I screwed up a really profitable business... now what?

[eqttrdr]

Will try to summarize a long story...

Maybe people can learn from my mistakes....

Have a diet/weight-loss coaching membership site.

Optimized front end/backend

Optimized AOV and LTV... found best is one off diet program purchase with 2 one time offer upsells in the front end of the funnel.

Was converting 2% cold traffic to our Facebook ads..... (tested other traffic means and nothing converted even close to FB)

CPA $40, AOV $60 (cold traffic) 6 month LTV $75...

From April 2017 to October 2017... scaled to $250k in revenue during that time (only got up to 1/10th of my target spend)

All of a sudden (in OCT) on our 9 year old Facebook ad account...... we got disabled for "violating policy".... which they never told us what that was (nor do they ever tell anyone)

Appealed as relevance scores were 9's and 10's... high positive feedback..... low frequency

We made no promises, guarantees, claims.... no misleading copy or tricks...

Even have a 100% documented 1% return rate (unheard of for a digital product)

We severely UNDER-promise and OVER deliver massive value.

Tried everything we could to get back in FB's good graces the white hat way and nothing since October...

So now months later.... we still can't advertise on Facebook (after numerous phone calls with our FB rep, chats, emails, etc..)

Simply tried to start over.. get a new business manager, ad account, FB page, payment method..IP address..etc..

Banned even faster... we are flagged and nothing works...

Was running great.... basically doubling my money for a 10000% legit online diet/weightloss coaching business that our customers LOVE...

No clue what to do from here.. as our customer avatar/target demographic is 100% on Facebook..

Adwords, Bing, Natives, Solos, Direct buys... none convert even close to our 2% cold traffic on Facebook (never even bothered with retargeting)

Tried with our new accounts to offer a lead magnet instead of going direct response as I figured that was "safer"

Was getting $.75 leads, 40% optin.....

Didn't convert like our cold traffic (CPA was $100 instead of $40)..... besides ultimately our ad account was disabled yet again.

-- No clue what to do from here as I single-highhandedly managed to somehow completely CRUSH an extremely profitable business that wasn't even scaled to my target levels.

Invested so much time, effort, blood, sweat tears...

Have so many landing pages, presell/bridge pages, awesome VSL, lead magnets, know our exact target audience, FB look alike audiences, seasoned pixel, highly optimized funnel...


REALLY sucks even more because April is the month we usually do ROAS of > 3.0 and slowly drops from there..


Sick to my stomach, out of ideas, frustrated, depressed, upset and feels like I'm going crazy in the head at this point.

Would have felt better if this never worked from the beginning...

I have a product that delivers massive value, customers love it but I can't deliver it to them via the means they want to purchase.

"Here take my money"... became... "sorry we're closed"


No clue.... my next move.....


Move to clickbank and give away 90%?
Find someone who knows FB ads inside and out to JV with?


You finally get something that works and works well...and gets flushed down the toilet.


</rant over>

 

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[minivanman]

What types off questions did you ask in your ad? Can I see your ad that you was running?

 

[NuclearPuma]

So you tried a new ip address and new business name? Advertise under a new name but with an ad that won't get you banned?

Also don't use Facebook for personal.

 

[eqttrdr]

So you tried a new ip address and new business name? Advertise under a new name but with an ad that won't get you banned?

Also don't use Facebook for personal.

Making a completely brand new profile, with brand new business manager and ad account is sketchy in FB's eyes and unless you scale SUPER slowly.... same thing will happen... - account disabled..

 

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[NuclearPuma]

Making a completely brand new profile, with brand new business manager and ad account is sketchy in FB's eyes and unless you scale SUPER slowly.... same thing will happen... - account disabled..

How would Facebook know? And why would they care as long as terms aren't being violated. Use different ads that comply.

 

[Parker fields]

If your product has that much value why are you going to let Facebook control your entry? If you want control of your business figure out how to market it more than just Facebook. Why not just build click funnels for your website? Affiliate market with customers for a commission. Tons of different options to market you just need to start plugging away and testing. Don't give up over a bump.

 

[kkoasdfawfqwe2]

How would Facebook know? And why would they care as long as terms aren't being violated. Use different ads that comply.

Facebook is more careful than you think and they are very hard to fool.

I've been in the affiliate marketing game for blackhat ads previously and I can tell you that they are not that easy to screw with.

Nothing is 'just create a new. . .' when it comes to Facebook Ad Accounts..

I used to buy year old accounts that are phone verified and then they would last a weeks time and you could only pay by direct bank transfer.

Thats what worked for me.

 

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[minivanman]

I bet it all starts with words used in his ad. But we will never know unless he tells us what he said.

 

[eqttrdr]

I bet it all starts with words used in his ad. But we will never know unless he tells us what he said.

Wasn't the ads as it was generic... it had to be the landing pages...

Doesn't matter what it is/was... as we can't advertise on FB now

Ads were always 100% approved all the time...

 

[minivanman]

I learned a long time ago.... if I'm a know it all..... I better KNOW IT ALL.

 

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[eqttrdr]

I learned a long time ago.... if I'm a know it all..... I better KNOW IT ALL.

yep.... you sure do

 

[LeoistheSun]

Try creating an account on the forums on MPSocial.com they might know.

FB does look at your landing pages, but i've heard of cloakers and other devious things.

Also why not Instagram?

 

[Almantas]

@Andy Black might be able to offer some hardcore wisdom on this. Although he's more of an AdWords warrior

 

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[Andy Black]

@Andy Black might be able to offer some hardcore wisdom on this. Although he's more of an AdWords warrior

Thanks @Almantas, but not really my channel or vertical.

Personally I wouldn’t cloak or go black-hat. I prefer to get the thousands of bright minds in Google/Facebook behind me, not hunting me.



@eqttrdr

I’ve seen a €120k/day AdWords spender have the plug pulled and implode overnight.

I presume you have the contact details of people who’ve bought from you? At least that would be something.

Can you apply your Facebook skills to other verticals?

Can you sell via other channels?

What are you going to do next?

What will you do different going forward?

 

[ZCP]

An online forum and postcards to bring them over.....

 

[Mastercool]

cloaking the traffic source can be a long term game IF done right...

i know several people who make xxxx - xx,xxx$$ per day doing this...they aren't newbies whatsoever though.

 

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[GoldMan79]

Making a completely brand new profile, with brand new business manager and ad account is sketchy in FB's eyes and unless you scale SUPER slowly.... same thing will happen... - account disabled..

That's why there is a black market for old business accounts with high spending limits, maybe you can try to buy or rent one? Also, you need to change the domain of your business, you said the ad was generic, I guess you are talking about the copy, what about the image?

 

[craig1928]

look for JVs and offer up LLAs

problem here is your domain is probably flagged as well, you'll probably have to switch that up.

Saying that, FB is on the warpath at the moment to try and clean their image.

 

[HackVenture]

I've done big volume on FB cloaking but that's certainly not something I would recommend in your case.

I urge you not to come to the conclusion that "you can't run ads on FB" yet.

Native could be a good traffic source, perhaps you might want to try that out while figuring out your problem with FB.

In the meantime, hit me up on PM if you'd like my help, we could probably try running some ads on my accounts to test your theory.

 

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