Ask Me Anything - Facebook Ads [2M+ Ad spend]

[Pritesh]

Hey guys,

I am here to answer any questions you might have about Facebook ads.
I have around $2M+ Ad spend experience on Facebook (85% agency, 15% personal). Total paid ads experience of $7.2 M+ if you include Google Ads.

I am here only to talk about Facebook ads, as my experience with Google Ads is extremely one dimensional and I cannot give you any advice on that despite it being the majority of my ad spend.

I have run all types of ads on Facebook from app installs to dynamic product ads, from whitehat to cloaked ads, from lead gen to conversion, for ecom stores to small businesses almost everything. I have quit the agency to start my own and right now I am running only eCommerce ads for passive income and lead gen ads for offline service-based businesses.

I reserve the right to respond to questions that might force me to reveal my ad strategies, I particularly will not entertain any questions that directly ask me for my personal ad testing techniques, etc. I have my own approach to doing things, and revealing it would just not be in my best interests. I can, however, provide you critique on your ad testing approach.

Please do not ask me long-winded questions or stack 3+ question in a single post, I urge you to value my time.

All answers are my opinion and based on my experience, YMMV.

Finally, I am also working with a select group of individuals who need lead gen services for their business for video testimonials for my new agency, you can check it out here: FOR HIRE - Looking for Clients/Leads/Sales For Your Business? I am Your Guy

 

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[iwant53million]

I hope my question isn't out of line though. Did Facebook make you a media partner after spending $2 Million in ads? Are there any exclusive benefits that comes with having such huge spend history with Facebook? I'm curious

 

[GoodluckChuck]

What's the general flow of starting a new ad campaign for a new product or service? I've heard that you have to test ads and build audiences first. Can you please clarify the process?

 

[Process]

Hey guys,

I am here to answer any questions you might have about Facebook ads.
I have around $2M+ Ad spend experience on Facebook (85% agency, 15% personal). Total paid ads experience of $7.2 M+ if you include Google Ads.

I am here only to talk about Facebook ads, as my experience with Google Ads is extremely one dimensional and I cannot give you any advice on that despite it being the majority of my ad spend.

I have run all types of ads on Facebook from app installs to dynamic product ads, from whitehat to cloaked ads, from lead gen to conversion, for ecom stores to small businesses almost everything. I have quit the agency to start my own and right now I am running only eCommerce ads for passive income and lead gen ads for offline service-based businesses.

I reserve the right to respond to questions that might force me to reveal my ad strategies, I particularly will not entertain any questions that directly ask me for my personal ad testing techniques, etc. I have my own approach to doing things, and revealing it would just not be in my best interests. I can, however, provide you critique on your ad testing approach.

Please do not ask me long-winded questions or stack 3+ question in a single post, I urge you to value my time.

Finally, all answers are my opinion and based on my experience, YMMV.

What’s the simplest and high ROI campaign you’ve run?

 

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[aeden]

Have you successfully run ads on FB for B2B services? If so, what kind of conversion rates did you hope for and did you achieve the conversion rates you expected?

 

[Pritesh]

I hope my question isn't out of line though. Did Facebook make you a media partner after spending $2 Million in ads? Are there any exclusive benefits that comes with having such huge spend history with Facebook? I'm curious

No, no facebook rep assigned for my personal account, the agency I used to work with does have a FB rep assigned. I do however have Google rep assigned to me.

FB reps come in different tiers and the higher you spend the more knowledgeable reps you get assigned. The reps assigned to us barely provided any valuable input and in most cases had much lower knowledge about running Facebook ads than even the new recruits at my previous agency. The only visible feature after being assigned a rep was unlocking a few audiences targeting options, but they weren't a huge advantage, in fact we never used them.

What's the general flow of starting a new ad campaign for a new product or service? I've heard that you have to test ads and build audiences first. Can you please clarify the process?

The testing process is the most crucial thing you focus on for launching anything new, but the process depends on the scale of the business.
Normally I'd test 100+ variations of adset+ad for ecommerce, but running ads for small businesses wouldn't require more than 5.

About your "test ads and build audiences first." I'm assuming you're talking about seasoning the pixel?

You can refer to this post, where I've broken down a testing process for traffic, for other objectives the process is somewhat similar. I find a winning post id, then scale it while testing other factors.

What’s the simplest and high ROI campaign you’ve run?

Realtors, just one converted lead for them is minimum $6k so the metric is pretty arbitrary as I've been involved in many niches. For a general niche lets say Ecommerce: 5x tracked ROAS after $20k spend was my highlight adset.

