256. Make $3 Million a year with this Simple AI Ads Strategy

0:00Ryan Atkinson:Ryan Driscoll started his digital marketing career charging just$10 an hour on Odesk and teaching himself SEO through trial and error. Today, he runs a multi-million dollar lead generation company focused on finding customers who are ready to buy, not just people who click on ads. I'm Ryan Atkinson and you're listening to The Outfit Podcast where we give actionable tips for you to start your next business or grow your current business. In this episode, Brian breaks down how home service businesses can use Facebook ads, qualifying landing page, fast follow-up, and AI to generate better leads and turn them into paying customers.

0:35Ryan Atkinson:I always love talking about SEO, so I'm so excited to have Brian on to the podcast. Brian, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for having me. Super, super excited, but let's lay the foundation for what we're going to be talking about today. Give us a quick high level overview about who Brian is and what do you do? Okay, so me, born and raised Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Got three sons, 14, 12, and 11. Married. I run a digital marketing company, so we do a lot of digital ads. I'm a real estate investor. I buy crappy houses. I fix them up and I keep them as rentals and I try to give back.

1:05So I try to make money and then create impact.

1:07Ryan Atkinson:I love it. That's a good line right there. So I'm excited to talk about the digital marketing aspect today of Facebook ads. Let's kind of get right into it just for our listeners. If you're helping a home service business get its first 10 qualified leads today, where would you start? If someone's coming at you from ground zero, Brian, how the heck do I my first 10 qualified leads, what are you advising them to do? So first thing, I'm going to ask a couple of questions. It's like, okay, say you're a real estate investor. You're trying to buy houses. Have you bought a house before? If you haven't, I'm going to tell you, you may need to go doorknock.

1:34You may need to go get punched in the face a little bit and learn the process before you spend money on marketing because you're going to, you may lose your money. You need to know those things. But if you have done those deals, we're going to talk about different marketing strategies you can dive into.

1:46Ryan Atkinson:Okay. Well, let's talk about the ones that have maybe a little bit of experience, but let's talk about a little the funnels or channels that they can dive into to start for their first 10. Okay. So first thing, if you're in the lead generation space, the number one thing I'm going to make sure you have, if you're working any digital marketing is a CRM reason is a lot of guys dive into doing marketing and they have inbound leads coming in and they're working from a sheet, like a Google sheet, they lose track. It's like, if you don't get them on a first deal, they're gone. I like it. So a CRM, what else are we looking for here?

2:15So then we're looking at, okay, who are you targeting? Like I deal with real estate investors. That's why I keep going back to that. But if we're targeting people that want to sell their house fast, you need to know, okay, who is that you're targeting? And then your ads have to reflect that. So if you're looking for people with beat up houses, make ads on Facebook and don't put pretty houses. Say you buy houses, you buy them cash, you buy them fast because the difference is somebody, say in Google or something, search and sell my house versus sell my house fast is a totally different person. And if the wrong people are hitting you up,

2:42Ryan Atkinson:you're just gonna waste your time and money. Well, let's say on that piece because that's like building that ICP, the ideal customer profile piece. Talk to us more about that. What goes into developing that? Because that's really what like your ads will be tailored to. That's what your outbound messaging, everything's really tailored to. So ICP, ideal customer profile, for those that don't know, what goes into defining that like ideal avatar? So what you want to think about, and this is a really good question because everybody's starting in business, everyone's like, you know what? I'm going to deal with everybody.

3:11And they're like, because everyone thinks my service is so good. I can just help everybody. you want to find out who are your top 10 to 20 percent of people and then you look at them okay are they male or female are they old or young are they single or are they parents you want to dive into specifics on what are these people like and then make your targeting that's something that's going to attract them and create a win-win you know and the last thing i'd say on that is think of leads in these people as people not numbers i like that so if we were going to do like a home

3:43Ryan Atkinson:service base, however, whoever you want to take, or even the real estate angle you want to take on this, what are some more like, is it truly like, oh, like I need my ideal customer profile to be single? Or what are some other business characteristics you're looking for on developing that ICP? Say you're running Facebook. Facebook, you're interrupting people. You're paying per impression. So you have one shot to interrupt them with an image or a video, right? The one thing is you can get a whole bunch of people to click your ad and fill out your form. But if you're getting the wrong people to fill it out, you're just going to be wasting your time on a phone.

