Full transcript
0:00Meta has finally added a new Facebook
0:02Ads feature that I have wanted for
0:03years. I'm very excited about this. I
0:05think it's going to help so many
0:06advertisers. Let me show you what I'm
0:08talking about. So, I'm here in an
0:10example ad account. I'm in Ads Manager
0:12at the campaign level. I'm going to go
0:13ahead and click on this plus create
0:15button and then select sales. Click
0:17continue. Not going to worry about all
0:18the other campaign settings and
0:19everything like that. I have videos that
0:21cover literally everything. I'm going to
0:22jump to the ad set level, which is where
0:24this new feature is. And then we've got
0:26this customer lifecycle strategy section
0:29up here. Now, some of you watching this
0:31might be thinking, "Hang on, I've seen
0:32that for a while." Meta has actually
0:34been testing this in a few ad accounts
0:36for a long, long time, for months and
0:37months and months. But, they're now
0:39properly rolling this out to ad accounts
0:41more broadly. So, I think it was a good
0:42time to to demonstrate it and tell you
0:44guys about it. And this is really
0:46exciting. This is something I was
0:47expecting Meta to add a while ago.
0:49Google has had their equivalent of this
0:51for a long time. And when one of the two
0:53major online advertising platforms, Meta
0:55and Google, introduces something and it
0:57works and advertisers like it, most of
0:59the time the other one will copy. And
1:01that's exactly what what Meta has done
1:02here. Now, this answers or solves, I
1:06should say, a problem that a lot of Meta
1:08advertisers have had for many, many
1:10years. And that's advertisers feeling
1:12that their ads are being put in front of
1:14their existing customers at far too much
1:17or predominantly. They're spending way
1:19too much of their budget on it. They're
1:21like, "Would I have got these sales
1:22anyway? This feels like it's not a good
1:24use of budget. At some point, I've got
1:25to advertise to new people." And sort of
1:28that that that's the frustration that
1:30this is looking
1:31um to solve. And if you ever wanted to
1:32check to see if that's a problem in your
1:34ad account, some advertisers have this
1:36as an issue, but they're they're not
1:37aware of it, then you can do that by
1:39coming into taking a look at your
1:40campaigns and then selecting breakdown
1:42and then audience segments. You can just
1:44search and audience segments pop up. And
1:45then you'll be able to see your results
1:48by audience segments. So, we can see for
1:49this campaign here, you know, out of the
1:51581 purchases generated in the last 30
1:53days, 310 have come from new audience,
1:5643 from existing customers, and 227 from
1:59engaged audience. I wouldn't say this
2:00account has a problem at all, but we can
2:02see some very interesting like
2:03corresponding numbers. The frequency for
2:06existing customers is really high. It's
2:07kind of what you'd expect. And then
2:09we've got corresponding cost per results
2:10like coming in a bit cheaper from
2:12existing customers. And you can do that
2:13by campaign, by ad set, etc. Um if you
2:16come in here and you don't have data,
2:18you just see unknown in your audience,
2:19that's because you haven't set up you
2:21haven't defined your audience types. So
2:24your existing customers and your engaged
2:26audience um in your advertising
2:28settings, you do that by clicking on
2:29these three lines all tools. Let's get
2:31rid of that. I've got advertising
2:33settings over here in the shortcuts.
2:34Otherwise, it would be under advertise
2:36and then advertising settings.
2:38And then what you need to do, you need
2:40to come in here and you can see we've
2:41got engaged audience, existing
2:42customers, and they are defined. And you
2:44click in here and you basically say,
2:46"These audiences are my engaged
2:48audiences, the people who visited my
2:50website, people who are on my email
2:52list, people who've engaged with my
2:54social profiles, etc." I've got videos
2:56on how to set this up and, you know, how
2:58to create the custom audiences behind
3:00this should you want to check those out.
3:01And then you want to do the same with
3:02the existing customers, right? So show
3:03these are people that have bought from
3:05me, etc. So a little bit of an aside,
3:06but you want to actually make sure that
3:08this is set up in order to be able to
3:09use the the customer life cycle strategy
3:12properly. Okay, so let me go back to
3:13where I was. And when you do that, you
3:16may well see in the data, you're like,
3:17"I didn't realize so many of my
3:19purchases were coming from existing
3:22customers. Like we're only really
3:23advertising in the same pond here. Like
3:26we have to expand out reach the people
3:27otherwise our business is not going to
3:29grow." So if you do that, set that up,
3:30come in here, you look at your audience
3:32segment breakdown, you see that there's
3:33an issue, you now have a solution for
3:36it, which is this customer life cycle
3:39strategy. So the default here is get
3:41conversions from all audiences. And if
3:43you leave it as a default, basically
3:45this ad set is going to perform as it
3:47normally would. Nothing's going to
3:48change. We're not using this feature in
3:51any way, really. But we can go ahead and
3:53change that from get conversions from
3:54all audiences to acquire new customers.
