Why Your Facebook Ads Suck (And How to Fix Them)

your ads suck they may look good they may sound good and they might even be clever but if your ads aren't performing then your ads suck it doesn't matter if you have the skill or Outsource to someone who does your ads don't convert because you don't understand what the customer wants every ad needs to hit the customer where it hurts and then solve that pain you need to find what the customer wants and turn that into

something which they need some customers aren't even aware of what they want whereas some customers have done a deep dive into every single product imaginable but do you know what they have in common desire the difference between these customers is what Eugene Schwarz called Market awareness now how much are you willing to spend on a book $10 $20 50 maybe if it's really nice 60 years after publication Eugene Schwarz book breakthrough advertising retails for $400 if

all I'd learned from these $400 was the stages of Market awareness then it would be the best $400 I've ever spent and today I'm going to give you all that for free schwarz's theory was that every consumer exists in one stage of Market awareness and each of these stages has different emotional triggers that you need to hit in order to draw them to the net stage products themselves have a rough area of Market awareness that they

tend to exist in it's the difference between iPhone and finasteride everyone with an internet connection knows what an iPhone is they know what it represents they know what it does and most of the time they already want it this is a stage five product fasite on the other hand is a niche topical medicine for people with a niche problem male pattern boldness most men will be in the first few stages of Market awareness they're either unaware

they have a problem unaware that there is a solution and unaware that finesse dried is the solution for a prospect like this you have to approach marketing so much differently to how Apple does so what exactly are these stages and how does Schwarz use them to become one of the most successful copywriters of the 20th century let's find out stage one unaware the first stage of Market awareness is the most basic total unawareness the customer doesn't

know that your product can solve their problem the customer doesn't actually even know it has a problem to be solved this is essentially marketing Wilderness you can spin it any way you want it's untapped land Prime for any story you want to spin your role is simply to educate the customer that there is a problem before the mobile phone people didn't know they needed communication to fit in their pocket no one was actively seeking to look

for a solution much less caring about pricing or branding your advert needs to spark curiosity stay away from pricing competition or even talking about the specifications of a product all you've got to do is introduce A New Perspective there's no need to create a sense of urgency to buy your product you got to let them come to that Solution on their own competition is low at this stage you don't need to be a Salesman you need

to be a guide you need to be the gentle hand that brings them to the next stage speaking of which stage two problem aware in this stage the customer is aware of their pain but unaware of the solution the first note to hit here is recognition you have to show that you know what their symptoms are or how it makes them feel take for example a receding hairline it's a common problem for men so the market

is always present and the market is always profitable the two main pain points here are the fear of Aging too fast and the embarrassment of how they're seen fear and social pressures are two of the strongest emotional forces that drive a person so to capitalize you need to show a mirror to the potential customer right away you got to bring them into that pain and validate that their problems aren't unique but in fact they're solvable at

this point you can start naming what the specific problem is and start building on the subject show that you understand both their problem and the solution by naming the problem they can understand that this is something which has been considered before so there are possible solutions for them there's no unspecific miracle cure this is a solution which is design designed just for them these potential customers are ready to explore Solutions but they haven't yet committed to

anything they don't even know about product competitors you're no longer a guide you're a teacher and the lesson is that there's relief for their pain this is the most populated stage of Market awareness and almost all products will benefit from optimizing towards this once they recognize their problems the next step is to offer potential Solutions that's where you come in and show that your product is the solution they need stage three solution aware this is where

the market starts to get interest in customers know that the solution exists and they're actively hunting for the right one you're no longer introducing a problem or revealing a solution you're proving what your solution is the best where stage two relied on fear and social pressures stage three demands credibility your messaging can't just resonate it has to differentiate this stage is a courtroom and your product is on trial your potential customers want proof specifics and a

clear argument for why you're the best investment Authority is your primary currency here demonstrate understanding of not just the problem but the entire ecosystem of solutions this is where social proof becomes critical show real world applications and Concrete Solutions technical specifications become relevant now but they're not actually enough specifications are the supporting documents they're not the headlin don't just list features explain why your solution is better than the competitors your potential customers aren't just looking for

a solution they're looking for the solution they want to feel smart about their decision give them the information they need to validate their choice make them feel like choosing your solution it's the only logical conclusion I just released a case study of working with a celebrity founder and it demonstrates this case so well the founder is a Celebrity Dentist so she naturally hits the triggers for authority and social proof we took full advantage of this and

achieved some staggering results so if you want a bit of a deeper dive I'll leave a link in the description so you go check it out but we can't stay in the solution aware Zone forever we've got to show your prospects what you're really selling that brings us to stage four product to wear at this stage your customer knows the solutions exist they've done their research and maybe even explored some products and they already know your

product is out there but they're not sold yet maybe they're skeptical about your claims or maybe they're still comparing you to competitors or maybe they just don't see why your product is the best choice for them your job is to prove that your product is effective and unique you need to show your prospects that they can't get this kind of performance anywhere else we're not in the weeds of emotional responses anymore the only emotional response you're

trying to trigger is satisfaction satisfied with our own ability to make the right decision this is the point where you start hammering them on things like manufacturing methods ingredi ingredients unique mechanisms safety and Effectiveness speed of results and social proof pick your strongest selling points and hone in on that if your unique selling point is that you make t-shirts out of tarantula silk make sure they know that you're the only one who can give them that

for product to wear customers Us Versus Them becomes especially effective they're ready for a product to solve their problem and you have to make sure you're the only valid option A lot of daily use products exist in this stage of Market awareness think about Wasing up liquids we all know it we all use it so there's no point trying to sell the idea to someone if you turn on your TV you'll see that all watching up

