May 19, 2025 • 48 mins
Facebook ads have changed a lot over the years, but they’re still one of the most powerful tools available—if you know how to use them well. In this episode, ad strategist Stacy Covitz shares a practical, no-hype approach to getting started with Meta ads, even on a small budget. She explains how to build a strong foundation, reach the right people, and make the most of Meta’s targeting tools.
We also talk about what makes an ad worth clicking, which metrics actually matter, and why testing your offer is more important than perfect execution. If you’re ready to take a more thoughtful approach to Facebook and Instagram ads, this episode is a great place to start.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Janice Hostager (00:04):
I'm Janice Hostager.
After three decades in themarketing business and many
years of being an entrepreneur,I've learned a thing or two
about marketing.
Join me as we talk aboutmarketing, small business and
life in between.
Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
Hey, hey, and welcome toanother episode of My Weekly
(00:31):
Marketing.
When I started using Facebookads way back in 2012 for my then
business, there was a Chromeplugin that would help you
determine who you could targeton Facebook, and it was called
the Power Editor, and that wasthe only way you could choose an
audience.
Those were the golden days ofFacebook ads, when you could
(00:51):
still get a lot of organicengagement to your business page
and ads were pennies a click.
Boy, do I miss those days.
Now?
Facebook has about 52,000 datapoints on each user.
This includes demographic data,behavioral data such as likes,
shares and comments, the deviceyou use on Facebook, location
(01:14):
data, data from websites thatuse Facebook's AdPixel, data
obtained from third-partysources that Facebook is
partnered with, and informationprovided by advertisers, such as
customer lists or contactinformation.
So if you are now, or have everbeen, on Facebook, instagram or
any of Meta's sites, they knowyou well.
(01:34):
If you're someone that'sconcerned about your data being
used in the hands of corporateAmerica because it's all owned
by Meta.
It's probably not a good thing,but for those of us running ads
, it's a goldmine.
As an advertiser, you can onlyaccess about 100 points of data
to define your audience, buteven still, Facebook ads are
(01:55):
still one of the most powerfulforms of advertising for many
reasons.
So today we're diving deep intothe world of Facebook ads with
my friend, Stacy Covitz.
Stacy is a Facebook andInstagram ad strategist.
She helps experienced femaleentrepreneurs grow their
audience and make more saleswithout wasting time and money
on ads that don't work.
She's also a wife and mother offour.
(02:16):
So if you've used Facebook adsin the past or if you're new to
them, one thing that we all knowabout Facebook ads platform is
that it's always changing.
So this episode will help equipyou with practical insights and
some expert tips to help younavigate the complexity of
Facebook ads.
And be sure to stay on to theend when Stacy's sharing a link
(02:37):
to a quiz where you can find outif you're ready to run Facebook
ads in your business.
So here's my chat with Stacy.
Hey, Stacy, welcome to MyWeekly Marketing.
Stacy Covitz (02:47):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Janice Hostager (02:51):
All right so, before we jump into Facebook ads
, I was creeping on yourLinkedIn a little bit and you
have such a diverse background,including sales, non-profit,
teaching and of courseentrepreneurship, so what do you
think?
So, what has being anentrepreneur?
(03:13):
How have you brought all ofthat together?
And what has your backgroundbrought into your business?
Because I think this is,people's story is so interesting
because they bring so much intotheir own business.
So what is that for you?
Stacy Covitz (03:33):
Such a good question.
Didn't see that one coming.
It's interesting because mybackground, starting from a
teenager, before I was ateenager, 12 years old, my first
job was at a skating rink,roller skating rink, and so
customer service, you know,helping people at the snack bar
and it just evolved to morecustomer service, more customer
service, and then I was serverand I've had so many jobs and as
(03:57):
an entrepreneur, as you know,you do everything, right?
You have to know how to doeverything.
I mean, there's stuff that Ididn't do before, like tech and
all of that, but everything issales you know, you know,
attracting clients and havingcalls with clients and customer
(04:20):
service that's one of my big,big mission statements is I want
to give people really amazingservice.
And so, and I worked atcompanies like Delta Airlines,
Marriott, you know, big customerservice focused companies.
Sales, not usually my strongsuit, but I have done a lot of
jobs.
What I did for the longest timewas I stayed home with four
(04:58):
children, so that'll teach youeverything right how to
negotiate, how to give choicesand yes, so I think that having
so many jobs under my belt isdefinitely a benefit and has
helped me tremendously inentrepreneurship.
Janice Hostager (05:22):
Yeah, I love that you brought in parenting
too and sales for differentreasons, but you're absolutely
right.
As a parent, there is so muchlike years and years ago there
was a book called the One MinuteManager and I just read through
that and I thought not recently, but at the time years ago when
I read through it I thoughtthis is so applicable to
(05:45):
parenting.
You know catch them doingsomething right and you know
just like so much overlap inmanagement and parenting and
even just strategy.
You know getting through the dayor traveling with kids when
they're little, you know, I mean, it really does involve that
(06:06):
and pivoting, and there are somany parallels between things
that you learn as a parent andthings that you learn as an
entrepreneur.
For sure.
But, and sales too, I also.
You know, I think sales gets abad rap sometimes because it
really is about relationshipsand I know you and I know you're
very relational and you lovetalking to people and getting to
(06:27):
know them and that really issales too.
You know right, did you feellike that?
You were good at that becauseyou have that background in
sales or in relationships andrelationship building.
Stacy Covitz (06:40):
So, yes, and no.
Part of my relationshipbuilding is I'm so curious about
people, so curious about theirstories and you know everything.
Stuff that people wouldn't eventhink of, I think of, and so it
wasn't such a great asset insales because I have left
(07:01):
someone, when I was selling atone point insurance, I would do
these three-hour presentationsand be told you are the most
informative salesperson and youknow that's not really what you
should be doing in sales, butright like, oh, you're such a
(07:23):
great teacher.
I really enjoy sharingknowledge with people and that's
not necessarily the number oneskill you should have for sales.
Janice Hostager (07:35):
It wasn't a good fit for you is what you're
saying.
Stacy Covitz (07:41):
That is what I'm saying.
That is what I'm saying.
Janice Hostager (07:47):
Well now, I love that you're all about
Facebook ads, because and let meclarify here quickly when we
talk about Facebook ads, what Ireally mean is Meta ads, and
they're used on Facebook andInstagram, Messenger and the
Facebook audience network.
I hope I'm not leaving anybodyout there, but they're really, I
think, a good place, a goodstarting point for new
(08:10):
businesses.
Just getting comfortable withpaid ads.
What do you feel about that?
Do you think that's right?
Stacy Covitz (08:18):
Absolutely agree with you.
A lot of people think that ifyou're going to go into paid
advertising, that you need thishuge budget and you need this
huge audience and you need allof these things that are for
bigger businesses.
But what I found and what I tryto teach is that everybody
needs brand awareness, and oneof the best tools to get brand
awareness quickly and for a very, very low budget are Facebook
(08:55):
ads, because you can run theseyou know $2 a day type ads and
just have them running in thebackground and get your face
known and start being known asan expert in your industry and
you don't need a whole lot ofexperience to get those going.
So, yes, I absolutely agreethat there there is.
(09:16):
There is a Facebook ad strategyprobably for almost every kind
of business, in my opinion.
I'm sure there's exceptions,but.
Janice Hostager (09:26):
No, yeah.
I well, I agree, I thinkespecially yeah
Stacy Covitz (09:34):
What.
Janice Hostager (09:35):
Well, no, I was going to say is that,
especially in that awarenessstage, I think, as you were
talking about, or for businessesthat will be found on Facebook,
that you wouldn't necessarilygo to Google to find.
Like, if you have a pain pointor something like that that you
are seeking a quick solution for, then you might go to Google to
(09:55):
look for that.
But that awareness aspect,you're absolutely right.
You can run ads that are justto your content or to your site
for lead magnet or somethinglike that.
That would still be good forthat same audience.
Did that make sense, right?
Stacy Covitz (10:13):
Yes, yes, that does make sense.
That does make sense, and thegood thing about it versus
Google ads is a lot of peoplehave a guilty pleasure of just
doing this, right, all the time.
And that's the beauty ofFacebook and Instagram ads is
(10:33):
they're not necessarily working,like working at their job.
They're, you know, in bedbefore you know, doing, eating
dinner.
Whatever they're doing whilethey're scrolling and you can
capture their attention and itmight not be something that they
were thinking of.
Janice Hostager (10:54):
So when you first?
So if you're first running anad and let's say you're not
necessarily trying to sell atthat point, what do you have it
go to?
Do you have it go to a leadmagnet, or do you have it go to
maybe an article or a podcast,or what is it that you would
send somebody to?
Stacy Covitz (11:14):
So when someone is brand new and they want just to
get some recognition, a lot oftimes I like to start with no
call to action, not sending themanywhere.
