Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This is FERMAT Fridays, your backstage pass to what’s going on at FERMAT.
Join us every Friday as we chat about what we're cooking up, the strategy behind it all, and of course our general musings.
Expect juicy insights on new features, our latest experiment results, and whatever else is making waves in our world. Whether you're an existing customer or just a little FERMAT curious, this podcast will keep you up to date and entertained.
Alex McEachern (00:01.462)
All right, everyone, welcome back. Today, I've got a guess that him and I got the privilege of speaking in person at our offsite in Denver. Every single time I brought up any question about the Facebook ad account, this guy was jumping in and dropping knowledge on me. Makes me seem like an absolute, absolute noob when it comes to the Facebook ad account. I've got Ryan Sande joining us from our account management team. Ryan, welcome to the show.
Ryan (00:29.166)
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Alex McEachern (00:31.478)
Now today we're going to talk a bit about kind of common mistakes in the Facebook ad account, how for mot in the Facebook ad account kind of play together. But before we jump into some of those specific questions, I'd love if you could kind of give our listeners maybe a brief background on you, because I think you've had some pretty unique experiences that kind of give you a like really good perspective on everything we're going to be talking about.
Ryan (00:57.486)
Absolutely. So I've been into paid social space for about or since 2016. So I've definitely seen all the changes that have come from it with the pixel with like tracking issues and all that. So I started working with DT startups and then I went into the ad tech world for a little bit working with enterprise retailers like Joanne Fabrics, American Freight, Total Wine, the list goes on and on.
I'm working not only on just managing their ad accounts, but also coming up with creative ways to run their DPA. And then after that, I went in -house for a little bit at a company called Quince. And then now I've kind of shifted away from the paid social space and have gone into the CRO conversion rate optimization space over at FERMÀT, focusing on more of the post -click experience rather than the media buying side.
which they both go hand in hand, but definitely been a lot of learning on the CRO side, but it's been really great. And I absolutely love the team that I work with and the companies that I work with as well.
Alex McEachern (02:12.342)
Moving more into the CRO side of things, but like you said, these go hand in hand. Like it's a, it's a funnel from ad click all the way to successful purchase. So having an understanding of like the top of the funnel, the middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel for all of this is obviously a huge asset. And one of the reasons that you're kind of our de facto go -to guy on anything that's coming up in the Facebook ad account from our brands. And you said something there like, Hey, I've been at this since 2016. That's really like, it's a long time to be in.
Kind of like that seat and you've probably seen like boom bust. So, so like, we've kind of been like all over the place from 2016 to today. So like you said, Hey, you've seen the pixel change. We've seen, we've seen tracking changes in your opinion. Is there something that has happened? Maybe like you can go on whatever time span you want, but like what's something that you're seeing in a lot of ad accounts where you're like, that's, that's leftover from the old days. Like that, that doesn't really work anymore.
Ryan (03:13.102)
Yeah, absolutely. What I tend to see in some ad accounts is that people are still using retargeting look back windows in their campaigns. So for example, people might be having different ad sets for people who added a card within zero to seven days, eight to 14 days, people who viewed product in those same time frames. That used to work really well in the past.
because the pixel was so strong, there weren't any tracking issues. But nowadays, we have to be more segmented with our retargeting especially, because the segmentation that I see, it just does not work anymore. We just see costs go up in every metric. It's better to have a more consolidated approach and maybe have a look back window of.
zero to 30 days for all of those events rather than segmenting for seven days for all of those. So consolidation is definitely key today, whereas before a segmented approach might have worked well, but yeah, it does not anymore.
Alex McEachern (04:24.662)
And like in your, for everyone listening in your opinion, like why is the consolidated versus segmented approach like more effective today than it was before? Cause like, I think there's a lot of people who still have their ad account like chopped up really fine like that and just like, it was always like this. So we'll just continue to use those same segments.
Ryan (04:45.934)
Yeah, I think one of the main reasons is because media buying is so much less focused on targeting nowadays and more so focused on the creative. The meta algorithm has gotten very smart and deciding which ad creatives are going to land the best with certain users, right? So having different creative calling out like, hey, like come back to the site or hey, we saw you looking at this product.
