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Welcome to the Win with Paid Ads podcast for small business owners, entrepreneurs and really anyone who has anything you want more people to find. Whether you're starting from ground zero or scaling an eight figure business, you are exactly who this podcast was created for. Because you being the best kept secret helps no one. Right? That's why in every episode I'll show you how you can use paid ads to hit your goals 10 times sooner. It's time you finally learn how to win with paid ads. You or someone on your team can do this. I'll show you how to score and be known by more. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Win with Paid Ads podcast. Today we're going to talk about what you should do when your ads stop working. And I decided to create this because yesterday I had a client and she was like, hey, I was getting a 5 to 1 return. Our volume was really high. And then something changed. And the good news is we were able to spot what it was and we know exactly what to do next. There is always a next move and it is very, very likely that you're going to see ups and downs in your performance. And so the question is, what are you going to do when that happens? And so on this episode we're going to break down three things and the three things that go into being able to have you go from a place that was really great down in performance and being able to get back on top. So we're going to dive into all of that. And by the way, before we do, don't forget, the Win with Paid Ads challenge could change your life and business. It is five days of advertising training. So click the link below this episode or this video so that you can get your platin ticket so that I can be able to have the opportunity to give you some personalized direction on your business, specifically in that platinum coaching room. It's so good. So let's talk about kind of the three things that are going to lead to your ads not performing so well. And I want you to think about this. So most people, when their ads stop working, they panic, they shut things off and they assume it is the platform or that I just don't work anymore. And so I just want you to ask yourself, has that ever happened to you? Have you had that thought? And it's okay, you're not alone. But I want to encourage you, ads don't randomly just stop working, they follow signals. And so if something changed, a change caused it. So the one thing I want you to think about before you're stressing out about what to do is, is there really a problem? That's probably the first question you should ask. So here's the thing that most often you don't hear is it's that your ads didn't even stop working. You just had a bad or a bad week and you panicked. And so don't let one or two rough days ruin some long term good results. I want you to be able to spot the difference between a normal blip and a legitimate consistent pattern. And so you really want to look at 7 to 14 days at minimum to create a trend, not just individual days. So I also want you to be able. I want you to be able to know what levers to pull and when. And so that's what this episode is designed to do. It's going to be so good. So today I'm gonna walk you through what to look at from your mindset to your big picture strategy as well as the nitty gritty. Like, what should you actually go look at in your ad account right now? It's gonna be really helpful because I want you to be able to diagnose and not just guess because you are stressing if you're guessing, but you're progressing when you know what the heck you're looking at. Okay, so let's dig into it. So the first piece is gonna be your mindset, and then I swear we're gonna get into the nitty gritty tactical. It'll be. I think you're gonna freaking love this episode, to be honest. So the mindset is the one thing you do have to think about before you go in. And the problem sometimes isn't that the ads stop working. It's that you're in a season where something's not fun, something's not challenging, you're feeling uncertain, and so you're carrying that energy into your ads. You're like, okay, I'm. This other stuff's going crazy. My ads are going crazy. It's almost like you're looking to. To prove yourself that the chaos is real. And so I kind of wanted to take you back for just a moment. So I don't know if I ever have shared this on the podcast, but one of the things I did when I was spending 200 hours like four or five years ago building the foundation of the business while I was still working at the ad agency was I deleted Netflix off of my phone. I was like, okay, because I used to watch Netflix all the time. And so I deleted Netflix. And I was like, I'm gonna spend, you know, I ended up spending 200 hours buying the domain, getting the website ready, watching all these free trainings, trying to figure out how to record, editing videos, playing with Canva, doing all this stuff. And some of it wasn't fun. And I think sometimes we think that something's wrong when the work that we're doing isn't fun. And it's actually exactly right. Not 100% of the work is going to be fun, but it must be done. And everyone who got to somewhere that you want to be, they saw that and they did that, and they just pushed through the work that wasn't fun. And that's why I was reflecting, because I just got off. I paid for my family, we took a private plane to St. Simon's it's quick flight, and we actually had a business meeting. And while we were there, I was thinking about all these analogies of the airplane. Cause I love to be able