151: Marketing Automation on a Budget: Crush It with Ads for Less than $10 a Day
On this episode of the Course Creator’s MBA podcast, our guest Amy Crane, a Facebook Ads expert with over $50 million in ad spend managed for clients, joins host Dr. Destini Copp. The episode focuses on using Facebook ads to automate marketing on a budget of less than $10 per day. Amy emphasizes the importance of list building and nurturing relationships with the audience.
The discussion covers topics such as the impact of offers and funnels on return on ad spend, the long-term effects of Facebook ads, and the recent changes in targeting and optimization after the iOS update. Amy also shares insights on creating effective ad creative, following Facebook ad policies, and the benefits of starting with lead magnets and freebies.
List building and simplicity are highlighted as key strategies for leveraging Facebook ads to grow a business. Tune in to this episode of the Course Creator’s MBA Podcast to learn how to effectively use Facebook ads even on a tight budget.
Mastering Facebook Ads on a Budget: Insights from Amy Crane
In the fast-paced world of online advertising, it's essential to stay ahead of the game and make the most out of your budget. In a recent episode of the Course Creator’s MBA podcast, Facebook Ads expert Amy Crane shares valuable insights on how to use Facebook ads to automate marketing on a budget of less than $10 per day. With her extensive experience, managing over $50 million in ad spend for clients, Amy unravels the complexities and highlights practical strategies for course creators and business owners alike. Let's delve into the key takeaways from this enlightening episode.
The Power of Offers and Funnels
According to Amy, the success of Facebook ads depends on the quality of offers and funnels. She emphasizes that while growing your email list may not immediately yield visible results, it is crucial for nurturing and building relationships with your audience. By creating effective funnels with compelling offers, you can maximize your return on ad spend, ranging from break-even to higher returns.
Long-term Impact of Facebook Ads
Amy urges listeners to consider the long-term impact of Facebook ads on their business. Customers may not make immediate purchases but could convert months down the road. Evaluating the overall impact of ads and understanding the customer journey is crucial for assessing the success of your campaigns.
List Building: A Solid Foundation
Building an email list forms the bedrock of any thriving business. Amy passionately advocates for list building as the starting point for businesses. She assures listeners that list building is easy to start, manage, and run campaigns. Even with a modest budget of $10 a day, strategically investing in list building can bring significant traction to your business.
Quality over Quantity
Facebook rewards the quality of ads rather than the amount spent on them. By focusing on creating engaging ads and irresistible offers, Facebook's algorithm will show your ads to more people, potentially reducing costs. Avoid making weight loss and income claims to comply with Facebook ad policies.
Adapting to iOS Updates
Amy highlights the iOS updates' impact on Facebook ads and advises giving ads enough time to optimize after these changes. Facebook's targeting has become more broad, making clear and specific creative essential for attracting the right audience. Adding text to images can capture attention and ensure that the right people click on your ad. The previous 20% text rule on images no longer applies.
Building Relationships and Creating Offers
Understanding your audience and building relationships are key components of successful Facebook ad campaigns. Amy recommends growing a list to understand people's needs and desires, enabling you to create irresistible offers that resonate with your audience. Rather than going straight for the sale, building relationships is vital for long-term success.
Amplify: Simplifying Facebook Ads
Amy's Amplify membership is designed to help beginners with limited budgets get started with Facebook ads. The program provides step-by-step guidance, campaign assets, and content to create appealing and effective ads. Amplify focuses on simplicity and key campaigns and strategies, dispensing with complex formulas.
Overcoming iOS Complications
The complications arising from iOS updates that affected Facebook ads have now stabilized. While the cost of setting up ads initially increased due to changes in targeting, Facebook's platform has rebounded, making list building consistently effective throughout the updates.
9. Growing Your List with Lead Magnets:
Amy recommends starting with a budget of $10 per day and adding five people to your list daily. By month's end, you could have approximately 180 people on your list depending on your cost per lead. Lead magnets such as checklists, swipe files, and templates are proven low-cost offers that allow beginners to test messaging and audiences without a big budget.
The Value of Freebies
Inexpensive and effective, freebies are Amy's go-to strategy for new advertisers. These lead magnets can be used to grow your list and promote other offers later on. For beginners, running ads for low-ticket offers is not recommended due to high costs.
