I’m not going to pretend that this technique will work for everyone, not even close. But my hope is that it’ll inspire you to think outside the Facebook ad box and break away from writing the same old ad copy for every campaign you run. (It might affect what you’ve got planned in the editorial calendar as well!)
Right now I’m spending $5 per day and targeting a very specific group of people with ads about my free guide to Facebook ads. (#Inception.) Here’s the breakdown of this audience:
Yes, that’s right. I’m only including one interest: Gary Vaynerchuk.
Why him? Because while listening to his podcast/YouTube show #AskGaryVee, I noticed he kept repeating the same thing over and over: “use Facebook dark posts to market your business.”
“Dark posts” is a term that popped up a few years ago when Facebook was revamping their advertising platform. This was the only way you could run ads in the News Feed without first publishing something to your page first.
Nowadays dark posts are simply run-of-the-mill Facebook ads shown in the News Feed. They’re the exact ads I teach you to make in Absolute FB Ads (and pretty much everything that’s on this blog).
So here’s the one ad I’m showing to this audience:
As you can see, the copy speaks specifically to people who follow Gary. He’s got die-hard fans and I assumed that lots of them would get the reference to dark posts.
Check out these results:
To give you some context, my cost per lead for this opt-in has varied from about $1 to close to $4 at different times in the past year. So a $0.97 average cost per lead is pretty damn good in my book.
I just checked yesterday’s stats and those 10 conversions came in at just $0.50 each. So this campaign is still getting optimized by Facebook.
This is the first time I’ve played with a small daily budget, and I’m really happy with the results. As usual I noticed a drop-off in clicks last Friday, so I paused the ads until Monday. (This is a big trend I’m seeing with my audience; they don’t tend to convert on Fridays or Saturdays, so I don’t run ads those days.)
I did something similar with a blog post that I “boosted” back in March. Instead of my usual tactic of driving traffic straight to my opt-in page, I spent just $4 on getting this post in front of another very specific audience: Laura Roeder’s.
I used the interest “LKR Social Media” when I turned this Facebook posts into an ad:
Here are the results:
Even though this ad drove traffic to a blog post, it still generated 6 new sign ups to my list! And for just $0.67 each.
Why did I stop this ad after only spending $4? I wish I could tell you! The post was part of the pre-launch content I wrote in preparation for the launch of Landing Pages that Convert, and the costs were starting to add up. I’m pretty sure I set the budget for $4 and then forgot it.
Lesson learned? Pay attention to your results, even when running ads for a blog post!
How to Try This For Yourself
Like I said, my Gary Vee technique certainly won’t work for everyone. I’m lucky that someone with a huge and engaged following recommends a marketing technique that I can teach people how to employ.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t target a specific audience with an insanely relevant message. Try this:
- Go into the Audiences section of your Facebook ad account and click the green Create Audience button at the top left.
- Choose Saved Target Group.
- Explore your possibilities under “interests.” What prominent business, organization or personality could you feature in a blog post? Who else is teaching something that’s directly related to your free opt-in content?
- Make an “interest list” of potential interests for you to target, and close the audience window. You don’t need to actually finish creating the audience now, but you can if you want.
- Open up whatever doc or list that you use to keep track of ideas for blog posts, podcast episodes, videos, etc. and see if you can tie any of your ideas to one of the people or businesses on your interest list.
If you want to try a list building campaign like my Gary Vee one, jot down ideas for copy that could tie your opt-in to someone on your interest list. For example:
- Love MarieTV? Launch your own video marketing campaign with this free step-by-step guide. (Interest you would target: Marie Forleo)
- Thinking about attending World Domination Summit? I can’t go so I’m giving away my ticket for FREE! Click here and grab your chance to win: (Interests you would target: Chris Guillebeau, Art of Non-Conformity)
I’ll be honest: it’s really challenging to write ad copy like this that doesn’t come off as creepy (“how do you know I like MarieTv??” or just plain awkward. It’s why I don’t use this technique very often. I recommend you try it with a blog post first instead of your opt-in landing page.
