To keep giving you relevant and timely content, we update our most popular posts. This article was last updated in February 2021.
We’ve talked about how even though launches are all the rage, they’re not profitable endeavors when you’re relatively new to business.
In that article, I follow up on a BIG MISTAKE I see too many people making, one that’s wasting both time and money as they build their businesses.
[Missed that post? Read it here.]
Truly, nothing gets under my skin faster than a business owner being told by their coach (or any online “expert”) to focus on this one thing. That’s why I’ve got to tell it to you straight today.
The Bad Advice You’re Getting
What is this time and money-wasting advice you’re getting?
“Facebook ads are the answer to traffic, clients, and sales.”
I know what you’re thinking, “But Jenny, I see you and tons of successful entrepreneurs doing Facebook ads. So why is it such a bad idea?”
I’m so glad you asked!
When you’re new to business (or even new-ish), you’re missing some of the key components required to be successful with Facebook ads. Things like:
- the exact language your clients are using
- an opt-in page you know works
- an opt-in offer you know your subscribers love
- autoresponders that turn subscribers into hot prospects
- a proven offer people actually want to buy
- a consult and follow-up process that turns prospects into paying clients
Until you have these pieces in place, and more importantly, know that they actually and consistently work, spending money on Facebook ads is like playing poker against a pro. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll lose all of your money.
Think about it this way: If you don’t know the exact language your clients are using, you can’t create ads that will make potential clients click.
Even if they do click the ad, you then need compelling copy on your opt-in page before you’ll get their email address.
Even if you get lucky there, you then need the right opt-in offer to show them you’re great at what you do plus the right autoresponders to get them curious about your services.
Then you need an offer they’re interested in. And even from there, a consult and follow-up process that converts them into paying clients.
As an alternative to consults, you’d need a webinar or online training that compels people to register and get on your email list. And during that webinar, you need to be able to deliver a pitch that gets folks to buy your program.
The Problem with Facebook Ads
Don’t get me wrong.
Facebook ads still work.
But with the influx of advertisers on Facebook, it’s gotten harder to make Facebook ads work for you—especially when you’re just starting out.
Consider this:
- Facebook ads are more expensive now than they’ve ever been. That’s because there are now so many businesses who are willing to pay to get the attention of Facebook users.
- You have to know your market better than ever. Facebook users are seeing more ads than ever before. The competition is fierce for their attention, so you have to know what will grab their eyeballs and compel them to act.
With all that said, there is a time and place for Facebook ads in your marketing strategy.
If you meet the following criteria, then you’re in a good position to invest in FB ads:
1. You have a landing page for a freebie with a high opt-in rate.
2. The subscribers to that freebie convert into paying customers for your products or services.
3. Steps 1 and 2 happen consistently and predictably.
In other words, you need a full funnel that you know works without ads.
The funnel takes people from your free offer to a series of automated emails, to a sales page, to closing sales and enrolling clients.
Once that funnel’s working really well, consistently and reliably, then it’s absolutely worth it to invest in Facebook ads to bring more people into it.
Here’s an example:
When we open up enrollment for Make It Work Online®, we invest a significant amount of money on Facebook ads. That’s because after years of promoting MIWO, we already have a funnel that helps us reach ideal clients for MIWO and inspires them to enroll. In other words, the math works.
Bottom line: You need to know that everything you have in place is working—meaning you know you can reliably and consistently move people from not knowing a lick about you to actually paying you money—before you should spend a nickel on ads.
Facebook Ads Themselves Aren’t Bad, But…
The experts out there who are teaching you to use Facebook ads to build your brand new business aren’t wrong in a big-picture sense.
When you have those key pieces mentioned above in place and working, adding Facebook ads to your arsenal can be a huge benefit—especially if you have nailed down a predictable conversion rate (meaning for every dollar you spend, you know the bottom-line profit you’ll consistently make).
But until you reach that point, don’t waste your money!
Jumping ahead to advanced strategies like Facebook ads can make you feel like you’re doing smart things and thinking like a pro. But in truth, it’s wasting your time and your money. They’re not the steps you need to take right now to build your business.
Click to Download7 Steps to Make It Work OnlineWhat About Just Starting Small?
People have told me:
“You can spend very little on Facebook advertisement at first, to test how and if it works. By very little I mean $1 to $5. If that $5 doesn’t bring in any likes, traffic, and clients, then forget the whole thing, at least for now.”