to tie unrelated things to what we do. And that's really a skill that you can develop too. And so I was thinking about it. I'm like, everybody wants to fly. Nobody wants to pave the Runway. That's no fun. Paving the Runway is all the work you don't want to do that ultimately creates the path and leads to the thing that you do want to do, which is be able to fly the plane. And in this case, it's to be able to create really profitable ads. And that's ultimately what you want, right? So the Runway is going to be setting up your pixels, setting up your tracking, having to rework what you're selling and your offer and your messaging and you're funneled, all of that is the Runway. And when ads stop working for a minute or they dip in performance. And by the way, that's another thing is oftentimes when ads are working or people say they're not working, they actually are. It's like, what's the. What is the actual math? And they're like, well, I got less. And it's like, well, yeah, you spent less. Of course you're gonna have less. So it's really like putting the data into context. That's all things aside. But usually it's not about the ads. It's about the plane, it's about the Runway. It's that your messaging isn't landing anymore. It's that your funnel needs to be optimized. Your email nurture needs to be following up with the people that actually your ads acquired the lead, but then you're not talking to them, right? So I told one of my clients, my mastermind last week, I said, y' all do know that when I first started my business, every single person who even liked one of my ads, I would click on their name, I would look at their business, and I'd send them a personal voice message like, hey, Jill, saw that you liked one of my ads. Just curious, gonna sign up for the thing. Like, here's why. Here's what could be in it for you if you were to do it. Here's a case study. Like, I worked those leads, I would sit in my bed for hours and just like, click on, click, click, click, click, click. And like, I saw you liked it. You know, and so, so many people, they're letting all these leads go to waste. And now what I'm not saying, for those of you that are at a scalable place in your business, you're like, I can't do that. I'm not asking you to do that. Someone on your team could. Somebody could be sending these personalized messages. One of my clients filled up a retreat that she had last week because she just reached out to people that had engaged. And so just really thinking about, is it the plan or is the Runway that needs to be better? So before you touch anything, here is step zero. Okay, before we go to step one, here is step zero. It is define what stopped working means. So before you change anything, what is actually broke? Is it your. Is your click through rate down? Is it your conversion rate? Is it your return on ad spend? Is it the total volume of calls? Is your revenue? What is the metric that tells you where the break is? Most people say their ads aren't working and they just start clicking buttons around. But if your click through rate is fine and your landing page conversion tank, that's not an ad problem, that's a funnel problem, right? If you're like, hey, same number of people are clicking and engaging, that's all good. That's front end metrics. But the percentage of people that converting on the back end, that changed. Like, okay, well, what's happening most likely is the experience once they get there, right? Because your click through rate is just the percentage of people that see your ad that click. If that's the same and you're still getting the same volume of people, they're just converting differently. That tells me, let's change something about the funnel. For the most part. If your leads are the same quality but your revenue dropped, that could also not be an ads problem. I repeat, if your leads are the same quality and your Revenue dropped. That's a sales problem, not an ads problem, right? Like you're like, oh, I got good leads and they were all there, they just didn't buy. It's the ad. It's like, what if it's your sales? What if how you sold, what if your energy was terrible? What if your clarity wasn't great? What if your follow up wasn't awesome? What if you were confusing? What if you overtaught? There's so many times that we're so quick to blame the ads or anybody else besides ourselves and we're like, what if it's me? What if I'm not delivering with confidence? What if they're not confused by me? What if my insecurity is transferring to them? What if my lack mindset is transferring to transferring to them, right? So if the leads are staying the same quality, that is an opportunity. Let's see what we can change on the sales side. And so, I mean, gosh, there's so many things I could talk to you about that I mean I have a million things I would tell you about your sales problem. I mean, let me see what comes off the mind initially. It's over talking, it is over explaining. It's not having curiosity, it's not selling them on what they need versus you selling them on what you want them to buy. It's really, I mean, especially for my type of industry, there's a difference between informing and transforming. There's a difference between giving them all these tactics versus giving them the skills to be able to apply those tactics long term so that they can succeed. There's all these different things. So I want you to be able to use AI, download your transcript of your session, say hey, based on, you know, these few things of how I know it really works for us to sell. Well, where were