The Power of Paid Social Advertising
Join us in this episode featuring our Digital Manager, Jason McCoy, as we uncover the essentials of paid social media advertising. We define ideal audiences for targeted engagement, delve into platform selection based on audience demographics and goals, explore crafting compelling ad content, discuss advanced targeting strategies, and share tips for budgeting and optimization to maximize ROI. Tune in for actionable insights and best practices to enhance your paid social campaigns.
Gimlet
The featured cocktail for this episode is the classic Gimlet. The original gimlet was made with just two ingredients: gin and Rose’s Sweetened Lime Juice, a bottled, concentrated lime juice. The gimlet gained widespread popularity after it was mentioned in Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel, The Long Goodbye. In the book, the protagonist, Philip Marlowe, declares, "A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow." This statement cemented the gimlet's place in history.
Ingredients:
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2 oz. gin.
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.75 oz. freshly squeezed lime juice.
- .75 oz. simple syrup.
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Lime wheel, for garnish.
Directions:
- Fill a cocktail shaker ⅔ full with ice.
- Add the gin, lime juice, and simple syrup to the shaker.
- Shake the mixture vigorously for 30 seconds to ensure thorough mixing.
- Strain the cocktail into a coupe glass
- Garnish the cocktail with a lime wheel on the rim of the glass for presentation.
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Episode Transcript:
Rich: Well, hey, welcome back. It is another week, another episode of Cocktails, Tangents, and Answers. Uh, I'm your host, Rich, and Caitlin is not with me today. She had something pull her away at the last minute, uh, some other work stuff. Uh, so I get to do this one solo, which means the intro will probably be less tangenty and more cocktail y.
Rich: So we'll, we'll see how that goes. Um, also this is not the original episode we planned for this week. We had planned one on brand and social media and how do those work together? That one is coming. It's just going to take a little bit longer. We've had a couple of people, uh, out of the office. Um, and so we've rescheduled it, but this one, we're going to talk today about how you can best utilize paid social media ads to reach your target audience.
Rich: So. Um, that should be really interesting. And Jason McCoy, um, our new, uh, digital team member, uh, at Android at 71 will be with us. He's got a lot of experience, I think about a decade of dealing with digital ads, has done some fun things with Facebook, um, and paid social. And so he'll be our guest today. Um, so this is where I would normally say, Hey Caitlyn, what's our cocktail?
Rich: But Caitlyn's not here. Um, and it's sad that she's not, 'cause this is an awesome one. It is a gimlet, the original with gin, not a vodka gimlet. Uh, as Caitlyn would tell you, uh, anything made with vodka can be made better. Gin. So, um, what's really interesting is the original gimlet was just two things. It was just gin and then roses sweetened lime juice, which is a bottled, concentrated lime juice, which I'm sure we've all had.
Rich: I, we probably have that in our bar actually. Um, so no fresh lime juice. It was just that bottle, bottled lime juice, uh, which is a little bit sweet. And gin sounds easy. Sounds good. Sounds like I can make three of these tonight when I get home. Um, so the book, the long goodbye, uh, by Raymond Chandler in 1953, um, basically made this drink like hit the radar for everybody.
Rich: The protagonist, so you may not have heard of the drink or the author, but the protagonist, Philip Marlowe, uh, declares that a real gimlet is half gin and half roses, lime juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow. And so that kind of made the gimlet a thing. It put its stake in the ground, uh, and away it went.
Rich: So ours is probably not one that Philip Marlowe would approve of, but since he's a fictional character, we're just not going to care about that. Um, because ours uses fresh lime juice. So you've got a couple ounces of gin, uh, three quarters of an ounce of fresh lime juice, the same amount of simple syrup.
Rich: So that's normally what the roses would be. It'd be a sweet. And then you can add, might as well, might as well slice the little lime wheel off for garnish as well. Um, so this is a shaken not stirred, Uh, load that cocktail shaker up with ice. Add the gin lime juice and simple syrup and shake for at least 30 seconds.
