Saving £1.2M: How I Helped an Insurance Broker Slash Lead Costs with Persuasive Facebook Ad Copy

July 3, 2023 Sarah Sal

Could a viral TV interview with 127 million views teach us how to get more conversions from Facebook ads at a lower cost?

In 2017 the British Channel 4 interviewed Mo Gawdat about happiness; the interview went viral with 80 million views in 11 days, making it the most-watched news clip in the history of Channel 4.

As a result, the CEO of Channel 4 called Mo Gawdat, saying:

"Who are you? "

Why are people interested in this happiness topic?"

"This is impossible; we broadcast violence because it is what people want."

Channel 4 was following the media's conventional wisdom that violence sells.

Likewise, many companies today follow the conventional wisdom in the industry regarding Facebook ads. They hesitate to test new strategies that could enhance the performance of their ads.

In September 2021, an insurance broker named Anorak hired me as their Facebook ads expert because their cost per lead was sky-high.

When I started running ads for them, their cost per lead was at £92.9; in this blog, I'll explain how I successfully managed to reduce their cost per lead down to £18.2, all while spending £295,454.90 on ads.

Reducing Facebook Ad Costs by Addressing Sales Objections

Upon reviewing the active ads, I saw ads with the same exact copy, many image split tests, or ad copy using different wording but conveying the same message.

For instance, one ad set consisted of 18 ads, all conveying the same message but using different images. The cost per lead for this particular set was £108.88.

One common conventional wisdom about FB ads is that the image is the most crucial element and that the copy should be short, which I debunked in a blog post for Copyhackers, which ranked among the top 45 marketing articles in 2019.

I checked the ad comments to get inspiration for a new Facebook ad copy to learn what people who saw the ads thought; after all, why try to blindly guess what might make people convert when the current ad had a lot of comments giving us insight into people's thoughts?

To gain insights into people's thoughts and preferences, I examined the comments section of the ads. It seemed logical to draw inspiration for new Facebook ad copy from the comments rather than blindly guessing what might resonate with viewers. The ads promoted income protection insurance, and I came across objections in the comments, such as skepticism towards insurance companies paying out claims or the belief that unemployment benefits in the UK made such insurance unnecessary.

To overcome these objections, I advised Anorak to develop a Facebook ad copy that directly addressed these concerns and educated the audience instead of solely focusing on selling insurance. We created ads that tackled objections such as the doubt surrounding insurance payouts or the notion that savings or sick pay rendered income protection unnecessary.

Within a month, one of the ads was generating leads at a significantly reduced cost of £9.57, a considerable improvement compared to the previous cost per lead of £92.9.

Over the 14 months I managed the ad account, Anorak spent a total of £295,454.90, generating 16201 leads, resulting in an average cost per acquisition (CPA) of £18.2. This CPA was 5.1 times cheaper than their previous cost per lead. By continually testing new ad copies, we further reduced the cost per lead to £8.71 by September 2022.

Without the more persuasive ad copy, Anorak would have needed to spend over £ 1.5 million to get the same amount of leads. That is a saving of at least £1.2 million.

Furthermore, even if they had invested an additional £1.2 million without addressing the ad copy, there was no guarantee of obtaining 5 times more leads, as inside Facebook's ad bidding system, ads become more expensive the more an advertiser spends.

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Better Facebook Ad Copy = Better Sales + Better Cost 4 BetterBack [Case Study]

July 2, 2021 Sarah Sal

an older version of this article was originally published on the AdEspresso blog

BetterBack is a company that appeared on the TV show Shark Tank and got an investment offer from Lori Greiner, and before that raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter.

They were doing a great job on many fronts, except their Facebook ads were not profitable.

Then they got in touch with AdEspresso Concierge service, and I was the one on the other side of that phone call (and of the world, for that matter).

After 3 months of managing their ads, their cost per sale decreased to $28.588 while getting 1998 sales, which was profitable for them.

Including many days where they did have the highest number of sales in a single day from Facebook ads.

Here’s how AdEspresso helped BetterBack run profitable campaigns on Facebook.

When Olympic champion in freestyle mogul skiing Jennifer Heil decided to take a year off to build her strength, everybody told her she was making the biggest mistake of her life and jeopardizing her career.