Have you successfully run ads on FB for B2B services? If so, what kind of conversion rates did you hope for and did you achieve the conversion rates you expected?

Online B2B services (web design, etc) usually have pretty low ROI for me or breakeven and dependent on customer lifetime value.

If we're talking SaaS B2B apps on the other hand, they usually have good ROIs 2-3x top of the funnel (not factoring in stick time or lifetime value)

 

[Tom.V]

If we're talking SaaS B2B apps on the other hand, they usually have good ROIs 2-3x top of the funnel (not factoring in stick time or lifetime value)

Do you have any successful SaaS b2b funnels you can share?

 

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[JAJT]

Realtors, just one converted lead for them is minimum $6k

Huh, that's interesting. Slightly off topic, but:

Do you have any insights into what the average cost per conversion is in that space? $100? $500? 1000?

Close friend of the family just got a job as a mortgage broker and I always wondered how well online ads work in such a competitive local space.

 

[Pritesh]

Huh, that's interesting. Slightly off topic, but:

Do you have any insights into what the average cost per conversion is in that space? $100? $500? 1000?

Close friend of the family just got a job as a mortgage broker and I always wondered how well online ads work in such a competitive local space.

I don't have a big data set of running ads for realtors (just four so far). Cost per lead for buyers is pretty low, you can say for $6-15 you'll get a "qualified lead". For home sellers, it goes up to around $30-70. Now how many of those leads converted I have no idea, both were during my agency days and I did not interact with clients directly, that job was for a different team.

We did manage to bring down seller lead cost to around $15-20, but I am not sure if you want to call them qualified leads though. We ran what you can call a "resource bait" ad, offering listicle guide on how to increase their property value and collected leads that way. You can say they have an affinity to sell house, but to call them qualified leads is pushing it.

Do you have any successful SaaS b2b funnels you can share?

Sorry, copywriting sales funnels is something I am good at and I wouldn't want to lose my edge. Moreover, I hate to admit it, but it's pretty one dimensional. I found a call out technique that delivers everytime and I replicate that in multiple niches.

 

[Kid]

I'll go with one.

If i wanted to get cheapest US traffic with low budget, how would i go about it?
By cheapest i mean something $0.05 cpc and not really targeted.
The fact that its US based would be enough.

Thanks for AMA.

 

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[Pritesh]

I'll go with one.

If i wanted to get cheapest US traffic with low budget, how would i go about it?
By cheapest i mean something $0.05 cpc and not really targeted.
The fact that its US based would be enough.

Thanks for AMA.

Let me preface by saying non-targeted traffic can never get you stable cpc metric, there are just so many factors involved in it that you'd be looking at $0.05 cpc one day and $0.90 the next. However, there is a way to almost guarantee stable cpcs within your range.

Here's a campaign structure I'd do if getting the cheapest US traffic is my goal. Note this involves a lot of testing, but once you find the perfect combo, you'd be unstoppable.

First, you make a sandbox campaign to find out your winner interest + creative combo.
In the campaign, I'd first test on just one interest which creative delivers the lowest CPC.

So just one ad set (PPE Objective) with one big interest 1Mil+ audience and test 5 creatives. I'd also test run a dynamic creative adset if you want to test headline and ad copy as well. Duplicate the adset 3 times so you get statistically significant results (You don't need to do this if you're budget-constrained)

Now you must have a single post id which is a clear winner. Now every single adset and test we do going forward will use this post id and nothing else.

Next, we test what objective brings you the cheapest CPC. PPE Or traffic.

In the same sandbox campaign, make an adset with traffic objective optimized for landing page views. Again, duplicate the adset 3 times so you get statistically significant results (You don't need to do this if you're budget-constrained).

now it would be clear which Objective-Adset-Ad combo delivers you the lowest CPC. Turn everything else off and verticle scale that adset by duplicating it in the same campaign 2-3 times.

Repeat this process for more interests, you can use the same post id on different interests as well rather then repeating the entire process if you're budget-constrained.
Now you have a bunch of Objective-Adset-Interest target-Ad combos, here it's upto you which you want to turn off or keep it going.

it is important to find the winner post id first, because the more social proof you stack onto a post id, the cheaper your metrics get.

Finally, if you're looking at doing ad arbitrage using FB ads, think again, you'll get banned sooner or later.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

The FB ads interface is pretty complex - do you use tools like AdEspresso/Qwaya to simplify the setup? If not, why?

 

[Benedict]

If you lost all your knowledge and had to start from scratch, as a total noob on (Facebook) Ads:

How would you go step by step to learn and get good at it?

