How To Use Facebook & Instagram Advertising To Have a Successful Membership Launch
Launching a membership program in 2025? This show gives valuable tips and insights on effectively using Facebook and Instagram advertising.
We’ll cover everything from identifying key demographics to designing engaging advertisements that convert viewers into loyal members. You’ll be equipped to significantly elevate your campaign’s performance with practical insights and proven tactics. Are you curious about maximizing engagement?
https://f0k0.short.gy/EWuCbf
#1 – Alex, can you give the audience a more detailed outline than your initial intro on how you got into the world of online marketing and especially paid online advertisement?
#2 – What are some significant misconceptions you regularly see people have connected to successfully using Facebook advertising?
#3 – What are some significant changes you have seen in 2024 connected to Facebook or Instagram?
#4 – How has AI affected using Facebook and Instagram connected to paid advertisement?
#5— What AI tools do you personally use to help you run your business?
#6—If you had your time machine (H. G. Wells) and could travel back to the beginning of your career, what advice would you give?
This Week Show’s Sponsors
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:01.390] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 104. I’ve got a special guest with us, folks. I’ve got Alex Afterman with me from 111 I think I did well there. I did bubble that up. In this episode, folks, we’re going to be talking about using paid advertisement with Facebook and Instagram. Alex has a load of experience in this area. I think a combination of organic and paid advertisement to launch your membership or accelerate the process of success is something you should really consider concentrating on. Alex is the expert. Alex, can you just give us a really quick intro? Then, when we go into the main part of the show, I will ask you to put a lot more meat on how you got into this world. But if you can give us a really quick intro, that would be great.
[00:01:18.450] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Sure. I have been doing Facebook ads for over 10 years now. I worked originally for a big publishing company, and I was doing SEO. And back in 2013, they said, Hey, 2014, this Facebook Ads thing, there may be something there. Can you take a look? So I took a look at it and became the point of contact of the business and built out the Facebook Ads program for them. Then, I’ve seen, decided to plant my flag and start my own business and came out and did Facebook ads for myself. So I’ve been doing it ever since, heading into year eight this year.
[00:01:53.720] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. That’s fantastic. So Alex obviously has a load of experience to share with us. So before we go into the main part of the show, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I’d also want to point out we’ve got a fantastic list of the best WordPress plugins, plus some great deals from the major sponsors to help you build and launch your membership website on WordPress in 2025, which I think still offers the best value, ownership, and power compared to other solutions. You can get all these goodies by going over to Wp-tonic. Comwp-tonic. Com/deals. W-p-tonic. Com/deals. You find all the discounts plus the created list. That will save you a ton of time. All there. What could you ask for my beloved audience? Probably a lot more, but that’s all you’re going to get on that page. They love that, actually, Alex. It’s my English-twisted humor. Alex, you gave us a quick intro. What led you? You were working with this publishing company and you were doing their SEO, but how did you get into the world of digital marketing, which then led you and your eight to nine year career with Facebook?
[00:03:31.760] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah. So I’ve had a little bit of a nonlinear career. In college, I thought I wanted to be a writer or a journalist. So I got out of college and I took a job bartending to make ends meet. A couple of years later, I realized that I hadn’t actually written anything, so that was probably a sign that that was not the right career for me. This was the beginning of the tech boom in San Francisco. So it’s like mid to late ’90s San Francisco. And so, like a lot of other people, I went ahead and learned how to build websites. I got a job at a tech company and worked in that industry for years. In fact, the publishing company I talked about where I was doing SEO and then ended up with Facebook. So, I started running a web development team there. So we managed a suite of websites for them, some popular publications, PC, gamer, Tech Radar, and some big tech and gaming sites. Part of my purview was the technical aspect of SEO. So make sure that your canonical URLs are right and all the behind the scenes stuff. And they ended up deciding to actually outsource the tech piece after a while to an offshore group closed my department, but I had worked really closely with the marketing team. And so the marketing team said, hey, will you come join us and do SEO from the marketing side?
[00:04:50.320] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
I said, sure. So at that point, I was pretty well-versed on SEO. So I joined them on the SEO side. Then we get into the piece I mentioned before, where starting around 2013, 2014, I’m mainly doing SEO, but nobody at the business knows Facebook ads. So they’re like, hey, can you look at this and tell us if this is worth doing? I started following John Lumer, one of the original Facebook people out there, and playing with the platform myself. I saw really good results with it for the business. I was like, Hey, there’s really something here. They said, Great.
[00:05:25.130] – Jonathan Denwood
I just want to interrupt because Alex has been very I’m looking for the right word. Alex really helps John. I’ve actually interviewed John twice, actually, so he probably knows my name. I’ve actually joined his community, actually, about a month ago. I just considered John was offering a great deal. You really help John in the forum and otherwise, don’t you? I think John is one of the more straightest players in the Facebook training influence area, isn’t he? I think his credibility is still very high, isn’t it?
[00:06:11.820] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yes, John is the real deal. I’m not So I’m part of the membership. I jump in there and I answer questions a bunch. I’m not part of his… I’m not an admin there or anything. I will say, though, there’s a guy named Andrew Foxwell, who I met in Loomers’ group because Andrew was doing webinars ours for John. Andrew then has started his own group, and I am in-house there. He has a group of Facebook advertisers. It’s about 500 people. And one of the perks of membership is you get an audit once a month for your account if you’re in the group, and I do those audits. I’m across all those.
