Christina: (00:01) You are listening to the scaling to freedom podcast. I’m your host, Christina Bernhard. And this week we are talking about whether your ads manager is skill building and why it’s so, so important. I want to go over why you need to be either skill building yourself. If you are running your own ads or why your ads manager needs to be dedicated to a skill building. Um, and the reason I wanted to go over this is because in the past two years, so much has changed, um, in the Facebook meta ads world. Um, it’s unbelievable. I’ve been running ads since, um, 2014 and more changes have happened in the past two years and then my entire career in Facebook ads. So, um, I wanted to do this episode because I want to make it very, very clear. And I also wanted to talk about what you or your ads manager could be doing to keep up with these changes, what my favorite skill building resources are.

Christina: (00:58) Um, and also just go over, you know, how ads have changed so that you’re aware of not only the importance of it, but also aware of like what has changed. Um, because we, we definitely live in a totally different world when it comes to ads. And this also comes down to why some people believe that ads are not worth it anymore, or that they no longer work. And a big reason for that is because of these changes. And if you have not been keeping up with those changes, um, or your ads manager or whoever is running your ads, um, if they have not been keeping up with these changes and making sure that their skill building is staying on point so that they can adjust and have, you know, strategies that work now that maybe didn’t before and vice versa, um, that way you can be aware of these things so that you can still have the benefit of ads in the way that we used to benefit from them, just by utilizing these new things, um, and being aware of these changes.

Christina: (01:53) First, let’s dive into how ads have changed. So everyone’s talking about all these changes and how things are different. So let’s break down, like what has actually changed. Um, so the first thing that I wanna go over, which is like, it might be a little bit controversial, but, um, in my opinion, I feel like we used to be able to be lazy. Um, so Facebook ads were really cheap. The visibility was very, very strong. Um, and so it used to be more of an environment where we could just kind of put stuff up and there used to be so many ads that were just so poorly done , but because ads were so cheap and the data that ads had were, was so good. Um, you could actually get away with it in a lot of cases. And so, you know, it kind of comes down to the people who have had just fundamentally a good messaging and offers that really resonated with people and that sold very well.

Christina: (02:49) Those people are still doing really well. Um, and the people who just had very poor messaging and had very poorly done ads, um, it just doesn’t work anymore in the way that I used to. Um, and so, and I don’t mean to like, say that to be mean or anything like that. It’s just the truth in what I’ve been exposed to over the past few years. Um, you can’t exactly be lazy in the way that you used to, and in, in the sense that you could just throw something up and the algorithm was just so, so good, it would just find your people. Um, so the visibility was very, very strong because the data that Facebook had, um, was very strong. Now, the data is still great. Like Facebook definitely. And meta still definitely has tons of data. So don’t worry, they’ve not lost other data or anything like that.

Christina: (03:40) Um, they’re still getting a ton of data, but because of the different privacy settings, um, and changes that have been happening, um, it is definitely reducing like our custom audiences and some of the interests have reduced, um, and the amount of people within those audiences. So the targeting has gotten, um, you know, less strong. So the algorithm targeting capabilities were very, very strong before. And, um, it’s a little bit different now. And another thing that I do want to point out as well, is that, you know, before with the attribution, um, settings, and by that, I mean, um, it used to be the standard was a 28 day period. So if someone clicked on an ad and they purchased within 28 days, the ad would actually take credit for that, um, whether that’s actually accurate or fair. Um, I’m not sure, you know, it depends on the journey and like how everything is set up, but, um, you know, the, the data was likely a bit inflated before.

Christina: (04:38) Um, and you know, now we only have a seven day attribution period, and even then we’re losing a lot of tracking because of people opting out of, um, uh, the privacy settings and things like that. Um, so our data, if we compare just the data alone, whether the ads are performing the same or not, if you just look at the visibility of the data that you have, and you compare it from to before, it’s going to look like it’s lower performance. Now it could legitimately be lower performance. Um, or it’s just a visibility thing where, you know, the tracking has changed. Um, we’ve lost a lot of visibility for reporting and, um, we have to be a lot less reliant on the pixel. And, um, with that, um, like I said, the performance could be down some, um, because as manager algorithm has also lost visibility, so that hurts the algorithm’s ability to, um, be able to optimize based on that data when it just doesn’t have that data.

