EPISODE 40 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: Cashing in on Corona With Facebook
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Hi guys. I'm so excited because today I have one of my amazing Facebook ad gurus and also Google ad gurus. Well, I'd probably call you Lance, lovely to have you here. Thank you.
Nams:
Thanks for having me Sonya, lovely to be here.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Now, I wanted to get you onto the podcast to speak generally, but also sort of more specifically around what we're seeing at the moment with COVID and PPC ad campaigns. But first of all, what do you like about PPC? What is PPC? Let's start with the basics.
Nams:
Absolutely. So PPC, pay-per-click is really Google's way of having offering out there where you are literally paying per click for Google ad. So as the name states, PPC, pay per click advertising. There are so many things to love about this form of advertising. But I think my personal favorite too would probably be the ability to get instant results from PPC. So it takes, I think, less than 24 hours to get the ads up and live.
And if your objective is traffic to the site or lead gen, it is highly probable that you will get results instantly. However, the success to a good PPC campaign also relies on a lot of hard work. It is not an overnight success, but it is a very highly effective way of advertising. I think my second thing as well is PPC is also are highly measurable where you can measure the cost per click. You can measure the cost per investment. And if your business is looking to have a cost per investment of more than $20 or less than $10, then it can be achieved by a PPC advertising. But yeah, I think the biggest thing about PPC it's you only pay for results and it is a very highly effective way of advertising.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. And I love that as well. I think for me, like I used to be so obsessed and in love with organic social media four years ago when the algorithms were really working in our favor. But now in my opinion, I just think it's very hard to measure that return. I think it's really important to be building an engaged following and that fan base and those loyal clients. But I think especially if you're starting from scratch as well, PPC, like we can reach who we want to reach when we need to reach them with an offer.
Nams:
Exactly.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Which I love. I mean, I asked a lot of people this question when it comes to ads, but why do you think the ads work for some businesses but not others?
Nams:
Yeah, that's actually a good question. So I think it just goes to the fact why some businesses fail and some succeed. I think it's mostly to do with how the campaign has been set and what the value proposition for your offering is. Right? So if your value proposition in the market is I guess, very basic and it doesn't have that X factor, then it's highly unlikely that consumers will buy from you. And that is actually the same for ads as well. If your targeting is inappropriate, your focus is highly wide, then your ads have a highly likelihood of failure as well.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So do you think at the end of the day that it comes down to the quality of your product and service and your offering and what that offer is?
Nams:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that is one big factor. And the other factor is also in the ad maker's capability itself, right? If the ad maker has no experience with making ads, then your ad campaign has a high likelihood of failure for sure.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. You're kind of flying blind, aren't you? You're kind of throwing pasta at the wall and hoping it sticks really. If you do, you don't know what you're doing when it comes to paid campaigns. I mean, I see so many clients that we take on that, like, "Oh yeah, we've been doing Facebook ads, I've been spending $500 a month boosting posts." And I go, "Oh my God, what are you doing?"
Nams:
[inaudible 00:05:12] exactly.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
All right. So let's talk about corona and what you're seeing at the moment in terms of ads. Are you seeing any trends that have happened sort of since March, April when all of everything hit the fan?
Nams:
Yeah, look, absolutely. I think corona has been probably is slowly going to be the biggest pandemic the world has ever seen, especially in the 21st century where we have access to so many social media platforms. And there are so many different advertising tactics that we can actually conduct. But the biggest trend that I've actually seen was just a massive change in consumer behavior. Right? Where I know that in the previous times consumers were going out to visit a brick and mortar store. They were actually, I guess, less patient about getting that right thing. But now there has been a massive shift where consumers are now introduced to the stay at home economy, right. Where we are all locked down within the confines of our walls. That we are now going towards a more stay at home offerings.
For example gyms. Gyms have now seen probably like the biggest change that they've seen ever in terms of how to actually get leads. And now they are shifting more towards at home workouts instead of going towards a free trial. And you got on to the gym and like have your free trial. That is not an option and now they've actually completely reinvested in a new business model, which is more targeted towards the stay at home individuals. Yeah. I think that's the biggest thing I've seen, a shift that most of change in consumer behavior.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. And businesses have been pivoting so quickly, which is I think is absolutely fantastic that they've done that. In terms of costs for ads, costs for people to get a sale with eCommerce. Have you seen any changes at all with that?
