Advanced Facebook Ads in the Meta Era

transcript was exported on Nov 04, 2021 – view latest version here.

Loomer:

you’ve got a limited budget, just create one ad. Like don’t worry about trading multiple ads. And if it works, it works. If it doesn’t try something else.

Baer:

Anna Hrach, if you had to pick a slogan for good experimentation in Facebook ads, you could probably do worse than that one from our guests this week. Jon Loomer.

Hrach:

It really can be that straightforward if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. So there’s so much advice that John gives us today on how to test what works, how to see what doesn’t, and really the, at the end of the day, you just got to go with it and test it and see what works

Baer:

touch. Also in this episode of social pros on Facebook’s conversion to Metta John has been running a advanced Facebook advertising communities for a decade. And so he has an amazing background and a history in how Facebook advertising works today and how it’s worked in the past and how it’s going to work better in the future. If you’ve spent even a penny on Facebook ads in your life or what to do. So this is the episode for you of social pros with Jon Loomer, from Jon Loomer digital. Before we get to this week’s episode with John, make sure you take time at the conclusion of this episode to download and consume the new state of marketing report from our friends at Salesforce. In this research, they surveyed some 8,000 marketers across 37 countries to determine all kinds of insights about how marketing works today.

Baer:

this research was done towards the end of the pandemic. So it’s really fresh, really relevant. For example, 72% of marketers say that customer expectations have gone up during the pandemic. One of their expectations is for ads that are relevant and actually interesting, which certainly makes sense in the context of today’s episode. We’re delighted that you’re here. I’m Jay Baer from convince and convert. She’s an, a Herat from convince and convert. Adam from Salesforce is off this week. We’ll be back again soon. Thanks again for being here, you’re going to love and Jon Loomer, here he comes

4:

Baer:

has literally forgotten more about Facebook advertising than mark Zuckerberg even knows he is the legendary Facebook ads expert at Jon Loomer. Digital. It is the one, the only, also a hell of a baseball coach is Mr. John Loomer joining us on social pros, Jon. Welcome. Oh my gosh.

Loomer:

you, Jay. Thanks for having me man. Appreciate it.

Baer:

was actually, I think it was actually true if we, if we quizzed Zuck himself on advanced Facebook advertising, I’m certain that, you know, more than, than he does as we’re recording this, it’s it’s we’re in the shadow of the big switch to Metta from Facebook to, to met up. Yeah, I don’t think it’s ridiculous. A lot of people are kind of poking fun at it, but I don’t think it’s any different than, than Google. I’m switching to alphabet and saying, Hey, we’ve got bigger aspirations than maybe what this legacy app may be. So I don’t, I don’t think it’s, you know, insane or anything. What’s your take.

Loomer:

think it’s along those same lines as Google alphabet. It’s a little deeper than that though. I mean, first of all, the obvious think we’d be crazy to not be a little cynical. The timing of this is to try to distance themselves from some of, I mean, look, there’s always scrutiny and controversy around Facebook. I feel like but seems like especially these days. So I think there’s some rebranding happening there, but you know, you listen to Facebook. I mean, they’re making a bet, like if, if this metaverse thing doesn’t happen and it just crumbles and blows away, then this was a silly mistake because the metaverse really isn’t much of a thing right now. And that’s what they’re betting on is that the future of the internet and whatever that is is AR VR kind of stuff. So that’s, that’s the big news I think for us as, as marketers and users is like, we got to see how we fit in that world. Whether it’s this year, next year, 10 years, I don’t, I don’t really know, know, you know, what the timeframe is, but that’s, I think that’s the biggest news here.

Baer:

They know either, but you’re right. They, I appreciate the courage of their convictions. No question about that. To me, one of the shortcomings of the Metta versus the massive inability of anybody to describe the metaverse in any sort of go here and fashion, which seems to undercut it’s awesome ness at least for now, but I’ve been wrong in the past. I will no doubt be wrong in future. And, and what do you think?

Hrach:

think we should just take a quick second to really appreciate the mean worthiness of it. Although Jay, I know you mentioned that a lot of people are making fun of it. Maybe it’s not necessarily justified, but we are as of right now, less than 24 hours out from the big announcement. And I don’t think I’ve seen names explode this quickly, and I can’t even remember the last time maybe the Airbnb logo switch. I’m not sure John, they would love your take on your favorite one so far.

