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Ready To Grow Faster? Then It’s Time To Invest In Paid Ads!
Oh, the never-ending battle between organic growth and pay-for-play.
What do I mean?
Well, there are free ways to grow your business, but there are also paid ways to grow your business.
Both are good options, and honestly you SHOULD diversify.
But where do you place your focus when you’re just starting out?
Do you focus your efforts on organic growth through SEO and traffic strategies, or growing through Pinterest or Facebook or Instagram?
Or do you launch your way into paid ads?
Honestly, it depends on how quickly you want to grow.
Your Business Needs Paid Ads: Especially If You Want To Accelerate Your Growth
Are you just starting in your business out but want to make a big impact, and do you want to do it quickly?
Or are you tired to waiting for that organic traffic to pick up through social media and SEO?
There’s nothing wrong with being a little bit impatient, especially when there’s something you can do about it.
And that thing is paid ads.
Not only that, but when you choose to invest in paid ads, you’re in control.
You get to create those ads, test them and make sure they’re converting well, and that’s it. You just let them run, funneling your ideal audience right into your email list, where you are most likely to engage with them the best.
It truly allows you to focus on what matters to your business, which is finding out exactly what your audience wants and then creating products and services based on that information.
Your Business Needs Paid Ads: But Which Ones?
There are a lot of different options when it comes to paid ads, but when you’re just starting out, there’s no reason to dive into Goggle’s ad platform—if you’re on Goggle Adsense, or use Google Analytics (I talk about why that’s an online business must in this post) you’ll get emails from them about getting a Google Ads credit, but it’s really not worth your time, effort, or investment, unless you’re deep into the big leagues.
When you’re starting out, Facebook/Instagram ads are a fantastic way to get traction to your business. And because Facebook owns Instagram, it’s all done in the Facebook Ads Manager platform.
Facebook ads are extremely versatile, and there is a lot that you can do to really be strategic about targeting your audience in two of the largest social media platforms in the world.
Another great option for paid ads is to dive into Pinterest’s new Promoted Pins. It’s just like Facebook or Instagram ads, but on the Pinterest platform. One of the benefits to trying Pinterest out, is that Pinterest is new, so there aren’t as many ads active on the platform. It’s unlike how on Instagram, you can’t scroll past two pictures without seeing a sponsored post.
Your Business Needs Paid Ads: No, You Don’t Actually Need To Pay An Arm And A Leg
Really, you don’t have to invest ALL of your money into Facebook ads. Sure, you can do that, especially if you want to see some really rapid growth, but all you need to get started? Not so much.
In fact, you can get a fantastic return on your advertising investment by putting in just $10 a day.
There will be people who tell you that $10 a day is not enough, but since ads, especially on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, is so specific to your audience and the data you have already gathered about them, you’ll never actually know until you start testing.
I would say, through my personal ad experience and the experiences I’ve seen from other people who are running ads (and growing as rapidly as I am), are that $10 a day should be your minimum, and if you have an ad that is converting way under $2, then you should probably take advantage and put a little more down.
But either way, if you’re not at the point in your business where you can pay $100 a day in ads, then you don’t have to, but can still get a great return.
Your Business Needs Paid Ads: Know Your Campaign Types
When it comes to the Facebook Ads Manager, there are a ton of options for what type of campaign you can create, and each campaign type has its place.
But when you’re focusing on growing your email list?
Then you want to focus your efforts on creating a Conversion Ad.
A Conversion Ad means Facebook is focusing its efforts on introducing the people on Facebook who are most likely to be like your current audience (as small as it may be), to you and your business. With a Conversion Ad, Facebook doesn’t put the emphasis on the people who end up on your landing page for your opt-in.
Instead, it focuses on the people who end up on your thank you page after they sign up and the lead is generated.
Many first-time online business owners mistake setting up a traffic ad, and while having a lot of traffic to an opt-in is helpful, you want to ensure you are saving your budget for people who are actually going to become leads and actually end up on your email list.
Your Business Needs Paid Ads: Strategies, Even If You’re Not Ready To Start Yet
Even if you’re not ready to start investing in ads just yet, there are some things that you can and should do, to prepare yourself and your business for the time when you are ready.
First things first, setting up your Facebook Ads Manager account and getting your Facebook Pixel is a must.
The pixel is a bit of code that Facebook generates that you instal onto your website and any other major pages you get traffic to (like, Leadpages, which is an amazing piece of must-have software, that I talk more about in this post).
The tracking pixel allows Facebook to gather data about the people visiting your website, so when you are ready to create and run your ads, you have a large audience ready to go to promote to. Facebook walks you through how to take the tracking code and install it on your website so it tracks properly.
The other most important thing to do is create your lookalike audiences within the Ads Manager platform.
You want to create lookalike audiences for your Facebook following (which means connecting your business page), your Instagram account (which means you do have to have a Business Instagram account), along with video views for the people who watch your content, whether it’s on Facebook or Instagram, and a lookalike of your email list.
Your Business Needs Paid Ads: Things To Do To Keep Growing Those Lookalike Audiences
Even if you’re not running ads, it’s still important to ensure Facebook is gathering up-to-date data on places like your email list lookalike audience.
You create your audience based on your email list by exporting your email list out of your chosen email service provider (here’s a post on why I moved over to ConvertKit from Mailchimp), and uploading the .csv spreadsheet into Facebook. You want to try to remember to export your email list and upload it to Facebook regularly.
Your Business Needs Paid Ads: How Live Video Impacts Ads
Live video is one of the best assets you will have in your business, second only to that of your email opt-in.
Not only do you have the opportunity to foster genuine connections with your audience when you go live, but you also get to interact with them instantaneously, rather than them waiting for you to reply to their comments to you on Facebook or Instagram, or reply to their email.
Live video gives you access to a ton of data that you get to apply to growing your business.
Even if you’re not ready to dive in with ads, it’s important to get comfortable in front of the camera. That will help you grow your business and put you in the best position to be successful with ads when you are ready.
Ready To Start Your Own Online Business?
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