So because the deeper you getclicking and you're asking for a
(11:35):
click or you're asking for somesort of conversion, the ads get
more expensive.
So if you're just starting out,you can do no call to action,
no clicking necessary, justrunning.
You know, like video view adsand you can.
(11:56):
The reason why I love those somuch is you can really do a lot
of testing that way before youstart ramping up.
So test your headlines, testyour copy, your creative and
just start running those.
I don't want to say baby ads,because they're not baby ads.
I encourage even my clientsthat have big ad budgets and are
(12:20):
running conversion ads toalways be running these in the
background because you'rebuilding.
You can build up an audiencethat way and attract more people
if that makes sense yeahtotally yeah.
It's essentially like organic Ifyou're posting on Facebook and
then you come back and you say,okay, I just spent all this time
(12:44):
on this beautiful graphic and Iwent all out and three people
saw it.
Nobody commented, nobody sharedit, nothing happened, and so
it's like that, except you couldget thousands of people to see
it, and that's a difference.
So you're not asking for themto actually take any action, but
(13:06):
you're getting awareness.
Janice Hostager (13:09):
So if you're getting engagement on, let's say
, an ad like that, does thatbenefit your account as a whole?
Stacy Covitz (13:19):
That's such a good question because that's another
reason why I encourage people,even if they're not necessarily
ready for ads and they don'thave everything dialed in yet.
When you first open a Meta adsaccount, they have a lot of
(13:39):
policies and procedures and nowthey have bots in place and
brand new accounts are gettingflagged and you have a small ad
limit in the beginning, likesometimes $2 a day, where
they'll cap you.
So, to answer your question,yes, because if you could start
(14:00):
running those type of ads, youare seasoning your account, you
are proving to Meta you're areal business, you're a real
person, and the algorithm isstarting to get to know you and
who you're targeting and whatyour messaging is, and so by the
time you are ready, it's reallylike you know how, like just
(14:21):
Chat GPT is so much smarter themore you use it, right?
So it's a, the meta algorithmis just scary smart.
Janice Hostager (14:31):
Yeah, yeah, and that's interesting because
you're right, they have so manydata points on every single
human being that's ever walkedinto the metasphere for sure, so
does that help?
Let's say in organic, let's sayI'm running some, so what do
(14:51):
you call these?
What is your term for that?
Like, not awareness,necessarily, or maybe awareness
ads?
Is that what you call them?
Stacy Covitz (14:58):
Yeah, building brand awareness billboard ads.
You know it's like a billboard,that you would see something
like that.
So so you can have them runningdifferent ones, and then by the
time you are ready to have somesort of a conversion ad, you've
already been targeting the sameaudience with these, with these
(15:19):
ads, and so people all of asudden, when they're in the
market for it, they say, oh, Iknow her, I know Janice, she's
that marketing person.
I see her all the time, she'severywhere and you've spent $2 a
day, so it's pretty powerful.
Janice Hostager (15:40):
Right right, I didn't realize that about new
accounts, that meta limits theirspend, that puts all these kind
of breaks on their ads.
That's really kind ofinteresting.
So much has changed.
I mean every day somethingchanges on their ad platform.
Stacy Covitz (15:57):
Please don't get me started on that.
Oh, my goodness, every day.
Janice Hostager (16:03):
Yeah, yeah.
So what about their overall?
So if I'm going to run anawareness ad or a billboard ad,
will that benefit me when I goto post or make an organic post?
Stacy Covitz (16:17):
That's a good question.
I have found so, in fact, acampaign I was just running for
a client she was.
She was we were doingconversion ads to get people to
sign up for a webinar and theywere crushing it.
They were doing so so great andwe've turned them off because
(16:40):
it happened and it wassuccessful.
And now I look at her organicand it see ms - and I don't
know, the a nswer is I don'tknow There could be an answer
and that's interesting and I'mgoing to write it down because I
want to find out but it seemslike her organic, social, is now
(17:01):
being seen more.
Janice Hostager (17:03):
Okay, so..
,
I don't know.
Well, I'm curious because you know, when
you engage with a post, any post, especially repeatedly, you're
going to see it more in yourfeed.
So that's going to get, you'regoing to get greater engagement
overall.
So I was curious whether or not, after the ad was turned off,
whether that would still be athing.
(17:24):
I think officially they wouldsay I've heard it both ways.
I mean, I've been with Facebookads so many years that and they
changed so many things in theprocess.
But initially they said - theydon't really say.
But initially the data saidthat yes, it did help.
But then for a while it was notit didn't seem to help.
(17:46):
So I was curious whether or notyou'd seen that with clients or
if it didn't make anydifference.
Just kind of curious.
And maybe it depends, is theanswer with Facebook.
Stacy Covitz (17:59):
Everything.
Everything is it depends, right?
I feel like my business answerseems to be it wouldn't benefit
them necessarily for that to bethe case, right?
And if you want to take Meta asa company and kind of their
(18:23):
model, I would say probably not.
They probably pay to play andonce you turn it off, but I
don't know.
So that's not for me to say.
Janice Hostager (18:36):
Oh sure, yeah, it does sound that way, n.
(19:04):
So uh, what are the primaryreasons that businesses should
consider using Facebook Ads aspart of their strategy?
Is it awareness?
Is it engagement?
Are there different reasons forusing it across what I call the
Trail of the Sale, fromawareness, all the way to when
they buy and refer?
All of the above and it justdepends on what your goal is.
So if you're brand new and youfeel like your organic social
media is going nowhere andyou're shouting out to just the
abyss and nobody's seeinganything, that's a great place
to start.
Let's start running some youknow billboard ads.
(19:26):
Let's start getting you know,get an ad account, start
building up an audience, testingout some copy messaging all the
way up to.
I have this product and it'sselling really well right now
organically, but I feel likeI've capped out.
(19:46):
I really want to scale.
So now you've got an offerthat's already selling, you have
your audience, you have yourmessaging, everything is dialed
in.
You could really, really makea lot more if you start putting
ads towards that product.
(20:08):
Now, the other side of that arepeople that are just launching
a product for the first time andthey've never tested it.
That is a disaster waiting tohappen and that is where you
(20:33):
hear ads don't work, right?
"Oh, I tried ads.
It didn't work," and a lot oftimes it's because you didn't
have an offer that was alreadyproven and selling and people
loving it.
sBrick and mortar businesses for
traffic.
You know you have a restaurant,you can use a coupon code.
Or, you know, get this freesandwich if you buy one or give
(20:59):
us this code so you could dothat.
There are people that arepodcasters.
You could do ads for traffic.
You want to get more downloadsfor your podcast.
There's so many ways that youcould use ads to really boost
your business, as long as you doit with strategy in mind, right
(21:24):
, You're not just going in thereand pushing buttons and hoping.
Right, and n I think that'swhat you hit on too is that you
need to think this through andyou think through the whole
sales journey, the customerjourney, what their goals are,
first of all, starting with that, of course, and then who their
audience is, and thinkingthrough the whole big picture of
it.
So, y choosing N audienceNow, in the olden days when I
(21:49):
started doing ads, I would go inthere and there used to be some
great tools in there for reallyunderstanding who your ideal
customer was and targeting themto a T.
Now they have like somethingcalled Advantage Plus right, and
some other tools, and theyprobably have changed since I
last opened it two weeks ago.
(22:09):
That really will.
they'll choose your audiencefor you.
So I've heard some experts say,"eah, yeah, let them choose it.
They know more than you do,"which makes sense to me, and
actually I did that on the lastad that I ran.
I let them choose my audienceand they did a really pretty
good job, I must say.
But I've also heard some peoplesay "No, no, you want to go in
(22:31):
there and choose the audience.
Is it a one or the other, oris it a sometimes both either,
and neither nor?
Stacy Covitz (22:41):
All of the above.
So for me, I'm still in the "Iwant control", because I like
you.
I remember whe, when we, whenwe controlled exactly who we
were showing it to m.
Now it's great to test, right.
So have have one, run twocampaigns exactly the same: one
(23:04):
ad set with let them choose, andone with your targeting and see
what happens, You know,depending on what your niche is
like.
I just had this client that shewas so specialized.
There's no way I was going tolet Facebook choose.
There's no way, because I mean,she, her audience is probably
100,000 people in the country,so that would make no sense.
(23:28):
And it's interesting because Ijust did a podcast episode about
targeting and audiences.
And you're right.
It used to be, ,oh, everyonehad to like Amy Porterfield and
yoga, and they have to beengaged shoppers and you know
all the layers.
And now I think that that canactually go against you.
(23:52):
I think that you really need tojust have maybe one interest,
you know, one thing at a timeand then always test with them,
letting them decide.
l I t like to, I like to do alittle of both.
So an , I d I Irange I do women, you know, 30
(24:14):
to whatever 60, and then therest you know in the country,
because I wouldn't want to doevery country and t see what
happens.
