Hey everyone, Ashley here with RSS.com. In this episode, we're chatting with Monica
Louie all about leveraging Facebook ads to increase your podcast downloads. Enjoy the
show.
Hey everyone, I'm so excited to have, is it Monica Louie or Louie?
Louie.
Louie, okay. I'm so excited to have Monica Louie here to talk about Facebook ads for
podcasting. So let's just jump right in. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is
you do?
Absolutely. So thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and nice
to see you again.
So my name is Monica Louie. I'm a Facebook and Instagram ads strategist. And so I'm
not my own agency where we manage ads for six, seven, eight figure online businesses.
And I also teach. So I say I have an agency and education company around Facebook ads.
So I teach and speak about Facebook ads. I love interacting with people and helping people
get over that help hurdle of getting started with Facebook ads and having great success
with Facebook Instagram ads.
Now how did you get into the world of Facebook ads?
Yes. Okay. So, well, geez. So I started off with a blog. Although I left my corporate
job, I was looking for a way to make money from home on my own time, on my own schedule.
I had two little bitty kids when I started my blog. And so I started my blog. It turns
out after I left my corporate job, my husband and I found ourselves in a precarious financial
situation that we just did not feel comfortable with. Going from two incomes down to one,
we thought we were being smart. Well, we tried to be smart. We built up savings, we paid
up our car, tried to put ourselves in a good position going from two incomes down to one.
Well, we saw our savings start to dip and that just made us really nervous. So I was
like, okay, I don't want to have to go back to work right now. I know I could if I wanted
to, but I really don't want to. I want to spend this time with my little... And so I'm
honestly, I'm going to figure this out. So it turns out we ended up kind of following
the Dave Ramsey plan of paying off debt really fast. And so we ended up paying $120,000 of
debt in two years, all on a single mental plus income. And I like to share that my husband
is in law enforcement. So he's not an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer. It wasn't like we
had all this extra disposable income. It really came from hustling and being committed to
our goal. So with that, I learned about blogging along the way. That was a good way to build
an income from following your own schedule and your own terms. And so once we... People
started asking how we had paid off the debt. I was like, that is what I can blog about.
I can help others do the same thing. So I started off with the blog and with the blog,
I just thought traffic would come to me and turns out that's not the case. So I started
following people like Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield and Amy Porterfield shared the wonders of
Facebook ads. And with just a little bit of investment, you can drive targeted traffic
to your offerings. And so I ran my own campaigns to grow my blog and had really great success
with them. And as I was building my community or my network online in the commercial finance
space, people started to reach out for my help with Facebook and Instagram ads. So that
was way back in 2016. I ended up selling the blog and transitioning to go headfirst into
the world of Facebook and Instagram ads. And it's been a wonderful ride ever since.
Wow. So basically you did all the trial and error, you learned all the things and now
you teach all the things.
Yes, I teach all the things and we love it. I have a great team and we manage ads for
our clients. We have such fun doing it. There have definitely been challenges along the
way, but it's been a lot of fun and we're still getting great success. And so I love
to teach and help others achieve that success as well.
Wow. So I can't even imagine like you have a blog and you just decide, hey, I'm going
to start spending money on Facebook ads. What was that like for you? What did that feel
like going from the, I'm just trying to get traffic to I'm actually putting my money into
this.
Yes. So I was very, very nervous. My husband and I were still paying off debt. So we were
really watching every penny and my blog was not yet making very much money. But I knew
that I had an important message to share. I knew that there were people out there that
wanted to hear success stories like ours and to hear the steps that we took. And you know,
I started looking for that information, but I just had to get my offerings in front of
them. So I was very nervous. I was very scared. I just was like holding my, you know, hitting
publish, but I followed, I'm a very good student. So I followed what Amy said to do, step by
step and I turned on my campaign and I had really great success. My first campaign, it
was to promote my webinar, my deaf freedom training. And that was at the end of fall
of 2015. And then I did it again in January of 2016. I had a really good success. I tweaked
my app and my husband was my graphic designer at the time, not professional by any means,
but he was way better than what I could do. And so I just laugh at that graphic that I
use in the end. It caught attention. It worked. I got better results the second time around
and not some people started to hear that I didn't know a thing or a few about basic ads.
