180: Mastering Meta Ads for Creative Entrepreneurs with Laura Ball
See the show notes for this Episode here.
This transcript has been automatically generated.
Bonnie Christine:
Welcome back to The Professional Creative. I'm Bonnie. And today we're diving into a topic that's on the mind of so many creative business owners, and that is digital advertising, specifically how meta ads can be a really powerful tool to grow your business. So whether you are an artist, a designer, or any type of creative entrepreneur, today's conversation will help you see how ads can fit into your strategy with insights that you can actually apply. Joining me today is Laura Ball. Now Laura is my personal ads manager. She's an expert in meta ads who's helped clients achieve incredible results from 6 figure ad spends to multimillion dollar launches. You're in for a real treat.
Bonnie Christine:
Let's go to Laura.
Bonnie Christine:
I'm Bonnie Christine, and this is where all things creativity, design, business, and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains running a multi 7 figure business doing the most creative and impactful work of my life.
Bonnie Christine:
But when I first set
Bonnie Christine:
out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today, I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to The Professional Creative Podcast.
Bonnie Christine:
Laura has been in marketing and communications for over 15 years and she specializes in meta advertising. She works with impact driven entrepreneurs to help them grow their businesses through digital products, services, and strategic ad campaigns. And Laura has been my meta ad specialist for, my goodness, Laura, several years, like 4 or 5?
Laura Ball:
I think Well, I think we're going on 4. Yeah.
Bonnie Christine:
4. Laura, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.
Laura Ball:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.
Bonnie Christine:
I am so excited to introduce you to my audience because I have just adored working with you so incredibly much, and they're gonna just love you too. I think I think you make something that is overwhelming and complicated, so simple and easy to digest.
Laura Ball:
Oh, thank you. Yes. I try to because it it is a little intimidating, and it's a little scary, especially when you're spending your own money on ads. And it's nice to kinda have a a wing person, you know, in your corner kinda showing you the ropes and do this or try that, and it's okay. And Yeah.
Laura Ball:
It's
Laura Ball:
a little stressful, so I get it.
Bonnie Christine:
It sure is. Though I would not say you're my wing person. You are the pilot, Laura. So I kinda wanna go back to the beginning. You've worked in marketing for over a decade, specializing in meta ads. Tell me what first led you to doing this. What led you down this path, and what drew you into helping creatives specifically amplify their reach?
Laura Ball:
Yeah. So, well, I've been marketing and communications is my background. I was in kind of corporate for a while, and then I decided to be a stay at home mom. And I got a little antsy and was wanting to kind of use my skill set and really kinda dive into marketing again. And I found Facebook advertising, believe it or not, through Amy Porterfield's first course called jump start to Facebook ads. Like Okay. Like yeah. It was back in, I wanna say, 2017, and it was a little, like, $97 course, and I just fell in love.
Laura Ball:
And I think the reason why I fell in love so much is because I'm very results driven, and it gives it gave me that that opportunity to get results for people quickly, whether it's leads or sales or whatever it might be. And, also, the targeting, which has changed since, was so robust. And I loved the fact that if you were looking for the 40 old woman who liked yoga and shopped at Whole Foods, I can serve an ad to that person. I just it excited me because I think my love of marketing. It has changed since then, but we can kinda get into that a little bit later. But that's kind of where I started. And, I think it because I'm able to help creatives kind of share their message. I'm very passionate about education, and all of my clients are very, impact driven, and they want to serve their audience and help them have better lives through their businesses.
Laura Ball:
And, so by helping my clients educate people around the world, it just it it just kind of is full circle for me. It just really, it sits very well with me. It's, and that's important to me. So, yeah, that's kinda how I got started.
Bonnie Christine:
I think that's why I love working with you so much because we just very much have the same heart. We very much see the world in similar ways. And and I'm super passionate about paid traffic because I spent 10 years growing organically, which I think is super important, still a focus. But also just the moment that you decide to take a bet on yourself, on your business, and put a little bit of paid traffic behind what you're doing, everything changed. And it's at our fingertips. It's something that we all have access to, which I think is so incredibly powerful. But also, I'm a big fan of not doing everything ourselves, especially when it's not in our zone of genius. And so while I did spend a few years tinkering with my own ads, having you come on board to do them has been the best decision I've ever made.