But they are so smart now theyare so smart.
Janice Hostager (24:31):
So you would just do basic demographics, and
then let them choose the otheraudience, Like test one.
that's basic demographics, ordo you test going pretty deep?
Stacy Covitz (24:48):
graphics, or or do you test going pretty deep just
So I'll do a broad.
S o, and broad means, I wouldsay, women in this age range in
the US, and then you do the rest, You find the rest of the
people, and then I will haveanother audience that I want to
control.
b I w t k.
I w t .
B Because I want to know,because otherwise, how do you
know who is responding?
(25:12):
If you're letting them choose.
I like to have a little bit ofcontrol, especially if I'm going
to retarget, because I want toknow which right.
I want to know who, what typeof people, which audience is
working.
Y, eah.
Janice Hostager (25:28):
S, lthough I will say that I got m- -my ad
did , a well and of coursethere's so many factors that go
into an ad that The well, thelast time I ran one and let them
choose the whole thing, Ididn't test it, which I should
have, shame on me, but I was ina hurry.
But you know, and I got it wasfor it was for lead magnet and I
(25:50):
got a lot of downloads and thecost per click was really good.
I can't recall exactly what itwas, but it was.
It was nominal and I was reallyhappy with it.
Yay, but that may be that oneparticular segment of the
audience.
It may have been what I wasselling, it may have been.
There's so many variables thatgo into an ad so it's hard to
(26:14):
know.
But I was just curious to likeif you had one or the other that
you lean towards and it soundslike you don't.
You're saying test both.
Stacy Covitz (26:22):
Yes, I don't ever.
I don't ever just let themdecide.
I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't have a client andjust leave it all to Meta.
Yeah, and I shouldn't say never, because everything's changing.
And one of my when I said don'tget me started on all the the
changes.
Every day, sometimes twice aday, I'll go in there and I'll
(26:48):
say where did this setting go?
Why is this called this?
And now, a big thing that isjust is if I don't want them to
choose my creative and you know,oh, enhancements and all of
this, if I don't want that, Ihave to go in and click off,
(27:10):
click off, click off, click off.
And if you don't know how to dothat or where to go, you're
kind of just, you're just attheir mercy, which I don't like.
But I mean I'll have to evolve,right, we're evolving.
Janice Hostager (27:28):
I mean, I'm with you.
It is very hard to stay up withall the changes that take place
on there, and that's why thereare people like you in the world
that can help us businessowners, because it is really
hard.
I mean, even having done thisfor years and years, I get a
little nervous when I'm like,okay, I don't, what is this?
This is a new thing.
I don't know what this is, youknow, and especially if I'm
(27:50):
doing it for a client, which iswhy now I tend to outsource that
because, honestly and that'strue of a lot of areas of
marketing there's so manychanges, there's so much depth
to it that there's no possibleway that we can stay on top of
everything.
A for me, as a strategist lother than what you just talked
about with starting withbillboard ads and kind of going
(28:27):
beyond that a little bit A theresome tips and tricks that you
like to utilize, or are you notwanting to share those?
Stacy Covitz (28:37):
I can put that under the.
"t depends right.
It depends a lot, I would say alot on the offer and a lot on
the budget, because a l, o, alot of people will come to you
and they'll say, okay, well, I,you know, I have, I have kind of
a big budget, you know, $300.
And oh, yeah, okay, yeah,that's right.
Janice Hostager (29:00):
G a f a t t y t r, might not go as far as they
think y.
Stacy Covitz (29:05):
Yeah, it doesn't go very far, so it does just
depend.
It's interesting because, youknow, you and I were at Social
Media Marketing World togetherand there were some workshops
that had some unique strategiesthat I'm excited to test.
But you know, right now, Iwould say, messaging is pretty
(29:32):
much trending.
You know, it doesn't have to bea bot like a m Chat, it could
just be message me this word,and those are performing pretty
well a It kind of goes all overthe place, like it used to be
(29:52):
video.
You know, videos, video, video,video.
And now carousels areperforming really well because
you can have 10 slides and eachslide could be a different
message and a different.
You message, know, you couldsend you them to a different
place.
So it's kind of kind of a great, I would say, like a good bang
(30:16):
for your buck, carousel ads andthey and they perform really
well.
But yeah it, it just depends onso many things.
I would say the messaging adsare working pretty well.
Janice Hostager (30:32):
So you're talking about, like, integration
with ManyChat or something likethat, where you just say
"comment podcast below and we'llsend you a link to it, kind of
thing.
Stacy Covitz (30:42):
Yes, yes, and I will caution about a basic word
like that and make it more of ai a if you're going to try this
, make it more of a podcastnumber 27, something like that,
Because if it's a word likepodcast or ad or whatever,
something that's generic, itcould kind of send it off the
(31:06):
rails because a lot of peoplewill not be expecting, not be
intending to get a message andthen the bot is triggering
because you know what I mean.
So they may just have a commentusing those words yes, and ' 're
(31:26):
getting yes and their inbox isfull of y yes yes .
s yes yes correct, correct so bea little bit more specific, and
the nice thing is is you don'thave to have, you Many don't hat
even have to have many chat,because you can Meta.
do r this s natively u in u inmeta really set up us.
It's a shorter, you know it'snot going to be a very robust
(31:46):
sequence, but it could be, youknow, a couple steps.
Janice Hostager (31:49):
Okay, r, t, I didn't even know that.
Well, it's like I got to get myhead in there again and figure
out what's going on.
h hallenges hallenges hallengesI think when working with
clients is that they look atafter the ad has run.
They'll look at all the metricsand won't really know how to
(32:14):
read them or what metrics theyshould pay attention to.
So do you feel like there'ssome KPIs or key performance
metrics that you base, like yoursuccess on, or that people
should look for when they'redoing ads?
Stacy Covitz (32:25):
Yes, great question, and I just did a
podcast about this.
O, ecause a lot of people willbe very disappointed because
they think that their ads didn'twork, but the reality is they
weren't looking at the rightmetrics, because it's not a
one-size-fits-all.
(32:46):
It depends on what your NorthStar goal is.
If I'm going for sales, I don'ta awareness billboard for a
retargeting I d w want, I don'tcare about clicks, I don't care
(33:09):
about cost per click, becauseI'm not asking them to click, I
just want them to watch thisvideo.
And it's interesting because ifyou're not skilled in ads
manager and how it's set up, youcould adjust all of the columns
(33:30):
and the different reporting soit only shows what you're
interested in, but itauto-populates.
And so if you, let's say, youran a video view campaign and
you go to your campaign and thenyou're looking at performance,
let's say, and it'll have costper click and it'll have all of
these metrics that arecompletely irrelevant to what
(33:53):
you should be looking for orhoping to get And and so you
could look at that and not knowand think"h oh, this is terrible
.
I didn't get any clicks Okayokay, but did you have a call to
(34:26):
action for anybody to click?
No So so as long as you knowhow to set up your columns so So
you you're only testing orlooking at the metrics that are
relevant to what you're tryingto do.
So if you you have, if you'reselling something and you don't
want to go above l a a 30 a saleand this is for a high ticket,
you know, or I don't want to go,I don't want to spend more than
sale, 30 per sale then you wantto see your cost per cost right
result That's Right, that's a, ametric that's important to you.
If you're getting clicks andyour cost per result is low and
(34:55):
everything is coming in andyou're getting sales and
conversions and it's justcrushing it, you shouldn't
really care what your CPM is, ifthat makes sense.
Yes, we have this, I do in myhead.
I have a certain number.
I want to make sure that my CPMis under, but, like this last
campaign that I i w, it was.
(35:16):
I couldn't have asked for abetter campaign and a better
result.
But, yeah, the CPM was a littlebit higher.
So it depends.
That's the answer.
then Then have a look at the bigpicture.
You know, do a more in-depthaudit, but there's some basic
(35:51):
KPIs to check for.
You're not getting any clicks.
Okay, what's your creative.
You know what does that looklike?
So you know there's some basicformulas like like.
So S y k t.
s There's T s b f l t gettingclicks but nobody's converting.
Okay, so what is your landingpage like?
(36:13):
So I mean the metrics.
Definitely you want to.
They tell a story.
Janice Hostager (36:20):
They do.
Yeah, and I work.
I work with clients about thata lot, because e everything you
can see where the audiencestarts falling off, and that's
the point in which you need tostart looking.
And it's easy to say, "oh mygosh, my ad didn't convert o it
didn't.
nobody, not a lot of people,clicked on it.
(36:41):
Therefore, it you know it mustbe me or it must be my product
or my ad.
Really, right, Don't we kind ofdo that?
Sometimes you know it's like,"oh, "what was I thinking?
You know I shouldn't have donethis or that.
We kind of beat ourselves up.
