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Apr 26, 2021

What Does it ACTUALLY Cost to Build a Website?

If you’re ready to grow your business online you’re going to need more than just a landing page. What you need is a website that turns casual visitors into raving fans. With all the DIY methods and hacks out there, it’s tempting to think building a website is a simple, straightforward process. While you don’t need to know how to code to use some website builders, their drag-and-drop tools can still be tricky and confusing. There’s a learning curve to these platforms, and that’s something they never mention when they talk about building successful websites with their software. And why would they? The truth is, building a website on your own can become a major time-suck and cause a great deal of stress. You might have every intention of building a simple website, but if you’re not careful, you can end up going down rabbit holes that cost your business precious time, money, and resources. This is especially true if you’re planning to build a professional-looking website that visitors will enjoy using. It won’t be as easy as choosing a template, uploading photos, and providing text. The good news is : building a website from scratch doesn’t have to be a headache. When you have a clear picture of the scope of work it takes to build a website, you can make an educated decision about what’s right for you. That’s why we’ve broken down what the actual cost of a website is – from sheer time to technical skills. When you use this guide, you’ll be equipped to choose the best process to build a website that converts casual visitors into buying customers. Building a Website: The Scope of Work Building a website isn’t as simple as dropping some headlines into a WordPress template. It actually takes a massive scope of work to create a website that grows your business. When you’re building a website, you’ll need: Branding Copywriting Web Design Web Development Images and Graphics Technical Support Depending on your website’s specific needs, you could get into a whole list of other add-ons. For example, setting up an ecommerce store or enabling online booking can require some heavy-lifting from a tech standpoint, which will add time and money to your bill. The process can be pretty intense, so you must determine exactly what you’re looking for before you begin your website journey alone. Should You Build Your Website On Your Own? If you need a website, you have a choice to make. Do you build your website on your own, or do you hire someone to do it for you? Let’s take a closer look at how much time and money it will actually cost you to build a website on your own. If you choose to build a website on your own, you’re going to reap the benefits of full customization. You get to handpick the fonts, words, design, layout, and functionality on your own. At the same time (unless you’re a tech-wizard), you’re signing yourself up for months of frustration. You’ll have to resize images, build graphics, create compelling copy, and you may even end up having to learn to write some code! Building a website on your own is doable, for sure; you can learn virtually anything you need online. But the entire experience can become a bit of a nightmare, and the technical difficulties that you will inevitably encounter can become overwhelming. Let’s compare the costs of using some of the most popular website builders right now. Keep in mind that the free offerings listed above will put ads on your website. The free offerings also do not include the cost of your domain name. This means that your website name will have the hosting site’s name attached to it (for example: username.wix.com/sitename), which is obviously bad for business because it lacks professionalism. That being said, some site builders allow you to use your own domain name for an extra fee. Premium plans include a variety of enhanced features, such as your domain main, no ads, videos, SSL certificate, and storage space allocation. Free drag-and-drop site builders, such as WIX, SquareSpace, and GoDaddy, seem easy to use based on what they show on minute-long promotions. In reality, using