Facebook Experiment: A Tool In Testing Facebook Ads

Q: A lot of our audience members are navigating Facebook ads for the first time. Can you please do a top-level walkthrough of each of the elements found in the new Experiments section — What are the tests it replaces or combines? What information do they provide? Why is that useful?

A: THEY DO NOT APPLY TO PAST CAMPAIGNS OR ADS

A/B Tests

Testing campaigns manually

We could do a/b tests and split tests on ads, but not on the campaign as a whole

Can only test MOVING FORWARD

Campaign Budget Optimization Tests

Also called CBO, this kind of test is trying to help you understand if CBO is helping or hurting your ads. I tend NOT to use CBO for local business clients.

It has not historically provided excellent results. However, it’s something to continue testing as CBO may one day be the only option we have, and they continue to change and improve these options that we have access to.

Holdout Tests

This kind of test is not a great idea for local businesses since transactions happen offline, but if you have a precise conversion that can occur WITHOUT someone seeing your ad, you can test it.

Holdout Tests is trying to help you understand if your ad is the reason someone took action.

Brand surveys

Trying to measure how well people remember your brand after advertising, or what their opinion of the company is after seeing it.

Have to have spent over 10K in the last 90 days to be eligible.

Very interesting, running one for my agency right now.

Q: A quote from Facebook states, “When measuring the effectiveness of a campaign, carefully consider the implications of using those results to inform future decisions, while A/B testing can provide relevant short-term insights.” Can you clarify how we should use the data from Experiments?

A: Use experiments as a way to compare data to something else. From experience, the split testing feature, for example, was never able to achieve the same cost per result after the test completed when running the winning ad. It always went up. Always. They’re saying not to take the results as fact and to be cautious about using that as your only basis of decision making for your future advertising decisions.

Q: Facebook also notes, “Changes in consumer behavior will impact how people interact with advertising, so it’s important for advertisers to consider these influences and adjust their plans accordingly.” What other influences should marketers be examining here?

A: ECONOMIC #1 Look at what we’re dealing with. If a business ran a test 1 week before this craziness started, they would likely NOT get the same result today, because the economic landscape has changed completely.

Election years also impact advertising as there is a lot more noise out there, and politicians buy up lots of ad space. Holidays impact performance, times of year (seasonal businesses), new technologies are becoming available, etc. You have to look at the economy, your customer, and your historical business data in conjunction with your experiment results to have a full picture.

Q: Is there any other outside data we should be pulling from, or are there any specific tools you recommend for this?

A: Look at your CRM and tracking. Local businesses need not just look at leads but calls, appointments, conversion rates, purchase value, etc. Sometimes the lowest “cost per result” does not mean that it’s the best client to buy the most or for the most extended period. Your offline conversions are HUGE, and they matter much.

Q: Your agency specializes in local businesses. How are you advising your local business clients to proceed with their marketing at this time?

A: CHANGING THE OFFER IS #1.

Changing our messaging. Acknowledging the situation and making sure they see how our offer relates to it. Supporting, focusing on “support local,” switching to completely virtual options, using webinars as opposed to live events, helping my clients get set up technologically.

Q: How are they making Facebook ads work for them?

A: We’ve actually been seeing pretty great success across the board. Even our orthodontic client is doing pretty well given the circumstances, and we’ve been able to get him virtual appointments and in-office consultations as they are still able to do that, just with extra precautions.

The offer has been vital, not pulling back on ads, being creative, and is committed to staying in business and doing what needs to be done to make it happen. Making changes that maybe are not necessary but are essential to the peace of mind of their clients.

Have questions? Drop them below. Want to talk about working together? Visit alliebloydmedia.com/book to schedule a time to talk!

May 13, 2020May 13, 2020

Understanding Traffic Temperatures in Local Business Marketing

In digital marketing, there are three levels of traffic, which we call traffic temperatures. This refers to the level of familiarity that they have with you and your business. Because of this, they need to be spoken to in a way that reflects that. There are different audiences and goals for each temperature, which will guide your advertising as a whole.