3:57Choose this if conversions for people
3:58who have never made a purchase generate
3:59more value for your business. This may
4:01increase your cost per result. Now,
4:02those two little points there are true.
4:04There are other considerations as well.
4:05Like, choose this if you feel like
4:07you're only spending money on warm
4:09audience, on existing customers would be
4:11uh would be another one, right? So, we
4:12go ahead and click on acquire new
4:14customers. This is why it was important
4:15to have those audiences
4:18defined. Your existing customers and
4:20then potentially re-engaged audiences
4:22because this is what we're going to use
4:24to tell Meta we want to you to focus on
4:26acquiring new customers, so please don't
4:28put ads in front of these people. If we
4:30go ahead and and select uh existing
4:32customers, you can see that Meta's auto
4:34selected these. This again will be based
4:36on if you've got information added to
4:37your existing customers at the
4:39advertising settings in your ad account,
4:41but even if you don't actually,
4:42sometimes Meta will pull through into
4:43this section. And we can go through and
4:45we can customize this, right? So, you
4:46can say like, "Look, no, actually that's
4:48not right. I want to delete that one
4:49out." or, you know, that's just an
4:51example. I don't want to put that one in
4:52there. So, I should I should go through
4:54uh and you can edit this as you see fit.
4:56You can also search to add new ones in.
4:58So, if you had a a different type of
5:00custom audience you're like, "That's not
5:01in there. Why am I such and such not in
5:03there?" then you can go ahead and and go
5:05and get those uh those added in, right?
5:07So, so pretty straightforward to come in
5:08and define who your existing customers
5:10are. You may need to set up some extra
5:12custom audiences in order to do this
5:13properly, so you may need to export your
5:16customer list from whatever CRM you're
5:18using, get that uploaded to your Meta ad
5:19account if you haven't already done so.
5:21Oh, and that's actually another quick
5:22thing to mention. If you created a
5:24custom audience based on people who have
5:26triggered the purchase conversion event
5:27via your pixel
5:29a while ago, the maximum used to be 180
5:31days, so you can only see 180 days into
5:32the past and include those people in
5:34your custom audience. That has now been
5:35changed to 730 days. Um so, you can get
5:37a lot more data in there in case you
5:39really do want to exclude existing
5:41customers. So, you may want to go in and
5:42and manually update that. You can see
5:43I've got that. This is an example ad
5:45account, so there's a few in there that
5:46we've created in the past, right? So, if
5:49I go ahead and minimize that, now by
5:51default, Meta won't also exclude your
5:53engaged audience. So, that exclude when
5:55you select acquiring your customers,
5:56that exclude people who have bought from
5:57you previously, but not people who have
5:59interacted with your business, but not
6:01yet bought. And Meta makes this
6:02distinction to the three categories.
6:04There's new audience, people who have
6:05not interacted with you before, there's
6:07engaged audience, people who have
6:08interacted, but they haven't yet bought,
6:10and then there's previous buyers. I
6:11think that's a really good way of
6:12thinking about it because someone who's
6:14been on your email list, or who's
6:15watched videos of yours on Instagram, or
6:17who follows you on Facebook, like
6:20they're not totally new audience, but
6:21they're also not customers if they
6:22haven't bought. So, being able to have
6:24that middle selection, have those people
6:26defined is is really valuable. Now, Meta
6:29won't automatically exclude those people
6:31unless you tell it to. So, I can come in
6:33here and I can start to say, yes, go
6:35ahead and exclude my, you know, website
6:38visitors 180, and go ahead and exclude
6:40my email list, for example. And whatever
6:43else you've got to denote people who
6:45have engaged with you, but but not yet
6:46bought. Now, I typically would not
6:48recommend using this option. Fine to be
6:51excluding existing customers if you're
6:53seeing an issue, if you're seeing that's
6:55where tons of your spend is going, and
6:57you really want to reach new audience,
6:59maybe what you sell is a one-time
7:01purchase, that'll be another example.
