Where are they hanging out on Facebook?

If you can “meet them where they are” then you’re ensuring that your message is being placed in front of the right crowd.

Give the Facebook Ad Checklist a shot before your next campaign. You can swipe it here.

I usually create an excel sheet (or go really old school with pen and paper) to create lists (plenty of them) of possible answers to the questions on this sheet.

These will become possible interests (or other targeting types) to use for your campaign.

The point of this step is to learn as much as possible about your target audience. We’re looking for specific interests that are relevant to this market.

You don’t have to use fancy, expensive tools to do your targeting research – Google is a great resource.

Let’s see it at work.

“Fishing” for People to Target on Facebook

The first question of the Checklist is:

Who are the authority figures, thought leaders, or big brands in your niche?

For obvious reasons, influencers are great Interests to use as long as you do your research.

Let’s assume I have a product targeted for buyers in the fishing industry.

So, who are the authority leaders?

This part is easy — you can literally search for “Top/Best [Insert Search Term]” into Google and get lists and posts that have already been created by people in this market.

This is a great strategy when answering the Facebook Ad Checklist questions.

Going along those lines, something you could type into Google is “Top Fishermen.”

The “20 Most Famous Bass Anglers of All Time” will probably give us exactly what we’re hoping for.

Now you may be thinking: But you said not to target famous people.

And you’re right — but you have to think about all of this conceptually.

Bass anglers/famous fishermen aren’t necessarily people that have become celebrities like Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson.

These famous fishermen aren’t household names. They’re men that only fishing enthusiasts would know.

Here’s what comes up in the “20 Most Famous Bass Anglers of All Time” post:

Let’s go to Ads Manager and enter Ray Scott (the first name on our “20 Famous Bass Angler’s” list) into Detailed Targeting.

Perfect. We’ll go ahead and select him.

The prompts that come up in Detailed Targeting are pretty good at helping you find the right page, but if you ever have a question or are unsure if you have the right Ray Scott, for instance, then do some sleuthing in Facebook and make sure you have the right page.

Back to our list.

We continue to go down the Top Fishermen List we found in Google, and add as many famous fishermen into Detailed Targeting Interests until our ad set is specific enough and I get a potential reach that I’m looking for.

How do I know when my ad is specific enough? What’s the range?

We’ll get to that in just a second :).

Now, not all of the names from my research may show up on Facebook — some of these famous fishermen may not have a presence on Facebook. Depending on the market, I’d expect about half of my research list to show up in the interests, and I’d be okay with that.

The second question in our Targeting Planning is…

What books/magazines/newspapers does your ideal customer read?

That’s a great way to reach people. If they like something enough to spend time on it, then they’re probably a good person to target.

So as a search query, “Top Fishing Magazines” is a good search query to answer this question.

And here’s a resource I select:

Again, use your best judgment.

I wouldn’t target Outdoor Life because that’s going to include a lot of people who are hunters, and it’s not specific enough to fishing. I also wouldn’t target Florida Sportsman, but this Bassmaster…that’s exactly what we’re looking for.

The next question is…

What events do they attend?

This is a big one. If someone is interested in the market enough to attend an event, they’re probably a really good person to target, especially if your market is event heavy.

“Top Fishing Tournaments” (“tournaments” is a more relevant term in the fishing world than “events”) is the search query I would use in Google.

Next…

What websites do they frequent?

Again, your target market is showing intent and interest by actively searching and consuming information from these sites.

Don’t forget, you don’t want the most popular sites in your industry that any average Joe would know about — you want to use the sites that only enthusiasts would know.

I would search for “Top Fishing Websites” in this example.

Then…

Where do they live?

This is an extremely important aspect, particularly for local businesses, to be mindful of. If you only sell regionally you don’t want to be targeting internationally.

Next…

What tools do they use?

This one is really my favorite because it’s applicable across the board.

Think of your customer avatar and what tools and products they use to support their interest. From fishing rod manufacturers to blogging platforms and software, what tools or products support the Interest you’re targeting?

Finally…

What is SPECIFICALLY UNIQUE about these people?

This isn’t necessarily something you can do research on, but it’s a mindset. This goes back to our “But No One Else Would” concept.

The best thing? You’re not just limited to these search queries!

(NOTE: Want to get clear on WHO you are targeting on Facebook? Download our Customer Avatar Worksheet and bring your ideal customer to life so you can tailor your marketing to address their goals, challenges, and objections to the sale. Download it now.)

More Targeting Research Ideas

Use Audience Insights within Facebook Ad Manager

With Audience Insights you could take a list of interests you’ve researched (events for example), and copy and paste that list into Insights and Facebook will generate a list of other interests that are most like the ones you entered. It’s another way to leverage Facebook’s data and to scale as you continue to update your campaign. We have a blog post on how this works and you can read it here.

Forums

If you can find forums within your market, you can see how your target market talks; what they’re talking about; what are their pain points are (the problem they’re seeking to solve). This will help you craft the look and the sound of your message and ad copy.

Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo is a great tool you can use to enter keywords, and to see what pieces of content around the web are the most shared. It’s also another great way to see what your market is interested in. It could even serve as inspiration for headlines.

Amazon

Amazon is a great place to find popular tools and books in the market.

Then, read the reviews.

Again, you’ll see how people talk in the market, what they’re talking about and what are their pain points are.

So you guys see the thought and research process we use to decide what are good interests to target.

(RELATED: 13 Ways To Use Amazon.com To Pick Products and Niches, Craft Winning Offers, Increase Conversions And More)

Now… for the question you’ve all been wondering:

How Do I Know How Big of an Audience to Target?

If I have a good range and a good offer, these interests should convert.

When starting a campaign, the Interest Audience Size should be 500,000 to 1,000,000 people per ad set; that’s the sweet spot that we’ve found.

If you’re a little bit outside of that don’t sweat it.

Having an ad set of about 300,000 or 1.4 million isn’t going to hurt you. What’s not going to work is 10 million people — it’s too broad.

Now, if you’re targeting with Custom Audience Sizes, your audience size will be dependent on other factors because it is based off of website visitors, or email addresses that you’ve uploaded.

Size doesn’t matter as much with Custom Audiences, and again, you already know that these people are interested — they’ve had a point of contact with you.

If you’re a local marketer, don’t worry about hitting 500,000 people.

That will probably be difficult. The location is going to decrease your targeting. Just worry about the interests, behaviors and demographics that apply to your customers.

As a local business, you have the advantage that most of your targeting is already done for you through your location – but that doesn’t mean you’re off the research hook.

Bonus: Facebook Flex Targeting

Towards the end of 2015, Facebook rolled out Flex Targeting.

In Custom Audiences, Locations and Detailed Targeting, Facebook added options to Exclude or Include, which let’s you make your targeting even more specific.

For instance, in the Detailed Targeting Box you could target people who like Tiger Woods and Bubba Watson. It’s allowing to you tap into Woods’ market while still being hyper-focused.

This was never an option before, other than through third party tools, and it’s a great addition to Facebook targeting.

Where Do I Start?

Phew! That was a lot to take in!

If you’re new to Facebook, and you just want to get started, I’d advise boosting a post on your page…

It will allow to do a bit of basic targeting, and you can do it for as little as $5. It’s a great way to get your feet wet.

For the the Ad Manager veterans, I’d advise creating an ad set for each one of the Targeting questions that are applicable (from our Facebook Ad Checklist).

Going back to our Fishing Example, I’d make an ad set for the famous fishermen that we found. And a set for the magazines, and then the events, and so on. Or combine a few to create the target sweet spot of 500,000 to 1 million.

It will vary from market to market and interest to interest, and you’ll have to use your best judgment based on your research.

It’s all about the research, and it’s not something you can shortcut.

Dig into your customer avatar beyond how old they are, or where they live.

You have to be in the mindset of what does the avatar do; what do they use to do it; where do they go; what do they read?

Start by downloading our Facebook Targeting Planning Sheet, fill it out and create specific ad sets.

Then test.

You may find the people who follow the fishing tools don’t convert, but the people who follow the famous fishermen do. So then you can go out and find more fishermen for your next ad set to make it even better.

By testing, you’ll have a better understanding of your customer avatar and how to scale to them more effectively.

And that’s why this is all about: testing and research.

Using interests to target will help you get in front of people who are naturally inclined to your market, and those are going to be your buyers.

(NOTE: Want to get clear on WHO you are targeting on Facebook? Download our Customer Avatar Worksheet and bring your ideal customer to life so you can tailor your marketing to address their goals, challenges, and objections to the sale. Download it now.)

Have a question?

Ask the DM team and 9,036 other members in the DM Engage Facebook Group!

Not a DM Lab Member? Learn more here.

The post [DOWNLOAD] The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting [2nd Edition] appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

The Ad Grid is the method DigitalMarketer uses to increase our ad success rate 20 times over.

It’s how we plan, test, and measure paid traffic campaigns. It’s the way we organize and systemize our traffic strategy.

The Ad Grid takes the guess work out of creating an ad campaign.

It looks like this:

But, the Ad Grid is much more than a spreadsheet… the real power is the process that goes along with the grid.

Systemizing a strategic process is tough. Systemizing the creation of an entire traffic campaign is nearly impossible. But, after 3 years, we’ve developed a 7-step system we’ll share with you today.

At DigitalMarketer, we follow this 7-Step Plan no matter the product or the traffic platform because it works.

The Ad Grid is applicable to ANY business OR traffic platform.

Today, you’ll get all our inside details on the Ad Grid including, but not limited to…

• How we stopped creating “one-hit wonder” campaigns across ad platforms…
• How to achieve scale and move prospects through the customer journey…
• How we create high converting campaigns…
• How to systemize your traffic strategy – whether that means outsourcing, or having an internal traffic team…
• How to create a congruent market to message match…

Even better — we’re showing you a real campaign we launched at DigitalMarketer using this exact 7-step strategy. You’ll get the Avatars, the Hooks, the copy — everything.

Let’s first talk about the trap you’re susceptible to falling into if you’re not utilizing the Ad Grid. It’s one we’ve fallen into plenty, and one we want you to avoid. It’s…

The Dreaded One-Hit Wonder Campaign

One-hit wonder campaigns come about when marketers just make ads.

But there’s a problem with just making ads. It leaves you open to creating “one-off” ad campaigns without a system or a plan.

The one-hit wonder, if you will.

One-hit wonder campaigns usually target one or 2 different audiences, may test a few different images or copy variations, and that’s pretty much it…

…the person on the other side of the computer expects to launch this type of traffic campaign and BAM… sales and leads will start pouring in.

But, most of the time they don’t. And, if they do… the campaign is only successful for a few days or weeks.

Then, said person complains… “FACEBOOK ADS DON’T WORK,” or “XYZ TRAFFIC PLATFORM DOESN’T SCALE.”

What they don’t realize is that they’re creating one-hit wonder campaigns. They’re only giving themselves 1 or 2 chances to sell their offer.

Well, what if those 1 or 2 copy variations still don’t resonate with the audience? What if those 1 or 2 targeting groups aren’t actually people who are interested in what you’re talking about?

The campaign will fail.

Most people quit after this happens. But, you shouldn’t.

You should use the Ad Grid, and give yourself a foundation for success… and 20+ different chances at success, not just one.

One-off campaigns are bad because:

• They don’t reflect the customer journey and repel prospects because the ad is being run down their throats.
• They only work for a short amount of time and have low quality scores.
• They aren’t scalable.
• They don’t put a specific message in front of a specific audience because the marketer didn’t think about segmentation or message match.

Let’s take a look at these mistakes, so you can be sure that you don’t make them:

One-off campaigns don’t reflect the customer journey.

You want to build a relationship with your customer like you would in person.

You’re looking to make friends.

Does it make sense to immediately ask someone you’re hoping to become friends with for money?

No.

But that’s exactly what some marketers are doing with their ads. They’re putting an ad in front of their target audience and saying, “Hi, nice to meet you! Buy this product! You’ll love it!”

But why should someone buy? They don’t know your brand from Adam.

Like all relationships in life, the brand needs to give value first. And that goes beyond the customer getting ABC product or DEF service.

One-off ads usually have low relevance/quality scores.

That means the audience isn’t resonating with the ads. The ad is repelling prospects, they’re not taking the action that you optimized your campaign for, or worse – they’re marking it as spam.

Why does this happen? Because you’re not speaking to the right audience, you don’t have market to message match in your ad copy, or you’re trying to sell to someone before they’re ready.

The next time the audience sees an ad from you, they’ll probably cringe and think, “Those guys.”

One-off ads aren’t scalable.

In the past, we found ourselves launching campaigns that broke the rules I outlined above. These campaigns weren’t scalable.

Not that there was anything wrong with these Facebook ads, they were successful in terms of ROI.

But, there were only a few ad variations within them. And they didn’t always work…

We found 80% of these ads failed, especially on Facebook. That’s the nature of traffic. Sometimes you swing and miss.

If you’re only setting one or 2 ads, and you’re only testing one or 2 audiences, you’re essentially putting all of our eggs in one basket.

And, we realized that’s what we were doing. We weren’t giving ourselves the ability to scale campaigns in the way we needed to grow our business. We were limiting ourselves.

One-off ad campaigns typically don’t have market to message match.

That means the ad is TOO BROAD.

Ads that don’t have market to message match are essentially talking to a large group of people and offering them a one-size-fits-all package/solution.

For the ad to be successful, it needs to have a specific offer that speaks to a specific group of people.

So how do you keep from making these mistakes? You deploy the Ad Grid.

The Ad Grid Process

The Ad Grid will help create a honed in marketing strategy, so you can stop wasting time and money.

It’s important to keep in mind that you’re going to create an Ad Grid for every offer you roll out.