Loomer:

I don’t. I, I don’t have any favorites at this point. I honestly like the whole, metaverse say I think the best way to describe it as like, this is what second life was supposed to be, you know, a second, second life was ahead of its time, you know, ultimately, and it’s basically, you know, immersing ourselves in this other experience, but for more of our lives, I can, I think the way Facebook or Metta is trying to pitch it is like, instead of being stuck in your phone all day, they’re replacing that even like, you’re not gonna be running around with your phone all the time as up

Baer:

and things like that,

Loomer:

it’s going to be weird. I still can’t visualize it like, so everything’s going to be virtual. Like I, I still want to have some real world experiences. I don’t know

Baer:

going to be the best baseball coach and the metaverse start now.

Loomer:

be a hall of fame player player.

Baer:

are you talking about? There you go. Yep. You’ll be able to buy enough digital training chips or something in the metaverse to, to make yourself a 50 50 guy. I feel that’s going to happen.

Loomer:

upgrades. I’ll be, I’ll be buying them up. Tell them

Baer:

friends of the social pros podcast a little bit about Jon Loomer, digital and the work that you do.

Loomer:

I just hit my 10 year anniversary of the business. The, the focus is on advanced Facebook advertising. So if you come to John liber.com, that is the focus that that’s, you’re not a beginner necessarily. You’re trying to stay sharp, stay ahead. It’s all about tutorials strategies. We’re not trying to, you know get around the system. We’re going to try to break rules, anything like that with Facebook is all about doing it ethically and I’m doing it the right way. I mean, that’s, that’s my goal was to help advanced Facebook advertisers get to the next level.

Baer:

Facebook advertising has changed a lot in a decade. How did you, how did you go down that road? How did you in 20 12, 20 11. So, you know what I should do, and I should build a, a, an organization that brings together advanced Facebook advertising best practices. That seems like a, somewhat of a random concept for a company.

Loomer:

was never really my plan. So my first exposure to Facebook was in 2007 while I worked for the NBA and we partnered with Facebook while it was the Facebook and there were 50 million people on the platform. And we, we had, we partnered with them to build an app for us. Before you could create an app. I was the first admin of the first official NBA Facebook group before there was a page. So basically I had a comfort level with the platform from a marketing perspective. And then I left the MBA after three seasons got laid off twice within two and a half years after that. And then it was a matter of what am I going to do? So I started a website didn’t really know what I was going to do, that I was basically just using as a virtual, like, resume to say, these are the things I know how to do.

Loomer:

then I started using ads to promote myself. And then that led to like, well, this is how I’m promoting myself. And then this is, that just grew, it grew, it grew from there. But yeah, I mean, the what’s crazy about how it’s changed. Like I, I had no money. I had been laid off twice. I was the breadwinner of the house. I was spending a dollar a day to promote myself and you could actually make an impact 10 years ago, spending a dollar a day running ads. It would be these days to, to say the least. But so I’ve, I’ve had a long, deep history, I guess, with, with the platform,

Baer:

should mention for social pros listeners, that John is not a consultant or an agency. So you might be thinking, man, I like to be better at advanced Facebook ads who wouldn’t I should, I are Jon Loomer, sadly John is not hireable. But however, he does have a whole consortium of opportunities. The power hitters club, our writer’s club advanced there’s a monthly fee based community of like-minded social media professionals, where John helps you get better at these things. So it’s sort of a a do it with you kind of a program. Did I describe that accurately, John?

Loomer:

So it’s powering his club powers called elite. So we have a community private community for each of those individual groups. I hold a weekly strategy sessions, a weekly webinar, keep everybody up to date on what’s happening. We, we do trainings that they have access to all the training I’ve ever done before I do one-on-ones so we can do, you know, 45 minutes sessions with people, especially members, they get a big discount. Yeah. That’s, that’s what it’s all about. I’m trying to amount of the volume, volume game, helping as many people as I can.

Baer:

of the things that you’ve been saying for nearly a decade about Facebook ads that I think is absolutely spot on and it doesn’t get talked about enough is, is having specific ads and campaigns tied to specific parts of the funnel, right? Th that what you’re trying to do top funnel is different than what you’re trying to do mid funnel. It’s definitely, you’re trying to do low funnel and building out separate campaigns accordingly. Can you talk a little bit about that philosophy and maybe why so many companies don’t adhere to it?

Loomer:

And first of all, every business is different. But that said like my, my business is built around content. So the funnel works and that people read my website, they gain an appreciation or some, some trust in me that I know what I’m talking about from, from reading my blog posts, they subscribe to something and then they buy, I don’t see it as a quick, I’m just selling, selling, selling, selling. I’m going to hide everything behind the paywall. And then hopefully I’ll convince you to buy something. So I’m running a campaign, kind of top of the funnel to drive traffic to my website, I’m running a campaign middle of the funnel to get those people who have visited my website to subscribe to something and then running a campaign to sell something. And that’s usually the least amount of money I’m spending is on selling something.

