On this week's episode, Orlando breaks down what you should be doing NOW to win Black Friday. Other highlights include alternate ad platforms, solving pixel issues, shirt brand marketing, Facebook objectives and more of your questions answered.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
All right brother. We're back for a second episode of ultimate marketer podcast. First of all, thanks everyone for Listening last week and listening to the first episode, I got some great responses from people and I also got some nice critiques, which is always awesome. And of course those are always welcome as I want to continually improve this podcast. I want this to be a fun podcast. I want it to be educational and something that not only you can learn, I can learn and everybody can become better marketers, better business people. So again, thanks everyone for listening to the first episode last week. We're going to keep doing this every single week, so, so look out for that now.
What's coming next? Well, we're going to continue doing this format. We're going to continue talking about all these things, answering questions anything that, that that's coming up that that's a big topic or that that's in the news in regard to marketing or any of the things we specialize in.
You know, we're gonna cover that, but we're also gonna start getting some guests and I've, I've started the process of booking a couple of different guests. One of the first ones is going to be Greg Bastin who is a really great Amazon seller who has a supplement line. So I'm working on finalizing the date for that interview. So that's coming up. But I'm also talking to a handful of others that have knowledge in, in whole vast of things from CBD to to marketing in general to, to publishing and PR, all those type of things.
So I'm really excited to talk to those people and, and learn from them and hopefully share that with you through this podcast. And this podcast is of course brought to you by drop kick ads and we still have that cool promo. If you go to drop kick ads, use promo ultimate code ultimate, you'll get 10% off any gig service and that includes pro setups.
And we also just came out with a new ad copy pack. Most people we found, but ad copy in a pack instead of just, you know, single here and there. So we decided to make that more concrete. And now our Facebook ad copy offering is now, and I had coffee pot, a pack rather, and you'll get, you know, one short copy variation, one mid-length, very copy variation and one you know, long form copy variations. So you can try all sorts of things, AB test everything and see what works best for you. So we have that available now. Again, go to Dropkick ads.com use promo code ultimate and you can save 10% off. So first off on today's show, I want to talk about something that every single business owner should already be thinking about. And that's black Friday, that's coming up next month. We're just over a month away from that period of time.
And this is the time where you should kind of start planning out what you want to do. You don't want to get caught off guard and there's some things you can do to ultimately win black Friday, but it's gonna require planning now because these types of things can't be done at the very, very last minute. So let's talk about a couple of other things, a couple of those things. So I've done a lot of black Friday sales in terms of eCommerce is I've worked for many different types of eCommerce brands over the years and also have done many types of setups for people with Dropkick ads. So there's kind of a list that I'm going to go through here to start prepping. But the first thing you need to think about is obviously the deals and how you're going to stand out to your customers that you already have and the new customers that you hope to gain during the black Friday sales.
Now, black Friday, as you know, is not just on that Friday anymore. It extends out all the way through the weekend through cyber Monday, and it seems to be starting earlier. Every single year you'll see Amazon, you know, probably a week before at least even black Friday even comes around. You're going to start seeing those sales already started to happen. So how do you win black Friday? Well, here's the first thing you need to figure out.
Now, most people take the approach of, Hey, I'm just going to offer these big percentage discounts. You know, maybe it's a little bit more than what I'd usually offer to the customer. But you need to take it a step further than that. Everybody is giving percentage discounts. The key to winning in the key to standing out in the marketplace and an advertisements during a big sales week and sales weekend is, is what is known as the door Buster.
That's a big, you know, that's your placeholder that that should be the cornerstone of, of your campaign. And while you may not have a lot of inventory on that door Buster or you know, like some electronic stores, do, you know, big TVs, you'll see the ASIC are big mega TV is going to be, you know, ridiculously priced for, you know, just this weekend while supplies last. Those are the kind of the doorbusters, right? So things, items that are highly coveted and highly discounted and you should almost think of your door Buster as, as you know, a break even or lost product because the goal is to bring people in with such an extravagant offer that once they get that they'll kind of add other stuff while they're shopping with you, other stuff to their cart, into their bag. And another little trick you can use is, you know, if you're a tangible product store and you have a lot of inventory on, on a, on a high priced item, maybe you're not moving them that well this, this year, maybe they, they didn't get enough an as much traction as you would hope.