Well, it's like, it's like Shane Sam's always says, done is better than perfect. So I definitely
understand the cringe mode of looking back at, because I mean, I look back at some of
the graphics that I've even used to use and nowadays, like they're much better because
you're using Canva and things like that. But so it sounds like whenever you were doing
those Facebook ads, you were driving traffic to a paid offer. Is that right?
It was to my free webinar. And then I had a coaching program helping people create their
deaf freedom plan at the time. And so that's what I would offer on the back end.
That's awesome. I absolutely love that. So okay, transitioning from going from blogging
to now you're doing Facebook ads for more than just trying to drive traffic to a blog.
How in the world did podcasting come into what you started doing? Because I know you
had a podcast for a while. How did all that come about?
Yeah, so I was always love as soon as I discovered podcasting 2012. I mean, that was really what
inspired me to even take the leap and my job and figure out a way to make money from home
on my own. And so I started back then. One of my first podcasts was Michael Hyatt's first
podcast. I know he's had a few now, but his very first podcast. And so he was talking
about blogging. So there he got me interested in blogging. And then I heard I was listening
to other blogging podcasts and they mentioned plan and passive income. So okay, fine. I'll
check this out. So I started listening to Pat and then that really sealed the deal that
I see with sharing success stories of people who are just normal people who would figure
out a way to help people online and make money with it. So that really inspired me to take
the leap as well. And then through Pat and I don't know, maybe Michael Hyatt, I heard
Amy Porterfield name coming around and she had a podcast. I was starting listening to
her podcast. And so I just looked back at it. Just all these people, these mentors along
the way, so helped me achieve my goals in building my business online.
I developed a relationship using them as my virtual mentor through their podcast. And
that's how it all started. And so that was really the desire for me to have my own podcast
to build a relationship with my potential clients, potential customers, and really just
share what I was learning, whether it's about Facebook ads or other things in my business,
building a team, scaling, all the challenges that we face. And then I just love the part
of bringing on other experts to have conversations like this and to share your expertise. So
I love hanging out with other entrepreneurs, people building things online. And so by casting
in fun, a great way to do that.
Well you had already been on my radar because you and I had met at Podcast Movement in 2019.
But what got you back on my radar is I was searching some stuff about how to get more
downloads for a podcast and your name came up. And a podcast episode that you had about
using Facebook ads to get more podcast downloads. I was like, I got to have her on. She's got
to be on this show. So tell me a little bit about using Facebook ads to get more podcast
downloads. Is it actually possible?
Yes. So this is a strategy that I've talked about at Podcast Movement and something that
we've done with several of our clients who have podcasts. A lot of times they see that
growing their podcasts, those loyal listeners are the ones that end up converting and buying
their products, their programs down the road. So if they can just grow their podcast and
get more of those, you know, diehard listeners, diehard fans, then that will lead to more
sales down the road. So it's really a long-term play. But we have been able to successfully
do that. And so the challenge with that though, is that there's no good way of tracking the
download, you know, increase or, you know, our subscribers at all or anything like that.
It's really difficult. When Facebook and Instagram ads, the ads manager does a pretty good job.
It's always completely accurate, but it does a pretty good job of helping us track our
opt-ins and sales from our podcast downloads. It's a completely different world. And so
there's no good way to really track that. So what we just kind of look for is as we're
doing the strategy, is there a general list in downloads? Are we seeing just generally
that the podcast we're promoting or, you know, the show itself is just kind of getting more
attention, more downloads than before we were running ads. So it's not really perfect. It's
not really ideal, but I do think that it is a viable way to grow your show and get more
attention to your show.
Now with the strategy of using Facebook ads to get downloads, do you recommend that people
direct the traffic to the actual podcast or should they go to a website that gives them
an opt-in to then find out about the podcast? What do you think about that?
