Your “DO THIS OR ELSE” hooks are killing your videos... You can’t use the same sense of urgency to open every video you create. I’m sure you know the hooks I’m talking about. I even kinda did it to open this video. Every video you create treats the content that’s…
Here’s the metric that matters most for short-form videos... It’s not views or likes or saves or comments. It’s not that these things don’t matter, but you can’t chase virality. Going viral isn’t necessarily even helpful. You can create a video that appeals to a lot of people, goes viral,…
Small sample sizes can be worse than no sample at all... Too many advertisers overreact to small sample size results. A great start or a bad start? A good day or a bad day? A campaign that ran for two weeks on a $20 per day budget. “This doesn’t work!”…
Why aren't event totals matching up between Events Manager, custom conversions mapped to those events, and Ads Manager? There's a good reason... If you dig into your event data, you are likely to notice that the totals for standard and custom events in Data Sources of Events Manager are higher…
There’s a new feature to control your audience targeting for Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. Within Ad Account Setup (which is found in Ad Account Settings), there’s a new section for Account Controls and a feature within it called Audience Controls. Click it! These controls apply account-wide to new and existing Advantage+…
Threads is here and this is my 60-second hot take... You’re going to hear all about what Instagram’s Twitter competitor doesn’t have: No DMs. No chronological feed. No follow feed. No lists. No basic search. No hashtags. No gifs. No editing. But you know what? It’s a pretty great first…
Here’s how to figure out CPM by country across your ad account... You can’t do this in the main Ads Manager interface. You can go to the final row of your results to get an overall CPM, but breaking down by Country there will give you the country CPM by…
These are the Meta ads bid strategies you should use and when... If you stick with the defaults, you’re using the Highest Volume bid strategy. Meta will try to get you the most optimized actions at the lowest cost. Use this in most cases unless you know what you’re doing.…
An underrated advertising skill is the ability to name your assets. Here’s how to name your campaigns, ad sets, and ads... It’s so simple, yet so many fail at it. Your naming convention needs to be easy for you to understand so that you immediately know what’s happening within that…
Learn from my mistakes! Do not obsess over surface-level metrics... Back in 2011 I had just launched my website and was trying to find my footing. I wrote a post about Facebook hoaxes that exploded. My first taste of big traffic. My reaction was to write another post about Facebook…
Should you target all countries when optimizing for a purchase? Don’t scream at me, I’m mainly challenging our assumptions here. The more I’ve asked myself this question, the more I want to experiment with it. It’s generally advised you don’t target all countries when optimizing for leads or any type…
Today marks my 181st day in a row publishing a video. Not technically halfway, but six months down toward my goal. Truthfully, this has been my most difficult time. It’s not because I’m burned out or losing inspiration. I was worried about running out of things to talk about, but…
Should you use Tailored Leads campaigns? Meta’s been testing Tailored Leads since at least last November. The rollout has been slow, but you may have it now. Is there anything special about Tailored Leads compared to manual campaigns? The process looks a lot like Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. But unlike Advantage+…
Here’s how to distribute your budget by country, for global brands when optimizing for leads... First, collect information about where your paying customers live. I did this by running a report in Infusionsoft/Keap. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you get leads or traffic from a country. If people in a…
What is this?? I stumbled on this little alert by the Attribution Setting in an ad set: "Engaged-View attribution offers a new way to measure the effectiveness of your video ads.” When I clicked to edit the Attribution Setting, nothing was there for "Engaged-View." So, I have the alert, but…
Here’s how to determine your Facebook ads budget... Start with your expected Cost Per Action. This is for your Performance Goal that is used for optimization. Multiply that by 50. This total is your minimum target weekly budget. Why 50? You typically need to get at least 50 goal actions…
Where did those conversions come from? If you’re running Meta ads that are optimized for a purchase, especially at a higher price point (but feel free to do this at lower prices, too), it’s VERY likely there are more conversions that can be attributed to your ads. Go to the…
Should you use ad set spend limits and minimums? If you turn on Advantage Campaign Budget (also known as CBO), some advertisers choose to use ad set spend limits or minimums. In some cases, the fear is that Meta will overspend or underspend on one ad set over another. But…
Should you turn on Campaign Budget Optimization? Yeah, I know Meta wants us to call it Advantage Campaign Budget, but we all know it as CBO. Most advertisers have been slow to embrace CBO, probably because it was initially forced on us. Remember when it was introduced and the plan…
Which attribution setting should you use? When you optimize for any type of conversion, the attribution setting is applied. This determines both how your ads are delivered and how conversions are reported. By default, the attribution setting is 7-day click and 1-day view. This means that your ads will be…
Should you turn on Advantage+ Creative to automatically adjust your Meta ads? I know most advertisers are resistant to the changes that Advantage+ Creative can provide, but let’s discuss it. After you’ve added your creative, you can get a preview of the types of changes that can be made to…
This is the amazing byproduct of having an AI chatbot. In order to make it as valuable as possible, you'll improve your website in the process... I’ve been testing a chatbot for the past few weeks. My goal is for it to be an extension of me and my content.…
There's no better motivation than desperation... More than 12 years ago, I was laid off for the second time in two years. I created a website and just started writing. I had no idea what I was doing or what I should do. But I knew that I had to…
Here's how Advantage expansion targeting works with Advantage Detailed Targeting, Advantage Lookalike, and Advantage Custom Audience. If you enter detailed targeting in your ad set, you may see this message... “Advantage Detailed Targeting: Reach people beyond your detailed targeting selections when it's likely to improve performance.” If you turn this…