I've spent $26M this year alone on paid ads so far... AMA about paid ads

[eliquid]

A drop in the bucket compared to some media buyers, but I've singly handedly spent $26M on paid ads this year alone.

Planning to hit $34.5M on Dec 31st.

I decided to do an AMA, if allowed.

However, it's only for paid ads.

Not answering questions about niche/product/industry though.

Everything else is prob fair game.

Ask away.

 

[BakerStreet]

What's your compensation plan for these clients? is it fixed salary w/ bonus, retainer + % of ad spend, equity, rev share, or something else? What's your opinion on your contract and resulting compensation? Are you happy with it?

 

[eliquid]

What's your compensation plan for these clients? is it fixed salary w/ bonus, retainer + % of ad spend, equity, rev share, or something else? What's your opinion on your contract and resulting compensation? Are you happy with it?

It's different per client/gig.

I'm an opportunist.

If someone can't afford my retainer, but it's a solid product and team and they're willing to give up rev. share or equity.. I might take it on. I don't pass it up.

I think agencies or buyers that are fixated on just a retainer, or just a salary, or just a equity play are leaving too much meat on the bone for everyone else to take. I mean, I get it... but ultimately this is about my goals and my milestones which I feel is better achieved in this manner.

I'm happy with my end results regarding compensation and contracts. I think that is mostly because I am not judging myself by some "social media guru" that I know is more than likely lying about their results and outcomes... and instead I judge myself against my past self and also against the goals and milestones I have in my life, that I set and evaluate.

Any complaints I have are failures from my side, or expectations I set on my side. All learning lessons though.

Also, if I know I can't help someone or give back more value than they pay me/give me.. I won't take the client on. That in some ways prevents a lot of issues, troubles, or expectations with how I am paid and contract issues.

 

[BakerStreet]

If someone wanted to learn paid ads, what would you advise them?

 

[Satvrn]

Impressive ad spend, eliquid.

1) who is writing the ads, landing pages, sales flow? Are you a one man show? Do you have a team?
2) Let's say you have a gadget product that costs between 50 USD and 80 USD. Do you build different marketing funnel campaigns (top of funnel, mid-funnel, bottom funnel) and retargeting?

 

[eliquid]

If someone wanted to learn paid ads, what would you advise them?

1. Learn Psychology and Human Behavior

2. Learn Sales

3. Then learn Marketing fundamentals

4. Then, and only then, get into paid ads.

^^ Many people will eat me alive for saying that, but I know people who are good button pushers in paid ads, but can't design an ad or LP or strategy worth shit.

The problem is, the ad platforms are doing their best to do away with button pushing. Button pushing of all kinds and types. It's going to go away. Besides, even if it didn't the button pushers weren't really good paid ads guys to begin with.

What will be left is, the ad ( image or video ) and the strategy behind it.

While some will argue that the ad will go away too ( in favor of Ai or the ad platform making it for you ), that's wayyyyy further away ( IMHO ) than button pushing going away.

If you don't know what makes people tick, why people buy, how humans decide, what influences different personality types, ages, demos, etc... then you will never be good at paid ads. Maybe you can be "meh" and average enough to turn a small profit...

But the real killers are either first movers ( which is hard to be sometimes ) in some area, or they know all the above I just posted.

Past that.....

You're gonna have to drop money you can afford to lose on each ad platform you want to advertise on. Consider it "buying data" and learning the ropes.

Watch enough YouTube videos from MANY different "experts" to learn how to read between the lines and pick up what's truth and what isn't and then run your ideas off that info and data you bought at the ad platform.

There is a reason great media buyers are low key side hustle psychologists.

Impressive ad spend, eliquid.

1) who is writing the ads, landing pages, sales flow? Are you a one man show? Do you have a team?
2) Let's say you have a gadget product that costs between 50 USD and 80 USD. Do you build different marketing funnel campaigns (top of funnel, mid-funnel, bottom funnel) and retargeting?

Not sure if this is sad, or super awesome... But I'm a 1 man show most times.

It depends per client though.

1. Some clients don't have a team of people, or their LPs and flow are shit. Maybe their team is 5 people in marketing and they all have degree's... but none of them can write worth shit. If this is the case I do it all within tech permission I can. Sometimes I can't edit the page or flow/backend due to tech reasons, but if I can.. I can.

2. Some clients do have someone on their team to write the ad or LP, but it's far and few. If that person is good enough, I just manage the account only and let them do the LP/ads/flow. I try to help and point out things if I can, but I also don't try to step on toes unless it's hurting the end result in some way.

