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QuoteOK I have been poking along for months and now I finally have my products up and have been trying to get some conversions and am having dismal results.
I am fairly confident there is an audience for my music because I actually was getting some college chart action with it and one time and have always been able to get good reviews from critics and at least a certain cross section of listeners are very enthusiastic about it.
So though may or may not something that is going to work with the broader public there is always a certain group who loves it.
Usually I get compared to Zappa, Tom Waits, XTC, Todd Rundgren.... yada yada, the somewhat experimental types
So I created an ad like this:
Pointing this squeeze page
And set up an ad targeting Alternative Rock, Pop Rock, Frank Zappa
I am getting as close as I can currently imagine to properly targeting my audience and I have been as careful as I know how to be to clarify my brand.
with a reach of about 3000 or so I have gotten like 35 or 40 clicks and no signups.
Is there some obvious thing I am missing?
6:15 pm
January 15, 2015
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I'd experiment with changing out "Zappa Would Approve" with the current headline and see which performs better.
10:40 pm
June 7, 2011
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Hey Dennis,
From what i can see, your targeting is a major issue. There is also a disconnect between the flow of your targeting, to your ads, to your squeeze page.
The basic idea with this process is that you hone in on one very specific audience, and figure out exactly what conversation is already taking place in their mind, based on the interest you are targeting. Then you target that audience with an ad that speaks to them directly, and then you take them to a page that delivers on the promise that the ad made.
In your case, this is what I see so far...
1. Your targeting is incredibly broad, and you have married multiple interests together in the same ad. You should be targeting one single interest group per ad set (not several together), and you should be going for things much less broad. Alternative Rock and Pop Rock and about as broad as you can get. Things like that will almost never work. Frank Zappa is definitely less broad, but still potentially too broad because he is so well known. It's hard to say with that one. It could work. But for example, I can almost never make 'bob dylan" work for me. But if I go with "bob dylan like a rolling stone" or something that really thins the audience out to a very concentrated dylan fan (as apposed to people who may just be discussing the icon) then the ads typically start to work.
2. Your ad headline just promises a free track by you. That isn't really speaking to Zappa fans (for example). And it's also not really offering much of an experience. It's rather flat and of no real value (YET) to a person who has not heard of you yet. And your ad copy doesn't have a call to action in it, nor does it elaborate on why they should click. It just mentions some quotes. But I do like the pic. It's really strong, and it's probably why you are getting clicks.
3. Your squeeze page is pretty good, but it doesn't specifically speak to the target audiences you have selected.
For example, lets say you just targeted Frank Zappa Fans, with an ad headline that said "Frank Zappa Would Approve".
You could then create ad copy that said something to the effect of Fan of esoteric pop musicians like Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart? Click here for a free download".
You could then take them to a squeeze page that included a headline that promised to deliver on the promise in your ad.
With a flow like that everything is much tighter. One person, one pre-existing passion, one promise, delivered upon with the squeeze page.
Right now you have a lot of good elements but they don't really tie together.
You might want to be sure and watch the resent IC lesson. I go over this in a lot of detail.
Hopefully this helps a bit.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Thank you Keith. I have experimented with different headlines in that campaign. The others do not mention Zappa at all. I get lots of likes for my page but zip in the way of signups.
I am now targeting Beck fans and going more for the alternative artist angle results still dismal.
Thank you John! I thought I was killing it when I put this stuff together but clearly I have a lot to learn and apparently no natural aptitude for this marketing stuff. Please think of me as a particularly tone deaf child who needs being told that the 1 2 3 4 actually matter.
I have removed the "alternative rock" and pop" and just stuck with Frank zappa in my targeting. That got it down to 700,000 potentials. One thing I am not getting is how to narrow it down to some particular album like "Joe's Garage" etc. When I try to enter that in a text field it simply does not "take"
I am just doing a right column ad for the moment. I can expand the copy and put it back in the news feed though if that is what I should be doing.
I tried amping up the call to action in the squeeze page headline as well.
