Are social media ads even worth it? In today’s episode, I have the honor of introducing you to Jenny Parulski of Ads Uncorked. Jenny and I are creating converting ads, digging into all of your questions about digital advertisement, including how to target and track your dream audience. 

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Today’s episode is brought to you by The Green House, my resource garden for photographers! Let me help you AMPLIFY your heart online and in real life to turn bridesmaids into future brides through templates, workshops, and freebies!

Review The Show Notes: 

What Does It Mean To Boost A Post? (3:04)

Business Strategy Behind Ads (4:36)

Using Ads To Grow Your Email List (6:49)

Are You Ready To Start Promoting With Ads? (7:36)

Advice For Your Ad Messaging (11:31)

How To Spend Your Ad Budget (14:39)

Retargeting (17:38)

Ad Development (21:46)

Who To Target And How (26:52)

Red Flags To Be Aware Of (29:56)

Analyzing Your Ad Success (33:30)

Office Hours With Jenny (37:22)

Connect with Jenny:

Office Hours use code quianna10 for 10% off ads uncorked shop

Jenny’s Courses

Instagram

Website

Review the Transcript:

Quianna: Have you noticed your social media analytics lately? We know it’s been tough to show up organically and to reach more engagement with our family, friends, and followers. The ones that have already clicked that little blue follow button and actually want to see our posts. They’re not even seeing our creative reels, our client success stories, and real life updates.

Every day, these platforms are changing and it’s getting more and more difficult to be seen. Thankfully, we have experts to learn from like today’s special guest, Jenny, the CEO and lead ad strategist of Ads on Court. As a former math teacher turned numbers nerd, Jenny has found her calling in empowering other business owners to prioritize their own family and well being while still exploding business growth with Facebook and Instagram ads.

Ads Uncorked is dedicated to becoming your best kept secret to increased income, adding fuel to the fire you’ve already created without feeling the burnout and drowning your efforts to be seen online. They’re not just Facebook ad pros, they are dedicated marketing geniuses ready to dive into website optimization and funnel troubleshooting to get you the best return possible on your ads.

It’s their mission to become an extension of you and your team. Jenny enjoys finding clarity and boosting her creativity outdoors and soaking up the sun during hikes here in Arizona. The perfect way to connect with nature and recharge her batteries after celebrating over 6 million in client revenue in 2023.

Well on her way to even more client revenue this year already. Holy smokes, that’s a lot. She literally knows what she’s talking about. For today’s episode, I’m coming off unhinged with my questions, digging right into the root of Facebook ads, marketing strategies, understanding what types of ads flop and which ones fly, keywords, targeting, tracking, literally all of the things.

This episode should legit be locked behind a paid coaching call. We’re dropping tons of education and mindset marketing shifts. I’m so grateful for Jenny’s transparency and eagerness to share her knowledge. Ready to meet Jenny? Pull out your notebook because this one’s going to be good. Please welcome ads expert Jenny with Ads Uncorked.

Welcome to Quianna Marie Weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen. Photographers who are excited to celebrate. serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast

Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party. Ready? Let’s go.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome to the party, Jenny. I’m so grateful you can be here with us today!

Jenny: Thank you so much for having me on. I’m really excited to chat.

What Does It Mean To Boost A Post?

Quianna: Yes. Well, you are just a wealth of knowledge and I just want to crack down right away to these questions. So can you please share with us, Jenny, what exactly does it mean to boost a post?

If we’re on Instagram or on Facebook, what does that mean exactly?

Jenny: Yeah. So boosting a post means you’re posting it organically, of course. I’m sure so many of you have seen the little button that says promote or boost. Basically what Facebook or Instagram will do is they will send it out to reach as many people as possible.

And in theory, that’s your goal, right? You get really excited because Who wouldn’t want to reach another 2000, 20, 000 people, however many people you want, but at the end of the day, you’ll see kind of through our conversation here today, that’s really not my recommended strategy, but it’s, it’s the easy thing, it’s the thing that pops up in your face and that meta pushes often, but I can tell you that most of the time people are disappointed when they boost posts.

Quianna: Interesting. So is that something that you would not recommend right away?

Jenny: Yes. I would not recommend it. And really the main difference between boosting a post and running an ad is that through boosting a post, you’re just telling Facebook, Hey, let’s get new eyeballs, views, impressions. That sounds great in theory, but at the end of the day, if your goal is to grow your email list, sell your product, um, get people to book you for your service, you should really create a strategic, advertising plan and run some strategic ads to it, not just one off boosting posts to get in front of more people.

That’s going to leave you disappointed at the end of the day because you really need a strategy in place.

Quianna: Amazing. No, I’m so happy that you kind of cleared that up because sometimes I think, Oh yeah, I just want to kind of boost this. But really you’re just kind of like throwing spaghetti on the wall.

You’re just kind of screaming at a larger audience instead of whispering to your ideal client. Right. So like, so how can we like, what’s next from there? Right. So like, I would love to know what is the biggest mistake business owners make when they just start throwing money at ads and praying that it works, right?

Like, how do we fix that?

