Meta ads have been brutal over the last 8 weeks or so.

They've been rolling out a new algo and it's made the platform way more volatile than usual.

If you spend any time on the FB Ads subreddit, you'll see the panic and fear...

• "Worst month for ads ever in my 12+ years of advertising"
• "Meta advertising is dead"
• "I'm going back to Google ads"

Then you've got all the copium that comes with it. People talking about how Meta platforms are dying (they're not), and how they don't want to pay Zuck.

And while these folk are whining, I know people spending $30k / month+ profitably on the platforms and just approaching it as business as usual.

So, what's the difference between Whiny Winston and Profiting Pete?

The secret to successful ads

I'm gonna lay one of the biggest misconceptions to rest right off the bat.

No one has a secret system for ads that's just better than anyone elses.

Case in point, these 2 guys I know.

One manages 7-figures across multiple client accounts (we'll call him H).

The other manages 8-figures for the company he works at (we'll call him M).

H's set up is...

• Testing campaign with broad Adv+ interests and lookalike audiences
• Heavy creative testing
• Winning ads get put into an Advantage+ Sales Campaign for scale
• 3 ads per ad set

M's set up is...

• Testing ad set with no targeting
• Heavy creative testing
• Winning ads put into scaling campaign targeting multiple lookalikes and open targeting
• 1 ad per testing ad set

The only thing these 2 people agree on is creative testing being the new norm.

And yet they're both running tonnes of ads at a profit.

So don't think you need to find someone with a secret system, or that one method is better than the others.

In my experience, there is no one way to runa ds that works. there's lots of ways, and you have to find what works for you.

Anyway, on to the actual secret.

What to focus on to scale ads

The real secret to scaling ads is all depending on one key metric.

Average. Order. Value.

Look, ads are getting more expensive - and the old ways of ads -> webinar -> sales call don't work.

The new best way is with low ticket offers that cover your ad spend ASAP.

But I speak to a tonne of people who are running LTOs and losing money. they come to me and say things like...

Invariably, when I look at their funnel, they're making one of a few mistakes.

• They don't have any bumps or upsells in their funnel

You're gonna spend about double to triple whatever your front-end product price is to acquire a customer.

So a $7 product will sell for maybe $14-$21.
A $47 product will usually go for $100.

If you don't have bumps and upsells, you're losing 200% of the money you make.

• The bumps and upsells are crap and not related to the front-end product

if someone buys your $7 product oin SEO, they're likely not gonna want your $47 bump on gardening.

An extreme example, but the point stands and a lot of people are doing this. They're just throwing more products at their funnel hoping people will buy them all.

but if they're not related, they won't sell.

• The bumps and upsells are just the same product with different layers of "depth"

A lot of funnels lock "more info" away behind the bumps and upsells, but it's all what should have been offered in the first place.

This approach only works in SaaS with different usage tiers.

Everywhere else, this is outdated.

All of these will leave you haemorrhaging money on ads.

How to increase AoV

If you can get your AoV to cov er the cost of acquisition, you're golden.

You don't need to make tonnes of cash on the front end (but you can), what you're focusing on is getting to a point where ads pay for themselves.

Here's a couple of images of the stats I spend the most time looking at in my ad account.

In my opinion, all of these are successful ads and campaigns.

Cause while some make more money, they all cover their own costs.

In all of these ad sets, I am not making tonnes of money, but I'm reaching new people and attracting buyers for free.

The only way I can do this is by focusing on AoV. So here's a quick and dirty guide on how to increase AoV.

Your bump offer

This is the thing that lives on the main checkout and the person can add to cart by checking a little box.

Take rate"

You wanna aim for a minimum 30% take rate on this.

So out of every 10 people who buy the front end, 3 are buying this.

Pricing:

Pricing for this is 1-2X the front-end price - you can offer more, but this works well. I've only had 1 work really well with a 35% take rate on a 6X front end price.

The angle:

The front end main offer is promoisng a transformation, right?

The bump offer should help them achieve that transformation faster or easier.

It's about speed and ease.

"Rather than spend 2 week setting this up, pay us another $27 and you can get up and running in 2 days" typa thing.

Think of this more as a catalyst than a new offer.

Upsell 1

Upsell 1 is when they buy, they see a new page with a special one time offer.

Take rate:

You wanna aim for a minimum 15% take rate on this.

So out of every 10 people who buy the front end, 1-2 are buying this.

Pricing:

Pricing for this is very elastic. I've seen people do up to 100X. One guy I worked with had a $27 product that sold a 3k offer in the upsells succesfully.

However, I find the best ratio is between 5-50X.

So a $27 product would likely do well with an upsell of $97 - $197.

The angle:

Here it's about understanding the problem and solution cycle.

The offer here should offer a solution to the new problem your initial product created.

Here's what I mean.

If your front-end product helps someone lose 10 lbs in weight.

They have achieved their goal of weight loss, but they have a new problem.

That being maintenance of weight loss.

So the upsell is to help them maintain their new healthy weight.

I also like to build this as a continuity offer - so a recurring fee for you.

Upsell 2

Upsell 2 is another new offer page that appears after they say yes or no to upsell 1.

Take rate:

You wanna aim for a minimum 5% take rate on this.

So out of every 20 people who buy the front end, 1 is buying this.

Pricing:

I try to keep this in line with Upsell 1.

The angle:

You can continue with the problem / solution cycle here and just focus on the next new problem.

However, I like to build in something that can also work as a sales mechanism for high ticket.

That being a 1:1 consult.

The idea here is that the consult will save them even more time and help them get clairty and results with less hassle.

If you do a good job on the consult, the customer will likely ask about more help.

What I also find is that people who buy the latter upsells are the ones who upsell themselves into high-ticket.

So you're also just assisting them to find your core offer.

TL;DR

if you didn';t have time to read all this, ehre's the short version.

AoV is the key to scaling ads.

To increase AoV, you need a good funnel.

Front end solves a problem.
Bump makes it faster.
Upsell 1 solves the next problem.
Upsell 2 is a shortcut to success with your 1:1 help.

Any Qs, let me know.

Pete "AoV is the key" Boyle