From Facebook: How Valerie Shoopman Combined Two Tactics To Generate $61,000 in Just Four Days

Tim:Welcome to Conversion Cast. The only podcast that gets to the heart of the metrics. Now here’s another data driven case study. 

What’s up fellow marketer. Now today, my guests and I are going to show you how to combine two of my favorite tactics to generate amazing results for your business. We’re talking about Facebook ads and webinars. To see the exact plan that she uses along with screenshots of the ads, visit ConversionCast.com/ValDownload. That’s ConversionCast.com/ValDownload and then we’ll get on with the show. Go do it now, I’ll wait. Okay. Now a lot of people have seemingly had a lot of success with Facebook ads and some not so much. The same can be said for webinars. We’ll hear it from both sides.

One thing that’s becoming more and more popular though is the combination of Facebook ads with webinars and for good reason. It works. Today’s guest, Valerie Shoopman is a reformed Google AdWord specialist. That’s where she cut her teeth in online marketing but now she focuses her time on Facebook ads with amazing results. Now if you’re familiar with my buddy John Lee Dumas, you know the guy is generating six figures per month. He’s killing it, the majority of which is coming from webinars. What you might not know is that Val Shoopman is the woman behind John’s Facebook ad campaign or at least in the beginning. Today though, we’re going to talk about one particular case study where she worked with a mutual friend Nick [0:01:38] [Indiscernible] to spend a little and make a ton. It is a longer episode but it’s worth every second. So go right now, get the screenshots and the broken down plan by going to ConversionCast.com/ValDownload and then listen on. I’m Tim Page, the conversion educator here at LeadPages. This is ConversionCast and here’s Valerie Shoopman. 

Hey Val how’s it going today?

Valerie:Hey Tim, it’s going great, going great. 

Tim:Awesome. I’m so excited because more and more on the show it seems I get to do some more talking with friends and you and I connected a little while ago. I was really impressed with some stuff you were doing with our mutual friend John Lee Dumas and today we’re going to talk about something similar to what you did with John except for it’s with another mutual friend Nick [0:02:26] [Indiscernible]. So let’s talk very briefly before we go into the strategy and tactic that you implemented. Tell us who you are and what you do.

Valerie:Well Valerie Shoopman and I’m a Facebook marketing expert, specifically in Facebook ads. What I do is run those Facebook ad campaigns and help get terrific ROI from the ad campaigns. 

Tim:That’s awesome. Okay and how long have you been doing that?

Valerie:I have been running Facebook ads since 2010. I actually did Google AdWords back in the today from like 2003 to 2007-2008 so I had a lot of experience there that carried over into the Facebook ads. 

Tim:Cool. Isn’t it funny how 2003 is back in the day? 

Valerie:Oh my gosh it was so long ago. 

Tim:[Laughs] I love it. Good. Okay. So today we’re talking about a Facebook ad campaign that you implemented with Nick [0:03:20] [Indiscernible] and Nick for anybody who doesn’t know is kind of like a life coach business coach kind of kickbutt at life kind of thing, is that right? 

Valerie: Well yeah. He brands himself as a kickass business coach and I would say he’s that. He started off as a Facebook ad marketing expert as well. I actually learned quite a bit about him and then he turned around and hired me to run his Facebook ads. 

Tim:I love it. That’s so cool. All right. So let’s talk a little bit about the results that you got from this particular kind of case study. This is really a case study in action just like everything we do. So tell us the results that you were able to get from this campaign that you did with Nick. 

Valerie:Sure. So we spent $5269.40. I track everything down to the penny. 

Tim:[Laughs] 

Valerie:So that was the ad spent that I spent and that was over two webinars. So we did our initial webinar and then we did a follow-up encore webinar like four days later. Then based off of that ad spend we were selling a $9.97 product in the Facebook ads A to Z and we positioned it so that we were only taking on 25 people. That’s how we position it. So we add a little bit of that scarcity in there and positioned it that we only had time to do the handholding for 25 people.

Tim:Uh-hum.

Valerie:So that what we set and we met that goal of 25 so that was right at $25,000 for that and then we actually ended up also getting an elite coaching client at 3000 per month. So that was an additional revenue there as well.

[0:05:04]

Tim:Love it.

Valerie:So.

Tim:Those are pretty amazing results from just two webinars. 

