80. Mastering Meta Ads with Josh from Gold Star Social Media

80. Mastering Meta Ads with Josh from Gold Star Social Media 🚀 Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to another episode of the Clear Ads podcast, Highway to Sell. We have my dear friend Josh here with us today. Josh, thank you so much for being able to join us. Speaker 2: No problem at all. Thanks for having me, George. Speaker 1: So I want to I'll just give you some context. Josh over the years has been running Facebook and Instagram ads for a whole range of brands from small brands to companies like Just Eat, the Financial Times, Monday.com and even Nike. So this is the kind of brands he's dabbled with. Now Josh, And I went to secondary school together and we only reached out to each other and met again at the start of this year. So I didn't know any of this was going on until the start of this year. We've kind of reconnected. We did some stuff together. It's all really exciting. Josh, thank you so much for joining us. And I'd love for you to share with those listening How you got to where you got to now? What was your journey like from when you left university? Speaker 2: Ah, great question. Thank you so much for your question, George. Really appreciate it. Yeah, so basically, as soon as I left university, I've always been interested in marketing, always. And I decided to do a master's in marketing and management. And that's where I really got a real understanding of the theory behind marketing, getting people to buy, getting people to pay attention, increasing brand awareness and all that stuff. And then once I got my master's, I got my first gig working at a big, huge advertising agency. And that's where I really learned. I learned so much TV advertising, digital advertising, like the whole thing. And that's where I really started to really get the hang of, okay, this is how things work, seeing the different budgets and all that stuff. And then after that, I then moved on to pretty much start my own thing. So I was like, oh, I can do this for businesses. I can do this for other businesses. I have a lot of knowledge, experience. Let's see how far this could go. And then I started working And for a few small brands, and that started to gain traction, then word of mouth started to go around, and then I started to get some clients, and then TikTok had started just to become huge. And then I jumped in it. I was like, you know what, because usually with me, I'm very much more, any platform that is there, I'm just going to use it. I don't really look down on any platforms. I'm just going to be like, hey, it's another way to reach people. And back then, you know, people were like, oh, TikTok is just a dancing app. And then I jumped on it. And when I jumped on it, I started teaching people about Facebook ads. Speaker 1: Can I stop you, Josh? So can you remember the time when you put your first post on TikTok and the kind of engagement you got compared to the other platforms? Speaker 2: Yeah, the first, my first ever post on TikTok, this was in 2020. And I got 14,000 views in less than two hours, literally. Speaker 1: So how does that compare to the other platforms? Speaker 2: To the other platforms, it was because YouTube has always been around. So in terms of the other platforms, it was nothing. In terms of views and reach, TikTok was way more superior. Whereas the other platforms, it takes time, you know, engagement, and then you're going to start to. Whereas with TikTok, any of every other day, you can just go viral just for giving people information. And one of the things, the reasons why I think it works is because a lot of the creators on there were dancers. It was more of entertainment. And I was one of the very few people that was actually teaching people stuff about stuff that I was doing every day at work, Facebook ads and all that. And that really took off. And then from then on, I had brands like Monday.com reaching out to me to do video marketing for them. Speaker 1: And was that from TikTok? Speaker 2: From TikTok. Unknown Speaker: From TikTok, yeah. Speaker 2: From TikTok. I had Curry's, the electronic company. Speaker 1: For those listening in the US, Monday.com is a big kind of day-to-day management system that's really popular here. And Enchirid is a big electronics store. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I had them reach out to me and I had so many brands reach out to me to do like video marketing and all that stuff just to help them get more awareness out there. And that's what really then led to me meeting more people, working with some more clients, helping them with their Facebook ads, helping them to grow. And here we are. And actually, leading up to that, during that time, while I was working in advertising, I started up an e-commerce store which was selling bags, selling backpacks. And that company actually ended up getting the attention of Richard Branson, who actually invested in the company. And that really grew, so I had my... Speaker 1: I remember that, because I remember you put up on Facebook a picture of you and Richard, so... Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And the thing is that, like, I really had that marketing knowledge. So I put that into e-commerce. And not only that, I also put that into working for other clients as well. And here we are today. Speaker 1: I know, that's great. So I'd love to, because you manage Facebook ads. And also ads on Instagram on a day-to-day basis. What are some of the common issues you face when people come on asking for help in terms of when you're consulting a brand? Speaker 2: Yes, the common issues that I found when people approach me for help is that it's usually two major issues. One of them is the account setup. There are so many brands out there that haven't got their business manager structured the right way. They haven't got their pixel done and installed the right way. They haven't got their events installed and done the right way. Facebook ads and Instagram ads has been pretty much sold to people in a way where it's like, oh, you just click a button, you boost posts, and away you go. When really, there's a whole bunch of preparation that needs to be done in order for your ads to actually be profitable and for them to do what you intend them to do. And that's what I found a lot of people have an issue with is the backend setup. The second that I found is that it's again, it's a structural thing. So people will run an ad, for example, or campaign and will use one picture and then would even put loads of interest and loads of audiences and just run it to that one picture or that one video. When really, Facebook has changed so much where they not only want to make the platform a positive experience for their users, But also, it's pretty much ensuring that people structure their campaigns the right way so that they are...so that the right number of creatives are hitting the right people and the right number of audiences are hitting the right people so they can get more conversions. So those are two things that I...two challenges that people...I found working with people when they wanted to work with me. Speaker 1: Okay, no, that's great. So obviously Meta has seen so many changes over the last few years. What's been some of the biggest impacts that you've seen on your brand? I mean, let's start with some of the negative impacts that you've seen and then also some of the positive impacts with running ads on that platform. Speaker 2: Yeah, so the negative impacts, for example, the iOS 14.15 update, that really affected the performance of the ads and also introduced the issue of data blindness. So, obviously, in order to make the right decisions inside of the Ads Manager dashboard, you want to be able to see, okay, this campaign got a sale, this campaign got a lead, this audience worked, this creative worked. But since iOS 14, 15, that wasn't as apparent. So we had to rely on third-party tools or even using certain UTMs or URL structures so we know that, okay, this is what this link is. Okay, this is so we can kind of match up so we can make better decisions. So that was one of the negative changes that had happened. So the ads were still working. But you couldn't see as clearly what was working in order to make your campaigns work even more. But with time, that's actually improved over time. That's actually improved a lot. Before when it first happened, I remember those times. I remember Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg had basically put out a thing in the media basically saying that, hey, this is going to affect a lot of small, medium-sized businesses. If this iOS 14 goes ahead, it's going to affect... And it actually did. But since then, it's actually improved a lot more and a lot more advertisers are seeing a lot more results and things are a lot more profitable for them. So that's one of the negatives, but eventually it's actually gotten better over time. I was even just going to mention as well, like, Facebook as well. Another change that has happened is that Facebook actually has started to take away interests that have to do anything to do with ethnicity, religion, or anything like that, right? And this has posed a bit of a problem, especially for brands and businesses that are focused on selling to particular ethnicities or selling to certain particular communities, or selling to people that practice a certain faith, right? So it's actually made it a lot harder for them to reach their customers. Which is really interesting. But I've been able to find other strategies in order to still Make sure that those people and their target audiences are still able to see their ads. Speaker 1: Can you give us an example? Speaker 2: So, for example, I was working with a brand, they're a Christian-owned brand, and they are, it's like a streetwear brand. Really cool stuff, like great brand, Awesome, based in the States. And things were going really well. But then when, and so all I had to do was target gospel artists. All I had to do was target, literally, like that's all I literally, it was so easy. Then Facebook took those interest options away. And then how I did it was, I essentially targeted the, so I thought of, okay, people who were Christians who wanted to buy Christian brands, what were they doing? What were they eating? Where were they going? Et cetera, et cetera. And because this brand was based in the States, we found that when we targeted the more Southern States, No interest, just the more southern states. It actually works a lot better. Why? Because in the southern states, there's a lot more Christians and all that good stuff, right? So we actually were able to get a lot more conversions, right? So it's really understanding the audience and where they are geographically, what they do, where they chill, what they read, and then using those alternatives to still reach them. Speaker 1: Amazing. Great. So we talked about some of the disadvantages. Is there any other advantages that you've seen that has come up over the last few years running meta ads? Speaker 2: Good question. So one of the advantages that I've