December 8, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, I talk with strategist Andy Janaitis of PPC Pitbulls to bring clarity back to paid ads. If you’re tired of pouring money into dashboards with nothing to show for it, Andy breaks down how to choose the right platform, structure smarter campaigns, and turn small budgets into real results. We walk through the difference between intent-based traffic on Google and demand-generation on Meta, and how a simple pairing of awareness ads plus retargeting can move people from scrolling to booking.
We also get into clean measurement, stronger creatives, and the lean $20-a-day setup that still works in 2026. Andy shares how to craft hooks that stop the scroll, why landing page continuity matters, and how free tools like Microsoft Clarity help diagnose drop-offs. We look ahead at how AI and answer engines are changing discovery and why clear FAQs and transparent content help your brand surface where decisions start. If you want a practical, future-ready plan, this conversation will help you get there.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:28):
I'm Janice Hostager. After three decades in the marketing business and many years of being an entrepreneur, I've learned a thing or two about marketing. Join me as we talk about marketing, small business, and life in between. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
If you've ever runpay-per-click ads, or if maybe
you've just stared at your Metaads dashboard and felt like
you're trying to read a foreignlanguage, like hieroglyphics
maybe, or if you even don't knowwhere to start with
pay-per-click ads and reallywant to skip ads altogether.
Today we're finallydemystifying this beast.
I'm sitting down with AndyJanaitis, the founder and chief
(00:49):
strategist of PayPerClickPitbulls, or PPC Pitbulls, a
boutique digital marketingagency that helps small business
scale past seven figures usingGoogle and Meta-ads.
Andy is a former engineer andanalytics whiz turned digital
strategist, so he brings thatmagical combo of brain power and
practicality to the table andto our conversation today.
(01:10):
What I love about Andy is thathe strips away the complexity.
No jargon, no "you must spend$10,000 a month to be relevant"
nonsense.
Just real talk that helps youmake confident decisions without
being swallowed by theoverwhelm of it all.
If ads have ever felt confusingor intimidating or felt like an
expensive gamble, then thisepisode is definitely for you.
(01:33):
Andy shares some super simpletips that you can literally use
today to decide whether Meta-adsor Google Ads are the right
move for you.
Andy has some great tips formaking them work.
So let's get into myconversation with Andy.
Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
Andy Janaitis (01:48):
Thanks for having me.
Janice Hostager (01:50):
So let's get right into this, because there
are so many gems in what you'retalking about here today that
I have a lot of questions foryou.
So for the overwhelmed businessowner, which I feel like is a
lot of us, how do we know whereto run digital ads?
Like where do we even start theprocess?
Andy Janaitis (02:08):
Yeah.
So this comes up a lot, right?
We'll have clients come orpotential clients.
And a lot of times people willsay, "Hey, I heard about this
great technique, or I know I'vegot to be on Meta ads," or "Hey,
I know I've got to be runningGoogle ads and doing this
specific tactic that I heardsome guru on YouTube telling me
about." And oftentimes we liketo take a step back and make
(02:31):
sure that some of the keyfundamentals are in place and
that we really understand ourgoals.
Because a lot of times, whilewe're a paid ads agency, we
really believe in the power ofpaid ads.
It's also really easy to losesome money pretty quick if you
don't have things set upproperly and you know what
you're doing to get started.
It's not back in the Wild Westdays where it's like you could
slap any old ad together andthrow it up on Facebook and
(02:53):
bring in some revenue from it.
There's a lot of kind ofgotchas in in the system.
So I would say one of the firstthings is to really understand
what your goals are and whatyou're looking to get out of
ads.
So the first instinct is justto say, hey, I want more leads
or more revenue.
But really understanding, areyou trying to expand in a
particular geography?
Are you looking to push fillson your website versus local
(03:16):
visits to a storefront?
All of these different thingsare going to change your
strategy.
And then also thinking aboutnot only what your goals are,
but what your constraints are.
It's like realistically, howmuch budget do you have to
spend?
And what types of creative doyou have available to you?
And do you have the ability tocreate more video and image to
really supply the ads with thecreative that they're going to
(03:37):
need?
Getting all that figured outfirst is really going to help
dictate what the strategy ismoving forward and what the best
way to meet your goals is.
Janice Hostager (03:46):
Gotcha.
Yes, I 100% agree with that.
Just based on my own experienceand experience with clients
too, it really does matter whereyou want to go and where you're
heading with all of this.
Talk to me a little bit aboutsearch intent too, because I
have customers that think thatthey want to be on Meta, but
really sometimes it's better forthem to be investing in some
(04:06):
Google ads.
So how do you how does thatplay into the big picture?
Andy Janaitis (04:10):
Yeah, we say it's different for every business,
but largely we think and andwhere your service-based
business is and you're doingwork locally, that's where
Google often performs reallywell.
So I like to think of it in interms of what's happening on
those two platforms.
So on Google, we like to thinkof that as you mentioned,
intent, intent-based marketing.
So what's really, really greatabout Google is that when
(04:32):
somebody searches, we knowexactly what they're looking
for.
And before we get in front ofthem with our ad, we know that
they're a person who's lookingfor our services.
Whereas Meta is what we callinterruption-based marketing.
So somebody's just scrollingtheir feed, they're looking
through, they're just kind ofentertaining themselves or doing
something different.
And then we're gonna pop up andget an ad in front of them that
they weren't necessarilyexpecting.
(04:53):
So, because of those twodifferent kinds of delivery
systems, Google is gonna bereally, really good if you have
a service that people know thatthey're looking for.
You know, if you're gonnareplace an HVAC system because
somebody's HVAC is down,Google's gonna be great because
it's, hey, I'm looking, oh, I'monly showing up on ads where
somebody is searching for HVACrepairman in my area, kind of
(05:13):
thing.
So you know that they're inmarket, they're ready to work
with you.
If on the other hand, and evenit could be the same business,
but imagine that same HVACcompany says, hey, we need to
educate people a little bit thatreally they should be doing
regular maintenance that theymay not even know about, they
need to get their system cleanedon a regular basis.
That's not something thatthey're gonna be searching for.
So that's where Meta mayperform a little bit better
(05:34):
because you have that spacewhere you're popping up in front
of them, you have some space toeducate them and let them know
about the service that you offerthat they may not even know
that they need yet.
So that's how I like to thinkabout it.
If your main push and whatyou're trying to get done with
ads is selling a service thatpeople are coming to you for,
they've got high intent, theyknow that they need this product
(05:54):
or service right at thatparticular time.
By all means go the Googleroute.
If it's on the other side, ifyou have something that takes a
little bit more education,somebody doesn't even know they
need it before they see your ad,that's where Meta is going to
perform really well.
Janice Hostager (06:09):
And there's other platforms too, like
there's Pinterest and LinkedIn.
Andy Janaitis (06:12):
Exactly.
Janice Hostager (06:14):
Yeah.
Andy Janaitis (06:14):
I'm glad you brought that up too.
Cause a lot of times peoplewill come to us and say, hey,
I've got to be on, I hear peopleare doing really well on
Pinterest, or you know, I've gotto be on Reddit and advertising
there.
And certainly that is a greatplace to expand once you start
seeing some early results.
But I always tell people makesure you maximize 90% of the ad
impact, I would say, we seecoming through Google and Meta.
(06:36):
That's why I really focus onthose two platforms first.
So if you're just dipping yourtoe in, you're just getting
started, start with one of thosetwo big platforms.
You know, don't, don't, uh,it's almost like sometimes
people try to get a little bittoo clever and try, hey, I'm
just gonna try this little thinghere.
And certainly, you know, you'llhit a point where it makes
sense to expand into some ofthese other channels, but keep
(06:57):
it simple, right?
And just a lot of times youwork with one of those bigger
platforms and see if you can beprofitable there first before
going down some of these moreniche routes.
Janice Hostager (07:06):
And that makes sense.
I mean, if you don't have anaudience on Pinterest to begin
with, then you probably don'twant to be advertising there
either, right?
Andy Janaitis (07:12):
You know, it could be like one of the few
situations where you would startthere if you have a really
strong following, say onPinterest, or hey, I've got
10,000 followers on LinkedInalready.
Maybe I'll start with adsthere.
But just as far as likecapabilities and the ability to
measure results, that the Googleand Meta are just so head and
shoulders above in terms of kindof their maturity as an ad
(07:33):
platform that 90% of the time,if you're just dipping just a
little bit of investment, you'regonna be able to get the most
impact out of those biggestplatforms.
Janice Hostager (07:41):
The biggest bank pay buck, huh?
Just out of curiosity, have youtried, have you run ads on
Reddit?
Andy Janaitis (07:47):
Uh, we haven't gotten into Reddit yet.
Okay.
We've done some LinkedIn, wedon't typically do a ton of
LinkedIn as like a service, butwe've done LinkedIn just for
ourselves, trying to marketourselves as an agency.
Um challenge there is it canget really, really expensive.
But I know you know Reddit isis kind of the hot new thing.
