Major changes are reshaping Facebook Advertising. Is an Adpocalypse coming for your campaigns? Learn what’s shifting and how to protect your ROI now.

In this interview, we delve into the imminent changes sweeping through Facebook advertising, known as the “Adpocalypse.” Discover how shifts in algorithms and policies are reshaping the advertising landscape, impacting businesses and marketers alike. We’ll explore what these alterations mean for your ad strategy and how to adapt effectively. Stay ahead of the curve.

Lauren Petrullo, Founder of Mongoose Media & Host of Perpetual Traffic Podcast

This Week’s Sponsors

Kinta: Kinta

LifterLMS: LifterLMS

Rollback Pro: Rollback Pro

The Show’s Main Transcript Notes

[00:00:22.170] -Jonathan Denwood

Welcome back folks to the WP Tonic show. This is episode 1006. and we’ve got a fabulous guest with him. We’ve got Lauren Patruolo. I’m gonna, I knew I was gonna struggle with that. And she’s the founder of Mongoose Media and the joint host of the Perpetual Traffic Podcast, a really fantastic podcast with her, with her other host, Ralph Burns. I listen to it regularly and she’s just a fabulous expert Facebook. We’re gonna discuss all things Facebook, what’s happening in the market. So Lauren, can you just quickly say hi to the tribe? And then when we come back from our beginning break, you— we will delve into your background in a bit more detail.

[00:01:15.770] – Lauren Petrullo

Absolutely. Hello, friends! Excited to chat more soon.

[00:01:19.500] -Jonathan Denwood

All right, and I’ve got my co-host, Kirk. Kirk, would you like to introduce yourself?

[00:01:23.990] – Kurt von Ahnen

Sure thing, Jonathan. Kurt von Ahnen own a company called Mañana No Más, and we work directly with the great team over at WP Tonic.

[00:01:31.270] -Jonathan Denwood

Thanks, Kirk. Like I say, we’re going to be just discussing all things Facebook. Lauren is a true expert on the subject. Um, it should be a fascinating discussion, but like I say, before we go into the meat and potatoes of the show, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments.

[00:01:51.520] – Kurt von Ahnen

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[00:02:25.090] -Jonathan Denwood

We’re coming back, folks. Also want to point out we’ve got some great special deals from the sponsors of the show, plus a curated list of the best WordPress plugins and services for the WordPress professional. To find all these goodies, just go to wp-tonic.com/deals. Wp-tonic.com/deals. What more could you ask for, my beloved tribe? Probably a lot more, but that’s all you’re gonna get on that page. So, Laurel, can you give us— how did you get into the world? You know, you run this very successful agency in Florida. You’re, you’re seen as a leading expert in Facebook, but how did you originally get into marketing and then maybe specialize in, in Facebook?

[00:03:18.450] – Lauren Petrullo

Oh man, John, that’s a good question. I could like, we can go all the way back to when I was 5 years old, or the most recent to where I was fired. So do you want the 5 or the fired story?

[00:03:28.410] -Jonathan Denwood

I leave it to you.

[00:03:31.080] – Lauren Petrullo

I think so. As a youngin, my father was always in the household, never giving me the answer no to anything. I was a princess. Um, but it didn’t mean that the default was ever yes. It was always how. And so I remember the first time I ever wanted to buy a Barbie, and my dad was not going to buy it for me. He’s like, how are you going to get it? I started marketing the paintings that I made. No,w to me, they were worthy of a museum. To my neighbors, they weren’t worth the 5 or 10 cents that I was asking for them. So I started marketing them in a different way and positioning it as, uh, great decorations for your lonely refrigerators. And as soon as I started marketing my, let’s call them, uh, B-rated pictures with crayons and watercolors, uh, when I had flipped the angle of not buying art but decorating your lonely fridge so it’s not so embarrassing when friends come over, and they realize you don’t have grandkids, I sold all of my paintings right away. So from the beginning, I knew at a young age that positioning mattered, um, because people didn’t care about what it was you’re actually buying, but the feeling you wanted.

[00:04:38.940] – Lauren Petrullo

Um, and then I worked at the Walt Disney Company. I worked with another Fortune 500 company, Pearson. I, uh, had been doing a lot of overall marketing campaigns, and it was through the last job I had before my own agency, where I hyper-specialized in meta advertising because we had access to this giant book of all the interests available. I mean, I wish I still had it. It was printed. It was hundreds of pages, and it was just a full list of all the interests that were available to do targeting for Meta way back when. And I thought I was sitting on this like a goldmine of information, and I felt like a millionaire in this like California gold rush of data. And, um, with what was possible with Meta, having really early success with spending $25,000 to $200,000 a month on campaigns in Meta and doing tens, if not $20 million of sales off of it, it became the, oh, if I’m going to niche, I’m going to niche all in. And then it evolved into having really great relationships with Meta themselves. I was one of 8 members in the United States, a part of the Global Innovation Committee for Emerging Technologies, handpicked by Meta.

[00:05:48.080] – Lauren Petrullo

I’m part of the Business Leaders Network. I’ve had really great opportunities with Meta, so I just leaned in. Where their opportunity came. So, hi.

