How to Know When You’re Ready for Meta Ads

Think about ads after you already have your offer selling in some other way. Because I love to say, like, Jesus saves ads. Do not eyeballs on a bad offer will not make a bad offer for good. So what are we talking about? Then, if an offer is selling without ads, well, how do you sell your offer?

This is the Entrepreneur School podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you, the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out on this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to entrepreneur school.

You are in for a treat and for a very juicy conversation with my guest today, quajo. He is the host of The Art of online business podcast, which is epically huge, with over 800 episodes and 4.9 2 million downloads. And he is a meta ads manager and online business strategist. So before you're like that, I don't know. I don't want ads. Ads scare me. I don't have money for ads. Don't turn this off. Stay in this conversation, because we're going to talk about when you should start ads, how to validate your offer, before you start paying what quajo lovingly calls the ignorance tax that so many of us have maybe already paid, me for sure, and also what to avoid when it comes to ads and that what seems like the nice, big, easy blue button called boost This post on Instagram. So stick around and don't be discouraged by any technical conversation here, or also the fact that we both tried to do some some mathy math that may have been just a little bit of a bad choice. So we're gonna talk about ads. We're gonna talk about the best way to use ads. We're gonna talk about when not to use ads, and everything that you need to know to keep this strategy in mind and when you should start implementing it. So let's dive in.

Welcome to laughing in progress due to the pre chat that I'm already having with Kwadwo, my amazing guest today, who is here to talk to us all about ads. Kwadwo first impressions tell us what people think when we start talking about ads. What? Where are people's heads at? Usually, when you're talking to them.

Lots of folks, you feel like they've tried ads and they failed at it, and they think that taking an Instagram post and boosting it is running meta ads, Facebook and Instagram ads, which I'm here to say it's not, and I'm so sorry that Instagram does a such a good job of like, seducing us into hitting that Boost Post Button, because the real or whatever, is reaching lots of new people. So that's what people feel like ads is and in reality, ads is running it from inside of meta ad manager and testing lots of written copy, written word and lots of different visuals so that you can find the best performing ad, because the one out of 20 ad will outperform the 19 and The one out of 50 will outperform the 49.

Okay, don't leave us. If you were like, What are these numbers? I I'm not sophisticated enough to have this conversation. Don't worry. We will. We will come back in context all of this, but I want to not miss what you already said, which was like a huge warning to not hit that boost button. What is boosting a post.

On Instagram, and I see it on my phone too, and it's very tempting, but when you make a Instagram reel or an Instagram post, Instagram's tracking how many of your current followers see it and how many new people will see it, and inevitably, sooner than later, one of your posts will just pop off and it starts showing to a good number of people. Instagram then will show you a nice little message as you're scrolling through your feed, it will pop up one of your posts and say this post is performing better than the other one. Why don't you hit this blue boost button and so it can reach more people? And it makes sense. It makes sense, right? Kelly, like reach more people.

Yes, we want more people.

Right? But what Instagram does is it shows that post to more people who are likely to engage. But it's objective, like Instagram is trying to get you more followers for your Instagram account, which makes you feel good, but you and I both know, or you and I both wish that all of the people, or even a super tiny fraction of the people, that engage with an Instagram would actually turn into customers, and that's the disconnect. These posts that get boosted don't really result in any difference, any positive impact on the business, but Instagram and Mark Zuckerberg make more money from it.

Ooh, that's such a like a helpful hot tip right off the start of this conversation. And correct me if I'm wrong. I was also under the impression that boosting ads, or, sorry, I keep saying ads, I don't mean that boosting posts also was more like a in the moment experience. So it was going to show it to more people who are currently online, like or does it drip out? Is it more like a like? It's here now, whoever's here now see it

the first so if somebody's online, then they'll see your post as a sponsored post, I believe in the various placements for it's by placements. I mean, they could see it usually, they'll see it as they're scrolling through their feed, like scrolling through different reels, or they'll see it as they're swiping through Instagram Stories, in addition to seeing it on their Instagram like profile. You know, when you hit that magnifying glass at the bottom left of your cell phone and you can kind of swipe through and see a different little bits of video you'll see there too.