But in fact, there's, like yousaid earlier I think it was
before we started recording,it's like it's all data r, And
(37:01):
it's the quote I used, was andI've used this before on my
podcast, it's like you eitherget the answer you wanted or the
results you needed.
And that is true in ads, that'strue in anything in marketing.
And that's what I love aboutdata.
I'm not a numbers person at all, but the data really do help
(37:21):
you when you're trying to figureout why things are not working.
It tells you what to look at,for sure.
So I love that.
You said that.
Stacy Covitz (37:30):
Y, I love it, I love looking at all of it.
I'm not an expert by any means,but I would love to.
I mean I love learning, so Iwould love to just know
everything about that.
And now they have you know.
I mean I went to one again, theconvention, and now they have
you know, I mean I went to oneagain, the convention, One of
(38:02):
the programs, just it's kind ofcreepy.
Janice Hostager (38:04):
How detailed you could see what your customer
journey and where they'refalling off.
And you know the hot heat mapsand all of that.
I'm sure you're aware of all ofthose.
It really is.
There are so many tools outthere that didn't exist for
anybody before the computer age.
I don't know how they soldanything.
Honestly, you know, it's justlike it's a lot of guessing, you
know, and.
But yeah, and it's just gettingmore and more targeted, with AI
coming in, and just about everysingle piece of software I use
(38:30):
is integrating AI at some pointin the process.
You know everything fromPhotoshop to, well, Meta, if
we're doing ads, they'reintegrating AI.
I mean, everybody's integratingAI right now.
And why not?
Because it's a time saver andit makes our job so much easier,
especially as business ownersCould talk all day on this.
Stacy Covitz (38:50):
but and I probably will at some point I know, I
know, and it's yeah, it's amixed bag.
It's amazing, amazing.
Janice Hostager (38:59):
Yeah, so talk to me a little about retargeting
.
What role does that play inmaintaining engagement and
conversions on Facebook, likewhen do you use retargeting ads
and when do you not?
Stacy Covitz (39:13):
Let's say I don't have any audience and I want to
build up an audience, I will,let's say, let Meta decide who
(39:36):
they send these to, and I woulddo.
You know, engagement videoviews.
And then I would go and I wouldlook at my metrics and I would
filter out the people or thesegment of how many video views
I got, and then you could say50%.
You know, 50% view.
So if your video, let's say, isa minute and someone is
(39:59):
watching 30 seconds, well, intoday's world, whew, wow, they
love you.
Janice Hostager (40:04):
That's pretty good.
Yes, they love you, right.
Stacy Covitz (40:15):
Yes, so that would .
I would make a custom audienceout of those people.
And if I have a really nicheaudience that I'm going after
Target and they watch a hundredpercent, I feel like that's a
slam dunk If you were talkingabout something that is so off
the wall to most people andsomeone's watching that for two
minutes, either they have toomuch time on their hands or
(40:37):
they're your ideal client.
So I would take those audiencesand create a custom audience,
which is a beautiful thing thatyou could do in meta and then I
would use that audience for mymiddle of funnel.
I would call that a warm lead.
So that would be my.
That would be my middle bottomthe funnel, where I would be now
(40:59):
going for the ass, going forthe sale or, you know, get an
appointment or something likethat.
So that's how I use it to tobuild up an audience.
Janice Hostager (41:10):
Or you could take that group of leads and run
conversion ads to them in metaas well.
Stacy Covitz (41:15):
Yes, exactly, I'm sorry, that's what I meant.
Yes, oh, so take that customaudience so I would create
audience from you know this manyminutes watched and then I
would show those people myconversion ads.
Love that and they're warm, youknow they're warm leads.
(41:36):
They already know me, theyalready like me.
They watched a minute of somerandom.
You know if you're completelyon some random topic and
someone's watching it, you knowand they love it and they're
watching it, then yay, part ofme wants to go into like, okay,
explain how you do that sopeople can understand.
Janice Hostager (41:57):
But then I realize that that gets kind of
complex, especially when we'reon a podcast because we can't
show video here.
Stacy Covitz (42:02):
Yes, yes, yes, I mean, that is the beautiful
thing about meta advertising isthere's three types of audiences
.
So there's your broad, you know, you just let meta decide.
There's your custom audience,which is what I was just
referring to, which isessentially everybody on the
(42:25):
platform or on your website thathas engaged with you somehow.
Either they've commented,they've gone to your website.
If it's pixeled, that's adifferent topic.
So you can create audiences,specific audiences, that refer
(42:46):
to people that visited mywebsite all the way up to six
months ago, people that engagedwith me on Instagram.
That could be one audience.
So then you can go and say,well, this product does really
well on Instagram and so I'mgoing to target all these people
(43:06):
that have engaged with me onInstagram and that's how I'm
going to send my ad to and youknow, talk about targeting,
right, right, those are yourpeople.
They are.
Yeah, so, yeah, so you can do a,you know, just a regular
audience and then, or you canhave a custom audience, and then
(43:27):
they have other audiences thatyou can create, which are called
lookalike audiences, which youcould take 1%, 3% of, let's say,
your email list.
You could upload your emaillist into Meta and target them,
(43:49):
or you can exclude them.
Well, they're getting rid ofthat.
I shouldn't say that.
Janice Hostager (43:53):
But oh, are they Good to know.
Okay, right.
Stacy Covitz (43:58):
I know I was like no, yeah so exclusion right now
is still possible yeah, soexclusion right now is still
possible.
So you want to exclude all yourbuyers.
Let's say, if you want to gobroad, yeah, so you can do a
lookalike audience, which isfind me people that are like
these people, so they have thesame, you know, interests and
(44:21):
age, demographic and all of that.
Find those people for me.
And those do really well, Imean surprisingly so.
Lookalike audiences sometimesare just like a secret gem.
Janice Hostager (44:37):
They are and there are so many things that
you can do with that informationand I think people, when
clients that I meet, they'll sayI just want to run an ad, but
there's so many layers of peoplein there and you talked about
the, you know the lookalikeaudiences and I think, as I
understood it, 1% means thatthey are going to be most
(44:59):
closely aligned with you, right?
And 2% gets a little furtherout, right?
Thank you, Okay.
Stacy Covitz (45:05):
That's exactly.
Yeah, that's exactly what it is, and I couldn't, I couldn't, I
couldn't explain it.
Janice Hostager (45:11):
Well, because at some point that 1%, you're
going to kind of exhaust thatgroup of people.
So you want to go a littlebroader out as you go along,
correct, if you're hitting thatsame audience.
Stacy Covitz (45:22):
Yes, yes, and if I'm doing a lookalike audience,
I will do several.
I'll you know.
I'll test 1% and then I'll test3%.
Oh okay, you know, and then ifI'm not getting results, I might
go up to 5%, but depending onhow much I'm putting towards it,
I might not go higher than that, gotcha.
Janice Hostager (45:44):
Wow Well, stacey you have been so helpful
in helping me get caught up onwhat's happening with Facebook
ads and helping my listenersunderstand really the basics of
running a Facebook ad.
And you have a freebie for us,right?
Stacy Covitz (46:03):
I do Tell us more about that freebie for us, right
?
Tell us more about that.
I'm super excited about this.
So, speaking of AI, I justcreated a custom GBT.
So it's like using ChatGBT andyou do need to have the paid
version.
And if you don't have the paidversion and you want to still do
this, I have a PDF as well.
So you go in and you it's a aquiz and it will help you if
(46:27):
you're ready for Facebook ads.
So it's a question, it's goingto ask you questions and you
answer and you can have a chatwith it, conversation, whatever
you want, and it's going to helpyou decide if you're ready for
Facebook ads and if you're not.
It's a checklist to see whatyou need to get going, to get up
(46:53):
to speed, to not waste yourmoney, because that is my
mission is to make sure thateverybody that puts money in
gets some sort of value whenthey are doing their ads.
Janice Hostager (47:03):
That is such a great idea.
I love that because you'rereally going to.
I mean, I get that questionquite a bit.
It's like, should I be runningFacebook ads?
And this will just answer thatquestion.
I absolutely love it and I'llput the link to that in the show
notes.
And Stacey people could findyou on LinkedIn, instagram, all
(47:25):
of the above.
Stacy Covitz (47:26):
Yes, all of the above.
All of the above, and I'm likethe collar with no shoes, so I'm
not that active on Instagramand Facebook but, I am there.
Janice Hostager (47:38):
I think we've had this conversation, because,
yeah, I you know it's like whenyou're taking care of all the
other people's accounts, it'sreally hard to focus on your own
, and I think anybody inbusiness kind of understands
that.
Stacy Covitz (47:50):
Right right.
Janice Hostager (47:52):
Thank you so much for being with us today and
I appreciate it, and I willshare all the links to
everything that you offered.
Stacy Covitz (48:03):
Thank you so much for having me.
Janice Hostager (48:10):
And that's a wrap.
