How to Start Running Meta Ads for Just $1 a Day (and Actually Get Results) with Jana Bishop

Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of Business First Creatives. So this is yet another episode in the series where I am sharing lovely people that I met at Creative Educator Conference. We are being joined today by Facebook Ad Guru. That’s what I call her, not not what she calls herself, but Jana Bishop is here and she is going to make ads.

Easy for us to comprehend and perhaps give you a little motivation and a little confidence that you need to hit publish. If ads are something that you have wanted to experiment with, Jana, welcome to my podcast.

Jana: Well, thank you for having me. It was so fun getting to meet you at the conference. I definitely enjoyed that and have been a huge fan since then.

Colie: Oh, thank you. So guys, Jana spoke at the conference and of course she was talking about ads and. I wanted her to come on because listening to her from the audience, I was like, gosh, I should just go back to my hotel room and like make an ad in 20 seconds and hit publish. I was literally that motivated and so I figured she was gonna be a great person to come on and talk to you about ads.

So Jana, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got started in ads, because I’m absolutely fascinated by your origin story.

Jana: Oh, well, thank you. So when I started out I an online business. I actually had a stock photography company and I was doing photos for Instagram. If you remember back in the day when Instagram was a chronological feed. And it was square format images and people were having to post like two and three times a day to stay at the top of the feed. I started doing stock photos for Instagram to help people that didn’t have an interesting life, have an interesting feed. And so, then when I started that I realized I was spending a lot of time. Growing organically, and although I enjoyed it, I was like, there’s no way I can sustain this long term. Well, fast forward a little bit, I created the presets to go with the stock photos and I took a course online about ads because I thought there’s gotta be a better way than just showing up constantly. And that course opened up a whole can of worms for me. I didn’t have a website. I didn’t know what the pixel was.

I just took the course and thought, you just go on a website and you like upload some information and it all happens. And that was a huge wake up call for me. And so the course got me so far, but the real life experience was where things started to change. And through the years in selling, I think anyone that’s in the online space or has digital products, you know that there’s just kind of an ebb and flow. Sometimes some months you do good depending upon how much you show up. Other months sales may decline if you’ve kind of taken a break or stepped back. And I started seeing that in my own life as I, like, I’ve had seven miscarriages, I’ve just had different things that kind of pulled me back from business through the years, and I noticed that in those seasons where I had to just kind of naturally pull back.

My sales followed that rhythm and I start, I was like, I’ve gotta conquer ads because I need something to show up. What? So I don’t have to show up?

Colie: Yeah.

Jana: And um, I remember when I got super serious, like I had been dabbling with ads, learning about them, trying them with really small budgets. And the month that I was like, I am going all in.

And I put it on my. I had a little sticky note on my, on my desktop that was like, you got this like, and I had my CPM goal and my ROAS goal, and I had all the things listed out that I wanted. And I went from like on average I was doing five to 10,000 a month in sales on my digital products. And the month that I went all in with ads, I did 70,000 in sales. And that’s when I knew like. Okay. Ads with organic is where it’s at. It’s not like I had a completely barren profile. It’s not like I

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Jana: connecting and showing up. I was, ’cause I enjoyed that, but I needed something to stay consistent. So in the days when I needed a break or I needed to be with my family or I needed to just heal, I could do that and know that my.

Sales wouldn’t take a huge hit. And so once that month happened, I was like all in and really started like trying different strategies and figuring things out. And then, a couple years later, COVID happened and all of my friends were at home, you know, during COVID and they were all kind of experimenting with like online business.

So then I started meeting with them one-to-one over Zoom and we’d set up their ads and I’d tell ’em a strategy and that, and it just kind of took off from there where I realized. I love online business, but even more than that, I love making sales possible 24 7, and that’s what ads do.

Colie: Well, and I feel like you’re such a breath of fresh air because a lot, like if you asked me about like the ads gurus, and of course I am doing this in air quotes. I feel like they’re all men. And it’s like mostly bro marketers. And so I feel like your perspective on how to make ads simple and possible for everyone is just something that people should pay attention to if ads is a strategy that they want to try.

Now, I totally feel you on the, I can’t show up on Insta. I haven’t been on Instagram in months, but the way that you said that. I can completely understand and I think part of the problem, at least in for myself, I will admit, is when you stop showing up organically, the hit that you take is not immediate because you are marketing today for the clients that you will probably get in 90 days.

And that’s not true of ads, but that’s definitely true of organic. And so if for some reason you can’t show up for your business. Because of whatever your reason is, you don’t immediately notice it. It’s not until months down the line when your leads have dried up, your website hits or down, like whatever it is, and you’re like, oh my gosh, like my business is tanking.

What happened? And it’s not something that you did you know, a couple days before or a couple weeks before. It’s months ago when you changed your strategy of how you were showing up for your business, and it just took that long to catch up.