Bonnie Christine:
So I think everyone would probably love to hear a little bit more about some of the projects we've worked on. And I was gonna let you pick 1. Like, what what has been one of your favorite, projects with team Bonnie that you've worked on?
Laura Ball:
So before we started the ebook, I would say launches, because I love launches. I love live launches. I love the excitement. I kind of, like, thrive on the stress a little bit. It's a little stressful, but it's more excitement than anything. And, again, knowing that we're gonna see these big results at the end, it just is really exciting. But when we started the ebook, like, that just kind of got underneath me. Like, seeing those instant results and the ROAS for these for the for the for this off, I was like, oh my goodness.
Laura Ball:
Oh my goodness. Like, it's just it again, because I'm so results driven, I wanna I wanna get the results for my clients, and then I wanna figure out how can we get them to be better. You know, not kind of, you know, sit there, but, like, how can we improve them? So, I love your ebook. And I think with your ebook, it's just it it touches everything. It's the perfect offer for the perfect person for the perfect price point. It has all of the all of the things, and it works. And so, that's been exciting me so much. And so I I'm I'm excited to kind of expand on that.
Laura Ball:
Not only, you know, I'm not a funnel expert, but I'm like, okay. Well, how else can we generate more revenue? Like, let's have an order bump. Let's have a one time offer. Let's do this. Let's do that. And and, again, it's just kind of following it all along and tracking it and seeing where we're moving the needle and where we're not moving the needle and how do we improve that. So that just excites me. I just I get nerdy when I look at that.
Bonnie Christine:
Yeah. So the ebook Laura's talking about is our licensing handbook. If you wanna go look at it, it's bonniechristine.com/handbook. And we have been running paid traffic to this, and the goal has been for the ads to just pay for themselves. Like, if we could break even, right, we're happy. And we've gone beyond that. So you you mentioned ROAS. Explain what ROAS is.
Laura Ball:
Yeah. ROAS is the return on ad spend. So if we've spent $5,000 on, ads, What did we make? Did we make $10,000? So it would you know, we're more than breaking even. So that's what we're really looking for. And with something like an ebook, it is important to to mention because I I've see so many, like, I see so many ads saying, oh, just do this, and you'll become a millionaire and, you know, like, have this little tiny offer, and you can do this. And it with small products like this, it is about, like you said, breaking even and really kind of creating a list of buyers. So that's the benchmark. But, of course, with me, I'm like, I wanna make money.
Laura Ball:
I wanna make I wanna make a little bit. Let's make a little bit more money. You know? How can we do that? Yeah. So it's having somebody on your team that's not only, like, just okay with breaking even, but how can we increase it a little bit? So yeah.
Bonnie Christine:
Yeah. Like, what if you could just grow your email list for free because you're running ads to a small offer? We call that self liquidating. It's a beautiful thing.
Laura Ball:
It is. It is. And it's really trying and and it's something that requires a lot of testing and tweaking. Yours out the gate just kind of, like, hit it. Like, it really did. And so
Bonnie Christine:
We're really proud of our handbook. We're really proud we're really mostly proud of the results it's giving you.
Laura Ball:
Yeah. It's it is. It's amazing. It is. And so having an offer like that and it just but for some people, it doesn't work that way. And so it it is important to test and see where the bottlenecks are. What are they getting to the landing page? Are they are they not converting? Are they getting to the checkout page? Where where is the drop off and and kinda working through that?
Bonnie Christine:
So talk to me a little bit about your approach when it comes to creating ads for creative entrepreneurs. There's often these there's 2 parts to every ad. Right? The creative and the copy. Well, there's more than that too, like the the headline and the CTA and all this stuff. But when I think about it, the biggest two, right, are the creative and the copy. But I would just love to hear from your perspective what your approach is.
Laura Ball:
Yeah. So I would say it, it kinda depends. So, I have a lot of clients that have creative teams. So, they will provide me with copy. I try to provide them with suggestions, and I think the the main theme with meta ads these days is variety. Any, ad manager I talk to, meta rep, we now have a meta rep, which is very exciting. And so I've been learning a lot from them. And having a variety of different creative is key.
