The New Era of Meta Ads Has Just Begun transcript

Look at these four ads all from the same brand. They are just one piece of a four brand empire, a Norwegian brand house called Air Holistic. And all four brands run the same playbook. Right now, they are running 12,928 live ads and driving 1.5 million clicks a month. And almost none of it works for the reason that you'd think. And today, I'm going to be breaking down their entire playbook so that you can steal it to grow your business so fast that it feels illegal.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? This does not look like an ad. And these four brands use something that I call trust engineering. And it happens in three phases. And the third phase is what brings it all together to produce that sweet, sweet [music] ROAS. Look, your ads aren't broken, your funnel isn't broken, and heck, your product probably isn't even the problem. The problem is that most people think that there is a linear buying path.

That somebody clicks your ad, they go through to your landing page, and then they just buy in a vacuum. That they're not distracted or that someone would really do everything that you want them to at [music] every step of the buyer's journey. That is not how the internet works anymore. You see, the moment that somebody sees an ad, they click through to a landing page, they start to read about your product or service, they get a little bit of an interest, that is when the curiosity starts to fire and their monkey brain wants to go and do a whole bunch of research.

They bring up Google, they bring up TikTok, they bring up YouTube. And then they do something that I call the Google sniff [music] test, which is when they fire up Google and they start to search around for your brand and your product. And they start to try and verify if the claims that you're making in your ads and in your funnel are actually factually [music] correct. And often times, it's this parallel sales system that's happening in the background that is the thing that decides whether or not you get the conversion or not.

It's not your ad, it's not your headline in isolation. It is the combination of them both. Where people are ferreting out facts and they're looking at reviews and they're finding out about what real people are saying about your business. So, there is a second click that most businesses don't engineer correctly, and that is the branded search. What does it look like on all of these platforms if someone was to search for your brand?

What is it that they're going to find? What is this combination of different media assets that they're going to basically form a parallel funnel? What is the story that it's going to tell you? How is the proof elements of those things? Because we are living in a day [music] and age where there is a trust recession, and you can't just make claims without having a whole bunch of proof to back it up. And even if you include proof on your landing pages and in your funnels and you're using Trustpilot or Yachtpo, or you've got screenshots of all your client results, that alone is not enough.

What people want to see is third-party validated data on these other platforms that you don't control, [music] that you can't cherry-pick. And that's basically what's happening on this second click when the people are going on all these platforms and they're ferreting out [music] facts about your business. Now, that is the funnel that the traffic is ultimately going to end up on. I'm going to show you exactly how to rig it in your favor.

All righty, now it's time to go full-blown internet marketer mode and rip their funnel to shreds. So, first up, let's take a look at their ads engine. So, these guys are playing the game on nightmare mode. So, you come here, as you can see in the ads library for this particular brand, there's 4,600 ads running. And look at the creative diversity you see. They are not just playing the game and advertising in one pocket of people, they are running mini VSLs, they're running statics, top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, middle of the funnel.

They're running Ancient Origins ads, they're running side effect ads. These guys are seriously advertising in every little pocket of audience that you could possibly want. The thing that these guys are doing an incredible job at is they are attacking every single pain point that the market has, every single type of condition, every single angle. You can see here natural Botox without needles. This certainly doesn't look like an ad that is selling some skin care.

It's got Botox versus Freya and it's like, "Ooh, what is this?" There's no product anywhere. And now we're going into the whole this is a sacred ancient ritual. >> Ancient Viking medicinal secret. >> A Viking medicinal secret. And they're like grinding it up with the mortar and pestle. I've got to find out more. So, first up it appears that this is definitely an AI produced avatar on here that is reading this VSL. This combination of this along with the B roll and all the berries and these Arctic women they're sprinkling in the benefits. >> These same powerful protective compounds.

The same [music] compounds that modern research shows our skin needs to repair the damage. >> Look, a fisherman sees another fisherman from afar and these guys know what the hell they're doing. So, let's switch gears now and take a look at where do they send all this traffic. So, I click on their first ad and this is the page that appears. So, first of all, it is a hyper optimized product [music] landing page. And what we can see straight out of the gate is that they're not using a normal product description as the headline.

