The Ultimate Facebook Ads Guide: 9 Laws Of Successful Ads [2019 Edition]

You might already know that Facebook ads are the most profitable digital advertisements on the web …

But how can you take advantage of them?

Many don’t know, and that’s why I put together this free Facebook ads tutorial.

In this guide I’m going to show you EXACTLY how to create winning ads … and what the process looks like.

I’m pulling back the curtain and showing you the EXACT Facebook advertising strategy I use to create highly effective Facebook ads … like the one that generated over 300 leads at $.44 each.

If you implement this guide effectively, you’ll be able to generate a never-ending stream of customers.

So let’s dive into it!

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1: An Introduction To Facebook Ads: Understanding How They Work

Chapter 2: The 4 Essential Building Blocks For A Facebook Ad (And How To Maximize Them For Success)

Chapter 3: How To Create Facebook Ads And Position Them For Results (Mixing The 4 Elements Together)

Chapter 4: Knock, Knock? (How To Deliver The Goods)

Chapter 5: How To Create Facebook Ads That Convert (Simple Psychology Hacks Win!)

Chapter 6: Facebook Ad Targeting And My Secret Strategy For Getting Crazy Cheap Conversions

Chapter 7: Split Testing Your Facebook Ads (How To Know EXACTLY What Will Make You Money Quickly)

Chapter 8: How To Scale Your Facebook Ad Campaigns

Chapter 9: How To Fix Ads That Have Gone Bad

Preface

I’ve been through a lot of courses by renowned experts in the marketing industry. I even have certifications in paid advertising … but after running hundreds of ad campaigns, I learned that Facebook ads, and any other ad are 90% psychology and 10% technical work.

It’s more important to understand WHY a Facebook ad converts and to know the structure of a winning ad than to know what all the buttons do in the dashboard.

That’s why I don’t really care about the fads that pop up with Facebook ads (like CBO and “Expanded Interests”) … I’m more invested in the core fundamentals that are rooted in consumer behavior.

More than that, I’ve found that these experimental features turn out to degrade campaigns over time! I can never recommend turning on the “Expanded Interests” targeting feature because it’s a poorly crafted feature that leads to poorly converting ads, and I’ve seen the CBO feature lead to reducing the effectiveness of winning ads in favor of ads that don’t work.

Is that true 100% of the time? No.

There are select times when features can work to your advantage, but you shouldn’t rely on them.

Instead, rely on understanding how humans work and why they make buying decisions, and create ads that meet them where they are. That’s the absolute best way to create highly converting Facebook ads.

Once you’ve got that down … you can start tinkering with tools 😉

And that’s what I’m going to teach you in this guide.

I’m also going to teach you the MOST important mindset when it comes to running ads …

Your goal with ads should be to increase the lifetime value of every lead and customer on your list.

It’s not to make all of your money right away.

It’s to make as MUCH as you can as LONG as you can.

Because of this, I often take a “lead generation” approach with my cold Facebook ads and use email marketing and Facebook retargeting ads to get people to come back and buy from me and my clients.

I’ve found that this approach makes a significantly higher amount of money then attempting to pitch from a cold ad.

You’ll see the “Barkpup” case study later in the guide. It was an eCommerce store I co-owned and managed. Where most people in eCom go straight for the cold purchase, I went the lead generation approach that I use with the majority of my clients. My goal was to use emails and retargeting ads to get people to come back and buy – and it WORKED.

Because I met people where they were in the consumer behavior journey, they were much more receptive to the marketing messages I put before them.

In the 9 chapters of this guide, I’m going to show you all the steps I implement to run these kinds of campaigns for myself and my clients.

To your success,

Andrew Purdum

Chapter 1: An Introduction To Facebook Ads: Understanding How They Work

Before we get into the advanced strategies I’ll talk about later in the article, I want to give you a Facebook ads overview to help you understand the technical side of the platform. Before you can create effective advertisements we need to look at how Facebook is set up, and how to work that to your advantage! If you’re more advanced, feel free to skip this chapter.

Fundamental #1 – Facebook ads are auction based, and you’re competing against other companies for the same people. The auction is divided into three separate parts:

B: Bid

EA: Expected action

R: Relevance

Let’s break this down further.

Bid

This is how much money per result you are willing to pay. If your objective is “Reach” you will pay a set cost for reaching a thousand people (CPM). Your bid determines your Facebook ads pricing. You can set it manually, but I recommend having Facebook optimize your bid for you. Doing so will allow Facebook’s algorithm to better optimize your account over time.

Expected Action

This is dependent on your objective. If you’re optimizing for “engagement” this will be likes, comments, shares, and video views. If you’re optimizing for conversions, this will be the number of people that sign up for your offer from your ad.

Relevance

Relevance scores are a measure of how well your Facebook ad resonates with your target audience. If your ad receives a lot of negative feed back and is not producing results (expected actions), your relevance is going to be poor. Once an advertisement gets 500 impressions it is assigned a relevance score (1-10). The score will show you how your audience is reacting to your message. The higher your score, the more favorable Facebook views your ad. Generally higher scores result in lower costs over time as Facebook encourages you to keep high quality ads that solve problems and resonate with audiences. The best Facebook ads resonate well with their target audience, and Facebook rewards them for it.

Facebook Hack: How To Use Different Objective Types At The Same Time To Boost Your Results!

Social proof is a major part of success with most Facebook ads. If you see a promoted video has 10K views, but no likes, shares, or comments – it’s going to struggle to get conversions.

But there’s a way we can work on remedying it!

You can run the exact same ad in two different campaigns, and all the social shares, likes, and comments will carry over between them. This is called “social stacking.”

In this scenario your advertisement is hosted inside a “Conversion” campaign optimized for generating leads.

However, we can create a new campaign designed to generate engagement (comments, likes, shares) and promote the exact same Facebook ad.

All we need to do is copy the post ID of the original ad, make a new campaign, set the adset exactly the same, and use the post ID of the original ad inside the engagement ad.

You now have two campaigns for one ad – and you should be generating social proof quickly.

Watch the Facebook ads tutorial below to learn how to set it up.

How You Can Use The Different Campaign Objectives To Get Different Results

There are three categories of campaign objectives.

1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Conversion

I largely use conversion ads as I’m trying to generate leads, but you might want to add some social proof to your ads. You can do this with engagement. This short video will help you understand what objectives you should use, and when.

What should you set your objective as?

I recommend setting your campaign objective as “Conversions.”

Conversions will allow you to optimize for a given result.

The vast majority of the time you will be promoting a lead magnet or “offer.” in your Facebook ad.

Because of that, you want to train the Facebook Pixel to optimize for that results – and that’s what the “Conversion” objective does.

Fundamental #2 – Facebook ads revolve around disrupting attention.

If you can disrupt people and awaken them from their scrolling slumber, you can get people to pay attention to you. If you can’t grab attention you will struggle to have a converting ad.

The easiest way to do this in your Facebook ad, and we will talk more about this in the copy writing portion of the formula, is to call out your audience by pain, need, or desire.

Here’s an example for a dog trainer:

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“My dog barks all night long … and I really struggle to get sleep because of it!”

That’s one of the most common complaints that we get – our clients just want their dogs to let them sleep for once! And who can blame them? We’re Purdum Dog Training Services, and it’s our goal to help dog owners train their pets to be the loyal, loving, happy best friends we know they can be …

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I’ve used this strategy with great success. Take the most common problem your audience has, and turn it into a statement.

Because Facebook is a social platform, people on it aren’t always actively thinking about their problems. That’s why we have to bring it to the front of their minds.

Fundamental #3 – There’s A Lot Of Marketing Lingo … I’ll Break It Down For You

Audience network – A partnership program Facebook has with independent publishers to show ads on their platforms. The audience network has the power to display advertisements on other websites, blogs, and apps. This can improve the range of ads, but it doesn’t always mean you’ll get more conversions. Becareful with this – know it can be a gamble for many industries.

Bid – This is how much you want to pay for an expected result. Most of the time you should use auto-bidding for an ad, unless you have a specific strategy that works for manual bidding. If you put a manual bid too low, you won’t get any results.

Budget – If you’re a mature, responsible adult this word likely has no meaning to you. But it does to Facebook. It’s a number you give to them that means “hey big brother, don’t charge me more than this.”

Clicks (all) – This includes all link clicks, Facebook page clicks, profile page clicks, or picture clicks. It also counts for likes, comments, and video views. Kinda weird how they structure it – but it’s all included in this metric.

Link Clicks – When someone clicks on a link or button to a website or funnel, this is registered as a “link click.” This is traditionally what you will be looking at instead of Clicks (all).

Cost Per Click (CPC) – This is how much you are charged each time someone clicks on a link. There are multiple metrics like this for conversions. Most common are “CPL” (cost per lead) “CPR” (Cost per registration) and “CPP” (Cost per purchase).

