How much can you earn per month as a Facebook ad manager?

Hold on to your shorts! We’re going to be talking about some crazy numbers here today that you might just think would be an annual income, rather than a monthly income. As a Facebook ad manager, you are a rainmaker! You are essential to businesses increasing their revenue, so the service that you provide is super valuable. A lot of ad managers that I talk to who are just starting out have their mind absolutely blown at the amount that they can make per year or per month running ads for clients.

I was talking to a colleague recently who, by themself, is managing a handful of clients, maybe ten, and they’re making about $100,000 per month. And they’re actually on their way to $200,000 per month just with ten clients. Or they were maybe getting another couple of clients on board gunning for $200,000 a month. Insane, right? Who would have ever thought going to school that you’re going to be making $200,000 a month?

Sure. There are some people that may have felt that and kudos to them, but it’s certainly not something that we are taught at school, how to be an ad manager. This could be a career path and what your income possibilities are. So that is obviously one big extreme. And, of course, that’s not what you’re going to be starting out with, right? If you are starting out as an ad manager, we need to start where we’re at a level that suits us and our confidence. Because if you are going to be pricing someone even $2,000 a month and you try and pitch that price, and you’ve never actually launched a campaign before, chances are you’re going to choke, and you’re going to feel a lot of pressure delivering for your client charging that amount.

Many ad managers do start out at a lower rate, and they get some experience on board. I tell people you need to be 100% transparent. You can say, “I’ve never run campaigns before. I am just learning Facebook ads. I’d love to give this a go for you. And you know, a nominal rate of $500 per month where I’ll go in and I’ll do X, Y, Z. I’ll take care of all that for you.”

And they’ll hopefully say, “Brilliant. Please do. I don’t want to waste my time in there. I’m too busy as it is.” So starting off at a bit of a nominal fee and getting some runs on the board is super valuable for you. Get those case studies together and build your confidence. Before you know it, three months down the track, you can be charging a thousand dollars, $1,500, or even $2,000 per client. Now when people join my Elite Ad Manager program, if they get in within a certain time window, we have an ad manager action plan meeting.

It’s a 30-minute call where we look at their strategies to hit their income goals. A lot of these people that are joining are not really looking for full-time work. Some of them are, which is great. That means a maximum of 10 clients or so, but others are juggling little kids and homeschooling and various things. So five to six clients is enough for them. And maybe they only need to earn $5,000 a month, so that’s their first goal. When we sit down and we actually look at the lifestyle that they want, they only want to work part time and the actual income that’s required for that, their eyes light up and they see how it is possible to actually hit $5,000 per month without having to go off to that nine-to-five and work all these long, crazy hours and worry about all the commuting.

I recently did an interview with one of my friends, Marsha, who’s another amazing ad manager (we’ve been ad best buddies for years now). She shared her story of coming from corporate America to having kids and then working from home, learning how to run funnels, build funnels for people, and then going into ad management services and how she first charged someone like $50 for the first funnel or whatever.

And she thought, “Wow, this is amazing.” And from there, she’s earning well in excess of $10,000 per month running ads for clients making six figures per year, working from home part-time with her three little kids. So it’s completely possible. If you were to just have five clients paying you $1,000 per month for Facebook ads, which is completely like a base-level price, totally achievable, that’s $5,000 per month. Now what I do want you to consider, and this is what I point out in our ad manager action plan, is that you do still have expenses on that. You’ll have to set aside around 30% for taxes.

You might want to get a VA on board to just relieve some time for yourself. So that could be, you know, 10 hours a week that you might have someone that’s coming in and doing the reporting and various other administrative aspects. You might also want to pay for a bookkeeper. You may have some subscriptions that you’re paying for as well. We have a calculator that looks at all these other expenses so that you can see what you actually need to bring in each month in revenue so that you can actually take home that income goal into your pocket each month. So depending on those expenses, if you have VAs, if you’re outsourcing copywriting, if you’re outsourcing graphic design work, et cetera, to bring home $5,000 per month, you may need to actually make $9,000 in revenue. I know you might go wide.

Where does that $4,000 go? Well, hello, Mr. Tax Man, right? They like to take their cut. So you want to make sure that you’ve earned it and you’ve put it aside. That way you don’t have to dig it out of your pocket. So even if you do need to make $9,000 a month to bring in $5,000 per month, if you have, again, just five clients who are paying you $2,000 per month, that’s $10,000. Another thing to consider when you’re running ads for clients is the ad spend that you’re managing. Managing $3,000 a month in ad spend is a hundred dollars a day.

I was going to say it’s easy, but it’s actually not as easy as running a thousand dollars a day. There’s all sorts of different challenges when you’re working with smaller budgets. But if you’ve got a client that’s running $3,000 a day, that is awesome! But $3,000 a month with their Facebook ads, you can also be charging 10%.

That’s a pretty typical nominal amount of ad spend percentage to charge your clients. So you might have a thousand just to keep the numbers nice. Or even a thousand dollars a month retainer plus 10% of ad spend. So if they’re spending $3,000 a month in ad spend, that’s another $300 that you would be charging them at the end of the month.

So your monthly fee from that client isn’t just a thousand dollars; it’s $1,300. And then if you’re getting them amazing results and they’re scaling up because sales are coming through and they scale up to 5,000 or $10,000 per month, then you’ll get that 10% of $10,000, which is an extra thousand dollars. So that $1,000 client is now a $2,000 client. And if you’re charging $2,000 per client, you’ve got five clients on board, then that’s $10,000 per month. Remember that you’ll be taking some out for all those expenses. So you might be bringing home 6,000 a month. But if each of those clients are also paying that 10% of ad spend, that $10,000 per month can very quickly be $15,000 per month or more.

So that’s how you can be making $15,000 a month! You have the potential to make that in one month running ads for clients because you provide such a valuable service. I really want you to get that. So many ad managers get caught up in their own mind and caught up in their own insecurities and their own money stories that they may believe, so they don’t charge what they are worth. You are a rainmaker for businesses. They need you. Your value is in the services that you provide and all those hours that you spend learning how to run Facebook ads and continuing to learn the latest tips, strategies, or changes on the platform. You provide such a valuable service, and it really is a premium service that businesses should be paying you for.

So recognize that and own that. If you are only charging $500 per month for clients, and you’ve been running ads for longer than six months, you need to increase your prices. If you’re charging a thousand dollars per month, and you’ve been running ads for clients for more than six months, and you aren’t getting results for your clients, you need to increase your prices.

You’re not doing yourself or your clients a favor by charging prices that see you struggling and therefore needing to be on a constant chase to get more clients. If you’re trying to work with ten clients at a thousand dollars per month, you’re going to wear yourself very thin. Your clients may not get results because you may drop the ball. And then you’re on a constant hustle by using the model.

That’s what I call a boutique agency where you’re working closely with clients in a one-on-one method where they feel that they have your attention and that premium service, so you can charge premium prices. If you want to learn more about that, increasing your prices and providing that boutique agency service by working intimately with your clients, then I invite you to check out the Elite Ad Manager.

That’s my certification program, where we help you to do exactly that! Increase your prices, get systems in place, and provide a premium level of service for your clients. You will also learn the most up-to-date, comprehensive ad strategies out there. If you want to learn more about that, head to www.eliteadmanager.com. I look forward to seeing you there.