Jody: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to this episode of Online Confidential, where we go behind the scenes to talk about ‘Secret Ad Manager’ business. I’m super excited to talk today with one of our Elite Ad Managers, Carrie. So Carrie, welcome to this episode. It’s great to have you here!

Carrie: Thank you, Jody. Thank you for having me.

Jody: Awesome. Okay, I have six questions for you. Are you ready to jump in?

Carrie: I’m ready to jump in!

Jody: Okay. Let’s go. Well, first of all, in a couple of sentences, tell us who you are and what type of clients you run Facebook ads for.

Carrie: Okay. I am Carrie Smith. I have the business Seeds and Coffees. It is named for that because I have a serious coffee addiction.

And to me, Facebook ads is a lot like planting seeds. You gotta nurture it. You gotta let it grow from, you know, from the start. So that’s where the name came from. I’m a stay at home Mom. [00:01:00] I have a wonderful husband, a stepson, a younger son, and. I’d say a mini farm full of animals and they all keep me busy.

Jody: There are a lot of things there and yes, they will all keep you busy. And yes, I love the coffee thing. I drink way too much coffee in my house. My kids are always having a go at me, but you know, well, you know, it’s the lesser of some other vices, right? I think so. Right up there with you with that, love it.

Now tell us who have you run ads for?

Carrie: Yes. So I don’t think I have a niche per se. I have interest in the E-Comm clients. I love subscription boxes. I have done some ads for a hairstylist. We’d done some launch courses for a copywriter, some business courses like coaching. I’ve done a little dabbling in spa products. I have not [00:02:00] found my one and only. I prefer small business owners than larger.

Jody: Yeah, sure. And you’ve had a great variety there. A bit of ecomm, bit of service providers, bit of digital courses.

And that’s the thing with Facebook ads. There are so many niches that we can run ads for. And so many businesses, millions and millions of businesses. And that’s one of the great things that we have is talking to these business owners and learning about a bit about their businesses.

I remember one, I can’t even remember how we crossed paths, but they’re in the UK. And they sold toasted sandwiches. So they had this toasted sandwich subscription that would get delivered, you know, whether it was daily or it was weekly or whatever it was, and it’d be your ham and cheese toasty or whatever else all ready to go.

And I’m thinking, what is this? So many creative ideas. We have a great opportunity to be able to talk to these [00:03:00] creative entrepreneurs and business owners and partner with them to grow their business. So, yeah, I love that you’ve tried a few things and sometimes it’s just, well, you may sort of stay that way, working with a few different ones or that niche may eventually just find you, that one and only, like you said.

What do you like best about being an ad manager?

Carrie: Definitely the flexibility. That was the number one thing. I was previously a homeschool mom and a stay at home mom for years, and I knew that whatever I was gonna do, I had to have it fit around my family. That was just, that was the bottom line, whatever it was gonna be it was gonna work into my family, not me have to change my family for it.

So that’s what I love about it. I work when I can, sometimes it’s five o’clock in the morning. Sometimes it’s 11.30 at night. You know, I go to the kids’ games. I pick ’em up from school. I do what I have to do and ads [00:04:00] just work into it.

I love it.

Jody: That’s awesome. Having that choice and that freedom. I was walking through the shop the other day and it was like, oh, I’m gonna have to go home and do some work afterwards. And yes, it was out of office hours, but still I had the freedom and flexibility, and it’s my choice.

I had the choice and the freedom and the opportunity. Actually, I could go out now and go to the shop. It wasn’t here I am on the clock and it’s like, I can work later on. A hundred percent, and that’s what a lot of us ad managers like about this kind of work.

Okay. We’re up to question number three, doing great.

What do you find is the most frustrating thing about getting qualified leads from social media?

Carrie: Oh my gosh. The targeting. They killed us with the targeting. I would go look in some of the clients audiences they’ve already created and, you know, half of the things I had to remove and it’s just [00:05:00] really hard.

Depending on, of course the client and the situation, and who they’re trying to target, it can really be a struggle. Like you could be really limited with who you can work with. Or you have to go really broad and that’s a chance too. So you know, it’s just not as easy as it used to be.

Jody: It’s not, which is why ad managers are worth their weight in gold.

Okay. Next question.

What is the one significant insight that you would give business owners about Facebook ads?

Carrie: I think it is important. There’s probably two that are worthy of mentioning. First is you’ve got to look at it as an investment. Like you can’t just think it’s gonna work. You can’t go into it [00:06:00] thinking that you’re wasting your money or you’ve failed. Everything is a try. You know, you’ve got to try it.

