0:00

Welcome to the next level

0:02

Facebook ads podcast with Phil

0:04

Graham. We help you master

0:06

Facebook ads and give you

0:08

an unfair advantage over your

0:10

competition. Are you ready? Let's

0:13

go. What's up? Podcast Family.

0:15

Welcome to the next level

0:17

Facebook ads podcast episode 413.

0:19

I'm Phil Graham. I've got a great

0:21

show for you guys today. I'm going

0:24

to be sharing my five minute

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Facebook and Instagram ads audit.

0:28

with you guys. So you might

0:30

be feeling stuck or frustrated

0:32

or confused with your

0:34

ads and your data. I want to

0:37

walk you through a quick five minute

0:39

audit that I do to try and

0:41

help spot any issues and also

0:44

potential opportunities pretty

0:46

quickly. So the good news

0:48

is like if you're overwhelmed

0:50

or you're stuck or frustrated,

0:53

there is hope because skill matters.

0:55

Skill matters. Skill can make a

0:58

huge Now, a proper episode

1:00

on this would literally be hours.

1:02

When I go and do audits

1:04

for ourselves or for clients, it's

1:06

way more than five minutes. I tell

1:09

you that. But there are things that

1:11

you can do in short amounts

1:13

of time, short windows of time,

1:15

with your own ads that can

1:17

definitely help. So is this my

1:20

full audit strategy? Of course not,

1:22

because again, that would take hours

1:24

or days to teach you in these

1:27

episodes. But I can start by giving

1:29

you chunks of it and things that you

1:31

can do in a short amount of

1:33

time that could help. And these are

1:35

things that I would do, if I were you,

1:37

in order to try and either improve

1:40

things, figure things out, or get unstuck

1:42

when it comes to your ads. And

1:44

even though these are really focused

1:46

and streamlined, I also think

1:49

they're really powerful. So even though

1:51

it's not everything I do... This stuff

1:53

can be super powerful just this stuff

1:55

in short windows of time. So I'm

1:57

really excited to share with you guys today.

1:59

Now before we dive into that I

2:02

just want to briefly say that if

2:04

you guys are looking for some help

2:06

with your ads I believe one-on-one coaching

2:08

and consulting is the best way to

2:10

go the best way to learn a

2:12

lot of people love it so whether

2:15

you're looking for something like that or

2:17

you might want to just say forget

2:19

it I don't want to really learn

2:21

this stuff I'm too busy I'd rather

2:23

have you do it for me and

2:26

you want somebody to run your ads

2:28

for you we do that as well

2:30

obviously done that for many years So

2:32

if you're looking for either one of

2:34

those things, you can go to my

2:36

website filgramdigital.com or you can DM me

2:39

on Instagram at filgram digital and I

2:41

would love to connect with you. One

2:43

other option is that I do offer

2:45

a service where I do a full

2:47

ad campaign audit for clients. I do

2:50

the audit and then share the findings

2:52

with you on one call. So if

2:54

that's something you're interested in, you could

2:56

also let me know on that. And

2:58

with that being said, let's jump right

3:01

into the content. I want to keep

3:03

this short, sweet, and full of value.

3:05

And of course, very actionable for you

3:07

guys. Let's talk about my five-minute Facebook

3:09

and Instagram ad audit. For you, this

3:11

may take more than five minutes because

3:14

you're not used to doing this. So,

3:16

you know, it could take you 15

3:18

or 20. It might take you five,

3:20

but don't focus on the time, just

3:22

focus on the actions. Let's start with

3:25

number one. What I recommend you do

3:27

is you go in and analyze your

3:29

campaign for key metrics and you want

3:31

to compare them to your benchmarks. Do

3:33

you have benchmarks? If you don't, what

3:35

do you want an ad for? You

3:38

got to have benchmarks to run ads.

3:40

So there's industry benchmarks. We have our

3:42

own benchmarks that mirror many industries as

3:44

well, just because I see so much

3:46

data from client accounts. I have a

3:49

good handle on that. In fact, if

3:51

you're ever curious about your specific industry,

3:53

you know what? Shoot me a message

3:55

program digital.com or DM me on Instagram

3:57

at program digital. You could ask me.