Business Strategy Behind Ads

Jenny: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You hit it right on the head. Throwing spaghetti at the wall is kind of the worst thing you can do because it’s easy to spend a lot of money on ads and you really need to, you know, Niche specific advice when it comes to this. So I’ll, I’ll kind of touch for both your service based businesses and your product based businesses.

Some strategy here, because if you are a service based business, you may need to go the route of getting in front of new people through ads that are affordable. Just so you know, there we’ll chat through kind of like ad spend and how much to spend on these ads, but for service based businesses, so coaches, photographers, anybody in that kind of arena.

You can run ads for video views. You can run ads for engagement, but it doesn’t stop there. That’s kind of where the big mistake is for these people as they get in front of these people, and then they stop. But you really need to then be retargeting, bringing them to your email list or bringing them into kind of some some further funnel.

Um, for our product based businesses, you need product based business Um, like add advice. That’s kind of like a big mistake. I see because it is different for people who are going to sell an actual physical product. You actually can go right for the sale. And that’s my recommendation for you. And so really, at the end of the day, you do need to make sure that the advice that you’re following is specific to your niche.

Um, I would say one common strategy that is perfect for both. It honestly doesn’t matter if you’re selling T shirts, if you’re selling candles, if you’re a photographer, or if you’re selling tickets to your conference. whatever it might be, um, growing your email list is never a bad route to go. And I think that would be really fun to kind of chat further about this today.

Um, because growing your email list is they’re really affordable to do and you can get people in your community. And like, even today we were just chatting about it. Metta went down. Facebook and Instagram didn’t exist for a couple hours. People are panicking. If you can get people on your list through ads, it’s a really great route to go to kind of then further nurture them for whatever offers you have, whether it’s a physical product or a service.

Quianna: Yes. Amazing. And I’m so happy you brought that up, right? Because it’s like, we can absolutely lean on these big, huge platforms. But at the end of the day, like sometimes they’re just out of our control. So we can, I love that you mentioned that we can actually use ads to build our email list. Like this is a whole new, whole new ballgame for me.

And I, I can’t wait to chat more about this with you.

Jenny: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I love email list growth ads. They’re, they’re great. Pretty easy to set up. Get them set up in around an hour or two, and, um, you can really bring people on and they’re a whole bunch of different ways. You can do it.

If you have any kind of, of course, people think of like freebies, a downloadable, I see people do it through quizzes. That’s another fun way to do it. And for me, I’ve got a lot of free, like video tutorials, and I love running ads to those, cause it gets people on my list. They come to know me and trust me and then it’s much easier to sell them on anything else that I have happening at that time.

Are Your Ready To Start Investing In Ads?

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. This is so good. I have like a gazillion questions. I just want to start firing at you. Yeah, do it. Well, I, I would love like a good game plan. So I would love to kind of start with who would be a good candidate or a business that’s actually ready to start promoting with ads. Let’s start there.

Jenny: Yes. Yes. Great question. We should totally take a couple of steps back and okay, who, yes, who should be running ads? Um, you’ve. Got to have a proven offer, whether that’s a freebie or a service or a product. It has to be proven. And, you know, I hear this all the time. Okay, it has to be proven. But if I’m not seeing organic success or organic growth, then, you know, kind of, you know, chicken or the egg.

Like, how do we how do we get in front of more people if it’s not proven? But I’m going to encourage you to do is go back to your roots. If you’ve got any kind of like in person events or people you can connect with. Friends who can look at the services you have asked questions about your website. Why is it set up the way that it is really listen to conversations that are happening in your area.

You know, if people are asking certain questions about the service you provide or the product that you have really trying to collect information organically is going to be your best route. And that goes for freebies as well. If you’re interested in growing your email list. Send an email out to even if it’s your 10 percent email list, send an email out and ask people, Hey, like I’m thinking about promoting this or creating a resource on this.

What do you think about it? Um, or creating a strategic Instagram story. I love doing polls all the time. And even if I only get eight people who respond out of all of my followers, that’s really helpful information. Those are eight engaged people who would be happy to tell you. What they think about your, your service, your freebie.

So I really recommend starting organically because if you don’t do that, then what you’re going to do is you’re going to pay a lot more for these ads. You’re going to be very frustrated. So if this is a freebie that you don’t know if people really want it or not, you’re going to pay to learn that versus you could spend the time organically.

Right. Figure it out and then you can put money behind it and feel very confident stepping in, like, yeah, I’ve got a pretty good feeling that people want this. That would be my recommendation. You’ve got to start organically.

Quianna: Yes. I love that so much. Cause I feel like what I’m picking up is we, we use ads simply to amplify.

Right? Like that’s kind of like what I’m kind of getting here is like, once you have a proven product or you have a proven offer that, you know, even if you just get one or two people to buy it, right? Like there’s, there’s a proven fact right there that someone is interested. Someone actually paid their hard earned money to work with you.

And now it’s just a matter of kind of honing in on those ads to just. Amplify that reach, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, that’s exactly it.