7:02But your engaged audience being excluded
7:04is almost certainly going to really
7:06increase your cost per result because
7:08think about the dynamic of that,
7:09particularly as a lot of these audiences
7:10are going to be dynamic as in your
7:12website visitors, that updates as more
7:14people visit your website, your social
7:16engagers, that updates as people engage
7:18with you on on Meta, on on Facebook and
7:20Instagram primarily. So, do you want to
7:22not put ads in front of someone that
7:24visited your website yesterday, but
7:25didn't buy? Like, no. Of course you want
7:28to put ads in front of them. They're
7:29your best prospects. They're interested.
7:30They may be doing their research. They
7:31may be asking their partner about
7:33whatever it is that you offer. Should I
7:34buy this? Do you think this is a good
7:35option?
7:36Et cetera, et cetera. So, I would not
7:38recommend excluding this unless you've
7:40got a really specific use case where you
7:42want to, but excluding these existing
7:45customers in order to use this customer
7:47life cycle strategy is absolutely
7:49something that you're going to want to
7:50do. So, I'm going to go ahead and delete
7:51those app. I just wanted to mention
7:53that's an option. We've got this option
7:54here, label your custom audiences as
7:56general customers. You just go through
7:57and it's just it's just an organization
7:58thing. You can either choose to do it or
8:00not, totally up to you. With that in
8:01mind, one of the absolute keys to
8:02scaling ads is working with the right
8:04data. Meta ads especially are driven by
8:06AI targeting. Bad data means not only
8:08bad ad decisions, but bad AI targeting.
8:11Meta tracking is consistently off by 20
8:13to 30% and as much as 50% plus for
8:15long-term sales. This leads to that bad
8:17data. That's why I wanted to tell you
8:19about Hyros and their new form of
8:20attribution called AI swarm data. It
8:23fixes this gap and A, allows you to make
8:25the correct decisions with your ads. B,
8:27sends the right data to Meta. This
8:29results in an almost immediate boost to
8:30ad ROI via better targeting and better
8:33decisions, which is why it's used by
8:34major players like Alex Hormozi, Tony
8:36Robbins, myself, Four Seasons, Playboy
8:38WAP, and thousands of large-scale
8:40e-commerce stores. Here's an example.
8:42Hyros helps point out gaps in tracking.
8:44If I couldn't see this data, I wouldn't
8:45be able to scale as effectively. More
8:47importantly, it feeds the ad platform
8:49the right data for better targeting,
8:51cutting your cost to acquire customers.
8:52That's why I'm comfortable recommending
8:53Hyros. They literally guarantee
8:55increased ad ROI or you don't pay. Their
8:57usual result is around a 10 to 15%
8:59increase in ad revenue. And if you're an
9:01agency, not only does it get your
9:02clients better results, Hyros pays up to
9:0440% for lifetime commissions on each
9:06client you bring. Even better, they will
9:08set it up for you, then help you
9:09optimize ad platform AI targeting with
9:11it. Use the link below. The first 15
9:13people to do so will get a 30% discount.
9:16So, the obvious question is, should you
9:17use this feature at all? Should you
9:19change from get conversions from all
9:22audiences to acquire new customers? I
9:24actually think by default, no. You want
9:27to use this if you feel that you've got
9:29a problem. And that's why right at the
9:30beginning of the video, I showed you how
9:31how to look at the audience segment
9:33breakdown and how to set up your
9:35defineable audiences so that you can
9:36check that. I have seen many ad accounts
9:38that do have a problem and they need to
9:41to make a change here and we used to
9:42come up with alternative ways that I'll
9:44quickly cover in a minute that weren't
9:45as good. This I much prefer, but don't
9:48do it unless you're seeing an issue. And
9:50in general, the businesses that are more
9:52likely to see a problem with this are
9:54going to be established brands within a
9:56marketplace, a name that people might
9:58know. Doesn't necessarily need to be
9:59really big business, might just be a
10:00known name within that within that
10:02industry within that lane. People who
10:04have a lot of existing customers, they
10:05have a lot of market share already and
10:09naturally when you're spending money on
10:10ads, Meta's going to try and find the
10:12cheapest conversions. That's often going
10:13to come from existing customers even if
10:15a lot of them would have bought anyway
10:17and you end up spending money on ad
10:19impressions that you think, "This is
10:20just not the best use of our budget. We
10:22could have spent it better elsewhere,
10:24gotten better incremental results." And
10:26also those businesses have just been
10:27advertising on the platform a long time.
