How to use Meta ads to find business bottlenecks with Ellen Hooper

Hello and welcome to MetaAds under the hood, the podcast where we explore what drives high performing Facebook and Instagram ads. I'm your host Megan Winter and with over a decade of digital marketing experience, mentoring hundreds of business owners at the Facebook ads academy and running my own ads agency, I am here to lift the hood on Facebook and Instagram ads. Each week I break down the mechanics of MetaAds, unpack real campaigns and share how I use ads to drive results and how you can do the same. Ready to take a look under the hood? Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to the show. Today I am joined by Ellen Hooper. Ellen Hooper is an award-winning executive coach and people leader. She's a certified coach with the International Coaching Federation and a passionate speaker and commentator. Starting her career as an employment lawyer at Herbert Smith Kramer before transitioning into people in culture, she's a former chief people of the cell and her wisdom has been featured by the ABC Channel 7 CEO magazine Smart Company HR leader, the Sydney Morning Herald and the West Australian and Ellen has also done my mentoring program. So happy to have her here today. Welcome to the show. Ellen. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yes. The like most important achievement working out how MetaAds works. I think maybe the hardest. The hardest of all of the certificates on the wall. So thank you so much for coming on the show. I love getting into the nitty gritty of how you've run your business, where you are, what you've done with ads because every business is so different and so I think it's so important to just share the diverse journeys and you know how we got there, where we're going, where we are. So I'm so happy that you are here not to mention that you are also my roomy whenever we go away on business retreat. So, you know, do we just get to hang out even more? So you have created an amazing business with our ads before you even touched ads. So tell me about your business, where you were before you joined the program and what you got to before the ad part of it. So I started my business as a pretty traditional consulting, HR consulting business. So I didn't really do any marketing to be honest. I kind of had a list of 30 people to email and I think I'm like five of them and then it kind of starts rolling and after a couple of years of doing that and somewhat enjoying it, it really felt like I had just kind of transferred my corporate life like into my home office. So I'm always trying to scan, you know, my expertise is in work life design. So I'm always trying to scan for like what are the things that are making me stressed? Like what are the emails that I'm getting at five o'clock at night? Like what's happening when my kids are like mom, put your phone down. And so I started to kind of run a bit of an experiment about how I could kind of break my relationship between time and money. So when you start your career as a lawyer, it's like this thing about your time is divided into six minutes increments. And so it's like time is either billable or not billable. So time is valuable or not valuable. And it's a really big like it's so ingrained I think in my psyche. And I don't know the people doing the like a B2C staff look like they were having more fun. So I kind of get I still do a lot of corporate work. I do much more training and team coaching now than consulting. But I really wanted to play in like what would it look like to offer something to individuals. And so I'm two years into running my love your work program, which is a eight week career transformation program. And it's like there's nothing like business to really humble you. It's such a journey. And it was great because that's what I really wanted to do. I wanted to learn about marketing. I really had this sense that, you know, I think every job and all businesses are a sales business is at their core and coming from a kind of cost center background like a legal and hate job background. I just never really worked near the money. I could never really worked near what it means to kind of it's not enough to do a good job, but have other people know that you can help them. Yes. And so I think for the last two years I've been kind of trying to upskill myself on that. I think that's such a good point because there's so many people out there who are less qualified than you or than us than everybody, but they're just better marketers. They're like fantastic at putting themselves out there, they're fantastic at meeting people where they're out. They've got a great offer. And you look at them and you're like, how? Because you know that you're more qualified, right? Totally. And so it's been kind of really fun and hard. And before we kind of put our dynamics, you know, I kind of just, when I look at who you kind of came in the door and I actually worked with you from the very beginning, you actually named the program, do you remember? Yeah. Where were you? Went you in Fiji or something? We know we're in cans. That's right. And I remember like sneaking away and I was trying to post every day and I looked dead in the eyes, like trying to make wheels on my holiday, hiding from my family. And I had originally called it your career audit, what a lawyer. And