Facebook Ads Magnify The Results You’re Already Getting

Jenny: I like to think of it like this, facebook ads are magnifying glass and they’re gonna grow whatever results are good or bad Results or lack thereof it will grow that for you So if things are just like you said even if you’ve got just a couple people a couple nibbles that show that This is what people want ads can grow that and the flip of it’s true if people don’t really want it You’re going to spend money to see that you’re going to have all these kind of mediocre results of, yeah, this didn’t really work and it’s probably because it wasn’t proven organically.

Quianna: Yes. Oh, this is so good. And it starts with our already like audience that’s in front of our fingertips, whether it’s our friends, our family, our, our like workshop forever besties that we met one time and they’re like our Instagram friends for life, right? Like those are your resources to tap into and ask.

And, and I think, I think for anyone listening to, it can feel really daunting or feel like, Oh gosh, I don’t like asking for help. Like I suffer from that too, but on the flip side, I love when people reach out and say, Hey, I have this freebie in mind, or, Hey, I’m working on this mini course. Can you kind of like go through my modules and see if this makes sense?

Or there’s any holes. Cause I feel like sometimes we can be so close to our business. that we miss these things, right? So you have these friends, like they’re your friends for a reason. Let’s, let’s reach out to them. Now, you may not want to talk to your sister. Your sister may have great advice, but they also may not be in that same niche, right?

So I love that you’re just encouraging us to kind of reach out to our friends. Kind of untapped market that there already are cheerleaders. I love that. Once we have a proven offer, whether that’s a freebie or a product that we know is selling locally and we’d like to just kind of build some brand awareness, I’d love to kind of share what your advice would be.

How can we position it with a marketing standpoint? Because I feel like I feel like sometimes we have these products that we love and we know that, like, we all know that we have products that we know people need, like, they would just trust us, like, their life would be better, their business would grow faster, like, we have all these ideas.

But what advice do you have for the actual messaging for these ads?

Jenny: Yeah, yeah, this is crucial. I’m so happy you’re asking this question because You’re right. It’s so easy for us to get excited about. Let’s say you have a product based business, the material where it was made, you know, fair trade, whatever it might be, you get really jazzed about it.

You’re like, people need to know this. But when it comes to marketing at the end of the day, what they need to know is how your product or your service is going to change their life. That is what you’re selling, honestly. Um, and I can think of this in so many different realms. Like I think of let’s, let’s take my own business.

For example, I own an ad agency. We grow brands to seven figures plus, and I could go out there touting that, telling people this. But you want to know what at the end of the day, the money that I bring in for my clients changes their life. And that’s truly, that’s truly what it’s all about for me and for the people I work with.

You know, I work with mothers who are single mothers who end up being able to buy their dream house all the way, you know, all on their own. I work with people who have a dream of opening up a boutique and a storefront and our Facebook ads have generated enough money that they’re able to do this. And that’s, that’s really what this is about.

And even can I think about your business? Yeah. Yes. You’re a photographer. Of course. But you know, you’re not just selling to people. Oh, you’re going to get, you know, these photos and this many reels and this much content. Yes, of course, you have to let them know that. But at the end of the day, You are boosting people’s confidence.

You’re helping them step into their true zone of genius, and you really. Bring life to them and confidence to them that they might not otherwise have, or that they might not find in a different photographer. So when it comes down to it, at the end of the day, you really need to make sure that your messaging is around how that will change people’s lives.

And if you’re having a hard time applying that to your own business, I strongly encourage you to look at any kind of reviews you have and sit with them. See what kind of like. Tone there is to the reviews that people are leaving. Are they excited and energized? Are they relieved? You know, what, what is it?

How has your service changed their life? How has your product changed their life? And people honestly want that relatability factor. And so I’m going to say, lean into that in your ads, whether it’s for email list, growth ads, you know, Selling your service or selling your products. You can do it in all those kind of ads.

Quianna: Yes. That’s so beautiful. And you’re right. People want to see the transformation. People want to know the results that they’re going to get, whether that’s you delivering them faster. Um, and of course the pillars, right? It’s health, wealth, and relationship, right? So like, how can you actually help their lives be brighter, make more money, make deeper connections.

Like people want to know what’s in it for them. And they care less about you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Totally. Yes. So crazy. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So can we chat a little, I’d love to dive a little bit deeper into exactly what ad spend is. Where should we have like a starting point when it comes to ads? Is this something we can invest a dollar in?

Uh, do we have to spend tens of thousands of in like how, what does this budget look like for ads? Yeah,

Jenny: for sure. So it’ll depend on the kind of ads that you’re running. So there’s kind of like a tier in regards to how much things cost. If you’re running ads for email list growth, you can do that at five to $10 a day.

That’s kind of like our entry level starting point. If you’re selling a product, I’d recommend starting around 30 or so a day. Now there’s a pretty big jump in between them, but it’s because there’s a very different ask. Having someone join your email list is a much smaller ask than saying, Hey, buy my 50 plus product.

So yeah, that’s kind of my, my quick and easy answer. There are, and even within that, there are some more affordable types of ads. Like you can run ads to get video views for. Sure, you could do that for a dollar a day, but I want you to think about, is your end goal really getting video views or is your end goal getting people on your list who are going to buy from you in the time that’s right?

So you really need to kind of think about, yeah, what, what that end goal is and then work backwards from there with your game plan.

