Key Highlights

[00:01:30] How Elite helped Jodi take her ads management skills combined with her copywriting talent to the next level

[00:04:00] The day Jodi stepped out of her comfort zone to network in person and met a dream client with a 7-figure business!

[00:09:00] Key learnings about cold & warm audiences after working with a client moving to evergreen

[00:10:30] The one thing you must do with clients when ads aren’t working 

[00:14:30] What to consider when testing different elements of a campaign 

[00:19:00] The power of having a trusted community that can help you grow

Jody: [00:00:00] What are the ins and outs of being an ad manager? This is what we are diving into today in this episode of Online Confidential, where we take you behind the scenes to talk about ‘Secret Ad Manager’ business.

Today on the show, I am excited to introduce you to one of our certified Elite Ad Managers, Jodi Blank. 

Jodi, welcome to the show. 

Jodi: Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.

Jody: It’s great to have you here and it’s always great to have another Jodi around. I was at an event once, where there were four [00:00:30] other Jody’s, so there was five of us in total.

I’m getting a photo of this because this has never happened. Have you ever been in a room where there’s been like multiple Jodi’s?

Jodi: No. No, not at all.

Jody: I think I was the only ‘y’ there was an ‘i’ and a couple of ‘ie’. but it was the craziest thing, so yes. Good to connect with other Jody’s.

Any other Jody’s out there? Hey, welcome, reach out. Say hi. I’d love to hear from you. 

Like I said, Jodi is one of our Elite Ad Managers, and we’re going to be diving in and talking about her [00:01:00] journey as an ad manager working with clients. Before recording, we were talking about what it actually takes when you’re working with a client who has a great warm audience, but then you’re using ads and targeting cold audiences, and that’s something that ad managers need to know about as well as their clients. 

Before we dive into all of that, introduce yourself to the audience. Tell us a bit about what you do. 

Jodi: It’s good to be here. My name is Jodi Blank, and like Jody said already, I’m a [00:01:30] certified Ads Manager. I am also a certified copywriter, so I decided to blend my two areas of expertise together.

And really the reason that I wanted to get certified with Jody was because I had taken a lot of other ads management courses, classes, and worked with a lot of different people teaching me ads. I even coached in another ads group, for other people who were looking to start ads for themselves. And I [00:02:00] realized as I was taking on clients myself, that there was always something I felt that was really missing.

I felt that I had a really good grasp on my copywriting and marketing skills, but when I tried to transfer that into ads management, there was just a lot of things that I felt that I didn’t learn from all the other people that I tried to learn from. When I found you, Jody, I saw a lot of things in what you were teaching that was different and a lot of gaps [00:02:30] that I was really missing.

Just when I joined your membership and I was like, this is interesting. So then I decided that I really wanted to take my ads management services to the next level, which is why I went through your certification program. 

Jody: And that’s why I created it because it was like my own journey as well.

It’s like course after course after course but there’s bits missing. And so that’s why yes, I brought that all together. I love how you’re [00:03:00] a copywriter and that really showed, by the way, as you submitted the exams, because in Elite we talk a lot about copywriting, messaging and knowing avatar because while it’s one thing to know what buttons to click and campaigns to select an ads manager. 

If the copy and the messaging isn’t all on point, then the ads aren’t going to convert. Jodi, as you went through and you did the tests, it was like, wow, you could see your copywriting expertise really shined through in all those things. Well done and kudos to you there for that. 

Jodi: Thank you 

Jody: It’s a perfect match. The [00:03:30] copywriting, that really enhances your ad expertise there as well. And so you work with course creators and do launches as well?

Jodi: Yes. Work with course creators, coaches. I am looking into working with a couple of local businesses, which I had some leads for that lately at a recent conference that I was at so we’ll see where that leads. 

Jody: So let’s talk about that. We were chatting about that beforehand because, I send out an email, the ad [00:04:00] manager diaries, which is just reflections on being an ad manager. And the one that I sent out recently resonated with this experience. So tell us about that.

You got out from behind the computer and went to see people in real life. 

Jodi: Yes, and as a person who doesn’t like to leave the comfort of my desk. I’m very much an introvert, but I did know that I wanted to expand into having clients in the local business area and being a local voice in the area for business women that I really needed to get out there.[00:04:30] 

So I attended a local women’s conference and it was a very interesting experience. It had been a while since I’d been at any sort of conference, a few years actually. And I was laughing because in your email you were talking about, eager people to introduce themselves and their businesses, which is one of the reasons that I was there too.

So it was a funny experience just being in a room with a bunch of people who were there to network. 

Jody: It is. I totally relate to that because [00:05:00] I’m an introvert as well. It’s going out and meeting people, going to events like that, I’d rather be hiding behind the pot plants!

