AP 0796: How Much Should I Spend on Facebook Ads?

AskPat 796 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody. Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 796 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.

We have a great question today from Otis, but before we get to his question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks. They're awesome. I love them because they help me manage my business finances. Not only that, they have a really cool invoicing system.

If you do any billing of any kind, maybe you're a coach, maybe you have companies that you work with as a consultant, or whatever. If you bill anybody, doing it through FreshBooks makes it really easy for yourself because in less than thirty seconds, you can send a professional invoice over to whoever it is that you're billing. Then on your end, afterwards, you get to see not only who has paid you and who has yet to pay you, but also who has yet to even open that invoice that you send them. Which is really handy because then you can tailor that message to them differently if they haven't opened it yet. That way you can get paid sooner and get what you deserve. Thank you so much to FreshBooks. If you want to check them out for thirty days for free, head on over to www.FreshBooks.com/askpat and make sure you enter “AskPat” in the How Did You Hear About Us section.

All right, now here is today's question from Otis.

Otis: Hello, Pat. I am Otis with www.LakeCityTactical.com. I sell a product, a handmade product and I teach classes. I've been using Facebook ads to get the word out for my classes locally. I'm wondering, do you have a method or a way to know how much one should spend on Facebook ads. What's reasonable, how would you make that decision? I love the podcast. Thanks for all the information that you put out. Appreciate it. Bye.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Otis. Thanks so much for the question. Really cool that you're using Facebook ads. I've been starting to use them more myself to drive traffic to different parts of my website, to potential products that I'm coming out with. Also, blog posts. This is a trend that I've been seeing in the Internet space as of late. That is driving Facebook ads to things that are less aggressive but will still benefit you and give you an ROI in the end.

Instead of promoting products, they are promoting blog posts, podcast episodes where those products exist, where there are affiliate links for those products. Where the product is shown as an example. Some people are even paying ads for other people who have on those other blogs and podcasts where those products are being featured as well. I think that's really smart because it's content and value that you are providing those ads for. Not just the product and kind of putting yourself in front of people's faces and interrupting them on Facebook.

However, you use Facebook ads, in terms of budget, what I've learned is that you want to start small. Even $20 a day just to start out with so you can begin to tweak and see what's working. As long as you are there in the power editor and you're paying attention to which ads are converting and which ads are not, you can then figure out and see, because Facebook does the work for you. You create multiple ads, changing different variables from the images to the copy or whatever. Then the ones that work best, that's when you pump money into them. At the point where you can understand, hopefully you are understanding already, because you have the conversion pixel on the thank you page, for example, after people purchase, you'd be able to understand how many people it takes to get to your website in order for a sale to come through.

You'd be able to understand, “Well, if I spend $5 on an ad, I always get X number of leads and X number of leads always converts to one conversion.” Then you can determine, at what point does it make sense. Then you can just start pumping money into it.

That's the cool thing about Facebook. Once you get the ad tweaked in the way that it should be and you understand how those leads are converting then you can just keep increasing that budget. Once it's profitable for you, you can add more zeros. You can double it, you can triple it. You can put as much money as you want into it because you know it's going to come back to you.

That's the cool thing that I've found recently with using Facebook ads is that you got to tweak, start small with your budget daily until you find the right ad. Then you can just add as much money as you want into that because you know you're going to get it back.

The numbers is what is most important here. Again, make sure that you are understanding all the different moving parts and how much each of them will pay you back. I don't know exactly what you are promoting in terms of if you are selling the product exactly, in which case you want to keep track of how many people land on that page or click through, which Facebook will tell you. Then, also on your end, you have to understand, well how many people are converting. To do that, you have the conversion pixel from Facebook on, for example, the thank you page that people land on after they purchase. That way, Facebook will be able to tell you how much you're making and how much you're spending. If it's positive, ROI, put more money into it.

Otis, hopefully that makes sense. Just keeping it simple, that's the way to go. Starting small and tweaking until you get those ads in the way that they should be, until you're making money. Keep going.

Thank you so much, Otis. I appreciate you. I also want to thank FreshBooks for sponsoring today's episode. If you want to check them out for thirty days for free, go to www.FreshBooks.com/askpat, and make sure you enter “AskPat” in the How Did You Hear About Us section.

Also, for those of you who have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show. Just head on over to www.AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page. Otis, I'm going to send you an AskPat t-shirt because your question was featured today. I do that for ever question that gets featured here. Askpat.com, that's where you go.

Thanks so much. Here's a quote to finish out the day, which is a Spanish proverb and that proverb is: “From a fallen tree, all make kindling.”

Thanks so much, take care. I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye for now.