Are your Facebook Ads strategy ready for Black Friday? 

This is THE time of the year when shopaholics are hunting for the best offers, so you need to make sure your Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads campaigns are ready to attract hungry buyers. 

So, do you have your Black Friday Facebook Ads strategies all planned out? No? Well, you’d better get on that, because the big day is just around the corner! 

With so many changes to how we advertise on Facebook and Instagram in a post-iOS world, the Meta algorithm is going through some growing pains of its own. So, how can you be sure you’re setting your ads for success? Well, we talked to ACTUAL engineers at Meta and created a checklist with everything you need to have your target audience open their wallets for you!

7 Meta Tips & Updates You Need to Know BEFORE Creating Black Friday

#1. 20 is the New 50

Everyone has heard that an ad set needs at least 50 conversions in a 7-day period. And yes, that was true a while ago, but now things have changed. 

In the past, the Facebook Ads Learning Phase ended when, in a 7-day period, an ad set reached 50 events (whether it is conversions, lead gen, landing page views, etc). However, the Meta Ads Manager has evolved and improved. Now to exit the learning phase for optimization, your campaigns need 20 completed events in a 7-day period.

What does that mean? 

Now, a campaign can leave the Learning Phase after it reaches 20 events, again, depending on the objectives you select. The algorithm will gather data until that time to help you make better decisions in a simplified, quicker way, and make it easier for you to be successful on the platform. 

But what happens if my campaign doesn’t achieve that goal? Then, after the 7-day period *and not a minute before*, you can edit your campaign to optimize it! The algorithm will still learn based on successful events, but to hit true Meta Ad success velocity, you’ll want to consider increasing your budget so that you can achieve the 20 events Meta needs your campaign to hit for optimization in a 7-day period.

#2. Keep Your Cold & Warm Audiences Separated

Let’s think of our cold and warm audiences like a dating process. 

Cold traffic is like when you’re interested in someone you don’t know and want them to swipe right back at you. Your profile pic and information is all they have on you to make a snap judgment decision on whether they’ll engage in a convo and maybe give you their number.  

This is the same for an IG ad. They have 1-3 seconds MAX to decide whether or not your ad is worth ‘swiping right’ via engaging with your content by stopping their scroll. 

Meanwhile, our warm traffic is geared to those that have already engaged with your profile and is either mid-convo or mid-first date. Like a Facebook ad, you’ve already captured their attention, and now you’re ‘courting’ them. Asking them to get to know you more and ideally make some sort of commitment. With dating, you’ll want to ‘make it official’ and with ads you want that lead or purchase! 

They’re totally different, right? 

• Cold Traffic’s primary goal is to get them to swipe right or engage with your content (and maybe purchase!)
• Warm Traffic’s primary goal is to get them converted into being Facebook officials by subscribing to your list and actually purchasing a product

When you blend warm and cold audiences in your campaigns, you’re giving the algorithm the chance to favor warm audiences as they’re more likely to convert to a more cost-effective bidding strategy. This means, using our last example, that it’s more likely for someone that already had a first date with you to say “yes” to a second date because they already know you. Thus slimming down the chance of new swipes showing up on your feed.

Taking this into account, at the top level of your campaign, for cold audiences, you’re teaching the Meta Ads algorithm which cold audiences are yielding conversions. A successful conversion sends a signal to the platform to find more humans like the user who just converted. 

When you’re using cold audiences in a campaign, and excluding warm ones, you’re forcing the platform to find new people *aka people that don’t know anything about your product/service* that will make the desired conversion event.

Should you blend the audiences and include warm audiences in the campaign, Meta will favor the warmer audience time and time again because an abandoned cart purchaser is more likely to convert than someone who doesn’t yet know, like, or trust your offer. 

And Meta is always optimizing for the easier (more cost-effective) win in their algorithm.

That’s why at Mongoose Media we recommend not mixing these audiences in the same campaign. When you throw cold and warm audiences together you’re not teaching the algorithm to specifically find new prospects, you’re asking your algorithm to find the best buyers possible, allowing it to cheat and deliver the ads to people that already know who you are. So, instead, build a campaign for prospecting and another for retargeting warm traffic. 

#3. Know What CPA You’re Willing to Pay for Your Cold & Warm Audiences

The algorithm is listening to you, so you have to tell it exactly what you want. And this applies to anything you set up in Facebook Ads, but it is especially important for the CPA.

Let’s suppose that you are willing to pay $85 per CPA (cost per acquisition) for a skincare customer, but you capped the bid budget at $75. In this case, the algorithm doesn’t have the means to know that you have more money than what you put, so you’ll be forcing it to optimize your ads for a $75 budget. Which can mean you’re limiting your audience reach to forced CPAs that fit within your lower budget. Meaning, you’re missing out on potential customers that you’d be willing to pay for but your bidding strategies say otherwise.

Why is this so crucial? Because there may be better people with potentially higher order value or propensity to purchase available to you, but because you told the algorithm that $75 is your spend limit, your ad may not reach those people. 

Bear this in mind: if your CPA is too high, it will eat into your profits. Conversely, if your CPA is too low, you could be missing out on potential customers. 

Additionally, every day we get closer to Black Friday is a day that the auction experiences additional new competitors to the marketplace and more auction pressure that you’re competing against. So, start thinking about your CPA before the big day approaches. 

