Have you ever hired a marketing firm that you really thought understood your business and spent literally thousands of dollars on “the right” marketing campaign, only to walk away with little – if anything – to show for it? Of course you have – it’s happened to most financial advisors.
What I want to talk about today involves an opportunity to avoid this type of situation in the future. In my experience, the best way to do this involves really building a marketing strategy for your RIA firm that is not only future proof, but that also exists totally independently on top of the efforts of whatever vendor you choose to use.
The problem with the situation outlined above is that in most cases, you are paying money for ads that only goes towards developing your vendor’s Facebook Pixel, not yours. When the day comes and that vendor is out of the picture, you’re then forced to start from scratch with a new agency – and a new Facebook Pixel. All of that money spent on the previous campaign will be gone, along with any of the successes it generated as well (if it was ever able to do so).
What is a Facebook Pixel and Why is It So Important?
But first, it’s important to get a better understanding of what a financial advisor Facebook Pixel actually is, and why it’s so important to the ongoing success of your campaign.
At its core, a Facebook Pixel is a powerful analytics tool that gives you the chance to accurately measure the effectiveness of your Facebook advertising for financial advisors, all by better understanding the actions that people are actually taking on your website.
Facebook Pixels are great for a wide range of different goals, including ones like:
- Making sure that your ads are getting seen by the right people to begin with. Whether you’re trying to generate new leads or get website visitors to take a specific action on your site, the insight generated by your Facebook Pixel can absolutely help you do it.
- Increase sales opportunities. With a Facebook Pixel, you can set up automatic bidding to make sure that your ads are reaching the types of people who are most likely to become new clients in the first place.
- Measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Facebook Pixels are a perfect opportunity to understand the true impact of your ads by allowing you to learn what happens after people see them. To that end, it’s a great way to learn what about your efforts is working and, more importantly, what isn’t. This allows you to double down on the former while removing the latter whenever you’re able to.
In a technical sense, a Facebook Pixel is a simple block of code that you place on your website. Once installed, it collects meaningful data that can then be used to fuel all of the insights described above.
The problem with relying on your vendor’s Facebook Pixel instead of one of your own is that all of this insight essentially belongs to them. Sure, they may use it to make better and more informed decisions with regards to your current campaign. But in the event that you choose to sever that relationship, they’re going to end up taking all of that analytical data with them. You’re left to start all over. Again. And again. And again…
That’s why it’s so important to make sure that you’re building a marketing strategy that rides independently above whatever vendor you use. Your audience will still be your audience, and to get the most return from your adspend you need to be able to continue to build on that foundation moving forward. If you’re forced to start from scratch every time you bring a new vendor into the fold, you may see some short-term gains initially – but your long game is absolutely going to suffer.
The Solution: Taking Back Control Of Your Facebook Marketing
At this point, the solution to the aforementioned problem becomes clear. Regardless of what vendor you’re using or what they claim to be able to do for you, you need to insist on using YOUR Facebook ads account and YOUR financial advisor Facebook Pixel for the duration of your campaign. If this vendor is truly acting with your best interests at heart, they should have absolutely no problem with this relationship. If they do object, they’re likely not the “partner” you thought they were.
Beyond that, you should also make an effort to work with a firm that actually knows the ins and outs of Facebook advertising for financial advisors. Every industry is totally unique unto itself, and attracting new business for something like a retail store involves an entirely different process than the one you would use to build business for a highly specialized services organization like your own.
Think about it like this: success in the fast-paced digital era of advertising depends on your ability to get as specific with your marketing collateral as possible. It’s all about getting the right message in front of the right person at exactly the right time. If someone tries to cram your marketing into a “one size fits all” box, they’re going to fail at all three of those goals.
You don’t want people to vaguely understand what you do, or “kind of get a sense” of why they may want to contact you. You want them to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you understand their problems, you believe in your goals and nobody but you can help them accomplish them. To get to that point, you need a firm that understands how financial advisors work and what they can do for people and you shouldn’t accept anything less than that.
Over the years I’ve seen far too many firms think that they’re making a good move by partnering with a local digital agency, only to get burned once they realize that they’re a kind of “guinea pig” that the agency used to learn the specifics of the financial advisor niche. You never want to be in a position where someone is “learning on the job,” making every mistake in the book with your campaign just to be able to tell their next client that they understand financial advisors.
By far, the fastest way to get the results that you’re after is to use a marketing firm that actually specializes in financial advisors because they already know what creative materials work and what copy text works to get leads. They’ve used these tried-but-true techniques over and over again in different locations across the United States and they know how to do the same for you, too.
If you take that level of industry specific experience and combine it with your own financial advisor Facebook Pixel, you’ll be left with something that isn’t just valuable, but that will also stand the test of time. Even if that relationship ends one day, you’ll still be able to build on the insight they leveraged to accomplish something incredible with your campaign. You’ll have a strategy that you know works and that will continue to work for years to come.
Additional Considerations About Facebook Advertising for Financial Advisors
At that point, you’ll be able to generate 20 or so leads on a consistent basis, often for as little as $500 per month. This will be true whether you’re advertising your next webinar, are promoting a new white paper you’ve written or are working with some other type of lead magnet altogether.
Keep in mind, however, that to properly build your financial advisor Facebook Pixel it takes at least 50 leads, but really 200 is better. This is because a valuable Facebook Pixel isn’t as simple as flipping a light switch – it needs to be properly trained on what your audience looks like and how it operates and to do that, it needs to be able to ingest as much data as possible. Only after that point will you be able to get in and perform some much-needed optimizations for your campaign to really take your efforts to the next level.
Based on clients I’ve worked with in the past, to get to that point you can expect to spend anywhere from between $1,500 and $2,000 at the start. Thankfully, that cost will soon begin to drop as the Facebook Pixel learns what is converting (and, crucially, what isn’t).
Harnessing the Full Power of Facebook to Your Advantage
At Midstream Marketing, we actually have our own proprietary method of using Facebook that has been proven to help dramatically accelerate this learning process in a way that shortens your pathway to success at every opportunity. We’ve been able to generate an average of 20 webinar registrations for as little as $500 in adspend on behalf of our clients which, compared to what you’d spend via other avenues, is a very big difference indeed.
So if you’re at the point where you understand the importance of building your own financial advisor Facebook Pixel but still aren’t sure where to begin, don’t worry – we’re here to help. Please contact either myself or one of my colleagues at Midstream Marketing today to set up your free analysis of both your existing Facebook Pixel and your Facebook Ads account.
When we’re finished you’ll be armed with the actionable information you need to make the best possible choices regarding your campaign – insight that you can take with you regardless of whether or not you choose to continue to work for us.