these platforms will require you to fight through a lot of challenges. Usually, it takes longer than you think it will to get your website live and drawing in visitors. Converting and customizing a template into a working website involves a lot of moving parts. Here’s a short list of what you’ll need to be able to do: Convert your logo and other images into high-quality transparent PNG files. Make sure your website copy is up-to-date, unique, and optimized enough to rank on Google. Format and reformat images and other content to optimize them for both desktop and mobile interfaces. Add the features you want to ensure your website visitor has the ideal experience. Tweak your website here and there, ongoing, to keep it running smoothly. The ability to troubleshoot all the little issues you'll inevitably run into. Needless to say, building a website from scratch is a time investment, and building a website that gets traffic and becomes profitable takes a long time. This is especially true for somebody with little to zero technical knowledge. Think of the opportunity costs. All the EXTRA time you spend working on your website, learning along the way, and figuring out how to get things to work properly is equivalent to a significant loss of potential customers and income . It also takes you away from the important work you need to be doing to ensure your business is running smoothly. While you’re trying to save money by not paying for the services of experts, you may actually lose more money by delaying the launch of your website or by launching a flawed and insufficient one. Case in Point DigitalTreehouse built the stunning Dr. Dallas Dance website using WIX, as the client was already using WIX and it was already tied to their commerce system and customer database. The DigitalTreehouse team of experts — which includes designers, coders, copywriters, and digital strategists — spent almost 40 hours to properly build the website using the supposedly seamless and intuitive functions of WIX. Imagine how much longer it would take someone without website building experience. They may spend 100 or even 200 hours learning on the fly, trying to get it right. And after all that hard work and stress, they might end up with a low-grade website . Let’s say you’re a CPA with a $75/hour rate. The time you’d spend building your website on your own could cost you between $7,500 and $15,000. Then add that hefty bill to your opportunity costs, along with the stress and frustration you’d suffer trying to do something that’s outside your realm of expertise. In the long run, you’ll save more money by leaving the work to the experts. The Best Way to Build a Website Building a website on your own can become costly - fast. You may think you’re saving money, but you’re actually losing many, many hours or days that you could be spending on tasks within your zone of genius - the tasks that need you the most. A well-built and well-designed website can bring an immense return on your investment. You deserve a website that helps your business grow and scale. When you work with a gig agency, you’ll save yourself the unnecessary stress and have a website you’ll be proud of. And of course, your new website will earn you back the money you paid to have it expertly built - and then some. DigitalTreehouse charges $100/hour to build a website, and we can typically create your perfect website in 25 to 50 hours. Based on the CPA example above, the total cost is far less expensive than doing it yourself. You’ll save time, money, and unnecessary stress. Plus, you’ll have a team of expert designers, copywriters, and digital strategists to make sure your website looks impressive and converts visitors into clients. Need a shopping cart installed? We can do that. Need an online scheduling system? We’ll have it up and running for you. Need to integrate your website with internal systems like ERPs or CRMs? Our team is ready to deliver. Digital Treehouse is a full-scale gig agency that can help you with any of your marketing needs. Ready to be the proud owner of a beautiful and profitable new website? Click here to schedule a call and begin the website building process today.

