167: Amplifying Your Message through Facebook Ads with Ashley Braswell
Regardless of how you feel about Facebook and Facebook ads, I truly believe you're really going to enjoy my conversation with our guest. Today, I want to introduce you to my friend, and apparently my doppelgänger, Ashley Braswell.
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Show Notes
Regardless of how you feel about Facebook and Facebook ads, I truly believe you’re really going to enjoy my conversation with our guest.
Today, I want to introduce you to my friend, and apparently my doppelgänger, Ashley Braswell. Not only do Ashley and I look startling alike, we also have a shared outlook on how we want to run our business and serve the world. I especially wanted to bring Ashley on the show today because she is an expert when it comes to running Facebook ads.
I know many of us have what we might call and ambivalent relationship with Facebook in general, with ads in general, and with Facebook ads specifically. Yet, I know that when used properly, Facebook ads can really help us grow our business. In fact, I personally experienced that inside Coach with Clarity®.
I’ve brought Ashley on today to specifically talk about the role of Facebook ads, how she approaches it, best practices for coaches who are thinking about using ads to grow their business, how to run ads on a platform we have mixed feelings about, and how to almost hack the system in order to share our message and see more of what we want.
Topics covered
- Ashley’s journey going from foster care social worker to wedding photographer to Facebook ads expert
- What led Ashley to form a perspective about Facebook ads that doesn’t just focus on revenue
- Why, as an introvert specifically, Ashley found Facebook ads to be a game-changer in her days as a wedding photographer
- How people mistook Ashley and I for each at the first conference we both attended
- The main things Ashley wants people to know if they’re considering running their own Facebook ads
- Ashley’s thoughts on utilizing Facebook ads if you’re ambivalent about the platform or even if you hate it
- What Ashley wants coaches to consider before they start investing money into Facebook ads
- When a coach should not run ads on Facebook
- The data inside Ads Manager that Ashley wants you to focus on the most as you’re just getting started
- The shocking statistic that will probably tell you your ad is performing far better than you thought it was
- The things Ashley wants you to focus on when it comes to creating the actual ads you’ll be running
- Ashley’s hack for seeing the exact ads others in your industry or niche are running
- The criteria an ad must meet before Ashley makes any decisions about pulling, tweaking it, or investing more into it
Resources mentioned
- Ashley Braswell's Website
- Ashley Braswell on Instagram
- Coach with Clarity Collective
- Coach with Clarity Podcast Facebook Group
- Connect with Me on Instagram
- Email Me: info@coachwithclarity.com
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TRANSCRIPT
Well, hello my friend. Welcome to the Coach with Clarity podcast. My name is Lee Chaix McDonough, I'm your host, and today I want to introduce you to my friend and apparently my doppelganger, Ashley Braswell. So not only do Ashley and I look startlingly alike, we also have a shared outlook on how we want to run our businesses and serve the world. And I especially wanted to bring Ashley on today, because she is an expert when it comes to running Facebook ads. And I know many of us have, well, let's say an ambivalent relationship with Facebook in general, with ads in general, and with Facebook ads specifically. And yet, I know that Facebook ads, when used properly, can really help us grow our business. I've certainly experienced that inside Coach with Clarity. So I wanted to bring Ashley on today to talk about the role of Facebook ads, how she approaches them, best practices for coaches who are thinking about using ads to grow their business. And we also have a pretty candid discussion about how to run ads on a platform that we have mixed feelings about and almost how to hack the system in order to share our message and see more of what we want. So I think regardless of how you feel about Facebook and Facebook ads, you are really going to enjoy my conversation with Ashley there's some gold nuggets in there. So let's get right into it. I am so thrilled to introduce you to Facebook Ads Expert, Ashley Braswell.
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Lee: Well, hi, Ashley. Thank you so much for being a guest on the Coach with Clarity podcast today.
Ashley: Of course. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Lee: Oh, I'm so excited to have you here too. We are gonna dive into all things Facebook ads. But before we get there, let's start from the very beginning. Tell us a little bit about who you are and the work you do for the world.
Ashley: Wonderful. Thank you. So my name is Ashley Braswell, I am a Facebook ads manager. It has been a journey to get to this point. But at this point in life, I love Facebook ads because they are really great at amplifying voices, and I am a former foster care social worker. So in that work I did and the things–the people that I saw the people that I worked with and the things that I saw, the power of amplification is a really big deal. And that's kind of has fueled me to the point that I'm at now. So working with impact driven entrepreneurs and helping them amplify what they're doing has been a really cool way to spend my life. So that's what I do.