Okay, so where was I gonna go with this? So I think people can easily feel like this. This makes sense. If I'm putting the effort in already to post on social media, and I'm trying to get engagement, and I'm committing to like focusing on social media as a visibility strategy. It seems like this idea of boosting posts might be a great next step into ads, and you're saying, ain't avoid that,

right? So, I mean, lots of people are listening like our moms, right? That, so I'm assuming we've all dated before. Like, if you just boost an Instagram post, it's kind of like blindly walking through, you know, your downtown or into your favorite cafe, like closing your eyes and hoping to meet the right person. There's not so much direction there, or maybe you know the kind of person that you're interested in, but you decide, rather than, you know, talking to folks and getting to know the person who I'm interested in, I'm just going to talk to anybody. Well, eventually you find the right person. Probably are there great stories that come from that? Definitely. But in the business world, the disconnect is that if I take an Instagram post and boost it, just because that post is doing well, there might not be a strategy behind that post. That post might not be connected to, say, a lead magnet that allows somebody to see a specific value that I offer and brings them in through the opportunity to opt into my email list. And that that's the big disconnect. And so we feel like, yes, we are increasing our visibility, but without the strategy, it's just more eyeballs on the post, not to mention, not to mention, there's one other thing that's really important, and it's technical, but it's seriously important to boosting posts. When you boost inside of Facebook Ad Manager, we have different objectives that meta gives us, and those objectives are designed to accomplish different goals. So there will be, like, a sales objective that you could choose. And if you run your ads with the sales objective, the goal is sales, all right. And so then there's a leads objective, and if you run that one, then you want to get leads, but there's something called a traffic objective, and the only thing that that does is get more eyeballs or traffic to your website. And the thing is, is that meta has 52,000 data points on every user. And meta ads, or Facebook ads, when they used to be called Facebook only have been running, Oh, shoot. I don't know the number, so let's just say, and that was a shoot, um, let's show, because I'm an on, swear, let's just say that is a it's been over 15 years.

Exactly. And so the thing is, is when inside of ad manager, you choose one of those objectives, meta actually knows. People who are most likely to do that thing. So if I say sales objective to try to sell something, they can actually find the people within the audience that I'm targeting who are most likely to buy, who have buying tendencies, but traffic means that I'm just finding people who have looky loo tendencies, which can be good if you're just trying to get somebody to your website, but generally, I don't use those objectives. But when you boost a post on Instagram, that objective, technically, is the traffic objective, even if you're strategic about boosting a post that, let's say, is aligned with a lead magnet has a call to action to get a lead magnet, or even is connected with that automated comment this phrase and get a DM link to, you know, mini chat. You're still targeting people who are just more interested in looking and consuming content, and it's just, it's a lose, lose most of the time,

Yeah, I can totally see that. Plus, I'm actually thinking of my most recent, like, best performing post that I had that recommendation pop up on. It was literally, like a three second reel that had the audio of, oh, I didn't need whatever. I just needed a and it was like four clips from my summer vacation that had nothing to do with anything that I do, but it was like the best performing reel that I had in a while. Maybe it was trending audio. Maybe it was because I hadn't posted in a long time, and it was like, oh, Instagram wants me to like them again. So they're showing me to people. We never really know what's happening there. Okay, so I think this all is, like, a really kind of fun, sexy conversation, and we're starting to draw some connections between, like, Oh, if I need a strategy, I need to, like, make sure that I know that I'm pointing people to the right place. And I see how having all of those insights and those 50,000 plus data points that meta has that's really great information. So I understand now logically ads make sense. But also, quajo, you and I have talked before about about the the dark side of the ads world, and I want to just share for the context of everyone listening to if you have never ventured into ads before, and or if you have and you've been burned, here's a little bit of my story where that sort of happened. And now I personally do not currently use ads in any way, shape or form, and yet, we're going to have this conversation anyways. So

I was just seeing your brain. It's like this has happened to me. I personally will work with quajo, but we're gonna talk about.

Yeah, yeah, go higher quajo. But I don't necessarily, I don't caveat this actually, because everything that I ever talk about is always like, it's about personal like a personal strategy, whatever is going to work for you. And I think that there's just some people that maybe ads just I don't think ads work for everyone. Would you agree?

I would absolutely agree. We're going to talk about that after you share your story, and I share a little one too about science, that ads could work for the bit for like your the listener's business. But absolutely too many people rush into ADS assuming that more eyeballs will on their offer, will make it sound it's not so. So you're going to share your horror story. I'm so sorry it happened to you.

