Dec 15, 2022
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Show Transcript
Today we're diving heavily into Facebook Ads. Have I gone crazy?
No, but I have Jon Loomer, and that's 1000 times better on this
week's episode of the LinkedIn Ads Show.
Welcome to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Here's your host, AJ Wilcox.
Hey there LinkedIn Ads fanatics! Very early days when I was starting B2Linked, I came across Jon Loomer, who was the first Facebook Aads expert that I ever found. He provided the model and inspiration around a lot of what I built B2Linked into. Since then, he's built a veritable empire. Podcast, coaching, courses, joint venture partnerships, and he did it all with a focus on being able to spend time with his family. If it feels like I'm fanboying a little bit, it's definitely because I am. I've talked to a lot of you listeners who are also responsible for Facebook Ads. And so I invited John on the show. Generally, whatever we see as being successful in Facebook Ads eventually makes its way into LinkedIn Ads within about fourish years, so I thought the info he shares could be precious for us. He also shares strategies on how we can combine efforts between LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as shares valuable info for us on TikTok Ads. I'm very pleased to share this interview with you with Jon Loomer. Let's hit it.
AJ Wilcox
Everyone, I'm so excited to have Jon Loomer here with us. Jon,
thanks so much for coming. Jon's a Facebook Ads educator, business
owner, and just generally a great guy. Jon, welcome to the show. So
excited to have you here.
Jon Loomer
Oh, man, I'm excited to be here, AJ. Thanks so much.
AJ Wilcox
Oh, you bet. Let's start right into the questions because I know
we're gonna have a lot. First, tell me about your story. Tell me
where you came from. business wise, I'm really interested in what
you've done with your personal brand, how you decided, like, where
and how to focus on Facebook Ads in digital marketing, tell us all
that stuff.
Jon Loomer
There's really a long story and not quite as long story. It's
difficult not to be long either way. But I've had this this
business for 11 years now. And prior to that I had no experience
starting a business. I didn't really even consider myself a
marketer, even though the last job I was laid off from was VP of
strategic marketing. It's a whole other story of like, I didn't
think I was even qualified when I applied, but I worked for the NBA
originally back 2005-2008. And that's a whole other episode, we
could talk about that probably because there's a lot of fun stories
from that. I mean, I oversaw fantasy games, which is the most
ridiculous job ever. It was the greatest. But we lived in New
Jersey, we had to move from Colorado to New Jersey. So I did make
some concessions with my wife, they're like, okay, this will be a
temporary thing. Back then you couldn't really work remotely. And I
begged and begged and begged. And then that was it. So after that I
was laid off a couple of times. Lots of nice things about the NBA
job, one of the things was I was exposed to Facebook for the first
time in 2007. That's when there are 50 million people on the
platform, they were just opening it up to the older folks. So
anyone who was in high school and college. We partnered with
Facebook to create an app before you could create your own app. And
that was a first admin of the official NBA Facebook group before
there were pages. That's just how long ago that was. But I fell in
love with the platform at the time. As a kid I moved around a lot,
so to be able to reconnect with people that I thought I would never
see hear from again was like so amazing. But I was also using it
from a business perspective very, very early. I got laid off for a
second time in 2011. One thing I knew was I couldn't move my family
again, because we just went through that whole madness. I was also
very spoiled in terms of the jobs I had just had. It's funny
because I think everyone should do something that they do not enjoy
as well. So I was an insurance underwriter for five years prior to
the NBA job, and it provided some really good perspective. If
you're an underwriter, I'm sure you love it. It's great. I didn't
enjoy it. But that's part of why I got into the whole fantasy game
stuff in the first place. And why ended up working for the NBA.
Anyway. So the experience I had though, specifically around
Facebook was really important. I started using that when I was at
American Cancer Society after the NBA job. So once I was laid off,
okay, one of the first things I did was I started a website. And
again, one of the tools I kind of learned at really American Cancer
Society during that time, was to create a WordPress website. And I
just started writing because I had nothing better to do besides
look for jobs, and I use the website basically as a way to show
what I could do with the stuff I knew, hoping it would help me find
a job. And every once in a while something would really hit and the
topics were kind of broad, but they're all social media-ish.
Eventually social media marketing specific and then probably six
months after that started, I started to see the Facebook marketing
is where I needed to focus. When that's really started to take off
consistently, and I started to run ads. Now I had no money because
we were just bleeding through cash at this point, bleed through
savings because I didn't have a job. I was making a little bit of
money from like affiliate marketing, and like ads on the site stuff
because I started to get some traffic and that started to improve.
But I started to run ads, and even in the very beginning, I was
running like $1 a day and back then you can make an impact at $1 a
day. And my main goal back then was just like building my audience,
too. So as I was running ads, you know, that gave me something to
write about. So I started reading more and more about Facebook Ads
and start getting more confident. And power editor was the big
thing for if you want it to be advanced, but no one knew how it
worked. It was really complicated and buggy and confusing, which is
perfect if you want to get attention for something. So I started
writing about that. And my first course was on Power Editor. And
that just exploded since 2012ish that I've focused almost entirely
on Facebook advertising. That's been my niche. But again, I no
background is starting a business, I didn't even realize I was a
marketer until I applied for that VP of strategic marketing job.