Christina: (05:34) Now, there are ways around this and, um, we’ll talk about those. Uh, but those are some of the changes. Um, another thing that has changed has nothing to do with privacy and all of that, um, is that the ad space was definitely less saturated before. Um, so, uh, and also just the online world. I mean, I, we don’t do e-commerce. We work with coaches, um, with online coaches. So even just that space, um, I, I feel like it’s barely tapped. Like there’s still so much more that’s going to happen with it, but I will say that, you know, just over the past few years, it’s definitely more saturated now than it was before. So these that’s kind of unrelated to ads a little bit, but, um, it is just more saturated, but also with that ads themselves are more saturated. There’s just more advertisers now, um, than there was a few years ago.

Christina: (06:23) Another thing that has changed is the targeting has changed. So we do have less targeting options. Um, and also because of the, like, I kind of went over this, but, um, the privacy settings, there is less visibility in people’s behavior off of the app if they have opted out of tracking. So that means that there’s just less targeting power for Facebook. Um, again, there’s still ton of data on people, um, but there is just less data than before, and it really just kind of comes down to the fact that you just can’t get away with just throwing stuff out there and hoping that it sticks. Um, your messaging has to be legitimately dialed in your ad product has to be, um, like your ad creatives have to be very valuable and they have to be high quality. Um, and I don’t mean curated when I say high quality, I mean that they have to really, really resonate with your ideal client.

Christina: (07:20) Um, so you just, you, you have to really know what you’re doing now. And a lot of this really comes down to the fundamentals. So this is just fundamentally like good marketing. Whereas before, you know, there, there are ways that you can kind of cut corners and, um, find ways to increase that volume. So even with like, so, so messaging, um, you would still get a lot of volume for not a lot of money. Um, we’re just, we’re phasing out of that, it’s, it is more expensive. So you do have to, um, make sure that your messaging and the, just the fundamental, like marketing, um, that you’re doing for your programs and your offers and your funnels, um, are just, they have to be higher quality. Like this standard is higher. So if you are struggling, um, there’s gonna be, uh, different reasons for that.

Christina: (08:06) It could be your messaging. Um, but it could also just be that, uh, your you or your ads manager is not keeping up with the times and utilizing this new space, uh, to have different strategies that work now that maybe we didn’t really use just even a year ago. So let’s talk about what you or your ads manager can do. So the first thing is that you and your ads manager, whoever is running your ads, they must be on top of things. Like I cannot stress this enough and to do that, they must love it like more important than ever. Um, I will say that I do this as my full-time job, and it is a full-time job to keep up with all of this and also just like be in practice so that you can see what is working and what’s not working. Um, it’s more important than ever, uh, because what worked before does not work anymore.

Christina: (08:55) So your ads manager needs to be skill building, like no other, they need to be listening to all the podcasts, read all the newsletters, go to the conferences, take all the courses, like literally everything saying on top of these changes requires you to be in this world, which does make it more difficult for people to run their own ads. Um, I do tell people that you can run your own ads. If you’re just getting things off the ground. I have a membership, uh, the junior ads academy, that’s what we do. And then we also offer intensivess and I do recommend that as a really great place to start. But once you get things off the ground, um, it really is just better to hand it over to someone. It doesn’t have to be an agency, but even if it’s like at least a junior ads manager or someone else who is in this world in skill building and staying on top of these things for you.

