The Truth About Social Ads

By Jason Smith

"The Truth About Social Ads" goes beyond just tips and tricks; it's your pathway to truth and education. Elevate your brand or your agency's operations, run ads more efficiently, and embark on a journ... more

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FAQs about The Truth About Social Ads:

How many episodes does The Truth About Social Ads have?

The podcast currently has 30 episodes available.

The Truth About Social Ads episodes:

August 20, 2024Should You Be Using Advantage+ Creative To Enhance Your Ad Experience
In today's episode of "The Truth About Social Ads," host Jason Smith dives into the contentious topic of using Advantage Plus Creatives to enhance ad performance on Facebook and Instagram. Jason acknowledges that while some brands find these AI-driven enhancements useful, many are frustrated by the loss of control over their branding. Throughout the episode, Jason walks listeners through the intricacies of Advantage Plus Creatives, demonstrating how it works within Facebook's Business Manager using a dummy account. He shares his perspective on which features are beneficial and which may detract from a brand's integrity, particularly for non-e-commerce businesses. With a focus on practical application, Jason provides actionable advice on optimizing ads without compromising on brand consistency, making this episode a must-listen for advertisers looking to navigate the complexities of AI-enhanced ad tools.
"Don't be fooled by the numbers—just because others are turning on features doesn’t mean they're seeing better results."
Key Takeaways:
Understanding Advantage Plus Creatives

Pros and Cons of Using Advantage Plus Creatives

Walkthrough of the Advantage Plus Creatives setup within Facebook's Business Manager
Learn more about Jason Smith through the following links:
Facebook
Website
...more
17min
August 13, 2024Should You Send Traffic To Your Website and Shop or Just Your Website
In today's episode of "The Truth About Social Ads," host Jason Smith dives into a crucial aspect of ad setup for e-commerce brands: deciding whether to send traffic to Facebook Shops or directly to a website. He explores the advantages and disadvantages of both strategies, emphasizing the importance of testing to determine the best approach for each business. Jason highlights how Meta (formerly Facebook) is pushing for integrated shopping experiences to keep users engaged on the platform. He discusses the nuances of setting up product catalogs, auto-tagging on Instagram, and optimizing campaigns. Throughout the episode, Jason shares insights from his extensive experience, offering practical advice on structuring ads to maximize profitability. He stresses the necessity of tailoring campaigns to different stages of the sales funnel, and encourages listeners to continuously test and adjust their strategies for optimal results. For those needing further assistance, Jason invites listeners to reach out for personalized guidance.
"Your ad strategy should be tailored to your specific business needs and goals."
Key Takeaways:
Ad Setup for E-commerce Brands

Testing Ad Strategies

Advantage Plus Campaigns

Practical Tips
Learn more about Jason Smith through the following links:
Facebook
Website
...more
12min
August 06, 2024Meta AI is Changing How They Show You Ads
In this episode of "The Truth About Social Ads," host Jason Smith dives deep into the evolving landscape of social media advertising, specifically focusing on the significant changes in how Facebook and Instagram's AI algorithms handle ad placements. Jason emphasizes the critical shift from minor tweaks in ad elements to the necessity for substantial differences between ad versions to optimize performance in the ad auction. Drawing from insights gained at a recent exclusive Facebook training, Jason reveals that minor adjustments to headlines or images are no longer sufficient. Instead, advertisers must now create drastically different versions of ads to stand out. He shares practical strategies for adapting to these changes, such as testing entirely different copies, images, and videos to ensure each ad is unique. Jason also reassures listeners that, despite these changes, Facebook ads remain highly effective, with many clients still achieving impressive results. He encourages business owners and agencies to think creatively and strategically about their ad campaigns and offers resources for further guidance. For more details or personalized advice, Jason invites listeners to reach out directly or book a call through his website.
"Gone are the days of minor adjustments; now, ads need to be completely different to stand out."
Key Takeaways:
Changes in Facebook and Instagram ads