When you create an Ad Grid, focus on the “offer” that’s the entry point for the funnel.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the funnel, ask yourself:

• Is the customer AWARE there’s a problem? Are they AWARE of you, and the solution you offer to the problem?
• Are they EVALUATING if they should fix their problem, or just leave it be? Is the customer EVALUATING you and your competitors? Are they EVALUATING what product or service to buy?
• Has the customer CONVERTED and bought from you? How do you get them to CONVERT again and more frequently?

Knowing where your customer enters the funnel will give you a better understanding of how to target them. Should you target them with a blog post? A Lead Magnet? A low-dollar offer?

The example that we’ll use for this particular post is a recent Lead Magnet we created here at DigitalMarketer called the 10-Minute Social Media Audit.

This audit allows you to assess the performance of your social media strategy or the strategy of your competitors. It gives you an actual “grade” and reveals opportunities for improvements where you could generate more followers, traffic, and/or make more money from your social efforts.

(NOTE: Want to determine who your ideal customer is, where they are, and what they will buy? Download our proven Customer Avatar Worksheet now.)

The Ad Grid Steps

Let’s get right into the steps so you can start putting this to work in your traffic campaigns!

Make sure to download the PDF version of this infographic for easy reference and even more resources.

The Ad Grid Step 1: Identify Your Avatars (Specific to the Offer)

You’ll start by creating an Avatar.

An Avatar is a profile of a person who would be interested in your message. The Avatar is a target audience.

Keep in mind when you’re filling out your Ad Grid, the Avatars aren’t necessarily the same Avatars you’ve set for your business as a whole. Your Business Avatars are going to be much broader than the Avatars that would be interested in this particular offer.

You need to create a SPECIFIC Avatar for each ad offer. You do this through research.

(To get more specific on who you’re targeting in your business, check out our worksheet for creating your Customer Avatar.)

Identify Avatars for the specific offer you’re running traffic to by doing intensive research on Amazon, Google, forums, etc. to figure out WHO these people are and what their pain points may be (the problem(s) they’re looking to solve).

Identify your Avatars, and place them across the top of the Ad Grid on the X Axis.

(Don’t force yourself to add 4 Avatars just because I have 4 in this example, just ensure that you have 2+ identified, or you lose the power of the Grid.)

Think about who would be interested in this particular offer? What different groups of people can you speak to? How are they different?

For example, with the 10-Minute Social Media Audit, we chose:

• Social Media Managers: this is the person actually DOING the work. They are probably an employee/work for a company.
• The Boss: This is the person that manages the social media manager. This person could be anyone from the CEO of a smaller company, a digital marketing manager, VP of Marketing, Editorial Director, etc.
• Agency Owner: This person owns/runs an agency that does social media work for clients.
• Solopreneur: This person is a one (wo)man team. They are probably doing all of the marketing on their own, including the social media strategy and implementation.

Step 2: Identify the Hooks

The Hook is the “marketing message.” The WHY that makes people want to take you up on your offer.

If your offer is missing a Hook, you’re going to have a hard time getting people to take you up on whatever you’re asking them to do.

You need to explain the benefits – the value – of your offer, in order to “sell” it.

So how do you come up with a Hook that conveys value?

Here are the 6 different ways we think about Hooks…

Have

If the customer takes this offer, what will they HAVE that they didn’t before? Think of it as Before and After.

(RELATED: How to Create and Market a Killer Offer)

Feel

How will the customer FEEL once they take your offer? Will they FEEL smarter or more confident, will they be pain free and FEEL better?

Average Day

How will your offer improve their AVERAGE DAY? What mundane task does your offer improve? How does your offer save them time or energy on a day-to-day basis?

Status

How does the customer’s STATUS change once they’ve consumed your offer? How are you helping elevating their status?

Proof/Results

This one is the most common.

Use reports or case studies to demonstrate PROOF or RESULTS that the customer could experience with your offer. This can create SOCIAL PROOF.

For example, part of your ad copy could include, “Join the thousands of people who have already benefited!” Or, explain actual results that have occurred because of your offer.

Speed & Automation

With SPEED, you speak to the QUICKNESS of the offer — how will this thing speed up a part of their life or AUTOMATE a task? For example, this razor will save 10 minutes of your day.

Get started, and see what Hook(s) work best to promote your offer. You can combine Hooks, as well.

If you don’t already have ideas in mind for why your offer is “sexy” it may be time to revisit the offer in general.

Place your Hooks on the Y Axis of the Grid.

For example, with the 10-Minute Social Media Audit, we chose:

The 10-Minute Hook

This is a broader Hook, and in the past this probably would have been the ONLY Hook we would’ve used to promote this offer.

This Hook speaks to speed and results:

Take 10 minutes to audit your Social Media Strategy and as a result get more followers, drive more traffic, and increase engagement.

The “Get A Grade” Hook

Most people like to self-analyze.

Most people like to take quizzes/tests to see where they stand. We were conditioned to respond to grades in school. The fact that the 10 Minute Social Media Audit gives you a “grade” is a Hook all in its own.

Create a Report Hook

This Lead Magnet isn’t just an audit.

It’s a document that you could use as a report to track social media progress over time. It can be used as an internal document.

Grade Your Competition Hook

Most people like to spy on their competition.

This Hook is all about grading your competition, too, and seeing where your social media strategy stacks up against theirs.

Know Your Goals Hook 

This Hook is about aligning your social media strategy with your overall business goals.

Are you using a social strategy that actually has an effect on your business? Is your social strategy in line with the goals you’ve set as a company?

As you can see, there’s a fair bit of “marketing” that goes into creating your Hooks.

You have to sit down and really think… what is ATTRACTIVE about your offer? What are different ways I can “sell” this offer?

Most of your Hooks are going to flop — and that’s fine! Testing multiple Hooks gives you room for error… you never know what people are actually going to respond to until you test it.

Step 3: Write Your Copy

This is where the magic starts to happen.

At this stage, you’ll create copy that has a congruent market to message match.

How?

Write specific ad copy for each block on the Grid. This will force you to write copy that corresponds to BOTH the Avatar and the Hook.

This will help you create powerful, segmented ads that will speak to a particular Avatar using a particular Hook instead of writing a broad ad that will miss.

Depending on the traffic platform, the length and type of copy will vary.

Think about why a particular Hook would appeal to a particular Avatar?

For example, with the “Get a Grade” Hook… the Social Media Manager would care about getting a grade because they want to self-assess, and maybe they want to take their “good” grade to their boss in order to get a raise.

But why would the boss care about the “Get a Grade” Hook? They want a way to assess their Social Media Manager… a way to show progress (or lack thereof), a way to measure their success.

Writing this amount of copy is time consuming, but it will give you the assets you need to run a full fledged campaign.

Below you’ll see Facebook ad copy that we wrote for this offer:

(You can expand this image in a new window for better viewing here.)

(You can expand this image in a new window for better viewing here.)

 Step 4: Avatar Research

If you put your campaign in front of the wrong audience, it will fail.

That’s why research is key.

Your Avatar research will become the targeting you use on the ad platform.

What’s important in Step 4 is doing research for each Avatar separately. You’re researching WHERE this particular Avatar would be hanging out on the traffic platform you’ve selected.

(RELATED: Find My Market: How to Choose The Right Traffic Source For Your Market)

If your ad was about social media and you targeted anyone and everyone that’s interested in social media, your ad would be too broad. It wouldn’t be as effective as targeting each Avatar separately.

A marketer needs to look at their Avatars not as a group but as an individual Avatar. Look at them as very separate and different people, because they are.

When researching Avatars, answer these questions…

• What do they read?
• Who inspires them?
• What motivates them?
• What are their pain points?
• What interests them (books, magazines, blogs, movies, music, food, drinks, restaurants, hobbies, etc.)?
• What events do they attend?

…and so on.

This Avatar research will become the targeting that you use when you set up your campaigns. If you’re using Facebook, these would be the interests you target; on Twitter the handles you target, etc.

(RELATED: [DOWNLOAD] The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting)

So, take time to research each Avatar and create lists of possible targeting options. You can place these at the bottom of each column of your grid:

Step 5: Create or Outsource Ad Creatives

Your ad creatives are…

• videos
• pictures
• graphics, etc.

….for your campaign.

The creative you use for each ad will depend on the traffic platform your ad runs on: Video for YouTube, Pictures for Pinterest, etc.

What’s important about the creative is that it depicts your Hook – your marketing message.

You’re going to want to make a creative for EACH Hook.

It’s not about using bright, flashy images anymore… you want to use images that portray the message you’re sending to the audience.

This is a perfect example of a creative that does just that…

We have a process behind coming up with each image…

Each Hook will have keywords or phrases that relate to it.

In Google, do a search query for keywords within your Hook.

You’ll see the top images that are associated with that query, which will give you inspiration for your creative.

Here are the winning ad creatives for each Hook in the 10-Minute Social Audit Campaign:

The “Get A Grade” Hook (to Social Media Managers)

The “Create A Report” Hook (to the Boss)

The “Grade Your Competition” Hook (to the Agency Owner)

The “Know Your Goals” Hook (to the Solopreneur) 

Step 6: Compile Your Results

Once you’ve completed your research on your Avatars and Hooks, written your copy and produced your creatives, it’s time to launch your campaign.

After about 5-7 days of running your campaign, start analyzing your results.

Then use the Ad Grid to measure the success of the campaign.

Determine what your success metric for your campaign will be:

• ROI
• Cost Per Acquisition
• Cost Per Lead
• Cost Per Click

This will depend on your business.

(RELATED: Episode 40: 4 Facebook Metrics Critical to Your Success)

Once you know what metric you’ll use, apply it to the Ad Grid. It will give you a visual — you’ll see what’s working for the entire campaign in one glance. This will help you scale.

Here’s what we use at DigitalMarketer to track the performance of our grids:

Step 7: Scale

The best part… it’s time to scale!

You could just beef up a successful campaign’s budget on that particular platform and call it a day…

Or you could go beyond and further your success.

Use the Ad Grid to help you scale.

The Ad Grid shows you which Hooks and Avatars are winners. Scale out to the winners — the Avatars responding to your campaign, the Hooks converting, and the intersections between the 2.

You can see the insights and the data. You can see how to Scale.

Look at what Avatars your campaign worked best for — what Hook(s) they responded to. You can take that information, and apply it across the Web.

What are other platforms does that Avatar “hang out” on?

If you first ran an ad set on Facebook and saw the success you’re looking for, apply the ad to other traffic platforms – like Twitter or email – that are relevant to that Avatar.

Reach out to the Avatar on different platforms with the Hook they responded to.

You’ll also know which Hook(s) failed, so you won’t make the same mistake twice on other platforms – for example, you won’t use failed Hooks for your email list.

The Ad Grid will help you scale in 2 ways:

• Scaling past “doing more with what you have.” After seeing successful results on a platform, your first instinct may be to increase the budget of the ad, which is obvious for scale. But, the Ad Grid allows for true scale… taking your successful message and applying it to as many applicable platforms as possible… Taking high converting ads and creating new ad sets within Facebook to target more interests where this Avatar would be hanging out on the platform – this is Horizontal Scale.

• Scaling out to a traffic/media team. Following the steps of the Ad Grid gives you a process — a methodology to how you, or you and your team, can approach ad campaigns. The Ad Grid helps to break up the process of creating a campaign, and it will help define the steps and who is responsible for what. Imagine outsourcing steps 3-7 or breaking it out for certain members of your team.

Putting it All Together

The Ad Grid takes you from creating one ad that targets a broad audience to creating 20 SPECIFIC ads (if you use the 4 Avatars and 4 Hooks model).

You’re giving yourself more chances to hit a home run by creating a fully fleshed out targeting campaign that is more likely to increase your success rate 20 times over.

You also know where to scale beyond just throwing more money at a particular campaign on a particular platform — creating less trial and error and more results.

(NOTE: Want to determine who your ideal customer is, where they are, and what they will buy?? Download our proven Customer Avatar Worksheet now.)

The post The Ad Grid: How to Build Traffic Campaigns that Convert Higher and Scale Faster appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

You can only launch a podcast once.

Once iTunes approves your podcast, you have eight weeks to make an impression in the New and Noteworthy section – the coveted spot on the iTunes Store directory that allows you to be highly visible and gain the recognition of millions of users for eight weeks.

You need to get it right the first time… because the clock is ticking!

We launched our first podcast, Perpetual Traffic, on July 28, 2015. To our surprise, within eight hours we were Number One in the Business Category on iTunes!

We also hit iTunes’ New and Noteworthy within a week.

We achieved these rankings following a simple and consistent 4-Step strategy.

That’s what we’re sharing today – the exact 4-Step strategy you can apply to any podcast launch in any market.

We’re also sharing the big mistake we made with our distribution schedule (this was a big breakthrough for us), so you can avoid making it, too!

Step 1: Define Your Concept and Your Style

Really successful podcasts have a consistent concept and style.

You need to plan and decide WHAT your overall podcast will be about before you launch, or you run the risk of having a sloppy show.

It’s important to decide what will be unique about your podcast. Think about why someone should listen, why they should care. Also keep your business’ culture in mind – your podcast needs to align with your business.

A podcast that’s going to hit the top of the charts and stay there needs to be entertaining while providing valuable content on a specific topic that people want to listen to.

(NOTE: Want to learn more about driving your podcast to the top of the charts and keeping it there? You can do it with a simple 9-Step Podcast Launch Plan. Get the exact process we used to plan, launch, record, edit, and distribute a podcast that hit #1 on the Business charts and New & Noteworthy in just a week. Get started now.)

You have a few different options to choose from when it comes to what “styles” your podcast will follow. These are some of the examples we considered when planning Perpetual Traffic. Think about which would be the best fit to reach your audience:

Interview Style Podcast

This is the most common style of podcasting.

The host(s) conducts an interview in each episode of the podcast.

For example, in each episode of I’ll Drink to That!, host Levi Dalton interviews a wine expert and names the episode after that particular interviewee.

Location Based Podcast 

The podcast centers on the location it is recorded in.