Even though in the past you would have to put those in segmented assets today, Meta is usually good about sending those to the right people again. and ultimately finding out what's going to work. Cause not because those ads where it says like, Hey, come back and shop may not work for that same user. Sometimes it might be like, Hey, like here's some new products that we have come check us out. So it's, it's really important to have different messaging tests.
and not just only focusing on certain audience segments of people that have already come into your funnel.
Alex McEachern (05:50.454)
Yeah, you said something there like, Hey, look, Matt is getting really good at figuring out who like who they should be sending what to and as long as you have kind of enough creative in your account, Facebook matters. It's smart enough to figure that out. Is there any tips that you have in terms of like, Hey, it's not so much about the segmentation anymore. That's kind of a solved game by Facebook. Like just feed it with as much creative and content as you can. Like any tips, tricks that you've seen to kind of like
Make sure that you're covering the gambit there on what Facebook's able to serve up.
Ryan (06:25.71)
Yeah, I think it's really important to be testing, like obviously UGC videos are king nowadays. So just testing different hooks from the get -go, testing different influencers, backgrounds, testing different value props that they're talking about, testing different scripts, that's all really going to be important. Like I said, Meta's gotten really smart with the AgCreative targeting. So if you throw...
Maybe let's just say like you have one influencer that has 10 different video scripts. Meta is going to be really good at showing like to use or like putting more money behind the ones that drive the more conversions. And then you can definitely use Metas. You can use Metas thinking of how it portrays those 10 creatives and really.
refine your creatives that way, if that makes sense. I think I might have gone off on a little bit of a tangent, but just always testing different aspects of video is really gonna help. And not only that, but also adding in non -video creatives like statics, GIFs, carousels, having a mixture of all those on top of like the normal video creative that works, is really gonna help because...
Alex McEachern (07:40.438)
Yep.
Ryan (07:51.406)
people react to ads in different ways.
Alex McEachern (07:54.902)
So you get to see a ton of different ad accounts, like both in the position you're in right now, but also like all those positions from the past. When you're saying, Hey, make sure you're testing different like mediums, right? We got video statics, gifts, this sort of thing. Like, do you see, is the industry kind of like over reliant on one of these? Would you say like, do you ever think like, I'm going to get into this ad account and I'm for sure going to see that 90 % of this is X.
Ryan (08:19.726)
Yeah, I think people might be over relying on UGC nowadays because that's what everyone seems to say like, hey, like UGC is king. Everyone needs to have UGC, which is really great. It is definitely the number one at performing creative that I see. But having that mixture in there of carousels, GIFs, images, just like they don't have to explain the whole product in that, but.
as long as it gets people to that landing page that does a good job of explaining all the value props, that's all you really need. And one really big advantage of having a mixture of that is that your CPMs will go down because video creatives tend to be more expensive on that front. So in order to reach more people, you're going to have to think outside of just video content.
Alex McEachern (09:11.542)
you. And hey, not relying on us on a particular medium, like, hey, Facebook's getting really good at figuring out what to what to put in front of the right person. Are there any like campaign types that you're seeing? Maybe the industry be a little over reliant on like, hey, yeah, maybe you GC on the medium side of this, but like from a campaign perspective, anything you're seeing that you're like, man, people are way too into this.
Ryan (09:45.038)
Alex, I may have lost you.
Alex McEachern (10:16.016)
All right, I'm back. Okay, so it has everything up to that point and then we can go again. They're doing something outside of my house, so this might happen again. I don't know what's up, but I can take it from the top with that question again.
Ryan (11:12.846)
Absolutely. I think advantage shopping campaigns, which is Meta's version of PMAX on the Google side. I feel like some advertisers that I'm seeing are just like over relying on them and that's not really a good thing. I think the best practice is to always have non -ASC campaigns that are working well running alongside ASC campaigns because ASC campaigns, especially over the last few months have been so volatile. And when advertiser
advertisers overrule a lie on ASC and it doesn't work, then they're scrambling to throw up new campaigns and praying that that works from the get -go where you need to have those BAU, I'll say BAU campaigns for that, business as usual campaigns. Like those need to be on over time to make sure that whenever ASC campaigns are failing, that we can just turn the ASC off and then focus on those BAU ones. Those BAU ones are really going to be good for
testing creative and just running with all the targeting that we know already works. But having that on alongside with ASC is going to be very important because like I said, ASC has just been so volatile nowadays. You can't just over rely on it.
