There's four key metrics when it comes to meta ads that will
really determine if you're seeing success on.
You did an amazing job, you know, in 45 minutes explaining
meta ads. One thing was really interesting
was that bidding process. All they're creative is
basically saying the same thing and talking to the one person
Meta. So Instagram, Facebook, one of
their biggest priorities other than getting your money is that
they want those using the platform to have an enjoyable
experience. The state brands make is that
they only run purchase campaigns.
That winner that I spoke about trying to find your centre will
never look like an ad. Just say to Claude, hey this is
a competitors AD library, I want you to monitor this.
You've mentioned some really cool brands off the top there,
you know why are they succeeding?
Is massively favouring paid partnership ads?
Yes. I'm the digital director at
Chain Social, so I oversee all of our paid performance clients
as well as our email marketing clients as well, and influencer
and paid partnership too. So I've got a few people
underneath me. At Chain, our kind of bread and
butter is paid performance, so we run ads on Meta, Google,
Pinterest, TikTok and lately App Lemon as well, which is a
platform to keep an eye out on as well.
That's only launched in Australia end of last year, but
that's running ads on like all the gaming apps like Candy Crush
and things like that too. Yeah, I've heard about that.
It like I think we're kind of into the podcast now, just FYI.
But I think, yeah, I've heard app lovin has been around for
like years or not years, maybe a couple of years where it's just
sort of bubbling away in the background.
And perhaps it's one of those things that is getting more
traction in the US as as opposed to Australia.
But yeah, you're still thinking it's something just to keep a
bit of an eye on. Yeah, we're seeing kind of mixed
at the moment. I think what I struggle with the
most as a platform is that you can't, there's no like real
targeting involved. So you can't say like target
these people or don't target like exclude these people.
It's really kind of putting it in their hands like they, they
have different campaigns where they say target prospecting and
you know, and all these, but like, how are you even
determining who? I don't know is a bit of grey
area where you're unsure of what exclusions are in place.
We use third party reporting platforms like Triple L though,
So just to make that the platforms driving incremental
revenue for our clients. And yeah, it's got mixed.
Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's shit.
It's getting better, I would say.
But yeah, it's one that we're just playing with for a couple
of our clients. Yeah, yeah.
You gotta test and and, you know, experiment with some of
those. So I haven't actually introduced
you yet, but Adele Elliott, Digital digital director at the
chain at Chain Social not. It's chain social, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Nice how these podcasts come
about obviously work with you, you know, a few years back.
But then I, I ran into you at the social Summit and I thought
you did an amazing job, you know, in 45 minutes explaining
meta rads, what's working, what's best practise right now.
And one thing was really interesting was that bidding
process and, but you touched on creative as well.
So I really wanted to just get you on today and, and, you know,
explore that a little bit with our, with our audience.
So maybe can you just give us like a, an above a broadview in
terms of what are the best E commerce brands doing well at
the moment? You've mentioned some really
cool brands off the top there. You know, why are they
succeeding and perhaps some others aren't when it comes to
meta? They know their numbers is what
I'm probably going to say, and they know that there's four key
metrics when it comes to meta ads that will really determine
if you're seeing success or not. And that is your average order
value, your CPM, so how much it's costing for you to reach
1000 people. Your click through rate, your
link click through rate. That's a metric that a lot of
people don't focus on. Then your conversion rate as
well. And so you're knowing what they
are and what they need to be for you to hit your goals.
You know, sometimes you hear people say, oh, meta ads didn't
work for me. I know that I can go in and I
can look at those 4 metrics and it'll be one of those that has
let them down as to why meta ads didn't work for them.
A lot of the time it's either a click through rate or conversion
rate. And so you know, they might have
a really low link click through rate.
And that tells us that you're creative is shit.
You know, people are getting served your ads, but no one is
clicking through them. And you know, that is the one of
the biggest goals of your meta ads is to actually stop people
scrolling and you get people to click through to your website or
lead form, whatever it might be. And so when that's really low,
that's when your meta ads aren't going to perform.
Or you might have a really high click through rate, then your
conversion rate is really low. And that's when you need to ask
the question, are you gaslighting people?
Are your ads the right things? Does your website need work?
Are you sending them to the right landing page?
All these different questions. So yeah, they're like knowing
your numbers and knowing which ones you need to improve on is
what the good brands are doing that are seeing success on Meta.
OK, nice. And so when you're looking at
the the meta analytics, are you looking at that in terms of sort
of because there's three different, I'm just, I'm not an
meta ads expert by any means, which is why I've got you on.
But there's sort of camp campaign, like there's 3 levels
to it, right? So what levels do you, do you
check at the campaign level or is it the the ad creative level?
Like what in terms of those metrics, where should they be
looking? I'd probably more say the ad set
level is where you want to be. Yeah, looking at definitely not
individual ads. I think another mistake that a
lot of brands are now making on Meta is they're being too
reactive and what ads they're turning off.
I think you would have heard me mention when I was talking at
the Social Summit is that especially Meta's advantage plus
campaigns, they're kind of like a netball team.
And that you'll find that, yeah, just say you've got, as an
example, you've got 7 ads running.
