The format for module 5 is different from previous modules. Loren Pinilis has contributed a significant amount of this module’s content, and he will be contributing to Modules 6 and 6.5 as well.
To avoid confusion, I’ve labeled my contributions and Loren’s separately, and organized both thematically.
Loren is much closer to the ‘in the trenches’ tactical execution on Facebook than I am. He’s a gifted thinker too, and I (and my clients) have been very fortunate to have him on my team.
I’ll provide my thoughts on the 30,000′ view of Facebook advertising strategy. Loren will fill in and expand upon many of the critical details. Combining these perspectives is rare. Most Facebook training is either strategy or implementation. The Traffic Engine is about intelligent implementation informed by sound strategy (the alliteration was unintentional and I’m leaving it for fun).
Facebook is an advertising system within the larger system in which your business operates. Understanding how Facebook works strategically and tactically will provide you with high-leverage, durable value.
It’s important to note that what you’re about to learn is not theory. It’s not something that worked once, in an ideal setting, for one client. It’s not a model that works for one type of offer, or one type of market.
Instead, these are broadly applicable strategies and concepts that Loren and I have developed from many clients in many industries over many years. Like everything else in The Traffic Engine, this is ‘learn to fish’ content.
We’ve both seen what works and what doesn’t with clients spending tens of dollars per day, as well as clients spending tens of thousands of dollars per day. What follows is a distillation of the highest-value insights from our broad perspectives.
Because this module is long and very dense, I’m breaking it into two parts. Part I is the conceptual and tactical overview. Part II will focus on creating your first campaign (including writing conversational ad copy).
You will need to read and review this content many times to fully internalize it. However, do not let that be a barrier to action. Read it start to finish once to get an overview. Then, read it again once or twice with an analog or digital notebook and make a list of questions. Ask those questions in the Q&A calls or in the comments below.
This is not a module you can breeze through and get results. Do the work and reap the rewards.
Facebook Philosophy and Strategy — Shawn
I have a love / hate relationship with Facebook advertising.
I love what it could be, which is access to audiences that are not actively looking for products or services, but who might be interested when they become aware those products or services exist.
From that perspective, Facebook provides a powerful complement to Google Ads’ intent-based search.
Google Ads search is a finite pool of prospects, and once that pool has run out it becomes exponentially more difficult to find additional high-quality prospects. There are always a limited number of people deliberately looking for what you have to offer. They’re usually higher quality (because they’re actively looking), and lower volume.
Facebook, by comparison, provides access to potentially enormous audiences who can be made aware of products and services to create interest. That is a powerful tool to have in our toolbox.
Facebook’s combination of vast user data and an ever-improving algorithm have amazing potential as well. Facebook collects data within its platform, from advertisers who have the Facebook pixel installed on their sites, and from numerous other data brokers. When used correctly, this combination of data and optimization engine (algorithm) is amazingly powerful for advertisers.
And, long-copy ads on the Facebook platform (which are not available on the Google Ads platform) are incredibly powerful tools for developing and testing messages that resonate with audiences, as well as pre-qualifying prospects to improve the quality of front end customer acquisition.
That’s the 30,000′ view for why I (want to) love Facebook advertising.
However, Facebook can be miserable to work with. Their policies are not transparent, their enforcement of those policies is not consistent, and their responses to well-meaning advertisers can be unforgiving and draconian with little or no recourse.
I approach advertising on Facebook with informed caution, and I suggest that you have the same mindset. I have seen businesses disappear overnight when all of their ad spend was concentrated on Facebook and accounts were shut down and users banned from the platform.
At a recent high-level mastermind, I asked how many of the 25+ business owners around the table had woken up at least once in the previous week, in the middle of the night, concerned about their Facebook account getting shut down. All but two people raised their hands (and those two had direct-mail businesses).
The concern is real, and it must be taken seriously.
With that as context / background, here are six high-leverage ideas to get the most from the Facebook advertising platform.
Idea #1 — Facebook primarily is a social platform, not a selling platform.
If someone has a leak in their house and needs a plumber, they may use Google. No one will open up Facebook and start scrolling through their feed in order to find someone to fix their leak.
People scroll through Facebook as a form of entertainment to pass the time. They are scrolling past updates from friends and family, posts made in Facebook groups they’re in, and all manner of content from pages that Facebook thinks they may be interested in.
Your ads will be mixed in with that constant stream of entertainment. So for your ad to have the best chance of success, it needs to cut through the noise by being entertaining, educational, or at least incredibly interesting to your audience.
My favorite approach to Facebook ads are those that change perspectives. Demonstrating a new way to think about something prospects are already thinking about, or providing expert insight / commentary are effective options.
This is an appropriate place to include a word of warning. If you haven’t advertised on Facebook before, you may be shocked by some of the comments on your ads.
A consequence of the social-first nature of Facebook seems to be that there’s an undercurrent of disdain for advertising. There are plenty of positive and helpful comments, but the number of negative (and occasionally nasty) comments never ceases to amaze me.
If it were up to me, I would delete every miserable comment immediately. However, that’s not a great idea (Loren discusses a better alternative below).