Quianna: Yes. No, this is so helpful. So in a timeline of like a client journey, this is what I’m trying to like. Paint a picture for right now, but in this timeline, where should we really drive our dollars first?

Should it be in the kind of entry level email list building? Should it be okay, wait, no. Like I have this product for you. I want to fast. Yes. Um, like you mentioned, like we have maybe conferences coming up. Like these are ticket sales. Like you have a very limited window for this sale. So like, where would you suggest we actually start?

Start with investing in ads.

Jenny: Yeah, that’s a really great question. If you have never run ads before or haven’t successfully run ads before, start with emailless growth. And that’s not always the most satisfying answer, right? Everybody wants to say like, Oh no, no, no. You know, like what should that campaign look like for my upcoming conference or for my upcoming sale for my website?

It’s like, if you are trying to honestly learn this skill and hone it for your business, which I strongly recommend, unless you’re doing, you know, 15 to 20 K plus per month. Doing it yourself is going to be the most economical route to go. So I would say start small, start with something that you can actually learn and do it in earnest.

And that would be emailless growth. And then once you feel like you’ve honed that skill, then it’d be time to talk about a strategy change. Okay. So if I’m willing to spend a little bit more a day, what should Ads for sales look like, but honestly, I can tell you, you will never, ever, ever regret growing your email list with ads because these are just people you’re going to be able to target to and reach forever.

Even if meta decides to shut down tomorrow, you’ll, you’ll have them. So I would say, start there, learn the skill, and then we can talk strategy specific to, um, different niches and industries and outcomes you’re looking for.

Quianna: Yes. Yes. I love it. And then what advice would you share with once they have successfully Maybe boosted some ads, or sorry, not boost, invested in ads.

I’m still learning. Once they’ve invested in ads and, um, they are growing that email list, what’s next for them? Like, is that something that we, like, do we retarget within those email lists? Do we kind of pop up back? They’ve clicked, but they didn’t sign up. Like, are there ways to kind of, like, know that, like, backdoor information?

I don’t know what to call it.

Jenny: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. So you’re going to spend money getting in front of new eyeballs, but the magic really comes in when you retarget to those people. And just like you said, there are a lot of different ways you can do this. Um, for my clients that are growing their email list and are making back their money, which is the super fun part about email list ads.

If you’re running them and then they’re then getting entered into an email sequence where they can get pitched, even small, tiny offers from you. I see my clients making back most every dollar that they’re investing, which is amazing. Amazing. That is a win, win, win, right? To like pay to grow your list and you make back a good chunk of it.

That’s. That’s a win in my book. So really, um, the opportunities are through email upselling on the backend. And then also on those email list ads, just like you said, anybody who came to your form to sign up, but maybe abandoned or maybe they didn’t abandon, you can reach people in different phases of it.

So you can reach people who have clicked on your button to sign up. Maybe they haven’t opened your email yet. You can reach them again with reminder. Or maybe, um, when they opted in. They made it to a thank you page. It says have your inbox. And by the way, here’s a small offer. You can reach people who lingered on that page for a bit.

We have so many different retargeting offers and that’s definitely our low hanging fruit. The really cool thing about retargeting ads too, is they cost next to nothing. They’re actually super affordable. You’re paying on the front end to get in front of people. And then it’s just a small, honestly, probably a quarter of your budget or so at most spent to reach those people again.

And they’ll generally be pretty high converters, especially if you’re getting present. In front of them, like on social, on email, everything really will work together for you.

Quianna: Amazing. And I feel like that, this is where an expert like you comes in to, to know these, these techie things. Like for me, I feel like, okay, I feel like I have a product to offer.

I have a service that I love, but this is where you come in, Jenny, where you’re like, okay, great. And then this is how we’re actually going to Plug these puzzle pieces together to create this well oiled machine. So you’re not only getting these views and this engagement, but then you’re also retargeting.

And like, there’s just, there’s just so much that goes into this. I love it. I love learning about that.

Jenny: Yeah. Yeah. It is really fun. And it’s cool too, to think about like, if you were running a couple different kinds of ads and thinking about your business, Kiana, if you’re running ads to some kind of a freebie or a quiz, I can totally see that happening.

And, um, you know, based on. Products that they viewed on your website or what they did after they opted into your ads, you can reach them with specific marketing messaging. Like I do that all the time for my business. I have a mini course on how to grow your email list. And if you saw any of my ads related to email list, I’m going to retarget to you with my email list products.

But if you looked at maybe an ad that wasn’t for email list growth was for a different course that I offer, I’m going to retarget to you. For my other products. And so you can really, you can really cater this and kind of bring it down to a granular level and show people information related to what they’re interested in, in your business.

Quianna: Yes. And I love that because I actually love ads. Like I love scrolling either on Instagram, scrolling through Tik TOK, scrolling through Facebook, and I love those target ads. Like it’s actually really nice to be like, yes. Okay. I mean, it can be kind of creepy. I feel like we were kind of over that creepy factor because this is just the way the world is.

Right. But like, I love that to know that like when I spend time with my nephew and then all of a sudden I’m getting cute little ads for it. Like they use these socks that have little grippers on them that help them walk. Right. Like, I’m like, okay, done. Thank you. There’s his first birthday gift. Like, I just, I actually enjoy that as a consumer.