{important dates graphic: September 20th, the soft pressure increase in a ‘pre-Black Friday auction’. October 15th – the unofficial kickoff for Black Friday and the D-Day for heavy auction bids. November 15th – consider using different Meta objectives cause everyone and their grandmothers are doing ads.}

And, if you’re not sure what your CPA should be, working with a qualified Meta Ads consultant can help you to set a realistic CPA for your business!

NOTE: Your WARM CPA and COLD CPA should be different.

#4. Your Ads are a Marathon, Not a Place to Bet on Horses

I know that it is very tempting to look at your ad campaigns and ads like they are competing in a horse race. But you’re not betting on a pony, you’re marketing your products or services, so there’s no rush. 

What I mean is that even though you may want to perform a gazillion changes every time you check your ads statics and something seems off, you need to let it rest! As I said above, the Facebook Ads Learning Phase covers a 7-day period; however, if you edit your ad every other day, what will happen is that the time period will restart with every change and your campaign will be stuck in the Learning Phase *sounds like time traveling, right?*. 

Plus, you won’t be giving the algorithm enough time to optimize your campaign! Simply put, let’s suppose you launched your ad on a Monday, but by Wednesday you don’t get any of the results you wanted, so you turn it off. But, what you don’t realize is that, in a 7-day period, the algorithm is working to understand your campaign, so it may take time to reach your target audience and generate conversions. 

And don’t worry! 

Everyone is tempted to edit or stop a campaign when it is not achieving what we want! In fact, at Mongoose Media we used to make that decision after a 4-day period. However, we realized that, by doing this, we were potentially wasting the effort the algorithm is making to optimize a campaign, so now we wait a full 7 days before touching anything. 

So, walk away and go back in a week… But wait, there are a few things you need to be mindful of before you sit back and relax. Here’s a quick ads checklist

• Tracking: 

For Facebook Ads to be effective, it is essential that you have your tracking set up correctly. Without tracking, you will have no way of knowing whether your ads are succeeding or failing during the Holiday season. 

• Creatives: 

During Black Friday, brands compete for consumers’ attention with ads that are often loud, colorful, and eye-catching. As a result, it’s important to make sure that your ads are designed to be thumb-stopping.

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One way to do this is to start working on your ad creatives well in advance of Black Friday. This will give you time to experiment with different designs and ensure that your advertising campaigns are truly eye-catching. 

• Winning offer

Have you already put some thoughts into your Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals? It is important to craft a must-click offer that your specific audience is going to love. 

Remember that Facebook, unlike Amazon, is like walking into the mall during the holiday season. There are a lot of options you can pick and different offers that sound appealing, so, with many competitors out there, it is important to create deals that really persuade your audience!

• Work within a comfortable budget

Have a budget that you’re comfortable spending daily with a long-term goal of success. If you’re coming to Meta ads for a silver bullet, a single solution in your company’s bottom line, you better have a budget to back up the investment for data and the algorithm to find your target audience.

Meta Ads are great to-scale offers that work and as a discovery tool for new audiences. When Meta Ads stand on their own without a cohesive marketing plan for omnichannel remarketing, subscriber engagement, and more, expect to pay high acquisition costs to cover your marketing gaps. 

{Meta Ads on a CVJ image? Meta ads drive awareness, meta ads help subscriber acquisition, Meta Ads can drive excitement and loyalty, but Meta Ads aren’t Atlas, holding the weight of the company alone – that’s my graphic recommendation…. People think Meta Ads are the Atlas holding the world, but instead, it’s the offer that’s atlas and Meta is the muscle on the one bicep only}

#5. The Algorithm Assumes the Data is True

This may sound like a no-brainer, but it is important to understand that the algorithm can’t read your mind, so it learns from the data you give it. 

That’s why it is so important to be mindful about what you tell it. From your target audience to your ad spend, that algorithm will take everything you put as a fact and, if you’re not careful, it can affect your campaign negatively.

#6. Advantage+ Placements & Advantage Campaign Budget & Why They Matter

Placements are also known as the different platforms on which Meta can show your ad. An example of this is running your ads on Instagram, Facebook, or Messenger.

In this case, choosing multiple placements is a great idea if you want your ads to reach your target audience across different platforms. Meta’s platform is going to try and serve your ads on the placement your targeted audience is most likely going to engage and convert.

Taking this into account, by using Advantage+ placements, you’ll be allowing Meta to find the best conversion opportunities for your ad in all the placements.

This not only will help you to get the optimization events at a low cost (because Meta’s delivery system will analyze the data from all available placements and choose placements that are both cost-effective and high-performing) but also will help you make the most out of your campaign budget!

Another way of automating your campaign is by using the Advantage Campaign Budget. This is a feature that allows Meta to distribute your budget depending on the placements where each ad set will get the most optimization events at a low cost. 

With both features, you can make sure that your budget is effectively invested, Advantage+ placements and Advantage Campaign Budget are godsend help during the Black Friday season

#7. Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns

If you were looking for a way to increase your campaign’s performance without having to stick to your computer 24/7, the new Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, launched on August 15, 2022, is quickly becoming my favorite new roll out from Meta. This new Meta product can automate an entire ad campaign with machine learning, so you can focus more on the general aspects of your online store and less on managing campaigns.

