Of all the digital advertising courses on the market today, none seems to be more popular than the ones that advertise the ability to help train you in the swift art of getting results immediately through a medium of paid traffic.
Currently, the two big places to acquire that type of traffic are the top beasts that own probably all the web traffic on the internet; they’re very popular and you have heard of them:
- Google (the search engine)
- Facebook (the top social media platform in use today)
Why are these two so good of an option for you to acquire immediate results from?
Let’s face it – you can launch an instant marketing campaign that can be live and getting attention online within minutes, quite literally.
It’s absolutely incredible the way that digital assets have revolutionized how marketing is done – especially with the internet in 2019.
Facebook hosts a social media-based advertising platform that allows you to reach an audience on both Instagram and the Facebook profiles (at least). Facebook has grown rapidly in the short few years that it’s been around and progressing in business over the years.
At the near founding of the internet, Google was formed as a search engine that could help anyone who wanted to host a web property to be found online with nothing more than a few clicks and button-pushing actions by their ideal audiences.
It wasn’t until a lot later, however, that Google came out with something that was formerly known as AdWords – it’s now currently just named Google Ads.
This is their own version of acquiring paid traffic through the search engines; it still works the same was as free traffic but instead of the advertiser just paying to host a property…
They’ll pay a premium to Google for each and every click (PPC, or Pay Per Click) that their audience takes in response to the ad that shows up on search results in desired positions based on the rate that the buyer of the ad is willing to pay.
Well, before we go any further I think it’s important to identify that paid traffic strategies through digital advertising can be an ideal start to a marketing campaign – especially due to the possibility that, assuming the marketing campaign is so on-point that it produces desired results instantly –
You’re still dipping into one’s profits in order to attempt to acquire results in the game of producing online traffic.
That’s largely why I decided that another coaching program that taught free traffic methods to generate passive income online – all from a laptop – really fit what I was looking for; the business method was called Local Lead Generation for small business.
It’s treated me so well that I’ve been able to rake in large incomes online from working on a project for (usually) no more than 6 hours (over the course of a month) and it
While paid traffic strategies can be ideal for a beginner in entrepreneurship, I personally have a bias against it.
It’s a very simple explanation as to why, as well.
Since the free traffic from search results have helped me to make over $10k per month in my first year, walk away from my corporate job, and get a better place to live than the crummy, downtown Detroit apartment I used to live in – the cracks would let the below zero winds in to chill my bones at night.
Fast forward to today, I now collect a hefty $50k in revenue that is passive income for me, all from the local lead generation business model that I learned in this coaching program.
Now, I get to write blog posts like this for your benefit – and I don’t mind it.
That said, I have used Facebook Ads and other paid forms of buying attention and ad traffic online.
I’m very familiar with it actually.
So in this article, we’ll explore this gal named Ms. Cat Howell, and the coaching program that he had pieced together called Facebook Ads that Convert; it even has its own famous acronym “FATC Academy.”
After all, there’s nothing more exciting to someone who dreamed much to the effect that I had back in 2014 in that old, rusty apartment, about nothing being more exciting than actually having some additional income arriving into my bank account.
There had to be away, so I just kept searching.
So today, I’m able to afford to invest in the programs of others because I love continuing to learn about the virtual business possibilities online these days – it’s just fascinating to me how so many people have found ways to generate a side income online and I’m ready to learn more and blog more about it.
Stick with my blog as I progress through my journey of evaluating business coaching programs and report back what my experience has been.
I’ve spent a lot of time doing this and I don’t mind delivering my results and perspective on it in an unbiased manner. Yes, that’s right… I’m not trying to push you into an affiliate offer with the coaching or mentoring platform that I am reviewing.
Even if you decide that the thing I’m reviewing is for you and seek it out to join up, I won’t get a commission.
With that concern for credibility out of the way, let’s make a concerted effort to get to:
- know our mentor of the day, Ms. Cat Howell,
- deliver our unbiased review of her coaching program,
- what value Facebook can bring (or not bring, as the case might arise), and…
- where my preference in new entrepreneurs beginning an online business venture really is.
Behind the FATC Academy: Learning about Cat Howell
Proficient in the Facebook Advertising platform and possessing a deeper knowledge than most claim to of what it takes to turn a social media paid traffic ad in Facebook from questionable to profitable, Cat Howell has been named as a co-worker and assistant for some of the larger, household name brands that we’ve grown up with over the years, including (though not limited to):
- Coca-Cola Bottling Company
- Fuji Film (the photography company)
- And many, many more that she has been privileged to learn from during her time with each of them
Does she have a secret?
