Our Facebook Ads are Converting Like 2018 - Here's What We're Doing

Facebook Ads: How We’re Getting Circa ‘18 Conversion Rates

How we’re taking advantage of Facebook's new ad guidelines.

Since Facebook has started losing money hand over fist, they’ve increased the amount of copy we’re allowed in our ads.

This gives us more opportunities to convince potential customers to buy our products and services.

At K&J, we’ve been trialing ‘more copy’ ads, and we’re seeing the best conversion rates since ~2018/19.

So now, instead of using Facebook ads to pique someone’s interest and lead them to a landing page - we’re doing all the work up-front with our ads.

To do this, we make sure our ads hit two key points.

1. The immediate benefit the customer will get from this product or service - we make this the headline of the ad.

2. The burning issue this product or service solves - we make this the sub-heading of the ad

For products that have several benefits or solve multiple pain points - we include them as bullet points to back up the headings.

Above is an example of an ad we're running for our accounting outsourcing company. We link New Zealand Small businesses with offshore chartered accountants to save them up to 70% on accounting costs.

If you have a great offer that solves a painful problem for the customer and your headline (which takes 2 seconds to read) jumps on that problem or the benefit of solving that problem - You can bet your ad will work.

Notes: The 80/20 here is your headline. Your headline does 80% of the heavy lifting - so it must hit a note your customers really care about.

It's Time To Increase Your Prices

One way our gym is beating inflation.

Xero just released a confronting report on small business sales growth.

Year on year, nominal small business revenue is down 1.5%.

And if you take inflation into account, the average kiwi business has gone backwards by 8.8% in a year.

That means we're doing worse now than this time last year coming out of government lockdowns.

When I saw how much money ours and other governments planned to flood economies with because of their lockdowns, it was obvious inflation would skyrocket.

So while the world panicked, we started raising our prices.

In two years, we've increased our gym membership rates from an average of $14.95 per week to $19.95 ~33%, and it didn't affect us in the slightest - we've grown ~100+% in that time.

I understand the hesitation to do this - you think you'll lose customers. I've spent the past six months trying to convince my Mums partner to raise his - and he won't.

But with a tiny raise of, say, 10%, you can cover all the ground lost over the past year, and barely anyone will raise an eyebrow. Your customers are probably too busy worrying about how they'll afford their next flat white.

With this decision and a few hours of work, you can turn the tide on this losing situation.

Notes: You can achieve a year's worth of growth in 5 minutes by raising your prices.

ENTREPRENEURS CORNER

Dirty Politics - How To Win An Election

Dirty politics, reputations and powerful narratives.

I thought Olivia Wensley, an ambitious, talented and highly intelligent former lawyer and CEO of startup Queenstown was a shoo-in for the mayor of Queenstown.

Her track record suggests she would make a meaningful dent in some of our region's biggest challenges.

So I was dumbfounded to hear the now mayor outvoted her by a margin of 2.5:1. And until a week ago, I had no idea why.

But in just seven days, I've heard a completely false story about Olivia from three different parties - spread by competing mayoral campaigners.

The story goes that Olivia (although a high-school student at the time) is behind the failed Oak Shores development - which might cost local ratepayers (i.e. voters) up to $300 a year in leaky homes settlements.

Anyone could debunk this story with one google search of her name, but apparently, that's not how our society works.

Even after showing two of these parties the above-linked article and pointing out the obvious chronological flaw in the rumour - they refused to see Olivia's innocence.

They say reputation is everything; it takes a lifetime to build and one bad moment to destroy it.

But what are you supposed to do in a position like Olivia's?

That rumour may have cost her the election and certainly more than a smidgeon of her reputation.

Should there be recourse for public figures spreading false narratives?

Should our media be held accountable for not holding those in power to account?

Or is life simply not fair?

You'd hope these rumours will fade and Olivia's behaviour and achievements will colour over past falsehoods.

But boy, the power of a story-arch as old as time, the people (ratepayers) vs the oligarchs (Olivia), even when BS - sure does land.

Notes: You tell us?