It's just coming down the pipe.
We haven't really experimentedwith it yet.
Janice Hostager (08:07):
Yeah, yeah.
I that would be interesting forme because I don't spend as
much time on Reddit as I usedto, but it's certainly a great
place to get a feel for whatquestions people are asking if
if you do are an industry thatpeople are asking a lot of
questions.
But they have been historicallyreally brutal to anybody that
tries to promote themselves tooheavily.
(08:28):
So I'm curious how Reddit adswill work.
But also I've noticed they comeup a lot in Google searches
now, Reddit posts too.
Andy Janaitis (08:36):
So it's it's an exciting new frontier now that
they're the ads available.
One fun side thing that we loveto use on Reddit.
When you go onto Reddit, in themenu, they've got something
called answers, and it says it'sin beta, so it's relatively
new, but we've been using that aton recently where you can ask,
it's it's AI driven, so you canask a regular question either
about your brand or about justanything in your industry, and
(08:58):
it will give you it's almost asif you're on a Chat GPT or a
perplexity, but it will backeverything up with a citation to
a specific Reddit post.
So it's great for, hey, whattypes of problems are our
customers in my industry facing?
Or especially if your brandname is big enough that that
people are talking about it alittle on Reddit, you can query
and say, hey, people who'vetried my product, are they
(09:20):
saying good things or badthings?
Or like what are the complaintswhen somebody has a complaint?
And it will aggregate it andgive you a summary and then
actually link out to specificposts where people put that in.
Janice Hostager (09:30):
Oh, that's cool.
I'll flip into that one.
Andy Janaitis (09:32):
Yeah, it's been really powerful.
Janice Hostager (09:33):
So, how how about the customer journey?
Obviously, awareness issomething I think people usually
focus on during the customerjourney in terms of ads, also
maybe retargeting.
Is one platform better thananother for that?
Or does it really depend?
Andy Janaitis (09:48):
It's interesting.
It does depend to a degree andboth platforms.
So typically we would say that,hey, Meta, because it's got
that kind of interruption base,people don't know they're
looking for you, it's great forawareness, right?
Because it's your opportunityto get in front of somebody when
they're not aware of you andreally describe what you do as a
service and yourdifferentiator.
That being said, Google isreally catching up quickly with
(10:09):
the YouTube platform.
So if you have good video andimage content, Google's not just
search anymore.
In fact, we find we get muchbetter results using a Google
campaign type called PerformanceMax, which shows up not only in
search, but also with thosefive second skippable ads on
YouTube videos, as well asdisplay ads in the sidebar when
(10:30):
you're browsing around theinternet.
So both platforms will give youcapabilities in that kind of
display and awareness area.
One important thing withawareness, because a lot of
times agencies will come in,they'll say, hey, you've got to
be spending a ton of money onawareness, or we want to try
this awareness play.
Typically, awareness-basedadvertising.
So this is when you're gettingin front of somebody, not
(10:51):
necessarily with a call toaction and getting them to sign
up for your service, but you'rejust trying to make sure that
they understand the problem thatyou solve and why you're
uniquely positioned in order tosolve it.
The challenge is that's oftennot super measurable.
You're putting the money intothose ads and hopefully people
are seeing you and you're top ofmind later on when the problem
(11:12):
does come up and they're readyto use you.
But what we find is wetypically almost always will
pair awareness ads withconversion-specific ads.
So, hey, it's great that we'regetting in front of people and
we're building awareness withthat top-of-funnel ad, but we've
got to make sure that we'rethen retargeting them and
ultimately getting conversionsin a way that we can measure.
Otherwise, again, it's a quickway to throw some money away if
(11:36):
you're spending a couplethousand a month on ads that you
hope are getting in front ofpeople.
And certainly you can measurethat they're getting in front of
people, but you hope thatthey're driving new awareness,
but maybe they are, maybethey're not, you know.
Janice Hostager (11:48):
And that's been something I've been trying on
Facebook ads, is just puttingout reels of not necessarily
even a call to action in them,just to find a warm audience.
And then later on, what you'resaying is go back and retarget
them.
But I'm not far enough alongyet where I know if it's really
a successful strategy.
I don't know what you havefound with that, but yeah,
(12:09):
exactly.
Andy Janaitis (12:09):
We love to use that anytime we're on Meta.
That's typically our approach,is kind of a top of funnel where
it's pretty broad.
Oftentimes we're not evennecessarily talking about
ourselves as a company.
We're talking about the problemthat the person is facing.
And sometimes we even take itone step further and say, hey,
don't talk about the problem.
Talk about the symptoms of theproblem, right?
So, you know, it's not that youdon't have a strong HVAC
(12:30):
provider yet, or hey, you needto find somebody you can trust
to come in and solve your HVACproblems.
It's actually one step furtherand say, hey, you're cold in the
wintertime or hot in thesummertime, really that that
pain point that the customer isexperiencing.
That's what we like to do atthe awareness and the top of
funnel level.
And then we can see when peopleengage with that.
So if people watch the videoall the way to completion or
(12:53):
people click on the ad to learna little bit more, that's where
now we can say, hey, okay, thoseads didn't necessarily have a
clear call to action or a clearconversion path, but we do have
an engaged audience that cameout of that.
So now let's retarget them withads that are a little bit more
clear of, hey, we've got a $99service call.
So go ahead and sign up with usso we can come and solve your
(13:15):
problem for you.
Janice Hostager (13:17):
Right, right.
With interruption basedmarketing too, I think that's a
good lesson to all of us.
I think it we get a little bitwhen we're putting ad together,
especially for our ownbusinesses, because I think we
have a real blind spot with ourown stuff, you know.
But uh it really has to grabthem as they're scrolling
through the feed, right?
So they really have to it hasto be something that they can
(13:39):
really attach to fast.
So that that initial hook hasto be very strong.
Andy Janaitis (13:44):
Exactly.
That's so important.
Janice Hostager (13:47):
So if someone is starting from zero and let's
say they decide they want to dosome Meta ads and they figured
out who their they know whotheir ideal customer is, and
let's say so what why don't youwalk us through what you would
recommend, like in terms of astarting point for doing media
ads?
Let's say they haven't run anybefore.
Andy Janaitis (14:05):
Yeah.
So these days on in bothplatforms, you know, typically
we're using automated biddingtechniques.
So what that means is you'renot doing a ton of targeting
based on very specific customerdemographics or very specific
customer intents.
More often what you're doing issaying, hey, I'm gonna go ahead
and measure once people viewthe ad or click on the ad, what
(14:26):
actually happens?
Do they ultimately fill out alead form?
Do they ultimately make apurchase from me?
And then I'm gonna use thatinformation to then go ahead and
optimize.
And the other piece of this iswe're gonna use the right
creative, the right videos andimages that really speak to our
ideal client and our idealclients are most likely to
engage with.
And that's how we're gonnatarget who the ads get shown to,
(14:47):
as opposed to manuallytargeting that audience.
So, all that to be said, thetwo really important things that
you need to have there is one,a good understanding of who your
audience is, and moreimportantly, like we just
discussed, what are the painpoints that they're feeling?
That's where you're gonna startto make your videos and images
that you're gonna use in yourads all around those kind of
points.
(15:08):
And then two, you want to makesure that you're technically set
up right so that that signal,as we call it, is is getting
pushed back to Meta.
So when somebody hits yourwebsite, you really understand
where did they come from?
Did they ultimately take theaction you wanted them to take,
fill out a lead form, make apurchase from you on the
website, and then we'resuccessfully passing that data
back into Meta so it canoptimize and start showing up
(15:31):
for other people like thosepeople who met your goals.
Janice Hostager (15:35):
Okay.
Okay.
So here's the thing that getsme about Meta ads.
And I've been doing this sincethe days of the Power Editor,
which was probably long beforeyou even started doing this.
So it was like reallyrudimentary at the beginning,
right?
So there was just like youpicked everything.
Andy Janaitis (15:48):
Yeah.
Janice Hostager (15:48):
And now Meta wants to pick everything.
And I am really kind of I don'tknow, a little uncomfortable
with that, I guess.
Is that something that yourecommend you let them them
choose?
Because I mean, yes, they haveall these data points on every
single user on all of theirplatforms, but how much are they
in it to make money and howmuch of it how how do you much
(16:11):
do you trust them?
I guess that's my question.
Andy Janaitis (16:12):
Yeah, I would say at a high level from trend
perspective, we get betterresults when we rely on kind of
those automated processes,right?
So both Meta and Google are setup these days that you're gonna
be more successful if you'renot you can you can hurt
yourself by trying to hold thosereins too closely, I'll say.
The big caveat there though isas you mentioned, both of those
(16:33):
platforms are in it to makemoney.
And oftentimes they'll give yousuggestions that are not in
your own best interest.
So you've got to understand whyyou're making the decisions
you're making.
So, you know, a good examplethat that we like to look at.
So I mentioned kind of audiencetargeting.