Is there a reason that her course’s value is only $297 per month (or should it be higher)?
Perhaps it’s just her radiant confidence that permits her to step up here game and charger higher pricing than most of her supposed competitors in the Facebook Advertising space.
Facebook Ads that Convert (FATC Academy) Quick Review
Okay, so you’re here and reading this blog because you’re looking for a way to get started online with a side hustle that really could turn you some magical business tricks for quick cash.
If only business were that magically simple; well, sometimes it is, if you’ve got a lot of things lined up that you need in order to work smart and efficiently (wasting little in the way of funds, time, etc.).
When you want to get up to speed in a hurry with Facebook Ads and are genuinely interested in knowing how you, too, can deliver results – Cat’s program of the FATC Academy may give you what you’re looking for.
When you get a Facebook Ad up, you’re voluntarily entering into an auction system where you are competing for the same audience with others.
As luck might have it, the more similar your ad it to someone else (which, as far as I am aware of, you’ll never know about it unless you know about it and see it outside of the ads platform), the higher you’re agreeing to be charged for the same traffic that your competition is trying to get – and that’s simply how their auction system works.
That said, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, the cost of your ads can shoot through the roof if you’re not careful and give the proper or necessary
- Replace the ads
- Change your targeting
- Switch up the ad spend
- (dare I say it) maybe even need to turn your ad off that you’ve been running for some time now, regardless of the amount of ad spend, length of time, or bits of data that you have to work with (after the first trial or successful campaign)
The awesome thing about Ms. Howell’s leadership in her training program – Facebook Ads that Convert Academy – is that you can figure out how to correctly approach your marketing on Facebook with the insight that she provides…
Then, you can confirm what you’re learning by actually going out into your own Facebook Ads account and trying things out as proof that you know what she’s talking about – and those little wins of yours will help you to gain greater confidence and enthusiasm as you progress in your knowledge and skill here.
When you’re just starting out in the business world, the last thing you want to do is spend all this money trying the platform out – there’s so much to test that I was worried at how I might go broke if it weren’t for the training platform that she provides.
An asset in its own right, I was grateful for this because I’ve personal spend a projected amount of $200k+ on the Facebook Advertising side of the social media company – and I’ve got a rude awakening for you:
It didn’t produce the results that I was hoping for – which really means that I didn’t see any sort of return on investment (ROI) that put me into profit mode with my attempts to market on Facebook.
Yeah – I know what you’re thinking…
How did this guy (meaning, me) get qualified to write a blog post about the FATC Academy if he couldn’t get a quarter of a million to convert enough to gain a profit?
The Game of Paid Social Media: Things Everyone Should Know about Facebook Ads
I guess that just goes to show you that the Facebook Ads platform isn’t perfect.
Also, your efforts to do everything right can still result in things that you hadn’t wished nor hoped for (like no web traffic and/or no sales that day).
Such is the reality of paid traffic online – and something we all have to grin and bear.
I would hope that you don’t end up like the stereotype that everyone thinks of but no one wants to be:
- Testing on the Facebook Ads strategies that you think you know, or casually learned might work on a YouTube video or do-it-yourself article
- You’re grinding away and seeing revenue come in from your marketing efforts
- Web traffic is blowing through your ad spend and flying in to see your offer by the swarms
- Then, you barely break clear of the debt you’ve just incurred from your Facebook Ad comes to the end of the month – you find out that all of this wasn’t what it was cracked up to be and get frustrated that you now have a debt that you didn’t have before you started trying this “online business venture
Why go through all of that and hesitate to experience this kind of – potentially – avoidable issue?
I acknowledge upfront that no sort of results can be guaranteed – and anyone who might in the digital world is lying to you.
Yes, this blog is about telling the truth and keeping you well-informed. Refreshing, isn’t it?
So what’s the secret that one has up your sleeve to be profitable in Facebook Ads instead?
I wish I could tell that there’s a secret, but the answer is a rather obvious and mind-blowingly simple concept that people seem to get angry with me for sharing.
Experience is usually the best teacher, but even Ms. Howell admits that she’s not really any more or less special than you when it comes to the possibility of an ad campaign succeeding or failing in its objective for web traffic.
What all boils down to is: you must be willing to apply lots of ads to your experimental process and test them – even split-test them, if you really need/want to.