seen that has definitely helped a lot is the fact that since the introduction of Reels, Facebook now enables us to see at which point people drop off. So when people watch a particular real ad and say if they drop off but there's no conversions, then it lets us know that, hey, with this video, we need to change the first three seconds. We need to make this first three seconds a bit more engaging so they last through the video. So Facebook has actually introduced a lot more data analytics that are very much more focused on understanding the creative. So we can chop and change and make those adjustments so our ads perform even better. So with Facebook, I always find that with Facebook, when they take stuff away, they tend to introduce stuff that's even better. Speaker 1: Right. Interesting. What are some of the go-to tools, and this could be Facebook tools that you use because Some of these tools might be so common to you. It's like, oh yeah, I use this every day. But actually, a lot of other people who are running Facebook ads or managing accounts, they might not be aware of them. What are the day-to-day stuff that you use to manage these Facebook ad campaigns? Speaker 2: Yes. So one of the tools that I use is I use the... So it's basically when... Say, for example, you see an ad on your feed, right? You can click on like three buttons and it will say, oh, why am I seeing this post? Why am I seeing this ad? Because Facebook is now not just showing content from people that we follow or our friends and stuff. It's showing content from people that we don't even follow at all. So it's just suggesting stuff to us. And then you can click that button to say, oh, why am I seeing this post? And it literally tells you and shows you the, oh, it's because you are a male, you are between the ages of this and this, and also your interests are this and this and this. So if you're selling, I don't know, football jerseys, and then you now like a bunch of football jersey competitor brands, and now you start seeing those posts, you can get an understanding of what those competitors are targeting, simply just by clicking on the button saying, why am I seeing this post? And that now gives you a much better idea of, okay, that's what they're targeting. I'm also going to target them as well, because you have to remember that Facebook is a bidding platform. So If other brands are targeting a certain brand and are doing well with it, then it's clearly working for them. If you want to do that, it may also clearly work for you as well until it doesn't. And that's when you have to find new interests and new targeting options. But that's one of the things that is, that's tools that I use all the time, all the time. Speaker 1: Is there any factors that you can think of that has a major impact on the success of a Facebook ad running well or not? What are some of the main things people need to bear in mind if they're wanting to run Facebook ads? Speaker 2: Good question. So one of the things that you want to bear in mind is that it's about, it's really about the offer, right? Because the way ads really is, is ads is basically content, but with paid, with money behind it. That's really, that's really what it is. But it's content with a function, and that is to either get into buy stuff or click, etc, etc. So one thing I've found, and that is the main thing, is the offer, is literally the offer. So here's another tip that I would highly recommend. I call it the one-up or two-up, where you basically look at your competitors' offers and just one-up it. Let me give you an example. There's another tool that I forgot to mention. It's called Facebook Ad Library. You just go into the Facebook ad library, you type in your competitor's brand, and then see what ads that they're running. And you're going to see a particular offer that they're running. It could be, buy now, receive your product in five days. You look at that and you think, okay, how can I one-up this offer that's clearly working for them? All you've got to do is buy now. So your ad will be, buy now, receive your item in two days. Because we have to remember, our customer has probably seen, has definitely seen their ad and is also going to see your ad. And they're going to click, they're going to just click on which one hits, but They're more likely to go for your one because it's more aligned with them in terms of the offer. So that is like the one thing. Just look at other people's offers and just one-up it. One-up it. Just by a little bit already you're definitely going to be getting some results that way for sure. Speaker 1: Okay, great. Thank you. That's a really good advice. Is there any other big components that people should bear in mind? So I'm sure you get a whole load of people reach out to you and say, I want to run Facebook ads, but then there's two or three things that make you go, okay, this is never going to work. This is like, this is just not for you. What are those two or three vital What are the components that people need in order to make this work? Speaker 2: Good question. So, one of the things that I always want people to do is to be posting organically. Just posting. And they haven't got to have 300k followers or anything like that. It's just the whole point is to put out content out there So that we can see what people respond well to, right? And then we can now start to make adjustments from there. So that's one of the things, organic. It's not like before where you could just run Facebook ads. You didn't have to have no organic. Your Facebook page, nothing needs to