AP 0242: Should I Restrict My Facebook Advertising to Desktop Computers Only?

AskPat 242 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 242 of AskPat. It is Christmas Eve. Happy Christmas Eve to all of you out there. Just crazy how fast the year's gone by, but let's finish it off strong. Today's question is from Jim.

There is no sponsor today because sponsors, I guess, are smart, that they are like, “Oh not many people are going to listen,” but you're listening, and they lost a potential opportunity. Anyway, I just want to say thank you again for listening. I think if I'm going to thank anybody today, it's gotta be you and all the people who ask questions out there because without the questions, there would be no AskPat. It would just be Pat, and you kinda get that already at SmartPassiveIncome.com. Man, I'm just having too much fun today as we close off the year. We have a great question today from Jim and a special guest to help me answer Jim's question right after that. Let's get to today's question from Jim.

Jim: Hey Pat. My name's Jim, and I have a website called HuntersApron.com. It's an apparel product that people wear when they're out hunting in cold weather. I've read or seen where people are less likely to buy a product if they're looking at it on their phone or on a mobile device. Just wondering if when I set up my advertising and Facebook or Google or whatever, if I should specify just desktop computers as opposed to mobile devices because presumably, there would be more of a chance of them ordering the product if they're on a desktop computer. I just wondered what your take is on that. I appreciate everything you do, all the information you give to us, and I hope you have a great day. Thanks.

Pat Flynn: Jim, thank you so much for the question. To help me answer this question, because I don't have very much paid advertising experience, I asked our good friend and fellow San Diego native, Rick Mulready from RickMulready.com to come and help, so here is that. I just called him on Skype, and I was like, “Dude, can you help me answer this question?” He's like, “Of course,” so here he is.

Hey what's up, AskPat listeners? I got my good friend Rick Mulready on the show. That's what's up, Rick?

Rick: Hey Pat, how you doing man?

Pat Flynn: Doing great. I asked you to come on to talk about this question specifically. We both just heard this question from Jim. What are your thoughts on this?

Rick: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I love that he's asking this question because most people don't even think about this. Yeah, sort of the trend has been that people are apprehensive to either opt into something, give their email address or purchase something on their mobile device. It's getting better. You know, the people are shifting a little bit, but people are still apprehensive, and I'll be honest with you, myself included. I don't know how you feel about that, but there's been a lot of apprehension there. I recommend, when I teach with
Facebook advertising, is to break out the placements. I'm not saying don't do mobile, but simply because the trend has been people tend not to opt in or to purchase something, because I've seen some very good campaigns, including for my own business, where mobile works a lot better than desktop, but I do break it out. I do targeting on the desktop device as well as the mobile news feed to kinda see which one works the better.

I've not really seen a trend. I will have some weeks where I'm doing better on desktop than I am on mobile, and the next week I'm doing better on mobile than I am on desktop. There's sort of really . . . I haven't figured out really a rhyme or reason to it yet. You will start to see some specific audiences though that tend to do better on mobile versus desktop and vice versa. That's why I recommend definitely breaking out your targeting. We call is “ad sets” in Facebook ads, where you do have some ad sets that are targeted to the mobile device, which is the mobile news feed, and other ad sets targeted to the desktop news feed.

Pat Flynn: Would these be the same ad, one is just for people on mobile, and one is just for people on desktop?

Rick: Yeah.

Pat Flynn: You have them separated so that you can either turn them off or crank them up or all that stuff, right?

Rick: Yeah, you can combine them but then you have to go into Facebook reporting. Facebook has done a really good job in sort of advancing their reporting, so you can go in, if you combine them in your ad, and you can go into the reporting and see, and break it out by mobile versus desktop, and then do some sort of optimizations from there. What I like to do, like I just mentioned, is sort of break it out so you physically are breaking it out within when you're setting up your ads, that you have one targeting group, which is the exact same ad targeted to the desktop news feed and then the exact same thing that's targeted to the mobile news feed. That way, when you're looking at your Facebook ads manager, you know exactly which one has performed better for you.

Pat Flynn: Cool. My thoughts on this were that if you're trying to sell something, you don't use mobile because like you said, and even myself included, unless I'm on Amazon.com's mobile application where I feel safe with them, unless I have a relationship with this person or this company already, I'm not going to buy online on a mobile device. It just doesn't feel . . .

Rick: Yep, exactly.

Pat Flynn: You know what I'm saying?

Rick: Totally agree.

Pat Flynn: I feel like email . . . I'm a little bit more okay with giving somebody my email over mobile. I know it's not quite as easy to do than on a desktop, but I feel like . . . Don't forget about people subscribing to your email list and then buying from there. That's all I want Jim to remember is don't discount mobile. If you're only going to click desktop on your ads, you can use mobile specifically for email and make sure that the email has a funnel and all that stuff to drag people into sales. That might even be more profitable than . . . You've even told me this before, Rick, that might even be more profitable, getting people through a sales funnel, than sort of cold just selling them something right away.

Rick: Yeah, exactly. That's actually what I was just going to mention is that, and in fact right now on Facebook it's quite difficult to go right directly to a sale because generally, these people are . . . It's cold traffic. People are not familiar with you. Unless they're your Facebook fans or people on your email list, it's very difficult to go directly to a sale. To your point, Pat, you have them opt into your email list, giving away something that's really, really good, something they have to have, and then they get that giveaway and then you can build that relationship with them through an email marketing series, a sales funnel, and then they purchase from you. Absolutely agree with you.

Pat Flynn: I'm not on Facebook to buy, you know. I'm there to communicate.

Rick: Correct.

Pat Flynn: I think that's the thing to keep in mind. Rick, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. If people want to get more information from you, and even your upcoming podcast, which I'm really excited about, where should they go?

Rick: Yes. RickMulready.com. The name of the new podcast is “The Art of Paid Traffic.”

Pat Flynn: Boom. Check it out, everybody.

Rick: Thanks man.

Pat Flynn: Alright, that was Rick Mulready from RickMulready.com, special guest here at episode 242 of AskPat. If you have any further or additional things you want to talk about in terms of this question, you can use Twitter and use #AskPat242. Jim, you can follow that to see if anybody else has anything to say. I know a lot of you out there are very, very proficient with paid advertising, so I'd love to hear your thoughts if you could offer help to Jim and perhaps add on or comment on what Rick and I were talking about. Thanks again to Rick.

Again, there's no sponsor today. I just want to thank you for listening to the show and asking all your questions. If you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat. Jim, of course, because your question got featured here today, an AskPat t-shirt is going to be headed your way. My assistant will be contacting you very soon to collect that information from you so we can send it to you. Again, totally free, shipping included.

Finally, as always, I like to end with a quote. Today's quote on this 2014 Christmas Eve is from Donald Trump. He says, “If you're interested in balancing work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead, make your work more pleasurable.”

Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you guys in the next episode of AskPat. Again, a special episode for you tomorrow. It'll be short, quick, but hopefully enjoyable. Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Bye.