00:00 You are listening to the scaling and Freedom podcast. I’m your host, Christina Bernhardt. And this week, we are talking about our Facebook ads still worth it.

00:07 I’ve been so excited to do this episode. I’ve actually been wanting to do this episode for a long time, because as you can imagine, this is a question I get all the time. And it’s something that I’ve heard so many people talk about in the past year. And we know what happened last year with the iOS updates. So a lot has changed. And I have been running ads since 2015, I started in the corporate world. So in the last seven years, a lot has definitely changed. But there have been more changes in the past two years, then the entire seven. So much has changed. And so I can see why people might come to this conclusion, or might be asking this because they things have just, they’re so different than the way that they used to be. So before I dive into the different changes, and what these changes mean, and whether this whether Facebook ads are worth it, I’m going to just answer the question. Yes, they are still worth it. Absolutely. And in my opinion, as long as people are still on these platforms, and they’re affordable, it’s going to be worth it. So if they are still worth it, and you know, from my perspective, having an agency, our clients are still getting really great returns, and they’re getting great results using ADS. Why are people saying this? Why are people you know, coming to the conclusion that they’re not worth it. And I’m going to run over some ideas that I have. And I’m gonna go kind of on a little bit of a rant here, probably. But really, I think the reason, the biggest reason why people have come to this conclusion is because, you know, before we actually used to be able to be a little lazy, like, I’m going to be honest, Facebook ads were super, super cheap, especially whenever I first started them, they were so cheap, you could get leads for like 50 cents, the CPMs were so so low, the visibility was really strong. Meaning that Facebook had all of the data, it could connect, or associated the different behaviors with the ads. And another thing that I don’t hear very many people talk about as much. But I do believe that back in the day, like a couple, before, a couple years ago, or before last year, at least, Facebook ads data was likely a little bit inflated. And the reason I say this is because you know, we used to be able to do a 28 day attribution window. And that means that if someone clicked on your ad, and they converted within 2828 day period, it would associate it with that ad. Now, there could have been so many other steps and things that have happened in that 28 day period that actually, we should take the credit for the conversion, but Facebook would still take credit for it now, did it play a role in it? Probably. But it might be a little bit inflated, right. So there were probably other things that happened in that 28 day period. Now, it’s a seven day period. And that’s, you know, we’re also dealing with some lack of visibility due to the tracking issues and all that. And I have an episode about that as well. So I won’t go into that specifically right now. But the another thing with the visibility is that whenever Facebook ads, whenever ads manager has that kind of visibility, the algorithm Tark targeting capabilities were super, super strong. So the the algorithm was able to target people based on their behavior a little bit more. So that was a lot stronger before. And also the ad space was just less saturated. So that also made them super cheap. So there were lots of things that were going on back in the day that made Facebook ads, like really, really amazing. And they still are really amazing. But they are a different game now. And all this means is that you can’t exactly and what I mean by being lazy is that we used to be able to just put something out there sometimes not even good ad content, to be honest, like there used to be so many terrible ads. And but they were so cheap that even if they didn’t convert that well, like you still got a return because it was just so cheap. It was just so easy. And also, you know, with that visibility that Facebook had, the algorithm could really dial in on who to target within your targeted audiences. And then again, we had the whole issue where the data was likely a little bit inflated. But because now it is a different game. All it means is that now you need a legit ads manager now. It’s different. But it’s not like ruined or anything. It just is different. And you do have to actually have some skill. And your offers have to actually be really, really good and you just can’t be lazy with the messaging and all of that has to be written very dialed in.

04:58 So let’s talk About a little bit about the changes, so that we can just get that out of the way. So we have tracking has changed. So we lost visibility for reporting. So we’re less reliant on the pixel. Because if people opt out, then we can actually capture their movements beyond the pixel, we have that shorter attribution window, that’s only seven days versus the 28 days. So if someone converts a long time away, we don’t actually we can actually attribute that this is a bigger deal for higher ticket things. So like low cost ecommerce, things like they probably aren’t taking as much of a hit because of that attribution window. But all of my clients are coaches, and they have high ticket programs. So we used to have so much more visibility on what was happening within an entire launch, because launches almost always less than a month. And so we were able to actually see from the hype event to whether they purchased. Now we don’t really have as much of that visibility inside of ads manager, we had to find other ways to get it. And then the other thing that changed was the algorithm lost the visibility as well. So the algorithm, you know, that data, we didn’t just use it to show our clients or our clients could see also the algorithm actually use that data to know who to target retarget within that audience. Another thing that has changed is the targeting has changed. So we have less targeting options. there because there’s less visibility and people’s behavior, it means that Facebook is not able to put as many people into specific targeting options based on their behavior, because Facebook doesn’t have that visibility of seeing what kind of sites people are on or what kind of behavior they’re having outside of the app, there is still a ton of data on people for sure, like Facebook did not lose all their data, they still have a ton of data, they know a lot about us, trust me. But it has changed. And so it is something where you can actually be lazy. And I don’t know if lazy is even the right word, maybe I shouldn’t even say lazy but like you can’t skip out on like fundamental good marketing anymore. Where as before, I felt like you kind of could in some situation. So let’s talk about what these changes mean. So the first thing is that you or your ads manager or whoever is running your ads, they must be on top of everything. Like things are changing so much this is more important than ever, like I said, out of the last seven years, the last two years of the seven years have changed. Let me rephrase out of the last two years, there have been more changes that I’ve seen as an ads manager than the last seven years that I’ve been running ads, it is more important than ever. Your ads manager needs to be skill building like no other they need to listen to all the podcasts, you need to listen to a read all the newsletters, go to all the conferences, it take all the courses, everything staying on top of these things really require you to be really in this world. I in my opinion, I feel like ads are not something you can just dabble in. So if you are someone who does lots of different things, that’s going to be very, very difficult. Ideally, the person running your ads is only doing ads and really focusing on that. Because it really does take a lot to stay on top of this stuff. And this is also why I personally would stay clear of like either solo ads managers that do lots of different things, or small agencies that do lots of different things. I’m not saying that they can’t stay on top of it. I’m just saying that staying on top of these things just requires you to be so engrained in the world of ads, I personally cannot imagine offering any other service, because it just it’s so much and maybe it will level out and you don’t have to be so ingrained it but for me to have high performance for my clients, I have to be on top of everything and consuming everything and constant skill building.