Loomer:

oftentimes what I’m doing, because, and look, everyone does it differently and all that. I also don’t want people who are brand new to me buying a, without knowing what they’re getting into. So there’s a, there’s a part of administrative side of that too. It like, I don’t want refunds. I don’t want people to complain about what they’re getting. You didn’t know what I was like or what my style is all about. People wanting to gain the system, all that kind of stuff. So I have all three of those running at all times typically. Cause that that’s, I I’ve found too that my email list is really important. The constant flow of traffic is really important to the life of my business.

Baer:

things have changed a lot. And the level of complexity within Facebook has gone up geometrically, I would say in the last 10 years, not only in the Facebook platform itself, but now you’ve got all the sister platforms and WhatsApp and Instagram and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And now in Metta, perhaps that will go even even further at this point, John, when you think about the success path for these kinds of programs, is it, is it more important to be good at targeting more important to be good at budgeting or more important to be good at creative?

Loomer:

targeting has always been important. It’s a little less important depending on your industry these days because of how good Facebook Facebook can be at optimization and showing your ads to the right people that said, I think there’s still a great skill and the micro-targeting side of it. Like you can have, you can have both the broad targeting running while you’re also doing some micro targeting. That’s showing ads to some, a very specific group of people or excluding a very specific group of people. I mean, I think there’s something to be said about making sure you’re not wasting money as well. There’s, there’s something to be said about with that, the targeting side of it look, and the creative side is, I think you’ve got to stand out. You’ve got to stand out in some way. So how is it you stand out?

Loomer:

it because of the creative? Is it because of the messaging is because of who, whom you’re targeting and they were expecting to see it and they’re like, wow, this is really cool. I, I would say that that’s more important now the creative side of is more important now than it was 10 years ago. It was like, all you had to be was competent. So I started my own ad creation. Like I’m really good at the pulling the levers and like telling you how, like what all the various strategies are like how to reach people and what, how everything works. I’m, I’m a terrible salesman. I will be the first to tell you. So if in terms of copy to convince you to buy my crap that probably not the best. So standing out these days is much harder for me than it was a decade ago where you just had to be competent and know what you’re doing. So

Baer:

has got up and there’s, there’s more ads, more ads per screen. The number of ad insertions has gone up, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You talked about micro-targeting and I’d love you to elaborate that a little bit because you know, most of our audiences, social pros understands kind of big broad campaigns in, in Facebook. But for example you were talking to their day on your blog about building a custom event for a YouTube videos watched, right? And so you’re only then going to serve up Facebook ads to people who have watched a certain amount of a YouTube video. And I’m like, darn, why am I not doing that for my speaking business? Right? So if somebody watches my trailer, which is, Jay can give a great keynote, why am I not then serving them Facebook ads specifically to that small group of people and, and, and the opportunities there are, are nearly limitless. Talk a little bit about the power of micro-targeting and kind of maybe where to start with that idea.

Loomer:

I compare it to your email marketing. I mean, do you just blast everybody the same messages all the time, or do you have specific messages for specific people knowing that it can be more effective to them? So like if they have opted into this free thing, if you’ve got this paid thing that’s closely tied to that, you’re obviously going to send them through this campaign is okay, you start as free day. Now sign up for this page thing. It’s a similar concept. If you viewed a particular video, read a particular blog post on your website, that’s related to a certain topic and you’ve got a product that’s tied to that let’s target those specific people. And, and something I’m doing right now, I love doing experiments and it’s just a matter of like, okay, w how, how can I use ads as a way to reward a loyal audience, as well as incentivize additional engagement.

Loomer:

keep reading my website. So I created custom audiences based on the number of pages people viewed of my site. So what I’m doing is I’m creating a unique content, exclusive content that can only be found in the ads I’m using reach campaigns, because I don’t want to optimize strength. I want to make sure I reach as many of these people as possible. And I’m kind of escalating the amount of engagement you need to have with me in order to see each lesson. So I started with, okay, you need to watch at least, or view at least two pages of my website to see this first ad, this first lesson you need 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, I’m up to six right now, six pages of my site over the last 180 days. And part of the experiment is also just to see how far Facebook will let me go before they say too small, can’t show these anymore.