4:11So that's why on the ICP, it's like, you don't necessarily need to know as much about their age. You need to know what's going to resonate them and what problem do they have. For example, real estate investors, if I'm on Facebook, I'm going to put a picture of like a hammered house. It's going to have like boards on the windows, like over-dramatize it so that when someone sees that, it's going to track the right person. I know you're not looking for a real estate agent if you're clicking this ad, you know, and you're going to try to differentiate those people, you know.

4:36Ryan Atkinson:So another big piece to like what you do is identifying like the person that's most likely going to need like your service like right now. Is there a specific way that you do that with like Facebook ads? And we are going to get into building the Facebook ads, but intent data is like everywhere right now, like actually identifying people that need your service like right right now. Anything that you do with that? Well, it comes down to I don't know if you want to talk about targeting right now, but like Facebook pixels and offline conversions, that's where a lot of the bread and butter is. So you have to have good content.

5:03You have to have good creatives. But then whenever people click, you have to be able to send back to Facebook or it's called meta now. Were they good or were they not so that the algorithm can learn and put your ad in front of more people?

5:14Ryan Atkinson:Yeah, yeah. And the Facebook pixel is huge. And if any business is getting started, you should definitely incorporate like your Facebook pixel like right away on the website. Before we get into that, let's talk about these Facebook ads and like creating an offer. So what makes an offer good, makes it strong enough that someone like actually wants to engage with like your ad? So an easy way to think about it is say we're making a video. your first three seconds need to sell them to listen to the next five seconds that five seconds need to sell them to listen to the 10 and then at the end of that you have to have a call to action so you want the hook like buy real estate without using any of your money that's a hook and then you have the offer and then click below to see if your area is available i like it so is this like what are the ads are the video ads that you're currently doing that are like working the best for you or like for clients as well is it like someone talking their phone i feel like that one's like huge right now and i'm also developing like our own meta strategy so i'm just curious a little bit of a different icp and like vertical but like what are like the ads that are like crushing it for you right now we're using a lot of ai ads okay what's the vertical you're um launching it we'll be in like a tech like b2b like sass so like cyber security fintech health tech like those types of verticals so number one i'll make videos of myself so if you're just starting don't get into your head, pull out your phone, record something and use it as an ad just because you don't need anything flashy.

6:34You don't need it all sexy and all that kind of stuff. A lot of people actually relate to the normal person. That's not all like super professional videos, but then also we're starting to test the AI videos. Also they're actually converting. It's crazy. Like I'm looking at people like, I'm like, how is this getting a cheaper cost per lead than me going out editing, like recording, editing and all this stuff. But it is.

6:54Ryan Atkinson:What are the AI videos that you all are doing? So I got one that's crushing right now. It's a grandma talking about selling her house. Really? Yeah. And the one reason I think AI videos are kind of cool is because you can crank them out. So you can test a lot. Like if I'm going to record a video, I have to record it. I have to stumble. I'm going to keep recording it over. Then I have to edit it. Then I got to test it. These you can take a script and test those at scale pretty quickly. So crazy. What tool are you using for the AI generated videos? There's a lot of tools. There's one really cool AI tool.

7:28It's called KIE.AI. And you pay based on tokens and it gives you access to all the different other tools. Like you can do even on images like Nano Banana Pro. Instead of paying 20, 30 bucks a month, you pay 18 cents for an image.

7:42Ryan Atkinson:Oh, wow. Yeah. So it gives you like 50 tools, all the tools like Sundance and VO. And instead of buying their subscription, you just deposit 50 bucks, pay tokens. and it's like, it's pretty neat. Are you ready to launch, grow and scale a business? Inside the Uplip Academy, you'll get a complete roadmap to shortcut your success with 25 plus step-by-step programs taught by active business owners, not gurus, who share their step-by-step blueprints, plus ongoing live workshops, skills training, a business idea database and community to share resources and celebrate your wins. Click the link in the description below to join the Elphip Academy today and start surrounding yourself with the people and tools that can change everything for your business.

8:26Ryan Atkinson:It's so funny that you mentioned this because I was on like Instagram the other day or it might've been on YouTube. I don't remember. But it was an AI ad. It was legit a three minute ad is for like some weight loss drug. I don't know why it was targeted because it was women. It was for like women over 50. Most AI generated like videos you could ever find. But it was so like interesting where like kind of like hooked me in the sense of like, this is really interesting. How is this like going to turn out? But are you guys doing anything like static ads or like, is it all like truly video that's working best for you?

8:53Both. So I would run them both because the algorithm and different placements are going to show different things. So like when you're running meta, you're going to want to run both. If you're doing images, do square and then vertical. And then same on video, square and vertical. But it depends on the industry and depends on the audience who's going to connect with what.