09:05 So that’s a really, really important thing that I think people are maybe missing. Because if you are having a situation where after last year, those big changes, there’s just been a complete plummet in your ad performance, and you’ve yet to be able to get it back up or even get it profitable. Because now we’re looking at a year past that happening, then it’s definitely just because you’re not shifting your strategy and doing the things that the way works. Now, if you’re still doing the old practices that used to work, yeah, you’re you’re likely not getting quite the return that you were by a longshot probably. So your ads manager must be really, really on top of all these things. The other thing is your ads manager must be in strong practice. So not only does it take consuming all of These things being on top of this stuff, whether it’s your ads manager, or it’s you running your ads, whoever’s running your ads, you have to also be in lots and lots and lots of practice, and especially being a coach or in the info space. And the reason why I mentioned info marketing is that a lot of strategies or suggestions that are out there, they don’t apply the same way to info marketing, by info marketing, I mean, that you’re selling digital courses, coaching programs, things like that, versus like E commerce products, a lot of the suggestions or strategies out there, they’re more for E commerce or maybe even massive audiences, just different scenarios, your strategy is going to be unique to you. There’s so many things that’s going to determine whether a suggested strategy is right for you like how much data is in your account, how big are your audiences? How many custom audiences have you been able to capture? What is the price point of your products? How does your funnel convert? What are your business goals, there are all these different variables that really impact your strategy and what works and what doesn’t. So if you’re kind of like only half listening to things, and halfway, staying in the loop on things, and you’re trying to just implement the things that you hear, you really do need to be again, ingrained in all of it and in strong, strong practice of it so that you know, what works when what doesn’t work when you know, and all the different variables so that you can see a holistic picture and know what the right move is. Right, the right next step is for you. The other thing is that your messaging must be dialed in. This is where I’m talking, I’m referring mostly to getting away with being lazy, it just doesn’t work anymore. The targeting capabilities of ads used to be so good that if your messaging wasn’t completely dialed in, it’s still like found your people. But now with less targeting capabilities or less visibility, with the algorithm, you really do, like your stuff has to be really good. We cannot like half assed creatives, and coffee and stuff like that, and just throw that out there and get these amazing results. for super cheap like we used to back in the day, it does take more, it does take more intention. It really does take that kind of talent, but also you like going through the motions in doing your market research and really testing out the different messaging organically and just having something that really does work. You need to have all that stuff in place before you put ad spend behind it. So that is those are the biggest reasons that I think people are seeing this and having this conversation. So that’s why I wanted to just have this conversation and put it on the podcast, because it is something that I hear about all the time. And it makes perfect sense. Like as someone who does ads, and looks from the outside looking in, but also in the inside seeing how other people are responding to these things. I can see why people are saying these things. But I wanted to just like break out why, like why this is happening, and why you might be having this kind of experience and what these changes mean. And the ultimate thing is that these changes just need someone who really knows what they’re doing. So you know, if you’re running your own Facebook ads, and you want to keep it that way, you really do have to do a lot of skill building. And if you are outsourcing your ads, and you know that your offer works organically but the ads are not working, then you know, maybe talk to them about skill, building your and that sort of thing. So I just wanted to bring this on the podcast. But that is what I have for you today.

13:50 The biggest thing is just, you know, being involved in these changes and just staying on top of it because things are changing. But it does not mean that ads are not worth it, that ads don’t work. There are lots of people still on the platform. They’re very active on the platform. There’s no denying that. And as long as people’s attention are on the platform, it’s likely going to be a great product still. So that is what I have for you today. I will see you guys next week.