Yeah. So I've tested it both ways because you can take your, you know, what is it called
these days? You speak an iTunes link, you know, Apple podcast link. And so you're used
to be able to take that and then you can filter to just target people with iPhones, for example,
and put that link in the ad. So then they click on the ad and then it will ask them
to open their podcast app to go listen to the show. So that is not the way that I prefer,
just because there's a lot of friction with that. Because if you're in Facebook or Instagram
and then it says, oh, you want to go open this other app, a lot of times many of us
are going to just be like, no, not right now. You know, and so you can't really then track,
you kind of lost the benefit of that click of people engaging with the ads.
Though my preferred method is to drive traffic to your show notes page. If you have a specific
page for each show or your general podcast page where it talks about your show, Erin,
you have your Facebook pixel installed. So your Facebook pixel is a piece of code that
Facebook gives you and it's unique to your ad account. And it helps track, even though
if you can't track the download, you can track the traffic going to that page and then you
can re-target them, get back in front of them with other ads, other offerings, you know,
maybe it's for your lead magnet, for your aid program, whatever it is down the road.
But you can then get in front of them again. So I like the idea of having the opt-in on
that page. I would definitely put the information there about where they can find your show.
And if you're talking about a specific episode, of course you're going to share, you know,
what that episode is about. And I also think that it's a good idea to have a podcast player
embedded there on your website. So, okay. So people can just listen to it. You'd be
surprised at the number of people that just listen to it, you know, on the desktop there.
If you have it embedded, they can just click play. And, you know, maybe the way that I
listen to podcasts is I'll open my podcast app and then download the show so that next
time I'm ready to listen to a podcast, it's there in my queue. That's the way that I do
it. But people listen in all different ways. And some people will listen to it on the desktop.
That's awesome. So, I mean, it kind of segues a little bit into, well, what are your best
tips for success with Facebook ads if you're trying to drive the numbers up on your downloads?
Yeah. So I would say, you know, there's really two ways you can go about it. You can promote
your show just as your show. Kind of like a brand awareness strategy where it's like,
hey, you know, here's my show. This is what it's about. This is who it's for. And you
can also do that, you know, I think it's a good time to do that when you're launching,
if you're relaunching, got a new season coming in or something like that, where you want
to bring attention to your show and talk about what's coming up on your show.
The other way though is to drive traffic to a specific episode, talk about a specific
episode in your ad. And I really like that idea better, just because it's more specific
as to the content of, you know, what you're sharing in that episode. So your ad can be
more specific to that content. And then you can really clarify who that episode is for.
So I would think about when considering which show do I use for the strategy, I would think
about, well, what is your end goal? Like my clients, they're looking to eventually make
sales into their paid program. So then we want to have a show that's kind of related.
The topic of that show is related to leading into the paid program. Maybe there's an opt-in
shared on the show or whatever, but just kind of get people into the world and lead them
down to eventually the paid offer. So what does that look like for you? What is your
goal? Do you have a paid offering or maybe it's an affiliate offering? Maybe you have
an episode where you interviewed the founder, creator of a tool and you get really great
affiliate commissions. So the more listens that you get to that show, the more affiliate
commissions you're going to get. But just be very clear on what your goal is when selecting
the show. And then also look at which of my episodes have gotten good engagement or will
add credibility that, hey, I got this great big name guess on my show that I want to bring
more attention to. So anyway, those are the kinds of things that I would think through
when determining which episode to choose for that strategy.
