Jon Loomer  0:00  
What's nice is Facebook Ads Manager has evolved over the years where it's getting easier and easier, a little bit more user friendly. You're basically just telling Facebook, you know, this is my goal. I want to drive more traffic, I want to drive more engagement. I want to get more people to watch this video, and then you give them that thing that you want to promote. And that's really it.

Dylan Schmidt  0:17  
This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network and net worth. Hear from exciting guests and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt and Welcome to Digital Podcaster.

Dylan Schmidt  0:34  
I couldn't be more excited to share today's conversation with you. My guest is Jon Loomer. A quick bio of who Jon Loomer is in case you aren't familiar with him. Jon is an advanced Facebook marketing coach, author, speaker and strategist. He's widely recognized as a top marketing expert. And what I love about Jon and what you'll learn really quickly, you'll hear in our conversation is Jon isn't your typical marketing guy. His approach to marketing in general, in my experience is incredibly rare and refreshing. I wanted to have Jon on to talk about paid ads in 2023. What we need to be thinking about and how he's thinking about chat GBT with paid ads. Also, we talked about some simple paid ad strategies that you could start incorporating today. Please welcome to Digital Podcaster. Jon Loomer. Thank you so much, Jon, for coming on the podcast. What a way to spend a Friday. Yeah, so happy to be here, dude. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me. So I got to ask you as an expert, whatever the level of an expert is a master in your field. So it feels like we're in the like big age of organic right now with tick tock, and Facebook reels and Instagram reels. Why paid ads? Like what what case do you like to make for paid ads? And not that you have to make one? I'm just super curious, because it seems like organic is all the rage. But there's obviously still importance of paid. It's funny you say that though? Because like, well, first of all paid ads, because this is what I've been doing for the last, you know, 1112 years. It's tough to pivot from that. But

Jon Loomer  2:00  
what's funny is like, you know, when I got started with it, that's when reach was easy. Like you could publish something on Facebook and reach a amazingly large number of people. And really the complaint these days is you can't so one reason for the paid ads would be to reach more people that you couldn't otherwise reach. Because, you know, truthfully, yeah, these days on Facebook, you might be lucky if you're reaching 5% of your audience, which in reality, I think we've just been spoiled. And I would have said this 810 years ago as well. Like, I still remember when it was reported that you only reach 16% of your fans that we call it back then which people were freaking out because I that seems like a lot to me. Like they're not always online waiting for you to post every day, you know. So, but now it's much smaller than that. Sometimes stuff will go viral hit whatever. But the truth is like, you have very little control over what hits

Jon Loomer  3:08  
whether you have a big audience, small audience, the paid, amplifies you provides a bit of dependability in terms of I'm going to make sure I reach at least this many people, you know, with my message regardless of what happens organically and just gives you a little bit more control.

Dylan Schmidt  3:24  
Yeah, that controls nice. It's funny, like we both post frequently on Tik Tok, and I don't know how their algorithm works. I guess that anyone that claims to, it's like, it's just like, always changing. And sometimes I'm like, how did this end up in front of this audience? Based on the comments I'm receiving? Like, how did why did they think this person was a good idea? And with at least with paid ads, you probably have a better? More control, right?

Jon Loomer  3:50  
Typically, because you're optimizing for an action, right? Yeah. With with Facebook ads made ads. But yeah, Tic Tac Toe ads only. I've only been really using Tiktok since October of last year, and I'm still figuring it out. And actually just last week at a video for me, this is a big deal. Get it's had 50,000 plays, and throw it like that was That was crazy. Like, okay, well again, all these comments and all this stuff, because like, a lot of these people aren't really my people. You know, so like I hear a lot about that, like don't necessarily not that it went viral. You don't necessarily want to go viral either because you're not necessarily reaching your people in a lot of cases. Especially because the video that of course, was a video that wasn't really about my core topic. It was about recording with your rear facing camera on your iPhone. And so yeah, that reached a lot more people and I'm like, well, that doesn't necessarily help my business.