Conversions – This is the number of actions a user has taken that is registered in the Facebook Pixel. Can be anything from a “lead” to a “purchase” (and there’s a LOT in between).

CPM (Cost per 1000 people reached): This is how much Facebook charges you to reach 1,000 people. It’s also the metric I look at to determine the health of an ad. If your CPM rises, your cost per lead and customer will too. This is what Facebook charges you on 90% of the time. The only time you are charged for links is in a Link Click campaign – which I never recommend.

Click Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people that click a link after seeing your ad. If 100 people see the ad and 5 click through, your CTR would be 5%.

Delivery: This shows if your campaign is running or not.

Engagement: The total engagement on an ad including likes, comments, and shares

Frequency: How many times the average user seems the same ad.

Impressions: The total number of times you ads have been seen – including by the same users. EXAMPLE: Your ad reaches 50 people. They each see it 2 times. Your total number of impressions is 100.

Reach: The total number of unique people that have seen your ads.

Fundamental #4 – Understanding The Business Manager And Ad Manager

There are two main categories of organization inside Facebook’s ad system – the Business Manager and the Ad manager.

Often, people confuse the two. They are different systems.

I compare the Facebook Business Manager to a warehouse. It stores all of the essential tools advertisers will need to run and manage their campaigns. It can host Facebook Pixels, ad accounts, pages, and other tools. It’s a one-stop shop to access any needed resource. It’s ideal for teams and digital marketing agencies running advertising campaigns on behalf of their clients.

You can have multiple ad accounts inside one business manager. This makes managing multiple accounts quick and easy. If a new hire or consultant is brought into the business, they can be easily assigned to any necessary accounts, pixels, and pages with the click of a few buttons. Without the business manager, they would have to be manually added to all these resources which may take hours to do.

The Facebook Ads Account is the place where campaigns, adsets, and ads – the three primary elements of a Facebook ad campaign, are stored.

Any actual advertisements are created and managed through the ad account.

Campaigns, Adsets, And Ads

The Facebook Ad Account divides and organizes advertisement campaigns into three stacked parts – campaigns -> adsets -> ads

Why are they organized like this?

Because each part does something unique.

Campaigns: These are responsible for setting the objective of a Facebook ad such as Traffic, Conversions, Reach, and Engagement.

As of May 2019, there are 3 main categories of objectives.

From Facebook.com …

• Awareness: Objectives that generate interest in your product or service.
• Consideration: Objectives that get people to start thinking about your business and look for more information about it.
• Conversions: Objectives that encourage people interested in your business to purchase or use your product or service.

Each one is designed to reach people in different stages of the consumer behavior journey, which we will talk about in a bit.

Adsets: Adsets are responsible for the “settings” of your ad. In it you’ll be able to create audiences, set budgets, determine geographic reach, and optimize for a specific result (as is the case with conversion ads).

We will cover targeting in depth later, but for know just know that this is where it all happens!

Ads: This is where you upload the copy you wrote, the creative (Image / video), and build out the visuals of the ad. It’s the part people think about when you say “Facebook ad.”

It may seem confusing at first, but once you understand the Facebook ad structure, it’s really easy to quickly classify and find specific ads.

The Facebook Ads Manager Tutorial – How To Set Up And Structure Your Ads:

Fundamental #5 – Choosing Your Image Or Video

When you’re building the creative that goes above the headline and call to action, you’re going to have to choose whether you want to include an image or video.

Facebook ad video is the reigning king of Facebook marketing. Most of my ads, except for local business clients like gyms, restaurants, and Chiropractors, use video. And part of my service is helping them craft video scripts and editing their videos.

The formula for creating a Facebook video ad is the same as my copy formula, which we talk about here.

Facebook Ad images need to be simple. You can use Canva.com to create a simple yet classy design that will grab the attention of users and point them to your copy.

In my image ads I like to start either a hook, or the name of the lead magnet I’m promoting. If It’s ecommerce, I’m going to take a short video of the product in action. No images in ecommerce allowed for me! 🙂

Watch this video to learn how you can use Canva.com to create an image FAST [I spent literally 3 minutes making an image]

Fundamental #6 – Facebook Ad Compliance – How To Avoid Having Your Ad Account Shut Down!

One of the scary things about being an advertiser is that if you step out of bounds … your ad account will get shut down. Sometimes quickly, but most of the times it takes Facebook time to find you … but rest assured they will find you!

That’s why you should always obey their rules.

I’ll give you a run down about what to avoid …

• No talking about drugs or alcohol
• No promoting guns
• Cryptocurrency is apparently safe now, but be careful as Facebook is touchy with it
• Your landing pages need a Terms of Service, Contact us, and Privacy Policy page
• Text referencing or or alluding to personal attributes or characteristics of the targeted group or individual
  • This includes:
  • Religion
  • Race
  • Ethnicity
  • Beliefs
  • Age
  • Sexual orientation
  • Disability
  • Medical condition
  • Name
  • Any personal qualifier
• You may not discriminate in any way, but ESPECIALLY not when it comes to hiring or housing. There have been severe violations and now Facebook is touchy about this
• No promoting tobacco
• No Misleading content
• No third-part infringements
• You must have a functional landing page
• No before and after pages (sorry Fitness businesses …)
• MLM

There’s some other fringe, weird laws like no promoting auctions … but if you avoid the list above you should be fine!

Now that we’ve talked about the basics of how Facebook ads work, let’s talk about the MOST important part of the whole process … how to get an ad to convert. This part of the article isn’t technical, but rather psychological. In order to be successful with ads you need to think like a psychologist.

Chapter 2: The 4 Essential Building Blocks For A Facebook Ad (And How To Maximize Them For Success)

Alright – now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s talk about how to craft a winning ad campaign!

In this chapter, we’re going to talk about the #1 reason ads fail… and how you can be different.

It’s not because of targeting, copywriting, or your creative. Those all play a role in it, but what I’m going to reveal to you in this chapter is the absolute foundation of ANY Facebook ad you create … and you probably don’t even know it.

When you’re building out your advertising campaigns, there are 4 core elements that you need to make sure your ads are successful. Any time an advertisement fails, one or more of these elements are out of alignment.

What are these 4 elements? I call them A-HSO.

A-HSO stands for …

Audience – Hook, Story, Offer.

Let’s take a look at each of the elements in depth …

Facebook ad element #1: Audience

Who specifically are you talking to … and what problems do they have? More importantly, how do they feel about those problems?

Our first goal with an ad is to grab attention, second is to build desire, third is to fulfill that desire with our offer. But we can’t do ANY of that without first knowing our audience.

When you can identify the exact issues they have and the emotion your audience has regarding those issues, you’ll be able to speak to them effectively. This is the foundation of all good copywriting. When you can communicate the value of your ability to solve an audience’s problem, both tangible and emotional, you will win. But before that can ever happen you need to actually KNOW the problem. This requires research.

Here are questions to ask when doing research on your audience:

1. Who is the target audience?
2. Are they a certain age?
3. Are they a certain gender?
4. What specific problems do they have?
5. How do they feel about the problems they have?
6. What have they done to try and fix those problems?
7. How would they feel if their problem was fixed?
8. How long has this problem gone on?
9. What other problems is the specific problem creating?
10. How can you uniquely help them overcome their problem and find freedom?

By asking these questions you’ll be able to create stronger hooks and stories, which will boost the response rate on your ad, and make the Facebook algorithm happier. Later in this article I’m going to show you an example of this filled out.

Most of the time, businesses won’t even bother with understanding their audience … then they want to know why their ads fail! Study your audience – the time investment will MORE than pay for itself.

How To Get These Questions Answered

There’s a few customer research strategies you can implement.

Here’s what I’d recommend doing …

1. Go to Amazon and look at books that directly or indirectly solves the same problem you do for your target audience. Now read the reviews. You’ll get a treasure trove of data on what problems they have. You would be SHOCKED about what people reveal in reviews.
2. Search through message boards, forums, Facebook groups, and Reddit. People post about their problems all the time. It’s not hard to find what people struggle with when you go to where they hang out. You can even create an account / join a group and ASK them some of the questions above.
3. Offer to talk one-on-one with potential customers in exchange for a 10-15 minute consulting / coaching session. Just explain that you’re looking for some feedback, and you’re happy to help in exchange for honest answers. People will hop right on it!
4. Send out a survey to past customers. Offer a coupon / simple service / product in exchange for filling the survey out.
5. Look at the magazines your audience reads. Analyze their media kits for any hints about them. Many media kits are FULL of valuable details about an audience you never would have known otherwise.
6. Read reviews on Groupon and Yelp. Users will tell you their problems, the values they have, and other important comments that will lead to juicy data.
7. [ADVANCED / OPTIONAL] Go to trade shows, conventions, and networking events that will have your exact audience. Introduce yourself and explain that you’re putting together a resource to help your audience, and you’re looking for advice. Ask attendees the questions.

