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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
If you're a B2B company and care about getting more sales opportunities with your ideal prospects, then chances are LinkedIn Ads are for you. But the platform isn't easy to use, and can be painfully expensive on the front end. At B2Linked, we've cracked the code to maximizing ROI, while minimizing costs. Our methodology includes building and executing LinkedIn Ad strategies, customized to your unique needs, and tailored to the way B2B consumers buy today. Over the last 11 years, we've worked with some of the largest LinkedIn advertisers in the world, we've spent over $150 million on the platform, and we're official LinkedIn partners. If you want to generate more sales opportunities with your ideal prospects, book a discovery call today at B2Linked.com/apply. We'd 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 and the lowest cost course out there. If this is your first time listening, welcome, we're excited to have you here. Hit that subscribe button. We'd absolutely love to have you around next episode. But if this is not your first time listening, a terrific zero cost way that you can support us is to look down, hit the rate and leave us a review in whatever podcast player you listen on. You probably hear this from a lot of podcasters, but it really makes a big difference to leave us reviews. So please help us get the word out. Also with any questions, suggestions, feedback, corrections, anything you want to give us around the show, email us at podcast@B2Linked.com. And with that being said, we'll see you back here next week. Cheering you on in your LinkedIn ads initiatives.