10:29That comes with the package, right? It's
10:30an established brand. It's a bigger
10:31spender, one who's been advertising a
10:33long time. Yeah, those are the
10:34businesses that that typically struggle
10:36with this. It's also important to note
10:37that this isn't going to be 100%
10:39accurate. Now, in order for Meta to be
10:41able to exclude someone from your
10:44advertising, they need to be able to
10:46match them in the custom audience. So,
10:48let's say you've got a customer list
10:49that you've exported from your CRM,
10:51uploaded into your Meta ad account. Meta
10:53needs to match the people on your list
10:56with actual users. Meta's not going to
10:58be 100% accurate, not even close to
11:00that, honestly. Might be more like 50%
11:01accurate because people might use
11:03different email addresses like they're
11:05having to match contact information and
11:06things like that. So, whilst this might
11:08help with that problem, don't think of
11:10this as a perfect solution to like, "I
11:13need to absolutely guarantee that none
11:14of my existing customers see my ads
11:16because I've got a new offer, for
11:17example, for new customers that doesn't
11:20apply to existing customers." Some of
11:21them are going to see it as well because
11:22this is not 100% accurate. So, you need
11:25to be aware of that. It's also likely to
11:27worsen the results you see in your ad
11:29account. Some of the cheapest
11:30conversions and best return on ad spend
11:32you can get is going to come from
11:34existing customers. If you get rid of
11:36them, then you are likely to see a
11:38higher cost per result, a worse return
11:41on ad spend. That doesn't mean that it's
11:42the wrong decision for your business.
11:44You might be making conscious decision
11:45to say, "Yeah, I'm okay if my ROAS goes
11:48down a little bit if I'm getting new
11:49customers. I'm growing my market share.
11:52I'm getting my stuff in front of new
11:54people." You might be willing to make
11:55that trade, but you need to be aware of
11:56it cuz I've seen some businesses turn
11:58this on, see their ROAS drop, and be
11:59like, "Oh, I'm really disappointed." And
12:01then they don't want to continue with
12:02it. So, you need to be aware of that
12:03before you um get into that. Now, there
12:05are some alternatives to this customer
12:07lifecycle strategy that I'll get to in a
12:08minute. The first I want to let you know
12:10about my school community called the Ben
12:12Heath Meta Ads Academy. In it, I've got
12:14110 plus exclusive videos not on
12:16YouTube, not anywhere else. Exclusive
12:18content there. I respond to every single
12:20post, question in the community. So, if
12:22you ever want me to answer your
12:23questions, that's the place to get them
12:25answered. I do weekly live Q&A calls
12:28where again, you can get direct feedback
12:30on your setup, on your ads, etc. To help
12:32you get the best Meta ad results
12:33possible. If you're interested, there is
12:35a link in the video description.
12:36Hopefully, I'll see you on the inside.
12:37So, there are some alternatives to this
12:39customer lifecycle strategy and it's
12:40worth quickly running through those and
12:42explaining why those options are
12:44different cuz I know that's something
12:46that some of you will ask about and and
12:47and will come up, right? So, the first
12:49is going to be incremental attribution.
12:52So, if I, you know, if I change that
12:53back to the default and scroll down,
12:56we've got attribution model down here.
12:58The default here is standard. We can
13:00change this to incremental. How does
13:02this differ? Incremental attribution is
13:05designed to get your Meta ads to spend
13:09in a way that gets you purchases, leads,
13:12etc. that you wouldn't otherwise have
13:14gotten. Because I think if you advertise
13:16on Meta for a while, you'll realize that
13:19some of the purchases that Meta's are
13:21taking credit for, you may have gotten
13:23anyway. Let's say someone's on your
13:25email list and they're emailed about a
13:27special new sale that you're running.
13:29Now, maybe they were going to buy anyway
13:31or likely to buy anyway, and Meta just
13:32sort of snuck in some ad impressions to
13:34those people because they happen to be
13:35on Instagram before they bought or in
13:36around that time. And then Meta's like,
13:38"Hey, we got a purchase." And you're
13:39like, "Yeah, but that's not incremental.
13:41I would have gotten that one anyway."
13:42Such and such person buys from your
13:44store every month. It's part of their
13:46routine. They need more of whatever it
13:48is that you sell.
13:50Does putting Meta ads in front of those
13:51people make sense? Does paying to do
13:52that make sense? No, not really. They
13:54were going to buy anyway. That's not
13:55incremental. So, that's what incremental
13:57is designed to do. It's designed to try
13:58and work out these are the purchases you
14:01would have got anyway. We're not going
14:03to count those. We're not going to
14:04attribute those to the ad campaign,
14:06which will affect your delivery, means
14:07we won't put ads in front of those
14:08people going forward.