my gaps? Like was I missing something in this? Do you see opportunities for me? So many people are not using AI to give them feedback on themselves and it's such a blind spot. So I really want you to be able to use AI to not see what you're missing. So even, even let's talk about your ADS data specifically. It's like I want you to be able to, this is something we teach our clients how to do is being able to say, hey, here's my ADS data, here's my backend performance data. What gaps are you seeing? In fact, really looking at this last launch compared to the previous one, or this last month compared to the previous month, what changed? What are you seeing in the data gaps? That maybe I'm not seeing, and can you guide me on how I could look to identify that in the future? That's you being able to ask AI, what am I missing? And then how do I spot that myself moving forward? So first things first is before you touch anything, define what's working. Use AI to see what the gaps are. All right, so, and then just getting your mind right of, of being able to reflect, like, is there anything about the sales or me? That's the problem. That's not, not just the ads. All right? People come at their ads with, like, a sword. They're like, hey, it is you. I'm like, it could be, but also it could be your funnel, your messaging offer, your delivery, your sales process. There's a lot of things that it could be. So I just want you to be able to think strategically and say, which is it? Versus casting blame. And if that even gives you some tension and you're like, why is she trying to defend that? It's not the ads. You're probably the exact person who needs to hear, really take time and evaluate these other pieces, because the ads are going to amplify what is already there. They're not going to fix what is there. Right? So, all right, let's talk strategy. Right? Because we. I want to go big picture, and then I want to go down into the, into the weeds. So big picture. When your ads have a dip in performance, there's two levels. You can look at the high level strategy and the nitty gritty. And most people skip the strategy and they just start randomly clicking things. They're like, I must fix it. I'm changing this, I'm changing this. I'm pausing this. It's out. And like, I had one of my clients, I love him so much. He does a great job. And one of the things I was looking at in his ad account earlier this week was he had paused a bunch of audiences that had spent like $12. And I was like, hey, we, we don't want to pause these yet. They're still learning. And it has been less than 24 hours and it spent $12. I really want to make sure we're giving the algorithm time to actually figure out if this could work or not. And so a lot of times we click things too early. That's a separate problem which we'll address. But let's go in order because I could go down a rabbit hole. So we're going to start with. And by the way, I guess before I say that, most people skip the strategy and start clicking the buttons. And that makes things worse. I. I really want you to be able to look and think, what is the problem? Versus let me click a bunch of things and try to fix it, because it just can mess things up even more. So, number one, tracking integrity. If the tracking is off, everything lies, right? Because all the data is wrong. You're not getting accurate data. So this is how you can kind of look for it and spot it. Is revenue looks similar in your back end and yet your roas in the platform looks like it's tanked or it's vanished. So you're like, hey, internally or external? Like, internally in your business, you're like, I'm seeing the sales come through. I'm seeing the same amount of people, but my ads account is not showing the sales like they used to. I'm like, something happened that is tracking. So check for missing conversions, check for duplicate events. Go in Events Manager and see and do a test conversion. Go and see using the, like metapixel Helper or the. What is it? It's the metapixel Helper and it's the Google Tag Assistant. Just see, pull that, pull those, what do you call it, a Chrome extension up on your browser. Open those up and say, do you see that your pixel is firing? Not only that, the pixels on the page, but is the event firing? And just do some checking. A lot of times when we audit people's business, I'm like, when's the last time you went through your own funnel? This is a mess, right? And they're like, man, I can't even believe how much better my ads perform. I'm like, right, because we fixed your funnel. That's why the funnel is such an important part and why for our VIP days, we spend so much time obsessing over the funnel. And the funnel is really just the paths or the steps to convert. That's all it is. How does someone go from finding you to buying from you? That's a funnel. Those are the steps. So tracking being off can really jack everything up. Because the pixel, it's going to say, what action are you trying to measure? If it doesn't see that action, it can't go get more people who are doing that action, right? So if it's spending money and not getting conversion, the algorithm thinks it's messing stuff up. And so it's scrambling. And so it starts from this really tight audience of people that were converting and it's like, we're not seeing conversions. Let me expand to this audience and this audience and this audience. And the next thing you know, people have terrible leads because the algorithm's like, I can't find anybody to buy. So I'm expanding and now I've gone way outside your target audience and