Just imagine being able to automate EVERYTHING from creatives and placements to audiences. With Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns you can maximize your ads’ performance throughout the Black Friday weekend (and beyond) without all the manual work it used to require. 

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns allow business owners and paid media buyers to use AI to automate a campaign from end to end and make the best out of their ad budget by finding the best placements in which your ad will get the most conversion events at a lower cost.

And, if that wasn’t enough, this new feature can also automate creatives to analyze which ones are more effective in a specific audience! 

Finally, if you have a Facebook or Instagram Shop, Meta is using AI to drive traffic to the most converting destination for your eCommerce store. Either your in-platform store (FB or IG shop) or your website, depending on which one will generate the most optimization events in a certain audience! 

There’s nothing you can’t achieve with this tool and, even though it’s still in its Beta version, acting on it now will give your campaigns a lift as most other brands and advertisers aren’t taking advantage of this new campaign!

What’s the Best Time to Run Facebook Ads for Black Friday?

As soon as possible! Taking into account that you have to wait for the Learning Phase 7-day window, help the algorithm understand and optimize your campaign, and make edits if necessary, at Mongoose Media we recommend our clients to start their Black Friday Facebook Ads campaigns between July and September. 

However, this doesn’t mean that you should have launched your sale months ago! What you should have done is launch campaigns to find your audience and build a warm list.

The idea is to build a list of buyers that want your product/service and are eager to get a good deal, so you can offer them early access or another offer if they signup or register ahead of the big day. 

Why is this so important? Because even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday may seem like a weekend events, more and more people start craving good deals and offers even before November starts, so it is crucial *and cheaper* to start warming up your traffic early

But wait! If you’re reading this in October/November, that doesn’t mean everything is lost. You just need to be mindful that, when you launch your Facebook ad campaign, there’s going to be a lot more auction pressure. 

Ready to Start Preparing for a Successful Black Friday?

Planning your Black Friday campaigns with time is the key to not only crafting profitable ads that catch the attention of your target audience and persuade them to click the “Buy now” button, but it also helps the algorithm understand your brand and put your deal in front of the right people. And now you have a checklist with everything that has changed in Facebook Ads and you need to keep it in mind to set your campaigns up for success. 

Do you feel already overwhelmed with all the preparations pre-Black Friday? Fear not, you’ve come to the right place! At Mongoose Media we have a team of Facebook experts, copywriters, designers, and strategists that will help you with the planning while you worry about running your business!

So, meet with us and start your journey to a successful Black Friday Facebook Ads strategy!

The post 7 Things You Need to Do AHEAD of Your Black Friday Facebook Ads According to Meta appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Ad fraud is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, the latest data indicates that it will cost businesses a colossal €120 billion by 2023. But even more worrying is that fraudsters’ tactics are becoming so sophisticated that even big-name companies such as Uber, Procter & Gamble, and Verizon have been victims of ad fraud in recent years. 

So what does this mean for the rest of the industry? The answer is simple: every ad company, no matter their size or budget is just as at risk as the big guns – if not more. 

In this article, I summarize some of the biggest and most shocking cases of ad fraud we’ve witnessed over recent years and notably, what vital lessons marketers and advertisers can learn from them to avoid wasting their own budgets. 

The biggest ad fraud cases in recent years 

From fake clicks and click flooding to bad bots and fake ad impressions, fraudsters have and will go to any lengths to siphon critical dollars from your ad budgets.

Let’s take a look at some of the most high-profile and harmful ad fraud cases of recent years that have impacted some of the most well-known brands around the world. 

Methbot: $5 million a day lost through fake video views 

In 2016, Aleksandr Zhukov, the self-proclaimed “King of Fraud”, and his group of fraudsters were discovered to have been making between $3 and $5 million a day by executing fake clicks on video advertisements. 

Oft-cited as the biggest digital ad fraud operation ever uncovered, “Methbot” was a sophisticated botnet scheme that involved defrauding brands by enabling countless bots to watch 300 million video ads per day on over 6000 spoofed websites. 

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Due to the relatively high cost-per-mille (CPM) for video ads, Aleksandr and his group were able to steal millions of dollars a day by targeting high-value marketplaces. Some of the victims of the Methbot fraud ring include The New York Times, The New York Post, Comcast, and Nestle.

In late 2021, Aleksandr Zhukov was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay over $3.8 million in restitution. 

Uber: $100 million wasted in ad spend 

In another high-profile case, transportation giant Uber filed a lawsuit against five ad networks in 2019 – Fetch, BidMotion, Taptica, YouAppi, and AdAction Interactive – and won. 

Uber claimed that its ads were not converting, and ultimately discovered that roughly two-thirds of its ad budget ($100 million) wasn’t needed. This was on account of ad retargeting companies that were abusing the system by creating fraudulent traffic. 

The extent of the ad fraud was discovered when the company cut $100 million in ad spend and saw no change in the number of rider app installs. 

In 2020, Uber also won another lawsuit against Phunware Inc. when they discovered that the majority of Uber app installations that the company claimed to have delivered were produced by the act of click flooding. 

Criteo: Claims sues competitor for allegedly running a damaging counterfeit click fraud scheme 

In 2016, Criteo, a retargeting and display advertising network, claimed that competitor Steelhouse (now known as MNTM) ran a click fraud scheme against Criteo in a bid to damage the company’s reputation and to fraudulently take credit for user visits to retailers’ web pages. 

