Not all traffic is created equally, so why are you treating all traffic equally? Why are you messaging all traffic equally? Hey, guys. Patrick here with another edition of the Art Marketing Podcast. What am I doing here? What's going on? Assuming you're just getting started with the podcast, my name is Patrick. I run marketing in a company called Art Storefronts.

You know, we have a large number of artists on our platform, and one of the biggest questions that we get all the time is about Facebook ads, specifically how to approach them, what are the best practices, should you be doing them, and on and on and on. What we're doing with a couple of episodes here in the Art Marketing Podcast is we're getting in the weeds on Facebook ads and really trying to cover the subject.

Now, I said in the last episode that I think it is Facebook ads and by definition, for those that don't know, Facebook owns Instagram, so it's one platform to advertise on both, but the two of them combined is such a complicated beast, such a complicated animal that I honestly think a podcast could be dedicated for just how to sell art on Instagram and Facebook. It really could, so what I wanted to do is kind of give you some foundational lessons, some things that I think you need to know before you even start thinking about getting on Facebook ads. In addition to it being a complicated beast, the platform is just changing all time. New updates, new updates, new updates all the time, and it's like a really, really difficult thing to stay up to date with unless you're just in it all the time.

The good news is there is some foundational elements that do not change that you just need to know, that are going to give you a way better chance of succeeding with Facebook ads. It's going to stack the deck in your favor, so that's what I'm doing with these couple of series. I'm just take as many episodes as it takes to give you that foundational basis and to give you whatever it ends up being, five, six, seven, 10 episodes, that you can listen to in a row and binge listen to in a row before you make the leap into Facebook ads, that you'll give you a conceptual understanding of what I think you should be doing, what are best practices. Then you can take it to bits and pieces, and use them as a proxy for how you want to inform your campaigns and your strategies, but you're going to be in a way better position and you're not going to have to pay any of the idiot taxes, or waste any of the money that I wasted throughout my career on Facebook ads. That's where we are. We're covering the basics.

If you listened to the last episode, which I guess was episode two — we're on to number three — I was talking about traffic types and that not all traffic is created equally. A great way to think about advertising on Facebook, what are you doing when you're advertising on Facebook? You're attracting traffic, so let's not think about all of them as the same. Let's split them up into three simple types just to keep things easy and understandable. You've got cold traffic. The analogy there is this is somebody that's never met you before. You've got warm traffic. This is somebody that you have met. There's been some interest that's been shown, so you've been introduced.

They know you a little bit. Then there's hot traffic, right? This is a person you know very well. I think, why would you want to think about them differently and why would you want to message them differently? That's the question that I really want to dive into and get you guys to understand on this one. In the last episode, we used heavily the relationship example. It's a great way to break it down and make it understandable. It's the exact same concept. Like, when you're trying to get a sale of your art on your website, it is no different than cultivating the relationship in which you eventually want to get married to this lovely other person, so let's go into a little bit more detail on the traffic types, and I'm going to get further into it and explain.

Let's dive deep or deeper into the traffic types, and I'm going to stick with the relationship example. Cold traffic, let's think about all of this in the bar situation. The cold traffic, you never met these people. You're walking up to them for the first time. You're saying, "Hi. My name is Patrick. How're you doing? What do you do for a living? Where did you grow up?" and on and on and on. You're just getting to know one another. How do you message those folks? How do most people screw up is they message the cold traffic with a hot message.

First, let's talk about the interest targeting that would be cold traffic. Why do I mean on Facebook? A lot of people have started Facebook ads already and they've had some level of introduction to the targeting that you have, and some people haven't, so let me explain to both of you.

On Facebook you can target your ads to things such as interest targeting. People that like dogs, people that like abstract art, people that like the color blue. It's not quite that simple, but you can do interest targeting, so those type of people. You can target people that have liked certain pages, so let's say you're in the photography niche and Ansel Adams had a Facebook page. Does he? I don't know. He should. You could target people that like Ansel Adams page, right? That's how you could set your ad targeting app, and there's a number of other different combinations in there that we'll get into in later episodes.