If people would just follow a framework or a story arc, it would make my job 100x easier for a lot of things. But a lot of people just don't get it, or if they try... it comes out really bad.

I do have a team for those clients that want to see an "agency" set up. Those people pay a ton more for the "pomp" though. Otherwise, I do it all myself.

--------

For the gadget question.

Yes, but no.

If it's a well known product ( meaning well known to it's demo, not worldwide ), then I might break out ads and campaigns catering to each market awareness level ( TOFU, MOFU, BOFU ). I would start Solution Aware and Product Aware, and then move to Problem Aware and Unaware, and then lastly to Most Aware ( because I hate to start with discounts first, seems a cheap way to rip off customers as the media buyer so I do Most Aware last ).

However, if it's a new product and no one knows about it.. I might only focus on Problem Aware ( pretty much TOFU ) campaigns and ads. Video scripts focusing on that, keywords focusing on that, etc.

I'll also tend to do only certain market awareness levels per ad platform if they are doing omni-channel stuff on paid.

So for Facebook, I might run a ton more Unaware and Problem Aware ( I will still run other ads here, but the majority of spend will be Unaware and Problem Aware ).

Google might be more Solution Aware and Product Aware ( I will still run other ads here, but the majority of spend will be Solution Aware and Product Aware ).

TikTok may be more focused on Unaware and Problem Aware. Though I might be changing this to lower funnel or more even spread on all funnels.

CTV might be more geared to remarketing and bottom of funnel.

etc

But it all depends. If the budget is so small and no one knows them to where they can only be on 1 ad channel, I might only run Problem Aware on Facebook.

If large budget or omni channel, I have so much more freedom to expand out and run multiple things.

I'll also add, for eCom ( sounds like this is it )-- I might also consider New Customer CPA. A lot of ad platforms DO NOT report on this, but you can get it by hacking in your customer database ( like via Shopify or another CRM ) and seeing which ad platform and ad type generates more NEW CUSTOMERS for you, for the least amount of money.

If after running everywhere and every type of campaign/ad, I might end up slimming it all down to whatever combo is the best NC CPA. In the end, this is what really drives eCom because your email strategy and organic and social media ( non paid ) could handle a lot of other things for you.

 

[secretagentdad]

Well if you're taking hard questions.

Why not buy ads for serp woo?
If it was still around. What would you buy if you were trying to grow in the vertical and had a bunch of investor money to float for customer acquisition.

 

[eliquid]

Well if you're taking hard questions.

Why not buy ads for serp woo?
If it was still around. What would you buy if you were trying to grow in the vertical and had a bunch of investor money to float for customer acquisition.

1. If you are talking right now for SerpWoo ( today ) - because it's closed down

2. If you are talking in general, like why we didn't prior. We did -

But SerpWoo ended up being something only super advanced SEO/Marketers could appreciate and love. It was built by 2 super advanced SEO/Marketing people and that flowed into the design and language.

Your average HVAC owner looking to rank on Google could have used it, but they didn't get it. They got SEMRush or Moz though somehow. SERPWoo wasn't wrapable around their head.

Your average borderline SEO person, always said "this looks like something for an agency".. even though they could have used it and should have used it.

The higher end agencies and higher end SEO peeps didn't want to pay for another sub like SERPWoo which wasn't meant to replace SEMRUsh or AHrefs, but to add-on to it when they already had SEMRush and CORA. They also believed SEMRush and Ahrefs and others were doing what we were trying to educate people on ( but they weren't ).

SERPWoo ended up more of "we gotta teach people and educate people" to convert and keep them, then just selling and doing more marketing to get more people. We were 10 years ahead of our time and only super advanced people "got it".

If you have a product people aren't instantly able to understand and appreciate, because it's too advanced, you will always have an uphill battle selling it to anyone other than those small group of early adopters who tend to be the only ones that get it.

People get SERP Tracking today because everyone copied it from us, the inventors of it. They've had years to see and get it explained to them.

10-12 years ago, no one understood why you needed it or why it was better than rank tracking in general.

Kinda like the internet. No one thought the internet had a purpose even 25 years ago when I bought my first ad online. I remember my mom and dad telling me it was a waste of time and no one will ever buy anything online.

Today, everyone gets its though. 24 years ago, hardly anyone did.

That was SERPWoo. Just too far ahead of it's time and too much pushing uphill to "educate" instead of just sell.

