On the surface, advertising looks easy and straightforward, right? Create the ad and post it.
And that can work most of the times. You might get some prospects and eventually some sales. However, if you want to run successful campaigns and constantly improve and scale them, you're gonna have a hard time.
If you want to know how your ads are performing, you need to accurately track them and constantly optimize the ones that work.
Having the right data at your fingertips when optimizing your ads is key.
So let's talk about the most common mistakes people make when running ads how you can fix them.
#1: Not having a proper offer
Lacking a proper offer can cost you a lot of time and money. It's the foundation of your business and shows how the product or service is being marketed.
Crafting the perfect offer will help you identify your avatar, craft the unique selling point and figure out every aspect of funnel.
Having the proper offer is key to running a business successfully so make sure you craft your offer before spending any money on ads.
If you run ads on Facebook, you might need to tweak it a little bit so it's compliant with their standards.
#2: Pushing the Boost Button
This is probably the most common and biggest mistake people make: pushing the boost button instead of creating a campaign from the ads manager.
I know, it's easier to just click the boost button and your post get's promoted. But who's gonna see it?
Targeting your audience is a key part of running ads. This way, your ads get in front of the people who will be interested in your product or service who will eventually convert.
A good strategy is to use the avatars from your offer to set up the audiences and address their key pain points.
See now why the offer is so important?
#3: Not tracking conversions
Tracking is the most important part of running ads successfully.
Unfortunately, many businesses don’t realize how important tracking is. The result is running a paid campaign without knowing if their ads are having an impact on their business or not.
Without tracking, you are literally running ads blindfolded. You need to know which ads or campaigns are performing better in order to scale your business.
Without tracking, you are literally running ads blindfolded.
The most common way to track the ads is using UTM parameters.
Running ads is a constant optimization process. You need to constantly test different variations of the offer, ad copy, creatives, audience as well as price and see which one performs best.
So before you start running paid ads, make sure to take the time necessary to craft your offer, create and launch your campaigns from the ads manager where you set your target audience and track your ads.
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What's the first thing people do if they don't get any sales? They go into ads manager and see why they don't get sales and blame it on Facebook or their ads.
However, in the majority of cases, the issue is not with the ads. Before we get to the ads, there are other key elements most business are missing.
Let's address them now. First mistake people make is that they
Lack the proper offer
If you want to have a successful business, you need to have an irresistible offer, an offer your prospects can’t refuse.
This is like your foundation, you cannot build something without having a solid foundation, otherwise it will crumble. Take a house for example, you cannot build one on a bad foundation.
Business wise, an offer is a strategic structuring of your products or services where the value of your offer exceeds the cost to access it. It needs to be solving one of your client’s most pressing issues.
So if you don't have that dialed in, it's a good time to do that before turning off your ads.
Another mistake people make is ...
Not knowing your avatar
If you don’t know your audience and your avatar, everything you do is either gonna fail or is suboptimal. Everything has to resonate with your audience.
What is an avatar? It’s a detailed profile description of your perfect, ideal customer. It’s not a segmentation of people into groups, it’s more focused on one person and outlines everything about him. It contains a greater depth than a regular persona.
You can have more than one avatar when you are crafting your offer.
Knowing your avatar can help you sell your products or service more effectively cause you will be focusing on their pain points.
Knowing your avatar will have huge impact when launching your ads, cause you will have the audience research done.
Another mistake people make is ...
Trying to sell to everybody
This is closely related to the avatar we spoke above. You won't be able to sell you services or products to everybody, in the same manner.
That's why you should have your offer crafted for each avatar, focusing on their specific pain points.
When the avatar reads your offer, it has to resonate with them. They need to say, "Hey, that's 100% me".
Take a piece of paper and write down your perfect customers, then write everything you know about them: demographics, psychographics, dreams, goals, challenges, pains, everything.
Every detail is important. For example, knowing where they shop can give you insights on how to craft the offer to convert them.
Another mistake people make is ...
Selling product features
I know, I've been there. I though the key to selling something is listing all the features of the product or service I'm offering.