So when in on Meta, they have afeature called Advantage Plus
(16:53):
that's essentially saying, hey,I'm not gonna tell you exactly
the demographics or exactly theaudiences to target.
Instead, I'm gonna let you goout and find the right people
who are engaging with my ads andget in front of them.
And you can also add asuggestion and say, hey, these
are the types of people to startwith, and then you can go
beyond that and find morepeople.
That works pretty well, and wewe like to use that as long as
we have, you know, again, gooddata flowing back into the
(17:16):
system so that it is able tooptimize.
On the other hand, somethingelse they do is, hey, we'll have
you know automated updates toyour images and automated
updates to the text and the copythere, you know, and use AI to
generate new headlines andimages.
Sometimes that can work andthat can be okay, but it can
also present a brand safetyissue, right?
(17:37):
If there's you know certainthings, especially in certain
industries, there's certainthings that you're not allowed
to say, or there's certainthings that you know aren't
technically correct about theservices you offer, you've got
to be really, really careful tomake sure you understand what
are those auto-generated piecesthat are getting injected into
your ads.
So oftentimes we'll leave thoseturned off.
For some businesses, it's greatbecause it can help take a
(18:00):
little bit of information andgenerate it a little bit
further.
Or if they have limitedcreative to use, there's certain
tools we can use to kind ofexpand what's available to them.
But those ones I think you dohave to be a little bit more
careful and controlled about.
So all that to say, I thinkgenerally the automated
approaches are very helpful, butyou've got to know what you're
doing because again, it can getaway from you quickly if you
(18:21):
just follow all the suggestionsthat Meta or Google gives you.
Janice Hostager (19:37):
Right, right.
I've uh had clients that haverun into trouble with that in
the past.
I think Google is actuallywell, I don't know now, Meta's
gotten kind of complex too, butI think Google initially seemed
was so complex that people wouldeasily lose a lot of money on
Google running ads themselvesand and just not understanding
the bigger picture of it.
You know, it's not necessarilyeasy to go step by step with
(19:58):
some of these.
With with Meta, I I have beenunimpressed by their design
suggestions for sure, and alsosome of their headline
suggestions.
I was like, no, no, sorry.
Yeah, some of them arehorrible.
But you know, it's AI, and Iknow that AI is in the tendency
right now-ish.
So we'll see what happens inthe future with that.
(20:20):
So when you're working with anew client, so what mistakes do
you see that that people makegenerally when they rush into
launching an ad too fast?
Andy Janaitis (20:29):
Yeah.
So a few of the things, one, wetalked a lot about measurement
early.
That's probably the number onething is before we just start
running ads, make sure that youunderstand or that you're
technically set up so that thatsignal is coming back in.
The platform has as much dataas possible so it actually can
be successful and optimized.
Um, that's something that'sreally, really important.
Another thing is trying to dokind of too much, especially
(20:52):
with small budgets.
We say simplify, simplify,simplify, right?
So oftentimes we'll find anaccount where they're spending,
sometimes even with biggerbudgets, but with small budgets
especially.
And you say, hey, we're puttingin $1,000 a month or $1,500 a
month, and then we look into theaccount and there's eight
different campaigns.
So it's like, okay, you'retaking that small budget and
you're splitting it now eightdifferent ways.
(21:14):
The problem there is you justdon't have enough data coming
back.
Any one of those ads might havegotten less than 100 clicks,
say.
Or if you're looking for a leadform, some of those ads might
have less than four or five leadforms.
So if you have so little datacoming back in, one, there's no
opportunity for the model tooptimize at all because you've
split your budget so far that noone campaign has enough data,
(21:38):
has enough actions coming backinto it to be able to optimize.
And two, it's very easy tostart making decisions poorly
when you have so little data tomake your own kind of manual
decisions on it to say, hey,this campaign is doing better
than this campaign.
Oftentimes we'll find like,hey, after a week or two is run,
if you only have one lead formin one and three lead forms in
(21:59):
the other, that might just bestatistically good luck or bad
luck for one or the othercampaigns.
You really need to have enoughdata in that's to say that, hey,
this has a better conversionrate or this has a cheaper cost
per acquisition.
And not only does it have thatover a very small amount of
data, but as we start to growthat data, those relationships
(22:19):
hold and it's statisticallysignificant.
So that's one probably one ofthe next largest mistakes we see
people make is just splittinginto a million different
campaigns or a million differentcreative types, and then making
decisions too quickly whenthere's really not enough
statistically significant datain there to make those
decisions.
Janice Hostager (22:37):
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
So let's say somebody is goingto run one campaign.
They're let's say four leadmagnets, for example.
Do they so they do onecampaign?
Do they split it out still bydifferent ad sets, or do you
suggest one ad set and thenmultiple ads?
Well, say $20 a day.
Yeah.
So small budget.
What would be the best way ofmaking that $20 a day really
(23:02):
work for them so that they can,number one, see how well things
are really performing withoutbeing so granular that you know
they missed a mark altogether.
Andy Janaitis (23:11):
Exactly.
Yeah.
So I do like to split ad setson themes.
So start to think through if wehave, and and the reason for
that is it's easy at that pointto roll the creative up and to
kind of understand how adifferent type of creative is
performing.
Um, so an example I'll givesometimes if you have video
versus static.
You might have, okay, this ismy video ad set, and this is my
(23:35):
static ad set.
When you can kind of see now,okay, how much spend went into
each one, how many conversionsdid I get out of each one, and
start to make those decisions.
You can break it down even moregranular and say, hey, these
are my static images around thisparticular theme, or these are
my static images that have textoverlays on them, and these are
my static images that are cleanwith no text overlays on them.
(23:56):
Or similarly, in video, youcould say, hey, these are my
founder-driven videos and theseare my customer UGC driven
videos and break those intodifferent groups.
And then inside each of thosead sets, you could say, hey, I'm
trying out four or fivedifferent variations.
If I'm in the UGC videos, I'vegot four or five different
pieces of UGC, but those are allkind of grouped together into
(24:16):
UGC videos as an ad set.
So I think that can work reallywell just from a measurement
standpoint to see where thingsare coming in.
And with that small of abudget, typically what I would
suggest is don't set budgets atthe ad set level.
So what you're doing is say,hey, I've got one campaign, I
might break it into a bunch ofad sets, and then I just go
ahead and let Meta go crazy withdo I give $10 to this one ad
(24:40):
set and one dollar to this otherad set, or vice versa, as
opposed to setting it andsaying, hey, no, I want you to
spend evenly across all of thosead sets.
Spending evenly will certainlyget you a little bit more data
in a little more quickly, ormake sure that you have data
coming into every one of thosetypes of creative that you're
using.
The downside there though is ifyou only have, say, $20 a day,
(25:01):
you have so little data cominginto any one, it's tough to,
again, hit that level of likestatistical significance.
So when you let Meta just say,hey, I'm gonna spend more in
this particular ad set or lessin this particular ad set,
that's kind of letting Meta say,hey, you know, based on the
algorithm, this is what we thinkis going to perform the best,
or this is the ads that weexpect to perform the best.
(25:22):
So when you have those very,very small budgets, that's where
I would lean on Meta to makethose decisions as opposed to
manually making them yourself.
Janice Hostager (25:31):
Gotcha.
And what length of time wouldyou recommend running something
like that?
Andy Janaitis (25:35):
So we typically want to see between 30 to 50,
really on both platforms, we'llsay just as a rule of thumb, and
it's different for everybusiness, but you know, say 30
to 50 conversions before westart making a ton of a ton of
decisions on turning things offor turning things on, that type
of thing.
So part of it is gonna dependon where your budget is and is
your budget big enough that it'sgoing to push that many
(25:56):
conversions in.
Obviously, if you have a muchlarger budget, you can pivot and
make these changes more quicklybecause you have more data
coming in.
If you have a small budget andyou're just kind of dipping your
toe, oftentimes, especially atthat $20 a day, it's probably
gonna be a while before you getto that 30, 50 conversions,
especially depending on if youhave a higher ticket offer, it
might be a lot longer before youget 30 to 50 conversions.
(26:17):
That's where you're gonna haveto start to be smart about
making decisions on one step up.
If you're not getting that manyconversions, maybe we can start
to make decisions on what arefolks engaging with and driving
to the website cheapest, or whatare the ads that people are
most likely to watch the wholevideo all the way through at
least.
Because those you'll have alittle bit more data on.
(26:37):
You'll have more video views,obviously, than you'll have
people going to the website, andyou'll have more people going
to the website than you'll haveultimately lead forms or
conversions, whatever it is onyour website.
So just kind of thinkingthrough that before you really
start making these decisions,you want probably 30 to 50 good
data pieces before you startchoosing this one's actually
(26:58):
performing better than this one.
Janice Hostager (27:00):
Okay.
Okay.
So just to reiterate, so if youreally do have a small budget,
say $20 a day, one ad, maybe acouple of ad sets, and up to 10,
8, 10 ads.