The goal is to funnel them through each level. The ad type is going to be different based on which traffic temperature they’re in.

Cold traffic – we’re educating and building an audience.
Warm traffic – We’re trying to offer something to get them to convert.
Hot traffic – retargeting to convert, to ascend, or validate.

You want to segment the audience based on what they engage with. Your content should be very tailored to the products and services that you offer.

If you do this in an educational way, you’re going to really see:

For instance, let’s say you have a blog and it’s on a specific question that someone would have before purchasing a product that you offer.

If someone clicks on that blog, they’re raising their hand and saying, “I have an interest in this”. Even if they don’t read that blog, they’ve still allowed you to segment them based on their interest.

The next ad, they should receive should be directly tied to that product that they showed interest in.

So again, not just building an audience of people who like your funny cat video, but it needs to be so tied to your products and services that it allows you to send those targeted ads that are going to be more successful.

By doing this, you are creating this smaller audience of people that you can show your offers to, but essentially you can do that at a lower cost because they’ve already signified that they have an interest in this.

If you’re trying to send your offers directly to cold traffic, it’s going to be far more expensive, a lot more inconsistent, and less successful than using this strategy.

Ultimately, it may not work at all moving forward.

Let’s look at some of the differences.

Cold Traffic:

For cold traffic audiences, you’ll be using:

You want to turn cold traffic into warm traffic, segment, and build the relationship.

Warm Traffic:

Your warm traffic audience is going to be someone who has engaged with you or visited your website.

These custom audiences include:

The goal at this level is to convert:

Hot Traffic:

Hot Traffic is often going to be your list of past buyers, past clients, or current leads that have not converted.

The goal at this level is to upsell or cross-sell or get them to convert after they have shown several signs of strong interest.

Again, validate that the decision to work with you is going to help them. That will help them follow through and ultimately purchase from you. Nine times out of ten if you’re a local business, your actual transaction is happening offline. We can’t let them go the moment they sign up as a lead, because the battle isn’t won just yet.

There are still steps they need to take, such as:

We have to make sure that the lead is not wasted and we maximize every opportunity.

Remember, the way you target, speak to, and funnel people in will be different at every traffic temperature, so if you’re not segmenting these groups currently, it’s time to implement NOW.

Have questions? Drop them below. Want to talk about working together? Visit alliebloydmedia.com/local-call to schedule a time to talk!

March 30, 2020April 2, 2020

Where To Focus First When Using Facebook and Instagram Ads For Your Local Business

Where to focus first

This is a question I get often. Most local businesses have no idea where to focus first when it comes to optimizing or fixing their ads.

They spend their time worrying about tweaking and optimizing the wrong things and never are able to focus and establish why things are or are not working.

Your ad has to capture the attention of the audience long enough for them to read.Then, your copy needs to be compelling enough to get them to click. Without clicks on your ad, you can’t convert anyone

So that’s where you have to start focus first by getting your ad to actually produce the results that you want, whether that’s:

EngagementVideo viewsClicks to your landing pageClicks on your messenger

Whatever that goal is or that destination is, you can’t convert without the traffic.

The traffic is important. You want to test those outs before you worry about testing your destination such as landing page or form.

You do want to think about where you’re gonna send them and why.

There are different types of audiences that respond better to different destinations, so you need to take that into account as well.

There are some markets that I’ve seen that love messenger. There are some that they don’t. They’re a little confused on how to use it. Maybe it’s not as commonplace in that market. You won’t know without testing.

Sometimes you would want to send them to just a booking link. If this is something where you feel like you can get that actual commitment either for a call or for an appointment, you could absolutely send them directly to that link.

Sometimes you may want to test lead forms. There are definitely some do’s and don’ts with lead forms; they can generate more leads, but sometimes the information is not always accurate.

