FB Marketing is a pain in my a$$

[JustAskBenWhy]

I am a real estate guy, but I do have a course called Cash Flow Freedom University. My ever-green funnel converts in the 7% - 8.5% monthly range. Thus far all of my traffic has been organic referrals - from posts like this one.

But, lately, I decided to look into buying traffic, and I thought I'd start with FB. I'm finding out that underwriting 300 units is somewhat easier than Facebook marketing...hahah

You guys doing FB advertising?

How about webinars?

 

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[MTF]

I have some experience with Facebook Ads, and let me tell you one thing... If you have absolutely no idea about it and can't imagine yourself working on it every single day, don't do it. Hire someone who's already experienced.

An agency will actually save you money because they will be able to get conversions for a lower price and you will avoid losing thousands on newbie mistakes (I think that every newbie to FB Ads is going to lose at least 5k, if not more, with pretty much no results).

Paid traffic is VERY tough, and if you're not prepared to go full-time with it I would outsource it. It's just my personal experience as a person who has grown to hate paid traffic because I could never make it work by myself.

 

[csalvato]

Hey Ben, I am director of growth for a fast growing startup based in DC, so I have worked with Facebook and AdWords ads before. I've also run my own AdWords campaigns for affiliate marketing in the education space for several months last year.

Search advertising (AdWords and Bing) is much much easier, especially if you've never done online advertising. The catch is whatever you're selling must be something people are looking to buy immediately. For example, if you're selling vintage Nike Air Jordans, people searching for the term "buy vintage nike jordans" are very likely to buy. If that's the kind of thing you're selling, I would start there with online ads.

But if you are selling something people aren't searching for (like the Handstand Book I wrote several years ago), AdWords won't work.

That's where Facebook is a better place to start. But it's still hard.

The reason it's so much harder has to do with user intentions. If the user is searching for "buy vintage nike jordans" then their intention is to find and buy that product. It's pretty cut and dry. That's why search marketing is considered "intention" marketing.

But Facebook is considered "interruption" marketing. You are interrupting someone's day, and your offer needs to be so good (read: in line with their needs), so compelling and so easy to act upon that they completely change the course of their day to learn about what you're offering and act.

For this reason, Facebook ads perform better when do at least some of the following:

1. Target a warm list of leads (e.g. use the FB pixel to track people who have visited your site, then target them; upload your email list to FB to create a custom audience)
2. Make the offer easier to act upon (e.g. a free e-book giveaway [lead magnet] rather than a $15 purchase; a $15 purchase rather than a $300 purchase)
3. Promote a piece of content that references your product (e.g. an article that features you, a podcast appearance), rather than a landing page. Articles are perceived to be consumed rather than perused quickly while making a buying decision, so you can use it to educate your audience.

With all advertising, you will lose some money as you get started. In the industry, we don't call this "losing money", but rather "buying data". The less targeted you are, and the less warm your traffic, the more data you will need to buy to learn about the audience.

If you have a budget of 10-15k to lose, you can learn a lot about your audience.

No matter what you do, make sure your tracking is set up. That means using FB conversion pixels, and a tool like CPVLab and/or Mixpanel to track how people are progressing through your funnel.

You can get away with shitty tracking on "free" traffic like SEO, referral traffic, email marketing, etc...but the costs go up quickly with a bad funnel in PPC, particularly Facebook ads...and that pain can build quickly.

I am happy to hop on a call and help you figure out online ads. Send me a PM.

Paid traffic is VERY tough, and if you're not prepared to go full-time with it I would outsource it. It's just my personal experience as a person who has grown to hate paid traffic because I could never make it work by myself.

I agree and disagree. It is very tough. You can lose some money while you learn things. But most companies, even those who have been in business for a while, really suck at paid ads. Their clients just don't know better.

If your company has $1M-$5M in annual profits without paid ads, certainly hire someone to do it for you who has a track record you respect. That usually means they ran their own traffic in the past, where the food on their table was tied to their ad performance. Avoid people who only play with other people's money.

If this is a side project you're getting off the ground or trying to scale, and PPC will be a cornerstone channel upon which you will build your empire, you better be doing it yourself. Then, outsource it or transition to an employee once you know it, dominated it, and have well defined processes around it. A consultant will piss your money away and not even think about it. They aren't tied nearly as much to the outcome.