For instance, The MeatEater is about hunting and outdoor activities and is recorded on the road from locations around the U.S. Every episode is about a different location and the experience that follows.

Storytelling Podcast

Can you guess what flow this podcast follows?

This type of podcast tells a story.

The first episode of the podcast is the beginning of the story, the last episode is the conclusion of the story, and each episode builds off the last and moves the story forward.

There’s a good chance you’re familiar with one of the more popular ones in this category — Serial.  As the first podcast to hit five million downloads on iTunes (and that was in April 2015!), Serial is a prime example of this.

Teaching Podcast

Each episode instructs its listeners on a particular topic.

In Coffee Break Spanish, the show gives listeners a Spanish lesson in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

A Mix: Teaching/Interview/Case Studies 

This style is a cross between…

• teaching listeners
• interviewing experts
• examining case studies

The Barbell Shrugged Podcast focuses on conversations about fitness, training, and has interviews with athletes.

This podcast served as inspiration for Perpetual Traffic.

Moral of the story… pick a style that works for you and stick to it.

Step 2: Record 3 “Pillar” Episodes (AKA… the Foundation of Your Podcast)

Ok, you know what your theme is — it’s time to get busy recording your first episodes!

Keep in mind, these 3 episodes will serve as the legs of your podcast and be the first impression.

Pillar episodes…

• …are great to reference back to in future episodes. Use your first three episodes to build the foundation of your podcast. Reference back to your first three episodes often by mentioning them during the podcast and linking to them in your show notes page – which lists all of the episodes and provides links to the resources mentioned in a particular episode. We reference our show notes throughout the episode, so we can send traffic back to the site and pixel high quality leads.
• …keep you from repeating yourself. Pillar episodes improve the flow of your show dramatically. Instead of repeatedly explaining a fundamental concept, you’ll simply reference a pillar episode.
• …are good for your rankings because you’re constantly referring back to previous episodes, so listeners will have a reason to go back and download past episodes. iTunes loves to see that people aren’t just listening and downloading the latest and greatest episode, but are consuming multiple episodes. This will help you maintain consistent downloads (more on the importance of consistent downloads in a minute).

When you launch your podcast, launch with three episodes (or more) because it serves as a hook for your audience and gives you the opportunity to create a solid first impression.

You’ll also have three episodes for newcomers to download vs one — 3x the amount of downloads!

But how do you come up with three pillar episodes?

Look to your blog, YouTube channel, or any other mediums where you’re creating content.

What are your most popular topics – the foundational posts that really interest people? The content that resonated with your audience can be repurposed and serve as your podcast’s pillar posts.

For example, before “How to Launch a Podcast” became a DigitalMarketer blog post, it was a Perpetual Traffic episode, and before that it was a presentation at 2016’s Traffic and Conversion Summit.

People were responding to this topic — so it was repurposed.

But if you don’t know the best content or the most popular content for you, go to:

• Buzzsumo
• Google AdWords

These two tools will tell you what’s the most popular content, what people are searching for the most, and can serve as inspiration for podcast episodes.

For instance, this is what a search for “content marketing” looks like on Buzzsumo…

Perhaps the first few episodes of your podcast about content marketing could explain the tools every content marketer needs.

(NOTE: Want to get clear on WHO your audience is? Download our Customer Avatar Worksheet and determine who your ideal customer is, where they are, and what they will buy. Check it out now.)

Step 3: Launch with a Contest

When you first launch, you want to create as much momentum and buzz as possible. A contest can help with that and help you rank.

For your podcast to rank, you want people to…

• Go to your podcast.
• Download your first three episodes (pillar episodes).
• Subscribe.
• Leave a review.

This shows iTunes that this podcast is great, which will help you move up in the charts.

You want positive reviews…

So you can be here…

… so make sure the content is outstanding.

A contest can help you get the downloads, subscribers, and ratings you need.

Launching with a contest helped us hit Number One in the Business Category. It’s what got us to New and Noteworthy and helped us stay there for eight weeks.

When you use a contest, make sure the prize is specific to your market.

You want the gift to really appeal to your audience. Your contest prize shouldn’t be something that appeals to the masses because you’re not aiming to attract everybody.

You’re working on gathering people who will actually find value from your podcast.

For instance, if your podcast is about fishing, you wouldn’t want to give away a laptop or a tablet. A more specific and appealing prize to your audience would be a fishing rod or tactical gear.

Also, if you don’t have your podcast audience built prior to your launch, giving away a prize that’s really relevant to your prospective listeners will make them more likely to engage.

When launching your podcast…

• Call on your community and market to help you launch this podcast. Make them aware of the podcast and ask them to share it.
• Ask your friends to share the podcast and its contest.
• Ask big media properties in your market to share the podcast contest.
• Partner with people in your market that already have an existing audience, and ask them to share your podcast.

Here’s a look at the contest we ran when launching Perpetual Traffic. Our contest prize was tickets to our annual Traffic and Conversion Summit…

Over the course of the contest, which ran 2 weeks, we:

• Called on our current audience and community for support. We told them we were starting a podcast and asked for their help in getting it to rank.
• Asked people to subscribe and leave a review of Perpetual Traffic. After completing those steps, they could enter the contest.
• Sent emails. We sent three over the span of two weeks. Here’s an example of one…

• Distributed the contest to owned media (like our Facebook page). Here’s how we announced the launch of the contest and Perpetual Traffic on DigitalMarketer’s Facebook page…

• Ran ads to cold traffic (people who have never heard of you before) like these Facebook ads…

Step 4: Continue to Generate Buzz

You can only be in New and Noteworthy for eight weeks; so, what do you do after the initial 8 weeks?

To continue creating buzz and generating downloads, you need to create a distribution schedule.

When we first launched Perpetual Traffic, we published episodes on Tuesdays, and we distributed that episode via ads, email, and social media that same day.

So that was our distribution schedule: all on the same Tuesday.

And that’s where we made a mistake. We were getting big peaks in our downloads on Tuesday, and then downloads would fall off drastically the rest of the week.

Peaks and valleys in your downloads won’t help you rise in the ranks on iTunes. To iTunes, consistent downloads are proof of a quality podcast, and that’s what you need to aim for in order to rank and continue to generate buzz: Consistency.

You don’t want your downloads to spike, like the image on the left (what we were doing initially). You want a more gradual amount of downloads, like on the right.

We realized we were using the wrong distribution approach, so we diversified our distribution schedule.

Now…

• A new episode goes live on Tuesday.
• We email our list on Thursday to tell our subscribers about the new episode.
• Then, throughout the week we consistently distribute the new episode AND redistribute old episodes using social media, paid ads, and email banners.

Before you launch your podcast, plan your diversified distribution schedule.

What does your distribution schedule look like throughout the week to ensure you’re getting consistent downloads? It’s all about being really consistent in your distribution, while also diversifying your distribution.

(Note: It’s also important to be consistent with the day your episode goes live, so you train your listeners when to expect a new episode.)

Other Podcasting Tips

Here are a few other ways to keep subscribers and download numbers high after you launch:

• Mini-Series Podcasts – Create episodes that have more than one part: A Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. These are extremely powerful episodes because they essentially leave people hanging. It makes people want to come back to know the end result. That’s a big reason Serial is such a successful podcast.
• Guests or Guest Hosts – Invite guests on to your show that will both draw an audience and interest your audience. Also, the guest is likely to share the podcast with his/her audience. For instance, in Episode 44, we invited Amy Porterfield on to our show to discuss how she launches products. After the episode went live, Amy shared this on her Facebook page…

• Reference – Again, continue to refer to past episodes, which will keep downloads on older episodes high, so you remain consistent in iTunes. Throughout each episode of Perpetual Traffic, we reference past episodes that flesh out a topic more than the current episode. And, we reference the Show Notes to send traffic to the site and pixel quality leads.
• Breadcrumb Future Episodes – Include a little teaser or mention of what can be expected in a future episode. This gives the listener something to look forward to – a reason to not only anticipate your podcast in the future, but to also come back.

When you start a podcast, don’t feel that you have to cookie cutter a podcast that is having success. Take bits and pieces from popular podcasts that feel most natural to you and is best for your business.

Valuable content and consistency are the keys to a successful podcast… so, get out there and start podcasting!!

(NOTE: Want to learn more about driving your podcast to the top of the charts and keeping it there? You can do it with a simple 9-Step Podcast Launch Plan. Get the exact process we used to plan, launch, record, edit, and distribute a podcast that hit #1 on the Business charts and New & Noteworthy in just a week. Get started now.)

The post How to Launch a Podcast, Drive it to the Top of the Charts, AND Keep it There in Just 4 Steps appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

I’ll be honest — we were reluctant to start a podcast.

We wondered…

• What equipment/software will we need?
• Will anyone listen?
• Will it be worth the trouble?

Needless to say, we decided to risk it — and it has absolutely been worth the trouble. We’ll cross a million downloads of our Perpetual Traffic podcast early in our second year (we’re at ~750k already)…

But those accomplishments are nothing compared to the relationships we’ve developed and fostered, with cold prospects and customers alike, because of the podcast. It’s done more for our mission than we could’ve imagined.

We did things wrong. We did things right.

One thing I didn’t anticipate — podcasting is FUN! Especially when you podcast with great people as I’ve done with Keith Krance and Ralph Burns of Dominate Web Media. Without them, this journey wouldn’t have been nearly the blast it’s been.

We have fun and we make mistakes. Listen to this quick blooper track…

What we found is that we could make a lot of mistakes as long as we got the most important thing right: THE LAUNCH.

When you get the launch right — you can screw up a lot of things and still get tons of exposure on iTunes. The iTunes algorithm rewards podcasts that come out of the gates with lots of momentum and gives zero exposure to those that launch with no momentum.

When you launch on iTunes, you’ve got eight weeks to prove you have a podcast worth listening to. Seriously… the launch is that important.

So, we stopped and we made a launch plan, and it looks like this:

We didn’t rush into launching, we wanted to make sure we got it right.

Because we got the launch right, we were able to make mistakes and recover from them without damaging our ranking on iTunes or losing our subscribers.

Luckily, we documented everything, and we’re sharing it in a new Execution Plan in DigitalMarketer Lab. (If you’re not a DM Lab member, you can learn more about the 9-Step Podcast Launch Plan here!)

Thanks to all of our listeners! It’s been a wonderful year of podcasting, and I’m looking forward to another 52 episodes of the Perpetual Traffic podcast.

(NOTE: Want to learn more about driving your podcast to the top of the charts… and keeping it there? You can do it with our simple 9-Step Podcast Launch Plan. Get the exact process we’ve used to plan, launch, record, edit, and distribute a podcast that hit #1 on the Business charts and New & Noteworthy in just a week. Get started now.)

The post 52 Weeks of Podcasting: Here’s the #1 Factor in Our Success appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

This bad boy has generated 129,890 leads at $3.15 a piece in just one year…

In this video, I’m going to break down why this ad works so well, including…

• Offer
• Copy
• Ad Scent
• Creative

Check it out now and don’t miss out on 6 more successful Facebook ad campaigns I’m breaking down in a live webinar this week:

Join me LIVE on Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at 2 PM CST for How to Build a PROFITABLE Facebook Ad Campaign and get the 7 lessons learned from 1,329 Facebook Ad Campaigns. Sign up now.

The post Case Study: How This Facebook Ad Generated 129,890 Leads in 1 Year appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

If you want more people to walk through the door of your…

• salon
• restaurant
• clothing store
• dental office
• concert venue
• bar
• or any local establishment…

…then keep reading!

There’s no better way to promote your local business than using Facebook ads.

Not only can you advertise on a small budget, turn the campaign on and off whenever you’d like (much different than a billboard or TV commercial), there’s also a social aspect…

Your customers can help promote your business to their family and friends on Facebook, and we all know how effective word of mouth is.

Better still — running Facebook ads for a local business is also fairly easy. Much easier than if you were attempting to advertise to an international market.

Why?

Because local businesses know exactly how to target their audience, while the rest of us are left to wonder…. Where are these people hiding!?

Local businesses know something really specific and crucial about their target market: they live or are in close vicinity to their business.

Instead of having to wrack your brain for different interests to target, the targeting is done for you.

You know that they live in or are visiting your city.

It’s that easy.

For example, at DigitalMarketer we sell our products in 70+ countries.

So, when I’m creating Facebook campaigns, even if I only select the four top countries that we do business in, I’m faced with the dilemma of having to narrow down the audience size because 262 million is WAY too large.

So, I add interests that would appeal to business owners and people interested in marketing.

520,000 is much more reasonable and will generate an audience of people that are actually interested in what we re selling.

For local businesses, the targeting is done for you!

Take my hometown for example…

The audience is nice and defined, no targeting needed other than the location.

Facebook even recently created an entire objective for local businesses:

And, when it comes to targeting… you can enter specific street addresses and then adjust the radius:

You can also specify whether you want to reach everyone that is in this location, people who actually LIVE in this location (based off of what they specified on their FB profile), people recently in this location, and people traveling in this location.

These will come in handy based off of the type of local business you own. If you own a restaurant, you would want to target everyone, but maybe create specific campaigns that give visitors or residents specific discounts.

If you own a dental clinic, you’d want to go after people who actually have roots in the city.

Now that you understand how to reach your local market through targeting, let’s cover methods for enticing them to actually visit your business…

Call Out Your Audience

If you’re scrolling through your newsfeed, you’re most likely to stop and read something that’s written specifically for you.

You’re much more likely to notice an ad that has the name of the city where you live within the copy. The ad seems more relevant to you.

When you’re running ads to a local market, use the name of the city in your ad!

In the ad above, Galvanize says “Learn to Code in Austin”. Not just “Learn to Code”. They’re specifically talking to people that live in Austin.

Above, Shipt says that they are expanding to Austin, not just that they are expanding.