 

[Jesse]

1. Learn Psychology and Human Behavior

What would you recommend to study on this point in the context of learning paid ads (or in general is fine too if you're up to it)?

 

[secretagentdad]

That's an interesting way to look at it historically.

I was looking for more practical thoughts on how to buy ads in this niche or really any highly competitive one with out going bankrupt from the insane costs / having to retain users in the face of massive retargetting budgets and brand presence of the industry leaders.

 

[eliquid]

What would you recommend to study on this point in the context of learning paid ads (or in general is fine too if you're up to it)?

It's a lifelong lesson. I would hate to try to shortcut it with a few books or such.

However, not everyone has a lifetime.

I've been a person that has always watched people, questioned what they did and why it could be, and tried to dissect everyone. So maybe I had an unfair advantage.

But I would read up on books by

Robert Caldini
Drew Eric Whitman
Martin Lindstrom

^^ books by those authors tend to slant towards marketing related Psychology and Human Behavior.

Past that it gets a bit harder and broader, but if you can start there and expand out it will benefit you I think.

Once you get past those, you might want to start hitting copywriting resources because a lot of those books will also get into Psychology and Human Behavior behind why the copywriting they are showing you works.

That's an interesting way to look at it historically.

I was looking for more practical thoughts on how to buy ads in this niche or really any highly competitive one with out going bankrupt from the insane costs / having to retain users in the face of massive retargetting budgets and brand presence of the industry leaders.

Only thing I've ever been able to make work since BuySellAds got weird is fringe bidding long tails on bing and email sponsorships.

So as a first thought to keep in mind.. which is partly why I told the SERPWoo story, is that not everything works with paid ads.

I have had lots of clients, paid ads just didnt work.

>> It didn't work well for SERPWoo.

>> It didn't work for the lady who invented a "relaxing sounds" headphones app so that people could use her product instead of anesthesia during surgery who was once my client years ago.

>> It didn't work for a test product I launched myself years ago for postcard marketing.

Somethings just aren't going to work for paid ads, or at least not that well.

That's not a knock on your product or industry.

When this happens, I double down on what is working.

Long tails on Bing.. eh, I like Bing. I do. They have very little volume though.

Email sponsorships, I'd triple down on that and get people coming to a page you own so you can fire your pixels ( FB, Google, whoever else ) and then collect their email too. So now you have potentially email to use yourself and also now building lookalikes off that pixel flash you can use at FB/Google now. Then build campaigns off that pixel data ( either remarket or lookalikes ).

It sounds like you mentioned massive retargeting budget, so you might have already done this.. but did you do lookalikes?

---

If I had massive investor money for paid ads on SERPWoo or a tool similar, I'd probably spend it:

1. All video ads or video related

2. Reach out ( paid intern or something ) to all influencers in the SEO industry. All influencers in the AppSumo space, All influencers in the marketing space ( not just SEO ), All influencers that might be in the entrepreneur space to get on their YouTube channel or TIkTok channel and do an interview with them or pay them for video/shoutout/review. I think the interview way is better, but get what you can get even if it's just a review.

3. Start making organic videos for YouTube Shorts and TikTok, i'd want like 100 videos min. Start posting organically every other day.

4. Start making paid ads for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Meta, etc. I'd want like 30-60 good ones made that cover a bunch of different topics and issues. Start running the ads.

5. Pay someone to post in comments of other channels related to you, "hey, I just seen this covered by kwsheeter on their youtube at ( link to video )"

Notice everything is video above. The paid ads are 1 component of it. You can't only do paid ads alone and expect to bat 1000% with success.

6. Hell, I'd open a sub plan of your product to AppSumo users and get on AppSumo. Let them take 85% of the profit on some sub plan you have built for this reason. Get your name and eyeballs out there. Get those reviews. Get those emails and pixel fires.

^^ of note, I am not saying make your business model AppSumo or profit plans for AppSumo, I'm saying use them as a tool to get more exposure. To get people reviewing you and making videos about you from AppSumo. Keep this mind, this is a marketing play and NOT a business plan.

I'd more than likely run most of my ads on Meta and TikTok. Google wont be your friend here and it sounds like Bing is still competitive if you are doing very long tails.

 

[eliquid]

But I would read up on books by

Robert Caldini
Drew Eric Whitman
Martin Lindstrom

^^ books by those authors tend to slant towards marketing related Psychology and Human Behavior.

I'll add and expand on this.

Learn MBTI ( 16 Personalities ) and Enneagrams.

For example, if you study and learn enough... you might one day want to run ads to get attorneys to buy your product ( maybe it's a SaaS they can use ).