Alex McEachern (12:28.592)
volatility and having like, so having like some form of backup, like, Hey, if this starts to go off the rails, like we need to be able to revert back to something. And like the, the BA used the business as usual side of things. Like, what are you seeing when people are diversifying off of, an ASC campaign? Like what, what types of, what are you seeing working besides that? Like, what should they be using on like that business as usual side of things?
Ryan (12:54.83)
They should be testing, just testing, testing, testing. Like in that BAU campaign, you should have ad sets that have already been tested, whether it be in targeting, creatives, that should always be on and did not ASE campaigns, but also just really, really honing in on the audience, really just figuring out like what creatives work, what targeting works, what demographics work.
I'll go into this a little bit later, but as ASC campaign is actually really good to figure out what demographics and targeting like, like what demographics work. And then you can apply that to the BAU campaign. And then there are certain methods that you can do on the backend to, to really help you with, reaching that audience without paying a little bit of a CPM tax, which usually happens when you segment into your,
into your BAU campaigns, the non -ASC ones.
Alex McEachern (13:59.12)
Do you want to elaborate on that? Like, hey, some of the tests that you can do inside of there so that you can apply the learnings without taking the CPM tax.
Ryan (14:07.63)
Yeah, absolutely. So if you're a media buyer, you know that whenever you create a new ad set, if you're being very specific in your placements, if you're being very specific with your age targeting, your demo targeting, you're going to pay a CPM tax because Facebook wants you to say, Hey, I want you to target every single age, every single state, every single placement. Facebook really, really wants you.
to just be like, hey, just open the door and we'll do all the work. But if you really look into your data, you'll find that some of your money, most of your money might be going into placements that A, you don't want to be in and B, just aren't converting. So you need to figure out ways on how to manipulate the algorithm to force some of that spend to go into those winning placements.
And if you have an engineering team, that's really great because there are some documents on the meta website where you can actually apply bid multipliers. So in that sense, you're essentially telling Facebook on the UI side, Hey, I want to target every single demographic, every single state, every single placement. But on the backend, you're adding bids to control that. So you're kind of, you're not cheating the system because meta.
will always push this onto you, but you're gonna have Meta think that they're targeting everything, but on the backend, you're pushing towards maybe just the Facebook feed side or the Instagram story placement, right? And when you do that, you get the benefits of pushing more spend into there, and then you also don't have to pay that CPM tax because Meta thinks that you're targeting all over the place for that, even though it's not.
Alex McEachern (15:59.312)
It interesting. So it kind of is like, it appears as though I'm casting a very wide net, but behind the scenes, I'm not actually like the net is just out there, but I'm being very specific. I don't know where my analogy was going to go with this, but like the traps behind the net are a lot more specific to what I'm going after than kind of that like broad net I have appeared to cast.
Ryan (16:18.958)
Exactly. And depending on how much you spend on meta, I know this is something I tested a lot at my last company, but they did not allow bin multipliers to be put on the backend for advantage for ASC for a very long time, up until maybe nine to 12 months ago. About nine to 12 months ago,
we were presented with an opportunity to get into this beta where you could apply the bin multipliers on the backend. And we just saw really great performance come out of that. Like we knew exactly where we wanted to hit. We knew exactly who we wanted to hit. And we just saw our performance improve exponentially because we were sending all of the ads to the right place. Whereas before ASC was sending it to like,
places we wouldn't want to be in like audience network and then some other placements that just were very low converting. So once we were able to really get strategic with our targeting, it took a lot of A -B testing like with bid multipliers, it's not something you can set up like an A -B experiment on the UI. It's something that you have to test over periods of time. So like one week we'll bid up on 45 and over.