Laura Ball:
So static images, reels, videos, b roll, GIFs, anything with movement. Having the messaging on the copy, be something very, like, what's in it for them? So you wanna you wanna kinda provide the you know, what's what's the transformation that this person's going to get when they download this freebie or buy this product? But variety is important because not everybody watches videos, So we want to make sure that we're appealing to people who like the static images, like, you know, the reels, like videos, like b roll. So variety is probably the one of the biggest words that I've been telling clients as far as creative and copy. And speaking directly to your avatar, so that you're you're you're you're kind of getting in their feed, and you're they're saying, yes. That's me. That is me. I am the creative person, and, you know, you're repelling people that, are not your your avatar.
Bonnie Christine:
We would never wanna propel someone, though. Right, Laura? Wow. I'm just kidding. I think that's something that's super hard for us to wrap our arms around. But one of the most important things, right, is why I always talk about it as, like, you wanna be a magnet. You wanna attract the people that are right to you and equally repel the people that are not right for you. And that can be, you know, challenging, but it's so important. Mhmm.
Laura Ball:
It is. It is.
Bonnie Christine:
Okay. So you talked a bit about how targeting has changed over the years. So I would love for you to just dive into targeting. What is true today? I think probably one of the biggest concerns of our audience is, like, how to figure that out, how to even get your ad in front of the right people. So talk to me about how that's evolved and what you're seeing today.
Laura Ball:
Yeah. This has been a very tough pill for me to swallow, and it's something that I have to kind of, embrace and really lean into because Facebook is moving away from advertiser inputs for targeting and more algorithm driven targeting. And by that, I mean, it's using your pixel data, your ad creative, your ad copy to find the right people. So it's literally crawling the images and reading your copy and trying to use that along with your data on people who've already opted in or purchased to find more of those people. And it's less about the she follows Amy Porterfield, or she follows Marie Forleo. Those are now going to be seen as more suggestions. So we really don't know where Facebook is kind of we're we're having to trust Facebook. And as an ads manager, that is so hard to do.
Laura Ball:
We're trying we have to but we have to learn to trust this machine, to to find us the right people. Facebook is definitely getting a little bit more streamlined with their how people build campaigns. They want it to be simplified. So they're requiring less inputs, and they're saying, hey. Let us do the job. Let us do the work. We will find you the right people. And that's something that's hard to kind of wrap your head around, because we want the control, and I am very controlling.
Laura Ball:
And so as for as long as it I've been doing this, I've been trying to control who the audience who the ads are being seen to. But now there is something called audience expansion. And even if you put, you know, specific detail targeting in there, audience expansion is on by default. There is no way to turn that off. So Facebook, if the algorithm feels you're going to get better results outside of that scope of the audience, it's going to serve ads to those people. Now there are ways to, you know, exclude people still. So if, you know, somebody purchased this product before, you don't want them to see an ad. There is a way to do that.
Laura Ball:
But it is getting a little bit more broader, and I can see them really going away with inputs and detailed targeting and moving over to just completely broad targeting, which is scary. But, it does work because I've used it for your campaigns, and we are generating sales, not just leads, but generating sales, using the broad targeting. So I think advertisers really need to try to embrace it. There is a way to switch back where, you know, there's in the ad set level, there's a way to switch back to the original placements, and most people are still doing that, but I'm trying to lean into those changes. So I think it's really important to dial in on that creative and and have the creative you know, we say it's gotta be scroll stopping. And scroll stopping could, you know, really is something that resonates very well with your audience. And for you, for your brand, you know, it's seeing the fabric and seeing you designing something, and people are like, oh, I do that, and I wanna do more of that, and I wanna have a business that does that, and I wanna make these products. So really kind of, a lot of video and b roll, work very well with that, and that's going to kinda feed the algorithm and, hopefully, show it to the people that are interested.
Bonnie Christine:
I get lost in all of it in the the best way. I love it so much. I'm such a nerd with it. So when you when you talk about creative, and let's talk about copy too. So copy is the written part of an ad and and the creative is the image or the video part of the ad. What are you seeing? Or are you seeing anything that just really seems to work? Is there, like, a type of copy or a hook, or is there a type of image right now that you're seeing is just working, or is it truly a matter of testing?