Except her move was the difference between a 4th place during the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and, later, winning five Overall World Cup titles (including 4 gold) as well as two Olympic medals.

Ignoring conventional wisdom and what other did, was the key to her success.

It is also how I helped BetterBack run profitable campaigns on Facebook.

Here are some numbers!

So how did I go against conventional wisdom to achieve such results?

Many say images are everything in Facebook ads, the copy is unimportant.

In a previous article, I shared how Strategyzer got 1866% ROI by improving their ad copy.

Just in case those results were not convincing, this time I’ll show you how a good ad copy can make a huge difference.

I mean like... night and day.

BetterBack and AdEspresso, a match made in... Facebook

During my call with BetterBack founder Katherine Krug, she mentioned that

I remember saying

So we decided to begin the optimization of BetterBack Facebook ads by working on the ad copy.

This is where we started:

And below is an example of a Facebook ad copy that worked and got a great ROI.

The Four Powers of a good Facebook ad

We all know that people aren't on Facebook to buy, they're on Facebook to peep in their contacts life and to look at cute kitten picture. And in between a gossip and a laugh, they also get your ads in their newsfeed.

That's called "interruption marketing", and nobody likes to be interrupted, or do they? To grab Facebook users attention you non stop need to come up with new ad creative to combat ad fatigue.

#1 - The power of a good ad copy

When creating new campaigns for each new Facebook ad copy, we also tested using new images, as well as reusing images that did well in previous campaigns.

For example, after running for a while the ad I shared above, the cost per sale increased.

So we replaced it with a new Facebook ad copy, that helped us keep the average cost per sale down.

Below is a screenshot of the ad, even using the same image just by changing the ad copy BetterBack was able to keep the cost per sale down.

Yet some will still argue that Facebook ad is all about the image, the copy does not matter. Keep reading then.

#2 - The power of Retargeting

Someone who visited your website is someone who raised their hand and showed an interest.

Sometimes they just need a gentle push before they open their wallet. In the world of Facebook ads, this push is called retargeting.

Check the results from a retargeting campaign BareBack ran, bringing sales at $5.547 CPA.

And below is the ad creative they used.

This Facebook ad copy is basically telling the user: we know you are hesitant, let us give you a few reasons why you should come back and buy.

And that is where a tool like AdEspresso proves to be your best marketing tool.

It allowed BareBack to quickly split test multiple retargeting audiences and find the winners.

Just a quick look at the results of their retargeting campaigns (through Adespresso clear and simple analytics), showed that those who raised their hand in the last day or so, were more likely to convert.

#3 - The power of Specificity

I want to tell you a story. Let's pretend I'm selling you tickets to a motivational meeting on how to become self-preneur and live a happier life.

In 2013, the chief of a $2 trillion investment firm resigned, after his daughter handed him a list of milestones he had missed.
Mr. El-Erian will ask her to brush her teeth, but she wasn’t listening. When he asked her why she gave him a list of 22 things he had missed (from her first day at school to Halloween parades).

Notice how the concrete language above, made it easy to understand the story.

What if I'd said:

Mr. El-Erian was a white-collar worker, with a stressful job. One day he quit.

Suddenly the image becomes less clear and interesting.

When writing ads for Facebook don’t assume users who already suffer from attention deficit, will figure out the benefits of your product or service by themselves.

Instead spell them out as clearly and as specific as possible.

Have a specific story that drives the point? Use it. Stories are easy to read and understand.

Our ad did not just say: because of back pain, she needed to take a break from work.

We mentioned how, being on disability, she only got 60% of her pay, forcing her to use the money she saved to take her son to Disney just to get by.

#4 - The Power of Why

The reason why many marketers think that copy is not important on Facebook is that they mimic what works for them when using Adwords.

They write multiple ads that basically say the same thing but with slight variation in the wording.

On Facebook, it's not that easy. Crafting an ad that converts on Facebook, is all about uncovering the different reasons that might push someone to convert.

Let me give you an example.

If I was New York Tourism board, not everyone visits NYC because of the food.

So writing ad1: “We have delicious food”

Ad2: “Enjoy some of the world’s best cuisine”

Those are similar ads.

Some will visit NYC because of the food, other because of the fashion, nature, nightlife, architecture, museums..etc

It is about writing ads for the different hot buttons that might push someone to convert.