...I couldn't have been more wrong.
Instead, focus on your avatar's benefits: how you can improve their system or life if they buy your product or service.
You already wrote down the pain points for each avatar, now just flip them and turn them into benefits.
Finally, another sales killer is the ...
Lack of proper checkout
Most people think that buyers are ready to purchase as soon as they click the “buy now” button. But in reality, buyers are still looking for reasons not to buy. They’re wondering if they can trust you or if they are making the right decision buying.
Around 90% of buyers abandon the cart. That’s a huge percentage. Think about it, literally only 10% finish the checkout and buy. Just by lowering that rate with 10% will double your conversions and revenue.
So make sure to optimize your checkout page to double your revenue. You can do so by making it very easy for them to buy.
Use one-page checkouts that are easy to fill out and don't request extra information that you are not going to use.
Also, use order bumps and upsells to increase your AOV ( Average Order Value ).
So now you understand why lacking the proper offer can have a great impact on your sales as well as the performance of your ads. You can have great ad copy and creatives, but the issue might be somewhere else.
Hope this will help you optimize and improve your funnels before losing money on ads or shutting them down.
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This shows what number of people that landed on your funnel or page.
CVR - Conversion Rate
This is the biggest metric of the funnel, it shows what % of people have converted ( purchased a product, opt-ed in, signed up, whatever the goal is ).
Standard and Goals: between 2-5%
Speed load
This shows how much it takes for your page to load and it needs to be tested for both desktop and mobile, as mobile is usually slower.
Standard and Goals: between 4 - 6s
Exit Rate
This shows what % of people quit on the cart page. About 90% of people quit there so this needs to be taken very seriously.
Standard and Goals: between 80% - 90%
Upsell Take Rate
This shows the % of people that purchased your upsells, the products or services you sell for customers that recently bought.
Standard and Goals: between 20 - 30%
AOV - Average Order Value
One of the most important metrics for scaling, it shows you on average per 100 people, how many buy the frontend product and the upsells.
Standard and Goals: 2x the frontend offer
LTV - Lifetime Value
One of the most important metrics for scaling, is an estimate of the average revenue a customer will generate throughout their lifespan. This is a very important metric for scaling and running a successful business.
When you have all the data at your disposal, you can then look for weaknesses and try to optimize them.
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Oftentimes overlooked, understanding the key data points can be the difference between a struggling and a thriving online business. In order to understand these metrics, we first need to talk about tracking.
Tracking is the most important part of running an online business successfully. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize how important tracking is.
Once tracking is set up, we can talk about metrics:
CPC - Cost Per Click
This shows how much you pay for every click on the ad and it’s calculated by dividing the total money spent on ads by the number of clicks.
CTR - Click Through Rate
This shows what % of people are clicking through the ad to get to the sales page.
CPL - Cost Per Lead
This shows you how much every lead that opts-in costs you.
CVR - Conversion Rate
This shows what % of people bought the product or service you are offering
CPA - Cost Per Acquisition ( Cost Per Sale )
This shows how much it costs you to get a sale and it’s calculated by dividing the total money spent on ads by the number of sales.
CV - Conversion Value
This shows the amount of revenue that was generated.
ROAS - Return On Ad Spend
This shows how much did you get back after spending on ads and tells you if your ads are profitable or not.
Let's look at an example:
Say you are paying $50 for an ad and that ad has 1000 impressions, meaning 1000 people saw it. Out of 1000 people, 50 clicked your ad.
This means you have a CTR of 5%.
If your total spend was $50 and you’ve got 50 clicks, that means your CPC is $1.
Now, if out of those 50 people, 10 people opt in and 5 of them bought your product, you’ve got a CVR of 10%. Based on that, we can easily calculate the CPA is $10 ( $50/5) as well as the CPL, which is $5 ( $50/10 leads ).
Now, let’s look at the value of those sales. Say for example, your offer is $50 for every product or service bought.
So your Total Conversion Value is $250, 5 sales of $50 each. Based on that, we can easily calculate the ROAS: $200. Cause you spent $50 to get $200, which is a pretty good investment.