And it's been quite a journey, because with over 11 years, there's
a lot of ups and downs and everything in between.
AJ Wilcox
But I have to tell you, the first exposure I had to you was I was
using Power Editor. I came from the world of Google AdWords, Google
Ads now. And I love the Google Ads Editor functionality of using
spreadsheets to upload things. Of course, Power Editor was the
first thing I jumped into when I got into Facebook. And I went and
read a bunch of your stuff. So anyway, thank you many, many years
ago for helping me through the Power Editor stuff. It was a cool
first focus. So focusing on more of the recent, what are some of
the most exciting developments in Facebook Ads?
Jon Loomer
Well, first of all, it's become a much bigger challenge, right? So
you have the good old days when, if you're advertising, you were
one of the few. And if you knew what you're doing, you're one of
the exclusive group. And you could have a ton of success for not a
lot of money. And then more and more advertisers joined in, and it
got more and more expensive just to reach people. And I think the
biggest change, though, over the last couple of years was iOS 14
opt outs and everything that happened there. And the result of that
was more than anything drop in conversion results. So whether or
not your advertising actually was less less effective. What's funny
is it may have been fine. But Facebook was not connecting
conversions to your ads, which clients really want to see,
typically. They're not gonna say, oh, yeah, we trust that that was
actually working. It's funny because it went from the complaint
that Facebook's Ad reporting was inflated to now there's a
scramble, like, I gotta find these conversions and get credit for
these conversions. Where are they? So that was just a really
difficult, you know, year and a half or so. But the biggest
developments over the last, you know, month or two months in it,
not everybody has these things yet, but Facebook is starting to
bring some of these things back. And so one of the biggest things
is, and I still contend that opt outs, end of the day probably
didn't really impact our results much. I think the biggest impact
was losing 28 Day click attribution. So that's where, you know, a
lot of people would claim that the reporting was inflated, because
it's like, oh, well, why is it I get credit for this. If someone
clicked on an ad and then converted 28 days later, right? Sure, you
can make the argument that one day click is more relevant than 28
Day click, but the truth is, they still originally clicked on your
ad and then ended up converting so getting that credit was good,
especially if you had a more expensive product, anything that took
more of a commitment. And it's not just that oh yet, that's a nice
shirt, I'm gonna buy that losing 28 Day click and going just a
seven day click one day view hurt a lot of advertisers and brands
because they lost that reporting that is coming back. Now it's not
the default reporting. So that's still seven day click one day
view. But if you have this, you would cut the go into your columns
drop down. And there's an option to compare attribution, which is
another thing that went away since the iOS and then came back,
which is really important for other reasons too. You can then add
columns to your report to break down your conversions that are
within one day view, one day click, seven day click, and now on 28
day click. It's really interesting because even though your default
reporting may show you've got 20 conversions, if you add those
columns, you may see another three or five conversions to happen
outside of that seven day click attribution window. And that's
really helpful with showing Yes, I made an impact that completely
changed the perspective of your advertising. Those two things that
compare attribution, 28 day click attribution being available, and
also the ability to break down conversions by things like
placement, and geography was something that went away with iOS.
That's coming back as well.
AJ Wilcox
Wow. So what do you think the overall impact from the iOS 14 update
is going to be for Facebook? It sounds like they had to get rid of
some things. And then now they're bringing them back. Do you see we
just have less data? Is it coming back in full force?
Jon Loomer
I only have theories on this, because I haven't heard anything
official from Facebook. But it seems to me first of all, they got
rid of those things out of abundance of caution. Yeah. Because
because they were caught flat footed. This is one of the few times
they were not in control, they were reacting to something that
Apple was forcing them to do. And I don't think they knew what the
full impact of it would be. Because reality is like looking back, I
don't really understand why they got rid of those things. Let's
just say that any of the iOS opt out conversion data, if that
became less reliable, fine. But not all conversions happen on an
iOS device, and maybe the people opted in. So the point is, like,
they threw away all this stuff, just because of iOS. Because yeah,
I get it that if you opt out of tracking, anything beyond seven day
click is probably not reliable for those people, right. So we throw
away all those conversions that came from Android device, that came
from desktop, you know, like, that just doesn't even make sense. So
even if that's incomplete data now, I think that's data that
advertisers would be very happy to have it back. So yeah, I think
they probably overreacted. I don't know the full background of why
did it. But I know that things like modeling improved, because
originally, when the changes were made, it was just seven day click
attribution, or seven day click optimization, by default, they got
rid of even the view through, which was big. And then eventually
even they said, the modeling improves, they change the seven day
click one day view, My bet is part of this just has to do with the
modeling improving, that they brought it back, because the question
has to be asked, right? It's like, the issues facing advertisers,
for the future aren't just about iOS. It's about you know,
browsers, it's about other devices. It's about any of these
companies deciding we're going to prevent you from tracking going
forward, they could decide to do that. So why would Facebook put in
the effort of bringing these things back, unless they were
confident that they'd be able to continue to go that direction? So
my bet is because of the modeling, or whatever it is, they've got
to make that data reliable. We're heading in that direction. And
maybe this is just a guess no one's ever said this. But maybe 28
Day click one day view optimization is coming back. I mean, it
would only make sense if they've got that data, and they're gonna
show it to us, right? I think that would be pretty awesome.