[00:05:56.490] -Jonathan Denwood

That’s fantastic. I just got a quick follow-through question before I throw it over to Curt. Your involvement with digital marketing and Ryan was that a big opportunity for you as well?

[00:06:10.680] – Lauren Petrullo

Oh, I love it. Ryan has been a client now for 2 or 3 years, so I—

[00:06:15.340] -Jonathan Denwood

Oh, he’s an actual client.

[00:06:17.010] – Lauren Petrullo

Yeah. Yeah. So he pays me. Thank you, Ryan. Love you. And I started off in their mastermind. It was was actually like the first real mastermind I was a part of. Um, and really big credit to Molly Pittman. I learned a lot of my Facebook ads from her. I came from corporate and then I had done the Train My Traffic Person, which is a really great program, and I cut my teeth on being surrounded by other people that were running Meta ads. So I had my first like experience as a solopreneur, and she was so heavily involved with Digital Marketer. So I went to Traffic and Conversions. Um, and from being in Ryan’s program to then being a coach of Ryan’s program, uh, it’s, it’s been amazing. I met great people. I have, um, developed incredible relationships, made many clients friends. So being a part of Digital Marketer helped me grow. It was where I learned Facebook ads stuff through Molly’s trainings with Digital Marketer and then, um, paying her company directly. And then additional other learning opportunities. So I was a member of Digital Marketer’s Mastermind for a year and a half. It was the first time I had ever connected to community, and I was just, why did I not know about Mastermind sooner?

[00:07:33.370] – Lauren Petrullo

I was mad I waited so long, but it’s been amazing. I, I love what they’re doing at DM, uh, Digital Marketer, and I’m grateful that I get to be a part of it. Plus, the money doesn’t hurt.

[00:07:45.360] -Jonathan Denwood

So was you surprised that he, he kind of, um, retired out of it really?

[00:07:50.550] – Lauren Petrullo

Um, for me, no, because I’m in Slack with him.

[00:07:54.340] -Jonathan Denwood

Yeah.

[00:07:54.720] – Lauren Petrullo

And, um, where Digital Marketer is going and the whole company is— so Ryan’s got many different programs. He’s at Scalable, he’s at larger masterminds, and Digital Marketer is the entry. It’s a gateway drug to exiting your business. And he’s involved in significantly bigger opportunities. And he’s got this generation of marketers that can take over because he doesn’t have to be involved anymore. He’s a strategic partner at Top, but he’s essentially retired from being in any of the day-to-day stuff because he’s had so much success. And where he is with the scalable company and his other brands, um, those are driving a different need from him. And it was almost like he was passing it to the next generation of leaders. And with so much with AI, where DM has evolved to is, is providing resources where you don’t have to train yourself anymore, you train AI agents. And it felt like a really natural exit from him. But I mean, he’s still writing dice, so he’s gonna always have a little sneaky Pete in the background.

[00:09:05.880] -Jonathan Denwood

Over to you, Kurt.

[00:09:07.650] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, I just, I find that kind of interesting the way that Lauren answered that. And it’s, you know, I wish I would have found the community earlier. I know Jonathan, you and I are kind of like in the WordPress space, the way that she’s positioned in this Meta Facebook space. And it’s amazing because I was an agency for 15 years before I realized WordPress had a community. And then I was like, how did I not know about this earlier? When you look at Facebook and paid advertising, what do you think are like the biggest changes that are going to be coming up in the next 12 months? I mean, you already said training AI agents to do things, but like, is that really the, like, the only biggest thing, or is there something else going on behind the scenes with the Facebook thing?

[00:09:52.560] – Lauren Petrullo

Oh my gosh, I love, especially for the WordPress community, like, you are needed more than ever. The media buyer is disappearing. Like, this is, uh, like, Jonathan, your face is surprising. For me, I, I really dig in. Before you spend a dollar in Meta or a dollar in any advertising, you need to make sure that your data and your destination are solid. And I think that many brand owners— and I blame Jeff Bezos and Russell Brunson for this, for demanding same-day shipping and one-click upsell— they simplified stuff and took away the foundations. Most of my time in auditing accounts and making sure that brands and accounts are set up for 2026 and beyond in this programmatic AI space where the agents are going to be making a lot of the decisions. You have to dial in the data that’s being fed back into Meta or you’re allowing yourself to waste money on poorly optimized campaigns. I don’t care how good your offer is. I don’t care how good your creative is. If your data and the destinations suck, so will the revenue that you’re going to get out of it. Your profit’s just going to be eaten away.

[00:10:50.210] – Lauren Petrullo

And where I’m saying like for those that are like in this WordPress environment, The— there’s a standard events. I’m actually going to share it in our private chat so that you guys can have access to it, um, where Jonathan will have all the magic of the pieces. Um, this standard events, um, that Meta has— there’s 17 standard events. Oh, it’s not sending it. Okay, um, I will send it to you after. But there’s the— sorry, I was like, I was like, I have the URL. Can I share my screen and show you, Kurt?

[00:11:19.350] – Kurt von Ahnen

I think so.

