The Art of Online Business

What you can learn from Ali Abdaal's Facebook ads. My reactions!

• Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie • Episode 805

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I review Ali Abdaal's Facebook ads in real time. This one's heavy on visuals, so while I explain what makes these ads work, you might want to head over to my YouTube channel and watch the episode there. 

I'll break down the components of a successful ad, explain how everything from the graphics & video to the call-to-action should work together, and give tips on how you can apply these strategies to your ads. 


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Speaker 0:

Welcome back to an episode where I'm going to review and react to Facebook ads real time, and today I'm looking at Ali of dolls ads. He's a famous YouTube Productivity person and he has ads running. If you didn't know, you can see Anyone's ads that are currently running inside of the meta ads Library. This will be a visually intensive episode, so if you haven't subscribed to the YouTube channel, go ahead and click in the show notes below and subscribe to the YouTube channel and watch this specific episode as I react and review ads.

Speaker 0:

Hi, my name is Quayjo. I am a Facebook ad strategist. Have been doing this for online course creators established online course creators now for over three years, so let's jump into it. Right here. I have an ad in front of me. It says well, the first thing that attracted me to this ad was the graphic. It says YouTube changed my life, and it's a picture that's text overlaid on Ali Abdal speaking on stage. He kind of has his arms at waist length but outstretched. You can see that he's passionately explaining something, and then I can see smaller text here that says I believe it can change yours too. That is a decent hook inside of this image, which causes me to want to go ahead and read the text. If you look here, like I've said in previous episodes, the top line of text will show above an ad, and so you want to make sure that the top line of text, or top two lines of text, and the ad creative, and then also down below the ad would be the headline. All work together in symphony to get the viewer to click on the ad and read more of the ad copy, because if that happens, then they will find themselves in the words or they won't. Right, because you don't want to try to convince everybody to work with you or buy your thing. You want the right people who you can serve and help, to know that you can serve and help them. So I'm going to keep telling you what I noticed. But this graphic makes me want to learn more of his story, and so the top line is his story. Me want to learn more of his story, and so the top line is his story.

Speaker 0:

Back in 2017, I started off with zero views, zero subscribers and zero in revenue Right away. This is very intriguing if he's showing the ad to somebody who already knows him he's quite famous on YouTube, so the fact that he uses the fact that he started off with zero views, zero subscribers and zero in revenue. That would hook somebody in. They want to know the journey. I'll also point to the headline, which is the text that shows up below the ad creative. It's pretty straightforward Join my part-time YouTuber academy. And it has an emoji pointing toward the learn more button. So as I click and expand this ad, I'll scroll down. It says not even. Two years later, my channel reached 100k plus subscribers and I was making as much income from my quote unquote hobby as my full time job, working as a doctor.

Speaker 0:

He gets straight to the point and I like this. And then he says the idea of turning his passion project into what one day would become a multimillion dollar business was insane, but it happened. And then he says the idea of turning his passion project into what one day would become a multi-million dollar business was insane, but it happened. And then he transitions. So he's basically cast his story and the dream, the dream that would motivate somebody to join the part-time YouTuber Academy. He's done that at the same time and his copywriter has done an excellent job of that. So now, if you're reading this, imagine that itch of wanting to give this YouTube business a go, but haven't got started. You know either from.

Speaker 0:

And then he lists some fears. So it's clear that he has researched his audience and understands what's holding them back. And I would encourage you, the listener, to do the same thing. Messaging will convert your audience and this is a kind of messaging research. That's important, not to try to convince the wrong people into your program, but to attract the right people, and I don't mean in some woo-woo sense, I mean attract them because they see in your words that you understand their issues and you can help their specific problem. So he lists those fears and then he says if you want to do this inside, you'll get.

Speaker 0:

And he lists some of the features. Now, I'm not a fan of listing features of a course without listing their benefit, because people rarely buy just because they see, oh, it's 10 modules, each module with six lessons. In fact, usually the more features that you list of your thing, the more excuses that your potential customer is Stacking up in their mind. Why? Because we all have that negative Voice, even if you've done a lot of self-work, reading the books that I know you and I read as online course creators and online Entrepreneurs that negative voice. It won't work. It take too much time. I don't have enough time. I've tried this before. Oh, another program had that same lesson too and it just didn't work. In my offer that voice really kicks up when we start to read about the features of Something. So I don't like to list features inside of a Facebook ad and if I do have them, they are kept to a minimum.