be on your Facebook page. Your Instagram, you just need to only have one picture on your Instagram page. Back in the day, you could do that. Now these days, not so much because there's so much choice. The customers is looking and checking. They've not only checked your brand, they've checked probably three other similar brands and now comparing the three and then seeing which one they trust, et cetera, et cetera. So that's what you want to be doing. You want to at least be doing some organic content as well because organic and paid combined together leads to explosive growth for sure. The second thing is understanding what is like your most popular product. What is the product that people hand over fist always want? They always want to buy. When doing Facebook ads, it's always good to either promote best-selling products or a new collection. It's either best or new. And it's not new as in, oh yeah, there's this brand new thing that we're just trying. No, it needs to be either a collection from the best seller, but we're just getting them to buy more variants, essentially. So that is what I would look out for. Organic and already knowing a product that is your best seller so it can really hit the ground running and get those quick wins. Speaker 1: And that really makes sense, Josh, because even with Amazon's side, and this is kind of what we do, is like if we're running paid ads through PPC, you want to focus on the products that are already pushing numbers and doing well, because they have a proof of concept, like ultimately, They have such a good offering, a compelling enough offering that people want to buy it, right? And if you're going to run paid ads to it, it's going to make them see the compelling offer, right? And it's the same, it's the same, like, you know, you can't, if you've got a product that just doesn't sell, has never sold, Running to any platform isn't going to just overnight see success. I mean, that's not how it works. I really kind of resonate with that. There are two really good things you just mentioned. Obviously, making sure that the product is, and we like to call it in our space, retail ready. Is it retail ready? Does it have people who have already bought it to show that it's got value? What was the first point you made? Speaker 2: So the first point I made was organic, making sure that, yeah. Speaker 1: So organic posts, yes. So have a combination of organic posts when you're running paid ads to understand how people are engaging well. Outside of those two, is there anything else you think that is so important and crucial to making your ads run well on Facebook? Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So the third thing that is that is so super important is making sure that the site when they land on the site is is done in a way where they are more likely to convert. Because the mistake that a lot of people do is that they'll either they mostly blame the ads. So when the ad hits the world, they'll just blame the ad and be like, oh, these ads ain't working. But Yeah, they are working because people clicked, but then they got to the landing page and then they were like, no. So really, it's not the ad, the ad just brought them to the party. It's the landing page that put them off, right? So that's the crucial thing. People always put so much stock on the ad when really the ad is just content to get them to... It's the same way as Instagram. When you're scrolling through Instagram, you see a video or picture, you click on the video or picture and then what do most people do next? Especially if they don't know who that person is, they'll go into their profile. So when they go into their profile and they look at more pictures and they think, oh, I like this person, this person's cool, follow. That's exactly how it is. It's literally a funnel. But people always blame the ad. And it's not always the ad. It's the ad that just gets them to the party. That's all. That's all. Speaker 1: OK, that's great. So this is really juicy stuff. So I had a few questions for you. So what have you seen work really well with Facebook ads? And what are some things that you've done, you've seen done or experienced with the companies that you've worked with? That has seen success? Speaker 2: Yeah. So one of the things that I've seen that has been working really well for me is you want to give people more than one way to convert. So more than one way to convert. So what do I mean? So Facebook has recently introduced another feature. Just like I mentioned before, when Facebook takes stuff away, they introduce more stuff. That's even better. They introduced a feature where When you click on an ad, you click to go to the website. But also, you can add in another option where it's like to call. So if people feel comfortable with calling, they can also call. Because the issue is that most people are like, oh, it's just one way to convert. No, you want to give people more than one way to convert, preferably two ways, so that the customer feels comfortable. For example, if you're selling furniture, for example, and you're selling furniture to people who aren't necessarily comfortable on the internet like that, What they're going to do is that they're going to click on it and someone will buy straight away off the website. Cool. But some people are going to want to ask questions before they buy. And that's what, so by adding in another option for them to call, they can call and then they can still buy that way. So that is, yeah, that is that I've been doing that and that's been working so well. Another thing