it's an absolute mess. So your tracking is really, really important. Do a text, a test purchase, confirm everything's on the page and compare your back end data for the last seven days to your ad performance data for the last seven days and see if you see a big mix. Now, I will say there's always going to be like a plus or minus 15% difference because it's just never apples to apples all the way typically. But if it's like 75%, 50% off, yeah, something's definitely broken. But a lot of times when you're looking day to day, sometimes it takes the algorithm like a little bit of time to like get the data finalized. So you're always going to see like a plus or minus, let me say 5 to 15% discrepancy, but it should be within that window. So your summary is you're flying blind if your tracking is wrong. Let's go to number two, strategy wise, right? So second big picture strategy thing is offer clarity. And what I mean is, is what you are selling clear? Because if your offer isn't clear or compelling, your ads cannot save it. In fact, it will be the thing that speeds up your frustration because you'll get a lot of people to find it and they'll be like, what the heck is this? Or even if what you sell is clear, do people trust it? That is a problem. People get your website and they're like, they say they can do all these things, but I don't believe them. They go to your Instagram and you've got like 900 followers and nothing's consistent. Your branding is off, your messaging is unclear, you're talking about two different things and people don't buy. And then you're just mad blaming the ads. I'm like, the problem is you're not communicating your credibility if you have it well. So offer clarity and simplicity. And so the few things I want you to ask yourself, do people want to buy this right now? Are they buying it right now? Whether it's from you, are they buying what you're selling from other people? Is the payoff of what you do crystal clear? Are you communicating this in a third grade level language? And here's the things I want you to ask yourself. Is it clear who this is for? Is it clear why they can trust you? Is it clear what you're selling? Is it clear how they get access to it? And is it very clear that other people agree that buying the thing is a good idea? That's where testimonials and validation comes in. Then is there memorability? Is there a differentiator? Could someone look to their friend and be like, this is what they do and why they're the best? Is that clear? Because, remember, the best businesses don't explain the process and the logistics best. They paint the future best. So here is something I want you to think about. Okay? This is going to be called the wrapping paper concept. So here's what happens over time. A great offer, even a great offer, can get a little bit dull. And so the wrapper that worked for months eventually makes the market kind of like shrug. They're like, okay, I'm getting tired of this. So it's like, it's not that the thing inside isn't great. It's that the wrapping around it has to change. It's like having a Christmas present in the back of your car for three months. You're like, okay, I've obviously not been driving super great. It's got dents, it's got dirt on it. There's a dog hair. Now it's like, let's just rewrap it. And then people will want to open it, right? No one wants to open an old dingy gift. They want to unwrap something that's beautiful. And so different wrapping paper works better for different seasons or different reasons. For a baby shower versus a birthday gift versus a Christmas gift. The different wrapping is what's going to allow different people to be more enticed and say, oh, this is relevant to me. Okay, so keep the underlying deliverable. But re angle the promise, the pain point, the name or the. Or the stack of it. If you're like, hey, it's just people are not. Are not wanting this. It could just be how you're communicating about it. Number three is just. I call it message to market. And all that's really saying is, is, is the message that you're communicating matching the market who wants to buy it? So a lot of times I see people and the ad makes sense, but then when they get on the page and they're like, this is a mismatch. And so it's really important that what someone sees in the ad is legitimately the same framing, the same branding, the same colors, the same messaging. It's matching the page that it's. That it goes together like peanut butter. And jelly versus it was like peanut butter and artichokes. People would be like, that makes no sense. Okay. It needs to feel like peanut butter and jelly. Because if your message doesn't land, no amount of audience targeting will save it. You can have the right audience and they're just scrolling right past because they're like, this is not for me. Okay? It's. That is the wrapping number four is. I only changed one thing. So I asked my clients, I say, hey, what changed? And they're like, nothing. It's always something like, well, we did change our pricing, but it was only by $27. Well, I did plan the landing page, but I only removed two sections. Well, I did change the headline. Like, those little changes can make a huge difference. And so I'm actually going to give y'. All. It's so simple, but I'm going to give y' all my change log template. So below this episode, you can click on the link and you can get my change log document and all it is. It's a log that you can use. You put the date, you put the type of change, and we have categories, and then you put where that change was made. Was it