So I can only imagine. Kind of like going back into the back end business brain where we are targeting these clients and these, these new viewers to say, Hey, wait, I actually have solutions for you. I can help solve a problem. And that is different. That’s different than just. Right. All products are, you know, available are amazing.

But like when you’re trying to build your business to make more money, those types of products are just like, those are fast yeses. Like, I want to see those. I want to be targeted. That’s amazing. Okay. I’d love to kind of like recenter here and chat about the actual development of these ads. And I would love to know the first question that pops in my mind, Jenny, is are we creating Brand new ads to be released and paying for or are we just kind of like repurposing organic ads?

I’m doing air quote like organic pitches or posts that perform really well and then we add money to it but we create an ad. Does that make sense? Like can you walk me through this? Yes,

Jenny: I love this question and you you phrased it perfectly because the answer is both and really excited to kind of share what what does that mean to be both.

So When we create an ad and kind of what we’re talking about here, it’s not boosting, right? So it’s actually creating it within ads manager dot facebook dot com. It’s in a place called ads manager and we create it from scratch. So yes, we pull in any kind of video, graphic image, anything we want, we create it from scratch there and you’re going to set up a few different kinds of ads.

Um, when I set up ads, um, and we can chat through this to kind of like what ads are working best these days, but you’ll set up a few different ads there. But then, um, you brought up a really Good point. The content that you work so hard on creating for social media, for Instagram, you’re going to post it.

What about that reel that only got 200 views and you’re like, Oh my gosh, that took like two hours to make. Um, you can bring that into ads manager and run it as an ad. It’s different than boosting because you’re telling Facebook, Hey, my end goal with this video is to get people to purchase, or my end goal is to get people to opt into my email list.

And meta will find the people that not only resonate with your content, but that are also people who love opting into email lists or who love online buying. They’re going to find those specific people. Um, and that’s really the power of doing it through ads manager. So we can do both. And I find this works.

It works. Beautifully for my clients when I do both. So basically what I’ll have someone do is I’ll give them some concept ideas and I’ll say, Hey, could I have you post over the course of the next two weeks? Few different videos with these topics or, you know, with this kind of POV text on top, whatever it might be.

And then we just watch and see what happens organically. And then I’m going to pull in anything that I think, you know, and sometimes I get pinged from my clients, Hey, this is totally taking off. Great! I’m going to grab that. I’m going to put it in ads manager. Then all of those, you know, the 50 likes and the 10 comments you had, I’m now going to put money behind that.

And that’s going to continue growing. People can see that forever on your profile, which is really valuable. So like, for example, I don’t have a huge social media following myself. A lot of my clients do, but we kind of keep a lower profile. But anyway, on one of my videos, I don’t know, I probably have close to like 60, 000 views now, and the reason why is it didn’t happen organically.

It happened because I put that inside of an ad. I saw it taking off organically. So, Hey, let me put some money behind this to grow my email list and it’s worked beautifully. Um, so really it’s, it’s a combination of both. Repurpose that content you worked hard to make. If it’s, if it seems to be taking off, if you have any glimmer of that, bring it over into ads manager.

Quianna: That’s amazing. So one quick question I have once something is already posting, like you said, you can actually go back into the post. And so it’s. How is that not boosting? I’m confused.

Jenny: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So when you’re boosting, that’s when you’re like natively in Instagram, you click your boost button and Facebook goes ahead and they, they say, okay, you want to reach however many thousands of people?

You’re like, yes, I do here, you know, 25, whatever. The difference is we go inside of ads manager and we tell ads manager, Hey, ads manager, I’m setting up a campaign with the end goal being sales. And as crazy as it is, that is just the one simple tweak that saves people thousands of dollars Canada, because I see this time over time I’ve audited hundreds of ad accounts and I see people who are like boosting or they’ll run traffic thinking like, Oh, it’s just a traffic problem.

Just need more traffic to my website. That’s all. That’s not it. Meta knows. Who they’re looking for. And if you’re telling them, Hey, I’m looking for buyers, people who want to buy and they match this criteria. What they’ll do is they’ll bring that post in and they’re going to show it with that specific intent.

It’s kind of like, it’s, it’s the end goal that really makes the difference. Is your end goal views and reach, or is your end goal telling meta, Hey, I’m looking to get sales or email list growth. Um, so that’s. Yeah, that’s kind of my long my long winded answer. Don’t don’t boost it. This is we’re talking about something different.

Bring it into ads manager. So basically what you do is when you go into ads manager, there’s a button where you can see all of your recent posts and you can select it and say, Oh, that post I’m running for email list growth. And it’s It’s just wild. You’d think, well, like what, how, how could that even make a difference at all?

But Meta knows everything about us. They know that I am an email list junkie and I opt into everything and I love going to webinars. And so they’re going to find me because I match, you know, I’m interested in digital marketing and I love attending webinars. And so they’re going to find people who have told Meta that that’s their goal.