What It Takes to Get Good at Paid Social Media Marketing (Facebook Ads)
Look, you want to get good at a skill.
We also agree that Facebook Ads hold the potential to return a high payout for anyone and on anything.
That’s the risk we take, and the price we pay, for seeking the use of Facebook Ads in our business model; you pay upfront and hope for the results – test away and try to get your desired result, adjusting along the way.
This means you have to be extremely willing to make trips to your laptop several times a day to analyze your:
- Ad and Campaign (to make sure it hasn’t been removed, banned, or turned off by Facebook Advertising staff
- Watch your cost-per-click, relevancy score, and tons of other detailed points to gauge how your Facebook Ad is actually doing since you’ve launched it (or, since your last revision)
- Find which ad sets and ads are performing the best – because you’ve divided the aspects of your campaign up so tremendously that you can see specifically which kind of audience is performing better with your targeting structure
- Still make time to adjust and change things as key performance indicators (KPIs) or metrics suggest
This is what it takes – in large part – to win at the game of Facebook Ads; it’s like gambling against the house, really, because whether you acquire attention or not…
Facebook will still gladly spend your money if you leave your ad campaigns running.
Other Things to Know about Facebook Ads Implementation
Depending on what you’re doing with Facebook Ads, especially if you’re running campaigns involving affiliate products, you’d better be prepared with some contingency plans for your business model because getting your ads shut off and your campaign banned are simply part of the game.
If you’re not willing to get to this point, then maybe Facebook Ads strategies aren’t going to be a good business venture fit; you have just got to be willing to take adventurous guesses and risk if you want to find a creative Facebook ad copy that wins in your market and with your target audiences that you’re attempting to appeal to.
Case in point:
2 Ads that are ridiculously similar will be performing completely different – and that’s just how the industry works.
Take this first wrinkle cream ad (see below):
Now imagine this with a younger woman but still applying the cream on.
What sense is made of this?
For some, not much.
The creative side of the paid traffic strategy suggests that 2 similar ads can perform differently for a variety of factors.
None of the reasons for this could end up ever being clear for you.
The ambiguity is something that must be okay with and learn to go with the flow while allowing the analytical side of your brain to do its magic as well.
What I’m Disliking about Facebook Ads and Paid Traffic
Here’s one of the primary things that actually pushed me away from the practice of Facebook Ads.
There seems to be far too much organization in the Facebook Ads platform; some people like that while others don’t.
At the end of the day, it’s up to Facebook how they want to handle their ads and all we can do is try our best at letting the third-party software of an ads platform work in our favor at random.
We can increase the odds of that randomness working in our favor, but it goes without saying at this point: testing is required and ad spend has to be something that you’re really okay with in order to collect sufficient market data and decide what your next steps with your campaign are going to be.
This one detail really gets under my skin and I’m still kind of upset about this realization of this:
All Facebook Ads fall under 5 categories in terms of automated quality-checking in the most random of ways (and, unless someone from the Facebook headquarters can manually do something to help you along, there’s absolutely nothing that you can do to influence the decision-making that this software exhibits on your published ad).
The Categories are as follows:
5. Horrible
4. Not Good
3. Reasonable
2. Decent
1. Prime
I can already hear the groans coming from the peanut gallery, and I’ll be sincere in saying that I absolutely agree with the people that disapprove of this conduct as well.
Your luck could be in favor of you for the publishing of your new ad – or not.
You might get decent performance on your Facebook Ad in nearly all metrics, except for the one that you’ve been counting on this whole time:
- conversions
- sales
- money in your pockets
Think back to the discussion about using the same ad with a different audience – or only slight variations to the same ad and running that to the same target markets:
- One will generate your desired result and one won’t
- Both will perform well
- None will perform well
That’s essentially your options – especially since Facebook is pushing your ads out to the markets you’ve designated (at least, as best as you told it what to do).
Even with all of that work, you’ll still run the risk of not seeing a profit; that’s the bottom line truth here.
Maybe one of your Facebook Ads published hits a home-run (metaphorically speaking) and gets ran around to all of the higher-level, more relevant audiences and that brings in more revenue for you.
This is why fabricating ad sets and a variety of ads for each of the attempts that you put into Facebook Ads are pivotal to your success on this platform?
Sounds like work to me, which is why I still venture into the whacky and adventurous world of free traffic with local lead generation.