[00:11:19.810] – Lauren Petrullo

That’s okay. This standard events, this documentation inside of Meta, like everyone that’s in the WordPress space, if you have clients that are running Meta ads, this is the thing that they need to do. Most companies are not putting in these standard events. Meta gets trillions of data points every single day, different signals, and people are visiting the websites you’re building, the websites you’re a part of. And a lot of the time we are not putting these standard events. If you ever work with a nonprofit, there’s this Donate Standard Event. Because a purchase and a donation are two very different behaviors. Someone could be a micro donor and do $5 a month, and someone could be a— someone who purchases a $5 product once. Their behaviors of that contribution is vastly different. Similarly, like, if you have a physical location, a brick and mortar, there’s Find Location. And so often I look and people don’t have this standard event. Set up so that when someone visits a find location, we’re missing out on sending a hierarchy of quality data back into Meta for better optimized ads. So the, the people that are behind these websites are so important to the success of any of their ads that this standard events, this is like what I call 8th grade level.

[00:12:34.690] – Lauren Petrullo

You can go advanced. There’s even further where you can send quality data. If you have a, a client or a brand or a website that has blogs, There are advanced data options that have to be coded. Like, you need a WordPress team that’s managing website to make sure that if you have blogs, there’s advanced pixel data that you can send back to Meta that people are visiting more than— oh, I can still share the screen— that people that are visiting more than one blog at a time. If you’re visiting more than one blog at a time, Kurt, wouldn’t that make sense that you’re a higher value future customer than someone who just checks one blog and bounces.

[00:13:10.820] – Kurt von Ahnen

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It kind of talks to like that domain authority and relevancy quotient that we look for with SEO.

[00:13:17.900] – Lauren Petrullo

Yeah, absolutely. So it’s add authority and add relevancy. So I just typed in, if you go to that same URL, you type in advance, there’s advanced settings that you can do. Um, that’s not a mirror one. Uh, all of this documentation for the WordPress people, like This stuff, anyone that’s doing advertising, um, is very likely not leveraging this success and they’re making the destination and the data being fed back into their optimization less relevant. So just, I, I love that example, the way that we’re doing it for SEO, we neglect it. But the thing is we spend so much more money on paid ads than we spend on SEO. SEO is long-term. This is immediate. You can get data fed within 15 minutes of getting this installed. And so when you ask me what’s new and what’s coming, what’s different, it’s what’s foundational is no longer non-negotiable. It’s making sure that the websites are set up with all of the standard events. There are 17. And then we have additional items. If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, these object properties, you’re able to enhance so much more value from your website, from the user’s behavior.

[00:14:27.800] – Lauren Petrullo

So that you get stronger optimization and better performance. And that’s ultimately everything that we want. We have a successful page. We want the destination to be desirable, but we also need the data to be relevant. And all of this has been around, but it’s been kind of nice to have. Now it’s no longer nice to have, it’s non-negotiable because the decisions that are being made in 2026 and beyond, Meta’s taking away more and more and more. You don’t do audience targeting. It’s just suggestions. But you define audiences, you define the data, you put all of this information so that foundationally you’re sound and optimizationally you’re set up for success. That makes sense.

[00:15:08.320] – Kurt von Ahnen

I, I’m kind of chuckling on the inside as you’re talking, Lauren, because as you’re talking, you’re justifying more and more the role of the agency in the content and the strategy and the SEO and the, and the connections. Whereas there is a whole new, like, just a wave of, you know, AI bros, you know, like, ah, nah, bro, I’m going to put this in Replit and make this for you real quick. I’m going to do this and, you know, bam, I’m going to knock this out in 10 minutes. And what I’ve seen is the problem with these AI things that get generated is that A, maintenance on the backend gets to be a chore. Pardon me. B, you know, as things get outdated, what do we do? Like when we hit, when we hit that space, like in WordPress, we know As agencies, we go, okay, we know that there’s tools we can add. We know that there’s— we can scale, we can expand, we can upgrade the hosting if we need to. We can do all these things. And a lot of this AI bro talk just kind of like tried to flush that away.

[00:16:07.390] – Kurt von Ahnen

And then you jump on the show and go, oh no, all this is foundational, non-negotiable. This has to be part of the build. And you go, okay, well, now maybe people that are agencies can see like there is another avenue to continued success.

[00:16:22.060] – Lauren Petrullo

100%, Kurt. Like, it’s the agencies— like, if you are able to include these in these builds, you’re able to include these strategically in your design, you also aren’t just a one-off project. Yes, there’s maintenance and always, but there’s the— like, this is something that will make you so valuable to the end user because there’s going to be agency partners that are running the paid ads that aren’t even going to know most of this is happening. And if they don’t, you then become a partner for the brands to ensure that they’re vetting the right agencies coming. Look, people come up every single day doing what I do, and it’s— there’s no regulation, there’s nothing that’s stopping someone to like, I do Facebook ads, there’s nothing that’s stopping you. But a way to vet if you’re going to be successful at it is ensuring that the WordPress team, the team developing, creating strategizing the entire website is in sync with your ads team. Yeah, like creating something from AI from scratch, you’re gonna just, it’s faster. But I don’t believe in AI making me more efficient. I believe in leveraging AI to make me more effective. I care about efficacy over efficiency.

[00:17:32.510] – Lauren Petrullo

But I hope everyone continues to be silly and just is like, oh, it’s faster. I’m like, cool, I’m gonna eat your lunch.