Andy Janaitis (27:11):
Like you could, I mean, with that small of a
budget, you probably I'dprobably even compress it a
little bit further than that.
I probably wouldn't spread itthat wide, but I'd, you know,
I'd probably go with maybe onecampaign with a video ad set and
a static ad set, uh, and thenmaybe two or three videos and
three or four images, somethinglike that.
Just very rough numbers.
It could be different fordifferent for different
(27:32):
companies, but you don't need togo crazy.
Like try to test with just alittle bit first.
Janice Hostager (27:37):
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's just a matter of, Imean, letting it's really a
matter of letting Meta decide atthat point too, what it wants
to show people.
Exactly.
I would imagine based on thealgorithm.
Okay.
And and then, oh, go ahead.
Andy Janaitis (27:50):
I was just going to add too to that.
The creative is so, soimportant.
And a lot of times you'll seegurus out there that are talking
about creative variations.
And hey, we tested a hundreddifferent variations on this
specific video before we got tothe one that was performing
best.
A lot of times people getcaught up in that type of
advice.
And a lot of that is really forbigger brands that are spending
(28:12):
with much larger budgets.
So people will say, oh man,I've got to get, if I'm looking
at UGC, I've got to get 10different creators to create
individual pieces of UGC contentfor me first.
And then I'd like variations ofhooks and bodies and mix and
match all these differentthings.
Ultimately, the number onething, if you're spending $20 a
day, if you're at that level inyour business, the number one
(28:33):
thing is to really lock inwhat's your messaging, what's
the pain point that you'resolving, and who your ideal
customer is.
And as you start to get thosethings right, those small
variations of, hey, tweakingthis hook mixed with this body,
or if people even go to thelevel of like, hey, I've got a
blonde creator versus a brownhaired creator, it's like those
(28:53):
types of decisions later on willmake a lot of a lot of impact
because the creative really doesmatter.
And some creative goes viraland some doesn't.
But at that first stage, likeyou're just testing your basic
messaging.
Like, don't overthink it.
Just get a couple good ads thatare your best guess based on
your knowledge of the customerof like, these are what's going
(29:16):
to resonate with my customer,and test those out first.
Don't think about, hey, I'vegot to have again like 10, 20,
80 variations right as you'regetting started with a very
small budget.
Janice Hostager (29:28):
Yeah, that can really bog you down too,
especially in the in thecreative part of it.
You're doing different ads atdifferent sizes, and it just
gets to be too much.
And of course, there issomething you touched on
briefly, there is the landingpage as well.
So if you're sending somebodyto an optimized landing page,
you want to make sure that thatcontent resonates with the ad.
Andy Janaitis (29:50):
Exactly.
Yeah.
You want to make sure that thecontent that's in your ad is
matching the content thatthey're going to see on the
website.
So a simple way forservice-based providers, we
think that is just make sureyou're matching up the offers.
You know, if you're describingthat, hey, we do a free initial
estimate call or a free proposaltype call, and then you send
people to the page and thatoffer isn't really listed on the
(30:11):
landing page, or hey, it's moregenerally like a pricing page
or something like that, there'sgoing to be a dissonance there,
and that's where people start todrop off.
So make sure that you have areally tight path from the
information given in thecreative to what they're going
to find when they hit thelanding page.
And then that's where itbecomes a measurement thing.
A lot of times people will say,hey, I put in my $20 a day.
(30:33):
I ran it for a month, twomonths, didn't really see the
results I wanted to get.
What do I do next?
What do I change?
What do I do better?
And that's where you can startto look and say, hey, is the
cost per click too high?
Is it seven, eight dollars justto get somebody to click to the
landing page?
Hey, maybe it's a problem withyour ads.
It's not resonating with them.
They're nobody's reallyengaging, nobody's clicking and
(30:55):
getting to your site.
Or you might say, hey, my costper click has come down.
I've got good cheap trafficcoming to the site, but once
they hit there, nobody converts.
My conversion rate is superlow.
Okay, maybe the ads are fine,but you got to change what's
happening when people hit thatsite and figure out.
What you can do to add a littlemore social proof, or what you
can do to be a little clearer onexactly what the offer is.
(31:16):
And a great tool I always liketo recommend for people on that
landing page side.
If you're looking to optimizethe landing page, we use
Microsoft Clarity quite a bit.
It's a free tool and itactually gives you recordings of
what's happening when peoplehit the page.
So you'll be able to go backand see, hey, these are the
people who converted.
How much time did they spend ineach section?
(31:37):
Or hey, watch some of thepeople who dropped.
And do they all scroll down tothe same point and then
ultimately drop?
Is there a specific point onthe page where people start to
get confused or they're notseeing the testimonials that
they'd like to see, or they'rejust not comfortable with your
service, and that's where theydrop.
Okay, now I know where to go onthe landing page and where to
edit, where to add newcomponents in.
(31:57):
That can be a really, reallypowerful thing to see the actual
behavior of people when they'reon your site.
So that's Microsoft Clarity isa good free tool for that.
Janice Hostager (32:06):
Okay.
I'll put the link to that inthe show notes as well.
And and the whole process canbe extremely frustrating.
And I've been at it both as acreator and as somebody who is
working with clients to do thesame thing.
But the numbers do tell a storyand it's usually not personal.
I think that was the thing.
I think especially assolopreneurs, we we kind of take
offense initially and thinkmaybe nobody wants my product or
(32:29):
my service or whatever.
It could feel harsh and painfulat some times.
But but yeah, looking at theanalytics makes a huge
difference because then you cansee where people are dropping
off and where the funnel'sgetting clogged.
And then go ahead and changethat.
So yeah, I'm glad that youbrought that up.
So what changes are coming upthat business owners should be
(32:49):
prepared for, especially tothose without a tech team or
people running their ads?
Andy Janaitis (32:53):
Yeah.
Janice Hostager (32:54):
Anything that you know of.
Andy Janaitis (32:55):
So we definitely see increased reliance on AI
throughout everything.
One of the first places, andwe've talked about this at
length already, is making surethat you're relying on some of
the automated systems.
It's not just manual keywordtargeting or manual audience
targeting anymore.
It's really making sure thatyou give the platforms you're
measuring properly and then givethe platforms a space.
So that's the first place whereautomated bidding is getting
(33:17):
better and better and better.
Make sure you're using thepower of that and relying on
that tool in both platforms.
The other thing on the kind ofAI side is it really does change
the discoverability.
So people aren't necessarilysearching the way they were
previously, where you search inGoogle and you get a bunch of
links and you click through anddo your research on each
individual web page.
(33:38):
A lot of times you're gettingthe answer right at the top of
those search results if you'reon Google, or maybe you're not
even going to Google, you're onChat GPT or Perplexity.
So people are getting a lot ofinformation about your business
before they ever hit the websiteor before they ever get to the
page.
So there's different techniquesin the same way that we used to
optimize for showing up in thesearch engine, search engine
(33:58):
optimization or SEO.
Now you've got to think abouthow are you presenting yourself
and showing up in these LLMs.
We call that answer engineoptimization or AEO.
So that's a really big thingthat small businesses can start
to get ahead of.
A great piece of advice I liketo say is go to ChatGPT and say,
hey, can you show me thecompanies that are providing X
(34:19):
service to this type of customerin my local area and see if you
get mentioned or not.
And if you're not, then figureout what is it about those
competitors, what are where aretheir differentiators?
Make sure that you're gettingthat information and putting it
onto your website.
The big thing for that is usingstructured data.
So things like FAQs workreally, really well now because
(34:40):
people are asking thesequestions and getting an answer
directly.
They're not seeing a list oflinks, they're actually getting
a text-based answer.
So figure out what those keyquestions your customers are
asking.
Things like what is the cost toget this particular project
done?
Or what are some things tothink about when I'm hiring an
agency to do this particularthing for me?
Questions in FAQ sections tomake sure that you're showing up
(35:03):
and your information is showingup as often as possible in the
LLMs.
Janice Hostager (35:07):
Great advice.
Yeah, I just recently did anepisode all about that.
So I'll put the link to that inthe show notes as well.
Now you have a checklist,right?
That will help people get setup for ads.
Andy Janaitis (35:18):
Yes, yeah.
So as we mentioned, there's alot of fundamentals that people
typically need to be aware of.
So we have that checklist ofthose key things that you want
to make sure you have in placebefore you ever spend a dime on
ads.
It's really important to makesure that you've got your
website set up properly, you'remeasuring things, all the things
that we've talked about today.
So we've got that checklist.
If you come to ppcpitbulls.com,you can down that download that
(35:40):
checklist.
If that's a littleoverwhelming, you can always
just book a call with me too,and we'll walk through it
together and figure out whatyour next best step is and where
you can go to get your adsrunning properly.
Janice Hostager (35:50):
All great, great stuff.
And of course, I'll put thelink to that in the show notes
as well.
Thank you so much, Andy.
I have just been overwhelmed bythe amount of information that
you shared with us today, so Ireally appreciate it.