Criteo filed a lawsuit claiming that due to Steelhouse’s alleged actions — the use of bots and other automated methods to generate fake clicks on shoe retailer TOMS’ ads — Criteo ultimately lost TOMS as a client. Criteo has accused Steelhouse of carrying out this type of ad fraud in a bid to prove that Steelhouse provided a more effective service than its own. 

Twitter: Elon Musk claims that the platform hosts a high number of inauthentic accounts 

In one of the biggest and most tangled tech deals in recent history, the Elon Musk and Twitter saga doesn’t end with Twitter taking Musk to court for backing out of an agreement to buy the social media giant for $44 billion.

In yet another twist, Musk has also claimed that Twitter hid the real number of bots and fake accounts on its platform. He has also accused the company of fraud by alleging that these accounts make up around 10% of Twitter’s daily active users who see ads, essentially meaning that 65 million of Twitter’s 229 million daily active users are not seeing them at all. 

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6 Lessons marketers can learn from these high-profile ad fraud cases 

All of these cases demonstrate that ad fraud is a pervasive and ubiquitous practice that has incredibly damaging and long-lasting effects on even the most well-known brands around the world. 

The bottom line is this: Marketers and advertisers can no longer afford to ignore ad fraud if they’re serious about reaching their goals and objectives. Here are some of the most important lessons and takeaways from these high-profile cases. 

1. No one is safe from ad fraud 

Everyone — from small businesses to large corporations like Uber — is affected by ad fraud. Plus, fraudsters have no qualms over location: no matter where in the world you operate, you are susceptible to the consequences of ad fraud. 

2. Ad fraud is incredibly hard to detect using manual methods

Fraudsters use a huge variety of sneaky techniques and channels to scam and defraud advertisers, which means ad fraud is incredibly difficult to detect manually. This is especially true if organizations don’t have the right suggestions and individuals dedicated to tracking and monitoring the presence of ad fraud. 

Even worse, when organizations do have teams in place monitoring ad fraud, they are rarely experts, and cannot properly pore through the sheer amount of data that each campaign produces to accurately pinpoint it.

3. Ad fraud wastes your budget, distorts your data, and prevents you from reaching your goals

Ad fraud drains your budget significantly, which is a huge burden for any company. However, there are also other ways it impacts your ability to deliver results. 

For example, fake clicks and click bots lead to skewed analytics, which means that when you assess advertising channels and campaigns based on the traffic and engagement they receive, you’re actually relying on flawed data to make future strategic decisions. 

Finally – and as a result of stolen budgets and a reliance on flawed data – your ability to reach your goals is highly compromised. 

4. You’re likely being affected by ad fraud already, even if you don’t know it yet

As seen in many of these cases, massive amounts of damage were caused because the brands weren’t aware that they were being targeted by fraudsters. Plus, due to the lack of awareness surrounding ad fraud in general, it’s highly likely that you’re being affected by ad fraud already. 

5. You have options to fight the effects of ad fraud  

Luckily, as demonstrated by these cases, there are some options available to counteract the impact and losses caused by ad fraud, such as requesting a refund or even making a case to sue. In such cases, ad fraud detection solutions are extremely useful to uncover ad fraud and gather evidence. 

6. But the best option is to prevent ad fraud from the get-go

The best ad fraud protection is ad fraud prevention. The only surefire way to stop fraudsters from employing sophisticated fraud schemes and attacking your campaigns is by implementing equally sophisticated solutions. Anti-ad fraud software solutions that use machine learning and artificial intelligence help you keep fraud at bay, enabling you to focus on what matters: optimizing your campaigns and hitting your goals. 

The post The Biggest Ad Fraud Cases and What We Can Learn From Them appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Essentially an empathy map is a process where you’re going to actually work, talk about, or discuss and document someone else’s point of view.

It’s their perspective, it’s their belief system, it’s their emotions, it’s their worldview.

We are trying to dial all of these components to build a foundation for everything we’re going to be doing on the advertising side.

Advertising Costs Money, Right?

Since advertising costs money (lots of money in some cases), you want to be able to try and do your utmost to hit the mark as quickly as you can out of the gate. This is where a lot of the greatest click-through rates will come when you understand what the process is.

It allows you to go beyond superficial stuff, and really try and get an understanding of what your client’s environment is like at the moment.

For example, I was talking to a client in the divorce space, a highly emotional area, but in this case, it was from the woman’s perspective.

What is actually going on within this particular circumstance that a woman could be in? It was particularly insightful to understand what their daily worldview looked like so we could get inside what’s really going on.

What Does “Getting Inside” a Worldview Mean?

It focuses on six main questions:

• What does she see here?
• What does she think?
• What does she say?
• What does she do?
• What is her pain?
• What is the gain she’s looking for?

Again, it’s all about going through this in an interactive process, which we’re going to do today to understand what it is.

For example, what does she see? What does it look like? What does this problem look like? What is it? What surrounds her from day to day? What kind of office is she seeing? What kind of research? What kind of things is she looking at on YouTube? What problems does she actually encounter with what she sees? Where’s the conflict going on inside her mind? What does she hear? This is what her family says. This is what her friends say. Who is really influencing her, in her day to day? Is it the internal chatterbox? If so, what is that internal chatterbox telling her?