 

[Andy Black]

Agree with Chris ^^^ - except the consultant bit of course


Here's what I do as a consultant, maybe you can find someone who does the same and use it to gauge whether to hire them:

I do a paid audit where I'll look over your shoulder while you navigate your account.

I'll point out things I see and get you to do a deep-dive into things that appear wrong, and that could be improved.

I'll explain WHAT you need to do, and WHY you need to do it.

I'll even talk you through HOW to do it (I say this because you all, incorrectly, believe knowing HOW to do things is the most important knowledge you can gain).

At the end of the call, we're done.

It's a discrete piece of work.

There's no obligation for us to continue working together.

You get an insight into WHY I was digging into the areas I was, and WHY I suggest the changes to make (you pay consultants for WHY they do things, not HOW they do things).

I've listened to your questions, and tailored answers to help you understand WHAT to do, and WHY.

You hopefully also get actionable steps you can take yourself.



Why this works for me as a consultant

You find out whether I know wtf I'm talking about.

I find out whether you know wtf you're talking about.

Maybe you'll want to hire me to do all that work you now know needs done.

Maybe you won't.

(Maybe I'll say no too. I've a business to run as well.)



The first purchase is a test

BOTH ways.




EDIT: Oh, and you don't NEED tracking in place to get started.

 

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[JustAskBenWhy]

Thanks for jumping in, guys!

I have a team. I have a webmaster who handles everything related to the mechanics. He is very good, and he and I work well together. He is a member here, but we were working together before either one of us knew of FL.

I also hired a consultant about 6 months ago. He helped design and implement an ever-green funnel. This, along with cart/checkout process refinement, and other things we did took my top-line from about $1,500/month to around $10,000.

The issue is that all of the lead generation is organic. It is good on one hand, but bad on the other. I am not sure if I've topped out on organic growth, but I don't want to find out. I think it's wise at this point to begin to figure out mechanics for buying leads, which is where FB enters the picture.

We've implemented a webinar funnel. Tonight is the first webinar. We've marketed on FB, and have found out that EVERYTHING about that is difficult. My cost of acquisition is sky high, which tells me the audiences are wrong. However, since I don't want to spend too much cash up-front, we have very limited data and low numbers.

We tweaked the ads, audiences, and landing pages throughout, but since the sample is so small, the results are marginal. My blended acquisition cost so far is a miserable $17.50, although it has been trending down as we've made changes. Obviously $17.50 is not sustainable nor profitable, so we have a lot of tweaking to do to get down under $5.

As I mentioned, tonight is the first webinar in the series. I should begin to discover the show-up rate, which I hope is good due to the funnel we implemented. As well as conversion rate.

Wish me luck!

 

[Andy Black]

Where's your organic results coming from?

I know the thread is about FB ads, but have you tried paid search yet?

 

[JustAskBenWhy]

Where's your organic results coming from?

I know the thread is about FB ads, but have you tried paid search yet?

I have a large body of work on the internet. Lots of podcast appearances. Tons of written content in my space. Very large presence on BiggerPockets. Basically, when real estate is discussed, and I am talking, people tend to pay attention...at least enough to come check out my site.

My front end funnel is very good, and over 9 months time the average monthly conversion rate fluctuates between 7% - 8%.

The first and only paid marketing of any kind I've ever done is this webinar FB funnel, Andy.

 

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[Andy Black]

I have a large body of work on the internet. Lots of podcast appearances. Tons of written content in my space. Very large presence on BiggerPockets. Basically, when real estate is discussed, and I am talking, people tend to pay attention...at least enough to come check out my site.

My front end funnel is very good, and over 9 months time the average monthly conversion rate fluctuates between 7% - 8%.

The first and only paid marketing of any kind I've ever done is this webinar FB funnel, Andy.

How do people currently find your content?

 

[JustAskBenWhy]

How do people currently find your content?

Through something I've done on other sites, most notably on BiggerPockets. I also get some, though low, amount of google search traffic.

 

[ari_ari]

This month I've been spending a few hours a day (at least) in the Facebook Power Editor, AdEspresso, and a few other tools. I LOVE FACEBOOK and I'm never going back (I come from an SEO/PPC background - this month, hands off my organic site built ~80 linking domains, powered by my Filipino VA, and FB sent around 200k people in organic traffic.. The site's not monetized yet, natch).

