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    Questions from someone new/overwhelmed in PPC

    Posted by seohelper on April 8, 2021 at 6:54 am

    Hello, I hope this is an okay forum to ask some beginner questions. I would appreciate any advice on what we are doing and if I am going about this the ass backwards way or not…

    **BACKGROUND/CONTEXT (put it here if you want to skip past to the questions below)**I work in an online education company that creates courses to help people build better careers, relationships, and lives by really learning themselves and applying mindfulness to their lives as a framework to create permanent change. It’s a very fantastic product with a team that believes in the mission and I’ve seen it work for people who have taken these courses in person. Most of us who work in the company currently are trying to make it work as a business and also have other full time jobs.

    We have transitioned from doing things in person (and more as a public service) to now doing online sales (previously, the CEO of the company was giving lots of talks at colleges and venues like TEDx and we were considering going down the route of being a non profit and applying for grants but decided against it). Our business model is essentially new to us because we never needed to do advertising before and don’t have experience driving online sales. I have become responsible for our PPC strategy and I have done lots of online research to read about how to go about it, but without the experience of seeing what truly works I feel very gun-shy and anxious I am going to waste our limited budget of a few thousand $USD.

    **THE PRODUCT**

    Our first product is an online video based course that is focused on building better relationships throughout your life. It’s a $700 course we are discounting to $100 for the introductory period where we launched this month.

    Users get a lot: a book with over 100 pages, 9 course videos, online community with Q&A, and bonus videos released for a year. When we did these courses in person, they were a full 2-day with lots of interaction.

    **CURRENT STRATEGY**

    I am currently trying to advertise the course on Facebook. I am running a few campaigns and wondering if this makes sense:

    Campaign 1 optimized for Video Views (Thru Plays): Targeting new audience by demographic interests (income, relationship status, age range) – the video ads entice them with an opener, brief description of the benefits of course, and CTA to click and learn more that takes them to the sell page.

    Campaign 2 optimized for engagement on post: Retargeting people who watched the videos with another video ad that approaches the same product with slightly different opener and benefits. CTA gets them to go back to sales page.

    Campaign 3 (??): I haven’t set this up yet but I was thinking of retargeting people who make it to the checkout page but don’t complete checkout. New video ad that talks about the benefits of investing in your relationships and how that can benefit your life.

    ​

    **QUESTIONS**

    1. Am I setting up the right optimization goals? I was thinking we need to build some familiarity/trust first, and get people to take baby steps towards knowing us, so that’s why Campaign 1 and 2 are about getting them to view / engage with the video ad.
    2. Is the campaign 3 the right campaign to set up to try to drive sales? So far we have spent about $100 and gotten 38 clicks but no sales yet.
    3. Is Facebook the right platform for a course like this? I think so… but I wonder if I am missing a crucial step of having a warm audience first.
    4. I’ve heard a lot about look alike audiences. Should I be creating LAL audiences now before I have even gotten the first sale?
    5. In total we have 6 different video ads we can show our audience. Should I be trying to show them all to each person, and set up a “super retargeting” approach in Facebook where each campaign targets the people who saw the video in the campaign before? Meaning campaign 2 targets the people who saw Campaign 1 only. And campaign 3 targets the people who saw campaign 2 only. Etc.

    ​

    Thank you so much in advance for any help you can offer!

    BruTeve replied 2 years, 11 months ago 1 Member · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • titofonseca

    Guest
    April 8, 2021 at 6:48 pm

    Hey!

    I am no pro myself, but I would do this:

    Use the campaign with the video and run it good.

    – figure out at what point the message in your video get clear. I mean, at what % of your video, the audience will get your idea clearly. For example, 75% of it.
    – build a custom audience based on those singulars that’s saw 75% of your video.
    -Show them (!) one single post ad, targeting conversions, with the offer you talked about (700 to 100 in the beginning). Cta and offer will get them to your page.

    So, then you wait. Increase the base audience, do a Look-alike of that audiece (saw 75% of your video) , somewhere around the 2 or 3 %.

    Use it on the 1st video, to build better audience.

    Make a rmkting campaign for those who walked on your grounds.

    This is the base that I would use, of course I don’t know exactly all details of your business.

    But, you know, run tests and stuff ?

  • BruTeve

    Guest
    April 10, 2021 at 9:25 pm

    I’ve been running Facebook ads for 6 years and I see a lot of issues with the strategy you are implementing right now.

    ​

    >Campaign 1 optimized for Video Views (Thru Plays): Targeting new audience by demographic interests (income, relationship status, age range) – the video ads entice them with an opener, brief description of the benefits of course, and CTA to click and learn more that takes them to the sell page.

    Video view campaigns will just get you a ton of people who watch videos. Not buyers. Set your campaign objective to conversion optimized for purchases.

    ​

    >Campaign 2 optimized for engagement on post: Retargeting people who watched the videos with another video ad that approaches the same product with slightly different opener and benefits. CTA gets them to go back to sales page.

    Don’t do this campaign strategy either. You are just going to be targeting people who react to ads. There is a time and a place to use this type of campaign, and for you that time is not now. Zero sales. You need sales, not likes on your ad. Make sense?

    ​

    >Campaign 3 (??): I haven’t set this up yet but I was thinking of retargeting people who make it to the checkout page but don’t complete checkout. New video ad that talks about the benefits of investing in your relationships and how that can benefit your life.

    I would fix your whole foundation in your Facebook ads strategy before implementing retargeting ads.

    ​

    **QUESTIONS**

    1. Am I setting up the right optimization goals? I was thinking we need to build some familiarity/trust first, and get people to take baby steps towards knowing us, so that’s why Campaign 1 and 2 are about getting them to view / engage with the video ad.
    **No you are not**
    2. Is the campaign 3 the right campaign to set up to try to drive sales? So far we have spent about $100 and gotten 38 clicks but no sales yet.
    **This is because all of your ads are targeting people who view videos and engage in ads. Not people who buy. And no it is not the right campaign to setup when campaigns 1 and 2 are not optimal.**
    3. Is Facebook the right platform for a course like this? I think so… but I wonder if I am missing a crucial step of having a warm audience first.
    **If your product is good enough, and you can communicate that to the right target audience then they will buy. With your higher price point you may need to have a nurturing process in place where you give them a free sample, free PDF, or something similar before asking for the full course sale.**
    4. I’ve heard a lot about look alike audiences. Should I be creating LAL audiences now before I have even gotten the first sale?
    **Absolutely do not create lookalike audiences with the place you are at right now. All of the data you have collected so far is non-buyers. Your lookalike audiences will just be a bunch of non-buyers as well.**
    5. In total we have 6 different video ads we can show our audience. Should I be trying to show them all to each person, and set up a “super retargeting” approach in Facebook where each campaign targets the people who saw the video in the campaign before? Meaning campaign 2 targets the people who saw Campaign 1 only. And campaign 3 targets the people who saw campaign 2 only. Etc.
    **Not until you’ve fixed your campaign structure foundations and also validated your product that your target demographic are on Facebook and you are able to generate sales. Test out simple campaign structures before going into complicated “super retargeting” ads as you say.**