Jana: Yeah. You’re so right in that, and I think that’s the thing in online business we’re used to. Getting into a rhythm. And we’re used to like, we kind of train people on our rhythm, right? And so if you have like a long runway, then of course if you stop showing up, eventually that runway is gonna run out. And

Colie: Yeah.

Jana: I completely agree with you that sometimes it’s not the immediate hit and so we don’t really take notice, but there does need to be some type of marketing plan that can carry you through all the seasons of life.

Colie: Yeah, and I mean, I used to think that was SEO. ’cause of course SEO is a long-term game, and once you publish the blog posts and they’re out there in the ethos, people will continue to find you. But what a lot of people don’t understand is that your SEO can also be like very tied to your organic marketing in that if you’re not showing up on Instagram.

Or sending emails to your email list and letting them know about the content that you’ve published. Yes, Google will eventually find it. Yes, Google will eventually send people there, but organic is how you get people to see it now. And the SEO is how you get people to see it months, maybe years down the line.

And so again, it is still a combination of like an immediate hit from organic and then whatever your long-term strategy is.

Jana: Absolutely. Isn’t it funny how it’s all intertwined? Like there’s not just one thing that we can pick and choose to do and know that it’s going to carry us through. It is, um, it’s just a whole pie. It’s all the ingredients.

Colie: It is. And so now I feel like we’re in a good position to kind of talk about ads because yes, ads can give you that immediate hit. ’cause hey, when you put an ad on Facebook or Instagram or, I mean, we’re not gonna talk about Google ads today, but ads in general. They bring in the immediate leads. And yes, some of those people will become immediate buyers, but we’re also adding them to our, our organic methods of marketing.

Whether that’s, you know, getting them to subscribe to your podcast or sending them email newsletters. The ads are what’s bringing you additional traffic and more leads. So what does that look like for the average creative when they first start to play around with an ad strategy?

Jana: Oh my gosh. Strategy is my favorite topic. So there’s so many ways that you can go, and I think that’s why as we’re seeing more and more people begin to teach about ads, I’m the biggest cheerleader of that because there’s so many methods and strategies and ways that you can show up. But I think the biggest thing in the beginning, it’s so intimidating and a lot of times the advice that we’ll hear.

You talked about the bro marketers. I was very much learning from bro marketers, you know, 10 years ago. And it was, it was painful because they were like, you know, a thousand dollars a day or they had these massive budgets and I was like, I have $5 and we gotta make this work, you know? And so I always still feel that way with anyone that’s starting with ads.

And like, if you can’t start for $5 or even $1. You’re gonna feel really overwhelmed and frustrated because the main hurdle that you have to get over in ads is getting onto the back end of the ads manager feeling comfortable with hitting publish, and also that part of you that is maybe a little bit afraid to be seen. You have to kind of allow that some space and room to breathe too. Because when you work with organic traffic, you tend to kind of get in this little bubble where you have your audience and you have the people that you know love you. And it’s kind of like

Colie: Yeah.

Jana: You know, when you go bowling, you know you’re safe when you put content out.

’cause they’re gonna kind of guide you along the way. When you put ads out, I think we all know that people on the internet aren’t known for being kind.

Colie: They are not.

Jana: Um, and there’s a little bit that you have to get used to of like, am I, am I ready to be seen? Am I ready to put myself out there? Do I really stand behind my offer? Am I able to articulate it and answer the questions that are gonna come up and be patient with people as they learn. And so if you can just start with a couple of dollars a day, you kind of build on that ladder of believability. You climb it one, one rung at a time till you get to a place where you’re ready to go.

Okay, give me all the strategies. Let me spend a huge budget. Um, I always like really cheer on the people in my membership when they’ll get on a call and they’re like, I’m spending 20,000 a month. And I’m like. I know the work that it took to get there,

Colie: Mm.

Jana: a number, that is an internal presence that you have to have and an an ability to weather the storm. And like that just says so much about how, how hard they’ve worked to get there. So in the beginning, I want people to know you can absolutely run ads for a dollar a day. $5 a day. My main hope is to get you comfortable on the ads manager and comfortable putting yourself out there to where when you get to the bigger and bigger budgets, it feels like a no brainer.

It doesn’t feel so intimidating and scary. So I think the, the very first thing, if you wanna dive into it, or if you have like a follow up question. Would be the, the pixel. So now it’s called the dataset, and that can be really confusing for people, but it’s still the pixel. It still works. Like the Pixel does.

And if you imagine meta Facebook as like Disneyland, if you’ve ever been to Disneyland, right? And you go into the park and. Disney is looking at you the whole time you’re in the park. They know what you’re doing like, right. Disney is a, a full on production. They keep it clean. They watch out for people like they have.

They know what you’re doing. They can track you in the park. That’s the same thing with meta. When you’re on their island, when you’re in their amusement park, they know what you’re doing, right? They’re, they know what links you’re clicking on. They know what’s happening. But when you leave that park, when you leave meta, when you leave Disneyland, they don’t know where you’re going for dinner.