Comments create opportunities to engage. If someone truly doesn’t understand something, raises an objection, or creates an opportunity for you to educate / inform, take the time to respond thoughtfully. Don’t be snarky (it’s OK to be funny — Copy Chief founder Kevin Rogers was a professional comedian — his tone in replies to negative Facebook comments is a beautiful example of how to do humor right).
Todd Herman, author of The Alter Ego Effect, has a poster created every month with the nastiest comments from his Facebook ads. That’s a great strategy to desensitize yourself from the negativity.
I mention this because this negativity appears inevitable and I don’t want it to slow you down or make you feel bad. It’s just part of the game. Laugh, smile, reply (if appropriate), block (if inappropriate), and move on.
At a minimum, Facebook comments will make you appreciate Google Ads more.
Idea #2 — Understanding the nuances of Facebook audiences is critically important.
Loren covers audiences in detail below. I want to draw your attention to a crucial detail that’s often overlooked.
Facebook has multiple sources of information about its users. The first is Facebook itself. Demographics (age, gender, location) and psychographics (content that you engage with, the types of behaviors you engage in online — e.g., opting in, buying, etc., topics you’ve shown interest in, etc.).
In addition — and this is critically important — Facebook also tracks your off-Facebook website and app activity using the Facebook pixel installed on sites across the Internet.
And then there are other sources of large-scale data from all manner of data brokers that get integrated in the massive stores of Facebook information.
The amount of data they have on each user is astounding.
While that may initially sound creepy and unwelcomed, it’s actually a good thing for users. They’re going to see ads anyway. At least this way the advertisements are relevant and tailored to what an individual is interested in.
This massive data is also great for advertisers. When you advertise on Facebook, you’re getting black box access to everything Facebook knows about its users. You can’t interact with the data directly, but it informs the ways in which Facebook identifies prospects and how the Facebook algorithm optimizes advertising on your behalf.
Idea #3 — Speak to, and pre-quality, ideal prospects.
Three truths have fundamentally changed the way we think about advertising on Facebook.
First, traffic costs have increased by orders of magnitude.
Second, the algorithm is quite powerful if we give it a clean, clear signal (more on that below).
Third, Facebook allows long-copy ads.
Together, these three factors create the need, and the opportunity, to pre-qualify prospects with ad copy vs. landing page content.
Let’s look at an example I’ve used before — an ad for a 45-minute webinar that requires an email address to opt in and attend.
If we lead with curiosity only, focusing on all the ‘secrets’ that will be revealed, we’ll get a mix of prospects clicking on the ad. Many won’t be willing to watch a 45-minute webinar, many won’t be willing to provide a valid email address to watch that webinar, and others will click just because they’re curious what the ad / offer is about.
That mix of prospects does not give Facebook’s algorithm a very clean signal.
Without a clean signal, the Facebook algorithm won’t optimize as effectively. It will take more ad spend to give Facebook sufficient data.
A better option would be to describe the value proposition in sufficient detail in the text of the ad and to mention that the content is shared in a 45-minute webinar.
Including all of that in the ad copy discourages low-quality clicks, which improves the strength of the signal we’re providing to the Facebook algorithm.
And, of course, well-written long-copy ads are opportunities to create awareness, interest, and desire. The priority, however, is creating that interest and desire only for the right audience.
Idea #4 — Take compliance very seriously.
Loren covers compliance extensively below. I want to reinforce how important this is.
I know so many advertisers who have had (and continue to have) problems with Facebook. Generally those problems follow a similar pattern.
Everything is OK and then, for some reason, it’s not. Ad accounts get shut down. Then Business Manager accounts. Then, Facebook notices efforts to avoid restrictions, which leads to problems with any advertising account someone tries to access.
Soon, they’re using virtual credit cards and advertising from a friend or family member’s Facebook account trying to stay under Facebook’s radar.
That’s no way to run a business (and Facebook will find out, eventually, and react accordingly). I know advertisers who have been banned from Facebook entirely — not just banned from advertising and managing ad accounts — banned, personally, from Facebook, because of their advertising activity.
Facebook is not playing. Follow Loren’s guidelines below and don’t try to game the system. Those days are over. You will get caught, and the extent of your efforts to avoid playing by Facebook’s rules will be reflected in the penalties imposed.
Idea #5 — Understand the three Facebook advertising roles.
From the 10,000′ perspective, there are three primary roles for Facebook advertising: strategy, ad copy, and execution. It is very rare to be good at all three.
For example, I understand strategy and messaging. However, you don’t want me pushing the buttons in your advertising accounts. Loren, on the other hand, is broadly capable — he understands strategy, knows the platform inside and out, and he writes excellent ad copy. That is very unusual.
You will probably find yourself in all three roles simultaneously. That’s to be expected, and it’s OK. The critical insight, however, is to recognize the priorities for each of the three roles and wear the appropriate ‘hat’ depending on what you need to accomplish.
Strategy is the high-level view. What are you trying to accomplish in your business? How does Facebook advertising contribute to that?