Yeah, I'm going to keep it short. We're going to keep the short highlight version of the story. But essentially, I I subscribe to this idea, because logically, again, it makes sense that if you are able to get an offer in front of the right people, and you have the tools to help get it in front of the right people, because meta is very aware of who those people might be. But there's just a lot of factors in actually figuring out like, like the audience and the objectives and your copy, headline, and all these pieces that you don't really know when you kind of go, yay, let's do ads. Because my if I sell something that's cheap and it pays for my ads, and I'm basically getting, in my mind, paid market research, do people like this idea? I'll make this thing. Maybe they don't like this thing. I'll have to, like tweak it to something else. Essentially, was my experience. And I, like I said to you, quajo, I did not dare to actually add up how much money I spent on meta ads over the course of pretty close to a year before I finally said, This isn't working. Like my thing isn't selling. I've changed my thing three times in order to try and make it sell. And again, I'm I'm talking about selling like a $27 product. And I think I sold one total in the course of that whole time, spending more than $27 Yeah, per day, probably, maybe per week, maybe, like, maybe, like, something like $20 a day. Day is maybe what I was putting in. And I definitely turned them on and off a whole bunch of times too, which I think, because it's like, the idea is so great that you could sit there, I literally remember the first timing of this is like, I'm going to launch my Facebook ads and I'm going on vacation, and I'm going to sit and I'm going to look at the lake, and I'm going to, like, make money while I'm looking at the lake. Ah, Bless little naive Kelly

Would have made more money if we had just, like, taken that ignorance tax that you and me, I've paid it too, and just invested that into Facebook stock earlier on.

Oh my gosh, yes. So that's what I was doing. But instead of making money looking at the lake, I was stressing out about how much money I was spending while I was sitting on a boat, and I decided to not do that anymore. And then I did it again, and I took it away, and I did it again, I took it away. And so basically, what I gathered from this, and I think where we're gonna go, is that there are certain times to use ads, and there are certain times not to, and the time not to, based on my experience, is when you don't know if your thing already sells.

So then let's talk about when it could work. Like, when should somebody start thinking about ads, and how do we get there?

1000 is 1%

That's 1% right? And that's like a pretty good number standard. Lee, did we just do that math right on our heads? I would be proud of us.

Yeah, yeah. This math, math is not making this pretty right now.

It's not but that's why we want to grow an email list and to bring the conversation back to ads. That's why many folks will want to start running ads to their lead magnet, to grow their email list, and then further down the line, they're going to launch, and they have warm leads that can join the launch and hopefully end up working with them. But before you do that, you do want to make sure you have a program and offer that selling

right? So what I'm hearing you say is, there's, there's two things here. Step one is you said, start using ADS only after you are selling your offer some other way, whatever way. Yes, you're profiting now from your offer. So you've already got a profitable offer, right? And then step two is not necessarily to sell the offer directly through ads, but to get people onto your email list through ads.

Good point. Good point

Is that what you're saying?

Yes, I just hopped off of a discovery call with a lady, either yesterday or the day before, at the time recording this, which romini was right now and her she wasn't the best fit for ads management. Why? Although her Instagram account was at like 121,000 people, I always ask questions. You know, first question is, is, does your funnel convert? As in, does your offer sell on the back end of a whatever funnel? And when I say funnel, it could be lead magnet to email list, to a direct offer to come into your program. It could be lead magnet to email list. And then you launch your you do like a challenge or a webinar or a paid workshop, and you offer your program off the back end of that. But whatever the funnel is, like, I always ask, how's your funnel converting? And, and she had said that, well, this is a brand new offer. And I'm like, oh, brand new offer. So again. There's that, that thing where we're hoping, as we might have a big following, and we might know our audience to have a brand new offer, but it's just not tested. And so, yeah, you don't want to run ads to something directly, unless that thing is, you know, under $60 right? You can try running ads to it, but that is a very difficult, very tall task, tall order to fulfill, right?

Yeah, and not to say that some people aren't doing it well, because that for sure they are, and that's who and those people are, the people whose programs I took did not succeed myself at but that's fine. So then I want to ask you, what are some tips that you have around helping to validate that offer, like helping to get the sales going before the ads necessarily start?

Building the course, creating all the marketing, doing all the things, putting all the pieces silently in the background together, is that what I'm hearing you say, Yeah, been there,