Andy Janaitis (36:02):
Awesome.
Janice Hostager (36:03):
So I hope that Andy's advice gave you a little
more confidence to go ahead andjump into pay-per-click ads.
For more information about Andyor anything we talked about
today, visitmyweeklymarketing.com forward
slash one thirty seven.
And please hit the followbutton so you never miss an
episode.
Thanks so much for spendingtime with me today.
I'll see you next week.
Bye for now.
I'm Janice Hostager. After three decades in the marketing business and many years of being an entrepreneur, I've learned a thing or two about marketing. Join me as we talk about marketing, small business, and life in between. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
If you've ever runpay-per-click ads, or if maybe
you've just stared at your Metaads dashboard and felt like
you're trying to read a foreignlanguage, like hieroglyphics
maybe, or if you even don't knowwhere to start with
pay-per-click ads and reallywant to skip ads altogether.
Today we're finallydemystifying this beast.
I'm sitting down with AndyJanaitis, the founder and chief
(00:49):
strategist of PayPerClickPitbulls, or PPC Pitbulls, a
boutique digital marketingagency that helps small business
scale past seven figures usingGoogle and Meta-ads.
Andy is a former engineer andanalytics whiz turned digital
strategist, so he brings thatmagical combo of brain power and
practicality to the table andto our conversation today.
(01:10):
What I love about Andy is thathe strips away the complexity.
No jargon, no "you must spend$10,000 a month to be relevant"
nonsense.
Just real talk that helps youmake confident decisions without
being swallowed by theoverwhelm of it all.
If ads have ever felt confusingor intimidating or felt like an
expensive gamble, then thisepisode is definitely for you.
(01:33):
Andy shares some super simpletips that you can literally use
today to decide whether Meta-adsor Google Ads are the right
move for you.
Andy has some great tips formaking them work.
So let's get into myconversation with Andy.
Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
Andy Janaitis (01:48):
Thanks for having me.
Janice Hostager (01:50):
So let's get right into this, because there
are so many gems in what you'retalking about here today that
I have a lot of questions foryou.
So for the overwhelmed businessowner, which I feel like is a
lot of us, how do we know whereto run digital ads?
Like where do we even start theprocess?
Andy Janaitis (02:08):
Yeah.
So this comes up a lot, right?
We'll have clients come orpotential clients.
And a lot of times people willsay, "Hey, I heard about this
great technique, or I know I'vegot to be on Meta ads," or "Hey,
I know I've got to be runningGoogle ads and doing this
specific tactic that I heardsome guru on YouTube telling me
about." And oftentimes we liketo take a step back and make
(02:31):
sure that some of the keyfundamentals are in place and
that we really understand ourgoals.
Because a lot of times, whilewe're a paid ads agency, we
really believe in the power ofpaid ads.
It's also really easy to losesome money pretty quick if you
don't have things set upproperly and you know what
you're doing to get started.
It's not back in the Wild Westdays where it's like you could
slap any old ad together andthrow it up on Facebook and
(02:53):
bring in some revenue from it.
There's a lot of kind ofgotchas in in the system.
So I would say one of the firstthings is to really understand
what your goals are and whatyou're looking to get out of
ads.
So the first instinct is justto say, hey, I want more leads
or more revenue.
But really understanding, areyou trying to expand in a
particular geography?
Are you looking to push fillson your website versus local
(03:16):
visits to a storefront?
All of these different thingsare going to change your
strategy.
And then also thinking aboutnot only what your goals are,
but what your constraints are.
It's like realistically, howmuch budget do you have to
spend?
And what types of creative doyou have available to you?
And do you have the ability tocreate more video and image to
really supply the ads with thecreative that they're going to
(03:37):
need?
Getting all that figured outfirst is really going to help
dictate what the strategy ismoving forward and what the best
way to meet your goals is.
Janice Hostager (03:46):
Gotcha.
Yes, I 100% agree with that.
Just based on my own experienceand experience with clients
too, it really does matter whereyou want to go and where you're
heading with all of this.
Talk to me a little bit aboutsearch intent too, because I
have customers that think thatthey want to be on Meta, but
really sometimes it's better forthem to be investing in some
(04:06):
Google ads.
So how do you how does thatplay into the big picture?
Andy Janaitis (04:10):
Yeah, we say it's different for every business,
but largely we think and andwhere your service-based
business is and you're doingwork locally, that's where
Google often performs reallywell.
So I like to think of it in interms of what's happening on
those two platforms.
So on Google, we like to thinkof that as you mentioned,
intent, intent-based marketing.
So what's really, really greatabout Google is that when
(04:32):
somebody searches, we knowexactly what they're looking
for.
And before we get in front ofthem with our ad, we know that
they're a person who's lookingfor our services.
Whereas Meta is what we callinterruption-based marketing.
So somebody's just scrollingtheir feed, they're looking
through, they're just kind ofentertaining themselves or doing
something different.
And then we're gonna pop up andget an ad in front of them that
they weren't necessarilyexpecting.
(04:53):
So, because of those twodifferent kinds of delivery
systems, Google is gonna bereally, really good if you have
a service that people know thatthey're looking for.
You know, if you're gonnareplace an HVAC system because
somebody's HVAC is down,Google's gonna be great because
it's, hey, I'm looking, oh, I'monly showing up on ads where
somebody is searching for HVACrepairman in my area, kind of
(05:13):
thing.
So you know that they're inmarket, they're ready to work
with you.
If on the other hand, and evenit could be the same business,
but imagine that same HVACcompany says, hey, we need to
educate people a little bit thatreally they should be doing
regular maintenance that theymay not even know about, they
need to get their system cleanedon a regular basis.
That's not something thatthey're gonna be searching for.
So that's where Meta mayperform a little bit better
(05:34):
because you have that spacewhere you're popping up in front
of them, you have some space toeducate them and let them know
about the service that you offerthat they may not even know
that they need yet.
So that's how I like to thinkabout it.
If your main push and whatyou're trying to get done with
ads is selling a service thatpeople are coming to you for,
they've got high intent, theyknow that they need this product
(05:54):
or service right at thatparticular time.
By all means go the Googleroute.
If it's on the other side, ifyou have something that takes a
little bit more education,somebody doesn't even know they
need it before they see your ad,that's where Meta is going to
perform really well.
Janice Hostager (06:09):
And there's other platforms too, like
there's Pinterest and LinkedIn.
Andy Janaitis (06:12):
Exactly.
Janice Hostager (06:14):
Yeah.
Andy Janaitis (06:14):
I'm glad you brought that up too.
Cause a lot of times peoplewill come to us and say, hey,
I've got to be on, I hear peopleare doing really well on
Pinterest, or you know, I've gotto be on Reddit and advertising
there.
And certainly that is a greatplace to expand once you start
seeing some early results.
But I always tell people makesure you maximize 90% of the ad
impact, I would say, we seecoming through Google and Meta.
(06:36):
That's why I really focus onthose two platforms first.
So if you're just dipping yourtoe in, you're just getting
started, start with one of thosetwo big platforms.
You know, don't, don't, uh,it's almost like sometimes
people try to get a little bittoo clever and try, hey, I'm
just gonna try this little thinghere.
And certainly, you know, you'llhit a point where it makes
sense to expand into some ofthese other channels, but keep
(06:57):
it simple, right?
And just a lot of times youwork with one of those bigger
platforms and see if you can beprofitable there first before
going down some of these moreniche routes.
Janice Hostager (07:06):
And that makes sense.
I mean, if you don't have anaudience on Pinterest to begin
with, then you probably don'twant to be advertising there
either, right?
Andy Janaitis (07:12):
You know, it could be like one of the few
situations where you would startthere if you have a really
strong following, say onPinterest, or hey, I've got
10,000 followers on LinkedInalready.
Maybe I'll start with adsthere.
But just as far as likecapabilities and the ability to
measure results, that the Googleand Meta are just so head and
shoulders above in terms of kindof their maturity as an ad
(07:33):
platform that 90% of the time,if you're just dipping just a
little bit of investment, you'regonna be able to get the most
impact out of those biggestplatforms.
Janice Hostager (07:41):
The biggest bank pay buck, huh?
Just out of curiosity, have youtried, have you run ads on
Reddit?
Andy Janaitis (07:47):
Uh, we haven't gotten into Reddit yet.
Okay.
We've done some LinkedIn, wedon't typically do a ton of
LinkedIn as like a service, butwe've done LinkedIn just for
ourselves, trying to marketourselves as an agency.
Um challenge there is it canget really, really expensive.
But I know you know Reddit isis kind of the hot new thing.
It's just coming down the pipe.
We haven't really experimentedwith it yet.
Janice Hostager (08:07):
Yeah, yeah.
I that would be interesting forme because I don't spend as
much time on Reddit as I usedto, but it's certainly a great
place to get a feel for whatquestions people are asking if
if you do are an industry thatpeople are asking a lot of
questions.
But they have been historicallyreally brutal to anybody that
tries to promote themselves tooheavily.