For example, if you’re trying to determine if an unproven $97 offer will sell to cold traffic, straight to offer is an efficient option. If you have a proven $1,997 offer, Facebook ad to multi-page pre-sell site for lead generation and soap opera sequence to offer might be a better strategy.
Ad copy is particularly important when you’re using long-form ads for testing and pre-qualifying. Module 5, part II will focus on writing great ad copy, and Module 6.5 will be a masterclass in using long-form ads to test ideas and offers for proven and unproven offers.
Execution is everything that’s required to make the strategy real. Audience identification, account setup, ad creation, and ongoing optimization (which will be discussed in Module 6).
These three roles are not always black and white, but they are distinct.
Action Steps:
- Articulate your strategy first in terms simple enough that a sixth grader could understand. If you can’t explain it you don’t understand it. Spend the time necessary to know the outcome you want for your business, how you intend to use Facebook to achieve that outcome, and what you’ll measure to know if you’re moving in the right direction.
- Once you know your strategy, write your ad copy. Start with one good ad. You can create more later — for now, we want to put a stake in the ground.
- The final step is to put it all together in your Facebook advertising account. Setup the campaign, identify your audience, create your ad, run some traffic, and review your results.
Over time, each of these roles will inform the others. You’ll notice things when you’re executing that’ll inform your strategy. Review and optimization will help you iterate toward success.
Eventually, you’ll switch roles seamlessly. For now, however, do that deliberately. That’ll help you focus, you’ll learn the material faster, and the material you learn will be long-lasting and durable.
Idea #6 — High-quality ideas and messaging are the most powerful tools in your toolbox.
I saved this one for last because it is, by far, the most important.
The quality of your ideas, and how those ideas are expressed in your advertising, are the two most powerful elements in your marketing toolbox.
It is exceptionally difficult to create awareness of, interest in, and desire for a boring idea. You can do everything else right and still fail miserably.
Conversely, if you have a really great idea, you can do a lot of things wrong and still get amazing results.
This is particularly true on Facebook because you’re advertising to an audience that’s not actively looking for what you have to offer. If someone is standing in his living room with a broken pipe leaking through the ceiling, the first plumber to arrive gets the job. S/he doesn’t have to be interesting (or entertaining).
Facebook, on the other hand, is a dopamine slot machine and spinning the wheel is free. It is far easier to scroll past an ad than it is to pay any attention to it because there’s always something more interesting — or the promise of something more interesting — when I keep scrolling.
That is a far higher-stakes environment for attracting and keeping attention. The traditional direct response model uses bold claims and big promises to attract that attention. Facebook doesn’t like either.
That leaves us with a narrower field of play to attract and monetize attention, and the quality of our ideas (and our ability to express those ideas well) is what will ultimately determine success or failure.
What’s a good idea? That’s impossible to say specifically without knowing your audience and offer. In general terms, it’s whatever speaks to the visceral, felt needs of an audience in ways they have not heard before.
The place to start looking for good ideas is the Value Proposition Design Canvas (Audience and Offer Masterclass, Part II). What really matters to your audience? Not the surface-level stuff — the deep desires? That’s where you’ll find your starting point.
Facebook Overview — Loren
Just like Google, there are three parties at play in Facebook ads: the user, the advertiser, and Facebook. However, when we say “Facebook” we mean not only compliance issues. We also mean working with the algorithm.
This is a crucial foundation to our understanding of Facebook advertising.
Understanding the Algorithm
Facebook does not randomly serve your ads to users on the platform. Facebook serves ads to users selectively in order to get results for advertisers.
As an advertiser, you specify what you want from Facebook (purchases, leads), and then Facebook does what it can to get those results. Facebook’s astounding number of data points are used to figure out the exact type of person who will respond to your ad at the best cost possible, while also spending the budget you specify.
The complex piece of coding that determines ad delivery is what we refer to as “the algorithm.” It’s an amazing feat of engineering, and at its core is the ability for Facebook to analyze tons and tons of data.
As mentioned earlier, Facebook has a ridiculous amount of data points on its users.
Facebook also tracks data points on advertisers. They know the type of people who engage with your Facebook page. They know which ads are getting interaction, at what time, and with what audience. They know who is purchasing your products or becoming leads.
While many may find it scary that Facebook has so much data, Facebook uses that data ultimately to help users and advertisers.
I believe that Facebook wants advertisers to win. As long as you provide a good experience to users, Facebook wants you to get positive results so that you continue to spend money with them.
Getting you those results (while making sure users have good experiences) is what the algorithm does.
Let’s not forget the algorithm is constantly learning. As more data comes into your account, the algorithm will become more efficient at getting you results. (However, it helps if this data is high quality, as we’ll discuss shortly.)
As Facebook advertisers, part of our job is understanding the human element and creating ads that drive people to take action. But a massive part of our job is working with the algorithm.
Everything we do in Facebook (targeting audiences, setting budgets, creating copy and images, optimizing) centers around using the algorithm well.
Prequalifying
We want to make sure that Facebook is receiving quality data. This will allow the algorithm to optimize as quickly as possible, particularly in environments with lower spend.