Now this is a simple example, to better understand these metrics. In real life, it’s not gonna be that pretty.
When you have all the data at your disposal, you can then look for weaknesses and try to optimize them.
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Having a proper offer can make the whole difference in effectively scaling your business.
As with any effort in life, advertising takes time. You cannot simply create an ad and post it.
Most businesses fail to understand that and don't dedicate the necessary time to complete all required steps. So they target the wrong audience, run ineffective ads and fail to track the response to their campaigns.
So make sure to take the time necessary to:
craft your offer so it's compliant to ads manager
identify your avatars and use them as target audiences
create ad copy that covers key pain points and benefits
include a strong CTA and make sure it's tracked
test multiple variations until you find a winner
After you crafter your proper offer and tweaked it so it's compliant with Facebook, next make sure tracking is set in place.
Fix #2: Tracking
Tracking is the most important part of running ads successfully.
Unfortunately, many businesses don’t realize how important tracking is. The result is running a paid campaign without knowing if their ads are having an impact on their business or not.
Without tracking, you are literally running ads blindfolded. You need to know which ads or campaigns are performing better in order to scale your business.
The most common way to track the ads is using UTM parameters, but you also need a system in place. And you should not be relying solely on Facebook or Google pixels.
Top marketers are using dedicated tracking software to analyze their ads so they make data-driven decisions. Some use multiple systems, but they all have something in common: accurate conversion attribution.
At Atlass, our system accurately tracks the conversion to the correct ad and provides custom metric reports, so you can focus on optimization.
Running ads is a constant optimization process. You need to constantly test different variations of the offer, ad copy, creatives, audience as well as price and see which one performs best.
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We all know that customers don't always purchase a product or service from the first interaction. They usually need 7-8 interactions ( touchpoints ) to make a purchase.
However, sometimes, they might need a little push in order to act. I'm gonna show you how to do that using email automations.
How automation rules work?
These rules can help you retarget your customers with upsells and can give them a little push to convert, which will increase your sales and revenue without spending more money.
How automation rules work?
Automation rules will automatically add your customers into different lists in SendGrid based on specific tags.
Atlass uses different tags to define different actions or segment leads. Read more about tags here.
Let's say for example, that you have a sales page and you offer a free e-book to everyone who enters their email. Or you want to send an upsell email to someone who purchased something.
Step 1:
Go into your SendGrid account, to Marketing -> Contacts and create a new list. Then, go to Automations and create a new automation and add all the emails you want for that sequence.
Step 2:
Locate your thank you page url: the URL the users are redirected after signing up. ( https://yourdomain.com/sales-page/thank-you ). Copy the thank you page url and go to your Atlass account and create an automation for that link.
This will apply that set tag to everyone who lands on that page.
Step 3:
Now that's set up and every lead that signs up and lands on that page are being tagged accordingly, let's connect with SendGrid and synchronize them.
Go to your Atlass account and integrate SendGrid, if you haven't already. Details on how to do that are listed below:
Step 4:
Now let's create the automation rules. First, get the tag you set at Step 2 above and add it in the first field of the rule, after "If":
Then, choose an action for your rule, to either add a lead to a list or remove them from a list ( for example, if someone converted, you might want to remove them from the buying sequence and add them to a different one )
Next, select the list you want to add / remove the lead and click on Add rule.
That's it. Now everyone who signs up will be added instantly to the email automation in SendGrid.
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We’re going to talk about some key metrics that are directly tied to your company’s growth. I’ll define each and show you how we calculate them.
Active Customers
Active customers are users that are paying to use your product or service. Where the revenue comes form.
Why is this metric important? Separating the active customers from the rest of users, such as users on free trials or users who cancelled, but used to pay, is important for accurately seeing how the business is growing over time.
Also gives the ability to try to upgrade them to a paying version.
Average Revenue Per User ( ARPU )
Average revenue per user (ARPU) is the average revenue amount you get from each of your active customers over a period of time, mostly monthly.