Liquid ads focus on how their product is better than the other product the playby playay is identical for all of them that's why you'll always see comparisons versus generic products side by side where inevitably they'll leave the plates sparked and clean where the generic products will cause Hassle and leave it dirty take a look at this classic example from 1996 I just discovered that Fair's good for feet as well as hands I used to buy an

ordinary concentrate that looked like fairy but didn't always work as well I often had to wait for tough things to soak before going back to finish the job but fairy normally gets the same dishes clean after just a short soak fairy's extra power loosens cooked on food faster than the ordinary one and now this one from the same company just a few years ago here has a very scientific experiment to see how much easier new fairy

with lift action makes the washing up even on this these Ready Steady Shake sh [Music] sh No Mess no grease no fuss 15 years have passed and these ads are still effective even in a market where the products are almost identical the style of the ads may change but the underlying premise never does modern technology has allowed the format of our ads to evolve with the mind takes a while to catch up to be ahead of

a game you don't need to reinvent the wheel you just need to apply these strategies to new domains if Schwarz lived in the age of Ecom he'd tell you that conversion friction needs to be as low as possible that's why good landing pages are important and it's especially important for this stage think about it the chances are the customers already opened up a few tabs on competitive products and is scanning through a page on which one

to buy if your products are similar the ease of purchase and the offer might be the only things which Drive the sale so what you do when your customers have decided they want your product but they just haven't bought yet what you need is a stage five solution stage five most aware direct targeting people are ready to purchase but they need a slight nudge most people who want an iPhone know they want an iPhone they don't

need to be sold specifics they just need a reason to buy at that moment that's why Apple Apple doesn't need massive discounts they just need a discount the chances are you're not going to be working on a product with as much pull as this the products almost sell themselves and if a product is massively well known is likely the result of a massive branding engine at this stage marketing doesn't need to educate or persuade it needs

to build momentum a small incentive maybe a slight price reduction or a small free gift or even a limited time offer it's usually enough to push customers from I want this to I'm buying it now for most brands stage five represents a small concentrated segment of your Market if you don't have a good reason to focus on stage five I wouldn't worry about it at all the only caveat to this is in ecom's holy season Black

Friday Black Friday is a unique point in the year where it's your job to cash in on the market awareness you've built throughout the whole year customers have limited budgets but they're trying to fck as many things into their baskets as possible this season puts every product into stage five territory so your ads need to follow a similar structure this year I had an extremely profitable Black Friday with some clients reaching up to 26 ETS their

usual days I'm going to be making a video on how I achieve that soon so make sure you're subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out just by learning about schwarz's Market awareness strategies has put you in a different class of marketers but to effectively use this knowledge you need to understand the concept of stage gradient no product belongs Bel ons to any specific stage it's more like a normal distribution where the peak of the

graph is the median stage where most potential customers are in apple still has some prospects in the unaware stage but that market is so much smaller than the customers later down the line so they don't focus on them the real Nuance of Market awareness is to figure out which stage of awareness the bulk of your Market is in so you can maximize your focus to where it really matters from stage two onwards the number of potential

customers decreases massively but that shouldn't dissuade you from advertising in the later stages the Paradox is that the later stage customers are much more likely to convert if you hit the right emotional triggers you can't mark it to everyone schwar said it best your ads must pick out the most logical prospects and reject as many people as they attract if you talk to someone at their level they're going to buy now I've added a bonus section

for those who stuck to the end because you're clearly ready to scale your business now this strategy isn't strictly necessary so I'd recommend AB testing to see if your audience responds no Market stays still and your strategies should always be flexible now follow my logic here for a moment we know that the best ads can bring a Prosper through multiple stages at the same time but ads like these are unicorns most of the time you can

only hit prospects with one or two stages at the same time here's where retargeting comes in if you make a campaign with all stages in that same campaign Facebook will automatically retarget and search for new customers the most effective way possible so you should be making ads for every stage of a funnel those stage five ads are going to spend less than a tenth of those stage one ads but overall it should optimize extremely profitably I've

said it before and I'll say it again creative is King but if you can find a way to maximize and optimize your funnel without investing more resources it's a no-brainer I often see people not using this strategy and does take some finesse to pull off but if you got the gift then the rewards can be amazing so what do you think was that $400 well spent