We all hate it…
…but every year Facebook, Instagram, Google and other channels are raising their advertising costs.
It’s due to the fact there are more advertisers than ever before now (there are 7 million advertisers on Facebook already).
Gone are the days where you can have bad marketing and still make a profit.
If you want to succeed today, you need to market smarter and find every possible way to lower ad cost.
So let’s get that chopper sharpened and slash some cost off your online ads.
Our Key Tips To Reducing Your Ad Costs
Tip #1 – Know Your ROI
Many people don’t think of marketing as an investment.
If you can start thinking of marketing as an investment, rather than a cost, I promise…it will be the start of unprecedented business growth for you.
But the right way to calculate it is to understand the lifetime value of your customer.
For instance, your average customer may only make a $50 purchase initially…
…but over a period of 3 years, your average customer makes $300 in purchases with you.
Pop Quiz!
If you are spending $100 in ad to get a customer, do you…?
- Stop spending on ads because you’re making a loss on the first purchase, or…
- Continue to spend as much as possible to get more customers at $100 so that you can profit $200 from each customer?
Sadly, most businesses select a) because they never sit down to calculate what each customer is really worth to them.
They are hence missing out on a ton of potential profits and market share.
It’s like walking away when you’re 3 feet away from striking a gold vein.
So get your accountant to figure out how much each customer is worth to your business long term…
…and start investing in your marketing to get more customers.
Tip #2 – Don’t ask them to marry you… ask for a coffee date
You wouldn’t ask someone you met the first time to marry you right?
You probably ask for a coffee date.
Otherwise, you’d probably scare them off.
Yet this is what many marketers are doing on a regular basis.
They are asking people who have just seen their ad for the first time…
…to pull out their credit card and buy something for a few hundred bucks.
That’s why most prospects simply walk away.
A better strategy is to get them to buy something that has a lower commitment…
…such as a free trial, download or a $7 product.
Then wow them on their first commitment and get them to buy the bigger ticket items.
Tip #3 – There’s More Gold in the Backend
Many businesses are missing out on gigantic profits because they don’t have a backend product strategy.
They sell something for say $20.
And then there’s nothing else for the customer to buy.
I’ll let you in on a secret.
After a customer buys something from you…
…the chances of him or her buying something AGAIN from you right afterwards increases manifold.
Smart businesses know this and have a strategy to sell you other products, or some kind of monthly subscription.
This helps them maximise the value of each customer.
Tip #4 “Make them an offer they cannot refuse”
If you watched the Godfather series of movies, one of the most memorable lines was: “Make him an offer he can’t refuse”
Now obviously you can’t force your prospects at gunpoint to accept your offer like the mafia.
But you can make your offer so enticing they simply cannot say ‘No’.
Marketers have discovered that the offer itself contributes to around 40% of the success of the campaign.
They found that you can have a great offer and very bad copywriting…
…and still sell a ton of product.
So some questions to ask yourself:
- Is your offer unique?
- Does your offer communicate good value?
- Is there a good reason why they need to take action now?
- Does it solve a big problem that people are willing to pay money for?
Even the best copywriters cannot sell a boring product that is overpriced.
So make sure you have a good offer and product before you spend money on marketing.
Tip #5 – Be different
Is your product or service different to your competitors out there?
For instance…
Can someone buy the exact same thing from someone else?
How does your product or service work better than everyone else’s?
Do you have a good story that helps communicate your product/service?
Do you specialise in serving a niche market that no one else does?
If you are selling something everyone else is selling then instead of competing on price, you need to position yourself as the trusted expert by offering a lot of good information.
Without a good point of difference, you’ll end up spending a lot of money on your ads and get minimal returns.
Tip #6 – Aim to Beat Yourself
A common mistake many amateur marketers make is that they stop once they think they have found a ‘winning ad’.
They take a step back and relax.
But expert marketers know their task is now to beat the winning ad.
They will try new copy, images, offers, hooks, headlines, videos and even new marketing channels.
So once you have found a winning ad, bring out the champagne…
…but after drinking the champagne, get back to work immediately because you need to beat your current winning ad.
Tip #7 – Target the right audience
The audience you target can determine to a large extent the cost of your campaign.
Target your offer to the right audience and you could slash your ad costs drastically.
To make sure you hit the right audience with your ads…
…you need to make sure you do a thorough analysis of your target audience.
Find out:
- Their desires
- Their pains
- What TV shows and movies they like
- Famous people they follow
- Their interests
- What jobs they work at
- Demographic information (age, location etc)
- Websites, brands and companies they follow
This will help you to target your audience better and slash your ad costs.
All major online marketing channels have many options for you to target people once you uncovered the answers to the questions above.
Tip #8 – Use the Right Objectives
On Facebook and other online platforms you can choose multiple objectives…such as ‘traffic’, ‘leads’ and ‘video views’.
Choosing the right traffic is important to get people to take the actions you want them to.
If you’re running a branding campaign with video, choose ‘video views’.
But if you have an online store and want to get a sale, choose ‘catalogue sales’.
Want to generate a sign up for your free download? ‘Lead generation’ could be your best bet.
Facebook will show the ad to people who are likely to take the action you have specified in the objective.
So make sure you choose the right one or it’ll be no different to burning money (trust me, we’ve been there before).
Tip #9 – Create winning copy
This is where you might need to hire a professional.
Creating winning copy is both an art and a science…
…that requires years of practice and study in both ad copy and human psychology.
And on Facebook, there’s an added challenge.
You need to ensure your ad gets through the many restrictive policies so that your ad account doesn’t get banned.
But if you want to do it on your own, here are some basic tips:
- Spend lots of time doing research and understanding your customer so you can speak his/her language
- The first sentence and headline need to hit the target…otherwise, the rest of your ad won’t matter.
- Write in short and simple sentences.
- Present the benefits of your products and service, not just the features.
- Give them a strong reason to act now.
Follow the principles in our Rapid Ad System which will help you get better-written ads that resonate with your prospects.
Tip #10 – Build a high converting sales page
It’s a common mistake that sometimes people focus so much on the ad itself…
…that they forget that the sales page can be improved.
In fact, we have found this to be one of the fastest ways to slash our ad costs.
Think about it.
If we insert a new headline on the sales page that improves sales conversion rates by 50%.
That will result in a 25% decline in ad costs.
That reduction could make or break a campaign.
Test new copy, headlines, videos and even colours for your sales page to improve it.
Tip # 11 – Profit from good follow up
Way too often we see businesses leaving money on the table.
Simply because they don’t have a good follow up system.
For example, after you sign up for a free report, there is no email follow up (like this one) to build good relationships.
It’s crazy to think people spend good money getting a sign up or a lead, but have no follow up system.
The top marketers know sales are made in the follow up, not in the front end.
Many e-commerce marketers understand this principle and have automated email follow ups prepared.
They would automate dozens of pre-written emails to follow up on prospects based on whether they open the email, on whether they click, on whether they buy.
Because they understand that every point of contact is another chance to make a sale.
To top it off, you should also consider hiring and training a good telesales person to follow up on your leads and enquiries.
You spent money on ads to get people to express their interest.
Now you need to make sure you expend every effort to get the sale.
Conclusion
As you can see, we went really deep into how to slash ad costs.
And you’ve probably figured by now, slashing ad costs is not just about making better ads…
…it is about better offers, a better strategy, targeting the right people, having a smarter product and even a better business model.
Take one or two of these tips and implement them in your business right away.
And by the time you implement all 11 properly, I can guarantee your business will be a cash-generating machine that is highly scalable.