Nams:
Yeah. I think big commerce has probably been one of the only industries that have actually seen a boom. So we have seen a massive decrease in cost per leads, a higher ROI only because people are now going into their laptops more and more often. Like me personally, I do a lot of midnight shopping and midnight browsing so.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
You sound like me. Yep.
Nams:
For me the cost per purchase for each of these companies like ASOS, Iconic, I'm just spending so much more of my time and money just on that. Right? So eCommerce is probably like the only sector that I've seen a big positive change due to COVID.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. And I think, I mean, looking at the number of eCommerce clients we've taken on in the last month, I feel like a lot of businesses really recognize this as well. Out of curiosity, this is a little bit off topic, but at the moment we're in July, this isn't going to air until next month. But for the month of July, some big brands like Nike really boycotted Facebook advertising in protest of sort of their censorship, and not sort of probably controlling the news in the way that they wanted them to. Obviously Facebook and Google ads work on an auction system. Right. So there's only so much space available. Have you seen a decrease in cost in ads in July so far because those big companies are not buying up that advertising space. Or are you thinking that a lot of businesses like eCommerce are really upping the ad spend because they're seeing the broom. So it's not really been affected in that way. What are your thoughts?
Lance:
Yeah, now I look differently. So I think I've definitely seen a decrease in the cost per ad. So the cost per impression has definitely sort of decreased. And that's because of these big brands, as you said, are not in that market space. Right.
So if you don't have the likes of Nike, the likes of BMW, the likes of Adidas advertising on your feed. And these brands have millions of dollars a day in ad spend, right? So now it gives them the opportunity for small, medium eCommerce companies to, I guess, step in the atmosphere and really show their offerings and really kind of just hone in and compete effectively to get that target market. And yeah, it's completely dependent on whether they are competing with the likes of Nike or the likes of BMW. And if they are, then I think now is the right time for them to start spending more on their Facebook offerings for sure.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, take advantage of this time period. Okay. If I am a small business whether I am a small eCommerce business or a small service base business, and I have not done any advertising before, and I'm going, look, I just want to have a play around. What kind of budget do people need to be looking at starting with per month for their ad spend?
Nams:
Yeah. So that's completely dependent on their goals and what they want to achieve with I guess advertising. So it completely depends on what kind of objectives they have. So if their objective is lead gen, usually Facebook lead gen offering is actually kind of cheap, where you can start with a budget of $200 to $500. And it can give you that effective ROI.
For eCommerce it does take a fair bit of spend for them to actually break even. So for eCommerce I have service clients that spend $500 a month, straight up to $15,000 a month. And that's completely dependent on their objective, right? So if their objective is having, I guess, quite growth and sell as many products as possible, then they want to actually have a cost benefit and see what kind of ROI they are keen to achieve by doing Facebook ads or eCommerce ads.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. And I think eCommerce has a bit of a different kettle of fish as well, right? We talk about the marketing funnel. You need to warm people up first. You need to move them down the funnel and then you've got your retargeting that happens. I think when it comes to service based businesses, you can be switching on some lead generation ads and expect some leads to be coming in sort of overnight.
eCommerce, there's so much more to it. So it's not a situation where it just happens overnight. And that's why we, when we work with clients, we sort of say to them, look, give us around three months, let's build up these audiences, especially if you're starting from scratch. I think it's a bit of a different story if you've got 180,000 followers on Instagram and you've got an audience to work with. But a lot of the time you're a small eCommerce company that doesn't have much of a following, hasn't advertised before, we've got no data to work with. So it does take time to get all of those metrics and tracking and the different funnel pieces in place.
Nams:
Exactly. Exactly.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
All right. How did you learn all of this stuff? Who do you follow? What courses have you done? Tell me your secrets.
Nams:
There's no real secret really. I think when I reflect on this, I started, I guess in an experimental way where at the age of 15 or 16, I opened my first eCommerce store. Can I just follow, following on the footsteps of some of my biggest mentors in life, such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and see if I can really just learn something from them? And yeah, my first eCommerce store being selling Nike Air Jordans.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh really. I did not know this. Wow, okay, how did it go?