I guarantee anyone who's running their own ads listening knows
that you're running this ad set and that there's probably one ad
that's getting like 70% of your spend, which is really like can
be really frustrating. And you know, you might say that
this ad that's getting 70% of your spend isn't getting the
cheapest cost per purchases and that you might have another ad
down below that's getting like, you know, $5 cost per purchase,
but it's not getting the same spend.
And you're like, what are you doing Meta?
And the reason why I'm doing that is it's a netball analogy.
And that these campaigns work in that it's not just one ad that's
going to convert them. They likely have to see multiple
ads. The ads that's getting all the
spend would be the ad that is getting that first touch point.
It's stopping them from scrolling.
It's getting them to click through your website.
So you'll generally find that this ad with the with the most
spend has a strong click through rate.
It's getting people across to your website and then you might
have other ads in that ad set that are then being retargeted
to them and they're clicking through those and purchasing
through those. The reason why it's a netball
analogy is that one that's getting all the spend.
It's like centre right, it's getting the ball first, it's
then passing the ball to another ad who's then scoring.
They wouldn't have scored if the centre didn't get them the ball
in the 1st place. So the biggest mistake brands
make is or you know, people running ads is that they'll turn
off that high spender. Don't do that because then you
know, you, you need to think of your ad set as a team and that,
you know, if you're turning off the high spender, those lower
spenders, they won't work any more efficiently.
Probably. It'll all just kind of crumble
down like a House of Cards. So your aim Netta is find new
centres, find high spending ads. That's your aim.
That's the that's now our purpose in life when we're ads
is, will this be a high spending ad because the current centre
needs to be benched. So we need to.
And also, how do you know if your ad is fatiguing?
Then what's the what's the telltale signs of that?
Yeah. So you'll generally say your ad
set as a whole will start to increase in cost per purchase.
And that, yeah, that centre, a high spender is getting lower
click through rates, it's getting higher frequencies.
So it's it's starting to fatigue.
So that's why you need to be introducing new ads into your ad
set and hoping to find a new centre.
OK. And so I mean, this question is
probably a depends question, but like how much new creative
should you be rolling through per month?
I mean, I guess it's pretty individual, but I'll I'll ask it
anyway. Yeah it depends on budget but I
would say people don't like hearing this answer.
But at a minimum per ad set, 2 new ads a week.
OK. Yeah, that's a lot.
Yeah, yeah, but you don't make the rules right.
You just got to play. But.
That's what, yeah, that's what, that's what you need to to, you
know, and it's also knowing that not all of them will be centres
are frustrating. It's probably going to be like,
I reckon like 20% are going to be winners or probably even
less, like 10 percent, 10 to 20%.
But when you do find that winner, that's when you really
start to see success. OK.
Yeah, nice. So we've touched on that.
The best E commerce businesses are the ones that are doing
well, know their numbers. Is there anything else that you
can kind of before we move on to the next question or is that the
main kind of thing? To to take away from it, yeah,
knowing your numbers so that you're not going blind and so
that you know, you know which because you could have awesome
creative and an awesome strategy, but if your website's
a piece of crap and you're not willing to improve it, like, you
know, it doesn't have good UX. So you, you've got a really low
conversion rate, then, you know, you tinkering and doing anything
more and ads, you know, isn't going to change anything you
need to work on your website. Or if your ads are doing really
well, but you've got a really low average order value, then
yeah, you're never going to see a strong row ads or return on ad
spend because your IOV is so low.
So yeah, it is really important to know those those metrics.
And then also what I kind of alluded to, your good brands
that are seeing success are investing in that creative and
are becoming just a creative pumping out creative kind of
engine as well. Yeah, Yeah, perfect.
I wanted, I was going to touch on the the metas bidding process
because you you talked to that really well.
But now we're talking creative, let's just let's kind of go go
with that. So what do you think the biggest
creative mistake most brands are making or most brands that come
to you obviously wanting change socials help you obviously start
to see some commonalities around their creative.
What what are some tips around you know, getting that quantity
of creative but also the quality right?
Yeah. So I think the biggest mistake
that brands make is that all they're creative is basically
saying the same thing and talking to the one person you
know. I think like what's that saying
if you try and talk to all, you talk to none and definitely the
case when it comes to meta ads. So if you're just being really
generic with your messaging and you're not really talking to
someone in particular or all your ads are just talking about
the same benefit or the same kind of USP, that's when you see
like they're probably what brands are like the mistake that
they're making at the moment. And I think we're going to talk
about it, but we're really leaning into persona targeting.
So really niching into the different personas that a
different product or brand would be wanting to talk to and then
going one step further from that and then going into what we call
like micro niche motivators. So, yeah, because one person
might really care about the, you know, just I'll, I'll pull like
a skin care brand. Yeah, Yeah, right.
You're a skin care brand. One person will really care
about the ingredients and that they're clean and that, you
know, they're ethically sourced and that the packaging is
recycled. That's what they care about.
Another person won't give two hoots about that.
They care about the results. How quickly will they start to
see the results of their skin care?
You know, they want to see before and afters.