New ad strategy

Tips on creating diverse ad copies and visuals

Encouragement to think outside the box
Learn more about Jason Smith through the following links:
Facebook
Website
...more
8min
July 30, 2024Why It Took So Long To Record Another Episode
In this episode of "The Truth About Social Ads," host Jason Smith is excited to relaunch his podcast, bringing listeners invaluable insights and updates on social advertising across platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, and Snapchat. Jason welcomes guest Tim Holloway, who has been instrumental in helping revive the podcast. They dive into the reasons for the hiatus, including Jason's busy schedule and the challenge of prioritizing the podcast amidst his professional commitments. The episode touches on the evolving landscape of social ads, emphasizing the complexity of running successful ad campaigns in the post-iOS update era. Jason shares his unique approach to strategic ad reviews, including live audits of clients' ad accounts and the importance of comprehensive testing. The conversation also highlights the necessity of using third-party reporting tools to ensure accurate tracking and the continued effectiveness of Facebook ads despite recent challenges. Overall, the episode provides a candid look at the realities of managing social ads and offers practical advice for businesses looking to optimize their advertising strategies.
"The landscape of running ads has become harder, but having a great team makes all the difference."
Key Takeaways:
Challenges of Balancing Life, Business, and Podcasting

Changes in the Ad Landscape

Third-Party Reporting Tools

Market Trends and Platform Performance
Learn more about Tim Holloway through the following links:
Facebook
Facebook Group
Learn more about Jason Smith through the following links:
Facebook
Website
...more
17min
July 26, 2024 Relaunching the Truth About Social Ads Podcast: Expanding Beyond Facebook and Instagram
Welcome back to the Truth About Social Ads podcast! In this episode, the host discusses the agency's expansion, covering a wider range of digital advertising platforms beyond just Facebook and Instagram, including Pinterest, TikTok, and Google. They also tease upcoming episodes featuring interviews and the host's own insights on various topics. Listeners are encouraged to stay tuned for more awesome content.
#SocialAds #FacebookAds #InstagramAds #PinterestAds #TikTokAds #GoogleAds #DigitalMarketing #Advertising

...more
2min
February 15, 2022 25. Client Audits and What We Look For
If you ever wondered how our audit process works and what we do when we bring on new clients and what we look for, today’s episode is perfect for you. Not only are businesses qualifying us, but we also qualify them just as much when we are doing an audit. We want to let the client know what we are looking for, and this also may be helpful if any agency owners are listening to learn how to qualify your clients that you are taking on.

For us, it is always exciting talking to new businesses, getting to know other brands and helping them in their process. That is why when we are doing an audit for a prospective new client, our conversation will be related to their ads, product, customers, website and even questions that will help us catch agency hoppers in the act.

– How much do you spend in 30 days on Facebook?

– Do you have an agency running your ads right now? What is your ad situation?

– What is your product? What is your AOV?

– What is your returning customer rate? – Retargeting will be hard if you are driving cold traffic.

– What is your free shipping threshold?

– What is a realistic return on ad spend that you need to be at to earn money.

– What are your margins? – You would be surprised at the amount of people that do not even know what their margins are!

– How are your ads structured in Facebook? From the nomenclature to your audiences, creatives and more.

– How does your website look like? What is your page’s load speed? – Nowadays we live in an impatient world, so it must load super quick, plus mobile optimization in key in your success.

– Truth is, if we go into an account and we see that their current agency is doing an impressive job and the client is frustrated, we are most likely going to say no, because if you’re not happy with them, you’re not going to be happy with us.

A discovery call is fundamental in our process, from then we happily give clients a nice layout of everything, what we do, why we do it, if we think their brands and their ads will be successful and if we can get them to the next level. Growth plan included as well! Awesome, right?

We are good at what we do, and we are looking to get clients reliable and satisfactory results and we’ll let them know if we feel like we can do that based on their account and on how we get along. We are respectful and we expect to be respected in return, which is why we build good partnerships.

Check out this episode to find out why do we go through each of these questions and how they help us determine if a potential client can be a great fit for us.