Dylan Schmidt  4:49  
Yeah. So crossover of people that are in to like improving the camera quality and paid media like probably should I want Yeah, it's like the percentage and then on the app, that's probably skews different right than on other apps using too.

Jon Loomer  5:08  
And also just tic tac generally, like, I don't think a very large percentage of my paid media audience that follows me like on Facebook, Instagram is on tick tock. I think it's kind of a completely different audience. And which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But just kind of it's been a weird bounce. First of all, understanding that there's a different audience. Second of all, the algorithms are just completely different. And sorting that out, but also like figuring out hey, maybe I'm going to talk about something different here. And that's, that's why I kind of venture into talking about the, you know, this video creation, because it's a new thing for me, you know?

Dylan Schmidt  5:49  
Yeah, it feels like there's a lot of new things right now. With, have you heard of chat? GPT? We, yes. They said that, you know, they used to say, Oh, they used to say and they still say but like how many ads were exposed to a day, you're exposed to 5000 ads per day. It's like, well, that's crazy. I wonder how many times were exposed to the word chat GBT a day now? It's got it.

Jon Loomer  6:16  
I'm honestly, I'm kind of exhausted. Because like, I don't know about you. Are you on LinkedIn much?

Dylan Schmidt  6:24  
I only remember at like, super late hours, I will hop on Oh, shoot, I gotta, I'll be posting like midnight, brushing my teeth. It's terrible. But yeah, so I am but like, not when the rest of the world is.

Jon Loomer  6:36  
Okay, so I've gotten into LinkedIn more over the last year. And I feel like everything is chat GPT. And everything's like the, you know, the slides or whatever they do with like, the eight ways to prompt and all this stuff. And like, just I'm so exhausted, like, I'm trying to lean into it. And so I've tried to, you know, apply how you can use it for Facebook advertising or marketing generally, and kind of, because that's the big thing right now, this is what people want to talk about. But there's like so much we don't know. And no one's a true expert on it. And everybody wants to be an expert. And like, it's just it's

Dylan Schmidt  7:18  
the, it may seem like some people come out with paid courses already on touching Oh, no, I That freaks me out like the I get anxiety for them. Because I'm like, they don't know what's around. And every week, it's something different.

Jon Loomer  7:37  
I think it's exciting. And we're at a very early stage of it, it's obviously scary as well, because it's going to lead to a lot of change in all likelihood, unless just this whole thing just blows up. And like, oh, it's not as great as we thought, which I don't think that's gonna happen. So it's like, you know, how is it going to change us and in our responsibilities, how's it gonna make us better? And for someone who's been rather rigid in my ways, up until like, a year ago, and just trying to get, you know, in the short form video now now, you're telling me I got to start using AI? It's, it's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot.

Dylan Schmidt  8:16  
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like people like how you mentioned to just, there's so much content out there about it right now. And, and as we're all learning, like, we, it's, it's almost easy to capitalize on this fear of missing out around, I'm not using it the way I could be using it, or there's a better way to optimize like, everyone was so big on productivity or morning routines. And that morning, routine thing has shifted to chatty, like, oh, you used to make your coffee this way? Well, chat up tea could give you five, it's like, you know, it's a lot.

Jon Loomer  8:49  
You know, and I'm a big time believer in it. I still don't think that at the moment. It's like ready for primetime to help a lot. Right? I think it's great for generating ideas, it actually helped me generate ideas for training that I'm working on right now. And that kind of stuffs great, giving you first drafts of stuff thrown together a description or a title for something great. But I think in terms of like full on automation and whatnot. I don't think we're there yet. But obviously, I think the it's on the horizon, though, as far as the things they can do. That's where I see it at least.

Dylan Schmidt  9:27  
Yeah, yeah. Have you used because you've published content? You've been on the internet for more than a year. Before? 2021? Have you used it for anything referencing yourself?

