Latest / The ROI Online Podcast / [Feature Friday] Pamela Wagner on Not Wasting Money On Useless Ads: The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 79

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[Feature Friday] Pamela Wagner on Not Wasting Money On Useless Ads: The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 79 · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:03
  Pamela Wagner: If we stick with devices, what we also often see is that a lot of budget would go, for example, towards mobile, because maybe the cost per click is cheap. But where the conversions are coming from is desktop. But then desktop is only getting maybe 10% of the budget. So if that's the case, what we'll do is then split up the campaigns so that you have one mobile focused campaign with a separate budget, and then the desktop campaign with a separate budget. So you get both, but really, you know, make sure that you get the right return on ad spend too.
• 0:37
  Steve Brown: Hi, everybody, welcome to the ROI Online Podcast where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown. And this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together.
• 1:07
  Steve Brown: Pamela Wagner, thank you so much for being on the ROI Online Podcast.
• 1:13
  Pamela Wagner: Thank you so much, Steve. It's a pleasure to be here.
• 1:16
  Steve Brown: So first of all, this is cool. I haven't interviewed anyone that's called in from Ghana, to be on the podcast. What in the world?
• 1:26
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah, it's amazing right? I mean, the thing is, you know, I need sunshine, warm weather, good food, great people. So it was kind of like a no brainer for me to come here.
• 1:38
  Steve Brown: So your company is Ajala Digital, and you help your clients get their act together with their ad campaigns, these are established companies, you know, that are ready to really get busy, and kill it with the ads. Tell us a little bit about your backstory, and why you begin your company? Because the folks that are listening, they're business owners, or entrepreneurs and marketing directors. And this comes across their desk at times, and they have to make good decisions on this.
• 2:15
  Pamela Wagner: Absolutely. So I started working at Google right after I finished my master's degree, which was not really something I planned, right? I kind of like stumble upon it.
• 2:27
  Pamela Wagner: And I didn't even dare to dream that I could work there. But thank God, I had some amazing people around me that pushed me, mentored me, and helped me. And so I joined the company and not like I had a lot of like marketing knowledge before, right? It was more like I was as generalist who then Google wanted to form into an ad specialist, right? And within about a year, I became really good at everything around Google ads, Google Analytics, because we've worked with more than about 2000 advertisers. So it's like, the insight I got into accounts was incredible, right?
• 3:01
  Pamela Wagner: And so then I left the company, and I was still a bit unsure. I was like, what is it that I can offer to people, right? Um, and then slowly, I started taking on different projects. And noticed that there's actually huge value in the knowledge that I gained, because there are only very few people outside that have knowledge to that depth and are that efficient in its application, and therefore can deliver real results. So as time went on, had projects just focus on really getting having a few projects, the good reviews and getting, you know, the first referrals. So after about four months, I'd made more money in a month, and I've made at Google in a month. And so I was like, okay, like, let me make this official, let me create a company. Cuz, if I managed to figure it out this far, then of course, you know, we'll manage to figure out how to like scale it and make it sustainable. Now, mind you, my parents have never finished really University or even started it. And they are not entrepreneurs, right? So a lot of first time things along the way. And so yeah, now it's been five years, and we got clients from Little Hawaii to New Zealand, some trainings and like Myanmar, Philippines, Uganda, Jamaica, you know, so yeah, it's been huge fun.
• 4:32
  Steve Brown: So what's the significance of the name Ajala?
• 4:37
  Pamela Wagner: So that actually dates back to the first time I went to Sub Saharan Africa, which is Nigeria. Now I was 18 back then very, very young. A lot of people would call me crazy for that move. But I have a very close connection with that country. And so within the past years since I've traveled a lot, I've been to 80 countries now, a lot of my Nigerian friends started calling me Miss Ajala. And Ajala is a Nigerian traveler that used to travel through the whole continent. And so it's like Miss traveler, as it is a word that comes from the language yoruba, and means traveler. And since I didn't want to use my own name, or I couldn't think of anything else, I was like, okay, let me just add digital to it. And then I got a company name. And if I want to change it, I can always change it, but haven't found a better name yet.