And then another person, it's more like they need to know, has
it got kind of authority in market?
Are other people using this? Has it got lots of reviews?
Is anyone of influence using this that recommends it?
Because, you know, they just care that what they're using is
on trend. And so you really want to make
sure that you're talking to all those different people and then
you can kind of go really niche down into those different
motivators to that. I mean, it's like the person who
cares about the results. You can like really hone in and
just saying like, you know, if you're waking up with like, you
know, if you're dealing with like dull skin or you can like
niche down further. Like, you know, you see a photo
of yourself and that's not what you think you look like and can
really tap into that problem and solution and really tap into
those micro problems or issues or feelings that they might
have. So when they get served an ad,
it resonates with them so much more than just a fluffy skin
care. Like, you know, the nice product
photo you're like by asking care, like you need a real
nation to the why and why your product is suited for all the
different people out there. What you'll get from that is
incremental reach because if you're only talking to about 1.
So if just say you're only talking about sustainability,
meta scans your ads and knows what you're saying and will only
send that ad to those who care about sustainability.
Whereas if you're only talking about results, that will then
metal then reach people who are more about results.
So you really want to make sure that you're talking to all so
that you're reaching more people.
If you're only saying if you're, if you're a skin care product
only talk about sustainability, you're probably only going to be
hitting like 10% of your potential audience pool really
branching out from from that point of view.
OK. And then do you leave, leave the
audience targeting to Meta initially with all of all those
different creatives, obviously different audiences for them?
Is that again the nuance around that?
Do you just leave that fairly open and let Meta sort of, I
don't know, is it like advantage plus campaigns?
Is that, yeah, is that, is that something that you kind of let
them do it or do you really try and tie it down and try and find
the audience for the same message?
It depends on budget. So clients that have bigger
budgets, we split the different personas into different ad sets.
For the clients who have smaller budgets and we don't want to
spread ourselves too thin, we'll group them together and then you
can then identify which personas are kind of resonating more and
then you might then split them out.
So yeah, there's no like right or wrong way with it as well.
Even if you have one advantage sales campaign with one ad set
with all like, you know, three different personas in it, that's
still a good starting point too. And again, it means that Meta
will reach even in that one ad set, more people.
I've got brands who come to me and they'll have an advantage
sales campaign running with no, like they'll just be excluding
their existing customers, but no other targeting or anything.
But they still, they like hit a ceiling and that they, they try
and scale it, but then all it does is increase their
frequency. So they're not reaching any new
people. It's just kind of like hit a
ceiling. And the reason why they've hit a
ceiling is because they're creatives are just talking to
one group of people. And so meta won't expand it.
Whereas if they talk about multiple things, that's when
they'll start to see that incremental reach even in that
one ad set to. Fantastic.
That makes so much sense. Yeah, explaining very well.
Thank. You.
In terms of that, that bidding process, that was one of the
most interesting parts of your talk.
I, I've never quite kind of understood how that bidding
process works for some people that are sort of similar to me.
Can you explain that bidding process and make it a bit
clearer for us? Yeah.
And I think like you're definitely not alone.
No one really like understands that like how the bidding
process works. And I'm a firm believer that
once you understand it, things start to just click a little bit
more. So this is one of our slides on
our master class that we do. Can you say that?
Yeah, yeah. Got that?
This is basically the back end formula of how Meta's bidding
works. What some people don't actually
know is that Meta is an auction platform, as is Google,
Pinterest, TikTok. They're all auction platforms.
So you're bidding against other advertisers to have your ad
shown. A lot of people do know that,
but they don't know how you win that bid.
The kind of misconception that a lot of people have is that it
just comes down to budget, but that is definitely not the case.
So this is Mehta's formula, I guess, of how the bidding works.
So you'll see like on the right, that's your auction winner,
sorry, but how that auction winner is determined is by three
kind of factors. One is your auction bid.
So that's how much money you have.
But that honestly is like 10 to 20% of this formula.
The two that are really important is your estimated
action rate. So what that means is to say
you're running a purchase campaign.
Meta will estimate what the likelihood of someone purchasing
in the next 7 days is. And so if that is a high
estimated action rate, then you're going to go up in that
bidding like, you know, you're going to have cheaper bids
because you're become like an auction winner.
And then the second part is that user value, the user experience.
They kind of work really well together.
Because what you need to remember is that Meta, so
Instagram, Facebook, one of their biggest priorities other
than getting your money is that they want those using the
platform to have an enjoyable experience that, you know, it's,
it's an experience that is relevant to them as well.
So they're getting served ads for products or services that
they're not interested in that'll negatively impact their
experience on the platform. So one kind of little diagram
that I have here is a like another kind of mistake that I
guess that some people make is that they'll only be running
purchase campaigns, right? And so he kind of say that that
pink circle is people in the audience or like in your
audience or cohort who are currently in the market to
purchase. And what that means is that Meta
has picked up some sort of signal that they are looking to
buy your product or service. So whether they've gone on a
competitor's website or not that Meta would ever admit this, they
might have had a conversation with friends and Meta's
listening. So you know that, you know,
they've Googled something or they've done something to give
Meta a signal that this is what they're looking to purchase.
