- Thread starter
- #99
Pay Per ClickWhat is ppc?
Upcoming Live Fastlane Calls (FREE!)
Inventors Virtual Meetup (FREE - All welcome!): Sunday, May, 5th 2024: 11 AM ESTJoin over 90,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.
Free registration at the forum removes this block.Pay Per ClickWhat is ppc?
GOLD, for relentless execution and value production.Day 46
Subs: 234
Now getting 10-15 signups to my free course every day. This is wild. I'm only spending $5-10 AUD per day on Facebook ads and I'm getting A LOT of interest. I think it's because my ad copy really talks to my target audience.
Right now I'm just building my email list as people sign up for this free course.
Here's the plan with this:
I still haven't even thought about what I will sell these people. But I'm creating this beautiful, high-value ecosystem that feeds into itself so my audience are consuming my content, learning and improving their stores.
- My free course (7 sections), teaches people how to create well-optimized product pages for their Ecom store
- Throughout the course, I have a lot of my youtube videos embedded, so people are digesting my content in a useful way. It's part of how they learn with the course but they'll also get to know my brand, my content, and that I'm also on Youtube.
- I also have a call to action at the start and end of the course for them to go check out my youtube channel and subscribe. Here I'll get a couple of people to come in from cold ads, get value out of the course, and in doing so they are introduced to my brand. They then go and consume all my other content and become a fan of what I'm teaching.
- Once they sign up they'll also get emails from me. Because they signed up for my course, I'm going to put them on an email sequence that is very similar to the course. It adds a tonne of value over 2-3 weeks with lessons from within the free course.
- After 2-3 weeks they will receive my standard email flow which has emails 3 times a week and it's all VALUE. I'm taking different videos I've made and making them into bite-sized email form. The goal here is to add more value to my audience and get them over to my youtube channel to watch the full video. This way I'm constantly feeding my youtube channel with highly-engaged fans that bump up my Youtube engagement rates (good for the algorithm).
Anyway, that's the update for today. We're 1.5 months in and finally I feel like I'm starting to see a bit of an uptick in traction and engagement. This might pale in comparison for what's to come (I hope).
I think this is really good advice. You aren't going to be able to provide individualized advice to everyone on your channel. Especially if you keep growing.His feedback was to do more videos about how to THINK like an expert ecom marketer. How to get the mindset so he could solve all the problems specific to his store, himself.
Yep that's right. If I had the time I'd be able to go all in and spend 8 hours per day on the Youtube channel but it's better I spread my attention out to where it will be most effective. That's where systems and hiring good people comes in and makes all the difference.It sounds like this allows you to spend more time on your business and less time in your business. I'll keep following along to see what other goodies I can learn.
I'd love to hear your side on this as well!I'm waiting for your video on pricing and reviewing various expenses related to running a business.
Yeah, totally skipped over the finding a pain point and went straight to volume pricing strategiesInteresting. My question was mainly about individual costs arising from running an ecommerce business and pricing was just an afterthought. Let's look into this.
That's not how it works and not how I'd approach it. Starting with a product puts the cart before the horse and leads to the race to the bottom. Nobody wins.
I look at price as something that a buyer is willing and able to pay in exchange for the benefit of using/owning a product. Start with the benefit. Solve a problem, satisfy a need or a want. Only then think of a product that helps you get there (and adds further considerations to price, such as your COGS, marketing strategy etc.). This way you bring value that a buyer is willing to pay for and can approach pricing at the core of this simple value equation:
Value = Perceived Benefits Received / Perceived Price Paid
For sustainability and other obvious reasons, the above ratio should be >1. Maximise the benefit (alleviate pains, maximise gains) and you'll have more room for price. And then you can look for your own benefit (simplified to Price - Cost = Profit). Wouldn't it be great to ask for a high price which is still just a fraction of what the benefit is worth to your client?
As a side note, price is a dynamic element. It will be different at various stages of your product life cycle. In your example, which is a typical dropshipping scenario, you have to start relatively low... and drive it lower pretty fast to escape competition... until you retire your product. But it doesn't have to be that way. Forget about finding the right product and start looking for opportunities where you can maximise someone's benefit. And then you'll discover there's a range of pricing tactics appropriate for your marketing mix strategy.
Good luck!
Aswesome thread, I just binge read through it.
Not to go off topic but what do you think of Myka Stauffer? That woman actually lived her life based on what would get her clicks. She became religious, homeschooled, and even adopted a special needs child from China that she recently rehomed. It's the same principle just taken one step farther.
He just uploaded so he's hitting 1000 tonight for sure.
He just uploaded so he's hitting 1000 tonight for sure.
It's DONE. I did it, 120 videos in 120 days.
Pay per click advertisingWhat is ppc?
Not sure to understand the big difference between the iPad and the prompter. It means you almost have to
read sentence by sentence with ipad aand you'll get a lot of cuts. It does not show in your video
Eugh. This is why I don’t do Google Shopping Ads. I like to create positive keywords and not bid on so many negatives.@Phikey
Hey Sam,
Hope you don't mind me bumping your YouTube progress thread to ask a few questions about Google Ads, specifically Google Shopping campaigns, as I've watched so many of your e-commerce/Google Ads videos that you've basically become my "go-to" person for any GSA questions...