You’ve got to be able to put enough funding behind it to actually get the results that will tell you something. And it’s not a fail, it’s you learn what’s working and you learn what’s not, and you just keep going down the path of what’s working.

But I think another key thing that I’ve noticed is that a lot of business owners kind of have their idea of what they think their client wants. It’s not always the case. I think you really need to be open minded and flexible to try new things. Like maybe try emojis. If you don’t use them try, you know, an image that might be stretching it a little bit because you never know what your audience is gonna like, you can’t just stay in your box of what you like.

I think it’s really important to be flexible.

Jody:  [00:07:00] It is and that’s where typically when I teach ad managers, they get clients on board, you have your kickoff session and there’s that avatar work of identifying three of them. And that helps them to process it all. But then also, if they actually have testimonials, if they actually talk to previous clients and they hear what words they’ve said, they might not go, ‘oh, wow, this is actually the reason’.

So like you said, sometimes they think they know, they don’t quite. And now, like you said, with the targeting options being removed and changed as much as they have, that’s coming back to really knowing your avatar is so important. I love that you’ve mentioned that in this point.

We’ve talked about what significant insight business owners need to know, what is one significant insight that you would give to other people interested in running ads for clients?

Carrie: Oh, my goodness. Don’t do what I did. I [00:08:00] felt like I’m one of those I can’t remember what they call it.

Like you have to have all the courses, and you have to do all the things, and you have to buy every, you know, $37 deal you see, and you really want to know everything before you get started. Yeah. You so totally don’t have to. And everybody says it. Until you do it.

I think so many people do it so many different ways and there are some yes’s and no’s when it comes to ads, but you really just have to find your way into dabbling with it and learning it as you go.

And you can’t just take one person’s as truth. You just have to really play with it and see what works, because everything is so subjective. So I would just say, don’t box yourself into thinking you have to think, you know everything because [00:09:00] you’re just kind of wasting more time doing that.

Now I am super thankful that I took my Elite Certification course, that was worth it. That gave me confidence. And I think of all the courses and things I’ve done, that was by far the best choice I made, but I did spend a lot of time doing other things, whereas, I mean, it’s true you just gotta get in there and try it.

Jody: We do. And that’s when being an ad manager and you’re spending other people’s money as well, you feel that responsibility and you do, and this is the kind of people that come into my community.

We wear our hearts on our sleeve and we really want to serve and get a great result. And so as we’re there in the depths of ad manager and things aren’t working and it’s like, oh my gosh! So we do want to go, okay, I need to learn it all so I’m ready to go. And I know everything. But as we know with Facebook ads, they can be very [00:10:00] different one day to the next.

And that’s where all of that knowledge is never lost. It’s never wasted. Right. So we draw on that to make these decisions every day with the way that our ads go up and down on a roller coaster. And that’s why being in a community as well, where you can come in and go, ‘Hey, this has happened here. Is anyone else noticing this?’ Is so valuable for ad managers. So you don’t run ads alone.

Carrie: Yeah, you’re not alone. You’re gonna make that mistake.

Jody: We are down to now our final and most important question. Are you ready?

Carrie: I’m ready.

Jody: Okay. Are you a cat or a dog person?

Carrie: I love them both. I would say I have more dogs because my husband hates cats.

Jody: Oh, okay.

Carrie: So I am limited there, but I gotta tell you, Jody, I love my rabbit and I love my goats. [00:11:00]

Jody: Ah, that is so cool. Here in Queensland, we cannot have rabbits because they go feral and they go wild. we’d love to have rabbits! Goats would be super cool as well. Do you ever do a bit of goat yoga there at home and they jump all over you?

Carrie: No, they’re not gentle.

Jody: Awesome. So more dogs. And how many dogs do you have?

Carrie: Three right now. We actually just got a puppy Friday.

Jody: Nice. Oh, that’s very cute times. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here today with this Carrie. So where can people go to learn more about you?

Carrie: Well, on Facebook it is Seeds Coffees, no and. On Instagram the and is in there @seedsandcoffees. And then my website is seedsandcoffees.com.

Jody: Awesome. Okay. Thank you very much for being here! I’ll let you get back to all the goats, the bunny, [00:12:00] and the three dogs and the puppy. So thank you, Carrie. Thanks guys for being here with us today.

Look forward to seeing you next time. Bye for now!