They don’t know. They don’t know where you live, right? Same with meta. Meta needs a way to track you off the island to know what actions you’re taking and what you’re doing. And so the pixel is like the bridge between meta and your fa and your website, and it sends the information back and forth like a little bridge, and it’s like, oh, they clicked on this link. Then meta’s like, okay, thank you. And it collects the data. And then it says they purchased this, and then the pixel sends the information back and meta’s like, okay, now I know that Coley likes to purchase, you know, at 12:00 AM like, it, it tracks, right?

Colie: It does.

Jana: Yeah. It, it knows you.

Colie: So it does know me and you must know me ’cause you mentioned Disneyland. Hello. Um, the one thing that I want, I wanna kind of like take a step back from the Pixel and first, actually before we go there listening audience, the best advice that Janet gave from the stage at Creative Educator was if you are not ready to run ads.

You should still go put the pixel on your website, like you should the data set. You should do it today. You should do it tomorrow, because every moment that the Pixel is on your website, it is collecting information about the people who are visiting so that when you are actually ready to run ads, it has quite the runway of knowing about the people who are visiting your website, what their habits are, what links they’re clicking on to Then connect it.

When you actually start running ads. So I mean, I think we should start there because that was like the biggest thing that she said, and I was like, yes, my pixel’s there, but I was like, no one, anyone who doesn’t have a pixel should do it immediately.

Jana: Absolutely Pixel. The Pixel is like the best little matchmaker, right? It’s gonna put the best offer in front of the best person that’s most likely to buy it. And so the more that it has time to collect information and begin to understand your audience’s buying habits or what they’re interested in. The better your ads are gonna do whenever you do.

Finally hit publish. Now, there is a little piece of information I need to give you with that. When you install the dataset or the pixel on your website, you also need to make sure that you have a cookies banner because that pixel collects information immediately the moment people hit your website. And so you need to have that disclaimer that yes, I am collecting information. That way you can just be upfront and honest with anyone that’s visiting your website.

Colie: Absolutely. I mean, terms of conditions and cookie and yes, all of that should be on everyone’s website. You know, I haven’t actually had a lawyer on yet. I feel like I should have a lawyer on to tell everybody the importance of having both of those on your website.

Jana: yes.

Colie: So I wanna, I wanna, again, like we’re going real basic here.

So the terms that some of us hear a lot are cold audience, warm audience. Can you talk a little bit more about what, what each means and how they play into like your overall strategy of running ads when you are a beginner?

Jana: Yeah, absolutely. So a cold audience means that they have not heard of you before. They, they, you are brand new in their world, they have never maybe even heard of your offer, right? Some people have such unique offers or products that it’s like you’re part of you showing up with ads as to even educate people on your offer on what it is, and then they’re getting to know you in the process.

So a cold audience is just like, if you just. Plopped down in the middle of a of a mall and started talking to people. That would be the same as when your ads show up to a cold audience online. They have no idea who you are. You’re just kind of someone shouting into the void and hoping your message lands with the right person.

Now, ads do help you target them a little bit easier than the example I gave, but if you can get a visual around it, that would be a cold audience. Now a warm audience would be people that are already kind of familiar with you. Now, they may not know a lot about you. They may not have visited your website yet, but they’ve probably interacted with a post on Instagram, or they may have listened to you on a podcast and then visited your website as a result.

So a warm audience is not always like your number one fan, but there at least there are people that if you were to plop down in the middle of a group, they’d be like, oh, I think. I’ve heard of her. I think I know her. Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that before. And they kind of gravitate in because it’s, it feels familiar.

It feels like home.

Colie: And so when you talk about your $5 a day that people can spend in the initial or even a dollar a day, are we talking about warm audiences or cold audiences and why?

Jana: Yeah, so most of the time that is gonna be a warm audience, especially if you have been on Instagram or even Facebook for any length of time. Even if you only have 50 followers. That is a warm audience that is signed up and said, I like you. I like what you’re talking about. I want to hear more. And so that warm audience is absolutely someone that you can target with an offer.

And so this is actually called. Retargeting, or some people will call it remarketing, but it’s putting your content in a, in front of people that have already interacted with you in some way, shape, or form, right? They’re slightly familiar with you, and so when you can begin to put. Some money behind ads and show it to a warm audience. Not only are you giving yourself the best chance at a conversion, at a sale, or a lead or someone clicking, you’re also allowing meta to begin to understand who your audience is so they can find more people just like them a little bit later on.

Colie: Yes. And even though this might seem, ’cause we’ve talked about the backend of the Meta Ads Manager, but one of the things that the audience would do if they were gonna run ads is they’re selecting how to identify that warm audience. And so for myself, it would be like, Hey. Anyone who has interacted with a video that I’ve put on Instagram in the last 90 days or the last 180 days, I’m going to show you this new piece of content that, you know, Coley is pushing out in an ad.