ARPU = Monthly Revenue / Number of Active Customers
Growth Rate
Growth Rate is a calculated used 2 numbers, one that represents a certain quantity's starting value and another that represents is ending value.
For example, to calculate the customer growth rate for a month, you take number of customers at the start of the month and the number of customers at the end of the month and use them in the formula below:
GROWTH RATE = ( End of period number - Start of period number ) / Start of period number
For example, you have had 100 clients at the start of the month and 152 at the end, the growth rate would be (152-100)/100 = 0.52
You can also express the growth rate value as a percentage by multiplying it with 100. In the example above, 0.52 x 100 = 52%
Average Order Value
Average Order Value is an e-commerce metric that measures the average sales of every individual sales transaction processed. To give a clearer view of what this metric represents, it calculates the average dollar amount spent on your product or service for every transaction made.
The average order value can be calculated depending on the value of the overall contract or your business model and the length of your average contract (annual value, monthly value, weekly value, daily value).
Average Order Value = Total Value of Orders / Orders over a Defined Period
This metric helps you understand the purchasing behavior of your customers, predict future sales and create a strategy to come up with revenue projections in order to increase in sales revenue.
Average Customer Lifespan
Average customer lifespan of all customers, calculated by adding up all customer lifespans ( the amount of days, years or months they have been customers ) and dividing it by the number of customers.
Average Customer Lifespan = SUM of all customers lifespans / number of active customers
Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value (LTV) is an estimate of how much revenue you’ll make from the average customer before they churn.
Lifetime Value = Average Revenue Per User * Average Customer Lifespan
Churn
Churn, sometimes known as attrition rate, is the percentage of customers or revenue lost during a given period (usually monthly).
For an example, if a subscription based business losses subscribers that means the churn rate is getting higher.
How to calculate your chrun rate?
Churn Rate = Customers lost in a period / Customers at the beginning of a period
Or, in other words, you can get the number of customers lost in a given period by subtract the number of customers at start from the number of customers at the end:
Churn Rate = ( Customers at the end of a period - Customers at the beginning of a period ) / Customers at the beginning of a period
Customer Acquisition Costs
Customer acquisition costs is a metric that represents the total cost spent on acquiring a new customer. Usually, the total cost includes advertising and marketing spendings, your marketers, sales persons, etc.
Customer acquisition costs are calculated by dividing the total cost spent by number of customers acquired.
Customer Acquisition Costs = Total Cost Spent / # Number of Customers
For example, if a company spents 2000 dollars on advertising and marketing in a year, and it gains 2000 customers as well, then the customer acquision cost would be 1 dollar.
Monthly Recurring Revenue
Monthly Recurring Revenue is the predictable total income your business generates from all the active subscriptions (that includes recurring charges from discounts, recurring add-ons, coupons).
In other words, monthly recurrings revenue refers to the consistent revenue that a business recives every month despite the ups and downs it may occure.
Usually, this is a by-product for businesses that offer subscriptions, a services paid on a monthly basis.
How to calculate Monthly Recurring Revenue?
Monthly Recurring Revenue = Number of subscribers under a monthly plan * Average revenue per subscriber
By using metric you can calculate the present financial state of the business and deduct future earnings based on the active subscriptions.
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There are 4 key components that form a URL: the scheme ( https ), a host ( the domain ), a path ( /category/product ) and a query string.
We are going to focus on the last one. A query string is a serie of parameters used to track information on a website ( campaing=my-first-campaing ). These parameters are separated from the base of the link with the question mark ( ? )
The URL parameters are formed out of pairs of key and value, connected with the = sign, for example campaign=my-first-campaign, where the campaign is the key and my-first-campaign is the value.
Multiple pairs can be added, connected with the and sign ( & ): campaing=my-first-campaign&ad=myfirst-ad
UTM stands for Urchin Traffic Monitor and were created by a web analyst that worked on the Google Analytics project.