Loomer:

also want to see how, how engaged people are going to be, you know, what the reaction is from, from everybody else who who’s viewing these, these ads, because these are my most loyal people, but crazies, like I even have an ad out there is just sitting there waiting for people. It’s like, if you view 20 pages of my website or more over the last seven days, you see this one ad and it should kind of startle people who see it, cause it’s like, like, what are you doing? Why are you looking at 20 pages of my website back? That kind of thing. But I think there’s some power in that especially for this community, right? For non-Facebook advertiser, that would seem creepy probably, right. It’s like, keep it, if you’re

Baer:

it. You’re like, wow, this is great. Yeah,

Loomer:

this is the kind of stuff. Cause that’s not the whole point of like, let’s not try to creep people out as a matter of helping you understand, you know, how can I target people that can think of best serve my audience. It give them the type of content that they want.

Hrach:

love that you just brought up experimentation and a real life example of something that you’re doing today, because you had recently said that the most important characteristic of a successful Facebook advertiser is the willingness to experiment, which a hundred percent agree. But based on what you’re seeing today, what is really holding people back from doing that far of an experiment or really going in as far as they can with it with Facebook experimentation, is it, is it lack of budget? Is it just lack of, you know, time to really optimize these things and dig into the data? Is it just that it feels entirely overwhelming? What are you seeing right now in terms of where everybody’s at with experimentation?

Loomer:

think that’s a partial lack of confidence in what they’re doing. I mean, the question, first of all, it’s always like, what should I do? Should I do this? Should I optimize for this? Should optimize for that? Should I target this big audience? Should I target a small audience? Instead of asking those questions, we should be trying those things because whenever it works for me, won’t necessarily work for you. I mean, I say that all the time, it’s, it’s absolutely true. Like the industry, the built-in audience, I have, like, all these things are going to be different. The interest that you can target, all that’s gonna be different. So you need to try it. I think it’s also a matter of expectations. So if you have a client who expects immediate results, no matter what the built-in audience is, no matter what the, the brand awareness is, no matter how much traffic they get to the website, how big their email list is, and you’ve just got to hit the ground running and get them results. Then you put your pressure on yourself that like, I can’t experiment. I’ve got to know exactly what to do right now to give them the results that they’re expecting. And that’s partially the mistake of the advertisement.

Hrach:

I think you bring up a good point, and this is something that you talk about a lot that, that a lot of times your answer is at the pens and that’s because it really does to your point depend on the situation. It depends on the budget. Depends on the audience. It depends on your goals. It depends on the funnel. So how can we, as, as advertisers really start to set better expectations with the, it depends answer when, you know, maybe our clients really want that definitive answer. So what is, what are some ways that we can help set those expectations? But it depends is an answer, even though it feels like a non-answer

Loomer:

first of all be picky about your clients. Don’t go into it promising the world, especially understanding like if they’ve got a high mountain to climb, to give them really good results, like make sure that they’re reasonable expectations from the start. Also understand that it is your client. They’re setting you up for success or failure and putting you into a good or bad position. Because if you’ve got a brand new business with a crappy website and a terrible product that nobody wants, you’re not going to get them any results. It doesn’t matter how good you are. If you’ve got a client as an amazing website, everybody loves the brand. They get a ton of traffic, huge email list. They’ve already got a big Facebook following. You could be the worst advertiser in the world. You’d still get them some results. So it’s a matter of picking and choosing, you know, I know that’s easier said than done. Sometimes being honest with them, knowing that part of your responsibility is educating them, helping, helping them understand what is success, what it looks like, what the timeframe is basics of what you’re doing without boring them. Like the other thing is like, don’t give them too much power where they need to see like data side, what all the success metrics are. You kind of have to lead them down that path to help them understand what it is you’re trying to accomplish and how long it’s going to take. So it’s all about expectations as well.

Baer:

of the things I think is challenging for people, John, is that the optimization alternatives are nearly limitless, right? It’s not like email for example, right? You can test time of day, day of week from line, subject line link structure, layout, and that’s kind of the list, right? There’s like a, like about a six or seven email testing sequence. And then you kind of go back to the beginning and start over there. There’s not really more than that. Facebook there’s like hundreds, if not more. And I think that can paralyze people a little bit. It’s almost like a paradox of choice. So when you’re working with with somebody who may be new to advanced Facebook ads, what are, what are one of the first couple kind of optimization opportunities that you say, all right, for sure you should start here.

Loomer:

so first of all, yes. In my, I did a blog post about the experimentation. It’s like an experimentation guide. Like what are the things that you can pull levers on?

Baer:

we’ll look it up in the show notes@thesocialprospodcast.com.