[00:06:50.160] – Jonathan Denwood
Like I say, Alex is a real expert on this. Well, all right, let’s start off. Before we go into the next main question, I just want to put this you. Obviously, like all digital platforms, they have their ups and downs, some disappear, others rejuvenate. Obviously, over the last five or six years, Facebook, with Instagram, I’ve had their ups and downs, but I really think they’re on a roll at the present moment, and I think for the next couple of years, I think things are going to be pretty good for Facebook. What’s your own thoughts about what I’ve just outlined?
[00:07:32.960] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, 100 %. So the Facebook, the glory days were from the 2013, 2014 period until the iOS 14 situation in 2021, where Apple came out with all these privacy restrictions. Facebook lost a lot of the data it was getting. And that from April ’21 into 2022 and even the beginning of ’23 were really challenging on Facebook and Instagram, and especially the smaller businesses had a really tough time because costs increased. But Facebook made a big bet on machine learning to overcome some of the privacy issues that they’ve had. And that has really started to pay off. And we’re really seeing Facebook make a big comeback. I wouldn’t say it’s like 2017 Facebook because there’s a lot more people on the platform now, a lot more advertisers, so more competition. But it’s in a better place than I would have thought it would be in 2021. And I do think it’s on the ascent again.
[00:08:30.660] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, there was quite a few people that were jumping on saying it was finished, weren’t they? They really were gunning for it for various reasons. I also think Mark, I think his love affair with the virtual world is still there to some extent, but I think also he’s a practical… I can’t talk today. He’s a practical individual, and I think that he’s laid off that a little bit because all the focus of Meta was the virtual world, wasn’t it? The Meta world, wasn’t it? I think that’s been backed off a bit. Would you agree with that as well?
[00:09:15.300] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, I think they had to refocus on where the money was coming from, which is the ad business.
[00:09:20.840] – Jonathan Denwood
He’s always been good at that. He’s always been good at that, hasn’t he?
[00:09:24.120] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, for sure. I mean, in that way, the Apple stuff was probably a big way of call to them, that really need to reinvest in the ads piece because they couldn’t just keep operating business as usual with their legacy tools and make it work. So they had to come up with all these new tools to learn new signals and use this machine learning to get the signal. You better interpret the limited signals they were getting and then make those work to identify your customer.
[00:09:53.900] – Jonathan Denwood
On to the next area. At this podcast and at the main business I run, we help host and help people that want to build membership and community-focused website on WordPress using some of the great WordPress technology that’s out there, Alex. I’m a member of a few groups I’m on Facebook group, very small one. A lot of people, if they’re launching their first call, they might have a lot of experience in their particular niche, but they’ve got no experience in building a membership website and also online marketing. They get very, for understandable reasons, actually building the course. They tend to build very big courses, and I say you shouldn’t do that. And then they get very involved in the layout of the back-end for the students, and they haven’t even got one student yet, and they get sucked into that. And this process goes on and on and on. I ask them, How are you going to get your first group of students? How are you going to do your soft launch? How are you going to work out the bugs? And what is going to be the engine that after you got your first group that you’ve probably attracted through your one-to-one network, how then do you broaden out your marketing in a timely way that you get people into your course that you have no direct connection to.
[00:11:35.810] – Jonathan Denwood
And I just get a blank stare, Alex, because there is no fault, there is no plan. This is what this podcast is about, Alex. Plus we go for the technology as well. So I think Facebook, I think it’s a great mechanism. Obviously, you’ve got to get all the things that’s required, a decent offer, a landing page that has been optimized, all the factors. But when it comes to Facebook, what’s a couple of things that if people are looking at Facebook to generate some quality leads? What are a couple of things that you see regularly, people, misconceptions or mistakes you see people doing Are they based on your experience, Alex?
[00:12:32.660] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah. So one big one is the not optimizing for conversions. So there’s many different campaign objectives you can have on Facebook. There’s video views, there’s traffic, There’s awareness, there’s engagement. And those have uses if you want those things. But Facebook is a very, very literal machine. So if you tell it you want video views, it’ll go get you video views for your video but it won’t really care if those people are your customer and may sign up for your course or your newsletter or your email list or anything like that. So if you’re looking to achieve an action that happens online, whether that’s a sign up for a newsletter, a sign up for a course, a lead magnet, joining a group, any of those things. Conversion campaigns are the way to do it. They’re more expensive than the other objectives because the action that you’re asking for is more high value. And certainly, times, if you’re just starting out, you may want to run some other objectives just to get a footprint out there. But when it comes time to actually get people to sign up for what you want them to sign up for, conversion campaigns are really the way to go.
[00:13:51.230] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
And I still see a lot of people on all these audits I do optimizing for all sorts of different events, sorry, all sorts of different objectives that on our conversion because they’re less expensive. It’s true, they are. They’re way less expensive, but they also don’t really lead to the outcome you want. And so ultimately, they end up costing you money.
[00:14:10.080] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s the main one. Is there a second one that you’re actually seeing?
[00:14:16.090] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Well, it’s funny. You were talking about the people’s instinct to build out these huge, vast courses and very complex systems right before they had their first customer.