AJ Wilcox
When they've had enough time now to check their models, they can
check their models against reality and fine tune them. I think,
once they have high confidence, they bring them back, and then
adjust the optimizations for them. That makes perfect sense.
Jon Loomer
Right. So it's getting better, it's getting better.
AJ Wilcox
What about modelled conversions?Does Facebook do this? I know
Google did eight years ago or something where they had the standard
conversions column be one that was based off of models, and it
wasn't the actual conversions that occurred. People had a little
uproar about that, then I think it's still available. But I've been
honestly, I've been out of Google Ads for a long time. Does
Facebook have that same sort of thing? Like, do they have a modeled
conversion? Do they try to push it on advertisers? Or is it very
much like it does the conversion pixel and conversion API kind of
rule there?
Jon Loomer
The data includes model conversions. So there's not broken out,
there's indication when metrics are in exact, based on modeling
based on, you know, having other factors contributing. But beyond
that, I think the closest that that Facebook attribution tool that
used to allow for different modeling and different windows, they
got rid of that. Again, went away with all the iOS stuff, I assume,
because became less confident in that type of data. But I don't
recall there ever really been an uproar over that maybe we were
about to create that AJ.
AJ Wilcox
And I know LinkedIn has talked about modeling conversion data. If
their conversion data becomes less accurate. I would be personally
offended if I ever reported to a client Oh, you got seven
conversions and then they looked in there CRM and said we only see
three here, like, what are you talking about? I look like a liar,
like model of conversions is feels like an affront to me it feels
dishonest to report to a client.
Jon Loomer
Understood. Just generally, that's a battle for advertisers overall
like getting data to match up. And oftentimes it's a
misunderstanding of the data, or they've set up the pixel wrong or
something. I don't think that typically the issue is actually with
modelled data that it's off. We could go down a whole rabbit hole
on this, but like, for example, you could have a results column for
conversions, right. And you're optimizing for conversion promoting
the sale of a specific product. Facebook reports 200 conversions,
you're showing 100 sales of that product. The reality is those
conversions include other conversions too that happen while they're
on your site during that time. And if you hover over there, you can
actually see the breakdown of all those conversions. But things
like that create confusion. It goes years back that why does this
not match up to Google Analytics? And the reality is Facebook has
data too that Google Analytics does not, like views through
especially like Google is never going to get the views through
stuff. Obviously, if Facebook says you've got 10 purchases, and on
the back end, you know that you've only sold eight. And you're not
talking about oh, what has came from Facebook or not? Because
that's a whole other story, too, is like you can't rely on data
that says referred from Facebook. But if you know, eight total
sales compared to 10, report it, that's a problem. Usually, though,
where I start with that is less blaming it on Facebook and did we
set this up? I'd ook at that first?
AJ Wilcox
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. All right, well spend some time
there. But boy, I just don't like the idea of modeled conversions.
Like, show me exactly what I actually had don't predict what I
should have had given. Obviously, the majority of our listeners are
in B2B. I'm really curious, like, what are some of the most
effective things in B2B advertising on Facebook, especially
now,
Jon Loomer
It really depends on that service that you're offering. But more
than anything, whether it's advertising or not, video. You know,
having some sort of video strategy to raise awareness for your
brand, raise authority, whatever it is that you need to build for
that B2B relationship, depending on what kind of product you have
for them. We can't just rely on the links these days, and then
clicking on those links and go into your website. And this has been
a big adjustment for me too, because for the longest time, I am a
data guy. I'm a stats guy. And like, I know that business happens
on my website, and my website, my email list are central to
everything working. So I've long contended that, like, I can
promote blog posts, that's fine, right? I can track that goes to my
website, even though that doesn't sell anything I can then see
okay, what do people do on my website, once they've been referred
on blog posts, the problem becomes like getting marketers, I think
this is definitely the case for B2B too. To using video is like you
don't always have something to sell, you shouldn't always be
selling something with video. And you shouldn't always have a link
to go to your website. And that sounds crazy. And I know, to some
old school marketers, because I was that guy, probably just a few
months ago said, Why would you do that? First of all, it's playing
the game. I've never been big on playing the game. But I haven't
played the game and so long and my business suffered from it. So
fewer and fewer people were seeing in a news feed because I was not
using video. Now suddenly, I'm using video. And once you know it,
everybody, I'm getting so many comments every day. Jon, I haven't
seen you in years. Where have you been? You know, so video with the
right frame of mind when you create these like creating video for
value, to provide value and be seen as someone you should go to or
a brand you should go to for assistance, because that's often the
B2B relationship, right? Where you may not need them at that
moment. But they're seen as an authority, and you trust them and
you consume their content once you need them, you will go to them.
And that's kind of the importance of video.
AJ Wilcox
So what do you think the reason for this is? Do you feel like
Facebook has gone all in, like doubling down on promoting the video
inventory? Or do you feel like users consume it more? And so
Facebook feeds it more to their users? What do you see driving this
trend?
Jon Loomer
This has long been the question on Facebook, because we can go back
to other formats as well. Like when we talked about the algorithm
and you know what benefits and what doesn't? Is it Facebook,
favoring a certain format because people are engaging with it more,
or people engaging with it more because the algorithm is favoring
it, showing them that content? I think it's a combination of those
things. But obviously, it's it'd be foolish to push video if people
didn't want to see video. You know, the funny thing, I'm going to
go on a tangent here just for a second. Remember the days when an
auto play video came out? And the uproar, like, how do I turn this
off? This is gonna be a huge failure. What is Facebook doing?
