Hello Reader,

Whether we like it or not the current state of social media is pay to play. While there is some success in organic posts on various networks like TikTok and LinkedIn the chances are you're looking for quick results. That's where paid ads come into the equation.

The one rule for paid ads is simple: Test. Test audiences, test copy, test creatives.

To keep this email to a reasonable length we'll just look at the Meta (Facebook) Ads platform.

There are three types of objectives available when you create a Facebook ad through the "Ads Manager".

• Awareness: Build brand awareness or increase reach.
• Consideration: Send traffic to your website, increase engagement, encourage app installs or video views, generate leads, or encourage people to communicate with you on Facebook Messenger.
• Conversion: Increase purchases or leads via your site or app, or drive foot traffic to offline stores.

You might think setting up a Conversion based ad is exactly what you need, and in most cases, you would be correct however there are some inner workings of the ad algorithm you need to be aware of.

When you publish your ad, it goes into a "learning" phase. This is where the algorithm starts to learn who is most likely to complete the desired objective. For example, buying your product. The learning phase needs to hit fifty objective completions in a 7-day period otherwise it gets stuck in the wasteland that is called "limited learning".

There are a few ways to avoid this.

The number one reason is you've gone to narrow with your audience. Since iOS has heavily limited tracking and data reporting it's been a more successful strategy to have a broader audience and let the algorithm work it out for itself. Stick to simple things like location

Pro tip. If you are using, "location" as a targeting option, make sure you select "People who live in this location" not just "Recently in this location".

Your ad creative / copy. This has an enormous impact on how your ad performs. We've seen over double the conversion rate on ads because we switched them from a Photo ad to a Video ad. It's all about testing to see what works with your audience.

You picked the wrong conversion objective. Depending on what you sell, sometimes it's better to get a sign up to an email form with an offer attached which you can then remarket to, then just going straight for the sale. You can also build look alike audiences with that list, giving the algorithm more to work with. "Yeah, but I want the sales." If you don't this those fifty conversion objectives in the 7-day window your ad won't be running optimally and that will be costing you dollars.

Lastly, budget could be an issue. We recommend setting a budget of $10-$20 per day during the initial phase, and then scale from there. If you have less than $10 a day to spend on ads, then we recommend going with an awareness objective to build brand awareness and increase your reach.

The hardest part about all of this is giving the ad time to learn. Resist the urge and let it run. Obviously if your budget is tight, you want results as quickly as possible. If you haven't started to see any results (based on your objective) in 3-4 days, then definitely go in and test a new creative.

Paid ads is a massive subject. I could only scratch the surface with this email, that's why I've opened early enrolment for our Ultimate Paid Ads course. It's of course free for you, all you have to do is click the big blue button below. It's a couple of weeks away from launch but we'll keep you updated.

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Till next time,
​marketrnotes

P.S. Do you know anyone with a small business? Share marketrnotes with them. It would mean the world to me. - Tristan