KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• There are right times and wrong times to be running Facebook Ads and if you’re in your infancy as a business, it might not be the right time.
• Growing your business will either take time or money and you need to decide which one is more valuable to you.
• Not everyone is advertising on Facebook, meaning there it is a massive market to break into that is guaranteed to be effective.
• When you first get started with Facebook Ads it’s important you take the time to experiment. You won’t know what is going to work and what isn’t so you need to set aside some budget to cover this.
• A boosted post is the simplest way to create an ad on Facebook, however, it doesn’t mean you should use it. As it is a simple way to create an ad, you’re not getting access to all of the features you would get if you were using Ads Manager.
• Choose the objective that matches the outcome you want from your ad. Whether it’s likes, followers or conversions.
• Run campaigns alongside one another to test what works best.
• Think about what you’re asking people to do in your ad. If you’re asking someone to book an appointment or pick up the phone straight from your ad, chances are it’s not going to be successful. You need to warm people up first.
• In order to understand how your ads are performing, you need to take the time to learn as much as you can about Facebook Ads. Even if you’re outsourcing your ads to a professional, the more you know the better.
• There is a Facebook Support chat that you can use if you’re struggling.
• From February 2020, Campaign Budget Optimisation is going to be mandatory for all Facebook Ad accounts. If you’re worried, start getting used to it now and find what does and doesn’t work for you.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Your ideal audience are probably on Facebook and they are telling Facebook EVERYTHING. This is something you definitely need to be tapping into as a brand.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Liz – 04:58
• Why Should You Advertise on Facebook? – 08:20
• Getting Started with Facebook Ads - 16:11
• Should You Be Using the Facebook Boost Button? - 19:20
• Picking Your Objective - 23:20
• Should You Do Facebook Ads Training? - 33:18
• Getting Your Ads Accepted – 40:00
• Campaign Budget Optimisation and Dynamic Creative – 42:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

Join My Masterclass

Facebook Blueprint Programme

Liz Facebook Course

Liz Melville Website

Liz Melville Instagram

Liz Melville Facebook

Transcript below

Good morning and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast, how are you? I'm having a slightly stressful morning, it's got to be said. I'm trying to send some videos to an event that wanted me to speak, anyway, as it happened I wasn't able to go and speak in person, so I've done some videos for them which is really cool actually. Really excited about the fact that I still have a presence there and they can still see me although I'm not technically there.

However, you know when the world of technology is trying to work against you and basically destroy your life, that's how I feel right now because I'm trying to upload these videos and they are not going. They're just taking forever and I've made them smaller and I've stopped everything on the computer and I've turned the computer off and I restarted the internet and honestly, things like this really wind me up and I have to remind myself to be calm and it is what it is and I can't change it but it's just so frustrating this very modern world we live in that some things just aren't exactly as they need to be.

So, anyway, my little run over for now, this week we've got an interview with the lovely Liz Melville who is a Facebook ads expert and we're going to be going through some really good, simple, getting started tips. Some new things that are new and that you might want to consider, but basically if you are looking at starting Facebook ads, then this might be a really good introduction to you.

It might give you an idea of how to get started and why you should do them and why they're good, and I honestly do believe they're really good. I use them in my business and I've used them for lots and lots of clients and they're fab, and Liz is lovely.

Before we get into the interview though a couple of reminder things. First off I have a masterclass coming up so I would love you to join me live for that. It's on the 24th of September, it's got loads of different times as always so no matter where you are in the world I'm sure there's a time that will accommodate you. If you head to teresaheathwareing.com/masterclass you're going to be able to sign up there.

And like I said, I really hope you can join me because it's going to be another fun one. I only ever do these things live. You know how sometimes when people do launches because obviously, this obviously is a step towards my academy opening again and sometimes I do them on Evergreen. Do you know what I mean by that? Basically they pre-record it and then it's a recording. I'm not keen on doing that. I love the live interaction. I love answering questions, so I really do enjoy kind of getting on there and hearing what you've got to ask and giving you that help that's going to help you directly in your business.

The other thing I wanted to mention as a side is obviously this episode we're talking about Facebook ads and the fact that obviously it's really good for your business and this could be of a real benefit. So I wanted to mention as well that in the academy, when it does open which will be on the 24th, there is, one of the courses that are already in there is a getting started with Facebook ads course and the academy itself, now I haven't confirmed the prices. At the time of recording this I'm still weighing up a few ideas, but anyway it's not going to be a huge amount of money and to come in and do that one course and then if you wanted to leave, hopefully you don't, but if you did then you technically could.

I'm just thinking if you do want to get started with Facebook ads there is a course in there for you, so it might be worth going and checking it out. Okay, let's get on with today's interview and let me tell you a bit more about Liz. Liz Melville is a highly regarded Facebook ads and marketing specialist, with over eight years experience in promoting brands and businesses online. Her clients spend tens of thousands of dollars on Facebook each month and they include some of the biggest names in Facebook and online marketing.

