Jason shares his unique approach for leveraging cutting-edge advertising strategies to create rapid and sustainable business growth. Confessions of a Digital Ad Man is a behind-the-scenes immersion into the counter-intuitive methodology that produces winning campaigns for some of the world’s top entrepreneurs…
Episode 1 Segment A:
Life Changing Money
Jason tells the story of a 2011 ecommerce startup recently sold for a billion dollars. After stating that anyone can start an ecommerce business, he talks about an “Amazing .com” conference in Majorca, Spain where they helped Amazon sellers to attract Facebook traffic to their Amazon listings. Every one of the entrepreneurs he met was an average person, including a couple from Michigan making “$20,000 to $30,000 per month selling bamboo diapers.”
Deep Connection to Customers [2:10]
According to Jason, an executive for the company that bought the 2011 ecommerce startup, gave “its deep connection to their customers” as a reason for the billion dollar valuation. Building your business through this customer connection is needed to attain explosive sales growth via word of mouth reaction to activities and advertising.
You Tube Marketing Campaign [3:35]
Jason describes how this successful ad campaign gained attention through its “schlocky, slap stick brand of humor” that created the customer connection.
Dollar Shave Club Ad 4:25 -5:58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI
Digital Advertising to Build Connection [5:58]
Connect with your audience, engage them, and move them through an advertising funnel that they actually enjoy. Work with your customers to have them like and trust you, so they’ll want to buy your products from you. Be authentic and real in your advertisements.
Scaling Up Digital & Social Media Advertising
Jason addresses the strategy needed to increase your daily advertising spend without lowering your ROI (Return on Investment).
- Identify your ideal customer
- What are the things going on in their lives
- How are they talking about those things
- How does your product speak to the pains, problems or frustrations these ideal customers have
- Or connects with their hopes, dreams and desires
Understanding these customer traits allows you to hook them emotionally and connect with them, helping you scale your campaign. Does your copy meet these objectives or are you just selling an offer and narrowing your audience of consumers?
[4:45]- Unnamed Customer Testimonial
Customer marking one year anniversary with Jason’s company, driving 3 million in sales once numbers figured out to properly scale digital advertising while maintaining a profitable ROI (Return on Investment). Client projected the money to double or better in the upcoming year while remarking that they “have been able to change so many lives with scaling. Let’s keep rocking this thing!”
[5:20] – It’s More Than the Money -You Can Change Lives with Your Product
When you’re making money on product “that is designed to really help people. And your product really does deliver on those promises. It becomes so much more than the money.” You can change lives at “very high scale when you connect with your audience.”
[5:58] – 3 Million in Sales Came from Just One Ad
The 3 million in sales for the company who sent the testimonial came from just one ad that they are still running today. After addressing some issues on Facebook, the sales growth is again on the rise.
[6:35]- Facebook Ads by Themselves Just Don’t Work
Jason addresses the belief by entrepreneurs that Facebook ads are “the savior of their company,” but “Facebook ads by themselves just don’t work.” You need to “understand direct response advertising and psychology” along with “deep understanding of your ideal customer so you can speak to them in a way that is meaningful to them.”
Just understanding the mechanics of Facebook won’t create successful direct response advertising. Previous experience in selling or direct response advertising is needed to properly develop Facebook advertising in order “avoid getting accounts shut down” plus gain a deep connection with your customer.
[8:20] – Our Research Process
- “A 13 hour research process when entering into a brand new market”
- We go to our competitors’ websites
- We look at their blogs and their ads on their websites
- To identify themes to determine “their problems, pains, and frustrations” from the title of their blogs and the headline of their ads
- Most large competitors are basing their advertising on feedback from their “ideal customer.”
- A shortcut to this information can be found on a competitor’s website:
- “What headlines they’re using”
- “What pain points they’re pulling out”
- “What desires, hopes, and dreams that they’re calling out to”
- Plus look at the comments on their blog or the posts on their fan page to see customer concerns.
- These comments provide useful data about what’s going on in their customers’ lives and “how you can position your product to solve those issues for them.”