[00:17:38.310] – Kurt von Ahnen

Nice. Jonathan?

[00:17:40.220] -Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, before we go for our break, I just got a quick follow-through question. I know it’s your own website, your own company’s website is done in WordPress. Yeah. You know, you got Wix, haven’t you? You’ve got Squarespace, you got GoHighLevel, you got some more professional tools like Framer and that. How do you see WordPress as an agency owner, you know, in the market price at the beginning, in the, in the beginning of the second quarter, where do you think it stands in the market?

[00:18:21.710] – Lauren Petrullo

I think WordPress, so yeah, mongoose.media or mongoosemedia.us is all built in WordPress. I think it’s the, um, easiest place to start, but I will admit it’s the also easiest place to mess up. And on my website, it’s so slow right now because I— every— it feels like everyone can support doing WordPress. I’ve done a little coding bootcamp— not me, but people that apply— like, I’ve done some coding bootcamp, I can help. And now that my agency is 8 years old and like we’re looking at switching everything to mongoose.media.ai and, and making a stronger, more, um, upgraded version of the site because we just have so much content in the the site so low. Um, I think where it fits in the marketplace is it’s the best place to start, but also the scariest place to, uh, lose control. And I think to anyone, like, if you are developing websites, the greatest asset you will have is to be someone that’s going to see you through. And I know that I, I admit I’ve been cheap, and I’m like, oh, I’ll just jump and jump and jump from developer to developer to developer. Well, that being cheap short-term is costing me $80,000 long term.

[00:19:29.680] – Lauren Petrullo

And I think that WordPress is like the best place to start and to grow and to develop. And I think there’s so many amazing resources out there, but the website strategy side to WordPress where it fits in the marketplace is something that, at least in my experience, I didn’t see a lot of. So again, even if you’re having strategy for making sure that the standard events or making sure that your optimization is set up, having a strategy for a long-term plan I think where WordPress sits in the marketplace, just by its nature, is like a commodity. I think a lot of people will just treat it like a, uh, generic Amazon Basics product when they’re looking for teams to help them with their websites, when truly it’s a really fantastic solution for most brands, especially startups, which I find stronger than like the Wix or the GoDaddies or all those other ones that’ll nickel and dime you. I think WordPress is the most accessible place to start and to build your initial websites. But I also think it’s the most dangerous if you lack a long-term website vision.

[00:20:36.100] -Jonathan Denwood

Yeah.

[00:20:36.420] – Lauren Petrullo

I’d make— yeah.

[00:20:37.460] -Jonathan Denwood

Well, we’re gonna go for our middle break. It’s been fantastic discussion. Hopefully you stay with us for the second half. We will be back in the fourth, a few moments.

[00:20:49.990] – Kurt von Ahnen

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[00:21:27.480] – Speaker 4

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[00:22:04.830] -Jonathan Denwood

We’re coming back, folks. Also want to point out, if you’re looking for a great WordPress hosting partner and you’re in learning management membership or community building out websites, why don’t you look at WP Tonic? We’ve got some great affiliate packages and we can be your great partner. To find more, go over to wp-tonic.com/partners, wp-tonic.com/partners. Www.greatbusinessideas.com/partners. Let’s build something special together. So, Lauren, I’m going to just throw it over to Curt. Over to you, Curt.

[00:22:45.040] – Kurt von Ahnen

You’re going to make me put a story on it. We, Jonathan and I, have a thing called— we do the Membership Machine Show. It’s one of our shows. We do this and we do another show. We talk to an awful lot of people that are starting membership or e-learning projects. And when we are working with these people, we end up being in a coaching position, even though we’re not officially coaching them.

[00:23:06.690] -Jonathan Denwood

Right.

[00:23:06.850] – Kurt von Ahnen

You end up kind of coaching clients and they struggle to build their initial list. They struggle to get their first 10 paying students. They struggle to get the first 25 paying students. And then it seems like they automatically defer to, well, I’m just going to run some Facebook ads. And they say it flippantly, like they’ve been talking about Russell Brunson’s potato gun for 3 months. And I don’t think people understand the platform. They, they, they, they, they throw up an ad, it then— and they never come with budget. They show up with $250 or $300 and they think like they’ve made this investment. And to me, I almost think like if you have a $300 campaign, Facebook just feels insulted and doesn’t even really promote it. Like, that’s the way like I feel like it. Like, I’ve never seen a $300 campaign pay off. So what do you think are the biggest myths that clients are stepping into this space with?

[00:24:07.520] – Lauren Petrullo

Yeah, I mean, I can tell you I’ve seen $300 campaigns pay off, but that’s the exception, not the rule. And I think a lot of it is people— I don’t know where this came from— people think that Meta is an ATM. And today, like literally in my meeting earlier with my team, and like we call these like Laurenisms, I was like, stop getting mad at Meta, like blame your incompetence. And I was like, oh, I feel that. But it is like, it’s just, I was looking in my ad account today and I’m not spending tons of money. I have clients that are spending like, what I spend in a month is what most of our clients spend in an hour. And, um, I’m just, I’m so proud of looking at what Meta is doing for my business. So I think a lot of the myths are that like, it’s easy. It can be. If you can focus on making sure that the data and the destination are lined up, if you’re doing audience definitions, if you’re setting up your account settings, like I call it, like, is your printer on? Basics of account setup. But most people never even look at the advertising settings.