So that's a good opportunity to also unload inventory that's just taking up space in your warehouse or taking up space in general. So those are also good things. But the door Buster is extremely important. That should be your front facing campaign. That's the thing that you should put in front of everything in your Facebook ads and in all your banners, your email lists, all that kind of stuff. Because the goal of that is to bring people in. And like I said, it's okay to break even on that product or maybe even lose a little bit of money because the end game is, is the bigger cart, but you can't have a bigger cart if you don't have anybody in your store. And the competition is going to be so rabid that you're going to need it. So that is something you need to figure out now. And that's like something that you know you, you can't figure out last minute. So we're in October and this is the perfect time to figure that out. Additionally, there's another thing you can do that will help put you in a better position to win black Friday and that is exclusive products, things that aren't usually available otherwise things, it's almost like a product launch. Like it's black Friday is also a great time to launch a new product. So say let's create a situation here. Maybe you're a lifestyle brand and you know, people love your tee shirts that you have for your lifestyle brand. What better time than black Friday to come up with an exclusive t-shirt design. You know, w there's not much more effort for you to do other than create that design. You know, you do a few a lifestyle brand. You probably are creating, you know, designs for tee shirts and things like that all the time.
So what better time than to do that now and maybe offer a design that's only going to be exclusive for just that time period, just black Friday through cyber Monday weekend. That in itself is kind of a doorbuster except don't have to low ball, low ball yourself there because it's an exclusive limited edition product. So maybe you have other types of products that you can change it just a little bit to make it more limited edition and only make it available for the weekend. Only make enough inventory for that sales weekend with the goal overall is to get the bigger cart. Cause that's the goal with black Friday. The goal of black Friday is not just to create a new sale here and there. The goal is to make people believe, well, not only believe, but hopefully they are also getting value that they need to almost buy with a wholesale mentality that they're going in.
You know, basically they're going into Costco and just loading up their basket with everything they possibly can because they know and they understand that these deals that they're getting now will not necessarily be around again. And if they want all this stuff, this is the great time to save and do that. So those two things coming up with your doorbuster, what is going to be your big draw to people that are, that are not familiar with your company and also familiar with your company and number to exclusive products. What kind of limited edition things can you do in, in terms of, in terms of an offering that you don't have to offer again, that you can only offer this that weekend as a limited edition product. Now, if you're in the service industry and you're offering services to people, you can get a little creative and you kind of actually have an advantage because if you're in the service industry, you don't have tangible products to, to give.
So you don't, you don't have to have inventory, you don't have to have any R and, D, you don't have to have any of that. You can just come up with whatever it is you want to offer. So maybe if you're in the service industry, it's a, it's a special promo for, you know for free for your service. You know, not just to discount, but maybe some kind of buy one get one free service or you know, the next one's free. All things like that. Or a specific plan, you know, maybe a subscription plan to your service, whatever it is you offer. Maybe there's some kind of special thing where if you sign up this week and you get this additional bonus onto some kind of subscription plan for your service. So as you can tell, there's all sorts of things you can think of that the possibilities are really, really endless.
So get creative and start thinking about those things now because it's going to be too late if you wait next month, especially if your products are tangible. Those are things you need to think of now. Additionally, in terms of marketing, no better time now than just start preparing your audiences. And, and this goes in terms of Facebook Google everything. So obviously in Facebook, if you have your pixel set up, you're, you're, you're already tracking audiences. Hopefully you have things connected. Maybe if you're on Shopify, you use Clavio, you, you know what your customers have bought, you can make specific lists. All those types of things are the things you need to think of. Because while most advertising campaigns that you do on a daily basis are all towards prospecting, getting new customers or capturing people that left your site when it comes to black Friday in the sales weekend, where everybody's in a shopping mentality, that's the time to also reach out to past customers based on what they've bought before.
And make sure they know about your special deals because if they bought from you before, it's there's a good chance that if what you have to offer is, is good that they will buy from you again. So you know it black Friday, again, not just about getting new customers, it's also about reinvigorating your current ones, you know, getting him back into the fold, getting them buying again in purchasing again. And those audience lists should be already be starting to be created. And Facebook in your custom audience manager, you should be setting up those, those audiences in Google as well and really prepare for that campaign. Now Facebook, you're going to want to hit there. Google with, I mean with banners, I usually, not a big banner person, but black Friday weekend, all bets are off you go everywhere you spread your campaign dollars to every single platform you can Facebook, Instagram, Google stories, YouTube, you know, have a YouTube video ready for pre-rolls in advertisements and, and everything.