And that's why you'll find that, you know, just say like you'll,
you'll start to go on and look at a lamp, right?
You're like, I'm going to look for like, I need to buy a new
lamp for my lounge room. So you go look for lamps and
then suddenly you go on Instagram and your whole feed
are ads for lamps. It's because Meadow is like you
are right now in the market to purchase lamps.
This is you have a high estimated action rate.
We know that this is a value for you.
So we are going to be serving you ads for lamps because that
we that have picked up signals that that is of importance for
you. If they weren't looking for
lamps, your ads would not be shown for them.
So a kind of mistake that a lot of brands make is that they only
run purchase campaigns. Yes, you're going to be getting
strong return because people are in market, but what if they
didn't even know that they needed a lamp, right, Or you're
a product they don't even know that they need right now.
If you then have different objectives and I'd still I'd
always recommend that you have like generally stick to the
sales objective if you're an acom brand, but you can have
like a way lower intent objective like conversion
events. Rather than optimising for
purchases, you can then optimise for add to carts or even a view
content, which is kind of like a landing page view.
Yeah, that means that suddenly Meadow is bidding for an
estimated. Landing page view or an
estimated add to cart, which then opens it up to a whole new
audience of people. And so, you know, just say I
have shown no intent that I'm in the market for an lamp, but I am
renovating my home. Or I might have looked at rugs
or I might have looked at, you know, something kind of similar.
And then Meta's got an ad, like an ad to cart campaign for the
lamp. It might show that to me being
like, hey, like you likely like, you know, have you thought about
lamps? And then I'll be like, Oh my
God, I do need a lamp. And then I click through this ad
to cart campaign. But then that's also the signal
because I've been clicked through to this lamp page.
I'm now in the pink circle because now I'm in to the market
for lamps. Met has picked up a signal that
I am looking to purchase. So it's really just important to
kind of note when it comes to that auction, that bidding
process is really understanding that especially if you are a
product that is new to market or is quite unique, you need to
really think outside the box of just a purchase campaign to
otherwise you're going to have like be limited to that pink
circle and you want to introduce new people to that pink circle
as well. And then that user value as
well. So kind of difference between
the estimated action rate and the user value.
The user value is your creative, is this creative, the type of
creative that the user resonates with as well.
So is it found a content? Is it a beautiful editorial
image? Is it an infographic?
What kind of behaviour has Meta picked up that they resonate
with a lot? Like is it humour?
Like, you know, they, they're, they like humorous content and
that Met has picked up that your ad is humorous.
All those different kind of things play a part to that user
value. If you've got a really strong
estimated action rate, you got a really strong user value and you
got decent, you know, or like, and you're kind of budget there
as well, then you're likely to win the auction.
You're going to have lower CPMS, which is, again, that kind of
one of those metrics I said at the start does massively impact
pure results. And yeah, he's going to have
much better performance on meta overall.
But that's basically how that meta bidding process works.
And it's just really good to understand it.
So you're like, aha. And then you can kind of know,
OK, like I won't just run purchase campaigns.
I'm also going to look at other ways to kind of introduce people
into that funnel. Yeah, exactly.
Hope you're enjoying this episode of E Commerce Australia.
I wanted to quickly introduce you to one of our current
clients, Dyer from Socal and Co, an amazing family business based
in the West. Here's what they had to say
about working with Remarkable Digital for their SEO.
The story I want to tell you guys about is one that you've
probably heard before and that's probably because it is lived
experience. A couple years ago we decided we
wanted to increase our organic performance, what that looked
like for us as a small family owned business.
We were looking to work with an agency and I'm sure you can
guess how the rest of this story goes, but it was not a very good
experience. Those are the type of
experiences that end up leaving a sour taste in your mouth.
We swore off agencies for a couple years.
Flash forward to last year, we met Ryan at a event We already
knew of him as my dad, who is the owner of the business,
listens to his podcast. Eventually we did obviously end
up in conversations with Ryan about working with remarkable
Ryan. Pat and the rest of the team are
amazing, but also we had built experience by having
conversations with other agencies.
We started building a checklist what we were and went looking
for. Trust and honesty are obviously
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say that you were trustworthy and honest and incredibly hard
for agencies to show. Genuine expertise and interest
in growth are really important. Pat and Ryan are always learning
more things about SEO. They keep on top of it so we
don't have to. And I think most importantly for
us, it was their genuine investment in our growth.
And every day I notice more and more how their work is making
such a difference in our business.
Since joining with Remarkable, we've seen a steady, very, very
healthy and incredibly impressive growth in our organic
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relying less on paid ads, which is so important for us.
I certainly recommend Remarkable to everyone, but particularly if
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If you're not being found in ChatGPT, Gemini AI or
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let's have a let's have a conversation back to the show.
Interesting that you mentioned about kind of newer brands as
well. If you're a newer brand, you
know, one of the the temptations might be to just to run purchase
campaigns and and try and find conversions as quickly as you
can. Looking at that slide that you
just sent in, that's obviously not going to be that helpful.