Dec 22, 2020

What is a Gig Agency and Why Will It Change Your Business?

What if we told you that you could get all of your marketing needs taken care of in one place? Let DigitalTreehouse be your one-stop shop for all of your marketing needs.

Oct 13, 2020

4 Ways Email Newsletters Are Effective for Restaurant Marketing

Digital marketing can help your business grow and thrive. Learn how email newsletters are an effective marketing tool for restaurants.

Jun 11, 2020

5 Essential Codes For Digital Ad Tracking

Your guide through the alphabet soup. In the fall of 2007, Apple released the iPhone 1 and kickstarted a new era of mobile technology. The following year, Google launched the Android 1.0 with an operating system that quickly overtook many third-party competitors. These devices revolutionized the way people consume content and browse the internet. Up until this point, digital advertisers had primarily relied on cookies to track users’ activity through the internet and to show them highly relevant and targeted advertisements. However, these professionals soon discovered that although cookies could be used on mobile devices, their reach was limited and not conducive across different apps and browsers. Finding a modification for cookies became increasingly important as mobile devices soared in popularity. Which brings me to the purpose of this blog post, the mobile-friendly supplement to traditional cookies: advertising ID’s. These ID’s are a series of unique numbers and letters that are assigned to a device on which a specific operating system (OS) is installed. These mobile advertising ID’s work together with traditional cookies and desktop tracking. Here is everything you need to know about the top 5 codes used for mobile ad tracking. Currently, there are two main types of advertising ID’s. They are known as AAID’s and IDFA’s. 1. AAID “Android Advertising ID” This term is also commonly known as GAID or “Google Advertising ID.” This code is exclusive to AndroidOS devices and is comprised of a series of numbers and lowercase letters that are always clear (unhashed). In relation to advertising, the AAID of a device can be tracked and recorded in a bid request (along with the standard included information: platform, time of impression, pixel tags, cookies, and the IP address) that Google Ad Exchange can then use to sell an impression. 2. IDFA “Identifier for Advertisers” This code is exclusive to Apple iOS devices and consists of a series of numbers and uppercase letters that can appear either clear or hashed. Both of these codes have the same purpose : to assign a unique value to a device and to enable advertisers to track data such as installation of apps or clicks. By identifying the device where the action takes place, advertising professionals can create a clearer picture of their target demographic. Also, the user can control the amount that their AAID or IDFA tracks their preferences by either periodically resetting it or enabling a setting called " Limit Ad Tracking " (LAT), which prevents advertisers from utilizing the code for behavioral advertising. The only significant difference between AAID’s and IDFA’s lies in the distributor: Google or Apple. Before advertising ID’s were launched, there were three fixed codes that advertisers used to track users’ activities and preferences: an IMEI and a MAC address. 3. UDID “Universal/Unique Device ID” Before the IDFA code was created, advertisers could track actions on iPhone iOS with an UDID code . This was helpful for advertisers because it could not be disabled or modified by the user. However, in 2012 with the release of iOS6 , Apple transitioned to using IDFA’s to allow users increased control and privacy over their information. 4. IMEI “International Mobile Equipment Identity” This term refers to a 15 or 17 digit code that is assigned to any phone (iPhone or Android) operating on a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) network. It can be commonly found on the sim card, in the settings app, or sometimes engraved on the back of a device. An IMEI code is considered a permanent method to identify a device. 5. MAC Address “Media Access Control Address” This term refers to a code comprised of six sets of two digits or characters, separated by colons. It can be found on a computer’s (smartphone or desktop) network interface control (NIC). Like IMEI codes, it is unable to be reset by the user. Both Google AndroidOS and Apple iOS privacy policies prohibit apps from transmitting IMEI, UDID, or MAC address codes with AAID’s and IDFA’s. This is to protect the users’ right to privacy. Unless advertisers have explicit consent, they are unable to track behavior by using both advertising ID’s (AAID’s and IDFA’s) and permanent device identifiers (IMEI, UDID, or MAC address codes). For example, it was major news in 2017 when Uber’s iOS app was discovered collecting a variety of non-resettable device identifiers. Apple CEO Tim Cook threatened to have the app removed permanently if they did not abide by their privacy policies. Google’s Play Store takes the same stance when it comes to protecting the privacy of their users. So, whether you are a seasoned advertising professional or a business owner venturing into the world of digital ad tracking, these codes are vital to understand. You will undoubtably encounter both IDFA and AAID codes because the market is split between Apple and Google users. And, in order to understand the functionality of modern advertising ID’s, it is important to have a basic knowledge of their predecessors: UDID, IMEI, and MAC address codes.