These seven strategies are more then enough to get you started seeking answers to the questions. The more responses you get, the more trends you will see. Always stick to the trends. There will be anomalies every once in a while. I recommend getting 10-20 responses minimum before sitting down and making decisions on the data.

In Chapter 7 I flesh out what this looks like for a gym. 

Facebook ad element #2: Hook

A hook is an angle at which you approach the problem the audience has. It’s how you grab the attention of your audience … just how a fishing hook grabs a fish in the water … your hook PULLS the potential customer out of their world and into yours.

Hooks are more than just a tagline or the first line in your Facebook ad … though those can certain contain your hook.

It can be any of the following:

• Image
• Video
• Headline
• A question
• An opening statement from “customers” [see what I did above in disrupting attention]
• A unique proposition

Your hook is designed to lead into your story.

It pulls people in …. the story tells them why they need to pay attention to you and what’s in it for them.

Hooks for coaches, consultants, and online businesses:

Hooks for online businesses are powered by curiosity … so if you’re questioning “do I have a good hook” you first need to ask “does this hook make me want to learn more?”

Look at Russell Brunson’s hook in his ad below. He builds an INSANE amount of curiosity, and it drives people to sign up for his lead magnets.

If you’re a local business or an eCommerce store promoting products, don’t worry about curiosity unless you’re modeling this approach.

Hooks for local businesses:

Since you’re promoting a local service … your hook needs to target the emotion behind the problem your audience you have.

EXAMPLE: Chiropractors might say “Neck, back, and shoulder pain is no fun right?”

Gyms might say “You won’t believe how good you’ll feel when you’re in shape!”

And restaurants may mention “You don’t have to go all out to have a family reunion – bring the kids here for a good dinner!”

The point is – you can tie in your offer to a specific emotion, and bring that out in your copy.

EXAMPLES OF HOOKS [Facebook ads examples]:

Russell Brunson: Promoting The Knowledge Business Blueprint webinar

Hook: There’s a book from the 40’s that can unlock massive wealth … and I want to show it to you

DigitalMarketer: The Email Marketing Mastery Course

The hook here is that email marketing is weird … but profitable… but only if you use these methods to stand out.

Hooks don’t have to be complex – they just have to grab attention.

Headspace: Sleep By Headspace

Hook: You’re grumpy because you’re tired … we can fix that

Harmon Brothers: PDF Humor Guide

Hook: How to avoid making 7 errors when writing funny ads

Drew Canole

Hook: There are superfoods that can cut down on pain … learn what they are

Organifi: Blog Article

Hook: One scoop of this powder gives you the benefit of superfoods.

As you can see in these examples, there’s no “one right way” to create hooks. The hook’s ONLY job is to get people to pay attention to you. This looks different for every audience.

However, in the ads promoting info products, notice how they tie in curiosity to get signups … that should be a HUGE takeaway for anyone promoting a PDF, cheatsheet, webinar, or other online product.

Some brands prefer simplicity, such as Headspace – they just want to sleep better.

Others need to be given complex hooks like Russell Brunson’s mystic, somewhat vague promise that an old book can user in massive wealth decades later.

Your Facebook ads are 100% dependent on crafting a good hook. As we will talk about later, the only way to know what will work is to experiment with many different hooks.

Facebook ad element #3: Story

This is the most vague and often confusing element. The story is different in every single ad. Some are 5 words, others are 500.

Why is there such a large range in how long it can be?

There’s a few different factors.

Brand Personality

If you’re a brand like HeadSpace, you’re known for being simple. Therefore your story needs to reflect that. There stories aren’t often more than a line or two. Longer isn’t always better, especially if you’re a brand designed to help people get unstressed. No need for a long, complex story when 1-2 lines will work just fine!

On the other hand, there are more complex industries such as the internet marketing space that will often need more story to convince people why they should act on an offer.

DigitalMarketer’s ad that I showed earlier is a video ad. I’m sorry, I couldn’t show that well. In that 1.5 minute ad, Richard Lindner, the President of DigitalMarketer, gives a story of how email marketing has shaped businesses over the last two decades, and how missing out could mean the death of your brand. Video is often the best format for these kinds of stories. They connect with the audience on a deeper level.

Since communication is not merely words, but how you USE words, video can communicate more effectively than just text ads.

Complexity Of The Offer

The more expensive the offer / more complex it is, the more story you need to sell it. If you’re an ice cream shop, the only story you really need is how delicious a strawberry ice cream cone sounds on a hot summer day. It’s not hard to communicate that.

However, if you’re selling an advanced $10,000 business mastermind, you better have a great story that takes the audience through who you are, why they should click through, and what they will benefit from doing so.

This doesn’t mean you need a crazy long ad – those often work against advertisers. But you may need to spend 1-2 minutes in a video, or a few paragraphs in the text, telling the story of why specifically someone needs to sign up.

My friend and mentor Carlos – who runs Pay Per Call lead generation campaigns – taught me that shorter ads work too. Especially when a customer is in a later stage of awareness, which we turn to now.

Where The Audience Is In The Customer Journey

When you can identify specifically where someone is at in the customer journey, you can create a better story for them.

Here’s the stages of consumer behavior …

#1 – Precontemplation

The consumer is aware they have a problem, but they do not know of any specific solutions for it yet. They have have thought about it, but they have yet to do research. If you approach a consumer in this stage you will have a hard time selling them, largely because they are gathering their thoughts still. You have to move them from having barely considering anything to becoming a white-hot customer. That requires more than one ad, and an extensive story to boot!

#2 – Contemplation

People in this category have done research. They know they have a problem, and they have a list of brands that can help them. They’ve looked at you, they have a working understanding of who you are. If you send ads to people in this stage you need to write a story that engages them emotionally and pulls them towards you … and away from your competition.

#3 – Planning

At this stage, the consumer is planning to buy. This is when you turn up the heat on your offer. Talk about how your specific offer can solve their problem better than anyone else. Speak to their desired end result, create video retargeting ads with testimonials. This is where you get people into the door.

#4 – Activation

It’s money time! You’ve done it – they’ve given you their credit card and you’ve charged them for your product or service. Now the story needs to shift to how they’re going to continue to benefit from the experience of working with you.

#5 – Maintenance

The goal of any marketing campaign isn’t JUST to get new customers … but to get customers that will spend a lot of money with you over time. This is what lifetime value (LTV) is all about. In this stage we want to keep people buying from us for a long time. We won’t be sending them ads as much (though in many cases we don’t turn off ads for them – there are special upsell ads we can use to have them buy higher ticket items) but we need to be sure we’re making them buy more from us frequently. The stories in these ads needs to be about how buying our higher level packages, or continuing to work with us on existing packages, will give them their desired end result.

Facebook ad element #4: Offer

Your offer is what you’re promoting in your ad. Now, this isn’t your full product or service most of the time … it’s what others in the industry call your “lead magnet.”

It’s either a free or inexpensive offer that’s designed to get customers into the door.

Or it could be an introductory service you offer!

EXAMPLE: Roofers might offer a $21 gutter cleaning … it gets leads into the door, turns them into customers, and when roofers get up there to clean gutters, they can easily see if a roof needs work.

If they see a need – they can pitch a repair or replacement! If nothing is needed, the home or business owner now has a relationship with someone who will be able to help them.

Chiropractor Example: $21 neck / back exam

My BarkPup Offer:  7 Simple Steps To Stop Excessive Dog Barking [PDF guide]

Here’s a few examples of offer types:

• PDF guides
• Video series
• Checklists
• Cheatsheets
• Free + Shipping [doesn’t work as well as it used too, but might be right for some offers]
• Webinars [Great for courses / high ticket offers]
• Case studies [Great for agencies and B2B]
• Free book [I don’t recommend this as much, but I still see it work – like with Russell Brunson]
• One on one consultation [Better for agencies or high ticket offers]
• Free group training [Courses / high ticket]
• Introductory course / product [I’ve actually seen $7 products work well in some places]
• Introductory service [For small businesses – like the $7 first month of gym access offer]

There are hundreds of offer types out there… but this will get you started.

What About Local Businesses?

Local businesses generally promote one of two types of offers: First time discounts, and consultations.

Want to see examples of what kinds of offers work for a local business? Check out Groupon.

Groupon will show you specifically what locals are signing up for, and will give you insight as to what you can do as well.

Your offer MUST be in alignment with your audience, hook, and story

In order for your offer to succeed it must do the following …

• Actively solve a specific problem the audience has, and address the emotion behind it
• Comply with the hook and make sense with what is being offered
• Make sense with the story – the story has to give a good explanation of why someone should sign up for your offer, and how specifically it will benefit them.