[00:14:25.160] – Jonathan Denwood
They get into the world of click funnels or some influence online, and We need to build out this enormously complicated landing page with different email generated responses, and they haven’t even got their first student through. Because it’s understandable because there’s so much confusing information on YouTube and on the internet in general, isn’t it?
[00:14:55.890] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, for sure. On the ad side, there’s a similarity. Keep it simple. Don’t ask for four different things in your ad. You could sign up for this or that or that or that. Give users an easy thing to do. The main thing you want them to do. And So again, I see a lot of very complex structures in Facebook as well, where it’s like, oh, I’m going to have these seven campaigns, and they’re all these different personas, and go to all these different landing pages and everything. And it’s like, especially when you’re just starting out, keep it really simple, right? Have a single defining message in your ad. Send them to a very simple landing page where they can take an action. And trying to bite off smaller chunks early is better. It’s going to be hard to use Facebook when you’re just starting out to get somebody to buy a $497 course. It’s going to be much easier to get them into either a $39 one-off It’s funny that you say that because during December, I had a little bit of a break, but I was working out my objectives for 205, and I’m a bit…
[00:16:14.690] – Jonathan Denwood
I I need time to think over things through my walks. See, I’m a big walker, Alex. I came across this particular influencer, and she came on my radar by watching somebody else’s video, and I liked some of her ideas. Then she’s got over 10 years experience as yourself as running Facebook campaigns, but now she runs her own business with a business partner where they’re selling educational products in the launch area. But she brought this concept of using Facebook paid advertising and using either having a step approach where you’re using a free lead magnet and then utilizing a very low price lead magnet. And the objective is to build your email list, which isn’t that easy unless you got some really morphology, and using those adverts to identify people that really interested in the end product you will be selling them, which will be this 497 course, but building up an email list and then sending real value to those people and then pitching them on the main course. Is that a methodology that you think has any real value, Alex?
[00:17:49.840] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, for sure. For ice cold traffic on Facebook, it’s much easier to get them to say yes to a small ask than a big ask. If you can provide some value, free is great, or even a small cost, $10, $15, $39. That’s just a much easier thing to get somebody to commit to that is just learning who you are versus the $497 course. So, yeah, if you can get them into your ecosystem, the lowest barrier to entry for the cold traffic into your ecosystem, and then warm them once they’re in your ecosystem and get them into your big stuff, that’s, I think, a very smart way to go.
[00:18:36.640] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I found it attractive, her mythology, because I think it’s something that I… I wouldn’t say I I’m thrilled. Over the years, I’ve moved my audience, and at one time, I had a 5,000 list with about a 60% regular opening rate, and that’s gone down to less than a thousand. But I’ve changed my missioning over the years. My original list was aimed at people in Northern Nevada, and I morphed into membership, and I’ve been running that focus for over six years. The list, it’s built up because I do get quite a few people that sign up for the main free lead magnet on my own website. But I think it’s really hard unless you are going to look at paid advertisement and a broader audience, unless somehow you’re on a new platform like TikTok, or somehow you’ve generated a lot of interest on YouTube or whatever. It’s really hard to get the volume to really sign up to your list, your main newsletter list, isn’t it? I think it’s extremely hard. Would you Are you familiar with that?
[00:20:01.130] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah. Facebook is really the most effective push advertising platform. Things like Google are more like pull, where somebody’s already shown interest and Google knows that, so then you can run a Google ad and get it in front of them. Facebook is really pushed. You’re getting ideas and products and courses and lead magnets in front of people that had no idea they exist. They didn’t know they wanted it until they saw it. And so Facebook is still the best platform to do that. Obviously, you’re paying, but there’s a cost organic as well in your time and your effort. Facebook or paid advertisement is a more consistent way to build that audience.
[00:20:45.700] – Jonathan Denwood
So what are some of the major changes you saw in 2024 and that you anticipate in 2025 in the world of Facebook and Instagram? What are some of the things that you saw last year and you anticipate might happen. We won’t hold you. We won’t have you back. I hope you do decide to come back at some later stage during the year, but we’re not going to hold it against you if you’re totally wrong, because I’m always wrong Yeah.
[00:21:16.870] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Well, this one I feel pretty good about. Facebook has made a big, big push into AI. We already talked about AI in terms of machine learning and getting better at finding customers and everything. But the biggest change for people in terms of actually literally making ads and getting ads out in front of people is these AI enhancements that Facebook has forced on us into the platform. So there are things like letting Facebook choose different text for your ad and even changing the layout of your ad. And at this time, they’re actually not very good, to be totally honest. The text they write isn’t that great. And I’ve had some crazy situations where clients have sent me an ad and it’s like, why is my headline in white text on the white background of my image? Totally unreadable. So at the moment, I end up turning all these enhancements off on each ad. But they’re all on by default. And then when you duplicate the ad to put it in another ad set, they’re all back on again. You have to turn them back off. But Facebook, the fact that they’re always on by default and there’s more and more of them every day on the platform, this is definitely where they’re going.