Something you would know from MBTI and Enneagrams would be ( and this would be going backwards ) that a lot of attorneys are INTPs.

If you understand INTPs, because you did a lot of research and studying on these personalities, you would know they are fixated on honesty and the truth and they also are very curious. They are also into new ways to approach things.

They often live in fear of failure, anxious that they will overlook some critical aspect of their theory, idea or invention and can be scattered brained and disorganized.

Is this a perfect 100% homerun? No, but nothing in marketing is and we are playing the odds here. This is also just 1 example I pulled out my head.

Now how could you write an ad, to an attorney, who more than likely is in INTP knowing the above info now for your SaaS solution?

It would depend on your SaaS of course, but you could now start playing on their emotions in your ad copy.

Maybe they aren't an INTP. Attorney's can be other types, but this is just 1 ad you would make. You would want to make more of course touching on all the other highly relevant types for attorneys ( like INTJ, etc ).

If this were my SaaS and my ad... lets pretend my SaaS is a parenting time SaaS for attorneys dealing with divorced couples:

"New solution to keeping divorced couples honest about their court ordered parental time that ensures no detail left behind"

^^ not the best headline / hook, but I pulled that out my ass in 30 seconds.

Given an hour or more, I could prob perfect that headline and do 20 more and pick the best out of the 20.

I would study the MBTI and Ennegrams and also do a lot of Google searches on it to find this info.

 

[ryandiscord]

Something you would know from MBTI and Enneagrams would be ( and this would be going backwards ) that a lot of attorneys are INTPs.

Could you elaborate more on how you would determine the personality type by profession?

 

[Jesse]

Thank you for taking the time to give such a detailed answer @eliquid.

Could you elaborate more on how you would determine the personality type by profession?

This isn't my AMA, but I wanted to share this for anyone reading so that they know this type of data is available with a Google search:

Source: https://site.nyit.edu/files/special...ype_Influence_Medical_Specialty_Selection.pdf

 

[jelf]

If you're doing omni-channel.
How do you generally do attribution over the different channel touch points?

 

[BakerStreet]

1. If you are talking right now for SerpWoo ( today ) - because it's closed down

2. If you are talking in general, like why we didn't prior. We did -

But SerpWoo ended up being something only super advanced SEO/Marketers could appreciate and love. It was built by 2 super advanced SEO/Marketing people and that flowed into the design and language.

Your average HVAC owner looking to rank on Google could have used it, but they didn't get it. They got SEMRush or Moz though somehow. SERPWoo wasn't wrapable around their head.

Your average borderline SEO person, always said "this looks like something for an agency".. even though they could have used it and should have used it.

The higher end agencies and higher end SEO peeps didn't want to pay for another sub like SERPWoo which wasn't meant to replace SEMRUsh or AHrefs, but to add-on to it when they already had SEMRush and CORA. They also believed SEMRush and Ahrefs and others were doing what we were trying to educate people on ( but they weren't ).

SERPWoo ended up more of "we gotta teach people and educate people" to convert and keep them, then just selling and doing more marketing to get more people. We were 10 years ahead of our time and only super advanced people "got it".

If you have a product people aren't instantly able to understand and appreciate, because it's too advanced, you will always have an uphill battle selling it to anyone other than those small group of early adopters who tend to be the only ones that get it.

People get SERP Tracking today because everyone copied it from us, the inventors of it. They've had years to see and get it explained to them.

10-12 years ago, no one understood why you needed it or why it was better than rank tracking in general.

Kinda like the internet. No one thought the internet had a purpose even 25 years ago when I bought my first ad online. I remember my mom and dad telling me it was a waste of time and no one will ever buy anything online.

Today, everyone gets its though. 24 years ago, hardly anyone did.

That was SERPWoo. Just too far ahead of it's time and too much pushing uphill to "educate" instead of just sell.

Sure it could have succeeded if it was released later and more people got it

But, really dude, here's what I hear from what you said:

1. The target audience is super small
2. The product can be easily copied if competitors switched from rank trackeing to SERP tracking

My advice would be:

1. Have a product with a wider audience, one that the usage is intuivie without any education hurdles.
2. Have a product with a barrior to entry.

Also, if you have a product with a super small, advanced audience, the price needs to be super high to justify the cost of running the business and to make a profit. SerpWoo couldn't be that expensive either.

Maybe something to consider next time when you're investing in your next business

 

[Hanuman]

Great AMA. Some questions from my side:

1. How do you decide on the max CPC for an ad versus the price of the product (example: is $10/click too much for a SaaS that costs $50/month?)