Final Thoughts

When the CEO of Air Dining presented a dessert made with the world most expensive coffee to Gama Aviation executives. When he asked if owners of private jets would buy it, the answer was:

Understanding the level of craftsmanship that goes into this dessert, is going to be key to having this in the best menu. Food tastes better when you’ve got the story.”

Facebook ads are no different, cleverly done storytelling beats ads that only say: This is what I offer, please buy it.

Often, when doing either campaign reviews, concierge duties or coaching calls for AdEspresso customers, I start by:

Imagine that there are 456 other companies out there offering something exactly like yours. Why should anyone choose you?

or:

Can you tell me a specific story of a client you helped?

For example during a campaign review for an SEO company I advised to do the following in their Facebook ad copy:

Mention the story of a client you worked with and their niche.
How you helped them and the outcome

According to him, it made a huge difference to his campaign!

Actually, it was the technique that worked same with BetterBack -and it can work with you too

Just by thinking about why should a customer choose you can make a big difference between a boring ad and a Facebook ad copy that will focus users attention on you.

One last takeaway:

Often marketers make a mistake when writing ads: they just describe the service/product, find a nice picture or use the company logo, and then focus all their energies thinking:

How do I target via Facebook ads someone who need what I offer?

Change the mindset! Starting with asking:

How do I clearly explain why my solution/offer is the best option for anybody out there?

It can make a huge difference. Give it a try.

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Facebook ads Targeting myths debunked

June 7, 2021 Sarah Sal

This article was originally published in French on Hootsuite blog

The internet is full of advice and secret formulas for Facebook ad targeting. An ever-growing touting of strategies guarantee skyrocket conversion and cheaper Facebook ads campaigns.

Yet, a good portion of this hype around Facebook targeting simply isn’t true. Self-proclaimed “gurus” even encourage people to use Facebook ads to steal competitors’ clients…That’s just not how it works. (Spoiler alert: that’s NOT possible).

Say for a minute we were talking about food instead of targeting.

If I tried a horrible mashed potato ice cream, I couldn’t generalize and say all potato dishes taste bad.
Chocolate ice cream might be great, but can I generalize and say any dish with chocolate tastes good? How about adding chocolate sauce to a hotdog. Dare to try?

The same applies to Facebook ads targeting; just because a case study about Lookalike audiences getting cheaper conversions exist, that doesn’t mean Lookalike will always convert better.

It all comes down to testing.

This said, there’s huge benefit to understanding how targeting works and clearing myths around it. That’s why we’re here.

Facebook ads targeting: the naked truth

Facebook can deliver ads to people based on their interests and behaviors. But that can be problematic as people can think Lookalike is always better or that targeting XXX all the time is more effective. And they end up making campaigns they assume are the better option when they haven’t tested other targeting possibilities. Here’s the problem with those one box wonder targeting strategies as I call them:

First, you might target the wrong audience for your niche. (Just like finding sausage in the middle of chocolate ice cream)
Second, you might avoid testing & targeting an audience that could have converted well out of assuming that a certain type of targeting always works better. (What if that “sausage” was actually made of chocolate, too?)

The proof is in the pudding. Well, translated to advertising language, I’d say: “the proof is in the testing.” The more we understand Facebook targeting and how it works, the better we can use it to our advantage and avoid costly mistakes.

This blog post will dispel the # most common Facebook ads targeting myths, and we’ll debunk them based on Facebook’s own documentation.

So, let’s start by shedding some light of knowledge on those myths.

#1 - Interest Targeting doesn’t equal targeting a page’s fans

Let me put an assumption to the test.

If I try “Lady Gaga” as an interest, I get the following:

Interest targeting gives me an audience of 110 million people, but when I visit the fan page, there’s only around 55 million fans.

On the other hand, MySQL at Facebook has 323,625 fans, but interest targeting returns an audience size smaller than the number of fans (unlike with Lady Gaga).

Then, there’s London's Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium cat cafe with 64,697 fans.

And people ask me: “I checked the cafe fan page, there are a lot of fans, but why can't I target her as an interest?”

That’s because interest targeting doesn’t equal targeting Page fans. (if it makes you feel better, here is a cat inviting herself to my drink at a cat cafe)

Then what’s interest target really?