She has also mentored and taught countless online course creators and personal brands how to ditch the drama of Facebook ads and confidently unleash growth and scale their impact through her trusted signature strategies. Liz really is the fountain of knowledge when it comes to Facebook ads. She was fab on this episode so I really hope you enjoy it.

Introducing Liz

Okay, I am so excited this week to welcome my very lovely friend Liz to the podcast. Welcome Liz.

Oh thank you Teresa I am really honestly so excited. I've been looking forward to this.

Thank you, I've been looking forward to it, so I've said in the intro that we met through James Wetmore and being part of that community which is very exciting and very nice and that you have been doing Facebook ads for some time and you are a bit of an expert on it. So I am super excited to share with my audience some real practical stuff with them today because for me I go on a lot about Facebook ads that if you are on Facebook then really you should be exploring that and there are lots of ways you can do it for not a lot of money, which is amazing for small businesses.

But before we dive into that, Liz can you tell my audience if they haven't heard from you before, who you are and how you got to do what you do now?

Yeah, absolutely. So I started my business back in October 2010 and had other self employed businesses before then but when I was doing these things I was telling people on Facebook what I was doing and I noticed that ooh, they told their friends and I would actually get sales for what I was doing. I had two little businesses, one was walking dogs, and that was amazing, so I walk my dog in this area and look at this amazing photo and thought ooh can you walk my dog and I thought this was quite cool.

Just chatting on Facebook and another business I had when I had a proper job was selling chocolate bars and I am a complete chocoholic. I probably ate more than I sold but we made these wedding favours and personalised them for brides and again I would just take pictures of them, put them on Facebook, have a chat about them and I would go, ooh my friends getting married, she will want to talk to you and would get sales.

Yeah.

So it wasn't until I was made redundant from corporate that I realised that I needed to still earn money, what could I do? And I thought oh, there's something in this Facebook thing. It was really just gaining traction at that point and I thought you know I can see the power for businesses how they can tell people what they're doing and that's what really got me into Facebook marketing at first but at that point it was Twitter marketing and it was YouTube and it was LinkedIn.

I would talk to anyone about any type of social media platform but over the years that's really just niched in to just doing Facebook ads so it was first of all just Facebook and then really got into Facebook ads. That's been my evolution, short story, over the last nine years but loved every minute of it.

That's awesome, and finding something that you can niche [inaudible 00:07:26] in because I've always still stayed fairly wide in terms of what I talk about and what I know and that sort of thing and I've always wondered whether I should or wanted to, but I've never had that desire or call to, and I think when you do start finding that thing to grab onto and go actually no I'm going to be brilliant at this, it's fantastic isn't it because then that's what you're known for which is awesome.

What I really want to do for my audience today is, if you sat there listening, thinking I've never done it before and there are lots of people who don't advertise of Facebook and I'm not sitting here saying, I'm very careful to say that if you are doing something on Facebook right now that is working for you and you're not advertising, then great. Crack on. If it's working for you then brilliant but the chances are if you're using Facebook, you will find that the results you used to get or the results you want, you're not getting and advertising can really, really help with that.

Why Should You Advertise on Facebook?

So let's start with the basics. Why should they really consider advertising on Facebook? Why is it even a thing that they need to think about?

That's a great question and I agree with you because I don't think everyone is ready yet for Facebook ads. I think there is a right time and a wrong time to running them and in your infancy as a business owner and you're just starting out then it might not be the right time and I think if you really want to get into Facebook ads and get the benefit of them you probably want to be investing in them regularly, consistently and in the early days you might not have the cash flow to do that but I think for me if you are a business owner and you want to grow your business it's either going to take you time to do that.

If you want to do it organically, or it's going to take you money to do that and using paid traffic. So I think it becomes that choice of what's most valuable to me? Do I want some of my time back? Do I want to grow this faster? In which case you're looking at paid traffic and when you make that choice you can tap into with Facebook. You know we're talking millions and millions and billions of people out there and you can't tell me that your ideal audience isn't part of that.

I know Facebook gets a lot of bad press or its not as trendy as Instagram these days and all the old fuddy duddy's like Liz Melville are on there now but it's just simply not true and your ideal audience probably is on Facebook and what's more is they are telling Facebook everything. What they're eating, where they're eating, what magazines they like, what books they've read, where they live, their age, you name it, it is on Facebook. We spill our guts on Facebook and that is data that you can tap into as an advertiser.

So if you're sitting thinking how do I reach people? How do I get people to see what I've got to offer, then what better way then to just send an ad out and let Facebook do the work for you and take your message to millions of people.