There are a few obvious tasks we do to give Facebook good data, like making sure that the Facebook pixel is installed everywhere, that events are firing properly (add to cart, purchase, etc.), and that we have CAPI setup.
Past that, our strategy is to make sure every action is as prequalified as we can reasonably make it. We don’t want people clicking “See More” on our ad or clicking over to the landing page out of mere curiosity.
When we prequalify well, Facebook sees a strong and clear signal. The algorithm can quickly see the data of who is engaging with our ad, and this data is in line with the type of people we want Facebook to keep sending our way. We are helping the algorithm learn and optimize.
If we don’t prequalify well, Facebook gets a noisy signal. The algorithm sees the data of who is engaging with our ad and tries to send us more people like that, but that’s not really the best people we want sent our way. The algorithm is learning much more slowly, often with lots of bumps along the way.
Now with enough time and ad spend, Facebook may eventually figure it out. If we are driving traffic to a front-end product, Facebook will slowly accumulate data and begin to understand what purchasers “look like.” So even with a noisier signal, the algorithm will eventually be able to cut through and begin optimizing. But the process is much less efficient.
Make no mistake: it is quite challenging to write copy that prequalifies well but yet interests readers and gets the right people to take action. But the strategy will produce results.
Audiences
The proper way to think about and use audiences is the biggest area of confusion I see with Facebook advertisers. (That’s understandable since best practices with audiences have changed a lot over the last few years.)
First we have to understand the proper way to think about an audience: An audience in Facebook is a pool of people where the algorithm roams around searching for results.
Facebook does not randomly deliver the ads within an audience. Facebook doesn’t deliver the ads one-by-one through the audience sequentially.
When we set targeting in Facebook, we are setting constraints for where we let the algorithm roam to find people. But the algorithm ultimately decides who in that audience will receive our ad.
The algorithm is in the driver’s seat, not us. With enough good data, the algorithm will do a much better job in the driver’s seat than we could anyway.
Sometimes starting out with smaller, quality audiences is needed at the beginning when Facebook doesn’t have a lot of data.
Over time as Facebook gets more data, the algorithm gets increasingly powerful at putting our ads in front of the right people. That allows us to give the algorithm more space to roam. In other words, we can use larger and larger audiences.
Our goal is to eventually get to the point where our account has so much data that we can go to massive audiences and let the algorithm do its work. Ideally we want to get to the point where our ads work on a broad audience (also called open targeting), meaning the only targeting we use is just age, gender, and location.
This gives us the most potential for scale and will often get us the best results because we can harness the algorithm’s full power.
So what audience do we start with in the beginning before we have that data?
Targeting that is too narrow will choke the algorithm. With too small an audience size (thinking cold traffic here and not retargeting), the algorithm struggles to find the right people – even if the audience is incredibly high quality. The algorithm, for whatever reason, needs some space to roam. Our goal is to go to larger audiences, not smaller.
But do we need to worry about having an audience that is too large in the beginning?
Several years ago, that would have been the case. But things have changed.
This is a good time to mention one key source of data that Facebook is relying on more and more as time goes on: Facebook also gets data by analyzing the copy in your ad, the images or videos in your ad, and even the content on your landing page.
Even if your Facebook account is brand new and has zero historical data on who engages with your ads or products, Facebook can still analyze your ad and landing page to make an educated guess at who would be interested in your ad.
For that reason, a very large audience may be successful out of the gate for a new offer and even in a new Facebook account. (This was not true years ago.) That way, the algorithm has a large space to roam around and use its existing data points and creative analysis.
Specifically, what is working well is often broad targeting as described earlier. You specify only age, gender, and location–and let the algorithm do the rest.
However, this is not universally successful, particularly in the beginning. While I do recommend testing a broad audience, my advice is still to test multiple audiences. (I’ll explain more about audiences and then get into specific recommendations soon after.)
As a quick aside, many Facebook experts tout the power of broad audiences and recommend going “all broad, all the time.” But these advertisers are most often operating in the standard ecomm world, selling something like apparel or jewelry through a Shopify store. The best practices for ecomm are often very different for direct response, high ticket coaches, webinars, etc. So consider the source when considering if an expert’s advice is applicable to your situation.
For other audiences to consider testing, you could try a lookalike audience. A lookalike is when Facebook starts with an existing audience, and then (using the astronomical amount of data that Facebook has on its users) it creates a larger audience that “looks like” the original audience.
For example: if you had an audience of customers already in Facebook, you could create a 1% lookalike audience of customers. The “1%” part is because the size of this lookalike audience would be the size of 1% of the country’s population (around 2.5 million in the U.S.). In other words, it’s an audience of the top 1% of the nation’s population who look most like your original audience.
However, creating a useful lookalike requires that your seed audience be a high quality audience (recent customers vs. people who signed up for a cheap lead magnet 10 years ago). You also need a good amount of data to start with (a seed audience of several hundred at least).
For many new advertising efforts, lookalike audiences aren’t an option because there will obviously be no data yet at all.
