Sure, feel free to respond to this one however you need to. But once we get through this it would help breaking down questions to one primary question per thread. It helps other members, and it will help me manage my time better.

It may not seem like it, but monster posts like this can sometimes take 30 or 40 minutes to get through. I'm definitely hear to help, but those mammoth posts with half a dozen questions in them can be a bit overwhelming. 

And not to worry, I'm not picking on you for this. You are not at all alone and this is a common request I make here in the forum 🙂

Hey Jean,

For future reference, to quote the text you just click the "quote" tab in the toolbar at the top of the post. Then insert your own text wherever appropriate and click quote again to make it not part of the quote.

Jean Morrison said
Hi John

I’m not sure how to use the ‘Quote’ feature for just a portion of the message in a thread so Ive just copied and pasted.

No worries about one thread at a time thing. I can definitely understand the overwhelm. My own messages even overwhelm me. Just thought it would be easier for you to tackle all at once as opposed to one never ending thread over a period of months. What I’ll do for the future is post in various different threads each with their own topic as suggested in the forum rules. At least I think thats the lingo.

John said “It’s very important that you only select one audience per ad set no matter what the objective is. This is explained in MMM and here in the IC. Otherwise you have no ability to know what is helping or hurting results, and FB’s algorithm cannot hone in on the ideal segment as easily.”

I did only have one audience per ad set. First one was JB and the other was QOTSA. Unfortunately they both linked to the exact same squeeze page with the same sign up form so there was no telling which ad set converted better. I could only see a total conversion percentage for that sign up form, which was used for both ad sets. I guess if my objective was conversions or if I had a separate squeeze page and sign up form per ad set I would have been able to see each ad sets conversion rate.

You can still see how an ad converted even if the objective is traffic. You just go to the column section in your ad manager and click to customize the column. Then you would search for your conversion goal (assuming you created one) and add it to the column. Then you can monitor conversions of each ad set regardless of your objective. You can do this for sales as well.

John said “Still, 7 out of 26 is a very high number and it’s an indication that something is wrong. One unlikely possibility is that the addresses some people are adding are fake and Aweber is automatically unsubscribing them after they bounce more than once. You would need to call them to see if this is even how things are set up on there end. I’m not sure if they auto unsubscribe people when they bounce too many times or not. And this would only be possible if you had confirmed opt in off.”

I just contacted aweber and they do indeed unsubscribe fake email addresses. This can be seen in the subscriber info. It should say “Undeliverable” This means that the email address was fake or that it was bouncing back. Aweber said if an email address bounces more than 3 times in a 7 day period then it automatically gets unsubscribed and then should say “Undeliverable” under the ‘stopped’ section in that subscribers info. I only had one email address unsubscribed due to it being “undeliverable” so something is definitely turning people off somewhere in the funnel. I do have confirmed opt-in turned off.

I still suspect that your rate would change if you turned on confirmed opt in. But if that didn't do it, or you just don't want to do that, then all you can do is look for a place in the funnel where stats drop off and assume that the content just before that is what turned people off. But again, it can be the targeting rather than the content itself. 

John said “You can see time on site by installing something like Google Analytics or Clicky.”

Do I install Google Analytics or clicky as a plugin in wordpress?

Click and Google analytics are services that you would sign up for on their own. But there are plugins for both that make the integration easier. Just search them in the plugin directory. I personally use Clicky.

John said “I agree that it would be unlikely that the other music would be causing the unsubscribe rate. It’s more likely a general market to message mismatch, which boils down to targeting, and the mix of multiple audiences into one ad set might be contributing to the problem. For example, It’s conceivable that JB fans like the music, but QOTSA fans don’t. The two tribes have very different sensibilities.
By separating your audiences and monitoring stats you will get a better sense of how to set up an effective funnel.
I wouldn’t personally confuse people with an email about an album that is not available. It’s all about focusing the list and walking each prospect towards making an initial purchase now”

I only had one target audience per ad set as you suggested in MMM 4.0. Not sure if thats going to change the way you answer my previous question but I don’t think its that important now.

I cover this in my earlier response to the related issue.

John said “That’s just not enough people to come to any conclusions. Especially if half of them have not even reached the LTO page.”

I think there was a misunderstanding here, everyone had already completed the entire funnel when I posted this question but no one out of 26 clicked the links in any of the last three emails linking to the LTO.

Yeah, that is pretty dismal. But it;s also such a small number of subscribers as to bee too little to come to any conclusions about. Especially given that 7 of them unsubscribed.

John Said “Reading blog posts is very time consuming and is really only something I can do as part of consulting sessions. However I did scan them. They seem well written. The only negatives I can see is that they are a bit personal and one sided, in the sense that we need to assume that these people don’t care about you yet. The purpose of the blog post is to make them care. To help with this it can be beneficial to start off in the middle of teh story with some more universal drama, then back up and tell the story, and conclude with some expression of transformation that will also appeal to your audience. There are a lot of “I”s in the post. If you think of yourself like a travel writer you can tell a personal story from a more universal place.
For example “The first time I heard Nirvana I felt…” could become… “Do you remember the first time Nirvana appeared on the MTV video line up? The sound was like nothing any of us had ever heard”… Or whatever. The sentiment is the same. But the second approach is more inviting and it doesn’t feel like I am being asked to listen to the life story of someone I haven’t yet invested in.”