There’s a Todd Herman book about the alter ego effect. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not that fake it ‘til you make it saying, it’s just like putting on this alter ego of I’m out here, I’m here, I’m networking, I’m confident I have this ad management business, and I can support every business owner in this room with Facebook ads.

So getting that confidence. You said [00:05:30] you needed to get out from behind a computer, go and connect. Tell us a bit more about that process. Was it like at the last minute where you’re like, eh, no, I’m not going to go. How did you get that, put on that brave face to get out there and go? 

Jodi: I had a friend that was coming in to speak at the conference, which was one of the things that really forced me to do it, because otherwise I might have been like, oh, I don’t want to go. 

I don’t necessarily want to go. There were a lot of things that were [00:06:00] happening that were out of my comfort zone. there was a dance one night and I was like, no, I don’t want to be at a dance. 

A lot of women had a lot of glitter and stuff on. So it was one of those things that I went and talked to people and I made a lot of great connections. I met a few women there that I was looking to connect with, other women who were in that six figure income range looking to grow into the next range.

[00:06:30] I met a few women there that were in that position, so that’s really who I was looking to connect with. So it was a valuable experience for me. I did learn a lot. I learned a lot about networking events and even as I was watching them put on this event and thinking about how to run ads for some type of an event like this, my brain just started working.

Even though I wasn’t comfortable with some of the dancing and the photo opportunities and stuff like that, I did get a lot out of [00:07:00] it in other ways. So it was good. 

Jody: Awesome, it sounds like you went in there with a plan. You knew who the type of person that you wanted to connect with, that was great, and that can help to take your eyes off all those other things that are like, eh, the dancing and the things that aren’t so good.

You went in, had a bit of a laser focus of what you were here to achieve and you had that friend that was speaking there. That’s great advice, if anyone ever is nervous about going to an event, have a wing man who’s your business bestie that you can [00:07:30] take along with you as that support person so you’re not there totally alone.

So congratulations. Good on you for getting out there. You were saying from that you have some contacts that are good potential leads that you’re going to be following up with. 

Jodi: Yes, for sure. I met two in particular. She was very excited about connecting with me.

She was just in conversation, talking about she has a million dollar business and she was looking at [00:08:00] really growing it. She said her goal is to be a million dollars a month, and she wanted to put her program in Evergreen. And I said well you know that’s what I do, right? 

She was like, shut up. No, I did not know that’s what you do, because like you don’t. She was the big speaker, and I wasn’t necessarily going there to pitch her what I do. It just came up in conversation which was the perfect way.

Jody: [00:08:30] Exactly, authentic conversations that we have with people face-to-face versus just an ad or a lead magnet or seeing our emails and that trust factor as well. She has personally connected with you. She knows you’re a human. There’s that relationship that started to build, so therefore that is such a warmer lead and there’s going to be a much warmer sales conversation when you get to that point.

All because it came about from while you went to the event with, okay, here’s some goals, objective strategies. Yes, we want that. [00:09:00] Sometimes we go to things for the fun of it. Other times we go there for the fun of it and also with intent. And while you went there with that and it’s like this is the fruit of getting out from behind the computer.

Excellent. So keep us posted on that. While you were in Elite you had a client on board who was taking their program evergreen, getting out to Facebook to cold audiences, their Instagram following was great. They had great warm audiences, but when we go out to Facebook ads to cold [00:09:30] traffic, that’s a completely different ball game.

And that’s something that you’ve been experiencing along the way here. So tell us a bit about that and strategies and things that you’re doing to help your client to navigate this cold traffic. 

Jodi: When I first started working with this client, I did ads to her warm audience.

We didn’t have a lot of time to set up a cold audience beforehand, so we did a launch [00:10:00] campaign that was basically to her warm audience and it went really well. I think she spent $300 on ads and I don’t remember the exact numbers, but she spent $300 on ads and we got her between four and six times ROAS on the campaign.

Jody: Nice. 

Jodi: The reason we don’t know the exact numbers is because it’s a membership and we don’t know exactly how long people are staying. So it was really successful and [00:10:30] then we decided to put it on Evergreen. And once we put it on Evergreen, it did not work the same.

We realized that there was some messaging issues and so that is something that I’m working through with her. She’s redoing her webinar, she’s redoing some messaging and we’re doing some testing on her messaging to see what works with a really cold audience for her membership.

It’s an interesting process and she’s super appreciative. But we’re still finding [00:11:00] that, she’s doing a live launch right now with her warm audience and it converts completely differently than it does with a cold audience. 

Jody: Exactly, and that’s the thing. As we start to work with clients, and especially if it’s this new funnel, a new offer, and we’re going out to cold traffic, very different to that audience that knows us.