Verlocal says to “Spark Your Creativity with DIY Classes in Austin”. Similar to the Galvenize example, they’re doing an awesome job of catching people’s attention because the classes are actually IN Austin, this isn’t a random ad that should be ignored….

Imagine how much more effective the below ad would be if it said “Austinites — stop waiting in line for salad!”.

Morale of the story: use the name of your city in your ad. It adds specificity and will catch your target market’s attention.

Do you post status updates to a Facebook page for your business?

Use the Boost Post Button

…below the post to show the post to more people.

You can boost a post for as little as $3. Specify that you want choose people through targeting and enter the name of your city.

Boost anything that would be interesting to your audience!!

(RELATED: Episode 49: Boosted Posts: Microtargeting and Other Advanced Uses of Facebook’s “Easy Button”)

Greyhound Tavern, a restaurant in Ft. Mitchell, KY, wanted to let people in the area know that they had added a Bloody Mary bar! Look at the engagement and how many people shared the post…

Justine’s Brasserie, a restaurant in Austin, TX, wanted to let the community know that they had a new, very special desert…

Justine’s is one of my favorite restaurants and as soon as I saw this ad it immediately made me want to visit, so I invited one of my friends and made a reservation. THIS STUFF WORKS!

You could even boost a post for a local political campaign…

If you’re a restaurant, post your daily menu. If you’re a salon, post before and after photos of your clients. Post a testimonial from a customer…

The possibilities are endless.

Post something interesting on your Facebook page and give it a boost to see how the community reacts.

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Create An Event

Creating and running ads to a Facebook event is great way to get people to visit your establishment.

If you’re a car dealership, have a Sunday family festival on your lot. Offer free food and face painting. This will get people in the door and the next time they go to buy a car, I bet they come to your lot.

If you’re a salon, hold special events to teach people hairstyles.

If you’re a bar, celebrate holidays or the anniversary of your establishment:

The best part about events is that once people start to mark that they are interested or going, it will show in their friends’ newsfeeds.

“Sally is attending Key Bar’s 10 Year Anniversary”

… events are GREAT for word of mouth.

When holding an event, give people a reason to attend! Offer discounts or free food and giveaways, create a theme, make it a party!

Offer A Discount

A great way to catch a local market’s attention is to run a free promotion or discount.

If you’re a bar or restaurant, promote your happy hour discounts.

If you’re a service provider, offer a “Super Dental Special” like the one below:

People who are in the need for a dentist will absolutely respond to the above ad because it’s positioned as a promotion.

Even if you break even to get them in the chair, there is a chance that they will become a lifetime customer.

What are you willing to give away for free or at a discount in order to acquire a customer?

Create Content That Educates Your Local Market

Creating pieces of content that appeal to your local market is ALWAYS a great way to catch their attention.

Content can be written, on a blog, or even in the form of video as a Facebook video ad.

(RELATED: The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Video Ads)

Running ads to content is great for markets like real estate where building rapport is important.

Here’s a great example from Pauly Presley Realty:

Instead of ads that ask people if they’re ready to buy or sell a house (most people don’t have that specific need at this time), they’re simply giving content.

“The Definitive Guide to Austin’s Dog Friendly Businesses”.

If you own a gym or are a personal trainer, you could promote a piece of content that educates people on the best outdoor places to exercise in the city.

If you’re a restaurant you could make a list of the best happy hour’s in town (and happy to include your own) :).

As you can see, the possibilities are endless for local businesses to leverage Facebook advertising.

When going to create your first campaign, or to boost your first post, focus on how you will stand out in the newsfeed.

• Are you using the name of the city in the post?
• Are you giving them a reason to take action now (a discount)?
• Are you giving value first with content?

Excited to see your success!

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

The post How to Use Facebook Advertising to Grow Your Local Business appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

If you gave your paid traffic ads a grade…

Would it pass or fail?

No matter the traffic platform or the type of ad you are running, you must have the right elements in place for your traffic campaign to be successful!

That’s why I’ve created the Paid Traffic Audit to help you see how your paid traffic measures up (or to score your employees, competitors, or total strangers just for fun)!

(NOTE: You’ll get a downloadable version of the Paid Ad Audit at the end of this article.)

The Paid Ad Audit has five components (labeled above):

1. Grading Elements– Evaluate elements like copy, creative, scent, offer and targeting of the ad.
2. Grading Criteria – Grade these elements based on specific criteria.
3. Element Scores – Score each element separately on a scale from Exceptional to Unsatisfactory.
4. Final Score – Receive an overall score out of 20.
5. Action Items – Take action to improve elements that don’t receive a perfect score.

The Components of the Paid Ad Audit

This article contains a process for conducting a Paid Traffic Audit. You’ll learn the 5 elements to score on every paid traffic ad and get access to our Paid Ad Audit tool.

There are 5 elements to a paid ad audit:

1. Offer
2. Copy
3. Creative
4. Scent
5. Targeting

Who Should Use The Blog Post Audit?

In this post you’ll learn to evaluate and improve each of these elements. Then, you’ll get access to our Blog Post Audit spreadsheet.

Here’s how to put this audit to work:

• Paid Traffic Specialists – Audit and improve your own ads!
• Business Owners and Managers – Audit the ads of your employees to improve their performance.
• Agencies – Audit ads of potential clients as a way to show them how much you could help if they were to hire you :).

Let’s dive into the 5 elements of the audit.

Paid Ad Audit Element 1: Offer

Ah, the offer. This is where we see the majority of mistakes when it comes to traffic campaigns… or marketing in general.

You build a great marketing campaign, execute on it, and….. nothing. No one buys.

When you examine the campaign, you realize it has nothing to do with the marketing.
You were promoting something that no one wanted (or at least that market didn’t want).

Are you sending traffic to something that people actually want?

Plain and simple. 

That’s the theme of this first element.

Whether you’re sending traffic to a blog post, Lead Magnet, webinar, physical product, online product, local discount… ANY offer under the sun, you must make sure that it’s something that people actually desire.

The best way to determine whether your offer is the problem is to analyze your data.  Use this troubleshooting guide to figure out what exactly is ailing your campaign.

Paid Ad Audit Element 2: Copy

There’s one thing that successful ad copy CANNOT be…

… and that is BORING.

If your copy sounds robotic or overly salesy, then it’s simply going to miss the mark.

You are, after all, marketing to human beings, so ad copy with voice and personality are going to perform much better than pitchy pleas to separate a customer from their money.

When it comes down to it, the role of a marketer is to explain the value that a product or service will bring to a potential customer in a way that will make that customer take action.

To do so, it’s vital that your ad copy speaks to a pain point or a desired end benefit that strongly resonates with your target audience without overselling or over-promising.

That includes the call-to-action (CTA).

CTA’s don’t have to be “Click Here!” or “Buy Now!”. They simply tell the reader what to do next – it doesn’t have to be aggressive.

Exceptional ad copy will…

• Speak to the a specific pain point or desired end result of the target audience
• Make a clear call to action without being misleading or “hypey”
• Overall compelling without being misleading or “hypey”

Learn how to write great ad copy using these Facebook Ad Templates.

Paid Ad Audit Element 3: Creative

Your ad creative includes..

• videos
• pictures
• graphics
• any other visual elements of your ad

The creative you use will depend on the traffic platform your ad run on: video for Youtube, images for Pinterest, etc.

What’s important is that your ad creative depicts your MARKETING MESSAGE.

(RELATED: Find My Market: How to Choose The Right Traffic Source For Your Market)

If your reader can get the gist of your message without having to read the copy, you’re going to have a very successful ad.

It’s important to note that ad creative shouldn’t draw attention away from your marketing message by being flashy or off-brand.

This is doubly important if you’re running a series of ads and the prospect is familiar with your brand – the creative on those retargeting ads should remain consistent and maintain brand recognition.

(RELATED: Facebook Ad Design Inspiration: Veteran Graphic Designer Critiques 10 Facebook Ads)

Elements of exceptional ad creative:

• It catches attention of the reader without being flashy or off-brand.
• It portrays the marketing messages.
• It reflects the brand and customer journey.

(NOTE: Want The Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Paid Ad Audit Element 4: Scent

As I discussed before, “ad scent” can be described as the user experience from the moment they click on an ad, to the moment they land on the landing page. If the landing page looks, feels, and says different things, your ad just won’t perform.

This means everything from the ad creative to the copy to the offer should remain uniform.

For a strong ad scent, keep three major elements consistent:

• Design (think color scheme, layout, imagery, and font selection/size/color)
• Benefits (the headline, sub headline, and image should highlight the same benefits as the ad)
• Offer (use the same language from ad to landing page headline)

If the scent from what was promised to what is delivered is incongruent, virtually every visitor will bounce immediately.

Elements of exceptional ad scent:

• Design elements are consistent between the ad and landing page.
• Copy and voice in the ad are reflected on the landing page.

Paid Ad Audit Element 5: Targeting

You can build the best advertising campaign in the world, but if you put that campaign in front of the wrong audience – it will fail.

At DigitalMarketer, we teach that the key to successful targeting is SPECIFICITY.

You must ensure that your target audience isn’t too BROAD – instead, make sure that you’ve really narrowed in on the avid part of your market… the people that actually want to BUY.

When an audience is too large, platforms have a hard time optimizing your ads because there are just too many people it’s trying to reach.

(RELATED: [DOWNLOAD] The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting)

On the other side of the coin, be mindful your target audience isn’t too SMALL – your ad will end up getting no impressions.

While you’re narrowing down your audience, be sure sure you’re targeting the market living in the specific areas your product or service is available.

If you’re a local business, you don’t want to market across the country. If you’re a global business, you’ll want to make sure you’re only selecting countries with the same language that your service supports.

(RELATED: How to Use Facebook Advertising to Grow Your Local Business)

Elements of exceptional ad targeting:

• It’s specific to the part your market who is willing to buy.
• The targeting is not too broad or too small.
• Ads are only targeted to geographic locations where you can sell your product.

Now let’s take a look at the Paid Ad Audit in action.

5-Point Paid Ad Audit Scoring Scale

I recently evaluated some Facebook ads and gave them a grade based on the five paid ad elements and this scoring scale:

Offer

• Exceptional: 4
• Competent: 3
• Needs Improvement: 2
• Unsatisfactory: 1

Copy

• Exceptional: 4
• Competent: 3
• Needs Improvement: 2
• Unsatisfactory: 1

Creative

• Exceptional: 4
• Competent: 3
• Needs Improvement: 2
• Unsatisfactory: 1

Scent

• Exceptional: 4
• Competent: 3
• Needs Improvement: 2
• Unsatisfactory: 1

Targeting

• Exceptional: 4
• Competent: 3
• Needs Improvement: 2
• Unsatisfactory: 1

Let’s take a look and see how these ads measure up.

Hired.com

Offer: 4

Hired.com is a service that helps people find jobs.

It definitely fills a need that people have and is an amazing product.

Copy: 4

The copy hits a pain point in the first sentence and provides a solution in the second. Most people that are dissatisfied with their job can relate to counting down the hours until they leave the office.

This copy sounds personalized, like you’re talking to a friend.

Hired then transitions by saying “it might be time for a change”, and uses social proof (3,500 companies) to entice someone to click to find a job that they are passionate about.

I love how they call out “Sales Pros” in Austin with the ad’s headline. It definitely catches your attention.

Creative: 4

This creative is AWESOME. It really portrays the marketing message “Get more out of your work/life balance”. I love how literal they are with the image. They use a gauge that is leaning towards “life”.

The image is eye catching without being too salesy or flashy.

Scent: 3

Hired maintains their messaging as you click over the landing page. The landing page speaks specifically to sales professionals, as the ad did.

I wish they would have maintained messaging around work/life balance or the pain point of watching the clock. The image design and colors also could have been more congruent from the ad to the landing page. 

Targeting: 4

I live in Austin and I am a Marketing/Sales professional so they really hit the nail on the head with this one. Running geographically specific campaigns is very smart.

FINAL SCORE: 19/20 = Exceptional

Talk Space

Offer: 3

Talk Space provides counseling to individuals through a phone app. This makes counseling much more accessible to people who are on the go. This is a great product.

Copy: 3

I love the hook “don’t bottle up your emotions”. It’s very creative.

I wish they would have gone with a different headline than “start e-counseling today”.

Although it’s a great call-to-action, people are not ready to hear the call-to-action yet, they need to know the WHY first. They could have been much more specific in calling out specific pain points in their copy.

For example, “Tired of struggling with anxiety, stress, and depression, but don’t want to go through the struggle of visiting a therapist? Use our app today.”

Creative: 4

This is one of my favorite creative of all time.

They did a wonderful job portraying the marketing message with this image. Like the Hired image above, they did a great job of making the image visually appealing without it looking spammy or off-brand.

Scent: 3

Talk Space maintains the offer of being matched with a counselor and signing up for e-counseling. I wish they would have maintained the “hook” from the ad of not bottling up your emotions.

The color pallet is consistent from the ad to the landing page, so great job there.

Targeting: 4

I wasn’t able to decipher how I was targeted with this ad. But, because it’s a broad offer and the accessibility of having a counselor at your fingertips is appealing to millenials, I’m giving them a 4.

FINAL SCORE: 17/20 = Exceptional

Graphly

Offer: 4

Graphly is a reporting platform that integrates with Infusionsoft and help you measure and track campaigns.

Copy: 3

Graphly leads by calling out Infusionsoft users—this is very smart.

Anyone that’s currently using Infusionsoft would respond to that call out. The use of “voted #1” is also smart to build credibility. They then lead into “track where your leads come from, measure campaigns and grow your sales”, which is great to give the user a specific end benefit.

I wish they would have had a stronger call-to-action at the end of the newsfeed copy. You don’t see anything about the $1 trial offer until the very end of the ad.

Creative: 1

The creative pretty much kills this ad. Using stock photos makes your brand look like an advertiser, not a company with a fun personality on a social platform.