Notes and more here: https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com/25

Free Resources:

Free Attribution PDFs: https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com/audit/
Connect with Jason: [email protected]
Connect with Eric: [email protected]

The Truth About Social Ads
https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-truth-about-social-ads/

Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/25-client-audits-and-what-we-look-for
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28min
February 02, 2022 24. Fatal Mistakes Clients Ask Agencies to Make
We’re talking about this today because we’ve got tons of experience with these types of situations, these scenarios. And we’re not going to get walked all over, we’re not going to get blamed for things that are not our fault. This episode is about being respected. If you disrespect high performers, they can get upset because they work hard to be the best at what they do. And that’s how we are as an agency. We pride ourselves in being absolutely the best at it. And so when a client comes to us and they’re used to working with like a smaller agency that would do whatever they said, and we command a higher level of respect because of the work we’re doing, sometimes they’re not used to it.

But that’s really what we expect is respect from our clients. And we give the same respect in return. We’re totally open to as much feedback as you want to give, but when a client says, “You guys aren’t doing your job, you guys aren’t getting the results that I think you should be getting.”

Then it goes down this rabbit hole of personal opinions and we’ve skewed away from the actual data, right? Like we need and use data to make good decisions. And we’re making decisions based on the data that’s coming in. And sometimes clients don’t understand this and ask us to do things that aren’t in their best interest.

In this episode, we are going to cover the four most common mistakes we are asked to make, and how we have created systems and ways of communicating with our clients, so we avoid these situations.

These are:

1. Increasing ad spend too quickly. Extremely risky and usually results in big losses.

2. Resetting the learning, sometimes it works, but often it dive bombs the account.

3. Only caring about cold traffic.

4. Blaming the ads when it’s not the fault of the ads or our responsibility. There are many factors at play, including conversion rates, sales team effectiveness, company operations and culture, and many more.

Check out this episode to learn more as we go through all the details and explain our strategies to avoid these hot messes.

Notes and more here: https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com/24

Free Resources:

Free Attribution PDFs: https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com/attribution-pdf/
Connect with Jason: [email protected]
Connect with Eric: [email protected]
...more
39min
January 24, 2022 23. Attribution and How It’s Different
We’re talking about attribution models for your ads and specifically one main attribution model, which is what Eric’s developed, so we can give our customers a view-through attribution model with Facebook so they can see their numbers inside of the dashboard. Well, not inside of the Facebook dashboard, but inside of the dashboard that Eric’s come up with.

This is an important topic, especially now because of the iOS update. We’ve had a lot of customers and even other agencies come to us and ask, “Hey, what are you guys using for reporting and attribution?” Because the Facebook dashboard is no longer reporting. And we’ve heard from a few clients that some agencies aren’t even reporting on return on ad spend. They can’t even report on it.

Eric and the team have been working super hard to get the solution resolved. We’ve partnered with a third-party reporting agency and these guys are awesome. And I think we’ve got the solution now. So, listen to this episode is you want to know all about our solution, it’s a game changer.

Basically, we are able to still see view-through data, which was the biggest factor with the iOS 14 update. Our agency has successfully conquered and beat iOS. There still are limitations. It’s changed the way paid ads work. There’s no way around that, but the big impact is that we can report on return on ad spend.

Check out this episode to learn more as we unpack all the details. And grab our free download which also explains our strategy.

Notes and more here: https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com/23

Free Resources:

Free Attribution PDFs: https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com/attribution-pdf/
...more
38min
December 23, 2021 22. The Latest and Greatest with HighLevel
HighLevel helps agencies and marketers thrive with their all-in-one sales and marketing platform. If you have an agency and you haven’t heard about HighLevel yet, you have to listen to this episode. And if you have heard of it, or are one of the quickly growing agencies who are using it, then you need to listen in as we unpack some of the latest and greatest features and benefits found in HighLevel. And reveal some upcoming additions too!

Founder Shaun Clark and Chase Buckner, the Director of Content & Education join us for this power-packed conversation about HighLevel, the fastest growing white-label platform for digital marketing agencies. HighLevel is one white-labeled marketing app to rule them all. HighLevel is everything your agency needs to succeed! Capture leads using HighLevel’s landing pages, surveys, forms, calendars, and inbound phone system. Automatically message leads via voicemail, forced calls, SMS, emails, and FB Messenger. Use their built in tools to collect payments, schedule appointments, create memberships, and track analytics.