That's pretty much every app right now is autoplay video. So point
being that was pushed, was it because Facebook knew it would be
successful? Because man, there was a lot of negative pushback to
that. My bet is though they saw regardless of what people said, how
they consumed it, that's often like as a marketer, I think that's
an important lesson, generally. I don't listen to polls, when they
ask what apps do you use the most? Facebook or not? And then oh,
look, that this group of people is no longer using Facebook,
they're abandoning and Facebook. And then you look at data and it
shows something completely different. So anyway, I think this is
kind of an example of that. But anyway, I do think there's
something to video being so incredibly engaging. I mean, like
Facebook is also reacting to TikTok, obviously. Instagram, they
kind of went that direction, first with Instagram, trying to mimic
TikTok. And now we're carrying that those rules over to Facebook as
well, I can tell you firsthand, if you're just promoting links, if
you're just sharing links, you're not gonna get the distribution
that other companies other brands get from using video. And again,
I understand you want to drive traffic to your websites or like, if
that's the only metric you're looking at is traffic, then you might
not see the benefit of this. But if you're playing the long game on
this, if you want to create a connection with your potential
customer, Video is just as the way to go right now.
AJ Wilcox
Oh, I love this. I've seen something similar on LinkedIn, where if
you would have asked me a year ago about LinkedIn's, video ads, I
would have told you avoid them, they are on average, about 20% more
expensive per click than single image ads. Just don't do it, like
people don't go to LinkedIn to be entertained, so they're not gonna
stick around for your video. But in just the last six months, we've
seen some video ads now starting to outperform a single image. And
that doesn't tell me that LinkedIn changed their algorithm or
anything like that. It tells me that user behavior is changing.
People are actually coming back to LinkedIn to spend time and
consume rather than just come because they had a connection
request, check it, answer a message or two.
Jon Loomer
Yeah, and I think it's challenging. And it's not that you can't
drive traffic with video. It's just always gonna be a secondary
thing, especially at TikTok, I mean, anyone who's used TikTok
clicks to a website from the TiKTok app, or it's such a roundabout
thing. Like if you put a link in there, in like comments or
anything, it's not even clickable. So they always say, oh, click
the link in my profile kind of thing. That's like, the most
roundabout way, because they want to keep you on the app. So like,
as marketers, I understand that that's like, you have this block
that says, this is wrong? Why would we want to do that? But I have
some stories here. So I've been doing this for a couple of months.
And beyond just having people say, oh, John, I haven't seen you my
newsfeed forever, you helped me back in 2014, which makes me feel
old. But at the same time, beyond seeing that a lot, all of a
sudden, I had one on ones, two one on ones on Monday and Tuesday,
but all four of them told me that they were there, because they
started seeing my videos. And there are people who signed up for my
membership, same thing, and I started telling the stories, like,
yes, I am here because of those videos. I was not able to connect
that in any way, with metrics, anything to show me that that was
the truth. My traffic's not even like, crazy, like anything spiked
or anything because of this. It's just because of that connection,
that emotional connection you can create. But these people are
human, I trust this person. It's not even like there's a specific
video or anything that you can point to. It's like, it's the
collection of the effort that led to it. And as you can see, it's
kind of changed my business. And I just want to screen it so people
understand it.
AJ Wilcox
And that's so funny for data guys like you and I because if you
look in your analytics platforms, you're not going to see this. And
so totally difficult to say because I think we expect sequence, we
expect a funnel to show us that something's working. And in your
case, like you've shared with us very specifically like the end of
the funnel grew, and you see nothing in between to tell you that
it's working. That's pretty crazy.
Jon Loomer
And it has to be the word of mouth. It has to be the people who
tell me that if they don't tell me that, I'm just guessing. I have
no idea if that actually contributed. So that's the hard part about
what we do.
AJ Wilcox
Yeah, it's true. What we started doing we started asking in a free
form field in Our forms when people apply, how did you hear about
us? And of course, we're capturing UTM parameters. So we know what
platform sent them. But it's really interesting to compare when
someone says, Oh, I saw you on YouTube, but their link came from a
LinkedIn Ad. And we're like, going, okay, like we're seeing where
other platforms are contributing kind of cool. Alright, so I'm
imagining the majority of our listeners there are responsible for
LinkedIn, obviously, like, why would you listen to LinkedIn Ads
Show if you weren't responsible for LinkedIn, but you're probably
also responsible for Facebook as well? What would you suggest to
advertisers who are responsible for both LinkedIn and Facebook? How
do you make the platforms be synergistic, add to each other, work
together in harmony? Like, do you have any tips, tricks,
strategies?
Jon Loomer
I think in all cases, every platform has strength. And every
platform has its weakness. I think the biggest weakness for
Facebook, especially B2B is sorting out your targeting audience.
