Yo,

I recently shared this in GM+ (you can join us here for more convos on these topics), but also thought it might be useful for anyone who's thinking of testing ads for the first time, or growing to different platforms in the new year.

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Wanted to share some of the things I’ve been working on with ads recently.

This might be a long one.

A little background.

A couple of months back, I wanted to see if I could move some ad spend over to Google properties.

A few reasons...

• Google has a wider audience and reach.
• Better crossover between paid and organic (YouTube viewers for retargeting, all on one platform).
• And honestly, I use YouTube and Google more than any Meta properties, so I understand them better as a consumer.

Long story short…

I spent just over $1,000 and made back a whopping $80.

So yeah. That hurt.

Since then, I’ve been talking to a lot of advertisers who work across both Meta and Google to figure out what I was missing.

I’ll break down what I’ve learned here, but bear in mind this is specifically with low-ticket offers in mind.

The big difference between platforms.

Meta is a discovery platform and suited for push advertising.

• Someone is scrolling Instagram.
• They didn’t ask for your ad.
• You interrupt them.

So, with that being known, your job is to...

... Wake them up to a problem.
... Make it feel urgent.
... Make the solution feel easy and low risk.

That’s why low-ticket works so well on Meta.

It’s impulse-driven.

You just need to be great at writing hooks and dimensionalising the problem they feel right now.

Do that to get the click, and then continue that track with your sales page.

Google is different.

Google (and YouTube) are intent-based, or pull marketing.

People are actively searching for a solution.

It could be...

... How to unblock my sink.
... How to generate more leads.
... The French words I need to survive a week in Paris.

They already know the problem.

They’re either looking for a solution, or they know the solution and want to assess the different providers.

Your job isn’t to convince them to “take a chance”.

It’s to match their intent and build enough trust that they choose you.

So it’s less about impulse buys and “check out this awesome thing”, and more about...

• Building belief.
• Building authority.
• Pre-selling the idea and the offer.

I've found it really hard to do that with low ticket offers on Google, and I've figured out a few things I'll share below. But first,the main takeaway.

For low-ticket, this might actually be the better approach.

To be clear, I still love low-ticket and will continue running low-ticket ads on Meta.

But that doesn’t mean Google has no place.

You just can’t use it the same way.

The short version...

Meta is great for discovery, Google is better for intent.

Use Meta to get in front of people and create demand.

Then use Google to capture that demand and build trust for higher-ticket stuff.

I tried to flip the roles and use Google to create demand.

I lost money doing it.

Breaking it down by platform…

Meta

Great for discovery.

Probably the fastest way to get in front of lots of people and identify who’s interested.

But you still need strong ads to qualify the right buyers and push them to the page.

Google Search

Only really useful if you have...

• Branded searches (like best Adidas shoes for indoor football)
• Clear pain/solution searches (how to do X)

You can adapt this to focus on the search terms for the underlying system, and NOT your product name.

For example, how many people do you think are out there searching for "The $1 Product Challenge"?

None, right?

But they do search for things like “best low-ticket product system”.

So if you do want to run low ticket with Google, you;ve got to sell the mechanism, not the label.

YouTube

I don’t think this is a great discovery engine for direct sales.

What it is good for:

• Retargeting abandoners.
  • Handling objections.
• Removing hesitations.
  • Showing proof.
  • Retargeting buyers for higher-ticket next steps.

Use video to build belief. Use video to pre-sell the next offer.

Google Display

I’ve never made this work.

• Huge reach.
• Lots of impressions.
• No sales.

Outside of ecom, I’ve got no idea how to use this profitably.

So what’s the basic model?

Right now, I think the cleanest approach looks like this...

Use Meta for low-ticket discovery and initial sales.

Get in front of as many ideal buyers as possible, fast.

Low-ticket self-liquidating is the goal. Break-even is good enough here.

Then…

Retarget on YouTube with belief-building content.

Push buyers into higher-ticket, recurring, or applications.

Tie this into email so they’re seeing the same sales message from multiple angles and channels.

The basic flow ends up being:

Ad → training → apply / book a call.

That little flow is a tested system, but with this, you're not running it only to cold audiences. You're running it to buyers or people who have expressed an interest.

What about Search?

I’ve been told Google PMax can work for low ticket.

However, it requires...

• A large buyer pool and the data that comes with it
• Some brand awareness to leverage
• The ability to run at a loss for a while until it all comes right

It;s something I've been advised to omit until there's already enough data within Google to identify who the best buyers are.

If you start running search for low ticket, you'll generally burn through spend quickly with low value placements, cause it doesn't know who to target.

For most people, this is probably a distant third priority.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been working through.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions, just hit reply and let me know.

Speak soon,

Pete "losing money on ads" Boyle