[00:25:10.710] – Lauren Petrullo

So I like, I have this URL. If you go to mongoosemedia.us/lazy, it goes directly to the advertising settings within the Meta ecosystem. And most people are like, I’ve never been to this page before. If you are looking at running ads on Meta and you look at your engaged and existing customers and they’re showing as not defined, you’re not ready to launch ads. Like there’s basic foundational setups of making sure your printer is plugged in and on before you’re going to start running printer, like stuff that you’re going to print. So like in those myths of like people think that it’s easy, people think that Meta can— is just an ATM. If I put in a dollar, I’m going to expect $20 back.

[00:25:46.370] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, I blame ClickBank for that.

[00:25:48.360] – Lauren Petrullo

No. Okay, that’s fair. Thanks a lot, ClickBank. You’re taking all the blame, you monsters. Um, so I think the, the myth that I, I— if anyone’s who’s starting, like, you can do a lot with $300, but forgive my analogy, but I call it the slip it in method. It’s like you’re trying to date someone, and when you’re like, I’m gonna spend $300, it’s like going on to a date. Like, date doesn’t stand for at the end, right? Like, I was like, I’m gonna try to not be explicit, but you can figure out what the D stands for. Um, it’s not a guarantee, right? So if you’re spending $300, it’s— you’re not guaranteed to stick it in. What you’re trying to do is court and develop people. All of your advertising, whether it’s Meta, TikTok, whatever, you are paying or renting their attention so that you can then earn their trust. The ad is not the responsible piece of the ATM. Your ad is responsible to just engage them to the next step. You are trying to rent their attention and earn their trust enough that they want to raise their hand or click the button to learn more and then go to landing page.

[00:26:53.030] – Lauren Petrullo

Then the landing page is selling them on what your offer is, and then your funnel is converting them on like the monetization piece. So it’s like this before the click of how your ad is performing has a lot of information and most people are only looking— I spent $300, how much money did I make? Versus looking at, I spent $300, what type of engagement did I have? Was my ad getting enough hook and hold rate? Do I have sentiment rate? Do I have people clicking see more? Like, what is the ad telling me before the click happens to see if my ad is good? Then we look at after the click and to see, is my offer good, right? Like, is the offer that I’m selling worth their time on the page? And then afterwards you can look at the funnel, we call it the after the clickety-clack, and it’s telling me, is my funnel good. And I think people just put all of that attention and expectation on the ad. It’s like a parent who expects, because they were a professional basketball player, that this child is going to love sports and also become an Olympian.

[00:27:49.310] – Kurt von Ahnen

Yeah, I used to race motorcycles, and then, uh, surprisingly, my kids don’t ride motorcycles. Um, so the way that you describe that, how— what if, if it was going to be a, um you know, an assumption or a myth that new people in the space find. Do you think people are making the hugest mistake of like trying to go for conversion through the ad, like buy now buttons, instead of the nurture button that says follow me and hear the rest of my story?

[00:28:20.720] – Lauren Petrullo

So I don’t want to like— it’s not the like— it’s a concept. Yes, I agree with 1,000%. The actual language on the button, like, oh, that the learn more, download, whatever. Um, that’s not the piece, but the, the concept is I think there’s not a single company, brand, or creator that should not be running at least $10 a day on any Meta ad campaign. Now, I don’t think that you should spend $10 a day and expect conversions. You said $300 a day, Meta looks at you as like pittance. I can tell you the number is $200,000 a month. If you were spending less than $200,000 a month, I’m sorry, I’ve been in the rooms. They just don’t care. I mean, sure, they care. They have the illusion of it. They’ll have assigned resources. But the reality is, and that was 5 years ago, that number, $200,000 a month maybe gets their attention. So you aren’t big enough for them to care. And I hate that. But at the same time, when I look at my small budget and the ways that we’re setting up our campaigns, I see how much Meta cares when I care back.

[00:29:20.460] – Lauren Petrullo

In setting up the data that’s going into it. So defining existing audiences, defining engaged audiences, because if you don’t do those small audience definitions, and that takes 30 seconds, maybe 2 minutes if you’re my 81-year-old mom and you’re just like, is this where I click? Setting those, that 2 minutes makes such a big difference. That Meta then is making sure that I am getting my content in front of new people, that they’re adjusting to the signals that they’re receiving, like all that basic stuff. Is so important, but everyone should be running at least a campaign. I think people go in for, um, the, the stick it in versus courting. And so small thing is a lot of brands, especially new ones, have already invested in their social media profiles, their Instagram account. They’ve been posting for years. There’s a lot of really good content. Maybe it got crickets, but that valuable content is there and you can pay. So KPI-wise, you want to pay $1.50 for a cost per link click. That’s how much you want to spend to get someone from Meta to go to your website. Now, some people pay $8, $16, and that’s because they don’t have a really good hosting team and their website’s probably too small or too slow.

