There are three things that you need to know if you want to create effective, high-converting, and profitable Facebook ads. First, you need to nail the message market Match. Get this wrong and it doesn’t matter how smart or funny or creative your ads are, they’re not gonna work. Next is something called the 40 40 20 rule. Every great direct-response marketer and advertising legend lives and dies by this rule.
But don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it before, most people haven’t. And I’m gonna walk you through exactly how to use this with your Facebook ads. And third, you need to use something called the marketing rule of seven. And not just with your Facebook ads either, but with all of your advertising and marketing and everything you do from this day forward. Use it and profit.
Don’t use it and don’t profit. That is a terrible catchphrase. So let me show you how it’s done, starting with the ever-important message Market Match. Want to know the single biggest reason that most Facebook ads don’t work? I can’t see it right now, but I’m going to assume you’re nodding your head yes.
Well, my friend, the biggest reason that most Facebook ads don’t work is not that they chose the wrong campaign objective, wrong placement, wrong budget, or anything related to the actual setup of the Facebook ad campaign. Nope. The reason that most ads don’t work is that they’re saying the wrong things to the wrong people. Or in other words, the offer that they’re making is either unrelated or unappealing. An unrelated message means that they’re making an offer that people just don’t care about trying to sell something in a way that just doesn’t resonate with the pains and problems and fears and frustrations of the market.
This is often the result of spending too much time on the features and the actual tangible things that they’re going to be getting rather than on the benefits and the outcomes and all of the results and how their life’s going to be better after they make a purchase. An unappealing message is simply a message that’s packaged wrong. Or in other words, it’s boring. It doesn’t do anything to try to catch someone’s attention and so they don’t stop to read it. And if they do stop, well, they just don’t care.
What’s that sound? Oh, that’s the sound of your ad dollars getting flushed down the toilet. And so money is wasted. Putting these uninteresting and irrelevant messages in front of people and then wondering why nobody’s buying sounds harsh. I know.
I don’t like to be the bad guy here, but fortunately, there is a solution that comes in the form of a message Market Match. And message market match is exactly what it sounds like. It means matching your message to your market. But obviously, there’s a little more to it than that. Essentially, message Market Match, also commonly known as a message to market match, is just a way of making sure that you’ve done your homework and you’ve researched your target audience.
You’ve figured out what their pains and their problems and their fears and their frustrations are, and how whatever it is that you’re selling is well positioned to help solve that for them. Get it right and people buy. Get it wrong and they don’t buy. And this is one of my favorite things about marketing and about advertising in that it’s a literal case study of human behavior. After all, people can say all of the things about how they think they are or how they would like to be, but at the end of the day, money talks, and what people choose to buy and how they spend their time are two of the most powerful indicators that show what someone values.
So if your ads aren’t working and people aren’t clicking on them or signing up or buying or anything like that, well, it’s simply because they don’t see the value in what you’re offering. So it’s your job as the marketer, as the advertiser, to try to show them that value. And the best way to do this isn’t by shoving it down their throats, but rather to show them that you understand where they’re coming from, you understand their problems, and you possibly have a solution they may be interested in. I wish I could remember who told me this quote so I could give them due credit, but one of my favorite sayings is that customers don’t buy when they understand, they buy when they feel understood. Okay, next I’m going to give you the secret sauce and those special ingredients that separate the amateurs from the pros when it comes to creating high, converting, and profitable Facebook ads.
But first, a real quick message from this video’s sponsor, Metricool. Over the years, I’ve had the chance to work with a lot of different companies and software, but metrical has quickly become my number one secret weapon when it comes to creating better and more effective social media marketing campaigns. And I use it every single day. Not only does it allow you to take care of everything all in one place, but it also integrates seamlessly with Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and TikTok and LinkedIn and Google Business and Pinterest and YouTube, and Twitch, as well as Facebook ads and Google ads and TikTok ads and Data Center. It’s also incredibly easy to use and gives you a ton of powerful features for both organic social media and paid media like Facebook ads.
One of my favorite things about it is how I can watch and monitor my ads performance and get a side-by-side comparison of my ad campaigns on Google and Facebook, which are two of my biggest ad platforms right now. And I can see how they’re doing and compare different metrics against each other, like how many impressions they got, what’s my CPM, which is how much it cost me to show these to a thousand people. What’s my CPC or cost per click? My Ctr, which is my click-through rate and even the number of conversions each campaign is delivering. Because again, remember, it’s not just about getting likes and shares, it’s about making money from your social media and your ads.
