27 Ways To FAIL At Online Advertising

0:00in this video I'm going to share with you 27 ways to fail at online advertising now that might sound like quite a weird video topic for me to create a video on but it's what's called inverted thinking and it's a really useful exercise by taking a look at the things that we could actively do to wreck our chances of success to fail we can then do the opposite and massively improve our chance of success often it's easier to come up with ways of doing things well when we think of ways of doing things badly as opposed to just trying to think of them from scratch and

0:27the ways of failing that I'm about to share apply to online advertising platforms across the boards this applies to Facebook ads Instagram ads LinkedIn ads Google ads whatever it happens to be if you do these things you will fail so number one is to change platforms all the time you see a lot of advertisers bounce between online advertising platforms because they think they want to be advertising on the new shiny thing and they do two weeks here and then two weeks there and then two weeks on something new and they never develop the expertise the momentum to actually get results changing platforms all the time is sure way to fail and that leads me on

0:57to number two which is for those people that do stay with the platform for more than a few weeks they're often changing their strategy within that platform all the time and that's just as likely to cause issues you can't jump from omnipresent content one week to direct to offer to another week to another different strategy you're not giving anything enough time the third way to fail is to launch a new ad campaign with the bare minimum one campaign one ad set one ad don't include any variation that's a good way to fail number four is to never change ad creative just run the one ad let it fatigue run it for as long

1:27as you want good way to fail sell products that your prospects could easily find on Amazon for the same price that you're offering it for or maybe even less now it's pretty obvious that that's not going to work people are just going to order from Amazon instead dead but it is a mistake I see people make all the time number six is to use the same offer as everyone else in your industry if everyone else is offering buy one get one free offer the exact same thing never do anything to differentiate your offer from your competitors seven is along the same lines and that's to never test any AD

1:55hooks so your ad hook being the main reason why someone should take action should click on your ad and purchase or become a lead or whatever it is that you want them to do never test any new books just go with the one you know that's the best you never need to test anything that's a good way to fail eight is to go for engagement as opposed to conversions now this applies at the campaign objective stage which campaign objective you're going to choose that has an impact on this and this applies to your content the ad creative that you create as well are you going to create

2:20something that's quite shocking and that gets lots of Engagement or you're going to create something that's perhaps a little bit more reserved but might actually convert a lot better the ninth way to fail at online advertising is to start with a budget that you absolutely cannot afford to lose if you are in that situation you will make bad decisions you will do things trying to get a short-term return those are nearly always not good ideas that's a good way to fail number 10 is to expect profitability from day one now I think there's a lot of experts in this space that have a lot to answer for

2:54they've told people that you could just create an online advertising campaign on Facebook or Google or whatever and it's going to work from day one that's often not the case and if you expect profitability it really sets you up for failure because if that doesn't happen initially you quit you leave the platform you declare this doesn't work and we know that's not true a great way to fail is to absolutely expect it's going to be profitable from day one and if it isn't be really disappointed and run for the hills 11 is a good one and that's to set it and forget it it's a really good way to fail with your online

3:23advertising campaigns is to launch a campaign get it live and just never look at it never adjust it never change anything that'll do it which leads on to number 12 which is to never analyze your results now we know that what gets measured gets improved if you're never going in never taking a look at the various metrics like CTR and conversion rates and all that sort of stuff that's a good way to fail the 13th way to fail is to test new ads targeting options Etc but only for a few hours just put something up if it isn't producing fantastic results with a few hours kill

3:52it dead number 14 is to put as little time effort and money as possible into the quality of your ad creative it's pretty obvious why that's going to fail but people still do it 15 is to write long unengaging boring ad copy and in the ad copy to not include a call to action which is number 16. and another good way to fail with call to actions is to include as many as possible really confuse your prospects stuff them in there that's number 17. what do you want what do you want it's not that simple what do you want number 18 and this is a big one is to do everything yourself

4:26never seek expert advice never hire Consultants to advise on how to improve things do it all yourself come up with all the ideas yourself now we all know that this is a mistake but it's a mistake that so many people make and it leads to tons of wasted time and money and it's completely unnecessary my business for example we've recently launched Facebook ads consultancy Services where you can book a one-to-one call with one of our Facebook advertising experts someone that is working day in and day out on our client accounts in a 45 minute session they can take a look at your ad campaigns they can make recommendations and adjustments