Jon Loomer  9:43  
Yeah, so there's a couple of things. I mean, actually, someone else put out this video about we're asked a question like, who were the top five marketers in the world? Now, when I was on that list, I was like, This has also updated a little bit, but I'll take I'll take it. And so that was cool. There was another time where I used a Chrome plugin to actually allow it to access the internet. Right. So it's one of those was a camera with the plugin was but so basically, if you asked me the question, I was like, Hey, give me I can remember is like 1010 tips regarding Facebook advertising. I don't remember what it was. And it that plugin with cite the source each time. And either of those 10 things. Nine of them's cited me, which was kind of cool. So I actually did a video on that. But that's so it's good to see that kind of stuff. Yeah, a little bit of validation

Dylan Schmidt  10:52  
for us went up with chatty btw. Just a little bit. Okay, all right.

Jon Loomer  10:58  
Yeah, but that's also the scary, scary part is that, you know, a lot of times to me, that's been what people are freaking out about is like, they are they using my content, but not giving me the credit and other cases as well?

Dylan Schmidt  11:14  
Yeah, and that's one thing that I'm personally not like too fearful of, because it's kind of like looking at the past so much, you know, and I know enough from learning from people like yourself that you're on the cutting edge, like I said, at the beginning really is like, you're always learning and you're taking all of the data that you had previously, and then experimenting and making informed decisions as you move forward. And even it's like that stuff can't always be published, you know, like, immediate, it's not, that's not your brain on it can't like see where the puck is going, you know, from your perspective with how much data you've had. Watch this be totally outdated in like six months. But I feel confident at least. Like, yes. chatty, VT like we're just following its orders at this point.

Jon Loomer  12:10  
Exactly. I mean, yeah, the really tough part is especially now when we're talking about search, and a potential search future where it's like, it just gives you the answer, and no longer sends me traffic. I think anyone who's relied heavily on traffic referral traffic from Google and search engines, generally. That's kind of freaky. Like, once again, it's like, it's not a matter of, oh, that's wrong. And they shouldn't do that. Like, Well, if that actually improves the user experience, it gives them the answer right away, then that makes a lot of sense. So what the hell do I do, like, if I'm losing those 1000 referrals a day or whatever, that's a big deal. And so I think a lot of us just need to be aware of that in terms of, we need to make a pretty major pivot.

Dylan Schmidt  13:02  
don't really remember too much when like Google came on. I kind of remember we think of Google and we think of Google search. And it got more powerful as it went on. And then, you know, some people criticize, you know, ads, where that's like Google's biggest revenue generator, but is a user like, I don't really feel like the ads get in the way of me getting the information I need when I search. Do you think and I would imagine Google increased the amount of ads. And that's, you know, that stuff didn't just like start out. I can't help but wonder or at least hope for someone that doesn't work in paid ads. But I would imagine that, like, the search, things have got it incorporate ads to make the money to keep it going. Right.

Jon Loomer  13:44  
Right. But it's gonna be a matter of like, what is that though, right? So I think the mistake a lot of people are making is say, Oh, well, Google's money is on search ads, and and those kind of clicking those links and those referrals, they can't just get rid of that like, Well, why? Why can't they like they can replace it with something else? If there's seriously forward looking like, if there's something that's outdated, you move on, you do something else? Because throughout is even in some of these kind of demos, I've seen where, okay, they give you the answer. And then they have some links down below where you can click them, you're probably not gonna click those links, especially the way this works works compared to the way old search worked, right? Like in the, I guess, really the current days. If you put in a search and you didn't really get your answer, you'll go through those links and like, Okay, I need some more information. And I'm going to click on that mat mat mat to get to my answer. But with the GPT or AI, focus search, if you don't get the answer you're looking for right away, you're gonna keep asking the questions. I mean, that's that's really the best way to use it. You're not necessarily gonna click on those links, so people aren't clicking those links. If you're not going to Google's not going to keep surfacing them, because they're not valuable. So that but still have to monetize. So how do they monetize? And I think that's the part right now where my brain? I don't know. And yeah, like I've heard people talk about. Yeah, right. I've heard people talk about a future. That doesn't include websites. And I might, I can't really grasp that. But so it's just one of those things. I think we are anyone who even knows which IGBT is right now, it seems like everyone's talking about it. But really, it's still a pretty small group, comparatively, you're ahead of the curve. Stay ahead of it. Because what you don't want to be as someone who's reacting, because you're forced to down the road. This is just a lot right now. And it's anxiety inspiring? For sure.