[00:30:21.590] – Lauren Petrullo

So hence you go to WP Tonic, wp-tonic.com/partners, and use one of their hosting partners. Because if your website is slow, it’s costing you money and you’re wasting money ineffectively. But, um, when you are, instead of taking them to a website, if someone’s brand new and you’re developing your website, You can do a traffic campaign objective with Instagram profile visits, and you can spend 10 to 15 cents to get people from an Instagram or Facebook ad to visit your profile. Your profile then becomes a social media website. You can— and then that is a way to get them to learn more about you. You’re courting them, right? You’re earning their trust. When you buy and rent their attention, you then have to use your content to earn the trust. Similarly, if you’ve got a WordPress site and you’ve got blogs and you’ve got really valuable content on the WordPress site, doing a traffic objective and sending people to your blog so that they can earn— you can earn their trust goes a lot longer. So that when you’re ready to do a conversion campaign, which for me needs to have at least $60 a day minimum budget per audience, then you’ve already built enough data, or you’ve built more data inside of your Meta Pixel so that Meta can be start— can be smarter and more efficient with how they’re going after a customer for you to buy.

[00:31:31.410] – Kurt von Ahnen

Nice.

[00:31:32.310] – Lauren Petrullo

Jonathan?

[00:31:33.340] -Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, I’m really interested to know, obviously you deal, your agency deal with some large national, but have there been any new clients or clients that come on in the last year that kind of regional that stick in your mind where you could, I don’t know if you could actually mention a name, but mentioned the industry, um, where your agency got some results that you weren’t anticipating. Anything comes to mind?

[00:32:06.570] – Lauren Petrullo

Um, oh, there’s, there’s lots of examples. So like, yes, the agency, we generally work with brands that are doing at least $5 million a year, but then we have marketing rehab where there’s brands that will come in and they run their ads and we just oversee. I’m like, it’s a Monday group call, so I’m like thinking of all those new folks in there. One comes to mind is Evidentry app. So Evidentry app, Crystal is the owner, an amazing app. And she has a very small budget and she like tested a bunch of different things. One of the things—

[00:32:37.230] -Jonathan Denwood

Can I ask you, what does the app do?

[00:32:39.400] – Lauren Petrullo

Sure. It’s, you, it’s all medical-based research material so that you can see how do different ingredients and how do different medicines interact with each other. And it’s all clinical-based. So if you’re using AI saying like, hey, can I take this caffeine pill with my vitamin D supplement? AI can give you a different answer every 30 seconds. And hers is all clinical research-based. She comes from the pharmaceutical industry and she’s got huge medical-backed partners so that you can have, um, the research information you need and not have your health rely on an AI that’s just here to satisfy you. Yeah. And so things that she had done before she came into like marketing rehab, which is our Monday calls, she bought a bunch of fake followers, you know, and you’re like, oh, I can buy followers. And then this company’s like, we’ll give you real authentic in-market followers. That turned out to be a lie. So then we had done that small campaign where like going after Instagram profile visitors, she started growing her Instagram account with real authentic people that wanted to follow her that were totally in market. And a surprise that came after that is she started to have viral content from her audience.

[00:33:54.160] – Lauren Petrullo

So viral, not in the sense of like hundreds of millions of views viral comparatively, but at all the other content that she’d been posting previously, because we were growing her campaign or Instagram naturally through a paid side, but like actual people following, that $10 a day led to her getting consistently increased visibility on her content, which was 100 times more than previously. So this is very small, right? This is like growing it a few hundred followers and getting awareness about her app. So that was like an amazing tangential success where, yes, she had real followers, but then two, she had real content engagement at levels unprecedented before. A second campaign that we had done was for app installs. And so what was really surprising, because I don’t do a lot of app installs, that’s not my space, but we were able to get people to sign up and download her app for less than $10. And I think it’s like a $7 per month that you can do. And like all this information, she’s very new. This is all her own personal project. And the surprise was when we set it up and told Meta what we want to, and we didn’t go after the conversion because she had tried before and she had done the straight to conversion, like Kurt, like the example we were talking about earlier where she’s like, I’m just going to follow what other people who are doing $10 and $100 million a year is following their strategies for her under $50 a day budget.

[00:35:18.040] – Lauren Petrullo

Those strategies that work for big accounts, ad spends, do not translate for smaller ad budgets. And so then when we dialed it back and dialed it more focused on different campaign objectives and making sure the data was dialed in, we cut her cost down so much that she has the opportunity to scale without breaking the bank. Because there’s two ways that companies can go bankrupt. You overspend on labor, you overspend in marketing. So that’s the first one that comes to mind because that we just went over two weeks ago.

[00:35:49.480] -Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, that’s great. I just thought I’d ask. It kind of puts, I don’t know, makes it all more real, really. So thanks for doing that. So, you know, I don’t know how long you’ve been the co-host of the Perpetual Traffic. What do you think it’s done with how it’s helped you be a figure in Facebook? And how do you think the podcast and being part of it has helped you? And also, what may be one or one thing that you didn’t realize by agreeing to be part of that?