Valerie:Yeah two webinars and $5269 ad spend. 

Tim:All right. So on this campaign this was kind of a joint project. Is that right? Can you set the stage for what we’re going to be talking today and just a quick note here, typically I have a full kind of understanding of the process that somebody went through when they come on ConversionCast. In this case, I have a really broad understanding. So if anybody is curious it’s me. I’m extremely curious, I can’t wait to hear how you did this. So set the stage for us. Let’s hear kind of the process here.  

[0:05:42]

Valerie:Sure no problem. So Nick and I decided that we would do this joint webinar together, this joint program. We took what we had already done which was Facebook ads A to Z. Both of us had contributed to the content on that and we decided to crank up the notch a little bit on it if you will. Nick came at it from the business strategy standpoint as far as what your lead magnet was going to be, how you’re going to set up your funnel, how your offer was going to be composed. You know, those strategy points and then I came in with the Facebook ads and this is how we’re going to market it and really more of the technical the how to and then get it done for you. And then we combined all of that approach with the live sessions in a 20-day challenge. So within 20 days Nick helped them with the strategy and the setup the first ten days of that 20 days and then the last 10 days I actually came in and helped them with their Facebook ads or the marketing funnels making sure that conversion tracking pixels all of that stuff was in place. 

So that’s what we were selling. To do that, we created a webinar where again we split it up. Nick did the business strategy portion of the webinar, I did the Facebook ad portion where I actually went through and showed them how to set up and ad, how some of the key things to look for in a Facebook ad and that’s how we ran the webinar. And then of course I ran all the Facebook ads for that webinar to get people in. They opted in for the webinar which put them on our list and at the end of the webinar, we sold them into that program I just explained. 

Tim:I love it. Okay. So you know, the particular thing here that you know, everybody is seeing Facebook ads, everybody is talking about Facebook ads. You know, we had James Wedmore, I’m talking about his Facebook ads and stuff like that. But the thing that’s really particular is you’re focusing your ads always to drive them to a webinar and then focusing on conversion at that point. So tell us kind of how you set up your ads and why is it that yours work so well? Because you’ve been getting some amazing results and we’ll talk about that in a second. 

Valerie:Sure. So the first thing I do is set up a conversion tracking pixel. That is key because without that you’re flying blind. You have no idea which ad is working and which ad is not working. So that’s the very first step. Something that I do that a lot of people don’t do and they’re surprised when I say this is I not only set up a conversion tracking pixel for the opt-in. I also set it up for the checkout or the sale. So just for example of course I use LeadPages a lot because I love it and it’s quick and easy so I’ll take the opt-in or take the conversion tracking pixels for the opt-in and place that on the thank you page after they put in their name and email address and that’s to register for the webinar.

So that tells me what ads are driving the opt-in to the actual webinar. 

Tim:Okay quick pause, quick pause. Okay. So what is a conversion tracking pixel and how do you – where do you get it, how do you implement it? Can you kind of tell us about that? 

Valerie:Yup. Sure can. So what the conversion tracking pixel is. Is it just a little teeny snippet of code that you put on your thank you page and then it tracks through? So when someone clicks on a Facebook ad and then actually puts in their name and email address and arrives on the thank you page, then it tracks back in Facebook and you can go in and see which ad created that opt-in. So what that then allows you to do is pause out any ads that aren’t creating opt-ins and scale up ads that are. And then you can also compare the ads that are creating the opt-ins that where the opt-ins are coming from. You can compare the cost per lead. So some and you’re going to see varying differences. You might see some down in the $2 to $3 per lead range and you might have some in the $12-$15 per lead range. So it becomes very important that tracking pixel and to stay on top of that constantly to be able to get that lower cost per load.

[0:10:03]

And another thing some people just want to focus on the low cost per lead. So they’re all excited. I got $3 cost per lead or I got $2 cost per lead which is good unless those people aren’t buyers, unless those people aren’t targeted leads and are not purchasing on the backend. Then it doesn’t really matter if you got $2 per lead opted. I’d much rather pay for $5 per lead opt-in and know their points convert for other products and services that I’m selling. 

Tim:So this is really your way of making sure that you’re not just throwing money. You’re actually spending money on people coming into your funnel not even just opting in but also opting in and eventually making a purchase. 