Let’s go back to FB's own definition from their Facebook blueprint course below.

An older definition from Facebook included: “Interests may include things people share on their Timelines.”

On Facebook Business’ help center, they mention “what they've included in their profiles, as well as the Pages, groups and other things on Facebook they've connected with.”

Even keywords in a status update can play a role, as well as engaging with posts that contain such keywords.

Below’s a screenshot of an article on AdWeek in which someone from Facebook admitted to “showing related ads based on keywords used in status updates.”

Screen Shot 2020-12-14 at 5.56.59 PM.png

Of course, we would never know the exact recipe of what constitutes an interest to target. And how Facebook algorithms define an interest targeting is something that continuously mutates.

A while ago, I posted horrible food pics on my profile for the sake of a laugh. A friend commented saying: ‘STOP SARAH’. FB confused her engagement with my post as the same as having an interest in the topic.

Later, she sent me a screenshot of the groups Facebook started recommending her.

Engaged shoppers aren’t people who love shopping

So many blogs with targeting tips say: If you’re running e-commerce ads, then target the ‘Engaged Shoppers’ behavior, because people who are known to purchase products from Facebook will see your ads.

So are ‘Engaged Shoppers’ people whose passion is shopping and buying products from Facebook?

The screenshot below gives us Facebook’s definition of an ‘Engaged Shopper’

Facebook terms it as: “ People who have clicked on the Call-to-Action button “Shop Now” in the past week”.

Based on this definition, let’s break down why just targeting this single audience might not magically give an advertiser more sales at a cheaper cost.

It includes people who clicked on the “Shop Now” button in the past week. So, no one who clicked on a Facebook post 17 days ago and bought a product will be a part of that audience.
Anyone who clicked on a post that didn’t have the “Shop Now” button will fall out of that audience even if they bought a product right after clicking on the post.
Just clicking a post with the button “Shop Now” doesn’t mean the person is a buyer.
A person might search for a book on Amazon, let’s say, and so Amazon will retarget them with an ad with the “Shop Now” button. In this case, they already bought a product for which they were looking, which isn’t the same as buying a product from a total stranger.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t target a precise category.

I’m just saying you shouldn’t blindly target that category and assume it’ll always convert better than not targeting that category or other targeting options. That’s like saying caramel sauce always makes food more delicious, which is not true if you’re eating mashed potato.

Lookalikes isn’t always the best option

An error I’ve seen in targeting orthodontists has to do with targeting 2100 orthodontists in France, for example, by using a 320,000 people lookalike audience.

Facebook lookalikes are set as people with common qualities in demographic or interests. But that can mean a broad set of multiple criteria; such as user behavior, profile data on age, gender, location, liked pages and clicked ads.

If you’re targeting a very tiny niche and orthodontics is the only similar factor, the stretch is too wide for targeting to make sense.

For narrow B2B niches, look alike might not be the best option.

Job Title targeting and Targeting CEOs

You could target job titles, for example.

Say something along the lines of “CEO” or so. People write their titles on their Facebook profile. The problem is a lot of people don’t add those to their accounts, also, and others play around with roles and add word play to their bios. Results thus aren’t 100% reliable. This isn’t LinkedIn where results are more exact.

For example there are 24,000 people on FB with the CEO job title who happen to work at Apple, Google or Microsoft.

The same can be true for people stating in their profile that they have a PhD from the school of life.

The above doesn’t mean you can’t get value from targeting some job titles. Just don’t imagine your ad is being served to the CEO of the world's most powerful companies.

People interested in Ferrari are rich

I’ll let the screenshot below do the talking.

There are 1.1 million kids on FB you can target with the ferrari interest.

An Interest targeting doesn’t equal a person who can afford a Ferrari. Facebook can be a place for daydreaming and dreaming costs nothing.

Which Targeting to use

Often, people ask me what strategy or audience targeting works best. And I say:

Test, test, test!

Marketers continuously talk about laser targeting ads, but you can’t get 100% of an audience to want a product or service.

Targeting is all about wondering, instead: To which audience is a potential client more likely to belong? And it comes down to testing multiple audiences, letting the user vote with their mouse and letting that number tell us which audiences worked better.

Leveraging the power algorithm for Targeting

The algorithm has a learning phase. Often, when we get enough conversions, FB can take care of the targeting.