Laura Ball:
It's it's honestly a matter of test it well, it's a matter of testing because every client's account is so different. So I'll give you an example, not necessarily on copy, but I have a a client who's a pet photographer. And, I've been working with her for years, and she does a summit every year. And so for me, as a business owner who runs Facebook ads, when I see an ad for a summit, I wanna see who's speaking. Like, who are the speakers? What am I you know, what are what are what who's on there? But so we run ad creative that features all the speakers, And then we run ads that talk about better high speed edits of, you know, like b roll, so what they're going to learn at the summit. So for specifically for this summit, it was about editing. So we did a lot of before and after images. Like, here's an image now, and here's after the editing.
Laura Ball:
And those images performed better, and I think it's because you know, which is surprising to me because I would think it would be the opposite. So it's just a matter of testing. And now that we have that data, we do more of what is working, and just kind of different variations. But as far as copy, I think, I just recently got back from a a conference, and, Ryan Dice, who is, the CEO of Digital Marketer, he was talking about problem statements and really dialing in on those problem statements that these people are having. They have a problem. You have the solution. What is the how how is your product going to solve that problem? So but we've tested various different hooks. We've tested urgency hooks, benefit statements, problem statements, any you know, a lot of different create a lot of different copy hooks to see where we're moving the needle.
Laura Ball:
And for one of your campaigns, the urgency one is definitely, performing best. And it's that FOMO. They don't wanna miss out on this limited time offer or, you know, this deal. So I think but I think having a variety of different copies and seeing letting the data tell you what's working and, again, trusting that Facebook is is serving it to the people that are going to eventually convert into a as a buyer.
Bonnie Christine:
Mhmm. So one mistake that I think I made, and probably lots of people do similarly, is that for many, many years, I would run ads around surrounding a launch. And I used to think about it almost like a faucet. I'd turn the water on. I'd turn it off. And after, you know, we would run a campaign, I would just turn it completely off for months. And a couple of years ago, we started focusing on at least a trickle year round is just having some some paid traffic running in the background, whether we were actively promoting something or not. And so can you talk to me about ongoing ads? Do you recommend them? And then why are they so beneficial?
Laura Ball:
Yeah. I mean gosh. So a lot of a lot of things. We, it takes you know, I mean, you've heard this. It takes, like, 7 to 13 touch points before somebody takes action on a product. So, it it takes time to nurture people that are, you know, new to this brand. A lot of times, people might not buy right away. There are people that are ready to buy, but then there's people that are the thinkers that wanna wait and wanna get to know you and understand you and trust you.
Laura Ball:
So running ongoing ads, whether it's awareness ads or list building ads or a combination of both, I know we do both. We do some podcast ads sometimes. It brings in that cold traffic during the times when you're not launching, and it allows you to nurture them throughout those months. So they're getting emails from you. You they're opening the emails from you. They're seeing the the podcast. They're listening to the podcast. They're engaging with your ManyChat bot.
Laura Ball:
So they're they're taking those steps during the off times, the off periods, so that we're priming them and ready for that main offer. It also helps to reduce the cost. I will always run ads to your warm audience once we have, like, your main workshop, going, or when it's starting. But and the the lead costs are typically cheaper for your warm audience because they know, like, and trust you. They know you're going you know, they know what you're about. And so when we bring those leads in, they're cheaper, and they tend to convert at a higher rate because they've been on your list for a while. And we know that I mean, I've had several clients that have had people on their list for years that haven't purchased, and then finally, they purchase. So it takes that time to to nurture them.
Laura Ball:
And as far as the types of ads that people could do, we've done just general awareness campaigns. I kind of have this waterfall strategy where we're, bringing in cold traffic through a video and, they're engaging with the video. They're watching it. They're clicking on it. They're commenting. And then after seeing that video, they see a series of other ads that are just, there's no call to action. It's just, this is who I am. This is my brand.
Laura Ball:
It could be testimonials. It could be authority building ads, behind the scenes. People love seeing you in your garden and your family. Just getting to know you as a person, because people wanna buy from a person and not a logo, you know, or a business or a brand. They wanna buy from you, Bonnie. So they love seeing that. And so that those ads are generally run after immersion closes, and, we just bring people in. And then eventually, what I'll do is retarget them with, hey.