4:57I'll include a link in the description below but that is just the sort of thing that you don't don't want to go ahead and use if you want to fail number 19 is to violate Advertiser policies and get your ad account disabled even going close to the line is a pretty good way to get your ad account disabled and to failure online advertising number 20 is along the same line and that's to leave your ad account vulnerable so don't set a unique password for your ad account don't turn on things like two-factor authentication leave it as vulnerable as possible to being hacked that's a really good way to get your ad account hacked

5:28no matter what platform we're talking about have someone do something on that ad account that you don't want could cost you money will almost certainly get your ad account taken down a great way to fail it'll be fine it'll be good 21 is a great way to fail and that's to hire an advertising agency to do this work for you but then micromanage them and not let them do what they want to do make sure that you do it your way the way you've always been doing it really good way to fail number 22 is to just advertise your product or service don't ever incentivize that action don't offer

5:59a discount don't offer any sort of buy one get one free or you get this product when you buy this product don't do any of that our prices have never been lower number 23 is to never provide any value to your target audience just sell sell sell don't give them any information they'll find useful don't entertainment don't do anything that they're going to enjoy or find useful just sell number 24 is a great way to fail at online advertising over the long run and that's to not care about your brand reputation so once you've got customers it doesn't matter if you ship product late or if it

6:30turns out broken or maybe even doesn't turn up at all it doesn't matter if your product's not very good or your service doesn't deliver on the Promises you don't need to care about any of that if you want to fail at online advertising 25 is to get some success let's say you've got a profitable Facebook ad campaign and then scale as fast and aggressively as you possibly can that's a really good way to kill the results you're getting from in this case a Facebook ad campaign but applies across all the online advertising platforms that's a really good way to fail adjust everything as frequently as you possibly

6:58can so you could be in your ad account and every hour or so you can be tinkering with a call to action or with some ad copy or headlines or ad creative or targeting options or whatever happens to be 27 never do any remarketing just advertise to people once never put new ads in front of them again never use any offers or incentives or urgency to get them to take action just the ones and then forget about it so when we go through these ways to fail as we've just done and then you flip them and you do the opposite and about to run through what the opposite looks like you

7:26basically succeed by accident because you're avoiding the pitfalls the big mistakes and it's so much easier to succeed if you're not making massive errors and running through those ways to fail you can see all bunch of different ways that you can be making mistakes and jeopardizing your online advertising campaigns if we do the opposite we avoid those and we massively increase our chance of success So to avoid stupid mistakes I'm going to flip these round I'm going to Rattle through these really really quickly so what should you be doing to succeed with online advertising one commit to one or two platforms and figure it out two commit to one strategy

7:55on a platform for at least six to 12 months three build Out full campaigns with lots of variables four frequently Test new ad creative five find a way to differentiate your products from what's sold on Amazon six create unique and compelling offers our prices have never been lower seven test a whole bunch of new hooks regularly eight aim for conversions instead of Engagement nine start with a budget that you can afford to lose 10. expect it to take months to see profitability eleven regularly check

8:23your campaigns and make adjustments 12. analyze the important metrics in your campaigns and monitor those over time 13. test new ads targeting etc for three to seven days or longer 14. put as much time money and effort into the quality of your ad creative as possible 15. write short and compelling ad copy 16 include a call to action in your ads include just one call to action not a whole bunch 18. Follow The Advertiser policies and don't push it right up to the edge 19. protect your ad account with a unique password and two-factor authentication as standard 20. hire experts to help you get better results

8:59Link in the description 21. if you do hire an agency defer to their expertise 22. incentivize your prospects with offers discounts Etc 23 provide tons of value to your prospects alongside selling 24. guard your brand reputation very closely and make sure you deliver 25 scale slowly and sustainably 26. give adjustments time to have their intended effect and 27 always be remarketing so hopefully this inverted thinking exercise has been helpful if it has please go ahead and subscribe for more I'd also strongly recommend you check out this video where I share a whole bunch of marketing lessons that it took me a long time to figure out but they

9:38made me Millions I share some of my best stuff over here strongly recommend you check it out