May 28, 2020

Top 4 Most Effective Banner Ad Sizes You Should Be Using

Yes, dimensions do matter. In 2016, the number of people browsing the internet on mobile devices and tablets surpassed the number of people browsing on desktop computers. Fast-forward to 2020 and this trend has only continued to increase, with no signs of slowing down. Currently , the average American spends roughly 3 hours and 15 minutes consuming content on a mobile device. In order to stay competitive, companies need to optimize their online presence to BOTH desktop and mobile devices. Here are the top four must-have ad sizes to reach your audience on all devices. 320 x 50 “Mobile Leaderboard” Google Adsense names this ad as one of their top performing units and it is also an IAB Mobile standard unit . This banner is designed to specifically flourish on smartphones. The “ Mobile Leaderboard ” can be most commonly found at the top or bottom of a screen, integrated into apps, or placed within browsers themselves. Because it is one of the smallest ad sizes, it is one of the least expensive options. However, this also means that you have to get creative with what you include in the limited dimensions. Our advice is to focus on keeping your message concise and the call-to-action memorable in order to make the most of the space. 300 x 250 “Medium Rectangle” Like the 320 x 50, the “ Medium Rectangle ” is a standard IAB Mobile unit and highly rated within Google Adsense . This ad size is crucial for any campaign because it works on smartphones, tablets, and desktop browsers alike. This banner can be embedded within a website’s content to blend seamlessly and cause the user the least amount of annoyance. This ad is so versatile and popular that it tends to be the most expensive to digitally place. The substantial dimensions of this banner allow for diverse creative aesthetic. It can include images, gifs, text, or even a combination of the three. Our advice to you is to focus on increasing CPM by seeking out rental ad space that is above the fold. This refers to the advertising space seen whenever a web page is initially loaded, without the user scrolling. Ads placed above the fold often outperform similar sized or larger ads placed below-the-fold. 728 x 90 “Leaderboard Banner” This ad size is also commonly referred to as the “Horizontal Banner.” This type of banner ad is typically found at the top of website, directly in the users’ eyeline. It is optimized for both desktop and tablet browsers. Leaderboards can get expensive because they typically need to occupy space above-the-fold in order to get quantifiable impressions. Some websites do offer space for Leaderboards below-the-fold; however, this placement is risky because many users do not scroll to the bottom of a page. Thus, they may never see the advertisement, much less click on it. Our advice is to spring for the above-the-fold placement over expensive creative. Elaborate gifs and a catchy slogan won’t matter if the user never sees the banner 320 x 480 “Mobile Interstitial” It is also known as the “Vertical Rectangle.” This type of ad is designed to take up the entire screen on smartphones. It was originally derived from the original iPhone specs . Despite the significant changes in iPhone dimensions since 2007, the 320 x 480 persists as a popular ad format. An interstitial ad is shown right before the content a user is seeking out. The user clicks on a link and is either briefly diverted to a separate ad page or the content they were seeking out is covered by a floating advertisement. Our advice is to use this ad size sparingly (to limit user annoyance) and to have a specific goal in mind. Because they are so functional for mobile devices, the “Mobile Interstitial” is useful to have in your arsenal for a well-rounded campaign. Banner ads are one of the most widely used ad formats today. They are an excellent option to unobtrusively showcase a brand. Why are the dimensions so important? With the prevalence of online scams, modern-day users are inherently more cautious when it comes to clicking on advertisements. An ad might look completely normal on a desktop browser, but when viewed from a mobile device it suddenly appears warped and sketchy. It is important to invest in a variety of banner ad sizes to ensure that your campaign is an effective, persuasive, multi-channel experience. Engaging with your consumers across multiple devices cultivates strong brand recognition. Digital Treehouse has over 10 years of experience navigating the digital advertising field and would love to collaborate on your next campaign. Check out our services here .