that I've been doing is that I've been also Running ads, doing interests, but also, I've also been doing lookalike interest, lookalike targeting based on behaviors that people take on the website. So for example, if say for example, I have a list of people that that spend over $100 on on my website, first time round, Not lifetime, so first-time round. All I've got to do is get that list all together, put that into a lookalike, and it gets more people. And then what happens? I'm going to get more people who aren't just going to spend a little bit first-time round. They're the people that are going to be like, oh, I like this. I'm going to spend $100 or more. So those are the things I've been doing that's been really working well for me. Speaker 1: Amazing. That's incredible. It looks like we've covered so much good stuff here today, Josh. I wanted to ask you, we looked at what's been done in the past and what you've seen work well. What do you envisage seeing? Where do you see meta-ads going? What are some of the opportunities coming in this space? Speaker 2: Yeah, good question, George. Good question. I'm excited about this. I'm sure you've noticed, yeah, that like Facebook is releasing a whole bunch of products, but they focus on hardware. So they've got the Oculus, they've got the Ray-Bans glasses with the cameras and stuff like that. So Facebook is going down the hardware route. Why? Because they're trying to get more real world behaviors, real world data points, whereas Facebook has got loads of online world data points. They are awash with that. Now they're trying to get the real world data points, especially with the glosses. So what I see in the future Facebook doing is that they're going to be adding placements. So they're going to be using those as other placements to show ads on, but also using those as other data points to create new interests out of those. So on Facebook right now, you can target by behaviors, you could target by demographics, interest. But I see people targeting based on like the stuff that they spend time doing or the stuff that they spend the most time watching in real life, right? Or the countries that they go to visit and stuff like that. So that's what I see them doing. And also from a placement point of view, Facebook just recently came out with a placement where you can literally show your ads in the Instagram search results. So if someone wants to be looking for a hair salon and they type into the Instagram search, your Your company pops up as an ad in the search, right? So Facebook is, I see them doing like meta Oculus placements to basically capture, give more people opportunities to interact with our brands. Speaker 1: Sounds good, amazing, very exciting. So Joshua, I wanted to ask you, is there anything that's really important you think we should have talked about that we haven't talked about? Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. So one thing that I think is so important that we should definitely pay attention to is like when we're selling on ads, when we're using Facebook ads and Instagram ads, we should always think of, hey, Facebook's ultimate aim is to keep people on the platform. And if we, if we think of that, that's how we should always create our ads, our videos, our pictures, We're here to ensure that people have that experience because once they do, our ads will perform better and Facebook will actually push it even more because it benefits them because it's getting more people to stay on the platform, but also it benefits us because obviously we're going to get more customers and we're going to continue giving Facebook Meta more money to advertise. So that's one of the things we shouldn't lose sight of is that at the end of the day, It's about creating stuff to be in alignment with Facebook's mission, which is to keep people on their platforms. I know we need to sell, we need to kick those KPIs and stuff like that, but by keeping that in mind, we're more likely to see some conversions and actually have a lot more better brand trust as well. Speaker 1: Amazing. Thank you so much. So Josh, you provide a lot of value here. I'm sure there's gonna be people listening who are gonna want to reach out. So for those who are watching on YouTube, obviously, his details are on here. But for those who are listening on the podcast, Josh, your website is goldstarsocialmedia.com. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Is that right? And that's one way. So you can go into his website, you can fill out a form. I'm sure Josh will reach out to you personally. But outside of your website, which is goldstarsocialmedia.com, what other ways could people reach out? Speaker 2: Yes, so you can reach out to me on my TikTok. My TikTok is YoshiBearJ and I give a lot of tips and advice on there. I have over 80,000 followers on there and it's super fun so you can reach out to me on there. You could also reach out to me on through YouTube as well. So I'm on YouTube as Yoshi Bear J on YouTube. And yeah, so that's pretty much it. Those are the platforms that I tend to be on a lot of the time. Speaker 1: Amazing. Josh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate it. All the value you've given today. I wish you all the best and I look forward to just seeing where you go, what you do and just kind of getting some more insights from you of what's happening outside of the Amazon world because that's kind of where I tend to focus a lot of my time. But yeah, thank you so much. Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me, George. Thank you. Thank you.