Speaker 0:

But look how he uses emojis to break these up. And let me read the full feature. He may have tied it in with a benefit 10 plus hours of material that'll take you from beginner to pro and teach you everything needed to turn your hobby into okay. So this kind of feature is okay, notice. He said 10 plus hours of material, but then he listed the benefit right there. Or he continued right into the benefit, which is it'll take you from beginner to pro and teach you everything you need to turn your hobby into a business. He didn't bore me with the titles of all the material. He said what it will do for me.

Speaker 0:

This is a textbook example of how to list a feature inside of a Facebook ad. And then he has a book emoji next to BONELESS MODULES. That's in caps and then in regular lowercase writing with 16 plus hours of extra training on camera gear, studio setups, monetization, repurposing. Okay, so he's listed the features, but they're effectively one word or two word descriptions of what is inside. And me, as somebody who's had built a previous YouTube channel to like 20,000 plus subscribers, I do know that people are worried about camera gear, how to set up their studio, how to monetize, how to repurpose. So he's basically covering the basics and saying, hey, my course includes that also, not bad.

Speaker 0:

The PTYA framework. What does that even mean? I'm not sure. 56 page digital book kit which breaks down each lesson to consolidate now your learnings. That is not a feature. I would include one because PTYA framework. I just don't know what PTYA means. I just looked down and it could be the abbreviation for Part-Time YouTuber Academy. But herein lies the point you don't want somebody to have to guess what you're referring to in your ad, because any guessing, any confusion, just lowers the percentage of people that will ultimately click on your ad, because any guessing, any confusion, just lowers the percentage of people that will ultimately click on your ad and then below. So in general, in ad copy, if you're going to use an abbreviation ever, then first write out the whole name of what you're abbreviating and then include the abbreviation after that, and so he has a rocket emoji now next to the final bullet point, if you will, or final chunk of text mentioning what's in his course, and he says our part time YouTuber productivity system includes checklists, frameworks and templates. Okay, we're listing features, but then he ties it in with the benefit to turn you into a content creation beast. Curious to find out more? Tap the learn more button to see how you can join my part-time youtuber Academy.

Speaker 0:

Now the final point. This is a really good ad, in my opinion. Of course, I can't see into his ad manager, so I don't know the stats, but one thing here is the call to action says tap, learn more. Okay, you can have a call to action like that. I've seen this kind of call to action work better in ads for my clients that are only showing on Instagram. I don't know if you knew, but in Instagram ads you cannot click on the link that's inside of the caption, the description, if you will. This is still a thing. I don't know why Instagram hasn't changed that. Also, for organic Instagram content, links are unclickable. So if this ad is showing on an Instagram placement, it's perfect to say tap, learn more. If this ad is showing on a Facebook ad placement, then you would want to drop a link in the bio.

Speaker 0:

Now here's something that is intriguing to me, looking over at this other ad, and I'm just going to review the creative here this thumbnail. I'm not sure what the value of this video is, because the thumbnail for me is a bit of a turnoff. It's like it looks like a productivity board or a calendar. But see, I'm guessing this thumbnail and the text says basically identified. So here's a takeaway for you If you are playing, if you have like a vertical reel or vertical video or any kind of video in your ad, make sure to select a thumbnail that is enticing. That way somebody would play the ad and see what's going on. Facebook sometimes manually selects the wrong thumbnails and so you can select the right thumbnail or cover image or you can custom make one did you know that? And upload it to your ad so that image displays before your video plays.

Speaker 0:

And what I like here is that he is testing a different ad creative with what looks like as you look over on the left, the same ad copy that I just read through, because this ad copy here also starts with back in 2017. I started off with zero views and zero subscribers and zero revenue. So that's good, and that's exactly what I do for clients in the beginning. It's exactly what you want to do test different ad creative with different ad copy so you can find out just how low your cost per lead or your cost per lead can go. Or, in this case, if you're doing a direct-to sales ad, you want to see which ad can convert better with more profit, as ie a lower cost per purchase. So I see overall that he currently has five active ads and three of them have the same ad copy. Nope, actually one, two, three of them have the same ad copy and two of them have different ad copy. The three that have the same ad copy have different graphics or videos, and so in this case, I'm seeing healthy testing going on and I'm assuming that what's happening here is, as certain ads are performing better, then other ads are being turned. The losers, if you will, are being turned off and replaced with different combinations of ad copy and ad creative, and that's what you wanna do in your account.

Speaker 0:

And this is the end of my review of Facebook ads. If you liked this. Please leave a review in the show notes below. You can click on that review to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. That lets me know. Do you want me just to start reviewing more ads like this so you can apply this information directly to the ads that you are running? Let me know, and until I see you in the next one, take care and be blessed bye.

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