Rich: to ensure thorough mixing. I feel like you can never shake a cocktail enough. My go to is always when the shaker is too cold for me to hold on to, I figure it's done and ready to be poured. You can strain that into a coupe glass. My favorite kind of cocktail glass. We actually just got new coupe glasses that are bigger and deeper, so I could do doubles in them, which should be exciting.
Rich: Maybe I'll do that this weekend. Just have a coupe glass, uh, cocktail. I don't know, party by myself? Um, we'll see. So, when you're done, pour it into that glass, garnish with the lime wheel, um, on the rim of the glass for presentation. So, really simple, and honestly, if you want to use the roses, uh, lime syrup, um, Or Rose's Sweet and Lime Juice, excuse me, excuse me.
Rich: Uh, you can feel free. Wow, I just can't talk today. Zach's gonna cut me off and, uh, and say we have to start over. He won't really. Cause this is probably the only time this intro is going to be, like, super short. And, like, shorter than the length that he wants those. Um. So anyway, it's a great drink. You can do it with vodka also, if you're just not a gin fan.
Rich: Um, but if you're not like I wasn't, um, as I'm sure people who've listened to the podcast for a while now. Um, but there's a whole bunch of different kinds of gin and you can get gin from all over the place. Um, so find like a really good, like British gin that doesn't smell like pine needles when you open it.
Rich: Um, and give that a shot. Um, I think you'll find that there are gins out there for pretty much everyone. So that is our cocktail. Um, and there is no random tangent today. The best I had is I bought coupe glasses or we bought coupe glasses over the weekend. Um, so that's pretty much it. So I guess we'll take a little party break and we'll be back with Jason to answer that burning question.
Rich: How can you best use paid social media to reach your target audience?
Rich: All right. And we are back, uh, still just me. Caitlin is still off doing other worky things. Uh, but I am not alone. Uh, I have Jason McCoy with me, uh, a digital, uh, digital manager. Is that right?
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Digital manager. Um, You know, my expertise is really in Facebook and Instagram, but have done just about everything.
Rich: Yeah. So, um, Jason's is going to be the perfect one to talk to us about, uh, paid social. So I think we just want to dive right into it. Um, so Jason, like if I'm looking to do paid social, how do I figure out what my ideal audience is? Cause I think you can hit anybody, but how do I know who I want to hit?
Rich: And, um, yeah, how do we figure that out? Yeah. I
Jason: think the best way to figure out who your ideal customer is, is, you know, um, first, obviously going into your CRM and, and figuring out, uh, that way, if you don't, if you don't know, you just want to do the, the research, um, utilizing Facebook, you can actually go into audience insights.
Jason: Um, it's just a place within the Facebook business manager. Um, and you can actually look at all kinds of data and figure out, uh, who your ideal customers are. Based on who has engaged with your posts, um, or is engaged with your store, uh, in different ways. And Facebook is, is pretty good at, at giving you all that demographic data.
Jason: Um, so you can kind of filter through it, um, and then figure out, you know, who's, you know, based on females, males, what age group, stuff like that. And then you can utilize that to, um, Um, to figure out who you should know, who you should target when you're, when you're setting up your paid ads.
Rich: Okay. So that'll give me the demographics and things.
Rich: Can I get things like lifestyle interests and stuff from that Facebook data?
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It'll tell you, um, it can tell you all, all types of things like, uh, what their lifestyle interests are, uh, what their like general interests are. They'll also actually tell you, um, like other competitions, like other, um, competitors, um, That are within that lifestyle and their interests as well and give you, give you all kinds of different like, um, ways to be able to, um, To, um, to target people.
Rich: Okay, so essentially, like, looking at my, from what I hear, looking at my organic social and what I've been doing if I haven't been doing any paid, um, if I've got a shop connected like an e commerce to, uh, Facebook, um, Um, it'll give me some data on that because who's shopping might be different than who's following my page, which might be different than who's liking my posts, or they might all be the same people.
Rich: I don't know, but Facebook will tell me that so I can kind of figure out who to target. Um, I also think it's interesting that you can do it. You do a little competitive like sleuthing, um, through those, the Facebook analytics and data, um, So that's pretty interesting as well. Um, and if I don't have Facebook or I'm not using Facebook or Instagram, um, are there any other, other ways that I can kind of figure out who my ideal customer is?