Blood, sweat and tears and software shutting down, and the videos being deleted and yeah. So don't do that, please. Because if you want to have an offer that sells, the best way to do it is to pre sell that thing. And you don't need anything to pre sell except for these three things. Two piece, actually there's four P's. First one is a promise, and the promise just means, if somebody takes your course, what will the outcome be for them? Okay, let's call it a dog obedience course. Somebody with an unruly dog takes it, their dog will be able to be obedient and not chase the neighbors and bark at the neighbor kids. In six weeks, there's a promise. Okay, you need the second Pete, which is a premise. A premise is just, I like to call it an arguable statement, one where you, Kelly could say, I don't know if that's true. That's a pretty big claim. And so these are things like, this is the quickest way to get your dog obedient, you know, in the world, all right, like this is the festival, the only way to get your dog obedient without losing sleep at night or whatever, you know. But make a premise that somebody that you can argue, that somebody would argue with about, right? So you got those two P's, then you need a price that usually is very easy for us folks, and then you need a process, and that process is your outline of the course, and that's also really easy. Lots of us can come up with the price in the process very easily, but then the thing that we've made doesn't sell because we haven't worked on our messaging to come up with a very concise promise. Nor do we have a premise. Hey. So you got those four things now for your course. You're gonna validate it however you need to validate it. Don't go and pay for the expensive Kajabi, you know, hosting program like don't make your course just you could put this in a Google Doc, and you could go on to your Instagram or wherever you have an audience and just talk about it and say, click on the link to learn more, or DME to get the link to join. But what you need is just you talk about the premise, you talk about the promise. Somebody who's interested will go to a simple page that has the premise and the promise there your outcome and your this is the quickest way ever, or the best way ever, and a simple outline, not an exhaustive all the modules and the 80 bajillion lessons, but a simple outline, like model one, the result is this. Model Two, the result is this. And just tell people, this is a pre sale. You could be a founding member, which means, because you're trusting me to deliver, because I'm the expert. But. You're getting in on the ground level, because it hasn't been made yet. You got to be really clear of that. And then you offer them some really big incentives, like this, course, after I make it, will be $1,000 you get to participate in it for only $600 and that's a big discount, all right. Plus, when I make it, it will be fully deal DIY, because it'd be so good with all my instruction. But for you, we're gonna go through this course live, and you get live access to me over the next eight weeks and so on and so forth. But those are the basics. And then you just tell them, we're gonna start this course when I get to 20 registrants, you know, 20 founding members, and if I don't get there, then I will refund you all of your money. In fact, there's less risk for you because I have to pay, like, a little extra refund fee, so I'm out money. But that's what we're gonna do, and that's the launch. And then Away you go, and you pre launch your course, or you pre sell your course, and then you make it with real life humans. And what always happens, always is the first people that come through the course have questions that you and me didn't think of because we have this thing called Knowledge bias, where we're just so advanced, we're so we're such experts. That sounds like I'm such an expert, but we've been super close to the thing that we've spent years getting good at. We almost don't know how to think like beginners, you know. And so they have questions that we're just not even thinking about anymore, usually. And they'll ask those questions live, and then we kind of tweak our course outline to really serve the people who are in there, and that makes for a better course. We ask them for testimonials. Now we got a better sales page and better marketing, and that's the way you do it.

Ooh, yes, yes, yes. And also, if I could expand and say we're using the word course here, but that could be program or whatever, right like group program, it could end up being live. It could end up being like a one on one, done for you offer in some way. But I just, I love this, and I actually have done so many different versions of launching as well. And what has, what worked well was doing exactly that, creating a live cohort and building a program around it and and that. And then what worked not well was creating plans and making up ideas and coming up with offers and being like, you want this. Do you want this? Do you want this? Do you want this? And nobody ever had asked me for it. So of course, they didn't want it. So now I'm back into a space of being like listening to whoever's there and wants to connect. And it's so interesting that we're having this conversation right now, because just earlier this week, I had a discovery call with someone where I did basically pitch a non existent program to her. I was like, Oh, this is what it would be like. And like, Would you like something like this? What would it was like a semi market research call semi pitch. And I was like, Do you want to join my program that doesn't exist? And she said, Yes.

There you go. You mind sharing what this program is about? Or is it still under wraps?

What this program is about is, well, it's about getting more visible, because that's what I always talk about. But the I think what's different about this is that I want it to be a very hands on, like learn to do by doing experience. And so maybe by the time this airs, it'll be a real thing that people can get. And if it is, I'll make sure that, you know, we've talked about it lots will probably be ads in this podcast talking about it, etc. But the idea is that you get a customized visibility strategy, and then the support with implementing that strategy over the course of probably 90 days. So we would come together, we would collaborate. You would get to meet other people who are collaborating together. And again, this what I think some people to get scared we're going off on a tangent, but I like it. I hope it's okay. Some people get scared about the idea of launching a group program if they don't have a group, right? But like you said, it starts when there's a group. So now I'm gonna hustle my buns to make there be more of a group. And I'm also gonna offer some incentives for people who are, you know, the people who have said, Yes, I'm in at the founders rate. And I'm going to give you, like, bonuses if you bring some friends to my group, right? Like, let's stop thinking we have to have all these complicated sales processes all the time and or that we have to build everything before we sell it. But like, in the end, we need to create something that works for people who want it, and then we deliver and make it amazing. And then once that's done, the next version of it is going to be 10 times better. And then what I think where we're coming to with the ads piece is that when we're ready to really magnify that and turn that up a lot, we get the pieces in place that allow us to do that faster. And that's where we can really benefit from the meta ads.