[00:22:27.720] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
They want to have AI be as involved in the creative process as it has been in the customer acquisition process. So that’s not going anywhere, and I think it’s going to get more and more significant. And hopefully it gets better Facebook has a history of introducing new features that don’t work very well, and then over time, honing them, and then they work really well. So I’m optimistic that at some point I won’t have to go in and uncheck all these lovely enhancements on every ad I make. But I know there’s going to be more and more of them. I think that’s coming this year, and there’s hopefully going to get better. So that one I feel really good about. That’s the, to me, the downside of the AI push for Facebook. The upside, again, is better customer acquisition because they’re just getting better or getting back to where they were at finding the right customer for you. And then better tracking. And this is another one that I think will continue to improve in 2025 as well. Right after the privacy stuff with Apple, Facebook ads manager tracking became borderline useless. It was just missing so many conversions, and they were modeling conversions, and the modeling was really bad.
[00:23:43.690] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
So you’d see, wow, You could see all sorts of stuff like, Hey, I got 50 customers. They must have come from Facebook. Facebook says no. We were hosting, we specialize in the hosting of membership and community, and we have some big clients.
[00:23:59.430] – Jonathan Denwood
But I’ve got some legacy clients that are big in the e-commerce, in the woocommerce e-commerce space, and their main way of getting new customers through Facebook, and that they were getting slaughtered. Alex. They were in a lot of pain. I knew them, not as close friends, but they’ve been hosting with me for a number of years, so they were asking me to say they were pulling their hair out and upset. But I think it’s understandable because who wants to hassle? If you got a methodology that’s getting the leads for you, you tend to just focus on it. But I think just relying on one source of leads for your business is a little bit iffy, isn’t it?
[00:24:51.180] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, certainly putting all your eggs in one basket. I guess I would say if you’re going to do that, Facebook is the best basket, but I also recommend you not that. Because if something happens, like the privacy stuff in 2021 or Facebook has an outage, which happens semi-regularly, you’re left with no other options. Having said that, I still think Facebook is the single best option, but mitigating risk by having multiple entry points, I think, is never a bad idea.
[00:25:27.260] – Jonathan Denwood
All right, we’re going to go for a mid-break, folks. I’ve got some other great questions for Alex. I think it’s been really informative. It’s been a great introduction to the world of Facebook. I would highly recommend Alex to you if you need more information about this because like I say, he helps unofficially some of the more credible individuals in this space. So I was happy to ask Alex if he would be willing to come on this podcast, and I appreciate you taking up the invite, Alex. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I want to point out, I’ve got a fantastic free resource, because I can’t talk. I’ve got a free resource. That is the Membership Machine Show Facebook Group. If you’re looking to build your website on WordPress or some other platform, we’ve We’ve got a great community of WordPress developers, marketers, and people like you trying to build a successful membership course for yourself and for your family. Like I say, it’s a totally free resource. I’m always putting new content on it almost every day. And if you’ve got any questions, I might answer them, or some of the other people in the WordPress space that I know.
[00:26:52.110] – Jonathan Denwood
So it’s a great resource. So do that search, go to Facebook, put in the Membership Machine Show group. It will come up and join So I think what’s your honest opinion? And maybe also, if you can’t, I totally understand, but I also would like you to give some broad figures. Do you think somebody who is intelligent, who’s an expert in their field that wants to build a membership that’s serious about it and is looking at Facebook, do you think they can run successful campaigns if they’re prepared to go online, learn from some credible online resources? Do you think they can get some success if they attempt to run? Or in your heart, do you think they would be best if they hired somebody like yourself or somebody who’s got some credibility in the area to run that first Facebook campaign?
[00:27:54.990] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
So I think in an ideal world for that person, if they had the their resources to do it, hiring somebody else makes a lot of sense because they have the expertise and because it’s a time suck, right? And so there’s probably other aspects of their course or membership they want to focus on. That said, absolutely. I’m not saying that an individual can’t figure out how to get started with ads for themselves. There’s plenty of good resources out there. John Lumer is a great one. The one I’m part of, the Foxball Founders Group, is another great resource. And there’s Look, that’s how I started. I just started reading John Lumer and figured it out for myself. I think you can definitely do that and be successful. It’s not really a bad idea to do that, especially beginning. You have some literacy in the platform. Even when you hire somebody else, you can sense check what the work is there.
[00:28:52.790] – Jonathan Denwood
What I’m planning to do is with John Lumen, and I’m going to ask you to send the resource that you’ve mentioned a couple of times to me, and I’ll make sure it’s in the show notes. I’ll probably join it if I can. Is that I’m going to do a bit of a learning exercise. I’m just trying to… Because I was into Facebook, and I did actually run some campaigns, and I’ve got a partner that runs a digital agency, and he does run them. But I plan to refresh myself about the basic principles, but then I plan to hire somebody But I do think it’s necessary for me to do a learning, put some time to learn the fundamentals again, and the verbiage, the language of Facebook paid advertising. I then can make a reasonable judgment call about the person that I’m hiring. Otherwise, it’s just pure view, either personal recommendation, which is It’s probably the next best, which is probably a combination of the two or the worst, just finding somebody online and hoping for the best. Would you agree that even if you don’t plan to run the complaints, doing a bit of a learning exercise and just learning the language and the basic concepts is beneficial?