So, yeah,

Quianna: it’s so mind blowing. It’s, it’s just insane. It’s

Jenny: weird. It’s, it’s really weird how much Facebook, I mean, they’ve calculated They just collected so much information on their users. It’s, it’s really wild, but they will know the difference if you. Tell them I want to get in front of people. They’ll get in front of people, but you want to get in front of people who will take a specific action that you want them to do.

And that needs to happen inside of ads manager. That won’t happen through boosting.

Quianna: Yes. And is this something that, and I’m just so, I feel like I’m such a sponge is learning all these things. Is this something that we are importing, or I should say you are as the ads manager. Importing these keywords and these specific things, or at that point, does Meta just know, like, I mean, like, how far advanced has the technology grown since I’ve done this last?

This is crazy. Yeah,

Jenny: yeah, great question. And I feel like that kind of ties nicely into, like, who should we be targeting these days with our ads? Because even that strategy has shifted a bit over the last few years. So there’s no, like, keyword targeting in the way that there is for Google. Everything will be either interest based targeting or lack thereof.

So you can do interest based targeting. Uh, you know, like, if you’re looking for somebody who shops at a certain place or uses a certain software or buys their groceries from somewhere in particular, you can do that. We call that interest based targeting. But one audience that I want to leave your audience with is, uh, that’s working just phenomenally across the board, across so many industries.

I have tried this on probably a couple dozen different brands over the last few months. It’s called advantage plus targeting and across the board, it’s working phenomenally. In the past, yeah, we used to go super targeted and super niched and like, what are they doing? We want to require that they’re doing this.

And we want to require that they’re doing that. We would kind of do this like stacked Targeting and make sure that we told Facebook exactly we spell it out to the T who we want to reach but it’s Kind of becoming the case that we don’t need to do that any longer. Those audiences can work, but this advantage plus targeting is one that I’d encourage everybody to give a shot if they’re going to run ads.

Basically Metta says, give me the reins. And that was terrifying at first. I’m like, no way. Like I’ve been doing this for how many years and I know what I’m doing Meta. I’m not interested in that. So I resisted it for a while. Then I decided to give it a shot. I’ve been blown away with the results that regardless of industry, I’m seeing it working well.

And basically you just tell them, Here’s my country and they do the rest and that sounds terrifying because how could they find the perfect person? What if you’re like super super niched? Mm hmm They will find the people and that’s really when it comes down to your creative and what you’re saying in the ad That’s like really really important because for example if I’m running an ad to let’s say Shopify business owners and I really want to get people on my email list who are interested in Shopify Or show it or, you know, whatever it might be.

Uh, if I call those people out in the ad itself, like, Hey, you know, Shopify business owner or whatever it might be. If I make content specific to them, that a meta will find those people. They can pick up on that and they’ll find the right people.

Quianna: That is incredible. Like, I feel like we absolutely need to take advantage of that.

Jenny: Totally. Yes. Yep. It’s, it’s cool. And it’s interesting. They, they push it now. It’s kind of, it automatically gets set up as advantage plus, and you kind of have to find your work around. If you don’t want to do that, they, they, they make it pretty difficult for you to change back to the original audience options.

They, they are still there. So you can still do, you hear people talk about lookalike audiences and you hear people talk about interest based audiences. They’re there, but give advantage plus a try. It’s, it’s a good one.

Quianna: Wow. Oh my gosh. Well, I feel like these are all incredible green flags. Like these are all things to look for.

These are like buttons to check. Do you have any red flags, Jenny? Like any red flags we should consider when it comes to creating that ad? Yeah. So you’re thinking like

Jenny: Um, content that doesn’t work as well in ads or

Quianna: maybe even like, so like one thing, for example, I’m always worried about being compliant or making sure that things are like within the guidelines of, because sometimes I’ve, one time I was like blocked out because I said, I talked about wanting to kidnap one of my best friends, little girls.

And I know this sounds so horrible. Like I probably even shouldn’t say this now. They’re going to come after me. But I made a joke like, yeah, we need a girl. I can’t wait to kidnap you girls. I’m like, have fun. And I was like blocked out for like, and I like, it just terrifies me. Like in this cancel culture, it’s scary to just put anything out there.

Even though of course those aren’t our intentions. Right. I just want to play with her mother at the park. Like this sounds ridiculous. So like, I guess that’s my question is like red flags, any type of maybe wording or any Yeah. Is there anything that we should be kind of aware of before we are putting money behind these ads?

Totally, totally. That’s a really great question.

Jenny: I’m sorry you got blocked out. That’s really terrifying. Um, so, Meta has really loosened up a lot over the last couple years. I’ll say that. Things that I used to get flagged for before were no longer seen getting flagged. Um, even before, like you couldn’t have too much text on your graphics or like on top of an image, and it would be like, you know, block like you used, you know.

Block you, but they would say you can’t use this asset more than 25 percent of it is text, for example, um, but they’ve lifted that. That’s not really a thing anymore. Um, I used to see ads get flagged for discrimination pretty often and you’d look at the head. You’re like, Against anybody. I don’t mind this is happening, but it used to be that if you were used the word you so like, you know, are you feeling stressed?