• 5:30
  Steve Brown: I love it. That's a great story. So it's like, you're on a journey, not just a traveler, but you're like all the folks that listen to this, we're on a journey with our businesses, right? And so in my book I talk about, when is the time to really get busy with the ad campaign. And that's after you establish the system that is ready to harvest all this activity. Tell me, you know, on your website, you really make it clear, you work with companies that are already at a certain level of business. Why is that?
• 6:11
  Pamela Wagner: So we have noticed that when you, for example, startups of people that are in the first couple of months of their business, and they want to throw money at ads, but don't really know the dynamics of ads, or don't have their business model yet figured out or their communication, they just feel like they're throwing out money. Because maybe the website isn't yet good enough on mobile. So people just jump off again, right? Or you haven't figured out your funnel yet. So you don't even know how to capture the people that are coming in or measuring it.
• 6:42
  Pamela Wagner: Right? And also, a lot of times people are not yet fully clear on what they would value to offer or what they're selling.
• 6:52
  Pamela Wagner: So maybe they would say, Oh, yeah, you know, we we sell the cheapest furniture ever. I'm like, that's nice. But that's not what the customer cares about. What problem is it that you solve? Right? And unless you can tell me that, then you should, you know, work maybe with a brand specialist, or communication specialist, but don't put money at ads yet.
• 7:18
  Steve Brown: Um, yeah. And I think a lot of people fall into that trap. You see, you get all these emails from Facebook and Google, and they want to, like give you a credit to start running ads right away. But most of the companies that get those, they're not ready for them.
• 7:35
  Pamela Wagner: No, and it's, you know, I always tend to say once Google was for everyone, once Google Ads was for everyone. But that's not the case anymore with the way that digital marketing has evolved, and with the way that Google Ads has evolved, right? And really, it's a lot of people often end up just disappointed and feeling like they've wasted all the money.
• 7:58
  Pamela Wagner: And then they kind of say like, oh, it doesn't work for me, when actually it's just not the right stage at the right moment. You know?
• 8:08
  Steve Brown: So help us envision, when is the right stage to start considering the ads?
• 8:15
  Pamela Wagner: So, I would prefer if a business has made at least six figures, then I know, okay, you know how to make money. You know what it feels like to to, you know, maybe lose money, right? So sometimes spend money without knowing whether it's coming back or not. You have invested a solid amount into your website. I mean, it's 2020. But I tell you see if we still have the same issues as in 2010, right? They are not mobile optimized, you know, the speed is slow, plugins aren't updated, and so on. Right? And, you know, you already played around with the funnel, right? You know what a funnel is, right? You either have some sort of an email list or you have a strategy for an e-commerce business where you know, we retargeting people that have dropped out of the cart or something, right? So have those certain basics there.
• 9:12
  Steve Brown: So you know, a lot of people, and there's organic campaigns, campaigns that you create content on a regular basis, you're publishing videos, maybe you're doing podcasts, you're creating content that people can sit from a distance and evaluate your offering. They can learn about you they can see what your personality is they can explore your services, but then there's a time that you would add, you would pay for ads to start showing up on certain platforms. But there's so there's so many moving parts to those ads, your budgets, your targeting, your keywords, where do you start to really, how would you sit and work with a company and start to get the fundamentals solid and in place before you begin this?
• 10:03
  Pamela Wagner: So the first point for us to check is always, do you actually have Google Analytics properly implemented?
• 10:10
  Pamela Wagner: As simple as that sounds, but 90% of time that's not the case.
• 10:14
  Pamela Wagner: And then secondly, Google Analytics even isn't even properly set up. So people aren't even yet using remarketing audiences. Maybe e-commerce isn't properly functioning, and so on. And then when we look at the Google Ads side, what we like in the beginning, we usually have the most leverage on his keywords, first of all. So for example, there was like a Swiss luxury hotel we were working with, and they were showing up for keywords of like three star hotels in Casa Blanca, which is in Morocco, right? So there's no use to them. But because they hadn't set up the keywords properly, they were wasting about 50% of the budget, which is a lot, right? So work on that. And then really make sure that the rest of the campaign settings are done well, this is where a lot of people also miss big leverage. It doesn't have to take a lot of time. Like I always tell people, you shouldn't look into your Google Ads campaigns every single day, like you're doing something wrong if you feel like you have to do that, like once every week, once every two weeks is enough if you know which buttons to push.
• 11:23
  Steve Brown: So that sounds, it's easier said than done. So how much traffic do you need to start to have good insight on a good sampling of data and user?
