“Do Facebook Ads really work?”
I get asked this question ALL. THE. TIME.
My answer? A resounding YES — if you have the right training/expertise, funnels, and strategies in place.
There’s no magic bullet, or magic ad, that will suddenly make your campaigns profitable… BUT when you approach Facebook Ads holistically, and really take the time to implement and optimize all of the different moving pieces needed to make your campaigns a success (think: the right targeting, the right copy, an enticing lead magnet, effective email automation, etc.), CRAZY WILD ROI on a reasonable spend is absolutely possible.
Take, for example, my client Monica. She approached me earlier this year for help with filling her high-ticket event. Participants would be paying $2500 to attend an in-person workshop, and the event was just six weeks away. Challenge. Accepted.
$750 in Facebook ad spend later, we had butts in seats and $30K in sales. (and a very happy Monica)
The focus of the campaign was to drive both cold (ie new audiences) and warm (ie website visitors) audiences to register for a free webinar training where the focus was simply delivering So. Much. Value.
At the end of each live webinar (we did 4 over the course of 1 month), the client pitched the big ticket event, providing fantastic social proof and testimonials from past events. Then we created retargeting campaigns for the participants who didn’t jump at the offer right away, following them around Facebook with a reminder to buy, and even more social proof (we used video testimonials in these ad units).
These aren’t guaranteed results, but the process can be duplicated. My client had a fantastic product and provided a ton of value — the best Facebook Ad campaign in the world won’t mean a thing without this as your baseline. Our Facebook ad strategy simply allowed her to get in front of the exact right people, and nurture them (gently, but with urgency!) until they were ready to buy. Want to know exactly how we did it?
All the testing. On all the ads.
We tested images. We tested copy. We tested audiences. We ran the webinar and tested out retargeting campaigns. Then we did it all again the next week, for the next weekly webinar, making constant tweaks and changes to ensure that we were only spending money on what was driving results.
We let our audiences tell us what worked, and made it work for us. By using the results/data and listening to the audience, we drove down the cost per webinar registration to just $1.14 per person (down from $10). The lower this cost, the more people in your funnel, and the more opportunity for conversion (ie sales).
We used retargeting to warm up our leads.
Our weekly webinar ads provided a great solution for bringing new people into my client’s universe. And our retargeting ads made sure these potential fans didn’t forget about my client.
This didn’t happen overnight, either. Buyers need to percolate on a big spend and they need time to do it. Our campaign was over a full month, so they had an opportunity to contemplate as well as be reminded a few times. That’s the power of retargeting — chase ‘em until they buy! (Just kidding. Sort of).
Build momentum and create scarcity.
Our copy on the ads and the content of the weekly webinars all built momentum toward the event. Our captions were as specific as possible, identifying who would benefit and how. We used social proof and testimonials on our most popular ads, in order to demonstrate that attendance was the key to success.
Scarcity is often an illusion, but no less important of a sales tactic. In this campaign, we really did have limited seats available at both the free webinars and at the high-ticket main event (Monica prides herself on keeping these events small and intimate).
How YOU can generate a 3,900% ROI.
While this strategy is fairly simply and even somewhat common, success lies in the execution. There’s no set-it-and-forget-it or cookie-cutter solution when it comes to Facebook Ads. Even though my client was crystal clear on her ideal client and messaging, we still spent hours strategically testing everything from targeting parameters, to optimization settings, to exactly what that teeny tiny call-to-action button at the bottom of the ad says. But clearly, it was worth it. Hello, 3390% ROI.
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