There are five different UTM parameters. The first 3 are by far the most used parameters (Source, Medium, Campaign), but for additional insights you may also choose to track all 5. Here's exactly what you can track with each:
1. Traffic Source
The utm_source parameter allows you to track where the traffic originated from: facebook, google, bing, inbound.org, or the name of an email list.
Example: &utm_source=instagram
2. Medium
The utm_medium parameter tracks what type of traffic the visitor originated from: cpc, email, social, referral, display, etc.
Example: &utm_medium=cpc
3. Campaign Name
The utm_campaign parameter allows you to track the traffic by campaign name.
Example: &utm_campaign=example-campaign
4. Content
The utm_content parameters allows you to segment the traffic, for example when doing A/B tests.
Example: &utm_content=navlink
5. Keyword Term
The utm_term parameter allows you to track which paid keyword term a website visitor came from.
Example: &utm_term=scale-business-hack
How to Use the UTM parameters
You can use these codes in any combination as long as you separate each parameter with the '&' sign, as we spoke above.
How to create UTM parameters ?
You can create UTM parameters manually, by adding the key=value pairs and separate them with '&' sign.
Be honest: How many times have you got a cold email and you sent straight to your spam folder?
Maybe the value proposition was buried too deep in the email body or not present at all. This reaction to cold email happens all the time.
The very best cold emails share some common traits. I want to share with you some approaches I learned from the very best and have worked for me.
1. The “quick question” approach
Use this template when you aren’t sure if you have the right point of contact. You’ve done your research, but can’t identify the right person to email.
Keep this email as short as possible and get to the point quickly. The less time your reader has to commit, the more likely they’ll take a quick moment to respond. Make sure you properly introduce yourself before asking for any information.
Subject: Quick question
Hey [prospect name],
My name is [name] and I represent [company], where we are aiming to help [pitch]
Could you tell me who handles decisions in the [sales/customer relationship/product buying] department and how I may connect with them?
Thanks and looking forward to your reply,
The “quick question” template has a high response rate because it asks very little of your recipient. You aren’t trying to sell anything; all you’re asking for is an email address or phone number. This is effective because people are more likely to respond to a request that requires little to no effort on their part.
2. The “third-party connection” approach
Use this if you know the right point of contact, but you’re having trouble reaching them directly or getting a response.
Hey [prospect name],
I came across your name on [platform] and was wondering if you could help me out.
I have a solution for [industry problem or pain point] that I think [company] could really benefit from, but I’m having trouble connecting.
Who is the right person to discuss this opportunity with, and how may I reach them?
I appreciate your time,
Keep this email short and include a pain point so the person who get's this feels like it's solving a problem.
3. The “AIDA” approach
Social proof, data, and intrigue are what make the AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) formula successful. It’s kind of like being that friend who talks to you after a rough day at work and says, “Hey, I totally get it.”
Subject: What would you do if you [attention]?
Hey [prospect name],
I ask this because clients like yourself have seen a significant increase in [interest] after using our software.
In addition to that, we helped improve [desire]
I’d love to set up a time to walk you through a personalized demo. Would you have some free time next week to connect?
Looking forward to your reply,
The opening line should intrigue your lead with a thought-provoking and attractive scenario (attention). The second line is designed to keep the reader interested by offering a tidbit of social proof or data that supports your opening statement (interest). Next, pique your lead’s desire by offering even more social proof (desire).
You can also put the [attention] within the first line of the body, but I noticed a better performance when in the email subject.
4. The “PAS” approach
The “PAS” cold email template is a three-part formula:
Problem
Identify a problem specific to the customer you’re cold emailing. Twitter, Google, Yelp, Facebook, and other user-driven sites are ideal for pinpointing a problem your recipient may be struggling with.
Agitate
Now that you’ve identified the problem, poke at it a little. Try and evoke an emotional response from the reader by reinforcing why their problem is so frustrating.
Solve
Offer a solution to the problem.
Hey [prospect name],
I noticed that you are running ads on Facebook, however, you don’t have any tracking parameters to help to monitor them.
