Jody: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of online confidential, where we are going behind the scenes to talk about secret ad manager business with one of our Elite Ad Manager graduates, a certified Elite Ad Manager and just all around great human Sam Bright. So Sam, welcome to the show!

Samantha: Thank you. Thanks for having a chat I’m looking forward to this. It’s very exciting!

Jody: Yes, and you are just one of those people that tells it like it is. You have a lot of fun along the way, along this stressful journey of sometimes being an ad manager, right. All the ups and downs. And I know when I am going through Instagram and I see your stuff pop up in the newsfeed, I go, oh, that’s awesome, I love her sense of humor. And then all the things that you have, and you’re off and doing, like in your organic garden. You were just telling me about the bees that you have and the Land Rover. All the things and the beautiful flowers.

Anyway, we digress, people can check out [00:01:00] where they can find you a bit later on.

Tell us in a couple of sentences who you are and what type of clients you run Facebook ads for.

Samantha: Sure. So you’ve introduced me, my name’s Sam Bright. I’m based in Brisbane. I work from home. I am an ads manager and I mainly serve online course creators and service providers, but I also have some established brands as well that I look after.

Jody: Awesome. Okay. And second question. What do you like best about being an ad manager?

Samantha: Yeah, there’s so many things. The role fits into the way I like to work, which is autonomously. All my roles have had a great amount of that. I don’t do well turning up to an office at 8:15 every morning like an external office.

But what I love about it is that it’s constantly changing. Now that also [00:02:00] makes it, you know, sometimes a little frustrating. But it’s not just the platform that constantly changes. Having a variety of clients means you’re looking at different sorts of content. And constantly upskilling.

If I’m not in a role that I’m always learning and have opportunity to grow in, I don’t tend to do well. And being an ads manager has all of that.

Jody: It certainly does. We’re always growing and learning, running ads for clients. Right.

So, third question. What do you find is the most frustrating thing about getting qualified leads for your ad management services on social media?

Samantha: Well, I think whether it’s ad management services or selling widgets, right? The whole thing with leads in social media is quantity and quality. Like you can get leads really cheap, but it’s all fodder and you end up spending a lot of time wading through that [00:03:00] fodder to find if any, actual leads.

Then on the other end of the scale, and I know a lot of small businesses struggle with this, is the cost to get a qualified lead can be expensive and it’s walking through that. If this customer is worth $2,000 for you, is that expensive? Regardless of what industry you’re in, whether you’re selling a product or service it’s quality versus quantity with lead generation on socials.

Jody: Exactly. And I love that you’ve brought up that point, right. Because that’s what we say. Oh, I’ve been saying that for years, cheap leads are not always good leads. Yes, there can be an element of it is a volume game, especially if you’re doing business to consumer a lot, then yes, it can be a real volume game.

Get those cheap leads in and then those conversion numbers. But again that [00:04:00] expectation so when you have people who are newer to Facebook ads, a great ad manager, like yourself, is going to help a potential client understand that okay, this is what our anticipated conversion rates are, but we only know once we invest the data into it. Right. Invest some money, get the data back from it.

So yes, that certainly can be frustrating. And then especially when you see others posting, oh, we’re getting all these $2 leads, $1.50 leads all the rest of it. It’s like, yes, but tell us about the conversions on the back end.

Samantha: Yes!

Jody: Now, what is one significant insight that you would give business owners about Facebook ads?

Samantha: I think this answer could have gone for the last question as well. The significant insight I wish more people knew about ads was how predictable they are. Not guaranteed. How predictable they are.

And so just [00:05:00] simple, before I say the word ‘maths’, I don’t want the majority of your audience to glaze over and say, this bit is not for me. Just some simple numbers. If I show this ad to a thousand people and one person buys and my product is worth a dollar and it costs me a dollar, I broke even. They’re just really simple metrics, right?

Ads are based on metrics like that. If I showed this ad to a thousand people, one registered for my webinar and it cost me $1. They’re the kind of predictable outputs you can get, but a lot of small businesses or people who don’t have big budgets don’t understand that their first campaign is yes to get results, but we’re also buying data so we can have a more predictable outcome in the future.