May 14, 2020

Ad Prices are Dropping During Coronavirus

Take advantage of low online ad prices now Due to the spread of Covid-19, people are stuck inside spending more time online and scrolling through social media than ever before. This sounds like a digital marketing dream, yet companies have been pulling back their ad spend on platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Why? With an increasingly uncertain outlook for the future, companies are cutting costs by slashing their marketing budgets. Most major companies, like those in the travel industry, have little to no reason to pay to promote their products or services during these times, so they are choosing to reallocate their marketing funds. Since companies are decreasing their spending by pausing their online marketing efforts, prices for digital ads are down. This means that digital ads are cheaper now than they ever have been before . Google, Facebook, and other major digital channels have hundreds of open ad spots that need to be filled. With so many companies cutting their internet advertising, these digital marketing channels are forced to cut their ad costs in order to fill as many spots as possible, even though web traffic has soared. Now more than ever your audience is looking for you to keep them feeling connected, updated, entertained, and intrigued. Now is the time to spend money on digital advertising. With the drop in online ad prices, the increase in web traffic, and digital marketing channels scrambling to fill ad spots, your potential reach through Facebook Advertising and Google Ads has never been bigger for a fraction of the cost. If you still don’t believe us, check out the data we compiled from one of our client’s online marketing efforts. New Paragraph As you can see our overall ad costs dropped pretty significantly from March to April and the number of ad views or impressions that our ads received doubled. This means that we were able to reach 2 times the amount of people at a lower cost, saving our client money while increasing their brand awareness and gaining relevance during a pandemic. Another result of the drop in ad prices is the decrease in cost per click (CPC). CPC refers to the actual price you pay for each click in your marketing campaign. Your CPC is what you are paying for each visit or interaction with your company’s products or services. With every campaign, no matter the budget, the lower your CPC the better your return on investment and there is no better time to obtain a low CPC than now. If you are still unsure about purchasing digital ads to sell products or increase revenue during Coronavirus, let us break it down another way. Stay-at-home orders will not last forever. Rather than working on the hard sell right now through digital advertising, think about the effect that your digital ads now will have when Coronavirus is over. Social media marketing, email marketing, and digital marketing are pertinent to increasing awareness and creating and establishing relationships with current and potential customers. Maybe someone is more inclined to follow you or learn more about you during Coronavirus. Then when this is all over they decide that they want to support you and become a loyal customer. Now is the time to invest in those opportunities, gaining awareness, and building a loyal following that will one day turn into loyal customers. Just because there is a drop in ad costs right now, does not mean that you can just throw the bare minimum out there. When creating your ads, think about how your potential customers have changed by living through a pandemic. Cheaper ad costs do not mean that you can get by on cheaper ads. Find the right advertising channel, be spot on with your targeting, and create ads and content that will resonate with potential customers during and after this pandemic. Your marketing goals will need to shift. We’re not saying that cheaper online ads make for easier work. We are saying that now more than ever it’s easier to reach a lot more people for a fraction of the cost and we want you to take advantage of it. If you are thinking about taking advantage of the lower prices of online ads, give us a call and we can help guide you through the process . Let us help you reach more people than ever before and turn those ad views into long-lasting customers.

