Bottom line: AdEspresso makes it simple to test and pick winning Facebook ads.
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Updated March 2018 – still using and love AdEspresso to run my Facebook ads and make even more as an affiliate marketer. All of my Facebook ads are run and published through AdEspresso. I've surpassed my initial goal of $7 and have exceeded $10k per month now.
AdEspresso Review
To start, I signed up for the 14 day free trial. I wanted to test AdEspresso to make sure I liked it. I didn't read a lot – I pretty much just started because I was overwhelmed trying to learn so many things at once. In my experience Adespresso is SO MUCH EASIER to learn than Power Editor. I know if you're running a high number of ads Power Editor might be a better choice for you, or if you're more advanced than I am, but if you're frustrated with it as I am, it will simplify your life.
Adespresso has a series of training videos called University. Don't sign up for the university if you sign up for an Adespresso account. The university is included in your Adespresso purchase.
Read the emails they send because they have examples of the best and worst ads from people who use Adespresso. There is also a library of ads from all sorts of niches and industries. This helps you get a feel for what works and for ideas on what to test.
What is AdEspresso?
Adespresso is a Facebook ad management tool. With it you can create several versions of your ad. You can use different images, headlines, text, and URLs. Just like in Facebook ads manager you can preview the ads and choose where you want them to show up – in the sidebar, on mobile, on Instagram or in the newsfeed.
After you add variations, you can choose your targeting. THIS IS SO IMPORTANT. The text, image and targeting make or break your ad campaign. Adespresso automatically creates combinations of your ads and runs them for you. It publishes straight to Facebook.
Then I use the Facebook Ads app to check my ads. I turn off the ones that are expensive and I add budget to the ones that are performing well. So if my ad costs .55 cents a click for women and .33 cents a click for men, I turn off the ad for women and just have it run to show men .It's easier to manage the ads in the app (after they're created) then it is in AdEspresso.
Who Should Get AdEspresso? AdEspresso is for a small to mid-sized business. You can use it to run Facebook ad campaigns for clients or just for your own campaigns. I use it to run ads for my own affiliate marketing business.
My Frustrations Using Facebook Ads Manager and Power Editor
I was running a successful Facebook ads campaign – my first major campaign. I struggled to keep up and keep track of everything to know my profit margin and where to place my ad spend. I only wanted to spend on ads that gave me sales. I was trying to learn Facebook Ads Manager and Power Editor as I was using them. I took classes and asked for help but I was constantly frustrated by how hard the data was to read the data and act on it.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of Power Editor or running Facebook Ads Manager is figuring out what ads perform the best. It should be easy to see but it's not. Even learning how to publish an ad was frustrating for me the first time I used Power Editor. There's a lot about Power Editor that is not intuitive at all. That is what made me look for a better solution. I found it with AdEspresso.
Using AdEspresso I was able to make $7,000 in about 2 months from one campaign (that is net – after the cost of ads)! It split tests all the elements of your ads, optimizes your campaigns, and more. You can read my AdEspresso review below, but the best way to learn is to sign up for the free trial and get started. That's what I did when I started – I signed up and started using it right away. It's literally something you can learn as you go. It's very visual and intuitive, which is what I like most about it.
Split Testing Facebook Ads
With Facebook it's hard to create lots of split tests at once. So you start with a handful of ads and slowly build this elaborate campaign structure with bits added here and there. In AdExpresso it works the other way around. It's easy to start with lots of ads and then run them for a few days and then start killing the underperforming ones.
Instead, you can start a campaign with hundreds of variations of ads. Then pause the worst performing ads so more of your ad budget goes to the high performers. Then when the campaign has saturated the audience, it's time to launch a new campaign. There's no harm in having lots of campaigns vs lots of adsets, a campaign is just a container for adsets.
If you want to try AdEspresso get the free trial and start now.
AdEspresso: FREE 14-day free trial.