- In addition, we look at the “language” in the comments for connectable customer copy for your ad that:
“You can literally just feed back to customers exactly what they’re saying and it can be the most powerful copy you’ll ever write.”
Surveying your customer is also recommended through services like Survey Monkey that are free.
“Just email your customers and start asking them questions.”
Jason likes to ask something he’s dubbed the SMIQ aka “the Single Most Important Question.” So, ask them an SMIQ about “the benefit your product or service provides.” Put it in “an email, on your fan page,” or “anywhere your customers are hanging out” to get feedback to understand your customers’ concerns and “how you can position your product to solve those issues for them.”
[11:25]- Our Free Training
To “help you get to that next level with your advertising,” Jason has designed an online free training that’s “about 90 minutes long.” “The next one is today.” If you enroll today, you’ll get some freebies:
- Our proprietary Stats Tracking Spread Sheet – that can be customized for all the data we use from all of the various sources
- Our Traffic Conversion Process Map – to make sure that your processes are “maximized to get the most return for every dollar that we spend on advertising. “
- Our proprietary Retargeting Flow Chart – to show you “how we set up retargeting ads in specific types of funnels” to “shorten your sales cycle” and “maximize your sales flow.”
In the training, we’ll go through our Guarantee Profitability Formula which you can use to “run your numbers to see what you would need to do in order to get a return on your ad spend. You can run these numbers before you ever spend a penny on your ads.” Then after your ads run, “you can measure that data, compare them to these key performance indicators” to figure out “what’s working and what not working” to make smart decisions to adjust your process to “get your ads profitable.”
That’s just the highlights. Here’s the link to the free training:
https://jasonhornung.com/webinar
Register today “to get on the path to creating profitable advertising.”
Scaling your Facebook Ads
Jason presents a process that he attributes to helping a client increase their Facebook ad spend from $500 a day to $6866 a day while maintaining 145% ROI (Return on Investment). This method can be applied on “all cold traffic campaigns” on any paid traffic platform including Facebook, Google Ad Words, or Twitter.
[1:33]– Here is his 3 phase multi-dimensional approach for Scaling Cold Traffic Campaigns Profitability:
Phase 1
- Proof of Concept
This step is important “if you’re advertising and you’re just testing things out” but you haven’t created any proof that your product or service “coverts people, especially in Cold Traffic scenarios,” even though you may have had “some success from your own list or joint ventures.” But most people Jason has met with have no prior proof of concept, “they’ve put together their product” and “their marketing funnel,” then “they want to drive ads in it to start generating sales.”
- You need to get “proof of concept on the creative.” That includes:
- Ad Copy and Messaging
- Imagery or Video
- First, you need proof of concept that your ads convert into “leads and/or sales in our numbers that you were looking for.”
- With lead generation, you’re testing to see if our ads are delivering “at the cost per lead that you’re looking for.”
- “If they do, then you’ll continue running it into phase 2, so that you can get proof of concept that you’re getting the sales that you’re looking for within your numbers.”
- Second, we’re trying to get “proof of concept” on audiences.
- “These are different targets inside Facebook (or another platform), different audiences that you are going to show our ads to” in order to “convert them into a lead or a sale.”
- We want to try out your ads on a “large amount” of audiences to see if your creative gives you “the ability to scale.”
- When you get conversion from 10 to 15 different audiences that tells you that you “have a large amount of people to advertise to,” allowing you to scale your campaigns.
- Third, we want to see “proof of concept on our landing page.”
- We want to “drive traffic to the landing page.”
- Similarly, we want to see if our ads are generating leads and/or sales to the landing page.
- “If you don’t get Proof of Concept, you just keep repeating this process in Phase 1.”
- Dimension 1 Scaling
Once you get “Proof of Concept,” your Dimension 1 scaling can start. Jason calls this approach, Vertical Scaling. We are going to “increase the budgets on the ads that have produced leads or sales within the numbers you are looking for.” If it’s working, “it means you’re profitable if you run all your Guaranteed Profitability numbers.” Make sure that you increase your Ad Spend on the ads that are working “incrementally;” quick Ad Spend spikes aren’t the way to ensure profitability.