Conclusion
The episode featuring Amy Crane on the Course Creator’s MBA podcast sheds light on the strategies and techniques required to master Facebook ads on a budget. From understanding the power of offers and funnels to adapting to the iOS updates, Amy's insights provide a roadmap for success. By prioritizing list building, nurturing relationships, and focusing on simplicity, course creators and business owners can leverage the immense potential of Facebook ads to reach their target audience and grow their businesses.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Where to find Amy: Website
Amy's free gift: Steal My Best Performing Ad Swipe File
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Transcript:
Dr. Destini Copp [00:00:02]:
And my special guest today is Amy Crane. Amy is a Facebook Ads expert and has managed over 50 million in ad spend for clients and operates a six figure membership called Amplify. And she loves helping course creators get seen and get paid using Facebook ads. And I am amy, I am so excited to chat with you today. We're going to be talking about how to use ads to automate your marketing on less than $10 a day. And I can tell you right now that fits in with my budget. And I'm sure it fits into the budget with a lot of people who are listening. But before we get into all of the questions I have for you, can you tell the audience just a little bit more about you and how you help people?
Amy Crane [00:00:51]:
Yeah. So, like you said, I love helping people learn how to use Facebook ads, but in a way that's simple and doable, and also to let people know that you can do this on a budget. When I started running Facebook ads for my own business, I started with $5 a day, and it just completely changed the trajectory of my business. Now Facebook ads have changed a little bit, so it's more like $10 a day, but I love helping and teaching people. We have our Amplify membership, where we also help and teach people how to get started with Facebook ads. Really simple campaigns. It doesn't have to be as complicated. I always say all these magic formulas are kind of a magic way to waste a lot of your money when it comes to Facebook ads. So it's really about keeping it simple and focusing on a few key campaigns and strategies. And really, anyone can do it to start growing their list and selling more of their digital courses and programs with ads.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:01:49]:
And I think that's where we all are. We want to keep it simple and easy to do, because I think a lot of us, even me included, and I used to be a Facebook Ads manager, we think about, oh, it just seems complicated every time I go in, like, they've changed something, and I'm like, Where did that go? Right?
Amy Crane [00:02:10]:
They're moving things around. And one of the things I love to tell people when you go in, and you probably know this too, since you ran ads, is when you go into ads managers, there's just like all these buttons and columns and just things to push and click. But the truth is, 80% of it you don't need. Right? There's. Only 20% of the features in Ads Manager do you actually, actually really use and do you need to pay attention to. And most of it you can just ignore. So I think when you know going in that, these are the things I need to pay attention to, these are the buttons I actually need to click, and I can ignore the rest. Then it gets to be a lot easier, too.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:02:45]:
Okay, so let's say we have somebody new to Facebook ads. They never started. They are on a budget. What would you say to them? What's the best place for them to get started?
Amy Crane [00:02:58]:
Yeah. Start building your list. I'm a big fan of building your list with Facebook ads because to me, it's an easy way to make sure you're getting your ads in front of the right people, because we can control who we're targeting with our ads. We can make sure that they're being seen by the right people. And when you're growing your list and you're investing and growing your list, to me, that's really one of the number one assets in your business, because we don't own Facebook followers, we don't own Instagram followers, we don't own Facebook groups. And the algorithm can change and the rules can change. But when you have a list of people that you can build a relationship with, that's really the foundation of your business. And just starting with $10 a day, you could add five people a day to your list, and by the end of the month, you've got oh, God, I'm going to have to do the math on that. Was that like 180 people on your list? Did I do that right?
Dr. Destini Copp [00:03:52]:
Well, it's a lot. We know it's a lot.
Amy Crane [00:03:54]:
Yeah, it adds up, right? So when you go to sell your Course or program, you actually have people to sell it to. Right.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:04:02]:
And I will just say amen to that. I completely agree with you know, running the Facebook ads to grow your list was one of the best places to you say, what should people do or think about or make sure they already have set up in their business before they start running those ads.
Amy Crane [00:04:23]:
So I think the number one thing is you've got to be really clear on who your audience is and who you're talking to and who you're speaking to, because that's going to impact everything from your targeting to your messaging and what your actual offer is that you're promoting. So as long as you're clear on those pieces, you can start to grow your list. I started to grow my list. I knew I was going to offer ads management services, but I was still trying to figure it out. But growing my list gave me the chance to get to know what people wanted and what they were looking for, and then I was able to create my offers around that. But I wasn't going straight for the sale. Right. I was getting people on my list first and building that relationship. But you've got to be really clear. I knew I wanted to work with Course creators, and then I knew I could help them with ads. And so I was clear on that piece. So I think you've got to be really clear on that part.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:05:19]:
So let's say that we know who our ideal audience is and our ideal customer, and we want to build our list. What are you seeing, and I might be putting you on the spot here a little bit, what are you seeing that is working in terms of list building kind of lead magnets type things?