So a second way to create a quality audience is interest targeting.
Facebook allows you to target interests in the “detailed targeting” section. You can even add in multiple interests to build larger audiences.
When you are starting an account, I would recommend testing a broad audience and one or two other audiences. The other audience(s) could be lookalike audiences, interest targeting audiences, or one of each. (If your budget allows, feel free to test many more audiences.)
If you have some existing data to use (a website with the pixel installed, a lead list, a customer list, other pixel data) then you can build a lookalike off of a quality audience. We want to get the highest quality event (a list of purchasers is better than a list of leads, a list of leads is better than an audience of website visitors).
We also want to get a list with sufficient size. Opt for the highest quality audience with at least a few hundred people in it. Then create lookalike audiences based off of that seed audience. I would recommend testing a 1% or a 10% audience to start with (or both).
If you choose to test an interest targeting audience, don’t overthink your choice of an interest. Just pick an interest or several interests that make sense in your gut. Aim for a minimum audience size of two million. For a maximum audience size, you could go up to 50 million or even 100 million.
Audience testing is really quite simple.
Just launch your ads into the audiences you’re testing, give them a few days and an appropriate amount of spend to start (something like three or four times your expected cost per purchase). Then turn off what’s not working. Keep running with what it is working.
From here, our goal is to continue to find larger and larger audiences that work.
Over time, begin broadening out your audiences and looking for other pools of people to get results.
Optimization Event
When we set up campaigns in Facebook, we tell Facebook what to optimize for. This could be many different goals, such as landing page views, engagement (getting comments, clicks, likes, etc.), leads, or purchases.
This is, by far, the most important part of working with the algorithm.
The Facebook algorithm is incredibly smart in some ways, but in other ways it is stupid. It doesn’t read between the lines. It doesn’t consider your business goals. It doesn’t think about your intentions.
The algorithm tries to give you what you want—what you are optimizing for.
If you want purchases, optimize for purchases. If you want leads, optimize for leads.
However, there are two problems to avoid.
The first issue is that you ideally want to give Facebook enough data so the algorithm can optimize. You need a good volume of data coming in regularly in order for Facebook’s performance to be consistent.
The rule of thumb is around 50 optimizing events per week. I’ve heard some say 10 per day (70 per week). In reality there’s no magic number and there is no clear point where it suddenly “clicks” for the Facebook algorithm.
Facebook performance may still be great if you aren’t getting that level of data. But the performance will likely be more volatile.
For purchases and leads, achieving this volume of conversions may require more ad spend than an advertiser is comfortable with.
I would still advise to start off trying for the optimization you actually want, and then if conversion volume isn’t there (and performance is poor), you can try moving further “up the funnel.” You could at that point try to optimize for add to cart or attending the webinar, etc.
But that takes us into the second problem, and this problem is crucial to understand. It is one of the greatest mistakes I see even experienced Facebook advertisers making.
I can not overstate how important it is to understand this concept.
Remember: the Facebook algorithm is incredibly smart, but it is also incredibly stupid.
It will try and give you what you are optimizing for. In other words, what you are asking it to do. But it will not understand your backend or funnel or what you really want. It will only do what you tell it to do.
Take lead generation, for example. That’s where I see this issue the most.
Let’s say an advertiser is selling a high-ticket service, and they are trying to generate leads with Facebook ads. Their intended funnel would be obvious: sign up leads on Facebook, nurture the leads, then close to the high-ticket service.
So they set up a Facebook ad that is optimized for leads. It all seems like standard textbook stuff.
But look at how they are working with the algorithm.
They are asking the algorithm to give them cheap leads. Not eventual high-ticket sales. Not necessarily quality customers. Just cheap leads.
And the smart/stupid Facebook algorithm is going to give them what they’ve asked for.
The leads start coming in, the sales team is closing at a decent rate, and everyone is smiling. But a few days later, the sales team starts complaining about the lead quality.
Over time, Facebook gets better and better at giving them cheaper and cheaper leads. The marketers pat themselves on the back for getting cost per lead down so low … until the sales team says that the lead quality is worse than ever.
Pause for a moment and consider how the overwhelming majority of Facebook marketers would react at this point.
Many would think the problem is the audience targeting.
But I am convinced that the core problem in the above scenario is the optimizing event.
Remember, an audience in Facebook is a pool of people, and the algorithm roams throughout that pool of people looking for results.
When you’ve told the algorithm to find leads at the lowest cost (regardless of quality), it’s going to look for the cheapest leads even in good audience pools. Facebook will look for people who are most likely to download your lead magnet, watch your webinar, or fill out your lead generation form.
Maybe those leads end up being high quality; maybe they don’t. But if things are going poorly, the targeting is only partially to blame. The algorithm is in the driver’s seat, and there’s only so much audience targeting can do to keep it in line.
So what’s the solution?
In our example of lead generation for a high-ticket service, there is probably not enough volume to optimize for purchases and get 50 conversions per week.
One course of action would be to optimize for purchases anyway. I’ve seen this routinely produce amazing results (better than when optimizing for other events). But as stated earlier, this lack of data will make our performance very volatile.