So that’s why it’s important to get people into the audience. While there are people who do convert from cold traffic, those ones that we’ve taken that time, we’ve brought them in, we’re nurturing them, they’re getting to know [00:11:30] us just like you going to that live event and connecting with someone and they get to know you, that’s the same thing as we’re doing on social media.

Do you mind sharing what the daily budget that you are using to send ads to cold traffic? 

Jodi: The daily budget is actually pretty low, because of the way that we’re doing the testing. It’s only around $20 a day. 

Jody: That’s the thing we need to educate our clients with. That’s what we [00:12:00] want to educate ad managers about as well. With ad budgets like that, it’s going to take a while to get the data because $20 a day for an ad set, if it’s costing you, for example, $3, let me just say $2, typically it would be $3, but maths off the cuff is a bit tricky.

$2 a click, that’s 10 clicks to the landing page. Eight of them might actually land on the landing page, and a 20% conversion rate is just two people opting in. So with those kind of numbers, we can see that over a week. [00:12:30] That’s two a day, two sevens are 14, that’s 14 people that have opted in.

So if it’s an evergreen webinar, for example, we typically want a hundred people to go through that before we can start seeing some data on what’s the conversion rates on the webinar? It is a slow process with lower budgets like that. So that’s why we need to educate our clients before they come on board, and especially if they’re launching things and if they’re going to cold traffic, that it’s going to take time or it’s going to take an investment of money.

And both [00:13:00] typically. 

If they have more to spend then they can get results faster. Otherwise, if they don’t have more to spend, then it’s going to take longer to get those results. That’s why signing a client up for three weeks and giving them the correct expectations about what we’re going to do.

After we’ve got some data through here then we can adjust and test some messaging. It’s a lengthy process. It’s not something that’s going to be switched out day after day. It’s going to be week after week, or maybe even a couple of weeks. [00:13:30] 

So how have you handled that? With messaging, and I know in your copy experience, that certainly has your client in good hands as you can help her with that messaging.

But what kind of things have you done or have you looked at? Okay, we’ve run this for a week. This is what’s worked or what hasn’t worked. What’s been your next steps generally, as you get that data in? 

Jodi: What we are doing is, once we put the [00:14:00] live offer on Evergreen, and we realized that there were people going through her webinar but not converting, or there were a few converting that were returning the product.

We sat down and had a conversation about it. All right, so something’s wrong here, let’s try this. And at first, to be honest, we were shooting out into thin air what we should change. But once we talked through how we were going to go [00:14:30] through a process of testing, and only testing one thing at a time to see what it was that was working and what it was that wasn’t. That’s when we started getting results and started to see, okay, this is the message that people are wanting to hear and this thing that we were doing with your live audience or your warm audience, that message doesn’t connect with people who don’t know her. 

Once we figured that out we started to go through messaging testing. So [00:15:00] first it was what’s the actual message? Then we would test copy. Then we would test the image and one thing at a time, which I think most people or most clients have a really hard time being patient doing that.

And once I talked through that with her she was very understanding. I think in the beginning she couldn’t understand why things weren’t converting, but once we talked through the fact that, hey, we can’t guess at five different things and try [00:15:30] five different things at once.

We need to do one thing at a time. So we know in the future we want to have a successful ad campaign for as long as possible. We don’t want to just be throwing things in the wind to see what works. 

Jody: Absolutely. So one of the things I hear that you’re saying is communication. That was such a crucial part of it.

So while the ads were going out, things weren’t landing or resonating, and this is where clients if they’re not correctly educated would be saying, the ads [00:16:00] aren’t working. The ads aren’t working. And sure the ads maybe aren’t working, but why are they not working?

So let’s go back and look at these things and identify them. I love that you and your client were patient enough to test one thing at a time. And again, that’s about having clients that are looking at the long-term game, not just the quick, I need to get results here because I need to pay the Amex this month.

It’s, this is my business, I understand Rome wasn’t built in a day. We’re going to have to do some testing and refining things along [00:16:30] the way. 

As long as you, the ad manager communicates that with them and holds their hand, guides them through that process, then your clients are, I was going to say happy, they’d be happier if they had sales, but they are confident they have partnered with someone who’s got their best interests at heart, and you’re working together to get them results.  

I love that you’re patiently working with this, so kudos to you for having [00:17:00] that next level of communication for guiding you through.

That’s awesome. Your client is in amazing hands with you. 

As we talk to other ad managers out there, what’s some advice that you would have for them with regards to running ads for clients? 

Jodi: Actually, it’s funny that I do have other ads managers asking me a lot of different questions, or they’ll come to me and say, because I’m in a couple of other different groups, so they know me as an ads [00:17:30] manager.