You should be everywhere. So again, start planning that stuff. Now you, you won't regret it and you're gonna set yourself up to, to, to be more successful. So I want you to start thinking about those things and we're going to have another podcast. As we get closer to black Friday, I'm going to try to make sure that you have all the correct setups. We're going to get to that when we get a little bit closer, but I want you to start thinking about the things I mentioned now, again, to reiterate the doorbusters, what is your big drug? And it'd be to bring in new people that you're okay, you know, with breaking even or even losing a little money on, but the deal is so extravagant and attractive that that should be your lead. And then number two, think about an exclusive offering just for that weekend.
Whether you're a product or service, something that's exclusive, limited edition, whatever it is that can only be purchased during that sale period. And then three, start prepping your audiences in Facebook, Google, YouTube, everything. Start getting ready now. Now, one of the cool things we did in the last episode, which was also the first episode was we took in the questions from you, the listener. And I really loved that because it gave me a chance to really think about the thought process in how I actually decide what I'm going to do to solve a problem. So I'm already learning from this podcast, so I'm so stoked that we're doing it and I hope you are too. And so I think I'm going to continue the questions answered thing. Anytime we don't have a guest and if we have a guest, obviously we have a limited amount of time and, and you know, that's the way that's gonna work out.
But if we're doing one of these where it's just me and you talking together, I'm gonna do the, your questions answered thing every time. I think because I love it. It makes me think too, and it helps just reinforce everything that we're trying to learn to become better marketers and better businessmen. So without further ado, we got some brand new questions in sent in from Facebook messenger and through email. And our form. Again, you can go to Dropkick ads.com/podcast and I have a simple form set up there so you can ask questions if you'd like. I'm working on a better landing page for four for the podcast, so that's coming soon. But for now I have a simple form set up and you can go on the site and submit your questions and we'll get it on the show. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see, we'll see.
We'll see what's up and we'll try to answer it to the best of our ability. So without further ado, let's go to the first the first questions here, Orlando. I'm getting sales, but I'm not seeing any purchases in my dashboard. Pixels installed. Any help with what may be happening? Well, there's, there's a lot of things that could be happening. So number one, you said your pixels installed, make sure that it's installed correctly and that all the standard events are being tracked. If you have your pixel installed in something like Shopify and you're using their native field where you put the Facebook pixel ID in the settings, that's solid. Same thing with, with some of the other major platforms like Squarespace and, and others. Some you actually have to set the event yourself. It may not be automatic, especially in the terms of leads because you know, you're going to have to have your, your lead confirmation page and you're going to want to have that pixel installed there with the event, the lead capture part on the confirmation in Facebook, in the settings when you're looking at your events manager section.
So if you go to Facebook ads and you go to the events manager there, you can see all your pixel data and you can see all the different events that are being tracked. So if the events that you need to be tracked, like purchases, leads, add to carts, initiate checkout, whatever it is or not firing there, that means they're not on your website. So that's a good little tool to go analyze your pixel and make sure it's working. And you can go into the details of each of those events. You can go look into those details and actually see what URLs that specific event is firing on. So if whatever you're looking for is not firing, then you have a problem. And like I always say, the Facebook pixel is the heart and soul of any campaign and any business, so you need to make sure that it is working good.
Another thing they launched in, in the Facebook ads platform is now you know, if you don't want to set up those standard events on your own, go into the code of your website and do it. Although I do recommend you do it that way. They have a new, a new feature in the, in the events manager for your pixel. You can in the settings launch a custom event tool that you can literally click on any links on your site and set it to fire a certain event and it makes it super simple. You don't have to go into your, your, your site code to make those events happen. You can set Facebook to notice those based on the, the text of the button and whatnot to fire the particular event that you need. So look into those things. Additionally, I'm starting to find that while Facebook's dashboard does track things like purchases pretty accurately, if you have your pixel perfectly installed, people are getting a little smart here.
