EPISODE 79 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: THE BEST LOW-COST ADVERTISING STRATEGIES

Sonya:
Digital advertising is still the lowest cost advertising that you can do. I find that people tend to complicate it way too much though.

Sonya:
So I got my business partner and digital marketing expert, Nams, in, to have a brief discussion around what you should be doing, if you're looking at setting up some sort of low daily spend ads on Facebook and Google.

Sonya:
In this episode, we talk about service-based businesses and also eCommerce businesses. Enjoy.

Sonya:
Welcome to the Boom Your Biz podcast, a podcast the movers, the shakers, and even bigger action takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre Reid, and each week I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive. I'm on a mission to educate, empower, and inspire business owners and myself along the way.

Sonya:
Hey, Nams, how's it going?

Nams:
Gidday, Sonya. Pretty good. Yourself?

Sonya:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm good. Look, I just wanted to grab you for a quick chat about something that we have been discussing a lot lately as our agency has been growing, and that is low cost marketing activities.

Sonya:
So let's touch on ads to begin with, because I know a question we get asked so often is, how much do I need to spend on ads to get a result? And it's kind of like the old thing of how long is a piece of string. So let's just go through that quickly.

Sonya:
Maybe we'll start with Facebook Ads. If you've got a small budget for Facebook Ads and your service-based business, what would you recommend?

Nams:
I would recommend to them going through Lead Gen Ads to start with. It also comes down to exactly how much of a budget they have to spend.

Nams:
For example, if you've got a thousand dollars and you are a Lead Gen type service business that requires leads straight away, then of course you would want to go with a Lead Gen campaign or a Lead Gen objective campaign, and that is where Facebook Lead Gen Ads help to generate leads as quickly as possible, and as effectively as possible as well.

Sonya:
Yeah. So anyone who's listening at home, that does not mean pressing that [inaudible 00:02:13] button or the promote button on Facebook or Instagram, you're actually going into the back end of the Facebook Business Manager, and the Ads Manager, and setting up a campaign objective called Lead Generation.

Sonya:
Now my recommendation to you would be there's two options, either higher volume or higher intent. You're going to get less leads when you select the higher intent option, but they are going to be of better quality, because there's another screen that gets them to confirm, and I would certainly recommend tacking a few extra questions in there as well.

Sonya:
So you might ask them, say, if you were a real estate agent, ask them for their address too, because what we do find is that sometimes people accidentally click button, it auto-fills that information, you call them and they're like, "I've got no idea who you are or what you're talking about," and we don't want waste your time. That'd be my advice. But talk to me about Google Ads for service-based businesses quickly.

Nams:
So Google Ads, the way that they are run, is basically you would want to set an objective, exactly like Facebook and social campaigns. With Google comes the added benefit of actually calling you straight away, so you can run a set objective campaign called a call only Google Ad campaign, where basically a customer ... and in Google, we know that they are actually typing you and looking for that service .. for example, if you're a plumber, I would be typing on Google, plumber near me.

Nams:
So what they call only campaign, as soon as they click on the ad, it actually goes to a call straight away. So without even going to your site, without even approaching and learning more about your business, all that consumer has to do is to look at your ad, gather a sort of a USP, and just click on that ad and actually call your business straightaway. So in that effect, Google call only ads for service-based businesses are absolutely perfect.

Sonya:
So I think you've touched on a really great point there that we keep bringing our clients back to, and that is the term USP, or unique selling proposition, and I'm amazed at how many businesses we talk to, that can't give us a dot point reasons why people should go with them. So really nail that one down before you start running ads.

Sonya:
But something with these call only ads, and these Facebook lead ads, is that you actually don't need to have a fantastic website up and running to make this happen, right? So we constantly, when we're working with businesses, and they're wanting to really pull their ad budget into Google Ads or Facebook Ads, we need to ensure generally that their website already converts, right? Because if you just keep sending traffic to a site that doesn't convert, then you're not going to get any results, and you're going to pour money down the drain.

Sonya:
Whereas if you do only have a small budget, you can't work in an agency to optimize things for you. These kinds of ads mean that you do not have to have an exceptional website that converts to get results.

Sonya:
Nams, what if you are an eCommerce business, what would you recommend in terms of setup for a Facebook campaign?

Nams:
So with eCommerce business, with a Facebook campaign specifically, I would say, make sure your catalog is completely up to date. So make sure that you've got a catalog in the back end of your Facebook platform, and you can actually create a pretty cost-effective campaign based on that just catalog specifically.

Nams:
So you can actually run a conversion-led campaign, which would be focusing maybe like $20 per day budget, and you could utilize that catalog straightaway, and run a campaign based off of that.

Nams:
If your eCommerce store is on Shopify, Shopify has made things fairly simple for you, where all you have to do is to just go into the back end of Shopify, go into the Facebook sales channel, and just follow the steps from there. And it takes about a minute to get this campaign up and live.

Sonya:
Yep. So, so easy. And again, guys, we're not saying boost or promote a post. Please don't do that.

Sonya:
Okay. Talk to me about Google Shopping campaigns. So this is something that people, when they come to us with an eCommerce business, they're always so fixated on Facebook. We actually find we get fantastic results from Shopping, and it's so easy for business owners to set up. Talk to me about that.