14:10These are the incremental ones, the ones
14:11you only got because of as a result of
14:13of your advertising. Now, this is a bit
14:15softer than using the customer life
14:17cycle strategy, where you're only going
14:19after new customer acquisition, because
14:22Meta can still put ads in front of your
14:23existing customers.
14:25There are times where advertising will
14:28get existing customers to buy when they
14:30would not otherwise have bought. Your
14:32previous customers are not walking
14:33around in life thinking about your brand
14:3524/7, right? So, those reminders are
14:38helpful. Oh, yeah, I forgot about them.
14:39Yeah, we will go into that location. We
14:41will go and buy. Yeah, I do need some
14:43more of that. I really like that when I
14:44tried it last time. I'm going to get
14:45another one or whatever it happens to
14:46be, whatever you sell, right? So, that
14:48is an alternative that you may want to
14:50experiment with. Again, you need to be
14:51aware that if you're using incremental
14:53attribution, your ROAS is likely to come
14:54down on what's reported in your ad
14:55account. Your cost per result is likely
14:58to get worse. So, you know, factor that
15:01in. But, that is an alternative option
15:03that's that's probably a bit softer. It
15:05won't exclude existing customers,
15:06though. So, if that's really what you
15:07want to do, then you're better off with
15:09a customer life cycle strategy. The
15:11other option is to scroll down to the
15:12audience section and just exclude your
15:15existing customers as custom audiences
15:18from your targeting.
15:19So, we can come in here. We can click on
15:20show more controls. and we can select
15:23this option here, which is legal and
15:24operational custom audience exclusions.
15:26Click into that, and then we can go
15:27ahead and say, "No, I don't want to
15:29advertise to people who have bought from
15:31me previously. Please get rid of my, you
15:34know, website purchases from the
15:35targeting." Uh we could do the same for,
15:39you know, the customer list. Again,
15:40there's lots of example custom audiences
15:42cuz this is is an example ad account I
15:44use for demonstration purposes. And we
15:45can say, "I just don't want to advertise
15:46to people. Go ahead and get rid of
15:48them." And you might think, "Well,
15:49surely this is the same as the customer
15:51life cycle option." It doesn't seem to
15:53be in practice. Like in theory, yes, but
15:55in our testing, I don't like this. This
15:58really seems to disrupt delivery. If you
16:00take an ad set that's running, and you
16:01go ahead and add these in, so often you
16:04will see the return ad spend just
16:05absolutely tank. Your cost per
16:07conversion shoot up. Sometimes it
16:09completely affects delivery in the meta
16:10will either stop spending altogether, or
16:12they'll massively reduce how much
16:13they're spending. So, if you've got a
16:15$200 a day budget, they're all of a
16:16sudden spending $50 a day, and you're
16:17like, "Why?" It's like meta just doesn't
16:20seem to handle this exclusion very well.
16:22You are much better off, cuz I said, in
16:24theory this operates the same way as the
16:26customer life cycle option up here, when
16:28we select acquire new customers, in my
16:30experience you're much better off going
16:32for this option, and
16:34and allowing meta to do its thing. I
16:36think it's because customer life cycle
16:38strategy option is sort of built into
16:41the delivery mechanism and how bidding
16:43is going to operate. Like it's part of
16:44how it's planning what it's going to do.
16:47Whereas when you use this option down
16:48here, you're kind of like, "I want you
16:51to operate this way, oh, but just don't
16:53do this bit." Hopefully I've explained
16:55that in a way that's comprehensible, but
16:57that's that's basically what I think is
16:58going on, why there's a difference.
16:59Either way, we've tested a whole bunch,
17:01and this option up here seems to produce
17:04better results than excluding custom
17:06audiences
17:07um at the targeting stage. Now, if you
17:09do decide to use this customer life
17:10cycle strategy, please let me know how
17:12it goes in the comments. You know, we've
17:13done a bunch of testing, we're still in
17:14the information gathering phase about
17:16this. I'll would curious to know your
17:17experience. Also, Meta is kind of going
17:20crazy with new features at the moment,
17:21which is very exciting and you want to
17:22jump on the new features cuz often they
17:24give you first mover advantage if you
17:25do. One that I strongly recommend you
17:27check out I demonstrate in this video
17:28here. It's called Meta One. Whole new
17:31subscription options that have big
17:33ramifications for us advertisers, but
17:35also for businesses that are looking to
17:38do things organically on Facebook and
17:40Instagram. So, if you haven't already,
17:41make sure you check this out.