[00:30:26.000] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yes, 100 %. I mean, first of all, if you do hire somebody, you can talk to them in their language. That’s always helpful. And just understand what they’re doing. They’re probably going to have a huge impact on your business one way or the other. So better understanding what they’re doing makes a lot of sense. And like I said, there’s resources out there. There’s consultants out there. I mean, not to plug myself, but I do that as well. I offer hourly consulting where you’re going to do it for yourself and I’ll just check in with you every so often. So there’s plenty of ways to do it for yourself. And honestly, the best argument for not is probably when you’ve grown a bit and you can more comfortably hand it off, but you know somewhat of how it goes. And that allows you to focus on the other pieces of your business. I think that’s probably the strongest argument of anything is it does take a lot of time. If you’re running your membership site, you probably have a lot of other responsibilities as well. But certainly getting started for yourself, I think, is a really good idea.
[00:31:29.230] – Jonathan Denwood
They seem to be two sides of it. There’s the mechanics of the WordPress, WordPress, Facebook campaign, and then the actual offer. If either side is not really optimized for success, you’re not going to get it. And what I mean by that, do you have a decent course offer? Have you followed, and I have hammered away, I’ve been running this podcast for two years, I’ve been hammering away that the money is in the niche. You got to find a niche. You got to find your best solving a problem, a pain problem, then a vitamin problem. Your verbiage needs to click with that target audience, and then adding a bit of urgency to the main offer helps as But you got to get those things right, because if the offering doesn’t solve a problem, if the landing paid verbiage doesn’t click with your target audience, you can have the best Facebook advertising expert, it ain’t going to get any result. They’re going to land on the landing page, but they’re not going to convert to anything. Would you agree with that?
[00:32:55.010] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah. I often tell people it’s not magic, it’s marketing. So You can definitely… You can have a great offer and ruin it by not running Facebook ads right, but you can’t magic up customers if the offer isn’t there, no matter how good your Facebook ads person is. They’re just ultimately, again, it’s marketing. You can’t make people decide to do something that is not in their interest to do. You can just get them there and then let the offer take care of the rest.
[00:33:29.920] – Jonathan Denwood
The other thing that I observed with my initial dive into the world of Facebook that I’ve been doing on and off for the past six, seven weeks is that it seems to me the people I’ve been watching their videos or listening in the background as I do my boring business support and everything else that’s involved in running an online business is that a lot of people, small changes in An image or verbiage can make a big difference in the actual end result of Facebook campaign. So changes in the title, and especially in the image, can make a big difference. A level of micro change that surprises me with the people I was listening to. Would you I agree with that tenant because I’m only getting it from third parties. You’re the expert. Is that one of the things that surprises people when they get into this world?
[00:34:39.880] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, I would say more so the image or video than the copy or headline. Really with copy and headline, I would say bigger swings, probably, and if it’s not working, trying a different angle. But yeah, small changes in image or video can make a big difference. Even for videos, for example, changing the first 2 seconds, running the entire rest of the video the same, but changing the first 2 seconds can have massive impacts. So absolutely. I would say, however, if you’re just starting out and you’re not really sure what your hook is or what your best hook is, I guess I should say, is making very different variations of your ads to start with, to get an idea of what hook is actually going to work, and then small iterations off that, I think, is the way to go. But yes, for sure. It’s amazing how a little change, a change in color, a change in having a woman versus a man, or like I said, with the videos, I’ve been stunned at how literally just changing the first 2 seconds of a 30-second video completely changes the performance of it.
[00:35:53.320] – Jonathan Denwood
This might not be possible to answer because it’s an extremely broad question. But obviously, every Every advertisement on Facebook gets the level of exhaustion. Every advert has a lifespan, and then it should be taken down and then rotated. Is that something that people struggle with about dealing with that they need to build up a library and then have a rotation policy because every effort has an exhaustion point?
[00:36:29.980] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah. Yeah, you never know what that exhaustion point is going to be. I’ve had ads that work really well for a couple of weeks and then fall off. I’ve had a few ads. These are more the exception than the rule that can last for years. But yes, every ad does have an expiration date. What I like to do is I like to have my regular campaign at my, most of my budget running my tried and true Adder ads that I know are working, and then have a smaller testing campaign where I’m testing out new ideas, new concepts, new things, so that I have something ready when my main ads exhaust. And the data will tell you pretty fast if your ad is exhausted. I don’t think… One other mistake I make on the other spectrum is people saying, oh, the ad ran for four weeks. It must be getting tired. I’m going to replace it when the performance is still great. So if the performance is great, you ride the ad. When the performance starts to drop, ideally, you’re in a situation where you have other ads you can swap right in and that are and vetted.
[00:37:31.780] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
That would be my ideal scenario.
[00:37:34.010] – Jonathan Denwood
How is Vidya doing? Because I had a guest, I won’t name her. She’s not a professional Facebook advertising consultant manager like yourself, but she got enormous success in her own courses. She run a really… Well, I’ll say that. She had a lot of success in Facebook, and I said, I’m really still really think videos are a great thing for Facebook, and she really bit back on me and said, Oh, actually Facebook is really not so gun hole with people because it costs a lot of resources for Facebook to run videos. She was a little bit negative. What’s your own view about video and how it can help with campaigns?
