Who is ready for a little vacay after a crazy year? In this week's episode, I'm going to detail how I haven't paid for a flight or hotel in over a year just by utilizing rewards on my Facebook and Google ad spends. Buckle up!
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Podcast Transcript
Orlando Rios : It's the Ultimate Marketer Podcast. Yes it is, the Ultimate Marketer Podcast. Welcome everybody. I'm your host Orlando Rios as usual. We are here in mid March already. Can you believe it? 2021 is off to the races.
Before we get started today, I wanted to remind you that now spring is coming up and it's a great time to get new ad creative and you can do so at dropkickads.com. We can help you with your Facebook Ad Copy, your images for your ads, or if you want to get into Google, we have great Google Search Ad packages that you can look into and we also now do LinkedIn too. All cool. Maybe you want to get in there and get some new creative, or maybe you want to have us actually go into your accounts and set up everything for you; the campaigns, the targeting, the creative, everything. We do that for Facebook and Google. We have what's called our pro-setups. They're really intuitive and we do a really good job. We've seen some really good results from a lot of the customers that we've had.
So if you're serious and you're open-minded and want to have a different approach to your ads, I would check out our pro-setups. And guess what? You can use promo code ultimate and save 10% on those pro-setups. That's over a hundred dollars, I think. Make sure to check that out; dropkickads.com, use promo code ultimate and get ready for spring.
All right. As we get further into 2021, we also take a little look back at 2020 and what that was. If you're like me, you probably like to travel. You like to see the country or go to other countries and really just explore. That's the way to get away from the normal workdays, and if you're working from home, especially, it's nice to have a little vacation. As things start to improve with the pandemic that we've had over the last year and vaccinations are happening and it's going to be a little safer to fly and travel to the places we want to go as we get into the summer here, it's time to really start thinking about those places we want to go the travel, because ultimately that's what makes a lot of people happy. I know it makes me happy.
So I thought I would make this week's episode about ways that you can travel absolutely for free just from doing the things that you're already doing as a marketer. Sounds crazy, right? "Orlando, how can I not have to pay for flights? How can I not have to pay for hotels, for all the things regarding travel just from doing my normal day-to-day activities?" Well, if you're spending money on Facebook Ads or on Google Ads, or really any social media or search engine platform, you really can earn rewards and travel points on that spend that you're already doing.
One of the biggest mistakes that I see across the accounts that I've worked in, and even some accounts that spend a lot of money per month, I'm talking 10, 20, $30,000 a month in ad spend on Facebook or Google, they're using debit cards, check cards to pay for those ads, those balances, and when you do that, you get nothing in return for it. You're essentially handing over cash to pay for these ads that you're putting out. Now to someone like me, that sounds really inefficient. Why can't you have a benefit to that? Well, you can, but of course, you're going to have to use a credit card to do so.
I thought today, as I'm starting to get the travel bug a little bit, I'm half vaccinated as of right now. I'm really excited to be able to get out and fly and travel and see the country again and see the world again. So I thought I would make this episode about the ways that you really can have benefits from just placing Facebook and Google Ads that you would be placing anyway.
I, myself, for Dropkick have personally racked up hundreds of thousands of travel points and I've even earned a Companion Pass for a whole year, which means that my partner can travel with me anywhere I go on Southwest Airlines for free for an entire year. That is crazy. How did I get all these points and what cards am I using? Well, I'm going to tell you the couple of main cards. I have maybe three to four cards that I use, but there's two main cards that I use for all of my Facebook and Google Ad spending. This is not necessarily an endorsement. This is just my personal experiences and what you get from them.
My ACE card, my number one card that I use, whenever I place Facebook and Google Ads is the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card. With this card, you get to set whatever your mega rewards category is going to be. Of course, I do a lot of ad buying, so for me, that's going to be the advertising purchases with social media and search engines. With that, with every dollar I spend on Facebook and Google Ads, I get three times the points. Three times the points for every Facebook and Google Ad bill that I have. That is awesome. So I spend a thousand bucks, I get 3000 points from that.