And so not only is it. Perhaps leading them towards clicking or purchasing something. It’s also a nurture tool because if someone already follows you and they’re already like looking at your content, we all know organically. Instagram only shows your content to like 1% of the people who follow you, and so chances are.

Even if you’re really good about putting out your organic content, your organic audience is not seeing it. But when Meta is using your ads to reshow or to show your ads to your warmest leads, they are in fact now seeing your content when they might not have seen anything that you posted in your feed in like weeks.

Jana: Absolutely. It is a way and honestly. I think it’s such a gift that you can give to people because you are staying in front of them in a way that is dependable and something that you can actually track yourself to see how well a message is hitting. ’cause there’s nothing like putting something out there and then not quite knowing if it’s landing correctly and then your audience can feel like maybe there she doesn’t understand us anymore. When you run ads and you can kind of test out a variety of messaging and creatives, you start to really lean into what your audience needs. And then what I found from the, the creatives and the entrepreneurs that I work with a lot of times because of ads, because they get to that immediate feedback from their audience, they’ll even begin to like shift and craft offers. Are more in tune with what their audience actually needs. And so I think that it’s like a really cool way to, you’re showing up, you’re not being a nuisance. You’re actually like, if you have a message and if you have a solution for people, the more that they can see you in action and the more they can hear about it and be educated on it, the easier it is for them to buy.

I feel like we’re giving them all the information they need ahead of time. So when it comes to plop down 37, 90 $7, they’re ready. ’cause you’ve taken the time to educate them and nurture them along the way. So it’s, I think it’s a wonderful thing.

Colie: It is, and I mean, I know a lot of us feel a certain kind of way about the pay to play, but you really are, in the case of warm audiences, you are paying to make sure that the people who have interacted with you in some way are actually seeing your newer content. And so whether you like it or not, that is giving you a higher return on your investment, if you will.

You spend a lot of time doing your organic marketing, your organic social media posts, but if you’re specifically targeting your warm audience and you’re paying, even if it’s a dollar or $5 a day, at least you know that your people are seeing your stuff.

Jana: Absolutely. Absolutely. And they’re gonna keep interacting with it the more that they see it. And so, like you said earlier, the organic content, there’s no guarantee really. It’s such a small percentage of your audience that’s seeing the organic content. And I know how hard people work on organic content.

It’s not like it used to be where you could take a picture and post it. It is so much work that goes into making sure that your message resonates, making sure that you’re showing up in a way. audience can understand. Um, so if you can put some money behind that and repurpose it and make sure your audience sees it, I think that is the ultimate, like move in, in business is to

Colie: Yeah.

Jana: you’re working smarter

Colie: Not harder.

Jana: goes, yeah, your content goes so much further.

Colie: It does. So I wanna like address one more thing before we kind of move on to the, Hey, once you’re in the ads world, these, this is how you make sure that you’re ready to put more money behind it instead of just your dollar a day. But one of the lessons that I think I had to learn the hardest. Was that the same messaging that works for your warm audience does not work for your cold audience?

So, Jana, how do you help people, or how do you find that creatives are able to shift their messaging from the warm leads, the warm people that they’re showing into now. Okay. I’m gonna put my big girl pants on and I’m now gonna try to bring in cold leads, people who have no idea who I am. And so it does take a little bit more education, but how do we get from here to there?

Jana: Absolutely, and I feel like AI chat, GPT is making it so much easier on us. Years ago, I would sit down and I’d write out my, my ad copy, and I would have to keep in mind, okay, this is going to a cold audience, or this is going to a warm audience, and with my cold audience ad copy, I would write it out, like, here’s what I wanna say.

And then I’d look back over it and I’d be like, how can I simplify it? So maybe I had two paragraphs. I’d be like, can I condense it a little bit more? Can I condense it a little bit more? And am I seeing words and phrases that the average person would know that they might be Googling or they might be talking to a friend about, right? Because when it comes to the topic of ads, I could throw out a whole bunch of jargon and you might be like, oh, she knows her. She knows her stuff, but is the person that’s gonna buy my product impressed by what I know? They want a solution. They wanna know like. Oh, she gets it. She understands like if I threw up an ad and I talked about CPM and all this stuff to a completely cold audience, they would just keep scrolling because they immediately feel dumb. Right. I know. ’cause I was that person. I was the one trying to find all of all the things about ads when I first started and I felt so stupid. And I even remember that when I started in photography and people would talk about Kelvin and White Balance and I was like, what the hell? I don’t know any, where do I freaking click the the thing?

Where do I point my camera? Like, so let’s start there. And so I always try to dial it back and go, Kate. Can I condense it further? Can I make it even easier for someone to understand? So the easiest hack is going to chat GPT, write out or, or I voice note chat GPT all the time. And then I’ll say like condense it to a first grade reading level.