My Best Month Ever as An Affiliate
This past month I did the best I've ever done as an affiliate marketer – with only a blog post and Facebook ads. Starting with just $5/day in ad spend, I was able to quickly scale up a campaign and see which headlines, images, and audiences performed best. I usually start with either $5 or $10 per day and scale up after there are at least 500 clicks and clear patterns start to show up.
I owe a lot of my success to two things, the winning image idea I came up with and the tool that helped me discover that — AdEspresso. It more than paid for itself, not just in money but in the time it saved me. I needed to get a campaign up and running FAST. So I took a Udemy class on how to use Facebook Power Editor. But after taking it, I was overwhelmed and confused. Looking back I wish I hadn't done that. I wasted a lot of time.
What I learned: you can save a lot of frustration and get better performance with a Facebook advertising tool like AdEspresso. Honestly, I could've made a lot more money had I found AdEspresso sooner. It's painful to realize but if I knew now what I knew then I would've taken a few days off work. I would've started with AdEspresso and not second guessed myself. I probably would've made $10-20,000 on the opportunity instead of $7,000.
Facebook Ad Management Software Recommended by Facebook Ad Expert
I found AdEspresso after I asked this question in a Facebook group for marketers that I'm in: what Facebook ad management software do you use? One of my marketing friends said, get Jon Loomer power editor tool. Jon is very well respected and an expert in Facebook ads. I didn't know what he meant but I searched Jon's blog and found a post about it. It was Adespresso.
Facebook Ads Work – When you Do Them Right
Do I think it's worth paying for Facebook ads? Let me just say YES! It's more than worth the time and effort I've put in. I wonder what took me so long to go this strong on Facebook advertising! If you don't like paying for ads and think boosted posts and ads don't work then you're not doing it right (and this review is a waste of your time).
I'm totally on board with advertising on Facebook, my only goal is to get better and better at it. I've never seen so much opportunity in marketing as I do now – and that includes affiliate marketing.
Not only have I made thousands this month, but I also got new likes on my business page. That is starting to pay off and I expect to grow even more because of my advertising. I've also seen incredible engagement on some of my ads, which is like free advertising for me because I get extra views I'm not paying for!
What I Love Most About AdEspresso
Two things. Hands down I love how visual and intuitive AdEspresso is to use. The second thing is how easy AdExpresso makes its to A/B test your ads. Power Editor isn't visual or intuitive. Adespresso is. You can easily see your campaigns, the cost per click, impressions and spend. They will show you which ads are performing. You can run a test of up to 250 different combinations of ads in one campaign.
You can easily see
- See which ad images are doing well and pause any on the spot that aren't working.
- See what ad copy and headlines perform best.
- Test the age ranges.
- Test the wording on your buttons (learn more, buy now, etc).
- Test URLs and display URLs.
- Most important: test audiences/interests. AdEspresso shows you the top factors in your campaign. As you can see in the image below my #1 most important factors are interests (by far). Type in the name of larger Facebook pages that are likely to respond to your ad.
Facebook Ad Targeting Tips:
I always search Facebook for keywords that relate to my offer to look for themes and ideas of audiences who would respond well. You can already see social proof.
Also, look for publications, blogs or personalities that have talked about the product that you're promoting. They're already warm and will be more responsive to your offer.
After you set up tests, turn off any ads that are too expensive. Keep or bump up any that are performing well.
Easily See Your Best Performing Facebook Ads
Look at the stats for an ad I ran for a movie that was nominated for an Academy Award. I thought Academy awards would be the best interest to target, but it's not. As you can see it's costing me 57 cents per click. Just movies is only 11.5 cents a click. So I click to the right of “Academy Awards” and pause all ads that are being shown to people who like Academy Awards. I did that with text, headline and image. Next, I'll create a new campaign that targets movies generally.
I also really like the automatic optimization option, which I always use. You can manually set up rules but I haven't done that yet. At some point I hope to elaborate on that more. Right now I still consider myself a beginner. I'm still trying to figure out what the best combination is – should I optimize or pay for impressions, clicks, or engagements?
Here's a test I did with Christmas movies. After about 500 impressions I should see if the numbers change but for now obviously my target is Hallmark movie channel. I can turn the ad on/off according to the day of the week and times. If you put your mouse over any day or time it will give you the cost per click, impressions and numbers of clicks.
