The Client
Laura Belgray, the founder of Talking Shrimp, has been a professional writer for nearly two decades, writing for some of the biggest names in television. In 2015, she co-created The Copy Cure with Marie Forleo.
The Challenge
As an affiliate for Selena Soo’s program Impacting Millions, Laura wanted to maximize her income from her affiliate sales.
“Impacting Millions is a program I really believe in, it’s unique and it’s something people get a lot out of. From an affiliate perspective, it’s a great commission. It’s a $3000 program with a 50% commission, so done right it’s a good chunk of my income for the year.
Everyone says ‘Run ads, run ads!’ but then they say ‘Facebook ads are so expensive and you won’t get your money out of them.’ So I was very confused about whether or not that’s a good investment.
I’ve tried boosting posts for a couple of dollars when Facebook has suggested it, but that’s been the extent of it. I had no experience running ads for a launch. I didn’t really know what I was doing.”
That’s where Claire came in. On Selena’s recommendation, Laura decided to hire her to run her affiliate ads.
Working With Claire
“I’ve tried working with Facebook Ads Strategists before, but that didn’t turn out well. I told them I didn’t want to write my own ads and that person had their copywriter write copy for me, and I hated it.
When I told Claire I didn’t want to write my ads, she sifted through all the material I’ve written over the years, and started looking for content that could be repurposed. I love that she was smart about doing research on her own and not making me work too hard to look for stuff that I’ve already written.”
I gave her access to a Google doc of emails that we were running, and she looked through my social media content to find potential ad copy. Then she’d try it and let me know how it was going. She really has an eye for what will work.
I didn’t need to be super involved. I trust Claire. I love how straightforward she is, there’s none of that B.S. you see with other Facebook Ad people.”
What about hiring a Facebook Ads Agency?
“I’m hesitant to work with anyone who’s an agency. I want the expert. If I hire a Facebook Ads expert, I want that person. Not their people that they’re paying less than I’m paying them. Claire was hands-on and straightforward, she understands great copywriting, what qualifies, and what’ll make for a great ad. She knows her stuff. But most important of all, I think she’s a trustworthy person with integrity.”
The Process
One of the cornerstones of Claire’s process is testing and not making assumptions.
Claire’s commitment to testing helped her find more effective ways of maximizing Laura’s ROI. In an effort to both understand Laura’s audience and minimize the effort required on her part, Claire started by analyzing all the copy Laura had already written and looking for copy that would work best as an ad.
For example, when Laura pointed out that one of her Instagram posts was doing really well, Claire decided to use the copy from that post and run it as an ad testing different images, one of which ended up doing extremely well.
Claire was always on the lookout for ways to get Laura the best return on her ad spend. She tested several different versions of ads against each to find the best performing ones, and kept a close eye on the ads, curbing spending where necessary.
The Result?
$30,600 in revenue from $4,302.82 in ad spent (a.k.a. a 711% ROI*). And over $26,000 in profit.
“I really liked that Claire made herself available during our launch. A lot of Facebook ad people are boasting about their lifestyles and how they don’t answer client emails after 3 PM, but in a launch, you really need someone who’ll answer your questions and respond to ideas promptly.
Claire genuinely cares about your launch. She was fun to work with and personable and cared about my results. ”
*A quick note about Facebook Ad Attribution!
The above figures are linked to clicks from ads. Facebook gives credit for that purchase to the last campaign a user came into contact with. It’s very likely Laura’s terrific emails played an additional role in closing some of the sales attributed to the campaign.