So make sure to check out metrical by clicking the link in the description below this video. And when you use the code Adam, you can try out any paid plan for 30 days for free. Okay, next, the 40 40 20 rule. The 40 40 20 Rule shows the breakdown of the three main elements that are responsible for your ad success. 40% to your market, 40% to your offer, and 20% to your copy.
So let me unpack those for you. Now, 40% of the success of your advertising campaign is going to come down to your market, your understanding of them, and your ability to identify and locate them and make sure that you’re putting the right message directly in front of them. Fortunately, Facebook’s targeting options are pretty amazing, so the ability to find them and get right in front of them is well, easier than ever. As for coming up with the right message, the right hook, the right angle, and the right irresistible offer and how those all fit together, well, that’s where you’re going to need to do a little bit of heavy lifting. The next 40% of this equation comes down to your offer.
So what are you offering? And is it irresistible enough to get them to pay attention? Is it relevant enough that they’re going to be interested and want to click? Want to read more, ultimately want to buy? And the last 20% is your copy and your creative.
This is essentially the words that you use, the images, and the video. If you’re running a video ad, all of the design and the way that you structure things as well as the words that you say. As a general rule, the more competitive your market is, the more persuasive and influential and more heavy-hitting your copy is going to need to be. The 40 40 20 rule is incredibly powerful because, like all things in marketing, it gets to the root of what’s important, which is your customers, their problems, and your solutions to those problems. And way too many advertisers get this completely backward, spending way too much time on fancy words and pretty pictures rather than getting to the core of their audience’s pains and how they’re able to best serve them.
There are even some situations with certain target markets where an overly produced ad or an overly polished message turns people off and has the complete opposite effect and will lose to an ad that looks like it was made in Ms. Paint from 1985. That’s some quality design work right there. But there is another thing you can do, no must-do if you want to turn your campaigns into real winners. And that is to leverage the power of the Marketing Rule of Seven. First, some history.
The Marketing Rule of Seven was first introduced by the movie industry back in the 1930s when studio bosses discovered that it took around seven touchpoints or interactions with potential customers to get them to see a movie. This then became kind of a rule in marketing that if you wanted a product or service or business to succeed, you needed to make sure that your prospect heard your advertising message at least seven times before expecting them to take any kind of action. And I like this rule for two reasons. First, it resets someone’s expectations when it comes to advertising. After all, one of the most frustrating, albeit completely understandable parts of advertising is when I hear a newbie advertiser complain about the results they’re getting, or rather the lack of results they’re getting from their campaigns.
But more often than not, and upon closer inspection, it’s usually because they’ve only been running these ads for a couple of days or only spent a few dollars on them. Now, do you know whose fault this is? I’ll tell you. It’s all those internet marketing hucksters from the early 2000s who oversold people on these get-rich-quick schemes and how they could make a million dollars overnight with no work required. But that’s not a real thing in the real world.
Think of one other investment where you could put in a dollar and get back ten or 100 or 1000 or more. I mean, people would look at you like you’re crazy. But with advertising, these are possible. Not right away, not for everyone, but they do happen. But when you first get started, a little bit of patience and a little bit of understanding, and maybe even a little bit of humility are going to go a long way.
Because advertising is a skill. A skill that can be learned, but a skill that’s going to take a little bit of training and a little bit of time. Now don’t get me wrong, the purpose of advertising, of running ads, is 100% to make money. Otherwise, why are you doing this? But it’s also important to approach this with a little bit of sensibility and common sense.
Those are probably the same things. The second reason that I like the Marketing Rule of Seven so much is that it gives me a benchmark and kind of a guide that I can shoot for and plan for and bake right into my marketing strategy. This is why the best way to do Facebook advertising today is to run your ads and then follow up and follow up and follow up and follow up, follow up and follow up and follow up and follow up and follow up. But do it in a way that doesn’t break the bank. And fortunately, you can do it now easier than ever before.
The first way is my absolute favorite, which is to run a Facebook ad that takes someone off Facebook and puts them onto your email list where you can follow up with them again and again forever. The next way is still good though, and it involves running a Facebook ad and then creating a custom audience based on how somebody engaged or interacted with your previous ad. For example, you could create a video ad and then create a couple of custom audiences based on people that watch 25% or 50%, or 75% of the aforementioned ad. You can then follow up with those people through a second ad, which is going to be more cost-effective because you’re going to be advertising to a smaller audience. Not to mention a smaller audience means more opportunities at repetitions and touchpoints and building a deeper and more human connection, but to show up in front of them even more and for free.