A lot of times people don't like the interaction of clicking on an ad. They don't want to feel like they were persuaded by the ad. So a lot of times people will just see a cool ad or business on Facebook if they're scrolling around or Instagram and just go to Google instead and type it in and find you that way. Or they may, you know, look for you later on, you know, on, on their laptop as opposed to where they saw you on their mobile. So there's a little bit of a loss of a translation there that can happen and a loss of data that can happen. And that's why you'll see if you stop running, you know, Facebook campaigns, they were, they were getting some sales, but maybe they didn't have a good cost per acquisition. So you turn it off that, you know, you stopped getting as many as you were even more so than without then.
Then without running the ad in the first place. So assume that the ads have more influence than you may realize and plan accordingly. Also, make sure that you have Facebook offline conversion setup. You can use things like Zapier to connect, you know, things like Shopify or whatever you're using to trigger an offline conversion and send the conversion value event back to Facebook back to the Facebook dashboard. So that way you're tracking there and you have a more accurate picture. So what I always tell people is to look at the entire picture. Look the entire picture of your business. Don't just take the data that that's in Facebook, a Facebook dashboard as a hundred percent science. Look back in general from your business. What am I spending on advertising? What am I getting returned on my business? Am I profitable there? That's how you should look at it.
But again, make sure all the pixel stuff is set up to to the best ability. Look in the events manager, make sure those those event fires are happening in the right locations because that is important for optimization of the campaigns in the ad sets. However, always look at your business from the far end of things. Next question here, Orlando. Are there any other ad platforms other than Facebook and Google that should be considered? Well, it's, there's no doubt Facebook and Google are Kings here. Google, especially if you're a service, a local base business, people are already looking for what you have to offer so Google is going to be the best platform there. Facebook is an is more of a, you know, I didn't know I needed this or I've been looking at similar things but I didn't really know that I needed it that bad kind of platform so that's where you can get really good there.
Now there's other platforms. Yes, like Yahoo, Gemini, like did you know that existed? It still does in native advertising and you can get really, really cheap cost per clicks there. On average, you know you can get 5 cents a click. Where else can you get 5 cents a click? Well, not many other places. Now the quality of the traffic is definitely going to be lower than Facebook or Google, but there is a place there for that. There is a place there and you can do conversion tracking on Yahoo Gemini, you can do look alike audiences, you can do all those things. And the best part is a lot of your creative that you would make for Facebook also will work on Yahoo Gemini and its own aisle now by Verizon media. So there's a whole bunch of other little audiences you can use in there based on Verizon's, you know, data that they have on people.
And I'm sure there's gonna be a, a stair up about that soon, you know, with privacy policies and all that kind of stuff. But they have a lot more different data options than Facebook or Google offers. So look into that. That's a good platform. I would say if you're, if you're more along at e-commerce or, or if your content based site content based sites will do really, really well with Yahoo Gemini because a lot of those things show up in, you know, in all the news and, and articles, sections of, of what people look at. And Yahoo and Yahoo still big for things like sports and, and in business. So if you're in those verticals that might be good for you. And also like pop culture in terms of like not the fun pop culture but kind of like celebrity a dishing and and all that sorts of stuff.
So if you're a content blog maybe and you want to get more, more people visiting your site more often, get some more traffic. Yahoo is a great Avenue for that because it's extremely cheap and that's kind of what people are, they're looking for. So look into that. Additionally being is still here, being is still around and there's some phones that have being still as their default search engine, so there is still volume there, although nowhere near as much as Google. It's something that you might as well be on set a low budget there. You can import your campaigns from Google and set that up. Now the cam, the conversion tracking is a little wacky. It's not as good as Google's. It can be, especially if you're trying to use it for e-commerce, like Shopify or something like that. It can get a little weird. However you should be there.
If you're on Google, you might as well be on being too. It's a lot cheaper and you can import your campaigns and there's really no reason to, to miss out on traffic, you know, so check those out. And by extension, obviously YouTube is part of Google. You mentioned, you know, Facebook and Google, but YouTube needs to be a part of the equation and almost anything you do, unfortunately that requires recording videos. And a lot of people don't have, don't have, you know, videos, they feel comfortable as ads made. Right? But, you know, with our phones now, our phones are so good at recording video, good quality, you don't have to get too crazy. It can be as simple as you talking to, to the camera. You know, there's certain time links for those sorts of things. But everybody should be on YouTube advertising, at least in remarketing.
