How I Got 230 “High Ticket” Leads (Exactly) in 30 days using Facebook.
This is a case study of how I helped a world class acting school in Vancouver get 230 leads, in 30 days.
They were getting 3-4 leads on Google Adwords at $60 to $200 a pop, with a $12,000 monthly budget.
All this ad spend on just one marketing channel.
Their cheapest product (Acting program) was at $6000 CAD, and the highest at $45,000.00 CAD.
Although they were getting leads through word of mouth, direct marketing, and of course referrals, the audience they really wanted to go after was the the 18-30 crowd.
In some cases, even younger (For their teen acting courses).
So they wanted to get on these two massive online platforms (FB and IG), where they never had any success before.
In fact, several spectacular failures.
After taking over, these were the RESULTS:
✅ 250 Leads in just 30 days.
✅ CPC Cost Per Click: $0.73
✅ CPL (Cost per lead) of $8 – $15 on Facebook. Sometimes even $3.43 (VS $60 – $200 on Google AdWords).
✅ Plus the lead quality was way better (18-30 age group, and a younger targeted audience).
Exactly what the school was looking for.
The COST:
All with a monthly spend (Ad fees) of $4500 or $120 – $150 a day.
Saving of 62.5% vs the original monthly spend of $12,000 plus.
How was this achieved:
I simply followed my 3 step system.
- Find the winning ad (Most clicks at the lowest CPC).
- Test different ways to get this traffic to convert.
- Use Lookalike audiences to drop CPCs dramatically.
Step 1: Find the winning ad
For the first 31 days (Until March 12th, when we got our first lead), it was all about testing.
No leads, not yet anyways.
Just testing to see which ad will bring us the most leads at the lowest cost per click.
The test lasted for 31 days and it costs us $534.74 cents.
Our initial cost per click went up to $8 bucks a click.
Until it dropped down to $0.73 cents.
Most people quit Facebook when the costs go this high.
What you need to realize is Facebook actually wants you to stick it out.
It’s called the Facebook’s Learning Phase.
This is the barrier to entry for Facebook, and that’s why a lot of people don’t do it.
They are afraid to lose money.
So I solely focused on Facebook first.
One marketing channel at a time.
Goal was to figure Facebook out first, then naturally get into Instagram.
It all started with picking the right images.
Since the school already had high-quality images, it wasn’t hard to pick them.
Quality images can make a big difference. No doubt about that.
What I spent time on testing was our ad copy. We tried short copy, medium copy and then long copy. This was the most time consuming part of the whole process. Copywriting skills and creativity are essential here.
Once I noticed that our clicks (CPCs or cost per click) were hovering around the $0.72 mark, I knew we found our winning ad template.
All done in a period of 32 days followed by our first lead.
TAKEAWAY: Test all variations of your copy.
In some industries, short copy works the best. for others, long, etc.
Copy testing is essential if you want the lowest CPC.
For images, make sure they are of high quality and relevant to your market.
After all, it’s the images that grab the attention, and the copy leads to taking action.
Both are super important.
Step 2: Convert That Traffic
So we got our winning ad with a super low cost per click.
Now, all we had to do was use the same landing pages that were being used for Google Adwords and enjoy our new targeted leads right?
Big mistake.
This was a spectacular failure.
Landing pages that were converting on Google Adwords, were bombing on Facebook.
FB traffic doesn’t take action (At least in this industry) unless there is a significant amount of trust.
You have to understand FB traffic is not like Google.
There is ZERO search intent behind traffic on FB vs on GOOGLE.
On Google, the user literally types in their ‘intent’.
On Facebook, they are just browsing and hanging out.
That’s why great copy is required to get Facebook’s traffic to take action.
However, that’s not enough.
Since Facebook traffic doesn’t have a strong intent behind them, they won’t give your their personal information unless they trust you.
This is where we tried several landing pages but with no luck.
Here I used website heat map tools to make any changes and various style of lead forms.
Eventually, we figured out what works.
Then the leads literally started coming in like clockwork.
Starting March 13th.
Lucky Number 13th 🙂
After running our ads, further tweaking the copy and bringing the CPL down to $3 bucks vs $60 to $200, we decided to now get into Instagram.
Here we had to test new images out, as Instagram audience is a bit younger. Once we figured that out, we started getting leads the same day on Instagram too.
Step 3: Lookalike Audience
Then I created lookalike audiences using data of current and past students, and literally created a super targeted ‘Leads on Tap’ system.
The Lookalike audience is another great feature on Facebook.
Once you have some basic information on who your buyers are, you can feed it into Facebook, and their algorithm goes to to find those people on their massive network.
It’s really amazing.
We also update our lookalike lists regularly so we keep feeding Facebook’s algorithm exactly what we need.
Once you start making sales on Facebook, the scaling part is easy.
All you have to do is add more funds from the profits you make, and keep updating your lookalike audiences.
So things keep getting even more targeted.
Conclusion
In just 30 days, this school had a brand new customer acquisition channel. Where the lead quality was much higher, and the cost per lead was almost 20 times lower.
The best part for me was when members from our team (Talent coaches, etc) would drop by in shock and say things like “Where are you finding these people?” or “I can’t believe people are still coming in”.