I've spent $26M this year alone on paid ads so far... AMA about paid ads

[eliquid]

@Unngabunga

1. I think for your example, with or without you, this happens with the ROAS and profit example. Even if I wasn't running ads and I did nothing ( like you said ) - it would happen.

Based on that, I don't think about it. If it can happen without me, it will happen with me so a lot of it is out of my control. I could be working on ad creatives and pushing NC CPA down but someone on the design team redid the checkout flow and messed everything up and not told me and now my conv rate is horrible or we hit summer and now we are in the summer slowdown and many less people are buying. etc

So I focus on very few numbers which means you really have to understand your numbers and your business and what drives what.

For 1 client, they want NC CPA (new customer cpa ).

That number alone tells me how well my conv rate is, my ctr, my audience/targeting, and my ad messaging is. Because if any of those are off, I will see it in the NC CPA compared to the timeframe prior.

And I just have that dumped into a CSV ( along with some other numbers like CTR and CVR and ad spend, etc ) into CSV daily via a tool like SuperMetrics.

That way if I see NC CPA doing more than a 15% change I can quickly look at the other numbers and try to nail down the issue without logging into FB or Google or w/e Im advertising.

If a client comes to me and says they want to improve ROAS, I tell them "they can't follow 2 masters". I really do. I'm brutally honest with them. They wanted NC CPA, and that is what they got.

If they want to focus on ROAS now, they won't have good NC CPA. Why? Because new customers don't drive ROAS - they make small test purchases to try your brand out. The ROAS will always be low.

If I increase ROAS, that means I'm getting existing customers. The people who's AOV is larger and trust you. Can a new person have a higher AOV if you start bundling and cross selling.. sure but most of them are going to buy a sample or a low ticket version or a 1 qty product to test you out.

Also ROAS is a fake BS number. Yes, it is. That's for a different convo though in another thread. Most other metrics are also BS too. So you can ease some stress focusing on what is a real number and a real driver instead of all the other BS stuff.

I also judge my performance on longer time scales which helps in this data overload and knowing what to do.

For example, I notice a lot of clients like to look at day to day stuff. Can't do that.

Or they look at week to week, eh - that's not too bad.

I generally look at month to month or quarter to quarter and if the numbers ( average ) are good at that time frame, that's it. Too much can happen in a week that is "false data" in my experience and makes too much noise.

If we are hitting metrics on month to month, I don't look further as there is no need to a lot of times.

But it's only when the 1 single metric Im judging goes bad over the month ( in this client it may be NC CPA ). by more than 15% do I start looking at others and digging in.

2. I think this is where 25+ years experience comes in.. which isn't a great answer for you if you don't have it.

In that time, I know what types of creative work ( in general, each brand IS different ) and I know where to get it and how to make it. Same with data analysis.

So I can run SuperMetrics or another related tool and get data daily on every metric I need into a Excel sheet and it just appends the data to the next row. Then I have other sheets in that Excel file that do VLOOKUP and finds and do a bunch of formulas on the sheet with the daily updates and does pivot tables too ( well I have run those, but it's largely done for me ) and then I can use color formatting to "heat map" my data now.

With that I can easily spot trends in my data and the data analysis is done in 5 minutes, if that. Ai is making this easy for people now too.. but Im not sure I need Ai for that because my system is pretty well run for me in how I do things.

For all the creative stuff, it's like swipe files. You should have swipe files of things you know work. I no longer need a physical or digital version of this. I've had so many and looked the over for so long, I know what creative is needed and when in my head now. But because I basically memorized them, I had swipe files of what I knew worked based on my experience and what I seen prior.

I also read alot and pay attention to other people's accounts and what worked for them when I audit their accounts. This all plays into knowing what in general works.

And then there is "buying assets", like https://creative-donut.com/ which are templates in Canva ready for you to simply edit right in Canva.