The essential thing to understand is you're showing your ads to people in a bar that have never met you before. That's the easiest way to think about it. When you think about it like that, it becomes really easy to understand that the appropriate message for cold traffic is not to walk up and say, "Oh, hey. Nice to meet you. How're you doing? My name is Patrick. Buy my art. Buy art today. 20% off. 20% off that you got to buy in the next 24 hours.

What do you think? What do you think? What do you think?" Not the right message for cold traffic, right? Not the right message for cold traffic. One of the primary reasons people screw up with their Facebook ads is they go after cold traffic and they use a hot traffic type of an ad.

Let's move on to the warm traffic. The warm traffic is a much bigger bunch when you think about it. The cold traffic, that's a pretty defined line. The warm traffic, these people know you, so let's say you went to the bar the second time. You see me in the corner and you come, and you go, "Hey, Patrick. How're you doing? Yeah, I saw you here last time. Let's get another drink. That was a good time." I say, "Sure. Yeah, let's get another drink. I love a cold IPA. Let's get one, sit down and continue our conversation." Let's just say it starts there and it goes all the way up to 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, even 50 times meeting in the bar. That's warm traffic. The concept again, though, is that they know you, so let's talk about the targeting on Facebook that that would be. That would be fans of your Facebook page. Facebook gives you the ability to show ads to people that have liked your page. They already know you.

They've already met you. We passed the one drink threshold. We're well into the second, third and fourth. You can take your email list and upload it to Facebook. Facebook goes and matches those emails with these people's Facebook profiles. You can then show ads to those folks. Again, that's warm traffic. The third one is your remarketing audience. In the last episode we talked about the importance of the getting the Facebook pixel, and installing it on your website. What that allows you to do is if I, Patrick, go to your Susan website. Susan, you're site is up. I come to the website. I take a look at a couple of pages. I leave. Because you have that Facebook pixel installed on your site, you can then show me ads for a period of time; 30, 60, 90 days. I think it goes up to 120 days, but neither here nor there. Warm traffic: email list, Facebook of your Facebook page, your remarketing audience. They know you. They know who you are.

Next let's talk about a hot example. In a hot example, and this especially applies to ... I'm going to give you a narrow definition of it. Depending on what industry you're in, you can get into different ones, but we're talking about selling art online, so if you're selling art online and I come to your website ... Let's use Susan again. Susan, I come to your website. I look at a piece of art. It's an original or it's a beautiful print. I grab that thing. I throw it in my shopping cart, and then I leave. I leave. I get distracted. I leave. I didn't purchase. I have that piece of art in a shopping cart that has not been purchased.

That's hot traffic, right? I mean, that was on the 99-yard line. We just need another push. Their credit card would have been out and the deal would have been done. This is somebody that you've known for a long time, that's already passed through the warm. They're hot. They've sent you the signal they're going to buy, so you have the ability, assuming you set things up correctly, to show different ads, different messages to these three people at the three zones they are, and especially with the hot, you can go for the jugular. You could go for the jugular at that point in time.

To sum that up before we move on, the relationship example makes it easy, so constantly be thinking about the relationship example when you're thinking through these three different traffic types. You get that, you get just that, that there is cold, there is warm, there is hot traffic ... They should be shown a cold message for cold traffic, a warm message for warm traffic, and a hot message for a hot traffic. You get that and I'm telling you, you are 90% further than most not just artists, but people that are advertising on Facebook, and especially for beginners. That's where most people get hung up at the beginning. Have you ever see that show, Family Feud? It's had a number of different hosts over the years, but I think it's Steve Harvey now. You're up there with your family and they ask some sort of a question.

There's the board and they have the answers ranked, and then there's always the one that got the most votes, and then the second votes. Let's say we're on Family Feud right now. I'm Steve Harvey and I go, "So why do most artists fail with Facebook ads?" That's the question. Now just like Family Feud, there's going to be a few different answers there that sum it all up, but let me tell you.

