10 Lessons I Learned To “Make Bank” With Facebook™ Ads

I’ve Managed Over $2 Million In Profitable Facebook™ Ad Spend. Here are 10 Lessons I Learned along the way:

Lesson #1: People with a “Sales” Mentality outperform people with a “Normal” mentality.

The picture above is of my son Jackson. He’d just sold $420 worth of Cub Scout Popcorn in about 5 hours on a Saturday. I knew this was a big moment, so I snapped this picture.

We’d volunteered to sell Popcorn and I wanted to get it all sold that day. I knew if we dilly-dallied, then it would take weeks to sell that popcorn. Even worse, I risked suffering the embarrassment of having to bring back any unsold popcorn. And I wasn’t having that.

So, I pushed Jackson to sell. And, we were lucky enough to discover a great sales strategy that sold most of the popcorn in less than an hour. As you can see, people who are deliberate and focused on making sales… are going to make more sales.

And the same thing happens in business. For example, a couple of years ago, I took over the Media Buying and Email List Management for a client. I pushed as hard as I could to grow sales. And…

My new ads and improved Media Buying helped my biggest client grow revenue by about 70% year over year. And, this was for an established, multi-million dollar company.

I foolishly thought another person could do as good of a job as me. And, I wanted to focus 100% on copywriting – because that’s the biggest driver of sales. So, the client hired a new media buyer to take over. The next month sales dropped 21%. It wasn’t the season or IOS14.

I think it was because the person didn’t have a “sales” mindset. They looked at Media Buying as “my job is to spend money”, whereas I looked at it as “my job is to get sales.”

Anyways… let’s continue.

Lesson #2: You can’t micromanage a “loser” ad into a “winning” ad.

It’s true. No amount of media buying management can turn a loser into a winner. The ad either works, or it doesn’t. End of story. Ok, let’s continue…

Lesson #3: The Fastest Way to improve results is better images & ad copy.

I’ve tried every hack and trick in the book to improve FB Ad results: CBO, ABO, Revealbot, Retargeting, Lead Ads, Video Ads, building New Funnels, Webinars, Lead Magnets, Trip Wires, and much more. What I discovered shocked me…

The #1 Thing that increases sales with Facebook Ads is: High-Converting Ad Copy and Images. That’s why you’re better off with great ads and an average media buyer than average ads and a great media buyer.

Lesson #3. Here are the fastest and easiest ways to profitably scale your Facebook™ Ads:

• The #1 fastest way to scale your ads is Image Scaling. Simply run your same ad copy but with new images, Gifs, etc. Email me for details. I can for this for you.🙌🏼

• The #2 fastest way to scale your ads is New Audiences. Here’s an easy way to expand your audience. Remove all targeting options and let Facebook pick your audience. I’ll admit, it’s scary as heck. But, it’s worked for 3 of my clients. If you have an established ad account with a trained pixel, then test it out.

• The #3 fastest way to scale your ads is New Ads. And, I can create those new ads for you. (Contact me for more information.)

• The #4 fastest way to scale your ads is New Hooks for existing sales funnels and webinars. If you want more info on how this works, then contact me.

• The #5 fastest way to scale your ads is Completely New Sales Funnels and Webinars.

Lesson #4: The Facebook™ Media Buying Strategies that do work.

Nothing is set in stone. But, in my experience, these are things you should definitely try.

• When your ads, sales funnels, or offers fatigue, turn them off for 30-60 days and then turn them back on. (This is why you need more ads and sales funnels.)

• Dynamic Ads are amazing! I explain why in my next lesson, Lesson #4.

• Lifetime budgets tend to work better than daily budgets. I’m a huge fan of them because they’re the only way to do dayparting.

• Dayparting works. I saved one client about 15% by reducing spend on Friday Afternoon and over the weekend. For another client, it didn’t make any difference.

• CBO saves you a lot of time. I haven’t seen ABO increase results enough to make up for the time required to manage your ad sets by hand.

• Some clients get better results with video ads, while others get better results with Image Ads. It all depends on your market and how good you are at creating video ads. And since image ads are soo much easier to create, I prefer them. But, I’m not against video ads.

• Retargeting simply didn’t work for 2 of my clients. For a third client, it works great. Test it.

Ok, let’s continue.

Lesson #5: Use Dynamic Ads for testing to find winning images and copy fast.

Dynamic ads are a gift from the Marketing Gods. They’re amazing, and I’m shocked that more marketers don’t use them. Being able to test multiple images and versions of ad copy all at once is awesome.