So imagine over 25 years how many assets I've bought from similar places like this. Imagine how many scripts I've written and seen ( and stole ) from others. Imagine how many video tools and shortcuts and macros I've made and bought.

Now combine that with all the books and training ( conferences, shows, etc ) on copywriting, behavioral physiology, sales, marketing, and more I've read and highlighted and used in my career.

Mix that all up now and you end up with what makes someone with 25+ years so valuable. And I don't think there is a good shortcut for that other than getting started doing the same things, now.

Like I can go into an ads account and in just 5 minutes tell you:

1. What marketing awareness level you write all your ads at, and what you are missing.
2. What types of static or video ads you make, and all the ones you havent tried yet
3. Where the leak in your funnel is
4. How much testing you've done and what you focused on and where you missed
5. How to correct all that and what scripts you need and visuals you need and what pain points you didnt talk about with your prospective customer yet.

You can create Ai tools that can do like 85% of this. I have several I've made but that's only because I use them as "checklists" instead of relied upon knowledge. I forget more than I know, so having a tool checklist me is valuable these days so I don't miss something, not because the tool is doing something I don't know how to do.

In the grand scheme of things, it's sad how little you do need to know once you realize it.

Meaning, lets take scripts.

There are only 3 frameworks you really need to know to write a good script or landing page. If you follow any of the 3 and just replace the words with the ones tied to your brand and product, you have done almost any and all the work you can do within reason. The rest is just pushing chairs around on the Titanic.

How do I know there is only 3 you need? Because I've researched and used more than 3 dozen over my career. And honestly they all do about the same metrics-wise. So I narrowed it down to 3 because there is no sense in doing more really.

I'm not saying to do the least or not do more, but sometimes it's a lot easier than people make it out to be once you get over the hill you're trying to climb.

3. These are questions I really couldn't answer without knowing everything about your niche really. I don't know what the wall is in this niche, what you think a wall is vs what supply and demand actually is, how high the scale really can be, etc. I can assume things, but these are questions that aren't easily answerable on the surface.

But I can tell you, there are single person operations in the marketing world/paid ads world doing $10m easily a year. Many more doing more. If they can do it, why not you?

4. I'm a freelancer. I don't want the joys of employees or VA's ( been there and done that ).

 

[Smith]

Love this AMA.

Questions:

1. What kind of price points are the products/services you are advertising?

2. Can paid ads run profitably for niche services priced between 3k and 10k running 50% margins? Or is organic better?

3. I don't want to learn another fucking skill set. Is it realistic to hire and outsource paid ads to a trusted third party? Or is it kind of luck of the draw if you find someone that kicks ass at this like you?

 

[andreint]

it's been a minute since i've done any affiliate media buying, but it's definitely something I want to get into as a side-gig.

What are your thoughts on advertorials as an intro/landing page of the funnel for framing and pre-selling?

Nutra/health niche, older people, etc.

I've been testing some stuff, but really don't think it's scalable with my existing setup because most of the available offers are junk, but I do like the

ad - advertorial/listicle - quiz - sales page

angle, with testing multiple angles/desires/frameworks at the top.

 

[eliquid]

Love this AMA.

Questions:

1. What kind of price points are the products/services you are advertising?

2. Can paid ads run profitably for niche services priced between 3k and 10k running 50% margins? Or is organic better?

3. I don't want to learn another fucking skill set. Is it realistic to hire and outsource paid ads to a trusted third party? Or is it kind of luck of the draw if you find someone that kicks ass at this like you?

1. Anywhere from free ( samples ) to $50k+

This ranges from companies like your local HVAC and plumber, to Alibaba, TeamViewer, MalwareBytes, Virgin, John Deere, PGA, etc

2. Yes

3. Yes, but finding someone like me is gonna be tough. Trust = yes, skillful as me = idk. There are plenty of good people out there, but I'm a different animal and I can tell that when I do meetings with others and audit their accounts. I routinely come in and replace whole teams of 5-10 people by myself.

it's been a minute since i've done any affiliate media buying, but it's definitely something I want to get into as a side-gig.