One week we'll bid down on 45 and over. We'll use our internal Shopify data to see where or who is purchasing the most and just kind of cross -reference that to see how the performance is actually doing. So that's definitely like a big tip for me. If you can ask, it's been a while. I've been at FERMÀT for about six months now, so things can change, but...
If Meta still has that opportunity or they still have that beta to push out for you to run bin multipliers on the backend, I would highly recommend reaching out to them.
Alex McEachern (18:17.968)
Love it. And you said, Hey, there's no UI to do the testing here. So like, you're just manually adjusting your bids to, to different audiences, to different placements and just kind of like tracking it behind the scenes. What were you using to track this? any kind of like tips or tricks for anyone listening, like, Hey, if I'm going to run experiments, kind of like manual start and stops, is it just an Excel spreadsheet? Is there something better out there?
Ryan (18:43.182)
Yeah, just log everything on a Google Sheet. I feel like people have data live in their heads all the time and it doesn't work out for anybody. It's important to document it. I usually have like a testing roadmap document that I got that I use all across my clients. And it's just a place to write down what's the test, what's the hypothesis, what's the impact.
What are the notes? What are the outcomes? Like it's just really important to have all that laid out so that when the next person comes in, they can see, they can see like, Hey, like Ryan's already run this test. But speaking of testing, something that I should really, really emphasize is something that did not work three to six months ago may work later. So it's today. So it's always important to retest people.
Alex McEachern (19:31.6)
today. Yeah.
Ryan (19:37.422)
What I've seen working with media buyers, especially nowadays, is that they're really stubborn to go back and test something that did not work because they just think it's not gonna work again and it's just a waste of time. But if it's a high impact test, then definitely revisit those at some point in time because sometimes you'll be surprised at the results.
Alex McEachern (20:02.416)
I saw a quote once and it was, I'm gonna butcher this, but it was basically the next good idea is a bad idea. And I think this kind of plays into that, right? It's like, hey, what was a bad idea before might be a good idea now. And I think like in just like advertising in general, as soon as something becomes too used, it like the results or like how good is going to perform really starts to decline as like everyone kind of figures out what's working. And now all of a sudden,
Ryan (20:29.07)
Mm -hmm.
Alex McEachern (20:29.808)
The bad idea from before is actually the good idea because no one's playing in that arena anymore and I can kind of have like, I don't know, blue ocean in something that didn't work previously or might've been like out of favor six months ago, but now it's just like a clean slate for me to play with now.
Ryan (20:47.918)
Exactly. That's actually a good point. I think one good example was Reels when Reels first came out. It was such a brand new placement. The CPMs were really, really cheap. We actually saw really good performance from Reel advertising placements, but I know a lot of advertisers didn't. So a lot of people just like excluded Reels because they didn't want to be there. They didn't have the right creator for it.
and they just weren't ready to be on that placement. But then they came back once a lot more people started going on to Reels. They started creating content more so for Reels, kind of taking stuff from TikTok essentially and creating Reels specific creative and have seen really good performance come out of that. So Meta is always evolving. Their algorithms evolving. Their machine learning is evolving. So it's always important to, like I said, just retest because you never know.
what one bad idea before might be. You never know if it'll be a great thing again. So.
Alex McEachern (21:54.384)
Yesterday's bad idea is potentially today's good idea.
Ryan (21:57.998)
Yes. Yes.
Alex McEachern (21:59.536)
so we talked about like, so a big theme in here testing. We talked about testing placements, testing audiences, testing creative mediums, anything else that people should be testing like inside of here, like attribution settings, like funnel goals, like what have you seen work in terms of kind of like these levers that we can be pulling on to try to eke out performance here and there.
Ryan (22:24.622)
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great point that you brought up about attribution settings because in 99 % of the ad accounts that I see over at Format, it's always a seven day click one day view, which is great. I know that works really well for advertisers, but I feel like there's definitely some opportunity in testing other attribution settings like one day click or seven day click, right? Usually for optimizing for seven day click or one day click.