Lee: I love that. And and first off, you and I have a bit of a shared background because I also started out in social work. My master's is in social work and public health. And while I didn't practice as a foster care social worker, growing up my family was a foster family. We had largely infants stay with us while the adoption process this was pending. So when I first met you, I was so excited that we had that shared background and shared experience. And I also just wanna reflect that I don't think I've ever heard someone describe using ads to amplify someone's voice and message. So often, when we think about ads, we think about sales, we think more revenue, more customers. But, you are really approaching this from a very different angle and with a very different energy around amplifying people's stories, which I think is really powerful. And I suspect and I I'd love to hear more about how you reached that viewpoint of ads and and how that's played a role in your journey to where you are now?
Ashley: Yeah. Absolutely. I don't think I knew that your family was a foster care family, Lee. So that's, like, really cool. And that's actually why I got started with social worker as well because my family was also a foster family when I was growing up. So —
Lee: Oh, that's awesome.
Ashley: Yeah. It's really cool. I think that's, like, such a unique background. I think as a child being in that situation, there's so many things that you see happening. And I was older, my family was, I was in high school when my family became a foster family, so I think I was just, like, very aware of what was happening. And it really impacted me to today and to what I do. And so to answer your question about amplifying and and Facebook ads and using that kind of perspective on things. When I first started with Facebook ads, I was a wedding photographer. And I served the, an audience that was a lot of teachers, a lot of social workers, a lot of people within that demographic who were just, like, very I guess, I'm not exactly sure. I'm sure there's some kind of, like, marketing reason for it, but it's almost like a magnetizing of, like, your ideal audience that come to you, and it's just that's what happened to me in the wedding industry. And it's kind of what happens to me now, honestly, to to be honest. But I just realized that I was really bad at constantly selling myself, and maybe that's actually not accurate. Maybe it's more I just didn't like it. It felt very, like, “Oh, I don't wanna talk about myself. I kinda hate it.” And so when I discovered Facebook ads, it was a way for me to amplify what I was doing without having to amplify the effort that I was putting into it. And as someone with kind of a limited energy for that, I'm very much an introvert. I don't particularly love talking about myself. It has changed as I've spent more time in the online entrepreneur space, but I just needed something that was gonna amplify my energy, as well as my message, and I found Facebook ads to be that for me when I was a photographer. And then it kinda took off from there, and I started helping other people with ads. And, of course, revenue and sales and all those things are big part of Facebook ads, but I really strongly believe that utilizing, and it doesn't have to be Facebook ads. That's just the methodology that I know about. But using something to amplify what you're already saying will protect your energy so much and allow you to be like a health–at least for me, be a healthier and better version of myself.
Lee: That feels like such an empowering way to enter into the Facebook ad space. And I think that's one of the things that really drew me to you and to your methodology was that it felt so welcoming, and it felt like, this is just a natural next step in what you're already doing. So I didn't feel like I had to change who I was or what my message was. It's more just about let's figure out the best way to get you in front of the people who most need to hear what you have to say.
Ashley: 100% and that makes me so happy that you get that message because it's what I try so hard to put out there so that, like, thrills me to the bone.
Lee: So I, it's it's funny. I'm just gonna share how we met, which is where both involved in in a mastermind program together. And for those of you, you you can't see us right now if you're if you're listening to the podcast, but if you look at any of the promo materials, you'll notice that Ashley and I bear a pretty strong resemblance to each other. And when we were at our first conference, I think people were confusing you for me and me for you. It was really funny. So the fact that we not only resembled each other, but we have very similar experiences in terms of social work and fostering and and how that really informed not just the work we do, but who we are and how we view the world. I know for me, I was younger when my parents were fostering. They also fostered when I was older, in college. But I remember being age four, age five, and having infants in the home and growing up thinking that every family this, that every family foster kids. You know? And that every kid had dozens of foster siblings around the country. It wasn't till I was much older that I realized, “Oh, no. This is actually the exception to the norm.” So to meet someone else who has that experience with foster care from the side of being a host family was was really powerful. And so I It's it's not a surprise then to me that I feel connected to you both personally and professionally.