Dylan Schmidt  15:54  
Yeah. Yeah, it feels like it can't help but like, bring it up, you know. And that's, I think, why has a lot of people talking about it that work? Content paid ads, we see a glimpse, and we're like, wait, what's around the corner? And we know that nobody really knows for sure not even rarely do we see, it's one of those times where even Google where like we see them kind of staggering a little bit. I just want to make a prediction. Not a prediction, just like one of those things that like if I say it, and it looks like really cool. It's not that they place ads during your back and forth with the AI bot. But it's the data that they give advertisers so that like, you can then reach them in other places on their online journey. So it's like, kind of like when Facebook before they had to make everything a little bit more bland. And that's like my dumbed down version of it, because I don't know about it as much as you do. But before like, they weren't as like targeted as it was a few years ago. That data is like, oh, this person searched for Jon Loomer. You know, ad like stuff like that. But it's like in Google's best interest to monetize it, right? Because they're also they're gonna be out hundreds of billions of dollars, or probably more, but I don't know, it just that was just like one idea. So Google, if you're listening, that's you can monetize. We know they're listening. But we'll

Jon Loomer  17:13  
look at there's still reason to surface links, right? Like, so someone's looking for, you know, a consultant or contractor, someone who can do X, like, that answer isn't going to be enough. Like they need to be able to direct you to okay, how do I get a hold of these people? Or, you know, what's their website? Like, you're still gonna want to know that. And maybe that's where ads will, will be most most prevalent. But yeah, otherwise, like, I think it's just inevitable that referral traffic is going to drop. And that could be a domino effect, honestly, like if, if you get a fraction of the traffic used to get because you're relying on that, what's the motivation to keep creating it if you're not creating as much? What's the data that's feeding those search engines? It's, I say, it makes my brain hurt a little bit.

Dylan Schmidt  18:05  
Yeah, right. It's been so it's like, what is the meaning of life? starts getting existential, maybe just like, well, you know, maybe just lunchtime or what's for dinner. But so being someone who has been in the game for for a minute, for years, and for someone that's also interested on like the cutting edge, which makes me so excited to chat with you, because you're not like trying to force upon an old way you're actively experimenting and learning and growing. What do you suggest for someone who knows that like, who's not getting the results that they want with say, just organic content only? What would be some steps to take? Say they have a podcast, say they're making some content here and there? And yeah, what would you like suggest

Jon Loomer  18:52  
and what's nice is, you know, the Facebook Ads Manager has evolved over the years, where it's getting easier and easier, a little bit more user friendly. You basically just tell them Facebook, you know, this is my goal. I want to get drive more traffic, I want to drive more engagement, I want to get more people to watch this video. And then you give them that thing that you want to promote. And that's really it. And one of the complexities is kind of been almost removed. And that's targeting, because broad targeting seems to be working pretty well these days. To the point where it's like, oh, man, I used to love slicing and dicing, finding, finding the ideal audience to target and whatnot. And now these days, it's almost not even necessary other than like some remarketing that you might want to do, like talk to people who are already visiting your website, things like that. But it is getting easier. And if you really want to start from the very, very beginning, just that crazy boost button, like you, you create a post on Facebook, you're like I want to reach more people boost it that's all you have to really do. When it comes down to it.

Dylan Schmidt  19:58  
Just I hear a lot of people have, you know, say like, oh, you know, I wasted or like they spent money on paid ads and they didn't work. If you had $1, for every time, I'm sure you heard that. You could buy a ChaCha beauty. Yeah. Like, is the expectation maybe just a little bit mich mismatch? Is that what it is? Or is it a skill issue? Or is it both?