This is in the “ads reporting” tab. It's where you can see what combinations affect your cost per click. I see that ages 30-35 liked image 2 best. Image 2 cost over $2 a click! Older age groups preferred image 1. So I'd run new ads and separate that out. I can pause any of them right from this screen.
AdEspresso has interest targeting that let's you use an ‘AND’ or an ‘OR’ criteria. So you could target people who like movies AND Academy Awards. I could test that. Right now I have it set to OR.
What I Don't Like About AdEspresso
Well, if I were dreaming I'd like it to say, Janet this is the ad, the copy and the the interests combination that works best. Why don't you add budget? You know, make it even smarter. I need to see if there's a way to say if an ad costs me more than 20 cents a click automatically turn it off (after it gets at least 10 clicks).
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have reached the success I've had without AdEspresso because I was losing my mind with power editor. Note that I haven't tried any other tool. I'm happy with AdEspresso. Everything has a learning curve and I'm not ready to start over learning another Facebook ads tool.
Since I'm only a month in I'm sure I'll have more insights to share. There's so much to test and learn. I have to take it a step at a time though. Remember this is my money not my employer's or someone else's. So I get mad when I waste it. Still, I'm getting smarter.
The guy who runs AdEspresso isn't a native English speaker and he sometimes misspells words, but this is technical and I don't blame him. I just notice it sometimes. Not a big deal. At some point maybe he'll hire an editor.
I use Canva to design my ads, choosing the custom size and making it 1200 x 628. I've tested making the left hand side an image and the right hand side with a call-to-action. You can buy stock photography, I think AdEspresso has some images, or create your own with your own photos. If a Canva rep is reading this and sends me another email asking me to link to you, I'm going to be annoyed suggest that you guys start an affiliate program.
Price of AdEspresso
AdEspresso offers three plans with prices going from $49 to $299 per month depending on how much you spend on Facebook ads per month. I'm at the $49/month plan that is good for up to $3,000 in Facebook ad spend.
I'm tempted however to upgrade to the $149 plan and take advantage of the 1 hour of dedicated training (I hope that's per month). That's my plan when I ramp up and find offers that convert. It would be helpful to have someone give me an outside expert look at my ads and help me optimize them.
With the free trial you can try out AdEspresso to see what you think. The two week trial is fully functional and you'll quickly know if it's for you.
Facebook Ad Tips
In addition to managing your ads and making it super easy, AdEspresso helps make you smarter. It's a company of ad nerds. They send you an email of the best performing ads each week. They have a Facebook group. Their blog that has many tips and information from people who use Facebook ads every day. For me it's the perfect level of depth (enough to help me but not overly technical) and full of helpful data. Here's an example of the education they provide:
I like sending people to a blog post for something that takes explaining beyond the click and also to get the traffic to my site. That helps with SEO and I make money on ads too. Either way, I can highly recommend AdEspresso! Thanks for reading my AdEspresso review, now I want to know…
Have you tried AdEspresso or another Facebook ad management tool? Let me know what you think!
Awesome review, Janet! I’ve never looked into the tool, so this was a great overview.
Thanks AJ. I’m sure you could pick it up and start teaching me next!
LOL, yeah right. Seriously, though, we should pow-wow soon on paid social tactics. We’d probably have a lot to share with each other!
I’d love to, let’s get together!
I’m SO glad you told us about Adespresso. Honestly, I was a bit hesitant about the software as I had been using the Power Editor and conducting all my A/B testing within that.
Wow, how wrong and stupid I was to even think that way! With just a week in we’ve seen a HUGE drop in our CPC and have seen amazing results in our sales and reach in just the campaigns we have created thus far.
I loved the example you provided above where you show how AdEspresso compares your top factors and then gives you an easy way to disable all ads using that factor (e.g., in your case the Academy Awards audience). One thing I additionally love is when they actually give a recommendation showing an ad is costing 174% more than all the others with the option to turn it off. It really makes managing my ads so easy!