(08:28):
So I'm curious how Reddit adswill work.
But also I've noticed they comeup a lot in Google searches
now, Reddit posts too.
Andy Janaitis (08:36):
So it's it's an exciting new frontier now that
they're the ads available.
One fun side thing that we loveto use on Reddit.
When you go onto Reddit, in themenu, they've got something
called answers, and it says it'sin beta, so it's relatively
new, but we've been using that aton recently where you can ask,
it's it's AI driven, so you canask a regular question either
about your brand or about justanything in your industry, and
(08:58):
it will give you it's almost asif you're on a Chat GPT or a
perplexity, but it will backeverything up with a citation to
a specific Reddit post.
So it's great for, hey, whattypes of problems are our
customers in my industry facing?
Or especially if your brandname is big enough that that
people are talking about it alittle on Reddit, you can query
and say, hey, people who'vetried my product, are they
(09:20):
saying good things or badthings?
Or like what are the complaintswhen somebody has a complaint?
And it will aggregate it andgive you a summary and then
actually link out to specificposts where people put that in.
Janice Hostager (09:30):
Oh, that's cool.
I'll flip into that one.
Andy Janaitis (09:32):
Yeah, it's been really powerful.
Janice Hostager (09:33):
So, how how about the customer journey?
Obviously, awareness issomething I think people usually
focus on during the customerjourney in terms of ads, also
maybe retargeting.
Is one platform better thananother for that?
Or does it really depend?
Andy Janaitis (09:48):
It's interesting.
It does depend to a degree andboth platforms.
So typically we would say that,hey, Meta, because it's got
that kind of interruption base,people don't know they're
looking for you, it's great forawareness, right?
Because it's your opportunityto get in front of somebody when
they're not aware of you andreally describe what you do as a
service and yourdifferentiator.
That being said, Google isreally catching up quickly with
(10:09):
the YouTube platform.
So if you have good video andimage content, Google's not just
search anymore.
In fact, we find we get muchbetter results using a Google
campaign type called PerformanceMax, which shows up not only in
search, but also with thosefive second skippable ads on
YouTube videos, as well asdisplay ads in the sidebar when
(10:30):
you're browsing around theinternet.
So both platforms will give youcapabilities in that kind of
display and awareness area.
One important thing withawareness, because a lot of
times agencies will come in,they'll say, hey, you've got to
be spending a ton of money onawareness, or we want to try
this awareness play.
Typically, awareness-basedadvertising.
So this is when you're gettingin front of somebody, not
(10:51):
necessarily with a call toaction and getting them to sign
up for your service, but you'rejust trying to make sure that
they understand the problem thatyou solve and why you're
uniquely positioned in order tosolve it.
The challenge is that's oftennot super measurable.
You're putting the money intothose ads and hopefully people
are seeing you and you're top ofmind later on when the problem
(11:12):
does come up and they're readyto use you.
But what we find is wetypically almost always will
pair awareness ads withconversion-specific ads.
So, hey, it's great that we'regetting in front of people and
we're building awareness withthat top-of-funnel ad, but we've
got to make sure that we'rethen retargeting them and
ultimately getting conversionsin a way that we can measure.
Otherwise, again, it's a quickway to throw some money away if
(11:36):
you're spending a couplethousand a month on ads that you
hope are getting in front ofpeople.
And certainly you can measurethat they're getting in front of
people, but you hope thatthey're driving new awareness,
but maybe they are, maybethey're not, you know.
Janice Hostager (11:48):
And that's been something I've been trying on
Facebook ads, is just puttingout reels of not necessarily
even a call to action in them,just to find a warm audience.
And then later on, what you'resaying is go back and retarget
them.
But I'm not far enough alongyet where I know if it's really
a successful strategy.
I don't know what you havefound with that, but yeah,
(12:09):
exactly.
Andy Janaitis (12:09):
We love to use that anytime we're on Meta.
That's typically our approach,is kind of a top of funnel where
it's pretty broad.
Oftentimes we're not evennecessarily talking about
ourselves as a company.
We're talking about the problemthat the person is facing.
And sometimes we even take itone step further and say, hey,
don't talk about the problem.
Talk about the symptoms of theproblem, right?
So, you know, it's not that youdon't have a strong HVAC
(12:30):
provider yet, or hey, you needto find somebody you can trust
to come in and solve your HVACproblems.
It's actually one step furtherand say, hey, you're cold in the
wintertime or hot in thesummertime, really that that
pain point that the customer isexperiencing.
That's what we like to do atthe awareness and the top of
funnel level.
And then we can see when peopleengage with that.
So if people watch the videoall the way to completion or
(12:53):
people click on the ad to learna little bit more, that's where
now we can say, hey, okay, thoseads didn't necessarily have a
clear call to action or a clearconversion path, but we do have
an engaged audience that cameout of that.
So now let's retarget them withads that are a little bit more
clear of, hey, we've got a $99service call.
So go ahead and sign up with usso we can come and solve your
(13:15):
problem for you.
Janice Hostager (13:17):
Right, right.
With interruption basedmarketing too, I think that's a
good lesson to all of us.
I think it we get a little bitwhen we're putting ad together,
especially for our ownbusinesses, because I think we
have a real blind spot with ourown stuff, you know.
But uh it really has to grabthem as they're scrolling
through the feed, right?
So they really have to it hasto be something that they can
(13:39):
really attach to fast.
So that that initial hook hasto be very strong.
Andy Janaitis (13:44):
Exactly.
That's so important.
Janice Hostager (13:47):
So if someone is starting from zero and let's
say they decide they want to dosome Meta ads and they figured
out who their they know whotheir ideal customer is, and
let's say so what why don't youwalk us through what you would
recommend, like in terms of astarting point for doing media
ads?
Let's say they haven't run anybefore.
Andy Janaitis (14:05):
Yeah.
So these days on in bothplatforms, you know, typically
we're using automated biddingtechniques.
So what that means is you'renot doing a ton of targeting
based on very specific customerdemographics or very specific
customer intents.
More often what you're doing issaying, hey, I'm gonna go ahead
and measure once people viewthe ad or click on the ad, what
(14:26):
actually happens?
Do they ultimately fill out alead form?
Do they ultimately make apurchase from me?
And then I'm gonna use thatinformation to then go ahead and
optimize.
And the other piece of this iswe're gonna use the right
creative, the right videos andimages that really speak to our
ideal client and our idealclients are most likely to
engage with.
And that's how we're gonnatarget who the ads get shown to,
(14:47):
as opposed to manuallytargeting that audience.
So, all that to be said, thetwo really important things that
you need to have there is one,a good understanding of who your
audience is, and moreimportantly, like we just
discussed, what are the painpoints that they're feeling?
That's where you're gonna startto make your videos and images
that you're gonna use in yourads all around those kind of
points.
(15:08):
And then two, you want to makesure that you're technically set
up right so that that signal,as we call it, is is getting
pushed back to Meta.
So when somebody hits yourwebsite, you really understand
where did they come from?
Did they ultimately take theaction you wanted them to take,
fill out a lead form, make apurchase from you on the
website, and then we'resuccessfully passing that data
back into Meta so it canoptimize and start showing up
(15:31):
for other people like thosepeople who met your goals.
Janice Hostager (15:35):
Okay.
Okay.
So here's the thing that getsme about Meta ads.
And I've been doing this sincethe days of the Power Editor,
which was probably long beforeyou even started doing this.
So it was like reallyrudimentary at the beginning,
right?
So there was just like youpicked everything.
Andy Janaitis (15:48):
Yeah.
Janice Hostager (15:48):
And now Meta wants to pick everything.
And I am really kind of I don'tknow, a little uncomfortable
with that, I guess.
Is that something that yourecommend you let them them
choose?
Because I mean, yes, they haveall these data points on every
single user on all of theirplatforms, but how much are they
in it to make money and howmuch of it how how do you much
(16:11):
do you trust them?
I guess that's my question.
Andy Janaitis (16:12):
Yeah, I would say at a high level from trend
perspective, we get betterresults when we rely on kind of
those automated processes,right?
So both Meta and Google are setup these days that you're gonna
be more successful if you'renot you can you can hurt
yourself by trying to hold thosereins too closely, I'll say.
The big caveat there though isas you mentioned, both of those
(16:33):
platforms are in it to makemoney.
And oftentimes they'll give yousuggestions that are not in
your own best interest.
So you've got to understand whyyou're making the decisions
you're making.
So, you know, a good examplethat that we like to look at.
So I mentioned kind of audiencetargeting.
So when in on Meta, they have afeature called Advantage Plus
(16:53):
that's essentially saying, hey,I'm not gonna tell you exactly
the demographics or exactly theaudiences to target.
Instead, I'm gonna let you goout and find the right people
who are engaging with my ads andget in front of them.
And you can also add asuggestion and say, hey, these
are the types of people to startwith, and then you can go
beyond that and find morepeople.
