My clients and community ask me about Meta ads... a lot. Even for myself, the world of Meta advertising and management feels like I'm decending upon another planet, scared and alone. So, I understand why so many of you shy away from giving it a whirl or get frustrated by not seeing a return when you have tried. I get it!
Here's the thing; stats don't lie. Facebook is still a behemoth when it comes to social media (even if Gen-Zers are fleeing to Tik Tok like Millenials and Gen X dumped Tom and their stylishly coded MySpace pages for FB. What goes around comes around Zuck.) but based on projections, the opportunity of running ads through Meta are only going to grow.
Sorry, Tom.
A couple stats to wet your whistle, before I introduce you to Ads Manager Megastar Sarah Peel, of Niche Up Digital...
- 3.05 billion monthly active users, more than 2 billion of which use Facebook every day.
- Facebook.com is the third most visited site under Google (#1) and Youtube (#2).
- By 2027, Facebook will reach 75% of the world’s population.
And that's just Facebook. If you recall, Facebook purchased Instagram in 2012 (wow, time flies!), expanding the potential for reach, growth, and revenue even further.
So I'm not going to keep you waiting any longer. If I know someone who can help get you up and running without a crippling ad spend or leaving you in the dust, confused and unsure about whether the money you're putting in is having any return-- I'm always down to share.
Luckily for you, I know just the woman to introduce you to.
I reached out to a good friend, past client, and Ads Manager megastar Sarah Peel of Niche Up Digital to get her expert opinion on when Artists and Artisans should consider ads.
Sarah's Advice to You
There are three phases when one might consider it a good idea to hire an ads manager who also coaches you in non-hustle social media strategy for business. (All of these assume that you have a Shopify site up and running!)
ONE: You’re past the proof of concept stage and you’ve had some success selling your creations – enough to know that you want to grow your business. Yay, you! If you believe in hiring and paying for professionals (or maybe you believe in not DIYing everything) you may want to hire an Ads Manager to help you grow your audience, get traffic to your new site, and thereby get your Meta Pixel and Google Analytics well seasoned so that come next BFCM you can go BOOM! (Audience growth and data collection is primary in this scenario.)
TWO: You’ve hustled your buns off to grow an engaged following on social media, you’ve got subscribers on your email list, but now everything you used to do that worked to grow your audience has tanked. And now your once growing business has also slowed down as well. You’ve realized that more followers do not mean revenues! You need to leverage that great content and all the data from your Meta Pixel and Google Analytics in a Meta Ads Strategy that brings in revenue and thus allows you to stop hustling the algo and put more attention on your art.
THREE: Your sales are going great, but it’s time to Boss Up and become a serious CEO so you can truly scale to the next level. This means you do not do your own Marketing, period. (Although, of course, you may still need to be the face of the brand if it’s personality-driven.)
Wicked, right? But what if you've got the "I-tried-FB-ads-in-2014-and-nothing-happened!"-blues? Sarah has you covered. Here are two common concerns about ads and her advice:
I’ve tried ads during peak shopping seasons before with Boosting. It was a waste of money.
This is because you were not using the Meta Ads Manager which allows you to control 100s of variables such as audience, location, age, interests, engagement vs. traffic vs. leads, AND to see the minute-by-minute results that inform your decisions about how to optimize (i.e. get even better results, or shut off ads in the set that aren’t working.)
You were also running a campaign at the most expensive time of the year with no preliminary “warming up” your pixel. A warm, or seasoned, pixel is the equivalent of an athlete who has trained for an event vs. an amateur who comes to the run out of shape.
Facebook and Instagram Ads feel cringe. I don’t want to be part of annoying targeting, and I don’t want to sound sales-y.
Unfortunately, a LOT of biz owners are turned off by the idea of Ads. Maybe because of a bad experience (expense or the confusing Meta Ads Dashboard), or they’ve been targeted one too many times by icky posts themselves.
But TRUST ME when I say it does not have to be this way. Niche Up Digital has 3-4 steps in creating a great campaign for you.
1️⃣ We TEST! It’s super fast and cheap. (Like $10 cheap)
2️⃣ We grow your audience with Value Posts (inspiring, informative, educational, etc) and get your pixel some action. (Also inexpensive at $5-$10 a day)
3️⃣ THEN, only then, do we run a leads campaign and ask your people to do something with a Call To Action (CTA)
4️⃣ We may not need to run an outright Sales campaign — one that looks like what most people think of as ads — because the Lead Campaign may be doing really well on its own.
Finally, I asked Sarah if there was anything she wished she could tell you directly. Here it is:
For any business owner who would prefer to stick to growing their warm audience and subscribers with organic social media because it’sFREE, I have to ask: How much is your time worth? How much does the frustration of glitchy, or ever changing platforms cost you? How much does doing all that research, following all that trending music, filming the video, figuring out Canva rent your brain for?
I'm not for one second saying skip social media. ItIS important to do it well for your business -- it's how you connect and build relationships and show "social proof".
It's just NOT FREE.
I'll drop another bomb here: the algorithm is literally designed to not give you reach because these are pay-to-play platforms.
What I teach my clients is A) How to do social media minimally, but effectively for all your business phases (cold, warm, hot markets), then B) leverage that with paid ads that feel good, grow your clients and customers, and don't break the bank.
Connect with Sarah directly at sarah@nicheupdigital.com
So, if you're worried about being annoying and/or feeling "salesy", it's time to reframe and grab Sarah's offer. Learn more about Sarah below and trust me when I say, this generous offer is one you can't afford to miss out on:
Hi there! I'm, Sarah, Founder of Niche Up Digital Marketing. For over 20 years I've worked with start-ups and other big dreamers in the business and charitable sector.
As a copywriter, graphic designer, and business strategist, I've written millions of words, worked on 15 websites from scratch, 27 social media accounts, and of course, oodles of ad campaigns of my own or my employers'. I know how to learn new platforms and pivot when the algorithm changes, and I dream about funnel sequences (no joke!)
Got hesitations about Ads because you don't want to seem sales-y, or you've heard it might break the bank? Don't worry, I hear you, see you, and make a point of operating in integrity, economy, and in a way where relationships and value is what leads to sales.
Getting eyeballs on content that turn to clicks, that then turn to purchases, is a major pain point of business owners. Increasingly, we've got to pay to play -- and the rules of the game are always changing.
This is why I trained with, and get continuous mentoring, from the best in online advertising and social media for business, Sarah Mae Ives, Emily Hirsh, Kwadwo at the Art of Online Business, Mint CRO, Kaity Griffin, Elise Darma and Strong Brand Social -- so that I can bring my clients the VISIBILITY and ROI they deserve through digital adversing that actually works (and mega plus -- leveraging your great organic content with ads helps you be in your area of Genius without burning out!)
I also use my skills as a former high school teacher on a daily basis. So many of my clients don't just need a consultant, or someone to take work off their plate, they need a COACH, a COLLABORATOR and sometimes even a GUIDE. When that clicked for me, I knew I had to create service options such as our 1:1 Tech Support Calls and the upcoming Relaxed Genius Entrepreneur group program.
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There you have it ladies and gents, if ads have been on your mind, Sarah is your gal, and I whole heartedly invite you to connect with her to see if ads are your next best marketing move.
Let us know, have you tried ads? How did it go?
Keep going! ❤️
Mel