[00:38:26.780] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
I’m not really sure I agree with the resources heavy piece of video in terms of Facebook, because what they want is they want people on the platform for longer, and videos do keep people on the platform for longer. I will say images are better for specific offers. It’s just easier to absorb the offer. So if your hook is free something, then an image is not a bad way to go or your hook is related to value. But if your hook is related to the problem you’re solving or needs some explanation, video can be a lot more effective. Video is also more effective, typically with exceptions, for complete cold traffic, right? Whereas images can be more effective for warm traffic where they know you a little bit already and they just need a reminder. And it also varies product to product, offer to offer. Ideally, I think a mix is the best way to go. One of the big buzzwords these days in the Facebook ads world is creative diversity. And what that means is just having a mix of different styles and feel. So you want some images and some video. You want some UGC or lower tech stuff that looks like it was just shot on somebody’s phone, but you also want some polished things.
[00:39:47.520] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
And the reason for that is Facebook has a profile of different people and the things they like. And they’ll have me pegged, for example, as somebody that responds to video. And so advertisers that aren’t I’m selling images, I may not see their ads because Facebook has this profile of me, right? Or I like UGC, so I won’t see the polished stuff or vice versa. So the more diversity you have, the more different audience segments you’ll reach. Now, if you’re super niche, maybe that’s not what you want, right? If you found that, Hey, in my industry or my business, my niche, images were great and videos don’t fair play. I’ve seen that as well. But I think especially just starting out, and if you’re trying to reach the whitest possible audience, then creative diversity is the way to go. So just as much of a mix as you can have.
[00:40:37.300] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Thanks for that. That was really fantastic. When it comes to the world of Facebook and Instagram, what are some… Obviously, the Rumbu meta, but they also have the different digital culture, as I call it. What are some of the things when you’re trying to explain these differences in culture that affects result to a possible client that isn’t, I wouldn’t say sophisticated in some ways, but not sophisticated in the world that they’re asking help from you? How do you explain the main differences in the two platforms?
[00:41:17.490] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah. So Facebook tends to skew older, right? So if your offer course is designed more toward an older demo, you’re probably going to end up more on Facebook than Instagram. Younger demos tend to go Instagram more. Instagram is more of a less of a click platform, while Facebook is more of a click platform. It doesn’t mean it’s not as good at converting people, but you’ll see a lot more view attribution there. So a very common conversion path on Instagram would be somebody sees the ad, doesn’t click on it, but then googles you, and then they come in via Google. So a lot of times with Instagram, Facebook will see that as a conversion in their internal metrics. But if you’re using third party metrics, it may not credit that to Facebook, it may credit it to Google search, but that was generated from Instagram. So if you’re more heavy on Instagram, I think part of understanding success is looking at things like, hey, did my organic search traffic go up? Did my direct traffic go up? Things like that, maybe not coming directly from the platform. Whereas on Facebook, it’s more like your measurement of success is more like, hey, did people click on my ad on Facebook and come right to my site?
[00:42:27.940] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
These are high-level slight exaggerations, but that’s the- It’s high-level, you’re totally- Yeah.
[00:42:40.410] – Jonathan Denwood
Based on your extensive experience, is it different products, different communities? Do they benefit by going to Instagram rather than Facebook and vice versa?
[00:43:00.700] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
They can. I like on the paid side, I think that’s very much an organic thing, when you can develop community, either via your Instagram or your Facebook or a Facebook group or things like that. On the paid side, your offer can appeal more to the Facebook demographic or the Instagram demographic. The way I like to always start is I always run it to both. I think not separating out So like an Instagram campaign and a Facebook campaign, but having one campaign that runs to both platforms. Excuse me. And then you see how the results are. And if you’re happy with the results, great. And if you’re not happy with the results, then you start to break it down in ads manager. Well, how much of my budget is going to Facebook and how much is going to Instagram? And is Facebook doing better or worse than Instagram? And then you start to make sure, hey, is the money flowing more to the platform that’s doing better? And if not, then I look at maybe doing a single platform platform campaign. But I really only do the single platform campaigns when the difference is pretty stark, because generally, if Facebook is doing a little better than Instagram, but Instagram is getting a little more money, that generally means that Facebook is optimized.
[00:44:16.440] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
And if you decided to go just only Facebook because it’s doing a little better, your results will go down. Because what Facebook is doing is it’s getting you those Facebook purchases or signups, but there’s a limited number they can get, and that’s why some money is going to Instagram. So it is a little bit of a tricky slope to say, oh, one platform is doing better than the other. Let me just advertise on that. Certainly, though, if you see, hey, my acquisition cost on Instagram is much, much lower than on Facebook, but 90% of my budget is going to Facebook, that’s probably a problem, and Facebook not getting it right, and then you want to make adjustments.
[00:44:54.240] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, thanks for that. Now, I’m going to put this scenario to you. Let’s say you’ve maybe have a new person coming to you for some initial consultation. Let’s say they’ve listened to the Membership Machine podcast, and they’ve built their first course, and they’ve done a successful soft launch. Let’s say they’ve got from 12 to 24 people sign up, and these people have got a substantial discount to be the first tryers of the course. Over three months, a six month period, they’ve worked with these people and they’ve worked out the bugs and they’ve really concentrated on the core message of either their homepage or their landing page that has the offer. They’re in full-time employment, but they want a side hustle, but a side hustle that might lead to a full-time gig. They’re committed and they’re intelligent and they know what they’re talking about. They’ve done this soft launch that I really recommend. They’re confident that it does get a result, and they’ve sorted out any bugs, the onboarding, dealing with payment, all the things that you got to deal with. Then they’re coming to you and they want to go up to the next level.
