Meta Ads = New Employee

This is for rental operators who are new to Meta Ads.

You may be familiar with the Meta Pixel. If not, here's the Google definition:

Here's my definition:

Piece of code you put on your website that Meta uses to track stuff and train itself. Think of it like a piece of the larger Meta brain.

It's the thing that is responsible for a successful campaign. Without it, you'll burn money. Guaranteed.

The first mistake new advertisers make is not using it. Mistake #2 is having too high of expectations for how it works.

Think of Meta As a New Hire

Yes, a human being.

Imagine you hire someone to run your marketing. It can take 6mo+ for them to learn:

• About your business

• About your customers

• And how both those two things come together

Luckily, it doesn't take Meta 6mo+ to learn about your business. But, it can take 30 days.

Let it take that long. Especially at the beginning. It takes time for Meta to learn about your business through the pixel (it's brain).

After The First 30 Days

Just like learning a new skill, the longer you're a student of the craft, the better you will be at the thing.

Same with new employees. The longer they work in your business, the better they perform.

It's no different with Meta and the pixel.

The more you run ads, the better it will understand:

• Your business

• Your customers

• And how both those two things come together

Yet, spending a ton of money to do this isn't necessary

Let me explain.

There's a practice we do in the agency called "training the pixel"

How it works:

• Launch a brand awareness or leads campaign apart from your main one

• Give it a low budget ($5-$20 / day) and broad targeting (10M+)

• You won’t get many bookings here

• You are incentivizing the pixel with money to work harder and longer to find your perfect guest and their friends without hurting the money making campaign.

Why this works:

• If you're advertising to get bookings (purchases)

• Meta will feed your ad first to people who have a history of buying things

• Aka the same people every other company ever is competing for

• Therefore, Meta will be restricted with how far and wide it can go due to the goal

• That market is much smaller than those who are interested in buying things

Summary

It's your job to train the pixel. Let it learn about your business.

New to Meta ads? Let it take 30 days to do that.

Then pair a "training the pixel" campaign with your main campaign. They will work with each other to find the buyers that weren't found right away.

Think of it like giving your new hire and unlimited budget to:

• Learn

• Do different things

• At rapid speed

• With a guaranteed positive outcome in the future

We have tested this.

• Test #1: Run just the main campaign.

• Test #2: Run the main campaign + training the pixel campaign

Test #2 wins almost all the times.

Winning = making more money.

I'll leave you with this.

If you want to win with Meta Ads:

• Let it learn about you the first 30 days

• Without freaking out

• Give it budget to continue learning once bookings come in

That's all for today. I'll see you in the next article.

P.S. Warning: This article may have caused confusion. If that’s you, reply to this email with questions. I’m around.

P.P.S. Writing this from the Florida Keys. On a content shoot. I was blown away. I haven’t seen water that clear ever. If you haven’t been, I recommend it. If you can handle the heat, go during the off-season to avoid crowds.

If you can’t handle the heat, you’ll get used to it. I know, that’s what everyone says. But it’s true. I’m from Minnesota. Take it from me.

Before you go

I spend about 10 hours writing this newsletter each week. The rest of my time is spent running $100K Stay and Lodge Social.

1) $100K Stay — Learn how to make $100K for your Airbnb or hotel from social media.

• This hybrid-live training program is everything you need to get your own guests from the internet. Even if you have zero audience, experience, or marketing skills.

• Enrollment is currently open. Book a call to join →

2) Lodge Social — Our marketing team will help you get more guests to like, share and book. Work with me and my team here.

Links you might like:

1. The Easiest Way to Get Airbnb Direct Bookings (YouTube)

2. The best slow season booking strategy (Unique Stays Guy)

3. STR Design Strategy That Doubled Revenue to $254K (Booked Solid Show)

4. Why “Doing Nothing” Makes Great Content (The Lodge Social)