Particularly if you're not optimizing for a purchase or conversion
at the time, if you're like, if you're trying to build awareness
about your brand, you're going to be reaching all kinds of people
in every field whatsoever, like, you could try using their interest
targeting and whatnot, especially if you're optimizing for
something like engagement, video views, traffic, anything like
that, it's usually a mess. Whereas LinkedIn, you can use that
specifically to reach people, especially in the B2B situation, who
are there for business. Right? So whether it's by their job title
or their industry, I think I would consider and look, I'm not a big
LinkedIn Ads guy, but I will consider you can correct me on this,
that from an awareness perspective, reaching the right people has
to be much easier on LinkedIn, than on Facebook for that B2B
situation. Right. And then if you're able to drive them to your
website at some point, with something, that's where Facebook
becomes a little bit better. Piggybacking off of LinkedIn, like off
using the comparison with with Google Ads, right? For whatever
reason, Facebook's never come up with a reliable search ad, they've
experimented a couple of times with different types of search ads.
But if you are a business that is only needed when someone needs
you, alright, so I don't know why I was using the plumber, but like
a plumber. You're not going to follow a plumber on social media,
right? And just blanketly targeting everybody. I mean, you can
build your brand, but you're probably spent a ton of money just
telling people, you're a plumber. So those types of ads on Facebook
are difficult. Whereas on Google, you can attract people who are
looking for that solution. And then on Facebook, you can remarket
to those people who were driven by the Google Ad. So Facebook is
ideal, first of all, for Ecom, I would say. So if you're selling
product, and you've got a category of product that Facebook knows
well, you can optimize for that and do great going broad what not,
you don't even really need to actually just put out a blog post on
it. That's really where Facebook thrives. And the remarketing, good
as well. But the weaknesses in Facebook would be, especially in a
B2B situation, attracting the right people at the surface level,
top of the funnel, but also the whole reach people before they need
you situation.
AJ Wilcox
I love that. We talked about in our news section a couple episodes
ago about how Facebook released the newer B2B targeting and there's
five segments. It's interesting, because when I'm used to going
into LinkedIn and typing, here are the job titles I want to target,
for instance, Facebook used to offer that then took it away. Now we
have like, oh, here's this one segment that is we think this is
business decision. This is everyone probably manager and above
whose job is anything from accounting to sales? It's kind of
interesting that they would put it into buckets. Do you see
Facebook doing much more? Is this just a foray into it? And then
they'll give us more specific targeting later?
Jon Loomer
It's funny, you mentioned that example. Because it's one of those
things was like, oh, yeah, they did this. And I completely forgot.
I don't see it as being very valuable. And maybe it is valuable to
some of the people who have used it, I've seen value in it. But
it's also kind of going against the direction Facebook's heading
with targeting. And that direction is like, just go broad. And let
the algorithm work. So unless you have something specific, like I
need to reach people with this certain job title, a lot of that
kind of broad business decision maker stuff, I don't know how
effective that's really going to be. Yeah, if someone's had crazy
success with it, feel free to correct me on that.
AJ Wilcox
Cool. Well, I'm excited to try it out. We're certainly exploring
anything. I love LinkedIn Ads, but not because the platform is
something magic. It's because of access to the right audience. So
If there's any other platform out there, that's going to give me
control over B2B. I'm going to adopt it, I'm going to accept
it.
AJ Wilcox
So here's a quick sponsor break, and then we'll dive into advanced
Facebook Ads strategy, as well as the new hotness of TikTok.
The LinkedIn Ads Show is proudly brought to you by B2Linked.com, the LinkedIn Ads experts.
AJ Wilcox
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you want to generate more sales opportunities with your ideal
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absolutely love the chance to get to work with you. All right,
let's jump back into the interview with Jon Loomer.
AJ Wilcox
Alright, so I've got to ask, are there any no brainer things that
we should be doing with Facebook Ads? Obviously, the platform
changes a lot and is constantly adding new stuff. Is there anything
no brainer that we might have missed?
Jon Loomer
I feel like we've talked about the latest developments. For me like
the biggest thing, if you've got 28 Day click, you have to dig in
search and find it and uncover it. And that's a no brainer, like,
show me that more conversions happen, that's really important. The
other thing is, if you're running an ad for purchases, I strongly
advise that you experiment with going completely broad. Which
sounds crazy, I am someone who for years, I just loved a micro
targeting. Like target the most relevant people, it could be the
smallest audiences, people are most engaged with my stuff. And it's
not that you shouldn't ever do that anymore. But I think what we've
seen is Facebook's really, really good when it comes to sales. We
kind of mentioned that before the algorithm doing things in real
time that you can't, or it takes too long to do, to figure it out,
and you're going to waste money. So not even bothering with
lookalike audiences and interests just going completely broad for
Ecom. And when you're when you're selling a product, beyond that,
like Facebook ads, I think any advertising platform is so much of
an experimental thing, right? I have never had to tell you always
do this, this is one thing, because it's it always works. Should
you use broad targeting? Should you use narrow? Should you use
these certain optimizations? It all depends. So many factors impact
the success or lack thereof of your ads. The fact that I'm even
telling you consider broad targeting is because I've eventually
gotten over my objections to it. Unless you try things you'll never
know what actually does, it doesn't work. So I would experiment
like crazy if you can.
AJ Wilcox
I'm with you. I think that would be really uncomfortable for me if
LinkedIn ever said just go all broad, we'll find your right people
be. It would be really hard for me to trust. I would also wonder
like, what is the learning period? Like how long do I give a test
before I give up and go? Nope, it had its chance. I mean, I pulled
my budget back?