Using the coins stacked up also can be mistaken for a scammy offer. I understand that they were trying to portray the idea of growing your sales, but this image is very repelling.

They should create images in-house that look more on brand.

Scent: 3

There is design scent between Graphly’s profile picture and the landing page, but the scent is not congruent in design between the ad and the landing page. Swapping out the ad image would solve this problem.

There is congruence between the ad copy as you can find “the reporting platform voted #1 by Infisionsoft’s founders” in the ad and on the landing page.

Targeting: 4

We use Infusionsoft and I like Infusionsoft’s page on Facebook, so this was a good use of targeting.

FINAL SCORE: 15/20 = Competent

It’s so much easier to figure out what you need to improve when you can evaluate specific areas of your ads and see how they measure up!

This audit will give you a great starting point for improving your campaigns.

Download your 5-Point Paid Traffic Audit here.

(NOTE: Want The Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

The post [DOWNLOAD] Score Your Paid Traffic With The 5-Point Paid Ad Audit appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

In 2015 Ryan Deiss, CEO and Founder of DigitalMarketer, predicted that 2015 would be the year of the Great Pixel Land Rush.

“Soon all display advertising will be retargeted advertising and the pixel will become even more valuable than the click itself. As larger advertisers continue to buy up ad inventory (and create their own retargeting audiences) those that fail to ‘pixel’ their site visitors won’t be able to afford to advertise.”

At DigitalMarketer, we’ve already begun preparations for the “pixel land rush.” We buy traffic today just to place a pixel. Sure … we’re monitoring click costs, cost per lead and all the rest but we’re paying closer and closer attention to a new metric: CPP.”

CPP is Cost Per Pixel.

I agreed with Ryan in 2015 and almost two years later, Ryan’s words are still relevant (and even more so, now)…

Pixels allow us to follow up with people who have visited our website.

The key is that pixels allow you to make TARGETED offers to individuals based off of pages they’ve visited on your website.

For example, we run ads to promote blog posts on “blogging.”

Then, we retarget the people who read the article with a specific lead magnet for… BLOGGING. (Learn how we do this, here).

It’s much more powerful than making them a broad offer (ex. Digital Marketing)… it allows us to solve a SPECIFIC problem for them.

BUT, pixels can get confusing… especially when it comes to Facebook advertising!

I get a TON of questions about Facebook advertising pixels in DigitalMarketer Engage…

… and, since Facebook rolled out a brand new pixel last year, I’m going to clear up all of the confusion. (Before you read any further, make sure the new Facebook pixel base code is installed site wide on your URL(s)).

I’m going to explain the different uses for the Facebook pixel and how YOU can use pixels to create higher converting Facebook ad campaigns. 

3 Ways to Use the Facebook Pixel

There are three very important uses for the Facebook Pixel:

• Retargeting (building audiences of people who have visited your website, retargeting throughout a sales funnel)
• Optimization (creating higher converting Facebook campaigns focused on a specific action)
• Tracking (tracking the performance of a campaign, for example… you can track how many leads or sales were generated from a particular ad)

Let’s start with…

1. Tracking

Facebook’s pixel can be used to track how many times a particular action occurs.

For example, you can track how many leads were generated from a particular Facebook campaign. Or, how many products you sold from a specific ad.

The best way to track SPECIFIC actions that occurred as a result of your Facebook ads is through the use of custom conversions.

Custom conversions are very similar to the old conversion pixels that Facebook used before the new pixel (and that we miss dearly :)).

You can find custom conversions in the business manager menu:

Unfortunately, as of now, you are only allotted 40 custom conversions per Facebook account. So, use them wisely.

Like I said earlier, you’ll want to use custom conversions to denote a success action, like generating a lead or purchasing a product.

To do this, you will want to set up a custom conversion for the URL of whatever page people will visit right after they take whatever action you’re tracking.

For example, if you want to track leads, you’ll create a custom conversion based off of whatever page the person will visit after they enter their contact information.

The only way someone could reach this page is if they opted in with their contact information.

To create the custom conversion, you’ll click the “Create Custom Conversion” button, then enter the URL of the success page.

After you enter the URL, as you can see above, Facebook will also ask you to choose a category. This doesn’t affect tracking or optimization, just select the category that makes the most sense to you. For this example, I chose “lead.”

You’ll then be prompted to name the custom conversion and to give it a value. If you’re tracking purchases, and the conversion has an actually monetary value, feel free to input that number.

Awesome, you’ve created your custom conversion!

Now, how do we actually track results back to a specific campaign, ad set, or ad?

Unlike the old conversion pixels, you don’t have to tell Facebook to track a specific custom conversion back to its source.

When creating your campaigns, make sure that you check the “track all conversion from my Facebook pixel” option at the ad level. As long as you do this, Facebook will do the tracking for you!

Now, where do you view results of the custom conversion(s) that you’re wanting to track?

You’ll want to click the “Customize Columns” button in ads manager when viewing your campaigns:

Then, select the specific custom conversions you’re wanting to track. They will appear as whatever you named them during set up:

Note that you can track the number of conversions, the cost per conversion, and the value (if you input a numerical value when setting up the custom conversion).

You can customize columns at the campaign, ad set, or ad level—this will give you visibility into what’s specific working (and, what’s not working) within your ad campaigns.

FYI: If you’re running website conversion campaign, make sure you use the customize columns button to view the results for your campaign. Many people are misled because they assume all of the “conversions” reported are the custom conversion they’re optimizing for. Unfortunately, Facebook lumps ALL conversions that have occurred from people who interacted with that particular campaign.

For example, we optimized for the custom conversion of “Customer Avatar” in this campaign. From first glance, it appears as though we’ve generated 21,267 leads. But, because Facebook is now reporting all conversions that have occurred from the people who have interacted with this campaign, you need to dig a little to get the actual number. In this case, we’ve generated 15,476 leads.

(NOTE: Want The Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

2. Optimization

You can use also use custom conversions to tell Facebook what you WANT!

When setting up a Facebook advertising campaign Facebook asks what the objective of your campaign is:

If you’re running traffic to something that’s a simple action, like a Lead Magnet opt-in or a webinar sign up, you should almost ALWAYS use the “Increase conversions on your website” objective. (Learn how this decreased our lead cost by 5x, here).

But how does Facebook know what to optimize for? You tell them—using custom conversions!

You can optimize for one of the custom conversions you already created for tracking (or a new one).

In the case of a traditional 5-step sales funnel, we will optimize for the Lead Magnet.

So, we would use the custom conversion that’s on the page where visitors land DIRECTLY after they opt-in for your Lead Magnet.

Not only are you telling Facebook EXACTLY what you want from the campaign, you’re also collecting data.

Meaning, Facebook is optimizing your campaign for people who are most like the people who have already opted in. This is powerful as you go to scale your advertising campaigns.

3. Retargeting

Another benefit of the Facebook pixel is that it can be used to create retargeting audiences.

Facebook retargeting audiences are created under the “Audiences” tab in Business Manager.

To create an audience of people who have interacted with your Facebook pixel (any pages on your site), click create audience, custom audience, then website traffic, and you’ll find a plethora of options:

First, you can target anyone who’s visited your website as a whole. This one is self-explanatory. Keep in mind that if you have your pixel installed on multiple websites you can select those different URLs from the drop down.

Secondly, you can target people who visit specific web pages. So, if you’d like to target everyone who has visited your product page, a specific Thank You page, for example, this is the option to choose.

Thirdly, you can target people who visit specific web pages but not others. We use this method to retarget people throughout our 5-step funnels. See below:

To learn how we set up the dynamic, full funnel retargeting click here.

This option allows you to DYNAMICALLY retarget people who have visited one page but not the other. Want to target people who opted in for your Lead Magnet, but didn’t buy your next offer? This audience is for you.

Fourthly, people who haven’t visited in a certain amount of time. Use this option to retarget people who have been away from your site for a long period of time. Re-engage them with content or a special discount.

The next option is brand new and very exciting. You can retarget people based off the amount of time spent on your website.

Facebook will create audiences of people who are in the following percentile for time spent on your website:

Retarget these people with higher dollar offers as they’re some of your “hottest” and most qualified retargeting audiences.

Lastly, you can create a custom combination. Here you can get even more specific and retarget people based off of the number of times they’ve visited your site in a specific duration of time (and if it was mobile or desktop):

Whichever option you choose, these are PERFECT to create lookalike audiences from in order to scale.

You can create a lookalike audience based off of any of the custom audiences we covered above.

For the lookalike audiences, Facebook creates an audience of people who are most like the people in that custom audience.

To create a lookalike, simply check the audience you’d like to use as the source then click actions and create lookalike:

Facebook will populate the lookalike audience as a new audience under the Audience tab and you’ll be able to target this audience in a new ad set. Again, these are AWESOME to use for scale. Once you have a campaign that’s working, simply create a lookalike audience off of that success page.

That’s it! You’ve mastered the Facebook pixel (or the parts you really need to know for success, anyway :)).

As you can see, it’s almost impossible to run successful Facebook ads without using the pixel.

It’s essential for the tracking, optimization, retargeting, and scale of your Facebook campaigns.

(NOTE: Want The Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

The post How to Use Facebook Advertising Pixels to Create High Converting Ad Campaigns appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Pick legible, clear fonts, especially if it’s going to be a small Facebook ad.

When Facebook began rolling out Messenger ads on November 8, 2016, I knew we were in for some excitement!

DigitalMarketer has been testing ever since, and in this post, I’m explaining the ins and outs of Facebook Messenger ads and how to strategically deploy them in your business. 

But before you can put them to work you need to know the why—why this ad type matters to ANY and EVERY business…

I know it’s easy to assume that this ad type (or channel as a whole) would only work for “high-tech” audiences, or “big” companies that have the resources to man a customer communication channel…. but, stay with me.

That’s not the case.

After doing a bit of thinking and research, I realized that assuming Messenger only works for highly technical markets is like saying that Facebook as a marketing channel only works for highly technical markets…

This chart from Business Insider is mind-blowing. At the beginning of 2015, monthly usage of the top four messaging apps surpassed usage of the top four social networks.

And, over ONE BILLION people use Facebook Messenger as a whole. Even my great-grandmother (she’s in her 90’s) uses Facebook Messenger…

My point is that we must not only enter the conversation that’s already taking place in our customer’s head, we must BE in the places where our customers are having their conversations.

Aside from even advertising through Messenger, being reactive and responsive to your people throughout the entire Customer Journey via Messenger is essential.

I recently experienced this as a consumer.

I was driving down the road and saw a new apartment complex. I reached out via Messenger from their Facebook page to inquire about the property.

Every step of my Customer Journey, from scheduling a tour to negotiating the lease, was done through Facebook Messenger. It’s very likely that if they weren’t as responsive on Messenger as they were, I would’ve ended up living somewhere else.

If you get nothing else out of this article remember this… Messenger will continue to become an essential communication channel.

Facebook reported that more than one in two people say they’re more likely to shop with a business they can message, and 67% of people expect to message businesses more in the next two years.

It’s how people are communicating with family and friends. A large portion of our society prefers to communicate via a messenger with quick responses.

Adapt… or lose business to your competition.

Now, we, as marketers, have the opportunity to tap into this tremendous channel to grow our business and better serve our customers.

Here’s How It Works…

There are two different “types” of Facebook Messenger ads.

1. Facebook Messenger as a destination (I’m calling them destination ads)
2. Facebook Messenger as a placement (sponsored messages)

Let’s start with…

Facebook Messenger as a Destination (Destination Ads)

Destination ads appear in the newsfeed, and when clicked on, open inside of a Facebook message (instead of sending traffic to a URL):

You can find this destination option at the ad level when creating a campaign in Ads Manager or Power Editor.

The ad looks and feels like a normal ad, with the option to include an image, video, carousel, slideshow, etc.:

A few things to note about destination ads…

1. You can target ANYONE (this is important – you can target interests, behaviors, custom audiences, etc.)
2. Available in the newsfeed (desktop and mobile)
3. Available for campaigns with the objective “page post engagement” or “send people to a destination on or off Facebook” – so, don’t panic if you chose another objective and don’t see Messenger as an option

Ways to use this ad type…

1. Retargeting

What’s the biggest “hang-up” in your Customer Journey?

Use destination ads to give people an extra touch point with your brand. Help them overcome any barriers to purchase.

For example, we use Messenger ads to retarget people who visit our sales pages but don’t purchase the product. If you visit the sales page for DigitalMarketer Lab but don’t buy, you’ll see this ad:

There’s usually a reason people don’t buy, and if you give people a platform to ask questions and help overcome doubt, it works wonders. For example, people want to know if the product will actually work for their business, if there is a contract or commitment, if they can add team members, etc.

Once their questions are answered, most are ready to purchase the product. This entire conversation is happening via Facebook Messenger.

2. Cold traffic

We have the option to run destination ads to cold traffic (people who have never heard of our brand). 

This can be used to raise awareness and acquire customers, but—it must be done right.

The key here is to make sure the ad prompts an ideal sales conversation. For example, if your ad asks people to respond with their favorite color, it’s probably going to be a waste of time and money.

But, if you can prompt a conversation that leads to your ideal sales conversation… you’re golden.

Imagine you own a home improvement company that provides a slew of services: plumbing, landscaping, painting, etc.

You run an ad in your local area, “If you could ‘fix’ one aspect of your home, what would it be?”. People respond with “landscaping” or “I’d paint my home.” You now know their pain point and can cater your conversation to this topic, hopefully ending in a sale.

Again, I wouldn’t recommend starting here as I don’t believe this is the most highly leveraged activity within Facebook Messenger ads, but, it’s worth a shot when you’re ready for scale.

Facebook Messenger as a Placement (Sponsored Messages) 

Sponsored messages appear inside of the Facebook Messenger inbox.