Nams:
Yep. Google Shopping, all it requires is the setup. The setup needs to be absolutely perfect. So you just need to go down to Google Merchant Center to make sure that all your website products are pulling through accurately, your shipping information is perfect, and your business information is accurate as well.

Nams:
So once all of these steps are done, again, it's a very simple step. You can just go through your Google Merchant Account and set up a shopping campaign.

Nams:
Once again, for Shopify eCommerce store owners, Shopify has made things really simple for you, where all you have to do is to just add the Google sales channel and connect your Google Merchant account, or even add a new merchant account, add a shopping campaign, and connect your Google Ads account. This will just ensure that you have that perfect campaign nothing, and it also does not require that much budget to be highly profitable as well.

Sonya:
Okay, so what are we kind of talking? What kind of budget a day?

Nams:
So my rule of thumb is if your product lies between ... and if it's in very high demand ... then I would say a $20 per day budget will do the job. But if you've got a very niche market, I would say that even a 10 to $15 per day will do the job.

Sonya:
Yeah, and Facebook and Google advertising doesn't have to be this super high cost exercise, right?

Nams:
Exactly.

Sonya:
We've been exploring some of our local clients recently. TV ads are so, so cheap right now. Six weeks is about a thousand dollars for an ongoing campaign.

Sonya:
I just want to touch on really briefly, the fact that I feel like a lot of people have been comparing this to the cost of social and Google Ads, right? And I want to stress that when it comes to social media ads and Google Ads, there is a massive management component that goes along with that.

Sonya:
When you have a TV ad, you literally get someone to film the ad, or they throw together a slideshow or whatever. They chuck it up, and that's it. It kind of just runs.

Sonya:
When it comes to Facebook and Google advertising though, where you're going to see an increase in costs is the agency that's managing it for you, because there are day-to-day optimizations that need to be done. You don't just set it and forget it. [crosstalk 00:09:12]. So your ad spend might be lower than what it costs for the TV side of things, but it's probably going to work out to be actually a more expensive exercise, if you are getting an agency to run your Facebook and Google Ads.

Nams:
Absolutely correct, Sonya, and also the same point, Google and Facebook ads are complicated, although throughout their scripts and that, it's actually simple to set up, but to manage and to optimize the ads is where the specialty lies in, and that is where an agency would come in play. At the same time, TV, radio, newspaper ads, they are not a measurable, while digital advertising is. So a business owner has to take into account that aspect as well, is where they want to spend that actual advertising/marketing budget on.

Sonya:
And it's going to come down to your product. It's going to come down to your audience as well.

Sonya:
That said, if you are only spending a small amount, say on your Facebook Ads, as an eCommerce business a day, please don't make the mistake of trying to test out so many different audiences, a million different ad creatives, thinking you're doing the right thing, doing all this AB split testing. The reality is you're just going to be spreading your budget way too thin. It's not necessary.

Sonya:
If you've got a small budget, keep it so simple. Just keep it simple.

Nams:
Keep it simple.

Sonya:
Otherwise you're not going to know what's working, and you know what? It honestly wastes your time. You've put all this effort into creating all these different creatives and split tests and audiences and things, and you don't have the budget to actually effectively test them out properly.

Sonya:
Is it the same thing with Google, Nams? Do people over-complicate it when they've got a small budget?

Nams:
Oh, absolutely. It just goes down to the fact that if you see something shiny and new, all you have to do is just ... if you are quite keen to just test it out, to play with it. And my advice would be to not play with it. Just have that one simple ad running. That's all you need. That is all you need. You don't need 15 to 20 ads. You don't need variations. All you need is that one offer, that one USP, a few keywords that state your product and your service, and what the consumers are actually typing when they are looking for your product and service, and that was all you need, and that is a Google Ad campaign in a very basic nutshell.

Sonya:
And look, at the end of the day, guys, realistically, you are only going to get so far managing it yourself, if you don't dive into learning it properly, and there are things that we'll touch upon on another episode, but just look out for things like negative keywords. I've used this example a few times, but when I was living in Melbourne, I was looking for eyelash extensions, and when I typed it in, a home extension builder came up instead. So they've kind of been wasting their money on that.

Sonya:
So yeah, keep it simple. Don't expect miracles from it. Yeah, lead form ads, call only ads if it's a service-based businesses, eCommerce businesses do a catalog or a conversion ad, and then Google Shopping ads. Keep it simple, not too many variations, 10 to $20 a day on each platform. And yeah, you could just get started.

Nams:
That makes sense, Sonya.

Sonya:
Thanks for your time, Nams.

Nams:
No worries at all.

Sonya:
Thanks for tuning in guys and guess what? It is my birthday, and do you know what I really want? Your honest feedback on the Boom Your Biz podcast, so I'm running a giveaway. One lucky person that reviews the podcast will win a bottle of posh plonk, vintage cuvee sparkling ... yum, my fave ... a $50 MJ Clothing voucher, a $50 Love Linen voucher, a $50 voucher to put towards a fantastic weekend away at The Buckland in Bright, a Labella Mini Spa lockdown survival skin kit ... Lord knows, I need that right now ... and a High Country craft beer box from Ingrained Culture.

Sonya:
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Sonya:
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