Let's get into paid ads: communicating to strangers at scale.

Paid ads interrupt other people’s content, allowing instant scale by reaching strangers through platforms they already use.

We're essentially renting eye balls (attention) for a fee.

This guarantees reach because you pay for it, unlike organic methods where reach is uncertain.

The question is how well you can turn these eye balls into leads and sales.

Four Problems to Solve with Paid Ads

  1. Where to Advertise: Choose platforms where you’ve personally gained value and can target your ideal audience.
  2. Targeting the Right Audience: The hardest part. If you show the right thing to the right audience, you’ll get a good response.
  3. Creating the Best Ad: Make your ad appealing to the right people and make them take action.
  4. Getting Permission for Future Contact: Ensure you can reach out to leads again.

Step-by-Step Guide to Paid Ads

1. Where to Advertise

Choose a platform that meets these criteria:

  • You’ve used it and have some idea how it works.
  • You can target people interested in your stuff.
  • You know how to create an ad specific to the platform.
  • You have the minimum amount of money to spend on ads.

Pro Tip: Start where your competitors advertise. Replicate their successful strategies before innovating. Most ad platforms have an 'ads library' search for your competitor's ads there. Look for the ads that have been running for the longest and have the most engagement. Then transcribe those ads and understand how they hook, retain, reward, and present their offer or lead magnet. Don't copy one ad. Look at 30-50 competing ads, and then write your own version.

Action Step: Start with one platform that meets these requirements and study the ads there.

2. Targeting the Right Audience

Modern platforms offer two primary ways to target:

  • Targeting Factors: Use age, income, gender, interests, location, etc., to narrow down your audience.‍
  • Lookalike Audiences: Upload a list of your existing leads to find similar people.

Action Steps:

  • Start with the ad platform's targeting factors/filters. Go hyper specific and expend the audience as you go. Don't go super broad right off the bat.
  • Combine your lead lists and create a lookalike audience, then refine with targeting factors.

3. Creating the Ad

An effective ad has three elements: Call out, value, and a CTA.

  1. Call Out: Grab attention with a strong hook (this is the most important part of the ad!). Focus 80% of your effort on the first few seconds of the ad to ensure it captures attention.
    1. Text
      1. Labels
        1. Are you a home owner?
        2. Do you own a home and make over $400k a year?
        3. I'm looking for XYZ
      2. Yes-Questions
        1. Do you sweat at night?
        2. Do you snore a lot?
      3. If-Then Statements
        1. If you were born between 1945-1980, then you may qualify...
        2. If you run over $10k in ads, we can save 20% or more"
      4. Ridiculous Results
        1. Gym in DC overfilled , has to refund customers because they can't fit them all
        2. Woman losing 50 pounds eating pizza
    2. Visuals
      1. Contrast: Any stuff that “sticks out” in the first few seconds. The colors. The sounds. The movements etc. Note what catches your attention.
        1. A bright shirt almost always gets more attention than a black or dull shirt.
        2. Attractive people almost always get more attention than plain looking people.
        3. Moving stuff almost always gets more attention than still stuff.
      2. Likeness: Think visually showing labels—features, traits, titles, places, and other descriptors that people identify with.
        1. People want to work with people who look, talk, and act in ways familiar to them (and you may not look, talk, or act in ways familiar to them).
        2. If you serve a broad customer base use more ethnicities, ages, genders, personalities etc. in your ads.
        3. If you serve a narrow customer base (ex: medical devices for seniors), then use people who look like them.
      3. The Scene: Think showing the Yes-Questions and If-Then statements.
        1. A person tossing and turning in bed calls out people with sleep troubles.
        2. A pear next to an hourglass can call out people with a pear shaped body.
        3. A room full of stuff stacked to the ceiling calls out people with too much junk.
        4. A rock hitting a window calls out people with broken windows.
        5. A local landmark. Locals think - "Hey, I know that place!" and pay attention.‍
  2. Value:
    1. The WHAT:
      1. Present the benefits and the risk of not using your solution very clearly:
        1. Eight Key Elements to consider - You don't need all eight key elements to be included in each ad. They give you enough ammo to put together a variety of ads for your campaign.
          • Convey that they will get more:
            • Dream Outcome
              • A good ad will show and tell the maximum benefit the prospect can achieve using the thing you sell.
              • It should align with the ideal prospect’s dream outcome for that sort of product or service. These are the results they experience after buying the thing.
            • Low Risk
              • explain away past failures
              • emphasize success of people like them
              • give assurances by authority
              • guarantees
              • tell how what you offer will give them a better chance of success than what they currently do
            • Fast
              • To get things we want - we know we have to spend time getting them. A good ad will show and tell how much faster they will get the thing they want.
            • Easy
              • To get things we want, we assume we have to do stuff we hate and give up stuff we love. And ease comes from a lack of needed work or skill.
                • A good ad disproves the assumption. It tells and shows how you can avoid the stuff you hate doing, do more of the stuff you love doing, without working hard, or having a lot of skill and still get the dream outcome.
          • Convey that they will get less:
            • Nightmare
              • A good ad will also show them the worst possible hassles, pain, etc. of going without your solution. In short - the bad stuff they’ll experience if they don’t buy.
            • High Risk
              • A good ad will also show them how risky it is to not act. What will their life be like if they carried on as they always have? Show how they will repeat their past failures and how their problems will get bigger and worse.
            • Slow
              • A good ad will also show them how slow their current trajectory is or that they’ll never get what they want at their current rate.
            • Hard
              • A good ad will also show them the amount of work and skill they’ll need to get the result without your solution.
                • How they’ll be forced to keep giving up the things they love and continue suffering from the things they hate.
                • Or worse, that they work hard and sacrifice a ton right now and have gotten nowhere.
          ‍
    2. The WHO:
      1. Another dimension you can throw into the mix is the WHO, or the perspective, meaning talk about the perspective of other people and how they perceive the subject. Remember, humans are primarily status driven. And the status of one human comes from how the other humans treat them.
        1. People gaining status
          1. Your customers.
        2. People giving it to them:
          1. Spouse
          2. Kids
          3. Parents
          4. Extended Family
          5. Colleagues
          6. Bosses
          7. Friends
          8. Rivals
          9. Competitors
    3. The WHEN:
      1. People often only think of how their decisions affect the here and now. But if we want to be extra compelling (and we do), we should also explain what their decisions led to in the past and what their decisions could lead to in the future. We do this by getting them to visualize through their own timeline (past–present–future).
  3. CTA: Tell them what to do next
    1. If your ad got them interested, then your audience will have huge motivation for a tiny time. Take advantage.
    2. Tell them exactly what to do next. S-P-E-L-L it out: Click this button. Call this number. Reply with "YES." Go to this website.

4. Getting Their Information

Use simple landing pages to capture contact information. Ensure your landing page matches the ad in design and message.

Action Step: Build your first landing page using a simple, layout with all the main elements above the fold.

Conclusion

Paid ads can significantly boost your business by reaching a vast audience efficiently. Remember the key elements:

  • Call Out: Capture attention.
  • Value: Provide compelling reasons to act.
  • CTA: Make the next steps clear and simple.

By mastering these components, you can create profitable ad campaigns and scale your business effectively. Happy advertising!