Thanks man thats very helpful information right there. I will adjust accordingly.

Sounds good.

John said
“Lets break this down… 
Lets forget QOTSA for a moment because I think they may ultimately be too heavy to be your ideal audience. What is it that floors you about Jeff Buckley’s music? Try to answer that in just a few sentences. Feel free to answer the question about a couple of your key influences. Maybe I can offer some feedback after hearing your answer in plain English.”

Jeff Buckley - It all started with the haunting beauty of his version of Hallelujah which inspired me to learn his version down to the note. I think what spoke to me was the energy in the performance of that song as it was recorded live and also uncontained by a metronome. It exists within its own time and has its own flow. I’ve always been against recording to a click track. As I dug deeper songs like “Lover, should have come over” somehow exist within its own universe uncontaminated by the outside world. But it’s also his ability to be aggressive, vocally. It’s kinda like an angry power that incites a “fuck you world” in my own head. I know you said a few sentences but it's that balance between beauty and aggression that I had to elaborate on.

Just to give some context, my first album is the one that is already recorded but will only be released sometime next year (Cardboard Skies will be on that album but has already been released) Its a bit confusing I know but its just how it turned out. The acoustic based 2008 EP digital download is what is currently offered on my sales page and a special EP package of that 2008 EP involving physical and digital is currently offered as my LTO.

My current influences, which will affect the sound of my 2nd album which I’m guessing will only be released around 2020 - 2022, is Biffy Clyro. The reason I connect with them is the same as above (the balance between beauty and aggression) but they also play with weird time signatures yet the songs are still catchy and well written. Another band that’ll influence the 2nd album is Royal Blood which funny enough sound a lot like QOTSA. Ive never disagreed with QOTSA as a target audience but just not for my 2008 EP which unfortunately is whats for sale currently. 🙂

As I read through that, meaningful words pop out. "haunting beauty, energy, unconstrained, exists within it's own time and has it's own flow, somehow exist within its own universe uncontaminated by the outside world, but aggressive vocally, angry power". Those are great descriptors because you are thinking about things that mean something to you. But suddenly many of us lose that ability when describing ourselves. I'm guessing you would say that you strive for many of the same things. So could you say something like "Jean Morrison is a soulful singer songwriter who combines hauntingly beautiful melodies with a vocal intensity reminiscent of Jeff Buckley." I'm not saying that is a slam dunk, it's just a quick attempt based on what you had. But it gets to the core of some real qualities that are important to you, and at the very list it illustrates an approach to coming up with headlines.

John said “As an aside… Has anyone ever mention Blind Melon as a possible targeting option? I just listened to Cardboard Skies again and that was the first thing I thought of. It’s possible I already have and I’m just forgetting.”

Yes you did mention this earlier in this thread and while I definitely see similar vocal phrasing and lead guitars I personally couldn’t see the correlation in the overall sound of the music. Although I played Blind Melon to my girlfriend and she agrees with you. Maybe it’s just the different production sound that I struggle to see through. But I do think a Blind Melon fan is 100x more likely to buy my 2008 EP than a QOTSA fan is.

I'd personally test it as a potential audience and just see.

John said “But the long and short of what to do is to come up with a 4 or 5 potential headlines, split test them all as ad copy with no regard for how they actually perform, using dynamic creative. Then take the best performing ad copy and use it as your squeeze page copy. That’s how I start most campaigns.”

Thanks man, I had no idea of how to split test squeeze pages and now I do. I guess it's all described in that dynamic creative video you posted.

 

Once again man thank you so much for all the help.  

No problem. That's what I'm here for 🙂

Jean Morrison said

John Oszajca said
You can still see how an ad converted even if the objective is traffic. You just go to the column section in your ad manager and click to customize the column. Then you would search for your conversion goal (assuming you created one) and add it to the column. Then you can monitor conversions of each ad set regardless of your objective. You can do this for sales as well.

My conversion goal was ‘clicks’ right from the beginning of the campaign and then I changed it to ‘Landing Page Views’. Is that what you mean by conversion goal? I did chat with Steve about this in the inbox and he agreed with me that you cannot see the conversion rate (ie cost per subscriber) for each ad set individually but only the conversion rate for the whole campaign (if optimised for traffic). I also lost you on “seeing conversions of sales” but I’m sure you explain that clearly in MAW.

No. If you go back to MMM you will see that I show you how to create a conversion goal. This essentially means telling Facebook that anytime someone lands on a certain page they have met a conversion goal and become a lead, or a customer. You should set conversion goals for leads as well as customers of each product you sell, just so you can track it. There are also lessons on it here in the IC, but the MMM ones are a bit more current.

What you are describing is your objective. Which, by the way, you do not want to ever change the objective in the middle of a campaign. I didn't actually think you could even do that. You would want to stop the campaign and start fresh if ever changing your objective.

