3 Facebook Campaigns That Make You Money
And everything you need to know about them.
Believe me, I’ve been where you are. Throwing dollar after hard-earned dollar at Facebook ads without seeing any sales trickle into my small business.
I threw up my hands, too. I told everyone who’d listen Facebook ads don’t work. Until someone told me the truth.
It wasn’t her, but she has great advice:
Truth is Facebook ads can work.
They do work.
And they will work for you after you read this.
Most small businesses only need 3 basic Facebook ad campaigns to win sales. A Cold Traffic campaign, a Warm Traffic campaign, and a Hot Traffic campaign.
These campaigns aren’t hard to run, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s like using your hard-earned Benjamins to kindle a fire. I don’t want you to be all broke and toasty. So I wrote this post to show you how to run campaigns like a pro marketer.
Ready? Here we go…
Don’t Be the Creepy Business at the Facebook Bar
Marketing is a lot like dating, which makes Facebook your local bar.

There’s a lot of ways to screw up your marketing, hundreds even. Few are more common than asking for too big a commitment way too soon.
Imagine yourself at a bar. A stranger walks up to you and slides their palm down your face. No introduction, no ‘Lemme buy you a drink’ first, just skips to full on facial petting. Weird, right?
Think about it though, the action itself isn’t offensive. A little conversation, a few compliments, maybe a drink or two later, and this would all be par for the course. The problem is that the action is out of sequence. Both people have to build a mutual connection before the weird, facial petting thing is cool, you know?
Marketing is a lot like dating, which makes Facebook your local bar. Would you walk into the Facebook bar and do that weird face thing to someone you didn’t know? Probably not intentionally, but that’s what you’re doing when you push the sale too quickly. You’re acting out of sequence.
What happens after that? Your target audience gets super offended and if they ever see you in person, you might end up wearing a Mojito or two.
There’s a way to do this right, guys. A way that doesn’t kill your chances of making the sale in the near future. We’re going to explore the right way to pick up chicks—I mean traffic in a sec.
But first…
Step 1: Meet Your Wingmen
These are your best friends when it comes to talking to potential clients or customers. They keep your campaigns well-structured and sturdy, which means more sales in the long run.
The Marketing Funnel: This one’s the smooth operator in the group. He’s a little older than the rest of you, but don’t underestimate him. Introduce any prospect to this guy, and it’s textbook marketing—the blueprint for all three basic campaigns you’ll be running.
Your cold traffic is always at the top of funnel in the Awareness stage, warm traffic in the middle at the Evaluation stage, and hot traffic is reserved for the bottom of the funnel at the Conversion stage (at least until that hot traffic is reactivated with new cross-sell offers, but that’s a another blog post).


Traffic Temperatures, Goals, and Content Types:Everyone needs at least one wingman that keeps the conversation going and turns complete strangers into night-long friends. That’s this guy. He specializes in traffic temperatures, goals per temperature, and content types per campaign.

The Content Calendar: Last, but not least is your Bouncer. Your inside man that stays outside. This guy works the door for your content and makes sure it gets seen at the most popular places and platforms your prospects frequent. [For more information on creating a content calendar that practically runs your campaign for you, check out this post from my friends at Content Marketing Institute.]
Step 2: Introduce Yourself
Think of your content as the first drink you buy your audience.
Now that you’ve got your crew assembled, this is the part in the analogy where you all walk up to your prospect and their friends. Yep, the hard part. Your job now is to initiate a conversation, that’s it (read: do not sell yet).
Most of the people clicking on your ads have had no prior interaction with your brand. We call that cold traffic and how you interact with it is extremely important.
The typical way is to jump in front of them and start vomiting useless information about how great you are, how perfect you’d be together, and why they should slip away with you to some place quieter so you can sell them. This way is wrong.
It also sounds really creepy when you say it out loud. Particularly, the selling part.
The right way is to lead with value. Consistently give your prospect useful content you know they want/need and it’ll pique their curiosity about you.
Think of your content as the first drink you buy your prospect. They don’t have to pay you any attention once they have it, but if it’s well-crafted and your business is looking particularly well put-together, you stand a good chance of winning their attention.
This is a great first drink from Bluleadz.com. They put together a blogging checklist that they know their prospective customers will need/want:

Everything You’ll Need to Get Their Attention [Cold Traffic Campaign Resources]
Goals:
Indoctrination-Websters defines ‘indoctrinate’ as to instruct in fundamentals or rudiments: teach. In marketing, indoctrination is defined as educating ideal customers on the value of the offer.
Engagement-engagement is a connection or bond between the consumer and the business or brand across different channels and touch points. Engagement is not just likes and shares. They’re great, but when is the last time you paid a bill with likes and shares? Your main intent should be to grow your website traffic, here.
Pixel Segmentation-This is refers to using Facebook’s Pixel to segment your customers. Segmenting helps you make more relevant offers to your audience by separating them into unique audiences based on their different interests.
Content Types:

Your main content offers for this campaign are strictly top of funnel pieces, however there are three pieces of content that will fall between cold traffic and warm traffic.
Tip: Lead magnets, quizzes, and white papers are especially great at sucking up leads. More leads equals more leads to pixel and segment.
For the majority of small businesses, it isn’t necessary to execute every content type. Find the perfect fit for your prospects. If you did your market research thoroughly, you already know what content types they engage with most.
- Blog Posts
- Social Media Updates
- Content Videos
- Podcasts
- Primary Research
- Case Study
- Lead Magnet
- Quizzes/Survey
- White Paper
Metrics:
Don’t let the word scare you. Metrics don’t always mean graphs and spreadsheets. I mean, they can if you’re into that sort of thing. But if if you’re like most people, you want data you can actually make sense of. That’s why I recommend starting with just a few important metrics so you can keep the campaign on track without giving yourself a headache.
- Offer Awareness
- Retargeting List Growth
- Site Engagement Rate
- Click Through Rate
- Bounce Rate
- Cost Per Click
Step 3: Ask For the Date
You’re going to D.A.T.E them. Deliver Assets That Engage your audience.
So you bought the drink and started talking to your audience. They’re leaning forward when you speak and they’re laughing at all your corny jokes. You feel like this might turn into something. Well now is your chance to strike while the traffic is warm and ask for the date.
Warm traffic is classified as anyone who has visited your site, read your content, and maybe even followed you on a few social platforms. But they haven’t bought anything.
Well…
Now would be a good time to encourage them to do so.