For more information aboutanything we talked about today,
visit myweeklymarketingcom.
Forward slash 108.
That's 108.
Remember that in theever-evolving world of marketing
and small business, there'salways something new to learn,
so be sure to subscribe soyou'll always stay up to date.
Thanks so much for joining metoday.
See you next time.
Bye for now.
I'm Janice Hostager.
After three decades in themarketing business and many
years of being an entrepreneur,I've learned a thing or two
about marketing.
Join me as we talk aboutmarketing, small business and
life in between.
Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
Hey, hey, and welcome toanother episode of My Weekly
(00:31):
Marketing.
When I started using Facebookads way back in 2012 for my then
business, there was a Chromeplugin that would help you
determine who you could targeton Facebook, and it was called
the Power Editor, and that wasthe only way you could choose an
audience.
Those were the golden days ofFacebook ads, when you could
(00:51):
still get a lot of organicengagement to your business page
and ads were pennies a click.
Boy, do I miss those days.
Now?
Facebook has about 52,000 datapoints on each user.
This includes demographic data,behavioral data such as likes,
shares and comments, the deviceyou use on Facebook, location
(01:14):
data, data from websites thatuse Facebook's AdPixel, data
obtained from third-partysources that Facebook is
partnered with, and informationprovided by advertisers, such as
customer lists or contactinformation.
So if you are now, or have everbeen, on Facebook, instagram or
any of Meta's sites, they knowyou well.
(01:34):
If you're someone that'sconcerned about your data being
used in the hands of corporateAmerica because it's all owned
by Meta.
It's probably not a good thing,but for those of us running ads
, it's a goldmine.
As an advertiser, you can onlyaccess about 100 points of data
to define your audience, buteven still, Facebook ads are
(01:55):
still one of the most powerfulforms of advertising for many
reasons.
So today we're diving deep intothe world of Facebook ads with
my friend, Stacy Covitz.
Stacy is a Facebook andInstagram ad strategist.
She helps experienced femaleentrepreneurs grow their
audience and make more saleswithout wasting time and money
on ads that don't work.
She's also a wife and mother offour.
(02:16):
So if you've used Facebook adsin the past or if you're new to
them, one thing that we all knowabout Facebook ads platform is
that it's always changing.
So this episode will help equipyou with practical insights and
some expert tips to help younavigate the complexity of
Facebook ads.
And be sure to stay on to theend when Stacy's sharing a link
(02:37):
to a quiz where you can find outif you're ready to run Facebook
ads in your business.
So here's my chat with Stacy.
Hey, Stacy, welcome to MyWeekly Marketing.
Stacy Covitz (02:47):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Janice Hostager (02:51):
All right so, before we jump into Facebook ads
, I was creeping on yourLinkedIn a little bit and you
have such a diverse background,including sales, non-profit,
teaching and of courseentrepreneurship, so what do you
think?
So, what has being anentrepreneur?
(03:13):
How have you brought all ofthat together?
And what has your backgroundbrought into your business?
Because I think this is,people's story is so interesting
because they bring so much intotheir own business.
So what is that for you?
Stacy Covitz (03:33):
Such a good question.
Didn't see that one coming.
It's interesting because mybackground, starting from a
teenager, before I was ateenager, 12 years old, my first
job was at a skating rink,roller skating rink, and so
customer service, you know,helping people at the snack bar
and it just evolved to morecustomer service, more customer
service, and then I was serverand I've had so many jobs and as
(03:57):
an entrepreneur, as you know,you do everything, right?
You have to know how to doeverything.
I mean, there's stuff that Ididn't do before, like tech and
all of that, but everything issales you know, you know,
attracting clients and havingcalls with clients and customer
(04:20):
service that's one of my big,big mission statements is I want
to give people really amazingservice.
And so, and I worked atcompanies like Delta Airlines,
Marriott, you know, big customerservice focused companies.
Sales, not usually my strongsuit, but I have done a lot of
jobs.
What I did for the longest timewas I stayed home with four
(04:58):
children, so that'll teach youeverything right how to
negotiate, how to give choicesand yes, so I think that having
so many jobs under my belt isdefinitely a benefit and has
helped me tremendously inentrepreneurship.
Janice Hostager (05:22):
Yeah, I love that you brought in parenting
too and sales for differentreasons, but you're absolutely
right.
As a parent, there is so muchlike years and years ago there
was a book called the One MinuteManager and I just read through
that and I thought not recently, but at the time years ago when
I read through it I thoughtthis is so applicable to
(05:45):
parenting.
You know catch them doingsomething right and you know
just like so much overlap inmanagement and parenting and
even just strategy.
You know getting through the dayor traveling with kids when
they're little, you know, I mean, it really does involve that
(06:06):
and pivoting, and there are somany parallels between things
that you learn as a parent andthings that you learn as an
entrepreneur.
For sure.
But, and sales too, I also.
You know, I think sales gets abad rap sometimes because it
really is about relationshipsand I know you and I know you're
very relational and you lovetalking to people and getting to
(06:27):
know them and that really issales too.
You know right, did you feellike that?
You were good at that becauseyou have that background in
sales or in relationships andrelationship building.
Stacy Covitz (06:40):
So, yes, and no.
Part of my relationshipbuilding is I'm so curious about
people, so curious about theirstories and you know everything.
Stuff that people wouldn't eventhink of, I think of, and so it
wasn't such a great asset insales because I have left
(07:01):
someone, when I was selling atone point insurance, I would do
these three-hour presentationsand be told you are the most
informative salesperson and youknow that's not really what you
should be doing in sales, butright like, oh, you're such a
(07:23):
great teacher.
I really enjoy sharingknowledge with people and that's
not necessarily the number oneskill you should have for sales.
Janice Hostager (07:35):
It wasn't a good fit for you is what you're
saying.
Stacy Covitz (07:41):
That is what I'm saying.
That is what I'm saying.
Janice Hostager (07:47):
Well now, I love that you're all about
Facebook ads, because and let meclarify here quickly when we
talk about Facebook ads, what Ireally mean is Meta ads, and
they're used on Facebook andInstagram, Messenger and the
Facebook audience network.
I hope I'm not leaving anybodyout there, but they're really, I
think, a good place, a goodstarting point for new
(08:10):
businesses.
Just getting comfortable withpaid ads.
What do you feel about that?
Do you think that's right?
Stacy Covitz (08:18):
Absolutely agree with you.
A lot of people think that ifyou're going to go into paid
advertising, that you need thishuge budget and you need this
huge audience and you need allof these things that are for
bigger businesses.
But what I found and what I tryto teach is that everybody
needs brand awareness, and oneof the best tools to get brand
awareness quickly and for a very, very low budget are Facebook
(08:55):
ads, because you can run theseyou know $2 a day type ads and
just have them running in thebackground and get your face
known and start being known asan expert in your industry and
you don't need a whole lot ofexperience to get those going.
So, yes, I absolutely agreethat there there is.
(09:16):
There is a Facebook ad strategyprobably for almost every kind
of business, in my opinion.
I'm sure there's exceptions,but.
Janice Hostager (09:26):
No, yeah.
I well, I agree, I thinkespecially yeah
Stacy Covitz (09:34):
What.
Janice Hostager (09:35):
Well, no, I was going to say is that,
especially in that awarenessstage, I think, as you were
talking about, or for businessesthat will be found on Facebook,
that you wouldn't necessarilygo to Google to find.
Like, if you have a pain pointor something like that that you
are seeking a quick solution for, then you might go to Google to
(09:55):
look for that.
But that awareness aspect,you're absolutely right.
You can run ads that are justto your content or to your site
for lead magnet or somethinglike that.
That would still be good forthat same audience.
Did that make sense, right?
Stacy Covitz (10:13):
Yes, yes, that does make sense.
That does make sense, and thegood thing about it versus
Google ads is a lot of peoplehave a guilty pleasure of just
doing this, right, all the time.
And that's the beauty ofFacebook and Instagram ads is
(10:33):
they're not necessarily working,like working at their job.
They're, you know, in bedbefore you know, doing, eating
dinner.
Whatever they're doing whilethey're scrolling and you can
capture their attention and itmight not be something that they
were thinking of.
Janice Hostager (10:54):
So when you first?
So if you're first running anad and let's say you're not
necessarily trying to sell atthat point, what do you have it
go to?
Do you have it go to a leadmagnet, or do you have it go to
maybe an article or a podcast,or what is it that you would
send somebody to?
Stacy Covitz (11:14):
So when someone is brand new and they want just to
get some recognition, a lot oftimes I like to start with no
call to action, not sending themanywhere.
So because the deeper you getclicking and you're asking for a
(11:35):
click or you're asking for somesort of conversion, the ads get
more expensive.
So if you're just starting out,you can do no call to action,
no clicking necessary, justrunning.
You know, like video view adsand you can.