Or different way:
How would you teach a noob like me to get good at Facebook Ads?

PS: thanks for the AmA

 

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[Pritesh]

The FB ads interface is pretty complex - do you use tools like AdEspresso/Qwaya to simplify the setup? If not, why?

No I don't.
Honestly, the Facebook ads interface is the most easiest interface, you don't even have to bother with what 90% of the stuff does unless you're doing some advanced stuff. It is miles ahead of Google Ads when it comes to user-friendliness and dumbing things down.
Just take the Facebook Ads Blueprint course by Facebook itself or watch a few live campaigns builds, it looks more daunting than it is, trust me.

If you lost all your knowledge and had to start from scratch, as a total noob on (Facebook) Ads:

How would you go step by step to learn and get good at it?

Or different way:
How would you teach a noob like me to get good at Facebook Ads?

PS: thanks for the AmA

When I started, Facebook's own Ads Blueprint wasn't a thing. But now, if you want complete handholding through the entire process there is no better course. Obviously, when you get the essentials off I'd recommend learning from experience and consuming some advanced ad strategies.
I'm always an advocate of do first fix later, don't just consume content, start doing it while you learn.

Facebook's own learning catalog is quite comprehensive (it also has a few advanced ad strategies now): Facebook Blueprint : Blueprint

 

[Menery]

What is your opinion on fb/ig ads for job recruiting in the legal space, accountants, paralegals etc. ?

How would a recruiting campaign be different from a normal campaign?

 

[Pritesh]

What is your opinion on fb/ig ads for job recruiting in the legal space, accountants, paralegals etc. ?

How would a recruiting campaign be different from a normal campaign?

That's the easiest lead generation you could ever do.
Facebook literally allows you to target everyone in your location by:
Demographics > Work > Industries > Legal services

Show them your recruitment ad and run it as marketing objective > lead generation and by the end of the day (depending on your budget), you'll have an excel sheet of all applicants with their name, phone # and email with any additional info you want (think google form style lead gen form)

 

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[Not Most People]

2 Questions

Have you run many ads into Messenger/Messenger Bots and if so how have those gone?

And I have someone who wants to run ads in the real estate wholesaling niche but they don't have an email list or any audiences to go off of. Any suggestions for figuring out how to target something like that aka distressed homeowners?

 

[Menery]

Yea that makes sense, I guess I could also use the education > degree > business/law, etc
In terms of image and video content for the recruiting ad is there anything super different than marketing a service business?

I´d create high-quality production videos about what benefits there are for you working with this specific law firm, for instance: parental care, remote working, high salary, paid vacation, etc.

 

[Pritesh]

2 Questions

Have you run many ads into Messenger/Messenger Bots and if so how have those gone?

And I have someone who wants to run ads in the real estate wholesaling niche but they don't have an email list or any audiences to go off of. Any suggestions for figuring out how to target something like that aka distressed homeowners?

Yes, I've run automated message bot ads, they were a good solution for people who are hesitant to give out personal details via lead forms. I cannot, however, comment on the quality of the leads.

For real estate question:

1. You can target interests including Zillow, NAR, etc
2. There is also a secret interest not many people know. FB had an interest category of "Likely to move", but due to some political pressure they had to remove it, but FB wasn't gonna give up on juicy Realtor ad spend. Now the interest to target to find these people is "House Hunting". I shouldn't be giving this away, as the term is not easy to find, but there you go.

Yea that makes sense, I guess I could also use the education > degree > business/law, etc
In terms of image and video content for the recruiting ad is there anything super different than marketing a service business?

I´d create high-quality production videos about what benefits there are for you working with this specific law firm, for instance: parental care, remote working, high salary, paid vacation, etc.

If you're targeting nationally, go for a high production value video, but for just targeting locally, I wouldn't recommend spending much time on it. Just put your benifits in the ad body itself, that should be more than enough.

 

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[Vadim26]

Hi @Pritesh, I have 2 questions.

I've just started using FB ads 2 months ago, and have had some success.

I will ask a question and share a strategy I use. Curious to hear your feedback.
I understand that there is no 1 certain answer for this system, but maybe you can find something I am doing wrong. Thanks.


I) What is the best way to use FB ads to prove a product is worth selling?

1) Run targetted traffic to a landing/sales page
2) High CTRs, engagement, and ATC events are good signs that the product will make it

II) What is the best strategy to first test, and then build and scale conversion campaign for selling a physical product?

Here's what I would do (assume sales page is already created, and FB Pixel is installed).
Also, assume I am aware of and using custom and LAL audiences when the opportunity presents itself.