And these guys are adding new and powerful features to this mind-blowing tool all the time. We specifically dive into the new Spotify integration for Ecommerce businesses which we’re particularly pumped about.

And one of the best things is that you can White Label the software, customize it for your ideal clients, and sell it to them as their new primary marketing SAAS tool. We talk about why this can become a major revenue stream for your business. Clients tend to keep paying for tools like this, even if they aren’t hiring you for marketing services. It’s crazy sticky, especially when they realize this one tool saves them from having to pay for 5, 10, or even 20 different tools!

We’ve been using HighLevel for two years and are super stoked about where these guys are taking this platform. HighLevel works directly with agency owners to use their feedback and suggestions to make this a serious game-changer. Listen to this episode, then go check out HighLevel. There’s a free 14-day trial so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Notes and more here: https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com/22

Resources:

HighLevel Website

Connect with Jason: [email protected]

Connect with Eric: [email protected]
...more
49min
December 15, 2021 21. Shopify Store Optimization that Works with Tanner Larsson and Build Grow Scale
Getting traffic to your ecom site isn’t an issue, especially when you’re working with us. But converting that traffic into customers is an entirely different ball game. A while back, we saw many of our clients struggling to get the conversions they wanted, so we joined Tanner Larsson and the Build Grow Scale (BGS) community which has proven to be a hugely powerful investment.

Tanner joins us today to unpack some of the ecommerce store optimization strategies he teaches and has written about in his book, Ecommerce Evolved: The Essential Playbook To Build, Grow & Scale A Successful Ecommerce Business.Ecommerce Evolved: The Essential Playbook To Build, Grow & Scale A Successful Ecommerce Business. We also discuss their upcoming event, Build Grow Scale Live which will be in Dallas this year. We’re love the stuff these guys are doing, and will be at the event as well, performing ads audits and helping ecom brands crush it in 2022.

Tanner has built quite simply the world’s best ecommerce community with access to the top ecommerce experts in the world, as well as live mentorship, live feedback on your store (so you never have to wonder what to do next), revenue-boosting private apps, Revenue Optimization™ services, and data-driven resources to help you multiply your revenue the fastest way possible. We’ve seen it happen.

The last 24 months have changed the game for ecom brands. During the pandemic, online shopping exploded. Along with this growth has come a massive amount of change. The days of being able to throw up an ecom store, slap a few products on there, run a few facebook ads and make money are gone. The days of being able to cover your acquisition costs, expenses and still profit from the first sale are gone. The days of being able to use large volumes of cheap traffic to make up for an unoptimized ecom business are dead.

It’s a whole new world out there in terms of what works and what doesn’t, and Build Grow Scale has been in the trenches every day doing what they do best… Testing, tweaking, analyzing data and optimizing stores to maximize their performance and profits.

We share what Tanner and his team have discovered during this episode. But to truly get the most out of your store, we recommend (highly!) that you come to BGS Live.

About Tanner Larsson

Tanner Larsson is the co-founder of Amplified Partnerships, an ecommerce brand incubator, and the CEO of BuildGrowScale.com. He launched his first ecommerce venture from his childhood bedroom in 2001 and has since founded or partnered in over a dozen different businesses in markets such as home services, health & fitness, guns & survival, kitchen accessories, supplements & nutraceuticals, business education, and HVAC.

Tanner is also the founder and facilitator of an exclusive ecommerce syndicate called Black Label, a mastermind composed of the best and brightest marketers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs in the ecommerce space.

Tanner lives with his wife and kids in Reno, NV.

Notes and more here: https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com/21

Resources:

Build Grow Scale Live: https://www.buildgrowscalelive.com/2022
Build Grow Scale: https://buildgrowscale.com/
Tanner’s Book, Ecommerce Evolved: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1534619348/
Connect with Jason: [email protected]
Connect with Eric: [email protected]
...more
1h 11min

FAQs about The Truth About Social Ads:

How many episodes does The Truth About Social Ads have?

The podcast currently has 30 episodes available.