It’s an identical experience to receiving a Facebook message from a friend, these just come from a brand.

You can find this option at the ad set level when creating a campaign in Ads Manager or Power Editor:

When creating an actual message, you can include links and images:

A few things to note about sponsored messages…

1. You can ONLY target people who have previously messaged your page in the past.
2. It’s available for campaigns with objectives of “send people to a destination on or off of Facebook” and “website conversions.”
3. Facebook charges advertisers by impressions, you are charged whether the end user opens the message or not… unless you use a tool like….

ManyChat.com

ManyChat is much more than a “bot” (in my opinion, the bot is the least sexy feature).

ManyChat builds a list of subscribers that you can send sponsored messages to; people who have previously messaged your page:

Although Facebook is building this list, too, the benefit is ManyChat allows you to broadcast sponsored messages to your subscriber list for just $10/month (instead of paying Facebook on a CPM basis):

We’ve sent four sponsored messages to our subscriber list, and the open rates have been INSANE (especially compared to email open rates)!!

So far, we’ve only sent promotional broadcasts (that mimic our email promotional calendar) to sell tickets to our annual event and invite prospects to join DM Lab. We do plan to begin weaving in content based emails, similar to an email newsletter, in the near future.

(RELATED: Episode 72: How DigitalMarketer Generated 500% ROI in 3 Days Using Facebook Messenger)

So, ready to put this to work in your business? Let’s talk about…

(NOTE: Want to become a certified paid traffic master? Learn how to drive quality traffic from platforms like Facebook, Google, YouTube, and LinkedIn and build a guaranteed system for acquiring customers with our Paid Traffic Mastery Certification. Learn more now.)

How to Build Your Subscriber List

Sponsored messages are so powerful, and—this is really important—the fact that you can only send them to people who have previously messaged your page will keep this from becoming a spam-fest. 

But, there does need to be list building strategies, similar to email.

You can use destination ads to build your Messenger subscriber list.

ManyChat also provides a unique URL that when clicked, opens a Facebook message with your brand page.

For example, we sent an email and used the link to drive messages:

Not only did this provide an extra line of communication for people who would prefer to use Messenger, it sold tickets! As you can see from this Facebook Messenger conversation between a customer and one of our sales reps…

If you’re using a software like Shopify, you can integrate with Facebook and build your subscriber list as people purchase your product:

You can also send follow-up messages to confirm the order and send shipping information:

…Which is a great way to improve user experience.

And, don’t forget—even people who message your page, (for customer service related questions, for example) are added to your subscriber list!

You may be wondering, Wow… this sounds awesome, but it requires a lot of human resources to answer messages!

And, you’re right. But, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth it AND it doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from this ad type even if you’re a one-person show. Here are a few tips:

1. Start super small, down the funnel. Use destination ads to retarget people who are towards the bottom of your funnel. This will ensure you’re having fewer, but more highly leveraged conversations.
2. Get help from a bot. Use ManyChat’s bot feature to welcome people who message your page, you could essentially automate the sales process with this tool.
3. Use the tagging system inside of Facebook Messenger to stay organized. Our team created tags to help systemize the process:

I also recommend integrating your customer service and sales platforms with Facebook Messenger so that your team can leverage Messenger while still having access to customer information.

We’re only three months into Facebook Messenger ads and there’s already SO much opportunity.

Take advantage of this channel to communicate with your prospects and customers. Build systems in your business that leverage this channel so that you can build a subscriber list, similar to email. Then…

Test, test, test, and as always… let us know how these strategies are working in your business!

(NOTE: Want to become a certified paid traffic master? Learn how to drive quality traffic from platforms like Facebook, Google, YouTube, and LinkedIn and build a guaranteed system for acquiring customers with our Paid Traffic Mastery Certification. Learn more now.)

The post Facebook Messenger Ads: How to Use Them in Your Business appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Facebook Messenger ads are all the craze right now.

They’re the most PERSONAL ad type on the market.

Our culture has bred an expectation of instantaneous communication. Whether through text, chat, or social media… when someone sends you a message, you FEEL the need to respond in a timely manner (or at least most of us do ).

Think about it. 

This is what makes Facebook Messenger marketing so powerful, it taps into a channel that 1+ billion people are using… and also facilitates communication in a way that people now expect.

Brands that utilize Messenger to communicate with their prospects and customers will win.

About three months ago, I explained the ins-and-outs of Facebook Messenger Ads, and now I’m going to expand on that information with a quick case study, highlighting a new feature that’s producing amazing results for us and plenty of other businesses.

Using a tool called ManyChat (this is not the only tool with this functionality, it just happens to be our favorite!)…

…you can now auto-message people who COMMENT on any of your Facebook posts!

This. Is. Exciting.

Today, I’ll be sharing how DigitalMarketer is utilizing this amazing feature, how businesses in a variety of markets are seeing huge results, and how to get this set up for your own business!

Before we talk about the How, let’s talk about…

Why Does Facebook’s Comment-to-Messenger Feature Matter?

1. It’s an easy way to build messenger subscribers

Facebook allows you to build a “list” of messenger subscribers that you can later send broadcasts to (similar to email, but we’re seeing 80%+ open rates). If you read this post, you know why this is so important.

To become a messenger subscriber, someone simply has to have messaged your page in the past. If you use the feature the way I outline below, you can build a subscriber list using the same comment-to-message strategy we are… without even buying ads.

2. Increases relevance score

If you are using the comment-to-message strategy and then turning that post into an ad, this is going to significantly increase relevance score.

Relevance score is a number out of 10 that Facebook uses to tell advertisers how… relevant… their ad is to the audience in which they’re targeting.

The higher the relevance score, the more reach your ad gets and the lower the cost. 

Social proof weighs heavily on your relevance score, so the more positive comments, shares, reactions that your post gets, the higher the score.

By accumulating a ton of comments on your post using this strategy, you are in turn increasing your relevance score.

3. It’s a great strategy to generate leads and sales (isn’t that what we REALLY want?) 

This strategy isn’t just about “talking” or “building a list.” You can use it to generate leads and sales for your business, too.

The key is to make sure your post leads to an ideal sales conversation for your business.

Asking people to comment with their favorite color just to build your messenger list isn’t the best way to use this feature (unless you’re selling something that has to do with coloring ).

You can use ManyChat to set up an automated follow-up sequence that eventually leads someone to a sale. You can also use ManyChat’s tagging system to segment audiences so that you can make them an offer that’s most relevant to them.

How Facebook’s Comment-to-Messenger Feature Works

So, how does it work?

I’m glad you asked!

Let’s role-play for a second here. You pretend to be a marketer scrolling through Facebook, and I’ll pretend to be DigitalMarketer targeting you with an ad.

It all starts when you see one of our posts in your newsfeed. It could be a sponsored post or simply an organic post, like this one:

In this post, we’re offering a free guide to anyone who leaves a comment.

As soon as you leave a comment (you can designate how quickly you want to auto-message within ManyChat, by the way), you receive a follow-up from us inside of Facebook Messenger, which looks like this:

In the message, we instruct you to respond with the word “guide.”

It’s important to add this extra step! When they message you, they become a messenger subscriber.

After the word “guide” is typed, we send you a link to download the guide.

It’s all 100% automated, surprisingly easy to set up, and possible with a ManyChat Pro account (which starts at just $10/month).

What makes this even better is that it’s all happening inside of Facebook Messenger.

Which means that if you have any questions or comments along the way, all you have to do is respond to our message—giving us a chance to answer any questions and squash any doubts or objections right on the spot… all while gaining some valuable insights into what our customers are thinking.

Pretty cool, huh?

Just wait—we’re not even done yet.

We also have the ability to send additional follow-ups to further engage and segment our subscribers based on their interest.

A day after we deliver the guide, a follow-up sequence begins:

This time, we ask you if you’re building a team from scratch, or training an existing team. For us, the goal of this campaign is to eventually get people to sign up for our DigitalMarketer HQ product. The sales conversation is very different depending on you having a team already or wanting to build one from scratch.

After you click one of the buttons, you are “tagged” inside of ManyChat—which allows us to reach out to you later with more relevant messages.

The bot then delivers another piece of content that’s relevant to their answer and that continues to give value first.

Or…

Where we can then follow-up with the ideal sales conversion…

Now, let’s talk numbers.

Sure, it seems like a cool feature… but does it actually work?

Let’s take a closer look at the engagement on this post to find out:

As you can see, this one post has generated 535 comments, along with 1,000 likes and 137 shares (515 of those commenters actually became messenger subscribers). We did spend a little money to boost this post on Facebook, but most of the growth came from organic traffic and shares.

Now, at this point you might be thinking: Okay, but those are 500+ Facebook Messenger subscribers. That’s not the same thing as 500 email subscribers.

And you’d have a good point. But, check this out:

That’s an 88% open rate with a 19.9% click-through rate on the follow-up messages from people that downloaded the guide.

Those consumption numbers are MUCH higher than we’d see from traditional email marketing.

(NOTE: Ready to use Facebook’s newest “ad” platform to turn one-to-one conversation into sales—even if you don’t have the staff to reply manually? Check out the Facebook Messenger Marketing Blueprint and discover how Facebook Messenger Ads are changing the way businesses communicate with customers. Learn more now.)

Facebook’s Comment-to-Messenger Feature in Action

As I mentioned earlier, this is a brand-new feature, so we’re still testing and finding ways to use it ourselves.

But, we’ve already seen some other marketers do cool things on their own pages.

Our good friend, Derek Halpern, recently published a post in which he asked a question: “What is a good (and realistic) sales page conversion rate?”

Once you comment on this post with your guess, Derek sends you a message with the answer. He also takes advantage of your attention to make a relevant offer and send interested visitors to a webinar registration page:

Derek then broadcasted to his messenger list a few days later…

Cole from Sherpa Metrics also used this functionality to generate 500+ messenger subscribers and to segment his audience in efforts to make relevant offers…

Then he followed up to further segment the audience…

Within 36 hours, Cole was already seeing insane open and click-through rates…

This works for ecommerce, too.

Jordan West at Little & Lively is seeing a $7 cost per acquisition selling clothing using the comment to message strategy…

By simply offering a coupon code for commenting…

Thirty percent of the people who comment and receive the code are purchasing… AND he’s building his subscriber list.

Coach Rock at I Love Basketball TV recently utilized this feature with an organic post, that helped build his subscriber list (200+ added) and also generated email leads (send prospects to an opt-in for a “free workout”:

Notice that he asks them to respond to let them know the linked opened… Hint: he was generating the subscriber:

How to Set Up Facebook’s Comment-to-Messenger Feature

It seems complicated, but this feature is actually pretty easy to put into action.

Just log in to your ManyChat account and click on “Growth Tools” and then “Facebook Comments”:

You then have the option to select the post you’d like to use based on its URL, post ID, or a dropdown list of recent posts to your page:

Notice that you can choose to send messages after a certain period of time, to exclude certain keywords, and to only trigger comments for certain keywords…

For our first test, I left all of these blank.

Next, you’ll click the “Welcome” button:

This is where you’ll craft your welcome message that people will receive in their inbox after they comment on your post.

This is where you’ll prompt them to enter another keyword so that they become a subscriber.

Notice the sentence in parentheses at the bottom of our welcome message. Because Facebook references back to the post that they just clicked on, we always put a line of text that tells them to ignore the link so it doesn’t cause confusion.

Next, you’ll hit “Back” and then “Save.”

But, how do we trigger the actual delivery of whatever we promised? What happens after they type “guide”?

You need to set up automation for the keyword you’re asking them to type into messenger…

As you can see above, we clicked the “Keywords” button under “Automation.”

We then created a new rule that when people typed “guide” we responded with…

We also told ManyChat that we wanted to tag them as having downloaded this report…

The tagging is important because now we can visit the “audience” tab and see how many people have messaged from that particular post, AND we can subscribe everyone with that tag to a particular follow-up sequence…

This feature is already sending us lots of high-quality leads and customers while helping us to learn more about our audience at the same time.

And we’re only scratching the surface.

Over the coming weeks, I just know that we’re going to come up with many more creative and powerful ways to use this to generate leads and customers!

So, keep your eyes peeled, and let us know if you have a great case study of your own.

(NOTE: Ready to use Facebook’s newest “ad” platform to turn one-to-one conversation into sales—even if you don’t have the staff to reply manually? Check out the Facebook Messenger Marketing Blueprint and discover how Facebook Messenger Ads are changing the way businesses communicate with customers. Learn more now.)

The post Facebook’s Comment-to-Messenger Feature: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

You must look at paid traffic as a SYSTEM.

This system is made up of multiple advertising campaigns that work hand-in-hand to acquire leads and sales for your business.

Every campaign has a specific objective… whether it’s to:

• Introduce your business to people in your market who have never heard of you before (indoctrination)
• Convert a site visitor to a lead (acquisition)
• Sell a high-dollar product to some of your best, repeat customers (monetization)

These campaigns work together to build a relationship with prospects… to turn strangers into friends, friends into customers, customers into repeat buyers, and repeat buyers into raving fans.

If you think about marketing as a relationship, a true relationship, not some imaginary person on the other side of a computer screen…

Not only will this article make WAY more sense, it will CHANGE the way you market, BUILD relationships with your customers and GROW your business…

Good News: It Doesn’t Have to be Overly Complicated

You just have to understand WHO you’re talking to, and at WHAT stage you are in your relationship.

You would never ask a person that you just met to marry you (or maybe you would?!).

The same thinking applies to traffic… you would never ask someone who just learned about your business for the first time to buy your $10,000 product.

This is where most people go wrong. 

They go straight for the sale without warming up the traffic in any way.

You have to use traffic to build relationships with people, just like you would in the real world.

You have to have advertising campaigns in place that automate the building of these relationships.

So, how do we classify our audience by “relationship”?

• How does this affect the type of ads those audiences see?
• What do those ads look like?
• What offers do they see?
• When do I actually ask them to buy?