I do concur about how easy it is to get it setup and start using it. I didn’t use the University to setup my first campaign, but rather just walked through their easy user interface and found it straight forward to use.
Two things I’ve heard (and would love your thoughts on). Neither of these are critical of AdEspresso but rather potential best practices to consider when using it:
1. I’ve heard from podcasts by both Social Media Examiner and Amy Porterfield is to wait at least 2-3 days before disabling ads to gives the ads enough time to get representative statistics to make better decisions on. I admit I don’t always follow this advice and believe that I’ve missed out in the long-run on successful ads because I disabled the ad too soon.
2. Make sure to spread your budget evenly over all adsets to start off with so give your ads better chance to compete with each other (as opposed to using the size of the audience to determine proportion of the total ad spend).
Thank you so much Janet for telling us about this! I think this will save us a TON of money just from this one tip!
Alex, I’m so happy to hear you tried and loved AdExpresso! I’ve used it more and have this one warning – if you ever do dayparting, you have to turn it off in AdEspresso (not in the ad manager or the app). Otherwise, it just comes back on.
I agree with SME and Amy Porterfield. I’ve seen wild fluctuations in performance that show more clear patterns after a few days or 500 impressions. I’m not sure about #2. I have whatever the default setting is in AdEspresso. I normally test with about $5. After listening to a podcast about testing, I think the best way is to test on your page and then boost a post for $1. Whatever performs best organically and with the test, bump up the budget.
You’re right, it’s a great way to save money. And P.S., since I know you guys love to save money, they have a Black Friday deal. That’s when I renew.
Blog on
Janet
Alex, I’ll confirm what you’ve heard:
1. When you launch a new ad, Facebook doesn’t know how it will perform, so it takes a guess (likely borrowing the Relevance score of other ads in the same ad set or campaign temporarily). As the ad runs for the first little while the cost will generally be higher per action, until Facebook decides that it’s a high performer and they should charge you less. Case in point, I launched a video views ad and after a few days, saw that it was down to $.02 per 3-second view, which was great. In another campaign, I found some creative that was performing at $.01 per view. My thought was I would simply recreate the same creative in the other campaign and get the better performance. When I first launched, the video was costing $.04 per video view. I let it run for like a day and a half, and it corrected itself down to $.02. Definitely let the ad “settle” over time as the performance will likely need to bake out a bit.
2. If you have multiple ad sets inside of a campaign, realize that the budget is set at the campaign level. So if one of those audiences drives a TON of traffic, it’ll end up stealing budget from the other ad sets. To combat this, I’d recommend creating separate campaigns with their own separate budgets and put the various ad sets inside of them. That will keep them from cannibalizing each other’s budgets.
Janet, thanks for sharing the Black Friday deal! That’s genius!
before you spend a dime with Adespresso, you need to make sure you have customer service. i didn’t get any. it was dismal. it too them two weeks to resolve a simple customer service issue. i won’t spend a dime with these guys, they wasted so much of my time and then basically fobbed me off with a really duff reply, which they could have given me two weeks earlier.
Bruce, thanks for your feedback. I haven’t used customer support except through their very active Facebook group. They usually answer within a day. Are you a part of the group? Be sure to search to see if anyone has addressed the issue. The owner is in the group and participates.
Also, EdEspresso is a startup and they’re growing like crazy. Now add that I just read today that they’re being acquired by Hootsuite. That means things should be rough for a while and then improve. Either way, IMO, they still beat using Power Editor! Still, Hootsuite again validates the product and it should only get better from here. I understand that PE works for some, it was just not a fit for me and good luck getting any support from Facebook unless you spend $$$$$ on ads.
Hi Janet and AJ. I am a total Noob at this stuff and have never ran an ad on Facebook before. Well, I did a few years ago just to play with it but turned it right off the next day. I am just opening a new Shopify store and want to run ads to it. Ads Manager and Power Editor are super scary to me. I’ve watched some people do them live in videos but they know them so well they go too fast. Is Adespresso something someone like me should start with for an easier learning curve? I am scared of the big monthly fee though; I have VERY little to start with til I’ve made some sales. What do you think? Loved your reviews and will keep popping back for more! Thanks!