John Oszajca said
As I read through that, meaningful words pop out. “haunting beauty, energy, unconstrained, exists within it’s own time and has it’s own flow, somehow exist within its own universe uncontaminated by the outside world, but aggressive vocally, angry power”. Those are great descriptors because you are thinking about things that mean something to you. But suddenly many of us lose that ability when describing ourselves. I’m guessing you would say that you strive for many of the same things. So could you say something like “Jean Morrison is a soulful singer songwriter who combines hauntingly beautiful melodies with a vocal intensity reminiscent of Jeff Buckley.” I’m not saying that is a slam dunk, it’s just a quick attempt based on what you had. But it gets to the core of some real qualities that are important to you, and at the very list it illustrates an approach to coming up with headlines.

Thanks I see the illustration for coming up with headlines. I always tried to avoid the word soulful because I always thought it makes you think of soul as a genre. If I was going to get someone to help me with my ad headlines and blog posts, would I be looking for a copywriter or a ghostwriter?

A copywriter. But you really shouldn't need one. By using Dynamic Creative you should be able to just about take wild stabs (so long as they are different from each other) and test things until something works. 

What are the key differences you see between these two headlines besides that my one is more flowery. I want to get in that same headspace as you when coming up for headlines.

My headline “A silky voice that can turn itself from gentle ballads to aggressive rock floating timelessly above a nostalgic alt-rock band sound that will revive the very reason you fell in love with music in the first place”

Your headline “Jean Morrison is a soulful singer songwriter who combines hauntingly beautiful melodies with a vocal intensity reminiscent of Jeff Buckley.”

If I was browsing facebook and I saw the second headline, I would yawn then click away before I’ve even read ‘who combines’. I don’t mean to bash what you came up with. Maybe it is a slam dunk and I just judge things differently to the average person, I don’t know. Maybe my brain just wants to be more poetic. I do like “vocal intensity reminiscent of Jeff Buckley” But I feel if I showed that headline to Steve he would say, “It does a good job of describing the music but there isn’t much of an experience offered” or something along those lines.

In your headline the power words are silky voice, gentle ballads, aggressive rock, nostalgic alt-rock, revive.

In my hypothetical example headline they are singer songwriter, hauntingly beautiful melodies, vocal intensity, Jeff Buckley.

I don't have a problem with either headline, but if we assume that we are trying to connect with what Jeff Buckley fans consciously crave, I personally think my example speaks more directly to that. Because we used words that one fan (you) actually used to describe Jeff Buckley. And when you look at the power words, it paints a more literal picture of Jeff Buckley. Your sentence spends more time being abstract. But I would not be shocked if either one out performed the other.

Keep in mind, my headline was not actually a headline. I was riffing to show you how I approach taking the values of a Jeff Buckley fan and applying them to a similar artist with a headline. But to me, the abstraction, and assumption of greatness in your headline would have a negative effect on me. But as you say, we just may be totally different in our outlooks, and I am not saying your headline wouldn't do great with your fans.

Bottom line is that I don't stress it that much. I do my best to describe something I know my audience will like, then I test five different variations of the headline in an ad, see what does best and then use that as my new headline. If I'm still not converting well, I repeat with five new variations. My advice would be to spend less time trying to get this perfect, and let the fans tell you what they want.

What do you think of this as a universal headline non specific to Jeff Buckley?

"Jean Morrison is an (alt-rock) singer songwriter with a vocal intensity that sways between beauty and agression uncontained by the outside world. Alt-rock melodies that have their own space and flow of time." (I’m not sure if I should say alt-rock at this point) Or am I missing it completely?

You lose me with flowery, non specific language like "sways between beauty and aggression uncontained by the outside world". It sounds more like poetry than a literal description. I always assume that people will only be able to take you literally. For that headline to work people need to be walking around, consciously craving music that "sways between beauty and aggression unconstrained by the outside world". I don't think that is happening. But again. Don't listen to me. Listen to your audience. You know your audience better than I do. Maybe they are all poets and will completely respond to your approach.

Moving forward.. Once I’ve nailed down the headline and adjusted my blog posts etc. How would I go forward with FB advertising. Is that data I have on QOTSA and JB still valuable? or should I start a fresh wide targeted audience again, like starting from scratch? 85% of my activity was from men and over 90% of my subscribers were men. The age range wasn’t too extreme. But I was targeting USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all in the same ad set. Should I separate those out rather?  

The data is still somewhat valuable, especially if you have conversion goals set up. But it's not that valuable as your test size is not that large. I would not have personally added South Africa as a target location. That may be part of why the campaign performed poorly. What inspired you to do that?

Jean Morrison said

Jean Said My conversion goal was ‘clicks’ right from the beginning of the campaign and then I changed it to ‘Landing Page Views’. Is that what you mean by conversion goal? I did chat with Steve about this in the inbox and he agreed with me that you cannot see the conversion rate (ie cost per subscriber) for each ad set individually but only the conversion rate for the whole campaign (if optimised for traffic). I also lost you on “seeing conversions of sales” but I’m sure you explain that clearly in MAW.

John said: No. If you go back to MMM you will see that I show you how to create a conversion goal. This essentially means telling Facebook that anytime someone lands on a certain page they have met a conversion goal and become a lead, or a customer. You should set conversion goals for leads as well as customers of each product you sell, just so you can track it. There are also lessons on it here in the IC, but the MMM ones are a bit more current.

