Facebook ads are my favorite form of advertising besides influencer marketing. I've sold everything from baseball tickets to movies, mattresses, events, and services. I've run ads for both B2B and B2C products.

My Favorite Facebook Ad Campaign

I think the funnest Facebook ads I've run are for the local pro baseball team. While I'm not a sports fan I really liked running ads for a local business with such a rich history. They had previously tried online classified ads locally, Groupon, mailers and more without a lot of success. So they asked me what I could do. Up until I worked with them everything was done on paper. First I ran ads with a phone number where people could call or text me their orders. I remember being at Disneyland with my family when I started getting calls. I forgot I turned the ads on! I sat in the hotel lobby taking orders – not exactly how I wanted to spend my vacation. I'm sure I lost some sales too.

Then I decided I'd rather make money in my sleep so I set up a Shopify (aff) store and started to get emails with all of the orders. I targeted people who live within 20 miles of the stadium and started to run tests to see what converted best.

My goal is to keep my costs for ads at under 10% of the profit. This post is written for a small business without a huge budget to spend. In fact, I usually start out spending just $5/day.

The truth is…

I've never used Power Editor
Most of my CPCs are under 25 cents
I haven't paid for expensive courses
I've used mostly free resources, including my favorites: Ad Expresso's blog, Jon Loomer, Amy Poterfield, the Art of Paid Traffic with RIck Mulready podcast, and Dennis Yu
Most of what I've done was learning through testing – turning off what's not working (too expensive) and keeping what is
I don't use the Facebook pixel or retargeting (not sure how in AdExpresso, that's on my list to learn) – sometimes it doesn't make sense because if it's an affiliate offer I can't pixel the buy page or get many details on conversion from the merchant
I'm not an ad pro
I use Canva to design my ads (they have a Facebook ads template

Facebook ads are a huge part of the success I've had this year with affiliate marketing. My favorite is to combine affiliate marketing and SEO. What I mean is I do keyword research (affiliate link to my favorite tool for keyword research), then select the top keywords to use. Then I use those keywords in the headline of my ad and drive traffic to an optimized blog post.

My Secret Facebook Ads Superpower

My Facebook ads superpower is software called AdExpresso. You upload images or video, different text and targeting, then AdExpresso split tests elements for you and shows you what is working. So I can test to see what headline, button text, images, gender, age group, behaviors, messaging and URLs are best converting.

I previously did an AdExpresso Review but wanted to update it with more that I've learned since then.

Facebook Ad Testing Optimization Tips:

Test 1-3 photos that have people in them or get attention and quickly show people what you're selling.
Only test desktop and mobile for most campaigns. Instagram is often best for brand exposure and certain niches like fashion/beauty.
Test right hand column separately and use very little but to-the-point text because their isn't a ton of space to communicate your message. These tend to be less expensive ads though.
I usually optimize for link clicks but pay for impressions.
The link description should be 4-5 words long only with the main selling point.
Test age groups and gender. For me the 35-45 age group often converts best.
Use Google Trends to see top cities, states or trending terms to use in your ads and for targeting.
Use the automatic optimization setting on AdEspresso and note that it takes 3-4 days for it to really kick in.
Turn off all of the images and elements that are costing you too much. You'll get to know the age group that converts best for you and can look for pages or interests of people in that group and target further.
There's a button inside of AdExpressso you can click to “request a review” and for $25 you'll get a video back evaluating your live campaign. This is SO HELPFUL, and for me, worth every penny. They are ad experts and can really help you. I sometimes get stuck with the same ideas so paying for their help gets me to consider new things. Run an ad on your own for 2 days or more then ask for a review.

Want to get your own secret Facebook ads superpower? Here's my link for AdExpresso: http://www.newspapergrl.com/adespresso.

Sign up for the FREE TRIAL so you can test it (since they're all about testing).

Join the Facebook Group

Make sure to join the secret AdEspresso University Facebook group when you pay for AdEspresso. You can find me and other small business owners and entrepreneurs who are AdEspresso fans. Other marketers and business owners will be there to keep you updated on the latest Facebook ad changes. You'll get answers to your questions. We'll be there to brainstorm with you and celebrate your successes!