I recently launched my first e-commerce store back in May and tested a few products by promoting them via Google Shopping campaigns, which was my first experience with the Shopping ads, but not Google Ads itself, as I run numerous search campaigns in the past.
Now putting aside the niche/product itself and a myriad of on-site factors that can influence the conversion rate, what I noticed with GSA campaigns is that Google triggers your ads for a very wide range of search terms.
I've done my best to write a very specific and detailed product title + description and also I go through the search term reports daily with my campaign, but adding irrelevant terms to the Negatives list seems like a never-ending process at the moment.
Unfortunately, with GSA campaigns we can't pick and choose the keywords that we'd like to bid on, so we rely on Google to "read" our product pages and trigger the ads for what it considers as relevant search terms.
This is especially an issue with products, which are designed to work with other things, like for example car parts, phone accessories, computer components, etc.
If I'm selling parts for a Ford Mustang, I don't want my ads to be triggered for other Ford models, let alone other car manufacturers. In reality, the negatives list gets even bigger, because I could be selling a very specific part, which is designed to fit only a 2005 special edition Ford Mustang, so you can imagine how much stuff would need to be neg'ed to prevent my ads from being triggered when people search for parts for older or newer Mustangs, or even other parts for a Ford Mustang.
My product is correctly categorised in Google's product listings and you would expect better targeting from them, but obviously the more clicks they can get from you, the better for them...
Almost 4 months later, I still find myself adding negative keywords for the same product I began selling in May 2021, because there's naturally a HUGE number of variations of irrelevant terms that Google thinks are relevant, but despite my efforts of carefully using exact and phrase match negatives to rule out as much rubbish as possible, Google manages to come up with more stuff every day.
What's interesting is that this is my experience with a very small store with just 2 products that I actively promoted, getting less than 50 clicks/day, so I can't imagine what it's like promoting large stores and getting hundreds/thousands of clicks daily...
Is this the norm with GSA campaigns or I'm over-complicating things?
Appreciate your help
Eugh. This is why I don’t do Google Shopping Ads. I like to create positive keywords and not bid on so many negatives.
Curious what Sam’s reply is.
Thanks Andy. I really appreciate your support, even from page 1. I owe you a beer (or a coffee) so if I’m ever over in your neck of the woods it’s my shout.Good for you Sam. Love how you’ve built this asset that’s generating new business for you.
Have you read the update today?AMEN!
I love this post.
Best of luck with the challenge amigo!
Hey man! Yep I'm still here for another 2-3 months. I've been up to Praia Brava but not to Warung yet. Saw that some great artists were playing next week over carnival, considering going but also want to go to Ilha de Mel too (and record another set). I'll send you a dm man!Dude @Phikey, NO WAY, you're here in Floripa???
Man if you're still here, DM me. It's my backyard, I'll show you some cool spots around the island
Edit: Been listening to your set. Sick drop at 27:12. Reminds me a lot of Cercle style videos.
If you're here, have you ever been to Warung in Praia Brava? Raving to Solomun while having the sun rise in front of you in the ocean is one of my best memories there
Goodness! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this writeup. I am literally in the planning stages of my YouTube journey and this was so insightful and encouraging. I'm so glad to see that you're enjoying music and living your best life! All the best to you.Good question, I finally have some time to sit down and write out some thoughts:
Some things I learned through the process:
What would I do differently?
- Building an audience is a fantastic way to get to know your audience on a deeper level and find their problems and pain points. I have shifted my business significantly since starting, focusing in on helping my audience as much as possible, and also learning how to speak to them in a language they understand: “their problems”.
- Building an audience builds HUGE trust. On many sales calls now, the prospect will often want to take a screenshot of the call to show their friends because they can’t believe they're speaking to me after watching my videos for months. They say things like “it’s so weird to actually see you respond to me in person rather than just watching” “It‘s so weird to hear your voice as it’s been in my head for so long”. It’s made it a lot easier to close deals with great clients that I really want to work with and can confidently get results with. I don’t have to beg for clients, or work with clients that I know will be tough to deal with. I can pick and choose, which has resulted in a huge amount of testimonials and case studies (we have about 20 on our website now).
- Sometimes you just need to jump in, commit, and do it. It’s so hard to start something like this challenge, that’s why I came here for the accountability. Though, it’s been worth It. I’ve now built an asset that’s generating consistent views, leads and business and we’re growing rapidly because of it.
- It’s also made hiring a lot easier. People want to work with a business that’s ’winning’. We’re not huge, really, but I’ve been able to blast my email list when needing to hire and picked up some great candidates, one of which I have hired which has been awesome. It also attracts higher level talent that want to be a part of something big and cool, to work for a company that’s doing something in the space.