you were like, that sounds like something I don't want to do. That sounds bad. So we were, I was kind of talking to you on the phone, you were the pool. And yeah, I don't, we landed on love your work. But we didn't put ads in the mix I think until the third round. Yeah. And I think like love your work has kind of evolved even now into like more of a tagline. Like I think you could probably evolve it even more. Maybe we could brainstorm another name. I know. I think it doesn't say what it does on the tin enough. Yes. So that's really interesting. Well, also there's so many insights now like now that you've run how many rounds? I think we're up to seven. Seven rounds. Yeah. So you've run seven rounds. And so now you've got all of these voice of customer insights. You can really like listen to what people are saying. You can listen to their objections. You can listen to what they're telling you that they love about it. And so now that you have all of this voice of customer and all of these like really key valuable insights, you can kind of pull from that and go, okay. So what are people getting? What are people coming for? What are people want? What are people maybe walking out? And so that's when you can start to, you know, like pull out the next phase, like the next meaningful phase. And it's been really interesting because I've actually just launched a new offering the corporate escapee's club. So now that I've been five years in business and have all these expertise in work lifters design, you know, I'm really fascinated about people kind of following a similar pathway to me, you know, you design yourself a job by accident. And I'm really interested in how you can design a business that works for your life, not the other way around. And having had some really great kind of marketing support from the conception of corporate escapee's club and being really clear about who it's for, like I've always felt kind of allergic to niching sometimes you just have to learn the hard way, but that kind of community and membership, which is for people who come out of corporate who have started their own thing, whether it's consulting or freelancing or coaching, and they want to make sure that they don't just repeat all the same patterns, because that's what kind of tends to happen. And then you're like, oh, shit, I'm the boss now, like it's just me, like I'm the problem. Launching my, like, beta program of that has been so easy, comparatively. I mean, it's got a beta price, so we should like, you know, proceed with caution, but. Yeah. Yeah, I've sold, I think, seven out of the 10 places from that by, like, text message and email. It calls it being so clear, yes, because you need, I know this is like, you've been telling me for multiple years, but it's tough, like I just want to help everyone, so I find them the nation difficult, but I can see, I see now it's so hard because you don't want to turn people away. And I think that's like when we are talking specifically to a person, we're not saying no to anyone else. We're just saying, I see you, I hear you, I understand you. I can like talk to your problems, I can name them, I can, you know, I am the best solution to your problem because I truly understand you as a person. And if somebody else comes along and says, hey, can I join too? You're going to say, yes, if you're suitable, but it's just, yeah, it's hard. And not to say, I want to help this person and this, and you, and you, and you, and it's like, you know, the more clear you can be, the more people trust you because the more they feel seen. Oh, hi, it's me interrupting me to let you know that my program kicks off in July. And if you would like to learn how to run your own meta ads, you might like to come and check it out. In this training program, I set your ads up for you, then over eight weeks we run them together. And if free single question is answered by me and at the end, you are confident to take the wheel and run your ads yourself back to the episode. And the coach and me also though. You know, I think one of my greatest strengths is I'm not the kind of business owner or Coach who goes Well, I've done it before so I've got the whatever three-step framework or road map or and so you do what I do You know, I'm the kind of coach who goes like well, let's get clear about what you really want Out of your work, what you really want out of your life and it so it means that the pathways that my clients take I just hugely Variable like some people Quit their job when they were to go some people like land awesome jobs While they're in the program some people take like three to six months to land Some people stay in their job because they're like actually the health insurance and the gym membership really suit me It's some people start their own businesses some people retire like there's such It's and it's really important to me that that's what I Do well as give people the kind of Structure and space that they can make those own Perfect decisions for them in their lives. Yeah, but it becomes and like a bit harder to communicate Yeah, yeah, and it's not because you're not giving people a cookie cutter It's exactly the same with me with meta ads like every single Art account is going to look slightly different because there is no one cookie cutter solution and everybody has a different goal and