the website? Was it your Google Ads with it, your YouTube ads? Was it a video? And you actually, like, document the big changes in the business. Oh, our website flipped that day. Oh, our pixels changed that day. Just being able to document the changes can make a big difference. Because a lot of times there's the I only changed one thing trap. And it's like, you change the whole thing, y'. All. I go, I'm so crazy that I wear the same thing in my ads. When I'm seeing an ad that's working, I'm like, I'm not going to even change the outfit. I'm just going to change this one hook. Like, really trying to say, I only changed one thing. So sometimes that one thing is your pricing, your headline, your sales page video, your hook. And that one thing can make a difference. So really saying what actually changed, number five is sales process. So most people love to give it, like, oh, that was ad fatigue. When really it's like, oh, my sales team performed worse, or the sale. My sales mechanism isn't working as well. So that's why I said earlier, if you're getting the same quality of leads and volume, but your close rate and your revenue fall, that is a sales problem, not an ads problem. So one of the ways you can kind of spot it is like, listen to your recent sales calls, review your follow up Sequences on texts and emails, go make sure those are delivering right. Make sure those don't have spellings or wrong and broken links in them. Check if a closer's script change. You can use AI to be able to spot the differences and see if your qualified leads had the same problem and the money to buy, but don't because if they do, if they have, if they're the quality leads and they have the money to buy, then and you're closing, you have a sales problem. The other thing I would say on the money side is like one of like the definition of sales is like transform their beliefs to go from I don't want this to I need this. And not in a bad way. It's like if you actually have something that helps people, your goal is to transform their thoughts around the thing that you have to offer them, right? Because it really is a gift, not poison. Like you're selling a gift, not poisoning. And so if, if someone says I don't have money sometimes that is like the best out. But it's like not the actual route. They're like, that's like what you see above the surface, but below the surface it's not actually it. So really trying to see is this a sales problem or an ads problem. And then the last but not least big picture vision thing number six is, and this is why I put it at the very end, not at the beginning, but truly external reality. Is there seasonality for what you have to do. Like if you're a lawn company and you're like, I don't know why people aren't doing grass cutting in December, it's like of course like there's going to be some seasonal things there, so what can we do in the interim? But look at seasonality. Has competition changed and has platform cost changed? So one of the things I did yesterday, one of my clients owns an eight figure tax strategy business and we looked at their campaign, their most recent campaign compared to the previous one and their CPMs were up 200%. So CPM is cost per thousand impressions. And so what they were paying per 1,000 people had 200%, had 200. That changed by 200%. All that really means is they're paying the same and they're getting 200% less people. I think I did that math right. But yeah, the cost per thousand impressions was changed that high. So they're paying the same but getting in front of less people. And obviously if less people see the ad, obviously you're gonna get lower results. Right? So that's it almost feels like it's inflation. It's like some of it's out of our control. Google meta it can change it. And so when I see it go that big, I'm like, okay, they're not going to change all platform costs by 200. Like, that would be detrimental for every business. So it tells me there's something maybe off with how the creative is messaging the audience or we changed our audiences too far from what was working before. So that's where I would go, like, look, and I'd be like, what are the exact differences between the campaign that worked best versus the one you have set up and go line by line in the setup to make sure there's nothing. That's crazy. So a market change or a competitive shock would be CPMs and CPMs across the entire account get more expensive. That's when I would be like, man, that could be seasonal. Or that could be impacted by like a really heavy spend competitor. And. And the crazy thing is most people start there and most agencies are like, it's seasonal. It's like, no, there's 900 other things that it could be before. You're like, it's seasonality, you know, so, all right, those are kind of the big picture things. Now let's get into the nitty gritty, shall we? So, nitty gritty things. So the first nitty gritty thing is your funnel integrity. So clicks without conversions typically mean there's a funnel issue. It's like if you're especially God with Google, if you're looking at your search terms and they're the exact right people and they're getting there and not converting, it could be you're not retargeting them well enough with the right messages. You're not getting back in front of them consistently. You're not texting an email and following up. So you got the lead, but you didn't nurture the lead. So you're wasting money or you are. You need to change how you're communicating. The sales page video, the testimonials, and the clarity and simplicity of what you have on your