Hi ,

You've probably seen ads from other coaches on your Instagram, Facebook or even LinkedIn feed. But most of them are not as successful as you'd think and there's a good reason for it.

First of all, the biggest mistake small businesses make when investing into advertising for the first time is thinking that the only money they'll spend is on simply displaying the ad on their preferred platform.

They design an ad and define an audience that is very broad, even after narrowing it with the help of the audience score most platforms provide. Or they fall for the option to simply turn their latest social media post into an ad to increase exposure.

Why not? It's only a couple of bucks. Can't hurt, no?

Maybe spending $20 a week on this nonsense is not a big loss for you, but it's a waste of money. You might as well crunch up that twenty 💵 and throw it away. 🚮

The second large mistake small business owners make when they consider advertising to generate leads is not planning adequate "learning budget". The first big mistake is inadequate planning (e.g. a well-defined audience, a compelling offer and CTA, great copy, etc.).

But let's return to the learning budget. That's the money your advertising asset needs to gather enough data to learn about the audience. That's what will tell you what works and what doesn't work so you can draw some conclusions and optimize.

This takes time and money. Both are tied together - here's how:

1. Obviously, you'll need a weekly budget. The longer you run the ad, the more you'll spend.
2. If you want to get more accurate intelligence from your initial experiment, you'll need to get statistically meaningful exposure.
3. More exposure = more money spent to reach a wider audience and/or running over a longer time to have enough data gathered over weekends vs weekdays. That way, you can detect patterns.

This initial budget is unlikely to bring you instant customers. It will mostly give you insights to optimize your ad before you launch a refined version that will have higher chances of success.

Many coaches we speak to get bombarded with offers from agencies who want to help them with ads. That's not a bad idea if you vet them. The stories of coaches who have burned their budget on unqualified "experts" are shocking.

Take a look at our article on this topic and use our list at the end to interview qualify experts or agencies before you spend money on a big frustration.

Don’t Waste Your Coaching Ads Budget Like Everyone Else

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Have you worked with an advertising expert? Let us know about your experience. If you have an agency or advertising expert you'd recommend, we'd like to pass this on to your fellow coaches. You can reply directly to this email.

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Enjoy the weekend,

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