We’re all trying to figure out as much as possible because you can’t possibly interview a 100 or 400 people unless you have an epic market research budget. But you don’t need to!

You can find a lot of these answers just by doing some online research.

Where to Conduct Market Research

For example, YouTube. YouTube is a fantastic resource. Other resources where you can find this kind of information are Facebook Groups. If you just plug yourself into the right Facebook groups, you’ll find out information about what’s really going on.

You would be shocked at how many people have their own Facebook Groups for their business and don’t actually read the conversations that are going on them, even though they could tell you exactly what the pain points are of the people in their business.

If you don’t have a Facebook Group going, no problem.

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All you have to do is put any keyword into the search bar in Facebook, no matter what industry you’re in, and add yourself to the group and just go look for an hour at the things that people say and the questions that they ask. It will write your copy for you.

Again, you’re doing your utmost to try and figure out what’s really going on in your ideal customer’s mind, right? What’s, what’s really going on? What’s important to her? Try to imagine her motions, this is the important one. What moves her? What moves him forward?

What is happening at the emotional, core, gut, and amygdala types of emotion? What does she think? What is she looking for? What’s really driving? What’s in their dreams and aspirations?

Pay particular attention to any conflict that might be going on. Again, conflict is giving a sign that there’s a sort of yin and yang situation, where the perfect avatar is being pulled in one direction or the other.

Often, for example, in an agency, one of the things you would say is they are frightened of looking like an idiot in terms of making a mistake in the decision. If that’s what they’re feeling, that could be the environment that they’re working in, particularly in a larger company.

Again, the big obvious ones in there are:

• What is their pain?
• What are their biggest frustrations?
• What are the things that are stopping them from moving forward?

That’s going to give you examples of tripwires that you can use in your marketing, particularly on your funnel side.

What Risks is Your Target Customer Facing?

What are the risks your client is facing? What’s the number one risk that they might fear taking on?

That may be just one hook or one angle that you can use within an ad that will make the difference between a 0.5% click-through rate and a 2% click-through rate.

When we have people who come in and focus on weight loss, for example, the average weight loss ad that we see is something along the lines of:

“Hey, do you wanna lose five to 10 pounds in the next 90 days with having to change your diet?”

That’s a standard sort of lead-in on a weight loss ad.

When we actually go through an exercise like this and we say, “Are you sick and tired of walking into your closet and having that little black dress that you haven’t put on in 2 and 1/2 years, staring you in the face saying, “I miss you. When are we gonna get back together? When are you gonna be able to wear me again?”

I want to be the person that I was three years ago. I wanna look and feel like the best of my abilities, but gosh, that little black dress just stays on that closet shelf year after year after year, reminding me of what I used to be.

All of a sudden, you have a completely different conversation. That’s a completely different conversation in their mind around the frustration of that little black dress mocking them every single day they walked in their closet. One of those is facts and figures.

One of them is a punch right in the solar plexus, and when you can write with a punch right to the solar plexus and get inside the conversation that’s happening in their mind, that’s the difference.

The post How to Use Empathy Mapping for Epically Effective Ads appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

The world is full of strategies for media buying. Here’s one for coaches and consultants that is simple AND it works.

Hassan Bash is a DigitalMarketer Certified Partner and the owner of Bash Revenue. Since 2014 he’s been helping companies increase their revenue by crafting user-friendly marketing funnels. 

Here is Hassan’s simple 4-step process to get started with paid advertising.

• Step 1: Get to know your customer avatar.
• Step 2: Create an irresistible offer.
• Step 3: Set a budget and test.
• Step 4: Layout your sales process step-by-step.

In this video:

If you don’t know THIS about your target audience, do you really even know them? 0:25 – 0:33

This is the name of the game for a successful paid media strategy. 00:46 – 00:56

The ONE thing coaches and consultants leave out of the equation. 1:21 – 1:29

Helpful resources:

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Turn clicks into customers with a professional VSL. Learn more https://www.digitalmarketer.com/workshop/craft-a-high-converting-vsl/

Master the art of the sales funnel. https://www.digitalmarketer.com/certifications/conversion-funnel-mastery/

The post A Better Strategy for Media Buying with Hassan Bash [VIDEO] appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

The Ad Grid is the method DigitalMarketer uses to increase our ad success rate 20 times over.
It’s how we plan, test, and measure paid traffic campaigns. It’s the way we organize and systemize our traffic strategy.

The Ad Grid takes the guess work out of creating an ad campaign.
It looks like this:

But, the Ad Grid is much more than a spreadsheet… the real power is the process that goes along with the grid.
Systemizing a strategic process is tough. Systemizing the creation of an entire traffic campaign is nearly impossible. But, after 3 years, we’ve developed a 7-step system we’ll share with you today.
At DigitalMarketer, we follow this 7-Step Plan no matter the product or the traffic platform because it works.
The Ad Grid is applicable to ANY business OR traffic platform.
Today, you’ll get all our inside details on the Ad Grid including, but not limited to…

• How we stopped creating “one-hit wonder” campaigns across ad platforms…
• How to achieve scale and move prospects through the customer journey…
• How we create high converting campaigns…
• How to systemize your traffic strategy – whether that means outsourcing, or having an internal traffic team…
• How to create a congruent market to message match…