Number one and number two, and maybe they're flipped, but they're one and two no matter what, is why do most artists fail with Facebook ads? Number one, because they are showing hot messages to cold traffic and warm traffic. They're showing the wrong message to the wrong traffic. As such, you're paying too much for ads. You're losing. Reason number two? They're choosing the wrong targeting. Their targeting is completely off, and we're going to get into that. Those are rules number one and two. The important one to focus on this time, wrong message, wrong traffic type. Okay. I just went on that rant. I enjoyed it.

Quick disclaimer it's important to mention. Art Storefronts, we don't just host artists. We host artists, art galleries, and print studios. Here's the disclaimer and it bears mention it's important. Some people and some businesses actually do get away with a one size fits all message for all traffic types, so they're able to show the same message for cold, medium and hot, and get away with it. That is not normal for most people. That is not the case for most people. I would not recommend that for most people. Even in the cases when it does work ... We've got this one print studio. I'm not going to say his name. I'm not going to say his technique. It's brilliant. I've seen it. I'm blown away by it.

He's spending many thousands of dollars a month on these ads. Because he's offering printing services and he's going after photographers, he knows all the photographers. Want to order prints, need to order prints, and so he shows them a discount. Goes for the jugular. Hot traffic message to all traffic, and it works for him. It works for him because it's an untapped market and he's doing a good job.

It would work even better for him if he understood and broke things down into cold, warm and hot. He's not going to do that because he's already profitable with it, so he doesn't care. A small disclaimer. Yes, there are some people that are going to get away with showing the same message, one size fits all, to all traffic types, but that is not the norm and it is not a long term recipe towards success. Even if you do get away with that, you would do better, i.e. spend less money for more sales, if you understand the cold, warm and hot thing, so I really want to pound that home and get it in there.

Before we're going to talk about the messaging and what types of messaging and what we recommend the ads look like to cold traffic, to warm traffic, to hot traffic, let's do just a tiny little bit more, and let's understand the typical flow. All of this is just going to feed right into how we'd want you to get started. It's funny. In the last episode, episode two, at the end of that, one of the actionable steps that I said as a takeaway is that you've got to get the Facebook pixel installed on your site, so if you haven't gotten started yet, you're even contemplating Facebook ads, you're thinking about thinking about learning about understanding Facebook ads, you need to get the Facebook pixel on your site. That is absolutely step number one, critical. Let's talk about the flow assuming you've taken step one. Really important. Track with me on this scenario.

Let's say you're an artist and somebody finds you organically on Google. You're a landscape photographer, let's just say. Somebody is searching for landscape photography. They come upon your site in Google, or let's say you have a show and you've got the fishbowl out, and you collected a bunch of business cards or they filled out email addresses, or let's say somebody, word-of-mouth on the street, was like, "Hey. This landscape photographer, he's really cool. Go check his site out." In all three of those instances, that can be thought of as cold traffic, right? All three of those folks now come to your landscape photography site and they've been on your site. Because you have the pixel installed, the ever important pixel, you can now show that person ads in the future, so that person came to your website for the first time.

Because you have the Facebook pixel installed on your site, you can now show them ads in the future, so that person just moved out of the cold bucket, and into the warm bucket because you have the Facebook pixel on your site and installed. Again, in the show notes, episode two, which we'll link to, there is a detailed blog post on how to do this, how to go about doing it, so it's all there. Don't worry. We'll show you how to do it. Now you've got this guy, this gal, whoever, that's come to your site. They're on warm traffic, so they're being shown different ads.

Let's go back. Let's go back to the fishbowl example. That person came up. Put a business card in your fishbowl and they took off, right? Maybe they haven't even visited your site. You have their email address though, so what you can do, and this is going to be another takeaway for one of the episodes, for this episode, what you can also do is you take your email list and you upload that email list to Facebook, and Facebook will match those emails to their Facebook profiles, assuming they have them — the math rate is usually really, really good — and now you can show ads to those folks. By doing that, you're able to show ads to this group of folks, read warm traffic. All of you guys already have a warm traffic audience. Just by taking your email list, gathering it all up and putting it into Facebook.

Let's stay on this scenario. Now we understand cold. They could come to your site for any reason. Because you have the pixel, because you have uploaded your emails, you now got them into a warm audience, right? Yes, again, I have a detailed blog post step by step on how to get your emails into Facebook's ads manager, and so I will link to that in the show notes. Another one you can follow. You can follow the pixel one, follow the email one. So far you've done those two things.