If you're getting a lot of traffic, but you know, it should be part of it. And if you're not doing it, then you're, you're really, really missing out. So get on that. I highly recommend. And those are the three kind of, you know, other ones. What Yahoo being in Yahoo, Yahoo being in YouTube. There are some others like Reddit Reddit's getting a little bit more fine tune. I've tried a couple of campaigns there. Didn't see much success. You know, there's a certain voice you're going to have to, to have in if you're gonna try advertising on Reddit, but think about the kind of people that are there, there and see if what you have to offer, make sense for them. And then you're going to have to tailor that ad for Reddit audience cause they're not the liking of an ad type of crowd.
So you're going to have to figure that out. But all those are great alternatives to Facebook and Google and you'll just have to see what works best for you. Next question here Dropkick I see ads of everyone having the next big secret to Facebook ads. What are your thoughts on all these ads? Well, if you're talking about what people call the gurus I have mixed feelings. You know, if you see somebody on Facebook advertising that they're gonna that they have all these answers to, to, to marketing, to, to Facebook ads and all this stuff, and they're gonna share their secrets with you for absolutely free. It's not out absolutely free. There's something else beside it. They're putting you into a funnel and they're going to try to sell you something. Eventually they're going to try to see you know, maybe if you qualify for one of their high ticket offers, there's, there's always an end game.
If they're spending money on ads to give you something for free, well, well, think about it. They're actually, there's some way they're gonna make money off this in the end. They're not so genuine and generous that they're going to give you all their, their tricks of the trade and spend the money advertising just so that you be their buddy. It doesn't work like that. That being said, I think I th I think it's becoming a little overwhelming and especially with Dropkick, I tried to not portray that same thing. Like, I don't want to portray that there were some kind of like marketing gurus that that is going to fix all your problems. Instead, we try to present what we offer. And if you have a need for that plain and simple, you can order that off order, that service that you need from us.
There's no, there's no trick end game to it. It's all in the forefront and I think that leads to two more transparency and more credibility to be quite honest. But yeah, you'll see, you know, all sorts of, all sorts of things on advertising in the feed. And you know, it sucks to sometimes get lumped into that because I think we're so different. But yeah. What do I, I mean, what do I think, you know, I don't think anybody has the next big secrets to Facebook ads. If they did, you know, they wouldn't be advertising to, to give you some kind of, you know, free offer of, of some sort. You know, they're still trying to figure it out. So, you know, take all those things with a grain of salt, do your research, you know, understand that if somebody is offering something for you for free, that they're paying advertising dollars for that. There's something they're trying to sell you eventually in, and that's just, that's just the basis of that. But yeah, I think he's getting a little out of control. Next question, Orlando. I have a print shirt brand that has been getting a little traction. Any ideas on how to scale? So shirt brands and like shirt designs can do really, really, really well. Now there's a lot of competition obviously. But when, so when you're dealing with things like this and things people are going to wear, especially if you're going to do like a I'm guessing you have kind of like screenprint designs with cool designs and maybe they're funny, I don't know. Or they're, they're ironic. But you have to make your ads appeal to each person for each individual niche. So if you know, maybe you have graphics for shirts that are our cartoon base, you know, you're gonna want to hit people that are interested in those type of things. Comics, same thing. You know, wrestling, same thing. Each individual campaign needs to be customized for every single different design you're doing. Now additionally, with with stuff like this with t-shirt designs you're going to want to make sure you utilize carousel ads and carousel ads on Facebook and even carousel ads on YouTube. You can do that on YouTube now if you set up a product, a product feed. So those types of things are things you can do. And so I definitely think if you're already getting a little traction, you're already ahead of the game in terms of, you know, having a tee shirt brand because it's so competitive. So you're having, if you're already making some sales, that's a great sign. So you just need to refine your ad campaigns. We find them to be specific to every single audience. Show the shirts, show what you have to offer differently for every single audience.