Jon Loomer
Well, so a couple things with the concept of broad targeting, and
then the learning, right? So the truth is that no matter what we do
right now, that's the direction Facebook's going. Because if you
target an interest, a group of interests, and you're optimizing for
any type of conversion, advantage detailed targeting is
automatically turned on. That's their expansion product for
detailed targeting. So that gives Facebook the ability to go as
broad as they want to go beyond what you said you wanted to target
to get you the results that they think they can get you. So same
thing with look alike audiences, advantage look alike audiences,
which is look like expansion, is automatically on for conversions.
So if you say, oh, I only target this 1%, they can go to 10% if
they want to get you more conversions. So I don't know if everybody
knows that. That's the direction it's going anyway. But in terms of
the learning period, that's also where we should be careful because
that first seven days is Facebook's learning phase. And that's when
you'll even see in that delivery column that learning your results
are going to be less stable during that time. Additionally, I would
be wary of making any changes or drastic changes like stopping
anything based on the most recent three days, especially if you've
got a lot of people in your audience who are on iOS devices,
because there can be a delay in some of that reporting for privacy
reasons. So you can't connect the dots or Facebook can't, I don't
even know who abuses this so why this is necessary? That reporting
can be delayed, which is also why we go back and look at reporting,
like, wow, that went up, how'd that change, it's because of that
delayed reporting. So don't make any drastic decisions within the
most recent three days. But also, if you can let it get through the
learning phase. So that's where the algorithm is learning about
what works and what doesn't work and trying to get you the best
results, the most efficient results. Once you get through the
learning phase, that's pretty much when, okay, this is the best
rate you're gonna get probably it might fluctuate a little bit over
time. But if it's still not working, once you get through the
learning phase, yeah, shut it off.
AJ Wilcox
Okay. So seven day learning phase, if you turn something on, like
ultra broad targeting, I have seen some ads reach saturation,
before seven days. What do you do about that? Like, if you want to
make sure you have seven days, but your ads are reaching high
frequency in that time, which would normally tell me to trigger a
refresh? How do you balance that?
Jon Loomer
So it's all about what is my cost per desired action? Right? So
audience saturation is something that I don't think most people
even realize how to access that data. So you'd select your ad set
and on the right hand, part of ads manager, there's an icon, it's
like a magnifying glass, the Inspect tool. You click on that, and
within there, there's a bunch of charts and graphs, and one of them
is for audience saturation. And there are four different metrics
related to audience saturation. So I'm going to remember all
unfortunately. One is frequency, one is reach, one of them is first
time impression ratio. And there's one more. So basically, you can
compare it to your cost per conversion. So essentially, yeah, you
might see that the frequency is going up, the reach is flattening
out. The first time impression ratio went from up top to way down
at the bottom. You might see all those things. But if that is not
coinciding with an increase in cost per conversion, then who cares?
Right? If those two things are connected, that's when you make that
decision. So that's why you know, when people often ask, you know,
what's that saturation rate or that frequency when you shut it off?
That misses the point, if you're getting good results? Who cares
what that is?
AJ Wilcox
Yeah. And it's at the point that you see those results stop that
you go and measure that up with against saturation. That makes
perfect sense. So since Facebook is kind of old news, Now, tell me
what you think might be the most interesting right now in the world
of digital marketing?
Jon Loomer
Oh, well, I'm suddenly dipping into TikTok. So not just from a
organic point of view, but I'm using it for advertising as well. So
if you've run any Facebook ads before, the first thing you'll
notice if you've ever jumped into Tiktok Ads is it looks exactly
like Facebook Ads. I haven't heard this specifically mentioned, but
I'd be shocked if it's not true that TikTok's engineering team is
made up of former Facebook engineers. I'm sure they are. Yeah,
because not only is it just set up the same, it's called TikTok Ads
manager. Like any of the terminology you're used to is all used
there. Custom audiences and look alike audiences and breakdowns and
they just came out with an audience Insights tool that is just like
the old Facebook audience insights tool, which was really valuable
before they scrapped it because of privacy concerns. But everything
just works the same. Now, obviously, the platform and the format's
different. So your results and kind of your overall strategy could
be different. But that's the biggest thing for me is like jumping
into that it kind of opened up a new world of wow, I feel really
comfortable here. Our marketing world is that's just scratching the
surface of like, the kind of as we're talking, you need to get
involved in short form video in some way. If you're not comfortable
with TikTok, that's fine. The nice thing and really the primary
reason I got into TikTok, even though I like laughed about it in a
joke probably three months ago, was if it was a unique format that
you couldn't apply anywhere else, I'd probably never would have
gotten into it. But you could take that and take that same file.
Like you probably don't want to take the TikTok version with a
TikTok watermark. I mean, I do all my recording and editing off of
TikTok, which may or may not be the wrong way to go. But by doing
that I can upload to TikTokand add TikTok music. Again, upload two
reels and add reels music on Facebook and Instagram. I can upload
to YouTube shorts and then you've probably know this, I've created
a square version, I just throw it on a square Canvas for LinkedIn.