Visibly glowing skin in as little as 48 hours. So, it's a benefit driven headline. We've got lots of social proof immediately in the headline complex. So, 583,000 women said goodbye to wrinkles. 4.9 stars out of five. I've got to find out what this is all about. And then we go into the sub headline. Clinically proven uh Arctic botanicals smoothing wrinkles for over 583,000 women. No synthetics, no prescriptions, just plants that work from the very first use.

If that wasn't enough, I'm still a little bit skeptical here. Well, how about you just try it risk-free in addition to saving 40% off. So, that's called a double offer right in the CTA here. Results within 24 to 48 hours of use. Younger skin or your money back. 1 million jars sold worldwide. So, they are really leaning on proof. Then you've got all of these little proof elements on here on the image, which I like as well.

And then again, the moment that we scroll down here, what do we see? More social proof. Women's Health, GQ, Glamour, Bazaar. All of these little social proof elements that scrolls along, Yahoo, and all the little positive statements that they've got to say. "Fraya is hands-down the number one skin care for mature women's skin." Now we've got all the before and afters of all the women who have had their life transformed.

And this thing just keeps going and going and going. No one has before and afters like Fraya. And they stack it all up. Now we're starting to get into the bit of the direct response copy here. So then, if we click on the CTA, what happens now? Cool, we get anchored down here. We have the complete system for mature women's skin. Already I like what I see. They are not selling one jar of skin care, they are selling you the entire system.

And then what do you see here? This four bombs. Then look at all of this, all before and afters. These guys do an amazing job at fully utilizing this carousel image. It's not using just different angles of the product or anything like that. They're attacking all the unique selling points here. So we add it to cart, little side bar kick out. What do we got here? Instant rosacea and acne and redness stopper. Another $59.

And boom, as you can see these guys aren't playing around. But this is just one of the pages that they're sending traffic to. As I mentioned before, they are running advertorials. This is definitely a little bit more aggressive. So, is this really true? Is the headline. "Thousands of mature women that look 5 [music] to 10 years younger call this Arctic skin care a lifesaver." So this is a full-blown advertorial on here.

We've got something looking very native with the news. Again, all the social proof. And this is definitely more hardcore direct response, really selling to the problem that exists. [music] A little bit more information, so I would assume that they're sending a lot more of their colder traffic to this. And then more middle of funnel bottom of traffic directly to that high converting PDP. So here's how you can apply this specifically to your own business.

You do not need the one perfect ad. You need to build an army of ads. And what you'll notice is a disproportionate amount of the ads in their ads library that they are running are static. You can deploy hundreds of these things in your ad accounts every single day. You can test the different angles with statics, the things that work the best, then you can roll them into your video editors and start to get them to make high end VSCs for you.

Then when it comes to their actual conversion system, what I want you to do is I want you to bring up these pages side by side with your funnel. Have a look at the claims that they're making. Have a look at the proof that they've got. Have a look at the guarantees. Have a look at the offer. And look at the amount of social proof that they have littered this page with. Once you do this side by side, you'll probably see that your page is so small in comparison to this and you are missing all of these different proof elements.

Which brings us to phase number one. When it comes to TikTok and growing your business, everyone treats it like it is a lottery. They're simply trying to put out videos to go viral. This brand treat it in the absolute opposite way. What they have done is engineered that if you ever go to TikTok and you search for their brand name, what you are met with is an unquestionable wall of proof. It is like the entire internet is using this product and not only are they using it, but are they are getting the most life-changing results that you could ever believe.

So when somebody sees an ad, "Wow, this looks interesting. Let me go do the sniff test." [music] And then they jump onto TikTok to start to see what people are saying about it. There is just unquestionable [music] proof that this stuff works. What you see is dozens of micro-influencers that are running these satellite pages off the main page. And basically what they're doing is they are posting daily videos of before and afters, proof of showing you the stuff actually works.