Okay I see now what I did wrong. I did set up the conversion goal like you explained in the video but I never added it to the customise column during the campaign and therefore assumed I was unable to track conversions per ad set. Here is a screenshot of the campaign for the duration it was running. Looks like the JB ads performed extremely poorly. Do you set up the conversion goal for customers the exact same way you set it up for leads except you change the URL to the thank you URL a customer is taken to after they purchase? And it must ‘equal’ not ‘contain’ that URL? Then do you do the same for upsell customers?

Definitely goes to show the importance of tracking. Nothing did particularly well in this campaign. If it was me, I would start again with different targeting options so you have something to compare it too. I usually vary up targeting before I sweat the copy too much, simply because it's a heck of a lot easier.

And yes, I set up a conversion goal for sales the same way.

 

John Oszajca said: What you are describing is your objective. Which, by the way, you do not want to ever change the objective in the middle of a campaign. I didn’t actually think you could even do that. You would want to stop the campaign and start fresh if ever changing your objective.

So you pretty much don’t want to change anything in the middle of a campaign?

Basically, no. Sometimes you can get away with it, especially if it's a dynamic creative campaign and you are just shutting off variables. But if you are running a standard campaign and something is not working. Stop it and start again fresh.

 

Jean Morrison said:
Moving forward.. Once I’ve nailed down the headline and adjusted my blog posts etc. How would I go forward with FB advertising. Is that data I have on QOTSA and JB still valuable? or should I start a fresh wide targeted audience again, like starting from scratch? 85% of my activity was from men and over 90% of my subscribers were men. The age range wasn’t too extreme. But I was targeting USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all in the same ad set. Should I separate those out rather?

John Oszajca said: The data is still somewhat valuable, especially if you have conversion goals set up. But it’s not that valuable as your test size is not that large. I would not have personally added South Africa as a target location. That may be part of why the campaign performed poorly. What inspired you to do that?

I'm South African, and have only lived in the US for the last 4 years now. Most of my media quotes and ‘success’ in music has been in South Africa. That said, I am not even slightly well known there so I have no problem scrapping it as a target country altogether. What you reckon? I got some pretty cheap clicks though, 8-9c

I see. I did not know/remember that. You can absolutely test South Africa, but you need to separate that out into a different ad set. South Africa is one of the cheaper countries in terms of clicks and impressions, however it converts very poorly. This comes from data out there in the marketing space rather than my own testing. 

And because it's cheap, but doesn't convert well, it can easily throw everything off in your campaign. Technically, you should be breaking every country into it's own ad set. But because the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia are all similar markets, I don't find that my results vary enough to warrant the pain of separating them out, so I group those countries together. But SA is considered a completely different market.

On a slightly unrelated note, I wish I had discovered your courses back in 2008. Back when I was trying to follow David Nevue’s and Bob Bakers books but I just couldn’t crack the web tech stuff. I probably didn’t discover you because I’m assuming you weren’t targeting South Africa. The only reason I decided to take the first step with RRF in 2015 was because the bassist of my favourite South African band, “Perez” ‘liked’ the MMM page. It said something like Adam Connor and 15 other friends likes MMM and so I trusted his judgements. There are a ton of talented musicians in SA all desperately looking for that road to success. There is so much talent just in my former hometown of Durban that I always felt a bit insecure performing there. The reason I say this is I really do think you’d do well in that market with MMM. As sad as it is, I think muso's will bite out of pure desperation because of the lack of opportunities there, despite their lack of disposable income.

I have no doubt there are plenty of potential MMM members in South Africa. But this kind of marketing s a numbers game, and it all boils down to spending your money where it has the best chance of getting the highest return, rather than spending it where it could potentially get a return. It's possible I could make a market like that work by really drilling down, but there is so much profitable traffic out there I just tend to focus on the countries that perform best.

I have a concern around building a lookalike audience of people who have engaged with my page. I have 660 likes and half of those likes came from a non-music related rugby video I posted about two years ago that went viral. I had a look and it doesn’t seem like I can exclude people who have interacted with certain posts on my page when creating a lookalike audience. Most of the organic traffic that have come to my page within the last 365 days is from that video. Should I avoid a lookalike audience on my fb page in this instance?  

You can try anything. But your concern is valid. Your best shot for a lookalike audience (in my opinion) is to promote a video and get yourself 10,000 views or so. Then create a lookalike audience based on people who watched at least 50% of the video. Ideally 75% or more. But the beauty of this stuff is it doesn't take a lot of money to experiment. Guesses are often wrong. Testing is the only thing that tells us for sure. 

But I would start by going back over the Dynamic Creative lesson and create three ad sets targeting different artists within the US and Canada, just as a control. Hone in on which creative works best, and once you have something that is consistently getting you affordable leads, try refining and expanding then.

Jean Morrison said

John Oszajca said

Definitely goes to show the importance of tracking. Nothing did particularly well in this campaign. If it was me, I would start again with different targeting options so you have something to compare it too. I usually vary up targeting before I sweat the copy too much, simply because it’s a heck of a lot easier.

And yes, I set up a conversion goal for sales the same way.

