How To Use Ads Effectively in Your Social Media Marketing

If you are a small business owner, you might be wondering how to use ads to boost your digital marketing and social media marketing efforts. Ads can be a powerful tool for lead generation, brand awareness, and sales, but they can also be costly and ineffective if not done right.

It’s important to know some of the best practices when preparing to run ads, so that they can be an effective boost to your small business marketing, and not just an expensive suck on your time and resources.

Let’s get started:

Create a Good Base of Organic Content Before Running Ads

One of the first things we recommend before running social media ads or Google ads is to create a good base of organic content. Organic content is the content that you create and share on your website, blog, social media platforms, or other channels, without paying for it. Organic content can help you:

• Establish your authority and credibility in your industry

• Build trust and rapport with your audience

• Educate and inform your potential customers about your products or services

• Generate organic traffic and leads to your website or landing pages

• Improve your SEO and ranking on search engines

Often, we like to use a piece of organic content that has done well as an ad. For example, if we have a blog post that has received a lot of views, comments, shares, or likes, we might turn it into an ad and run it on Facebook, Google, or other platforms. Because it has done well organically, it will likely have good viewership and engagement as an ad, driving the cost down.

For example if you’re a personal trainer who offers online coaching and fitness programs, you might have a blog post titled “How to Lose 10 Pounds in 30 Days Without Starving Yourself”. If this blog post has received a lot of positive feedback and interest from your audience, and has maybe even generated some leads and sales for your coaching and programs, you can repurpose the blog post as an ad and target people who are interested in fitness, weight loss, health, or wellness. This way, you can reach a larger and more relevant audience, and drive more traffic and leads to your website or landing page.

Choose the Right Keywords for Your Ads

When running ads, one of the most important factors to consider is the keywords that you use. Keywords are the words or phrases that people use to search for something on search engines, such as Google or Bing. Keywords can also be used to target people who are interested in certain topics, categories, or niches on social media platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram.

When choosing keywords to run ads against, you are looking for web traffic that would not typically see you but would likely be interested in you.

Often we look at ads small businesses have run in the past, and they’re targeting their own name (i.e. paying Google to show an ad of your company when your organic result is likely the first shown anyway). So, instead of running an ad against Google searches of your brand name (when your brand name is searched, you are already often #1 on Google), try keywords that are related to your industry, niche, problem, solution, or offer.

For example, let’s say you’re the owner of “Pepper Potts Wedding Photography” and you offer high-quality and affordable photography services. Instead of running an ad against Google searches of “Pepper Potts Wedding Photography”, which will only collect people already looking for you, you might try keywords like:

• How to find a wedding photographer

• Wedding photography tips

• Wedding photography packages

• Best wedding photographers in Winnipeg

• Affordable wedding photography

These keywords are more specific and relevant to your target audience, and less likely to was dollars on people that are already looking for you specifically. They also indicate a higher level of interest and intent from the searcher, which means they are more likely to click on your ad and convert into a lead or customer.

Use the “Hook, Story, Offer” Framework for Your Ads

Another key factor to consider when running ads is the content and structure of your ads. You want your ads to be catchy, compelling, and convincing, so that they can attract, engage, and persuade your audience to take action. A simple and effective framework that we use for our ads is the “Hook, Story, Offer” framework. This framework consists of three elements:

• Hook: The hook is the first part of your ad that catches the attention of your audience. It can be a headline, an image, a video, a question, a statistic, a testimonial, or anything else that sparks curiosity, interest, or emotion. The hook should be relevant to your audience’s pain points, goals, desires, or challenges, and make them want to see more.

• Story: The story is the second part of your ad that gives context and background to your audience. It can be a short paragraph, a bullet point list, a video, a testimonial, or anything else that tells your audience who you are, what you do, how you can help them, and why they should trust you. The story should be relatable, authentic, and credible, and make your audience feel connected to you and your offer.

