Facebook Ads for eCommerce Websites: Your Problem Could Be Bid-Capping (Data Driven Daily Tip #205). One of the best content strategies is to have an open dialog with your audience, no matter the size. For example, my audience is tiny. To say "niche" is to be extremely nice. Small Business Owners, Marketers and Digital Strategy Geeks. For example, I've been posting videos on YouTube for a little over a year, and am just starting to get some traction. This video was posted on December 15, 2017, and just got a comment. A great follow-up comment, and thus the purpose of this blog post and new Facebook Ads series. It's a tiny setting in Facebook Ads. You get these insights from being a true practitioner; from loving your craft; and from tasting all sorts of techniques and settings within platforms like Facebook Ads. So "Bid Capping" is the actual micro topic of this post, and how to turn it off in Facebook Ads was the question. The video above has the answer. Thanks to "Funnel Copy Tips" for the great comment/question. The purpose of this post is two-fold: 1. To officially kickoff my Facebook Ads eCommerce Series. More to come. 2. To reiterate my point about how CEOs, Small Business Owners and Executives can make content. Don't worry about being fancy. Just put it out there. The traction should follow if you stay consistent, and keep your content educational / helpful in some way to your audience. So here's Bid Capping and how to turn it off / on. More to come!

(Data Driven Daily Tip #204) Thank you Smash Balloon. When a WordPress plug-in really works, IT REALLY WORKS. Smash Balloon's FREE Instagram Feed plug-in, is what we've started to use on all of our client websites that want to have an Instagram Feed. It's easy for Digital Marketers and WordPress Content Managers to do on their own. You don't need a web developer. This podcast explains how.

Podcast Episode 81: Executives & Small Business Owners: You Need To Blog Every Day. Here's How (Data Driven Daily Tip 203). Attention Executives and Small Business Owners: Blogging Every Day for Your Business should be like brushing your teeth. Seriously. When you were a kid, you were scared of brushing your teeth, and you hated it, and let's be honest, that's how most of you feel about creating and publishing business content every day in the form of a blog. But aren't you the same people who for the last 10 years have asked people like me "how can we get to the top of Google?" and "how can we grow our web traffic" and "how can we get more people to convert on our website?" Well, some of you haven't. Some of you have simply asked me how I do it (blog every day that is). Regardless, I'm breaking it down here. Why? Because I work 60-80 hour weeks just like you, running my own small company, and for the last year, I've created content and blogged every single day. Not only that, but I've repurposed the blog content into video, audio in the form of podcasts and daily tips, so as to have a presence on: MEDIUM LINKEDIN FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM YOUTUBE SNAPCHAT PODCAST TWITTER AND... ALEXA. So What? Well, these efforts have helped grow our web traffic by 525%, with Google, Medium, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all leading the way at driving the traffic. And see that increase since July 2018 all the way through October 15 (today)? Yep, blogging every day is like writing a small check into your top returning investment account every day.

I know a lot of people may read this blog and watch this video and think (pfewhat? it took him a year to get to 100 subscribers?) That's NOTHING, and it took him a year? Yep. And I'm proud of it. Here's why. 1. I put out an average of one video per day. While doing my other full time jobs, running a successful company, building an amazing team, and being a great husband and father of two phenomenal kids. Kids that I actually know well and spend time with. And helping my clients grow their businesses. 2. I went through many different ways of capturing and editing video. Some days I'd record myself on my phone in a meeting using a case that sticks against the wall. Some days I'd record myself using my laptop (sometimes in a meeting, sometimes sitting looking at the camera). I did this / continue to do this, all while actually working 60-80 hours per week. Sometimes I'd use Instagram stories as the main way of capturing the video content (and editing the video content) and I'd send it directly to YouTube (vertical and everything). Sometimes I'd be driving in my car, sometimes I'd just have finished a run and be super sweaty and gross, sometimes I'd be walking, sometimes I'd be sitting at my desk feeling gangster and purposely bumping rap music into the background. 3. I'm fully aware of the fact that the video quality and audio quality isn't always the best. I've moved from Nashville, TN to Valencia, Spain, and run a business of 10 people that are a fully distributed senior level remote work team. We all work from home. Sometimes there is now my dryer in the background. Sometimes there is city background noise. Sometimes kids screaming, often music playing. I now like to shoot some of them around the city, so the audio quality isn't always going to be the best, and I've had some people point out to me that it's "Busch League" that I'm sometimes wearing a backwards baseball cap and a "dirty t-shirt," but as I point out in this video, it doesn't matter to me. The reality is, I love making this content. It fuels and fulfills me, and it makes me a better person, and a better digital strategist and business owner. It challenges me to provide even more value for our clients and our team. Our team strives to be the most knowledgable, friendly and easy to work with. That's just us. And these videos are just me. I'm never going to stress over getting the lighting, audio and video perfect, and I'm never going to change my outfit for the camera.