And so they’ve just hired the cheapest person they could find to run traffic ads [00:06:00] to a landing page, so people visited your website. What did that tell me? People looked at your website? Woohoo! The thing I want them to know is that it can be predictable, but you need to buy the data first to know if that makes sense.

Jody: Yeah, exactly. That does make sense. And like you say, woohoo! Yes! We’ve got people to your website, but we need to get that data. And while we do have benchmarks of like, this is what industry standards are. This is what we’re seeing in other accounts. You’re only going to know once you launch the ads.

Samantha: Exactly.

Jody: And again, that’s the advantage with Facebook ads. You can run them for a week, put some ad spend in, invest, get that data. Look at the data and go, okay, this is what we need to change or pivot because we are not on track for these benchmarks. And so we can very, very effectively stop, pause, tweak, and away we go again and [00:07:00] let’s get the new data in.

So awesome. Love that. Thank you, Sam. Okay.

The next question is what is one significant insight that you would give to other people who are interested in running Facebook ads for clients?

Samantha: So with any job I’ve ever worked in or any career I’ve ever had, I have looked at who is doing it best. Right? So when I was in business development for banking, I would say who’s the top performer in Australia, fly me there and I’ll shadow them for a couple of days.

Now sales people don’t like that. Just an inside there. But once I seen what they were doing and realized it wasn’t some magical other worldly power that they possessed to get the results that they were getting. And simple, old me could potentially replicate that, I was on it. And that applies anywhere.

So, if you are looking to move into this [00:08:00] space, find a mentor or provider that has runs on the board that you can qualify, check, pay them so there’s an equal value exchange and do everything they say. Cause why wouldn’t you? And, you know, as you alluded to before, I have lots of hobbies and at the moment I’m deep into sour dough production, and I found this YouTube video and the woman was like, if you don’t know how this dough is meant to feel you haven’t baked enough loaves, bake more loaves.

And so that’s the same advice I would give, get the mentor, pay them, do what they say and bake a lot of loaves. And that means finding customers that have a lower budget, but their lower budget might match your lower skill level and you’re completely upfront about it and together you provide for them.

You provide the service for them and they allow you a little extra time to learn and then your skills get better and you go, well now, my budget [00:09:00] has increased and you get to move through. I worked as an ad assistant for some amazing ads managers for some really, you know, terrible money.

But I got my eyes on some campaigns that I would not have seen for two years, and it gave me so much confidence to go wait a minute, running a big campaign, if you’re organized is really similar to a small campaign. There’s just extra bits. And so find a mentor with runs on the board and pay them, do everything they say, bake a lot of loaves.

That’s it.

Jody: I love the bake a lot of loaves and yes, like you said, while running ads for clients can be a lucrative thing, 10,000, 20,000, 100,000 dollar months. Right. We just had a guest in the Inner Circle and he just sent an invoice out to one of his clients for $45,000 for a month for one client.

Samantha: That’s nice!

Jody: And it’s just [00:10:00] him. I think he’s got about eight and it’s just him. Eight clients.

Samantha: How many dahlia bulbs do you think I could buy for $45,000?

Jody: and sourdough tins to bake a few more loaves?

So, you will start somewhere. So while there is virtually untapped earning potential when it comes to running ads for clients. And then if you’re putting on your percentage of ad spend as well, getting great results, we all start somewhere.

At this time of recording, it was, you know, nearly seven years ago, it was a pivotal point in my career where our family went for a very rare holiday. The kids were all much smaller and I, had a real client kind of thing. I’d had clients, I was running stuff. I was on Upwork and doing all sorts of stuff, but this was like a guru. And I said, oh yeah, I’ll help out.

And I was getting paid $12 an hour and I had to go across the road to the [00:11:00] McDonald’s to access the wifi.

Samantha: Super professional.

Jody: It was, and I can tell you my hourly rate would’ve been less than $12 because I was still going well, how does all this work? I wasn’t really charging them for the amount of time that I was spending.

So I was actually less than a $12 hourly rate, but I was getting skills. I was getting used to how things were done, getting all those things.