Amy Crane [00:05:41]:
Yeah. So I am a big fan of just like lead Magnets, right? Checklists swipe files, templates. The reason I love these types of offers is, one, they work and they've worked for a long time. It's kind of one of those core business strategies that I just feel like works really well. The other thing that I love about these offers is that when you're new to ads, they're not going to be as expensive to promote as something like a Master class or webinar or even like a low ticket offer. So one of the biggest things I think people need to remember about ads is that the bigger the ask, the bigger the cost. And so that means you're going to need more budget. It takes a lot more budget to promote a low ticket offer compared to a freebie. So if you're just getting started and you don't have a big budget, start with the freebie because you can test your messaging, you can test what audiences work the best, and you can start to grow your list and then you can promote those other offers to your list. And then when you feel like if you've got a low ticket offer that's working really well and you've got the budget, then you can absolutely start running ads to that. But it's often not the best place to start for someone that's new and getting started with ads just because it gets expensive fast.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:06:58]:
So I love that. So just a regular lead magnet, start with that. Don't even worry about the webinars or the Master classes right now. Just regular PDF, checklist templates type thing. And I'm going to switch gears just a little bit because I know a lot of people who are listening. They may have run ads in the past, but they kind of stopped doing them when all of the iOS updates and changes have. I could put myself in that bucket, right? Really been doing that. And I'm like, I think I need to start back into there. So can you tell us a little bit about what strategies are working now after all of those iOS updates? Hopefully it's kind of like leveled out.
Amy Crane [00:07:45]:
It was a bit of a roller coaster there for a while, wasn't it? I mean, things that were working and then know we had all these extra steps we had to go through. So the good news is, I will say, kind of post iOS updates. One, Facebook has rolled back some of those extra steps. They added in, like, verifying your domain and doing the aggregated Event Manager, which is like the worst name for something like it just sounds more complicated than it needs to be they've rolled back some of those things. So we're kind of back to setting up ads how we used to pre iOS updates. And I will also say that the cost, it was definitely a roller coaster there for a while, and it was more expensive. And I think with all the changes to targeting Facebook, needed some time to sort it out. But I feel like now we're back at a place where I'm seeing cost that we used to see kind of pre iOS updates and ads are reporting better. So it's really kind of like we're getting back. But with that being said, ads are always changing, right? There's always going to be a new feature, a new update. But I do think that that's why those core strategies just focus on building your list, right? That's something that was consistent throughout all of the iOS updates and changes. That was one of the key strategies that just worked, right? Because once you've got people on your list, then you could promote those other things to them. I think we're out of that iOS craziness now. So that's the good news.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:09:22]:
Well, you've convinced me. I think I'm ready to kind of jump back in there after all of that craziness is gone. But I do want to kind of ask you about something because you talked about a little bit about the cost of ads. That's one of the things that we were seeing a year or two ago is it was crazy. I was trying to run webinar ads and I was having to pay like $1015, right? It was crazy. So what kind of return can we expect today if we're just doing maybe even just list building ads, which is what you suggest and I agree with.
Amy Crane [00:09:56]:
Yeah. So I think your return on ads is going to depend a lot on the offers and the funnels. And you don't even need a funnel, right, but how many offers you're making to your list. So you may not immediately see a return on Facebook ads because you are just focused on growing your list. And that's okay. But maybe you're growing your list because you know you're going to do a webinar in a couple of weeks. So you're building your list now, and you can nurture that audience and build that relationship knowing that when you go to do that Masterclass to launch your course or program, you're going to have people to launch that course or program too. And so hopefully that's where you're going to see that ROI from the Facebook ad. So it may not always be an immediate ROI or return on ad spend, but if you do have those funnels with those offers in Know, it could be anything from, like, a tripwire where maybe you're just trying to break even on your ads. Or maybe you've got higher ticket offers in there where you're seeing, like, a two, three, four return on ad spend. I will say that when it comes to return on ad spend, my biggest piece of advice is really look at the long term impact of Facebook ads. So someone joins your list now and they may not buy right away, but maybe they do buy two or three months down the road. So what does that long term return on ad spend? Of course that immediate return on ad spend is important but what's it also look like kind of longer term for your business and the impact that it has on your business.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:11:31]:
And kind of what I'm getting from this conversation is we need to always be list building. If we are always list building, then we're going to have that audience to tell to which will increase our return going down forward. So let's talk about let's say people are ready to jump on board, they're ready to start those list building ads. Can you talk about any things that they need to avoid or maybe mistakes that you see people making that are new to this?
