Paid ads are a great way to generate leads or sales for businesses. It’s why they’re so popular and you’ll see them in your favourite search engine or social media platform.
However, paid ads can be a scary prospect for a lot of business owners. There’s an inherent fear of how much the ads are going to cost.
The fear doesn’t come because of a worry that ads are expensive. The fear relates to the unknown factor for a return on investment. Every smart business owner hopes that they’ll be able to make a profit from their advertising spend.
When you’re setting up a paid ads campaign for your business, during the early stage you’re testing to see what works best. This means testing the ad copy, different images or videos, tweaking the audience that you’re targeting and more.
Testing does cost money, because you need to pay for the ads to test them. This is the part that can scare a business owner.
One of the best ways to counter the fear of spending money on ads, is to set up a system that will allow you to breakeven, even when you’re testing your ads. We call this a “breakeven ad”.
The way this works is that you’ll have a small offer which someone can purchase from your advert. This will work best as something that the customer can have immediate access to. Perhaps it’s a book, video guide, a tutorial or more, specifically designed to solve a problem that your audience suffers from.
From a pricing perspective, a price of around $5 - $20 is a good starting point. It’s low enough to be an easy purchasing decision, similar to purchasing a large coffee or a pizza.
The reason you’re charging money rather than giving something away for free is because your offer creates customers. You’re getting someone used to paying your business and creating a buying relationship.
Let’s imagine you have an advert set up where someone can purchase a training video that you’ve created. You’ve priced this at $20.
If 100 people click on your advert and it costs you $0.20 for each click, then you only need one purchase of your product to breakeven. If more than one person purchases, you’re in profit.
To increase the profits, you can add additional items as an upsell. This is something the customer can add to their purchase at the checkout. The system will always work best when you offer an upsell.
A simple example of an upsell could be when someone is purchasing an ebook. At the checkout you could present an offer for an audiobook version or some additional content, for an extra fee. Upsells work best when they’re priced between $5 - $100.
The end result of your breakeven ads is that you create a list of paying customers who purchase from you and find value in your products. You’re then easily able to sell additional products or services to them in the future.
Remember that people are much more likely to purchase again in the future, as they already know, like and trust you.
