How can I confidently charge higher prices for my ad management services if my client’s campaigns are tanking?

Ouch! I hear you. That’s a tough question.

So client campaigns are not going well. Maybe you’ve got five or ten clients, and they are doing really well. But there’s one that isn’t, and that one can just be dragging you down. Instead of acknowledging all the great results that you’re getting for your other clients, you’re focused on this one, and it’s making you question everything, right? You’re thinking, how could I possibly charge this amount? If you are already charging $2,000 or $3,000 a month, you’re probably going, how can I justify to them this price? Or if you’re charging a thousand or $1,500 a month, you might still be thinking, how do I justify charging them this price? Like I said, it may only just be one of your clients, and the other ones are all doing well.

But as humans, we tend to focus on the negative, right? And it’s not a pleasant place to be. Let me assure you that you’re not alone. Every day I talk to coaches and consultants, and I hear of some interesting stories from marketing agencies and ad managers who have not hit it out of the park and have not treated clients very well in the process.

Now I know that you want to treat your clients well, and I know you want to get them results, but nobody gets a hundred percent results, a hundred percent of the time. You’re not alone. Things just happen. Whether it’s just Facebook being a pig, or maybe it’s just something off with the messaging.

In a previous Online Confidential, we looked at what we do when our client wants to bury their head in the sand and ignore the fact that nobody wants their offer. What do we do with all of that? Despite all of your best efforts, all the hours and hours and hours and years of learning that you’ve done with Facebook, looking at all the trends, knowing insights, knowing what messaging may or may not work and all of it, it can be really demoralizing. How can you charge premium prices or even a thousand dollars a month if your clients’ ads aren’t getting results?

Well, first of all, you need to be ethical. You need to be coming from a place where you do actually have the experience level that you have told your client. If you’ve never run Facebook ads before, but you’ve gone out saying, “Hey, I’m a Facebook ad manager and I’m charging $3,000 a month,” and you get a new client on board and you go, “Wow, what do I do now?” Right? That is not ethical. That’s not ideal. Running Facebook ads for clients, you can start learning on the job for $200 or $500 a month. I recommend that you get paid something to learn as you go, but be upfront with your clients and try saying, “Hey, I’m learning Facebook ads. I am just starting out, so I’m happy to offer this to you for like $500 a month,” and clients say, “Awesome. That’s great because I do not have time to do Facebook ads. I know I need to be doing it, but I’m just so tapped out with everything else.” So being ethical to start with on your experience and what results you have achieved for clients previously is going to put you in good stead and also alleviate your conscience.

I want you to remember that when things aren’t working, remember that you have invested hundreds, if not thousands of hours learning how to run Facebook ads, managing Facebook ads for clients, and that you are the expert. Even if you haven’t spent a hundred thousand dollars a month on Facebook ads. If you’re in there, if you’re in the trenches and you’re doing the learning, then your client is looking to you to be the one who is leading them through the Facebook ads. So be ethical about your skill level and your knowledge and charge accordingly. That’s really going to help you as you go through this process.

Running ads for clients is of great value for your clients because they often don’t have the time, resources, or energy to put into learning Facebook ads. So you partnering with them and providing this as a service is very valuable. And if things aren’t working, then that’s where you then need to communicate!

Communicate through good and bad. What often happens is when ads aren’t working, managers tend to be a bit quieter. They don’t want to talk to the client. And that’s when the client really does not appreciate it. They start to wonder what’s going on. Let them know that you care to have those hard conversations, which may be like saying, “Look, we’re doing all that we can. We’re trying to optimize this. We’re launching new ad sets. We’re bringing in new creative,” and let them know what you were doing so that even if the results aren’t coming in as expected, they are assured that you are on it, that you are keeping them up to date, that you are asking them for fresh ad copy, that you’re asking them for fresh creative, and that you’re letting them know that the conversion rate on the registration page is low.

You should also suggest ways that things can be improved. Communication is key, right? When ads are going really well, that’s awesome. You’ll want to talk to your clients because they’re going to be loving you, and they’re going to be telling you all this great stuff. But also communicate to them when things are not going well so that you can brainstorm and work together because it’s not just all on you. You’re partnering with your ideal client to help them get sales. So communicate with them, share the load with them, and work together to get things working and optimized.

The last thing is to do the work. Don’t just say, “Oh, these aren’t working. I’ve tried everything; there’s nothing more I can do.” And then just let the ads continue to run while you’re not doing anything. Test new audiences; you should be testing something every week. So whether it’s testing audiences, looking for those hidden gems that are off the beaten track from everybody else, testing new messaging, testing new copy, or testing new creative, there’s so many things that you can be doing. Make sure you are doing the work. Don’t just throw your hands up in the air and just sort of leave things to run and get support.

This is where my ad managers Inner Circle is so valuable. We have ad managers and agency owners who are in there, and they are asking questions from our ad coaches. Also, the peer support that’s in there is just fantastic. We have put eyes on campaigns. You can share them with one of the coaches on our calls and they can help to troubleshoot because sometimes we can be too close to the situation. We may think we’ve tried this, this, and this. There are so many times when I’ve been on a call with some of the members and I’ll say, “Oh, look there. I don’t think the image on the ad is congruent with the whole messaging and the landing page and headline.” They went, “Oh, yeah!” So get support!

Know that you are doing everything that you can, meaning you’ve been ethical and honest with your client. You’re communicating, doing the work, and you’re getting support. Now, an illustration that I like to give my Elite Ad Manager students is that of a doctor.

There’s the doctor in his office doing surgery, and patients come in presenting with symptoms because they want to get better. So the doctor, with all his years of experience and hundreds of thousands of dollars on his education, listens to the patient, listens to the symptoms, and will try things according to their symptoms. For example, you’ve got these red itchy lumps. So he’ll try you on this medication. This pill-patient goes off, and they come back a week later after trying those pills, but they’re not working. So the doctor prescribes a different pill; they go and they come back and they’re still not working. And then they try another one and it works! So the patients can go on and on, and not get a clear diagnosis, and come back to the doctor. It’s a process of the doctor’s years of experience, what they know, and the symptoms that the patient presents that help come to a diagnosis.

And that’s what we do as ad managers as well. Unfortunately, with doctors, sometimes the patients don’t get better. Sad, sad truth. And sometimes with us as ad managers, our clients’ campaigns may not get better. Generally people will not, unless it’s something serious, go back and ask the doctor for a refund. The doctors provided the services with the training and expertise that they have had over the years. That’s what we do as ad managers as well. We provide a service with our training and expertise and do the best that we can with the data that’s coming through and make our best-educated decisions on that.

So when you’re wondering, and you’re second guessing about your pricing, I want you to think of that doctor analogy. Doctors have patients presenting symptoms and they may not get better, but they still pay for the doctor’s visit. Same thing as an ad manager, because you are providing the service. You’re providing a super valuable service, and you’re doing the best that you can with it. So even if you have some campaigns that are tanking, I want you to have some time off. That’s going to be a very important thing for you. Look after yourself; self-care is going to be so essential. Don’t get overwhelmed and caught up with it.

One of the best things that you can do would be to take a day off and go do something that you love. Go for a hike, go for a walk, go to the beach, go to the day spa and just switch off for the day. Recharge and get your mind refreshed. And then you may get some groovy idea that you’ll be able to implement.

That might just change everything. So don’t tie your worth as an ad manager to the results at the time that you were getting for your clients. Do the best you can with ethics, communicating with your client, and doing the work.

If you’d like to know more about becoming a certified elite ad manager visit, Eliteadmanager.com and learn more.