But I would start by going back over the Dynamic Creative lesson and create three ad sets targeting different artists within the US and Canada, just as a control. Hone in on which creative works best, and once you have something that is consistently getting you affordable leads, try refining and expanding then.

So target 3 fresh new artists that aren't JB or QOTSA?

Possibly, but not necessarily. If you are still convinced one of those can work, then you could try them again with new creative in both the ad and/or the squeeze page. Or you could start fresh with new targeting ideas.

John Oszajca said
I see. I did not know/remember that. You can absolutely test South Africa, but you need to separate that out into a different ad set. South Africa is one of the cheaper countries in terms of clicks and impressions, however it converts very poorly. This comes from data out there in the marketing space rather than my own testing. 

And because it’s cheap, but doesn’t convert well, it can easily throw everything off in your campaign. Technically, you should be breaking every country into it’s own ad set. But because the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia are all similar markets, I don’t find that my results vary enough to warrant the pain of separating them out, so I group those countries together. But SA is considered a completely different market.

Lesson learnt, thanks John

\m/

John Oszajca said
You can try anything. But your concern is valid. Your best shot for a lookalike audience (in my opinion) is to promote a video and get yourself 10,000 views or so. Then create a lookalike audience based on people who watched at least 50% of the video. Ideally 75% or more. But the beauty of this stuff is it doesn’t take a lot of money to experiment. Guesses are often wrong. Testing is the only thing that tells us for sure. 

Awesome, will try that out.

If I have any questions on video lookalike audiences or dynamic creative, I'll get back to you once I've gone through the videos in MAW and IC. 

Thanks again for all your help. I know it's probably been an overwhelming one.  

No problem. Happy to help 😉

Jean Morrison said

Jean Morrison said

John Oszajca said

Definitely goes to show the importance of tracking. Nothing did particularly well in this campaign. If it was me, I would start again with different targeting options so you have something to compare it too. I usually vary up targeting before I sweat the copy too much, simply because it’s a heck of a lot easier.

And yes, I set up a conversion goal for sales the same way.

But I would start by going back over the Dynamic Creative lesson and create three ad sets targeting different artists within the US and Canada, just as a control. Hone in on which creative works best, and once you have something that is consistently getting you affordable leads, try refining and expanding then.

Jean said: So target 3 fresh new artists that aren’t JB or QOTSA?

John said: Possibly, but not necessarily. If you are still convinced one of those can work, then you could try them again with new creative in both the ad and/or the squeeze page. Or you could start fresh with new targeting ideas.

Sorry John, just want to make sure I fully get you so I don't make any silly mistakes again like before. So I watched the dynamic creative lesson. Once we've used Dynamic Creative and we have found the winning copy/elements for our fb ads. Can we then target a new artist with that winning copy or do we need to start over again with dynamic creative every time we target a new artist? In other words, do different audiences respond differently to different copy? I'm assuming this is the case but last time I made an assumption it screwed up my tracking.

The way I do it is I run an ad using dynamic creative for at least 5 days (longer is better), or until I get a lot of data to look at. Ideally at least 50 subs (more is better). Or if your campaign's objective is clicks, then at least 50 clicks, but again, I'd ideally like a lot more. I just know people have a hard time stomaching spending money in these test phases.

Then I start a new ad, targeting the same audience, with an ad (not using dynamic creative) that uses all of the winning elements and demographic info.

I'm hoping this brings my prices down to being affordable. If it doesn't but the squeeze page is converting well (giving me the belief that the audience is good), I go back to the drawing board and do another round of dynamic creative adding my winning elements from the last campaign into the mix. And repeat step 2.

Once I have an ad (not using dymanic creative) that is doing well. I use that exact ad and create multiple duplicate ad sets within the same campaign, each one targeting a different audience. I turn off what doesn't work, and run with what does.

Once ads peter out, I go back to the same audience with new creative. Whenever you start over with new creative you can use dynamic creative again to hone in on some new copy. Eventually you will more or less just be rotating out images and copy. Once you find things that work, you can usually rotate those out in a cycle that can last you for years.

 

Just going back to a message from about a week back

John said “But the long and short of what to do is to come up with a 4 or 5 potential headlines, split test them all as ad copy with no regard for how they actually perform, using dynamic creative. Then take the best performing ad copy and use it as your squeeze page copy. That’s how I start most campaigns.”

Jean said: Thanks man, I had no idea of how to split test squeeze pages and now I do. I guess it’s all described in that dynamic creative video you posted.

The first time I read this, I thought you were saying you could split test actual squeeze pages with dynamic creative. Reading it again, you're clearly only talking about ad copy and not squeeze page copy. I don't get it when you say use the winning results as your squeeze page copy. The FB ad copy is so short in your examples so not sure how this could be the squeeze page copy. Or is the winning ad copy merely a summary of the squeeze page copy?

Has your position changed at all regarding turning on/off confirmed opt-in? Mine is turned off. The last video I saw you said that you personally turn it off.  