I love all of that. I mean, that just all makes complete sense once you say it out loud
because when you talk about it as a long game rather than just, oh, well, we're just trying
to get downloads. I think that the way that you described it makes a lot of sense. So
how are you seeing success or are you seeing success with Facebook ads with your current
clients who are trying to drive people to a podcast?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so we've tested a lot of different things with their ads and
what we found that works really, really well is using the audiogram. So it may create for
social media anyway. Just plug the audiogram with a snippet, an audio clip from the show,
use that as our creative, and then you put the little sound on sticker because we want
people to be really clear that they want to listen to it. It's not just a moving animated
image or something like that. And then just be clear in the ad copy that it is a podcast
that you're promoting, podcast episode number, whatever, or whatever topic or title that
they know to look for and tell them where they can listen to it. I would put in the
ad copy that you can find it on all major podcast platforms, wherever you listen to
your podcast. Because again, just me as a low-income listener of podcasts, if I see
that past new episode that I want to listen to, and he's promoting it in his newsletter
or something, wherever he's promoting it on social or whatever, then I will make a mental
note of it and I may not overwrite then to go start listening to it right then. I'm probably
doing something else. But next time I'm ready to listen to a podcast episode, then I'm going
to make sure that I go back to that one because I really want to check that out. So just know
that it may not get a lot of engagement, it may get likes, reactions, shares even. But
as far as the click-throughs and tracking those click-throughs, it's hard to really
translate that view, the good results that you're looking for. Obviously you want the
lowest cost per leaning page view possible, but just because you're not getting a lot
of clicks using this strategy doesn't mean that it's not working and helping lead to
downloads down the road.
That all makes perfect sense. And I love that you said to embed your show into your own
podcast or excuse me, embed your show into your own website. And I like that you're making
it pretty clear that what people should be doing is something to get someone on their
email list. Because if you are trying to just promote your show and you're not capturing
that info, then what are you even doing?
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So many of us are growing our phones because we do have businesses alongside
our shows. Maybe the podcast shows for something fun to do into, well, now I want to make some
money from this. So I want to develop some products that offer to my listeners.
So just think about the long game, think about the end goal. With every strategy that we
do, we're always thinking about how can we get people on the email list so that we can
get back in front of them with our paid products or our affiliate products. A lot of people
are, especially a lot of podcasters are affiliates for maybe a specific set of tools or resources
that are aligned with their audience, their audience's goal. So have a way to get back
in front of them to let them know about those great tools and resources that you recommend.
Yeah. Even if you're not selling any products, even if your goal is just eventually to get
sponsorships or just to build your community. I think it's so important to be building an
email list. And we've actually written about that on the RSS blog and we'll have to leave
that in the show notes because I think it is so critical, especially if you're using
Facebook and Instagram and all these other things, all these platforms that you don't
own. You need to do something where you can get a hold of that information so you can
keep in touch with people so that if you do go offline one day, you can still tell them,
oh, here I am. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's so important. And I'll say something about
partnerships and sponsorships too, that having a solid email list that you are emailing regularly,
that can help strengthen those partnership deals, those sponsorship deals. And another
thing that we've done with some of our clients too, when it makes sense, is we'll run ads
to their sponsors or partners for their blog or whatever. Oh, that's a good idea. I'm writing
that down. They'll be able to offer that, whether they mean as another line item thing
in their package, their partnership package or whatever, but they'll work with us to run
ads to promote that piece of content or whatever it is. And that's another way that you can
kind of have some different offerings for your partnership packages.
That's a brilliant idea. What a great idea for deliverable. I mean, you're just dropping
knowledge bonds left and right today. Well, I guess one of my questions is, can anyone
purchase Facebook ads or do you need something special to get started?
Yeah. So all you need to get started is you do need to have a Facebook business page.
And those are absolutely free to create. So you do just need to have a page. So you can
have a page for your brand, for your show, whatever it is, but something like that. And
then if you are running ads on Instagram as well, you don't have to, but I highly recommend
having an Instagram professional account as opposed to a personal account or creator account.
And that allows you to into your audiences that are engaging with you on Instagram. If
you don't have a professional account on Instagram, then you're not going to be able to get in
front of your audience that is engaging with you on Instagram, not just your followers,
but those who are actually engaging with your profile.