Here’s a real-life example of how split testing made one person millions. Remember Tim Ferriss and the 4-Hour Work Week? Originally, he was going to title the book: Dealing Drugs for Fun and Profit! And, if he had done that, I doubt he’d be as well known!

But, he ran Google Ads to test out different titles for the book. He noticed The 4-Hour Work Week converted way better on Google Ads. So, he picked that title and the rest is history. Today, his net worth is estimated to be $100 Million – and a lot of that is because of that one split test!

When I test out new ads and images, I don’t just launch a single new image. I like to load 5 new images into a Dynamic Ad and sometimes 1 image will be big winner. So, start using Dynamic ads to test out all sorts of different images and copy fast. It works!

Lesson #6: The Facebook™ Media Buying Strategies that did not work for me.

Nothing is set in stone. But, these things did not improve results for me. They may work for you.

• Lead ads haven’t worked for most of my clients. Why not is a big conversation.

• Revealbot didn’t improve results compared to CBO. So, I recommend CBO instead.

• ABO didn’t work for me. It didn’t get better results than CBO and it required more time to manage.

Lesson #7: Create ads that do NOT look like an ad. (Banner Blindness.)

If you don’t know what Banner Blindness is, then Google it. My best ads use cell phone images, memes, and stock photos that don’t look like a “Stock” Photo.

For example, I once launched a new meme ad for my client that saved them over $30,000 in Ad Spend over the next 90 days. This one meme drove the cost per sale down by about 30% and simply crushed. Since then, that meme has been their #1 Image EVER – out of hundreds of images.

Here’s how to Combat Banner Blindness.

• Don’t use “Stock Looking” Photos. Yes, I use Stock Photos all the time. But, I try to avoid the cliche ads with people smiling like freaking morons.

• Make your videos look like organic content. Film them while you’re taking a walk. Driving. Drinking a beer. Living your life. The more “organic” it looks, the better.

Lesson #8: Negative “Pain” Ads work.

This is where you talk about the reader’s pain and then offer a solution. 3 of my top 10 best-converting ads EVER were “negative” pain ads.

For example, I recently created 6 winnings ads for one of the world’s best marketers. The top 2 best-converting ads were… Pain Ads.🤔

Here are two reasons these ads work:

1. Most people don’t take action until they’re in pain. For example, last year I wasn’t sleeping well. I knew I needed to go mattress shopping, but I kept putting it off. I’m busy with work, kids, goals, etc.

Finally, when the pain got too bad, I went mattress shopping and bought a new mattress. But, it wasn’t until I was in a lot of pain that I took action.

2. A lot of people get no empathy for their pain. They get told to stop complaining. “Oh, your job sucks. Mine sucks too. So shut up man,” they’re told. So, when they finally get a little empathy, they feel heard. Bill Clinton got elected because he said “I feel your pain.”

But, empathy only sucks them into the ad and builds rapport. After that, you have to “twist the knife.” You want them to relive the pain and remember exactly how bad it was. When you do this, they’ll feel incredibly motivated to fix their problem.

So, what happens next? They click and take action on their offer. Yes, I know this makes me sound a little “dark” and crazy. But, clients don’t care when they’re making millions of dollars.

One last thing. Yes, I know these ads are technically against Facebook’s Advertising Rules. (I’ve read every one of their policies dozens of times.) But, 4 of my clients have run them with no problems. And, they were huge winners.

Here’s why these ads don’t get shut down. You’re offering some empathy to people who are hungry for it. They feel unheard like nobody cares. And when you finally “hear them,” it’s a relief.

Lesson #9: Monetize the heck out of your email list.

Your email list can be 30-40% of your total sales. I’m shocked at how many great marketers left money on the table by not emailing – only to start emailing when IOS14 came out.

If you’re not monetizing your email list, then you’re CAC will be 60-70% higher than someone who does monetize their email list. I’ve managed email lists that bring in millions of dollars of sales every year. So, I know quite a bit about email marketing. At a minimum, you should be doing all of this:

• Emailing daily and sometimes multiple times a day.
  
• Telling stories. Some of my best emails told exciting, “in the trenches” stories.

Lesson #10: Short-term hacks will always lose to long-term strategy.

A one-time “Hail Mary” Hack won’t fix your sales. So, stop trying to “hack” your way to success. And instead, focus on improving your ads, funnels, offers, sales emails, back-end offers, upsells, downsells, product, customer service, reducing churn, etc.

OK, let’s wrap up. I hope this information was helpful. Do you want more sales?

The easiest way to get more sales from Facebook is to have me create new, high-converting ads for you. Interested? Contact me to discover how I can do all the work for you to get you more sales… and profits.

Thanks for reading.