Let's talk about a hot example. For different industries, there can ... the hot traffic example. For different industries, there can be different examples. I am assuming you are an art seller, an online e-commerce art seller, so if you are an online e-commerce art seller, you have a shopping cart. If you host with our Storefronts, this process is really easy. If you host with somebody else, less easy, less straightforward, but here's the example. Facebook gives you this ability, once you have the pixel on your site, to set up what are called conversions. In very layman's terms, you put this line of code on your website that listens and in order to set up a conversion, it's an additional line of code that says, "Hey, Facebook. This person just added an item to their shopping cart."

You can also do, "Hey, Facebook. This person just signed up for my email list" and we're definitely going to get into that in later episodes, but for the time being, for the argument at hand, this additional line of code says, "Hey, Facebook. This person just put an item in their shopping cart." You put an additional line of code when they check out. This person came to your website, put an item in the shopping cart. You've got the Facebook code installed, so Facebook knows this person just put an item in the shopping cart. They also know that this person just checked out because you have that line of code, so one minus the other, what you're left with, if this person came, put the item in the shopping cart and did not check out, Facebook knows, so you can show ads to that person. That's an example of a hot audience, so there you go. That's a hot person that you want to show the hot ads to.

Now in order for that audience to be a real thing, you have to have these conversions set up. One of the reasons I love Art Storefronts ... I'm a die-hard Facebook marketer. I'm a huge proponent and advocate of it, and so I had them build this entire thing into our software so that literally takes you two seconds, two seconds ... I mean, I think you can do the whole thing ... "Patrick, two seconds. It's not really two seconds." No, it's not two seconds. It's like two minutes, but still it's two minutes, and this was a complicated thing. Again, detailed blog post. If you host with Art Storefronts and you haven't done this, you need to do this immediately. It's a podcast, so I don't want to get too into the technical and the code, but it's not that difficult. Have a detailed blog post.

Whether you host with us or you host with somebody else, you can get it done. It's going to be way harder if you host with somebody else. Subtle sales pitch there, but it's true. You have to put this line of code in a certain part of your website and there's various different ways to do that. Some other providers make it easy, some make it really tough. I don't know why. Anyway. You get that done. Summing all of that up, you have the pixel on your site, you're getting cold to warm. You have the custom conversions, you're getting warm to hot. You let those audiences start building, you can start showing them ads and you're going to be in business.

Now shifting gears a little bit. Hopefully most of that was clear. Got a ton of email feedback on the last episode and I really enjoyed that feedback. It was good. It was mostly good. Have you ever seen that movie, The Karate Kid? You've seen it, right? Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita. All-time classic.

Wax on. Wax off. Don't forget to breathe. Very important. Wax on. Wax off. Wax on.
Probably most have seen it. Wax off.

Have you seen it? Great. Great. That's what I'm talking about. One piece of feedback that I did get, which was annoying because I'm like any other human being, I'm prone to criticism. It was this quite literally. It was like, "Patrick, I listened to the first 10 minutes of that podcast episode. You're taking too damn long to get to the point. I already know how to sell art." When you hear criticism like that, your immediate reaction is to get the fence up, right? That's just human nature. You get the fence up, and at first I did. Get to the point? How about you listen to another podcast? Don't let the door hit you on the you know what on the way out. That's immediately what you think, but after you have some time to reflect on it, you go over it and you start thinking. If you're me, you start thinking about analogies, which brings us back to The Karate Kid.

My hope in all of this, and everything that we're going to be doing with these series of Facebook podcast episodes is for you and I to enter into like a little Mr. Miyagi/Daniel San type of relationship. Mr. Miyagi San, in The Karate Kid, is teaching Daniel San how to fight. Right? Remember that? But he's not doing it in the way that Daniel wants to learn how to fight and the way that Daniel San thinks he needs to learn how to fight. Daniel San thinks he needs to be like the rest of the Cobra Kai guys in the dojo. You know, in the dojo, swinging and kicking and punching on the floors with the gion and the whole deal, but Mr. Miyagi runs things a little bit differently.

