5 Facebook Ads Lessons I'd Wish I'd Known Sooner

I've been running Facebook Ads for almost 4 years now, and in that time I've made a lot of mistakes, but at the same time, learned a lot of lessons.

And today, I'd like to share my 5 biggest lessons with you.

Let's dive in...

Lesson #1: Your Image/Video Matters More Than You Think

In the past, I've put far too much weight on testing Headlines and Primary Text.

But the truth of the matter is that if the image/video in your Ad doesn't stop the scroll, the Headline and Primary Text won't get a look in anyway.

The average social media user scrolls the height of the Eifel Tower every single day. That's a lot of scrolling.

The image/video you use in your Ad is responsible for at least 80% of the stopping power of that scroll.

Meaning that my first port of call for testing Ads will always be the image/video.

Once I've found a winning image/video, that's when I move on to testing Headlines and Primary Text, whilst continuing to test new image/video ideas.

Lesson #2: Fail Fast, Fail Forwards

Most of the Ads you test will fail, and you need to be ok with that.

I wasn't ok with this for the longest time, but I am now, so it does take time to build up resilience.

I see about a 10% success rate with my Ads, meaning that for every 10 Ads I test, just one of them is a home run.

I also don't drag out the testing period.

Instead, I much prefer to test an Ad over 3-7 days, if it doesn't work, turn it off and test something new.

Lesson #3: Scale As Quickly As You Can

Scaling Facebook Ads can be done on any cadence of your choosing, from daily, to weekly, to fortnightly, even monthly.

But assuming you want to grow your author business, there's little benefit in scaling slowly.

Once you have the cash flow to support scaling, my advice is to start scaling as soon as you've found your first winning Ad.

For me, I scale our Facebook Ads on a daily basis.

Lesson #4: You Don't Need To Be Everywhere

There's a lot of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in author circles; the latest trends, the latest fads, the latest TikTok strategy, etc.

And it can be tempting to jump onto all of them.

By all means, test new things because being innovative is going to keep you ahead of the curve.

But, don't lose sight of the main thing... your writing, and your top-performing channel for driving sales.

Keep the main thing the main thing, and don't feel the need to be everywhere, especially during your first 1-2 years.

Lesson #5: Focus on ONE Marketplace

Sure, there are readers all around the world. But where are your readers?

Look at your data and identify which marketplace(s) most of your royalties are coming from.

Focus on your top-performing marketplace with your Ads.

Put all your budget into that one marketplace for at least 6-12 months.

Get this marketplace into a good place with solid conversion rates and cost-per-purchase, and in a position where you can profitably scale every day or every week.

Then start looking at advertising in other countries if you need to.

Rather than spreading your budget (and your time) across multiple marketplaces, you'll generally find that you'll get better returns by focusing your entire budget on one marketplace.

You'll learn your own lessons along your journey, but hopefully, these lessons will help you avoid some of the costly mistakes I've made over the years.

To Your Success
– Matt