• 11:33
  Steve Brown: Yeah, user recordings or data to really start to get good healthy insights?
• 11:44
  Pamela Wagner: So I mean, even if you're starting off, I would say just make sure you got Google Analytics in there, you can already get some insights from like 2-3000 visitors a month. But really start talking, and we start, you know, being able to use custom audiences more with 8 to 10,000 users a month. And that's the way you can, you know, start recognizing patterns, interests, in market audiences, play with remarketing, that's when it gets fun.
• 12:17
  Steve Brown: All right, so let's go through some of those terms So you've got remarketing, you' e got, what are some of the othe terms here? And give us som definitions and help us to sta t to get a little clarity. Fo you it all makes sense, but for some of the folks they're goi g, what's the difference in the e particular types of aud ences?
• 12:34
  Pamela Wagner: So, for example, if we talk about an in market
• 12:35
  Steve Brown: So, you know, my experience with Google Analytics audience, that is people who have shown a strong interest in purchasing either something like your product or something similar. So that's usually a very good audience to target of new people that are not yet familiar with your brand, but actually really want to get something that you offer. In terms of remarketing, that means that you're targeting people who've already been in touch with your brand. Sometimes people might also refer to it as retargeting, remarketing is both the same. Now, that could be people on your email list. It could be people that have visited your website, it could be people that you know, have put a product in the shopping cart, but haven't checked out yet. Could be people who've been on on your YouTube channel or in your app. So there's a lot of different ways of remarketing you've got there. And yeah, I th nk just one term I wanted to clarify, which is keywords.
• 13:36
  Steve Brown: It sounds simple, but I want to make the distinguishment betw en keywords and search terms.
• 13:40
  Steve Brown: So keywords are the keyword phra es that you enter in Google a s, who would you want to show p, and search terms are the act al terms that people type in Goo le when your ad shows up. So ou get a search term report, ut you can actually then, which ou can use to even refine y ur keywords mo is over time they started to diminish the keyword data of t e search terms that you were showing up for, slowly over tim they hid those to, I guess to r ally target those that were expl iting keyword searches or real y keyword stuffing, how do we i entify what it is that folks are finding us?
• 14:34
  Pamela Wagner: So, I really feel that the search term report in Google Ads is quite extensive usually and helpful. Um, it's especially if you use the keyword option of broad match modifier that helps you to figure out what else are people looking for. So for example, if I offer prom dresses, right?
• 14:57
  Pamela Wagner: Blue prom dresses, are you looking to buy them? Are you looking to rent them, right? Are you looking for specific sizes?
• 15:04
  Pamela Wagner: And then with the data that I get, I can then refine either my keywords or even get inspiration for blog articles, right? Or even business, if I see a lot more people looking for renting blue prom dresses, then I probably would want to look into making that offer on my website.
• 15:22
  Steve Brown: So these, a lot of folks think that you have to put somehow put these keywords or the search terms on your web page in some way. But actually, there's content topics or topic clusters, there's videos, there's all these ways that you can start to really help your your platform be robust and communicate to Google or the search engines what your your prom dress site is about. What are some good tips that you would share with folks that are going, Oh, how can we do better with SEO?
• 16:05
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah, so I think it's important to notice that it's not any more about keyword stuffing when you mentioned, right? Like this has been outdated, Google already told us no this is not what we're looking at or, our algorithms are smarter than that. So on the one hand, yes, of course, make sure you have the right keywords in there. But don't overdo it.
• 16:24
  Pamela Wagner: So make sure it makes sense. And then something that Google values highly is how does your website perform on mobile?
• 16:33
  Pamela Wagner: Because we have way more traffic on mobile now that we have on desktop, it really prioritizes those pages that perform well on mobile, right? And then the other thing is, Can people actually easily find my content?
• 16:43
  Pamela Wagner: Or find the content that they want to have on the page, right?
• 16:47
  Pamela Wagner: Do I need to scroll a lot? Do I need to zoom in and out? Or do I actually have clear call to action buttons? So for example, a common mistake is that people have three to four different call to actions than one page one is like, contact us, one is shop now, one is learn more, and then another one, right? But you got to know that people are constantly suffering from information overload. And the easier you make it for them to make a decision, the quicker they will buy from you, sign up for your newsletter, take the action that you'd want them to take.