[00:46:27.570] – Jonathan Denwood
You get a good feeling about them that they’re an intelligent person and they’ve done the basic work. How long do you think… How long do they need to invest in Facebook? Three months, six months in running campaigns and excluding what you might charge because it depends on how much they expect from you. What budget? I know I think this is a very broad question, but I feel I’ve got to ask it. What do you think is a realistic budget, roughly, for that type of individual that I’ve outlined to you?
[00:47:14.670] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
So So part of that depends on, again, what the ask is. Are we talking about a $497 course, or are we talking about the $37- I think we’re talking about people that are listening and buying to the free, and then they They’re moving on to a cheaper 39 offering to get on the email list, which then they can market the $497 offer. Yeah. Okay. For something like that, honestly, you may not see the final results you’re going to get, but you should see directional progress, I would say, in the first 4-6 weeks. All right. Yeah. I mean, again, I’m not saying in four weeks it’s dialed in, this is the CPA you’re going to get, you’re good to go, but you should see progress.
[00:47:59.820] – Jonathan Denwood
You see a bit of light from the pulled curve.
[00:48:03.860] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yes, exactly. Directionally, things should be going in the right direction. You should have learned some things. Then in terms of budget, part of that is how fast you want to learn, because the more you spend, the more you can test, the faster you can learn, but also, of course, the more risk. Like I said, I- Do you think you can get any results from a 500 to a 1,000 a month budget for for six months? So let’s see, a thousand a month is what, about $33 a day? That is going to be challenging, I think. One of the things I’d mentioned is I’m a big fan of conversion campaigns, and typically I think conversion campaigns work best at a bottom of $50 a day, and that’s one campaign. So I would say, $1,500 a might be the floor. And that’s, again, just understanding that’s taking the slow route. You’re not going to be testing as much as you would be testing at a higher budget. But again, there’s other business concerns you have and you need to make sure you’re saving money and Especially, let’s say you’ve actually quit your job and this is now your main hustle, now you’re really aware.
[00:49:22.180] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, that’s a whole different… I’m talking about people that got some budget and I think they probably could look at 1,500 to start off with. And if they got some traction, that’s not ridiculous money. It’s not money that you want to waste, but it’s not ridiculous money either. Well, thanks for that. So What are the AI tools? Because the next question, I think we’ve covered in the previous question, so I’m going to go to another question. Are there any particular AI tools that you’re using yourself in running your business that you like to share with the audience, Alex?
[00:50:03.260] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, for sure. So one is the obvious one, ChatGPT. Everybody probably knows a little bit about ChatGPT. So a lot of people have used it to write headlines or write copy. I found it’s okay at that. I have never been able to get ChatGPT to write a headline or copy that I can just then plunk right into an ad, but I’ve gotten it to write some decent ones that I can then edit lately I included an ad. But the big way I’ve used it is to synthesize large amounts of data and get out major hooks or pain points. I’ll give you an example. I took on a new client recently, a couple of months ago, and I They had a bunch of reviews and testimonials, and I loaded all of them into ChatGPT, and I said, can you tell me the five things that people like most about this? And it spat out five things. And a couple of those things they already were aware of in marketing. But one one of them was something that was completely off their radar. They had not marketed towards that at all. And I said, hey, look, it turns out in your reviews, this keeps coming up, and you’re not addressing it at all in your ad.
[00:51:11.950] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
So we started marketing to that angle, and it worked really well. So that’s a big one for me is just being able to… I used to, when I took on a new client or even for existing clients, I’ll pour through their testimonials, and I’ll try to find things that keep coming up or good pull quotes or things like that. But Chat And GPT has made that a lot easier to just take that data and tell me, hey, what are the five things people like most? Or, hey, can you get me some quotes out of these that represent this angle, that angle, that angle? So that’s been a huge time saver for me. The other tool… So I use a tool called PhotoRoom. There’s a lot of comparable tools out there, but it’s a AI creative tool. So I have a lot of clients where producing assets for ads is not the easiest task, and I don’t get a ton. So if I have one image, I can take it into PhotoRoom, and I can put it on all sorts of different backgrounds, change the colors, do all these different things. What we talked about earlier about how small changes can have really large impacts on ad creative.
[00:52:15.450] – Jonathan Denwood
I thought you were going to mention a photo tool. If you sent that link to me, I’ll make sure that’s in the show photo room. But I thought that would be one of the things that you would be using because doing these minor doing these changes is time consuming. So I thought that was… I’m a dyslexic, and I’ve gone it. It’s made an enormous difference to me. I’ve got a quiver of AI tools. I’m not actually here, Alex. I’m actually being done. Yeah, I’m an avataire, actually. A lot of people say that, actually. But no, I’ve gone in, and I wish this technology had been there 10 years or ago because it’s really saved me an enormous amount of time because I had to constantly check stuff or get people to check it for me. So it’s made an enormous difference to me. So I got to quiver. So let’s go to our final question, one of my favorite. So if you had a time machine or if you’re to Doctor Who, your own tardiness, and you could go back to the beginning of your career, what would be one or two things, little tips, insights that you could like to whisper in your ear that you…
[00:53:44.370] – Jonathan Denwood
So clear We really know now, Alex?