Valerie:Exactly. Exactly. I’m all about the ROI and not the ROI just for that one particular thing, that one moment in time but I would like to look at the big picture as well. 

Tim:I love it and you get that conversion pixel. All that stuff is generated by Facebook?

Valerie:Yes. It’s all in Facebook. It’s super easy. I mean you just set it up so you can name it and webinar registration. You know, if it’s 8/4 then 8/4 or however you want to name it and say it’s a registration pixel and then they give you the code and you can either put the code in yourself between the head tags or have your web master do it. It’s super easy to do that. Then what I was saying too for the sale conversion tracking pixel then I put that on the thank you page after they put in their name and or excuse me their billing information. So after they put in their credit card information and that’s approved whatever thank you page they go to after that, that’s where that code gets put which then will track back the sale. So what happens as you’re running the ads you really have no idea you know, if they’re going to be buyers or not because you won’t know the webinar occurs. But after the webinar and I do this immediately, I actually start looking as the webinar’s going I’ll have that screen up and the report already saved to see what’s coming in. But it becomes very useful especially if you run webinars back to back to back. 

Then you can immediately start off the next webinar already having that knowledge and knowing okay this targeting, this ad produce the most amount of buyers at the least amount of cost. 

Tim:Awesome. Okay and so now we kind of know one of the things that makes yours so unique and special. So tell me what else is it? I mean you’re tracking the conversions awesome. What are else makes your kind of campaigns work so well or let’s even break it down. We’re getting into kind of what works but what works so well for this webinar you did with Nick? 

Valerie:So Nick’s going to kill me. 

Tim:[Laughs] 

Valerie:What worked really well for this webinar I had had some professional photos taken one of them happened to be in a bright hot pink shirt. That pink really popped on the page and that the background was kind of an urban background and then Nick had an urban background of his where he was sitting on a stairwell. So I put the two pictures together and I was like huh, those look pretty good together. And then I started looking online and nobody was really using pink. You know, they were using red and the neon green all these other colors to attract attention and to make it pop and nobody was using pink. So I took our pictures and then I did the banner and some of the text. I did it in pink even though Nick wasn’t [0:13:43] [Indiscernible] 

Tim:[Laughs] 

Valerie:Later. Actually you know, when the conversions came through and we got the conversions we did he was fine with it but and it was just kind of funny at the time but it really worked. So the other thing is you know, not only the ads, so I took a pic of us and it was actually two separate pictures and I put it together in Photoshop and then put the branding around it as far as the font and then it was the languaging too, specific case study that I was going to go over you know, of how they could use Facebook ads to drive leads and sales. So I think when you use specific languaging and let them know how it’s going to help them not only what they’re going to learn but what they’re going to be able to do with that knowledge, how it’s going to transform their life or business. You know, hit that emotional point and if you can get that all in the picture and the ad then that’s huge. 

And one point Nick brought up was myself in that particular photo he goes you look like you are very trustworthy. Not that you’re not but it just conveys it in the picture and that’s true. You know, people only look at that for a split second before deciding whether they’re going to continue on and read anymore or whether they’re going to move on. So I can’t stress enough that the picture that you choose it plays into it so much and then you know, then comes the headline, the copy, and then comes the landing page. So you want congruency between your ad and the landing page and even the webinar as far as the branding on the webinar and what’s going on. You’re building that like, know and trust cycle all the way through from the first moment they see it all the way through until they hear you on the webinar and you give the sales pitch. 

[0:15:34]

So that’s part of it. Another part of it is the targeting. I spent a lot of time in the targeting and —

Tim:Right. Sorry I want to interrupt because these are –I want people to be able to understand each kind of part of this and it’s so clear that you know what you’re talking so well that you could do this in your sleep. But for somebody that is unsure so they want to have you know, good photos in their ads right so photos that conveyed trust and they want to make sure that everything is congruent from their ad all the way to their landing page to the actual webinar itself. But what you were talking about before was the actual ads themselves. So first off where in Facebook are these ads? 

Valerie:Sure. So I run them a variety of places and as Facebook changes you have to keep up with all of that. Right now what’s –there’s a couple of things happening. One, Facebook is wanting to show their mobile is really working for their mobiles ads and that’s what they’re reporting back to their shareholders. So they’re really pushing mobile. But what I find is mobile you can get a cheaper cost per lead but those people don’t necessarily convert over to buyers and they don’t necessarily convert over to people who actually show up live on the webinar. 