We’ll address all of those questions in this post…

But First, Let’s Talk About “Temperature”…

At DigitalMarketer, we look at traffic in three different temperatures:

Cold, Warm, and Hot – pretty creative, huh?

Cold Traffic: People Who Have Never Heard of Your Business

This is where you find NEW blood for your business.

If you have a brand new business you obviously MUST start with cold traffic.

If you have an existing customer base, website traffic, existing leads, etc., it’s still essential to run traffic to cold audiences or you’ll continue to swim in the same pond of existing leads and customers.

But, this doesn’t mean that you take your core product straight to cold traffic.

That’s like meeting someone at a bar and then asking him or her to marry you.

You MUST build the relationship FIRST and THEN ask them to buy.

Think of cold traffic as the “Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Molly and here’s a little bit about me…”

Cold traffic is where you go to introduce your brand to your target market, to give them value, and show them that you know what you’re talking about.

Goals of Cold Traffic:

• Introduction/Indoctrination (Introduce your brand and establish credibility.)
  
• Pixelling (So that you can run ads to these people later – learn how to pixel website visitors and our system for turning those people into buyers here.)
• Segmentation (If they click on a blog post about email marketing, we know that they’re not JUST interested in Digital Marketing, they’re specifically interested in Email Marketing…. and we can make them a more relevant offer. Learn how we do this by clicking here.)

Warm Traffic: Your Acquaintances

These are people who you’ve introduced yourself to and they’ve shown interest in return.

They could be:

• Leads that opted-in to your email list (that you’ve uploaded to a traffic platform).
• People who have visited your website (and you pixeled them!).
• Facebook fans, Twitter followers, YouTube channel subscribers, etc.

These people are familiar with your business and market, but they weren’t interested enough to buy yet. They need to be convinced.

Maybe they read your blog and visited your YouTubere channel on how to play the guitar, but they didn’t opt-in or buy on your site.

You’re going to run ads to your warm traffic that encourages them to convert to a lead or buyer.

You’ve already introduced yourself, they’re familiar with who you are and what you’re about, so it’s time to make the move.

Goals of Warm Traffic:

• Generate Leads
• Low-Dollar Sales (Convert leads or interested people into low-dollar, Tripwire buyers… and hopefully they’ll take the upsell, too!)

Hot Traffic: Your Buyers

These are people who have bought something from you. They’ve already committed. They know you really, really well.

Now, you’re either wanting to increase their value as a customer (get them to buy again) or reactivate them (remind them that you still exist)!

Most of your communication with hot traffic is going to be through retargeting ads and email marketing.

The main function of paid traffic is to reach your cold and warm audiences… to acquire buyers at break even or better. But, you can use paid traffic to reach your hot audience, too.

This will mainly be for follow-up or to see if they’re interested in another product.

Goals of Hot Traffic:

• High-Dollar Sales (get them to buy another product or to buy more frequently).
• Activation (remind a customer who hasn’t purchased in a while that you still exist… or see if they’re interested in a product that’s different from what they purchased).

(NOTE: Have a great product, but no one knows it exists? We’re launching a brand new 3-part mini-class that will show you how to launch a profitable Facebook ad campaign that gets you high-quality traffic and leads who are primed and ready to buy whatever you’re selling…within 5 days! Register now to get started.)

Types of Ads & Offers for Each Traffic Temperature

You wouldn’t say the same thing in the same way to someone you just met versus your spouse of 10 years.

Think of your traffic strategy the exact same way.

The graphic shows different types of offers to run based off of traffic temperature:

This is the WHAT:

• What you’re going to talk to these specific people about in your ads
• What you’re going to try and get them to do

Let’s look at some real world examples…

Cold Traffic Ads and Offers

As you can see in the graphic above, there are plenty of different types of “offers” to talk to your cold audience about.

You can run them to…

• Blog Posts
• Social Media Updates
• Content Videos
• Podcasts
• Primary Research
• Case Studies
• Lead Magnets (yes, sometimes you can ask cold traffic for their email address, but only if the offer is very, very enticing)
• Quiz/Surveys
• White Papers

But where?

Here are a few examples of paid advertisements to cold traffic:

In the image above, we’re running Facebook ads to a cold audience (interests like MailChimp, Aweber, Constant Contact, etc.).

If they were to click on the ad above, they’ll land on our blog to read about email marketing.

We know that these people are interested enough in email marketing to be included in the audience of the various email service providers above and we’re not being intrusive.

We’re sending them to the blog to teach them something and establish ourselves as a credible source.

In the image above, you’ll see promoted content. You’ve probably seen them at the end of blog posts around the web.

Content distribution companies like Outbrain, Taboola, nRelate, and Disqus allow you to pay to place your sponsored content below other, related content.

This is a great way to distribute content at a high volume to people who have never heard of you before.

In the image above, Beauty and the Boutique is giving makeup tips in an effort to educate the audience, and then retarget to buy.

Here, we’re running YouTube ads to a content video about blogging.

Warm Traffic Ads and Offers

Let’s revisit this graphic, but this time we’re talking about the warm audience.

What are we going to talk to these people about?

• Lead Magnets
• Quiz/Surveys
• White Papers
• Free or Paid Webinars
• Flash Sales
• Low Dollar Offers (Tripwires)
• Product Demo
• Branding Videos
• Book (Free or Paid)
• A La Carte Service
• Software/Plugin
• Free Trial
• Events

Since these people already know who we are, we can start to make the transition into acquiring them as a customer.

For example, we ran a flash sale for our email countdown software to our Facebook website custom audience, and data custom audience (we uploaded our email list).

In the example above, we’re using a flash sale for a piece of software to convert leads to buyers and even website visitors into buyers.

We were able to come out and ask them to buy directly because we had already built the RELATIONSHIP. This is the logical next step.

In the ad above, GoDaddy is offering a $1 trial to people who visit their website. This is a great way to convert a website visitor into a trial customer.

In the above ad, Adroll is exchanging a report on attribution model for your email address.

Above, HipChat is offering a free trial for their chat services. Another great offer to make to people who you’re connected to – I like their Facebook page and have visited their website.

Hot Traffic Ads and Offers

Let’s revisit this graphic, but this time we’re talking about the hot audience.

Again, communication with buyers in terms of traffic is going to be minimal compared to the traffic you run to cold or warm audiences.

You’re asking your buyers to either buy again, buy something else, or just to remind them you’re still around.

What offers can you make?

• Events
• Paid Webinar
• High-Dollar Offer
• Done For You Services

Here are a few examples:

In this ad, we’re speaking to buyers (previous Traffic & Conversion Summit attendees) and asking them to buy tickets for the 2015 event.

NOTE: We called them out in the copy, “T&C Alumni,” by segmenting our message based on their buying history.

And we had impressive stats for this ad:

Spend: $1,083.50
Revenue: 52 Tickets x $497 = $25,844
ROI: 2208%

In this ad, we were also selling Traffic & Conversion Summit tickets, but we segmented the audience differently. We were speaking to DigitalMarketer Lab members here.

Traffic is a SYSTEM, and you must use multiple advertising campaigns and offers to develop a relationship just like you would with a friend.

If you’re able to conceptualize traffic as I’ve explained above and think about your audiences as cold, warm, and hot – you’ll be able to create traffic campaigns that dynamically function to move a cold prospect to a big buyer in no time.

Keep in mind WHO you’re talking to and WHERE you’re sending them. Keep the image below for reference:

(NOTE: Have a great product, but no one knows it exists? We’re launching a brand new 3-part mini-class that will show you how to launch a profitable Facebook ad campaign that gets you high-quality traffic and leads who are primed and ready to buy whatever you’re selling…within 5 days! Register now to get started.)

The post Traffic Temperature: How To Build Real Relationships With Automated Campaigns appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Running paid traffic can be frustrating.

If we create ten ad campaigns… we expect one to two campaigns to succeed (generate a positive ROI).

That means that eight to nine campaigns fail… and we don’t like failing, but…

…it’s something you MUST get used to when buying paid traffic.

You can’t throw away every campaign that doesn’t perform right out of the gate.

You have to have a process for troubleshooting your campaigns.

It’s a constant game of figuring out which aspect of the campaign is actually failing you.

Consider yourself a doctor of your campaigns… you have to make educated guesses on what is causing the issue and test the variables one at a time in isolation to see if you can make a diagnosis.

In this post, I’m going to give you the four-component process we use for troubleshooting traffic campaigns at DigitalMarketer.

[NOTE: We’ve got a fancy flowchart at the bottom of this post that you can use to troubleshoot your traffic problem. You can download it and tack it to the wall next to your workstation.]

So, the next time you have a traffic campaign that isn’t performing as well as you’d hoped (or even if you want to optimize an already successful campaign), you will know how to diagnose the problem…. and most importantly, how to fix it.

When troubleshooting your traffic campaigns, there are four likely culprits:

1. Your Offer
2. Your Targeting
3. Your Ad Copy/Creative
4. Your Ad Scent

Let’s look at each of these in turn…

1. Troubleshooting Paid Traffic Campaigns:  Your Offer

By “offer,” I mean anything that you’re running paid traffic to. Here are some examples…

• Blog Posts
• Social Media Updates
• Content Videos
• Case Studies
• Quiz/Surveys
• White Papers
• Webinars
• Flash Sales
• Product Demo
• Branding Videos
• Book (Free or Paid)
• Free Trial
• Event Tickets

(Learn when to make each of these offers via paid traffic by reading this post.)

But, the “medium” of the offer is irrelevant in this discussion.

Here’s the big question…

….are you running traffic to something that the market actually wants, needs, or desires!?

Are you solving a problem for a specific group of people? Are you giving them value? Is there a NEED for what you’re offering?

If your answer is no, then you’ve already found your problem.

This is the most common issue I find when people say their advertising campaigns aren’t performing. They just aren’t offering something that people want.

No matter how compelling your copy is, or how attention grabbing your image may be… the best marketing campaign in the world can’t solve an “offer issue.”

LEARN MORE:

• Perpetual Traffic Episode 43: Ryan Deiss Shares 4 Steps to Crafting and Optimizing the Perfect Offer
• Perpetual Traffic Episode 45: 5 Proven Facebook Offers that Convert

2.Troubleshooting Paid Traffic Campaigns: Your Targeting

If you have a good offer – it’s time to check your targeting.

It doesn’t matter if you have the best offer and marketing message… if you put it in front of the WRONG audience, it will fail. Especially if your offer is niche specific (not a broad offer that everyone can relate to or needs… like toilet paper).

The biggest targeting mistake you can make is to go too BROAD in fear of missing out on potential prospects.

If you have an offer that is appealing to a specific market, you need to use your targeting to get the message in front of that specific audience.

You need to get inside of the head of your target market. I don’t mean just demographic data like age, gender, income… You need to fill in the blanks for statements like…

• What are their hobbies?
• What TV shows do they watch?
• What authority figures do they follow?
• What books do they read?
• What websites do they visit?
• Where do they shop?
• What clubs, groups, associations are they apart of?
• What are their specific pain points?

If you’re able to figure out specific information about the market, like the questions above, then you can ensure you’re putting your message and offer in front of the right people – because you’ll be everywhere that they are.

How do we find the answers to these questions?

1. You are your target market – you can answer the questions yourself.
2. You know someone who is – you can interview them and ask.
3. You do research –search around in market specific forums, use Facebook audience insights, search Google!

(Check out this post on Finding Your Market to find out more about researching your market and which traffic source is right for you!)

Let me give you an example…

If we were in the golf market and wanted to target avid golfers (who like and play golf enough to want to buy a product or service) on Facebook… I wouldn’t target interests like “ESPN,” “PGA,” or even “Tiger Woods.”

Why?

They aren’t specific enough.

Even though Tiger is one of the most well-known golfers, he’s exactly that… very well known. Tiger is too famous that he attracts people outside of avid golfers.

The same goes for “ESPN,” it’s too broad. You may be targeting people who hate golf and love football or baseball.

Who would I target? Mid-level golfers that are well known by people who actually PLAY and follow the game of golf. Golf specific magazines… if you like something enough to read and learn about it, you’re probably a great person to target.

I can’t stress how important targeting is. So many people go through the process of creating a big campaign… the offer, awesome ad copy, ad images and then they totally drop the ball because they put it in front of the WRONG people.

(Check out this post for the complete guide to Facebook advertising targeting options.)

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because you built it, people will come. Make sure you’re targeting a big enough audience that you’re able to scale, but specific enough to really hit the specific market you’re speaking to.

LEARN MORE:

• The Ad Grid: How to Build Traffic Campaigns that Convert Higher and Scale Faster
• [DOWNLOAD] The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting [2nd Edition]
• Perpetual Traffic Episode 30: Ad Targeting: A B2B & B2C Case Study
• Perpetual Traffic Episode 08: Ad Targeting: Put Your Offer In Front of the Right People

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

3. Troubleshooting Paid Traffic Campaigns: Your Ad Copy/Creative

The ad copy/creative is the segue between your offer and target market.

You can create a compelling offer and put it in front of the right audience, but if you aren’t able to catch their attention and give them a reason to click– your campaign will fail because you aren’t generating TRAFFIC.

Best practices in terms of ad copy/creative depend heavily on the platform where you’re running traffic.

Use your copy/creative to hit a pain point with your audience and then make sure your “offer” is the solution.

Notice how this ad calls out to the audience…

Call out your audience when you can… this is the best way to catch their attention. For example, “ATTENTION, AUSTIN MOMS….”.

For more information on ad copy and creatives, click here.

