How I Accumulated 100 + New Subscribers with Facebook Ads

There’s no doubt – Facebook is pay to play if you have a business page. I’ve largely ignored all the algorithm changes, updates, etc. because most of my traffic comes through search engines and Pinterest.

That said, if you want to find new subscribers, Facebook’s Advertising platform is a lucrative place to invest, and here’s why:

Facebook has 1 billion users – your audience is there – guaranteed!
Ad blockers are on the rise, making Google Ads {and similar sidebar ads} less effective
Facebook has great tools to help you focus in on your target audience

I am by no means an expert on Facebook advertising, but I am an expert on finding experts!

So today’s blog post is my very own case study…

How I accumulated 100 + new subscribers and 53 new page likes with $150.00 of Facebook Ads.

That may seem like a lot of money, but it’s about $1.60 per new subscriber. If you’re like most other bloggers out there, you know that getting subscribers is a hell of a lot harder than getting page likes or views. So I consider this a win!

I found an expert and followed her advice.

Kimra Luna is an inspiration for anyone, having amassed nearly a million dollars in a year after living on welfare, all through blogging. She has a video on demand that covers the whole Facebook advertising scene, and I highly recommend it. It’s a wise $40.00 investment. It’s only four months old so it’s up-to-date, though you should know the Ads Manager now looks different so you’ll have to do a bit of hunting and pecking.

I sucked it up and invested in LeadPages.

If you want high converting landing pages, LeadPages is an excellent choice. You can create beautiful pages in minutes, then publish them right on WordPress. And if you are a blogger that doesn’t sell anything, you might think – hey I don’t need LeadPages. If you want subscribers, host webinars, or even write books, you want LeadPages. It’s $37.00 a month for the basic package. If you can’t afford it, you can send people to a page on your website, but make sure it’s designed for gathering email addresses or the best ad in the world won’t do much.

I came up with an irresistible free offer in exchange for an email address.

I’m hosting a free mini-course webinar this Tuesday evening and that’s what I used to entice people to trust me enough to give me their email address. My Facebook advertising was centered around this free course, and I hooked up a LeadPage to Mailchimp and asked people to sign up for it. You can see the LeadPage here.

I created five separate ads, all with different images – one was a video.

This way, I could test out which ad performed better, and funnel my money into that ad and switch off the others.

I used Kimra’s advice and targeted competitor pages.

This means my ads are going out to people who like WP Beginner, Mailchimp, and other similar pages. That way when I get an email address, I know it’s a hot lead, rather than someone who may never be interested in my blog or services. She explains how to do all this in her video.

I used conversion pixels.

These little doohickeys are pieces of code you put on the thank you page of your signup. Here’s what happens:

A person sees my ad.
They click on it.
They end up on the landing page about my Mailchimp webinar.
They click the sign up button.
They enter their email address.
They go to their email and confirm their email address.
They get sent to the Thank You page.
The Thank You page has the conversion pixel on it and sends the info back to Facebook and gets associated with the ad.
Then I can look at my ads and see which ad had the most conversions.
You can see your actual return on investment for that ad.

Whereas many people just simply throw money at boosting posts or getting page likes, using this method means you know exactly what your money is producing.

I got 53 + page likes at the same time.

As an indirect benefit, people who signed up for my webinar also ended up liking my page. I wasn’t advertising for likes, but I got them anyway. An extra bonus!

I changed my avatar right before advertising.

People trust people. I knew that if I had my face on my avatar vs. my logo, they’d be more likely to trust me. I don’t have evidence to back this up, but I’m convinced of it because of my own ad-clicking habits.

The result

100 new people are signed up to watch my webinar this Tuesday. This means I have 100 new subscribers, and potentially – 100 new loyal readers and/or customers. If even one or two of those people invest in my services, that $160.00 is earned back and then some. Yes, I did pay for LeadPages and Kimra’s video, but the video is a one time expense, and LeadPages is a service that can be used for all sorts of advertising, email collection, landing pages, etc. down the road. A worthy investment in my opinion.

My disclaimer

If you are the DIYer, I would recommend you get Kimra’s video and do exactly what I did – follow her advice, get the right tools, and create an irresistible offer.

That said, I have a lot of experience with graphics, code, WordPress, and email marketing. In other words, I think I had immediate success because I already had a lot of the knowledge and understanding of how the process works. You may not, and so I’d be remiss to not include the disclaimer here that this only works if you can produce compelling copy and attractive ads, not to mention a nice looking and well functioning landing page.

Update – Post Webinar

So here is the final result…

Total Spent on FB ads $295.00
New email subscribers acquired = 196
I had about 30 people watch the webinar live, and then 55 people downloaded the replay that I offered for free the next day.
I put in an offer in that follow up email for my services – didn’t even think to mention it in the webinar! (DOH) So there was no soft or hard sell…just a mention in my email follow up.
I offered help with newsletter setup and out of 196, five people said yes. So I made $675.00.
Profit was $380.00

Here is exactly what my LeadPage looked like…