So tell me: do you love it or hate it? Can you see yourself incorporating this kind of targeted messaging into your ad strategy?
Let me know right here in the comments!
I think I like this! But, question… is there any kind of social etiquette to mentioning someone else’s business in your ad? I’m assuming as long as you’re not saying anything bad about them it should be fine… but just curious about this since you’re basically using their name to draw people in!
This is a great question Becca! And honestly I think the answer is a very personal one. I don’t like “take down” posts where you criticize someone else’s business or practices and get a TON of traffic off it, whether or not you do it on purpose. And I think this is the other reason I haven’t been able to use this technique a lot: it’s hard to make it seem organic (because it’s not).
In this particular case I feel like Gary would cheer me on for hustling this way. :)
Agree with Rebecca’s question…feels like we’re using others’ names to boost our own content…and while that is exactly what is happening here and part of the power of brand affiliations…it doesn’t feel like a true endorsement and rather grabbing on to coattails in a backdoor kind of way through using the system. I get the strategy though, makes sense! Not really my cup of tea.
I totally hear you, Amber! Thanks so much for sharing your honest thoughts.
I’m not so sure it is coattails. It only seems like it because she’s saying her interest is Gary Vaynerchuk, a person. If your a golf tutor and you set your interest as a specific golf magazine, or maybe even a local golf course it only makes sense to get yourself in front of the eyes of the people that might consider your services.
To be fair, back in the early days of websites we used to put names like Pamela Anderson’s in the metadata to hijack new visitors. It was a terrible tactic that brought in people who weren’t our audience. But, many companies use competitor names in their content and metadata to try to capture their audiences.
Even Facebook does this with “you might also like” groups, so does Amazon with products and LinkedIn with profiles.
I’m not sure how anyone could hate this strategy…I’m racking my brain right now for how I could use it to drive traffic to my pillar post. Hmmm….time for some brainstorming!
Oooh, let me know what you come up with Jessica!
This is an interesting conversation in the comments. I see both sides. I think in Claire’s “marieTV” sample, she is offering something that Marie doesn’t offer. And I think it feels weird because it’s online, but if you were in person hanging out with a friend, and they said “hey I love Marie’s TV show she does, I wish I could create a video series like that!”, you may say “oh really? I can totally help you with that! I’ll send you my guide!”
Does that make sense? So instead of waiting for those conversations to happen naturally in your life, you’re seeking them out. I guess at the end of the day, we all want to serve people and make their lives better. So if Gary does that with his stuff, and Claire does that with her stuff, then everybody wins. As long as you’re not advertising a product that the “interest” offers.
Right, I completely agree. I saw an ad that was clearly targeting Marie’s fans but offered something that Marie and her team definitely wouldn’t love. I wrote a post about it here: https://clairepells.com/real-ad-review-shindiri/
it certainly is a fine line. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Erica!
Way to get creative, @clairepelletreau:disqus! Keep up the great work.
Thanks Shawn!
I agree that as long as what you’re offering is relevant to that person or group’s fans but is not in direct competition, that would be OK. I would worry about coming across as spammy otherwise, like people who post ads for their businesses in the comments for other people’s blogs.
Love this Claire! Hope to try out this method soon. Thanks so much for sharing your creativity and insight!
Bloody genius @clairepelletreau:disqus ! Have I told you lately how awesome you are ;)
Simply marvelous. This is great @clairepelletreau:disqus — Glad I stumbled across this.
Thanks Jason, so glad you liked it!
This is an awesome idea! Thanks so much:)
You’re so welcome, Jennifer!
It’s nice to see long term optimization for these ads. Try turning them on for only 2 weeks, the turning them off for 2. Then relaunching a duplicate. You’ll see a performance jump by 2-3% CTR.