You see the thing is, they're not trying to get these videos to become ultra bangers and getting multiple millions of views off one real. No, no, no. They are trying to win the game by using thousands of lead bullets and not looking for one silver bullet. They are trying to drown out any skepticism in the marketplace by showing thousands of countless people that are probably look just like you that are using this and that are getting the benefits that their ads make the claims about.

And it's because from the user experience, that searcher, they see 20 different unique faces that are all using this product and the proof just comes in the numbers. But here's the real kicker, brands with a heavy proof ecosystem, they convert cold traffic at a much higher rate than businesses that don't have it. Because ultimately so much of these clicks bleed out into branded searches and when they do them for those other brands, it is just like absolutely crickets.

There's nothing there or there's one or two things there or maybe there's even one or two bad reviews there. When you search for this brand, it is just tens of thousands of unique people that are using this product and changing their life. And it works no matter how expensive the product is because people have bought so many things that are making the same claims that your ads are making, but then they haven't got the results that they want.

Obviously over time they just become so much more skeptical, they do so much more research even for things like a $59 skin care product. So what you want to do is use organic Tik Tok as a parade of proof. You basically want to get your product into the hands of as many micro influencers as you possibly can and get them to make before and after videos, to talk about the ingredients, to talk about their experience with your product.

Here's how you can apply this specifically to your own business. Before you start running any paid ads and really scaling up, fire up Google, search for your brand name and do a screenshot of that first page one of results. Do the same thing on Tik Tok. What you want to do is you want to make sure that you have at least have 20 to 30 pieces of organic content from different creators, [music] ideally micro creators, in your niche that you can go out, get the product into their hands, post that content on their own individual pages [music] knowing well that someone is going to jump on and they are going to search for it.

And you want to make sure that it all looks good and there is a lot of proof on there before you start to scale your ads. Otherwise, what's going to happen, the colder traffic that you go to, the more skeptical people are, the more branded searches that they're doing and the less stuff that there is for them to see and then you're just going to bleed out cash. [music] You've got to plant these seeds cuz this is ultimately where the traffic is going to end up.

And this is phase number one, the TikTok pre-seed. And look, a wall of TikToks, that might be enough to convince a 22-year-old. However, that is just one of the avatar. What about the other avatar which is their mother that has a bigger credit card limit and a higher average order value. So, phase number two is where things get very clever. Most direct response marketers, they hear the word PR and they roll their eyes.

They think, "Ah, vanity metrics. This is pretty much branding." However, having a good PR strategy is literally one of the best conversion assets that you can ever build into your funnels and into your business. Because the reality of it is that people will always believe more what they see in third-party publications than the claims that you make directly in your funnel. So, when you're featured in Vogue or you're in Forbes or in Inc.

Magazine or any of these platforms, it's like a stamp of approval that your product or your business is legit. What most people would run away from, like the fact that they have sold out, they would kind of shy away from that. That is the amateur marketer. What these guys have done is they have taken that story and they have absolutely juiced it up on steroids by releasing a press release saying that they have sold out 11 times.

What do you think that that does to the audience that reads about it? It creates a buying frenzy because they're like, "Oh my god, not only is this all over TikTok, but if I search for it on Google, I can see this article in this website that says they've been sold out 11 times. That means that everyone must be buying it. Social proof that it is actually popular. Then, what do you think that they do? Their conversion rates skyrocket because they go to the product page.

Oh my god, they've got it in stock. It says limited amount in stock, and it is so much more powerful than just having a little limited stock stock bar on your PDP on Shopify and thinking that everyone's going to believe you. And this is just one element of their PR strategy. Then they have countless of stories of their Nordic founder and all the science behind exactly how they developed this product, the ingredients that come into it.

And having all of this press, it just adds an air of legitimacy to this business. In a world where there's so many drop shippers and people selling products that don't do anything, these guys are legitimately controlling how the brand is perceived through this third party. Not only when somebody does a sniff test that can find out and they can read all these articles in this can random funnel, but it also allows you to use these press logos across your ads, across your landing pages, in your email flows, and immediately goes from just being this brand in isolation, in a vacuum, to something that has a buzz to it.

