How To Effectively Launch And Scale Your Facebook Ads

Originally Published: Forbes.com

Facebook has some of the most valuable data in the world on its users, which number more than two billion. Facebook knows things about youthat very few other people know about you. Things like where you shop and where you live, along with other data that can be incredibly useful if you leverage it correctly for your business.

If you can learn how to profitably advertise on Facebook, then you're off to the races and you can potentially make a lot of money. Imagine if every dollar you spent on Facebook turned into two dollars. How much would your advertising budget be?

Once your company is able to spend a dollar on advertising and getting two dollars back, your business can scale super fast. But you probably won't be profitable on day one.

A lot of people who test Facebook ads think that they don't work because they don't make money right away. They spend a dollar and only get 50 cents back. But the best advertisers in the world don't freak out if they spend a dollar on ads and don't get back a dollar immediately. That's because the secret sauce is the email follow-up.

Let's say you spend a dollar on ads and only get 50 cents back on day one, but on day two, you send an automated email campaign to all of the people who opted into your list and you get an additional 25 cents back. Now you've made a total of 75 cents back. Then on day three, you send another automated follow-up email and get another 25 cents back. Now, you have spent a dollar and earned a dollar back. When you get to the day that you break even on your ad budget, this is called your “break-even day.”

The good news is that every customer that you land through automated emails moving forward is pure profit. So, even if you don't break even on day one, it doesn't mean you can't be extremely profitable. The key is to keep following up with people and to find your break-even day. On top of that, you will also have a list of customers that you can continue to upsell to, which will be all profit as well.

Here are a few insights and tips to get you started with your Facebook ads:

Funnel First: One of the greatest misconceptions about Facebook, in my opinion, is that it's the secret to growing your company. Your Facebook ad success comes down to having a high-converting funnel. Your online funnel is the machine that turns website visitors into profits. Your online funnel includes your video sales letter, sales page and upsell page. All Facebook really does is drive people to your website.

Proof Of Concept: Before you start running Facebook ads, you should have a proof of concept that people want what you're selling, and you should have already had at least five customers before you test your ads.

Facebook's Structure: Facebook account structure starts with your account, then your campaign, then your ad sets and then your ads. Your campaign is the objective you want to accomplish when running your ads. Your ad sets are the targeting methods or people that you'd like to show your ads to. And your ads are the creative images and videos with links to your website that you often see in your newsfeed.

Setting Up A Facebook Campaign: When you set up a Facebook campaign, the first thing you want to do is set up your Facebook Pixel. The Facebook Pixel is very important when starting out, as Facebook's algorithm can optimize to show your ads to the right people.

Basic Strategy: When starting out on Facebook, you want to test a lot of different targeting tactics and have at least five different ad sets. You want to target audiences that are related to your niche and that you think might be interested in your product or service. For example, if you're in the business-to-business (B2B) market, you may target people who like business products like Salesforce, ClickFunnels, HubSpot, Grasshopper and other things related to that market.

Write Killer Ads: When you're writing your Facebook ads, you should come up with several different angles that will potentially resonate with your audience. A good rule of thumb is to come up with five angles per ad set. One of the best ad angles I have found is how to achieve desire without pain or fear. This is almost always a great angle for any market. So, how to gain muscle without lifting weights or how to start a business without having any money are two hypothetical angles.

Find A Profitable Ad Set: The whole goal when you're starting out is to find a few different ad sets that are profitable and eliminate the ones that aren't. If you have profitable ad sets, you should keep focusing on them; if you don't, you should stop and work on your offer. After you launch your campaign, don't touch it for at least four days. You have to give Facebook's algorithm a few days to figure out the best people to show your ads to.

Scale Up: Once you find profitable ad sets, the best way to scale up is to duplicate the ones that are working and make slight budget changes. By doing so, you can leverage Facebook's algorithm.

Lookalike Audiences: Once you have at least 200 conversions -- people who opted into your email list or bought a product from you -- it's time to start building lookalike audiences, which can be extremely powerful. From my experience, a lookalike audience almost always works better than an interest-based target because you can target people who are very similar to your current customer base.

This Facebook strategy has helped me greatly reduce my cost per click, cost per lead and cost per acquisition. This strategy allows you to bootstrap and reinvest your profits into scaling your Facebook ads, which can lead to your business succeeding much faster!