Running Special Campaigns

Want a quick win? Run a special campaign around specific events in your audience’s life.

Using Facebook’s back end system you can target people who have birthdays, anniversaries, moving, and other special situations.

You need to recognize that this creates ENORMOUS opportunity for you.

Give away your offer as a “Birthday gift” and make people feel special – they’ll LOVE you for it.

Also build special campaigns for holidays and target certain people the holiday appeals to.

Christmas time? Create an ad and an offer celebrating the birth of Christ. Sure the secular world celebrates Christmas too, but Christians have a deep spiritual connection to the holiday.

So in your ad you can talk about how you’re celebrating and giving away the offer.

How To Create Facebook Ads Around Life Events

Chapter 3: How To Create Facebook Ads And Position Them For Results (Mixing The 4 Elements Together)

So now you have an audience with a specific problem and emotion, an offer to pitch them, a hook to pull them in, and a story to sell them.

Now it’s time to assemble the pieces!

I’m going to start backwards and use a tangible example of an ad I previously ran.

This is from an experimental company I co-owned and managed called “Barkpup.”

It was an online store selling dog apparel and grooming tools. The goal of this campaign was to attract active dog owners who love their animals.

The hardest part of running an eCommerce store is getting people into your list to get attention. So I applied what I knew in the lead gen space to ecommerce marketing with great results.

The campaign I’m going to show you attracted 376 leads for $166 (44 cents a lead). It worked because it combined ALL the elements (audience, hook, story, offer) we talked about earlier.

Here’s the ad: 

Let’s break down all the elements of the ad:

#1 – Audience

For this ad we targeted dog owners who owned very specific breeds of dogs that bark a lot. We knew their exact problem – the dogs don’t know when to stop barking – and we knew how they felt about it. They were stressed out, exhausted, and they felt like instead of loving their dogs they were always fighting with them. So in the video I talked about it.

We targeted dog breeds such as Corgis, Chihuahuas, and others.

#2 – Hook

The hook was the desire to get the dog to stop barking. I call that out in the very first sentence. I knew that if the user with loud dogs was scrolling through Facebook, that first sentence combined with the captioned video would stop them dead in their tracks – their emotion would get the better of them.

If they see an effective hook, it’s hard for them to simply scroll past and keep going. It literally PULLS them in and becomes irresistible.

#3 – Story 

I tell the story of having two Corgis, Samson and Delilah, and explain that while I loved them … they just wouldn’t stop barking! So I cataloged what I did to get them to stop barking, and that resulted in my offer. Notice how I assume the role of the guide here. I discovered what worked, and now I’m sharing it.

#4 – Offer

The offer is my free PDF guide – “7 Simple Steps To Stop Excessive Dog Barking.” The user goes to the landing page to sign up for it.

Which brings us to the next part of our guide …

Chapter 4: Knock, Knock? (How To Deliver The Goods)

Your Facebook ad is only half of your campaign.

The other half is your landing page and your delivery.

The landing page is where you’re sending traffic to go get what you’re promoting.

It can be as simple as a headline, paragraph, and email optin.

In fact, the simpler the landing page, generally the higher it converts.

Here’s the landing page from the example ad above:

I use ClickFunnels to build all my landing pages – it makes it easy to sign up for offers! And it only takes a few minutes to build. Check it out here and get a free 14 day trial! 

**This is an affiliate link, and if you chose to sign up I will receive a commission at no cost to you.**

Once someone signs up on that page, they are sent the PDF in an email.

I use email marketing, text message marketing, and retargeting ads to follow up with my leads and turn them into paying customers. In this example, I emailed them several times a week about various trainings and dog products they could buy.

How To Build A Landing Page For Your Facebook Ads

I’m going to use ClickFunnels as my example – since that’s what I use.

However, you can easily do this with LeadPages or OptimizePress or any builder you wish.

I use ClickFunnels because I’m building an agency and it’s the easiest software for that in multiple ways.

ClickFunnels makes it easy to use a proven template and customize it for the hook and story in your Facebook ads.

I advise making a simple page with a headline, one paragraph of explanation, an image, and the form.

Watch this video below to learn how to set up your funnel, step by step. It’s too much to explain over text! 🙂

Click here for more help on setting up your domain to ClickFunnels.

The Two Reasons Landing Pages Fail

There’s two core reasons that landing pages will fail.

1 – They aren’t simple enough. Simple landing pages convert best. I’ve discovered that videos on my landing pages KILL conversions. It’s best to have a simple page with a relevant image.

2 – The messaging and branding isn’t aligned with the ad. You need to use the exact same words and phrases on both your advertisements and landing pages. Any mismatch will result in you losing a lot of leads that may have otherwise converted into customers. Use the same colors, images, and messages to make sure that people are not confused.

What Happens When Someone Hits “Submit?”

When someone becomes an active lead, we need to ensure that we have follow up systems in place.

For most Facebook ads, this means sending a welcome email with the lead magnet attached.

I use and recommend ActiveCampaign (yep this is another affiliate link).

With ActiveCampaign, you can send custom messages to leads and customers based on the actions they take.

For example ….

Let’s say a lead signs up and requests a free PDF guide …

Two days go by but they don’t open the first email.

With the automatons in place, ActiveCampaign can follow up with them automatically and tell them that we noticed they didn’t see the first email, so here’s their chance to claim their free PDF.

There’s a lot more we can do to increase profits with ActiveCampaign, but this article is on Facebook ads, so that’s where I’m going to focus.

Chapter 5: How To Create Facebook Ads That Convert (Simple Psychology Hacks Win!)

So far we’ve talked about setting the foundation for your Facebook ad …

You understand who you are reaching with your Facebook ad, what the hook is, what the story is about, and what offer you’re promoting.

But how do you actually create an ad?

That’s what this section is about.

Let’s dive in!

The Facebook Ad Copywriting Template

There’s a few different templates and formulas I use specifically for copy.

But in all my years I’ve only found ONE that consistently wins out more than the others.

Here it is …

1. HOOK [Question / Statement]
2. Intro / Lead Into Story
3. Call to action 1
4. More story [optional depending on offer]
5. Testimonial
6. Call to action 2

It might seem like this would work exclusively for long ads … but you can fit ads into this format in only a few sentences.

Here’s an example …

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“Don’t you love the taste of a delicious apple pie?

We’re Drew’s Pie Place, and we make some of the tastiest, most mouth-watering pies you’ve ever had. You know, the kind with the crispy golden flakes and sweet juicy apples. Sign up here to get 50% off your first pie: [link]

We believe you when you say Grandma’s pie is the best … but that’s only cause you haven’t tried us yet! But we might be biased, so here’s what a customer said …

“Wow! I just really love Drew’s pies … I’d buy one any day.”

We’ll even give you half a pie for free … how can you turn that down? Goofy question, you can’t. So click here to sign up: [LINK]”

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That’s only six lines of text, not including the testimonial. Pair that with a video of apple pies coming out of the oven, target people interested in baked goods … and you might run out of inventory.

How Long Should A Facebook Ad Be?

This is a common question I get from clients and students.

The answer is pretty simple: Only as long as it needs to be, and not a word longer.

I hear the debate raging all the time. One “guru” says “Short form is the best!” while the other is harking on the virtues of long form.

It truly doesn’t matter. What matters is how effectively you’re communicating with your target audience, not how many words you have.

How do you REALLY know what works better for you specifically?

Split test your ads.

Facebook Ad Copy Tips

So now you have my Facebook ad copywriting formula – how do you spice it up for better clicks and conversions?

Here’s a few tricks I’ve learned over the years.

Speak Like A Human Does In Your Facebook Ads

This may go without saying, but if you write your Facebook ads like a text book, you won’t get any results. Period.

If you read your ad outloud and it’s awkward or clumsy, rewrite it until it feels natural.

Remember that you’re posting your ad on a social network – a place where humans hangout online. It’s not enough to describe a product, you have to convey an emotion. In order to do that you must be human.

Utilize Triune Brain Theory To Make Your Facebook Ads More Successful

Triune brain theory tells us that our brains are complex.

There are three core parts of the brain.

The “Reptilian brain” that’s responsible for filtering messages and interpreting if it will help or hurt us…

The “limbic” or “mammal” brain that processes emotions and feelings …

And the “neo-cortex” responsible for logic and data … and making sure that ideas make logistical sense.

In order to make any sale you must make ALL three parts of the brain happy, and you must do it in the right order.

Messages Are First Received In The Reptilian Brain

The reptilian brain is designed to listen to a message and decide if it’s safe and helpful.

The best way to see it in action is to experience a spammy robocall.

Your brain instantly thinks “Danger!” and you hang up the phone.

That’s the reptilian brain at work.

It’s the same sensation you get when you’re walking to your car at the store and someone starts yelling. A sudden panic appears, triggered by the reptillian brain.

