Don’t Waste Another Dollar On Facebook Ads (Until You’ve Done This)
Thousands of dollars are lit on fire every month.
Ads are the first to blame when problems arise. Rarely the root cause. They shine a light on inefficiencies – and if you pay close enough attention you can identify what’s causing your money to catch fire.
Too often these poor little ads never had a chance to make it rain.
This typically happens with “new” offers, funnels, or products and services.
Over the last 6 years, here’s how I usually see it happen:
A coach has an idea for a new program or offering. They build a funnel to either book sales calls or sell the product. Then they hire an agency or media buyer to start running paid traffic to it.
When performance isn’t what they hoped for they crack down on the traffic team.
The result?
Lots of ad testing, creative, audiences, and bidding strategies trying to improve performance.
Inevitably leads to two choices:
Find a new agency.
Stop running ads.
This happens more often than you might think.
While the ads or ad strategy could be improved…
Ads will only provide marginal improvements if the funnel and offer are not validated.
Ads don’t solve problems.
If you’re lucky, they highlight them. If you’re not, they amplify them.
For a “new” offer, program, or funnel we don’t know if there is a “problem.” Our first step is to validate the funnel and the offer. And only then should we look at optimizing our ads.
I have one client right now where we’re generating $50 applications, a 100% show-up rate on sales calls, and people begging for the program.
While I’d love to say my fancy ads are responsible, that would be a lie.
In reality, this is our 4th refinement of the offer and funnel. We’ve run three smaller tests took in the results and optimized the offer, messaging, revised the funnel, and tested again.
The results are some of the BEST I’ve ever seen.
Only invest money in optimizing and scaling ads once you’ve validated it works.
Top-down ad strategies are designed to fail.
I replied to his message – I don’t recommend this strategy.
Last week I was in talks with someone looking for a media buyer.
He sent me a document with what he was looking for. It was a standard media strategy. Phase 1 Testing and Optimization, Phase 2 Refinement, and Phase 3 Scaling.
Through conversation, I found that they hadn’t run paid ads before and were building a funnel. And they wanted someone to implement the 3 phase approach.
My response was:
I recommended we spend $1,000 - $2,000 in Phase 1 to gather data. Upon completion, we would review the full funnel data to determine if it is validated, or if something needs to be changed.
I explained that proceeding to Phases 2 and 3 could be a large waste of money if we didn’t.
No one wants to light their advertising dollars on fire.
We’ve been mistakenly led to believe that Facebook Ads are the golden ticket.
This false notion is only a golden ticket for agencies to pad their P&L at your expense.
In my experience, most media buyers aren’t familiar with coaching business models, funnel metrics, or how to construct and validate an offer. Leading them to do what they do know – run ads. Which risks you losing money when you don’t have to.
The solution is a bottom-up advertising strategy.
Think Offer > Funnel > Ads. Not Ads > Funnel > Offer.
During my agency years,
I worked with a client who was spending $50,000 per month on Facebook ads.
A low percentage of leads were booking calls and the closing rate was lower than desired.
Against my recommendations, we kept running cold traffic. It was making just enough money that it made sense to keep it going.
Here’s the thing…
Ads need relevancy and continuity to the funnel, the offer, and the program being sold.
If we adjust/improve the ad but nothing downstream changes? It could actually hurt results because there will be a disconnect as they move through the funnel. At best marginal improvement but exponential improvement happens bottom-up.
Everything flows UP from the offer. That’s why I said we need a “bottom-up” approach. Refine the offer and positioning, refine the funnel, and then create ads that match it.
His funnel and offer were not validated.
And the ads were shining a light on that fact.
But when we shift our approach, optimize, and validate… Ads become an amplifier.
If you’re launching a new offer or new funnel.
Use your Facebook ad dollars to validate that it works. You will learn one of two things:
Something needs to be changed.
Everything is working.
Both are invaluable.
The first shines a light on what needs to be optimized.
Potentially saving you thousands of dollars.
The second indicates you have the green light to keep going, profitably.
I hope this little article helps you invest your ad dollars wisely.
Landon