It’s incredibly frustrating to run ads in the dark and try to guess which one performs better, isn’t it? On top of that, there’s the IOS 14 update …
Our solution, [your product] integrates all your customer data into one centralized place, allowing you to easily track, manage and monitor customer interactions, no matter the channel and attribute each conversion to an ad or campaign.
How would you like to hear more about how [your product] can increase your sales without spending more money on ads?
Looking forward to your reply,
Make sure you’ve done your research before using a PAS email. It’s most effective once you’ve clearly identified a prospect’s pain point to which you can offer a no-brainer solution in response.
5. The “straight to business” approach
This approach is highly effective for eliciting responses from busy professionals with flooded inboxes. It quickly answers the question, “What’s in it for me?” and provides proof to back it up.
Subject: Check this out
Hey [prospect name],
I have an idea that I can explain in 15 minutes that can get [prospect company] to easily scale your ads without spending more money.
Our solution is [product name], [short pitch]
Let’s schedule a quick 15-minute call so I can share the idea with you. When works best for you?
Looking forward to your reply,
Another example would be
Subject: Quick request
Hey [prospect name],
I know you are running an online business so I’ll keep this brief.
Here at [company name], we [20-30 second PITCH]
I would love to schedule a 15 minute call to show you a personalized demo of our solution. When would that suit you best?
Looking forward to your reply,
6. The “paint a picture” approach
This cold email is all about getting your potential prospect to visualize how sweet life could be with your product or service.
Convince a prospect that your product or service will directly improve their world by showing them what their life currently looks like without it. Make sure whatever scenario you present is realistic to your prospect.
Next, paint a picture of that same scenario, only this time with your product or service. What’s changed? How has your solution made their life so much better?
Subject: Just imagine this
Hey [prospect name],
Nothing is more frustrating than spending money on the wrong ads that don’t drive any sales.
Imagine a world where all your customer information is organized in one simple, easy-to-find place.
One place where you view your customer's journey as well as analyze your marketing campaigns to make data driven decisions, and everything in between.
[company name] is that place.
Do you have time this week for a quick demo to see how it works?
Looking forward to your reply,
7. The "two things you should fix" approach
Helping your prospects or future customers should be the main topic. Providing real value for them and they will love you.
This approach should be used when you see some improvements that they can make or some tips you might have for them.
When you get in touch over the call, make sure to address those issues first, then include pitch your company's solution.
Subject: Quick fix for your ads
Hey [prospect name],
I recently came across your website [prospect website] and noticed that you are running ads on Facebook, BUT I also saw two things you should fix with your ads.
So, we can show you exactly how to fix that. You up for a quick call to see what I mean?
Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you,
8. The "bear GIF" approach
Sometimes, it’s important to show some personality in your emails to remind people that there is a human on the other end of that thread.
Subject: Request to connect 🤝
Hey [prospect name],
Did you have a chance to read my previous email?
I know you may be thinking:
But we can change that! I would love to chat and find out more about [pain points].
Would you be available for a quick 15 minute call to show you ...
Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you,
9. The "break-up email" approach
Before you stop following up, send a break up email.
The break up email is one of the most effective approaches when a prospect isn't responding to your emails. That's because it turns the dynamic of the interaction around, you being the one who's walking away, rather then the one who's pursuing.
Subject: Goodbye from Atlass 👋
Hello [prospect name],
I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to connect, I was really looking forward to working together.
Typically, when I haven't heard back from someone it means they are either really busy or not interested. Thus, this is the last email you'll get from me.
If you ever change your mind and would like to scale your business with [company name], please reply to this email and let me know.
Thanks,
4 elements every cold email should include
1 Research
Always do your research. If you have little to no insight into who your ideal customer is, how are you going to get their attention? Before you even think about sending your first email to a potential prospect, you should already know who they are.
Adding value might be the most important piece of information to keep in mind when writing cold emails.
4 Human touch
it’s important to show some personality in your emails to remind people that there is a human on the other end of that thread. Make sure to include some GIF here and there as well as emojis, even in the subject line.
But don't over do it.
Hope this provided you with some insights that will help with your cold email campaign. Good luck!
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