6:53 pm
June 7, 2011
Offline
Hey, no worries, we've all been there. Right brain stuff for a left brain person can be bewildering when you first start experimenting. Takes most of us a while. The key is to really put yourself in the visitors shoes and ask yourself "what are their current attitudes to the interest?", " why should/would they click on my ad?", and "does the page I just took them to match their expectations and make an enticing offer given all of the above?".
I'd take some time to go over some of the recent Insider Circle training lessons on Facebook advertising. There have been a lot of developments in the platform lately and I have covered all of them in those lessons.
As for why "Frank Zappa Joe's Garage" won't come up... It's not a given that Facebook will recognize an audience for every term. If nothing comes up it means their algorithm does not recognize any sub-terms. They way you find one is to just enter the main keyword and see if they make any suggestions. If they don't you can try the root keyword. But if it's too broad you may have trouble with it. I just did that as a test and got "Frank Zappa Discography", "Mothers of Invention", "Zappa Plays Zappa", etc. It's easy to see how someone who mentions the Mother of Invention on Facebook is much more likely to be a fan of Zappa's music than someone who simply talked about, or indicated that they liked Zappa. After all, he was involved in politics, has famous children, was a classical composer, and critic of the music industry. People may be engaging with his page and his name in a huge variety of ways.
This is what I would try...
- Scrap your ad and campaign altogether.
- Start a new campaign and create a new ad, targeting a smaller interest like "Frank Zappa Discographies" in just the US and Canada (assuming you are in the US and/or Canada). Set your age range to something like 25 - 55.
- Write ad copy more along the lines of what I suggested. Maybe rather than saying "Zappa would approve" as a headline (which could be perceived as a false endorsement), you could say something like "Would Zappa Approve?"... I'm just spit balling.
- Tweak your squeeze page headline until you are sure it speaks to a potential Zappa fan, whether you mention him or not.
- Make sure you upload a new image for your ad. Your old one will have a negative quality score associated with it now. Even if it's a duplicate upload, make it a fresh file.
- Select "increase conversions" for the objective and make sure you place your conversion tracking pixel on the 1st thank you page a person is taken to immediately after clicking the submit/download button.
- Then when it comes to bidding. select "Get the most website conversions at the best price".
- Select a budget of $20 - $30 a day and let the ad run for three or four days. *** You need to understand that it takes their algorithm 3 - 5 days to figure out what is working and what is not, before your ad will be optimized and the price will settle.
A couple of things to be aware of...
I would go into this with a test budget, and understand that you absolutely can lose money. if your targeting wrong the whole campaign could be a disaster. Same goes for any element of the funnel.
Also, the"Get the most website conversions at the best price" bidding method can work great, but because your ad has no history it will be harder. If you can't stomach the potential high cost of 3-5 days of testing for an ad that may or may not work, you can try manually bidding for clicks first, (making sure you still have a conversion pixel in place) using the method I showed you in MMM. Then create a duplicate ad in the same campaign, using the optimized method, AFTER you get some conversions. They say it takes FB's algorithm about 30 conversions before it starts to figure things out.
If you have a small budget to risk I would probably just start with the simpler method and see what happens. Remember that it takes time. The first day's prices will probably be quite high, and then they will start to drop. But if a few days have passed and you have zero conversions that you need to apply some common sense and shut down the ads.
Be sure to go over those training lessons as everything I just laid out is covered in them.
Hope it helps and good luck.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Hey John I just want to thank you for your thoughtful replies.
I still have not found the key.
I guess I feel like maybe I am trying to sort out too many things at once in my approach.
I have people who are enthusiastic about my music but I never have been able to identify a common thread in the demographic.
Lately I am trying people who are interested in Ween simply because there is so much diversity in their albums that I guess my music has something in common with that even though I would not necessarily say much they do sounds particularly like anything I do, I assume that their fans like the diversity. Though I have to say I lack the nerve to get as obnoxious as Ween can be.
Anyway that is not necessarily working so I am going to have to think again.
But anyway since I am not sure of the demographic either it sure seems like tree are a lot of potential fail points that need addressing so it kind of feels like randomly spinning a combination lock at this point.