I can see the appeal of spending spare change on Facebook ads. But the only challenge with spending just $1-5, or even $50, is that, statistically speaking, the data you’ll get won’t be informative or meaningful.
By “meaningful,” I mean reliable enough to draw conclusions about which ads and landing pages are converting, what your ROI is, and whether or not it’s worthwhile for you to keep using Facebook ads.
With an ad spend of just $5, you’ll get such little traffic that you can’t make any reliable conclusions from your results. Whether you see conversions or not, that doesn’t really tell you anything about the quality of your ads, your offer, or your landing page.
Most likely, whatever results you get are a fluke! You simply won’t know how well your funnel works unless you get more traffic.
What ad spend gets you enough traffic? The exact numbers are always changing, but to get meaningful data, you’ll need a minimum spend of $1000. And that’s just so you know whether your funnel converts.
When you’ve identified a working funnel, you’ll then need to keep paying for ads so you can test different parts of your funnel and drive your conversions up. Some industry leaders routinely spend $10,000 or more per month just to tweak and optimize their funnels.
In other words, it can take serious money just to make your Facebook ads profitable.
Click to TweetBeware of bad advice about Facebook ads! It can take serious money just to make your Facebook ads profitable.So if you shouldn’t focus on Facebook ads, what should you focus on?
My Personal Recommendation for YouGet our comprehensive coaching program for online service providers!What You Really Need to Do
You’ve got to master a strong business foundation and stick to a proven, business-building plan.
You first have to get clear on your target clients’ language.
Then, you need to test and try offers they’ll actually buy, experimenting until you figure out what clicks.
Once you have an offer that works, create an opt-in offer and build your list and put yourself out there, being of service as a way to get clients.
As prospects get curious about your work, hone your consult and follow-up process until you’ve mastered it and turn every perfect potential client into a paying one.
Not until you’ve mastered all of these areas and have a steady stream of new clients working with you should you spend time and money on Facebook ads. And even then, if everything you’re doing is working, you don’t actually need ads!
Let me be clear:
Click to TweetFacebook ads aren’t the answer to getting clients. Ads don’t work unless you already know how to get clients.Your Turn
Now, I’d love to hear from you!
Based on what I covered here, what shifts might you need to make to your business-building strategy?
Have you ever implemented a strategy before your business was ready for it? What was the result?
Do you have other tips, comments, or suggestions for the community here?
Please share in the comments below, or connect with me on Facebook or Instagram. I always LOVE reading and responding to your comments!
My Personal Recommendation for YouBuild a solid foundation for your online, service-based business!
Hi Jenny,
I love this.
I know too many people who spent thousands before they were ready (yes because a coach told them too).. I spent $118 on Facebook adds during the holidays.
The mistake I see — building a Facebook group to grow a following when you don’t have the other pieces in place is not such a great move. You may be liked (that’s if you can grow your group), but without sales, it’s a problem.
I’m spending more time cleaning up the other piecesz actually focusing on building an opt-in that will grow more traffic today.
Thank you!
Sounds like you know your next steps, and I love that you keep at it, Nathalie!
Hello Jenny,
This is a very important blog post. There’s no point in spending your whole income in Facebook or other social ads, if you don’t know what you are doing.
From experience I’d like to also add a good point that is often missed: You can spend very little in Fb advertisement at first, to test how and if it works. By very little I mean 1 to 5 USD at first. If that 5 USD doesn’t bring in any likes, traffic and clients, then forget the whole thing, at least for now. No use in putting thousands right away in something you can test with very low budget.
The only challenge with spending $1-5 is that, statistically speaking, it’s not very informative. To really know if an ad words, you have to start with $200 or so to get enough data to draw conclusions.
Great post, Jenny,
I spent a year building my business (and list) and trying to get all those pieces in place. I took a FB ads class in December from someone who really helped me dial in my strategy and fine tune the pieces you are talking about. I learned how much a conversion costs me. Over the past two months, I finished a series of offers after piloting them. Yesterday, I finished spooling up my autoresponder series incorporating my funnel. And last night I turned on the ads. Now I’ll start measuring conversion value.
Plus, I’m having a great time.
Thanks for your continued wisdom.
Kathryn
Sounds like you’re doing it all in the right order. Have fun learning!
Thank you Jenny!