Another course of action would be to optimize for leads but to make sure that there is a strong signal between the lead and the high-ticket purchase. In other words, the type of person who signs up and becomes a lead is correlated as much as possible to the type of person who purchases.
No tire-kickers or price-checkers.
If you are offering a lead magnet or webinar or some other “ethical bribe” to get a lead, then the type of person who signs up to be a lead HAS to correlate very strongly with the type of person who eventually purchases.
Another possible solution is to change the funnel and go to a lower-priced front end product. As long as the type of person purchasing the front-end is the same type of person purchasing the high-ticket service, then perhaps the initial purchase and the high-ticket would be even stronger than the signal between being a lead and being a high-ticket purchaser.
A third course of action would be to optimize for some other intermediate event. For instance, instead of optimizing for webinar registrations or purchases from the webinar, optimize for someone who views the webinar for 45 minutes.
That may hit the sweet spot where the event quality is as high as it can be while still having a sufficient volume of conversions.
User Experience
One final important aspect to understand about the algorithm is user experience. Facebook wants to give advertisers results, but they also jealously guard their users’ experience.
Facebook has a very complicated auction process to determine what ads are shown to users, and the highest bidder does not always win. A positive user experience is taken into account and rewarded in the auction with lower ad costs.
Metrics such as click-through rate, page conversion, and page load times are considered. Likes, shares, and positive comments are important as well.
Likewise, negative feedback on an ad or poor engagement raises ad costs.
I have heard it is best to hide negative comments, not to delete them. Some advertisers have claimed to notice a decline in ad performance when they deleted comments but not when they hid them.
If you hide a negative comment, you can also consider banning that person from your page. This would prevent them from engaging with your page or seeing your ads in the future.
That’s important because Facebook may see their commenting as a sign that they are interested in your ad, and that may actually encourage Facebook to deliver your ads even more to that negative commenter. If you’ve banned them from your page, that won’t happen.
However, negative comments do provide opportunities. They sometimes reveal objections that could be proactively addressed in future ad copy or landing pages. There’s a small chance that replying well to legitimate negative comments may win someone over. But even if the commenter does not have their mind changed, readers of the conversation thread have a chance to see your attitude and the arguments you make to refute complaints.
Top Compliance Mistakes — Loren
It may not be popular, but this is my honest advice: take Facebook compliancevery, very seriously.
Understand first what’s at risk with non-compliant ads. It’s possible to get ad accounts deactivated for policy violations. Business manager accounts can be shut down. Personal profiles can be blocked from having anything to do with advertising at all (even managing someone else’s account).
Facebook tracks IP addresses, personal profile access, and payment methods, and they do not take kindly to any attempts at getting around an account deactivation.
The take-away is that, with Facebook, an ounce of prevention is worth considerably more than a pound of cure.
Unfortunately, prevention comes with a bit of a learning curve. Many of Facebook’s policies are incredibly subjective. Understanding how Facebook interprets their policies often takes a few rejected ads and lots of time spent learning from the mistakes of others.
More unfortunately still, Facebook is not tolerant at all of well-intentioned advertisers who inadvertently violate policy. There may not be a second chance.
You don’t have a right to advertise on Facebook, and there’s no shortage of advertisers lining up to give Facebook money. They have the liberty of making snap judgments on ad rejection and account deactivation. They don’t have to explain themselves. Their judgment doesn’t need to be reasonable to anyone else’s standards.
My honest advice to beginners is to take a cautious approach. Do not dive in and then figure it out. Take the time to learn compliance well. If there is any doubt, have your ad reviewed by someone with a good grasp on compliance. The benefits of advertising on Facebook are well worth the cost of learning compliance. But still — you must take the time to pay that cost.
Also, Facebook is frustratingly inconsistent when it comes to compliance. An ad can get approved today and rejected tomorrow. One advertiser can run an audacious claim that would get another advertiser banned.
The exact extent of “what you can get away with” often depends on your account. Aged accounts and accounts with more spend may be able to push the envelope further.
Also, of utmost importance is the track record of compliance in the account. If you have a long history of consistently getting ads approved, you may be able to push compliance a little. Likewise, a history of many rejections (particularly recently) means you may have to be more conservative.
With all of this being said, I don’t think Facebook is a heartless, evil corporation. All of their ad policies are directed toward providing a great experience for Facebook users. Think of compliance work as partnering with Facebook to treat their users well.
How to Protect Yourself and Learn Facebook policy:
Step #1 — Review Facebook’s advertising policies.
Anytime I run ads for a new niche or new situation, I review the policies just to make sure I’m not missing anything.
Step #2 — Review the list below for some of the most common compliance issues.
Step #3 (Optional but Recommended) — Go to facebook.com/id and get your ID verified. This will take a few minutes. If you really want to go all out, you could take some extra time and get the highest level of verification so that you can place political ads.
Step #4 (Optional) — Become Meta Verified. There is a small cost involved, but you supposedly get a higher level of support. At the very least, you look more like a “real person” to Facebook, and that may help with account bans.