Unlike Facebook Ads, your lead gen sites can feed you free traffic from search results (that you don’t have to pay per-visitor, per-click, per-conversion – meaning action, which could often-
That means that not paying per visitor reduces your volume of monthly costs for your virtual real estate – which you can now rent out to small businesses who can give you a cut of the sales you bring them each and every month.
It’s not a pay-per-lead model in terms of trying to pay for attention for another business, or for a crummy product that can only deliver a laughable 10%-15% of profit from every sale that comes through your Facebook funnel.
Instead, you’re sending more business over to someone who could use it and they give you a sliver to deliver; that’s what I call genuinely passive since you don’t have to maintain the web property – unlike a Facebook Ad that requires tons of attention and more than once a day.
Conclusion
If you’re seeing more and more people test the Facebook Ads training that is on the market for themselves, I think you’d be spot on in regards to the trend that these coaching programs are bringing.
It is an extremely hot commodity to have this skill – you can command clients out of thin air for businesses you might partner with, or for the affiliate products or otherwise physical products you could intend to sell through dropshipping marketing approaches taught elsewhere online
Just like business owners who question me when I approach them with referrals from my lead gen sites, I often question the self-proclaimed experts that coach these online programs – I want to know what makes them a credible and reliable source for the information they’re trying to share with me in exchange for my hard-earned money.
Not only am I a successful entrepreneur – which, I think, gives me a little different outlook than I might have had if I were still sitting on my apartment’s living room couch, freezing my tail off in the dead of winter, looking for a way to make more money online from home – I’m also interested in finding a coaching program that anyone can start and see a really passive income develop.
Unfortunately, we just don’t know who to trust these days.
I can assure that I trust Ms. Cat Howell and her abilities to demonstrate – as her credentials support – her expertise in running social media’s advertising campaigns for big brands and may have a thing or two to show you about what to do with your next Facebook ad.
Howell has been known to cut through the noise and deliver very clear, no-nonsense training series that you can follow along with as she attacks each topic head-on – which is an approach I can sincerely appreciate.
There’s something to be said about investing in the program of a quality mentor like Cat Howell:
- They’re genuine and believable when they teach and advise
- They know what they’re doing from personal experience and having done what they’re advising
- They know that getting good at something requires an upfront investment
- Mastery is a process (in anything)
- And leveraging momentum to go fast and acquire a high-income skill rapidly is what separates the okay Facebook Ads marketing people from the outstanding performers of Facebook Ads
All of the above leads to helping a student understand what’s going on and confidently have their methodology in order as they personally venture into the unknown land of Facebook Ads for the very first time.
I’ve seen a positive return on investment (ROI) after investing in Facebook Ads that Convert (FATC) Academy, so I can attest to the validity of this coaching program.
Without a mentor in the Facebook Ads game, you’re liable to miss one extraordinary detail that was a tip in someone’s Facebook Ads training that could have kept you from losing out on tens of thousands of dollars in ad spend that you could have otherwise avoided.
If you’re still serious about leveraging Facebook Ads and using it for the purpose of getting money online for yourself, then feel free to establish your confidence and knowledge base with Facebook Ads that Convert by Cat Howell (FATC Academy).
How Local Lead Generation is Taking Over in 2019 as the Best Online Business Model
One thought that crossed my mind included the potential crossover of skills that you could have by combining the training of Facebook Ads with the high-income, passive income generating skill of local lead generation with free traffic.
Why am I still harping on the need to seriously consider lead generation?
Doing so doesn’t eat away at the minimal profit margins that newest entrepreneurs tend to experience – and there’s no more room in the beginner stages to be cutting corners, so I don’t know why you would find it to be a great idea to spend more money online with Facebook Ads than you’d just as soon invest in our coaching program where free traffic is taught and leveraged for profits.
If you were to produce the same amount of leads from free traffic that passes through your lead gen site on Google search results, your profit margin would be bordering 100 percent upon the site hitting the top of search results.
That also means no maintenance to keep the lead gen site superglued to the top of the results for the key terms that are bringing in more and more customers for the small business owner to reward you within monthly, passive income of a large and enjoyable nature.
If you’ve been looking for a lifestyle that stems from financial and time freedom, then consider local lead generation – the same thing that helped me to get started in business in 2014 and quit my full-time job within 1 calendar year of launching my own online digital lead generation business – straight from my laptop.
Why am I bringing up the issue of profit margin?
With lead gen, you don’t have to pay for each and every lead that you are able to send over to your client; if you were to try and do the same thing with Facebook Ads, you’d end up still going into the whole – and potentially financially deep because of the fact that you can increase your ad spend and burn through a target audience quickly (and fast doesn’t always mean profitable).