- Change their state. This is the best advice I can give. When you change someone’s actual state of being you gain huge trust and they’ll listen to everything you say. They need to set up Google Analytics? Make a video that means by the end of 5 minutes they can verify that it’s set up and then you get all the credit. It proves to them that you know what you’re talking about. If you can help them with just one thing like that, you can help them with many more. So many blog posts and gurus have waffle content and hide things behind lead magnets and courses. Give people real value up front and you’ll have them for life. Simple and well-known advice but it’s true to a T.
What would I do more of?
- I would start with better production value and editing from the start. This is a double edged sword. It would take longer to start and get into the rhythm but my early videos are now immortalised because many of them have ranked well and have received tens of thousands of views. To be honest, they are great value, but I know that if I spent more time on the production side they could have done even better.
- Learn how the Youtube algorithm works, inside and out, and play to your advantage. This means editing your videos well to remove any fluff, improve the scripts so you don’t waffle or go off track. I’d go through each video monastically before publishing to optimise them as much as possible. Though, this being said, there‘s so much value to ‘just starting’. I think that if I tried to do 120 videos in 120 days with a high-production level approach I would have burnt out.
- Don’t make waffle videos just to fill space. I went after some keywords that were low volume and low competition but they ended up falling flat, not generating traffic, and actually hurting my channel. I would also make some videos that I thought were valuable but the audience weren’t interested in them at all. Sometimes you might think you know what your audience NEEDS but that doesn’t really matter if they don’t know they need it. It’s a lot harder to convince someone they need something (even if they really do) than to just give them what they need first, build trust, and then they’ll go through the valuable content.
- Don’t get caught up in video topics or niches that suck you dry. GMC Suspensions were a big topic last year and I made some great videos on it which generated a lot of views. I also went ahead and made a course on the topic which was one of the first quality resources available. It made some good sales for a few months but died away as an army of people from Fiverr took my course, learned everything and then started offering a service for $5. I spent a lot of time creating that course and it was profitable overall, but I should have focused on my core service and hiring. You can make the most popular videos in the world. They’ll generate ad revenue, but if you’re looking to build a business around the channel then you should keep in mind how you’ll monetise it.
- I wouldn’t have made it all about me and my name. I wish I used a pen name for the channel. This is just because now my videos are up and immortalised, if I ever want to go under the radar or wipe myself from the internet, it’s going to be much harder. I would have built it around the brand, which would make it a lot easier in the future if I want to hand off the ‘acting’ to someone else. I can still do it, but I’ll need to transition.
- Get the business model or service dialled in before starting. I had too much business and have had a waiting list for months and months because we grew and I didn’t have the team to handle it. I’d rather maintain a high quality service than hire rookies just to get the sales. It would have been great to have a good foundation first so I could make the most of the sales.
- Charge what your worth and the value you provide. It took a long time before I caught on that I should be charging more. The clients were getting a super sweet deal and I was at full capacity so I was turning away clients. I now charge something more reasonable and it’s increased profits too.
- Don’t get an ego. This started happening as my channel took off where I though I was hot stuff. I had to check myself and bring it back in because it brought emotions in that were not conducive to running a business. I started thinking more about what I thought people needed to hear rather than helping people with their problems. I’ve found that when I’ve stopped doing this I lose their attention quickly. Something to keep in mind. Focus on helping people, getting them from A to B and you’ll build their trust. Monetisation comes naturally after that.
- Queueing up videos in advance. I did do this many times but there were one or two times in the challenge where the publishing caught up to the bank of videos I had saved up. I’d focus on another project for a week or two and I’d be back at the stressful point of filming, editing and publishing with almost no videos spare.
- Hire multiple editors at once. At the start we had 4 and we paid them on a per-video basis. This made it easy to calculate my expenses and we could save money in periods of less editing. It also meant that if one editor got an ego about their editing (which did happen), and they try to raise their rates because they think that the channel’s success is all due to them, you have a backup. This actually happened and I told him that I have 3 other editors taking jobs and he changed his tune entirely and actually offered a discount to us if we provided him more videos. You don’t want your channel being held hostage like this and having to find a new quality editor mid-way through without disrupting production.
- Spend time building the branding assets and not iterating with videos. My first videos had bad audio, low quality titles and transitions, and overall lower quality editing. I wish I did more video tests before posting videos that have now become vital to the viewers of my channel.
Overall it’s been awesome. There are many channels out there with more subscribers and views but my viewership are super niche and targeted. I love this because Youtube has figured out who watches my content and are better able to recommend me to other people too.
I’m excited moving forward. I’m still posting one video a week but soon we’ll focus on SEO and blog post content and build that up as a traffic source.
Yeah go ahead! Shoot me a link too, would love to see it.@Phikey, this is awesome man. Congrats! Do you mind if I do a feature on you on LinkedIn (i.e. carousels)? I want to share your story
Thanks @fastattack03 !! I'm definitely giving this my all and I'm in for the long run here.Love it! Just from the beginning of your vid, I could tell this is gonna be a great channel.
Highly tempted to start a youtube channel myself so I'll definitely follow this new thread of yours, Phikey!
All thanks to my fabulous editors!!! I've created a system so that my VA does the research, I refine the script, I press record and film it.. and then I just hand it off to the editor who puts it all together and makes it look great.
Join Fastlane Insiders.