Episode 010: The validation test: Will ads actually work for your business?

Apr 10, 2024Podcast

Alright so… How do you know if you’re ready for paid ads? I’m pretty confident they can work, but will ads actually work for you? As an experienced paid ads manager, I often have to make the call on whether or not paid ads is right for a particular business. Let’s explore this together in this episode!

Watch this episode on: YouTube.

Listen on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts.

Transcript:

Hey there, gang! In this episode, I would like to talk about how to validate whether or not ads are actually a good idea for your business. I touched upon this a little bit in previous episodes, especially the last one where I talked about understanding your target audience and understanding whether or not you’ve got something, whether your message is sort of hitting the mark with describing what they get out of making a purchase from you. Because if you don’t get that right, you know, putting up an ad is pointless because if your even if your organic content isn’t hitting people right, then and adds, you know, it’s just going to be money down the sink.

Ads might not actually work if your product isn’t of interest to your audience

So, it may sound really obvious when I put it this way, but if your product isn’t selling, then there’s no point running ads to it. If it’s not selling, it tells me a couple of things. Like I just said, it could be that you just haven’t found the right way to articulate to your audience how your product or service solves their problem, or it might even be that there’s no demand for what you’re offering. There’s a very vital step in having a successful business, and that is actually doing your research, figuring out that you’ve got something that there’s demand for and that people are looking for it.

I mean, there are some really great ways to find this out. There’s various tools served by Google that can see whether or not you’ve got search demand for the type of product or service that you’re selling. If it’s something that people are not Googling, it may not be a good idea to run say Google ads for that product. So that’s one thing, is figuring out if there’s demand for your product, and the other thing is understanding your target audience and really nailing the communication with them. Because like with boosting Facebook posts, if you boost something that people have not shown interest in, it’s a multiplier, so you multiply zero by zero, you’re going to get zero, you’re going to get a negative return on your dollar investment.

The importance of market research

Now, I’m not really a master of audience research, market research, but I can share some resources with you. I’ll include them in the notes of this episode, but yeah, I do really want to stress that I mean, when I’m sort of assessing whether or not somebody’s going to be a good partner for running ads, I will look at their organic social media because a healthy organic strategy is it acts as a backbone for a healthy ad strategy. And if I don’t see evidence that your organic posts are delighting people, then I’m going to be a bit wary about running ads for you. And so I may suggest that you, instead of running ads to something that’s not really delighting people and picking their interests, you may have to go back to the drawing board with understanding your niche and how to speak to them.

Perhaps even I would suggest if you need more information about them, you can do surveys, or you may want to consider investing into some better quality content. That could come in the form of getting a photographer to take some really nice photos of your products or recording some nice videos. It doesn’t necessarily have to be pro quality. Even I mean, there’s a lot of the content that people like on social media is shot on iPhones, so it doesn’t have to be like you hire out a studio. But essentially what I’m saying is that yeah, there may be more if you’re not ready for ads, there may be other exercises that you need to do.

Is your website up to snuff?

So another thing that I mentioned was conversion rate. This is a percentage out of 100 people who visit your website or your landing page. The conversion rate is the percentage of those who actually go on to make a purchase or to sign up to the program or freebie that you’re offering. And so if your website isn’t making any sales and if nobody’s converting, if you’re not measuring this, then that is going to make running ads tricky. But if you’ve got something that you are creating organic social content for, or even if you’ve got a really good website and it’s being found on Google, if you’ve got evidence that people are making their way from Google, you’re not prompting them, they’re just finding you on your own, then that’s a good sign that ads could work for you.

Again, if you’ve got really amazing content that’s organically being found without you having to stress about it, it’s just you put it out there, people have resonated, and they’re finding you, then that’s also a good sign that ads will likely work for you. So yeah, I want you to consider that your organic content is working. If your organic content is working and people are discovering you and making purchases without you having to pay for ads, then yeah, let’s do ads. But if you’re putting content out there and it’s not grabbing people, then I would say that some market research is in order. It may not even be that you’ve got the wrong product. It may be that you just haven’t articulated the solution in a way that has reached your customer and spoken to them.

Conclusion

So again, I will include some links and some resources in the notes here, and like I’ve said before, I really want you to have success with ads. And if I don’t think you’re ready, I will be honest and say, look, I appreciate you coming to me for help, and I would like to see that your dollars, especially if you’re on a tight margin, I would like to see that your dollars are actually going to make a positive impact for you. And if it’s not, you know, if it’s content that’s not hitting the mark, then I would say, yeah, you can do some research. I’m not a market research agency, but yes, you can certainly consider surveys, ask to interview some of your past customers if you’ve had any, have a look at what your competitors are doing. Those could be some starting points.

So yeah, I hope this helps you out, and I’d like to see your business thrive and do well, whether you’re paying for ads or not.

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