You're going to need set user experience and the user value
and start to warm that audience up and find some people that
might be slightly higher up the, the conversion higher, lower
where you know what I mean? So up the up the, the, the
traditional funnel that we talk about.
Yeah. And not not quite as ready to
purchase just yet, but in market still and and get some more
traffic that way. And what I generally, I think
like I would have seen on that slide, my little tip as well
when you're running those non purchase campaigns is to be
really harsh with your exclusions.
So exclude anyone who's been on your website lately, obviously
exclude any existing customers so that you've got brand new
people coming to your website as well.
Don't put, I think another mistake that a lot of brands
make is that they put really harsh exclusions in their
Advantage Plus sales campaign. But like that netball analogy I
spoke of before, you want your Advantage sales campaign paying
to have the multiple touch points in there.
That's when it works really well.
So you don't want to be excluding any recent website
traffic. You want to have that kind of
working as that multiple touch point.
That's when you're going to see really strong results.
But if you have that. Makes sense here.
Yeah, if you have like a add to cart initiate, check out even a
view content campaign concurrently work like running
alongside it with harsh exclusions.
It's just a little kind of and tiny budget as well.
You know, it can be like 20% of your budget just kind of going,
but it's almost like a a tap just pouring people into that
purchase campaign as well. Because like I said, as soon as
they've gone onto your website, that's the signal that Meta then
needs to be like, oh, they are looking to purchase.
So then they'll get served ads in that purchase campaign.
OK, awesome. A lot of detail there.
Love it. And the last question I have is
just around creating one of the things again that come up in
your presentation was, you know, the the best brands or the ones
that are doing best on Meta make creative that don't look like
ads. I think I'm not sure whether it
was you, I'm not sure what you'll take credit if you did
say this, but if if it, if it looks like an ad, you've already
lost. That was someone said, I can't
remember who that was. Obviously that is true.
But how do we make, and you've sort of touched on it a little
bit, but you know, how do we make creative that doesn't look
like it. Yeah, I actually I think that
was another speaker and it's true, but you should definitely
still in your mix have some creative that looks like ads as
well. I would actually it's a mix of
both. That winner that I spoke about
trying to find your centre will never look like an ad, right.
But those secondary touch points where it's like, you know, like
free shipping or something that trying or like reviews and
things like that, that should look like an ad because they're,
you know, you're trying to like they're being worked as
remarketing and it's, you know, trying to address any purchase
barriers and convince them to buy.
But comes to. So it is important to have a
couple of those in the mix, but definitely put most of your
energy into ads that don't look like ads. 100%.
What I would generally say a mistake that people make is that
they feel as if everyone talks about the first 3 seconds or I
think it's even like less now. And that that is everything when
it comes to your ads, which is true.
Like you've got, well, you're like a second to stop people
from scrolling. You do not need to have your
product or your brand in that first 3 seconds.
And that's a mistake that a lot of people, you know, they have
to like straight away, like try and get into that cell mode.
Whereas I'll be using that as the hook of addressing, you
know, those niche motivators or problems that they might have
and doing it that way, leaning in on trends that you're kind of
seeing work as well and obviously having like low Fi
content. So, you know, like I was doing a
concert with her brand, I think it was last week and they
weren't producing anywhere near enough creative.
And I was like, you know, you know, and like, all right, I'll,
I'll reach out to a videographer.
I was like, absolutely not. Get your phone out.
Like think less like you can like, you know, like if it if,
like it's if you get a videographer in place and it's
all polished and like, that won't work.
So, you know, yeah, like you don't want it to look like an
ad, You want it to feel native on the platform.
Also, I think the biggest thing is that your creative should be
reels first. That is what Meadow is pushing.
So optimise it. So in terms of size, think of it
as a real, that in the safe zone of a real and that you know so
that it can then be cropped Foursquare, but reels first is
what you really want to be pushing.
I think another, what I would say Meta is massively favouring
this year that we have made a non negotiable for our clients
is paid partnership ads as well. And so that's working with
creators or even like it doesn't have to be a creator like some
of our clients will run them with the founders profile.
Even for chain, I created an Instagram account which I'm now
actually actively using, but I created it for the purpose for
chain to run paid partnership ads.
So it's, you know, chain social with ads with Adele.
OK. Because Meta is massively
favouring that type of content. Also, it feels less like an ad
because most of the time it'll actually be served.
It won't say chain social, it'll just say ads with Adele.
And so it will just make it look as if they've come across my
content and that it's not actually a brand.
And then the call to action kind of pops up at the end of like,
you know, shop now, we'll learn more, whatever that might be.
So there's a few ways to make your ads not look like an ad.
I think it yeah, it doesn't need to be polished.
If you kind of pick up what a lot of like, you know,
Instagrams, Reels are looking like in the audio and things
like that, tapping into that. And do not feel as if you need
to just shout about like, you know, salesy, salesy, salesy
really kind of again, you want it to be relatable to who you're
trying to target and that they kind of get hooked in and that
they watch it. So it's kind of add that user
value that we spoke about. Yeah.
OK. Yeah, nice.
I've got a couple of questions off the back of that.