2. You mentioned some of your clients have like 5 people i the marketing team. What does your average client profile look like - is it like a 100 clients each spending a few grand each month, or a handful spending millions each?

3. Long ago, I spoke to a high earning affiliate marketer who exclusively used paid ads to sell their products. And they told me something that stuck with me - he said that the first few thousands he spends on ads is primarily for data collection - he seldom uses any targeting info at the beginning, and uses the conversion data to determine who to target and focus on. Is this something you agree with as well? If not, how do you personally target your ads?

 

[eliquid]

Could you elaborate more on how you would determine the personality type by profession?

You gotta study all the personalities in the MBTI and Enneagram.

For example, I went through and did my own MBTI test and found out I was an INTJ or INTP ( I took the test multiple times ).

Going through it, there are sections that tell you, "this is what jobs would fit a INTP" and "this is what jobs fit an INTJ". Oddly enough, most of the jobs on the list I had already been and done, and the ones left over I hadn't done... I had at one time thought I would have been good at before I ever took these tests.

With that, I went through a test for my wife, low and behold the jobs she fit... she had also done prior.

So I took it upon myself to research all of the MBTIs and figure out all the jobs/careers that fit each type.

It's just going through and learning/study.

Thank you for taking the time to give such a detailed answer @eliquid.



This isn't my AMA, but I wanted to share this for anyone reading so that they know this type of data is available with a Google search:

Source: https://site.nyit.edu/files/special...ype_Influence_Medical_Specialty_Selection.pdf

Basically, yes... study and research like this.

If you're doing omni-channel.
How do you generally do attribution over the different channel touch points?

This is pretty much a question with no def. answer.

I've worked with tons of clients. From single person HVAC companies, to huge internationals like Alibaba, Virgin, John Deere, etc with multiple teams of marketers.

Everyone I've ever talked to does it different and has no real answer. It just comes down to what fits you and your goals and then just sticking to it.

I've had companies that did it one way, and then the CMO leaves and they switch to another attribution model.

But if you are asking me personally, this is what I like to do:

1. If eCom and they let me focus on New Customer CPA... I tend to look at event driven actions ( conversions on date of conversion ) and first click. I wanna know where the customer first heard and first seen us, because I know email and seo and social organic can then push them into the last click.

2. If it's only a branding play for marketing, then I tend to look at uplifts studies, brand term volume, and overall revenue and ROAS/MER for the account.. and then I look at linear/data driven attribution for platforms and campaigns.

3. You gotta use tools outside of Analytics/360 for this. I tend to use triplewhale or northbeam, but I've also used hyros and others.

Of note, even though first click and event are my main views for #1 ( and ROAS/uplift and linear for #2 ), I will most certainly look at click date and last click, and other models, for both as a side check and just info gathering.

Great AMA. Some questions from my side:

1. How do you decide on the max CPC for an ad versus the price of the product (example: is $10/click too much for a SaaS that costs $50/month?)

2. You mentioned some of your clients have like 5 people i the marketing team. What does your average client profile look like - is it like a 100 clients each spending a few grand each month, or a handful spending millions each?

3. Long ago, I spoke to a high earning affiliate marketer who exclusively used paid ads to sell their products. And they told me something that stuck with me - he said that the first few thousands he spends on ads is primarily for data collection - he seldom uses any targeting info at the beginning, and uses the conversion data to determine who to target and focus on. Is this something you agree with as well? If not, how do you personally target your ads?

1. I don't worry about CPC. I basically haven't looked at CPC the last 11 years of buying media. I don't even report on it to clients. All of my bidding models are conversion based and not click based.

2. It's all over. Some have no one ( just me ), some have 5-10, some have 50+ people in marketing ( as a department ). At a min, I generally only take clients that are spending at a min of $30k a month PER AD PLATFORM... that's at a min. Most of them are actually spending at least $60k monthly min per ad platform. The average is about $800k monthly as it's skewed to my largest spenders who top out at $2m+ per month each.

3. I do and use to agree with this. The reason why I say use to is because most times now, you can spend the money to collect the data, but you don't have to do anything with the data. Meaning, make new campaigns and use only that data or slim down the original campaign to just that data... the ad platforms pretty much will do that for you now on their own. I mean, you can force the campaign to take the data, but if you did nothing... most times the algo will do it for you ( to a degree ). This is 1 reason I said "button pushers" are going away. It's not the only reason, but it is 1 of the reasons.