Loomer:

So there are basically 18 groups of these levers, which within each one there’s just limitless possibilities. But the main thing to remember is first of all, if, if you’re kind of just getting going, you could create a campaign with without barely changing anything and keeping it really simple use Facebook defaults. Like you don’t have to worry about Facebook asks you like, what is it you’re trying to accomplish? Okay. And what’s my goal. Is it conversions? Is it traffic? Is it leads like, so you decide that upfront. And then it’s a matter of like the optimization side of it. They will automatically optimize based on what’s you’re trying to accomplish. Don’t worry about that. So basically I would start very simple with everything, leave it on the defaults as far the ad and whatnot, like what I always say, like, if you’ve got a limited budget, just create one ad, like don’t worry about creating multiple ads and all that.

Loomer:

if it works, it works, but it doesn’t try something else. So, but you’ve got to be mindful of generating meaningful results. So when it comes to budget so yes, you can, you can fall down this rabbit hole of feeling like you’ve got to test everything, but B test everything and just water down all of your results. You got nothing. Nothing’s going to mean anything. So I try to test like one or two things at a time. And I think audiences usually a good thing to test because the complexity of audiences, like we can have, if you create an ad set that has looked like audiences and interest in it and stuff like that, and then it doesn’t work. What, what was the, was it because the audience didn’t work, which component of it didn’t work? Correct. So I’ll, I’ll tell you like split that up, right?

Loomer:

one ad set. That’s just for a lookalike audience, one ad set for a group of interests. See how that rolls. I mean, the problem with lookalike audiences, you can, you can create a lookalike audience out of a whole bunch of things. So do you combine them all? Do you go separately once again, kind of take that one step at a time. I mean, I think that that’s the easiest place to start without being like, you don’t have to be ultra advanced. It’s really, when you start getting into the optimization, it gets a little tricky. Like you have to remember, you need to be able to generate some volume. So if you’re going to optimize for conversion, can you get 1550 of these per per week? I mean, that’s kind of the, the, the range that we’re shooting for, for Facebook to exit the learning phase and to properly optimize. If you can’t get 25 to 50 of those per week, don’t even bother try it, whether it be increasing budget, optimizing for a different action, further up the funnel, you know, do that. But that’s kind of the rule of thumb to when you start slicing and dicing, this is like, just make sure that you can actually get some results out of it.

Hrach:

think one of the most fascinating things that I read and that same article that Jay just mentioned, that we’ll link in the show notes is how you give so many different ways to experiment with different optimizations and different options. But the one thing that you have never found success in is day partying. And I found that really truly fascinating because even as Jay had just mentioned with email, that’s something that’s still really standard. Obviously the traditional media buying, that’s still a really big determinant of success, but talk through how you have tried pretty much, as you had mentioned in your article every possible way to optimize day partying and have just never really found success. What I just found super fascinating

Loomer:

Day party for everyone is familiar with it. Cause it’s kind of a buried feature, but it’s our been around forever. It’s only available if you do the budgeting and you can basically schedule what times of day or what days of the week your ads will be shown. So it will only be shown that then. So it’s like, oh, I know it doesn’t work on Tuesdays. So it’s going to skip Tuesdays or I only want it to show and my audience is online. So we’re going to go 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM or something like that. And it sounds reasonable. Now I think that the danger of it is the first time I was exposed to the danger of it is like assuming, oh, I’m all going to show ads where my audience is online, because the reality is if some of your audience is on at a time that has no competition, probably a good time to show it to them because it’s going to cost less to reach them as long as they’re not stumbling home drunk from 2:00 AM, you know, from the bar or something.

Loomer:

so I, I did a experiment where I kind of dug into my stats for like six months of an under the same objective say, okay, well, what are the particular days of the week? What are the specific times of day when I’m most likely to get the best results? And I averaged that out. I said, okay, well, it’s only going to, I think I ended up settling on like eight eight times like that, that’s what I’m going to use for, for day party. And lo and behold, I got worse results as a result of day partying, which kind of doesn’t make sense, but you’re also forcing Facebook to run ads during only those times. And that’s not really the way Facebook is expecting to show your ads. They’re like, we’re gonna, we’re going to give you the best results or the most results for the lowest cost, whether it’s showing it at two in the afternoon or two in the morning. Whenever we think we can, we can get that for you. So you’re kind of control trying to control it, which a lot of times backfires. So when I see day party the benefit of it as is not so much gaming the system to get better cheaper results. But like if you’re sending people to make a phone call or send a message, talk to a salesperson or whatever, and you only have people available during certain times, that’s what makes the most sense for day party.