Ashley: Yes. Yes. I love that too. Well, it's so funny. You mentioned that first conference we went to together, and we didn't actually, like we we had one one very small interaction during, like, a dance party. Like and and only because, like, a mutual friend was like, “You have to meet each other. You look the same!” And it's funny Lee, because my sister actually told me, she was like, “Did you know I actually talked to Lee, and I thought she was you for, like, probably, like, 15 seconds before.” My sister!
Lee: Oh, that's so funny. That is really funny. So, anyway, just a little sneak peek. as to the origins of our friendship. And now we work together in a professional capacity. I work with Ashley for my own Facebook ads. And so that's why I was so excited to bring you on the podcast because I do get questions from coaches quite often around how to use Facebook ads to grow their business and, really, from your perspective, to amplify their message. I suspect that a lot of people who are listening today are probably curious about Facebook ads. Maybe they've dabbled in it a little bit. Maybe they felt a little intimidated about even getting started. And so I thought maybe we could start with just kind of lay of the land. What do you feel like people need to know about Facebook ads if they're just starting to consider amplifying their message and building their business using Facebook ads?
Ashley: Yeah. That's a great topic. I think a lot of people feel like when you're utilizing Facebook ads, it's an all or nothing mentality. so you have to either be ready to just put in thousand and thouands of dollars or nothing, that there's no in between. And the reality is it does not have have to be like that. You can kind of dip your toes into the Facebook world without spending tons and tons of money. And the other piece of Facebook ads is, I know I hear this a lot because I'm in this industry, but there's this misconception that it's very difficult to manage your own ads and that you have to hire an agency. And while I run an agency as well, so like, I get it, and we manage a lot of people's ads. There's multiple ways to do things, and you absolutely can manage your own ads. So the lay of the land for Facebook in general is you need to have the right perspective going into it. And one thing that I think is not talked about a lot is that Facebook and Meta as a platform actually want you to succeed. Because if you succeed, you're gonna spend more money with them. And a lot of their revenue comes from ad spend of small businesses. So they want you to succeed, but what becomes overwhelming is that there are so many tools and so many ways to succeed on Facebook. So you get in this platform, and there's 50 different ways to reach your ads manager. So how are you supposed to know how to even get in to run an ad? And so can be really overwhelming. But there are definitely simple ways to get started that don't require thousands in budget and don't require you be, like, way deep down in this, like, data rabbit hole either.
Lee: That's so reassuring. Let me just say that from the beginning. that we can start with smaller budgets to test things out. And I also really appreciate the perspective that when when we win, Facebook wins. And so Facebook is not out to take our money or take advantage of us. And, listen, I have feelings about Facebook. I have mixed feelings about social media in general. I have mixed feelings about ads. So I don't presume to sit here and say “Ads are always amazing, and Facebook the most amazing company!” So if if you're listening right now and you're like, I don't know. I'm kind of ambivalent about this. That's understandable. And —
Ashley:Yeah.
Lee: I'm wondering what you might share with someone who is ambivalent about running ads on really any social media platform, but really specifically Facebook. What are what are your thoughts about that?
Ashley: Oh, I have a lot of thoughts about this. I have clients who are active with me, who hate Facebook. Who hate the Meta platform in general, who are very uncomfortable with the way that business is run, and they have a lot of conflicting moral, you know, standings on that. And, personally, I don't love social media in general. You know, I have a ten, almost eleven year old daughter. And as I'm researching, she does not have a cell phone, and she's going into middle school this fall. And so I've been researching cell phones and middle schoolers and social media impacts, and none of it's good. Like, none of the research that I read is good. And it's terrifying. And then I turn around and say, this is my livelihood right now, is that I am also promoting Facebook ads. So how do I bring the two together? And the way that I bring the two together to allow me to lay my head on the pillow at night and sleep well is that; the people that I work with are people like you, Lee, and people who are making an impact in the world in amplifying their message, and Facebook is just tool.
I don't think that Facebook, Meta, Instagram, whatever, TikTok, wherever you run ads, Pinterest. I don't think any of them are the holy grail of marketing, I think that they are simply a tool that we are utilizing to reach our ideal audiences. And the truth of the matter is Facebook/Instagram, are the largest social media platforms in the world and the likelihood of your ideal audience being on those platforms is incredibly high. And so at this exact moment in time, right now, I personally believe that you can utilize platforms that be aren't the best to amplify your message and help people in a genuine and authentic way. And that's how I rectify those 2 in my heart and my brain.