Christina: (09:40) So this is also why I stay, I steer clear of small agencies or ads managers that do a lot of different things only because I mean, and well with agencies, I might take that out because they might have more dedicated people within their agency on it. But I only say that because staying on top of these things requires you to be so ingrained in the world of ads, that if you offer as, um, a service provider, all these different things, and then you just kind of throw in ads because you know how to like physically build a campaign and ads manager. It’s not actually helpful. . Um, the other thing is that your ads manager must be in very strong practice, so lots and lots of practice, because there’s so many different things that we are testing. And that’s how we’re finding out what these new strategies are.

Christina: (10:27) We had to really pivot very, very quickly. Um, I mean really overnight, like the iOS update, we did know about it happening for several months before it actually did happen. So we were able to prepare as much as we could, but when the day happened and the switch actually like turned on, um, you know, that’s when you have to like really, really pivot as these different, um, updates are rolling out of the apple iPhones, um, it’s go happening in faces. And so we had to like be very, very quick in making sure that we pivoted and we learned what was going to work now. And that’s a part of that is being in the world and seeing what other people are doing and just being very ingrained in that, but also just practicing yourself, um, especially being a coach or in the info space, because a lot of strategies and suggestions out there don’t really apply the same way to info marketing as they do to eCommerce.

Christina: (11:21) They’re more for eCommerce or maybe more for like massive audiences or just like different scenarios. So your strategy is going to be very unique. It’s going to depend on how much data is in your account, how big your audiences are, the price points of your products, um, how well your funnel converts, what your business goals are, all these different things, um, which is why it’s really difficult to just go out and ask for a list of ad strategies that are working now, because all of those different variables determine what kind of strategy that would be right for you. Um, with all of our clients, we use different strategies for all of our different clients, because everyone is in such a different place. Um, their accounts are different places and they’re in a different space in their business and all these different variables. So, um, that’s why you kind of have to know a bit of everything so that you can understand how these different strategies match with your specific business and your specific offer and funnel and all those things.

Christina: (12:19) The other thing, the last thing that I wanna talk about about this as far as what you and your manager can do is your messaging must be dialed in. This is very fundamental, and this is something that if you can figure this out, it doesn’t matter what platform you’re on. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing with your marketing or your advertising. Um, this is again, very fundamental. This is never going to go out of style or go out of, um, practice. It has to resonate with your ideal client. We used to be able to get away with being lazy. It just does not work anymore. Um, and there’s always no matter what platform you’re using or what you’re doing. Um, if again, if you find some sort of shortcut at some point, it’s gonna die down and you’re gonna have to go back to the fundamentals.

Christina: (13:01) You gotta have good copy. You’ve gotta resonate with people. It’s your, offer’s gotta be good. It’s gotta be what people want, what they’re willing to pay for and invest in it. They have to believe it, all these different things. Um, no matter what you’re doing, it has to have those things. So this just really goes back to that. Um, so that’s one thing that you can do. That’s always going to work, um, no matter which way you’re, you’re using it, that’s always going to be fundamental. So now that you are familiar with some of the changes, like the different privacy and the targeting, and like why these changes are such a big deal and also why it’s really important, um, for you or your ads manager to be like very much ingrained and, um, learning these things. Um, and so, and some things that you guys can do, um, I do want to talk about, I’m just gonna quickly run through some of my favorite resources for me personally.

Christina: (13:52) Um, so I do a lot of different things. So I’m in a lot of different, like Facebook groups. I have connections with other agencies and things like that. And, um, so we have a lot of conversations about this. Um, but one of my favorite podcasts is the perpetual traffic podcast. I really love that, um, podcast. There are so many, um, podcasts, honestly. So, so many, um, with ads, you kind of have to be careful because some of them are, can be outdated. The thing about the ads world is that everything changes so quickly. So you have to, if you do want to choose a podcast or go that route of having just like a continuous, like sort of drip of information to stay on top of things, um, you wanna make sure that it is a podcast that is also staying on top of things, and you’re not listening to any old episodes.