• 17:26
  Steve Brown: So this sounds like more that the experience that you're creating, online, for your visitors, you the people, the humans that have these human brains that are evaluating what you do, it sounds like Google's wanting you to do better in that area, rather than try to manipulate and trick their search algorithms.
• 17:50
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah, so I think Google is, you know, people can say as much as you know, whatever they want, but I really feel like there's a genuine intent to offering the user the best possible experience and giving them the information they need as quickly as possible. So whatever Google does, is with that intent in mind.
• 18:12
  Steve Brown: It's kind of hard when it's a digital environment for a business to figure out how to really excel in that area.
• 18:20
  Steve Brown: No?
• 18:22
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah, and especially when everything's changing so quickly. And when just that area of digital marketing alone has grown so much like, I mean, now yes, you can study digital marketing degrees and we're starting to have digital marketing degrees.
• 18:35
  Pamela Wagner: But we should actually be already at that level where we have, you know, content marketing, a bachelor in content marketing, right, or a master on SEO because there's so much alone in those sub areas.
• 18:50
  Steve Brown: I want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released called ROI QuickStart Academy for Authors.
• 18:58
  Steve Brown: Every day, I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place. We want to create a great foundation, and we want to grow our business. But the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics, we should put in place, what kind of technology what kind of messaging and what kind of campaigns and that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with. You have a great idea you have a great book, but what do you want to do? You want to get your book in front of more people? You want to make it easy for them to find you? Learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you? Hire you for a conference? Or maybe, sign up for the services that your book promotes. So what is the QuickStart Academy for Authors imagining working with a small group of like minded authors and the experts from the ROI QuickStart Team, it's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign to get you more of what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the QuickStart Academy for Authors, you can visit roionline.com, or click in the link in the show notes below. And now, back to this episode.
• 20:32
  Steve Brown: So what? Give me, help me have some basic ideas on how we can start to acclimate our team to do better, and in creating the platforms that would do well when we're designing ad campaigns.
• 20:57
  Pamela Wagner: So you mean how to help the team do it better, or how to use the platform's better?
• 21:03
  Steve Brown: Yeah. So if you were to work with our team, for example, where would you start?
• 21:07
  Steve Brown: What are some of the basics and fundamentals that you would want the team to be really good at?
• 21:12
  Steve Brown: Obviously, we're at that level where an ad campaign would be applicable. So how would you like orient a team to really do well?
• 21:24
  Pamela Wagner: I think, I'd first of all makes sure that they understand where, the 20% but it can have 80% of the leverage, right? So everything me and my team do is according to the 80-20 rule. I'd also want you to understand that you don't have to spend a lot more time on it. Yeah, just have to know what to look for.
• 21:49
  Steve Brown: Explain to me the 20-80 concept that, let's play like, I'm kind of dense, okay?
• 21:53
  Steve Brown: Which is not hard. So tell me, help me understand what you mean by that.
• 22:02
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah. So even though we have about six campaign types now on Google ads, search, display, shopping, etc., searches, the one that people use most. So we'd first look at the search campaigns are they actually properly set up?
• 22:17
  Pamela Wagner: What's often overlooked in search campaigns next to proper keyword match types, and this keyword settings, is bid adjustments. So look at the devices that your ads are playing on, you usually have desktop, smartphone and tablet.
• 22:33
  Pamela Wagner: Which one is performing best?
• 22:33
  Pamela Wagner: Can you then add a bid adjustment to that? So it performs even better.
• 22:39
  Steve Brown: Bid adjustments?
• 22:40
  Pamela Wagner: Yes, so I could, so Google, if there are any searches on mobile devices, you can add, for example, up to 30% to my bid to make sure that my ad shows up as highly as possible. Or if we stick with devices, what we also often see is that a lot of budget would go, for example, towards mobile, because maybe the cost per click is cheap. But where the conversions are coming from is desktop, but then desktop is only getting maybe 10% of the budget. So if that's the case, what we'd do is then split up the campaigns so that you have one mobile focused campaign with a separate budget, and then the desktop campaign with a separate budget. So you get both, but really, you know, make sure that you get the right return on adspend, too.
• 23:32
  Steve Brown: Yeah, I love that.
• 23:32
  Steve Brown: That makes sense. So that would be on the search or the display?