Lee: I really appreciate that, and and I think there's some truth to that because, you know, the fact of the matter is, because you are a person who values integrity and service and ethical market seeing. That's exactly who we want on these platforms, whether it's organic or whether it's paid. And, I mean, I'm thinking this morning. I was on Facebook, and I was scrolling through, and I kept getting bombarded with ads about “Lose 50 pounds in 30 days!” Like, seriously, that was the claim through apple cider vinegar, basically, is what it was. And but it was like, the marketing tactics, they were they were fear based. They were shaming. I mean, just felt really gross, and I think that's why a lot of people shy away from Facebook ads is because they don't want to feel like they've got to resort to those kinds of tactics in order to see success. What you're saying and what I agree with is you don't have to. And in fact, you can use the Facebook platform, you can almost hack the platform to broadcast your own message of, well, whatever it is, positivity, inclusivity. And so, yes, it's it's using a platform that many of us mixed feelings about understandably so. But if what we want to do is actually get our message out there, then maybe what we can do is work on creating change from within and using ads to do that. And so I think there's an argument to be made for that, and I really appreciate your perspective on that.
Ashley: Yeah. Absolutely. I know it's a nuanced conversation for sure, and I think it's one that's not going anywhere. We're gonna have to continue having these conversations, but I think that it's a good place to be at this exact moment in time for business owners. And the other thing is too, my husband and I actually just had a conversation about this this morning is that if we just run away from everything that we don't agree with, then who's gonna be there to be the light in the world. You know? Like, if we're just running away from everything that's bad, how.. who's gonna spread the good mess– like, whatever goodness or activity or inclusivity or, like, diversity, all those wonderful things that we want to bring to the world, someone has to be willing to go out there and share them. And so for me, I use Facebook in that way, and maybe that sounds silly. And some people probably don't agree with it, but I feel good about it. I feel like it’s a good place to be.
Lee: I would agree. And I would say to anyone who's listening right now, if you don't agree, if you don't want to be on Facebook at all, then that's your prerogative as a business owner. And I would never tell someone that they have to be on Facebook or they have to be running ads. That's the beauty of being a business owner, you can decide for yourself what's going to work best for you and your business. But for coaches who are listening and who are really resonating with your approach to using Facebook ads to amplify your message and grow your business. I wanna speak to them for a minute, and I'm curious, one question that's coming up from me right now is how do we even know if we are ready to run Facebook ads? What should we be considering before we start invest our money in Facebook?
Ashley: That's a great question. So like we've been saying, Facebook ads are an amplification of what you're already doing. So if you're not already seeing results from what you're actively doing without paid advertising, then I think you should wait to run Facebook ads because the amplification of 0 is 0. So I don't want you to spend money getting that result. However, if you're at a place where you're seeing results and you're like, okay. People, when they find however they do. Even if it's, like, fifty people, you know, like, twenty people, they find you and they resonate, and you're like, “I've hit something. There's something here, I just need to get in front of more people.” Then Facebook ads are a great way to do that. And there's really cost effective ways to get out there and just you don't even have to sell anybody anything. If you really just wanna get in front of more people, run an engagement campaign. You don't even have to get an ads manager. You I don't love this method, but it it's works. You can do it on Instagram itself or wherever. Just boost it with engagement. It's not the best way. There's, like, good, better, best. Right? I say it's a good way. If you want the best way, get in ads manager. But if that's gonna stop you from doing ads in general, just do good. Like, done better than perfect. Right? And get in front of more people and go from there. You learn every day something new.
Lee: I really appreciate that It's about just starting somewhere and understanding that, like, you don't have to start at, like, that premium level. Start small. You can always build and grow into it. And I also really appreciate the point that Facebook works best when we are sending traffic to I ideas that have already been validated. So use organic methods to test out and try out things. And then once you see results there, then and only then, would it be appropriate to start putting money behind it in the form of paid ads.
Ashley: Yes. And I will say there's a little bit of nuance to that because people who join social media after already having success in real life, you know, like person to person. And then they're joining social media, and they wanna get some traffic kinda quickly. I think that there is a place for that as well. So don't feel like you have to wait until you go viral or something crazy. Just enough validation that people are resonating with the messaging. And then I say go ahead and try it. Put 10 bucks, 20 bucks. I mean, you spend that, or at least I spend that in Starbucks in a week. You know? So, like, maybe not in a week. Okay? It's kinda far away now. But, you know, like, if you're spending it on coffee and you're not gonna miss it, try it. Put some money in ads and see what happens.