9:08Ryan Atkinson:Can you give us an example? Like if you're going to craft up an offer like right now for somebody, obviously you gave us the example of like the hooks, like, you know, your first three seconds gets you the next five seconds, whatever. If you're going to crap up an offer right now for like a home services based company, like what should specifically go into this? Go a little bit more detail if you can. Well, okay. Let's talk about your offer you're going to make then. We'll do it in real life. So your B2B one that you're talking about, give me like a little bit more details on what you're doing.

9:34Ryan Atkinson:Yeah. So for our B2B offer, and I know this isn't home service related, so listeners just stay tuned because you'll get value out of this. So for what we're doing for the B2B for my own company is we'll do basically, we'll give you$2 ,000 in ad credit. We'll give you an additional product demo. and then we'll actually give you an aura ring as well if you invest in us. So we're a B2B video marketing agency. So those are like the three things you get if like you actually invest in us and that's basically our offer we put everywhere. Okay, and you're what you're creating the content for businesses?

10:01Yep, exactly. Who's your target? Like true SaaS businesses or what?

10:05Ryan Atkinson:Yeah, like we can use cybersecurity or whatever one's easiest, but it's like a marketing director, VP of marketing, CMO. I'd probably think about a little bit more, but off of the cuff, I would probably, number one, I'm going to target cybersecurity so you would know more about like the specifics on I'd use the terminology they're looking for but then what's their pain like why would they hire you yeah a lot of them like need video content it's like I have a product launch coming I don't have internal resource I have an event coming I don't have internal resources to do it but like I want it so I would probably do a hook something along the lines of find cyber security clients without hiring a graphic designer a video editor a camera person for less than it costs you to do x it's like how to do something without doing something you know what i mean i like it yeah obviously i have to flesh it out but that's kind of how you think about an offer in the industry it's like how can you offer someone that without the pain like the benefit minus the pain so going into that more so how do you offer them that without the pain say someone in a cyber security place most likely that personality if i'm thinking about it is probably i picture cyber security you got glasses on with tape in the middle yeah Yeah.

11:12So it's like, you're probably not the person that's really comfortable with a cell phone, getting on a camera and speaking fluently, things like that. So that could be one of the pains. It's like, okay, we can make you videos without you learning how to speak naturally in front of a camera, without the editors, without all this stuff, without the$20 ,000 bill for building this whole team. We're the easy button. We already know how to do it. We're professionals in it. So we're going to make your life easy because we've already made the mistakes. You don't have to make them yourself.

11:40Ryan Atkinson:I love it. That's really good stuff there. Okay, let's go into budgeting then. So what should a budget be for a beginner to start with and how long should they run the ad before judging it or cutting it, whatever they should do? Here's what you want to look at. What's your profit per deal? If you're selling t-shirts, you might only make eight bucks a shirt or something. So you need to think it backwards versus if you're selling a couple thousand dollar product, it's like, what's my profit? And then how many people is it going to take, you look at the funnel, how many people is it going to take to get that?

12:09And then what's my, what's my spread?

12:11Ryan Atkinson:So basically like what's your average ticket size and kind of work backwards. I'm like what you should be able to spend on this. Right. And if you're just starting, you're not going to know. So then I would say pick a budget that you're comfortable gambling for 60 days, 60 days. That's why I was just an ask. So how long, like, does it take to like actually see your results? Is this something you're seeing results the next day or is it truly like a 45 day warmup period? Depends. Depends if you get a good hook. Like sometimes you can come out if you get an ad that hits pretty well, you could go like gangbusters or you could put something out and it just totally flops.

12:42And then you look at the data and then you make your next decision on the data and you try to optimize. But I would say at least 60 to 90 days because even if you come out really good and you get lucky, can you replicate it?

12:53Ryan Atkinson:Can you replicate it? That is, yeah, that is like the biggest thing I feel like when it comes to that. So, okay, then optimizing as we talked a little bit about the Facebook pixel, tell us more about why it's so important to set up, especially as we're starting to run this 60 days out. Sure, and it depends on if you're in lead gen or selling something. But in lead gen, you're gonna wanna see, okay, what's my cost per lead? But then it's like, okay, are the leads good? So you look at cost per lead, cost per contacted lead, cost per appointment, cost per contract, and cost per close. And a lot of people get misled.

13:21They're like, oh yeah, my cost per lead's great. It's like, well, if those people don't pick up the phone or they're not the right people, that's the wrong number. You need to be looking at, okay, how many qualified people? So we look at, we call it SQL or you got an MQL, which is a marketing qualified lead. So anyone who doesn't know that's someone filled out a form and you ask them questions and they answer the questions, right? They popped out at the end qualified. And then you have an SQL. That's someone you talk to on the phone that you talk to and they are qualified also. So those are the KPIs you want to be kind of measuring against.