Nams:
It actually kind of went vast within three months, but a lot a lot of learnings were taken from there. Where I'm like, well, okay so I did not have enough budget, I didn't have the right targeting. I didn't have the right focus. So yeah. Unfortunately the company did go vast in three months, but I did take a lot of learning from it. And yeah, soon enough, I think in two or three years’ time, Google came up with their Google Academy, which is now called Google Skillshop. So-
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
And that's free, right?
Nams:
Yeah, so that's free to use, and free to learn from. And yeah, so I just took a lot of courses from there and I think it took me close to six months to a year to actually just learn all these different aspects. And it's the same with Facebook as well, where they've got Facebook blueprint, which is quite useful to learn. It's free as well. But yeah, just that and a lot of experiment campaigns for sure that kind of just got me to where I am right now.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Amazing. Okay. Question. I just recorded an episode and I'll send you a YouTube link to a video that I watched the other day. I think you'll find it quite interesting about the concept of the rise of the fake gurus. Obviously there are people out there like Sam Ovens, who I'm sure you've come across.
Nams:
Exactly.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
And Tai Lopez and all of these people in this space. Have you ever felt like you've been sucked into any of these courses and have you found any of them valuable?
Nams:
No. I think for me I'm quite a self-fulfilled guru. So for me to learn things effectively, I need to sort of just do it practically first than stuff having to learn from these mentors. And speaking of Sam Ovens, actually he used to go to a school next to me. So-
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Stop it.
Nams:
We kind of-
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Isn't he from New Zealand, are you from New Zealand?
Nams:
He's from New Zealand. Yes I am.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I don't hear the accent at all. There you go. You're kidding.
Nams:
He was actually a going to a school right next to mine. And there were quite a few, I guess, rumors about him that and where he is right now although he is selling an offering. That offering is not really, I guess, adept. It's not as good as people think it is. And that's the thing about these big gurus where all they're doing is just selling you an idea, not an actual product itself and not an actual service based package. And all they're doing, it's just, yeah, you can make money or millions of dollars within three, four days. It's very easy to get sucked in, but at the same time, I think it's buyer beware. Right?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, exactly right. And that's 100% exactly what I have just had a little rant on another podcast episode about, [inaudible 00:17:28] pretty much you said word for word what I was thinking. And I think my biggest issue with that is that a lot of these people are making a lot of money. It's selling people a concept or a way of doing things that they haven't actually made money on themselves, or they might've had a little bit of success, but they're saying you make millions and millions and they haven't done that implementing this stuff themselves.
Nams:
Not at all, not at all.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Are you a reader?
Nams:
Yes, actually I love some nonfiction and fiction reading.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Excellent. What have you been consuming lately? What have you been reading, listening to?
Nams:
Yeah, I think COVID-19 has sort of taken me back to my nonfiction days where I'm reading a lot of autobiography, business books, a lot of Jim Collins.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh, he's great.
Nams:
He has written a lot of business books. Yep. So I'm reading a lot of that.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Which of any of his books stood out for you? Come to mind?
Nams:
I think the one that I'm reading right now is quite useful where he's talking about leadership and key elements to make a successful leader. And then I was like in a sort of really spoken to me and yeah, I'm one of these sort of implementing a few authors theories and practices. Yeah. A lot of non-nonfiction books, but also fiction books as well. Automatically I've heard the author of Dan Brown.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yep, I love him, yeah.
Nams:
So I'm reading a lot of Dan books as well, [inaudible 00:19:05] The Last Tempo. Yeah.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Awesome. Now, finally, let's wrap this up. Do you have any tips on businesses wanting to give ads a go themselves? Where do you recommend they sort of start?
Nams:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think I'm the first point of basis to start with is to like establish your goals. What goals do you want to achieve by advertising. And I think the second thing that they need to also sort of establish is just knowing their audience and what target audience they will actually target. Because obviously if your focuses is completely wide or too niche, then your ads won't have that same effect as it has on quite a few, like in our companies. And the last thing is also just promoting your best content. You don't want to promote content that you would beam as average. If you want always promote content that is your best and your USP as well. So yeah, just these three things where I think the businesses can stop us.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Amazing. Love that. All right. Lots of us to think about. I will provide some links to some of the books and bits and pieces courses that you've mentioned. Thank you so much for coming and having a chat with us today.
Nams:
Thanks for having me Sonya, pleasure.