(11:56):
The reason why I love those somuch is you can really do a lot
of testing that way before youstart ramping up.
So test your headlines, testyour copy, your creative and
just start running those.
I don't want to say baby ads,because they're not baby ads.
I encourage even my clientsthat have big ad budgets and are
(12:20):
running conversion ads toalways be running these in the
background because you'rebuilding.
You can build up an audiencethat way and attract more people
if that makes sense yeahtotally yeah.
It's essentially like organic Ifyou're posting on Facebook and
then you come back and you say,okay, I just spent all this time
(12:44):
on this beautiful graphic and Iwent all out and three people
saw it.
Nobody commented, nobody sharedit, nothing happened, and so
it's like that, except you couldget thousands of people to see
it, and that's a difference.
So you're not asking for themto actually take any action, but
(13:06):
you're getting awareness.
Janice Hostager (13:09):
So if you're getting engagement on, let's say
, an ad like that, does thatbenefit your account as a whole?
Stacy Covitz (13:19):
That's such a good question because that's another
reason why I encourage people,even if they're not necessarily
ready for ads and they don'thave everything dialed in yet.
When you first open a Meta adsaccount, they have a lot of
(13:39):
policies and procedures and nowthey have bots in place and
brand new accounts are gettingflagged and you have a small ad
limit in the beginning, likesometimes $2 a day, where
they'll cap you.
So, to answer your question,yes, because if you could start
(14:00):
running those type of ads, youare seasoning your account, you
are proving to Meta you're areal business, you're a real
person, and the algorithm isstarting to get to know you and
who you're targeting and whatyour messaging is, and so by the
time you are ready, it's reallylike you know how, like just
(14:21):
Chat GPT is so much smarter themore you use it, right?
So it's a, the meta algorithmis just scary smart.
Janice Hostager (14:31):
Yeah, yeah, and that's interesting because
you're right, they have so manydata points on every single
human being that's ever walkedinto the metasphere for sure, so
does that help?
Let's say in organic, let's sayI'm running some, so what do
(14:51):
you call these?
What is your term for that?
Like, not awareness,necessarily, or maybe awareness
ads?
Is that what you call them?
Stacy Covitz (14:58):
Yeah, building brand awareness billboard ads.
You know it's like a billboard,that you would see something
like that.
So so you can have them runningdifferent ones, and then by the
time you are ready to have somesort of a conversion ad, you've
already been targeting the sameaudience with these, with these
(15:19):
ads, and so people all of asudden, when they're in the
market for it, they say, oh, Iknow her, I know Janice, she's
that marketing person.
I see her all the time, she'severywhere and you've spent $2 a
day, so it's pretty powerful.
Janice Hostager (15:40):
Right right, I didn't realize that about new
accounts, that meta limits theirspend, that puts all these kind
of breaks on their ads.
That's really kind ofinteresting.
So much has changed.
I mean every day somethingchanges on their ad platform.
Stacy Covitz (15:57):
Please don't get me started on that.
Oh, my goodness, every day.
Janice Hostager (16:03):
Yeah, yeah.
So what about their overall?
So if I'm going to run anawareness ad or a billboard ad,
will that benefit me when I goto post or make an organic post?
Stacy Covitz (16:17):
That's a good question.
I have found so, in fact, acampaign I was just running for
a client she was.
She was we were doingconversion ads to get people to
sign up for a webinar and theywere crushing it.
They were doing so so great andwe've turned them off because
(16:40):
it happened and it wassuccessful.
And now I look at her organicand it see ms - and I don't
know, the a nswer is I don'tknow There could be an answer
and that's interesting and I'mgoing to write it down because I
want to find out but it seemslike her organic, social, is now
(17:01):
being seen more.
Janice Hostager (17:03):
Okay, so..
,
I don't know.
Well, I'm curious because you know, when
you engage with a post, any post, especially repeatedly, you're
going to see it more in yourfeed.
So that's going to get, you'regoing to get greater engagement
overall.
So I was curious whether or not, after the ad was turned off,
whether that would still be athing.
(17:24):
I think officially they wouldsay I've heard it both ways.
I mean, I've been with Facebookads so many years that and they
changed so many things in theprocess.
But initially they said - theydon't really say.
But initially the data saidthat yes, it did help.
But then for a while it was notit didn't seem to help.
(17:46):
So I was curious whether or notyou'd seen that with clients or
if it didn't make anydifference.
Just kind of curious.
And maybe it depends, is theanswer with Facebook.
Stacy Covitz (17:59):
Everything.
Everything is it depends, right?
I feel like my business answerseems to be it wouldn't benefit
them necessarily for that to bethe case, right?
And if you want to take Meta asa company and kind of their
(18:23):
model, I would say probably not.
They probably pay to play andonce you turn it off, but I
don't know.
So that's not for me to say.
Janice Hostager (18:36):
Oh sure, yeah, it does sound that way, n.
(19:04):
So uh, what are the primaryreasons that businesses should
consider using Facebook Ads aspart of their strategy?
Is it awareness?
Is it engagement?
Are there different reasons forusing it across what I call the
Trail of the Sale, fromawareness, all the way to when
they buy and refer?
All of the above and it justdepends on what your goal is.
So if you're brand new and youfeel like your organic social
media is going nowhere andyou're shouting out to just the
abyss and nobody's seeinganything, that's a great place
to start.
Let's start running some youknow billboard ads.
(19:26):
Let's start getting you know,get an ad account, start
building up an audience, testingout some copy messaging all the
way up to.
I have this product and it'sselling really well right now
organically, but I feel likeI've capped out.
(19:46):
I really want to scale.
So now you've got an offerthat's already selling, you have
your audience, you have yourmessaging, everything is dialed
in.
You could really, really makea lot more if you start putting
ads towards that product.
(20:08):
Now, the other side of that arepeople that are just launching
a product for the first time andthey've never tested it.
That is a disaster waiting tohappen and that is where you
(20:33):
hear ads don't work, right?
"Oh, I tried ads.
It didn't work," and a lot oftimes it's because you didn't
have an offer that was alreadyproven and selling and people
loving it.
sBrick and mortar businesses for
traffic.
You know you have a restaurant,you can use a coupon code.
Or, you know, get this freesandwich if you buy one or give
(20:59):
us this code so you could dothat.
There are people that arepodcasters.
You could do ads for traffic.
You want to get more downloadsfor your podcast.
There's so many ways that youcould use ads to really boost
your business, as long as you doit with strategy in mind, right
(21:24):
, You're not just going in thereand pushing buttons and hoping.
Right, and n I think that'swhat you hit on too is that you
need to think this through andyou think through the whole
sales journey, the customerjourney, what their goals are,
first of all, starting with that, of course, and then who their
audience is, and thinkingthrough the whole big picture of
it.
So, y choosing N audienceNow, in the olden days when I
(21:49):
started doing ads, I would go inthere and there used to be some
great tools in there for reallyunderstanding who your ideal
customer was and targeting themto a T.
Now they have like somethingcalled Advantage Plus right, and
some other tools, and theyprobably have changed since I
last opened it two weeks ago.
(22:09):
That really will.
they'll choose your audiencefor you.
So I've heard some experts say,"eah, yeah, let them choose it.
They know more than you do,"which makes sense to me, and
actually I did that on the lastad that I ran.
I let them choose my audienceand they did a really pretty
good job, I must say.
But I've also heard some peoplesay "No, no, you want to go in
(22:31):
there and choose the audience.
Is it a one or the other, oris it a sometimes both either,
and neither nor?
Stacy Covitz (22:41):
All of the above.
So for me, I'm still in the "Iwant control", because I like
you.
I remember whe, when we, whenwe controlled exactly who we
were showing it to m.
Now it's great to test, right.
So have have one, run twocampaigns exactly the same: one
(23:04):
ad set with let them choose, andone with your targeting and see
what happens, You know,depending on what your niche is
like.
I just had this client that shewas so specialized.
There's no way I was going tolet Facebook choose.
There's no way, because I mean,she, her audience is probably
100,000 people in the country,so that would make no sense.
(23:28):
And it's interesting because Ijust did a podcast episode about
targeting and audiences.
And you're right.
It used to be, ,oh, everyonehad to like Amy Porterfield and
yoga, and they have to beengaged shoppers and you know
all the layers.
And now I think that that canactually go against you.
(23:52):
I think that you really need tojust have maybe one interest,
you know, one thing at a timeand then always test with them,
letting them decide.
l I t like to, I like to do alittle of both.
So an , I d I Irange I do women, you know, 30
(24:14):
to whatever 60, and then therest you know in the country,
because I wouldn't want to doevery country and t see what
happens.
But they are so smart now theyare so smart.
Janice Hostager (24:31):
So you would just do basic demographics, and
then let them choose the otheraudience, Like test one.
that's basic demographics, ordo you test going pretty deep?