What are your thoughts on advertorials as an intro/landing page of the funnel for framing and pre-selling?

Nutra/health niche, older people, etc.

I've been testing some stuff, but really don't think it's scalable with my existing setup because most of the available offers are junk, but I do like the

ad - advertorial/listicle - quiz - sales page

angle, with testing multiple angles/desires/frameworks at the top.

Advertorials as you know them right now, were invented by me back at Media Trust in 2008 when I was their internal affiliate and media buyer. Started as a fake blog ( the flog ) and then morphed into the advertorial you see today - so yeah, I love them. I only created it because I needed a way to shove a 2nd product on a page so I came up with the type of page you see today everywhere they call an advertorial.

I let that out on Wickedfire back in the day, and it was the biggest regret I ever had I think because it was copied to death and is now up there with listicles as a top LP method.

 

[secretagentdad]

How do you go about setting up a situation (got an example niche?) where you can run paid traffic to free trial offer in aggressively competitive niches.

I see people scaling these up like they're crushing the rest of us on ppc, but I am way to chicken shit to spend big. fraud/ bots ate me every time I've experimented.

 

[eliquid]

I'm on my way this year ( the $26M was last year ) to hit over $60M+ in ad spend this year alone.

Prior years I have done more than $200M in ad spend, but COVID really took a toll on a lot of advertisers and those types of spend years vanished for a lot of marketers who had clients.

Good to be back building up.

How do you go about setting up a situation (got an example niche?) where you can run paid traffic to free trial offer in aggressively competitive niches.

I see people scaling these up like they're crushing the rest of us on ppc, but I am way to chicken shit to spend big. fraud/ bots ate me every time I've experimented.

This is pretty much the whole health, infoproduct/course/guru, and SaaS space.

I couldn't tell you how many times I've signed up for something, entered in a credit card, used the product for 6 days and then cancelled it that night before the 7th day to avoid getting charged.

Or, if it was no CC... lost access and never used it again.

Or, had to return the product back, ship it just to get my money back during their trial ( bed mattress ).

And that wasn't me trying to game the system. I could tell you horror stories of how many unused subs I've had to go in and cancel off Paypal or my debit card that I signed up for, used 3 times and got billed 9 months for. It's just me not liking the product and trying to not get gamed myself.

You've really got to know your LTV and cohorts.

And you have to know any trends based on that.

You're gonna have to have enough margin built in from your paying customers to cover the ones that abuse your system in the free trial and never pay.

So if 1 in 6 customers always abuse the trial, your 5 paying customers should have been able to absorb that paid ad cost + cog. If not, you need to adjust pricing and also try to lower the CaC to where you can.

 

[contract]

Question for FB ads.

If you create a custom audience for Facebook ads, ie females, age 20-24, USA, likes fly-fishing, or likes fly-fishing brand, college degree, etc. #1: targeting = employer = P&G, title = marketing manager. Whatever, could be anything.

Facebook will NOT actually follow those targeting rules. I have likes from users on brand new pages from targeted ads from people in 3rd world countries, who don't work at P&G, who don't have matching job title, etc. I have tested this multiple times and it's the same deal; people in the ghetto no workplace or cashier at Mcdonalds, seeing ads for being a Relator, etc in job title, but when you go into their profile, they've never been one, ever.

I have tired every combo, individual targeting specifics, etc. Nothing works. Facebook just keeping showing ads to whoever they can to drive volume, regardless of targeting.

Have you seen this issue; is there any way to stop it? I do not believe these companies are being honest and will just fill in the non-existent volume to make $$$$. And that's what I can see from likes/follows/etc. I'd imagine it's in excess of 25-50% or more, who knows.