[00:53:46.580] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
I definitely have two. The first is that anything you do, any job you take, any industry you end up in, people skills, it’s going to be a people industry. I talked about my transition when my whole development team got let go and it was moved offshore, and the marketing team took me in. And I was okay at SEO. I wasn’t amazing, but I was decent. But they took me over to them because they like working with me. And so my whole Facebook career springs from that. So I wouldn’t have this career if I hadn’t been good to work with. So that’s a big one. And also, I spend my day here in my home in my office tapping away on my keyboard. It’s a very solo job. But I’m a small business, and I can’t really have a business if I have a lot of churn. My business depends on retention. And so obviously, the number one thing is delivering results, right? If you’re not delivering results for people, they’re going to find somebody else. But I’ve also seen plenty of situations where the Facebook person is delivering fine results, but the client still decides to move on.
[00:54:55.160] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
And I think that’s a relationship thing. You need to be a good person to work It’s somebody they want to stay with. So that’s a big one. And then the second big one is to be authentic and authoritative. When I started my business, I knew I knew Facebook ads really well. I had no idea how to get clients So I hired a sales coach, and he gave me a script, and he worked with me on the script, and I get on these sales calls, and I do the script, and I felt very inauthentic. It just wasn’t me at all.
[00:55:26.700] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s your cup of tea. It’s not my cup of tea, and I could tell, sorry, I have improved. I have a friend who’s a really hard core, run very large teams, and when he’s in action, but it’s not me. But I’ll tell The other thing I have improved, I had the ability, and you’ve probably seen this through this interview, but hopefully not too much that I can butt in. I had this terrible When the deal was there, the deal was there, Alex, and I would have to say that extra bit, that little bit of extra that blew up in my face. There’s a time and place to just keep your mouth shut and let them decide to pull the trigger. I had a problem in buttoning. I think I got a bit better there.
[00:56:28.360] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Yeah, great. I mean, for For me, it was like, instead of going off a script, just having a conversation with people, just telling them what I do, telling them what I was thinking about their ad situation. When I stopped trying to sell and reading off a script and started just having a conversation like I would with anyone, that’s when I started getting clients. And so I just start talking about Facebook ads. So the authentic was the one thing, authoritative is the other, right? I start talking about it. I know what I’m talking about. I’m not trying to show people how great I am at this or how much I know. I’m just talking about it, right? I’m just talking, explaining things the same way I would explain it to my wife when she asked me about a campaign I’m running. And that tended to work. People started signing up with me much more than, oh, I’ve got to get them to three yeses before the final yes, or hit this script, and hit this note, and that note, and try to mimic them, and all those stuff. It just wasn’t me. So once I just started being me, and combined with showing that I knew what I was talking about, that was the unlock for me.
[00:57:37.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think you really… That’s your first one, is it? I think you said you had another one. Is that right? What’s the other one? The other one was- Not coming on this podcast.
[00:57:52.300] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
No, this is great.
[00:57:54.490] – Jonathan Denwood
Sorry, I brought you in. Sorry, what was the next one?
[00:57:58.090] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
No, no. I was just saying it was the people skills. So the people skills. I guess I do have a third one, actually. Just if I could go back to the beginning of my career, I would tell myself, it’s all going to work out. You’re going to have ups and you’re going to have downs, and you’re going to have periods when your work is going great, and you’re going to have periods when it’s not. It’s all going to work out. Don’t stress about it.
[00:58:16.840] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, it’s keeping your cost. It’s not basing your cost structure on when you’re doing really well because anybody who’s running their own business or is in entrepreneurship tells you they’ve always had a high; they’re lying to you because you’re going to have highs and lows, and you’ve got to have a budget, a lifestyle that you can sustain at the lower level. When you’re at the top level, you would be advised to bank that money to cover the lows. But if you keep your cost structure realistic, you’ll be okay. But there will be highs and lows, won’t there?
[00:59:08.750] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
A hundred %. I mean, look, during COVID, my business exploded because everybody was suddenly buying stuff online versus going to stores. And then there was the COVID bounce back when everybody went back out, combined with the Apple privacy stuff, it went from this to this. Now it’s here, right? There’s There’s always going to be ups and downs. Absolutely, 100 %.
[00:59:33.550] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve really enjoyed our chat, Alex. I think we’ve covered a lot of stuff. What’s the best way for people to find out more about you and maybe book a chat with you?
[00:59:43.970] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Sure. So my website is 1111 Digital, and my email address is Alex@1111 Digital, those are the two best ways to get a hold of me.
[00:59:53.250] – Jonathan Denwood
Thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show. Obviously, you didn’t know me. I just did the outreach to you. Obviously, you probably did some research. We really do attempt to be informative on this podcast and cover all the areas, and we try to be truthful to people about… There are still enormous opportunities in the eLearning membership and community. It does require a plan and work. There are a lot of people doing a lot of misleading information in this space, but I think there are resources like Alex and myself that try to be straight. We will be back next week with another great show. I’ve got a great thing to tell you, folks. I’ve got a new co-host. She’s agreed to be my partner on this show. I’m really looking forward to her. I will introduce her next week to you, folks. We should have some great value to give you our lovely audience, which is growing. I’m really appreciative that the audience is growing. We will be back next week, folks. Bye.
[01:01:06.280] – Alex Afterman From 1111Digital
Bye. Thank you for having me.
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