The only thing about this card, which I don't think it's really that much in the grand scheme of things, is it does have a $95 annual fee, which personally, I think if you're spending four, $5,000 a month on ad spend at the very least minimum, this in itself will pay for itself throughout the year easy if you like to travel. The cool thing about it too, is that the points they never expire. You don't have to use them in any specific time period.
Chase is really good. I have my problems with Chase, no doubt about, but this card is set up really good and the rewards system is set up really good to where you can just go to the rewards panel and you can book flights and hotels pretty easily using your points on their platform. It's really, really easy. These points never expire, so you can rack up points year over year if you don't use them or you want to use them selectively, you really could go an entire year without ever having to pay for a hotel or plane. That's pretty cool. Just from using it on ad spend that you were going to spend anyway.
Additionally, if you sign up for this card, at the very beginning, if you spend $15,000 in the first three months on the card with Facebook and Google Ads, which is essentially $5,000 a month, you'll get an additional bonus of 100,000 points. That in itself is good for about $2,000 in travel. That right there covers the annual fee and some, and gets you some flights and some hotels I'm pretty sure depending on where you go.
That's really a no-brainer. If you're spending at least $5,000 a month on ad spend in total of Facebook and Google that really makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, if you're using a debit card or check card or having a draft from your bank account to pay for those ad spends, you're kind of getting hosed. You're not getting anything for your work and for your money. Well with using one of these cards, you essentially are getting all these free trips. And travel is awesome, travel is fun. Something to really think about there.
Also, you get a bunch of these other little perks when it comes to Chase Ink Business. If you have a personal card and you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you can transfer points between the two and combine points together, so it becomes double valuable. Something to think about there as well.
One of the other little perks that I really liked ... Before pre-pandemic, when I first started using this card and started taking advantage of all the extra points that I was getting from my ad spend is you also get this little membership card. I think it's called Priority Pass. What it is is that at certain airports, in a lot of airports really, it gets you into all these lounges so that when you go to the airport, you don't have to sit in the normal areas of the airport; you can actually go into these lounges and they have free drinks, free food. They have nice comfy couches and chairs with wifi. It makes being in the airport waiting for your flight a lot more comfortable. You can just kind of chill and relax, eat, drink, and catch up on work if you want to, or just chill. Totally up to you. Some of them even have showers, all sorts of things. That itself is another really cool perk that you get with this for absolutely free. That's cool.
My next favorite card for using for Facebook and Google Ad spend is the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business card. If you're in the States and a lot of the destinations that you normally go to are on Southwest Airlines and you like Southwest Airlines, this card is really, really cool and is a really, really good option if you're spending a lot on Facebook and Google Ads. Now the annual fee for this card is definitely higher than the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card. It's going to be $199 annually. Like I said, if you fly Southwest a lot and you're spending at least $5,000 a month on ad spend total for Facebook and Google, the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card is a pretty, pretty good deal.
With this card, you'll only get two-X on the social media and search engine advertising, which is not as good as the three-X that you get with the Chase Ink Business Card. However, there also is a bonus with this one. If you spend $5,000 in purchases in the first three months, so the bonus threshold is lower for the Southwest card here, because unlike the Chase Ink, where you have to spend $15,000 in the first three months, with the Southwest you only have to spend 5,000 and if you do so, you'll earn 70,000 bonus points. That is pretty cool.
But the real power here, and this is my favorite part of the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card, the real kicker here is that if you spend enough on ads to get that two-X or before you earn any points, if you start using that Southwest Business Card to travel any way, to buy your flights on Southwest or hotels on Southwest, with that you'll get, I believe it's three times the points for that. So if you combine those points, you probably spend at least $5,000 a month on advertising, or just put $5,000 every month on charges, preferably on the ones that get you multiple points like social media or buying things through southwest.com, and you reach the bonus points and you combine it with the regular points that you'd get, you could get what I got, which is the Southwest Companion Pass for a whole year as I mentioned earlier in the episode. That means that your partner will get to fly with you 100% free anywhere you go.