LEARN MORE:

• The Ad Grid: How to Build Traffic Campaigns that Convert Higher and Scale Faster
• Perpetual Traffic Episode 84: Ryan Deiss: 7 Questions I Ask Myself Before I Finish Writing Ad Copy
• Perpetual Traffic Episode 85: 6 Elements of a High Converting Ad Creative
• Perpetual Traffic Episode 34: 14 Elements of Persuasive Ad Copy
• 7 Lessons Learned from Running 440 Facebook Ad Campaigns in One Year

4. Troubleshooting Paid Traffic Campaigns: Ad Scent 

I can explain ad scent in one word: congruency.

You must maintain the same “scent” from your advertisement to your landing page/offer.

What does this mean?

You don’t want your ad to look strikingly different from your landing page. You don’t want people to land on your offer and realize they’ve left whatever platform they were on when they clicked.

You also don’t want to confuse messaging… if you’re talking about dogs in your ad, you want to continue that conversation on the landing page… you want the process to be seamless.

Bad ad scent is a common problem with advertising campaigns.

Notice the congruence from ad to the landing page in regards to offer, design and messaging in this campaign from Adobe…

You’ve nailed the offer, the targeting, the copy and creative… but once they click, you’re sending them somewhere that just DOESN’T MATCH.

You lose them as soon as you win them over, essentially. A great way to diagnose bad ad scent? A really low time on page… a high bounce rate.

What can you do to make sure you’re ad scent is congruent? Read this: How to Boost Conversions By Providing Consistent “Ad Scent.”

Now that you understand the four most common culprits of an underperforming traffic campaign, I want to help you diagnose your issue so that you can FIX it!

LEARN MORE:

• How to Boost Conversions by Providing Consistent “Ad Scent”
• Perpetual Traffic Episode 12: The Perfect Cold Traffic Ad: “Ad Scent,” the One-Two Punch, and the Guard Down Trick
• Perpetual Traffic Episode 34: 14 Elements of Persuasive Ad Copy

Below you’ll find a flow chart. Follow the chart to specific resources that will help you troubleshoot your underperforming traffic campaign.

You’re going to be asked specific questions like… “Is your ad getting impressions.”

Download your own Traffic Campaign Flow Chart here.

At DigitalMarketer, we always give ad campaigns at least three to five days to collect data and then we analyze its success. If the campaign isn’t performing as expected, this is the process we follow to diagnose and fix the issues.

Want to put your ads through the ringer before you start buying traffic? Put them through our 5-Point Paid Ad Audit now!

(NOTE: Want the Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library? Copy & paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low-cost, high-converting ads on demand. Get them here.)

Now get out there and start troubleshooting your campaigns… I bet you can “fix” more campaigns than you think.

The post [PDF Download] Troubleshooting Your Traffic Campaigns: What To Do When It’s Just Not Converting appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Facebook recently rolled out a powerful addition to its advertising platform.

This feature is called Facebook “Offline Events,” and it’s revolutionizing our ability to track and optimize for transactions that aren’t usually “seen” by the Facebook pixel.

Facebook explains…

“With offline conversion measurement on Facebook, you can track when transactions occur in your physical retail store and other offline channels (ex: orders made over the phone) after people see or engage with your Facebook ad.”

This is HUGE for any business that may suffer from a “black hole” in their tracking because transactions (lead gen, sales, etc.) aren’t always occurring on web pages where Facebook can track.

This can make it hard to analyze what’s actually working in ad campaigns or to validate that your advertising is generating business… period. For example:

• If you have conversations with prospects or customers on the phone or through email. (At DigitalMarketer, we have a sales team and this can make it tough to attribute their sales to a specific Facebook ad campaign.)
• You’re a brick and mortar store who’s looking to drive in-store visits and purchases (asking people in an ad to use a coupon code for a free appetizer can work, but is still tough to track).
• If you sell your products online AND in stores, it can be tough to attribute the in-store purchases back to an ad campaign (BassPro shop can track if you clicked on a Facebook ad for a fishing pole and bought online… but what if you saw the ad and decided to purchase in store?).
• If you’re a coach or consultant that’s looking to drive phone conversations or demos.

So…

How Does Facebook Offline Events Work?

Offline events can be found in the Business Manager menu:

After you click “Upload Offline Events” on the next screen, you’ll see a pop-up that’s very similar to uploading a data custom audience:

This is where Facebook asks you to upload your DATA. This is the “offline data” that they are going to match with your Facebook ad data to see if any of these people had viewed or clicked your ads in the past.

Facebook asks you to include event descriptors and identifiers.

Event descriptors help identify the actual transaction. These are anything from the…

• Event time
• Event name
• Value
• Currency
• Order ID

This will help Facebook understand what action this person took offline.

Identifiers are specific information about the individual. Anything from…

• first name
• last name
• phone number
• email address
• city
• county
• zip code
• date of birth

…and so on (there are 17 identifiers).

NOTE: ALL OF THIS INFORMATION IS NOT REQUIRED – include as much as possible to ensure you get as high of a match rate as possible.

Once uploaded, you’ll see this screen:

Facebook shows how many records you uploaded, how many of them matched (a match rate 60% or higher is great), the date range, and date updated.

You also have the ability to create custom and/or lookalike audience from this data, too, which is VERY powerful for future campaigns and retargeting.

To see how these offline conversions attribute to Facebook campaigns in ads manager, select “Offline conversions” from the delivery columns:

Facebook will report on the number of offline conversions that they could contribute to specific campaigns, ad sets, and ads.

Facebook offline conversions are powerful in their current form, but it also shows Facebook’s commitment to tracking and validating the effect that advertising is having on businesses’. I believe this is just the beginning and we’ll continue to see more advanced tracking in the near future.

Now, it’s your turn… do you have any offline data that you could upload?

Let us know how it goes!

(NOTE: Have a great product, but no one knows it exists? We’re launching a brand new 3-part mini-class that will show you how to launch a profitable Facebook ad campaign that gets you high-quality traffic and leads who are primed and ready to buy whatever you’re selling… within 5 days! Register now to get started.)

The post Facebook Offline Events: What This Means for Marketers appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

It’s rare that you see a company leveraging marketing at every step of the Customer Value Journey.

Most brands only leverage marketing at the beginning of the journey… as a way to generate awareness for their product or service.

Or, they implement a marketing campaign at the end of the Customer Value Journey… like a referral program, for example.

The hard truth is that there are 8 steps in every cold prospect’s journey toward becoming a customer and ultimately a promoter of a brand. At DigitalMarketer, we use this roadmap to build a Customer Value Journey for everything we sell:

In fact, we have an entire training that will teach you to create your own Customer Value Journey. You can get that training by clicking here.

(RELATED: The First Step Toward Launching (or Relaunching) a Successful Business is a Simple Fill-In-The-Blank Sentence)

One company that does an amazing job of using all 8 steps of the Customer Value Journey is Wag!—an on-demand dog walking, dog sitting, and dog boarding company.  They market throughout the Customer Value Journey like NO ONE I’ve ever seen before… and I had to share with you.

I want to walk you through exactly what I (and my tiny, furry friend, Larry) have experienced using Wag!… I hope that Wag!’s strategies inspire better marketing everywhere.

No matter what type of business you have, take a page from Wag!’s book to move prospects through the Customer Value Journey.

Let’s get to it.

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Facebook Video Ad to Cold Traffic

I first became aware of Wag! through a video ad on Facebook. This ad does a great job of displaying the benefits of using the app in under ten seconds.

They immediately hit on a pain point in their ad copy, “Ever wonder what your dog gets up to when you’re out?”…

And their product becomes the solution… “With Wag! you can see. Install the app today and get your pup’s first walk for free.”

(RELATED: Perpetual Traffic Episode 34: 14 Elements of Persuasive Ad Copy)

The video catches the attention of dog owners and also shows you the features of the product quickly…

• Your dog will be walked a certain distance in a certain amount of time.
• You’ll even be able to monitor restroom behavior and if your door was locked!

But not everyone will convert the first time they see your ad. They may be distracted or not in a place where they’re feeling the “pain” that your product or service provides.

So, what do you do when this happens? You retarget them!

(RELATED: How to Use Facebook Advertising Pixels to Create High Converting Ad Campaigns)

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Facebook Video Ad (Retargeting)

I didn’t immediately take Wag! up on its offer for a free first walk… but, a few days later, they served this AMAZING retargeting ad to my newsfeed…

The video is adorable. The theme is “We asked our customers what they thought about the Wag! app” and the microphone is passed around to different dogs who are barking.

Wag’s! retargeting Facebook ad is below (and you can check the ad out on Facebook here):

And watch the ad’s awesome video below:

The ad copy hits on other benefits of the product that weren’t mentioned in the first ad: “We make dog ownership easier by connecting you with dog lovers in your community who you can hire on-demand for dog walking, dog sitting, or dog boarding services 7-days a week.”

And because of their retargeting, I was sold. I clicked on the ad and began the sign-up process.

Here’s another retargeting video where they build your confidence that their walkers are safe and friendly (see it on Facebook here).

And you can watch the ad’s video here:

(RELATED: The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Video Ads)

Wag! served amazing ads to my newsfeed, but they also made an offer that I couldn’t refuse…

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Irresistible Entry Point Offer

Wag! didn’t just tell me to use their product or service – they made it even EASIER by offering the first walk for free. This made it almost impossible to say no and allowed me to get familiar with the service. 

Another thing that helps move customers along the Customer Value Journey – scarcity – and Wag! does a great job at this.

Here’s the screen I saw when I clicked on the ad to go and download the app: 

I love how they used a countdown timer to increase the urgency of signing up now.

If, for some reason, you went to their website instead of immediately downloading the app, the offer is consistent on their website exit pop-up:

The next step of the journey is one that many overlook…

(NOTE: Seeing something you’re missing? Is your roadmap in place to predictably transform ice-cold prospects into buyers and promoters? Get everything you need in our newest Execution Plan: The Customer Value Journey Execution Plan.)

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: In-App Upsells

The next day, I decided to give Wag! a try.

The experience was exciting… as you can see below, the app shows you your dog’s walk in real time.

You can see the blue line moving as your dog walks down the street and the dog walker sends a live video. They even mark when a bathroom break happens.

At this point, I’m at the “Excite Stage” of the Customer Value Journey with Wag!

The Excite Stage is one that most businesses forget. The first time someone uses your product or service, they should IMMEDIATELY feel relief from their pain point and have a moment of excitement.

This will help continue them down their journey with your brand. 

And that’s when Wag! really hit the nail on the head.

About half way through the walk, the yellow “EXTEND NOW” button popped up. The free walk had originally been for 30 minutes… but now, for 50% off, I could extend the walk 30 more minutes.

This was a brilliant upsell… and trained me to become familiar with this button inside of the app.

But they weren’t done with the Excite Stage…

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Continuing to Excite the End User

After the walk was complete, I received an actual report card inside of the app.

The report card looks exactly like the one I saw in the first Facebook ad, which maintained ad scent. I was able to see how long he walked, if any bathroom breaks were taken, and that my door was locked at home.

The walker even wrote a description of the walk, explaining that Larry, my dog, wanted to come home after a bit of walking and that Larry got a treat! This report card really made the purchase feel rewarding and made me want to request another walk soon.

And it also had me moving through the Customer Value Journey…

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Refer a Friend with Ease

Wag! made their app very interactive. As you can see below, there are different filters that I could place over Larry’s photo:

After you select your filter, Wag! gives you the option to share the photo.

Just one “purchase” in with Wag! and they’re already getting me to refer their services to my friends… and making it fun and natural!

You can share the photo to social networks and/or text the photo to your friends. Here’s the pre-written tweet Wag! creates for you:

And here’s the text I sent to one of my friends about Wag!…

Wag! pre-populated the text message that you see above.

They not only made my friend aware of their service, they also offered them an entire week of free walks. This is an even MORE desirable offer than one free week, which helps to get new blood into Wag’s! Customer Value Journey.

Next, let’s examine how Wag! increases the lifetime value of a customer…

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Increase Lifetime Value

After I referred a friend, Wag! then asked if I wanted to plan my walks for the week.

If you press the “OK” button, you’re taken to a screen where you can select the day of the week and time that you’d like a walker to come.

You can visit the app anytime to request a walk “ASAP,” but this scheduling feature makes it easy for Wag! to increase your lifetime value… and keeps the walkers coming!

But, that’s not the only way that Wag! gets you to come back for more…

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Promotional Emails

Below is a promotional email I received from Wag! this summer.

Not only is the email image-based and eye-catching… the offer is amazing.

Once again Wag! makes an offer I can’t refuse. Book a walk today for a chance to win Wag! all summer? Heck yeah!

Unfortunately, I didn’t win, but hats off to Wag! for this brilliant contest.

As expected, Wag! didn’t stop its marketing efforts there…

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Retargeting Hot Traffic

A few weeks later, I saw this ad in my news feed…

Retargeting hot traffic (people who have purchased from you in the past) is a very underutilized activity even though it usually produces the highest return on ad spend.

Wag! retargeted me with another great offer: To purchase Wag! credit packages to get up to 20% off on walks.

But they didn’t just retarget to remind me that they existed. They gave me a reason to purchase… further increasing my customer value.

The key takeaway: retarget your buyers to get them to keep buyin’!

Which leads us to our final step…

Wag’s! Customer Value Journey: Send Physical Goods

To top it all off, Wag! sent Larry and me a swag bag in the mail. This came around the tenth walk I’d requested.

The key here is, with the swag bag, they’d turned me into a promoter of the brand and made me feel appreciated as a customer.

There’s no doubt I will continue using Wag! and referring my dog-loving friends.

Hats off to this company for its excellent marketing at every step of the Customer Value Journey.

Use the above strategies from Wag! to seamlessly move your leads and customers through your Customer Value Journey.

(NOTE: Seeing something you’re missing? Is your roadmap in place to predictably transform ice-cold prospects into buyers and promoters? Get everything you need in our newest Execution Plan: The Customer Value Journey Execution Plan.)

The post [Case Study] How One Dog Walking App Turns Busy Dog Owners into Customers and Brand Promoters appeared first on DigitalMarketer.