Welcome to the 19th issue of Always Be Learning. The newsletter so good, you can't believe it's not butter!

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Today's Marketing Breakdown:

We're doing today's issue a little bit differently today.

I have 7+ years of experience in customer retention but have had little exposure to the paid acquisition side of things.

So today, I've asked my buddy, Aazar Shad, to write a guest post sharing his top learnings from a career in growth marketing - specifically on the topic of Facebook Ads.

Aazar is a Growth Marketing Consultant that has grown several tech companies from 0 to 8 figures.

He also hosts a podcast on Growth Marketing called, Growth Marketing Stories.

AND he writes a Growth Marketing newsletter.

What I'm saying is... this dude knows Growth Marketing.

I'll let Aazar take it from here!

Behind-the-scenes of $3mm to $10mm Growth with Facebook Ads (within 2 months)

FB ads are powerful.

I used it to 3x my company’s revenue in 2 months.

Now we’re an 8-figure business.

Here’s everything you need to know to crush FB ads (without expensive courses):

1/ You don’t need to be a genius.

Facebook ads is about running hundreds of experiments & doubling down on what works.

You mostly need to understand the stages of awareness.

2/ Context exploitation with the stages of awareness.

Buyers are at different stages of their journey.

Top of the funnel: Unaware

Middle of the funnel: Just got aware

Bottom of the funnel: Relatively more aware

Here’s another way to look at it.

Start with number 1 first because 5 is the hardest.

3/ Enrich your contextual copy from customers' minds (user research).

You only need to ask 4 questions to do the research right.

Insight: Most people fail at it. I get most of my ad ideas from research:

4/ Make Google Analytics and Facebook ads analytics your best friends.

Many folks do get conversion but they are not tracking it right.

You can only have 8 events on Facebook. Choose them wisely.

Here are mine: Lead, Initiate Check out, Add to Cart, and Purchase.

5/ The most common question: How much budget do you need to invest to see the results?

$10K but you may need more to achieve statistical significance. I spent $50K to really see the CAC to LTV ratio properly.

You also need to be patient. I made a loss in the first month before becoming profitable.

Lesson: Don't lose hope too early.

6/ Your customers need to know, like and trust you - campaign structure.

Top of Funnel: Lookalike, broad, and a specific interest (I chose gifted kids)

Middle of Funnel: Interacted with 90 days on socials, video watchers, and web visitors (180 days)

Bottom of Funnel: Leads and visitors who didn't purchase.

7/ Engineer ads that don't look like ads.

Top of Funnel: Show, don't tell - Demonstrate the value of the product. Surprise with great thumbnails & 3-seconds hook.

Middle of Funnel: User-generated content or user testimonials work well.

Bottom of Funnel: Answer objections & retarget with an irresistible offer.

8/ Stellar creatives get the attention, great copy lures the interest.

Your first line needs to call out the pain that users are going through *at the moment*.

Your copy's job is to create the desire to learn more and click.

Example here:

👉 How To Write Copy For Facebook Ads (A Tactical Approach For Marketers Who Are Still Honing This Skill)

*I gave this blog to my copywriter too*

9/ Landing pages lead to purchase.

Be clear with expectations.

My checklist: What, why you, how does it work, why should I trust you, and what are the next steps.

Your hero image needs to show the product in action.

Use this thread for landing pages:

10/ Come up with novel ad concept ideas that stick.

Find selfish benefits --> Then exaggerate a little --> Tell it in a story format with the surprising start and end.

Make it concise and compelling.

Most important: Invoke emotions - Some Ideas:

11/ What gets measured gets managed.

Your primary metrics to make decisions are: ROAS, CTR, CPC, and Cost Per Conversion/Action

The key here is to have at least two different attribution sources to track conversions.

Analytics should lead you closer to the truth.

12/ Don't make these cardinal mistakes to avoid $$$ leakage.

Patience, time, and hope are crucial - don't lose it.

Don't use dynamic ad creatives early on. It does not give you metrics.

Don't use traffic or engagement ad objectives, instead use conversion to drive performance.

13/ Ads are like dating, email is where they say "yes".

Not everyone wakes up in the morning to buy from an ad.

Punchy and value reiterating welcome emails warm prospects. Abandon cart emails reminds them to purchase.

Some great Email Marketing lessons here (you might recognize him):

14/ The ultimate hack to Facebook Ads is *experiments*.

Experiments you should definitely try:

- Copywriting (first line)

- Headlines

- Images and video creatives

- Different intros of the videos

- Detailed demographic audience: engaged shoppers & more

- Organic vs branding

15/ How to scale your ads the right way?

Horizontal scaling: Test different audiences and creatives.

Vertical scaling: Add more budget but fewer audiences.

Insight: Use campaign budget optimization at this point with the best creatives and audiences.

There you have it! 15*** marketing tips to help grow your DTC business.

If you enjoyed this guest post from Aazar, you can subscribe to his Growth Marketing newsletter below 👇

Aazar also happens to be in our TripleDouble slack community for DTC marketing leaders! Grow your DTC business with other marketing experts like Aazar and apply today.

Here’s what else I’m checking out in the DTC marketing world:

1. 5 proven strategies to increase subscription sales

2. 11 cognitive biases every marketer should know (visualized)

3. This twitter thread on "13 chrome extensions you shouldn't live without" has 379,000+ likes 😳

Hope this has been helpful!

If you enjoyed it, please forward it along to your marketing friends.

See ya next Thursday,

Joe

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Join the waitlist for my Email Marketing 101 course (click here).

2. Apply to join my free slack community of DTC marketing leaders (click here).

3. Sponsor my newsletter and get your brand or business in front of your fellow ABL subscribers (reply to this email).

P.P.S. And if you want to start writing your own newsletter on beehiiv, get started here!