They will say, somebody’s asking me to run ads for them. It can’t be that hard. I’ve actually gotten on the phone with one person and helped her through to help her person, run their ads. 

So I would say that for other ads managers out there, make sure that if you are working with a client that you really do know everything that you need to know to [00:18:00] run successful ads for your clients. 

I can tell you that I thought that I knew everything I needed to know, but there’s always more to learn and just make sure that you’re really finding somebody that is trustworthy, who’s going to  teach you everything you need to know to run your own successful business. 

Secondly, I think the even bigger thing is to make sure that you’re working with the right people.

And that you know that they have an offer that you can help them with that will convert and that [00:18:30] they need to be working with the right ads manager and they’re ready to work with an ads manager as well. 

Jody: Yes, the right clients is such a crucial key because if you’re not signing up the right clients, if you’re not screening them correctly, if you have that feeling in your gut that you shouldn’t be signing them up and you’ve ignored all the red flags and you do, you’re just going to be in for strife and it’s not a good time for you the ad manager, or for your clients.

So love that you went there, Jodi, the right client certainly set you up [00:19:00] for success. So that’s amazing. 

Do you have any other tips, insider secrets? Oh, learning as well. Constantly learning as ad managers, right? 

Jodi: For sure. 

Jody: It’s never ending. So do you have any other tips? Anything else you’d like to share with anyone today? 

Jodi: I think the biggest thing is as an ads manager, we can psych ourselves out too and get into that little bit of a self-sabotage mode. Can I really help this client? Maybe this client’s too big for me. Maybe [00:19:30] I don’t know enough to help this person.

If you’re feeling that way, the best way to overcome that is to make sure that you’re getting support from the right person. And I’m not saying this to pitch your program cause I’m not, but I am saying I learned so much from being with other ads managers. 

I learned so much from being in your group and from you and just having that one-on-one time where I could get all of those questions answered [00:20:00] that we all sit there and wonder about as an ads manager, is this the right thing to do? What should I do here? And being able to come onto those calls with you was so helpful. 

I really feel like taking on the projects that I did, I wouldn’t have been able to do that without your support and the support of your team. Make sure you have that from somewhere. 

Jody: Thanks for that. It’s why I created Elite and the communities that I have because I spent years myself sitting at this [00:20:30] little desk spending a thousand dollars a day on client campaigns, on one ad account going, oh my gosh, am I doing the right things?

Sometimes we can get in our own heads and think, I should know this or I should know that. This is a dumb question. There’s no such thing as a dumb question because there is so much to Facebook ads.  

There’s the technical elements of the algorithm, the data sets, all those things as well as the strategy and the copy and the messaging and meshing it all together.

On that as [00:21:00] well, we were talking about this earlier and taking things to cold traffic. 

For myself, I’m launching a new program and a new offer ‘The Successful Ad Manager’ that’s going out to new audiences, to cold traffic. Just like what you’re doing with your client, and for me, a lot of us, we’re looking at things all the time and we can just get blind to little things here and there. 

When we talk to our clients or we were to talk to another ad manager for example, and we say, ‘Hey, what’s your thoughts on this landing page?’, or [00:21:30] ‘What’s your thoughts on this ad copy?’, we can be desensitized to it. 

That’s what I’m going through myself as I’m doing ad copy and the landing pages, et cetera, for this new program. For ad managers as well, while we are working on client campaigns, it’s just so important to have that sounding board to bring these questions and say, ‘Hey, what’s people’s thoughts on this?’

And get feedback from the community of other people who are in the trenches, and are doing Facebook ads with heart and passion. Get a trusted community and get advice and feedback from them.

Whether it is your client campaigns or whether it is also, potential clients having a booked call lined up and, oh, hey, someone’s reached out to me about this and they messaged me at 10 o’clock at night on Facebook. So to start with that might be, oh, okay, watch this one, there may be some boundaries needed.

There’s so many areas and being in that community where you get that support is vital. Thanks for sharing that, [00:22:30] Jodi. 

If people want learn more about you, where can they find you? 

Jodi: My website is the best place. It’s jodiblank.com. That’s the best place to find out the programs that I offer and the different services that I offer.

Jody: Jodi, thanks for being here with us today and for sharing very real information about what it’s like to be an ad manager. So again, congratulations for all that you’re doing with your client, working with her to get that funnel [00:23:00] working with cold audiences. 

I’ve no doubt that you’ll absolutely crack it in time, and when you do, it’s going to be absolutely worth it. She’ll be so happy. 

Congratulations on the future results there. 

Thanks everyone for being with us today. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye for now.