That works pretty well, and wewe like to use that as long as
we have, you know, again, gooddata flowing back into the
(17:16):
system so that it is able tooptimize.
On the other hand, somethingelse they do is, hey, we'll have
you know automated updates toyour images and automated
updates to the text and the copythere, you know, and use AI to
generate new headlines andimages.
Sometimes that can work andthat can be okay, but it can
also present a brand safetyissue, right?
(17:37):
If there's you know certainthings, especially in certain
industries, there's certainthings that you're not allowed
to say, or there's certainthings that you know aren't
technically correct about theservices you offer, you've got
to be really, really careful tomake sure you understand what
are those auto-generated piecesthat are getting injected into
your ads.
So oftentimes we'll leave thoseturned off.
For some businesses, it's greatbecause it can help take a
(18:00):
little bit of information andgenerate it a little bit
further.
Or if they have limitedcreative to use, there's certain
tools we can use to kind ofexpand what's available to them.
But those ones I think you dohave to be a little bit more
careful and controlled about.
So all that to say, I thinkgenerally the automated
approaches are very helpful, butyou've got to know what you're
doing because again, it can getaway from you quickly if you
(18:21):
just follow all the suggestionsthat Meta or Google gives you.
Janice Hostager (19:37):
Right, right.
I've uh had clients that haverun into trouble with that in
the past.
I think Google is actuallywell, I don't know now, Meta's
gotten kind of complex too, butI think Google initially seemed
was so complex that people wouldeasily lose a lot of money on
Google running ads themselvesand and just not understanding
the bigger picture of it.
You know, it's not necessarilyeasy to go step by step with
(19:58):
some of these.
With with Meta, I I have beenunimpressed by their design
suggestions for sure, and alsosome of their headline
suggestions.
I was like, no, no, sorry.
Yeah, some of them arehorrible.
But you know, it's AI, and Iknow that AI is in the tendency
right now-ish.
So we'll see what happens inthe future with that.
(20:20):
So when you're working with anew client, so what mistakes do
you see that that people makegenerally when they rush into
launching an ad too fast?
Andy Janaitis (20:29):
Yeah.
So a few of the things, one, wetalked a lot about measurement
early.
That's probably the number onething is before we just start
running ads, make sure that youunderstand or that you're
technically set up so that thatsignal is coming back in.
The platform has as much dataas possible so it actually can
be successful and optimized.
Um, that's something that'sreally, really important.
Another thing is trying to dokind of too much, especially
(20:52):
with small budgets.
We say simplify, simplify,simplify, right?
So oftentimes we'll find anaccount where they're spending,
sometimes even with biggerbudgets, but with small budgets
especially.
And you say, hey, we're puttingin $1,000 a month or $1,500 a
month, and then we look into theaccount and there's eight
different campaigns.
So it's like, okay, you'retaking that small budget and
you're splitting it now eightdifferent ways.
(21:14):
The problem there is you justdon't have enough data coming
back.
Any one of those ads might havegotten less than 100 clicks,
say.
Or if you're looking for a leadform, some of those ads might
have less than four or five leadforms.
So if you have so little datacoming back in, one, there's no
opportunity for the model tooptimize at all because you've
split your budget so far that noone campaign has enough data,
(21:38):
has enough actions coming backinto it to be able to optimize.
And two, it's very easy tostart making decisions poorly
when you have so little data tomake your own kind of manual
decisions on it to say, hey,this campaign is doing better
than this campaign.
Oftentimes we'll find like,hey, after a week or two is run,
if you only have one lead formin one and three lead forms in
(21:59):
the other, that might just bestatistically good luck or bad
luck for one or the othercampaigns.
You really need to have enoughdata in that's to say that, hey,
this has a better conversionrate or this has a cheaper cost
per acquisition.
And not only does it have thatover a very small amount of
data, but as we start to growthat data, those relationships
(22:19):
hold and it's statisticallysignificant.
So that's one probably one ofthe next largest mistakes we see
people make is just splittinginto a million different
campaigns or a million differentcreative types, and then making
decisions too quickly whenthere's really not enough
statistically significant datain there to make those
decisions.
Janice Hostager (22:37):
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
So let's say somebody is goingto run one campaign.
They're let's say four leadmagnets, for example.
Do they so they do onecampaign?
Do they split it out still bydifferent ad sets, or do you
suggest one ad set and thenmultiple ads?
Well, say $20 a day.
Yeah.
So small budget.
What would be the best way ofmaking that $20 a day really
(23:02):
work for them so that they can,number one, see how well things
are really performing withoutbeing so granular that you know
they missed a mark altogether.
Andy Janaitis (23:11):
Exactly.
Yeah.
So I do like to split ad setson themes.
So start to think through if wehave, and and the reason for
that is it's easy at that pointto roll the creative up and to
kind of understand how adifferent type of creative is
performing.
Um, so an example I'll givesometimes if you have video
versus static.
You might have, okay, this ismy video ad set, and this is my
(23:35):
static ad set.
When you can kind of see now,okay, how much spend went into
each one, how many conversionsdid I get out of each one, and
start to make those decisions.
You can break it down even moregranular and say, hey, these
are my static images around thisparticular theme, or these are
my static images that have textoverlays on them, and these are
my static images that are cleanwith no text overlays on them.
(23:56):
Or similarly, in video, youcould say, hey, these are my
founder-driven videos and theseare my customer UGC driven
videos and break those intodifferent groups.
And then inside each of thosead sets, you could say, hey, I'm
trying out four or fivedifferent variations.
If I'm in the UGC videos, I'vegot four or five different
pieces of UGC, but those are allkind of grouped together into
(24:16):
UGC videos as an ad set.
So I think that can work reallywell just from a measurement
standpoint to see where thingsare coming in.
And with that small of abudget, typically what I would
suggest is don't set budgets atthe ad set level.
So what you're doing is say,hey, I've got one campaign, I
might break it into a bunch ofad sets, and then I just go
ahead and let Meta go crazy withdo I give $10 to this one ad
(24:40):
set and one dollar to this otherad set, or vice versa, as
opposed to setting it andsaying, hey, no, I want you to
spend evenly across all of thosead sets.
Spending evenly will certainlyget you a little bit more data
in a little more quickly, ormake sure that you have data
coming into every one of thosetypes of creative that you're
using.
The downside there though is ifyou only have, say, $20 a day,
(25:01):
you have so little data cominginto any one, it's tough to,
again, hit that level of likestatistical significance.
So when you let Meta just say,hey, I'm gonna spend more in
this particular ad set or lessin this particular ad set,
that's kind of letting Meta say,hey, you know, based on the
algorithm, this is what we thinkis going to perform the best,
or this is the ads that weexpect to perform the best.
(25:22):
So when you have those very,very small budgets, that's where
I would lean on Meta to makethose decisions as opposed to
manually making them yourself.
Janice Hostager (25:31):
Gotcha.
And what length of time wouldyou recommend running something
like that?
Andy Janaitis (25:35):
So we typically want to see between 30 to 50,
really on both platforms, we'llsay just as a rule of thumb, and
it's different for everybusiness, but you know, say 30
to 50 conversions before westart making a ton of a ton of
decisions on turning things offor turning things on, that type
of thing.
So part of it is gonna dependon where your budget is and is
your budget big enough that it'sgoing to push that many
(25:56):
conversions in.
Obviously, if you have a muchlarger budget, you can pivot and
make these changes more quicklybecause you have more data
coming in.
If you have a small budget andyou're just kind of dipping your
toe, oftentimes, especially atthat $20 a day, it's probably
gonna be a while before you getto that 30, 50 conversions,
especially depending on if youhave a higher ticket offer, it
might be a lot longer before youget 30 to 50 conversions.
(26:17):
That's where you're gonna haveto start to be smart about
making decisions on one step up.
If you're not getting that manyconversions, maybe we can start
to make decisions on what arefolks engaging with and driving
to the website cheapest, or whatare the ads that people are
most likely to watch the wholevideo all the way through at
least.
Because those you'll have alittle bit more data on.
(26:37):
You'll have more video views,obviously, than you'll have
people going to the website, andyou'll have more people going
to the website than you'll haveultimately lead forms or
conversions, whatever it is onyour website.
So just kind of thinkingthrough that before you really
start making these decisions,you want probably 30 to 50 good
data pieces before you startchoosing this one's actually
(26:58):
performing better than this one.
Janice Hostager (27:00):
Okay.
Okay.
So just to reiterate, so if youreally do have a small budget,
say $20 a day, one ad, maybe acouple of ad sets, and up to 10,
8, 10 ads.
Andy Janaitis (27:11):
Like you could, I mean, with that small of a
budget, you probably I'dprobably even compress it a
little bit further than that.
I probably wouldn't spread itthat wide, but I'd, you know,
I'd probably go with maybe onecampaign with a video ad set and
a static ad set, uh, and thenmaybe two or three videos and
three or four images, somethinglike that.
Just very rough numbers.
It could be different fordifferent for different
(27:32):
companies, but you don't need togo crazy.
