Why We Stopped Running Facebook Ads And What We Are Doing Instead
After running Facebook ads consistently for several years, we have decided to stop using this strategy at least for the time being. As ad costs have been increasing and results have been decreasing, it no longer made financial sense to continue running them. Because we like to give you some behind the scenes of what we do in our businesses, we wanted to share this with you.
On this episode, we are taking you behind the scenes to share the nitty gritty details of what was going on, why we stopped running Facebook ads and what we are doing instead. We hope it gives you some ideas if you are in the same boat or maybe you are considering running ads.
We’re sharing:
- What lead us to the decision to stop running ads after many years
- The challenges we were having with our ad results over the past few months
- What we are focusing on right now instead
Tune in to find out what options you may want to consider if you are facing the same challenges with your ads right now.
We don’t talk a lot about Facebook ads here on the podcast because we know most of our listeners aren’t using this strategy – they rely more on organic content, especially as they start out as a new health coach.
We have been running FB ads for several years, and there has definitely been a shift over the last year that has caused us to stop running them. This has been a very recent decision we both made, and because we like to share some of what we do in our businesses, we wanted to share this with you.
This is not about bashing Facebook or their ad platform at all – it’s about pivoting when you find the things that once worked are no longer working for you. If you’re running ads, and they are doing fine, then carry on. This will still be helpful for you though in case they stop working or if you want other ideas for marketing your business.
Here’s what happened…
We had noticed an issue with our ads several months ago. Ad costs had gone way up, and they weren’t working well, especially when it came to ads for our webinars. In some cases, ad costs doubled or tripled. We tried different ad formats including video, static images, and different copy, different audiences and the ads just fell flat no matter what we tested (even with our warm markets). Part of this had to do with the IOS14 update last year that affected ad tracking and targeting but the reason why it happened doesn’t matter so much as the results we were getting which pretty much tanked, and this went on for months.
The other big problem we noticed was a delay in Facebook showing results. It was taking up to 72 hours for ad results to show up in the dashboard. When you are only running an ad campaign for a few days, which is what we do when we launch a new program or have a flash sale, you need real time data or a delay of 24 hours at the most, so you can decide if it’s working or if you need to change things up.
We always have a plan, so this is what we’re doing instead. These are things we have been doing already, but we are doubling down on them right now.
- Growing our Facebook groups and growing our email lists inside our groups. Sharing great content in our groups, including livestream trainings each month.
- Growing the podcast (we love podcasting, so this is perfect).
When we have people join our programs, a large percentage of them are listeners of The Wellness Business Podcast, and we love that.
Ads may improve later this year and we may run them again at some point, but for right now, this makes the most sense for us.
It’s also just another reminder that what once worked may not always work, and you have to be ready and willing to make changes and take some risks.
It felt like a big deal to pull the plug on ads because I have been running them on an ongoing basis, month after month for about 5 years. But it also felt like the right thing to do at this time and feel really good about it, and we can start back up at a later time if we know things are going better.
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