 

[Sutra]

Targeting is not the same as it used be for FB ads. They have gotten much better at figuring out who will actually respond to your ads. So give it very broad targeting, like US only, etc. Now, it's about your creative. So if you have a product/service that you want to sell to 25 year old males who are tech nerds, that make over $50k a year, (or whatever) then the ad creative itself needs to resonate with that exact person. Facebook will then show it to those people. It's all about the creative now.

 

[eliquid]

Question for FB ads.

If you create a custom audience for Facebook ads, ie females, age 20-24, USA, likes fly-fishing, or likes fly-fishing brand, college degree, etc. #1: targeting = employer = P&G, title = marketing manager. Whatever, could be anything.

Facebook will NOT actually follow those targeting rules. I have likes from users on brand new pages from targeted ads from people in 3rd world countries, who don't work at P&G, who don't have matching job title, etc. I have tested this multiple times and it's the same deal; people in the ghetto no workplace or cashier at Mcdonalds, seeing ads for being a Relator, etc in job title, but when you go into their profile, they've never been one, ever.

I have tired every combo, individual targeting specifics, etc. Nothing works. Facebook just keeping showing ads to whoever they can to drive volume, regardless of targeting.

Have you seen this issue; is there any way to stop it? I do not believe these companies are being honest and will just fill in the non-existent volume to make $$$$. And that's what I can see from likes/follows/etc. I'd imagine it's in excess of 25-50% or more, who knows.

Targeting is not the same as it used be for FB ads. They have gotten much better at figuring out who will actually respond to your ads. So give it very broad targeting, like US only, etc. Now, it's about your creative. So if you have a product/service that you want to sell to 25 year old males who are tech nerds, that make over $50k a year, (or whatever) then the ad creative itself needs to resonate with that exact person. Facebook will then show it to those people. It's all about the creative now.

I'd say it depends.

Interests were never what people thought they were. Not ever.

People always thought interests meant, people were a positive signal for that interest group.

But it wasn't

Go leave negative comments on posts about cats. Pretty soon you will be in the "cat" interest group ( the way it use to work )

So interest targeting was always flawed. Because it was anyone FB deemed interested in it. Positive or negative. Once you realize it, you see the holes in it and why.

So a 30-50% of your "interest" group was always flawed to begin with.

Throw in FB just got it wrong a lot of times ( for example, when I check my own profile for interests Meta thinks Im in, it is none of those those ) and now 50% of the remaining audience of that interest group is flawed too. Im not into RVs and campers, but Meta thinks I am for some reason when I check my profile.

Lets throw in, interest groups as a code base hasn't been worked on in years and throw in all the privacy issues Meta has been a part of ( Cambridge, other lawsuits, iOS 14.5+, etc ) and what you have left is something that never really worked right, and for sure has no legs today.

------

However, I still make an Ad Set for Stacked Interests, if there is a clearly defined one in Meta.

Sometimes it works, most times it doesn't

When it works, its awesome. When it doesn't it fails hard.

Still worth a shot, but only under certain conditions and I only look at it as a test ad set. Not something to rely on.

These days I pretty much do lookalikes and broad, with a mixed interest here and there for testing.

 

[Upsilon]

Thank you for all the value you're putting out there, @eliquid; from the thread about alignment to this AMA you're doing God's work my friend.

Now I was wondering if you could give me an opinion about starting a PPC agency.

A friend and I want to join forces and start a business. I'm resourceful in certain areas, he's resourceful in others, and we both see how joining forces would bring us further than if we went at it separately.

Among my (preferred) options for a potential business is a PPC/funnel agency that would help with lead generation through social and search ads, high converting landing pages, and nurturing flows to do our best to convert said leads into clients. I already have a shortlist of niches - most of them skilled trades - we could see ourselves getting into.

However, I have certain concerns in regards to this. My friend even more so.

Full disclosure: Below I'll keep referencing providing a "good service," but we're beginners both in the niche and the industry. We have time to learn and don't expect to get a client within the first few months to a year until we really get to grips with the niche and solution. Thought I'd mention this if it had any bearing on your answers.