Step #5 (Optional but Recommended) — Disconnect from any assets (pages, ad accounts) that are restricted if you can.
Step #6 (Optional) — Complete the free Facebook Blueprint training. I would recommend at least going through the section on ad policy (which can be finished in under 20 minutes).
It is far from comprehensive and will likely not be the most helpful resource. However, you do login with your personal profile — and I think Facebook is paying attention to who takes the course. I’m sure it looks good to them when you are actively trying to learn their policies. And perhaps they consider that when reviewing any ad account deactivations or other issues. It’s probably worth 20 minutes for that reason alone.
Step #7 (Optional but Overkill for Most People) — If you are very serious about learning policy, you can join various communities where policy is often discussed. There are many large Facebook groups devoted to Facebook advertising. Just search on Facebook for any group with “Facebook” in the name and join a few of the large ones that are free.
Know that a large amount of what is said in these groups is not high quality content. Most content is, quite frankly, garbage not worth reading. But these large, free groups are full of inexperienced advertisers who make big mistakes — and often you will see posts from people who had their accounts shut down or who can’t figure out why their ad is getting rejected. The comments in those posts are often great educational opportunities.
Most Common Compliance Issues
Make sure you review the policies to see if there are any particular restrictions on your industry. Some industries are prohibited altogether. Some just require you to jump through a few hoops. Some (like weight loss or business coaching) are fine but are more prone to rub up against certain compliance issues.
Important: Be aware that advertising policies also apply to an ad’s landing page.
Do not carelessly boost posts. Boosting a post creates an ad out of an organic post, and that ad is now judged by advertising policies — not the loose standards for organic posts.
Don’t make any assumptions about or identify any personal attributes of the reader. Be careful of using “you” (Ex. “Are you tired of the problems caused by your diabetes?”) or “other” (Ex. “Hear from other diabetics”).
There’s a myth that using the word “you” in an ad is non-compliant. That’s not true. There’s nothing wrong with second-person language other than you need to be careful not to imply any personal characteristics.
Solution: write in the third person, as if you’re a news reporter instead of someone having a conversation with a friend. Another tactic is to write a story about yourself and use first person.
Don’t make any sensational claims. Be careful about using any digits or quantified results, and be particularly careful about mentioning quantified results in a certain time frame. Don’t say “Lose 10 pounds in 4 weeks” or “Make $1,000 next month.”
It doesn’t matter if these results are true for some people. If they’re not true for everyone, Facebook may consider this to be sensational.
Facebook has relaxed these standards over the last few years, however. When using a (true) first person story, results in a time frame may slip by and be approved. Sometimes even third person results in a time frame may make it through.
This is a frustrating area of compliance where there is very little uniformity.
Solution: Instead of describing the data, hint at the results with vague references. Talk about the qualitative emotions felt instead of the quantitative results.
It is also worthwhile to explicitly (but smoothly) throw in a reminder about how the results were not typical, how they didn’t come easy, etc.
Ads for products that help people make money are tricky. Facebook does not like get-rich-quick schemes, and anything helping someone increase their income is risking that classification.
Solution: Be careful of going over the top in your ad describing income or wild results of income. Make any benefits indirect, like peace of mind or family security.
Ads for products that help with weight loss, personal health, and beauty are also tricky. Be careful about body image issues. Don’t portray one body type or appearance as ideal.
Don’t focus on weight loss in terms of appearance but in terms of health — while accentuating the positive benefits of weight loss instead of the negative health issues of being overweight.
Don’t show any before-and-after images for anything related to health or appearance. (This doesn’t apply to cosmetics.) Don’t show any image that would generate a negative self-perception. Remember this is true of the landing page too.
Solution: Talk about “healthy fat loss” and the positive emotions felt.
Don’t use profanity, and don’t say anything obscene. Don’t try to get cute and hint at profanity by using characters like “@#$!” or using emojis to suggest something obscene. Facebook views that as trying to circumvent their policies.
Because of this, be careful of using emojis to replace any words in copy. You can use them to accentuate but not replace, even if the replaced word is nowhere near obscene. This may not technically be non-compliant, but it may get you flagged anyway.
Also, avoid any strange characters if you can. I have had ads rejected when a brand used the ® in the ad. (We appealed the rejection, and the ad was eventually approved — but it’s still a pain to deal with.)
Practice the “grandmother test” or the “kindergartner” test. Don’t put anything in your ad that a grandmother or a kindergartner would be upset by. Nothing sensational. No depictions of violence, weapons, substance abuse, etc.
Don’t do anything that could be seen as derogatory or discriminatory. Don’t include anything that a Facebook employee would consider misinformation. Avoid any hot button issues like politics if you can.
Be careful about showing anything sexual in your images. This can apply to people showing too much skin — even if the image is intended to be non-sexual (like a uniformed athlete competing at the Olympics).
Do not use images that depict nonexistent functionality — for instance, a static image that looks like a video with a play button. Also do not have any arrows or directions in the ad instructing the reader to click on a certain button.