Amy Crane [00:12:02]:
Yeah of mean the first one is just make sure you're following like Facebook ad policy. Right. So we've got to be really careful not to break any of the rules like weight loss claims and income claims can be really tricky. So you can't tell people they're going to make 100K in 90 days. We can't make promises like that. Right. So we've got to be really careful that we're not breaking any rules. But really the biggest thing that I find is that when you start ads and this is kind of a post iOS update thing is that it does take ads a little bit longer to optimize now. So you may notice that your ads are really slow. Like I started some master class ads a couple of weeks ago and I was just like, nothing's happening with these ads, no one's clicking, I'm not getting any sign ups. But after day two or day three it started to pick up and those leads started to come in and the cost started to come down. So it can just take your ads a little bit of time. So make sure you're giving them enough time to optimize. And if your ads are slow in the beginning, that's okay. You're probably not going to see leads pouring in right away. Facebook needs some time to get your ads into the feed and figure out who to get them in front of. The other thing I will say is that creative has always been important. But one of the other big shifts with the iOS updates is our targeting is a lot more broad now. We've just lost some of the targeting features we used to have and in general Facebook, we find that Facebook works better when we use really big, really broad audiences. And so it's even more important now that your creative is very clear who this offer is for. So having text on your images that clearly calls out who you're talking to, what this offer is for, who it's for, that's really going to be the most important part of your copy. People are going to see your image or your creative people are going to see your image first. That's what's going to get them to stop scrolling. And then your copy will be the next important part. But you can add as much text as you want. Now, we don't have the 20% rule anymore, but we find that adding really clear text to make sure that we're getting the right people to click, because targeting is a lot more broad now. So don't be afraid to add a lot of text, readable text right to your images.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:14:29]:
Well, I think that's a really good tip because there used to be a lot of restrictions. I would have ads get declined when they thought there was too much text on there.
Amy Crane [00:14:39]:
I know. And sometimes I was like, that's not text, Facebook. Yeah, and they had the text tool. We have to upload your image and see if it was too much know? Yeah, it was the pain, but now they don't have that, so we can have as much text as we want.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:14:55]:
Those are some great tips. Now, Amy, do you have any last minute tips or things you just want to mention before we wrap it up here?
Amy Crane [00:15:04]:
Yeah, I will just know with you know, I know we've talked a lot about list building, but I really believe that that is the best place to start. It's going to be the easiest place to start, the easiest campaign to run, the easiest campaign to manage. So don't feel like because you're not spending a ton on your Facebook ads or you're not running these complicated campaigns that they're not going to work. This is really one of those key foundational pieces of your business. So if you do just spend $10 a day on this, I can guarantee that you will start to see that traction in your business. So don't feel like you've got to spend a lot on your ads because Facebook is going to reward you for how good your ad is, not how much you're spending. So if you've got a great ad, you've got a great offer. Facebook is going to show your ad to more people, and hopefully that means your cost is going to be a little bit lower, but it's not going to be because you don't need to spend a ton of money on your ads to get those results.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:16:04]:
Now, Amy, can you let people know where they can find you? And I believe you have a free gift for them also.
Amy Crane [00:16:11]:
Yeah, of course they can find me@amycrane.com. And I've got some free ad templates. Those are actually they're on the homepage, too. So if you hop over to Amycrane.com, they're right there. And this is where I just break down a couple of my best performing ads that I've used to promote webinars workshops, my freebies grow, my membership. So I break down the images that I use, the copy that I use so you can see what these ads look like, and then you can use that to go and create your own ads. And there's some other goodies that I also give you along the way, too.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:16:48]:
And Amy, I believe you have a membership. Can you tell people a little bit more about that membership and how you support people who have courses or memberships that they want to promote via Facebook ads?
Amy Crane [00:17:00]:
Yeah. So our Amplify membership is probably where I spend the most time, and it's really perfect. I created Amplify for beginners, for anyone getting started with Facebook ads and on a budget. So we really walk you through how to set up these really simple campaigns step by step, so it's not overwhelming. My whole goal is just to make it really simple. And then every month, we also my favorite part is we drop new campaign assets and content to help you create your Facebook ads. So sometimes it's new ad images, sometimes it's opt in page templates, sometimes it's tripwire templates. So tons of cool stuff that you'll get every month to help you create gorgeous Facebook ads that you're excited to get out into the newsfeed.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:17:45]:
Amy, thank you so much for joining us today and kind of giving us the lowdown on where Facebook ads are today.
Amy Crane [00:17:54]:
Yeah, thank you you so much for having me. I love chatting with ads, and this has been so much fun.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:17:59]:
Thank you.