What makes a great offer?

What makes a great offer?

Today we’re going to talk about what makes a great offer. 

Sometimes people will ‘blame’ the ads as to why they’re not getting leads or sales but sometimes it’s not the ads - it’s just…well…. Your offer sucks. ;)

An offer could be anything from a free lead magnet (guide, checklist or webinar) to a paid program, course or service but there are 3 elements that are key with making a great offer!

• Effective positioning: How can you solve your ideal clients problem better than your competitors? 

• A time frame: Can you give them a quick win within a certain time frame Example “Get your ads loaded in a weekend!”

• Exceptional value: What else can you offer that will outshine others in your industry? 

We want to make this a ‘no-brainer’ offer for your ideal client to say “YES!” They want a quick win. Ask yourself, what is the ONE thing my ideal clients ask me about? That might just be the perfect offer. 

If your offer is new, you’ll need time (and a little ad spend) to really dial in on the avatar (audience), the messaging, and how it’s presented. If you see high CPMs, high lead costs, low engagement on the ad and low conversion rate it could mean the problem is with your offer. It might not be the ads. Look at your ad metrics and determine where the issue is…..if you think it’s the ads based on the data, change one thing in the ad (creative, copy, headline, audience) and see if that moves the needle. If it doesn’t and you’ve made several changes to your ad, it could mean your offer isn’t something your audience wants.😢

Improving your Ad results 📈

Improving your Ad results 📈

So let’s say that your ads are doing well. Great!

They’re meeting your KPIs and you’re looking to optimize a little. Well, that can be tricky sometimes….we don’t want to mess with what’s working well (I have a ‘no touchy’ rule if ads are performing well!)

When ads are working you’ll want to make sure to scale the budget gently. I generally start with a 20% increase every other day. In addition to that, you want to look at what IS working, put it in a new ad set and see if you can get more and better results. Go to the ad level in the ads manager, look for the button called “Breakdown”. This will allow you to isolate certain things to see what is performing best.

For example, if you select placement - you might find that your best performing ads are on Instagram - so you might want to duplicate that ad set and run the ads to instagram only. Or, maybe you notice that a certain country is performing the best, then you’d do the same and target only that one best performing country.

But note, do NOT turn off the main campaign/ads. The test might not prove to do well so keep the original going! 

Be sure to check out the breakdown feature - it’s pretty neat to see how different placements, devices, creatives, age/gender are performing.

And of course- other ways to optimize is to continue to test test test.

This is the name of the game with Facebook. We can’t just “set it and forget it.” We have to continue to test new creative, copy, images, buttons, headlines for our ads - especially those that are evergreen. But remember, do your testing in a new ad set or campaign and leave the good ones running!

Did you ever play in a sandbox?

Did you ever play in a sandbox?

You might be asking, why I’m asking you about sandbox play - it’s an odd question I know. I never played in a sandbox when I was young…sand…ick….BUT I do encourage it when it comes to Facebook ads. 

Let me explain….

When it comes to Facebook….ahem…Meta…advertising…it’s important to continue to test new things even if your ads are performing well. We have to test new things and see what’s working (and eliminate what isn’t). If we’re working with a limited budget - say $50 a day, we often can’t put 20 ads in one ad set. Facebook just won’t be able to spend the money on all those ads so you’ll never really know what ads performed best because they’re not getting a fair chance, so I run a small test of ads that in what I like to call a ‘sandbox’ campaign. 

Here’s what I do:
Let’s say my client gave 10 versions of ad creative to test and I have about $100 a day to spend. As mentioned, with a small daily budget Facebook just won’t feed out all 10 ads. So I’ll pick 4 that I think will perform best for my ‘main’ campaign and save the others for my sandbox.

I’ll take my ‘testing’ images and create a new campaign using 10% of the daily budget and let them run for about a week to see if one starts to perform best. When I see a ‘winner’ (winner = I’m getting the CPL I want, CTR is over 1% and conversion rate is over 25% ) I’ll move that ad into my ‘main’ campaign and see how it performs there against the other ads. If all is going well I’ll gradually scale that main campaign and keep testing in the sandbox. (Note: Keep the ad in the ‘sandbox’ running. If it’s doing well never shut an ad off!) 