Like try to test with just alittle bit first.
Janice Hostager (27:37):
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's just a matter of, Imean, letting it's really a
matter of letting Meta decide atthat point too, what it wants
to show people.
Exactly.
I would imagine based on thealgorithm.
Okay.
And and then, oh, go ahead.
Andy Janaitis (27:50):
I was just going to add too to that.
The creative is so, soimportant.
And a lot of times you'll seegurus out there that are talking
about creative variations.
And hey, we tested a hundreddifferent variations on this
specific video before we got tothe one that was performing
best.
A lot of times people getcaught up in that type of
advice.
And a lot of that is really forbigger brands that are spending
(28:12):
with much larger budgets.
So people will say, oh man,I've got to get, if I'm looking
at UGC, I've got to get 10different creators to create
individual pieces of UGC contentfor me first.
And then I'd like variations ofhooks and bodies and mix and
match all these differentthings.
Ultimately, the number onething, if you're spending $20 a
day, if you're at that level inyour business, the number one
(28:33):
thing is to really lock inwhat's your messaging, what's
the pain point that you'resolving, and who your ideal
customer is.
And as you start to get thosethings right, those small
variations of, hey, tweakingthis hook mixed with this body,
or if people even go to thelevel of like, hey, I've got a
blonde creator versus a brownhaired creator, it's like those
(28:53):
types of decisions later on willmake a lot of a lot of impact
because the creative really doesmatter.
And some creative goes viraland some doesn't.
But at that first stage, likeyou're just testing your basic
messaging.
Like, don't overthink it.
Just get a couple good ads thatare your best guess based on
your knowledge of the customerof like, these are what's going
(29:16):
to resonate with my customer,and test those out first.
Don't think about, hey, I'vegot to have again like 10, 20,
80 variations right as you'regetting started with a very
small budget.
Janice Hostager (29:28):
Yeah, that can really bog you down too,
especially in the in thecreative part of it.
You're doing different ads atdifferent sizes, and it just
gets to be too much.
And of course, there issomething you touched on
briefly, there is the landingpage as well.
So if you're sending somebodyto an optimized landing page,
you want to make sure that thatcontent resonates with the ad.
Andy Janaitis (29:50):
Exactly.
Yeah.
You want to make sure that thecontent that's in your ad is
matching the content thatthey're going to see on the
website.
So a simple way forservice-based providers, we
think that is just make sureyou're matching up the offers.
You know, if you're describingthat, hey, we do a free initial
estimate call or a free proposaltype call, and then you send
people to the page and thatoffer isn't really listed on the
(30:11):
landing page, or hey, it's moregenerally like a pricing page
or something like that, there'sgoing to be a dissonance there,
and that's where people start todrop off.
So make sure that you have areally tight path from the
information given in thecreative to what they're going
to find when they hit thelanding page.
And then that's where itbecomes a measurement thing.
A lot of times people will say,hey, I put in my $20 a day.
(30:33):
I ran it for a month, twomonths, didn't really see the
results I wanted to get.
What do I do next?
What do I change?
What do I do better?
And that's where you can startto look and say, hey, is the
cost per click too high?
Is it seven, eight dollars justto get somebody to click to the
landing page?
Hey, maybe it's a problem withyour ads.
It's not resonating with them.
They're nobody's reallyengaging, nobody's clicking and
(30:55):
getting to your site.
Or you might say, hey, my costper click has come down.
I've got good cheap trafficcoming to the site, but once
they hit there, nobody converts.
My conversion rate is superlow.
Okay, maybe the ads are fine,but you got to change what's
happening when people hit thatsite and figure out.
What you can do to add a littlemore social proof, or what you
can do to be a little clearer onexactly what the offer is.
(31:16):
And a great tool I always liketo recommend for people on that
landing page side.
If you're looking to optimizethe landing page, we use
Microsoft Clarity quite a bit.
It's a free tool and itactually gives you recordings of
what's happening when peoplehit the page.
So you'll be able to go backand see, hey, these are the
people who converted.
How much time did they spend ineach section?
(31:37):
Or hey, watch some of thepeople who dropped.
And do they all scroll down tothe same point and then
ultimately drop?
Is there a specific point onthe page where people start to
get confused or they're notseeing the testimonials that
they'd like to see, or they'rejust not comfortable with your
service, and that's where theydrop.
Okay, now I know where to go onthe landing page and where to
edit, where to add newcomponents in.
(31:57):
That can be a really, reallypowerful thing to see the actual
behavior of people when they'reon your site.
So that's Microsoft Clarity isa good free tool for that.
Janice Hostager (32:06):
Okay.
I'll put the link to that inthe show notes as well.
And and the whole process canbe extremely frustrating.
And I've been at it both as acreator and as somebody who is
working with clients to do thesame thing.
But the numbers do tell a storyand it's usually not personal.
I think that was the thing.
I think especially assolopreneurs, we we kind of take
offense initially and thinkmaybe nobody wants my product or
(32:29):
my service or whatever.
It could feel harsh and painfulat some times.
But but yeah, looking at theanalytics makes a huge
difference because then you cansee where people are dropping
off and where the funnel'sgetting clogged.
And then go ahead and changethat.
So yeah, I'm glad that youbrought that up.
So what changes are coming upthat business owners should be
(32:49):
prepared for, especially tothose without a tech team or
people running their ads?
Andy Janaitis (32:53):
Yeah.
Janice Hostager (32:54):
Anything that you know of.
Andy Janaitis (32:55):
So we definitely see increased reliance on AI
throughout everything.
One of the first places, andwe've talked about this at
length already, is making surethat you're relying on some of
the automated systems.
It's not just manual keywordtargeting or manual audience
targeting anymore.
It's really making sure thatyou give the platforms you're
measuring properly and then givethe platforms a space.
So that's the first place whereautomated bidding is getting
(33:17):
better and better and better.
Make sure you're using thepower of that and relying on
that tool in both platforms.
The other thing on the kind ofAI side is it really does change
the discoverability.
So people aren't necessarilysearching the way they were
previously, where you search inGoogle and you get a bunch of
links and you click through anddo your research on each
individual web page.
(33:38):
A lot of times you're gettingthe answer right at the top of
those search results if you'reon Google, or maybe you're not
even going to Google, you're onChat GPT or Perplexity.
So people are getting a lot ofinformation about your business
before they ever hit the websiteor before they ever get to the
page.
So there's different techniquesin the same way that we used to
optimize for showing up in thesearch engine, search engine
(33:58):
optimization or SEO.
Now you've got to think abouthow are you presenting yourself
and showing up in these LLMs.
We call that answer engineoptimization or AEO.
So that's a really big thingthat small businesses can start
to get ahead of.
A great piece of advice I liketo say is go to ChatGPT and say,
hey, can you show me thecompanies that are providing X
(34:19):
service to this type of customerin my local area and see if you
get mentioned or not.
And if you're not, then figureout what is it about those
competitors, what are where aretheir differentiators?
Make sure that you're gettingthat information and putting it
onto your website.
The big thing for that is usingstructured data.
So things like FAQs workreally, really well now because
(34:40):
people are asking thesequestions and getting an answer
directly.
They're not seeing a list oflinks, they're actually getting
a text-based answer.
So figure out what those keyquestions your customers are
asking.
Things like what is the cost toget this particular project
done?
Or what are some things tothink about when I'm hiring an
agency to do this particularthing for me?
Questions in FAQ sections tomake sure that you're showing up
(35:03):
and your information is showingup as often as possible in the
LLMs.
Janice Hostager (35:07):
Great advice.
Yeah, I just recently did anepisode all about that.
So I'll put the link to that inthe show notes as well.
Now you have a checklist,right?
That will help people get setup for ads.
Andy Janaitis (35:18):
Yes, yeah.
So as we mentioned, there's alot of fundamentals that people
typically need to be aware of.
So we have that checklist ofthose key things that you want
to make sure you have in placebefore you ever spend a dime on
ads.
It's really important to makesure that you've got your
website set up properly, you'remeasuring things, all the things
that we've talked about today.
So we've got that checklist.
If you come to ppcpitbulls.com,you can down that download that
(35:40):
checklist.
If that's a littleoverwhelming, you can always
just book a call with me too,and we'll walk through it
together and figure out whatyour next best step is and where
you can go to get your adsrunning properly.
Janice Hostager (35:50):
All great, great stuff.
And of course, I'll put thelink to that in the show notes
as well.
Thank you so much, Andy.
I have just been overwhelmed bythe amount of information that
you shared with us today, so Ireally appreciate it.
Andy Janaitis (36:02):
Awesome.
Janice Hostager (36:03):
So I hope that Andy's advice gave you a little
more confidence to go ahead andjump into pay-per-click ads.
For more information about Andyor anything we talked about
today, visitmyweeklymarketing.com forward
slash one thirty seven.
And please hit the followbutton so you never miss an
episode.
Thanks so much for spendingtime with me today.
I'll see you next week.
Bye for now.
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.