Stacy Covitz (24:48):
graphics, or or do you test going pretty deep just
So I'll do a broad.
S o, and broad means, I wouldsay, women in this age range in
the US, and then you do the rest, You find the rest of the
people, and then I will haveanother audience that I want to
control.
b I w t k.
I w t .
B Because I want to know,because otherwise, how do you
know who is responding?
(25:12):
If you're letting them choose.
I like to have a little bit ofcontrol, especially if I'm going
to retarget, because I want toknow which right.
I want to know who, what typeof people, which audience is
working.
Y, eah.
Janice Hostager (25:28):
S, lthough I will say that I got m- -my ad
did , a well and of coursethere's so many factors that go
into an ad that The well, thelast time I ran one and let them
choose the whole thing, Ididn't test it, which I should
have, shame on me, but I was ina hurry.
But you know, and I got it wasfor it was for lead magnet and I
(25:50):
got a lot of downloads and thecost per click was really good.
I can't recall exactly what itwas, but it was.
It was nominal and I was reallyhappy with it.
Yay, but that may be that oneparticular segment of the
audience.
It may have been what I wasselling, it may have been.
There's so many variables thatgo into an ad so it's hard to
(26:14):
know.
But I was just curious to likeif you had one or the other that
you lean towards and it soundslike you don't.
You're saying test both.
Stacy Covitz (26:22):
Yes, I don't ever.
I don't ever just let themdecide.
I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't have a client andjust leave it all to Meta.
Yeah, and I shouldn't say never, because everything's changing.
And one of my when I said don'tget me started on all the the
changes.
Every day, sometimes twice aday, I'll go in there and I'll
(26:48):
say where did this setting go?
Why is this called this?
And now, a big thing that isjust is if I don't want them to
choose my creative and you know,oh, enhancements and all of
this, if I don't want that, Ihave to go in and click off,
(27:10):
click off, click off, click off.
And if you don't know how to dothat or where to go, you're
kind of just, you're just attheir mercy, which I don't like.
But I mean I'll have to evolve,right, we're evolving.
Janice Hostager (27:28):
I mean, I'm with you.
It is very hard to stay up withall the changes that take place
on there, and that's why thereare people like you in the world
that can help us businessowners, because it is really
hard.
I mean, even having done thisfor years and years, I get a
little nervous when I'm like,okay, I don't, what is this?
This is a new thing.
I don't know what this is, youknow, and especially if I'm
(27:50):
doing it for a client, which iswhy now I tend to outsource that
because, honestly and that'strue of a lot of areas of
marketing there's so manychanges, there's so much depth
to it that there's no possibleway that we can stay on top of
everything.
A for me, as a strategist lother than what you just talked
about with starting withbillboard ads and kind of going
(28:27):
beyond that a little bit A theresome tips and tricks that you
like to utilize, or are you notwanting to share those?
Stacy Covitz (28:37):
I can put that under the.
"t depends right.
It depends a lot, I would say alot on the offer and a lot on
the budget, because a l, o, alot of people will come to you
and they'll say, okay, well, I,you know, I have, I have kind of
a big budget, you know, $300.
And oh, yeah, okay, yeah,that's right.
Janice Hostager (29:00):
G a f a t t y t r, might not go as far as they
think y.
Stacy Covitz (29:05):
Yeah, it doesn't go very far, so it does just
depend.
It's interesting because, youknow, you and I were at Social
Media Marketing World togetherand there were some workshops
that had some unique strategiesthat I'm excited to test.
But you know, right now, Iwould say, messaging is pretty
(29:32):
much trending.
You know, it doesn't have to bea bot like a m Chat, it could
just be message me this word,and those are performing pretty
well a It kind of goes all overthe place, like it used to be
(29:52):
video.
You know, videos, video, video,video.
And now carousels areperforming really well because
you can have 10 slides and eachslide could be a different
message and a different.
You message, know, you couldsend you them to a different
place.
So it's kind of kind of a great, I would say, like a good bang
(30:16):
for your buck, carousel ads andthey and they perform really
well.
But yeah it, it just depends onso many things.
I would say the messaging adsare working pretty well.
Janice Hostager (30:32):
So you're talking about, like, integration
with ManyChat or something likethat, where you just say
"comment podcast below and we'llsend you a link to it, kind of
thing.
Stacy Covitz (30:42):
Yes, yes, and I will caution about a basic word
like that and make it more of ai a if you're going to try this
, make it more of a podcastnumber 27, something like that,
Because if it's a word likepodcast or ad or whatever,
something that's generic, itcould kind of send it off the
(31:06):
rails because a lot of peoplewill not be expecting, not be
intending to get a message andthen the bot is triggering
because you know what I mean.
So they may just have a commentusing those words yes, and ' 're
(31:26):
getting yes and their inbox isfull of y yes yes .
s yes yes correct, correct so bea little bit more specific, and
the nice thing is is you don'thave to have, you Many don't hat
even have to have many chat,because you can Meta.
do r this s natively u in u inmeta really set up us.
It's a shorter, you know it'snot going to be a very robust
(31:46):
sequence, but it could be, youknow, a couple steps.
Janice Hostager (31:49):
Okay, r, t, I didn't even know that.
Well, it's like I got to get myhead in there again and figure
out what's going on.
h hallenges hallenges hallengesI think when working with
clients is that they look atafter the ad has run.
They'll look at all the metricsand won't really know how to
(32:14):
read them or what metrics theyshould pay attention to.
So do you feel like there'ssome KPIs or key performance
metrics that you base, like yoursuccess on, or that people
should look for when they'redoing ads?
Stacy Covitz (32:25):
Yes, great question, and I just did a
podcast about this.
O, ecause a lot of people willbe very disappointed because
they think that their ads didn'twork, but the reality is they
weren't looking at the rightmetrics, because it's not a
one-size-fits-all.
(32:46):
It depends on what your NorthStar goal is.
If I'm going for sales, I don'ta awareness billboard for a
retargeting I d w want, I don'tcare about clicks, I don't care
(33:09):
about cost per click, becauseI'm not asking them to click, I
just want them to watch thisvideo.
And it's interesting because ifyou're not skilled in ads
manager and how it's set up, youcould adjust all of the columns
(33:30):
and the different reporting soit only shows what you're
interested in, but itauto-populates.
And so if you, let's say, youran a video view campaign and
you go to your campaign and thenyou're looking at performance,
let's say, and it'll have costper click and it'll have all of
these metrics that arecompletely irrelevant to what
(33:53):
you should be looking for orhoping to get And and so you
could look at that and not knowand think"h oh, this is terrible
.
I didn't get any clicks Okayokay, but did you have a call to
(34:26):
action for anybody to click?
No So so as long as you knowhow to set up your columns so So
you you're only testing orlooking at the metrics that are
relevant to what you're tryingto do.
So if you you have, if you'reselling something and you don't
want to go above l a a 30 a saleand this is for a high ticket,
you know, or I don't want to go,I don't want to spend more than
sale, 30 per sale then you wantto see your cost per cost right
result That's Right, that's a, ametric that's important to you.
If you're getting clicks andyour cost per result is low and
(34:55):
everything is coming in andyou're getting sales and
conversions and it's justcrushing it, you shouldn't
really care what your CPM is, ifthat makes sense.
Yes, we have this, I do in myhead.
I have a certain number.
I want to make sure that my CPMis under, but, like this last
campaign that I i w, it was.
(35:16):
I couldn't have asked for abetter campaign and a better
result.
But, yeah, the CPM was a littlebit higher.
So it depends.
That's the answer.
then Then have a look at the bigpicture.
You know, do a more in-depthaudit, but there's some basic
(35:51):
KPIs to check for.
You're not getting any clicks.
Okay, what's your creative.
You know what does that looklike?
So you know there's some basicformulas like like.
So S y k t.
s There's T s b f l t gettingclicks but nobody's converting.
Okay, so what is your landingpage like?
(36:13):
So I mean the metrics.
Definitely you want to.
They tell a story.
Janice Hostager (36:20):
They do.
Yeah, and I work.
I work with clients about thata lot, because e everything you
can see where the audiencestarts falling off, and that's
the point in which you need tostart looking.
And it's easy to say, "oh mygosh, my ad didn't convert o it
didn't.
nobody, not a lot of people,clicked on it.
(36:41):
Therefore, it you know it mustbe me or it must be my product
or my ad.
Really, right, Don't we kind ofdo that?
Sometimes you know it's like,"oh, "what was I thinking?
You know I shouldn't have donethis or that.
We kind of beat ourselves up.
But in fact, there's, like yousaid earlier I think it was
before we started recording,it's like it's all data r, And
(37:01):
it's the quote I used, was andI've used this before on my
podcast, it's like you eitherget the answer you wanted or the
results you needed.
And that is true in ads, that'strue in anything in marketing.
And that's what I love aboutdata.