Lee: Yes. And no shame, by the way, if you're spending $10/$20 a week. I mean, I'm doing more than that. I'm gonna admit. So it's all good. So you alluded earlier to the fact that there are so many ways to succeed with Facebook ads. But when you get to ads manager, it can feel really overwhelming. There are a ton of acronyms, you know, CTR, CPC. There's all sorts of numbers that quite honestly intimidated me when I first started trying to use ads to grow my business. So for those of us who really are early age with Facebook ads. What are some pieces that we need to know? And, like, what should we really be looking at to determine whether Facebook ads are working for us or whether we may need to to tweak a few things.
Ashley: Yeah. Absolutely. So as everything is with Facebook and I'm sure you're tired of hearing this, but everything is nuanced. Everything has different answers depending on different goals and campaigns. So inside of Ads Manager itself in your ad account, so there are 3 different levels. You're gonna have your objective, which is your goal, and that's basically just telling Facebook what you want at the end of the day, whether it's engagement on a post or sale or a lead for your email list. That's where you choose that. And then in you have your ad set level under that, and that's where you choose who you're going to be showing the ad to. There's a few other things there too as well. But for the most part, it's targeting and budget. And then at the third level, it's your ads themselves. And that's where your creative and your copy and your links all live. So when you're trying to decide if something's working, I'm gonna go with the example of an engagement ad because I truly believe that's a wonderful place to start if you have never run ads before. Engagement ads are relatively inexpensive and their industry averages for the coaching and online space is .005¢ per post engagement. So if you have a post that's doing well on your Instagram or your Facebook and you wanna get more eyeballs behind it, you can use that inside of a Facebook ad and engagement campaign, and you can get that kind of engagement for less than like, what is that? Like, half–.005¢, whatever that is of a penny. You know?
Lee: Like, half a penny.
Ashley: Yeah. It's ridiculous. Yeah. So you can get, like, 1000 views on that for, like, 10 cent–$10? $10. I can't do math in real time. I have to have, like, a calculator in front of me.
Lee: For not a lot of money. We'll just say.
Ashley: For for not a lot of money. And imagine, can you just consider if you had ten thousand people see a post on your Instagram. Like, I have, you have more Instagram followers than I do, but I have, like, 3000 followers on Instagram. There's nowhere near 3000 that are seeing my post or my stories. I think I get, like, a 150 people that see my stories on a regular basis, and I'm okay with that. But can you imagine if ten thousand people were seeing my posts on a regular basis because that I have them inside of an engagement campaign. It just blows everything up, and it's it's a wonderful place to start and then you can start on other types of ads in the future, but I love that method. So, yeah, you're gonna wanna compare yourself to industry averages inside of your ads manager. Another really good thing to look at, which this might be a little too techie and if it is just cut me off. But click through rates, that's CTR, that's one of the numbers that's gonna tell you, anything over 1% is saying that your audience is resonating with it. Industry average is 1 percent. I think a lot of people don't know industry averages, and so they're like, only 4% of people are clicking through my ad. And you're like, “Oh my gosh. That's incredible! 4%, you're killing it!” And it's just adjusting your prospectus. You need to know your industry averages for sure.
Lee: I wanna pause and highlight that for a second because I think that is huge. Because not just for Facebook ads, but really in business in general, the conversion rates that we're looking at are much lower than I think people would anticipate. So the idea of a click through rate of 1% being average, and if you're over 1%, you're really killing it. Like, that is I mean, for me, actually, it's like, “Oh, wow. 1%? I bet I could do 1%. Yeah. Okay. This is doable.” And so it’s actually really encouraging to think, “I only need a 1-2% click through rate to really start seeing results.” And so I hope that that is actually encouraging and empowering people who who are listening to this.
Ashley: Yeah. Absolutely. And, I mean, I could give you industry averages that you wanna look at for each type of it campaign, but honestly, it's just a matter of, like, running through almost like a checklist of sorts and just monitoring it on a weekly basis. So you have to kinda hype yourself up the beginning, and then it becomes routine. So it's like anything else that you do. I'm sure no one really well, there's probably some people that don't love doing their bookkeeping. But, like, you gotta hype yourself up, and you either gotta do it, or you gotta pay somebody to do it. And that's just that's the same with ads. You either gotta do it, or you gotta pay somebody to do it.