Unless you have a very narrow niche, I recommend going broad.

It might convert well, it might not, but this all comes down to letting numbers speak.

How copy can help reach the right audience

Ad copy can help reach the right audience.

I once helped a financial adviser in the US who assisted parents paying for college.

At first, the ads attracted a lot of single mothers.

By changing the copy to mentioning that a couple with a job and a high salary can get a lower interest rate on a college loan for their kid, we started targeting a different audience.

Nothing else changed in terms of the targeting. We just changed the copy and attracted a different audience.

How Strategyzer used Facebook ads to sell event tickets at 1866% ROI

June 4, 2021 Sarah Sal

In 2002 when James Caan sold the recruiting company he created, it had a turnover of around £130m (around USD 174m).

He started his business by cold calling companies and saying: “Hi, my name’s James Caan, I’m calling from Alexander Mann. We’re specialists in financial recruitment...”.

He spoke to hundreds of people, and all of them told him to get lost.

It only got better when he moved from the generic pitch to a specific angle: “I had this guy in last week, he’s at Allied Dunbar, and I think he’d be perfect for you….” And then he went on describing the candidate.

Strategyzer.com was in a similar situation.

They invested over $4,5k on Facebook ad and sold just one ticket to their workshop.

After 5 months, they got around $212,000 in sales for an ad spend of only $11,357.26. It means a return of $18.66 for each $1 spent on Facebook ads.

In this case study, I’ll share the Facebook ad strategy I used.

So many companies run generic ads: “our event is next week, hurry up...”. Strategyzer was no different.

For their first Facebook ad campaign, they just split tested audiences and different images, and the creativity looked like this:

That approach cost Strategyzer $4,433.53 in around 3 weeks, and they got only one sale in return.

Not ready to throw in the towel, we started working together to improve their ads' ROI.

What did I do and, most importantly, did my strategy work? I don't wanna sound like I'm bragging 8-) so... give a look at the image below and let the numbers speak!

How did I turn the campaign around? I used a tactic supermarkets have successfully used for years: samples. Yes, according to The Atlantic, the good 'ole direct sale technique has increased sales at supermarkets like Mash and Costco by up to 2,000 percent.

I started by studying Strategyzer's content, including case studies and business stories, and I used storytelling to write ads that gave the users a taste of what they’d learn attending the event.

Here is an example of the first ad we ran for them:

Does a long Facebook ad copy work?

I can hear many of you thinking:

1. That is a long ad copy, we’ve been told to keep it short. People don’t read long ads.

2. By spelling it out in the copy, what motivation will people have in clicking on the ad? Keep some mystery!

Well, the proof is in the pudding, those ads got sales.

A longer ad copy with smart use of storytelling has another indirect effect: it promotes is high engagement.

By putting a big chunk of content out there for everybody you give enough to create discussion. There won't be only likes, of course, some people might disagree with the content, but to do so they have to leave a comment and join the conversation, which drives engagement.

In the image below there is another ad we ran. Do you notice the 234 shares, 980 likes and the 42 comments?

The Relevance score is calculated based on the positive and negative feedbacks your ad receives from users. Positive feedback includes actions like commenting, liking, sharing and even link clicks.

While engagement is not the only factor in calculating the relevance score, Facebook recommends improving the ad text.

Why does this matter? For conversion campaigns, Ads with higher relevancy score get rewarded by Facebook both with more impressions and a lower CPM.

The importance of targeting (and retargeting)

With a single ticket to the event costing over $2199, I could not expect cold traffic sent directly to the sale page to convert well.

Lucky for us Alexander Osterwalder's work is well known, with USA Today naming his Business Model Generation among the 12 best business books of all time. With over a million copies of his book in 37 languages, we did have a big retargeting audience to target.

What we found out is that not all retargeting audiences are equal.

In our case, people that visited Strategyzer blog did not convert at the same cost of people that visited their training page, and so on.

Based on pages people visited, it allowed us to categorize them. Someone reading the blog will be familiar with their content, but on the other hand, someone visiting the training or books pages might also be interested getting some needed training.

It is really about running the ads to different audiences, and letting the numbers speak to which audience converts at what cost.