Like let’s go really basic. And then from there I can like bump it up a notch and go, okay, that’s too basic. That’s almost condescending, right? Let’s bring it up a little bit more. But the more that we can understand that a cold audience is not gonna be interested or impressed by what we know. They’re only gonna be brought in by us going, I have a solution for you.

I know you’re pain, the pain that you’re in, and so let me let you know I understand you and here’s a really easy solution. I always feel like the more that we can lead with that, with a cold audience, you’re gonna get their attention. ’cause they’re gonna feel like, okay, she gets it.

Colie: Yeah, so we’ve talked a lot about like testing. We’ve said that word probably a couple times and we’re not really addressing it. But when you have decided to run ads and you go on the backend and you’re, even if you’re running it to your warmest leads, you still have to do testing. So, Jana, explain what we mean by testing in the context of Facebook and meta ads.

Jana: Yeah, so it is a little bit of a beast, so don’t, don’t get overwhelmed. ’cause once you get on the back end, it will make sense, like it’ll start to click. But basically when you run ads and you determine if you’re gonna run them to a cold audience, and the way that meta sets things up, they’ll allow you to pick people that have a certain interest. So, for instance, you might wanna run an ad about golf. Well, you can choose golf as an interest and then you can begin to craft your ad. Creative, which would be the photo or video, and then the copy, which would be the text that goes on there. You can begin to craft that to really speak to that specific interest that you’re targeting. But one of the ways that you’re gonna quickly find out if your message is landing. Or not, or if you’re gonna bring in sales or not, is you’re gonna have to do a lot of testing. And so the way that I like to test is, pretty easy. I like to just allow meta a little bit of freedom in the beginning. So I’ll either, if I know my interest based audience, like the back of my hand, I’ll use it. Like, I think golf is a really great example. That’s an easy one to plug and play. Online businesses sometimes is a little bit harder ’cause we’re like, do they like Gary? Do they like Marie? Who do they like, who do they follow? Right? We’re a little bit limited on that. So the biggest thing that’s gonna convert now even more than an interest-based audience is what your creative and your copy say. The way that you could begin to find out what is working is by testing. So when you set up your campaign, you get to choose your objective. You get to tell meta, I only wanna bring in sales. And that’s the most expensive objective to do. And so I don’t like for people to test at the sales level ’cause it’s, it costs a lot of money. I like for people to test at the traffic level. And when you start a traffic campaign, all you’re doing is you’re telling meta. If somebody likes to click on links. If they like to click on ads, show them my ad, and that for me is how I test, because I’m like, if I can’t get the audience that likes to click to click on my ad, I’m doing something wrong.

My messaging is off. So I like to set up a traffic campaign. Then the ad set, let’s just leave it open. If you only market to women, choose women. If you know your product or offers for a certain age group, choose

Colie: Choose that.

Jana: but don’t worry about the interest right now. Let’s just leave it open and let’s go straight into the ad creative.

So it goes campaign ad set ad. Let’s make it a goal to get three to five ad creatives in there that you can test. And so you’re gonna put your budget at the ad set level and I’d say do like $5 a day if you can. Right? And that way we can run those three to five ads and really see which one is gonna get the most link clicks.

Let’s make it as easy as possible. We told meta only show these ads to people that like to click on ads, and so the metric we’re gonna look at is go, did people click on the ad, and then out of those three to five ads, which one got the most link clicks. Once you see that, you can step back and go, okay, why did that one get the most link clicks? Is it because of the image or video? Is it because of the copy? Like what about it got people’s attention? Right? Um, and so once you start to do that, you’re gonna feel so empowered. ’cause you’re actually gonna see the numbers on the backend and you’ll see that one got 10 link clicks and this one got two.

Like meta just tells you. This one’s the best one and it makes it so much easier. So I like to test at the traffic level, but you’ll test all throughout. You’ll test at the sales level, you’ll run those tests. But with the beautiful thing about meta, and I feel like it’s just such a gift that they give to us, is all the metrics. They don’t have to be confusing. They can be super simple,

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Jana: that one gets sales, put more money on it,

Colie: Yeah.

Jana: Let’s just boil it down and make it as easy as possible.

Colie: Now I do feel like. When people are thinking about the different kinds of ads that you can run, and you say traffic, of course you and I understand traffic is when someone clicks and it takes them to your website or whatever, URL you’re sending ’em to. That is what it’s tracking.

But just because someone clicks on your link. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re gonna go to your website and immediately buy something. So I know a lot of people in the beginning when they don’t understand that, they get very disappointed. They’re like, oh my gosh, like a hundred people clicked this, and then they went to my website and no one bought.

But guys, we were only testing whether or not we could get someone to click. Whether or not they convert when you get to your website is an entirely different thing. You have to look at the things that are on your website to see if it was something that would actually convert them. Was it clear what the offer was?