I'm not a numbers person at all, but the data really do help
(37:21):
you when you're trying to figureout why things are not working.
It tells you what to look at,for sure.
So I love that.
You said that.
Stacy Covitz (37:30):
Y, I love it, I love looking at all of it.
I'm not an expert by any means,but I would love to.
I mean I love learning, so Iwould love to just know
everything about that.
And now they have you know.
I mean I went to one again, theconvention, and now they have
you know, I mean I went to oneagain, the convention, One of
(38:02):
the programs, just it's kind ofcreepy.
Janice Hostager (38:04):
How detailed you could see what your customer
journey and where they'refalling off.
And you know the hot heat mapsand all of that.
I'm sure you're aware of all ofthose.
It really is.
There are so many tools outthere that didn't exist for
anybody before the computer age.
I don't know how they soldanything.
Honestly, you know, it's justlike it's a lot of guessing, you
know, and.
But yeah, and it's just gettingmore and more targeted, with AI
coming in, and just about everysingle piece of software I use
(38:30):
is integrating AI at some pointin the process.
You know everything fromPhotoshop to, well, Meta, if
we're doing ads, they'reintegrating AI.
I mean, everybody's integratingAI right now.
And why not?
Because it's a time saver andit makes our job so much easier,
especially as business ownersCould talk all day on this.
Stacy Covitz (38:50):
but and I probably will at some point I know, I
know, and it's yeah, it's amixed bag.
It's amazing, amazing.
Janice Hostager (38:59):
Yeah, so talk to me a little about retargeting
.
What role does that play inmaintaining engagement and
conversions on Facebook, likewhen do you use retargeting ads
and when do you not?
Stacy Covitz (39:13):
Let's say I don't have any audience and I want to
build up an audience, I will,let's say, let Meta decide who
(39:36):
they send these to, and I woulddo.
You know, engagement videoviews.
And then I would go and I wouldlook at my metrics and I would
filter out the people or thesegment of how many video views
I got, and then you could say50%.
You know, 50% view.
So if your video, let's say, isa minute and someone is
(39:59):
watching 30 seconds, well, intoday's world, whew, wow, they
love you.
Janice Hostager (40:04):
That's pretty good.
Yes, they love you, right.
Stacy Covitz (40:15):
Yes, so that would .
I would make a custom audienceout of those people.
And if I have a really nicheaudience that I'm going after
Target and they watch a hundredpercent, I feel like that's a
slam dunk If you were talkingabout something that is so off
the wall to most people andsomeone's watching that for two
minutes, either they have toomuch time on their hands or
(40:37):
they're your ideal client.
So I would take those audiencesand create a custom audience,
which is a beautiful thing thatyou could do in meta and then I
would use that audience for mymiddle of funnel.
I would call that a warm lead.
So that would be my.
That would be my middle bottomthe funnel, where I would be now
(40:59):
going for the ass, going forthe sale or, you know, get an
appointment or something likethat.
So that's how I use it to tobuild up an audience.
Janice Hostager (41:10):
Or you could take that group of leads and run
conversion ads to them in metaas well.
Stacy Covitz (41:15):
Yes, exactly, I'm sorry, that's what I meant.
Yes, oh, so take that customaudience so I would create
audience from you know this manyminutes watched and then I
would show those people myconversion ads.
Love that and they're warm, youknow they're warm leads.
(41:36):
They already know me, theyalready like me.
They watched a minute of somerandom.
You know if you're completelyon some random topic and
someone's watching it, you knowand they love it and they're
watching it, then yay, part ofme wants to go into like, okay,
explain how you do that sopeople can understand.
Janice Hostager (41:57):
But then I realize that that gets kind of
complex, especially when we'reon a podcast because we can't
show video here.
Stacy Covitz (42:02):
Yes, yes, yes, I mean, that is the beautiful
thing about meta advertising isthere's three types of audiences
.
So there's your broad, you know, you just let meta decide.
There's your custom audience,which is what I was just
referring to, which isessentially everybody on the
(42:25):
platform or on your website thathas engaged with you somehow.
Either they've commented,they've gone to your website.
If it's pixeled, that's adifferent topic.
So you can create audiences,specific audiences, that refer
(42:46):
to people that visited mywebsite all the way up to six
months ago, people that engagedwith me on Instagram.
That could be one audience.
So then you can go and say,well, this product does really
well on Instagram and so I'mgoing to target all these people
(43:06):
that have engaged with me onInstagram and that's how I'm
going to send my ad to and youknow, talk about targeting,
right, right, those are yourpeople.
They are.
Yeah, so, yeah, so you can do a,you know, just a regular
audience and then, or you canhave a custom audience, and then
(43:27):
they have other audiences thatyou can create, which are called
lookalike audiences, which youcould take 1%, 3% of, let's say,
your email list.
You could upload your emaillist into Meta and target them,
(43:49):
or you can exclude them.
Well, they're getting rid ofthat.
I shouldn't say that.
Janice Hostager (43:53):
But oh, are they Good to know.
Okay, right.
Stacy Covitz (43:58):
I know I was like no, yeah so exclusion right now
is still possible yeah, soexclusion right now is still
possible.
So you want to exclude all yourbuyers.
Let's say, if you want to gobroad, yeah, so you can do a
lookalike audience, which isfind me people that are like
these people, so they have thesame, you know, interests and
(44:21):
age, demographic and all of that.
Find those people for me.
And those do really well, Imean surprisingly so.
Lookalike audiences sometimesare just like a secret gem.
Janice Hostager (44:37):
They are and there are so many things that
you can do with that informationand I think people, when
clients that I meet, they'll sayI just want to run an ad, but
there's so many layers of peoplein there and you talked about
the, you know the lookalikeaudiences and I think, as I
understood it, 1% means thatthey are going to be most
(44:59):
closely aligned with you, right?
And 2% gets a little furtherout, right?
Thank you, Okay.
Stacy Covitz (45:05):
That's exactly.
Yeah, that's exactly what it is, and I couldn't, I couldn't, I
couldn't explain it.
Janice Hostager (45:11):
Well, because at some point that 1%, you're
going to kind of exhaust thatgroup of people.
So you want to go a littlebroader out as you go along,
correct, if you're hitting thatsame audience.
Stacy Covitz (45:22):
Yes, yes, and if I'm doing a lookalike audience,
I will do several.
I'll you know.
I'll test 1% and then I'll test3%.
Oh okay, you know, and then ifI'm not getting results, I might
go up to 5%, but depending onhow much I'm putting towards it,
I might not go higher than that, gotcha.
Janice Hostager (45:44):
Wow Well, stacey you have been so helpful
in helping me get caught up onwhat's happening with Facebook
ads and helping my listenersunderstand really the basics of
running a Facebook ad.
And you have a freebie for us,right?
Stacy Covitz (46:03):
I do Tell us more about that freebie for us, right
?
Tell us more about that.
I'm super excited about this.
So, speaking of AI, I justcreated a custom GBT.
So it's like using ChatGBT andyou do need to have the paid
version.
And if you don't have the paidversion and you want to still do
this, I have a PDF as well.
So you go in and you it's a aquiz and it will help you if
(46:27):
you're ready for Facebook ads.
So it's a question, it's goingto ask you questions and you
answer and you can have a chatwith it, conversation, whatever
you want, and it's going to helpyou decide if you're ready for
Facebook ads and if you're not.
It's a checklist to see whatyou need to get going, to get up
(46:53):
to speed, to not waste yourmoney, because that is my
mission is to make sure thateverybody that puts money in
gets some sort of value whenthey are doing their ads.
Janice Hostager (47:03):
That is such a great idea.
I love that because you'rereally going to.
I mean, I get that questionquite a bit.
It's like, should I be runningFacebook ads?
And this will just answer thatquestion.
I absolutely love it and I'llput the link to that in the show
notes.
And Stacey people could findyou on LinkedIn, instagram, all
(47:25):
of the above.
Stacy Covitz (47:26):
Yes, all of the above.
All of the above, and I'm likethe collar with no shoes, so I'm
not that active on Instagramand Facebook but, I am there.
Janice Hostager (47:38):
I think we've had this conversation, because,
yeah, I you know it's like whenyou're taking care of all the
other people's accounts, it'sreally hard to focus on your own
, and I think anybody inbusiness kind of understands
that.
Stacy Covitz (47:50):
Right right.
Janice Hostager (47:52):
Thank you so much for being with us today and
I appreciate it, and I willshare all the links to
everything that you offered.
Stacy Covitz (48:03):
Thank you so much for having me.
Janice Hostager (48:10):
And that's a wrap.
For more information aboutanything we talked about today,
visit myweeklymarketingcom.
Forward slash 108.
That's 108.
Remember that in theever-evolving world of marketing
and small business, there'salways something new to learn,
so be sure to subscribe soyou'll always stay up to date.
Thanks so much for joining metoday.
See you next time.
Bye for now.
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