Running ads on Facebook is like fishing in an ocean, a lake, or a pond.
1) Ocean = You can put your ads in front of everyone.
This is where you go really broad and target literally everyone in the world or country.
I.e. Everyone in the US that is 21+
No other filters.
2) Lake = You can choose broad interests to target likeā¦
Interested in Sports.
Interested in Physical Fitness.
Interested in Travel.
Interested in Food.
Interested in Running
etc.
3) Pond = Even more narrow interests or combination of interests.
This would be like if you sold a dog training product but instead of targeting people interested in ādogsā, you targetedā¦
Interested in German Shepherd
or
Interested in Siberian Husky
or
Interested in Golden Retriever
And you also have the option of doing an āAlsoā combination like thisā¦
Interested in German Shepherd and ALSO interested in Dog Training.
Now youāre reaching a smaller group of people who could be more likely to buy your product.
Thereās just one problemā¦
Facebook (now Meta) instituted a feature called āAdvanced detailed targetingā.
What this feature does is if they (the Meta algorithm) think there are some conversion opportunities outside of the specific targeting you selected, it will show your ads to an expanded audience.
You used to be able to opt-out of this feature but now itās default on all conversion campaigns and thereās no option to turn it off.
I mean, in theory this is great. If it thinks someone outside of my targeting is someone likely to buy, by all means show those people my ads.
But sometimes I wonder if itās just a way for them to expand the audience Iām reaching to be able to charge me more regardless of whether or not that expansion of audience produced any conversions. After all, theyāre a for-profit business and have to increase their revenue somehow, right?
I canāt say for certain the exact effect of this feature on my ads (and it may not even have a causal relation) but I do know Iāve been seeing my Meta ad costs rise across the board.
Note: Even though ad costs are rising I still think Meta Ads are one of the best sources of traffic right now. However, it should not be your only one for a number of reasons I will share at another time.
Once I noticed my ad costs rising, I began to search for alternative traffic sources to bring our average cost of acquisition downā¦
I needed to find something that allowed me to target the exact customer profile I wanted to reachā¦
ā¦without having the platform decide itās going to show my ads to people I did not target.
After some searching, I found something that allows me not to fish in an ocean, lake, or pondā¦
But toā¦
Fish in a barrel!
I can target the exact customer profile I want.
I can pay a fixed price.
And in many instances my cost to acquire a customer was cut in HALF from what Iām paying on Meta Ads.
Whatās this awesome traffic source?
Itās not anything new.
Itās just a traffic source not many businesses are actively using for their business.
Itāsā¦
Drum roll pleaseā¦ š
***Email Newsletters***
Someone out there has already done the job of building a list of the exact customer profile you want to target.
Now, all you have to do isā¦
1 – Go find those email newsletters
2 – Contact the list owner/manager to negotiate a deal.
3 – Pay them to send an email ad for your product.
4 – Write your email creative.
5 – And watch the surge of traffic & sales come in all at once.
Itās not as fancy or automated as Meta Ads but itās effective!
On the days that our email ads go out we often double our daily sales.
And on occasion I will have multiple email ads go out to multiple different email newsletters all on the same day and the sales on those days are amazing!
Not only because we get a surge all at once but because Iāve set it up so that I can now retarget all of those email newsletter visitors via my Meta & Google Ads tooā¦ so for the next few days I notice my cost of acquisition on Facebook & Google goes down too.
If youāre not already using email newsletter traffic in your business, I highly recommend you give it a try and then make it a routine part of your traffic generation process.
See you on the next oneā¦
-Eddys Velasquez
DigitalMarketingRx
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