That's good to know. And I honestly second that if you're trying to get an audience,
you definitely need the professional account. Well, is there any reason that podcasters
should wait to start buying Facebook ads? Like should they wait on a specific reason
to launch their campaigns? Yeah, I think it always comes down to what
are my goals? What are my priorities? And do I have, you know, it is going to take some
investment and I do so you can get started with a small budget with Facebook and Instagram
ads, especially with this strategy. I would just start off with maybe $10 or $20 a day
with testing this out, just seeing how it works. So don't think that you have to have
thousands at the ready to, you know, just throw it Facebook and then hope it works.
Start small, but you do have to have some investment capital. So just be clear that
this is more of a long-term play. So you're not going to, you know, you could test it
for a week and see how it goes, but you're really not going to learn over that, you know,
in a short time period. So I would take probably one episode and just kind of track, you know,
what was my activity, download activity before I ran ads and now what's my download activity
while I'm running ads and just look for a little bit of a lift. And it may not be super
apparent. Of course, there could be other sources that are, you know, dry-make downloads
to that episode. So it's not going to be perfect. And that's what I would be looking for. So
just be really clear on the benefits, but also, you know, the drawbacks as far as tracking
that it's just not going to be perfect.
I love that. Well, I'll add to that, that if you're going to be directing people to
a specific episode, this is why calls to action are so critical in your episodes. So every
single episode that you put out, you've got to be putting calls to action in your episodes,
because if you don't, then you've already lost them. You know, the whole idea is we
are trying to get people to subscribe so we can continue building our audience. So I think
everything that you've shared today has just been brilliant. But I do want to ask you,
I know we're running a little bit low on time, but what mistakes are you seeing podcasters
make with Facebook ads? Do you have a little bit of time to dive into that?
Yes. Yes. Okay. So mistakes. Okay. So these are the things we want to avoid. So the first
mistake is lack of commitment. So the biggest waste of time and money when it comes to Facebook
and Instagram ads is people will say, oh, I boosted up post here, or I put a few dollars
to that there. I'm going to just try it. I'm going to dabble. And then they're just like,
that didn't really work out or I didn't really see the results that I was looking for. So
I'm just going to move on to something else. So when you are serious about growing your
platform, growing your show, growing your business, growing your brand, then you want
to pick a marketing strategy and down the road have several marketing channels that
are working for you, but that you're consistent about. Just like when we're starting our show,
the people that are like, maybe I'll release an episode here. Maybe I'll do another one
there. They're not going to see that grow. And the benefits of having a podcast, if they're
just dabbling with it. So be committed to the process. And as I said, you don't have
to start off with a lot of money. A very small investment will do, especially for the strategy.
And then of course you can test other strategies as well to grow your email list or whatever,
re-target people to your paid products down the road. But with this strategy, I would
say keep the budget at fairly low, $10 to $20 just test it out, but be in it for the
long term. Another one is that people don't get educated to understand what the options
are in the ads platform. So there are a lot of different options. Facebook keeps trying
to add more options for us. We're always finding something new in the ads management. Like,
oh, that was there before. Anyway, so, but it is important when setting up your campaign
that you understand what the different options mean and how to set up your campaign in the
right way. So you've got to have some education under your belt. For this strategy, it's going
to be very simple. I would recommend doing a traffic campaign, but just understand how
to put it together in the right way. And so some of the main mistakes that I see.
That was a great segue into where can people learn more about Facebook ads?
Well, I can help you there. So as I said, I do love teaching people about Facebook and
Instagram ads and helping them get over the problems and the hurdles that come with getting
their needs off the ground and also that nervous feeling of like, I hope I'm doing it right.
It all just worked out. And so I do have my free Facebook ad starter kit that I'd love
to offer to your audience. They can find that at monicallouie.com slash Ashley. And it is
a really cool guide. So it takes you through the six simple steps for creating campaigns
that converts. You know exactly what to plan for when you dive into the ads manager and
there's a checklist. I, my thoughts were a good checklist. So I have a checklist in there
for you so you can put together everything. You can get clear on what episode you want
to promote, who you want to target, what you want to use for your ad creative and your
copy. You can get that all figured out before you go into the ads manager. So then it's
just boom, boom, boom, set it up. And there's a glossary. So if you're new to the world
of Facebook ads, it kind of has its own language. So I like to clarify what some of these terms
mean, what's the difference between a campaign and the ad or what does that mean? And so
I've got a glossary in that too. So you can find that at monicallouie.com slash.