1:52 am
June 7, 2011
Offline
I hear you. Being a big fan of Ween myself, I don't think targeting Ween fans based on diversity alone is enough. Ween has a particular sound and vibe that is consistent throughout their stuff, regardless of how different the albums can be. Kind of like Zappa did. If your music does not sound like them that won't be enough, in my opinion. That said, we would be talking about sales at that point. It sounds like we are still talking about opt in conversions.
Where are you at with things? What is the first issue? Is it cost per click, cost per subscriber, or sales?
You might also post a link to a track or two so I can listen and refresh my memory. I'll see if I can spot anything.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Yeah! Thanks! I know you must get asked to listen to a ton of music but I would be really happy if you would take a listen and tell me if you have any ideas for genre placement.
These are the three songs from two of the albums I am selling that I am using for the opt in.
http://dennisgunnmusic.com/Fre.....Bundle.zip
I also lately have tried putting one song on the on the squeeze page that auto plays.
These two albums are the "twofer" that I pitch in 4th sales letter.
I actually have had a couple of leads go that far but I am just not getting a reasonable opt in rate at all on any of my FB campaigns.
6:09 am
January 15, 2015
OfflineDennis,
I listened to the three tracks and I get the Zappa and Todd Rundgren comments and agree. "Young, Dumb..." reminds me of B-52s (mostly the guitar and vocal lines). XTC, not so much, but I'm really only familiar with their mainstream stuff and not deeper tracks. But the voice, yes.
Something about your music reminded me of Dr. Demento's radio show, although he leans more toward silly, from what I remember. You might be able to find some traction with people that like radio shows that are a bit more off the beaten path.
I think there's some Brian Eno/David Byrne fans that would like what you're doing.
But all-in-all, I think Zappa is the closest match (I'm not an expert on Zappa, by any means). It's possible that you just haven't found the right approach to a Zappa-based funnel. I'd encourage you to find different approaches to Zappa-based ads and make sure you pair them with landing page offers that tightly match your ad message. I think that's a better bet than trying different artists.
I think, if you were learning to ride a bicycle, if it didn't work the first time, you'd be better off refining your technique than trying a unicycle next time and a skateboard the time after that. I just think it's harder than most of us realize to dial that funnel in. That's good news, in a way. It means few of our competition will manage it.
I do think there's an audience out there for your music. Keep at it!
Keith
9:46 pm
June 7, 2011
Offline
Hey Dennis,
I dig your stuff. I'm a big an of Zappa, Waits, Ween, etc. And I agree that I think your stuff would be appealing to that crowd.
I think you might also get traction with Primus and Faith No More Fans, at least based on the sample track on the squeeze page.
I think we need to back up and start over here because there are just so many variables and I'm not sure where you are at.
Did you ever scrap the old ad and start again like I suggested? If you just edited your existing ad then it won't likely work as well because you will have already established a quality score.
This is where I would start...
Create a brand new campaign and an ad with three image variations for a little split testing.
Use conversions as the objective but select manual bidding per click. Bid the highest amount recommended (it will drop and you will pay less than that so don't worry).
Target only ONE interest. I'd probably try some variation on frank zappa but make sure it's not too broad. You're looking for an audience size of between 50k and 500k... or so. Lots of wiggle room there.
The other major thing that I think still needs work is the headline. I'm not really feeling "Relax… close your eyes… and let the breeze from the speakers BLOW YOUR MIND." For starters relaxing doesn't really compliment blowing my mind, at least to my thinking. And it's also not the right mood for your music. Try to conjur up some imagery that a zappa fan might respond to. Your stuff, and his stuff is off the wall, avangard, exxperimental, zanny, fun, etc. Try to evoke some imagery along those lines if you can. I think the headline is still a major issue for you.
If you have the budget I might try setting up three Ad Sets. All with duplicate ads, but each one targeting a different interest. Just so that we can determine if it's the targeting, the ad, or the squeeze page.
Then share stats so we can take the next step.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
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