Finally! I have an answer for all businesses who need to use digital data to justify / quantify the success of their event related marketing and sales / business development efforts in terms of pounding the pavement with meetings. Like, real data, not anecdotal stuff. For example, if you have a booth at an event, you absolutely need to make sure all of your sales people are having booth visitors scan your company's Instagram Nametag and follow you right away either from the digital display on the screen of your booth, or right there off of your employee's phones. No personal information exchanged, and it takes a fraction of the time it takes to sign up for your email list or fill out a web form on a mobile device. Instead of the booth visitor giving you a fake email address, they actually follow you on Instagram, and you can then see who they are and message them there rather than jam their inbox with spam. For the first time, we can relate Instagram followers to In-Person Real Life meetings. Small Business Owners and Marketers need to know about Instagram's new Nametag feature, explained perfectly in this video. Another use is for 1:1 business development / sales meetings. Business cards are still floating around out there, but the Nametag feature could completely replace it. Business cards are expensive and are thrown away. Training your employees to scan IG Nametags is simpler, more cost-effective, and immediately puts the new contact in your marketing funnel. The Nametag feature is also extremely relevant to personal brands, or super talented musicians, gymnasts, dancers or street performers that want to get some love for being on people's Instagram stories all the time. :)

A Great Small Business Marketing Tip. I've written a lot about the importance of Google My Business, how it's the number one most important Small Business SEO strategy and even something all marketing directors and VPs of Marketing should pay attention to regardless of the size of their company. I've even gone in depth about why it's important to post photos on Google Maps. Now, it's time to take a look at the different post types you can make in Google My Business, and why it is a tool that all businesses can use to create offers, promote products and events, and direct people to their storefronts. This audio elaborates on how to improve your business SEO.

Does Your Digital Agency Know How To Get Your Business To The Top Of Google? Data Driven Daily Tip #199. Google has clearly decided that maps results will outweigh web page results for local business searches that don't include the company's name (also known as non-branded or un-branded searches). These are the searches you want to rank for, because they bring in net new customers for your business, vs. customers who already know you and are simply looking to find you. Those customers will make a search with your business name in it and will find something like this.

So I was just getting ready to send out an email marketing blast to a group of 206 marketing directors, VPs of Marketing and CMOs who attended a webinar that I gave recently. The follow up email was to give them a FREE GOOGLE ANALYTICS ASSESSMENT to help them use data to improve their website. There was only one problem! I forgot to set up an A/B Test of the Subject Line. This is very important, so I scrambled, paused the scheduled campaign, and reworked it to send the A/B Test. This audio explains how!

Ep.75: Attention Marketers: Does Your Web Developer Know About Facebook Events Partner Integrations? It's a tool within Facebook Business Manager that makes it super easy for the non-technical marketing person to easily integrate their website conversions, eCommerce or Lead Generation, or even custom events like button clicks and scroll-to-stops, modal window opens, etc. - and, perhaps the best, CRM lead generation integration, ALL BACK TO FACEBOOK ADS! We're talking a three to five minute set-up process to get your Shopify Store, WordPress WooCommerce Store, even Magento, BigCommerce stores hooked up directly into your Facebook Ads reporting dashboard. It even includes CRMs like InfusionSoft, SalesForce and Zoho, and of course, Google Tag Manager. Not only does this allow you to SEE THE DATA that is most valuable to you, but it allows you to RUN future Facebook Ads that are optimized to the actions that you want. Here is a video that explains it all, followed by screenshots from the Shopify Integration Process (we just picked one).

Continuing on in our Facebook Ads Manager / Facebook Events Manager / Facebook Pixel content series, it's important to truly understand why some Facebook Ads work better than others. Now that you know how to set up the Facebook Pixel, and how to access the Events Manager page and think through how to use the data, it's time to get into how to create custom conversions. When you take the time to have a layered digital marketing strategy that includes Facebook Ads, you need to use the data from the pixel to run ads that are super targeted, which can be set up as Custom Conversions inside Facebook Events Manager. The video below shows not only how, but also talks about why you would want to do this, for example, if I'm trying to sell more WordPress Web Design and Development Services, I can run ads to people who have viewed my Web Design and Development Services page, and I can even run ads to people who have not only seen that page, but who have also filled out the lead generation form on that page. A little something in their Facebook feed or Instagram story to say, Remember us? :) Think of what this could do for your business.