@JustAskBenWhy
Nothing will beat BiggerPockets.com, and you've probably been a bit spoiled because BP Is the place for REI online.

That being said - you can definitely make it work on FB. "It" being a function of being able to spend money, know your LTV, and buy leads with content. Is it hard work? Absolutely.. But the ability to both go wide (Everyone interested in Real Estate Investments: around 20 million people in the US on FB) or go real niche (same group, who also like BiggerPockets.com: 30k people on FB monthly) is HUGE.

Just to give an example of a test I did this month (that was sort of a failure, I'll get to that in a second):
I ran a contest for a niche known to love buying stuff. Did around 4000 direct leads and another referred 2000 leads.. I am suspicious of the referred leads, so let's discount them.

Total cost per lead, including product: 35 cents.

Now, the reason this is a failure, is because the lead quality is not (yet) that high, primarily because it was an incentivized campaign. But to see their reaction, figure out how everything works, and probably build a whole campaign and long term sales funnel around them? Priceless.

But lead gen @ $3-50 for a high value seminar? not a problem. Yes, I know that range is all over the place but I don't know your product well enough or the market to realistically give you a good lead estimate.

And if you're really smart, you'll hook it into webinarjam and automate the whole thing. I know people selling $10k forex products who are killing it with this method.. It's brilliant!

If you have more questions about FB, post here, next time I'll check in I'll do my best to answer.

 

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[Andy Black]

This month I've been spending a few hours a day (at least) in the Facebook Power Editor, AdEspresso, and a few other tools. I LOVE FACEBOOK and I'm never going back (I come from an SEO/PPC background - this month, hands off my organic site built ~80 linking domains, powered by my Filipino VA, and FB sent around 200k people in organic traffic.. The site's not monetized yet, natch).

@JustAskBenWhy
Nothing will beat BiggerPockets.com, and you've probably been a bit spoiled because BP Is the place for REI online.

That being said - you can definitely make it work on FB. "It" being a function of being able to spend money, know your LTV, and buy leads with content. Is it hard work? Absolutely.. But the ability to both go wide (Everyone interested in Real Estate Investments: around 20 million people in the US on FB) or go real niche (same group, who also like BiggerPockets.com: 30k people on FB monthly) is HUGE.

Just to give an example of a test I did this month (that was sort of a failure, I'll get to that in a second):
I ran a contest for a niche known to love buying stuff. Did around 4000 direct leads and another referred 2000 leads.. I am suspicious of the referred leads, so let's discount them.

Total cost per lead, including product: 35 cents.

Now, the reason this is a failure, is because the lead quality is not (yet) that high, primarily because it was an incentivized campaign. But to see their reaction, figure out how everything works, and probably build a whole campaign and long term sales funnel around them? Priceless.

But lead gen @ $3-50 for a high value seminar? not a problem. Yes, I know that range is all over the place but I don't know your product well enough or the market to realistically give you a good lead estimate.

And if you're really smart, you'll hook it into webinarjam and automate the whole thing. I know people selling $10k forex products who are killing it with this method.. It's brilliant!

If you have more questions about FB, post here, next time I'll check in I'll do my best to answer.

Damn, that sounds like fun.

 

[ari_ari]

what sounds like fun?

 

[Andy Black]

what sounds like fun?

The whole process of learning a new "traffic source" - getting stuck in, analysing initial results, then dialling it in.

All those "failures" and "hurdles" are there to keep others out.

Good for you. Not a whiff of complaining, just getting on with it. Sounds like you'll kill it!

 

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[ari_ari]

The whole process of learning a new "traffic source" - getting stuck in, analysing initial results, then starting to dial it in.

All those "failures" and "hurdles" are there to keep others out.

Love it.

Good for you. Sounds like you'll kill it.

The reason I'm able to get through it mentally is a) I have the cash on hand to stomach it and b) I remember doing the exact same thing for AdWords 10 years ago, and I remember how much money I eventually made, so I know I'll come up on top.

If I was a newb? God help me.

 

[Andy Black]

The reason I'm able to get through it mentally is a) I have the cash on hand to stomach it and b) I remember doing the exact same thing for AdWords 10 years ago, and I remember how much money I eventually made, so I know I'll come up on top.

If I was a newb? God help me.