Audience saturation and ad fatigue

With over 500 million copies sold worldwide, the Harry Potter series of novels is a huge success. But even with such success, a total of 7 books was written in order to keep sales coming.J. K. Rowling did not just change the image on the book cover and hope sales will keep coming. She wrote more content.

Think of your ad as a novel. Instead of giving the same page (with maybe just a few twists) over and over again to the same audience, give them every time something new. Scrolling through the ads of your campaign should be like flipping the pages of a novel. You have to keep the audience interested.

At $2199/ticket, people will click and go to the landing page and they'll end up buying a few days or even weeks later.

A while ago I ran ads for www.clickfunnels.com, a funnel hacking event in Las Vegas. I paused the ads and reported back to them: "we’ve got a total of 11 sales". I thought that was it! But 6 days later, checking their ad account (as I did run other campaigns for them), I noticed that the total number of sales for the Vegas event increased to 21, and kept growing further a few a days later.

Facebook will attribute a sale to the day someone clicked on the ad, on the other hand, Google Analytics will attribute it to the day the user bought. In a few campaigns where I used UTM tracking, I again noticed people who clicked on a Facebook ad and ended up buying many days later.

So how do you know it is time to show the audience a new ad, given that people will click today and buy later?

If the CPC increased and the CTR dropped significantly, I took it as a sign that it was time to launch a new ad.

In the screenshot below, my CPC increased from $1.15 to $2.33, and the CTR dropped from 2.41% down to 0.71%

So I wrote a new ad text with new content in it, and CPC decreased to $0.98, while the CTR increased to 2.62%

Now I can hear someone of you thinking: “Sarah, CTR, and CPC are good, but show us the money. What about sales?”

For the London event (we also ran ads for the Boston and Berlin event) I wrote a total of 5 ads, and below you can see the sale break down for each ad.

Below is the ad that got the most sales at the cheapest cost.

You won’t know in advance which ad will convert the best, but it is about putting out multiple ads and letting the numbers speak.

Split testing, your best ally

For an event located in London/Europe, if you live in the UK, travel costs are cheaper than if you live in New Zealand (we actually got sales from Thailand, New Zealand, and Argentina).

When running ads, I don’t recommend making a huge number of split tests, as the algorithm can optimize and learn from past conversions. With that said, the algorithm needs 50 conversions/week to be able to optimize and learn who to show the ad to (if you are not getting 50 sales/week, Facebook recommends you to optimize for adds-to-cart or page views instead of purchase ).

Since we know that location will influence sales, as well as which warm audience the user is part of, will a past customer be more likely to buy than someone who read the blog?

We decided to split test both based on locations and custom audiences. And that is where a tool like AdEspresso is a huge time saver.

Location wise I decided to have separate adsets for people inside and outside of Europe. As you can see below, we got 35 sales in Europe with a CPA of $92.

While we’ve got 9 sales outside of Europe at a CPA of $275.78, in our case since the global CPA was good, we were happy to pay for the extra sales coming from outside of Europe.

Of course, there is no general rule that says a nearby location will always convert better, it is about testing.

For the clickFunnel event, on the other hand, I assumed that neighboring states to Nevada or cities with direct flights to LasVegas will convert better. Honestly, wouldn’t an 11-hour flight make it harder for you to attend?

Well, I was wrong, the cost per sale was of $99.29 for neighboring states or cities with direct flights.

And $38.93 for locations I assumed they will be less likely to want to make the trip. Final Thoughts

And $38.93 for locations I assumed they will be less likely to want to make the trip.

Final Thoughts

In 2008 Anthony Bourdain visited a Chinese food stall called Xi'an Famous Foods. The publicity helped grow the business into a restaurant chain that owns 11 restaurants and generate millions in revenues. On the other side, the famous travel vlogger Lost LeBlanc

mention how in Hanoi he was followed by a pushy salesman, to the point he needed to seek refuge inside a hostel.

You want to avoid being the pushy salesman.

Back to the Anthony Bourdain example, after 14 years on tv, and over 285 tv episodes, people still watch it as each new episode will give you something new.

To combat ad fatigue your ads need to provide the audience with new content.

A good ad is one that does not look like an ad, it is also an ad that makes the user think: "Even if I did not click on the ad, just by reading the ad text, I’ve learned something new."