So there has been, I have heard it over the years that you take
your best performing organic and then run that as an ad.
Is that something that you recommend?
Does that no longer work? Is there some merit in that, but
some nuance? What?
What's your sort of? It's definitely worth trying if
you have something that works really well organically. 100%
give it a go. It's not guaranteed, sometimes
it doesn't. It also like, I think, you know,
we're going into organic territory, which I've definitely
niched into paid and it's been a hot minute since I've done any
organic. I think like, you know, we've
got some clients who are organic teamwork with it's like, I just
want to go viral, but then you go viral and then you're hitting
an international market or people like, you know, like, oh,
cool, you went viral for a recipe, but you're a skin care
brand. Like just because something
works, you need to find like, I think if it something
organically worked really well, not in terms of reach, but in
terms of conversions, get that as an ad.
So like, you know, if you posted, you know, a TikTok or a
reel and your sales went nuts from that, absolutely get that
built as an ad instantly. But if you're like, Oh, my God,
like this real is TikTok, like, you know, it's got a million,
but you haven't noticed revenue growth from it.
I probably wouldn't be too quick to run it as an ad because,
yeah, it might have, you know, got people watching it.
But if they're not converting from that organically, they
probably won't convert from it as an AD either.
OK, Yeah, that makes sense. Talk to me about the Facebook ad
library. Like you could pretty much spy
on all your competitors as part of the research phase.
Is that something that you would recommend looking at
competitors, bigger brands, similar spaces, what's what's
working? And then, you know, is it, is it
as simple as looking at how long their ads have been running for
to kind of gather whether you think that that's winning
creative or not or what is there any, any strategies or tips you
can give us around the ad library?
So definitely become familiar with the Facebook ad library and
actually using AI alongside it. So you can OK use a reporting
platform called Motion. It is expensive though, but that
like we basically give motion the different ad libraries that
we want it to monitor. But you can actually just get
Claude, you know, if you've got a competitor, just say to
Claude, hey, this is a competitors ad library.
I want you to and monitor this and you know, every week send me
an update of what they've introduced.
You can also get Claude or whatever AI platform you're
using to say like, you know, what are their like?
What are the core USPS that they're promoting?
What landing page are they directing to?
What's their split for video? You can ask all these different
questions and get AI analyse it for you as well.
You know, even saying like, you know, what gaps is it possibly
are they not missing that I can tap into when actually going
into Facebook ad library? Like you said, it is in
chronological order. So it's like, you know, the most
recent ads that they've added in like will appear first.
So if you do scroll to the very bottom, if their ad account has
been running well, you would assume that the ads that have
been running the longest are they're high performing.
Most of the time you'll find that the ads that have been
running the longest are some sort of retiring catalogue.
But look at that and then take inspiration from there.
I do always say don't copy your competitors.
It's just boring. But you know, you can kind of,
you know, OK, they've got a lot of paid partnership ads running
or they've got a lot of founder content or they have a lot of
reviews or whatever it might be. And you can kind of take that
and be like, I'm not, you know, got a lot of their ads.
Yeah, talk about reviews. And I'm not talking about that.
I'm going to try create some review ads and and things like
that. They don't have any statics
running. They're all video or they're
only running statics, no video. And you can kind of, yeah, take
that as a learning and work out how you want to then be like, do
you fill in that gap or do you be like, is there a reason why
they're not running statics? And these are kind of questions
that you ask yourself. I also encourage you to use it.
If there's another brand that's not a competitor, but a brand
that you feel as if your brand has a similar tone of voice as a
lot of the time we'll ask our clients been like, you know,
what are other brands that you, I think you're like similar to
in regards to tone of voice So that we can, when we're writing
their ads and stuff, we can really tap into.
Or if you're a celebrity, what celebrity would your brand be?
So we can kind of really start to get to know that tone of
voice because that way you can kind of tap into those brands
like how do they talk? What are their captions, You
know, like and kind of draw inspiration there as well?
OK. Yeah, fantastic.
I got more questions off the back of that.
So, so like do you have like a sort of what works well in terms
of how many statics versus video or is it just again down to sort
of testing and creative and and the individual brands?
It's individual, unfortunately, I think like I always say to
brands, as much as it kills them, there's no one size fits
all black. If someone's telling you, hey,
here's a one size fits all strategy runaway.
But it is just kind of like, you know, get testing and learning
what that ratio is for your brand.
You definitely want to have a mix out there.
I generally normally say that it's like 70% video and then,
you know, 20% static, 10% gifts and stuff like that.
And you can kind of play around that way.
But there is, yeah, no one size fits all.
We've got some brands where the statics just perform really
well, like fun day suites for example.
Like yes, we've got a whole bunch of UGC, but they've got
really fun branding and you know, they're lollies like
sometimes that you know, you know, and it's just this really
fun and like gift for animation or static and it works really
strong and it people click through because it looks
delicious, you know, so there is no one size fits all, like even
a lot for fashion. A strong editorial photo works
just as well as a video. But yes, it's kind of finding
out what's got that highest click through rate is generally
what you'd be looking at. And yeah, what what tends to be
your winner as well, like you've you've said?