1) Find the best audience using simple creative showcasing the product.

* Traffic objective - 10 ad sets for 10 single interests. Use 1 same creative for each ad set (**).
* See which audience gets you the best CTR and cheapest CPC, and which one has more engagement

2) Find the best ad variation

* Traffic objective - run 10 different ads within a winning ad set (step 1)
* See which creative gets the best CTR, engagement
* repeat the same process for copy/headline/call to action

3) Switch to Conversion campaign using the best audience (found in step 1) and best ad variation (found in step 2)

4) Run for View Content objective.

5) Switch to ATC objective once you get 15-25 ATC per week with VC objective

6) Switch to PUR once you get 15-25 PUR per week with ATC objective

7) Scale by gradually increasing the budget and watching the frequency doesn't go above "2"


** The reason I use traffic objective to test is that link clicks are cheap and I accurately judge my add performance.

 

[Vadim26]

And most importantly, can you share the best resource to learn FB ads from?

I'd like to see someone using them in the video and walking through the whole process from making the first ad to selling.

 

[Pritesh]

Hi @Pritesh, I have 2 questions.

I've just started using FB ads 2 months ago, and have had some success.

I will ask a question and share a strategy I use. Curious to hear your feedback.
I understand that there is no 1 certain answer for this system, but maybe you can find something I am doing wrong. Thanks.


I) What is the best way to use FB ads to prove a product is worth selling?

1) Run targetted traffic to a landing/sales page
2) High CTRs, engagement, and ATC events are good signs that the product will make it

II) What is the best strategy to first test, and then build and scale conversion campaign for selling a physical product?

Here's what I would do (assume sales page is already created, and FB Pixel is installed).
Also, assume I am aware of and using custom and LAL audiences when the opportunity presents itself.

1) Find the best audience using simple creative showcasing the product.

* Traffic objective - 10 ad sets for 10 single interests. Use 1 same creative for each ad set.
* See which audience gets you the best CTR and cheapest CPC, and which one has more engagement

2) Find the best ad variation

* Traffic objective - run 10 different ads within a winning ad set (step 1)
* See which creative gets the best CTR, engagement
* repeat the same process for copy/headline/call to action

3) Switch to Conversion campaign using the best audience (found in step 1) and best ad variation (found in step 2)

4) Run for View Content objective.

5) Switch to ATC objective once you get 15-25 ATC per week with VC objective

6) Switch to PUR once you get 15-25 PUR per week with ATC objective

7) Scale by gradually increasing the budget and watching the frequency don't go above "2"

When you mentioned product, I'm guessing its an eCommerce business?

I would highly suggest against running PPE/Traffic ads for testing products.

Directly running conversion ads are good, but it's very VERY expensive just for product testing, a lot of people with budget to blow for testing use this as it's a guaranteed tell if a product is worth pursuing.

For someone with low budget for product testing say $100-300 per product, your process is pretty good, but replace the traffic campaign directly with Conversion > Optimized for View Content directly from the start.

Also, I wouldn't stress too much about 15-25 metrics before switching to the next conversion in pixel. That used to be the thing to do in 2016-2017 not anymore, tbh you can run directly purchase campaign straight from 0 purchase conversions in the pixel if you feel like it.

What I'd do for conversion objective is:
At the very start, on a fresh pixel. Conversion > View Content just to test interests and creatives. Pick the best performing combos.
Next directly run them in a Conversion > Purchase campaign.

Your goals should be as followed:
1) Find the Creative with the best CTR and lowest CPC. A single post ID.
2) Next focus on finding best performing VV 75%/95% LLAs, interests, VC LLAs rather than climbing the objective ladder like you mentioned.

Btw, I've been noticing its pretty hard to consistently churn out ROAS like a few years ago with ecom ads, you'd want an AOV of at least $45+ to run fb ads profitably these days.

 

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[Vadim26]

When you mentioned product, I'm guessing its an eCommerce business?

I would highly suggest against running PPE/Traffic ads for testing products.

Directly running conversion ads are good, but it's very VERY expensive just for product testing, a lot of people with budget to blow for testing use this as it's a guaranteed tell if a product is worth pursuing.

For someone with low budget for product testing say $100-300 per product, your process is pretty good, but replace the traffic campaign directly with Conversion > Optimized for View Content directly from the start.

Also, I wouldn't stress too much about 15-25 metrics before switching to the next conversion in pixel. That used to be the thing to do in 2016-2017 not anymore, tbh you can run directly purchase campaign straight from 0 purchase conversions in the pixel if you feel like it.