Here is a link to another video on Incremental Ad Scaling as promised in this video:
https://jasonhornung.com/case-study/scaling-campaigns/
[6:38]– Phase 2
“Continue your Dimension 1 Scaling,” keep increasing your Ad Spend budgets incrementally but at a considerably faster pace. At the same time, move to Dimension 2 Scaling or Horizontal Scaling where we work on “broadening our audiences.” So, we grow our sales both through additional online presence and a larger pool of potential customers targeted. Horizontal lead and sales growth gives you “greater stability” when scaling up campaigns.
“These Phases can take different amounts of time.” Phase 1 should occur in “about a 3 day period,” while Phases 2 & 3 are “ongoing.” Remember these phases will overlap and intertwine. There isn’t ever going to a “clear delineation between phases.” You will also be creating and testing new ads in Phase 1 while seeking new and larger audiences using Phase 1’s Vertical Scaling, Phase 2’s Horizontal Scaling and Phase 3’s Spherical Scaling.
[9:00] – Phase 3
This phase adds in Dimension 3 Scaling or Spherical Scaling. “Think about your market as a circle” that is “broken up into different segments.” Even after you find an audience segment that your messaging is penetrating, remember even successful segments have a “limited scope for scaling.” Each ad message that addresses “a pain, frustration, hope, or desire” will only access a certain segment of your broader audience. So, Spherical Scaling requires constantly creating and testing new ads to try to match messaging with an audience that it connects with.
Jason points to this limitation as the reason the client he references in this segment was limited in their $500 a day ad spend. Multiple messaging to more and wider audiences was a critical part of that client’s successful increase to a $6866 a day ad spend while keeping their 145% Return on Investment.
So, after your first segment grows based on a particular message, Jason suggests you identify another segment of that market and find a message that sparks new leads and sales with that audience. Then, identify a third most accessible market and again follow the 3 phases to create another message for that group. And so on, constantly trying to develop ways of reaching more pieces of your circular market pie.
[12:15] – You Need to Have a Proven Creative and Constantly Be Testing Audiences
You need to find a proven creative that resonates with your audiences. The example client in this episode took their core creative all the way up to 3 million in sales in a year according to Jason. The creative varied in the ads but “their general messaging stay the same.”
Solid proven creatives take time; you can’t just try one and if it doesn’t work give up. Their search for the right ad to scale a campaign has them trying things like “changing the settings” or “the creative structure” to try to find “different combinations that work with your numbers.” It’s a process of trial and error; “this is not a set and forget it game.” You have to be constantly testing audiences and creative approaches with fresh copy, messages, images, and video.
[13:50] – One of the Newest Algorithms with Facebook Penalizes Ads for Running Longer
Currently according to his firm’s Facebook Strategist, “creatives are running two to three weeks.” Jason emphasized that “when you go to scale with an old ad that will amplify your losses.” He encourages constantly changing things up in order to scale.
[14:25] – Multi-Account Strategy
Each account gets to create its own history. Multiple accounts allows you to get away from bad results, disapproved ads, or late payments that effect your account. Also, “if you have audiences that work really well, you’ll want to separate them into different accounts.”
[15:00] – It’s Money
Testing creatives costs money; you will need to spend some significant dollars, likely in the thousands before you find messages and audiences that work.
Jason Hornung’s Chat with E-Commerce Entrepreneur Jeremy Sandow
Jason chats with online marketing professional and current client, Jeremy Sandow.
After joking about their shared short term college experiences, Jeremy’s past involvement with multiple seven figure businesses is mentioned in Jason’s relaxed, fun-loving intro.
[2:08] – Jeremy Talks about his Business
Jeremy left college after one year and “started a successful business that transitioned into
e-commerce.” He had e-commerce success selling on Amazon and “their own web channels.” He developed systems for selling on places like Amazon. These methods were packaged by Jeremy into a program that he sold through webinars which he promoted himself through Facebook advertising.