Baer:

That makes a lot of sense. You don’t want to be having a call to action that you can’t actually follow up on. That’s not only a waste of money, but also pretty poor customer experience. In many cases, all this talk about audience. John makes me want to ask you about iOS 14 and the changes that apple are making to how they allow or encourage different apps to, to track and collect data that then makes ads better. Obviously this is something that I’m sure you’ve spent some time thinking about where does this end up? Does this, does this have a material impact on your ability to be successful with Facebook or is it much

Loomer:

do about nothing or is it circumstantial based on the type of business that you are, first of all, it’s going to impact different businesses, different ways. So if you’ve got, there’s kind of a it must be surprising to you. If you take into your Google analytics, I found that 8% of my total traffic comes from an iOS device. So I find to be really low. Now, part of that is I think a lot of it is what we’re doing right now. Desktop is not impacted, right? So if you’re an office person you’re more likely to be reading my stuff from a desktop than, than from a mobile device. So that’s like understanding how much it could impact you. First of all, because there are a lot of people are like blaming their bad results on iOS and they may not be getting a ton of iOS traffic anyway.

Loomer:

it may not really impact you. So that’s, that’s the first thing, but so understand that what’s happening is people get a prompt. Certain apps are going to surface this problem, not all apps they have to decide. Do I want to continue to collect device identifiers or not? Is it important to me? Facebook has decided it’s important that they can continue to collect that for attribution and whatever. So they’re, they’re surfacing that prompt. Do you want to be tracked across devices and websites if they say no, then they fall under Facebook’s aggregated event measurement protocol. So a couple of things happen, first of all, when they’re on there, that iOS device and on your website, they’re, they’re no longer, you no longer be able to create website custom audiences for that behavior or app engagement customer needs is if they’re on your app.

Loomer:

that, that will impact your targeting or impact your exclusion possibilities as well, but also aggregate event measurement. The way it works is like, so someone who has opted ad tracking, Cesar clicks, your ad goes to your website perform some events. It’s not the Facebook, won’t get anything, they’ll get something it’s going to be aggregated. It’s going to be delayed. And there, you’re only going to receive your highest ranking event during that session. So it, you have to rank your events as well, which I think probably most of the audiences has done at this 0.1 through eight. And if they performed your second ranking event and nothing above that, then that will be reported. So it’s not as complete. That said this, the state of this you know, in April compared to state of it, now, it seems to be Facebook is trying to fill in the blanks.

Loomer:

basically what they’re doing is they’re doing modeling to better understand how many conversions are actually happening. You if they’re not getting the full picture from, from apple. So the modeling there, they’ve also included the one day view through conversion as part of the fault now, whereas they had scrapped it at the start of this whole madness. It was 28 day click one day view. That’s the, to me, that’s the biggest change that I think a lot of people are missing is that if your product typically took more than a week to, to finish the, the sell the sale, after that first click Facebook was reporting it before, before it was January 18th. I think now you don’t get that. That’s just lost data. And I think anyone who’s like selling real estate, selling anything more expensive, they’re really struggling to connect their efforts to Facebook ads. But that’s also another thing about setting expectations and making sure like clients understand that it’s like, yes, look, we in the backend, we know these pet purchases are happening. We’re using these other methods to track they’re coming from Facebook or using I’m using URL parameters, I’m doing whatever. So they are happening. Facebook’s not reporting them. This is why. And so that’s, that’s been part of the challenge.

Baer:

glad you mentioned the iOS percentage. I think for convince and convert, last time I looked, it was 6%, something like that. So again, it’s, it’s not you know, it’s like,

Loomer:

barely, you’re barely going to see that’s a barrel, a barrel blip. And how many of those people have out, right? Just like just being iOS, isn’t the end of the world. Like if they might opt in, you know, so

Baer:

think that the bigger implication, just looking at a pan digital perspective is, is the lack of email attribution information is actually more challenging for marketers then then the ad tracking information, at least, at least for now, we’ll see, we’ll see how it shakes out. You mentioned at one point, John CTS and calls to action and making sure that if you’re gonna do day party, that the CTA is appropriate, et cetera. Do I take that to mean, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth that you’re in favor of always having a call to action using Facebook’s technology and all of your Facebook ads,

Loomer:

call to action button. Yes. Yeah. Honestly, the jury is still out an hour because basically you use a CTA, it’s like a user learn more, for example, that tends to send more traffic. Like it entices more people to click, but it’s not necessarily with intent. So if you’re selling a product and you use like a, a buy button or whatever, and it’s cents cents or a book, now it sends people over. You might get fewer people clicking that, but higher intent. Or if you remove the button entirely, it may seem less salesy and less pushy. And so once again, it’s one of the levers you’ve got to pull to the side.