Adespresso has a MUCH lower learning curve than Ads Manager and Especially Power Editor. Plus, they have a Facebook group called Adespresso University where you can ask questions and get responses fairly quickly. Why not start with the free trial? Unless they changed it you can try it out without any obligation. Besides the ease, it’s all about the ability to split test everything, from your ad copy, URL, ages/sex, geo targets, interests, images or videos, etc.
After your trial then decide if it’s worth it to pay for. That’s my advice. At that point, learn Ads Manager or go to Udemy (www.newspapergrl.com/udemy) and take courses until you get better. They go on sale for $10 quite frequently and are better than you can find for free on YouTube or others. They are longer, more in-depth and you can ask the instructor questions. I’ve learned a ton from the classes I’ve taken (with very few exceptions). There’s a guy named Ali Mirza. Not sure if he has a FB ads class but I think he does.
Good luck on your new venture!
AdEspresso is bothering me since many days! The tool is not usefull to my needs. I told them to delete my account and my email adress. They still write me and they are making jokes on me. Please spread these words because I feel helpless against those guys from AdEspresso…
I’m sorry you’re having an issue with AdEspresso. I regret that I can’t help you – I’ve never had a problem with them. Join the Facebook group AdEspresso University and ask there maybe?
HI Janet, I just came across this post – thank you very much for the detailed and insightful. Do you mind giving a quick update now that you have completed 1 year using adexpresso? Do you still love it? still using it? have better alternatives?
Thank you
Hi Sali,
Sure, yes, I’m still using AdEspresso and it’s still my favorite. I haven’t had time to learn about other software. I tend to learn and stick with something unless I don’t like it (since there’s a learning curve and I’ve got a lot to learn just to maximize AdEspresso). They’ve added new features and I need to update my post to reflect that.
Blog on
Janet
BUYERS BEWARE!
If you find yourself on an up-sell LP to convert your monthly membership to an annual…
… and, If that landing page says “if you ever decide the platform’s not right for you we’ll refund you for remaining months you won’t use”…
In my experience, this is not true…
My business is moving away from needing this software & when I contacted support to take advantage of that landing page’s promise, I was given a polite and consistent NO.
Are you saying that you signed up for AdExpresso and tried to get a refund on an annual subscription and they refused to? You can take action on that, but your comment is not specific so I want to be sure you’re referring to them. I’ve had numerous interactions with the owners and haven’t seen them be anything but honest. Sometimes they’re a little confusing to understand (like they have a Chrome extension that was quite quirky) but hopefully you’ll complain and get your refund.
Hi Janet,
Apologies for any lack of clarity in my original comment…
“Are you saying that you signed up for AdExpresso and tried to get a refund on an annual subscription and they refused to?”
– Yes, that’s my exact scenario.
“I’ve had numerous interactions with the owners and haven’t seen them be anything but honest”
– I haven’t had any interactions with the owners, but have had plenty with customer/tech support for both technical issues & billing (like this topic), and unfortunately I don’t share the same experience. The response times have been very long and I feel like the person on the other end isn’t focused on providing a good customer experience.
“but hopefully you’ll complain and get your refund.”
– I’ve been communicating my issue/request with them via their ticketing system and this morning I was provided a final “NO”, hence my desire to share this experience with others who may be able to avoid a repeat.
I’m super disappointed in how AdEspresso has dealt with this issue. As a professional marketer myself I’m keenly aware of how important it is for a company to make every effort to keep customer/prospect expectations in-line with the realities of their product… I feel like AdEspresso has fell straight on their face in this aspect (as it pertains to my specific situation). With Facebook’s recent revamp of Ads Manager & introduction to dynamic creative insertion… it’s just a matter of time until market pressures force AdEspresso to adapt.
I’m sorry to hear that. Have you left reviews and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau? They need to honor that commitment or remove it. That’s fraud.