Sometimes they can be a little lower quality. There are ways to absolutely maximize them and increase the quality but that is something you want to think about. If you don’t have strong follow-up systems, lead forms may not be the best option for you.

So thinking about why you’re sending them to the place you’re sending them, and then figuring out how you’re gonna optimize that when you start to generate traffic.

In this order, these are the things I typically would test:

Your offer firstThen your audienceThe creative and copyFinally your destinationThen tweak follow up

I hope this helps! Are you testing this way, or just winging it? Make sure you take the time to do it right!

Have questions? Drop them below. Want to talk about working together? Visit alliebloydmedia.com/local-call to schedule a time to talk!

February 24, 2019February 24, 2019

How Do I Create an Online Quiz for My Business?

Quizzes are one of the best ways that home improvement or remodeling businesses can grow their email lists, engage their audience, and add a little fun to their social media or web assets!

A quiz will allow to do 2 things:

Allow your audience to self identify as a potential customer by simply taking the quiz
Allow you to diagnose and prescribe a solution for your prospects problem on a personal level.

Both of these help your online marketing efforts substantially.

The question I often get asked is, HOW would I go about writing a quiz? It seems complicated and time consuming. Is it really that difficult?

The answer is NO! It’s not that hard if you have a plan going in. Quizzes are hugely beneficial, but if done the wrong way, you’ll waste your time, so I’ll cover the 6 easy steps you can take to create an engaging quiz in no time at all!

How To Create A Quiz

Step 1: Deciding on your topic

This is the single most important step in the quiz creation process. A quiz won’t help your online marketing efforts if no one wants to take it. There are three types of quizzes that perform the best:

The “Killer” Quiz – What’s your downfall, what’s your worst quality, etc.
The Graded Quiz – Ex: How Good of a DIYer are you? Get your score!
The Identity Quiz – What’s your bathroom design style, what HGTV personality are you?

Putting your quiz in one of those 3 categories is usually a good idea. These have been proven to be the most clicked on and most popular.

Then, you want to decide what what product or service your quiz will be about. I would always choose the option with the highest potential, highest interest and/or highest margin. You want to sell people something via your quiz. You want to make it as easy as possible to do that.

If you’re a kitchen remodeler, you could do it about kitchen remodeling as a whole, or about kitchen cabinets specifically. The choice is yours. You can always create more over time, so no pressure!

The final step in picking your topic is to make a list of your customers most asked questions. Try and find a question that you could “answer” or address with your quiz.

Step 2: Picking your platform

The second step is which quiz maker will you use for your online quizzes. I have two favorites:

InteractQuiz
Thrive Quiz Builder

Both of these quiz building tools are easy to use and will give you a great end result. Creating a quiz can be easy, you just need the right tool to start you off on the right foot.

Step 3: Creating Your Offers

Your quiz needs to be designed to SELL YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES! Do not forget this. So the question is, what can you offer your your audience related to your quiz topic. Now, don’t forget, your product or service is NOT your offer (see my last blog if you need to read up on this!).

For instance, if you’re doing a quiz on kitchen remodeling, you could have a loss leader: Free sink base cabinet, you could have a gated content offer: A step by step kitchen remodeling video series, kitchen remodeling webinar or live event, or a product preview offer such as free kitchen design or a free estimate. Map these out first.

Step 4: Crafting Your Outcomes

Now that you know what you want to offer your audience, you need to create your outcomes. You do this before ever deciding on your questions.

If we’re using the offers above:

Kitchen remodeling video series
Free Sink Base Cabinet
Free Kitchen Design or Installation Quote

What types of outcomes could we create to fit within these offers?

If your quiz is a scored quiz on Kitchen Remodeling DIY skills “Are you Ready For a DIY kitchen remodel? Get Your Readiness Score Here!”, then, you need to build levels of readiness as your outcomes.