The copy I use in my ad for n the "text field" is very similar to the kind of copy I use in a squeeze page headline. So by testing different ad copy, I get a sense of what "bold claim or promise" is connecting. Then I can take that copy and just modify it ever so slightly to work as a squeeze page headline. But I only do this if my squeeze page isn't converting. You can actually use ad copy to test all kinds of things from album covers to album titles. The fact that something got the click, is an indicator that it will be effective. So in short, you can test squeeze page headlines by using those headlines as your ad "text", not to be confused with your ad "headlines". Those are something different, and, like you mentioned, too short.

I still start off all of my campaigns with confirmed opt in off. But I have been increasingly turning it on later, whenever I see low opens on email #1.

Jean Morrison said

John said: The way I do it is I run an ad using dynamic creative for at least 5 days (longer is better), or until I get a lot of data to look at. Ideally at least 50 subs (more is better). Or if your campaign’s objective is clicks, then at least 50 clicks, but again, I’d ideally like a lot more. I just know people have a hard time stomaching spending money in these test phases.

In terms of objective, are clicks and traffic the same thing? What minimum daily budget do you recommend if objective is conversions when using dynamic creative? In the Dynamic Creative video you went with $50 a day.

Clicks and traffic are the same, yes. You want to have about 5 actions a day (minimum) whatever your objective. So if it's clicks $5/day should be more than enough. If your objective is conversions then you want a minimum of $10/day. But if you do not eventually start getting subs for under $2 each then this will not be enough.

 

John said: Once I have an ad (not using dymanic creative) that is doing well. I use that exact ad and create multiple duplicate ad sets within the same campaign, each one targeting a different audience. I turn off what doesn’t work, and run with what does.

So I should start off with targeting just one audience using a pretty universal squeeze page (for example: no references to Jeff Buckley)? Then once I have enough ad data from dynamic creative and am now getting cheaper clicks/subs then only adjust the squeeze page using copy from that winning ad data (if the SP is not converting well). Obviously I cant duplicate a winning JB specific ad over to a QOTSA ad when the words "vocal intensity of Jeff Buckley" are being used. I'm just giving an example with artists. I don't plan to target QOTSA again. I get that your squeeze page example "vocal intensity of JB" was hypothetical and was an illustration for coming up with headlines but does that now mean I shouldn't use specific artist names in my copy. Just not sure how this is going to pan out.

No, I would start off with three ad sets (each one identical except for the target interest). I would not think about the squeeze page as wanting to be universal. It should be ultra targeted. But if it's specific to just one of your audiences then that is probably not a good idea. You want to test these principles over several audiences because more than likely one of them will get much better results. If you just test one audience, you might think nothing is working when really it was your targeting.

Then, take the best performer and use just that in your next round once you have your winning creative.

John said: The copy I use in my ad for n the “text field” is very similar to the kind of copy I use in a squeeze page headline. So by testing different ad copy, I get a sense of what “bold claim or promise” is connecting. Then I can take that copy and just modify it ever so slightly to work as a squeeze page headline. But I only do this if my squeeze page isn’t converting. You can actually use ad copy to test all kinds of things from album covers to album titles. The fact that something got the click, is an indicator that it will be effective. So in short, you can test squeeze page headlines by using those headlines as your ad “text”, not to be confused with your ad “headlines”. Those are something different, and, like you mentioned, too short.

Got it, thanks John.  

No prob.

Jean Morrison said

Jean said: In terms of objective, are clicks and traffic the same thing? What minimum daily budget do you recommend if objective is conversions when using dynamic creative? In the Dynamic Creative video you went with $50 a day.

John said: Clicks and traffic are the same, yes. You want to have about 5 actions a day (minimum) whatever your objective. So if it’s clicks $5/day should be more than enough. If your objective is conversions then you want a minimum of $10/day. But if you do not eventually start getting subs for under $2 each then this will not be enough.

Okay so it doesn't matter if you're using dynamic creative or not. If objective is conversions, you should start off with a minimum of $10 per day per ad set? Is that correct? At the risk of not getting subs for under $2, would it be safer to start with maybe $12 per day?

Correct. It's a delicate balancing act. When your budget isn't big enough you can easily find yourself in a situation where things start off too expensive and the algorithm just can't get teh data it needs. But on the other hand, using conversions is such a better metric to go by that it pays to gamble a bit. $10 is the minimum budget. But of 3 or 4 days pass and you're not getting anything close to 5 subs a day, and things are expensive, you'll need to kill the campaign and start over. $12 gives you more room. $20 gives you even more. There are no real rules here, only results. The subscriber number and your costs per subscriber are more important that your budget. But it will likely be difficult to get the low costs you are looking for with a budget of less than $10.

Jean said: So I should start off with targeting just one audience using a pretty universal squeeze page (for example: no references to Jeff Buckley)? Then once I have enough ad data from dynamic creative and am now getting cheaper clicks/subs then only adjust the squeeze page using copy from that winning ad data (if the SP is not converting well). Obviously I cant duplicate a winning JB specific ad over to a QOTSA ad when the words “vocal intensity of Jeff Buckley” are being used. I’m just giving an example with artists. I don’t plan to target QOTSA again. I get that your squeeze page example “vocal intensity of JB” was hypothetical and was an illustration for coming up with headlines but does that now mean I shouldn’t use specific artist names in my copy. Just not sure how this is going to pan out.

