Your Complete Facebook Ads Blueprint in 3 Simple Steps
My unique formula to get your Facebook Ads bringing you leads and instructions on auto-pilot.
Quick note – it’s worth reading last week’s post – Facebook Ads for Estate Agents – before you read this one, as it walks you through the basics of setting up your Facebook Ads properly, so you can then move onto my Blueprint.
My Facebook Ads Blueprint – in a nutshell
You need three types of ads running at any one time:
- A page Like ad
- A content ad
- A direct response ad
With these three ads, all your bases are covered: you have ads generating leads on a short-term, medium-term and long-term basis. This means that you can reap some benefits immediately, whilst your social proof increases and the credibility of your brand builds quietly in the background.
1. YOUR PAGE LIKE AD
Many marketers believe that paying to increase your Likes is vanity, but there are actually several really good reasons to use a page Like ad:
- You can laser-target your ad so you’ll attract the exact people you want to have as fans of your page
- Quality fans will engage with your page content, and increase your reach, so that more people see your posts
- Your fans can see your adverts up to four times a day, compared with only twice a day to non-fans
- It’s much cheaper to advertise to your own fans than to a cold audience
- It’s far easier to get fans than subscribers
- ….but fans will subscribe more readily than strangers
Your Facebook Like Ad budget
£1 a day is the minimum spend on Facebook, so long as you choose ‘CPM’ (cost per 1000 impressions = how many times it is shown in the newsfeed).
Expect to pay around 50p for each Like, in other words, £1 should get you two new Likes a day. At first, you might see better results than these, then it may decline. When this happens, change the image, then the text, and then the audience; but only change one element at a time, then test.
2. YOUR CONTENT AD
A content ad is simply an advert for an article, blog or ebook you have on your website. It needs to be helpful and informative, and the more relevant Facebook deem it to be to your audience, the more likely it is to show your advert to them.
There are two ways to use a content ad:
- to gated content – in other words, content that requires giving your email address or other contact details before you can read it
- to ungated content – an article, blog, ebook or other content you have shared freely, with no need for the reader to impart any of their contact details.
Ideally, you would love to capture someone’s name and email, at the very least, in exchange for something they would find really useful. You may have heard this called a lead magnet, or as I call it, a subscriber briber. The basic idea is sound – you create content that entices someone to click, and then they ‘pay’ for that access with their email address. However, Facebook are finding that fewer and fewer people are prepared to give up their email address and risk being bombarded with emails they don’t want. Therefore whilst you may get the click (and pay for the privilege), only a small percentage of people will actually fill in their contact details, preferring instead to reach for the back button, and to the safety of their Facebook feed.
The solution then, as many top marketers are now finding, is to send the reader to ungatedcontent – that is, an article or similar that they can read without giving up their precious email address.
This makes clicks far easier to get, especially if you mention in the advert that the access is instant. And as a result, your ads will be much cheaper. You can then re-target your readers by placing the Facebook pixel on your website and then reaching them with a new ad, to gated content. As a warmer audience, they are then much more likely to give up their email address and name, as you’ve begin to build trust.
But…..
….test this yourself! Best practice is to run two ad sets to the same piece of content: one requiring an opt-in and one with free access.
Your Content Ad budget
Facebook Ads minimum spend if you’re paying per action, is £5 per day. It’s always worth testing your ad on both CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) and CPC (cost per click) objectives, because if you have a highly converting ad, you may find CPM cheaper per click.
Most adverts tend to run out of steam after a couple of weeks, so I suggest running your content ad for three weeks on, and one week off. Change the image, text and audience in turn to tweak your advert so that it performs better and better. As before though, only change one element of these at a time, so you can see what works, and what doesn’t.
3. YOUR DIRECT RESPONSE AD
There are several types of direct response advert, but the most successful one I’ve seen my clients use, is an advert directly to an online property valuation tool, like ValPal.
The downside to this type of advert is that whilst clicks are easy to get, having someone fill in two pages of questions is a big ask, and many people just abandon the form without completing it. However, the ones who do take the time and effort to add in all their information could be very valuable leads for you – either as a potential seller or a landlord.
Your Direct Response Ad budget
I asked three of my clients who are currently trialling ValPal Facebook Ads to share their results, and these are the averages:
| Click on ad | Completion of valuation form | Market Appraisal | Instruction |
| 8p | £1.70 | £17.00 | £54.00 |
These figures really do highlight the effectiveness of using the Facebook Ads direct response advert to an online valuation tool. Of course, the results you get may be totally different. The design of your advert and the targeting of your audience is the single biggest success factor to your ad. Then there’s the valuation form page itself – I’ve seen some very low-performing pages that can be improved massively with just a few tweaks. Your follow-up structure has to be watertight for you to get through the door to actually meet the potential client fact-to-face, and of course, you have to be able to convert the market appraisal to an instruction.
Despite the fact that there are so many steps and variables in this strategy, it’s still a hugely successful way of filling your inbox with exciting new leads.
You need to get started with your Facebook Ads now
I recently shared some of my Facebook Ads tactics free in a live training, and nearly 200 agents were on the call, which just goes to show what a hot topic this is. Here’s what some of their emails said about the ideas I shared:
“Really valuable training session today – will definitely be back for more!”
“I feel really inspired and am so excited about the opportunities that are open to us!”
“Can’t believe our competitors aren’t using Facebook ads!! Need to jump on this fast before they do…”
“Great session! Loads of interesting stuff. I’d played with post boosting before, but this is a real eye-opener.”
If you missed the live training – or would just like a quick refresher – I’ve created a Facebook Ads 123 Mini Course, just for you!
All you have to do is click this special link, pop in your details, and your 3 mini tutorials will be emailed to you, automagically – today, tomorrow and the next day.
Stock levels are super low, any properties you do get on are selling like hot cakes, and you just don’t have the vals coming in fast enough to replace them.
Facebook ads can be the answer to your prayers – or else a very expensive mistake! It’s all in the way you use them.
Some of my clients are currently using my Facebook ads formula and getting enquiries from only £8 each, and valuations for just £16!! Try matching that with canvassing, or newspaper advertising!
Facebook ads is the cheapest form of advertising for estate agents, by a mile. And it really really works.
This Facebook Ads 123 Mini Course is just 3 very short video modules, where I show you:
- How to set up your ad objectives, ie what’s the POINT of your ad?
- Exactly how to laser-target your ideal audience
- How much to spend and what you should get back
- What ads work, and why
If you are an independent agency owner, in sales, or lettings, or both, you NEED to see these tutorials before your competitors do!
What to do next: Sign up to my Facebook Ads 123 Mini Course here!
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