You might see more expensive CPMs because you're really trying to target a specific audience that you think is going to convert. But even if you're going to pay that tax, it might be worth using. If the conversion rate is justified, if the ROAS is justified, then yeah, you should definitely be testing more attribution settings. Now it takes a lot of testing. It's not like a one size fit all. Usually from what I've seen is that.
seven day click attribution works better for higher AOV items and one day click is more so for like impulse purchases, right? And for FERMÀT, we really want people to convert there and then we do have a lot of purchases come from our halo effect, but one of the value props is FERMÀT is being able to track someone from a post -click experience through the journey without any loss of tracking signals, without loss of pixel data.
And then Meta is really able to track those purchases into ads manager immediately. But we also have our internal format analytics to show with the order IDs that, Hey, like once someone came on this ad, they truly converted. We have all of the data here to show like what they did. We have heat maps, we have session recordings. But just that's just something that no other company really offers right now. And if they do, it's at a much lower scale than FERMÀT.
For mods really on the forefront of that and it's been really exciting for customers to see like for customers to fully attribute their purchases from certain ads that they're running that they weren't able to get visibility from before.
Alex McEachern (24:34.064)
Yeah, I think that's a really good point because like when we're building out these from off funnels, like we're letting you customize the landing page, the merchandising or like the products and the PDPs inside of there and like the custom cart upsells, like we're basically giving all the tools required to make it as frictionless and seamless through that entire purchase journey as possible. So we, we are very, like you said, Ryan, like we're very much focused on that in unit conversion. Like, Hey, someone is just click this.
They just hit the experience. Can we get the conversion right then and there? And obviously there is a halo effect, like it's advertising, right? Like not everyone is going to purchase right then and there. That's why you have the attribution settings. But talk to me a bit about when we're, so you get to look at a ton of ad accounts. We're trying, we're hooking these ad accounts up to these FERMÀT funnels so that people can build the best experience possible. Any tips, tricks you're seeing to like find the best ads for these types of experiences or like,
Ryan (25:24.846)
Mm -hmm.
Alex McEachern (25:31.888)
How do you, how do you find the best ways to kind of like line up ad creatives with the appropriate for mot funnel?
Ryan (25:40.334)
Absolutely. So what we usually do is we find what the best performing creative is, and then we run ads to the video shops where sometimes you have continuity in the ad and the video shop itself, meaning the same ad video might be at the very top of the landing page that you hit. Now people like that because it's like, Hey, like I'm clicking onto this experience and getting exactly what I want.
rather than clicking on this experience and maybe just seeing like a subset of products. And then I have to do the work to find the exact product that I want. So just really, really making sure that we were testing like all of the actives that worked well, but you know, it doesn't always have to be the same accurate that shows up on the landing page. We can, we can test like different ones to see like, Hey, like this, this product might be showing value prop a.
And then people like it, but then when they click onto the website, they might be seeing value prop B and value prop C and just kind of continuing it rather than just showing the same thing. So testing different landing page, testing different, like I would say it's kind of like a hook, right? Because the very first thing you see on our video shops is a video, a video explaining the product or the collection of products. so sometimes.
the same video on the ad creative might work if it's the same video on the landing page, or it might work better if you use a different video. So testing different videos like that is really gonna be beneficial, because it's not a one size fits all.
Alex McEachern (27:21.104)
Couldn't couldn't agree more. And I think it's really smart to like, Hey, let's look through this ad account. Let's see what some of the top performing ads are based on like what they're measuring, right? Like, Hey, what is top performing for me? That could be a bunch of different things. Let's take a look at that and try to like make that cohesive experience all the way through. Cause like, I don't know about you, but like, I swear half the ads I click on, on Instagram, show me something. And I'm like, cool. I want that.
hit the ad and it just drops me onto like a random collection page. I'm like, you're really going to make me do the work to go find that like crazy pair of running socks and that exact pattern that I wanted. There's like 26 options in front of me now peace where if we can have like, Hey, someone's coming in with this intention and be able to like pull that intention all the way through. And to your point, like the same way that you can experiment and try things at the ad level, like what's my hook, what's my CTA inside of an ad.
Ryan (27:59.566)
Exactly.