[00:36:31.370] – Lauren Petrullo

So I’ve been on it for 2 or 3 years, I want to say, and I get to hop in on Ralph’s tail feathers, right? Like Ralph has been, he created the podcast with Brian Dice with Digital Marketer and Molly Pittman was a co-host and I was like the 5th co-host ever to the podcast. Um, it was already well established, so I got to connect with Ralph who has been in this space at least a decade more than I am and has all this wealth of experience. So what I didn’t expect was to continue learning from the podcast, but just from a seat of direct conversation versus listening to it, because I listened to the podcast for years. Um, also previous host Molly Pittman, like I learned from previous host, Cos Muslim is still a very good friend of mine. He sent me a text message yesterday making fun of me because I spoke on stage and he jokingly said I was booed off even though I had a really good stage. Like, that’s the kind of relationship we have. What I didn’t expect too was like all the amazing guests we had that I got to build relationships with.

[00:37:32.680] – Lauren Petrullo

I got to interview heads of Shopify, heads of TikTok, who then I see at different conferences I’m going out at. I got to interview and connect with Dr. Cialdini and even Oren Klaff. I mean, these are amazing human beings that I did not anticipate the accessibility that I would have and the genuine conversations we had. Because it’s really easy to like meet a guest and be like, oh, you’re just trying to promote something. I was like, no, I enjoyed it. And 6 hours a week of recording, connecting, all that stuff, like that’s a big commitment on my calendar. But I’ve always loved it and the chance to make sure that I’m holding myself accountable. It is a podcast with 250,000 unique downloads. So by and of itself, I got a lot more visibility, which led to amazing clients that I’ve had the chance to work with, um, a lot of content that’s out there. So when you look up my name, Lauren Petrullo, there’s already at least hundreds of videos from the podcast. So I got to do minimum effort work-wise and get maximum exposure because this team was creating all this content and I just had to show up, which Well, that was easy.

[00:38:41.110] – Lauren Petrullo

Um, and I think another like amazing piece of the podcast, because we have such a big audience, like we have a Telegram group with hundreds of people in it, and then I go to conferences and people like, oh, I listen to Listen, Listen. I’ve had to hold myself to a higher degree of accountability for learning to ensure that the content is valuable for them. Whereas before I was like, oh yeah, I’m gonna keep doing it. Now it’s like a requirement. Like I go to conferences and I sit in and listen to talks. Um, yes, I get to speak at them, which is amazing, but I’m not the person that disappears. I don’t come in and leave just because I spoke. I’m sitting in and I’m learning, I’m absorbing. And before, I would do it just for my clients and my team, but now I’m also doing it because I have the chance to share what I’ve learned at the conferences that I have access to, to the audiences that have access to the podcast. So it was just this almost like way to get what I would call like a doctorate in what I do unofficially from Lauren University.

[00:39:40.190] -Jonathan Denwood

Yeah. Over to you, Kurt.

[00:39:43.020] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, I’m going to switch the channel. I suppose it’s my responsibility. You’ve already mentioned AI and we kind of glossed over it some, but if you had to like share with our audience, like what are the AI tools that kind of pop off the screen to you that help you become more efficient?

[00:39:58.610] – Lauren Petrullo

Okay. So, we use a lot of generative AI and I was the first, like, I was in Forbes like 6 year, 5 years ago for using AI. I was the first case study for Jasper. So content AI, like I love Surfer SEO. Oh my gosh. I love that tool. It allowed us to grow a website from 0 to 100,000+ visitors per month of creating generative content with AI.

[00:40:21.300] -Jonathan Denwood

So you did get hammered by Google for using AI content?

[00:40:26.650] – Lauren Petrullo

No, not at all. Everyone else did because so our, the way that with Surfer, we did it where I call it like Lego building. So Surfer told us which key terms to do. You can automatically make a post, but we never did that. We always had human in the loop. And now what I term is like naked AI. We never have just the very first edition of what AI has provided for us. No, we’re dressing it on clothes, we’re accessorizing it, we’re making shoes pop. It’s got a purse to hold all its belongings. So with Surfer, um, what it allowed for our copywriters is instead of like their hand cramping when writing, if you remember taking a test and you have to shake out your hand because you’re writing an essay, you’re like, oh my gosh, it hurts. That’s the equivalent that we have for our copywriters. Their brain just never stopped. So we bring in Surfer and, and it tells us which keywords, and it’s like a recipe almost, but it’s still authentically what we’ve written. So we were never dinged by Google. That didn’t happen for us. And, um, so when everyone else did it, like maintain, like we grew that, that, um, the first project we did with Surfer where we had like 116,000 or 150,000 website visitors a month within like 14 months of launching everything.

[00:41:32.260] – Lauren Petrullo

We were doing, um, over $10,000 a month just in sales from the blogs, all organic content. Um, so I will be a diehard for that tool. Um, Another tool, like, so then the design side, our team really likes Freepik, F-R-E-E-P-I-K. So that’s what our design team is doing. If you go to Facebook Ads Library and you type in Mongoose Media, you can see all the ads that we’re running, and the large majority of them are created with AI, and Freepik is that team’s tool of choice. Sammy on my team, shout out to her in Chicago, she has been using Google AI Studio, and she’s built dashboards and project management tools using Google AI Studio. Like, I wish I could show you. She promised not to show the world, but oh my gosh, what she has created for us to organize and allow clients to approve, give feedback on the creatives that we deliver, um, has been really helpful because I don’t want it to be a website that we manage at all. And it’s not a website that I’m doing data for. It’s just a, I need you to approve, leave notes, and it feeds into our ClickUp management system.