John said: No, I would start off with three ad sets (each one identical except for the target interest). I would not think about the squeeze page as wanting to be universal. It should be ultra targeted. But if it’s specific to just one of your audiences then that is probably not a good idea. You want to test these principles over several audiences because more than likely one of them will get much better results. If you just test one audience, you might think nothing is working when really it was your targeting.

Then, take the best performer and use just that in your next round once you have your winning creative.

That's interesting, so you don't really want to adjust your copy/images for the audience you're targeting like a chameleon instead you want to test your own brand on multiple audiences and see which one fits or responds the best, then scale that audience?

There is nothing wrong with creating laser targeted messages for specific audiences. For example, you could target Jeff Buckley fans in Seattle by referencing "listening to Jeff Buckley on your head phones as you skip rocks into the Seattle Sound"or whatever... and it would probably do well because it was so targeted. However, you are in the early stages and you are trying to figure out a lot of things and get data so you can scale. As such, if your copy is too specific you won't be able to test multiple audiences, and that is just as important as testing your copy right now. The goal with Dynamic Creative is to cast a wide net and see what you get. Once you know that one particular audience is working, there is nothing wrong with creating dedicated squeeze pages for those audiences and really honing in with your message.

I did a bit of brainstorming ads. Can I please get your feedback before I start testing? Not sure what the maximum number of elements I can split test with Dynamic Creative. I was thinking of targeting Blind Melon, Pete Yorn and Young The Giant/Jeff Buckley

============
Text
============

Heartfelt alternative rock music that’ll get under your skin.
Hauntingly beautiful melodies. Click to listen
Heartfelt rock music you can bounce to
“Alternative Rock music that’ll leave you with a smile”
A pure rock 'n roll voice that sways between beauty and agression
“Jean Morrison taps into something pure
People Magazine once said ”His music will leave you with a smile”
Jean Morrison will take you back to the 90’s
Jean Morrison will transport you to a Dive Bar in a town you've never heard of.

The maximum you can test for any element is 5. These sound like half sentences to me. Your headline wants to flow naturally like a complete statement that connects a persons interests and desires with your offer. These are so truncated as to almost be headlines more then ad text. 

For example, if you wanted to try something like "Jean Morrison will take you back to the 90’s" you would be better off flushing that out into a complete statement like "Jean Morrison's music marries the sounds and feeling of mid nineties grunge with modern sensibilities and themes"... Or, "If you miss the raw, emotional sounds of mid nineties rock music, then Jean Morrison is a must have for your collection". I'm not saying ether of those are great. I'm just trying to give a quick example. The second two make a broad claim/promise about the experience your music will offer, assuming your target audience likes 90s rock. While your copy technically said the same thing, it was so stripped down that it didn't leave me understanding why going to the 90s was interesting or important. Make sense?

============
Headlines
============

1. Alt Rock Fan?
2. Jean Morrison’s Latest Single - Free
3. Attention: “Alt Rock” fans..

These are all worth trying.

============
Link Description
============

1. Jean Morrison is an Alternative-Rock Singer-Songwriter from South Africa who was discovered at an open mic night by well known acoustic artist, Farryl Purkiss.

2. Jean Morrison's music has been described as having "Convincing Clarity" by The Citizen. Click to listen to music from his unreleased debut album. 

These would actually make decent ad text copy. Especially #2. They will also work for link descriptions but link descriptions matter very little so I tend to take a more descriptive approach. My goal being to explain anything about who the artist is, that is not already clear within the ad copy. I use what I call the Wikipedia approach. This is just a dry, descriptive summary. IE, Jean Morrison is a South African Rock artist whose music has been heard on radio stations across the globe " Or whatever. Just a quick, this is who you are and this is your biggest accomplishment. But you can also use what you have.

As for the squeeze page headline, should I just combine elements from the "text" options above then once I have the winning creative, combine the winning elements to form a squeeze page headline?  

You should do your best to write a powerful headline that makes a bold claim or promise about the experience that your music offers. You should also do your best to write enticing ad copy. Ad copy is similar, but slightly different in that ad copy is usually a bit longer and more conversational. Once you find ad copy that is doing very well for you, you can experiment by modifying your headline to incorporate aspects of the ad copy that worked.

My advice at this stage would be to go over the "copywriting shortcuts" lesson here in the IC. You can find it here: https://www.mmmanifesto.com/in.....shortcuts/

You might also find the Squeeze Page Boot Camp – Part 1 & 2 helpful. The first lesson can be found at: https://www.mmmanifesto.com/in.....mp-part-1/

Hope that helps.

Jean Morrison said

John said: No, I would start off with three ad sets (each one identical except for the target interest). I would not think about the squeeze page as wanting to be universal. It should be ultra targeted. But if it’s specific to just one of your audiences then that is probably not a good idea. You want to test these principles over several audiences because more than likely one of them will get much better results. If you just test one audience, you might think nothing is working when really it was your targeting.

Then, take the best performer and use just that in your next round once you have your winning creative.

Jean said: That’s interesting, so you don’t really want to adjust your copy/images for the audience you’re targeting like a chameleon instead you want to test your own brand on multiple audiences and see which one fits or responds the best, then scale that audience?