This is how it works …

And it’s either working against you, or for you, in your Facebook ads.

Your goal is to make sure it’s on YOUR side.

The best way to do this is to speak to a desire in the first two lines of an ad.

With chiropractors, I do that by saying “are you tired of back, neck, and shoulder pain?”

By saying that I’m getting people to mentally answer “yes that’s me,” and that’s enough to disarm the reptilian brain and get it on your side.

If you throw data, statistics, and monetary numbers at the reptilian brain too soon it will shut down. This is one of the common mistake Facebook advertisers make. They try to convince people to make a decision with the neo-cortex when they NEED to be speaking to the reptilian brain.

You can see this in a plethora of ads that scream “50% off now!” and “Get $10 off” right away.

First off, that diminishes the value of a brand, and secondly it triggers the wrong portion of the brain at the wrong time.

Now you’re probably thinking, “But Drew! You offered 50% off in your made up pie ad!”

Yep – but not right away. I used my hook (the thought of tasty pie) to get people thinking about how good that sounds. Then I told them the story of just how delicious it is using descriptive copy … then I went for the offer.

I’m talking about ads that scream: “Get 50% off your pie now! Come in soon.”

Bleh – that’s terrible.

Emotionally Processing Facebook Ad Messages In The Limbic Brain

Once a message passes the reptilian brain, it’s sent up to the limbic brain. Here, the message is analyzed for emotional value. This is where you focus on solving the problem and building desire for the potential customer. This is where you provide you “epiphany” as to WHY they need what you have.

Going back to my Facebook ad for dog owners … this took the form of “I’ve worked with dogs for years and I found the solution to make them stop barking.”

In this instance, it’s all it took to satisfy the limbic brain. I give them a problem, tell them I’ve found the answer, and their brain will crave it. At the moment they AREN’T thinking of any form of cost or expense … they’re thinking of how good it will feel to solve their problem!

For a Chiropractor I might say something like “Look … I’ve struggled with bad back problems for years … I don’t have to tell you how GOOD it will feel to finally be rid of … that’s why I want to help you get out of it ASAP.”

Notice the implied emotion. You don’t have to spell it out – the person on the other side of the Facebook ad will get it 🙂

Finishing The Deal With The Neo-Cortex

You won’t be dealing with this as much with Facebook ads … at least not cold ads. However this can come into play when you’re retargeting users and getting them back into your sales funnel.

The Neo-Cortex is the statics and data part of the brain … the part some people rely too much on … but I digress.

It’s triggered by logical reasons to buy such as “30% off” for the next few days only, or “You’ll get this bonus.”

However … you need to make sure the other two portions of the brain are satisfied first. You can’t go into your first ad to an audience telling them how crazy good your sale is – that screams “I have to spend money?!?!?!” and your ad will go unclicked, but still billed by Facebook.

The Life Force 8

In his book, “Cashvertising”[yep – affiliate link] renowned author and psychologist Drew Eric Whitman tells his readers about 8 primal, instinctive desires that can never be fully satisfied. Because they are primal (meaning they are tied directly to the reptilian brain) – you can bet that if you tap into them, you’ll get MUCH better results from your ads.

So what are these 8 desires? Let’s find out …

1. Survival, enjoyment of life, the extension of life
2. Enjoyment of food and beverages
3. Freedom from fear, pain, or danger
4. Sexual companionship / Romance
5. Comfortable living conditions
6. To be superior, winning, or keeping up with fame
7. Care and protection of loved ones
8. Social approval

These are hard wired into every single one of us. They’re the most critical desires anyone has as a human being. By appealing to them, you can a much more emotionally compelling advertisement.

When creating an ad, I attempt to target two or more of the desires. I have personally found this leads to stronger results.

How to Sequence Your Advertisements To Get Higher Quality Leads

There are times when having only ONE ad won’t get you the results you want. In order to get higher quality leads and more sales, you need to create different ads that work together … this utilizes retargeting on many levels.

In the next chapter we will talk about this in depth, but know that when you’re sequencing ads – you’re moving people through the various stages in the brain.

Chapter 6: Facebook Ad Targeting And My Secret Strategy For Getting Crazy Cheap Conversions

I have to admit something …

Targeting is probably one of the most overused excuses for why a Facebook ad didn’t work.

But I’m going to be honest with you … it’s likely not.

Your copy and offer are the problem (A-HSO).

So how do you effectively do Facebook ad targeting? Here’s my solution.

Facebook has an advanced feature that is yet to have an equal … Lookalike audiences.

In essence, according to Facebook:

“When you create a Lookalike Audience, you choose a source audience (a Custom Audience created with your pixel data, your mobile app data or fans of your Page) and we identify the common qualities of the people in it (ex: demographic information or interests). Then we find people who are similar to (or “look like”) them.”

However, not all Lookalike audiences are the same.

You can build a lookalike audience from the following:

• Page fans
• Video viewers
• Custom audiences
• Your email list
• Your customer base
• Other custom lists you have

I’ve found that lookalike audiences sourced from your BEST customers are the most accurate form of targeting for your Facebook ads.

Some say saved audiences targeting magazines and associations is the best – and I wouldn’t say they’re wrong. You can get a good audience using the standard method of targeting … but Lookalike audiences are the next level of Facebook ads.

What To Do When You Don’t Have The Data To Build A Lookalike Audience For Your Facebook Ad

When you’re using the standard targeting options, you’re fairly limited to what Facebook can offer you.

Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, accessing good data has been difficult to do (to say the least)!

However, the best strategy for pinpoint targeting is STILL going after magazines, associations, and industry leaders.

In local markets it’s generally best to leave the targeting open.

The Facebook Pixel will optimize over time for your target audience based on the results.

Wait – What The Heck Is The Facebook Pixel?

Glad you asked! The Facebook Pixel is an advanced AI tool developed by Facebook for two core reasons.

1 – To track results brought in from specific Facebook ads.

2 – To study the data in an ad account and optimize the campaigns over time to produce better results.

In short, Facebook’s ad manager will give you a snippet of code that you can place in the header of your website or funnel.

In the body of your pages you can place what are called “event codes.”

An “event code” is triggered on the load of a page.

When a Facebook Pixel and event code is properly loaded, the Pixel will be able to accurately track results and optimize your ad account over time.

How To Setup The Facebook Pixel: A Tutorial

When you’re a local business, leaving the targeting open is good for two reasons:

1 – You have more room to expand in a limited market (local markets are often very small – especially around more suburban and rural regions).

2 – As the Facebook Pixel studies the data from your ad account, it can adapt itself to hone in on a specific group of people that are statistically more likely to buy from you.

Here’s My Secret Plan For Getting High-Quality Facebook Ad Conversions Dirt Cheap

In this example I’m going to show you exactly what I’d do for a brand new client that I’m just onboarding.

Step 1: Look at the assets. Do they have an active email list? How about an engaged Facebook business page? Can they send me a CSV of their most valuable customers? If so, I ask for that list.

Step 2: I upload that CSV into Facebook’s custom audiences manager. I turn that custom audience into a lookalike audience. If they do not have a list of customers, I will use either an email list or the fan page as the source of my lookalike audience.

Step 3: I run the first set of ads and look at the results. I test different offers (if applicable / easy to do – it isn’t always as simple as this).

Step 4: I cut off the ads that aren’t working and apply more budget to the ones that are.

Step 5: After 500 conversions (likely leads or registrations), I build a new custom audience out of everyone that has signed up for the offer. I build a lookalike audience off of that custom audience. This is what I’m now running ads to. At this point my ad costs should be dropping while I keep the quality of my leads consistent.

It’s not the most complex strategy – but honestly you don’t need anything fancy.

How To Sequence Facebook Ads For Better Results

For many companies and brands, especially ones that are selling higher end products, one Facebook ad is NOT enough to get sales. This is something Sam Ovens talks about in Consulting Accelerator. 

As I mentioned earlier in this guide, you cannot promote a high-ticket item straight from a Facebook ad. Anything above $7-$19 will struggle from an ad.

So how do you fix that?

Through custom audiences and retargeting ads.

Watch this video to learn how to do this and incorporate this strategy …

What Is A Retargeting Ad And How Does It Work?

A retargeting ad is a special type of ad that is based off Facebook Pixel data.

For example, you can collect the Facebook data of every user who has visited specific pages on your website and place them into a dynamic Facebook custom audience.

You can then run a Facebook ad specifically to that custom audience. When this happens, you’re running ads ONLY to people who have visited that one specific page.

That’s the basics, but let’s give it some more context.

You own a fitness blog. Your most popular article is based on the keto diet.

Thousands of people read that article per month.

You have the Facebook Pixel installed on your website, and everyone who reads the keto diet blog article is placed into a specific custom audience.

Since you know they read that article, you can be sure they have SOME interest in the subject.

You can send them a Facebook ad that says:

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“Still interested in applying the Keto diet to your life?