Not with pushy ads either. You’re savvier than that, now. Those days are done for you, champ. You’re going to use valuable content.
The main thing to remember here is to treat your audience or prospect as you would any other woman you were passionately in love with. You’re going to D.A.T.E them. Deliver Assets That Engage your audience.
Take Veeam Software, for instance. They promote a free webinar to ask for the date:

Everything You’ll Need to Ask For the Date [Warm Content Campaign Resources]
Goals:
Leads-a prospective buyer of a product or service.
Low Dollar Sales-a product/service priced low enough to be risk-free and valuable enough to be worth buying to your audience.
Content Types:

Remember your content types? Keep ’em close, they’ll come in handy when you’re planning your campaigns.
Tip: Your Middle-of-Funnel content should be geared towards getting you more leads and low dollar sales to cover the initial cost of your campaign.
- Free Webinar
- Flash Sale
- Low Dollar Offer
- Software/Product Demo
- Branding Videos
- Book (free or paid)
- A La Carte Service
- Software or Plugin
- Free Trial
- Events
Metrics:
It’s that time again. No campaign can be as successful as possible without measuring your initial results and adjusting your plan as needed. Here are a few warm traffic metrics I recommend tracking.
- Number of Leads/Email List Growth
- Offer Conversion Rate
- Retargeting List Growth
- Click Through Rate
- Cost Per Click
- Opt-in Rate
Step 4: Go In For the Kiss, Already
The first hot, juicy kiss is the dream of any guy that sees a girl he likes. The dream of any marketer that sees an audience they like? Yup. Hot, juicy Traffic.
Okay, it’s been a long road to get here, but you did it, man. It’s the end of the night. You’re on the doorstep watching your date rummage through a fashionably distressed tote bag for a pair of keys she’s noticeably trying not to find. You’re about to get the coveted first kiss.
You’re living the dream of any guy that sees a girl he likes. Except in this case the girl is your audience, you’re not just any guy, you’re a marketer, and getting to the doorstep means you’ve finally got yourself some hot traffic.
Hot traffic consists of people who know you and your products/services well and are ready to buy from you or have already done so. Usually, you have a good chance to turn them into repeat customers or clients and that will be one of your main goals during this campaign.
Check out how Digital Marketer reactivates their frequent buyers to buy again:

Everything You’ll Need to Get the Kiss [Hot Traffic Campaign Resources]
Goals:
High Dollar Sales-an expensive product/service of significant value to a prospect.
Activation-motivating buyers to become repeat buyers.
Content Types:

I get it. You’re sick of looking at this thing by now, but you’re content types are important (Read: mix and match them at your own risk).
Remember, these are people that know your brand pretty well by now. They’re not looking for more information on you, they’re looking to buy from you. Or even better, they’ve bought a high dollar offer from you already. They need sales-centric content to either upsell or cross-sell them to one of your other offers that are relevant to them. That content might include:
- Events
- Paid Webinar
- High Dollar Offer
- Done For You Service
Metrics:
These metrics are anything new, well maybe just a few of them are. Most of these you’ve been tracking throughout the entire funnel, but there are a few specific to your hot traffic.
Note: Average customer value, retention rate and buyer frequency are bottom of funnel issues, but the entire funnel influences those results.
- Offer Conversion Rate
- Retargeting List Growth
- Average Customer value
- Retention Rate
- Buyer Frequency
A Very Basic Budget
Put most of your money where the traffic is hardest to convert.
You want your business to grow. That means feeding it the right leads at just the right temperature. That temperature is cold.
Sure your hot leads make sales, which makes your business money. No argument there. However it’s the cold traffic, the new prospects you’ll heat up, that drive your business to grow and your market share to increase.
So how much money should you allocate to each traffic temperature? If you need a hard and fast budget, there isn’t one.
You’re gonna have to do a lot of experimenting and depending on the price of your products/services, the campaign budgets may vary for each different product/service you offer.
Basically, budgeting your Facebook ads spend is marketing’s version of a relationship status: it’s complicated. But a not-so-bad place to start might be allocating 50% of your ad spend to cold traffic, 35% to warm, and 15% to hot. Then you can adjust according to your specific business needs from there.
Two Takeaways
Two things are hopefully burned in your brain by now.
- Marketing should be natural. Building an intimate relationship between a brand and its customers is a lot like building any other intimate relationship. There’s a sequence to it and by following that sequence, you automatically cater to real people with different needs and knowledge levels within your marketing funnel.
- Lead with value. Good marketing is always going to focus on the needs of your customers first. It’s a lot like good business in that way. Put your money into making sure you create and advertise high-level content for your customers and ROI will be a no-brainer.
P.S. Check you out, man! You’re a marketer, now.
Do you have any tips, tricks, or questions on marketing to cold, warm, or hot traffic. Share ’em in the comments below!