That's not how he teaches, so what happens is he's got Daniel San, right? He's got him painting the fence and waxing the car and doing all that other ... what seems to be like manual labor. What happens? Finally Daniel San melts down and he goes, "Mr. Miyagi, what am I? Slave labor? This is ridiculous." Then Miyagi San shows him, right? He's like, "Show me you paint the fence." Hopefully you remember this scene. If you haven't seen this, it's a crime.

I'm going to put it in to YouTube. The next thing you know, Daniel San realizes that, oh my gosh, he did just learn how to fight. He did just learn how to fight. That's what I'm hoping. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm no nowhere near as cool as Mr. Miyagi San, but that's what I'm trying to do, so let's talk. Let's talk, just to slap a bow on this puppy, what a more advanced technique would be. I'm trying to teach you to fight. I'm trying to teach you to fight by doing this theoretical stuff. Let's say, Daniel San, that you have taken our advice and you are emailing list.

You're sending both what we call romance emails ... Again, we've got a link to a blog post that explains those. I recommend you read it, and if this is interesting you. You're also sending discount emails when the time is right, when it's appropriate to be doing so. You have your email list uploaded to Facebook. Let's just say you send a romance email or a discount email. When you do that, normally you get an open rate of let's just say 20%. That's normal. That's consistent for you. Great. This time, however, when you email, you also create an ad in Facebook, and you show that to warm traffic, which is your email list.

You send the email, you create the ad the same day. You just put $10 to it if you have a small list, $5 to it. Maybe if you have a huge list, you're going to put $5,000 to it. The next thing you know, the open rate, which was at 20%, goes to 30%. Why? Because people saw the email in their inbox, ignored it like we most often do, then went on to Facebook or on to Instagram, saw an ad that was talking about your email and was like, "Ah. That's right. I saw that. Now I want to go open it." Well, guess what? In that extra 10%, in that 20% to 30% that would not have opened that email if they did not see your Facebook ad, they just took your website. They just took your website. They looked at an original and they just purchased it for 1,000 bucks. You just stacked yourself a few small ones into a big one, Daniel San, didn't you?

[foreign language 00:23:39]. Congratulations. You just stacked small wins into a big one, so that's the power of ... Everything that I'm trying to do here is teach you this fundamental basic stuff, get you understanding how it works, wrapping your mind around the different kinds of traffic, and hopefully, hopefully being Miyagi. If it seems theoretical, like if I'm talking too long about this, if it seems theoretical and just out to space, "Get me to the hardcore tactics," I'm trying to. I'm trying to by doing paint the fence, and wax on and wax off.
So takeaways, quick review.

One, get the Facebook pixel installed on your site. Even if you're thinking about advertising, get it installed on your site. You need to let that audience build. Number two, get your email list together. Upload it to Facebook. Again, detailed blog post in the show notes on both of these. The next? Sort the e-commerce transaction. If you're an Art Storefronts customer, this is an absolute no-brainer. You need to see that post and do it. If you're not, it's going to be harder. Fight your way through it. Fire up the Google on the internet machine and get it done.

You get those done, those things done, understanding the three types of traffic, having the basic tracking in place, having your email list in, you are starting to stack the deck in your favor. You are on your way to somebody that's going to run their first ads not as a complete novice, but someone that's got their stuff together. That's where I want to end it. I hope you enjoyed that.

What's next? Show notes. For this episode, for any episode, you can just hit artmarketingpodcast.com. Again, artmarketingpodcast.com. Find the episode, find the show notes, all of that good stuff. If you are currently mobile, you're working it out, you're [preangulating 00:25:24] about, [inaudible 00:25:25] whatever the case may be, we have a text and number that you can use, and we'll email you the show notes so you can get all of that stuff transcribed to the show.

To do that, you can text the word AMP for Art Marketing Podcast, AMPZZZ, Z as in zebra, so AMPZZZ to the number 44-222. Literally just pull out your phone, send a text message to the number 44-222, type in the word AMPZZZ, and we'll send you the show notes, which is great.

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