This topic is so super important to get out there and I feel like it is a frowned-upon opinion so no one is really talking about it (at least not the people that are in my inbox). Many people do see Facebook ads as the solution to their lack of clients and there are coaches that tout it as something clients NEED to do. If you are working with clients that are ready for it then YES, but it isn’t a solution for everyone.
I agree with you that it’s important focus on the foundational pieces and get those really solid before building on your strategies.
As I grow my business, I don’t even want to think about more advanced marketing tactics like Facebook ads until I have the bigger pieces in place first.
Sounds like you’ve got your thinking straightened out, Lindsay! Perfect!
Thanks for the blog topic, Jenny! I really appreciate you addressing this question. So helpful!
My pleasure!
Been there, done that – and sent money down the toilet on Facebook ads!
I’d also add that people often assume that if they drive Facebook ads to an offer then – bingo! And, that’s often simply not the case.
I think Facebook ads can be effective when all the other pieces you highlight are in place. But, it’s also important to view Facebook ads as part of the big picture. So, using them to wave a hand in the air and get in front of the right people, and then build a relationship with them (they get on your list etc) – so they get to know, like and trust you before any offer is presented.
That, I think, is a smart way to use Facebook ads – but you have to know your audience, and what they want rather than try and work it out ‘testing’ ads that don’t work and waste bundles of money.
Such great comments, Debbie! Thank you for sharing that you learned this one the hard way but also how to see when and where to use them smartly. Always glad to have you chime in!
I have many of the foundational pieces in place, but how do I test the effectiveness of these pieces unless I can drive traffic to my website? I have paid small amounts to promote my Facebook page, and made changes between the first and second time that resulted in better attraction of my ideal clients to my Facebook page, but I’m still getting very few opt-ins on my website.
That’s a great question, Brenda! And there’s a lot of people saying that the way to get traffic is FB ads. And although that can be true when you’re experienced and have the above pieces in place, it’s not a smart way to start.
The good news is that there are LOTS of ways to get traffic to your site without spending money. My whole program, Get Your First 1000 Subscribers, helps people do just that. Including things like guest posting, getting interviewed, free social media options, hosting free calls and webinars… there are ton of great ways to get the word out about your biz without spending money.
As I teach my Make It Work Online clients, you have to go out there and get the clients (I teach them 23+ client-getting methods), all without spending a dime.
Jenny,
Awesome post. It’s SOOO tempting to just jump on the Facebook ad bandwagon! The OTHER thing most people are missing is SOMETHING THAT THEIR CLIENTS ACTUALLY WANT… and that makes the entrepreneur money, too! Spending $10-$14 per conversion or more with Facebook ads to sell a $29 product won’t make you rich! (Unless you’re selling hundreds of thousands of them, of course.) That’s why I stick with offering premium programs and services. Way too many people severely undervalue their services and the results they help their clients get, and that doesn’t serve them or their clients.
Happy to be a part of your tribe! 🙂
Creating personal connections and offering great value (for free) are great ways to get people to “get” that you can help them. Spending $ on FB ads can be good in the right, experienced biz model, but to start, no way!
Glad to have you here!
My experience with Facebook adverts are very hit and miss, I’ve found that most of the customers I have got though Facebook have been time wasters and people who book in the cancel on the day or don’t even bother canceling wasting my time and fuel driving about. A Facebook customer is always the last job/job’s of the day, so it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. But unfortunately not being on Facebook in this day and age is not an option.
I wish I would have read this before I ran my event and paid for advert on FB. I had 3 people “Like” my event but no one signed up and it was free!!!!!! Jenny thank you so much. I have spent so much time on other “how tos” that have missed the mark. You are actually educating and giving us useful information that makes complete sense!!!!!! I wish I would have dug a bit deeper into what you had to offer after your video during the Planathon. Thanks again!!!!
THANK YOU, Alita, for being the kind of open-minded, curious, willing-to-learn business owner who is ready to go for it in her business. It’s my pleasure and honor to support you in working through the next steps to grow your business. So glad to have you in the workshop! xo
Thank you for this info Jenny. I’m brand new to all of this. I am a chef and I primarily use FB for my advertising. Last night I ran a paid ad campaign. I received a free credit from FB and decided… Let’s try it. It’s only like a $ a day. Not much I know. But even if I generate 5 sales it’s something on my campaign. I’ll be following the data as closely as I can although it will be a very small data set. Hopefully as my business grows then I can spend more on ads. But at least it’s fun watching how the data unfolds. FB does give you stats on the campaign. I just hope I’m interpretating it correctly.