[00:42:35.310] – Lauren Petrullo

It’s just like making what would’ve been an email exchange a much friendlier experience. So those are like the 3 tools that come to mind that we’re using. I mean, of course we’re using Claude and, and Nanobanana. Like I use for videos when I’m looking for B-roll to make the video, um, you know, have on a pulse to make sure that the content is consumed. Having something that’s visually stimulating, it’s a lot of different B-roll and I’ll use Nanobanana where I’ll get to a picture that I want. I’ll describe what I want, and then I will say, okay, now turn that into a video using VO3. So if you’re in Gemini and you’re searching like, hey, I want a picture of someone who’s lost their keys and is like really confused in a retro neon, um, cyberpunk style, it will create the image for me. Then I say, okay, now make it into a video, and then it’ll create an 8-second video that I’ll just have my video editors use for 2 seconds of. So it’s easy to create B-roll, and I like using that tool. There’s so many, but I feel like I’ve already given a lot.

[00:43:31.300] -Jonathan Denwood

I can give— That’s been fabulous.

[00:43:33.910] – Lauren Petrullo

Thank you.

[00:43:35.690] -Jonathan Denwood

All right, should I go for the last question, Kirk, or do you want to do it?

[00:43:39.070] – Kurt von Ahnen

No, go ahead and grab it.

[00:43:40.670] -Jonathan Denwood

So Lauren, if you could go back to the beginning of your career and you could have a little quick chat with yourself, what would like one tip, one insight, one little bit of advice that you could like to tell yourself?

[00:43:59.000] – Lauren Petrullo

Gosh, I feel bad. I’m like getting like emotional, but like what I would say to like Lauren 8 years ago, I mean, the first piece I would like, I’d hug myself and just be like, there’s going to be hard times, and like, it’s worth it because where I am today, I’m really happy and grateful for the team that I have. So just be like, hey, don’t worry, it’s coming. I did undergo a class action lawsuit because of, um, an ADA alleged thing. So I would definitely be like, hey, make sure you are, um, accessibility compliant. I’ve been vouching it. I just missed it on one of my websites, and it led to, um, one of the most emotionally charged things as an adult. Um, so I use AccessiBe. Uh, there are lots of tools out there. Please, if you are developing websites, please, please, please, don’t let them go through what I went through. Uh, and they have affiliate links. Like, it’s, um, the worst $50 a month I forgot to put on this one website. Um, and then the other thing I would say is, uh, the— like, especially for WordPress, because where I’m at now is like an $80,000 repair for the website rebuild.

[00:45:06.010] – Lauren Petrullo

When you’re building your website, I started off with Wix, should have gone straight to WordPress, and I should have found a partner that wanted to grow with me because when I was like, oh, I’ll try this person, I’ll try this person, I’ll try this person, everyone did all of this different code, which now is why monksmedia.us currently loads so long. So if I could go back, I would say your website is your storefront. So you want to find a partner who is going to grow and develop the website with you. And if you’re cheap now, it’ll hurt you more later.

[00:45:36.020] -Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, I think they’re great insights, actually. We’re going to wrap it up. Are you okay? Kurt’s got to go off in a few minutes. Are you okay doing another 10-minute bonus?

[00:45:48.290] – Lauren Petrullo

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:45:50.060] -Jonathan Denwood

Absolutely. Right.

[00:45:51.860] – Lauren Petrullo

That’s fantastic.

[00:45:53.380] -Jonathan Denwood

So we’re going to wrap up the podcast part of the show. So what’s the best way for people to find out more about you, Lauren?

[00:46:02.610] – Lauren Petrullo

Oh, thanks. So I’m active on most socials, but LinkedIn is the place where I’m the most active. And even when people are like, ” How do I get a hold of you? It’s like LinkedIn is where I spend most of my time. So it’s Lauren E. Petrullo. But of course, you can go to mongoosemedia.us or mongoose. media. Just give me a while, it takes a little while to load. Yeah.

[00:46:24.490] -Jonathan Denwood

And I’ve got to say, Lauren is a true expert. I’m a part of John Loomer’s group. I just joined to learn a little bit more about Facebook, Lauren, and some of the other regulars of his weekly master group. They really do know their Facebook, and Lauren is just a fantastic result, and that’s where we met. So she truly is an expert. Kurt, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and what you’re up to?

[00:46:57.170] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, I’ll be hanging out with Lauren over on LinkedIn, so you can look me up over there. And our company’s name is Mañana No Más, and that’s our social tag for most channels. Mañana No Más.

[00:47:08.100] -Jonathan Denwood

That’s fantastic. We’re going to end the podcast part of the show, folks. We’re going to continue the discussion. You’ll be able to watch the whole interview on the WP Tonic YouTube channel, plus the bonus content. We will be back next week with another fantastic guest. Also, if you want to support the show, Leave us a— and you’re listening on your mobile device, leave us on Spotify or on iTunes, leave us a review. That’s the best way you can support the show. We’ll see you soon, folks.

[00:47:38.980] – Lauren Petrullo

Bye.

[00:47:39.870] -Jonathan Denwood

Hey, thanks for listening. We really do appreciate it. Why not visit the Mastermind Facebook group and keep up with the latest news by clicking wp-tonic.com/newsletter. We’ll see you next time.

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