Lee: That's true. So for those of us who are exploring, doing them on our own, I wanna talk about the ads themselves else. So, typically, especially when we're talking Facebook, there's really 2 main things we wanna focus on. We wanna focus on the visual so the graphic and the words or the copy.
Ashley: Uh-huh.
Lee: And I'm just wondering, like, if if you have any ideas about those of us who are new to it? What should we really be focusing on when it comes to the look and and the text of our ads?
Ashley: Yeah. That's a great question. So depending on who your ideal customer is, like, who you're trying to reach in this, you're going to want to consider things that would stop their scroll. So what's gonna make them pause in the midst of looking through photos and videos of their friends and their family on an ad that's disrupting their feed. That's you have to remember the Facebook ads, Instagram ads, they're the same, but that it's a disruptive type of marketing. And so that's why scroll stoppers are so important. Now there's a couple different ways you can determine what a scroll stopper is. You can test. I have 4 or 5 different kinds of creative or graphic types that I like to test out. Videos tend to do really well. Testimonials tend to do really well. And then the different types of graphics. But if you're you're wondering, you're like, “Oh my gosh. I don't know what to even start with.” Maybe there's someone in your industry or also speaks to your ideal client, and you're like, well, they're probably running ads. And I bet they're getting success. Just go look. Go look at their ads and see if you want to. You just go to Facebook page, you go down to see more and then page transparency, and you can see all of their ads under the ad library, and you just scroll through it. And you can see what kinda ads they're running, what kinda copy words they're using, and be like, oh, well, if they're doing it with this mean, honestly, some of the ads are really crappy, and they're performing really well. It kind of, like, encourages you to be like, oh, they just took a, like, a picture with their on the back porch. I can take a picture of my cat on the back porch. Like, let's go.
Lee: So first off, I that is such a helpful hack, I just wanna emphasize that. So if you want to kind of see if someone in your industry is running ads. You go to their, I assume their business page?
Ashley: Yes.
Lee: Do ads have to go through a business page? Okay. So you go to their business page.
Ashley: Their Facebook.
Lee: Their Facebook business page. Okay.
Ashley: Mhmm.
Lee: Facebook business page, you click on more, and then you go to page transparency. And that's where you can find information if they're running ads and what ads they're running.
Ashley: Yes. It will say “This page is not running ads.”or “This page is running ads.” And if they are running ads, there'll be a button right there that says go to adlibrary, and you click on it, and then you can see all the ads that they're currently running. Now you can't see, like, who they're targeting or their objectives or anything like that. All you can see is the copy and the creative and the links. So this actually came to to fruition several years ago as part of, like, a political to to have, like, transparency around political ads, but now it's everyone's ads are part of that, which is a double edged sword, you know, like pros and cons to it. But yeah, go check. I always love looking at, like, Anthropologie and places like that. And this is also a great tip if you wanna find a coupon code. Typically, you can find coupon code for commerce stores in their ads.
Lee: That is so smart. Oh my gosh. I'm not buying anything off a Facebook ad anymore without doing page transparency and looking for a code. Well done Ashley.
Ashley: Go take a look.
Lee: That's so good. That's so good. Alright. Excellent. But but I think that's a great point because again, we don't wanna go in and and just word for word copy someone's ad, of course. That would be plagiarism and unethical. But we can absolutely seek inspiration from other people's ads, and we can kind of reverse engineer our own ads by looking at what someone else has done that seems to be working well or that's appealing to us, we can kinda break it down and then figure out what elements of that we can apply in our own copy and our own creative, our own visuals.
Ashley: Yeah. Absolutely. The uh, some of the tricky part with doing it this way is that you can't tell if those ads are successful or not. So if you go in and put all of your eggs in this basket, it's possible you could be taking inspiration from a total flop of an ad. But they are categorized by how long the ad has been running. So if you scroll down and you see some of the ads that have been up for a while, as long as it's a reputable business, that probably means the ad is successful. So that's one way of doing it, but I love looking at ads of people with huge budgets. So like Jenna Kutcher, Amy Porterfield, Marie Forleo, Gary V, like Brendan Persard, all these people who are running lots and lots of ads and have big, big budgets and ads managers who are in there doing it for them. I just like to see what's happening. Like, what are they running? What are they talking about? Like, what's the strategy? I'm just checking it out, so it's just like a little tip.