Tim:I was just going to say is it possible that it’s because of the webinar? 

Valerie:Uh-hum.

Tim:Think about it. You’re on your phone and you’re scrolling through, scrolling through, whitening the line doing whatever and you come across something like that and you’re like oh yeah I’d like to do that. You might – you sign up for it. But does it ever even get put in your calendar? Do you take that next step or does something capture your attention that then you’re off to the next thing and you never even remember. Then you might get reminder emails or whatever but you don’t open them or they get put in your spam or all of those things can happen. Then even the people that do show up if they show up on mobile, it’s not the same experience as if they show up on desktop live to the webinar. It has been what I’ve been seeing. So I will say desktop traffic in the end converts better as far as the sales. Now it is going to cost you more on a cost per lead. 

The other thing I like to do is run ads in the right hand side which people that poor right-hand side has gotten so much flack I mean it used to be the greatest thing on earth and then people were like oh no stay away from the right-hand side. Then they worked really, really good and now they’ve changed the format again and I find they’re not working quite as good as they did the way I used to use them. I use them as a billboard, a reminder and that’s why that —

Valerie:Oh interesting.

Tim:–hot pink that I was talking about because it popped on the right side. But I would use it as a reminder. So what I would do is I would upload a custom audience of all the webinar registrations. Those people that had already registered for the webinar and then 24 to 48 hours before the webinar, I would craft an ad specifically to those people. Remember your free webinar blah, blah, blah is tomorrow or your free webinar is today. Don’t forget at 12 p.m. Pacific Time or whatever was appropriate for the particular ad. I have had so many-and then I would do an image that popped whether it was a countdown timer or like for Nick and I I did an image of Nick and I but I just put a hot pink border around it to grab their attention. But I have so many people that reach back to me and say oh I’m so glad you put that on right-hand side I almost forgot about it. 

Valerie:[Laughs] It’s just amazing how well that strategy works. Now that they’ve changed that format at the right hand side and you don’t have as many ads showing and they’re bigger and they’re – it’s just kind of changed that perception of them. I’m not finding it’s the greatest of success doing it that way but I’ll keep working at it. [Laughs]

Tim:So now your focus of the main is right inside of the post. It’s like a sponsored post? 

Valerie: Yeah it’s in the newsfeed definitely. Uh-hum. But what you have to be really careful and here’s the key difference between the newsfeed and the right-hand side, you know, that right-hand side you can use like a billboard. People are used to seeing that on the right-hand side. They don’t care if that shows 20x during the day for them. 

[0:20:06]

Tim:Uh-hum.

Valerie:But in the newsfeed, if they keep seeing the same ad over and over in their newsfeed, they get really irritated really fast. 

Tim:Uh-hum.

Valerie:People are pretty protective of their newsfeed and they feel like it’s an invasion. So what you have to do on the newsfeed is really keep an eye on what Facebook calls the frequency and that’s the frequency of how often that ad has been shown to that targeting group. One thing you need to be aware of with that is again it’s average. So it might show four as the frequency but that means it could have been shown to some people eight times and some people zero times. So you have to be aware of that. Just to put some numbers to those frequencies of what I like to see, on the right hand side when I’m using it for a billboard, I’ll let that run 20, 30 in the frequency so people see it you know, that amount of times. But in the newsfeed I really don’t like that to get over two because again if it’s at 2 that means one person could have been seen at four times and one person could have been seen at zero times, the overall average is two. But again in the newsfeed, people are seeing it. they get irritated if they’re seeing the same thing over and over especially, especially if there’s not new likes and comments and interaction and engagement going on on that particular post.

Tim:Yeah that’s really interesting. All right so we’ve got some key things for the ad. Obviously you want to have compelling copy that matches up with your landing page, you want to have images that make it pop. You want to make sure that it kind of reflects the benefits that somebody is going to get. So let’s assume that somebody has got a good sense for good copywriting and then it’s going to send them through to the landing pages. So if somebody is using landing pages it’s easy because the software is already set and we know the landing pages convert. But how do you make those two things connect? I mean with this webinar you do with Nick, how did you make it so that the landing page and the ad made so much sense that it –you know, got all those results?