Landing pages should have links to privacy policies and legal info. Those do not need to be prominent — small footer links on the landing page are fine. It may also be a good idea to put a link to the home page in the footer just for good measure.
Do not misrepresent the URL of your landing page. I would recommend not even filling in the “display link” portion of an ad. (This is the URL visually shown to viewers of the Facebook ad.)
Likewise, be very careful with redirects. You may be able to slip by using bitly, but I would recommend avoiding it. In fact, my recommendation is to not use any redirects at all.
Only advertise one business in an ad account. If you want to advertise multiple businesses, have an ad account for each one.
If you ever want to mention Facebook or Instagram in an ad (like if you want to advertise an upcoming live webinar on Facebook Live), make sure you use the proper branding. If you use a logo, use the current one. Make sure your text refers to the brands in the correct way (Ex. “Facebook” and not “facebook” or “FaceBook”).
Don’t violate someone else’s trademark. You might be safer not using that meme with images from a movie.
Make sure you have the proper privacy permission for any custom audiences you upload to Facebook. Don’t buy lists and upload them to Facebook.
There are also several niche-specific rules for industries such as crypto, addiction treatment, dating, alcohol, and gambling. Review the ad policies for more details.
Facebook also has “Special Categories” for housing, credit, and employment. These ads are allowed but you must classify the ad as being in this special category. Your targeting is then limited in order to prevent discrimination. (For instance, you have to target men and women aged 18-65+ instead of only targeting men 40-55.)
For ads about politics or social issues, there are some extra hoops to jump through in order to provide extra transparency to Facebook users.
If Facebook flags your ad as belonging to one of these categories, they will reject the ad unless you go through the proper protocol to label your ad as belonging to one of these categories.
What to do if your ad gets rejected:
Always, always appeal and / or edit the ad to get it approved. Don’t leave rejected ads just sitting there in your account, and don’t delete them.
Step #1 — If you open the ad in business manager, Facebook normally gives some information on the specific reason for the rejection. Review the ad to see if you can determine what the rejection could have been for.
Step #2 — If you believe the rejection is a mistake, then appeal. If not, skip to step 3 (below). Currently, I am getting the best results from appealing over Facebook support chat.
This support chat is available to all advertisers. No special rep is necessary. However, support chat is only available at certain times and it’s notoriously difficult to find. You may have to click around in their business support section in order to find a chat option.
Before I click through to chat, I prepare some comments to copy and paste into the chat. Be super polite. Point out how you care about compliance and user experience. Don’t outright disagree with them, but fill in any context so they know “the whole story.”
Something like this:
“Thanks so much for reviewing this ad. I am so sorry about this. The rejection notice says that this ad was rejected for being related to MLM businesses, work from home opportunities, or get-rich-quick schemes.
We are a Facebook ads agency that takes compliance very seriously, and we strive to provide the best experience possible for Facebook users. <OUR CLIENT BUSINESS> is not related to MLM businesses, work from home opportunities, or any employment opportunities.
This ad is for a book that educates readers on entrepreneurship. We work hard to not make unrealistic income claims. We do not make any guarantees or promises about income. We make it clear that business is hard work and that it has risks. We make it clear that we do not advise any get-rich quick schemes. We advise a real-world approach that is the opposite of get-rich-quick schemes. We spend a great deal of time educating readers about the dangers of a get-rich-quick mindset. Our educational content talks a great deal about the reality of business in an educational way that we hope provides a good user experience.
Thanks again for reviewing this. We take compliance very seriously and hope that this rejection was just a mistake. Thank you so much!”
Step #3 — If the appeal is rejected, then you’ll need to edit. Determine if the problem is the ad or the landing page. Normally Facebook will give you an “Update URL” message when your ad is rejected due to the landing page. You may also notice that other ads linking to that landing page get rejected at the same time (even if they’ve been running fine for a while).
If the problem is the landing page, change it and try again. You may need to jump through some hoops and change the URL of the new page.
If the problem is the ad, give the ad a thorough read, edit as necessary, and try again. The ad may still get rejected and you may need to try once more. If your account is very new or has had a rocky history of approval issues, you may only want to try one time to edit before moving on to step four.
Step #4 — If after a couple edits, you are still unable to get the ad approved, then it’s time to whitewash and abandon the ad.
Edit the ad copy to say something ridiculously innocuous like an inspirational quote. Edit the image to something equally innocuous like a no-text picture of someone smiling. Edit the URL to take people to your home page, about page, or some other bland page on your site. (Still link to your site and make sure the linked page still has the necessary privacy policy / no pop-ups, etc.)
Submit the ad. Then turn it off so it’s not delivering. It will almost inevitably be approved. Never turn it back on. It’s now whitewashed and abandoned. Your account is back in decent standing. Now it’s time to learn from this and try again.
Note: Sometimes the exact same copy will get approved in some ads and rejected in others. You may choose just to whitewash and abandon the rejected ad and concentrate on the ads that did get approved.
— Shawn & Loren
NEXT: Module 5: Getting Started with Facebook, Creating a Prospecting Campaign, Part 2