1) Because the entry barrier is so low, I feel like the competition for this kind of service business is huge and our potential prospects have been burnt before. Considering this, is it still a viable business option in 2025?

2) How good is client retention, assuming a good service (which is our responsibility to guarantee)?

3) Roughly what share of your clients see a positive ROI, and over what timeframe do you judge that? This is me gauging what I could expect, again, assuming a good service.

4) How long do clients typically stay and how many stay for more than 12-18 months?

5) For those who leave before 12 months (even if ROI was positive), what are the most common reasons you hear?

6) What are your margins and (more importantly) what are your business expenses?

7) You said you're a freelancer but had a team and don't want one anymore. What about having a team was off putting to you?

8) Assuming our skills/execution are solid, is $20k/month still realistic today given current competition, market sophistication, and platform dynamics? What about scaling to 100k?

I know you're doing the AMA out of good will. These are plenty of questions, so I appreciate any reply, no matter how short or long.

 

[eliquid]

1) Because the entry barrier is so low, I feel like the competition for this kind of service business is huge and our potential prospects have been burnt before. Considering this, is it still a viable business option in 2025?

People have been burnt by diet pills and diet fads for going on 3/4ths of a century or more now, looking at modern advertising. Longer if you look at the snake oil salesmen of the 1800's and Im sure this went on in Ancient times too back with Cleopatra, etc.

They still buy into diet fads today in droves....

This is where being a great marketer will show itself to you. If you can't sell it, it's not because of the market saturation, it's because of your marketing abilities.

No cap.

2) How good is client retention, assuming a good service (which is our responsibility to guarantee)?

Client's should be staying with you for years. Plenty will leave for various reasons out of your control ( budget shifts, new CEO's or VP's, etc ) but outside of things you simply can't control they should be with you past the 12 month mark for sure.

3) Roughly what share of your clients see a positive ROI, and over what timeframe do you judge that? This is me gauging what I could expect, again, assuming a good service.

This gets a bit tricky to answer, but in my eyes all of them get a positive ROI.

Because for 1, I don't take them on unless I know core and fundamentally I can help them achieve the goal THEY told me they wanted when they signed up.

But the thing about clients is, a lot of times they don't know what they want when they sign up. Sure they may say, "as long as it's profitable, keep spending money!" but that changes every month.

They may say they want instore visits driven to their bricks and mortar, but come Sept they are panicking about their online sales for Q4 and magically want you to shift gears last minute.

But when it comes to metrics, I have routinely came into almost bankrupt companies ( or companies who had flat revenue for 3 years in a row ), and turned them around to making payroll again and also growing $30m in 6 months time.

I have one client that has been with me for 4 years now, that I've 5x their revenue in that time period and we aren't talking going from $100k to $500k - But from $50m to $250m

For other accounts, I typically see turnarounds at the 90 day mark on average.

But instead of saying 100%, I'll go 99% see a positive return and they see it within 90 days for sure as first signs of turn around. - But again I am very selective and I go off what they told me they wanted, not what they later changed their mind about and shifted to 9 months later.

4) How long do clients typically stay and how many stay for more than 12-18 months?

I'm gonna say half. I haven't really counted this number up and don't have a hard answer, but I'll say half.

There is so much out of your control.

You can stay up late at night all hours, give up your weekends, always be at their beck and call, and give them monstrous results and the next thing you know the CMO leaves the company and the CEO decided to bring his brother-in-law in and dump you.. and now the brother-in-law rides your coattail and success for the next 12 months doing ZERO and they think they made an excellent choice by firing you.

Or Covid comes.

Or the FTC or FDA comes along ( or google and meta ) and fines you for something they think is a problem, or bans your account based on issues outside of your control ( maybe the company wasn't allowing cancellations ) and now everything is gone.