Therefore, more money can go into your pockets with the local lead generation business model.
Also, you can generate more profits with fewer clients; fewer businesses that you have to arrange your time around means that you have more time in your days to enjoy doing whatever it is you wanted to do when you started getting involved in
I know that the “way back when” is like present time for
You are reading this, after all, and possibly deciding which program to explore further: Local Lead Generation or Facebook Ads.
While fewer headaches can come from attempting to manage fewer clients that are all compensating you and your business model, think about how much time it must take to manage the campaign of one client.
Especially if you’re brand new and still trying to figure things out, it could take you several chunks of time to figure out what each component is, does, and how or why you would want to select the things in your Facebook Ad to make it run different ways (including the way you want it to).
As for the reviewing of your target marketing, the nature of your Facebook Ad copy (in and of itself), and other things; it’s not the most scalable business model – the more you get Facebook Ads clients to work with, you’re going to be stuck to your computer for that much longer in trying to figure things out.
Lastly, there’s also the issue of what we’ve been talking about a lot here – not having a second job to your daily grind.
With the lead gen business, I was able to establish one of my first websites in Lansing, Michigan, that is still paying me $750 to this day – and this is all I did with it on search results (see below):
You can’t really step away from a laptop for an entire weekend with Facebook Ads; you’d go broke in a heartbeat.
Okay, that might have been somewhat of a stretch, but it’s not too far from the truth.
If you’re not carefully attending to the Facebook Ads that you’ve set up brand new, you could be losing clients or owing money back for failing to deliver your services at the highest of quality for those who’ve trusted you to deliver on what you were going to do.
So, I’ve been organically ranking lead gen sites and getting leads through free traffic, for years!
I identify it as a stable and long-term solution to businesses getting more customers because they don’t have to take the time to watch a Facebook Ad’s performance metrics, and you don’t have to go back to maintain the lead gen property once it’s positioned right where it needs to be to get the phone ringing with cash ready to be sent over.
Beyond passive income and high-profit margins, here’s what else you can anticipate with lead gen:
- The ability to stack your income to the point that you’re making more than your local physician and an attorney in your local neighborhood
- Use a straightforward business model that can yield high-income and long-term returns: make more leads thru the internet and send them over to businesses so you can get paid well!
- Have that good, warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from helping business owners actually get what they’ve already been looking for – more customers
- Maximum control of the marketing process – Facebook isn’t telling you where you can and can’t be seen with your lead gen site, and they’re not charging you to send you to the sandbox where you don’t really get seen by anyone in your target market (and yes, it’s happened)
- Leverage the passive income of stacking your lead gen sites (and their profits) each and every month so you can walk away from a full-time job or just wake up late and stay in your pajamas to work on your business (if you really want)
- A joke of competition here: you’re not competing with affiliate marketers across the entire world for the opportunity get seen first in search results; instead, you’re getting the chance to hit a huge victory in a short amount of time with your lead gen site by beating out only 10 to 30 different local businesses for the chance to be the dominating force and take all the buyers in the market that you can now redirect to your partner in that city, and for that service
- While I’m advocating to join a coaching program that talks all about the world of lead generation for small businesses, the truth of the matter is that there are far too many businesses and plenty of business to go around that we could continue to grow our mastermind and mentorship here and it wouldn’t affect us very much
- Get to know the true meaning of financial freedom as we build up our assets that spit of cash flow so we don’t have to be a slave to our 9 to 5 any longer
- We can do this anywhere that there’s a city with Google and internet access, and we already know that there are several local service industries in just about any urban and metropolitan region of a major city so there are tons of industries that this business model can work for – if you can find a business owner that wants more customers, then we can show you how to make some money (and we show you how to find business owners too – so you’re not really alone here)
Oh yeah, and that lead gen site I was telling you about, that’s making me $750 — that’s real, too; see it for yourself here (see below):
If you’re interested in the business model that helps me make a multiple 6 figures every year on autopilot, granting genuine time and financial freedom, with digital assets that you own – and not having to pay a third party, like Facebook Advertising platform, to get seen by more targeted, free traffic that are using search results with high-buyer intent search terms, money in-hand and ready to buy to anyone that’ll solve their problem –
Then CLICK HERE and learn how our coaching program on how local lead generation can move you forward in your aspirations and get free traffic to help you do it.