John said: There is nothing wrong with creating laser targeted messages for specific audiences. For example, you could target Jeff Buckley fans in Seattle by referencing “listening to Jeff Buckley on your head phones as you skip rocks into the Seattle Sound”or whatever… and it would probably do well because it was so targeted. However, you are in the early stages and you are trying to figure out a lot of things and get data so you can scale. As such, if your copy is too specific you won’t be able to test multiple audiences, and that is just as important as testing your copy right now. The goal with Dynamic Creative is to cast a wide net and see what you get. Once you know that one particular audience is working, there is nothing wrong with creating dedicated squeeze pages for those audiences and really honing in with your message.

Makes perfect sense. I guess I was just getting too targeted at this early stage of advertising. I guess that's the wrong approach with Dynamic Creative. 

Yeah, dynamic creative is really an information gathering step to help you hone in on an audience and get a general sense of what is working and what is not. Refinement comes a bit later.

Jean said: I did a bit of brainstorming ads. Can I please get your feedback before I start testing? Not sure what the maximum number of elements I can split test with Dynamic Creative. I was thinking of targeting Blind Melon, Pete Yorn and Young The Giant/Jeff Buckley

============
Text
============

Heartfelt alternative rock music that’ll get under your skin.
Hauntingly beautiful melodies. Click to listen
Heartfelt rock music you can bounce to
“Alternative Rock music that’ll leave you with a smile”
A pure rock ‘n roll voice that sways between beauty and agression
“Jean Morrison taps into something pure
People Magazine once said ”His music will leave you with a smile”
Jean Morrison will take you back to the 90’s
Jean Morrison will transport you to a Dive Bar in a town you’ve never heard of.

John said: The maximum you can test for any element is 5. These sound like half sentences to me. Your headline wants to flow naturally like a complete statement that connects a persons interests and desires with your offer. These are so truncated as to almost be headlines more then ad text. 

For example, if you wanted to try something like “Jean Morrison will take you back to the 90’s” you would be better off flushing that out into a complete statement like “Jean Morrison’s music marries the sounds and feeling of mid nineties grunge with modern sensibilities and themes”… Or, “If you miss the raw, emotional sounds of mid nineties rock music, then Jean Morrison is a must have for your collection”. I’m not saying ether of those are great. I’m just trying to give a quick example. The second two make a broad claim/promise about the experience your music will offer, assuming your target audience likes 90s rock. While your copy technically said the same thing, it was so stripped down that it didn’t leave me understanding why going to the 90s was interesting or important. Make sense?

Thanks John, I totally get you on this. Now to find some middle ground between simple plain english and over-elaborate poetic copy. Will keep working on it and get back to you with hopefully some improvement. I really like your two examples especially the second one. I'll use those two if that's okay. 

Absolutely. Use anything you want.

Jean said:

============
Link Description
============

1. Jean Morrison is an Alternative-Rock Singer-Songwriter from South Africa who was discovered at an open mic night by well known acoustic artist, Farryl Purkiss.

2. Jean Morrison’s music has been described as having “Convincing Clarity” by The Citizen. Click to listen to music from his unreleased debut album. 

John said: These would actually make decent ad text copy. Especially #2. They will also work for link descriptions but link descriptions matter very little so I tend to take a more descriptive approach. My goal being to explain anything about who the artist is, that is not already clear within the ad copy. I use what I call the Wikipedia approach. This is just a dry, descriptive summary. IE, Jean Morrison is a South African Rock artist whose music has been heard on radio stations across the globe ” Or whatever. Just a quick, this is who you are and this is your biggest accomplishment. But you can also use what you have.

Are you suggesting I try use the 2nd 'link description' as one of the 5 ad text copy?

I wasn't necessarily suggesting anything. But it sounds like decent ad text copy to me.

 

Jean said: As for the squeeze page headline, should I just combine elements from the “text” options above then once I have the winning creative, combine the winning elements to form a squeeze page headline?  

John said: You should do your best to write a powerful headline that makes a bold claim or promise about the experience that your music offers. You should also do your best to write enticing ad copy. Ad copy is similar, but slightly different in that ad copy is usually a bit longer and more conversational. Once you find ad copy that is doing very well for you, you can experiment by modifying your headline to incorporate aspects of the ad copy that worked.

My advice at this stage would be to go over the “copywriting shortcuts” lesson here in the IC. You can find it here: https://www.mmmanifesto.com/in.....shortcuts/

You might also find the Squeeze Page Boot Camp – Part 1 & 2 helpful. The first lesson can be found at: https://www.mmmanifesto.com/in.....mp-part-1/

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the links. I've actually already gone through those videos you've mentioned, some of them more than once. Which is why I turned to the forum as I was still struggling a bit.   

Ok, cool. It may pay to go through them again. I only say this because what I am saying in these thread is more or less right out of some of those lessons. I'm just trying to drive home those principles and the examples I am giving here are consistent with those in those lessons. But the forum is here if you need it.

Geez. I just re-read my message. So many typos and terrible grammar. That's what happens when you write about 10,000 words a day in emails, comments, and content creation... Anyhow... glad to hear it. Go get'm and keep us posted.