3:59

about your specific industry and I can

4:02

give you some of those benchmarks. I

4:04

may or may not get back to

4:06

you quickly because I get lots of

4:08

messages and super busy, but I will

4:10

get back to you. In terms of

4:13

analyzing key metrics, you go into your

4:15

account and what you want to look

4:17

for is a few different things. Number

4:19

one, you want to check your cost

4:21

per lead, cost per action, cost per

4:23

conversion, cost to acquire a customer, whatever

4:26

that may be. Or if you're not

4:28

then there's other things you'll check. But

4:30

first and foremost, you know, you're going

4:32

to check the cost to acquire a

4:34

lead or a customer, as well as

4:37

your return on ad spend, obviously. Now,

4:39

do realize that sometimes those numbers are

4:41

not totally accurate because of many factors,

4:43

technical factors, privacy issues, etc. So you

4:45

do have to kind of look in

4:48

multiple places to get a good idea

4:50

for it. And even if it's not

4:52

exact, it should give you like a

4:54

rough idea of where you're at. So

4:56

you want to see where you're at,

4:58

you've got to analyze what your cost

5:01

per lead is or cost to acquire

5:03

a customer. You also should know things,

5:05

and this is whether your e-commerce or

5:07

any other kind of business. What is

5:09

your average order value and what's your

5:12

conversion rate? Those things happen on your

5:14

website. So you want to know what

5:16

those are too, because those all play

5:18

into this as well. You also want

5:20

to look at your CPM, because that's

5:22

essentially the cost of running ads. So

5:25

for example, let's say you're comparing to

5:27

last year, and you go and you

5:29

look at your CPMs, and let's say

5:31

they're $20 per thousand right now, and

5:33

let's say last year, let's say there

5:36

were just random numbers, let's say there

5:38

were $10 per CPM, and if you're

5:40

not doing as good this year, and

5:42

you're thinking everything sucks in your ads

5:44

are horrible, and you don't look at

5:46

CPMs, you wouldn't realize that your cost

5:49

went up. So you'd have to do

5:51

twice as good just to do. as

5:53

well as you did last year. You

5:55

might think it's a problem with the

5:57

ads. but it might be the cost

6:00

that is affecting that difference. And then

6:02

in that scenario, there's things you can

6:04

do. You can try and run some

6:06

different things to lower the CPM's. You

6:08

could try and create more effective ads

6:10

that will overcome the CPM. Like there's

6:13

a lot of stuff, but CPM's matter.

6:15

You also want to look at what

6:17

your cost per click is and what

6:19

your link click through rate is. So

6:21

make sure when you're looking at click

6:24

through rates, you're not looking at click

6:26

through rate all. or clicks all because

6:28

those include things like likes comments you

6:30

know all that kind of stuff you

6:32

want to look at link click through

6:35

rate because that's the clicks that's the

6:37

percentage of clicks that actually clicked to

6:39

go where you wanted them to go

6:41

to your website whatever the call to

6:43

action was same thing with link clicks

6:45

how many clicks did you get to

6:48

your website you don't want to look

6:50

at clicks all because that's clicks on

6:52

the ad too you want to look

6:54

at link clicks So those are some

6:56

quick metrics you want to look at

6:59

and identify and analyze and compare them

7:01

to the benchmark. So you know, hey,

7:03

is this better than average? Is it

7:05

worse than average? Because when you do

7:07

that, you can get some clarity and

7:09

some visibility on what's going on. You

7:12

know, sometimes if ads are not performing

7:14

or if you're struggling, how do you

7:16

know if it's the ad or the

7:18

offer or something on the website? Or

7:20

it could be a combination of all

7:23

those things. There's a lot of ways

7:25

that you can find out. There's no

7:27

way you'll know at all with a

7:29

five-minute audit, but you can still learn

7:31

some valuable things. So you got to

7:33

analyze these metrics and see if it's

7:36

above or below the benchmarks. If it's

7:38

below the benchmarks, you have to figure

7:40

out why that is and do some

7:42

testing to try and change that, obviously.

7:44

So that's number one is really starting

7:47

with that data. Now evaluating data is

7:49

a skill. You know, you need to

7:51

get good at this. It's not... good

7:53

enough to just do it you gotta

7:55

be good at it it's like playing

7:57

basketball or football we all know how

8:00

to play but it doesn't mean we

8:02

can all play professionally. That's a skill

8:04

issue. So you want to not only

8:06

do all this stuff but you need

8:08

to get highly skilled at it, okay?