And that’s something off of meta ads. But the other part about meta ads is that. We were only showing that to people who really like to click. We weren’t necessarily showing it to people that Meta has identified will actually purchase off of an ad. And I should just throw that out there. I am someone who clicks on links and buys.

I have been gotten by Instagram ads so many times. I mean, my bras, I think I’ve bought leggings. I mean, I am definitely someone who likes to click and buy, but if you were doing an ad. It would be way more expensive for you to have meta show your ad to me as someone who has experience and a history of buying versus just showing it to people who like to click.

So just think about it as levels. I just don’t want anybody to be disappointed that they’re like, I got a hundred clicks and no one bought.

Jana: absolutely. And that goes back to what you’re telling meta. When you choose that objective, you’re telling meta. Only show my ads to these people. And so traffic is way different than sales. And like you said, you are absolutely in that sales bucket. I am too. So when I get served an ad, I know they’re paying money for me

Colie: Yeah.

Jana: because they know that I’m a buyer.

Right. Versus the ones that I just kind of scroll past, because those are probably ones that people are testing. And so yeah, when just because you’re running an ad does not mean it will turn into sales. Now you will have a better chance at the sales campaign with getting sales. But when you first test your creative, that allows you to know is your ad even something people are interested in at all?

Because if it’s not, then you’re gonna just be wasting money, even at the sales level. So yeah. I love that you clarify that, ’cause that is a common misunderstanding,

Colie: It is. And I mean, I just feel like people are like, oh, well then ads are not for me. And I’m like, but no, like you were just getting traffic. And then plus, I feel like one thing that you and I actually didn’t talk about.

Is that when you are running ads and you are trying to make sales, if you don’t sell it organically, doesn’t matter how much money you put behind your ads, it’s probably not going to sell to an ad, set either. Like it has to sell organically first.

Jana: yes. It has to be a proven offer. Now, I know a lot of people like to test their offers. I don’t like to test my offers with ads. I like to test my offers organically and then move them into ads. Once I know what is working and proven that is part of my personality type, I wanna make sure that I’m putting the best that I can out there.

so I wanna bring the best to my audience, not something that I’m just kind of like, it might work, it

Colie: It might work.

Jana: No, I, ’cause then energetically I get behind it so much better when I know like, this absolutely works. This will get you results, this will help you. When I can stand behind it like organically, I can sure as hell stand behind it when I’m putting money on it, right?

Colie: Yes.

Jana: even more excitement and energy that goes there. So that is, I think, one of the biggest things that people don’t think about first. If you aren’t getting the sales organically, you’re

Colie: Ads won’t fix it.

Jana: ads. Mm-hmm. That is a product or offer problem. That’s on an ads problem.

Colie: And it’s funny because what made me think of that is I have had a Google Ads expert on here, and I mean, we went off on a tangent about ads will not fix your broken offer if it doesn’t convert to people who know you and love you and are following you organically. Putting money behind it and sending like a bunch of traffic to your offer is not going to get you more sales.

I was just thinking to myself, oh my gosh, we’ve had so much of this conversation and didn’t actually say that part.

Jana: exactly. I mean, ads are the amplifier. So whatever is working in your

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Jana: Whatever is broken in your business will be amplified. And I think that’s why I cheer on the people that are getting those big ad spins. ’cause I’m like. did the

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Jana: you, all the things got amplified.

So you had to go in and fix what was broken. You had to put the mirror up to yourself and your offer and go, that’s not good. I need to work on it. And so that when you see those people that are spending more and more money, you can know behind the scenes they did a a shit ton of work to

Colie: Yeah. The other thing that I feel like we should maybe address as like the elephant in the room is. I feel like there’s a lot of people that think they should only run ads to cheap offers, and that ads don’t work for more expensive offers. And so as the ads expert, I’m gonna let you hit that first, and then I’m gonna come behind with my very strong opinion.

Jana: Oh, I can’t wait. I love this. So here’s my idea when it comes to ads, is that we are oftentimes marketing to an impulse buyer. People that are scrolling late at night or that want an immediate solution. And so a lot of times an immediate solution for them. I. Might be packaged in a higher priced offer, but you’re not gonna get that impulse buy.

And so I think that’s where we have to understand what are we actually marketing and what are the results that you want. If you have an offer that’s thousands of dollars. Absolutely run ads to it, but you don’t expect that you’re gonna get sales on the daily because people need a little bit of time to think about it. That’s why lower priced offers tend to do better with ads for a market that wants that daily turnover,

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Jana: Because they’re, they’re doing, they’re hitting that impulse buy, and so there’s beauty in both. I know when I first started with, um, ads in an hour, that was like a one-to-one zoom call that I would do, and those hour calls were $497.

And I ran ads to that and I still have a waiting list of 700 people that I sold to with ads. So not a waiting list of people that bought, but a waiting list of people that signed up. Because for them that was not a big deal. The 4 97 wasn’t even a barrier.

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Jana: So it’s just kind of knowing is your offer something that people wanna spend the money on, and is it an impulse buy or not?