Tailor the copy, tailored everything. Because taste is such a big part of it. Orlando, how do I know what objective to use in Facebook? Should I only use conversions? Well, obviously if you're in business, if you're in marketing, the whole goal is to get purchases and leads. So that would lead you to believe that you should only use the conversions campaign objective. And in Facebook especially, you're not going to really get much sales or leads outside of the conversions objective because it optimizes for those specific events. However, there are many other objectives that you should look at and build out a full funnel of your entire marketing campaign. So when you think of all these things, you, you, you think in terms of an actual funnel, so you have the top of funnel, which is super cold traffic. You're just trying to warm them up middle of the funnel where you know, they show an interest in what you have to offer there.
They're kind of interested, but you need to get them to, to move to the next stage, which is the final conversions. Make a purchase, become a lead. You know, that's the ultimate goal. So, and if you've been running any conversion campaigns in Facebook, you know that the conversions campaign is the most expensive. It's the highest cost per thousand impressions of all the objectives in Facebook because it's the most valuable. So how can you bring those type of costs down? Well, you have to warm people up and especially if you have a super high ticket item, it's much, much harder to go with the conversions objective and get somebody to purchase within seven days. So I would think of it in terms of that if you're, what you have to offer is something that they could see on Facebook or Instagram and purchase it, make a decision on it within a seven day period of time.
That's where you use conversions objective. So if you have a higher ticket item that should shift your thinking to maybe, maybe the conversions objective should be only for remarketing because if they've already seen it, that what you have to offer their ID educated on it, you know, maybe then in a seven to 14 day period after that, you know, maybe there'll be ready to convert. So gotta think in terms of those lines. But the other objectives, you know, we have traffic which is great to bring in people to get view contents to get landing page views. That's, that's a great top of funnel objective where you can get some cheaper traffic in. These people have been shown to, to click on ads and load the website. So that's a bigger pool than people that have been shown to load the ad, click the website and ultimately make a purchase, but they can be convinced later on.
So traffic is great there. The other one is video views, as I'm sure you're probably aware of, video views are extremely strongly cheap. At most, sometimes you know, a cent, a penny per video view. So that is super top of funnel. We're, you know, most people do watch videos on Facebook and Instagram so you can have a campaign that super top of funnel that educates people on your product or service, what you have to offer at the super top end of the spectrum and then bring in maybe next you bring in a traffic ad to those people that watched a certain percentage of your videos and then so the next step is to get them to the landing page and then of course after that you have the conversions and ultimately get them to make a purchase or become a lead. Other objectives you have the reach objective and that is kind of should be thought of as kind of a billboard.
You're showing that to everybody. You want that to be in front of everybody's face no matter what prior actions they have shown on Facebook or Instagram, so you can use that. I like to use that for a customer re-engagement where I use a custom audience list for people that have already purchased before and I'll run a campaign maybe seven to 14 days with, with a sale or some kind of special offering to those people to make sure they get it. Cause if they're, you use the reach objective, you can also set the frequency to how many times those people see that ad. It's not something you really want to use, an objective you really want to use for cold audiences. I'd use the reach objective more for, for people that have already, you know, used a, a have already made a purchase or become a lead in the past.
So earlier we were talking a little bit about black Friday. That's a great time to use the reach objective to all pass customers to make sure that they have, they get to see what you have to offer. We also have the engagement objective, which is more about getting, you know, the vanity, the vanity metrics, which are like, you know, likes, shares comments those types of things. And you can use those to enhance your, their ads to enhance the, the, the ads that you already have going on for conversions and stuff. Maybe you will need a little bit more social proof on those. You can take those post IDs for those ads and, and use it to make an engagement ad to increase the social proof on them. So those sorts of things you can think of. You can think of that in terms, but you know, working in the funnel part of the objectives is, is the most strategic way to do that.
And depending on your business history, and I hope that answers your question tough to fully explain that in a couple of minutes. But I hope that gives you a little bit of a picture into what that actually looks like. Well, that just about does it for us today on the ultimate marketer podcast.
Please subscribe to the show, share it with your friends. If you think it's cool, I'd love that. And don't forget you can use code ultimate for 10% off@dropkickads.com on any service that we offer for Facebook. Google or e-com. It includes pro setups, so use that code 10% off.
Use code ultimate at drop, kick ass.com we'll see you next week. Have a great, yeah.