What I'd do for conversion objective is:
At the very start, on a fresh pixel. Conversion > View Content just to test interests and creatives. Pick the best performing combos.
Next directly run them in a Conversion > Purchase campaign.

I'd focus more on finding best performing VV 75%/95% LLAs, interests, VC LLAs rather than climbing the objective ladder like you mentioned.

Btw, I've been noticing its pretty hard to consistently churn out ROAS like a few years ago with ecom ads, you'd want an AOV of at least $45+ to run fb ads profitably these days.

Thank you! Exactly what I was looking for. Will give that a try.

Yes, an Ecom Business.

One more question, though.

What are your thoughts on running PPE for winning ad set just to get social proof? (likes, comments).

(this is before switching to conversion objective to start selling).

 

[Pritesh]

Thank you! Exactly what I was looking for. Will give that a try.
Yes, an Ecom Business.
One more question, though.
What are your thoughts on running PPE for winning ad set just to get social proof? (before switching to conversion and start selling).

I used to do PPE exclusively for creative testing in the past. Put $20 for a day, dump in 10 creatives and it used to find a winning creative within a day. But, from my experience lately, it hasn't been giving out clear winners.

Also, I'd run PPE for social proof after you get your winning post id using conversion objective. If you haven't noticed normally PPE ads don't have a call to action, but when you feed a post ID from a conversion ad to the PPE adset, it will show you a call to action.
Don't go overboard with PPE daily budget though, they are literally the bottom of the barrel traffic and if more of them start visiting your website, your pixel data will be tainted beyond redemption.

Spoiler: Greyhat advice below, use at your own risk:

There are *other ways* to get social proof like likes and shares if you catch my drift and you won't need that many tbh. Just make a few friends comment on the post praising the product and like them with your page so it shows at the top of the comments.
Filter every single word in English dictionary on your facebook page so no one could comment on your post unless you manually unhide it, etc etc. Tons of stuff you can do.

 

[Xeon]

1) For a totally new e-commerce business selling dry food stuff which has just launched, which no one knows about, what would your advice be with regards to FB ads? Should I run ads with Brand Awareness/Traffic objective or Conversion objective? Or something else?

2) While I know how to use the FB ads interface, should I outsource the whole ads strategy to those freelancers on Upwork? I was thinking those guys are well versed in getting traffic. What's your thoughts on this?

 

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[100k]

For someone that doesn't have their own product and they just want to make $1k/day (more or less) passively - what should they do / what offer should they promote?

 

[Pritesh]

1) For a totally new e-commerce business selling dry food stuff which has just launched, which no one knows about, what would your advice be with regards to FB ads? Should I run ads with Brand Awareness/Traffic objective or Conversion objective? Or something else?

2) While I know how to use the FB ads interface, should I outsource the whole ads strategy to those freelancers on Upwork? I was thinking those guys are well versed in getting traffic. What's your thoughts on this?

1) I've given a few ad strategies in my previous replies you can use them to test new products. I'd personally run Conversion > Optimized for Landing page views for starters to test which ad creative performs best and then go on from there.

2) I wouldn't know, never worked with a freelancer before.

I was thinking those guys are well versed in getting traffic

Your objective is to get sales right? Anyone can drive you traffic, heck if you pay FB and run traffic campaigns they will throw traffic on your site all day long, will they convert? Highly unlikely.

For someone that doesn't have their own product and they just want to make $1k/day (more or less) passively - what should they do / what offer should they promote?

Man, that's as broad as you can get asking a question. No one can tell you what to sell, you need to do research on it yourself and then test it yourself.

But, in my opinion, Tangible products, and services that fall in "need" category would obviously perform better than those that fall in "wants" category.
If you find a pain point in a niche, Facebook ads is the perfect medium to promote it. It has so much data on people, you can literally hit your audience with their pain every day until they give in and buy your product or service to curb that pain. But, finding that pain and niche is something you'll have to do on your own.

 

[21elnegocio]

Can you run a facebook ad in spanish text in Phoenix, AZ USA ?

 

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[Matt_2190]

Great post, thank you @Pritesh

I know that you have to test it and depends by sector / copy / etc., but in your experiences for an e-commerce work better the carousel ads or the single image ads?

 

[Pritesh]

Can you run a facebook ad in spanish text in Phoenix, AZ USA ?

Sure, Facebook has a language filter as well as location filter. You can even add in interest for more laser-focused targeting options.

Great post, thank you @Pritesh

I know that you have to test it and depends by sector / copy / etc., but in your experiences for an e-commerce work better the carousel ads or the single image ads?

Video ads > Carousel > Single Image.