Colie: Ugh. And I love that you said 4 97, because I feel like a lot of people think, oh, well, ads should only be done for like things that are under a hundred bucks. And I’m like, no. I’m like, it might take more nurturing. It might take a different kind of campaign. It might be that you are really using your retargeting because if someone is, you know.

Brought in by something that you’ve put up that’s lower ticket. Chances are you’re going to move them up to be ready for a $497 call, but. I mean, would I run ads to my $5,000 Sato setups? Absolutely not. I don’t, I don’t know that I’ll ever be in a position where I would wanna do that, but would I run it to my thousand dollars course?

Absolutely. After, you know, after I’ve made sure that the ad copy is working, that I’m not gonna be putting money behind something that’s just gonna absolutely fail. And my course is a proven offer. My lower ticket items are a proven offer. And so. While the people who would buy the lower ticket are different than the people who might purchase the a thousand dollars course, those people still exist on Instagram if that’s where I’m, you know, trying to run my ads to.

But don’t think that your price point is like that barrier to what you can and cannot run ads to.

Jana: Absolutely. It’s all about thinking about the ads as an ecosystem, they can all work together. And so one of my favorite hacks is like right now I have like a, an an update to a course that I did and I have a little add-on that people can buy. Well, I’m running daily emails and then guess who I’m retargeting? Everybody on my email

Colie: Yes.

Jana: and so I know that I’m asking them to spend a little bit more money to get faster results, and so I’m just making sure I’m hitting them on Instagram, on my ads in the email sequence, understanding that I need a little bit of a longer runway. They’re probably not gonna purchase today, but by the end of the week, maybe by the end of the month probably.

For sure. Right.

Colie: Yeah.

Jana: understanding your audience enough to go like, I’m gonna actually. Like nurture them and market to them in all different ways that they can appreciate and learn

Colie: Yes.

Jana: So,

Colie: Jana, you also, I mean, see we’re just, we’re having this conversation and I’m just thinking of more and more things I will say, um, when it comes to like the rule of seven, you’ve heard of the rule of seven, right? People have to see your offer at least seven times before they even register that it’s.

Been in front of them, and while we’ve talked a lot today about ads being the way to make sure that the people who follow you, the people who have visited your website, are actually being shown your content on Instagram, that doesn’t mean that you should only do these things in ads. As Janice said, she’s currently writing emails to some of the same people on her email list, and so it is about.

Maybe they didn’t have a chance to read your email. Maybe they saw it. Maybe they saw the subject line and they saw it, but it didn’t register. And it’s not until they’re doing their morning scroll on Instagram with their coffee. I know I’m not the only one that just goes searching for Disneyland reels, but as they’re scrolling on Instagram in the morning, they might see your ad and then they’re like, oh, didn’t you send an email about that?

And they’ll either interact with your ad. Or they’ll make a little mental note, oh, I should go back and see what that email was actually all about. I feel like a lot of us underestimate the power of having an email in someone’s inbox, even if they don’t open it. Even if they don’t click on what’s inside.

At least they’re registering that it’s there and it’s part of the entire ecosystem of all of the places that they will see you. And your business and your offers and ads is just one part of that overall marketing strategy.

Jana: absolutely. And now I would say it’s a really strong part, right? Because it’s. Just pushing you out consistently on a platform that people are on quite a bit. But when you understand that there are multiple ways to market to your audience as if this is just one way to help push the message

Colie: Yes.

Jana: you feel even more empowered and excited.

And, and I know about the rule of seven, I often will joke that it’s 7,000

Colie: is now.

Jana: you know, it’s like, I’m like, don’t worry about overwhelming your audience. The more that you put out there, I guarantee you they’re hardly seeing any of it. So the more that you put out there, the better chance you have of staying in front of them and positioning yourself as an answer to their problem.

Colie: Yeah. And again, the whole retargeting, like if someone, ’cause I recently did this with someone that I follow on Instagram. I kept seeing all of these offers, right? And one of them finally just clicked for me. It was a $47 product and I was like, okay, lemme click on this. I clicked it and I bought it, and then.

It was a combination of seeing the other things inside of her course platform, her sending direct what I would call retargeting, in quotes, emails to get me to buy something else. And then I started seeing more and more retargeting ads on Instagram. And now I’m in something where I’m paying $97 a month and she has higher ticket programs.

And might I eventually get one of those? Probably, but it all started with me seeing an ad of someone that I had absolutely no, I, I mean, I was definitely part of her cold audience. I had never heard of her. And now, you know, she’s got me for a hundred dollars a month and I think it’s a, well, we’ll see how much she gets out of me in the end.

Jana: We need, we need a tally. We’ll have to do a follow up. And you go, this is how much I

Colie: This is how much I’ve given her. Yes.

Jana: be so fun to actually talk to her and ask her how much it costs for her to attain you as a client

Colie: I mean, cost of acquisition. Yes.