Laura Ball:
Here's a free lead magnet. Here's a guide, and then here's an ebook and things like that. So, yeah, I think it's just it's just really important. Even if it's a very small budget, you can do an awareness strategy like that for, you know, $10 a day, $300 a month. And I think with marketing, it's part of your business. You have to market your business, and you have to pay for that. I think of billboards. Like, the beauty with Facebook ads is you can measure these results.
Laura Ball:
You can see what you're getting or what you're not getting or where the issues are. You pay $60,000 for a billboard. You have no idea if people are if if that what what the return on ad spend is for that. So that's why I think I love Facebook ads and any kind of digital marketing ads, really, because you can measure the results of it. So, yeah, I think every business just has to have a small marketing budget, whether it's $300 for, you know, a month or $30,000 a month. You know, we have to kinda start somewhere. So
Bonnie Christine:
You know, I think the person that has the hardest time with this are those of us who've been around for a while and we're so used to kind of building it and people just come. And it actually just doesn't work like that anymore because of the way, you know, everything is built now. It really is worth adding a little boost to what you're already doing just to get it seen by more people. Like, it's kind of like working smarter, not harder. Do you ever look at beautiful patterns on fabric or gift wrap and think, could I create something like that? Imagine seeing your designs come to life in the same way. Well, now you can with Start Simple, my free mini class series in fabric, gift wrap, and wallpaper design. And yes, it's totally beginner friendly, no experience needed. Imagine taking a simple sketch or doodle and transforming it into a beautiful pattern, ready to print and hold in your own hands.
Bonnie Christine:
In these quick, beginner friendly classes, I'll guide you step by step through the essentials, doodling, turning your doodles into digital art, creating custom color palettes, and creating your very first repeating pattern. And the best part, you'll finish with a real product. I'll teach you how to export and upload to my favorite places to get your own custom fabric, gift wrap, or wallpaper in your hands. It's amazing to see your vision brought to life in this way. Whether you're looking to play or explore or maybe even kick start a whole new side hustle, start simple is the perfect way to get started. Plus, it's absolutely free. Go sign up at bonniechristine.com/startsimple. I can't wait to see what you make.
Bonnie Christine:
This is the perfect, no pressure, joyful way to explore your creativity. Sign up today at bonniechristine.com/startsimple, and let's make something beautiful together. So let's talk to the person who's maybe never run an ad or they're they're convinced and they're gonna consider it in the next 12 months. Can you talk about a handful of things, maybe 3 things that you would suggest they do or be have ready or prepare before they even get to, like, the campaign level?
Laura Ball:
Yeah. So the first thing, I think one of the most important things is to lock down your business account. And when I say that, I mean, you know, you will create you know, most people will have an ads manager or business manager, and that's just the DAF board that you're using to the live in the ads. You wanna make sure 2 factor authentication is turned on for everyone in that business.
Bonnie Christine:
Yes. Yes. You do. Been there, done that with you, Laura.
Laura Ball:
Yeah. So hackers will find a way to get in. So I think that's probably the biggest, most important thing. Make sure you're kind of locked down. Make sure the people that are in there are are the ones that are either running the ad accounts or own the ad account. We don't want too many people in there because we also don't know what what our team members have on the outside of their business. Like, they might have multiple Facebook personal profiles, and that is sometimes frowned upon with Facebook, and somebody can get in that way. And so I think just kinda keeping it really tight, knowing who's in there, and, also, having a trusted partner as, you know, in your business as well.
Laura Ball:
So, God forbid, you get you know, something happens with your ad account, and you have a way of getting into your ad account through your spouse or a business partner or a team member or things like that. So the that is probably the biggest thing I would say. Make sure it's, you know, locked down and everything's connected properly. The other thing would be tracking. I'm kind of obsessed with tracking, because, again, I'm very results driven, and I wanna know for sure if we're spending this money, we're getting this money back, or we're getting these amount of leads back. And sometimes Facebook lies. I had I was on a coaching call with someone, and she was kind of new to ads. And she was like, hey.