Hey I’m Andrew – the founder of Purdum Fitness. I saw that you were checking out my article on how to succeed with the Keto diet and I wanted to COMMEND you for taking massive action and working to improve your life.

However, I wanted to reach out to you because I know that so many people tend to get stuck implementing what they learn … and I want to get you unstuck.

That’s why I’m offering a FREE 15-minute consultation to the first 10 people that request it.

Click here to sign up for it now: [link]”

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Using this strategy, you can follow up with people who read your articles and send them a completely custom marketing message tailored to their exact needs. This becomes a very powerful tool for the advanced Facebook marketer.

If you don’t want to work one on one with your audience, you could easily substitute that 15-minute offer for a mini-course or even a free lead magnet that sends users into an upsell sequence.

The point is – retargeting ads are powerful.

But how do you build one?

Watch this video on how to set up your retargeting ad.

How to Use Facebook Retargeting Ads For Ecommerce Stores

Online ecommerce stores that sell physical products can rely heavily on Facebook ads to help increase the number of sales they get each month.

Shopify stores have the ability, through third party apps such as Flexify, to connect into Facebook Catalogs.

A Facebook Catalog is an internal database of an entire ecommerce store’s inventory and supply. It updates dynamically, and you can organize your products into categories.

Catalogs REALLY show their power when it comes to retargeting. Each catalog and category can have retargeting set up for it … here’s a few examples.

Category Retargeting (Abandoned View)

For this example, you own a fashion store.

In your store you sell purses, watches, and jewelry.

That’s three categories of items.

These categories are all classified under the single catalog.

Any time a user visits a purse sales page but doesn’t checkout, Facebook will see that and they will be sent a custom ad encouraging them to buy a purse.

However … the image in the ad will be the purse they were looking at! Crazy right?

Because we are using a catalog, the image and even copy can by dynamically updated based on what the user was doing on the website.

Abandoned Cart Facebook Ads

These are some of my favorite dynamic retargeting ads. If you do it properly, you can recover a ton of sales from people who were considering buying a product but didn’t! This works especially well if you have high amounts of traffic going to your ecommerce site.

How To Create An Effective Abandoned Cart Facebook Ad

In my time working with larger ecommerce firms, I found that there were a few keys to developing abandoned cart Facebook ads that convert.

It’s not enough to ONLY say “come back and buy my product.”

You must give the user a reason to come back.

Often times this comes back to the mission of the business.

In this example, you’re a larger dog related ecommerce store that donates 10% of your profits to a no-kill shelter.

Having a mission like this tied to your store gives you a powerful hook and story to use in your ad – when someone buys from your store, they are helping save the life of a dog.

Of course, do NOT make up something that isn’t true! If your business doesn’t do this, don’t advertise it. It’s never good to lie. However, many larger stores have missions like that so for the sake of illustration I’m going to use this example.

Incorporating The Mission To Your Facebook Ad

Here’s an example …

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“Hey there! We noticed that you left your “I love dogs” tshirt in your cart … but you didn’t check out yet! Is everything okay?

I didn’t know if you were aware of this … but hundreds of dogs are put to sleep everyday in shelters around the world. When I started Drew’s dog store, It broke my heart to see so many loving, sweet dogs waiting for the perfect family go to sleep. That’s why I decided that my store would donate 10% of all profits to local no-kill shelters and organizations that help stray dogs find good homes.

When you shop with us, you get a great shirt and the chance to support our mission to save dogs all over the United States.

That’s why I’m offering you free shipping for a limited time when you come back and finish your purchase now.

Not sure if Drew’s dog store is right for you?

Here’s what one of our customers, Jackie, had to say about shopping with us …

“I LOVE Drew’s mission to help dogs … and I love the designs on his shirts. I’d recommend it any day of the week.”

Click the “Shop now” button below to go back and finish your checkout now.”

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Now clearly this is a fictitious company and ad. This store doesn’t exist.  But you can see my framework clearly defined in the ad.

In this case, the “story” part of my copywriting framework addresses our mission … and how the user can be a part of it.

The key here is describing the mission authentically and presenting it as a worthy cause to the potential customer.

Other Important Elements Of Abandon Cart Facebook Ads

The mission isn’t the only part of the Facebook ad.

Here’s the other noteworthy elements:

#1 – Including a good testimonial (that’s hard to see in my example – I suck at faking testimonials LOL. I never ever do that – but for an example with a fake company and a fake Facebook ad, I guess it’s alright.)

#2 – Calling out the audience personally by their action. Notice the very first line. See how I grab them? That’s important. The hook pulls them out of their world and back into ours.

Calling out your audience by their behavior is one of the most powerful ways to grab attention with a retargeting ad.

#3 – Giving them a discount or free shipping. You can alternate between them. I recommend 10% off if you go the discount route. You don’t need more than that.

Chapter 7: Split Testing Your Facebook Ads (How To Know EXACTLY What Will Make You Money Quickly)

When you run a Facebook ad campaign for a new business or a new industry, you won’t know exactly what’s going to work… but if you follow the steps in this chapter, I’m going to show you exactly how to get there.

The process we use for this is called “split testing.”

Split testing is the process of testing ad copy, creative, headlines, hooks, offers, and even audiences in order to see what is working best RIGHT NOW. If you don’t go through the split test process, you’re essentially guessing at what will work.

The Hardest Part Of Split Testing Facebook Ads Is Admitting That You Don’t Know What Will Work

I need you to accept this as a fact before we move forward in the process.

If you go into a campaign with unproven assumptions about what will work … you’re likely to mess everything up.

Some of my highest converting campaigns came from versions of an ad I NEVER thought would work, but I trusted my own process and it turned out just fine!

The split testing process, an overview

There’s three core phases of split testing.

1. Audience
2. Hooks
3. Offers

We start with the audience first – we need to know exactly what groups will convert the best.

In order to do this, we need to identify buyer personas for your specific business.

I’m going to use an example for a gym here.

Who are the common types of people that go to a gym?

Here’s what we have …

1. The bodybuilder who is all about getting more muscular, but not necessarily stronger
2. The middle aged officer worker who wants to stay in shape to keep up with his kids
3. Senior citizens looking to do light workouts to maintain their bodies as long as they can

Each buyer persona will have their own problems and emotions tied to those problems. See Chapter 2 for more info on this.

Yet if we’ve never done an ad for this industry and type of gym … we won’t know what will convert the best! So we need to have one standard offer and write ads specifically for each type of audience.

Writing the Facebook Ads

In Chapter 2 I outline 10 market research questions. These will guide you to understand the target audience and what they need from us in order to convert.

As a reminder, here they are again:

1. Who is the target audience?
2. Are they a certain age?
3. Are they a certain gender?
4. What specific problems do they have?
5. How do they feel about the problems they have?
6. What have they done to try and fix those problems?
7. How would they feel if their problem was fixed?
8. How long has this problem gone on?
9. What other problems is the specific problem creating?
10. How can you uniquely help them overcome their problem and find freedom?

I’m going to map out the ten questions for each of our three personas to show you an example of what your results would look like.

Audience #1 – The Body Builder

1. Who is the target audience? Bodybuilders looking to shape up for competitions and win.
2. Are they a certain age? 20-29 years old
3. Are they a certain gender? Largely male, with some females mixed in.
4. What specific problems do they have? It’s easy to get hurt when bodybuilding due to the regimen and intense sessions bodybuilders have. Because of this, many bodybuilders don’t workout alone – and it can be hard to find someone to be with during a session.
5. How do they feel about the problems they have? Nervous – injuries can happen at any time. All it takes is one “that didn’t feel right” moment and you’re in trouble.
6. What have they done to try and fix those problems? They’ve brought friends with them. But it’s hard relying on the schedule of others, and friends don’t always know what to spot to prevent injuries.
7. How would they feel if their problem was fixed? Empowered to reach their goals and encouraged that they’re doing the right exercises in the proper manner.
8. How long has this problem gone on? Likely since the start of their bodybuilding career. Unless you’re in a highly populated area with a lot of bodybuilders around you, it can be difficult to find the right people to go with you.
9. What other problems is the specific problem creating? Improper exercising can lead to a host of issues, both short and long term. One of the reasons bodybuilders retire is because of injuries or damage to their bodies.
10. How can you uniquely help them overcome their problem and find freedom? We hired coaches that understand the bodybuilding process and will be with you throughout your session. They’ll help you build bigger and faster. They’ll also correct any improper technique or posture to ensure that you’re working the proper way.

How This Would Look Like When Put Into A Facebook Ad

Taking all that information, we are now ready to build the Facebook ad.

Here’s what it would look like:

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“Why is it so hard to find other bodybuilders to work out with?”