Alex McEachern (28:15.056)
you essentially have that level of freedom inside of FERMÀT as well. Like what's my hook is what am I going to like pull someone in post click on the landing page? And then like, how am I going to make that as easy as possible on the way through? Like in my example, they show me a particular pair of running socks. I land on the landing page. There they are. Here's the benefits. Boom. Add it to my cart. the cart says if I add two more pairs and I get free shipping and a free gift. Cool. I'm going to add two more pairs, get free shipping and a free gift.
all of a sudden my AOV is higher and I have like an in -session conversion where before I hit the catalog page dip, but then maybe five days later I go, you know what? I actually do want those socks. And then I just head over to the site and spend 20 minutes navigating around and finding them, but they could have had me right then and there.
Ryan (28:59.726)
Exactly. Yeah. And that's a great point about like AOV upsells. Like people don't even realize, and I'm honestly shocked as an advertiser myself. I was like, people don't really, like buy upsells and stuff, but all the data that I've seen is like, it truly works. But that's just because like I'm a media buyer and like, I'm pretty jaded to that stuff. I'm music, like it's pretty hard to get someone like me to convert because I know everything that goes into like.
running paid media and getting people through to flow. So I, if you can get me to convert like right there and then, then that ad is doing a fantastic job. So yeah, just, but I get that I'm not like everybody.
Alex McEachern (29:45.52)
I feel like everyone in the D2C e -comm space, we're all just slightly jaded about it, but hey, I don't know, when you've done it your whole life, you're like, respect where respects do, right? Sometimes you see a killer ad and you're like, yeah, I know how much thought went into that. They've crafted such a killer experience. And to your point with the upsells and all that, I think that's one of the best things about FERMÀT is that...
we actually allow you to do that where I feel like in the past, like your growth market or your media buyer, they just didn't really have any influence over what happened at the conversion point, right? It was like, Hey, I build the ads and I send them to the website or I send them to a particular page. And like I've done my job. As long as I get like the click into here, like someone else is responsible for those optimizations. But I think one of the coolest things about FERMÀT is like, you can work with your account manager and just make sure that like, Hey, my best ads.
are sending to the best experience possible so that I create the best funnel rather than like, this ad is a killer. But when I send it to my normal conversion point, it falls off or hey, these ads are okay. But when I send them to my normal conversion point, they convert well because like value prop one to value prop one rather than, value prop two and three are killing at the ad level, but just like losing all their juice when they hit the conversion point that was designed for value prop one.
Ryan (30:49.998)
Mm -hmm.
Ryan (31:06.958)
Exactly, exactly. And shout out to Truff Hot Sauce. They were ones that I found out on Instagram and they just had some of the best creative that I've ever seen. I don't even like hot sauce that much, but they really sold me into purchasing one and now I probably buy it once or twice every quarter. It's just crazy to think that I bought a hot sauce when I'm not even into hot sauces.
and be like, I don't even know what this tastes like. I had never like even heard of these guys. But once I got it in, like their packaging was perfect. Like they put a lot of care into everything from the ads to like the presentation of the box. So quick little side note, anytime I think of like a company doing a really good job with their full funnel experience, trough hot sauce is the one that comes to mind.
Alex McEachern (31:59.216)
those bottles are pure art. Like you can just leave it on your kitchen counter and like, I just feel sophisticated. That's sitting, sitting on my kitchen table. All right, Ryan, this has been fantastic. Thanks for giving us all that insight, all the tips and like how we can connect all of this into FERMÀT. If people want to follow along with you, Twitter, LinkedIn, got anywhere where the people can see what you're up to.
Ryan (32:01.902)
Truly.
Ryan (32:28.078)
I'm not on Twitter. I know I need to be on Twitter. You can find me on LinkedIn. You just search my name, Ryan Sandi, S -O -N -D -H -I. You can find me there, but yeah, that's pretty much it. Alex, it was great speaking with you again. I'm looking forward to our next offsite and we'll definitely be chatting soon.
Alex McEachern (32:49.04)
so that you can drop all that wisdom on me and make me look like an even bigger advertising noob the next time.
Ryan (32:55.182)
Hey, hey.