Yeah, I love that and you know what, you've just hit on two things that I talk or think about a lot, so one my audience are on Facebook, no no no. I assure you someone, somewhere from your audience is on Facebook because like you said even though there are growing popularity in things like TikTok that I only vaguely know because my daughter's on there and I haven't yet thought about how that works from a business perspective or why or how I would use it but I know people are saying, "Oh it's not as popular." And my stepson, he's not on Facebook but your audience are.

It's still the biggest platform by far and then the other thing is how much they do know about us. I always, I don't know about you Liz, but I always get the whole well how do they know that? You know, how can they know these things and that's not right and my argument is two fold, it's kind of like, well if you don't like it, don't be on it.

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

If you don't put your stuff on there then they not going to know it and two, it's not just about when someone says to me you can search on salary. Well how do they know my salary? My answer, you might disagree and I'd love to hear your take on this but my answer is obviously they are gathering data in from everywhere and they're surmising stuff or they're making very smart assumptions about you live here, you have this type of job, you are this type of person, you are this and therefore we assume you'd be earning this type of money. That's how I think they would work that sort of stuff out. What do you think Liz?

They actually know, they know.

How?

It's not even figuring it out or assuming.

That's amazing, I didn't know that.

It is and what a lot of people don't realise and a lot of this came out in the Cambridge analytical scandal because Facebook have partner networks that they share data with.

Yeah.

They used to partner with companies like Axiom, Experian, insurance companies so of course they know if you've got pet insurance and it's for a dog, you're a dog owner so if I want to target dog owners who live in the UK within a certain radius of whatever town, then they can use that partner data to find you and it's going to... yeah because they've got insurance policy there, they fit the criteria you've just put in, so that's it.

So a lot of us, we might not have told Facebook about our lifestyle but we may have made a transaction or done something that is publicly, well, not publicly but certainly it can be shared data that can be tapped into.

Now a lot of that got crackdown so a lot of these partnerships were closed down after Cambridge analytica so we can't now target on things like income because a lot of these categories have gone but there's still an awful lot of data that Facebook has and has access to that makes the targeting very, very powerful indeed.

And there is, so from a marketers perspective, honestly it's one of the best things I've ever seen. The fact that I can target down to those things and they've got some other super cool things that you do with pixels and custom audiences and stuff which we'll get to but that for me, and presumably you are still finding it effective and useful because again there has been talk recently, over the past year but ads are less effective than they used to be but presumably or I certainly feel that they're still as effective or still effective for my business. What about you?

I take the view that having just finished up a launch for someone where they made five million dollars.

That went all right.

We used ads extensively. Are Facebook ads less effective? I think some business owners would say no and they would call time on that kind of talk. I think Facebook ads are still as effective as they ever were. They might cost you more.

Yeah.

But that's a lot of it because there are more people coming into the advertising space and using it and advertising space of Facebook is starting to become a little bit depleted but that said, it goes back to something you said at the start Teresa, not everybody's advertising on Facebook and actually if you looked at the whole population of Facebook business page owners, normally that would mean you're a business owner. Only 6% of them are actually advertising.

So there's actually a massive amount of people who are just not touching Facebook ads at all and what's great for us is if you are using Facebook ads and you getting that experience and you getting your reputation with Facebook as being a responsible advertiser then you've got a massive opportunity there to keep doing that and they will be effective for you.

Where I tend to see struggling entrepreneurs who are saying things like Facebook ads aren't effective anymore, it's because their strategies for using them are not effective.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think we were really lucky having, a, a social media that we didn't have to pay for that worked really well for our businesses in the first place and, b, even when the advertising kicked in a bit more that it's still really cost effective to advertise through that way. I'm old school marketer, I used to work for Land rover who would put adverts out that would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and we would have no idea how effective they were and it was too late by then because it was a press ad or it was a TV ad or it was an event or whatever.

We didn't have the way and the flexibility that we have now that if we turn an ad on and it's not working once you've given it enough time to realise whether it's working or not. You can turn it off. I joke that when people come to me and say I want Facebook ads or what budget should I put on and it's like how much could you afford to lose?

Getting Started with Facebook Ads

For instance, if you're going to test something because in all honestly I don't know about you again, you might disagree Liz but I think I might know what the outcome of that ad might be but in all reality I don't because there are so many variables for every single advert even all my own stuff, some can go really well, others not so great and that could be the time of year. That could be the type of picture, that could be the audience, that can be the call to action, that could be all these other things so I never really know how it's going to go.

So in my opinion, how much can I afford to lose and not be too upset about that and the chances are I'm not going to lose that money and the chances are I'm going to get some results from it but that's how I kind of view when you first start out. What do you think?

Yeah and I would tend to agree because I think when you first start out with ads you're...