“You’re READY to take on a DIY Kitchen Remodel!” This could be an offer for a free sink base cabinet. Because they can install the products themselves, they just need to buy the products. People never just need 1 sink base cabinet. It needs to match the rest of your cabinets, so getting this free sink base can lead to an entire cabinet and/or countertop purchase. This offer will vary depending on if you sell products or just install, but you get the idea.
“You’re not quite ready for a DIY remodel, you need some more info!” This offer would be your event, webinar or training series. This could get you an email subscriber to continue to market to, or build a strong trust and connection so that they use your products or services.
“You’re not a good fit for a DIY Remodel” This could be free design services or install quote. They are NOT a good fit to do it themselves, so an obvious next step is for you to do it for them!

See how that works?

Step 5: Building Your Questions

Now that you have your offers and your outcomes, you need to build questions that will address each of the outcomes. I suggest that for people just starting out, you have the same number of answer options per answer question as you do outcomes, so for this example, 3 options.

Then, you need to lump your topic into “buckets”. Anything that you find important in this topic or category should be included.

Examples of “Buckets” for DIY Kitchen Remodeling:

Power Tools
Design and Layout
Project Management
Budgeting
Working with Pros such as electric and plumbing
Knowledge of Building Codes

You can break a few of them down into one or two sub categories if you feel it will have a big impact on determining the outcome. A good quiz is usually 8-15 questions max. You don’t want it to be too long or short, just enough to give you the outcome that is most accurate.

Example Question:

How much experience do you have with power tools?

A. I have a lot of experience – TIED TO OUTCOME 1 – YOU’RE READY!

B. I’ve used them, but I don’t feel 100% Comfortable – TIED TO OUTCOME 2, NOT QUITE READY

C. I’ve never really used them – TIED TO OUTCOME C – NOT A GOOD FIT FOR DIY

It’s that easy.

Step 6: Mapping

Now, it’s time to map your questions to your outcomes. You can do this within your quiz maker tool. Each tool will do this slightly differently, but overall its an easy process.

Your next steps

You’ve successfully found out how to create online quizzes for your home improvement business! Trust me, this could do wonders for your audience and lead generation efforts. Now, the only thing you need to worry about is…

How do you get people to your quiz?

The best ways to do this are through social media marketing and SEO. If you’re experienced in these areas, then you’re all set!

If you’d like to talk to someone who’s experienced in marketing for home improvement and remodeling businesses, I’d love to help drive traffic to your website, your quiz, and generate new leads for your business! Visit alliebloydmedia.com to learn more about how I can help!

February 9, 2019February 9, 2019

How To Choose The Right Facebook Ad Objective

CHOOSING THE RIGHT FACEBOOK AD OBJECTIVE

Hi guys Allie Boyd here, and if you’re watching this video I can only assume it’s because you want to understand Facebook ad objectives.

Facebook ad objectives are the first step in creating your Facebook Ads, so you really need to understand the differences, when you would want to use one over the other, and how they kind of work to deliver your ad to the right people, so I’m gonna go through all of these with you!

I’m going to tell you some of the do’s and don’ts and my personal experience in running Facebook Ads that have been really, really successful.

So as you can see, you’ve got three columns: awareness, consideration, and conversion. It goes back to the entire marketing funnel, which is cold traffic, warm traffic, and hot traffic.

You’ve got awareness for your cold, consideration for your warm, and conversion for your hot.

TYPES OF OBJECTIVES IN FACEBOOK ADS MANAGER

BRAND AWARENESS OBJECTIVE

So under awareness you’ve got brand awareness. The metric that’s going to be used to determine the effectiveness of brand awareness is “ad recall lift”. So this is not something that I personally believe is really easy for Facebook to track, but that is the metric they’re gonna give you. What’s cool about brand awareness for local businesses is you can actually have a “Call Now” button on your ad that will go directly to your phone number. It is the only ad objective that allows you to do that, so that’s what makes it unique.

REACH OBJECTIVE

Reach is simply going to help you get out to the most people possible.