Jason: Yeah. If you're not, uh, I mean, if you're not utilizing Facebook or Instagram right now, I mean, what would be the goal? Would you be looking at, um, like, would, would the person be, um, looking into potentially running like Facebook ads for the first time and like, how would Is the question like, would they then be wondering, um, You know who their ideal customer is, or I guess what would be, tell me a little bit more about like the situation.
Rich: Sure. Like, yeah, see, I think, um, you know, I know I need to run Facebook ads. I've got a small business, um, but we're not like really active on Facebook yet. Like maybe we've got a location page or something. Um, but I don't have a lot of that data from my posts or anything on who, who to target, like, well, Facebook help me find the right audience if they know, like about my product or anything else that I know about my audience, can I plug that in somewhere.
Jason: Yeah, no, not necessarily without running ads or doing that testing in one way or the other. Um, you know, most business owners, uh, they already know who their ideal customers are. Um, you know, just based on people who have been, who've engaged with them just through the office or whatever, whenever it might be.
Jason: Um, so business owners usually know that. And I think most, you know, if, if someone's wondering out there wondering like, um, you know, is that the same as online? It generally is. So it's safe to assume that. You know that that's going to going to be parallel information that you can utilize as well. But it's, it's worth testing out to see if there is some differentiation online too.
Rich: So, so it's not a bad thing for me to take an educated guess on what I know of my audience, those demographics and psychographics and things, and kind of use Facebook's tools to plug that in. And then, I mean, just run a campaign and see what happens, right? Like people are either going to react or not react.
Rich: And I'm assuming we'll get into, uh, Yep. Budgeting and optimization, but that's later. Not, not yet. Um, but I'll be able to budget it. Okay. That's cool. Um, so how do I know, like, so we talked a little bit about Facebook there, but I know there's Facebook, there's Instagram, there's X formerly known as Twitter.
Rich: There's LinkedIn, there's Tik TOK, there's Snapchat, there's a whole bunch of other stuff. I actually read a thing that was the top 101 plus social media platforms. And I was like, no, that's just too much, but it was global. So like, you know, Sina was in there and other things. Um, so how do I know which platform I should be on?
Rich: Um, can you. Talk to me a little bit about,
Jason: yeah, yeah. You know, that's a loaded question. Um, you know what I tell business owners? Yeah. Yeah. Cause it, it, the answer really depends on your business. Right. Um, I think the easiest way to figure it out is, um, first knowing who you're right, who your ideal audience is.
Jason: And once you know who that is, then you can kind of identify which platform would most likely be the best for you. Um, and you know, ideally you'd be on all the platforms, right? Cause you can reach people in different ways, but depending on your goals on, on, uh, your business, um, you're going to want to prioritize that based on what your budget is.
Jason: Um, typically Facebook and Instagram is usually what I would recommend starting with cause everybody, almost everybody is on Facebook and Instagram. Uh, and believe it or not, um, Lots of people by from Facebook and Instagram ads. Um, TikTok is one that is, you know, becoming more and more popular. Um, so I would say that's probably the next one to go on to or in some, in some instances, it may even be, um, priority to go on TikTok.
Jason: If you have, if your demographic is tends to be a little younger, TikTok may be where you want to start, but typically I would say for most business owners, especially like local business owners, um, starting on Facebook and Instagram is usually where I would
Rich: go. Well, that's the behemoth, right? Like Facebook is still, I think, number one in traffic and users.
Rich: Um, like you said, like, you know, younger demographics may not be on there as much as they were before, but they still are there and obviously. You know, everybody's grandma's on there looking at grandbaby pictures as well. So you can hit those people too. That used to be a thing when I started doing social media back in, uh, the early two thousands where people would be like, Oh, like, you know, older people aren't on Facebook.
Rich: You can only get teenagers. And it's like, well, no, you, you can like, maybe not as many of them. And now the complaint, I think from, from Gen Z is like, Oh, Facebook. There's just so many old people on there. Like, why would I even be there?
Jason: You're 100 percent right. It's actually hilarious, um, to see that transition because I'm old enough to see, to have seen that as well.