Lee: That's so smart. And, actually, what you just shared brought up another question for me. So how long do you think we need to be running an ad before we know whether it is working for us? Because I would imagine it takes a little bit of time for it to kind of catch on and gain some steam. But what's that sweet spot? At what point can we say, “This isn't working. We need to tweak it,” or, “Oh, this is working. Let's double down and reinvest in it.”
Ashley: Yeah. Absolutely. I like to kind of have a combination of time and also numbers. So you wanna make sure that it's reached enough people. If you're only spending, like, $2 or $3 a day on an engagement campaign, let's say, and you only give it, like, 2 days I don't know that I would make any decisions based off of that limited amount of data. Facebook also has a little bit of, like, a delay in the information they send back to you. So I don't like to make decisions any sooner than 72 hours after an ad goes live. It is approved by Facebook and all that stuff. But I also don't like make any decisions until we've had at least a 100 actions on that ad. So that means, like, a 100 engagers. Really, I like to see a 1000 engagers, a 100 leads, a 100 whatever. And then I let then I'll make a decision. Of course, again, it's nuanced, so you kinda have to, like, play it a little bit, but you just wanna make sure you have enough data before you make a choice.
Lee: I think that's so helpful. And and I agree. Facebook ads are nuanced. I think anyone can start small as we've talked about today. But as they grow, they may need some additional support, and that's where someone like you would come in. And so I have a feeling that there are people out there who are gonna wanna connect with you about their own Facebook ads and what it might look like to learn from you, work with you, or even have you kind of take over management of their ads. So where is the best place for people to find you and learn more about what you offer?
Ashley: Sure. And I'm always happy to help. Even for people who aren't quite sure if they're ready yet, I'm always happy to talk about it so you can find me on Instagram @ashdashsue. It's a-s-h-d-a-s-h-s-u-e. I also have my website, thepaidadacademy.com. And I have a lot of different support options. You can just DM me on Instagram. We can chat. I also do full management, as I said, but then we also have some done with you support. that's a little bit better for people who are not quite ready to, like, fully give it over. And it's more educational as well, and you get a chance to kinda get your hands dirty with with, like, a backup person, so you're not on your own completely.
Lee: Excellent. We will make sure that those links are in the show notes. So if you're listening right now, you can access them simply by checking out the show notes and definitely head to ashdashsue.com to learn more about Ashley and her work. Ashley, I'm so grateful for your time today and that you came on the Coach with Clarity podcast to provide a much needed perspective on Facebook ads and also some basic dos and don'ts that we coaches can use when we are stepping into the waters of Facebook ads for the first time. So thank you so much for being here today.
Ashley: Absolutely, my privilege, Lee. I think that so many people need to know what you have to offer the world and coaches, I believe that more than anyone else. So put your words out there and let people hear what you have to say.
Lee: Yes. Oh, that feels so good. Thanks, Ashley.
Ashley: You're welcome. Have a great day.
Lee: Again, many thanks to Ashley for coming on the Coach with Clarity podcast and sharing her wisdom and her perspective with us. I learned so much in our conversation, like that whole piece about going to someone's Facebook business page and checking out page transparency and seeing their ads. I did not know that. And so I am definitely going to be incorporating that into my market research strategy. And yes, before I make any online purchases, I will definitely be checking out the ads for coupon codes, such a smart trick there. And Ashley is just full of helpful guidance and advice. And she is such a smart, strategic thinker when it comes to Facebook ads. So definitely check out her work. We've got links to her website and her social media profiles in the show notes. So just head on over to coachwithclarity.com/167 where you can access the full transcript, the links, the show notes, pretty much everything you could need from this episode.
I will be back in your feed in a couple of weeks with a brand new episode of the Coach with Clarity podcast. And to make sure you don't miss it. If you are not already following or subscribe to the show. Go ahead and take 10 seconds to do that now. No matter where you're listening to the show. There should be an option to subscribe to it or follow it and maybe there's a little plus sign. Whatever it is, it's free to subscribe. So go ahead and do that now. And then our next episode will automatically show up in your feed. It'll be right there waiting for you. So until then, my name is Lee Chaix McDonough reminding you to get out there and show the world what it means to be a Coach with Clarity.