• Offer: The offer is the final part of your ad that presents your solution and calls your audience to action. It can be a button, a link, a coupon, a discount, a free trial, a free consultation, or anything else that entices your audience to take the next step. The offer should be irresistible, valuable, and clear, and make your audience feel like they are getting a great deal.

For example, let’s say you are a dog groomer who offers mobile grooming services. You might use the following ad:

• Hook: You don’t you want your dog to look and feel amazing without leaving your home, do you?

• Story: At Dogs ‘R’ Us, we’re professional dog groomers who loves dogs and know how to make them happy. We offer mobile grooming services, which means we come to your home with our fully equipped van and groom your dog in a safe, comfortable, and convenient way. You don’t have to worry about driving, parking, waiting, or stressing your dog out. We have over 10 years of experience and hundreds of satisfied customers who can vouch for my quality and reliability.

• Offer: For a limited time, we’re offering a 20% off coupon for your first mobile grooming session. Just click the button below and book your appointment today. Your dog will thank you for it!

Set and Manage Your Ads Budget

One of the most common questions that we get from our clients is how to set and manage their ads budget. On a general level: spend as much as you possibly can.

We’ll explain:

Let’s say your average customer spends $400 a month with you for a year before cancelling, and it costs you $325 to deliver your services every month.

This means the average lifetime gross profit per customer is $900:

• ($400-$325) = $75 <-gross profit per purchase

• $75 x 12 (purchasing monthly for a year) = $900 <-lifetime gross profit

With that in mind, we typically want to see your cost to acquire a customer less than 1/3 of their lifetime gross profit (under $300). So, you can spend up to $300 to get a new customer.

Unfortunately, that means you’ll have to wait 4 months to be paid back (in profit) for acquiring that customer ($300 cost to acquire a customer / $75 gross profit per month = 4 months)

Ideally, we’d like to either get your cost to acquire a customer below $75 (by running more efficient advertising with better hooks, stories, and offers), get the gross profit of the first purchase above $300 (by using add-ons, bonuses, guarantees, or upsells to increase the value of their first purchase), or some combination of the two. This way, your profit from their first purchase pays for the cost to acquire them and you no longer need to wait the 4 months to acquire another customer.

There are a number of different metrics you’ll be given when you’re running ads with the proper tracking in place, but typically they’re: cost per click (CPC), cost per lead (CPL), cost per acquisition (CPA), your conversion rate (CR), and your return on ad spend (ROAS).

ROAS is tricky because it’ll typically be given to you from Google/Meta/LinkedIn based on revenue generated from the sale. So, if you spend $100 to get a sale of $400, it’ll show a ROAS of 4x. But, because it doesn’t account for your expenditures in delivering, that ROAS is .75x ($100 in ad spend, $75 gross profit on the sale).

From the amount of people that see your ad, people will drop off at every stage. Let’s say you spend $100 on an ad that is shown to 1,000 people.

800 people click on the ad. $100/800 = $0.125 = CPC

200 people enter their information and sign up for a call from you. $100/200 = $0.50 = CPL

50 people purchase from you. $100/50 = $2.00 = CPA

The ad was shown to 1,000 people, and 50 bought. 50/1,000 = 0.05 or 5% = CR

Increasing how many people click on, sign up, or purchase through better hooks, sales processes, or offers all result in more purchases and a lower CPA. This means that a single purchase will eventually cover the cost of acquiring a new customer, or multiple new customers. This is how you get customers to pay you to get more customers.

When your cost to acquire a customer drops below the gross profit of the first purchase, it’s a never-ending cycle. You’ll only be limited by the number of customers you can take on at a time, and the amount of money you currently have in the bank to spend on ads.

In the end, ads can be an amazing way to grow your company, expand your small business marketing, and capitalize on what your digital marketing can be. With a little work to create a compelling ad and offer, and understanding your numbers, running ads doesn’t need to be as daunting as it seems.