Selling $2199 tickets to a live event via Facebook ads is not easy. At first, Strategyzer.com was losing money on Facebook ads. Then, by writing ads that didn’t look like an ad but more like useful content, they managed to achieve a +1866% ROI.

Even if you don’t promote offline events or sell high ticket items, by learning their copywriting and ad strategy you can dramatically improve your results.

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How to navigate IOS 14 FB & Apple catfight drama

December 19, 2020 Sarah Sal

Facebook and Google’s cat fight about Apple’s iOS 14 privacy changes makes me happy.

Not because I love catfights (*GRABS POPCORN*), but because hacks I used 10 years ago (before Facebook even had a pixel to manage and optimise campaign performances) are useful again.

But before I share a few tips on how to navigate those new changes, who does not love some background info?

What is Facebook and Apple’s cat fight about?

Today while checking a Facebook ads account, I saw the following pop up:

How Apple's iOS 14 Release May Affect Your Ads

Facebook was using strong language, talking about a threat to business and the free internet.

So I decided to google the story, and it turns out there is a lot of drama where both Apple and Facebook are in the middle of a PR fight. It is as if two drag queens are fighting to get a hold of the last red lipstick on earth.

For two days, Facebook ran multiple full-page ads in newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post denouncing Apple’s move.

And Apple’s CEO Tim Cook used Twitter to fire back at Facebook’s claims.

Apple’s CEO using Twitter to hit back at Facebook

How Steve Jobs being antagonistic toward ads made Facebook a fortune

Hired as Facebook’s first product manager for ad targeting, Antonio Garcia Martinez’s job was to convert FB’s user data into money by whatever legal means available.

In his book titled “Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley” he mentions that Steve Jobs being antagonistic to advertising was what made Facebook a fortune.

Apple, being very protective of users’ data, made it hard for ad exchange to target users based on apps and the mobile phone data.

And that’s where ads, powered by Facebook’s data, gave it a strong advantage on mobile.

You are a restaurant wanting to target people who live in Manhattan? Facebook had that data.

You are a college wanting to target only people ages between 17 and 18 years old? Facebook can help you as well.

With as much as 94% of Facebook’s advertising revenue coming from mobile, it’s no wonder that Mark Zuckerberg is as angry as a cat whose breakfast is 10min late. (My new program called the cat servant academy will train you to serve breakfast on time)

Cat complaining that I am not fast enough at feeding him

It is not about the user, the free internet, or even small businesses... but rather about Facebook’s revenue.

Would it make it harder to track conversion?

According to Facebook, one of the ways this can create a negative impact is by limiting the advertisers’ ability to measure and report on conversions.

What would be the real impact? It is hard to say, I can not predict the future.

Could it be that Facebook is acting like a cat that cries: My breakfast was 5 seconds late, I nearly died? Maybe.

Even without the recent IOS 14 changes, one never tracked 100% of conversions

1) Imagine a driver bored at a traffic light who decided to check Facebook.

The traffic light might turn green in the next 10 seconds, he is not going to be like: Quick quick where is my credit card, I need to buy this product in the next 10 seconds.

He might give you his email, then buy later on Desktop where he does not use Facebook.

Why does it matter?

If the conversion happens on a device or browser where the user is not logged in to Facebook, then Facebook will not be able to attribute the conversion to the ads.
With Facebook having over 1 billion mobile-only users, that is a lot of people.

2) A client was selling healthy vegan snacks via Facebook ads.

Looking at the numbers and seeing no sales, I sent him an email saying: We are getting no sales, can we please schedule a call to strategize.

The client replied that he actually saw a huge increase in sales on Amazon.

It turns out people clicked on the FB ads, decided to Google the brand name, and Amazon was on the top of the search results.They decided to buy from Amazon instead of the client’s website.

Does it matter that some conversions are not tracked?

(Optimising a Facebook campaign is like cooking Malaysian food)

While in Malaysia Chef Gordon Ramsey was trying to learn how to cook beef Rendang.

Here is how the conversation went:

Gordon: where is the recipe?

Local chef: if you ask me how much onion, I will say “I don’t know Aga Aga which means up to you”

Gordon: For how long do I fry this for?

Local chef: Aga Aga.

