Social Ads 101
Paid advertising. Social advertising.
Overwhelmingly, we hear from biz owners that it's confusing, scary and hard to see a ROI. That even if you are excited about turning on ads, it's hard to know where to start.
If this is you... hi! You're in the right place, because we're going to give you a high level look at why you should even think about running paid ads for a business. And, as you'll see, we're pretty passionate about it because it truly has the ability to transform businesses. So LFG!
It all starts with happy customers.
We like to say that happy customers are the lifeblood of your business. After all, they're the ones who are going to like your instagram post, open your emails and (hopefully) buy into your offering.
So how do we make sure our customers are happy? We make sure that there is awareness of your biz, that you're nurturing your leads and that you're seeing retention.
Now, for the purpose of learning about Paid Advertising, we're going to assume that you have lots and lots of happy customers who are buying from you and we're going to assume that you've done what is called exhausting your organic reach.
What is organic reach?
Organic reach means that you've reached anyone in your community that is going to buy from you. You've put in the work to be posting consistently, you've been adding traffic and opt-ins and popups to get people onto your email list. On a great day, you will reach 10% of your engaged audience on social media & 30-40% of your email list. Exhausting your organic reach means that the people who will join HAVE joined.
And-- this might mean that you could be starting to not see sales anymore. You might be thinking: "I'm plateauing. I'm failing."
But you're not, babe. Far from it, actually! It's just time to bring new people in. It's time to turn on paid. (yay!)
Paid Social Ads Benefits:
Talking to your new dream customers 24/7
Highly targeted
Have control over the algorithm
Takes people directly to your opt-in page without needing 10k followers or a link in bio
Reach hundreds of thousands of new accounts per week
Lets FB/IG post for you, without coming online
BUT, not all paid ads are made equal. There are different types and it's up to you (or your ad agency) to decide which type works best for your biz.
There are four types of Digital Conversion Objectives:
Awareness. Getting your name out there and spreading the word.
Traffic. Increasing site traffic and engagement.
Lead Generation. Growing your email list with quality leads.
Sales. Getting immediate ROI.
Now, you're probably going to see "get immediate ROI" and say yes.
But here's where you have to stay with us, because most of you will not be running sales ads.
If you want to be the best steward of your dollar, you need to be gathering data.
Unless you're selling a tangible product with competitive pricing and a strong reputation, this means email list growth. AKA new leads! You pay ONCE, and never have to pay to reach them again. THAT is how we get a great ROI- better than direct sales.
Speaking of sales, let's talk money, honey.
The cost of running ads on Meta (IG and FB) is determined by an auction system, based on three categories.
So, how much should you spend? It's really up to you, but we never ever want to spend more than we're comfortable investing. If we look at the industry benchmark for service based biz's, the average cost per lead is $4.
So 500 new leads per month would come out to around $2000.
The one thing you have to look out for is making sure that you spend enough to get out of the learning phase.
WTF is the "learning phase"?
Digital ad platforms are conversationalists. They are having a chat with your audience to understand if your ad is of interest to them and spend the first part of your time in market listening.
Meta enters the Learning Phase every time you launch a campaign, and each time a major change is made to budget, creative or targeting.
The learning phase lasts until it records 50 goal conversions since the last major change was made. This is why we recommend investing enough budget to exit the learning phase in 30 days and allowing the system to go untouched until learning is complete.
THE GOOD NEWS: When the Learning Phase is over, your cost per lead becomes more predictable and as efficient.You could build a system to turn your dream customers into new leads for as little as $6.45/day on a $200 monthly budget.
From here, the rest is fairly simple. Build an eye catching ad with great copy, maximize the algorithm (taking advantage of your booming socials) and nurture nurture scale!
And there you have it folks… Social Ads 101!
Feeling excited? You should be!! Turning on social ads is an exciting step for any business, and there truly are endless possibilities within this world.
If that's all TMI for you, though, let Authentic Audience do the heavy work with our revolutionary approach to advertising. Our all-women, expert team will craft a strategy that leverages the best tools and delivers stunning creative content for you and your biz. Together, we’ll create meaningful, lasting connections with your audience.
Lets choose each other. Here's to you!