8:11

So make sure you do that. Unlike

8:13

sports though, I believe most people can

8:15

get highly skilled at this stuff. So

8:17

that's the good news. Once you've analyzed

8:19

your metrics and you have a good

8:22

feel for that. Number two, you want

8:24

to evaluate your ad targeting to see

8:26

what's going on. If I were helping

8:28

you... What I would do after analyzing

8:30

the metrics would depend on what I

8:32

found in the data in those metrics.

8:35

Today, giving you our general recommendations, but

8:37

if I were doing this for you,

8:39

for example, it might be different based

8:41

off of what I saw in the

8:43

metrics. But I'm still going to kind

8:46

of give you some general recommendations across

8:48

the board that could be helpful. And

8:50

one of them is evaluating your ad

8:52

targeting. So what I would be looking

8:54

at is, okay. Are you only targeting

8:56

broad audiences for example? Maybe you're only

8:59

using Advantage Plus and that's it. That

9:01

could be a huge mistake potentially. You

9:03

know, so are you only targeting broad

9:05

audiences? It doesn't mean that it is

9:07

a mistake. I said it could be.

9:10

It's something you want to look at.

9:12

The next thing you want to do

9:14

is look at, are you excluding potential

9:16

valuable audiences? Whether that's like a look-alike

9:18

or a segmented audience. And when I

9:20

say excluding, I don't literally excluding them.

9:23

in your audience, I mean just not

9:25

running to those audiences, not testing them.

9:27

There's a lot of potential great audiences

9:29

besides Advantage Plus. Segmented audiences, interests, behaviors.

9:31

Have they been tested? If not, what

9:34

are you doing? Like those are great

9:36

opportunities for testing. Another thing you want

9:38

to look for obviously in your targeting

9:40

is retargeting. Are you consistently retargeting with

9:42

those audiences? If not, I definitely recommend

9:44

that you start some retargeting. If you

9:47

are, how's it going? And if it's

9:49

not going well, is it because the

9:51

audience or the creative? You gotta do

9:53

some further testing. One other thing you

9:55

guys can look at when it comes...

9:58

to your targeting is looking at the

10:00

age and demographic and gender evaluation. So

10:02

you can do a breakdown with your

10:04

ads and you can look at performance

10:06

by age and by gender or even

10:09

by placement and by location and many

10:11

other things. That is something that is

10:13

like goal because you might see some

10:15

ads that are doing well with one

10:17

age or gender, but not with another.

10:19

And maybe you need to... put more

10:22

budget into where it's doing well. Maybe

10:24

you need to stop what's not, or

10:26

maybe change the creative for that age

10:28

or gender. But that's something that you

10:30

can look at to then make smart

10:33

tests with and changes with based off

10:35

of this data. And that just makes

10:37

you smarter and smarter about what's going

10:39

on. So that's some ad targeting ideas

10:41

in this audit. Number three, you want

10:43

to look at your creatives and your

10:46

messaging. So there's a zillion things I

10:48

could talk about here. I've got to

10:50

kind of keep this short. So some

10:52

of the important ones off the top

10:54

of my head would definitely be your

10:57

hook. Do you have a hook? Your

10:59

hook should be in three places in

11:01

your headline at the very beginning of

11:03

your ad copy as well. And then

11:05

either in your image or if it's

11:07

in your video, if you're doing a

11:10

video, it should be the first couple

11:12

seconds of your video. It should be

11:14

in all of those places. So number

11:16

one, do you even have a hook.

11:18

I'll tell you what if you're starting

11:21

off with something about you or an

11:23

introduction you don't have a hook you've

11:25

got to have a hook that matters

11:27

to your ideal audience and number one

11:29

do you have one but then second

11:31

if you have one is it actually

11:34

good enough and strong enough to capture

11:36

their attention immediately to look at all

11:38

your stuff and see if everything has

11:40

not only a hook but doesn't have

11:42

an amazing hook and are you testing

11:45

different hooks So many advertisers and so

11:47

many ads either don't have a hook

11:49

or they have a hook that sucks

11:51

and they think Facebook sucks. It's like

11:53

no you're hooks up. That's why your

11:56

ads aren't working. So test that. Try

11:58

some different hooks. Another thing is with

12:00

your creative, with your ad copy, does

12:02

it match your pain points of your

12:04

ideal audience or their aspirations and things

12:06

that they really want? Doesn't really talk

12:09

to those things or you just talking

12:11

about how great you are because that

12:13

could be a big mistake if that's

12:15

the case. You want it to match

12:17

their pain points and aspirations. And then

12:20

the other thing with your ads, does

12:22

your ad clearly give value in some

12:24

way, whether that's teaching somebody something or

12:26

giving somebody some hope or inspiring them?