Laura Ball:
I you know, I'm seeing you know, we're getting, like, you know, 30 sales a day. It's great. You know, I've been reporting this back to the client, and I'm like, have you checked in your CRM and your, payment processor that you're in fact seeing those sales? And she was like like, she turned white. And I was like, don't always trust Facebook because the tracking, although we have the Facebook Pixel and we have CAPI, which is conversions API, Those are just 2 pieces of tracking, you know, where you can track the server, you can track data that comes from the servers, data that comes from the, the browser. That helps, but it's always it's not always perfect. So always go back to what you see in your client's CRM to make sure that's a true, you know, return on ad spend, and and those results are definitely accurate. And if it's not accurate, you kinda have to figure out why it's not accurate. Why is it over reporting or under reporting? So so that's one thing.
Laura Ball:
That's the second thing is tracking. And the third thing I would say is just know what your know what your strategy is going to be. Know what your goal is. If you want to grow your email list, okay. Well, how much am I willing to spend, and I'll get into this in a minute, and lose, possibly, to to grow your email list? So, do you have historical data? If you have historical data and you've run ads before and you know maybe your lead costs are $5 or $2, then you know, okay. Well, if I wanna get a 1,000 leads, I need to spend x amount of dollars. So know what your goal is. Know that you're whether you're list building or you're doing an SLO, which is self liquidating offer, or if you're doing, you know, a sales campaign or a webinar, know what the have everything buttoned up.
Laura Ball:
Not only just on the ad side, but have your funnel buttoned up. What is the journey that this person is going to go through? They're gonna opt in. Do you have emails ready, for them to get, to nurture them, to put offers in front of them? Have those things kind of laid out. And, literally, you can just do it on a piece of paper. Like, here's an ad, and then they're gonna go to this landing page and then this thank you page, and then they're gonna get a series of emails and, and then track them throughout the whole journey to see where they're dropping off. So those would be the the big things. There is so much more, but there those would be the big things. I think just boosting posts is probably not a great strategy.
Laura Ball:
Boosting posts, because inside of ads manager, there's different objectives. So if I want leads, I will select a specific ad objective. If I want sales, I want a specific ad objective. When you boost posts, the objective for that is to get eyes on it. So in some cases, it's good. If you just want engagement or you want somebody to watch a video or make a comment or share it, then that's great. But if you want them to take action, like buy something or opt in for something, another objection objective would be better for that. So, boosting post is not always the the best strategy.
Laura Ball:
It's can be used absolutely in the mix, but not the only thing.
Bonnie Christine:
Okay. That was really helpful. I love just as just mapping it out on a piece of paper to see what the flow even is to make sure that you've got all the boxes checked. Super smart. I want you to talk data driven decision, and I think a lot of people kind of stand at the edge of Facebook ads because they feel like they might be throwing money down the toilet. And it's really not the case. If you track the right things, you can be assured that you're getting the results that you want where you want them. So talk to me about what data you like to track.
Bonnie Christine:
Facebook tracks absolutely everything, and you can kinda pick and choose what you wanna pay attention to. So what are, like, the top few pieces of data that you love to track for a campaign?
Laura Ball:
Yeah. So it it's and it depends on what I'm doing. So, I track my clients' ads daily, weekly, and monthly, and, I don't always make decisions on what to do with the ads on a daily basis, but it helps me see where things are dropping off. So if I'm running like a list building campaign where I'm just trying to get people to opt in, my KPIs, my, key performance indicators are, what is my lead cost? What is my click through rate? So are they clicking on the ad? Are they going to the landing page? And what is my landing page conversion rate? When they get to the landing page, are they opting in? So those are probably the big three things that I'm looking at. If I'm getting a decent cost per lead, can I get that lower? You know? So then I look at other metrics like, okay. Well, what can we try here to try to get that a little bit lower? If the lead cost is high, then I'm I'm looking at, well, why is it high? Is it the CPM, which is the cost per meal, the cost to show it to a 1,000, get a 1,000 impressions? If that's high, I might wanna try a different audience. So there's there's a lot of, like, if this, but that type thing. So if your click through rate is high, but they're not converting on the landing page, then we know that it's a landing page, issue.