All right. Yeah. We will definitely leave that in the show notes along with all of your
links. Speaking of, where can we find you online?
Yeah. So I do have a podcast, the Flourish Seven Figures podcast. And so you can definitely
listen to that. It is on hold right now, but I definitely want to bring it back in the
new year. So that's my plan. I love podcasting. I'm a huge fan of podcasting. And so I'm going
to bring it back next year. And also my main website is monicallouie.com and you can find
my podcast, everything about working with me, hiring our agency. My program Flourish
is linked there as well. So that would be amazing.
Awesome. And well, the good thing is like, even though you've had the podcast on hold
for a little bit, it's still driving traffic. And not only that, a lot of those episodes
seem to be a little bit evergreen so far. And so even though some of it, I'm sure changes
and there's ebbs and flows and whatnot, but you've got a lot of great content there.
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. It's so fun to deal with. And I'm really excited.
So I'm definitely bringing it back in the new year.
That's exciting. Well, I have to ask you the one last question that I ask everyone before
I let them go. And that is what is one question I didn't ask you wish I had.
Okay. So I would say, what do you do when your face to face aren't working or you feel
like they could be working better? So what are the different elements to test? So with
that, there are three key pillars of high-converted face to face ads. Three key elements that
need to work together. So the first one is your offer. So that would be in this case
with the strategy we've been talking about, your show that you're promoting, your episode
that you're promoting. So that's your offer. And then you've got to get it in front of
the right audience. So if you're finding that it's not really getting much engagement and
not seeing more downloads, it doesn't, just not sure that it's working. Again, it's going
to be kind of hard to tell, but if you're just thinking you do better, then maybe you
need to test a different audience. So testing, we can test multiple different audiences with
all of our strategies. So test a different audience, but you've got to get that offer
in front of the right audience. Then you do that with a high-converting ad. So it may
be that, okay, I think my audience is solid. I think these are people who are interested
in what I share in my show and my offerings, but my ad just isn't really connecting. I'm
not getting a lot of engagement on it. So test a different creative, maybe test a different
headline, test for ad copy, test those different elements. A lot of times just changing the
creative, maybe it's this audiogram versus a static picture or like a boomerang or some
little animated GIF or something in your creative. Just changing that can lead to drastic differences
in results. So we find that if we're testing different audiences, anytime we want to kind
of sign tune some things, then we'll definitely be testing different creatives and different
versions of our ad copy.
Wow. That's intense. That seems like a lot, but that's why you have an ads manager, right?
Yeah. Well, and it's a lot of fun. I think it's really fun to get creative, raise from
the different types of ads that you can promote, but then also get clear on the targeting and
what audiences are likely to be interested in your efforts.
Well, speaking of one of the cool things about RSS is our analytics will actually not only
show you what countries and cities are listening, but they'll tell you the time of day, they'll
tell you their ages, they'll tell you a lot of demographic information, including what
device they're listening on. So can stuff like that be used in Facebook ads?
Absolutely. The more that you understand about your audience and who is listening, then the
easier it's going to be to be able to write the copy in your ad, in your show note to
attract the right listener. And then also then it'll help with your targeting as well
when it comes to Facebook ads. You'll know who is likely to be interested in your show.
So definitely all of that is super helpful.
That's fantastic. Well, is there anything else that you want to add before I let you
go?
I just think that fungassing is a great way to build your audience and Facebook ads can
definitely help you do that. So I was really excited RSS here. So thank you so much for
having me, Ashley.
Well my fellow podcasters, we hope you enjoyed the insights, tips and ideas shared in this
episode. To learn more about launching and growing your own show, head over to RSS.com
backslash blog. And if you're ready to launch a podcast of your own, you can get started
for free with your first episode on us. Thanks for tuning in.