Bringing it back to the numbers, I like that it's like, yeah,
you've done this before. What about last question I've
got what about like Black Friday and you know, obviously it's a
it's a really key period for a lot of E com retailers.
What where do you see? How do you advise your brands to
get ready for Black Friday and, and how should they be using it?
Obviously, you know, I would imagine you, you might be able
to tell me, but you know, your averages and the spend, these
are up a lot. So it's going to cost you that
bidding auction is going to cost you a lot more.
So what what's the conversation you're going to be having for
your clients around this Black Friday and and how to sort of
make the most success out of it? Yeah, I can't believe what I met
Black Friday already. I got paid last year rolls
around so quickly every year. Last year chain we actually had
a 2 day event on Black Friday. Getting brands like it's huge.
Yeah. It's mistake brands make when it
comes to Black Friday as they just start the prep in November.
Like, no, no, no, The brands who have the biggest months in
November are starting that in August.
And that is where again, you know, you're really kind of
you're happy for in September and October to have a whole
chunk of your budget knowing you're not going to get a strong
return because you're introducing new customers into
your world. I guess knowing that they might
not convert, but you know, you're building up your email
database, you're getting people to your site so that they, you
know, you're front of mind. Very rarely will someone like
when it comes to Black Friday, it's noisy as hell.
Everyone's shouting at you to buy, buy, buy.
Very rarely are you making a purchase decision.
Then you've already made it before being like, I'm going to
come back in Black Friday and I'm going to like.
And so you want to be in that consideration phase long before
Black Friday hits and that Black Friday just becomes the
conversion event and the trigger to to purchase.
It should also really be used for new customer acquisition.
Definitely. And I'm like also like we'll
work with clients been like, are you going to do Black Friday or
not? They're like, I feel like I have
to, but absolutely not. Do you don't have to if you
don't want to discount brand or you don't need to discount,
don't do it. But you do need to then know
like, you know, if we've got a brand is like, I'm not running
Black Friday ads, but they expect to have a huge November
and they've got no new collection launches or nothing
to talk about in November. We're like, we're going to pull
spend back and it's probably going to be a little bit quiet
because you're competing, you're essentially competing for share
of wallet, right? People only have a set amount
that they can spend. Very rarely they're going to
spend on something full price when everything around them else
is discounted. So it's just kind of accepting
that or we work with our clients and being like.
Have a new collection drop or something that you can still be
talking about and that you know, it could be a limited collection
that they have to buy then and there.
They can't wait to there. But yeah, it should really be
new customer acquisition or like moving dead stock and stuff like
that as well. I do want to say, though, people
in Black Friday, they expect the biggest offers.
You know, nothing kills me more than when we're working with a
client. They're like, oh, yeah, our
Black Friday offer is like a gift with purchase.
You're like, this is not well, Jamel, people wait and they hold
out for like, I wonder what they're going to do for Black
Friday. And then it's like, you know,
here's a gift. Like here's a, you know. 10% off
or something? Yeah, or.
Like makeup bag with every purchase you're like, that's not
it. Like, you know, like people
expect big offers. I think also another mistake
that a lot of brands make for Black Fridays, they've become
really reactive to with what those are doing around them.
Like shit, our competitors doing 30% off, we now need to do 30%
off. So really kind of thinking.
And again, it's snowing. Your numbers though, don't eat
into your margins too much so that it just FS you up down the
track. I've had clients as well, right?
I remember 1 where 2 horror stories for Black Friday.
We had a client hit. I want to hit $1,000,000.
We're like, all right, we did the numbers.
We're like, Yep, you want to make $1,000,000?
We did it operationally. She was not set up for that.
Like still sending orders of Jan like detrimental.
And then she had no stock. Like it was just, I was like,
you gave us a number. We hit it like you need to
operationally. So you need to know like know
what your goals are and make sure that you're operationally
set up as well. Or like, you know, we had a
client where we absolutely like killed it for them, but then
they didn't have any new stock coming until February.
And it's like, well, what do we do for all of December and
January? We've got nothing to push.
Yeah. So, yeah, it's not again because
I have no numbers and be operationally set up as well and
make sure that yeah, really kind of use Black Friday to get new
customers and start that process of getting people introduced to
your brand. Invest in that it from like
September. OK.
Yeah, perfect. Love it.
Thank you. What brands have you been
working with lately? Like who does chain partner with
or work with? Yeah.
So we kind of have quite a few ways that we work with different
brands. Our kind of niche, which I do
recommend most agencies or freelancers have, is that, you
know, you kind of own a niche so that you become the experts in
that. So if a chain, we're fashion,
beauty, lifestyle for all the brands we work with.
So we're an all female team as well.
There's about 22 of us, 2023 of us all female.
And we always kind of have the philosophy like or like is this
a brand that we would purchase from?
Because then we kind of think that our our advantage compared
to some other agencies is that we are the consumer.
We can really tap into that consumer psyche as well.
So yeah, fashion, beauty, lifestyle is our bread and
butter. Sorry, my dog has decided that
this is his interest. Yeah.