If you were a newb, you could get a j.o.b. doing it.

There's always a way...

 

[ari_ari]

yup, that's how I found myself in this biz in the first place.

 

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[Andy Black]

yup, that's how I found myself in this biz in the first place.

Wot, no $97 eBook?

 

[ari_ari]

Hahahaha nope. My journey to internet marketing is so out of left field that it's more of an at the pub story.

I've bought many many ebooks since then, made a lot of good friends in the process, don't regret 95% of the training I've bought or the communities I've paid to join. There are actually a few ebooks out there that are (even in 2016) solid gold, they just require extensive action and testing.

My favorite past time is watching webinar pitches @ 2X, figuring out what everything is about, and then seeing if it's doable/worthwhile.

As @JasonR knows, I am all over the place and could probably use some ritalin or meditation.

 

[JustAskBenWhy]

This month I've been spending a few hours a day (at least) in the Facebook Power Editor, AdEspresso, and a few other tools. I LOVE FACEBOOK and I'm never going back (I come from an SEO/PPC background - this month, hands off my organic site built ~80 linking domains, powered by my Filipino VA, and FB sent around 200k people in organic traffic.. The site's not monetized yet, natch).

@JustAskBenWhy
Nothing will beat BiggerPockets.com, and you've probably been a bit spoiled because BP Is the place for REI online.

That being said - you can definitely make it work on FB. "It" being a function of being able to spend money, know your LTV, and buy leads with content. Is it hard work? Absolutely.. But the ability to both go wide (Everyone interested in Real Estate Investments: around 20 million people in the US on FB) or go real niche (same group, who also like BiggerPockets.com: 30k people on FB monthly) is HUGE.

Just to give an example of a test I did this month (that was sort of a failure, I'll get to that in a second):
I ran a contest for a niche known to love buying stuff. Did around 4000 direct leads and another referred 2000 leads.. I am suspicious of the referred leads, so let's discount them.

Total cost per lead, including product: 35 cents.

Now, the reason this is a failure, is because the lead quality is not (yet) that high, primarily because it was an incentivized campaign. But to see their reaction, figure out how everything works, and probably build a whole campaign and long term sales funnel around them? Priceless.

But lead gen @ $3-50 for a high value seminar? not a problem. Yes, I know that range is all over the place but I don't know your product well enough or the market to realistically give you a good lead estimate.

And if you're really smart, you'll hook it into webinarjam and automate the whole thing. I know people selling $10k forex products who are killing it with this method.. It's brilliant!

If you have more questions about FB, post here, next time I'll check in I'll do my best to answer.

Thanks for jumping in! Yes - BP is a huge presence. Luck for guys like J Scott and myself, we are some of the reason BP is as big as it is. So, yes, we have definitely been spoiled by the high quality organic leads from BP...

I've actually switched my strategy. on this first attempt at webinar marketed on FB, I've recovered 75% of mu cost. Everything we did was wrong. We didn't spend enough money. We targeted wrong audiences. Etc. I've decided, however, that majority of what it takes to drive down acquisition cost is precise targeting of audience, and doing it via webinar is just not efficient. So, instead of testing audiences with webinar ads, I am going to market content for a while, while I use webinars to further build out my existing funnels. I think I do much better with warm audiences - I am a teacher. I like to deliver value. I just don't feel all that comfortable selling...so, I let my value-add funnel do the selling.

 

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[ari_ari]

I've actually switched my strategy. on this first attempt at webinar marketed on FB, I've recovered 75% of mu cost. Everything we did was wrong. We didn't spend enough money. We targeted wrong audiences. Etc. I've decided, however, that majority of what it takes to drive down acquisition cost is precise targeting of audience, and doing it via webinar is just not efficient. So, instead of testing audiences with webinar ads, I am going to market content for a while, while I use webinars to further build out my existing funnels. I think I do much better with warm audiences - I am a teacher. I like to deliver value. I just don't feel all that comfortable selling...so, I let my value-add funnel do the selling.

I have mixed feelings about this. There's one methodology of using multiple facebook campaigns to create a funnel (content, they click, retargeted now to lead offer, now we can sell them etc). I don't think there's anything wrong with it, however I also think you can sell them directly.

There was a fabulous funnel I Saw recently which involved "evergreen webinars" on a high priced product, where it went intro webinar -> nurturing -> main webinar -> sale. I think they converted ~1% on a 10k sale.