Jana: always interesting ’cause it is a long game.

And that’s what I like to remind people about is don’t be intimidated by. Spending ads and kind of liquidating your ad spend on the lower ticket offers. So if it’s $27 offer and it takes $27 to get them in your world, it’s well worth it because now they’re on your

Colie: Breaking even.

Jana: and, and now Meta knows they’re a buyer and you’re gonna have more offers that they’re gonna buy.

And so it’s that lifetime value that people often don’t think about when they start running ads. Like I have a list now of over 17,000 people that I can email about different ad offers that I have. That’s a very, very warm audience for me. And so the ability for me to continue making money as I create more products around ads just compounds over time.

So I think there’s just a really cool little piece in there for people to understand that like, it’s okay, even if your ads break even, there’s a lifetime value there that you’re gonna tap into.

Colie: I mean, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of love if they break even because you are attaining because okay, if it costs, let’s do the $27. If it costs $27 to get me, but you’re also getting like 30 other leads that didn’t. Buy yet. I mean, that’s 31 leads. That’s not just the one person. So you’re, yes, you’re paying to get the one person and if they pay you $27, they’ve kind of paid for themselves, but they’re also paying for all of these other people to join your email list so that you can continue to nurture them and now they’re in your ecosystem.

And hey. It might be that whatever you pitch to them wasn’t the right offer, but something else in your offer suite while you’re nurturing them is, and so I, I just don’t want anybody to discount. If someone doesn’t buy the first offer that you offer them, doesn’t mean that they’re not interested in you or your services.

Doesn’t mean that they won’t eventually buy, they may not eventually buy that offer, but chances are you’ve got something else in your pocket that they are eventually going to bite on.

Jana: Absolutely. And I love that you said that it’s not just, you didn’t just pay for that one buyer, you paid for all of

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Jana: that saw your ads. It is incredible advice. Like, I wish I would’ve written that into an ad.

Colie: Well, I’ll give you a transcript from this and you can, you can use it to your heart’s content.

Jana: because it’s just such a, a, a, like an easy way to understand and not be defeated by the numbers. Understanding that like. Ads are marketing. They’re never a guarantee, but they are definitely a fast track, and so I love how you said that.

Colie: All right guys. We are now, and I’ve never done this, but we are at 42 minutes. And so here’s the thing. I had a couple more questions that I wanted to ask Jana, but I feel like if I ask her these questions, it’s going to take us 20 to 30 minutes to kind of like fully flesh them out. So Janice’s gonna be back, she hasn’t said yes, but she’s gonna be back for a part two where we will talk about like phase two or stage two, where you’re running ads.

You’re bringing people in, and then what’s kind of the next level of what you should do now that you actually have these people coming into your world. But Jana, is there anything else that you want to say about getting started in ads?

Jana: Yeah, really just give it a try. Get that pixel on your website and then just kind of click around on the back end of meta. Like, don’t be intimidated by it. You’re not gonna break anything. You’re not gonna spend too much money if you’re only doing a dollar a day, right? This is just all to get you comfortable because the more that you feel comfortable, the more you feel like I’ve been here before.

I know what to expect. Expect, the easier it’s gonna be for you to create multiple campaigns and start putting more money on ads. Um, if there’s anything that I can get people to do is just give it a try. Like, just kind of dip your toes in because like you can see it build over time. Remember when I said like I was doing five to 10,000 organic and then when I really got focused on ads, I had just an exponential month of

Colie: Yeah.

Jana: And I see that happen for people now. The numbers aren’t always the same, but I do see that like. build their confidence and then they start putting more time and money towards ads, and then the ads start performing better for them. And it’s just a really beautiful process, so don’t be intimidated by it, even though it is intimidating.

Just, just try it, just get a little familiar with it and then, um, it’ll get more and more exciting as you go along.

Colie: And guys, I’m gonna do a little pitch for Jana. She has a bootcamp that is a digital product that you can buy. She has a membership, and all of those things are going to be linked in the show notes to where you can check them out so that if you feel like you need a little handholding in the beginning stages of getting.

You know yourself comfortable with ads. Hey, Jana is amazing, and now that you’ve heard her speak and you can see how amazing she is too, maybe she can help you start your ads journey.

Jana: Aw. Thank you so much. This was so much fun, and I will definitely be back. I

Colie: Yeah, I mean, everybody always wants to come back. I, I don’t think anybody’s ever told me no at this point, but that’s why I have so many returning guests. I always feel like, okay, yeah, we did a really good job on this, but like I can totally see this as like, you know, a next level conversation if we come back in a few months and we’re like, okay, did you try the ads?

And now if you have, this is what you should do next. So we’re gonna have her back.

Jana: I love it. Thank you so much.

Colie: Alright guys. I hope that this has just given you a little insight and perhaps a way to reframe how ads can work in your marketing ecosystem for your business. But that’s it for this episode. See you next time.