website. I had a client, she's a doctor, and I was. So my coaching call, it was yesterday. So I have all these examples just from yesterday. And so I told her, I said, Dr. J, we are not running ads to this page. I love you so much and I don't want you to waste money. This page is not good. And I gave her the feedback. She took it. It was amazing. And so that's when it's Like, a lot of people don't have people that will tell them, this is terrible, do not send ads here. And so that's what we do. We are the people that, with all the love and kindness in our heart are like, we love you. And we know why this isn't gonna work. And so you need someone who can not just be a cheerleader, but the person who's like, no, let me give you this perspective so that you can change it so your funnel can be one of the biggest issues. And so that's why I say nothing is ever finished and final. Like, you will always be making changes to your website. And we do the very same thing too. Because remember, ads expose problems. They rarely create them. They just expose what's not working so well and they amplify what is. The next thing that could be an issue is your objective mismatch. So when you set up a campaign at the ad set level, you get to optimize, AKA tell the algorithm to go after a specific action. If you tell it to go after the wrong action, it will, and your campaign will fail. You will spend money and you will not get results. So that's the difference between traffic and engagement or purchases and leads. And so being able to give the algorithm the right signal really, really matters. Next up is premature optimization. My Lord have mercy. My type A's, they want to click buttons every day. And it is an issue. And it's like, sometimes we have our best performing months and it's dipping, and I'm like, we've got to stop touching it. It's like, if it's going, let's just open up the budget. There's so many times I wish I could go back and undo my advice to someone. And so great news is I'm learning and getting better every day. Definitely not perfect. I'm always coaching myself, actually, every day I'm like, what could you have done better? In fact, fun, fun, like, random side quest. One of the things I have my sales team do every single day for every single call is say, what was the call that you had with a prospect? And what could you have done better? Same thing with my coaches. I'm like, you had a coaching call today. What could you have done better? It's forcing your brain for automatic feedback to do the same thing for me. I'm like, I get off the coaching call and I'm like, what could you have done better? So it's the same thing with your ads. What could you have done better? Not touch it. Like, actually let something work. And just dial up the budget and scale it. So stacking changes resets the learning it over tinkering leads to frustration. So if performance dips right after you change something, then that's probably your indicator that you were the issue. And so go back and see when did performance dip and compare when it dipped to the previous period and undo the change or revert back. You can always go back to what existed, right? If you have a past campaign that killed it, what's the harm in reactivating it and adding some new ads in there? Okay, so that's why I want you to make very limited changes at a time. And typically, but not always, I teach my clients when. But the summary is on average you're going to stay within like 15 to 35% budget changes. There will be times where we're going to 10 exit, no problem. But that's going to depend on the scenario. So just let things stabilize. You didn't break it, you just interrupted its thinking. Next thing is budget to data misalignment. So if you have too little spend, you're going to have too little signals for it to actually learn from. And if you scale too quickly, you might have instability. That's why even my clients that are seven and eight figure entrepreneurs, they're like, can I just start out at 20 grand a day? No, I want you to start out a little bit lower and then we'll make sure that it's right and then we'll scale it. Because I don't want you to just spend this money willy nilly without knowing if it's the right thing. Trust me, I'm the person who will advocate for an unlimited budget. But sometimes you gotta start small so that you can grow. The next one is audience and targeting drifting. A lot of times your impressions and CPNs will shift after editing an audience or a location or adding an exclusion. And so sometimes you just need to revert back to the exact targeting you had before and go back to your most proven audiences and say, let me make a winners campaign where you're setting it up with the top audiences, the top ads, the top landing pages, the top messaging, the top settings. That worked. Another thing I see with our method specifically is because there is no place on the Internet that there's no amount of free content that exists on the Internet. I have not seen a single piece of content where someone teaches the method that we teach for our clients. No one. So I know that sometimes what happens with our clients is sometimes they drift beyond our method. And that's why we like to say when you change the variables, you can change the results. So it's like, I don't want you to change. I want you to do the structure perfectly. Because someone will be like, it's not working. I'm like, correct. Because you haven't implemented the method properly. Let's go back, let's edit this. Let me give you some feedback here. And let's get this