Rambling aside, my point is you can sell on facebook, and I wouldn't give it up for content just yet. To me the ultimate initial goal is to move people off facebook and into a funnel ASAP.

 

[JustAskBenWhy]

I have mixed feelings about this. There's one methodology of using multiple facebook campaigns to create a funnel (content, they click, retargeted now to lead offer, now we can sell them etc). I don't think there's anything wrong with it, however I also think you can sell them directly.

There was a fabulous funnel I Saw recently which involved "evergreen webinars" on a high priced product, where it went intro webinar -> nurturing -> main webinar -> sale. I think they converted ~1% on a 10k sale.

Rambling aside, my point is you can sell on facebook, and I wouldn't give it up for content just yet. To me the ultimate initial goal is to move people off facebook and into a funnel ASAP.

The problem with selling directly in the real estate space is that it is generally quite adverse to "guru", and rightfully so. BiggerPockets leads the way with regard to this. While guru is a function of over-charging, up-sell, and all the rest of it, still the mainstream thinking is somewhat poisoned toward the notion of paying for content.

I've found that there needs to be a strong relationship in place, and that I have to deliver real value for the price. While I still want to use FB to drive sales, I think I can do this by boosting content and driving people into my funnel, which delivers a hell of a lot of value to folks, and therefore converts at 7.5%+. Besides, boosting content is a lot cheaper, and while it'll take longer to isolate my audiences, it'll still work. So, next time I market a webinar on FB, I will have discovered my audiences with precision (hopefully), with the added bonus of having driven traffic into my funnel and converted along the way...

The jury is still out, obviously, but I think for me this strategy will work better than marketing webinars with which to both drive traffic and conversions simultaneously.

 

[ari_ari]

The problem with selling directly in the real estate space is that it is generally quite adverse to "guru", and rightfully so. BiggerPockets leads the way with regard to this. While guru is a function of over-charging, up-sell, and all the rest of it, still the mainstream thinking is somewhat poisoned toward the notion of paying for content.

I've found that there needs to be a strong relationship in place, and that I have to deliver real value for the price. While I still want to use FB to drive sales, I think I can do this by boosting content and driving people into my funnel, which delivers a hell of a lot of value to folks, and therefore converts at 7.5%+. Besides, boosting content is a lot cheaper, and while it'll take longer to isolate my audiences, it'll still work. So, next time I market a webinar on FB, I will have discovered my audiences with precision (hopefully), with the added bonus of having driven traffic into my funnel and converted along the way...

The jury is still out, obviously, but I think for me this strategy will work better than marketing webinars with which to both drive traffic and conversions simultaneously.

I'm not sure I agree. Everything wealth promotion related is very GURU or Systems focused. Even in my little niche of RE (mobile home parks), we have the people we pay more attention to (Frank and Dave, Jefferson) and the people we ignore.

Hell, even here on fast lane, our "guru" is MJ, and his system is fast lane

To me I would test both at the same time:
A funnel STARTING with the webinar, and a funnel focused on delivering training through email that moves to the webinar. My issue with that, however, is that you train people to expect free stuff, which I think is silly. People need to know you deliver value, but you have to pay for that value.

 

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[Andy Black]

test both

^^^ This.

My issue with that, however, is that you train people to expect free stuff, which I think is silly. People need to know you deliver value, but you have to pay for that value.

GaryV delivers lots of free value, gets attention, builds a following, word-of-mouth, and then gets clients, book sales, etc.


I've had good things happen by giving content away for free (see my blog and posts in here), and doing quick calls for free (fellow forum members, people who come through via LinkedIn, word-of-mouth, etc).


It comes back, but not necessarily from the people who I've had a call with.


To me, there's people who put a value on their time, and there's people who don't.

Those that don't put a value on their time will begrudge paying for content or expertise. They'd rather spend their time Googling/YouTubing for information so they can DIY it.

They're not going to be my clients.

Firstly because they don't value their time and therefore don't delegate, outsource, or hire in specialists.

Secondly, because of of the first reason, they don't have a business successful enough to hire me. (They're not big enough to hire people because they try to do everything themselves.)


I've got work from TFLF... just not directly from TFLF. Forum members refer me onto people they know who are looking for help with their AdWords account.



Just my 2c.