Are you feeling overwhelmed? We used to see meta be like really picky about that. I’m not seeing it as much these days. To be honest, Kiana, gosh, I run hundreds of ads a month and I don’t know the last time we’ve gotten flagged. I feel like alcohol is one that will get flagged. They’ll flag for I’m doing air quotes here.

“Nudity.” If you’ve got too much like arm like I used to, um, I had a client years ago that did like. body sculpting and, um, anyway, if there was any like too much skin in the images, then they would like get flagged. But I, I honestly am not seeing it too much these days, but safe to say like anything with violence, profanity, apparently kidnapping is a no, no.

I can’t say I’ve tried it, but now we know for us. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so anyway, I would say just use your common sense on it. And honestly, the worst that will happen if this is like a first offense, even a second offense. It will just flag it and let you know, just make sure to not do it again. Okay. You know, if you’re getting, you know, a dozen like rejections, then I would be, I’d be worried that your account could be in jeopardy, but otherwise I wouldn’t.

And you know, honestly, what you can do is just submit an ad at a time too. And they’re typically pretty quick. I mean, I see it anywhere from like five minutes to an hour, something gets accepted. So if you were playing cautiously, you could also just submit one thing at a time, watch it get approved and then submit your second ad.

Cause you really should have a few running at a time. Um, but you can do so one at a time.

Quianna: Amazing. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I feel like that’s a really like nice breath of fresh air and like not feeling scared to do that. Cause sometimes I just, I’m just so nervous and you’re right. Like there are some things that it’s just, you don’t want to create these like polarizing moments, but then you also want to be polarizing.

You also want to kind of like create your tribe and um, yeah, I’m just grateful that you shared those little tidbits and I love that one at a time, get it approved, kind of drip it. That’s a little bit less scary.

Jenny: Yeah, totally.

Quianna: Yes. So, okay, so I would love to know from you once we have created our ads, once we have kind of maybe allowed Meta to really refine that search, how are we tracking these?

Like, how are we actually, like, knowing that it’s performing well? What’s your advice on that? Yeah,

Jenny: great question. This is a whole can of worms. I could probably talk to you for about an hour about this, but well, I’ll try to summarize it with this. Before you spend a dime, know what you want out of this.

Know if what you want and and and I should say know what you want and then also know what you’re okay with Because if what you really want are people to book you for your service to be totally booked out next month Okay, that would be um kind of like our our top goal But would a secondary goal also be okay with growing your list with email?

You know email list growth with people who maybe aren’t ready next month But are ready the following month because what you’re running your ads for is what you’re going to be tracking and so if you’re if you’re um You Really looking to measure email list growth, then that’s the metric you’re going to look at.

If you’re looking for, if you are running for sales, you can, um, then you’ll need to be measuring that along the way. There are a bunch of different metrics. Um, to be honest, I’ve got a whole resource on this and that might be a better place to kind of point people to if they really want to dig into the weeds.

I used to be a math teacher, so we get nerdy and it’s fun. Make it approachable. I promise. But there, there are some basic things though, like you should be watching your link. Click through rate. So that’s the rate at which someone sees it clicks through and heads to whatever destination you have. You want to shoot for above a 1 percent that will show, um, that will indicate to you that people are resonating with what you have out there.

So you’re reaching the right people with the right kind of content. Anything below that, that shows you like, Hey, my first issue might be my ad. But if you’re sitting above a 1%, then you can kind of move on. And it really, from here, it just depends again, what you’re What your goal is, because if you’re selling something and then you can even see in here, Kiana, you can see your heart, how many initiated checkout, how many purchase, um, how much they purchased from you and you can really measure it that way at the end of the day, though, if you’re, if you’re running ads for sales.

You need to make more than break even right so shoot for more than we call it like a one times row as return on ad spend. You want more than a one times return on your ad spend. Ideally, you’re shooting for much more, right? Like all of my clients will need a 34567 times return in order for it to make sense for them to continue running ads.

So, um, yeah, that’s my really quick, uh, kind of streamlined version for you. And I feel like we could we could go really nerdy on this, but sometimes it’s easier to actually see that in person to know. So. Specific to your niche, what metrics should you be looking at? But hopefully there’s a couple tips for you guys.

Quianna: Yeah, no, I love that. And I love that you broke it down because there’s always room for improvement. There’s always room to contact you, to work with you, to learn these skills. Because I think sometimes I think, oh gosh, sometimes it’s just, well, how much money am I making? Like, how much am I really getting an ROI on this?

But I love that you’re taking it like seven steps deeper and wider to be like, well, what are those clicks? Where, where is this, like this, um, like buyer success rate, I guess, right? Is that what you would call it? I don’t know. I just made that up, but like, you know, like, what does that look like in that client journey?

So then we can kind of go back to the drawing board and we can either develop different ads, different targets, different opportunities to work with you. And, um, I love that. I love that you are offering the education on that.

Jenny: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, one of the really fun things too, is anything that you want to know, you can probably find within ads manager.

They have so many custom columns. For example, I have clients that, um, we’re running email list ads. That’s their number one goal, but what’s cool is I can also set up a little column that tracks purchases. So I can see, okay, we had 1, 000 new people join your list this month. And hey, we made 20 purchases, which means, and I can see also how much money it brought back into their business, which is really cool.