And so the benefit of that is like, you know, even if your TikTok
efforts are flat or just not leading to huge results, it's like
you've got all these other platforms you can apply that to. And
this isn't just like a matter of cross posting, because the way I
kind of manage each of those is different. Like ever seen any of my
LinkedIn videos, like I provide a lot of long form thoughts, in
addition to the video that I wouldn't provide those other places.
It's led to all these people on Facebook and Instagram ike I didn't
really didn't use Instagram before doing this. I use it as a
placement to reach people with my Facebook Ads. And that was about
it. It took me a long time to even get into sharing photos. Like, I
just didn't even want to do that. And again, that kind of goes back
to the whole my objections to photo sharing, I need to drive people
to my website, which is why I wouldn't even use Instagram. But
anyway, applying that to these different platforms. And then all of
a sudden, you can get that aggregate lift, which I think I'm seeing
right now. I mean, that's the biggest change right now in marketing
is, if you're not getting involved in this, I worry for you. I
think it's important.
AJ Wilcox
That's good advice. By the way, LinkedIn now accepts a native
square video for their posts. So you may use the same canvases
you're already using for others.
Jon Loomer
So if I use the nine by 16, what will happen?
AJ Wilcox
Is it vertical?
Jon Loomer
So I'm using the vertical, I use that for TikTok and reels and
shorts. I throw it on a square canvas, I don't have to change the
video in any way and I don't have to crop anything out or anything.
So then I have my colors or whatever in the background and the
sides. So then it's square. I don't think that uploading the tall
works on LinkedIn does it?
AJ Wilcox
So it does now in the ad platform, I just don't know about
organically. Okay. All right. What's interesting is they tell us
that if we upload vertical video, it will serve but it will only
serve to mobile devices. But that's one of the only controls we
have for what devices LinkedIn Ads show up on. I sure would like it
the other way around, I'd love to be able to say this format only
shows on desktop, but whatever. Yeah, I don't know about organic.
We've had some questions about that and I haven't had a chance to
test it out. Maybe test it out and let us know,
Jon Loomer
When I started doing this was square is the ideal on LinkedIn for
organic, which is why I did it. And I tried to do in a way that's
not going to create a bunch of extra work by just okay, I've got
this created video with all the captioning on it, just throw it on
a square canvas. And it looks I think, fine. As opposed to trying
to recreate the square dimensions,
AJ Wilcox
We do find over and over that square outperforms every other format
for both image and video. So yeah, cool. I think you're on the
right path. What are some of the things that marketers should be
using TikTok for?
Jon Loomer
First of all, in your brand, right, so and what your goals are, at
minimum, t's just about creating connection with a potential
customer, right. So if you have a service, where you are an expert
is supposed to be an expert in where they can hire you to do
something, you should be mostly about educating them on that thing.
And I know for years, the argument against doing something like
that was like, oh, but then they'll just do it themselves. I think
it's the complete opposite of that, like, yes, they might take bits
and pieces of that. But eventually, they need an expert. And
because you establish that expertise over and over and over and
over again, they'll go to you when they need that help to hire you
or recommend you or whatever it be. So I think if you're a service,
just sharing your expertise on a regular basis, no strings
attached. Like, again, I know this is an obstacle for a lot of
brands of constantly pushing selling this this product product
product, I would avoid that as much as you can, or you still get
mostly ignored. So there's that. But you can also do things like
you know, product specific how people use your product. If you're
like more of a like a retail, or then it's less about establishing
any kind of expertise, it could be more lifestyle, how people are
using it, just fun, entertaining videos related to your product.
There's just a lot of different angles you can take. The ultimate
bottom line though, is you can't be 100% buy my stuff. It's gonna
stand out in a bad way. You gotta be thinking, first of all, how do
I grab their attention? How do I provide value? How do I you know,
make their thumb stop? That's the goal.
AJ Wilcox
Oh, that's perfect.What about for B2B? Have you found anyone who's
done a good job in B2B on TikTok? Any tips for us who are in
B2B?
Jon Loomer
So the stuff I've been following, unfortunately, I can't even think
of names. They're just like faces that show up in that tic tac
feed. But a lot of that stuff that I follow is B2B. It's people who
are experts in a field and I apply a lot of what I learned there to
what I do, it's just a lot of educating. So this is how you do
something in this field, and this my expertise, and do it quickly.
Right. That's the other difficult adjustment for me and I'm sure a
lot of old school marketers is like, get to the freaking point,
fast. So not only get their attention, but also get to the point
fast, they're ready to move that next video. So you've got to
provide some value, solve a problem. So think about what are the
problems that your target audience have focused on something very
specific, wrap that up in a minute or less, I mean, it could be 10
seconds. There could be something so specific that you can get out
in 10 seconds. And man, I wish I could give you some specific
names. There's several of them who are just really good at the how
to. So it's list the top three things you should be doing blah,
blah, blah, or why this one thing is so important. It's those types
of things. But I encourage anyone who's on TikTok or reels, start
following people based on these keywords, engage with the stuff
that you like, oh, that's really useful, follow them. And you will
start seeing your feed catered to that. There's this there for you
section of TikTok, for example, we're constantly seeing more B2B
type of content there that I find really useful and t's based on my
own engagement.
AJ Wilcox
Very cool, great tips. Thanks for sharing that. What about you,
either professionally, or personally? Or both? What are you most
excited about right now?