Jason: And I remember hearing that for the first time from like a Gen Zer, um, a few years ago, and I was shocked. I mean, I, I think it was just like my complete lack of self awareness of how old I really am, but when I heard that, I was just like, Oh, wow. You know, I think that's right. And that, and that is also the reason why TikTok.
Jason: Is becoming more and more relevant, uh, because Gen Z is on it and they are a bigger and bigger, uh, consumer based twos.
Rich: Yeah. You are younger than me, but neither of us are 23 anymore. So no, it is, it is kind of funny when you hear that you're like, but I'm on there and you're like, Oh wait, but I'm old.
Rich: Right. I'm considered old by you. Um, let me look here. So like, Let's talk a little bit about LinkedIn because that's going to be kind of the outlier I feel like. So why would I avoid LinkedIn or why would I choose LinkedIn over something else? Like who are the kind of people who would advertise there?
Jason: Yeah, I think LinkedIn is uniquely good at, at doing business to business, you know, um, any type of recruiting, stuff like that. If you're, if your ideal, uh, audience is, uh, you know, in more of like a professional field, um, that would be ideal for, you know, for those types of
Rich: businesses. Yeah, that makes sense.
Rich: And I mean, I know Caitlin and I have bagged on X, you know, formerly Twitter a lot with the, uh, the Elon days and things going over and just watching the shift there. And, you know, we did cover earlier, like a whole bunch of advertisers exited Twitter, especially really big ones. Um, I mean, an NPR pulled all of their profiles off of Twitter.
Rich: They sunset all of them. Um, Do you think personally, like Twitter or X is going to be viable for the average business again? Or like, is it just, uh, you know, basically just turning into a trash heap that no one should be associated with?
Jason: You know, I don't, it's difficult, um, because of everything that recently has, has occurred with the, you know, transition period, um, I obviously it's still going to be relevant.
Jason: You know, there's billions of people on it, using it all the time. Um, Um, I have not seen it work as well as the other platforms for most businesses. Um, but you know, that's not the situation for all businesses. I mean, I think if you're a, um, you know, if you're like more in like the news sector, um, you're in disseminating information, maybe informing the public, that kind of a of an industry, um, Twitter would probably be a really good, a really good platform.
Jason: But outside of that, generally, I would say, uh, yeah, the other platforms will probably be more effective. But yeah, like your question to like, what's going to happen in the future? I've said, I'm, I'm wondering too, because it's a lot has
Rich: changed. I think if I recall, we'd have to go back and look at the archives.
Rich: I think Caitlin and I might've predicted it would have imploded completely by now. Um, or it might've been 2025, we said it was going to be completely gone. Um, and I guess, you know, Twitter technically is gone cause it's X now and it's Elon's baby and whatever he wants to make of it. Um, yeah. And I think Twitter was an interesting one because they were really late to the advertising game in the beginning, and then they just could never kind of figure out that like algorithm or how to make the ad super relevant and engaging.
Rich: Um, I've seen it work fairly well for some people, but even, you know, gosh, 10 years ago, Twitter was still like struggling to deliver, you know, on a lot of different ad campaigns. So, so yeah, you're probably, uh, Better off looking at a Snapchat or a TikTok if you're going after that younger audience and kind of Facebook and Instagram are kind of your everybody and LinkedIn is your businessy people.
Rich: So,
Jason: yeah, definitely. Yeah, 100%. I think, uh, you know, like I said, if you're like a journalist, if you're, if you're in that kind of a sector, Twitter would be really valuable, um, you know, to those people, but I don't think that's most businesses.
Rich: Yep. I would agree. All right. So the third piece of this is, so I kind of figured out who I'm targeting.
Rich: We've decided we're doing Facebook and Instagram or Facebook and Tik TOK or whatever. Um, so how do I make sure my content that I put out, my ads that I put out actually resonate with people and actually like, you know, do what they're supposed to and don't just get, you know, scroll on by.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I always tell people the most important thing in digital is, uh, the analytics, right?