12:28

Does it clearly give value? And also,

12:30

does it clearly communicate your differentiation? What

12:33

makes you or your brand different or

12:35

your product or service and how that

12:37

difference benefits your clients and customers and

12:39

customers? Because if it doesn't do that

12:41

stuff, there might be a problem. These

12:44

are things that you want to fix.

12:46

And also, does it clearly give and

12:48

show what the offer is, if there's

12:50

an offer? So those are some things

12:52

for your creatives and messaging. And then

12:54

last but not least, let's talk about

12:57

ad placements. You definitely want to review

12:59

your ad placements. Again, you can do

13:01

this via the breakdown in ads manager.

13:03

And if you don't know how to

13:05

do some of this stuff, then that's

13:08

something that is prime for like a

13:10

consulting call because these are things that

13:12

you absolutely need to know how to

13:14

do and you need to be really

13:16

good at them. So make sure that

13:18

you're working on this. But what you

13:21

want to do is use the breakdown

13:23

to identify any placements that might be

13:25

wasting your budget with bad performance. And

13:27

then you've got to figure out, well,

13:29

is it because that placement just doesn't

13:32

work for your offer or maybe? Whatever

13:34

ad you had wasn't right for that

13:36

placement you need a different creative or

13:38

something like that But you want to

13:40

identify make sure you're not wasting money

13:43

on bad placements. Another thing you can

13:45

do is identify potential valuable placements that

13:47

really haven't been given as much of

13:49

a chance. So for example, let's say

13:51

you're running ads and you're using Advantage

13:53

Plus placements, so it's going everywhere. And

13:56

let's say you look and you're like

13:58

getting an amazing low cost per lead

14:00

or cost per purchase on Instagram stories.

14:02

But let's say it's only got like...

14:04

1% of your budget spend and everything

14:07

else is going to other placements. Well,

14:09

that could be an opportunity. You don't

14:11

know if it's going to do better

14:13

once it gets more reach, but what

14:15

if it does? So that would be

14:17

an example of identifying a potential opportunity

14:20

and then maybe running an ad that

14:22

is only going to Instagram Stories and

14:24

Reels and then testing that out. So

14:26

you also want to figure out which

14:28

placements are delivering the best results consistently.

14:31

And you might want to mix it

14:33

up and do automatic placements for some

14:35

ads and then test some manual placements

14:37

based off of what the data is

14:39

showing you. So my friends, this audit

14:41

is something that you can and should

14:44

be doing on a regular basis. And

14:46

again, I can't emphasize this enough. It's

14:48

not enough to just do it. You

14:50

need to get skilled at it. You

14:52

need to be really good at it.

14:55

But the good news is, why not?

14:57

There's nothing that's stopping you from getting

14:59

really good at it. You literally could

15:01

just be a few tweaks away from

15:03

improving your ads. And as always, just

15:06

a reminder, it's always important to point

15:08

out that every business is unique, results

15:10

can vary, there's no guaranteed outcomes, so

15:12

always keep that in mind. So if

15:14

you guys have any questions, let me

15:16

know. If you need help, if you

15:19

want me to do an audit for

15:21

you, I actually do audits for clients

15:23

as a service. But regardless of all

15:25

that, I recommend you guys do a

15:27

mini audit on your ads and let

15:30

me know what you find. My friends,

15:32

episode 413 is in the book. Thank

15:34

you guys so much. for

15:36

being here. We've got

15:38

another great episode

15:40

next week. If you

15:43

want to get

15:45

in touch, to get in touch

15:47

.com is the website

15:49

the you can DM

15:51

me on Instagram me

15:54

on Instagram I would

15:56

love to connect with

15:58

you and I'll

16:00

talk to you on

16:02

next week's episode. you

16:04

on Peace out. Peace out!

16:07

for listening to

16:09

the to the Next Level podcast.

16:11

Please remember to

16:13

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16:15

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16:18

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16:20

more tips and

16:22

to learn more about

16:24

Phil, more please visit

16:26

please visit .com slash podcast.

16:28

slash podcast.