Christina: (14:38) Like they, you have to listen to the most recent episodes because anything that happened like six months ago, it might not even be a thing anymore. So you gotta make sure that there’s also staying on top of it. Um, I also personally go to the ad world conferences there’s two a year. Um, so I really like those conferences as well. I learned a lot from those. Um, and, uh, one thing I like about conferences is it’s not just about like, learning different strategies. Cause I would say that a lot of that happens through practice, but, um, if you go to the conferences and you’re involved in that, you will hear about these different changes and things that are happening in, in more depth and, um, often sooner than they actually happen. So there it’s a really good way to stay in the loop of what the industry is talking about.

Christina: (15:20) Um, because from the outside it does look like things happen so fast and they do, but when you’re in the world, you hear about these changes like over and over and over again for several months before they actually happen. So it’s, it’s kind of slow if, as long as you’re staying on top of things. Um, another great resource is, um, the Facebook blueprint courses. So these are just, um, many courses that to Facebook provides for free. Um, I will say that with these, you know, again, they’re, they’re very, I think that they’re very good courses and they’re a good resource because they are up to date. Um, but just know that anything that you learn or take from Facebook specifically, that it doesn’t always necessarily apply to you in your business and where you’re at. Um, this is where I was mentioning that, you know, having just knowing, uh, different strategies or having different strategies and ideas handed to you, um, you really have to know if that’s a good strategy for you, if it actually aligns with your type of business, because a lot of, um, strategies that people talk about for Facebook ads or meta ads, um, are related to more like eCommerce or low ticket, um, products and things like that.

Christina: (16:29) Not all the time, um, I’m making a blank blanket statement, but, um, just know that it is a little bit different when you are in the info space and you’re, you’re a coach. Um, and then the last thing is practice. So a lot of courses that you find are often outdated. Um, the Facebook blueprint courses, those will be up to date, but, um, any courses, a lot of people ask me, like if I recommend a course from like another, um, uh, ads manager or agency or something like that, and I really struggle to, because a lot of them are outdated. Um, if someone had made a course a year ago, it’s I, I don’t, I mean, some of the things will definitely be helpful, but it’s just very difficult with, uh, a fast moving, uh, you know, as topic like this, a lot of people have told me, like, you should make a course.

Christina: (17:13) I’m like, absolutely not. I will never make a Facebook ads course because I’ll have to continuously always be doing it, which is why I have the, me, the membership, because I can always create up to updated content. It’s just kind of part of my system and schedule. Um, a lot of the, uh, strategies are appropriate with different variables. So just remember those different variables, uh, how warm your ads account is your budget, your audience sizes goals, um, what the price point is of your offer funnel, conversion rate, all of those different things are variables that will determine whether, um, advice is good advice for you. So if you are confused at any of that, definitely reach out and talk to someone about it, who is an expert. Um, we do offer intensives at the agency and then we of course offer the done for you, um, part of the agency.

Christina: (17:59) But, um, yeah. So if you have any questions about this, um, go ahead and reach out to me on Instagram, on, um, at Christina D Bernhard. So, um, I am always talking about this as well, so you can definitely just go binge my content there because I talk about the different changes. Um, and I definitely wanted to do this episode because I wanted it to be very, very clear of how important it is to stay on top of these changes. If you are running your own ads, you are investing money and you can definitely waste money when it comes to ads. Um, I always talk about how it can be the best money you’ve ever spent or the worst money you’ve ever spent. Um, and we definitely want it to be the best money you’ve ever spent. So we don’t wanna be using outdated strategies and then wondering why the ads are not working.

Christina: (18:42) Um, so definitely stay on top of it. If you do have an ads manager or an agency, maybe just check in and, um, just make sure that they’re seeing on top of these things and their skill building, um, if your ads are running great, then you probably don’t need to have this conversation. Um, but if they have declined and you’re really struggling to get them back up, um, maybe this is a great conversation to have with them. Um, but yeah, that is what I have for you this week. I will see you guys next week. Thank you for listening to the scaling to freedom podcast. If you are a seven figure coach looking for ads management with an agency that partners with you to get your work out into the world and amplify your impact. See if we are a good fit by applying for a spot in our