Even better — we’re showing you a real campaign we launched at DigitalMarketer using this exact 7-step strategy. You’ll get the Avatars, the Hooks, the copy — everything.
Let’s first talk about the trap you’re susceptible to falling into if you’re not utilizing the Ad Grid. It’s one we’ve fallen into plenty, and one we want you to avoid. It’s…

The Dreaded One-Hit Wonder Campaign

One-hit wonder campaigns come about when marketers just make ads.
But there’s a problem with just making ads. It leaves you open to creating “one-off” ad campaigns without a system or a plan.
The one-hit wonder, if you will.
One-hit wonder campaigns usually target one or 2 different audiences, may test a few different images or copy variations, and that’s pretty much it…
…the person on the other side of the computer expects to launch this type of traffic campaign and BAM… sales and leads will start pouring in.
But, most of the time they don’t. And, if they do… the campaign is only successful for a few days or weeks.

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Then, said person complains… “FACEBOOK ADS DON’T WORK,” or “XYZ TRAFFIC PLATFORM DOESN’T SCALE.”
What they don’t realize is that they’re creating one-hit wonder campaigns. They’re only giving themselves 1 or 2 chances to sell their offer.
Well, what if those 1 or 2 copy variations still don’t resonate with the audience? What if those 1 or 2 targeting groups aren’t actually people who are interested in what you’re talking about?
The campaign will fail.
Most people quit after this happens. But, you shouldn’t.
You should use the Ad Grid, and give yourself a foundation for success… and 20+ different chances at success, not just one.
One-off campaigns are bad because:

• They don’t reflect the customer journey and repel prospects because the ad is being run down their throats.
• They only work for a short amount of time and have low quality scores.
• They aren’t scalable.
• They don’t put a specific message in front of a specific audience because the marketer didn’t think about segmentation or message match.

Let’s take a look at these mistakes, so you can be sure that you don’t make them:

One-off campaigns don’t reflect the customer journey.

You want to build a relationship with your customer like you would in person.
You’re looking to make friends.
Does it make sense to immediately ask someone you’re hoping to become friends with for money?
No.
But that’s exactly what some marketers are doing with their ads. They’re putting an ad in front of their target audience and saying, “Hi, nice to meet you! Buy this product! You’ll love it!”
But why should someone buy? They don’t know your brand from Adam.
Like all relationships in life, the brand needs to give value first. And that goes beyond the customer getting ABC product or DEF service.

One-off ads usually have low relevance/quality scores.

That means the audience isn’t resonating with the ads. The ad is repelling prospects, they’re not taking the action that you optimized your campaign for, or worse – they’re marking it as spam.
Why does this happen? Because you’re not speaking to the right audience, you don’t have market to message match in your ad copy, or you’re trying to sell to someone before they’re ready.
The next time the audience sees an ad from you, they’ll probably cringe and think, “Those guys.”

One-off ads aren’t scalable.

In the past, we found ourselves launching campaigns that broke the rules I outlined above. These campaigns weren’t scalable.
Not that there was anything wrong with these Facebook ads, they were successful in terms of ROI.
But, there were only a few ad variations within them. And they didn’t always work…
We found 80% of these ads failed, especially on Facebook. That’s the nature of traffic. Sometimes you swing and miss.
If you’re only setting one or 2 ads, and you’re only testing one or 2 audiences, you’re essentially putting all of our eggs in one basket.
And, we realized that’s what we were doing. We weren’t giving ourselves the ability to scale campaigns in the way we needed to grow our business. We were limiting ourselves.

One-off ad campaigns typically don’t have market to message match.

That means the ad is TOO BROAD.
Ads that don’t have market to message match are essentially talking to a large group of people and offering them a one-size-fits-all package/solution.
For the ad to be successful, it needs to have a specific offer that speaks to a specific group of people.
So how do you keep from making these mistakes? You deploy the Ad Grid.

The Ad Grid Process

The Ad Grid will help create a honed in marketing strategy, so you can stop wasting time and money.
It’s important to keep in mind that you’re going to create an Ad Grid for every offer you roll out.
When you create an Ad Grid, focus on the “offer” that’s the entry point for the funnel.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the funnel, ask yourself:

• Is the customer AWARE there’s a problem? Are they AWARE of you, and the solution you offer to the problem?
• Are they EVALUATING if they should fix their problem, or just leave it be? Is the customer EVALUATING you and your competitors? Are they EVALUATING what product or service to buy?
• Has the customer CONVERTED and bought from you? How do you get them to CONVERT again and more frequently?

Knowing where your customer enters the funnel will give you a better understanding of how to target them. Should you target them with a blog post? A Lead Magnet? A low-dollar offer?
The example that we’ll use for this particular post is a recent Lead Magnet we created here at DigitalMarketer called the 10-Minute Social Media Audit.

This audit allows you to assess the performance of your social media strategy or the strategy of your competitors. It gives you an actual “grade” and reveals opportunities for improvements where you could generate more followers, traffic, and/or make more money from your social efforts.

The Ad Grid Steps

Let’s get right into the steps so you can start putting this to work in your traffic campaigns!
Make sure to download the PDF version of this infographic for easy reference and even more resources.