Baer:

an easy one to test, right. Is basically create two, two ad groups. One’s got the button one, doesn’t have the button pretty much the same ad. I run them side by side and see what

Loomer:

I mean, that’s the easiest way to do it. You can also do dynamic creative where basically select up to five different

Baer:

that you want to use and Facebook mixes and matches. I’m glad you mentioned that John, that’s one of the other things I wanted to ask you. One of the things that’s changed a lot over the decade, even doing this is that is that Facebook’s own capabilities to quote unquote auto optimize your ads. And of course gotten better and better. And they can run a lot of ads against one another in test and now dynamic creative, where they kind of help you figure out what’s the best creative, which in many cases is not what you would assume to be the best creative as a marketing professional, which can be a little bit shocking. But how much do you believe in that? Right. I feel like, I feel like there is this sense amongst some marketers that, yeah. Facebook, thanks for auto optimizing this. So I spend more money. You obviously have run lots of experiments how effective and successful do you feel? You can be just sort of turning it over to Facebook and saying, yeah, y’all optimize this for me.

Loomer:

so it’s a matter of understanding how optimization works. Okay. So if you’re using the defaults Facebook’s going to get you the most actions that they can get at the lowest cost. That’s the lowest cost bidding. That’s what that, that means. And if you’re selling something trusting like Facebook deciding like what placement to show it in or who to show it to, like, they’re going to constantly be responding to how many purchases you get, which should be good. Like if Facebook can react more, they’ve got more data than we will ever have or understand. The problem becomes if you’re optimizing for something that’s lighter. So optimizing for traffic, optimizing for engagement, where Facebook doesn’t care about quality, they just care about, oh, you wanted that click. I got you clicks. They’re really cheap. They are, that’s what you want it. This is successful.

Loomer:

you see, oh, I got, you know, a thousand clicks for a dollar. So this was must have been really, really successful. Whereas none of that stuff was valuable. They S they immediately abandoned there, accidental clicks, whatever Facebook doesn’t care. So those are the kinds of things you got to watch out for, especially depending on the countries you’re targeting what placements you use. Cause like audience network, I can’t stay in audience network specifically for things like optimization for engagement or clicks or traffic or anything like that, where it’s like accidental clicks. I, I remember this happened to me personally. My ad came up while I was playing a game on my phone and I clicked it by accident because it just popped up.

Loomer:

I immediately abandoned my own ad and went back to the app. Like I did not mean to click that. And it’s like, whenever you’re in your ads manager, you’ll see every once in a while you have been refunded. And it’s usually, it’s just some tiny amount why it’s cause of click fraud some something where people are breaking that, breaking the rules related to audience network. And so, so that people are monetizing their apps to with Facebook ads. So that’s, what’s happening is that you’re not on a Facebook property at the time, Facebook ads around someone’s someone else’s app and they may use methods. They may use click fraud. They may use other methods to make sure people are clicking. And then at least a really misleading results if you don’t start digging. So that’s my biggest issue. Like I think there are to a point you can, you should trust Facebook optimization, but also understand how it works. Cause you can get screwed over by it if you’re not paying attention. Because if you look at surface level numbers like, oh, this was great, except yeah. None of those people care about your productivity.

Baer:

I think this idea too, that, that a click is not a click is on a click right there, there are different levels of quality and you gotta be tracking all the way through what your end goal is. It’s almost impossible that your actual goal is clicks, right? Clicks is a waystation towards something you actually care about. And is it an important way station? Of course it is. But, but it’s not the business that you’re in is not click aggregation. So you’ve got to have that kind of attribution modeling to say, all right, cool. But how many of those clicks actually yield money? Cause if you don’t do that, then you can be buying clicks that are never going to connect.

Loomer:

there are a couple of things on that. First of all, we talked about different funnels for different stages of the funnel, running ads, I’m running a campaign, that’s driving traffic. And I just checked their day to see just out of curiosity, how many other actions happened. Even though all I was looking for was, was quality traffic. I had spent like $450 on it and it resulted in 19 purchases. I wasn’t even selling anything. These are just blog posts. So those are the things you have to remember. It’s it’s quality traffic. So there are, there are ways to optimize for that too, but you have to be a little bit creative and a little bit more technical. Like I’ve got custom events on my website for time on a page. So you spend at least 60 seconds. So if you scroll a certain amount, that’s going to fire an event. So that way I can can, can have quality traffic is my objective. Ultimately not just any old traffic, it’s a conversion campaign optimized for like a 62nd visit. And then Facebook can optimize for that as opposed to optimizing just for a regular click, they’ll have to make sure that did it actually fire this 62nd event. So there are ways to do this. You just got to kind of understand how Facebook works and get a little creative

Baer:

Loomer from Jon Loomer, digital our guests this week on social pros go to a site, Jon loomer.com take a look at his power hitters club, power hitters, elite. If you want to have access to the community and really level up your own Facebook ads expertise. John, last question for me before we get into the two big questions that we’ve asked everybody here on the show, going back to January, 2012, when the podcast began today, what do you think is the best background for somebody who’s going to run Facebook ads inside a company? Like, you know, what, what is it? Is it somebody who’s got a stats background and creative background? I don’t know. Like what, what do you think if you’re going to hire somebody as many of our listeners do, where would you look?