• 23:38
  Pamela Wagner: Search, that would be in the search site.
• 23:40
  Steve Brown: Okay, so let's, let's cover the six topics there. Search, display, what else?
• 23:45
  Pamela Wagner: So we got search campaigns, display campaigns, video YouTube campaigns, app campaigns, shopping campaigns, and then we have smart campaigns or, and discovery campaigns. So it's kind of like seven even now.
• 23:59
  Steve Brown: Smart or discovery campaigns?
• 24:02
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah, so we have smart campaigns. And then we have also discovery campaigns.
• 24:04
  Pamela Wagner: It's actually seven types. Now, it could be done in some accounts, you don't see those two yet, because they're so new.
• 24:11
  Pamela Wagner: Discovery campaigns are a mix between display, YouTube and Gmail. So a Gmail campaign is a subtype of a display campaign.
• 24:21
  Pamela Wagner: And then a smart campaign is like an attempt from Google to make it easy for you to create a campaign that mixes targeting of cold traffic and remarketing.
• 24:39
  Steve Brown: So you can get in the weeds real fast with all of this?
• 24:44
  Pamela Wagner: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
• 24:44
  Pamela Wagner: And figuring out which campaign type is right for which purpose might not always be that easy.
• 24:52
  Pamela Wagner: So let me give an example from Lead Generation, probably whith a lot of people interested, and you want to build your email list, and you have a freebie that you're offering, a free guide, right? And most likely, using Facebook ads already to generate leads there, maybe a lead gen campaign or a conversion campaign. And then a lot of times people would turn to Google and want to do a display campaign expecting the same results. Because it looks like it's kind of similar. But it's actually not, it works way different because with the display campaign, I catch people on random sites, I mean, of course, there's targeting to it, right? But also getting that right can take some time, but it's much more branding versus on Facebook or Instagram, I really, if the ad is good, I take an action, it's quick and easy. So that's where some mistakes happen. So, we actually just had a discussion today with one of our clients who's a coach. And she wanted us to do that, to drive traffic towards a master class site. And we thought about like, you know, the best thing to do here would actually be a TrueView for action campaign, which is a video type campaign, but where you can generate leads from it.
• 26:09
  Pamela Wagner: So it's a video campaign with an integrated lead form. And that one can really work well. But you have to know that, first of all in Google ads you have to click on leads first, you then have to click on video, and then which campaign type to choose.
• 26:25
  Pamela Wagner: So it's not easy to know that, right?
• 26:30
  Steve Brown: Yeah, so the folks that are listening, they're going, Oh my gosh, this is really, it can really get sophisticated. And I, it's confusing. Where to even start, right?
• 26:43
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah, yeah, it Yeah.
• 26:46
  Steve Brown: So how long does it take you to, to evaluate and do audit of a platform to come up with some really good suggestions? And that now I'm understanding your 80-20 principle really well. Now give us...
• 27:00
  Pamela Wagner: So I mean, for me, it's because I was trained at doing that at Google, right?
• 27:02
  Pamela Wagner: Usually, if I have a first conversation with a client, that's about 45 minutes to an hour, and that's it, right? Um, at Google sometimes was even possible within a couple of minutes if it wasn't a lot of campaigns, because you know exactly where to look at, what to pinpoint. But yeah, if you don't know that, it can take you days or week sometimes.
• 27:26
  Steve Brown: Wow. So what's the kind of budgets now? You know, I know, it's gonna depend, right?
• 27:31
  Steve Brown: But so let's say that they engage you and you spend a week evaluating their platform, you're going to come back with some sort of campaign that would be in line with the strategy that they have in place. Yeah, what does that look like? I'm trying to get a really good handle on your actual, your expertise and how you're going to finesse this?
• 28:02
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah, so it's, sometimes within a week, you know, that it could work that you already see some improvements, sometimes it can take multiple weeks, right? So like, I never guarantee anything. Usually, if we work together with clients, it's for a quarter, because this is where you can really test a lot, drive some good results, and really get super focused on what works.
• 28:27
  Pamela Wagner: In terms of budget. You know, if you have 2 to 3K a month available, then that's a solid amount that you can already work with pretty well. So, I mean, we had clients come to us, and go like, Oh, my God, you know, the other agency told us we should use like 10K, you know, we need that as a minimum. No, you don't need that much you really don't, I really like to have a good base amount, optimize that properly, and then see what works, and then scale from there.