The Ad Grid Step 1: Identify Your Avatars (Specific to the Offer)

You’ll start by creating an Avatar.
An Avatar is a profile of a person who would be interested in your message. The Avatar is a target audience.
Keep in mind when you’re filling out your Ad Grid, the Avatars aren’t necessarily the same Avatars you’ve set for your business as a whole. Your Business Avatars are going to be much broader than the Avatars that would be interested in this particular offer.
You need to create a SPECIFIC Avatar for each ad offer. You do this through research.
(To get more specific on who you’re targeting in your business, check out our worksheet for creating your Customer Avatar.)
Identify Avatars for the specific offer you’re running traffic to by doing intensive research on Amazon, Google, forums, etc. to figure out WHO these people are and what their pain points may be (the problem(s) they’re looking to solve).
Identify your Avatars, and place them across the top of the Ad Grid on the X Axis.

(Don’t force yourself to add 4 Avatars just because I have 4 in this example, just ensure that you have 2+ identified, or you lose the power of the Grid.)
Think about who would be interested in this particular offer? What different groups of people can you speak to? How are they different?
For example, with the 10-Minute Social Media Audit, we chose:

• Social Media Managers: this is the person actually DOING the work. They are probably an employee/work for a company.
• The Boss: This is the person that manages the social media manager. This person could be anyone from the CEO of a smaller company, a digital marketing manager, VP of Marketing, Editorial Director, etc.
• Agency Owner: This person owns/runs an agency that does social media work for clients.
• Solopreneur: This person is a one (wo)man team. They are probably doing all of the marketing on their own, including the social media strategy and implementation.

Step 2: Identify the Hooks

The Hook is the “marketing message.” The WHY that makes people want to take you up on your offer.
If your offer is missing a Hook, you’re going to have a hard time getting people to take you up on whatever you’re asking them to do.
You need to explain the benefits – the value – of your offer, in order to “sell” it.
So how do you come up with a Hook that conveys value?
Here are the 6 different ways we think about Hooks…

Have

If the customer takes this offer, what will they HAVE that they didn’t before? Think of it as Before and After.
(RELATED: How to Create and Market a Killer Offer)

Feel

How will the customer FEEL once they take your offer? Will they FEEL smarter or more confident, will they be pain free and FEEL better?

Average Day

How will your offer improve their AVERAGE DAY? What mundane task does your offer improve? How does your offer save them time or energy on a day-to-day basis?

Status

How does the customer’s STATUS change once they’ve consumed your offer? How are you helping elevating their status?

Proof/Results

This one is the most common.
Use reports or case studies to demonstrate PROOF or RESULTS that the customer could experience with your offer. This can create SOCIAL PROOF.
For example, part of your ad copy could include, “Join the thousands of people who have already benefited!” Or, explain actual results that have occurred because of your offer.

Speed & Automation

With SPEED, you speak to the QUICKNESS of the offer — how will this thing speed up a part of their life or AUTOMATE a task? For example, this razor will save 10 minutes of your day.
Get started, and see what Hook(s) work best to promote your offer. You can combine Hooks, as well.
If you don’t already have ideas in mind for why your offer is “sexy” it may be time to revisit the offer in general.
Place your Hooks on the Y Axis of the Grid.

For example, with the 10-Minute Social Media Audit, we chose:
The 10-Minute Hook
This is a broader Hook, and in the past this probably would have been the ONLY Hook we would’ve used to promote this offer.
This Hook speaks to speed and results:
Take 10 minutes to audit your Social Media Strategy and as a result get more followers, drive more traffic, and increase engagement.
The “Get A Grade” Hook
Most people like to self-analyze.
Most people like to take quizzes/tests to see where they stand. We were conditioned to respond to grades in school. The fact that the 10 Minute Social Media Audit gives you a “grade” is a Hook all in its own.
Create a Report Hook
This Lead Magnet isn’t just an audit.
It’s a document that you could use as a report to track social media progress over time. It can be used as an internal document.
Grade Your Competition Hook
Most people like to spy on their competition.
This Hook is all about grading your competition, too, and seeing where your social media strategy stacks up against theirs.
Know Your Goals Hook 
This Hook is about aligning your social media strategy with your overall business goals.
Are you using a social strategy that actually has an effect on your business? Is your social strategy in line with the goals you’ve set as a company?
As you can see, there’s a fair bit of “marketing” that goes into creating your Hooks.
You have to sit down and really think… what is ATTRACTIVE about your offer? What are different ways I can “sell” this offer?
Most of your Hooks are going to flop — and that’s fine! Testing multiple Hooks gives you room for error… you never know what people are actually going to respond to until you test it.

Step 3: Write Your Copy

This is where the magic starts to happen.
At this stage, you’ll create copy that has a congruent market to message match.
How?
Write specific ad copy for each block on the Grid. This will force you to write copy that corresponds to BOTH the Avatar and the Hook.
This will help you create powerful, segmented ads that will speak to a particular Avatar using a particular Hook instead of writing a broad ad that will miss.
Depending on the traffic platform, the length and type of copy will vary.
Think about why a particular Hook would appeal to a particular Avatar?
For example, with the “Get a Grade” Hook… the Social Media Manager would care about getting a grade because they want to self-assess, and maybe they want to take their “good” grade to their boss in order to get a raise.
But why would the boss care about the “Get a Grade” Hook? They want a way to assess their Social Media Manager… a way to show progress (or lack thereof), a way to measure their success.
Writing this amount of copy is time consuming, but it will give you the assets you need to run a full fledged campaign.
Below you’ll see Facebook ad copy that we wrote for this offer:

(You can expand this image in a new window for better viewing here.)