Jon Loomer
Man, I tell you, this is a different part of my life. So
personally, I have three sons, my business I built around being
able to spend as much time with them as possible. And we shared a
common love for baseball. So everything I've done really over the
first 10, 11 years is about making sure, first of all that I had a
business I had an income, I also had freedom of time to dedicate to
coaching. Well, my two oldest boys are now in college. It's crazy.
And my youngest is now in high school. So my coaching days are
over, which is probably good timing. Because after a while, when
you take that approach of like, I just want to be as free as
possible and work less in this industry, you start getting left
behind and that it was I think my business needed a reboot. So I'm
spending way more time on my business right now. Because I have
more free time that used to be taken up with coaching, building the
business. And I think that's really why I'm doing all this video
right now. I'm so energized in that. I said no to all podcast guest
invitations for years. Because that's just one more thing that
takes up my time that I didn't have time for. So it's these kinds
of things like, you know, building these relationships and having
these experiences I'm really excited about.
AJ Wilcox
I'm so grateful that you accepted this one. This is awesome. Like I
will have mentioned in the intro, you've been a huge inspiration to
me so thanks so much for coming on.
Jon Loomer
Thanks so much.
AJ Wilcox
I'm curious because you've dedicated so much time to coaching in
baseball. Yeah, you've got some sons in college. Do you have any
future MLB players? Or are they on scholarship? Or have they kind
of left it behind?
Jon Loomer
No. So I feel really lucky for this. I mean, first of all, my
oldest, he'll agree with this, the least skilled of the three. He
played through varsity, which is no easy feat. 2500 kids in the
school to play all the way through senior year. But he had a
specific goal, like he's, he's a senior at Texas Tech right now.
He's gonna go to med school next year. He's going to be an
orthopedic surgeon is what he's planning on. And then my middle
son, it's funny because like, he's one we're like, we kind of
wanted him to keep playing. Because he's got that ability. I'm not
gonna go MLB be or anything. But he's got that ability to play. But
actually, it's probably a good thing that he's decided that's it,
I'm ready to focus on school. Because that's what they are worried
about with these kids, like in this environment that I'm in with
baseball, it's so crazy, and so much pressure. It's constantly
about getting to that next level. Like when you have that focus,
are they prepared for when that's not an option anymore? Like, what
are you going to do? And so he's actually planning on doing
something in sports, he's looking to go into sports journalism, and
he's super busy and active in college and I'm really proud of them.
And our youngest son not gonna make any predictions on him. He's
still living the dream play baseball in high school, but I think
just as a parent, it's just a reminder that there's always
something after and to make sure they're ready for that. That
baseball sports really, unless, maybe not even unless, you can't
make it the number one priority because eventually you're not going
to have it. So yeah, that's one of those tough parenting
lessons.
AJ Wilcox
Well, that is nice, because you see Olympians who go and get a gold
medal and retire from their sport, and then they have a crash. They
have a hard time figuring out what do I do with my life? I'm really
glad that the sport takes them so far, but then they're willing to
become well rounded and jump into school. I think that's a nod to
your parenting that you're probably doing things right.
Jon Loomer
Really thinking largely my wife, Lisa, too. She's so deeply
involved in your school and on top of what are you doing? Are you
doing your homework? And whatnot, it's a lot of credit to her.
AJ Wilcox
Oh, it's fantastic. Shout out to Lisa. Well, John, anything else
you want to share with us about anything you're working on? Or
anything you feel like it'd be helpful to us as LinkedIn
marketers?
Jon Loomer
No, I think just to stick with a theme, you know, be re to
constantly evolve. And whether this is about LinkedIn marketing, or
about your brand and your business. I think I have a unique
perspective of having been in this was my business for 11 years and
was at a very high point. And then I stopped evolving, thinking I
could just keep going with these same approaches forever. It'll
always work for me. And you have to understand that the way people
consume the way people buy, the needs people have, how you do
things on what platforms and what for, like, all those things have
to constantly be evaluated. There is no new universal, this is
always going to work. So be open to change, I think is my best
advice for any marketer or any business owner.
AJ Wilcox
That's fantastic advice. Jonn, thanks again for accepting the
invitation to come on here, sharing all this value. Where do you
want people to follow you, find you, any of that?
Jon Loomer
I guess that depends on where you consume content, but
jonloomer.com is my home base. So if you still use websites, go
there. Otherwise, you can easily find me on TikTok at Jon Loomer
Instagram at Jon Loomer. Listen to a podcast now. I mean, The
Podcast with Jon Loomer as well. Actually a lot of those episodes
these days are repurposed TikTok videos. They're nice, short, quick
and to the point. Oh, that's cool. We could have a whole other
topic about that too sometime!
AJ Wilcox
We can and we and we probably awesome. Thanks so much, John.
Jon Loomer
Awesome. Thanks so much, AJ.
AJ Wilcox
All right, I've got the episode resources for you coming right up,
so stick around.
Thank you for listening to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Hungry for more? AJ Wilcox, take it away.
AJ Wilcox
If you look down in the shownotes, you'll see links to
jonloomer.com, his TikTok, his podcast, and the link to follow him
on LinkedIn. So definitely check those out. Also, if you or anyone
else is looking to learn more about LinkedIn Ads, check out the
link in the show notes for the course that I did on LinkedIn
Learning all about LinkedIn Ads. It's by far the highest quality
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