[4:32] – Jeremy and Jason Connect
A year ago, Jeremy connected with Jason after recognizing he had hit some roadblocks. The most telling roadblock was his limited knowledge of Facebook advertising. His online enterprise was successful, but stalled at the sales levels his $500 a day Ad Spend could achieve because he had troubles scaling his venture.
After mentioning the “countless testimonials” from Jason’s clients who had “gotten amazing results from him,” Jeremy talks about Jason’s no nonsense approach and how he showed them value even before he was hired by discussing “what they were doing wrong” on Facebook along with some proposed paths to success. Jeremy ranks Jason among the very few “that know Facebook in and out.” Jeremy cheerfully boasts that their Ad Spend has increased more than tenfold, up to $7,000 a day.
[6:40] –Results of this Significant Scaling Up
Jeremy starts with the fact that their community of Amazon sellers has grown from 1,000 to 5,000 since this scaling took place. He proudly recounts how at their live events, people within the “tribe” get emotional about how their profitable business model has helped their daily lives. Attributing their program’s positive growth to Jason’s scaling campaign, Jeremy is genuinely thrilled by the substantial revenue expansion and their ability to make a connection with more people.
[8:25] – Those that Can Do, Teach!
Both men talk about how after you reach a level of financial success and security, you want to give back. Being able to share this knowledge for successful marketing is a way to give to others something that will let them find a similar sense of economic security and monetary success. Jason terms it almost “their patriotic duty,” that to not do so would be “un-American.” Not only is the money “awesome,” but so is the feedback and the sense of fulfillment beyond just making more money.
[11:55] – Key to the Results over this Past Year
Despite the “intuitive” nature of Facebook and the easy access to advertising on it, Jeremy warns that “there is a misconception that anybody can scale Facebook to an astronomical level and bring all this cash in.” The reality is it takes a “highly skilled” individual or team with background and knowledge about the workings of Facebook (and other online platforms). Someone operating a successful business full-time wouldn’t have the hours for either the research or the execution. Jeremy praises JH Media’s know-how saying, “there’s no wasted effort or energy, you know what to do at all times.”
Testing is another key element that Jeremy cites for their remarkable growth in just one year. Trying new things, adapting, and evolving with new ideas and ad strategies is part of the JH Media mantra; Jeremy firmly believes this approach led to their expansive growth through scaling.
Having a “proven method” and “being in the trenches everyday” are other key factors surrounding Jeremy’s undying faith in Jason and JH Media’s process for successful Facebook marketing. Finding the “Golden Nuggets of what’s working right now,” coupled with Jason’s constant drive for innovation, never “cookie cuttering” someone else’s ad strategy, are extremely important reasons for Jeremy’s strong partnership with Jason. For Jeremy, it’s just vital to have someone on the “cutting edge.”
[15:24] – Strategy, Psychology, and Direct Response Advertising Tactics
Facebook’s mechanics are simple; it’s the strategy, psychology, and direct response advertising tactics that goes into getting someone “to buy a product or a service.” Jason rightfully points out that the offer matters that “the ads are only half of the equation.” He assures viewers that Facebook is not the savior for a “crappy business model,” even the best ad can’t save you.
[17:20] – Learn more about E-Commerce and How to Sell on Amazon
Jeremy talks about how his free webinar offers critical information and doesn’t just push you to buy his product. Here are some of the topics covered in his webinar:
- How to Choose Products to Sell
- Do your research – check the demand, profitability and competitiveness of a product.
- Remember there’s a system to what sells.
- Know your numbers before you get started.
- Creating an Attractive Brand
- Finding Suppliers, both domestic and overseas plus the pitfalls of each
- How to get “Amazing Deals”
- How to get “Low Minimum Order Quantities”
- Listing, Marketing, and Launching on Amazon
- How to Move Up in your Key Word Ranking – to get to the top of the search results
If you think this webinar might be “pretty cool,” check it out at:
After thanking Jason and plugging Amazon as the best place to start an e-commerce business, Jeremy closes with an invitation to watch his webinar and apply the knowledge by starting an E-commerce business.