Laura Ball:
Maybe there's, like, a mismatch between the ad and the landing page there. They think one thing and they get there and they're like, oh, no. That's not what I thought this was. Or, you know, if your if your click through rate is low, okay, well, maybe it's the the creative or the copy, or the image. Something on the ad is not resonating, so we might want to test a new image. Again, doing different tests for, 1 at a time to kinda see where we move the needle. Now when we're launching, we have to make these, like, quick game day decisions. So we're often, like, looking at data every day and kind of making decision, and we're often spending a lot of money, so we have enough, reach on our ads that we can make those quick decisions.
Laura Ball:
But for list building, if you're just ongoing list building, those are the the metrics would that I would look for. And as far as, you know, what to spend on ads or, you know, being maybe a little hesitant to spend money on ads, I think if you've never run ads before, you really are paying for data, and you're paying to learn about your audience. Who is clicking on the ad? Who is converting? Are they then converting into a buyer? Again, that's always the end goal. So we want to build that funnel so that they are actually then seeing an offer. So not only just a lead magnet as a freebie, what does it take to get them to to open up their wallet and buy something from you? So when you're doing a list building campaign, don't be shy to offer them something in an in your email sequence. Like, hey. Here's, you know, my membership. Here's a mini course.
Laura Ball:
And tracking those people to see where, you know, where your sales sales conversion rate is. So, but, yes, you're you're absolutely kind of paying for data. And when I have clients that come to me or coaching clients specifically, because sometimes my coaching clients, they're not in a position to have an ads manager, so they wanna have me as, you know, their coach. And I'll say, well, what are you willing to spend to get data to learn? And, you know, we kind of reverse engineer. Well, if we think your lead costs are gonna be $3, we're looking and we wanna bring in a 1,000 leads, we're looking to spend x amount of dollars, and we just kind of work from there. And then again, if they're showing offers for products, I work with them to say, okay. Well, when you know, at what point did people start buying through this funnel? Was it a 10 day funnel? Was it a 5 day funnel? And when was the offer made, and did they buy, and what does that conversion rate look like? And then we use that data to then test and tweak and test and tweak. And so it's a very long process sometimes, you know, if you're working with a smaller budget, but that doesn't mean you don't do it.
Laura Ball:
You have to do it, and you have to start somewhere. And and it's amazing, the data that you can collect from Facebook and and learn, you know, to just only enhance your, you know, enhance the ads the next time.
Bonnie Christine:
Well, I have a strategy that might help because budgeting was my next question, so we can talk about it a bit. You know, I used to decide how much I was willing to spend and then kinda throw it towards ads. But then I started doing some research on how much an actual business, like business out in the world, spends on paid traffic. And it's kind of a big percentage of their gross annual revenue. And so that made me feel so much more comfortable putting a percentage to mine. So I don't even know if you know this, Laura, but I dedicate 8% of my gross annual revenue specifically to paid traffic. And that means that no matter how you know, that just adjusts. So I'm not spending the same amount every year.
Bonnie Christine:
I'm spending a percentage of what my business is making. And it's a percentage that I'm really, really comfortable with. It's actually kind of low. Oftentimes, it can be like 15 to 30%. And so my question to my audience would be like, if you're not investing some of your annual revenue back into growing the business, do you even have a business? It's kind of part of owning a business is being willing to invest back into it. So let's talk to the person who's not sure how much to start with. They're on a limited budget. How much would you say is, you know, worth it? Like, it's worth it if you can start with this amount of money to just start to get a concept of data and lead generation.
Laura Ball:
Yeah. I would say probably at at a minimum $500, for for the month. Maybe, you know, the more the better, I guess. You know, but, again, I always go back to clients, what are you comfortable spending? What you that knowing that you might not see an instant return on ad spend. And so they kinda have to come to me with that with that number, but I would say a $1,000, 500 to a $1,000 would be a good starting point. And then within a couple of days, I can probably tell, hey. We're getting $2 leads. Let's, like, ramp this up.
Laura Ball:
You know? Because if their goal is to get x amount of leads and stay within, you know, the 2 to $5 range, if we're there, you know, right out the gate, then let's start to scale. And because sometimes you just you'd need volume. You need to get a lot of people into in through this funnel, to, you know, sign up for the webinar or sign up for the workshop, whatever it might be, to then see what your sales conversion rate is when they when you pitch the offer. So, again, the first time out, it's kind of like a test. So you might say, look, I'm gonna spend $10,000 on this launch, and then I kind of work with, okay, I'm gonna spend probably about 85 to 90% on lead generation to get all those people in. Then we're gonna see, okay, well, how many people converted? What was your show up rate? Well, you know, we kind of go through all of those all those numbers together. And then we have that data to for the next launch, and we can say, okay. We converted at 3% for the last launch.