Apr 16, 2020

How Restaurants Can Generate Revenue During Coronavirus

A Quick Guide on How to Combat the 2020 Shutdown If you are a local restaurant owner or staff member and fear the consequences of COVID-19 and are unsure of what to do, it may be time for a little innovation. Maybe you’ve thought of signing up for a third-party delivery platform or start your own delivery service and just never did. Well, now is the time! We know that restaurants operate on tight margins on an everyday basis, let alone during an ever-evolving global pandemic. Because of this, a lot of people are trying their hardest to support local businesses right now. So, if you are a restaurant owner or staff member here are a few ways to make it easier for your customers to continue to support you, and to generate revenue during the COVID-19 shutdown. Curbside/Pickup Services One way to keep generating revenue is to offer Curbside/Pickup Services for your customers. It’s a sort of drive-thru for restaurants that don’t typically do that. This may seem like an easy fix to the COVID-19 shutdown, but it does come with its limitations and hardships so be sure to do your research before starting. Here are a few helpful tips from the National Restaurant Association that you should consider, like carefully structuring your staffing, investing in the appropriate packaging, and setting up the correct POS system for payment. Check out this article from Entrepreneur on ‘Why Curbside Pickup Is the Right Thing to Do’ and to learn more about how to successfully start curbside-pickup services. Get Started with ToastTab ToastTab (Toast) is a restaurant platform that offers everything from a point of sale (POS) system to payroll management to online ordering directly from your restaurant. Today, you can get Toast Now for 3 months free with no hardware or POS purchase required. Toast Now allows guests to order directly from your restaurant with Toast Online Ordering where you can access thousands of potential guests, offer e-gift cards, and allow customers the ability to opt for pickup or contactless delivery. There is no third-party delivery platform, so there are no commission fees, but means that you have to supply the delivery drivers which could be good news for your staff looking to continue working. Toast is also offering a full list of resources that will help you, your restaurant, and your staff during this trying time. Be sure to take a look at their ‘Resources and Relief Programs Available to Restaurants During COVID-19’ for a full list of helpful information. Start Offering Delivery through DoorDash or GrubHub Want the ability to offer delivery without hiring delivery drivers? Think about signing up for DoorDash or GrubHub. Using a third-party delivery service is great for restaurants that can’t or do not want to shoulder the cost of starting their own delivery service. DoorDash is currently offering free sign up with zero commission fees for 30 days and a commission relief and marketing support package to help partner restaurants generate additional sales this year. GrubHub has created Supper for Support to give restaurants $250 to use as promotional dollars. This move is to help restaurants boost orders through daily promotion inclusion and high value marketing. Working with a third-party delivery platform may seem overwhelming, but it does help to keep the orders flowing in. We recommend that you do as much research as possible to ensure you work with a company that you are more than comfortable with. Sell Gift Cards Now for Customers to Use Later This may seem like a no brainer, but have you thought about selling gift cards for a lower amount than they are worth? Sell a $125 Gift Card for only $100 or sell a $250 Gift Card for $200. That may sound strange especially today, but it does give your customers an incentive to buy more than they originally would. It also ensures that customers do indeed come back when this is all over. Check out Rally for Restaurants Powered by Toast We don’t mean to keep coming back to Toast, but the resources they are offering are endless. Rally for Restaurants is an easy way for people in or out of your community to support you. This platform allows customers to decide how they want to give back. Customers can order takeout, buy a gift card or just donate money. Rally for Restaurants makes it easy for restaurants to sign up and even allows customers to add their favorite places onto the platform. They are also offering even more resources on what the CARES Act means for restaurant owners and staff . Be sure to take a look to see how it may help you. Let’s Go Order Takeout We’re not experts in the restaurant industry, but we do love food and our local restaurants. If you are a restaurant owner, we encourage you to do the research for yourself and take advantage of the many different programs out there trying to help. If you are a staff member, bring these recommendations to your owners and sit down and discuss what you can all do together. If you are like us, and just love food, now is your time to truly support local. If you are able, we encourage you all to go to your favorite restaurant, buy a gift card, order a meal for takeout or just donate. We’re all in this together and we’ll get through this together! #SupportLocal

Mar 26, 2020

5 Tips for Working from Home During Coronavirus

How to work from home during Coronavirus from professionals with DigitalTreehouse who work from home. Create your own personalized plan that will help you stay productive and maintain your mental well-being.