Valerie:Well what I did and of course always test and like you said LeadPages makes it easy. But what I find is if I know the pages convert really well but just have the small picture. But what I find is that the picture I’m using in the ad I can have that picture somewhere on the landing page. So I really actually like the opt-in [0:22:43] [Indiscernible] LeadPages that you can put the picture on the background and then just the short opt-in form that pops up. The problem I find with that is sometimes it’s not enough to get people to actually do the action. A lot of times what I’ll do is once they click, I’ll put just enough of the headline in the call to action to intrigue them. You know, I’m kind of gently by the hand pulling them along the way and when they click to put their name and email in, I’ll actually put like some of the things they’re going to learn there or put a little more there. But just if you have the pictures right, just that picture can make connection. Another thing I have done that has worked really well on the LeadPages where you have like two cohosts for a webinar and you probably know right off the top of your head Tim what the name is of that particular one I’m talking about but it is the webinar page, what the two cohosts in the circle at the top. But I’ve done is actually just taken a print screen of that and then blurred out some of the words or actually just got rid of some of the words. Because one thing you have to really watch out for in Facebook, they really crack down on this is more than 20% text in your picture in your ad.

So you have to make sure that you don’t go over 20% text or they will disapprove your ad and they will do that in a hurry. But what I was saying was I’ll do a print screen or a screen share, you know, just grab that screen shot off of there and then actually turn that into my ad picture so they’re seeing the same colors, the same face, the same picture in the ad and then they go to the landing page and it’s that same exact picture and color combinations. It just makes them feel safe because back in the day a year or so ago, a year or two ago. 

Tim:[Laughs] 

Valerie:You know, we never took them outside of Facebook. It was like very taboo to take them outside of Facebook. 

Tim:Right.

Valerie:You always want to keep them in Facebook and make them feel safe and comfortable. Well these days especially with mobile and especially with Facebook still not running mobile traffic to custom tabs, that’s a huge issue. So to still make them feel safe when they go from the landing page is key.

[0:25:02]

Tim:Interesting. So you’re keeping them safe as they’re transitioning by kind of you know, giving them opportunities to see kind of the connection between the two and also you know, kind of letting them stay where they’re comfortable which is really interesting. 

Valerie:Right.

Tim:So is there – it sounds like we’ve got a lot of stuff here that people can focus on. Is there anything else about you know, this campaign that made it work so well?

Valerie:For this campaign, I think you know, the clear call to action, what I see a lot of people do they want to put so much in and I find that simple is better especially when you’re going to a webinar. You know, when you’re going to a webinar you have the opportunity to deepen that connection and to get all of that information in that you want to get in. So the key thing for the ad and the landing page are who it’s for, what they’re going to learn and they’re learning so that. Here was something Nick taught me long ago and when you’re crafting your copy, say you’re learning Facebook ads so that you can get more customers, that’s a very broad kind of —

Tim:Right. Yeah.

Valerie:–[0:26:19] [Indiscernible] actually but if you put that so that it kind of helps you remember that you need to be thinking of it and looking at from their point of view. Not what your product or service can do in the feature list so much as what change or transformation is it going to do for them. What challenge and frustration is keeping them up at night, what’s your solution and how is it going to change their life. 

Tim:Love it. Well I think this is a great place to kind of stop and it’s a really – this is going to be so interesting to see how people do because I really believe that a lot of people are doing Facebook ads, they’re driving them straight to a sales page. They’re driving them to an opt-in which is fine but you’ve seen these awesome results with actually driving people to webinars and giving them that increased engagement, driving up the trust factor. You know, bringing your brand to the front of their mind. So I think this is such a cool, cool strategy and thanks so much for coming on and sharing this with us. I’ve really enjoyed this episode. 

Valerie:Cool. Thank you so much Tim for having me on. I really enjoyed it. 

Tim:Thanks for listening to this episode of ConversionCast. If you liked what you heard here today, we have something awesome that we want to send you. Our amazing team has created a free reference guide for you with every single split test and piece of conversion data that we have access to here at ConversionCast. This free booklet is packed with incredible case studies and real metrics from real people to show you what’s really working across multiple industries right now. This is the kind of information you won’t find anywhere else. As one of our listeners, we want to give you a copy of this book absolutely free. You can get your copy right now by going to ConversionCastGift.com, again that’s ConversionCastGift.com. Go there now and pick up your copy and we’ll see you next time. 

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