Laura Ball:
Okay. So now we know that's what we're gonna convert at. How many leads do we need to bring in and then convert at 3% to get the revenue goal that you're looking for? So it's a lot of math. Yes.
Bonnie Christine:
But also, like, reverse engineering a bit. You can move through it with confidence. It's not just a guessing game. So Right.
Laura Ball:
Right. Right. Exactly. But yeah. Okay. You know, I like to have that I like to have that healthy amount to start, and but I can specifically tell, you know, what's working, what's not. And, again, working with a good ads manager that's communicating with you regularly to say, like, hey. This is where we are on day 3 or day 2.
Laura Ball:
You know, are we good? You know, this is what I think. And so, again, having that kind of partnership.
Bonnie Christine:
Okay. So you mentioned your coaching. For those who want to potentially work with you directly, can you share a little bit more about the services that you offer and what's the best way to follow you, get in touch with you, Laura? And I know you offer, like, several different options. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a little hesitant to open you up to my audience just for the record, but, okay, here we go.
Laura Ball:
Well, honestly, I don't like I said earlier, I don't take on a lot of clients, a lot of 1 on 1 ad management clients. So I I have couple of arms in my business. Ad management, where I'm just work on retainer, and I just run your ads like I I do with you, and Nick. And, and I like having a small client base. So I might not be open for ad management, but I do offer coaching. And I think that works really, really well for someone who's might not be ready to, start, you know, hire outsourcing ads, but they want somebody to kind of hold their hand through the process. And so I have I'm actually running a special starting in November, where it's like 5 coaching hours plus a Slack channel, a private Slack channel with me and, for 30 days. So it's just kind of a special offer, and I might extend that through the new year.
Laura Ball:
I don't know. I love coaching, and I love love helping people run their Facebook ads for the first time because if you have someone like me or any other great ad manager, I work with a lot of great ad managers, it's just so reassuring to know that they're not just wasting their money and they have somebody who can really look at the ads before they hit that publish button. So, but I ongoing, I offer, you know, hourly packages, 1, 3, or 5 sessions. We get on a Zoom call. We screen share. I provide, like, a recap, you know, on what to do next. Well, actually, we can build the ads together. I mean, we can do everything from checking pixels to ad strategy to targeting to creative and copy, understanding what the funnel is like.
Laura Ball:
But I'm just kind of like your wingman when it comes to paid traffic for for meta ads. So yeah. And you can find me, lauraball.co. I'm on Instagram and Facebook as well. And, yeah, just, you know, DM me if anybody has any questions. I'm I'm a giver. My husband's like, you you can't keep giving away the giving away the farm. I'm like, but I don't want anybody to make a mistake.
Laura Ball:
So hit me up if you have any questions before you turn on ads.
Bonnie Christine:
Laura, we've got all of your information over at the show notes today. So head over to professionalcreative.com if you want clickable links. It's lauraball.co, and @hellolauraball on social. Laura, I think to just summarize this, I love and prioritize working with people who love what they do. And it just seeps from your every like, your very being that you love this work, and it is in turn makes it just such a joy to work with you and and get to talk strategy and everything in between. And so thank you so much for pouring into us today. Thank you for being here.
Laura Ball:
Thank you so much for having me. I love it. I love working with you, and I love marketing.
Bonnie Christine:
For anyone that's listening, who's ready to take the plunge into meta ads, or if you're looking for a way to scale your creative business, I highly recommend connecting with Laura. You can reach her again at lauraball.co. You can follow her on social @hellolauraball for more tips and insights. We've got all of these linked up over in the show notes. As always, thank you so much for tuning in to the Professional Creative Podcast. Be sure to follow Laura for ongoing tips and keep an eye on our show notes for resources mentioned. Next week, we'll be back with more ways to help you grow your creative business. My friends, create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world, And remember, there's room for you.
