Tara Zirker knows a thing or two about running successful FB and Instagram ad campaigns. Not only does her agency average $5m a year on FB and Instagram ads while helping to build many 7-figure businesses, but she’s also the founder of Successful Ads Club.
Here’s a look at what Zirker touched on during her recent talk at Traffic & Conversion Summit 2021—including her foolproof formula for the perfect ad campaign.
The Struggle Is Real with Facebook and Instagram Ads
Zirker kicked off her talk by highlighting some of the biggest frustrations marketers experience with their ad campaigns, including the following:
- Ad costs too high
- iOS 14 update
- Targeting the right people
- Getting people to convert
- Subpar lead quality
- Don’t know what to say
- Ads are getting rejected
- Account getting shut down
- Hitting a scaling plateau
The strategies below address all of these and more. The overarching theme? You can’t stick with so-so performers.
Ad Strategies by Stack
Here’s a look at the ground covered by Zirker—broken out into three stacks:
1. Creative Stack
- Images– Standard
- Strategic raw
- Designed
- Instagram style
- Images– NL
- Memes
- Carousels
- Collages
- Videos – Standard
- Long form
- “Shorty” videos
- Videos – NL
- User-generated content
- GIFs
- Reels (under 7 seconds)
2. Technique Stack
- Retargeting protocol
- Remind people who visited your pages and did the desired action to come back and take the next action
- Give people who visited your page and did not do the directed action a new angle to consider
- Give your “warm audience” the next action you want them to take
- Buy up the news feeds of people in your funnel to add value and keep them warm
- Messenger protocol
- Can be automated or manual
- Might pay more for cost per result, but more clients will come through on the back end
- Quick and to-the-point communication
- Dynamic creative protocol
- Formula: 10 visuals; 2 copies; 2 headlines; 2 CTAs
- Optimize creativity for each person
- No need for testing — use only “winners”
- Ad set stacking protocol
- Include variations of top performing ads within each ad stack
- Let Facebook do its work
- CBO protocol
- Best cost per result with 4-5 ads sets inside one campaign
- Keep things minimal
- Testing protocol
- Test at least 3 different copies, 3-4 visuals, 3-5 headlines, etc.
- Copy length makes a difference!
- Warmup protocol
- Warm them up with video views, brand awareness, store traffic, etc.
- Then, retarget them with a bigger CTA
3. Copy Stack
Always tests the following in your copy:
- Styling (best emoji = the green checkmark)
- Headlines
- Testimonials
- Overcoming Objections
- Pleasure Point Driven
- Pain Point Driven
- Logical
- Emotional
Zirker concluded her talk with her tried and tested formula for the “perfect ad.”
Good messaging (CTR of 1-1.5 percent) + Algorithm Friendly (CPM > $42) + Great landing page (3-30 percent) = Successful Campaign
Use it, Zirker insists, and you’ll never look at your campaign in the same way!