• 29:03
  Steve Brown: So you're doing little bitty test campaigns until you start to get clarity on what you were suspecting?
• 29:11
  Pamela Wagner: So, we'd usually start off with a certain campaign strategy, so using different campaign types, and then we'd optimize those, and see what works and adjust them, and so the the optimization adjustments usually happen every one to two weeks, depending on the campaign type, and the goals. In general, there's also quite a lot of analytics work involved. So really helping the client understand, where do my customers jump off? What can I do better? You know, where can I optimize it? Simple things like bounce rates or e-commerce conversion rates. That's, what a lot of people almost don't see anymore, don't look at anymore because there's so much into it, that it's just they don't see it anymore. So oftentimes, it just helps to really have an outsider look at your account and whatever you're doing, because they have that fresh perspective.
• 30:13
  Steve Brown: There's a lot of consulting as far as the page, the content on the page and the calls to action. Are you running AB campaigns? Are you running other things other than ads?
• 30:29
  Pamela Wagner: We focus purely on ads. But we help clients with the optimization of their landing pages. So of course, it could be sometimes that clients have those AB tests running for the landing pages, but it's usually on their side and we just help them consult them, right?
• 30:46
  Steve Brown: Well, so let's talk about the different platforms that you can run ads on, right?
• 30:51
  Steve Brown: So everybody thinks just google but obviously, there's YouTube, and Instagram, Facebook, give us some good clarity on what other platforms we should consider.
• 31:04
  Pamela Wagner: So the ones that we have been focusing on for different clients is Amazon ads, which is something rather new, but can be very good for your traffic if you're new and if you're one of the first ones in your niche. Bing Ads, in some instances. So well, Bing only has about 3 to 4% market share, it can offer a very nice additional pocket money, so to speak. So if you figure it out something works in Google ads, then chances are if you replicate it correctly on Bing Ads, that it will work out too.
• 31:38
  Pamela Wagner: Then we've got LinkedIn ads, which can be very niche and sometimes expensive so it really depends on what you're advertising. YouTube ads, YouTube is part of Google ads, always. And then we got Instagram, which is part of Facebook, in terms of like Snapchat or Tik Tok, unfortunately can't speak much of that or Twitter. So yeah, there's a lot of different platforms out there. I would never say you need them all. I would say, first of all get clear who's your target audience. What is your value proposition? What is the problem you're solving? And then start with the platforms where you think that your audience spends the most time on.
• 32:28
  Steve Brown: What's the biggest change that you've seen in the last five years of how people evaluate in decide to buy?
• 32:36
  Pamela Wagner: I am not sure if it's, if it has really changed on the people side. But I think we as marketers have understood more about the fact that people buy according to our emotions, and not necessarily, you know, I think Simon Sinek says people buy why you do it, not what do you do. So people have become
• 33:02
  Steve Brown: So what's the biggest train wreck you've seen more aware of that and starte adjusting their messages to tha. And I think that's where e see a lot of digital busine ses succeed and do really really well because they unders and how to speak emotio ally to people and show them h w to completely solve their roblems. Whereas a lot of like, om and pop stores or physic l stores are often tied to, Oh we have to cheapest produc or whatever. Right? So yeah, t's really understanding motions, and really getting clarity on the role that psyc ology plays in marketing.
• 33:50
  Steve Brown: in doing this? And then what is contrast it with likes a really great success?
• 33:57
  Pamela Wagner: So, so help me out. I'm not a native speaker of English, train wreck is like mistake or failure?
• 34:03
  Steve Brown: Yeah, yes. Like we we had this great intention, and it just went to pieces.
• 34:11
  Pamela Wagner: Um, I remember working with a rather young company in Austria that created some sort of a new kind of loudspeakers. And they, I mean, the product was good. I would even say it was great because of the technicalities behind it.
• 34:29
  Pamela Wagner: But because the guys were just technicians, but none of them was like a marketer or more interested in psychology. They found it really difficult to market the product and they wanted to sell it at a premium price for, in a niche where, I'm not buying because I need a product I'm buying it because I want it, because I can afford it. And that really didn't go too well. Um so,
• 34:58
  Steve Brown: So they have to be able to sell it, you can get the attention for them. But if they don't have the sales process in place, train wreck, right?