Jason: The metric. So what is the data telling you? Um, and then understanding, uh, you know, what, what data you should be paying attention to, because it's not all going to be equal. So, um, there are certain metrics that you definitely want to pay attention to in terms of like, uh, if you're trying to figure out, uh, you know, how, you know, Likeable your ads are how much engagement there, you know, they're getting those types of things Facebook does have a lot of metrics that it provides to you Uh and to let you know, you know How engaging your ads are how many people are clicking on your ads all those types of things So that's really the best way to be able to You know, to, to analyze that and, and that's what's so great about digital as well as there's going to give you so much information you could know all those things to make better decisions on how to improve your ads.
Jason: Um, the disadvantage to it is, uh, sometimes you can just get inundated with too much information and not how to not know how to gain insights from or even understand what
Rich: those metrics are. Yeah, information overload is, is really a thing where you can get, uh, what is it analysis paralysis where you, you're looking at so many things you're just stuck.
Rich: Um, Do any of the platforms like Facebook or, I mean, Facebook is kind of obviously the behemoth Instagram comes on its coattails, obviously, but, um, do they help you like with an ad? Like, well, Facebook suggests like, Hey, you should change this image or Hey, this headline like needs a tweak.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Facebook and Instagram, um, they'll do that.
Jason: Um, I always tell people, you know, you want to take their recommendations to, you know, with a grain of salt, um, always verify the data, making sure that the data is telling you. And, and then kind of making the decision cause the Facebook and Instagram aren't going to always have the best answers. Um, but what they're really good at is letting you know how to format your, your creative or your video ad or whatever it is to make sure that, um, Maybe your text is in the right spot, so it's not covered up.
Jason: Right? So those are the type of things that you would definitely want to pay attention to because you could create a video and the text is too low on the page or, you know, too low in the, um, where people are viewing it, it could be cut off entirely. So those are the types of things that I would definitely rely on, uh, trusting Facebook on.
Rich: Yeah. Interesting. Um, I think the other thing that I've noticed is, um, like video format. So like I have always been a strong, like horizontal video, horizontal video, horizontal video, cause that's what my TV is. But I know that that has been shifting a lot. I mean, and you know, Tik Tok was based on vertical video.
Rich: Um, Instagram has, you know, vertical video, Facebook now has vertical video. Um, and so I think making sure that you're in the right format, Format is going to be important as well and have both like, right, you can do horizontal and vertical or
Jason: square. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I, I'm really glad that you brought that up because, um, there's a couple of nuances there that I think are really interesting to people that are listening to this.
Jason: Um, you know, there's, there's kind of two different ways to, to run your ads. Um, and I'm talking to me mostly Instagram. Um, and. You know, ideally, what you want to do is, uh, you want to maximize the space where you can show the video ad or whatever ad creative you have, and you can do it horizontal, vertical, or vertical.
Jason: You know, or square and then Facebook will put the right one in the right places, um, to maximize that space, make your ad look the best. Um, that's great. Uh, but the other thing that you can do is you can actually do a 10 80 by 10 80. Um, which is just a square image basically. Um, and put those in all the placements.
Jason: And, um, what that allows you to do is it'll, it'll show the ad appropriately and all the, you know, in all the placements on Facebook and Instagram, and you can actually, um, You can actually turn that, uh, turn that ad into something called a post ID, um, and then stack the social proof, um, you know, kind of getting into the weeds right now, but the value to that is, um, is really being able to, um, when people see your ad, they're going to see all the people engaging with it, all the likes you have, all the comments you have on it, and that's really important because if the algorithm sees that you're doing that, it's going to like your ad more, it's going to know people like it, and then you're going to get A better performance out of it.
Jason: So, you know, my, why we might not want to get into post IDs right now, uh, if someone wants to do a quick Google search, that's something that's really important to that you might want to test out, uh, you know, in addition to, you know, utilizing the, the horizontal vertical, um, You know, and, and square,
um,
Rich: all together.
Rich: Yeah. I feel like that's probably its own episode down the road or definitely, I think, uh, Zach can tap you for a blog post on that, um, to talk about how that works. And, um, cause I think that's really interesting because instead of doing like a mobile ad that only has a vertical video and a desktop ad that has a horizontal video, those are going to get different likes, right?