So some of the brands that we're currently working with and have
worked with for years. So we've got Nala, which is a
pretty big. Well, they're still, they're
only like 3 years old, but they have just in the market by storm
and have seen insane growth. So they're probably a brand that
I've worked really closely with since I've started at chain
three years ago and they've just grown like enormously.
It's actually mind blowing their growth.
You're a former Witner Fun day suites.
So like, well, like, yeah, quite, quite a mix there as
well. We do Mecca's email marketing in
over in the UK for them. We work with some B to B brands
too, so some merchandising brands we've got like Australian
Beauty School as well. We're currently working with
Brazilian Butterfly on a bit of a relaunch, very kind of, you
know, you know, there they used to be huge like 20 years ago and
they're kind of back in. So we're trying to get there,
get them out there again. So that's been a fun one.
But yeah, there's a big vast of different businesses that we are
working with. And then I also do like a lot of
consulting too, personally still through chain.
But for the smaller brands that are either running their ads
internally, but just want to sense check what they're doing
or if they just can't afford like agency retainers just yet.
We work from like a consulting point of view.
We even have been working with the small, like some smaller
brands on what we call like a Meta build project.
So because, you know, a lot of people want to run ads on Meta,
but they don't even know where to start.
And so we just kind of work out what their budgets are, what
their kind of goals are. We'll build everything for them
and have like, you know, 20 ads ready to go build and then pass
in the keys. And, you know, so that it's that
sometimes for so many brands, it's just getting started, which
is so, yeah. And is that like a, is that like
a project sort of basis or like a one off kind of thing?
Yeah. One off Jack.
So and then some like, you know, we either set that up for them
and then they can then just kind of tap into consults when they
need just being like, this is looking good, what do I do now
or help results have dwindled. What should I do?
So yeah, just kind of having someone in your pocket, which
yeah. And also like that's kind of
like we, we want it. We want our kind of skills and
our access of what we get as an agency to not just be limited to
the big brands out there, but also to the smaller brands there
too. Yes, but on and obviously boot
camps you've just come back from one of those so you know you do
them. So the best thing is probably to
give chain social or I'll put your all your contact details in
the show notes rather than people trying to write them
down. But you also have a new podcast
coming out too soon. Do we do we give that a do we
give that a plug? What's what are we gonna call
that? Really.
That's gonna be called the chain pod.
So Shelby and I have been running meta master classes and
other events as well like we do. Yeah, like full four day boot
camps. Shelby even has agency boot
camps, other agencies to come along with and everyone always.
So Shelby, she's the founder of chain.
She's a force to be reckoned with.
But when anyone who's in a room with Shelby and I, we've got got
this banter that we always have and you know how our brains work
together. And it's like, he doesn't need
to create a podcast. Like, like we could just listen
to the two of you just talk rubbish, not rubbish, but like
strategy and things like that throughout.
So I said to, yeah, finally I said to shelves, let's just do
it. So yeah, the chain pod.
And yeah, the idea is that, you know, whether you're a founder,
marketer, even another agency, you can be really lonely and
isolating out there as well. Like, you know, if you run, if
you're a founder, running your own ads, like who do you sense
check that with? How do you know what you're
doing is still best practise? Like Meta in particular changes
weekly and it can be so overwhelming to keep up.
Like I used to freelance as well and I so I know what it's like.
And we just want to be that little, you know, person on your
shoulder or person in your pocket that makes sure that
you're up to date with what's working and what the bigger
brands are doing or not doing and really giving actually
tangible tips and strategies that you can use yourself, not
just fluff. And, you know, So yeah, we're
launching that at the end of May, which is really exciting,
locked in a few really exciting guest speakers too, so.
Yeah, awesome. Well, good luck with that.
I know I can speak from experience.
There's a lot of work, but yeah, it's really good when you start
to, you know, hear from your audience and listeners and, and
they're getting a lot out of it, which I'm sure they will.
Well, thanks for all your insights and wisdom.
It's been great to to chat again.
You're doing you're also doing TikTok work, boot camps,
workshops as well. Yeah.
Yeah, we've branched out. Like, yeah, we've been running
TikTok ads for our clients for years now.
We've always just kind of done our Meta master classes, but a
lot of people are like, oh, like what do I do for TikTok?
So yeah, we've listened and we're going to be doing our
first ever TikTok master class, I think at Chatty in June, mid
June, I think June 18th. Don't quote me on that, but I'm
pretty sure that's it. It's a very special day, that
day. And is that your birthday?
My birthday. Yeah, exactly.
I have to come along. About TikTok, so yeah, that'll
be good. Yeah, awesome.
That to different states as well.
Yeah, yeah. Nice.
Yeah, I'll put all your contact details in the show notes as
well as the podcast when it's live.
But the chain, The chain. Chain pod.
Follow us, follow Chain Social
on Instagram and then I'm sure you got it.
Yeah, perfect. Well, good luck with the
podcast. Thank you for yeah, being so
open with your information. You do share a lot of good stuff
on Instagram as well. So yeah, give Adele a follow and
she won't. She won't steer you wrong.
Thanks, Ryan. Thank you.
See ya all. Right.
That was good. Thank you for.