And sometimes, they just get persuaded by some idiot on YouTube or Instagram and bounce. I couldn't tell you how many times at 10:34pm I get a text from a client about how "XYZ said we should be doing ABC on Google" and I have to have a week long conversation with them about how that doesn't apply to their account or how it's a bad idea overall. If they end up not believing me, they might go with the Instagram influencer or have seeds of doubt in their mind now.

5) For those who leave before 12 months (even if ROI was positive), what are the most common reasons you hear?

They think they can do it cheaper internally.

It doesn't matter how much money you make them compared to when they didn't have you and they struggled for years.. they will always think they can get rid of you and hire in 4 juniors for less than what they paid you. That somehow multiple juniors will overpower and overdo you or your team.

"Surely 4 people + Ai can outdo anyone! It's simple math and logic buddy."

"You got us on a great path and back to profits and a damn good setup.. and since its after Q4 now I think we can coast until Q3 and hire in my little brother to just "manage" things now. He has a degree from FullSail University in Marketing and just graduated and knows all this TikTok stuff... We'll reach back out when we need you again!"

"I know I'm late on my last invoice to you, I promise I will cut the check next week. But it does bring up something I needed to share with you. I just got out of a $40,000 mastermind with Dan Lok this weekend and I met someone there that said they can take over my ads for half of what I pay you. I'll get you paid up, but for now I think we are going in another direction. Nothing personal, it's just business."

Etc - it's always always always money.

6) What are your margins and (more importantly) what are your business expenses?

Can't really share that.

However, there is a lot of info online about this if you dig enough from others.

I can tell you, my expenses are very very very very low. But then again I basically spent 25+ years in this business to know what I need and what I don't. Many of the things I know I don't need are based on the fact I know how to do things without it.

For example, people will spend money on elaborate tools and SaaS's in this space, that just aren't needed if you how to get the data without it. That's something that is hard for a new person because they don't know compared to someone with 25+ years experience.

As an example, I knew this old Porsche mechanic who could fix just about anything with free shit. I watched him tune a 356 Porsche for a race with a matchbook cover and a screwdriver. No joke. Newer mechanics would have had to had 4 tools from SnapOn that would have cost them $600 to do the same - the guy won the race BTW.

7) You said you're a freelancer but had a team and don't want one anymore. What about having a team was off putting to you?

People just won't care like you will.

There is a reason the saying, "if you want something done right, do it yourself" exists.

And then the other crowd always chirps in and says, "if someone can do it 80% of what you can, that's still great" - No it isn't.

That 20% not done, can kill you or put a lot of egg on your face when it backfires.

Then you're having to pay part of your profit for that, to the employee or VA or whoever you hired.

People quit, people get lazy, people want work life balance, people have all kinds of goofy ass things.

^^ And Im actually fine with that actually, but only if you are doing shit 100% exactly like me. If you are doing it 70-80% and I gotta clean up the other 20-30% ( or pay a manager or another worker to ), then nah.. it ain't worth it.

It's much better to set proper boundaries with clients, charge the right price for your value, and keep all the profits and lose all the headaches.

Teams only bring more headache and more stress and only impress the wrong clients. It's pomp and a pony show. I don't want that or those clients.

I want clients that value me and my service, can afford to pay based on that value, and have the right expectations of the value I bring and what they will get and understand the situation.

When you have a team of 6 on their account, they start to expect answers to the emails at 11:13pm at night. Why not? "There are 6 people that should answer me I'm paying for" - says the client.

It's just a lot more to handle and manage. It's not worth it for someone like me.

8) Assuming our skills/execution are solid, is $20k/month still realistic today given current competition, market sophistication, and platform dynamics? What about scaling to 100k?

Not sure if you mean $20k per client, or $20k total for the agency to make with ALL clients.

Either way, the answer is yes.

I know agencies charging $100k a month to 1 client and they aren't that great of an agency. I know others charging way less and way more.

A lot of these agencies are getting over $1m per client they sign up annually. But they are doing more than PPC ( landing pages, copy for ads, video creation for ads, etc )