Rich: Cause they're different pieces of creative, but you're suggesting that there's a way to do it in one large square video. Excuse me. That, uh, Can be kind of modified and will fit whatever I'm looking at. So yeah, we'll stick a pin in that one and Zach will take that note for for the future. Um, I think the only other thing on creative is You know, we hear a lot about a B testing a B testing, you know, try different things Is that easy enough to do on these these platforms like Facebook LinkedIn Instagram, or is it like, you know Do I need to be?
Rich: wizard to be able to do an A B test. And I guess maybe explain what an A B test is for anybody who might not know that.
Jason: Yeah. Uh, A B testing is really easy on Facebook and Instagram. Um, or really in a social media platform and A B testing is, uh, is, is exactly what it's, you know, um, exactly kind of what it's, you know, uh, kind of seems like you're just testing out two different variables.
Jason: So if you want to test out a video ad versus, Um, you know, just like a still image, you can actually set up the settings in your account to, uh, to do an AB test and, and then actually Facebook will allocate the budget accordingly and then let you know after a week or so, um, which one performed the best.
Jason: And that's great because now, um, now you know that your audience prefers a video or, or an image. Um, and that's really where, uh, AB testing can come in, can come in really handy.
Rich: I always think of it as testing like two different videos against each other, but you're right. Like a video or an image, which one performs better, which one gets more engagement.
Rich: That's an interesting way to go. I think the only caveat on that, and we talk to clients about this all the time is just test one thing. If you're testing video versus image, your headline, your text, your buttons should be the same on both of them. And you know, if, if the video wins, then you could test that same video with different headlines or different calls to action, but test one thing at a time.
Rich: Yeah. Otherwise you won't know what it was you changed that actually made the difference. Um, let's see. Alright, okay, so now we're assuming we've got some good creative and we figured out how to test it and we're looking at the analytics and everything is golden. Um, what are different ways we can target it?
Rich: Like how how do I reach those people, um, with different targeting strategies on PaidSocial?
Jason: Yeah. So I mean, that's one of the huge advantages of pay social, um, is you can target on pretty much anything you could even imagine, right? Like, um, age groups, even on inch, uh, income, um, you know, by gender, um, what people's interests are.
Jason: Um, Really just about anything that you, you know, you can think of. Um, and there's just, there's thousands of thousands of different interests and lifestyles, and even like, uh, different types of like behaviors that you can actually go after as well. So like, uh, Facebook, um, and Instagram, they know, um, how engaged you are in terms of like a shopper.
Jason: Um, and those are also things that you can target.
Rich: So like an intent cue, like we talk about intent a lot. Like, you know, I don't want to talk to everybody about buying a new dishwasher. I just want to talk to people who are interested currently in buying a new dishwasher. And because our data is out there everywhere and being aggregated into giant databases, um, the social media platforms generally do know, like if you've been looking at dishwashers on shopping sites or wherever, um, and can serve that up because I have seen some of that is.
Rich: What is it? There's some actively in the market for or something like that that was a filter you could put on. on certain ads on a platform. I can't remember which platform was might've been Facebook.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. You, you're exactly right. You could do that at Facebook as well. Um, people who are actively, you know, in, in the market, that is a, something that you can also target.
Rich: Yep. I can also push my people like from my website, right? If I've got, um, website traffic coming in, I can link that and create an audience, uh, and kind of hit those people who seem to be interested in me already. Um, Um, in some sort of custom audience, um, on almost every platform.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Like a, like a retargeting audience or?
Rich: Yeah. Yeah. We'd be retargeting, I guess, technically. Um, I know we can do that with, uh, with HubSpot when we have different activities that happen in different things that people show interest in pages they visit or actions they take or those types of things. Um, We can push those audiences out to, uh, I think it's Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google they can go to.
Rich: And, um, we can give them a message about whatever we want. Okay. So, um, how do I set a budget? Let's talk about that one first, and then we'll talk about optimizing, but how do I know how much I should be spending on social media?
Jason: Yeah. Um, that's also like kind of a loaded question, but I think that the easiest answer is, uh, and lots of people give you different, uh, different answers here.