13:50Ryan Atkinson:Nice. I love the distinction between the two here. What does your funnel look like on the back? And let's just say someone does like click on an ad and fill out a form. What happens next or what should happen next? Is it an immediate call from somebody or what happens? So here's what we do. You fill out a form and we're going to ask you conditional questions. So like in my space, I'm looking for real estate investors that are seasoned. We're going to ask you a question. Are you full-time or part-time? If you answer part-time, you get a thank you page. If you answer full-time, you get a calendar.

14:17Or how many deals do you do in the last 12 months? If you enter under nine, you go to a thank you page. The other one takes you to a calendar. So you want to think, okay, what is your avatar? This is why it's important. what's your avatar and what qualifies them because i probably get like i don't know 100 leads a day we couldn't call all those people but when we pare it down it's like okay the mqls the ones that fill out the form the right way we can call them so our funnel is though you go through you book an appointment we're gonna call you also but sometimes we get too busy so we'll we'll follow up with you later which is not the right answer in the marketing but no no no i 100 get it i'm

14:53Ryan Atkinson:curious on this if someone's just starting out obviously i heard like the disqualification questions. I do think that like you should do that. But if someone's just starting out, I mean, should they be taking like every conversation or like, because one thing that I debate as well is like we get quite a few meetings like a month. It's not 100 a day by any means, but we can get anywhere from like 75 to 100 a month. Obviously, not a day, but a month. Some of them are just like really bad leads. But it's like, I still want to have the opportunity to at least talk with you. Because there is something maybe that I think I could angle in there to like actually make it a really qualified lead.

15:25Ryan Atkinson:What advice would you have for someone with that approach similar to like what I'm doing or what we're doing? Are you pushing leads into a CRM? Yeah, go high level. Perfect. I use go high level too. So here's what I would do. Are you pushing all of your fields, all the questions into go high level also? From like the form? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then do you have pipeline stages like when someone's qualified and disqualified? We do not have that. Okay. I would put that in there so you can differentiate good and bad. And then I would go to Claude and And I would link up your Go High Level through the API.

15:53It's a private integration. Pull that into Claude and then tell it. So to answer your question, number one, yes, you should take every single call when you're starting. And then inside your CRM, capture all that data. It's hard for like a human to like analyze it all, but pull it into Claude once you get 100 or 200 people. Say, okay, what are the similarities of the people that are qualified? What are they putting on their form? What are the people putting on the form that are disqualified? That's where you're going to pick your conditional questions who you don't talk to anymore.

16:19Ryan Atkinson:That is super, super good. What are some other, just out of curiosity, other usage cases you use Claude and GoHighLevel for? And I'm asking this in particular because I think GoHighLevel, it's a really nicely priced CRM for someone to get started with. I know that was like your first step. What are some other integrations that you use Claude and GoHighLevel for? I just built, we vet our leads. So we generate leads of people that want to sell their house to. So we vet the leads. So I linked Claude with GoHighLevel to vet our leads. So I built a bot that you fill out a form. It's going to text you, ask you the questions, have a conversation with you.

16:50And then on the end, it's going to sell the lead to our investor. So you can do things like that. I did that through Claude and then Cloudflare and different tools there. The cool thing with Claude or any AI tool is though, you just ask it what tools you need and how to do it and it'll lay it out. You still have that understanding. But I also link that with, say, our lead managers. I built a dashboard showing how many calls do they make, how many MQLs do they get, then which ones turn into appointments, which ones turn into it. and I make like a whole dashboard so that I can see as a business owner, I can look at a dashboard and see once a week, okay, they're doing well or they need some assistance so I can lead a little bit better too.

17:25Ryan Atkinson:That's honestly such a great usage case, especially as like people start to get more like sales hires on the team. How many sales hires do you all have? I have three. Let's go back into the landing page of this as well, specifically for like ads and stuff. What goes into like a good landing page for an ad? You know what? I'm using Claude for landing pages also. Really? Okay. In a good landing page though, you want to an elite gen space. What I have found is everyone's still designing and looking at websites like they're on your computer. No one is going to your website though. Everyone's going on their phone.

17:54So pay attention on your phone and on your phone for a landing page. If it's a paid landing page, like you're sending paid traffic, remove the toolbar so they can't scroll around your website and you want to have a hook and a form should be on the page right when it opens.