That’s a common frustration we hear from our bodybuilders at Purdum Fitness. We get it – finding people to workout with is tough. You have to manage your schedule and constantly check-in to make sure your friends can go with you. And what do you do if no one is available? Do you just go alone?

We’re Purdum Fitness and we personally assign each bodybuilder a trainer to work with them. For a limited time we’re offering a free month to new members who are tired of the old way of bodybuilding at the gym. Click here to sign up now: [link}

Look – bodybuilding alone is dangerous. All it takes is one wrong move from improper technique, and your career could unfortunately end … but it doesn’t have to be that way! Our trainers are with you the entire session to help you improve your technique so you can grow faster and safer. No friends required!

Here’s what Chris, one of our members, had to say … “Man I love Purdum Fitness … they’re there for me even if all my friends are at work. My trainer has been with me every step of the way and because of him I’ve built more muscle in less time.”

If you’d like to experience this for yourself, come join us for one month. You’ll see the difference right away. Click here to sign up: [link]

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Repeat This Process For Every Buyer Persona You Will Run Facebook Ads To

Take the ten questions and answer them for each persona.

In this instance that would be senior citizens looking to keep their body in shape, and middle aged officer workers trying to keep up with their kids and have energy to make it through the busy work day.

As long as your answers to the questions are authentic, you’ll be on the right track.

Setting Up The Split Test

So now you have your 3 buyer persona Facebook ads written.

You’re ready to pit them against one another!

Make sure everything else in the ad campaign is the same. You only want ONE variable.

The landing pages need to be similar, but it’s okay to tweak the headline to reflect the target audience.

The offer MUST be the same.

This video will show you how to set up your test inside Facebook’s Ad Manager…

Here’s the steps to take during this split test …

1.  Create one campaign and three adsets. Each adset will be for one unique audience (they buyer personas we set up). Run these as conversion ads and optimize for “leads.”
2.  Under each adset, create one ad each. This is the copy / creative you’ve made already.
3.  Set each adset to $10 / day. Never do lifetime campaign budget settings – that destroys Facebook’s algorhthm
4.  Let these ads run for 5 days each. Do not touch them. By letting them run you’re allowing Facebook to properly deliver them into user’s newsfeeds.
5.  After the first 5 days, analyze the results. See what audience is performing best. Usually there is one clear winner.
6. If nothing stood out, let the ads run for another 3 days.

If you follow this process you should discover that one particular audience is converting at a higher rate and cheaper cost. This is because every brand appeals more to specific groups than others, and you often do not know which group that is until you put Facebook ads in front of them.

Promoting A Winner And Moving Into The Second Phase Of Testing

By now you should have an audience that is converting at a higher than the others and they should have a lower cost per acquisition. It’s time to move into the hook portion of the split testing process.

This is where you take that exact audience and subject them to many different hooks and stories to see what works best.

Start by looking at your questionnaire again … can you identify five different hooks? Here are some we pulled from bodybuilders …

1.  Working out alone is dangerous
2.  How to grain muscle faster
3.  Finding time to workout
4.  How to keep your figure
5.  Finding the right routine to grow at a faster rate

Each of these hooks can tie back into a problem that bodybuilders face.

Now we have to turn them into ads. The story is going to stay largely the same, but the hook will be different. For that reason I’m just going to show you the first portion of the ads.

The rest of the story will always be “That’s why we have coaches who are trained to help with that. Try them for one month free.”

EXAMPLES:

#1 – Well, you saw this already. Look back at the original ad. It had this hook.

#2 – “I want to build muscle faster … I’ve got a competition coming up!”

We hear this all the time from bodybuilders … they just need to bulk up fast – but how?

#3 – Life getting in the way of preparing for the next bodybuilding competition?

We’re Purdum Fitness, and we want to let you in on a secret that will help you find more time for bodybuilding … you don’t have to spend hours in the gym! You just need to understand how to work efficiently.

#4 – “I’ve worked hard in my bodybuilding career … and I want to maintain it as long as possible, but it feels like I’m already losing steam.”

Look – it can be tough keeping up an incredible physique – I know firsthand! However, I want to let you in on an insider secret that the best bodybuilders use to keep their figure … you need to have the right person on your team help you when you get stuck. Your body is a fine-tuned machine, and if you don’t have the right people working on it … it’s going to wear out too soon.

#5 – Every week, we work with bodybuilders who are trying to find the right routine to constantly and reliably build muscle …
And we’re shocked by what we’ve discovered! The truth is, everyone needs a different routine uniquely suited to them, but it’s hard to discover it…

Every hook needs to be turned into an introduction for an ad. I’ve provided different formats in the examples above. It’s up to you to put them in front of the target audience to see what performs best!

The testing process is similar to phase one.

How To Set Up This Phase Of Split Testing

1.  Create one campaign and one adset. Make 5 ads inside of the one adset. Name each ad according to the hook. Run these Facebook ads as conversion ads and optimize for “leads.”
2.  Set the adset to $30-$50 / day (if you can afford it). The winning hook will naturally get the most budget. This is good.
3.  The losing hooks will gradually get less adspend put towards to them. Once this happens, wait three days and cut them off.
4.  Go until the winning ad remains. This is the hook that performs best!

Split Testing Phase 3 – Copy / Headlines / Creative

Phase 3 is the final initial round of split testing.

This is more loose then the first two phases as it is not as critical.

Here’s what we’re testing:

• Forms of copy (Long form / short form / one paragraph)
• Headlines (just mix them up – see what works best)
• Images
• Videos
• Ad formats (carousel / single Image or video / Instant experience)

The goal is to test the lesser important elements of a Facebook ad. The audience and hooks are the big ones.

After that, I continue to test out the five categories of elements listed above. This is an ongoing process.

When Do You Test Offers?

I used to include offer testing in the initial split test process … but I’ve moved that to later on and here’s why …

Most businesses already know what offers work for them. Especially if they are a local brick and mortar store or shop of some sort.

They know what brings people into the door, they just don’t know how to message it. It’s our job as marketers to take that offer and whip it into shape.

If you’re an online business like a coach or a consultant, I create an initial SIMPLE offer like a 3-page PDF or cheatsheet and run through the split test process. This validates the idea once results start coming in.

If we get to the end of phase one of split testing with little to no results, I’ll change the offer or spice it up. It’s simply too hard to create multiple tangible offers and promote them at the same time. Honestly, I rarely have a first offer that doesn’t work. It’s largely the audience that doesn’t work for the established offer.

What To Do When You Have A Winning Audience / Hook / Offer

Congratulations! If you’ve successfully gone through the process, you should have a converting ad.

Over time, you will want to rerun various portions of the split testing process to see if other variables work better.

Facebook ads and the marketplace at large are changing all the time … that’s why I believe it’s critical to test ads on a routine basis.

But if you have an ad that is getting results – don’t shut it down!

Now that your ad has been split test to eternity and back, it’s time to start working on your landing page.

Split test headlines, images, copy, and call to actions.

Just like you did with your Facebook ads, you need to learn what will work through data. Never just guess 🙂

Chapter 8: How To Scale Your Facebook Ad Campaigns

So now you have a converting Facebook ad. Congratulations!

But you want to be able to expand your reach and still maintain consistent cost per acquisitions, right?

Scaling can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be.

There’s two core things to keep in mind …

• Expand your budget consistently over time – NEVER just multiply it (this will cause Facebook’s algorithm to go “Oh – they have money! Let’s raise their prices sky high”)
• Expand your audience and try out new ways to reach them

Expanding Your Facebook Ad Budget

When you’re increasing the size of your budget, grow by 15-20% a day MAX. Anymore than that and you’ll get higher costs and less results.

My process for scaling is the following:

• Increase by 15% for the first two days of scaling.
• Stop for a day and see if you still get results.
• If no – let it stabilize. Give it 3-5 business days to steady itself out and get results again.
• If yes – increase by 15% a day again for the next two days.
• Repeat this process until you are at your desired budget / desired revenue

It’s simple, but simplicity works the best.

There Will Come A Point When One Facebook Ad Will Get Maxed Out And Stop Working

Inevitably, any ad will stop working no matter how good your scaling technique is.

This could be for a few reasons …

1. You reached the entire audience that’s available
2. Your offer is overused and needs to be refreshed
3. Ad fatigued kicked in – ads need to be replaced every 2-3 weeks on average

Let me illustrate it this way …

Imagine that you work on the other side of your city.

Every day you have to drive through the city to get to work.

Along the way you pass a blue billboard for a business. For months it does not change.

Over time you ignore it …

You instinctively know it’s there … but you pay no attention to it and the message it’s pitching fades from your mind. Because it’s not new or novel, your brain filters it out.

One day the billboard is replaced with another one that has the same message and offer … but the background is now white instead of blue. Your eyes snap to it because it sees difference!

This phenomenon happens all the time with Facebook ads.

How Can We Avoid This?