Jason: But I think the right one is there's not necessarily a right answer. Um, you know, it really just depends on. I always tell people you're not really buying customers, you're most, you're buying data, right? So, um, the more money you have, the bigger budget you have, the faster, um, you're going to be able to gain that data to be able to see who your ideal customer is and how to market to them.
Jason: So if you even have a, you know, even only a 20, uh, A day budget. Um, that's fine. You'll just, it'll just take a little bit longer, um, you know, to, to reach more people or to reach your ideal audience or how, or know how to make decisions in terms of what your audience likes and those types of things. So it doesn't really matter.
Jason: Um, obviously a larger budget is going to have a lot of advantages to it. Also, there's an element where it's an auction. So you're competing with your competitors as well. So there's an element of that too, but you can usually get around that. If you provide a really good engaging ad that your audience likes, um, you can usually be competitive, even if somebody has a larger budget than you.
Jason: So I would say to most business owners, you know, whatever your budget is, according to what you've allocated, what makes sense for your finances. Um, just allocate that towards Facebook and kind of just go from there and then optimize.
Rich: Yeah. So I can, um, I could spend a little bit. I mean, I know they have minimums too.
Rich: It's like 5 a day or something like that is the minimum, but yeah. Um, and kind of see what happens just knowing that. It's not going to happen as fast. Like the smaller, the less you spend, the longer it's going to take to see that result and actually see something happen from it. Because, um, the other thing is the system has to learn, right?
Rich: It's like, it's got to spend and get out there and see who's interacting and learn. Um, and I know like, uh, most of the systems need at least, you know, a hundred sales or conversions to be able to truly start optimizing on people who are going to buy. So, um, yeah. And you. You led us into the next thing right, right there.
Rich: Like, how do I optimize? How do I know what to change, what to do, what to fix? I can't just, you know, put my ads out there and leave them for three years. Right.
Jason: Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely don't want to do that. Um, In order, like to be able to optimize, you know, everybody has their own, their own method. Um, but it really just comes down to the data, understanding the metrics and, and getting and gaining the insights on, uh, what that data is telling you.
Jason: Um, and then just kind of optimizing from there. That's a pretty vague answer, but you can get pretty deep into the weeds when it comes to data and, and that would probably be a discussion obviously for another podcast as well. Um, but the simple answer is just making sure that you're going in and, and looking at.
Jason: Um, you know, looking at the metrics and, and, and seeing, you know, what your audience likes to click on, which ad they like the most, um, which ones are getting the best engagement, which ones are converting the highest, those types of things. And then, um, and then based on, you know, based on the data, um, then just kind of make your, your next decision.
Jason: If the video ad seems to be converting a lot higher than, you know, an image ad, um, you know, optimize the budget more towards that video ad. Or, um, if there's one audience that's performing better than the other. You know, just optimize the budget accordingly. That's, you know, I think that's the best way in terms of, of optimizing, but making sure that you really understand the data is really like kind of the fundamental thing when it comes to that.
Rich: So the biggest thing it sounds like is looking at that data, looking at click throughs and views and all those different things, engagements, um, and. Really like quite simply to boil it way, way down, doing more of what's working and changing what's not working. Like if it's not working, don't just leave it and let it roll, do something with it, either kill it and move on to something that is working and shift that budget or, you know, continue that AB test.
Rich: So if you've got something that didn't work, bring a new challenger in against the thing that's working really well. Um, but I do think that, you know, it is important, especially if you're on a limited budget. You know, put that money behind what's working. If you're trying three different things and one is working and two aren't well for the short term, shift your budget to the thing that's working.
Rich: Um, I used to have a boss who said, um, if you're, what was it? It was something about, if you're driving the car, um, Uh, in the right direction, just step on the gas and get there faster. Like basically if, if it's working, throw more money at it, throw more resources at it and try to make it work even harder.
Rich: Um, and sometimes that works. And sometimes you can hit that plateau of course, where, you know, more money isn't going to help you at all. Um, but your metric should tell you that too, right? Cause if you're spending more and not getting any more than you, you might want to back off.
Jason: Yeah, exactly. The metrics are going to tell you everything.
Jason: It's just important to make sure that when you're going into the account, that you understand what the metrics are and what they mean. And then being able to do that analysis accordingly. But yeah, you'll be able to make all those decisions if you go in there and look at the data.