Samantha: Absolutely.

Jody: And then when you do get in there and you realize it’s like, oh wow, okay, there’s this, and you’re learning. Then you’ve also got to look back and acknowledge well, I can now do this and I’ve done this and I’ve helped to get these results.

Yeah. So like you said, if you’re newer and you’re starting out, if your confidence levels aren’t so high. There are business owners everywhere that need to run ads. Some of them don’t want to run ads and they’ve got the budget to pay people to run ads. Like Sam there, who’s got all the experience in charging more premium prices, but then there’s ones that can’t afford premium prices and they don’t have the time and capacity to [00:12:00] run Facebook ads.

They will happily pay you to learn with their budget.

Samantha: Exactly.

Jody: And that’s what I always say. Be transparent. Let them know that I’m just starting out with this. I’m happy to do this for you for $500 a month, which would be an absolute steal and get a testimonial from them.

Samantha: That’s what I did. I know when I worked in an industry for the first time, like whatever that was, I would say I haven’t run ads to this.  Like I absolutely told them.

And therefore, and, you know, getting back to that equal value exchange thing, therefore, this is how we’ll do it. But, the platform changes so much. It’s always evolving. And if you are in a lot of accounts, one account has a change. And the other one doesn’t, you know what that makes it an even playing field for new entrants.

Because if anyone tells you they’re an expert, run, Because, how can you be an expert in a platform that evolves daily [00:13:00] and changes more often than that?

Jody: Exactly. Like you said, Facebook will be rolling out tests and trials in some accounts and then not in other accounts. So exactly. Yeah. That’s where being in a community of ad managers is so important and without Elite and The Clique, the mastermind where you guys are all sharing your experiences.

And I know Sam, you are the queen of what to do when there is a page or an account shut down.

Samantha: It’s early in the morning, I’m gonna have a good day. Let’s not talk about that.

Jody: Don’t jinx it, don’t jinx it.

Okay. And again, I just wanna tap into that again, where you were talking about, you know, if you’re newer. That’s one of the things that I’ve seen working with you for, wow, about, oh, was it two years or three years or something?  It was 2020.

Samantha: Yeah. Well, December marks the, so I had social media business and ads and December this year marks a year of just ads. [00:14:00] So it probably would be two years. Yeah.

Jody: Yeah. So, and in that time, something that I’ve really admired from you is the integrity and ethics that you really have as you work with clients and just being absolutely upfront, and this is how it is, or I don’t have experience with this.

So that’s a credit to you. And again, your clients are likely to work with someone who has that kind of transparency. So that’s awesome. Okay.

We have one final question and this could be the most important one. Are you ready?

Samantha: Yes.

Jody: Are you cat or a dog person?

Samantha: Well, given that I have two mini Schnauzers asleep in my office that I might have installed a filtered drinking water fountain for them. I think that would make me in the dog camp.

Jody: I think very much so they are very lucky Schnauzers let me tell you. Awesome. [00:15:00] Okay, Sam. So if people want to connect with you, learn more about you, where can they do that?

Samantha: So you can find me on Instagram @adsforbreakfast. That’s probably the main place to connect and that’s my website as well. And in the organic social media space, you can find me @therealsocialsauce.

Jody: Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much, Sam. It’s been a pleasure being here with you guys.

Everyone go over, check out ads for breakfast and the real social sauce. That’s it. Isn’t it?

Samantha: Perfect. All food. Notice all food!

Jody: Good. Sam’s got some great quirky branding there and make sure you run over and check her out. Oh, did you save all those stories that you did for that recent launch?

Samantha: Yeah, they were all reels. It’s five part reels. Yep. Awesome.

Jody: Go and check out what Sam did. She did this great breakdown of Denise Duffield Thomas’s at the time of recording DDT just released her new Sacred Money Archetype course. Sam was there behind the scenes. Like she didn’t work on the [00:16:00] campaigns at all.

She was doing breakdowns of like, right, so these are the ads that are coming out and this is this. So go over and check out those reels that she did. They were brilliant. So yes. Kudos to you for doing those. Thanks for being with us today guys.