TRAFFIC

Under consideration we’ve got traffic, so this is going to be clicks to your website, landing page views, things like that – getting someone to your external page.

ENGAGEMENT

Engagement is going to be an ad or a post looking for likes, clicks, and shares. This can be very, very powerful, even if your goal is conversions. You could end up using the engagement objective and get a better result in many instances.

APP INSTALLS

App installs. This is going to be for people trying to sell apps. I never really use it it’s not something that me or my clients will ever need, at least not at this point, so don’t know a ton about it, nor do I really think I need to.

VIDEO VIEWS

Video Views. This is another powerful consideration objective. Honestly it could go in the awareness column as well because you’re just looking to get your video out to as many people as possible who could watch it.

You can use this as your cold traffic ad. It’s gonna build your warm audiences really quickly. You can get one, two, three cent video views. What you’re then gonna do is going to create audiences based on people who have watched 25%, 50%, or 75%, so that you can target them later with offers based on what your video is about.

Video views is something I use all the time. I highly encourage it for newer advertisers to start building their warm audiences quickly, so create a really educational helpful video and get started!

LEAD GENERATION

Lead generation is going to be for lead forms. This is a form that they click on and it opens directly in facebook. It’s going to auto populate with their personal information and you can add some custom questions. It’s really great for a lot of local businesses, however the downfall is that sometimes your quality of lead could be lower because if the email address that Facebook has on file for you is not the email you currently use, if you don’t manually change that, you’re goint to be giving the advertiser a bad email address. That is really kind of the only thing that I’ve seen with that is that the leads can sometimes be a little bit lower quality. But it really depends, so you just need to test it out.

MESSAGES

Messages is one of my favorite objectives! I love using messenger marketing .Connecting my ads directly to messenger is really powerful. This is going to be for a JSON ad, this could be a click to message ad, so you are just looking for people who want to communicate with your business.

Only do this if you have an action for them once they get to messenger, don’t just let them click to messenger and decide what they want to say. You want to prompt them, you want to tell them what they need to message or comment or click on. There’s a lot that goes into that, but it’s a great objective to use.

CONVERSIONS

Then you’ve got conversions. Conversions are going to be something like someone’s signing up for an estimate, signing up for an appointment, a webinar, an event, making a purchase, etc. These are all conversions. Facebook needs about 50 conversions per week to really optimize for this, so if you don’t have the budget for that or if this is a higher dollar product and you’re not going to get 50 conversions a week, it’s probably best to use something like traffic or even engagement (even potentially reach). Even though your goal is conversion, you can use other objectives to still achieve that goal. It all depends on your business, your budget, your product, and your audience at the end of the day.

CATALOG SALES

Catalog sales is going to be used for retailers or e-commerce businesses. This is going to be for dynamic product ads. It’s gonna pull in your product catalog and show the offerings to people and allow them to buy.

STORE VISITS

Store visits is something that’s really exciting! It’s not rolled out worldwide yet, only select advertisers have access to it. Unfortunately I don’t have access to it yet, so I’m just patiently waiting until that day. It’s basically going to allow you to do what you can do with AdWords, which is track people who’ve engaged with your ad that come into your physical location. This is insanely powerful for bricks and mortar locations and businesses. I will be definitely using that a lot when I’m able to really track it.

CONCLUSION

So that is an overview of marketing objectives and Facebook Ads! Ultimately, you always want to begin with the end in mind. If your goal is to get sales, you need to start testing with conversions, traffic, engagement, and reach. You don’t know which one’s gonna perform better, so test them out!

You can easily a/b test, so just don’t assume that you’re using the right one. However, you can still plan it from the beginning so that you have a better shot of actually achieving your goal.

That’s all I have for today! If you liked this article and video, please comment, share, and subscribe to get a lot more information on Facebook ads, messenger marketing, email marketing, and online marketing as a whole.

I specialize in the home improvement and real estate industry and I’m passionate about sharing my information and I’m glad I was able to help you here today!