Rich: Well, and ultimately for me, when People ask me what's important or even when I'm teaching and trying to explain to students what's important.
Rich: You know, as a business owner, what's important to me is for every dollar I spend, I bring in more than a dollar. Um, and then of course I've got to look at overhead and covering that. But the real simple piece is if I'm spending a dollar and bringing in 5 for every dollar I spend, I will spend that dollar all day long, provided I've got my margin in there.
Rich: If I'm spending a dollar, bringing in 10, spending a dollar, bringing in a hundred dollars, You know, I'll give you all of my money because why wouldn't I? The return is there. Um, so just watching that and knowing that it's going to be really tight in the beginning, like you might actually be spending a dollar and bringing in 20 cents or 50 cents.
Rich: But you know, as that improves, you'll see it flip. Um, typically with all of any kind of advertising that you do, um, and see your business grow. Cool. Well, thank you for joining us, Jason, in your, uh, your first broadcast with us or first podcast. Um, you've missed me referring to things like books on tape and other things that you probably remember as well, um, from back in the day, but, um, yeah, and without Caitlin here, uh, we'll just have to roll into a wrap up and I guess I'll just do that.
Rich: Does that sound good, Zach? Are you going to nod at me and be like, yeah, go ahead. All right. So, um, We talked through different ways that you can, uh, figure out and how to start advertising on social media, uh, for yourself. So one, understand your ideal audience. You probably know that already, you know, who's shopping, uh, if not, um, your social media, uh, platforms have tools for you.
Rich: One thing we didn't mention is on Instagram, you can convert your profile to a business profile if you haven't already. And it opens up a whole bunch more analytics. It's, uh, it's super cool. So then, pick your platform based on who you're going after, uh, and what you're looking at. You want to look at the strengths and weaknesses and who the right audience is on each one.
Rich: Uh, make sure that OddCan tech Add content is compelling. Um, you know, look for the right visuals, um, look for the right copy and more importantly, like take a stab at it and just test it, give it a try. Um, see what works, what doesn't and do more of what works and less of what doesn't. Um, targeting, uh, we covered as well and also with budget and optimization and budgeting and optimization is really set a realistic budget for what you think you want to get and what you can afford and then, uh, optimize on that more of what works and less, uh, of what doesn't, uh, and while you're figuring all that out, you could have a nice double, uh, gimlet.
Rich: Uh, in your coop class, uh, your large, large coop class. Uh, HomeGoods has those on sale for like 24. 99 for four of them if anybody wants them. Um, HomeGoods should be a sponsor. But anyway, uh, that's where we are for today. So thank you for listening. I really appreciate it. Um, you can reach out to us if you've got a question at ctapodcast.
Rich: live. Uh, that'll have a form there. You can shoot us a quick email. That'll go to producer Zach and he'll, uh, get back to you and we may cover it on a future podcast. We're always looking for ideas. Uh, even better. You can leave a voice message for us at 402 718 9971. Uh, that'll just go into a voicemail box that again, we'll go to Zach and he can listen to it.
Rich: And we might play your question on a future episode. I mean, and honestly, if you did call in, we probably will play it because you know, we don't get a lot of legit calls on that line. So 402 718 9971. If you've got something in the marketing world or digital marketing world, you want to talk about, uh, just ask us a question.
Rich: And then of course we're on all the socials pretty much at antidote underscore seven one. Uh, and yeah. That's where we are. So, uh, we are still putting off the brand episode. That'll be in a few weeks. But our next episode in two weeks is going to be a rum runner. Oh, rum drinks are dangerous. I don't know if we can do this and actually do an episode.
Rich: I know at our post holiday party that we just had, the, uh, the rum drinks were flowing, uh, and things were, um, things were definitely interesting. Um, so that one will be the Rum Runner and we'll talk about key metrics for evaluating email marketing performance. Uh, and with us will be Sharla, who's also new to the agency and has quite a bit of experience in her past, uh, working in email marketing.
Rich: So we're going to dive into that, um, a little bit deeper. Uh, with her. So thanks again for listening and really appreciate it. We'll see you in two weeks.