By refreshing our ads every several week, or sooner, depending on the size of the audience.

Simply changing the copy, tweaking the headline, or changing the color of an image can be enough to re-engage a dull audience.

However … sometimes we must become more extreme.

After several months we generally have to rewrite the entire ad from top to bottom.

Prepare For The Adpocalypse By Creating Multiple Versions Of The Same Ad And Swap Them Out Periodically

When you have an optimized campaign that you’re trying to scale, or even keep steady, the best thing you can do is create new ads that you can swap out ahead of time.

I suggest creating 2-3 ads a month  – that way you don’t have to do it all at once!

Keep your winning hooks are recycle them by changing them from statements to questions, and vice-versa.

An ad that says “Tired of your dog barking all night long” could change into a buyer persona quote …

“I really wish that my dog would stay quite while I’m trying to get sleep …”

Or “Just stop it already! I can’t take it anymore …”

Recycle the same hooks and stories in a creative, unique manner and you’ll be fine.

Just make sure to keep an eye on your CPM (cost per 1000 impressions). If it starts rising too much, ad fatigue is kicking in.

Chapter 9: How To Fix Ads That Have Gone Bad

Things happen. We can’t avoid that …

But there are solid, tangible steps we can take to get advertising campaigns on the right track!

There’s a total of four main things that can go wrong when creating an ad … and it has very little to do with the technical side of Facebook ads. There are sub categories in here … but these are the four main basic problems.

So what are they?

Here’s the list …

• Not getting your ads clicked on
• Your CPM / CPC is going up (costs are rising)
• Your ads are denied
• People are clicking through but not signing up

Why Ads Aren’t Getting Clicks

The biggest reason that people don’t click on ads is because they aren’t relevant. You aren’t relevant because you likely are not SPECIFIC enough. You’re not specific to an exact audience with an exact problem … and your offer isn’t strong enough [doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable enough … it means it doesn’t solve a specific problem, or the problem it aims to solve isn’t the right one].

This goes back to A-HSO. There’s a piece missing.

Start with your audience … are you sure you have the right information on them?

Ask them the 10 questions again. Do more research. Ensure that everything 100% lines up. If there’s any discrepancy, the chances of your ads not working is low.

If your audience is on point … check your hooks.

Test out as MANY hooks as possible.

Just because you did split testing once doesn’t mean you need to stop doing it.

Continue to find new hooks.

Most of the time, my ads don’t work because I need to find better hooks.

The stronger the hook, the more people will click.

After Running 100s Of Ad Campaigns, I Found Out This Weird Trick …

Your first two lines of an ad will dictate the kind and quality of your leads.

And it’s 100% dependent on HOW you hook and grab their attention.

You have a full 2 seconds to grab the audiences attention … but what most advertisers don’t think about is WHAT kind of audience are you grabbing?

Let’s go to the gym ad again …

Here’s two examples:

1 – “Looking to get ripped this summer?”

2 – “Looking to prepare for the upcoming bodybuilder competitions this summer?”

Both have the same notion of building strength and muscle … but there’s a MASSIVE difference between the two.

Let me explain.

With the first ad we could be talking to ANY person interested in building muscles. This could be guys who just like to look good, people tired of being flabby, and bodybuilders.

But the SECOND ad specifically draws out a unique situation ONLY the exact audience the ad is intended for.

What most people do, on accident, is talk to the wrong audience because they think they are using the right words.

If your ad isn’t relevant, you won’t get results.

That’s why A-HSO is CRITICAL to your success … and it’s why I put it at the front of the article.

One Wrong Word Can Wreck An Entire Ad

Generic ads fail because they don’t speak to anyone specifically. General words create general ad, such as the example listed above.

Audiences are exposed to THOUSANDS of marketing messages each week. In order for yours to stand out, it needs to be 100% on point.

If your audience has the slightest hint that “this isn’t for them … it won’t solve my problem,” then congratulations – you’ve just been blocked out of their mind. This goes back to triggering the reptilian brain, like we talked about earlier.

The more complex your audience is, the more carefully you have to think about this.

Avoid any “negative” words that a particular audience is sensitive to.

For example, when I’m putting out ads for my agency, I’m careful to use the word “leads.”

If I say “leads” that triggers the thought of “danger” in the minds of specific types of people, because they have bought “leads” in the past and it turned out to be a disaster for them.

So I change up my wording and say “sales opportunities.”

You and I both know these are leads … but by changing the copy I can keep attention longer.

Most people will think “that’s really stupid … you’re being dumb.”

Well … maybe that’s why their ads don’t convert the way that they want!

Are There Enough Audience Members To Target?

This will be a problem reserved for local markets and niched down campaigns …

But if your target audience is less than 3,000 people … your ad is going to hit the sand FAST.

You need to be able to expand out … and if you keep targeting the same small audience your CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) will skyrocket, and you won’t get any clicks.

There’s a quick solution I use that doesn’t ALWAYS work, but I’ve had success with it.

Change your targeting to a Lookalike Audience of everyone who has ever worked with your business.

Facebook’s LLA tech is top notch.

I’ve used it for years and trust it.

So If I have a super small audience and I can’t expand it … I’m just going to put my trust in the LLA.

It’s going to open up options and reach people in our audience we never would have been able to access before.

The second option you have is to start developing other audiences with other problems.

This may or may not be applicable for you.

What Happens If People Click An Ad But Don’t Sign Up For An Offer?

If someone clicks through an ad, it means they’re at least somewhat interested in what you have to offer.

So why wouldn’t they sign up for an offer?

Here’s a few reasons:

• The ad and landing pages aren’t congruent – the messaging, colors, and theme are off. This happens quite a lot, unfortunately. To fix this, make sure you use the same language in both the ad and the page.
• Your hook is off [we talked about this above]
• The audience is not in the right stage of the consumer behavior journey to take action on the offer [if this is the case, consider making a different offer to meet them]
• They don’t believe you or your offer [why would the offer that ____ at that price?]
• Your offer is not as compelling as it needs to be
• The load time is too slow

The reality is, the bulk of your job as an advertiser is to create a fantastic ad that’s compelling to the point where you don’t need a sophisticated landing page. The landing page has ONE JOB … to collect contact information. Every single word, image, or other element needs to work towards that.

How Can You Know If Your Landing Page Is Helping Or Hurting?

One of my favorite tools is HotJar.

HotJar allows you to see exactly WHAT people are doing on your website / landing page.

You’ll be able to see the movements they take, what they’re looking at, and how quickly they leave without taking action

You will get tangible data that you can use to rework your landing page to be better.

EXAMPLE:

If you see that users are loading the page, filling and the form, then scrolling down and exiting – you might need to eliminate everything below the form.

It’s pulling away from your conversions.

Too much content leads to low conversion rates.

Simple wins almost every time.

You can be more complex on the next page – but keep the landing page really simple.

The Art Of Followup

Ads are only one part of the marketing formula. Mastering followup is critical to your success. My friend Ross over at LeadCarrot.io has mastered the art of both automated and manual followup. His system allows you to see where leads are in your sales system and follow up with them accordingly. Go check his software out at LeadCarrot.io.

How To Sell High Ticket Offers From Your Facebook Ads

This is a guest submission from my good friend and mentor Luke Guy. Luke owns a successful agency and builds client base through a unique process called “Power Closing.” This methadology has allowed him to close 3-6 month contracts with ease.

What’s his secret? He shares it here …

Ad costs are going up and there’s nothing we can do to stop that. As more competition rolls in and compete for the same space on Facebook the higher prices get. That means your budget rises with it or you get less customers. We want more customers, and more speed, not less.

How do we fix this?

The answer to this is having a high ticket offer on the back-end and selling it via live phone webinars. Let’s say your normal product prices are $500, this new back end product would be $5,000.

Going this route will save your business and attract high quality customers from within your client base. It gets them better results, it builds deeper relationships, and it increases your margins.

Now you can run more traffic no matter what the prices are.

How do we sell these products though at high prices? The solution is selling these over a live phone webinar and taking them a 20 presentation we call “masterslides”. It’s the fastest way to close a deal and to show how amazing your offer is.

You don’t need a script or to manipulate with words. You keep things relaxed and have fun with the client.

There is a method to the madness and we break it down here within our movement we call the Power Closers. Feel free to join here: gopowercloser.com/go

Conclusion: Mastering The Art Of Facebook Ads

We’ve talked about so much in this article. At 15,000+ words I’ve written most of what I know about Facebook ads here for you.

There’s always more to say, and that’s why I’m committed to updating and expanding this article on a regular basis.

My goal is to make this article the ULTIMATE resource for Facebook ads – a one stop shop for creating and expanding winning ads – and doubling the size of businesses all over the United States.

Now I want to turn it over to you: what did you think about this guide?

What did I miss? What do you want to see more of?

Let me know by leaving a comment below.