everybody has a unique business And yeah, you're not talking you don't have the how preconceived in your mind You have the what which is for them to what get career clarity and go from confused to clear and confident essentially so Yeah, I think It's refreshing to see a coach and I know we're getting sidetracked here because we both love a tangent But it's like so nice to see a coach who's not like I'm gonna tell you exactly what to do because that's not what a coach should be doing be actually helping them Get what's right for them. Yeah, and you and I both have the same challenge which is I was like I don't know how many times to say it People still always ask the same question I know they asked this a V2 which is like are you going to be there to help me and it's like yes I'm gonna see you every week. I'm gonna answer every question in the community like I'm gonna be so up in your business You will not want to do with me There's just this sense of you know so many words. I think you've just been like really ruined by other people that coach program and course and So when you have people have opportunities like Experiences are like parting with a lot of money and then being served like a bunch of shitty videos And it's like I just didn't know I was to say like I can't be there Like me the real person like not my AI agent like not my sister like just me That's so funny. All right, so tell me what brought you to me like what were you trying to Achieve like what was holding you back like what beliefs did you have before Running ads and like the process of going okay. I think it might be time to run ads now Yeah, it's interesting. I just was kind of like I don't know anything about marketing and I know you and you know stuff about And the first way that I worked with you was was was done for you was as an agency and gosh that was so so good to be supported through it And I guess if the conceptions I had about ads were I don't know I think all service business owners are like jealous of product owners and all product owner businesses Jealousy services, but it was like okay. I can see how that works for a Thirty-dollar hairbrush But I I don't you know how do I kind of take people from not knowing me at all to spending like thousands of dollars? It's called a funnel It's a fun I know She knows now she knows now Yeah, it was interesting. We tried a few things and I think what we found is The ads really work in getting a lot of really good qualified leads into a free challenge like that just goes off and it just gets better every time and the creative like the ad is so basic Just me being like hey come and turn my free career glory challenge Okay, but that it works right so like you're talking about the ad just being really basic and we don't change It very much. I think we changed. Do we even change anything? You've just like made it generic enough so that you can run it every time you might re-record it I tend to re-record it but yeah only because I have someone I work with on socials Yeah, we kind of just go like a you lost of work, you know, I can help you yeah problem book Evolution. Yeah, and you know we find that kind of conversion ads They take a lot of spend and they don't Convert that well the lead is your conversion. So what Ellen's talking about is like using ads to fill up her free Challenge, which will then get people onto her email list We know that once people get onto the email list. They're very engaged They do the free challenge they get to know like and trust Ellen and then when you have your program, which is how much? It's 3500 full price. Yeah, so they drop 3500 but they're not gonna do that directly from an ad like they need to go From not knowing that you exist through to like a little bit of nurture a little bit of you know trust and It's all about trust people buy from people. They know like and trust so when we use an ad for a lead So to bring people into your email list like that might be a dollar to three dollars Whereas when you have like if you were trying to sell something straight up, which is what a lot of people do It just becomes so expensive and also there's not a lot of point in that because people need that nurture and people need to go through And like you've worked out and this is I think a really beautiful point is that you've worked out what works You this is like you said you've run your challenge seven times now You are not throwing the baby out with the bath water You've worked our work and you are rinsing and repeating over and over again because it's just getting better and better And so you'd know exactly what to say exactly how to say it exactly like what emails to send you can tweak every time and just get it Better rather than reinventing the wheel every single time which as people who like the shiny things That's very tempting to do He takes a lot of work out your time to buy You know so most I don't know there's always a real mix like there will be people who If they tend to come to room LinkedIn to be honest he'll just be like amazing You know, I've just found you I mean Yeah, there's always gonna be those people like me. That's probably me Yeah, that's how I buy so it really stresses me out when Whenever whenever the early bird ends I'm always like oh lots all over because I would always be like No, when I wanted to buy yet the early bird Super