set up right so that you can give the method an opportunity to work. I actually did get a message today. I was actually gonna look at it while I was here. It was from a client that has an Eight Figure Inc. 5000 business. And it's so crazy. This is, this is insane. I can't tell you who this is, but it says your prospecting video campaign is crushing their old cost per lead of 45 and 52. And we are getting $28 a lead, which is freaking insanity. So that's what's really cool is people that are spending, you know, six figures a week on ads are trying our method and like, whoa, this is different. And I'm like, yes, you can't get this out on the free world on the Internet. And so following the method that is proven is helpful. And then you can modify after but not before, right? You can, you can make your latte and add almond milk to it. After you know how to actually make the latte, get the espresso right. All right, last but not least is policy and quality hit. So if your ad copy is getting triggered or flagged or you need to change to safer language, then sometimes you have to submit an appeal and that alone can be the thing that's causing it to shift performance. So sometimes it's just limiting you and you don't even realize it. All right, last but not least, these last couple of things are like, I really just want you to be able to compare periods. Like compare when it worked to the previous and investigate. Use AI to help you connect the dots on what's different. Because sometimes in Google it's like, oh, you were just spending way more on this keyword than that one during this period. No wonder the performance changed. Or oh, this top ad just stopped working. We just need to duplicate the best, eliminate the worst and just go from there, right? So just remember, nothing is ever final. Nothing is ever done. Creatives can fatigue. Like truly some ads just stop working. And so we need to get new creative up in there, make some new stuff. Sometimes audiences shift, messaging evolves. The algorithm is always going to find what works and when it stops working, it gets confused. And so that's when you feeling empowered to know your next move makes the biggest difference. Which is why we created the Win with Paid Ads challenge. It's five days. It's day one, messaging what you say. Day two, setting where you place your ads. Day three, targeting who you get your ads in front of. Day four, testing how you improve your ads. Day five, profiting and scaling, which is ultimately what you really want, right? So we pick different business owners in there and we say here's what your, your method, your strategy should look like. So if you want to know what your next moves are, there's so many next moves. We give in the five day Win with Paid Ads challenge. So when you click the link below, I get to see you there. And I hope this was helpful. As you think about just being a detective, spending time in the data looking was right, was wrong. Getting your mindset right, looking at the big picture and the nitty gritty is it tracking what can you change so that you get your performance right on track. So I just want you to know that if you sell something that you know that people want, there's always a next move. There is always another platform. That's why we don't just teach Facebook and Instagram. It's Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Spotify and Amazon for a reason. Because I want you to have these other pieces or places where people are finding you automatically so that you can become findable and not just easiest to find, but also most top of mind. Which is why we talk about how all of these strategies work together. So that when you have a dip, you can always have a next move. If you are in one of those places right now where you're like, it's just not working like I want. I just want to encourage you. It is possible. Do not give up. It is very, very, very hard to beat someone who will not quit. And if you're a rainmaker, that's you. You've got this. Go advertise your name, make it rain. And I will see you on the next episode.
Host: Ashley Brock
Date: June 18, 2026
In this episode, Ashley Brock dives deep into the challenges business owners face when their ads suddenly decline in performance. She explores the underlying reasons why ads "stop working," and offers a strategic, step-by-step troubleshooting process. The episode provides a comprehensive mix of mindset advice, big-picture strategy, and detailed tactical guidance, empowering listeners to diagnose and resolve ad performance issues confidently.
Don’t Panic: Distinguish Between a Blip and a Trend
Mindset Check: Is the Problem Actually the Ads?
Step Zero: Clarity Before Action
Leverage AI for Unbiased Feedback
1. Tracking Integrity
2. Offer Clarity
3. Message-to-Market Match
4. The “I Only Changed One Thing” Trap
5. Sales Process Weaknesses
6. Seasonality and External Forces
Funnel Integrity
Objective Mismatch
Premature Optimization
Budget and Data Alignment
Audience and Targeting Drift
Policy or Quality Issues
Using Period Comparisons & AI
Ashley’s advice is both empathetic and practical, blending actionable strategy with tough love and personal anecdotes. She encourages tenacity and strategic thinking over impulse reactions: "Do not give up. It is very, very, very hard to beat someone who will not quit." (01:04:02)
For listeners struggling with ad performance, this episode offers reassurance, clarity, and a clear path forward—plus an invitation to Ashley's 5-day “Win With Paid Ads” challenge for a deeper dive into solving these problems.