So I can say, Hey, your ads pay for themselves, or, Hey, you actually made money. We’re on your email list. How great is that? And so really any metrics you want to see, you can see them there.

Quianna: I love that so much. Oh my gosh. Well, can you please share with us a little bit more about your office hours? Cause I feel like I can just sit with you literally for hours and pick your brain and I want to like bring products to you and then chat about, okay, well, what kind of ads can I do for this?

Or this, this performed really well. Can we turn this into an ad? So how are you sharing your education for this Jenny?

Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, office hours is a service that I have where just like you said, anybody who’s run ads before, or maybe they want to run ads, but they’re terrified. And they’re like, I’m not going to go spending this money.

If I don’t have a strategy in place, I offer office hours. And yeah, anybody in your network who would like to come would love to see them sit down with me. It’s in a group coaching setting and you submit any of your questions ahead of time. And I will answer all of them for you. And so you can pick my brain on literally anything under the sun We can troubleshoot your ads or even brainstorm for your next upcoming campaign.

So anybody here who’s listening that would like to join for office hours, I would love to have you. And if you use code Kiana10, you can get 10 percent off office hours. And like I said, you can come for a call every single month, or you could book me just when you need me. Um, but I am just loving this offer and so are the people that are coming.

Quianna: Amazing. What an incredible gift. Thank you so much for sharing that for our listeners today. Oh my gosh, all my besties are going to need this. This is one of those things, Jenny. I feel like sometimes I feel like a third grader where I just want to push it and be like, just believe me, just trust me.

Like Jenny is great with the ads. And I truly believe that all of us have incredible services, incredible offers. And for many of us, we’re just sitting on them. Like literally, like we’re just too afraid to even release them or maybe they have been emotion for a while. And now it’s time to really put some gasoline on the fire.

Like it’s really time to amplify it. And I’m just so grateful that you have all this education and you also have courses too, right? Like you have more programs that offer, like we can just purchase today if we wanted, right?

Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. I can send over that link to you to put in the show notes and can show people any kind of information, whether they want just beginner entry level, a mini course, something they can do in an hour to get their, their bearings.

Or if someone really wants to dive into the weeds, I’ve really got a whole breadth of, of courses available.

Quianna: Incredible. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much, Jenny. I learned so much today and I cannot wait to start applying some of these lessons and these tricks that you’ve shared. And, uh, I’m just so grateful for you.

And where are you located? I know you’re bouncing back and forth, but where are you?

Jenny: I’m in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but yeah, I, uh, have been in Gilbert, Arizona for the last, like, several years, but we, we do a good amount of travel between them. Um, not a huge winter person. So. You’ll find me in Arizona at least once or twice a year.

Quianna: I love that. Oh my gosh. You were real life. Snowbird.

Jenny: Yeah, I am trying.

Quianna: And how can we connect with you? How can we learn more?

Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. I love hanging out on Instagram. So come find me ads uncorked is my Instagram handle, or you can find me over at ads uncorked. com.

Quianna: Incredible. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge today, Jenny.

I appreciate you and I will be in touch soon because I need to start boosting some ads or I need to start amplifying some ads. I keep saying brand awareness. Let’s go.

Jenny: Yes, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.

Quianna: Thank you. Have a beautiful day. Oh wow, I’m seriously blown away by this conversation and hope you feel inspired to kickstart some ads too.

I’ve always been so intimidated by ads, mostly because I don’t like wasting my money. I want to know that my efforts and dollars are helping my business grow strategically. Plus, putting yourself online and sharing your offers with your community is scary, let alone increasing exposure and your brand awareness to weirdos online that may not even be aligned with our offers.

Cheers. Bye. Thanks to Jenny and her team, I’m confident they’re the experts to streamline those efforts and truly attract warm leads into your ecosystem that quickly turn their curiosity for your offers into repeat buyers once they get to know you and love you and are blown away by the results you’re providing.

I’m beyond grateful for these conversations and I’m so thankful you’re here to make sure to check out the ads uncork shop to learn more about Facebook ads in a weekend, sign up for audits and office hours with Jenny to get her eyeballs on your ads, learn how to write money making ads and so, so much more.

Plus, if you really do some snooping, check out her website, ads uncorked. com to peep a full brand shoot that I photographed for Jenny a couple of years ago. She may be ready for a refresh soon, but her website currently is full of our collaboration brand shoot. And I’m obsessed. If you’re ready for a content or brand shoot to easily fuel your ads with updated images and B roll video clips, I’m ready for you, babe.

Let’s go. Let’s get that on the calendar. If you found this episode helpful, please make sure to follow and subscribe to Kiana Marie Weekly. It’s my mission to introduce you to my real life friends, mentors, business besties, and influencers. Not the kind of influencers that encourage you to just buy random things.

The kind of influencers that influence you to become the best version of yourself. You, my love, are worthy of success. You are over qualified. Your dream clients are praying to find you. Let’s crush these algorithms organically, then ignite them and blow them up with ads. Thanks so much for tuning in. I cannot wait to connect next week.

Okay. Love you. Bye. That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie Weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you’d show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app until next time.

Keep on dancing.