decisive so the fact that people join on the like last day When the program starts in two days. I'm always just like I don't understand But yeah people do Buy in different ways and when we look at the data A huge percentage of them have come through the challenge at some point. Yeah So then you went from me running your ads for you We really got a bit of a rhythm we understood what works So we were at that rinse and repeat phase and then I got a message again another hey I'm keen to join the program and I said would you like a call to discuss what it's about and you're like nah, I'm keen Just sign me up Well you can think like this is really easy You stop paying me to do this like you could do it yourself And it's all about kind of space and capacity like I knew It's great to be able to run the things that are working well The career cloud challenge, but I have a bunch of bottom of funnel low ticket offers And so we've been playing With them and I was thinking about today and thinking about it would be really good to talk about the myth of digital products Because there's just this like wild mythology Around like you make three pdf's and you're a millionaire Not how it works Not at all and it's really interesting because You know what you and I are still working at cracking the code On my like $15 offers Way more than Crack the code on my three and a half ground off. Yeah, yeah, and I'm going to persist Because I think we can get there But it's just didn't I think it's just like an interesting thing And I'm just constantly flooded with ads and posts that really piss me off which are usually like Women who live in Bali and homeschool their children and are like You know claiming to be multi-millionaires With their digital products and I just digital products are amazing like we had some people and I think you were in Around where we had a couple of people with digital products and she started with a hundred dollars a day And by the end of the four weeks like it went for eight weeks But four weeks into spending a thousand dollars a day and scaling it and that's just because You know her audience was dialed in what she was selling was like really useful for them. So I mean, we can definitely look at your digital products, but is your audience the type of audience that's going to buy a digital product? Maybe not because they want the high level of support. So maybe it's like a different audience or a different product, or yeah, like we haven't really dived into it and we totally can. But yeah, so then then you came in to do the program to learn yourself to tell me about the experience within that and share as much or as little as you're comfortable with if you have any stats that you remember. Tell us, tell us about the experience within the program. Yeah, so I think what's really amazing about the program is how incredibly personalized it is. So Megan will like a look at each individual who's on the call and what's happening for them. So it's really cool. It's cool to get that kind of support about, okay, what's happening with my ad account? Like, what are we using ads for and why? I think that was all kind of a mystery to me about the different ways you can use ads. Like, it's like it's like any kind of marketing. It's like what is it trying to achieve? But then also seeing what other people are using ads for kind of seeing some things that work and applying them, but also seeing some kind of things that are different shadings really helpful to be like, oh, yeah, that's why that ad works for that yoga studio. But that's why that particular kind of strategy won't work for my business is really helpful. Yeah. And the other thing that's really useful about ads that you've taught me is this kind of amplifying pace. So one of the things that I've kind of known about my business for a while is that people get stuck in my funnel on the sales pages. The sales pages could be kind of better and useful. And so when we were looking at selling like a low ticket product, which actually the stats were awesome, like we were getting hits of you, do you remember how to 12% click through rate? Yeah. So, Ellen's, so what we do is like we identify the success metrics for each thing. So like if you're trying to sell a product, we look at the click, well, if we're if it's a video ad, we look at the thumb stop rate, then we look at the click through rate. And that'll tell us how engaging the ad is from people stopping their scroll. Is it engaging enough to get people to click away from the platform? So like away from Facebook or away from Instagram onto your thing, which is like your landing page or whatever. And then if people aren't converting, then they're getting stuck on your landing page. So either your ads and your landing page aren't talking the same language or there's something about your landing page that's stopping people or not letting people pass go. Or if you're really great, both are a problem. Yes. And that kind of then led me to put. Well, firstly, it's like, okay, great. Turn that out off. Like it's how to go. Like, let's stop spending on that. But it kind of led me to prioritize a bigger piece of work, but I think I've been avoiding, which was a bit of a website overhaul. And that took a lot of time, but that's been working really well. And that's why we're kind of now ready to go back and test those