Yes, I agree.

Love it, love it. And I'm so glad that we had this conversation too, just about, like, don't start there. It's not for everyone. But like, let's sort of lay out some of the expectations and the strategies around ads that we can be thinking about it for the future versions of our stuff that we will have.

Yeah, I mean, I talk to folks all the time on Discovery calls, and I'll say, if you're not ready for ads, I'll say you're not ready for ads. And they'll usually say, you might be ready for ads, but it doesn't look like you're ready for ads management, because that's a different thing. Like, there's an ADS management fee, and so your business has to be able to have enough profit, you know, to cover that fee, ideally, but maybe you have an offer that is selling, in which case you can learn to run your own ads, take a course, you know, or pay less ignorant tax, but hire somebody like me selfish plug to do one on one coaching with you so that you can get good at running your own ads. There's multiple ways forward, but you just really want to be sure that if you think about running ads that you first identify there's something worth running ads to because nobody likes that like hope and looking into ad manager and like, clicking things that we don't really understand, and just seeing money draining daily and no sales, right? And so like, I want you want people to win, and you win by assessing the situation first and then figuring out how you can do this and make it you know work the best way possible.

Yes, I'm writing down your quote, because, if you're thinking of running ads, make sure that you have something worth running ads to, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I mean, and that's not to sound harsh, that's just like, Oh, of course that makes sense. So amazing. And I will just say, like, given that I have gone in, I've played in the ads management tool, and it is definitely something you don't want to do blindly, without some good training or coaching and support. So if you are there in your business and you're like, I do have this thing and is selling, and I would just love to really turn up the volume on that, then definitely reach out to quajo and talk about how to support you in that. That would be a really great step. I would highly recommend not going into that world by yourself. It's just like self fulfilling stress life.

I mean, and straight up, like a minority of the people, it's a minority. Of course, creators or coaches or membership owners are running ads, right and so like, maybe somebody listening right now you're not quite ready to run ads. That's okay. Like, every week I have an episode on my podcast the art of online business, that talks specifically about tactics and meta ads that are working. But then I also got two other episodes where I interview marvelous online folks like Kelly like you, and they're sharing like their expertise in your case, visibility, and you can come over to the podcast and just listen and absorb and take the golden nuggets of strategy and apply that to your business where It makes sense.

Yeah. Absolutely. So good. Oh, quad Joe, before we leave any final words of wisdom, anything else that you wanted to make sure that people walk away with? Do we miss any like nuance that I forgot to ask you about

So you figured out that the offer that you have is selling, and you would like to try ads. Everyone pays the ignorance tax when you start ads, make sure you get a good course or a good coach. That will save you a lot of headache. Because meta ads, it's a minefield of things to click and recommendations from meta some work. Some are trash. So understand what you're going into and then also, and I love this quote. I say it all the time, but a lot of people miss out on opportunity, because opportunity comes dressed up in overalls and it looks like work. Understand that ads, many of them, fail because you have to test different ads, you have to test different messaging, different words, different ad creative. And as long as you know that I'm going to do some testing, and it's not all going to work, but if I keep testing, then I'll get to the right messaging, to the right ad creative, then you got a perspective that will allow you to succeed.

That's such a good point. And it's, again, there is no easy button in business or life, so it's just about what you want to work on next.

If there is an easy button, it's probably blue, and it says boost, and it's on Instagram, and don't push it.

Don't. All for the blue easy button. Amazing. Quajo is at the art of online business podcast. And where else do you want people to come and hang out with you?

I love talking to people in the DMS, so you can DM me at quajo how it sounds Q, U, a, y, j, o quajo on Instagram, and I will respond because I like hanging out with people and chit chatting.

Yes, I can attest to that, because that's exactly how we first started having a conversation. And we've met online. We've had now this pod. We had a separate networking call, we've had this podcast interview. We're going to meet in person soon, and then I'm gonna be on your show in the next little while. So yay for collabs, yay for new friends online from all over the world. And thank you so much for being with us today.

Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you. It's an honor to be on your podcast, Kelly.

Ooay, bye for now, everybody.

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