Five things to fix before you spend a dollar on ads
Ads send people somewhere. If that somewhere is broken, you are paying to show strangers your weak spots. A pre-flight check.
· 2 min read
An ad does one thing: it puts your business in front of people who weren't looking for it. What happens next depends on everything else. If someone taps your ad and lands on a slow website, a page with no reviews, or a phone that rings out, you paid for that disappointment.
Before you run any ad, walk through the path a new customer would take and fix these five things.
1. The place your ad sends people
Tap through to wherever the ad will point, on your phone. Ask:
- Does it load quickly?
- Does it say the same thing the ad promised? If the ad offers a fall cleanup special, the page should be about the fall cleanup special, not your general home page.
- Is the next step obvious: one button, one phone number, one short form?
2. Your reviews
People who see an ad very often look you up before they act. If they find no reviews, old reviews, or unanswered complaints, the ad's work is undone. Aim for a healthy number of recent reviews and a reply on every one before you advertise.
3. Your Google and Facebook basics
Check that your hours, phone number, address and website are right and match each other. Make sure your Facebook page has posts from the last few weeks. An ad that leads to a page last updated two years ago looks like a business that may have closed.
4. How you answer
This is the one owners skip. Call your own number from another phone during business hours and after hours.
- Does someone answer, or does a clear voicemail greeting pick up?
- Do messages from Facebook and your website form reach a person who replies the same day?
Leads from ads go cold fast. If you cannot respond quickly, fix that before you buy more leads.
5. A way to tell whether it worked
Decide how you will know the ad did something. It does not need to be technical:
- Ask every new caller, "How did you hear about us?" and tally the answers.
- Use an offer or phrase that appears only in the ad.
- Note how many calls or messages you got in the week before, so you have something to compare to.
Without this, you will finish the campaign with a number for "reach" and no idea whether to do it again.
The honest test
If you fixed all five and business picked up on its own, you may not need ads yet. If you fixed all five and you have room for more customers, now your ad money will go a lot further.
Do this today
Pick up a different phone and call your business. Then send yourself a message through your Facebook page. See how long each takes to get a reply.