low ticket again, because it was like, okay, cool. We've kind of found the leak in the funnel. She really wants to crack the low ticket items. I don't like losing. But that's such a good point, because ads will show you where the holes are. So if you turn on the taps, which is like turning on the traffic, turning on the ads, it'll show you where the water is flowing out of the pipeline, or where the hole is, where the leaky bucket, you know, is. And you can actually use ads to show you that. So, you know, once you've got your website ready, then we turn the ads back on. So we turn the traffic on. And then we don't have to run a lot. Like, it's not an expensive test, but we can run, because we know what ads are going to drive traffic to the website. So we turn those same ads back on and see if the conversion rate improves. And if it does, then you're ready for scale. And if it doesn't, then we know that we can test a few variations of the landing page. So yeah, it's all, it's just about understanding the data, understanding what it's story, it's telling you, and then working out the next steps. So what would you say to someone who's kind of not where you are, but maybe where you were like starting out, like just starting out your business, feeling like everyone else is ahead of you, feeling like, you know, your five steps behind, what would you say to someone who's a little bit pre baby Ellen? I think it's, this is perfect for when you kind of think, I know I've got a good product, like that's really what I really felt with love your work. It's like the people who come through get a lot out of it, like I'm really, I'm not saving lives, but I'm changing lives, like it's a weird thing to be like, I'm really changing lives. Yeah. And so it's like, okay, how do I, that's tested? How do I kind of get more people in more people to know about this? Then that's the time where it's really worthwhile. And I think for most small businesses, it's like, yes, of course, you know, if you've got the kind of scale and turnover that you can justify an agency forever, that's awesome. But a lot of us are going to kind of be better off if we can just have those skills ourselves. I was really attracted to the being able to like, kind of play in test things without there being an additional cost. Like before I did your mentoring program, I would be like, I want to try this thing. I'd be like, oh, I need me. It's only taken to come and help me, which is fine and great. But it's just like sometimes and it feels like, oh, that it just adds this big cost into trial and error. Yeah. And it's really cool to feel like I can try things like, you know, if I decide that I just want to run some ads to try to increase my follow account, because at the moment, I'm really interested in getting a book published. So it's like, all right, the vanity metrics are helpful for that. That don't necessarily help me sell more things, but they might help for that. So, you know, I think that's the other thing that during the program taught me is I actually make pretty good creative. I was surprised. You're great. That's amazing. Everyone should go and check out your organic Instagram as well. I mean, your Instagram is very different to your LinkedIn, but they're both excellent. Like they, you do really, really good creative. You make great content. I'm like, yes, but I just never thought of myself as a creative person. So even just kind of knowing that that's not where I need a whole bunch of support has been really, really helpful. You know, where I need the support is being like, how does, you know, what's the customer journey of going like through the ad into the link into the page? You know, and how do I kind of troubles you where the leaks are and what to do about them next? That's the thing that for me not coming from a marketing background, like even the concept of a funnel is like still, still, still plays my mind. Yeah, it's so interesting. Like one of the things that I always think is like, I constantly think, I need an operations manager or I need an OBM or whatever because that is the side of my business that like comes least naturally to me. But actually, I don't need that. I just need somebody to like do this one or two tasks. And so I feel like if we don't have that natural skill, it's like, it just becomes this big overwhelming thing. And we think we need help in areas that we don't actually need help in. So it's really good to have fresh eyes when I was saying that, you know, everybody loved that ripple, which fee later told me was a quote by someone I forget. I've been saying it forever. And I've been saying, I don't know who said this. I didn't make it up. But I've been saying it about 10 years is you cannot read the label when you're inside the jar. She said there was an amazing author which I now fixed it. The name of sorry fee who wrote it with the bell jar. She'll be a plough. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Yes. Mental blank. Yes. Exactly. I'm going to cycle on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. But you cannot, you cannot see the label or you cannot read, you know, read the label when you're inside the jar. So it's really, really important to have that outside perspective. Whether that's like somebody who doesn't know what you sell asking them, getting, you know, someone to secret shop you, getting an outside expert to have a look like it's just, yeah, invaluable. Because I think if I hadn't gone through this process with you, particularly we managed the kind of the machinery of love your work works relatively well. And sometimes in business, it's actually just a time in market gap. So, I mean, the program is currently always growing. We do actually find there's a time of the year that's really terrible. And we know that now because we've done it twice. March, April May, terrible, like 30% of the sales of every other time of year. And you're like, we're doing the same thing. We took off the same machine going. Yeah. Let's not do that again. Yeah. But with the parts that are a bit true here, I think, you know, the 12% clicks with the rate we were getting on some little mini products I have for flexible work. And that data was so helpful because without that data, I would have thought that the product was wrong. Like that, no, I'm one of this thing. And it's [BLANK_AUDIO] know, they do, there's real interest in, there's real interest in flexible work, there's interest in the way that you're talking about it. They just can't work out what you're selling. So you need to help them with that. And so it's just, yeah, putting, yes, I really feel like, of course, yes, I've kind of worked out the back end of meta ads and there's always some AI button that will trip you up. Say no. Totally. But I think it's really improved my business acumen, like my sophistication as a, as a business owner. Interesting. That's so cool to hear. I didn't expect that. But yeah, I mean, it is because it's all, everything is about testing and measuring and understanding and analyzing and yeah, everything, everything is data. So yeah, so cool. So what's next for you and your business? Other than we're going to, you're going to focus on the low ticket items and you know, she wants to sell those. What else? What else is in store for you and your business? Well, I think a lot of the time, especially as a Neurospicy business owner. So as you know, Megan, I just got talked to the HD a week ago. She ran late to her appointment. I'm like, babe, that tells you everything. I was actually an hour early if you have to know. So good. And my accountant was like, not all shocked by the diagnosis and she goes, yes, I think we really just need to keep you excited about what you're currently doing. So a lot of the future of the business is like, keeping doing what's working. You know, something that would be amazing is an accountant that fully understands Neurospicy. So I feel like accountants are not Neurospicy typically, right? But like most of their clients who are business owners probably are. Well, I have to tell you about Sarah Bramble because she 1000% has my number to shout out. Yeah. So good. Excellent about it. So yes, it's keeping going with what's working. You know, and the big part of that and you help me with this too, Megan, is designing love your work in a way that makes it really interesting for me. So I don't teach any of the content anymore. It's all in really small video forms. And it means every time I show up online, it's super interesting because I have these new people with new problems to solve. So I love it. I love running it. I'm trying to fall in love with selling it. That's kind of what's next to me in business. And then I'm really excited to have have a program I'm baited testing for business owners. So yeah, that's very cool. So I remember when I was speaking maybe a year ago, one of your long term goals was to get a sauna. Yes, you've done that. Yeah, the sauna's here. What's your next goal? Oh, yeah, it's, um, you have another like your reward, you have to reward yourself when you hit a goal. I know. We do, I've got to go back to my reward metrics. I've done well. I've got my pirate crystal here and my sauna. It's actually just time. Yeah. You know, so it's, for me, the kind of next business goal is to have a lot more white space and like I'm on my way to that. But it's a big part of why I've built love your work and now corporate escape is calm. Because it just allows me to make a lot of impact without constantly filling up my calendar. Yeah, that's so good. And a pinnacle out of by the beach. Jokes. Jokes. Jokes. Laptop lifestyle. Yeah, although get my five-step plan, make your friends. Although that sounds nice. I know. But as you, yeah, we'd all be doing it. But it was easy. Yeah. Thank you so much. I feel like we just did here and talk absolutely crap for ages. And we, we just want to put your listeners through it. We'll stop recording and then we'll get into the real file. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. I am sure that it's been valuable because you know, everybody's in a different phase and stage and personality type and so nice, such as here from other people where they are and they're doing what they're doing what they've found. And yeah, thank you so much. You're welcome. See you next time. This episode was brought to you by my business. But then you want someone to take the wheel and run your ads for you or you want to learn how to run your ads yourself. We'll make sure your meta ads are driving results. You deserve better ads that don't let you down. Come and check out a loan marketing. That's L-U-M-E marketing.com. I'll pop a link in the show notes.