Later, Gordon said that this opened his eyes: Malaysian cooking is not about a precise recipe saying “two tablespoon of star anise.ou just watch and learn, smell, look, and taste, and then adjust.

It is the same with Facebook ads. The numbers might not be 100% exact like in the case of cooking, but rather, you take a taste and decide you need to add more salt, or more lime juice.

Photo credit:  Gordon's Great Escape — Photo credit: Gordon's Great Escape

An ad set might report 47 opt-ins, at $3.9/opt-in

Another ad set 30 opt-ins, at $8/opt-in

While those numbers might not be 100% accurate, they provide you with an order of magnitude that allows the advertiser to adjust and optimise.

How I tracked conversion with precision before the pixel

I started running Facebook ads in 2010. Yet Facebook released the Conversion Pixel for tracking website conversions only in 2013.

One of the campaigns I ran before 2013 was for a business author whose request was: I need 100 opt-in per day at less than $1/opt-in.

Without knowing which audience and which ad creative drove conversions at which cost, it would have been very hard to optimise my campaign.

1) For each ad and audience I passed both the audience and ad name as a url parameter.

So if my url was www.sarah-sal.com now the url I used for would be along the line of www.sarah-sal.com/?audience_name=Forbes&ad_name=Ad2

2) I modified the landing page form to include a hidden field which included the audience and ad name, which could not be seen or modified by users when the form was submitted.

3) 2-3 times per day I exported into a spreadsheet the emails that opted-in for that day, including the audience and ad name.

4) I exported the FB ad spend into a spreadsheet and by combining the data with the spreadsheet from step 3, I was able to know exactly the cost per opt-in of each ad I was running.

Would you ever need to use the same macgyver hack I used?

Probably not, but there is value in knowing how I did it back in the day.

Let me explain.

Amazon does not allow sellers to install a pixel on their website. They don’t want 3rd parties to collect data from their user, or to build a retargeting audience as that is the bread and butter of their business that they are protecting.

Yet Amazon recently launched a tool called Amazon Attribution, that allows advertisers to see which channel and which specific ad got them results.

You will not run ads in complete darkness with absolutely no data, but the amount of data might be less.

According to Facebook it was possible to see conversions that happened up to 28 days after someone clicked that ad; that is reduced to 7 days now.

Later in this blog post I’ll mention how you can even get more data than Facebook ad managers provide independent of IOS 14 changes.

But first let us talk about how email is a key component.

It is important to combine emails and Facebook ads

Collecting emails is another way to get more data on your campaign performances.

For a client of mine I often export monthly sales, then run a MySQL query to find how many sales came from Facebook ads. (how to use MySQL for that purpose can be a separate blog post on its own) With Facebook reporting conversions up to 28 days after someone clicked your ad, I am able to see sales that happened beyond those 28 days.

But I also get other useful data, like the fact that, on average, many sales happen 4.5 months or more after someone opts in. Or even which products got the most sales.

Data is not the only reason you should have a strong email marketing strategy.

Most of Facebook traffic comes from mobile.

Imagine someone who is checking their phone before crossing the street, next they see a pink elephant flying and they try to take a selfie. Mobile can be an environment full of interruptions.

Facebook can be the first touch point, and email acts as the bridge between a user who opted-in on mobile, but opens, checks, and even buys your products/service while they are on a desktop computer.

Never mix emails from different traffic sources

During Season 11 of Will & Grace, Grace is pregnant.

But she doesn't know who the father is as she had too much fun while in Italy.

It is the same with an email list. Let us say you have an ebook that helps people cook gourmet food for their cat.

Let us say your email list has 1000 subscribers.

400 of them came from Google search and 600 from Facebook ads.

You send an email selling a $2000 oven specifically designed to cook juicy mice for your cat. 3 people buy the oven. Did the 3 sales come from Facebook, from Google, from both? Now you are like Grace wondering: Who is the father of my baby. (tagging your email by traffic source will also work)

Someone you interrupted on Facebook will have different behaviour than someone who opted-in to your list as a result of a Google search. People behave differently based on which marketing channel they came from.

Having a separate email list for opt-ins coming from Facebook ads will let you know how successful or not Facebook is as a channel.

Otherwise the data gets mixed up.

Your Turn

Feel free to leave any questions you have in the comment section below. Or feel free to tell me about your cats.