When it comes to running facebook ads, the goal is find ads that are working, scale them and test new ones to keep things fresh - especially for evergreen campaigns. We don’t want to see the frequency metric go over 4 for any one ad. So testing is key! 

Are my Ads Performing Well?

Are my Ads Performing Well?

OK so your ads are running. 

Now what?

Well, we want to make sure you’re getting the results you want, right?

I mean, we’re spending money to grow our list or get sales so we need to make sure our ads are working.

“But Laura, there are so many freaking numbers in there….what metrics should I look at?” 

This is a great question and one I get often. The answer is:

What is the goal of your ad?
Those are the KPIs you want to focus on.

If the goal of your ad is to grow your email list with new subscribers, confirm you are in fact doing that. Check your CRM to see if the amount of leads you see in Facebook's ads manager is the same (or close to) what you see in your CRM.

Then ask yourself - are the lead costs reasonable? Depending on your niche, you could expect to spend $2 - $10 for a lead. My artist clients generally spend $2 to get someone to opt in for a free download. My ads generate $5 leads. It’s just because my niche is a little more competitive than my artist clients. 

The other metrics I’m looking at are:

• CTR (link) - Are they clicking on the ad? We want this to be over 1% for cold traffic and over 2% for warm

• What is the landing page conversion rate? Are they actually opting in once they get over to the landing page? We want this to be over 30%.

Which ads are getting the most leads? What is unique about those ads? Determine what that is and make more of those ads (of course testing in a new ad set so you don’t mess with what’s working). I generally shut off ads  that aren’t getting any ‘love’.

The Dirty Truth About SLOs

The Dirty Truth About SLOs

So, what IS an SLO? 

An SLO is a Self Liquidating Offer. Typically you’ll see them in your newsfeed with low priced products and many people create these funnels with the wrong expectations or incomplete so I thought it important to share some facts today.

If you have an SLO and you’re expecting Facebook to be your ATM while you hit the beach and let the money roll in you will be sorely disappointed. There are some unicorns out there that have made it happen but it’s taken a lot of tweaking, testing and money spent on ads to do so. 

So, first things first. - Keep your expectations in check.
SLOs are Self Liquidating Offers. If you are selling your product, off setting your ad expense and growing your list with buyers it’s doing.it’s.job. 

It wasn’t created to be an ATM machine. 

Second, it’s essential to have additional programs, products and services to offer after the SLO offer to increase your average order value. 

You’re unlikely to become a millionaire from a $27 offer so think about what your product ladder should be to get those buyers in with the tiny offer but upsell them with other products - leading to your main high ticket offer.

At the bare minimum your SLO should have two offers after the front end offer to increase your average order value.

Example:

• Front end offer $47 (we want to see a 3-5% conversion rate here)

• Order Bump: $17 (we want to see 30% of the people taking you up on this offer) 

• One Time Offer: $97 (we want to see 10% of people buying the OTO)

We generally tell clients that they might see a cost per acquisition of $50 to $60 of a $47 offer to get one sale! So yes, you need those bumps to increase your AOV and keep moving people along in your funnel. 

Here’s an example without order bumps or upsells: 

You guess your CPA will be $50.

You spend $100 a day for 7 days = $700. 

Over 7 days you get 10 sales at $47 = $470

So, without any order bumps you’ve spent $700 only to make $470.
 

Now here’s what it would look like with order bumps and upsells: 

You guess your CPA will be $50.

You spend $100 a day for 7 days = $700.

Over 7 days you get 10 sales at $47 = $470

30% take the order bump = $111 ($3x$37)

10% take the OTO = $97 (1 x $97)

That equals $678 so your Average Order Value is $67 ($20 more than the main offer) and you’re a lot closer to break even plus have grown your list with 1 new BUYER. 

You also now know that you can spend up to $67 to get a sale and break even. What you’ll work on next is trying to get your CPA below $50 for even better results. But you won’t know until you start running ads to this offer and see what your CPA is.