Loomer:

I think stats background helps and a healthy dose dose of curiosity. You know, someone who’s who wants to find an answer who, who wants to dig, who, who wants to experiment. But obviously someone who knows what to do with those numbers, those results that come in and it can, it can analyze it. So I I’d be, I’d be a pretty evil person to say, you need to have specific you know, training because I had none. I was a philosophy major in college, so I should not be a Facebook advertiser, but I’m also kind of a stats nerd. I love stats. I don’t know what, what you put, how you say that in a resume, but there you go. So it’s a, it’s a matter of, kind of it certainly helps, I guess if you’ve got some formal training, but being a stats nerd, who’s curious is probably the best, the best characteristics.

Baer:

because you’re a baseball nerd and baseball is the, is the stats game. For sure friends. I just want to point out that if you’re like, man, I’m really not doing what I went to school for. Listen to John Loomer who was a philosophy major and is now an advanced Facebook ads genius. I was a political science major and I’m not exactly doing a lot of politics right now, either. So it’s okay. Friends. You’ll be all right. It’s also okay for Jon Loomer to answer the two questions first, John, if you could give our audience one, tip somebody who’s looking to become a social pro, what would you tell them

Loomer:

yourself? I mean, I noticed that’s kind of like a corny thing to say, but when I started this whole thing and I wasn’t standing out my biggest goal is like, what, what, what, what is, what is Mari doing? What is any Porterfield doing? What’s Jay doing? Like, I, I got to do what they’re doing. You don’t stand out when you’re doing that. Like you don’t stand out until you actually have an opinion. And do you do tell your own story? I mean, it’s, again, it depends on what kind of job you’re looking to have in social pros, but B being yourself and standing up for what you believe in is a good way to stand out. That’s my advice.

Baer:

answer. I love that last question for John Loomer. If you could do a video call with any living person who would it be?

Loomer:

Robyn you out with a

Baer:

at this old school baseball reference, Robin young. Nice. So

Loomer:

a little obscure facts about me. Well, first of all, you know, I’m a baseball under a brewers fan and I am a Bruce fan back in 2011. So 10 years ago, I started the Twitter feed tweets from 1982. And what it did was ridiculous. The amount of work that went into this thing, I retold the entire 1982 season in real time as if it were happening today, based on research and newspapers and everything. And I actually finally wrapped it up a few days ago. So I retold the world series and I gave it an alternate ending where the brewers are going to win. And then, but actually built it last year. It actually went through that a whole alternate ending this year, I got right up to that point. I’m like, we’re done, we’re not gonna do this again until the brewers have an actual world series winning championship season, but it was a blast to do. And obviously, I, I know a lot about that team and that season, I would love to talk to revenue.

Baer:

feel like you can make that happen at this point. I think you’ve got enough. You got enough juice, man. You can get Robin Robin on a zoom call. You can do that.

Loomer:

sure I can.

Baer:

or our community can’t friends. If you’re out there, I know Robin you out hall of fame, baseball player in Milwaukee brewers legend hook, hook a brother up, get get Jon Loomer on the phone. We’ll get, and we’ll get whoever runs social for the brewers on the show, and then we’ll, we’ll make it happen. I, I feel like we can we can do that for you.

Loomer:

be awesome. It’s the least

Baer:

can do John. Thanks so much for being here. Congratulations on all the success of the last 10 years with John Loomer digital the amount of value that you deliver to your community is spectacular. Just, just the blog itself is an absolute must read, but take a look at his communities as well. You’ll, you’ll get a lot smarter, awful quick. We appreciate you being here by,

Loomer:

you so much, Jay. Thank you so much, Anna, for having me. It’s been a blast.

Baer:

we’ve enjoyed it very much. We will be back next week with another spectacular episode of what we hope is your favorite podcast in the whole world. The social pros podcast. Don’t forget. You can get show notes, transcripts links, all the, all that jazz for every episode, nearly 500. Now go to social pros, podcast.com on behalf of our sponsor Salesforce. I’m Jay Baer from convince and convert. She’s in Herat from convince and convert. We’ll see you next time here on social pros.

EP 496 – Edited (Completed 11/04/21)

by Rev.com

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