Right now I have that Companion Pass. So if I book a flight to Las Vegas, my partner can come with me for free 100% with the Companion Pass. I have this backlog of points from the last year and a half or so that I haven't used because I haven't been able to travel. So I can get those flights with this Pass with those and not have to pay, and get them the Companion Pass for free. Essentially we're going to Vegas for free. That is pretty cool.
If you time it correctly ... I think they do calendar year ... you don't necessarily want to get it in October, November; you want to get the card in January so you time it so you get the bonus in January so that you can get at that exact point and you have the entire full calendar year to use that Companion Pass to go. You can go to Hawaii. You can do all sorts of things on Southwest. That is pretty cool in itself. Those are my two favorite business cards that I use.
American Express also has a couple of great cards. A lot of times though, their annual fees are higher. If you prefer just cash back, American Express is probably the way to go. But if you like to travel and you want to rack up points that don't expire for future travel for work or for just vacations, the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card and the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business is what I think are the best two. I did a lot of research before I signed up for these cards because I wanted to make sure I got the best ones. I did the Chase one first, and then later I got the Southwest one. Those are the ones that I'm personally using that I see the most benefits from as a Facebook and Google advertiser.
Now a little note that if you plan to do this and use credit cards with the intention of getting rewards, you really should pay your statement balance in full every billing period. That's not necessarily each month, whatever the total amount that you have put on the card is, it's your statement balance. It'll be less than whatever the full balance is. You're not paying the full balance; you're paying the statement balance for that period. If you pay the statement balance every billing period, you can avoid any interest fees.
If you have the cash to back it up, put all your charges on these cards and then just pay off the statement balance every single billing period. Do automatic payments so you don't forget and miss it. That way you'll avoid any interest fees. The only fee you'll really have is that annual fee and then you'll get all of the rewards that you've earned from your spending on advertising with these cards. Because really if you hold a balance and have to pay interest on every billing period, you really negate all the benefits that you're gaining from using the credit cards on ad spend.
That's a very important aspect of this. It doesn't make sense to do this if you're going to hold a balance. You want to pay off that statement balance every single month to avoid the interest fees. That's a big part of it. That is a big, big part of it. Otherwise, if you're holding a big balance, you're going to spend a hundred, 200 or more on interest every single month, and then it just negates all of the benefits that you would get from using these for your Facebook and Google Ad spends. So pretty cool there, huh?
I'm really looking forward to traveling. I don't know where we're going to go first, but I just want to go anywhere. I just want to go anywhere really. All these points that I've racked up from these two cards are going to help me get there absolutely for free just from using them to pay the Facebook and Google Ad spend bills or wherever else I advertise. Really, really cool.
I wonder if you guys out there are doing this. If you are hit me up on Twitter. I'd love to hear from you and see what you're doing. If you're taking advantage of things like this ... There's probably more things you can do other than just credit cards to give yourself rewards off of business stuff that you would do anyway. You probably just have to look more into them, but these are a great start. If you're spending thousands of dollars every single month on Facebook and Google advertising, boom, this is the easiest way to get some hard rewards and if you like to travel.
Well, very, very cool. I hope this episode was a little educational here when it comes to finances. If you're already doing this and you're ahead of the curve, kudos to you. If you're still using a debit card or a check card for your advertising, and you're spending thousands of bucks a month, really, really consider this. You might as well make some rewards off it. You're going to have to pay it anyway. So if you have the ability to get these credit cards ... They have to be business credit cards. You have to have a legitimate business with its own EIN and all that stuff. Something to really, really consider.
All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening this week to the Ultimate Marketer Podcast. Again, you can find me on Twitter at Orlando Rios. I'm very active on there and I love to tweet and conversate with everybody. There's a fun community there, Marketing Twitter. It's really, really cool. Come be a part of that.
All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast if you haven't yet already, wherever you're listening on Apple or Spotify. Share it. Be cool. Leave a review. All that good stuff. As always, we will see you next time!