(You can expand this image in a new window for better viewing here.)

 Step 4: Avatar Research

If you put your campaign in front of the wrong audience, it will fail.
That’s why research is key.
Your Avatar research will become the targeting you use on the ad platform.
What’s important in Step 4 is doing research for each Avatar separately. You’re researching WHERE this particular Avatar would be hanging out on the traffic platform you’ve selected.

If your ad was about social media and you targeted anyone and everyone that’s interested in social media, your ad would be too broad. It wouldn’t be as effective as targeting each Avatar separately.
A marketer needs to look at their Avatars not as a group but as an individual Avatar. Look at them as very separate and different people, because they are.
When researching Avatars, answer these questions…

• What do they read?
• Who inspires them?
• What motivates them?
• What are their pain points?
• What interests them (books, magazines, blogs, movies, music, food, drinks, restaurants, hobbies, etc.)?
• What events do they attend?

…and so on.
This Avatar research will become the targeting that you use when you set up your campaigns. If you’re using Facebook, these would be the interests you target; on Twitter the handles you target, etc.
(RELATED: [DOWNLOAD] The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting)
So, take time to research each Avatar and create lists of possible targeting options. You can place these at the bottom of each column of your grid:

Step 5: Create or Outsource Ad Creatives

Your ad creatives are…

• videos
• pictures
• graphics, etc.

….for your campaign.
The creative you use for each ad will depend on the traffic platform your ad runs on: Video for YouTube, Pictures for Pinterest, etc.
What’s important about the creative is that it depicts your Hook – your marketing message.
You’re going to want to make a creative for EACH Hook.
It’s not about using bright, flashy images anymore… you want to use images that portray the message you’re sending to the audience.
This is a perfect example of a creative that does just that…

We have a process behind coming up with each image…
Each Hook will have keywords or phrases that relate to it.
In Google, do a search query for keywords within your Hook.
You’ll see the top images that are associated with that query, which will give you inspiration for your creative.
Here are the winning ad creatives for each Hook in the 10-Minute Social Audit Campaign:

The “Get A Grade” Hook (to Social Media Managers)

The “Create A Report” Hook (to the Boss)

The “Grade Your Competition” Hook (to the Agency Owner)

The “Know Your Goals” Hook (to the Solopreneur) 

Step 6: Compile Your Results
Once you’ve completed your research on your Avatars and Hooks, written your copy and produced your creatives, it’s time to launch your campaign.
After about 5-7 days of running your campaign, start analyzing your results.
Then use the Ad Grid to measure the success of the campaign.
Determine what your success metric for your campaign will be:

• ROI
• Cost Per Acquisition
• Cost Per Lead
• Cost Per Click

This will depend on your business.
(RELATED: Episode 40: 4 Facebook Metrics Critical to Your Success)
Once you know what metric you’ll use, apply it to the Ad Grid. It will give you a visual — you’ll see what’s working for the entire campaign in one glance. This will help you scale.
Here’s what we use at DigitalMarketer to track the performance of our grids:

Step 7: Scale

The best part… it’s time to scale!
You could just beef up a successful campaign’s budget on that particular platform and call it a day…
Or you could go beyond and further your success.
Use the Ad Grid to help you scale.
The Ad Grid shows you which Hooks and Avatars are winners. Scale out to the winners — the Avatars responding to your campaign, the Hooks converting, and the intersections between the 2.
You can see the insights and the data. You can see how to Scale.
Look at what Avatars your campaign worked best for — what Hook(s) they responded to. You can take that information, and apply it across the Web.
What are other platforms does that Avatar “hang out” on?
If you first ran an ad set on Facebook and saw the success you’re looking for, apply the ad to other traffic platforms – like Twitter or email – that are relevant to that Avatar.
Reach out to the Avatar on different platforms with the Hook they responded to.
You’ll also know which Hook(s) failed, so you won’t make the same mistake twice on other platforms – for example, you won’t use failed Hooks for your email list.
The Ad Grid will help you scale in 2 ways:

• Scaling past “doing more with what you have.” After seeing successful results on a platform, your first instinct may be to increase the budget of the ad, which is obvious for scale. But, the Ad Grid allows for true scale… taking your successful message and applying it to as many applicable platforms as possible… Taking high converting ads and creating new ad sets within Facebook to target more interests where this Avatar would be hanging out on the platform – this is Horizontal Scale.
• Scaling out to a traffic/media team. Following the steps of the Ad Grid gives you a process — a methodology to how you, or you and your team, can approach ad campaigns. The Ad Grid helps to break up the process of creating a campaign, and it will help define the steps and who is responsible for what. Imagine outsourcing steps 3-7 or breaking it out for certain members of your team.

Putting it All Together

The Ad Grid takes you from creating one ad that targets a broad audience to creating 20 SPECIFIC ads (if you use the 4 Avatars and 4 Hooks model).
You’re giving yourself more chances to hit a home run by creating a fully fleshed out targeting campaign that is more likely to increase your success rate 20 times over.
You also know where to scale beyond just throwing more money at a particular campaign on a particular platform — creating less trial and error and more results.

The post The Ad Grid: How to Build Traffic Campaigns that Convert Higher and Scale Faster appeared first on DigitalMarketer.