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What was the last internet marketing course that you bought?
There is an 80% chance that it was a course to do with some social media advertising – most probably Facebook ads, and which promised you that you will make a ton of money, running these ads.
Where did it end up?
Did you actually make any money?
Hello and welcome to Episode 17 of The DKSpeaks Podcast. I am back after a gap of a week. The last few days were extremely hectic and I desperately wanted to take some time out with my family. And I just decided to set off. You know this is one of the flexibility with this business. You don’t really have to rely on your BOSS to approve your leaves. I spent a few days away from the hustle and bustle of the city in a nice hill station named Coorg. Coorg is known for its coffee plantations and if you ever get a chance to visit India, then you should surely visit Coorg once.
When I came back I saw that my inbox was full of mails from marketers promoting the latest launches. And while most of them were on software launches, there were a few that was promoting some of the latest courses. And some of them were courses that taught you how to run ads on Social Media sites and build your list using it.
Social Media Advertising – What You Need to Know?
Social Media ads are the most talked about topic these days. And every course promises you to help build your business with social media ads. It is true to a great extent that today social media ads can help you build your business. The traffic is cheap, it is targetted and it converts well. But all of this only if you understand how to do it the right way. Else even social media traffic is the same as that of Google Adwords or, just about any other paid traffic source. You will get burnt. Your investments will drain out faster you would have added them to your account.
But what is the right way?
It is this right way that every other course promises to teach you. But do they really do it? What is the difference in each of these courses that are released pretty much on the same topic. Let’s take an example – Facebook ads. There are numerous courses out there that talks about teaching you a secret sauce that you could use with Facebook ads and then make money or, build your list. But is there really a secret sauce?
The Secret Sauce in running Social Media Ads
Let us get this straight. There is no secret sauce in internet marketing or, for that matter any business. You need to do the basics and then test. Keep testing until you find what works. Or, follow what works and just do it repeatedly. But do you really think that someone who has discovered “What works” will share it with you for free? They will not. In fact it is this “What works” that these courses promise to teach you by charging you. But they will never share that winning campaign of theirs unless they know that it doesn’t work anymore.
Do you really think that there will be a different “What works” in each of these courses? There isn’t. Because what works is plain and simple. It depends upon you, the time you spend, the money you put in and how you test your market. The process to do is all the same – it is the basics.
So wouldn’t it be better if you just spent some time learning the basics and then invest time to analyze the results and pick the one that works for you.
I ran ads in the body-building niche on Facebook some 10 months back. I started off with a crude ad and spent about $5.00 to test the market. There was a product on Clickbank that I was promoting. The ad didn’t generate any worthy traffic. I refined the ad and I kept doing it until I found people clicking on it. Then I started refining the landing page. I did it until I found that people were entering their email address into it. Then I refined both the ad and the landing page so that I could reduce my CPC and CPA (the cost that I would have to pay per subscriber).
And in doing all this I spent about $185. But once this started working, it took me less than 6 days to breakeven and after that it was all profit.
What does that mean?
How do you really make money with social media ads?
Making Money with Social Media Ads
Let’s look at a few tips that can help you get the most out of your social media ads –
Which Social Network is right for you:
It is here that you need to start. First decide on which social network is the best for you. Your niche might just be something where Pinterest might just not work for you. Do you really think, you will profit from your Pinterest ads?
Twitter is popular with people who are below 50 and who are college educated. Pinterest has 80% female users and of the male users about 50% are below the age of 40. Instagram has about 53% of the users aged between 18 and 29. LinkedIn has a more professional kind of userbase. The users are between 30 and 64 years old. Facebook has a more diverse userbase with almost all age groups using it but the primary userbase being 18 – 55. And almost 58% of American adults use it.
Now if you are to look at the above stats and decide which social network to advertise on, would you decision change. Do you really think advertising for a muscle building product on LinkedIn will really help. Or, if you have a product on diabetes or, maybe curing anxiety disorder, will it help if you advertise on Instagram.
It is hence important that you choose the right social media platform for your ads. Facebook has a diverse userbase but does it advertising to the entire userbase help for all products. It might not. Just as you would select the right social network, it is important to pick the right audience.
What is the right audience:
Every one of you who buys that latest Facebook marketing course buys it with the expectation that they will show you how to find the right audience for your ad. But that never happens. They just teach you some of the basics in doing that and then leave you on your own to do it. They are not wrong. In fact, you need to find out the audience that works for you. Nobody can help you do that. And to do this, you need to spend some time.
Go to sites like quantcast.com or, alexa.com and research your audience. You can pick an established website in your niche and see what kind of audience visit them. You could even pick a salespage from Clickbank or, any other such affiliate network and check their audience on quancast. If the sales page has been there for some time and the product is doing well, you will surely find a lot of information. Why not use it for your targeting?
Why would you want to do the research all by yourself again when you have it readymade?
You could even use the Facebook audience insights tool to research you audience and find which ones are the best. It is here that you need to spend some time and not on the course that do nothing but teach you the basics.
And keep in mind that if you nail this part, then 90% of your work is done.
Analyze and Test:
Analytics is there for a reason. If it was of no use, analysts would have been in demand today. Everything has an analysis. And studying these analytics can give you a lot of information.
Do that for your ads. Spend time analyzing your data. Decide when you want to do it. You can do it everyday and refine your ads everyday. But if you want to give your ad some time, you can do that once in 2 days. Entirely depends upon you. But analyze your data. It will give you the add-on information to all the data you gathered when researching your audience. It will help you refine your audience and at the same time your ad creatives as well.
Take it one at a time. First refine your ads so that you are generating clicks and engagement. Then refine your landing page so that your traffic is converting. Then refine your ads again to reduce your Cost per click. After that you can once again refine your landing page to improve your conversions.
At this point let me give you a couple of simple tips – An ad that talks into the landing page does really well. So ensure that your ad has the same look and feel and conveys the same message as your landing page. It should talk the same language.
Another thing is, start small. I recommend starting with $5.00 on any social network that you plan to advertise on and analyze your data everyday and refine it.
Resources the we discussed
These are the resources that we spoke in today’s episode and some that we did not talk about:
- FB Money Experts – A Course that will teach you the basics of FB ads. No hype and No false promises
- Quantcast
- Alexa
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