What Works

The Nitty Gritty: * Why Facebook ad costs have risen so dramatically and what we’ve been doing that contributes to the problem* The metric that Amanda Bond encourages her clients and students to prioritize instead of Cost Per Lead* How skewed expectations for conversion rates have led to declining ad performance* The 3-part customer journey that Bond advises for excellent customer experience and profitability Have you heard? The sky is falling!  Okay, the sky isn’t actually falling. What is being talked about by every Chicken Little out there is how much Facebook ad costs are rising.  Recode, Business Insider, Adweek, Adespresso, and more have been talking about declining inventory and rising costs for the last year. Small business owners are catching on too. Inside our network, we’ve been watching as members scratch their heads about the cost of clicks and leads. We’ve been promised clicks and leads for less than a dollar by every Jeff, Ryan, and Frank out there with a Porsche and an online marketing course—but what we’re really seeing is lead costs balloon to $5, $10, or even $25 or more, with little to no profit on the backend. So what’s going on with Facebook ads today? That’s what this episode is all about.  In mid-December, Amanda Bond, founder of The Ad Strategist, pulled down her regular website and put up a sprawling multi-part article on everything that’s not working with Facebook ads today. She explained how many of us have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to how we market our products and services—and backed it up with case studies and data. She also presented a case for what is working—based on her extensive work running clients’ ad campaigns and teaching small business owners to do it themselves. I wanted to have her on the show to explain and dive deeper into some of the things she discussed on the site. This episode is part of a special series we’re doing talking to the people with a bird’s eye view on what’s really working. In November, we talked to Isa Adney from ConvertKit about what’s working in email marketing. And, in December, we talked to Sai Hossain, the founder of Crowdcast, to find out what’s working in live video broadcasting. This month, we’re looking at Facebook advertising to find out what’s working—and what’s not—with Amanda Bond. Bond and I chat about bro marketing, why ad costs have been rising, why she has people focus on earnings per lead instead of costs per lead, and how she thinks about planning an ad campaign to maximize both the customer experience and profit. To find out what’s working in Facebook ads today–and what’s not–listen to the interview here or wherever you listen to podcasts!