• 35:09
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah. And so I mean, it was a great engineers, for example, they have no clue on how to do a proper website.
• 35:15
  Pamela Wagner: So it's like we could drive traffic, whatever we want, but they weren't able to capture it because once the website wasn't loading, and then the buttons weren't properly displaying, or, you know, the color of the button wasn't actually a proper one. And so just different stories around that. But if you look like a success story, one that I'm actually really proud of is we had, so this client approached us about two years ago now. And he was really desperate because he was like, Hey, I'm just getting invoices from my agency for like, thousands of dollars. I get no reports. I've no idea what they're doing. I don't know what's coming in. I'm just spending money. Right? Like, please help me figure this out.
• 36:02
  Pamela Wagner: And at that point in time, they were doing SEO and ads. And so we started with ads, because we were like, okay, let us try one thing, and we make sure that works. And then we can look into the other one. And so, we started doing ads and that was I think about it was in November, and then December, we kind of revamped it. And then January ended up being the biggest sales month yet out of last 12 months, which is kind of crazy. Because in January, everybody's like, you know, every commerce is like slowing down usually. And we worked on several things, then we started with SEO last year, too. And then now they actually just crossed the $1 million mark, I think one or two weeks ago from you know, being a small six figure business. And, they're now spending more on ads than money they've made like three years ago into business.
• 36:59
  Pamela Wagner: Because it's just the ROI is about 10 to 11 times at any point in time. And yet we've another client is almost like last year, they made 100-120-130K a year. And now they already crossed the million dollar mark. So it's been really great to see that. And I think that's what's just fun for me, like I get to help people grow their businesses, grow their impact, and with that also do more with their own lives.
• 37:28
  Pamela Wagner: Right?
• 37:32
  Steve Brown: I love that. So this account that you're very proud of, they had a process in place where they could take all of these new potential relationships and set them up, and run them through a sales process correctly. Right?
• 37:51
  Pamela Wagner: Yeah, they had a good website, they had a business model that was already bringing them money, they were profitable, right? So in terms of like finances, they had their their stuff together. And they can also afford sometimes to just spend a little bit of money on tests. So if a campaign doesn't work out, it's no big deal, because we have other campaigns that are working anyway. And they're going to make up for it. So yeah.
• 38:20
  Steve Brown: So what's one question that you wish people would ask you, but they never do? What would? What's a question you want to answer that really shows, yeah, your core essence?
• 38:35
  Pamela Wagner: Um, oh, God, that's a good one. I think when we start working with them, what is going to be my homework?
• 38:50
  Pamela Wagner: Because quite some people think, Oh, they're gonna do ads, everything is fine. But no, it's not just that we do ads, there's going to be a lot to do for you too, right talk, website optimization talk, funnel optimization, email marketing, right? So yes, we come in with improving your ads, but that's going to have a ripple effect into every single part of your business. And, yes, we're gonna free up time for you. But you'll also have to do your own part of the work.
• 39:19
  Steve Brown: I love that. So the ripple effect, making sure that your marketing automation is fine tuned, that you have a sales process in place, that you have forms and ways to capture and follow up on the folks that you're going to drive to them.
• 39:39
  Steve Brown: Excellent. So Pamela, if folks are wanting to connect with you and see how you might fit into their organization, how do they connect with you?
• 39:51
  Pamela Wagner: Sure. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Pamela Wagner. And then if you kind of want to, you know, if you already got you campaigns running, and you want to know how to optimize them better.
• 40:01
  Pamela Wagner: Then there's an optimization guide we created for Google search campaigns to kind of, you know, help you do exactly what we talked about today. And that's something you can find under
• 40:12
  https: //ajaladigital.com/blog/a-guide-to-optimizing-ads/
• 40:16
  Steve Brown: All right, awesome.
• 40:16
  Steve Brown: Pamela ypu've been a great guest on the ROI Online Podcast, and I really appreciate you.
• 40:25
  Pamela Wagner: Thank you so much, Steve. It was a lot of fun.
• 40:27
  Steve Brown: All right. And that's a wrap.
• 40:30
  Steve Brown: Thanks for listening to another fun episode of the ROI Online Podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat, and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden Toilet at surprise, thegoldentoilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI Online Podcast.