Mar 19, 2020

3 Phase Guide to Lead Generation with Facebook Ads

How to convert better, high-quality leads through Facebook Ads Facebook Lead Ads allow us to create higher converting marketing campaigns that we struggle to find through various avenues. We are able to capitalize on the vast amount of Facebook users to gain better conversions rates, meaning that we are able to target specific audiences to generate better, high-quality leads. You may be familiar with how Facebook Lead Ads work, but what you may not be familiar with are the 3 Phases of Lead Generation within Facebook Advertising. Below, we will go through each phase, point out tips to implement when setting up your ads and the overall cost of getting through each phase to continue on to the next one. Let’s start at Phase 1: The Learning Phase In order to begin, Facebook recommends setting a budget of $25 a day to properly “learn” how to best serve your ads to your audience (potential leads). Why $25? Basically, this gives Facebook enough daily budget to experiment with and slowly start converting leads. As Facebook learns more about your audience, your few conversions, your ad set and your ads, they collect more and more data. With this data, they are able to better learn who best to show your ads to and capitalize on gaining those crucial conversions, or leads. As Facebook learns more, they are able to target users to generate high quality leads. In the Learning Phase, your typical cost per lead (CPL) is estimated to be around $25 to $50. This may seem pricey, but because the ad campaign is still in this learning phase, performance is less stable and the cost per action (CPA) is usually worse, meaning that costs are higher. You will go through the Learning Phase until you have at least 100 leads. At this point you can create a Custom Audience through Facebook which you can then use to create a Lookalike Audience, a group of targeted users that share similar characteristics with your Custom Audience. We know that the price to get through the Learning Phase is a bit much, especially if you are looking just get more newsletter subscribers but trust us it is worth it! Cost to get through Phase 1: $3,000 Phase 2: The Growing Phase Now that you were able to create a Custom Audience from those first 100 leads received in the Learning Phase and you’ve created ads targeting your Lookalike Audience, your CPL should begin to come down. This is called the Growing Phase and it’s where Facebook uses its own knowledge of those first 100 leads to find the best people to show your ads to, your Lookalike Audience, generating even more leads. The CPL in this phase is typically $10 to $20. You will be in this phase until you generate at least 1,000 leads through your Facebook Ads, the magic number to generate high-quality leads through a Lookalike Audience. Be sure to check out our latest post on The Rule of 1,000 to better understand Custom and Lookalike Audiences and why this phase is very important to generating leads that convert. Cost to get through Phase 2: $10,000 to $20,000 Phase 3: Maturity Phase After reaching 1,000 leads through your Facebook Ads, you can now create a new Lookalike Audience that will further expand your targeted reach. In this phase, Facebook will have much more data to use to optimally target your ads to the appropriate users, users that have the best probability of converting to new leads. In Phase 3, the Maturity Phase, you will get more leads for the same budget that you are currently using. At this point your CPL should be under $10. This is the typical CPL range where most (if not all) businesses are comfortable. With that being said, it can take some time and money, usually $13,000 - $23,000, to get to this preferred CPL range that is generating the most high-quality leads. During this phase, your ads are about as intelligent as they can be and should no longer be changed as part of your optimization strategy. That said, you can continue to tweak your ads (using various images, videos and text) to see which performs best. At DigitalTreehouse, we recommend using Budget Optimization at this point to let Facebook decide which ads to show for optimal conversions Cost to get to Phase 3: $23,000 Facebook Ads can be pricey and seem overwhelming, but in the end, they do work if done right. That is why we are here to help you navigate all your social media advertising fears. Contact us today to see how we can take the burden off of you and generate high-quality leads that convert.

Mar 12, 2020

One Problem with Facebook Lead Ads

How you could be optimizing your ads towards the wrong people One of the issues we’re running into with building smarter audiences on Facebook is the problem that Facebook can’t actually see and fully process the lead data. We can make our targeted audiences smarter by telling Facebook to only show ads to the type of people it “thinks” are more likely to submit our lead form through Custom and Lookalike Audiences, especially if you receive at least 100 leads . From there, Facebook is able to capture someone’s response when they fill out a lead form, generating a new lead, or user, for us to further target. But, if the people submitting the lead forms are not the type of people that we actually want, then you could be optimizing your ads towards the wrong people – and it will only get worse as the ads and audiences get smarter. Sometimes we run into this issue when generating leads for wealth management companies . For example, sometimes we get leads coming in that don’t qualify in terms of the amount of wealth that they have. This means, these people are filling out the form, but are not the users that we are hoping to hit, i.e. their wealth is not above a certain threshold. Facebook doesn’t see this because they are not digging into the data within the submitted lead form. In reality they may see this data, but they haven’t designed an interface where we can optimize our audiences based on how people actually answer the lead form. In other words, Facebook has not designed an interface that allows us to optimize our audiences based on lead form answers. For instance, if our client is a wealth management company, and our lead form has a qualifying question that says, “Is your net worth over $1 million or under $1 million?”, and we really only want to target people that will submit over $1 million as the answer, it would be nice to tell Facebook to optimize the audience towards people that will only select that option in the form. But, because Facebook can’t see that option or doesn’t take the form responses into account to allow us to customize audiences based on form responses, we are unable to create a smarter audience based on lead form responses. So, what do you do? What we typically do is review all the leads that have come in over a period of 2 to 3 months, see which campaign, ad group or ad is generating the highest percentage of lead form responses that we want (over $1 million in the example above), and turn off the campaigns, ad groups or ads that are generating high percentages of lead form responses that we don’t want (below $1 million in our example above). Because worst-case scenario is that Facebook starts to optimize the campaigns, ad accounts or ads to get more leads from the people that we don’t want.