And you can't get that without having PR. But there is a second side to this. When you start chat scaling your ad account, basically so many randos on the internet are going to start to see your ads and your funnel and the claims that you're making. You need a way to combat these trolls, and the way that you do that is by making sure there's also a lot of great press about your product and about your business and all the genuinely great things that you do.

Cuz otherwise, when someone does a search, if you're not out there consciously trying to build a good brand and a good reputation, then you're going to get all these trolls on the internet yapping and taking up that real estate, and it's going to murder your conversion rate. So, here's how you can apply this specifically to your own business. Every time that you sell out stock, send out a press release. Every time that you get stock back in, send [music] out a press release.

And a good hack to do is whatever your product is, if it's a mattress, you would say, "Ridiculously comfortable mattress is finally back after months on the waitlist." Or "Ridiculously comfy mattress sells out [music] for the third time." Think every quarter, what's happening in my business? What are some new initiatives that we're doing? Have we sold out? Are we back in stock? Have we hit a customer milestone? And you basically want to use every single opportunity to release a press release or work with a PR agency and to consciously make an effort to get press.

And this is phase number two, the PR blitz. So, now you've got the TikTok strategy all dialed in, you've gone out there and got the press, you've got page one on lockdown. Everything is engineered perfectly. However, this is where most people completely fumble the bag. They take all this trust that they have just built out in the marketplace and they send this traffic to a bog-standard Shopify product page and they murder their conversion rate, which brings us to phase number three.

In a market as sophisticated as skincare, you can't just take all of that traffic and send it to a product page. No, no, no. Well, we've got all of this proof that we have built up and what we want to do is we want to load that puppy up from the first click and we want to send those people to an advertorial and that's exactly what this Nordic Brand House has done across their entire suite of brands. And the reason that it works so well is because when you're scaling out to cold traffic, going straight directly to a product page and not having a bridge page, it is a very jarring experience.

And so, when you land on an advertorial, immediately the guard isn't up cuz you feel like you're in content consuming mode and you are just consuming the information. You're not right above the fold hit with a buy now button and a price. When you land on this and it's like, "Here are five reasons why, 15 reasons why, here's some proof, here's some before and afters. You find yourself just reading it. You're then peppered with proof all the way through from before and afters to press mentions to logos, other people using the product in terms of UGC.

And as the skepticism removes, the conversion rates skyrocket. And that's why when we look at their ads library, we can see that the vast majority of their traffic is sent to advertorials. Anyone that's spending any real kind of money on e-com, they understand that those bridge pages are the things that absolutely print [music] money. If you have a higher congruence on the actual page that you're sending the ad angle to, the conversion rate is going to be higher.

You're not going to duplicate 15 versions of your product page based on all the different angles. And advertorials work in pretty much the opposite way that a normal product page is. The way that you want to start is you want to start with the problem. You've got acne, you've got blemishes on your skin. So, they really start by agitating that problem. Then they show you the proof that their product actually solves that problem.

And then, and only then do they push you to actually buy it. So, this is how to apply this specifically in your own business right now. Put together your first advertorial. The best format for doing so is either a listical or also doing X reasons why. Then, you want to use the same framework of problem, proof, and then push to the CTA. They have all these different angles that it is that they are running and they are testing based on the ad then to the advertorial, and then they can just funnel all their budget into the specific angle that is working the best.

Find the winner, scale that one, and kill the other two. You need to get volume in in order to find one winner. And that is phase number three, the advertorial lander. Now, you might think that all these three phases are different [music] tactics, but they are not. They all form one flywheel with each stage feeding the next one. Because you've done all three of them, your ROAS is going to go up substantially. Then you are going to spend more money on ads.

And as you spend more money on ads, you're going to get more customers, more reviews, and this flywheel just starts to accelerate. So, remember what came up when you went over to Google, you went over to TikTok, and you searched for your brand. That is the absolute first [music] thing that it is that you need to handle. But there is one more element that you can add that will unequivocally skyrocket your conversion rates.

And that is building something that I call a hero mechanism. And I made this video walking you through step-by-step how to build one for your own business. Like, subscribe, and I'll see you in the next one.