Jon Loomer  20:24  
Yes, yes. It's a little bit of both. I mean, yeah, the, the expectations are often way up like it, you'll hear this often, like, you'll have a small business, hire somebody to do their ads. And they're upset, they're not seeing a bunch of sales. Right away, like, first of all, your brand sets you up for how successful you can be how quickly with your ads. So do a lot of people know who you are already? If they do that makes things a lot easier? Do you have a good website? Because you're gonna have to send people to your website. Facebook can't just magically give you sales? So do you have good landing pages? Do you have a clear message? It's already there? Does the site actually load? You know, can you know what's that process of buying from you like, because if any of that stuff's hard, Facebook ads can solve that for you. That's what I talk a lot to agencies and consultants who manage ads, like, be picky about who your clients are, because they set you up for success or failure as well, because you've got somebody who's like insist on low budgets. And they don't have a good website, or they don't have a website at all. Nobody knows who they are. They've got no audience on Facebook, no presence on Facebook or Instagram, and they want sales. Good luck. It's like they have to have realistic expectations. And that should be a long term approach. If they're willing to buy into it. It's a long term approach, like we got to build some awareness around who you are, this is going to be baby steps, you're probably not going to see some sales coming in from this in the early going. That's a long term prospect. So yes, it's a combination of expertise, like let people just don't know what they're doing. And expectations as well.

Dylan Schmidt  22:18  
Something about like whether there's the transference of money, and then seeing ads, I guess all day, it's like, well, if I spent 20 bucks, why haven't I made 200 or 2000? You know, it's like a slot machine that, or casino that, like not supposed to win this, you know, I invest this money. Again, well,

Jon Loomer  22:37  
the other thing would be like, Hey, I've spent $100, and I got five conversions. So if I spend $1,000, I should get 10 times that. And that's never the case, either. It's just kind of understanding why. And so much of Facebook advertising is just kind of understanding how it works, and the course of the algorithm and what Facebook is trying to do, depending on what you tell it to do, because there are weaknesses in it. And there are strengths in it. And it's really helpful to understand all that.

Dylan Schmidt  23:11  
And I just have to highlight this with you here in a moment. Because one thing I think you highlight really well or you show really well is one that like it's deeper than most people think that there's boosting a post and then there's actually really going into it and using it the way that could change a business completely. And for people that haven't had success with it. And they're like I boosted a post and it didn't do anything. I didn't get any sales. And it's like well, there's way more to it than that. And if you actually want to go down that rabbit hole Jon Loomer is who can guide you down that rabbit hole feels very Alice in Wonderland you do such a great job, I totally would recommend you just like wherever you're active listening on social media is just following Jon Loomer. So you can see what I'm talking about, on how he breaks things down. It'll make you feel really smart. Like, you know, I'll watch one of your videos and I'm like, I feel like I know more than 90% of the population, just the way you deliver information. Say someone's listening to this. They're maybe on the beginner side of paid ads or maybe even intermediate. How do you work with people? Like where would you like people to go to? To learn more?

Jon Loomer  24:19  
Yeah, so I create a lot of free content. So first of all, whether it's on my website, Jon loomer.com, or tic tac, Instagram, Facebook so the videos will be the start the blog posts will be the start I was a podcast podcast with Jon Loomer. So I have a lot of free content first of all, like it doesn't you don't have to pay for stuff with me. But if I want to take if you want to do the first thing is you can book 45 minute sessions with me so I stopped taking clients years ago so I could focus more on helping more people as opposed to one at a time. So you can book for 45 minutes sessions with me. I'm actually been experimenting with something where you can book A series of these these calls as well. But I think really the main product I have is that my community, my pay community, my power hitters club. And so they're not only do we have a private Facebook group, we do weekly strategy sessions every Tuesday where we all talk about what we're seeing people's own obstacles and whatnot and your success stories, whatever and share with one another, do a weekly webinar for that group to get access to all my training. So there'll be power hitters club.com.

Dylan Schmidt  25:29  
Awesome. I'll make sure to link that in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today, Jon.

Jon Loomer  25:35  
Man, thanks so much. Appreciate it.