Reservations Breakdown FB Ads

Well, Andrew, it's that time of week again. It's Facebook.

Thursday. We're gonna break them down. I'm Jeff Harrison.

Hey, I'm Andrew Mogoli.

Welcome to reservations. This is kind of the fun part of the week. It's never meant to be a negative.

No, it's meant to be a positive.

But before we get going.

Yeah.

There was something you found that was very challenging today. And you went to a very popular city. Tell us about that.

I did, I did. I went to Santa Monica virtually. I thought I was out there last week teaching and I was looking around at all the cool restaurants and some really nice restaurants in Santa Monica. So I thought, you know, I'm gonna go check out to see which restaurants in Santa Monica are running Facebook ads. And I gotta tell you, once again, I had trouble, trouble finding anyone, anyone running ads on Facebook in Santa Monica.

Wow.

I would have. I would easily have said that. I went through 30, 30 different Facebook pages for restaurants and found nothing terrible. And the ones I did find were interesting at best.

You know, the interesting part about this, Andrew, is we're gonna see, and I know it's not gonna be that far in the future. Maybe 6 months, 12 months, 18 months where people are gonna say, God, I wish I had advertised on Facebook when they were only, you know, $5 leads and now they're $80. Because as these major manufacturers, major players jump on that, what's gonna happen is gonna drive it up. Because there's not gonna.

They're really. Well, yeah, well, speaking about, let's, let's jump in the boat. Let's go, let's go over to.

Let's do it. So we're sharing our screen. You might see a little bit of a crazy.

Matrix style looking video right now, but we're going to jump in. And our first little ad that I saw was from Tacos Super Galito.

Yeah.

And now this ad here. These guys have got a 25,000 followers here, Jeff, which is pretty cool.

That's great.

20, 25,000 followers on their page, which is awesome. And I think part of the reason why is because they're buying their followers. Right? So here's the ad. This is it where if we go down there, we got a little video. It's a 15 second video. It just show and you can play it, play along, but no talking, no sound. It's just some pictures of their food, their truck and so on. Great Mexican food. For any occasion, we do catering. Good to know, but that's it. The call to action, Jeff. Which Is what One of those ones I really don't be fan of. Like our page. Like our page. These guys are spending money on people liking their page, which ultimately.

These days doesn't bring money in the door. Right. So they have 25,000 followers, which is good. I'd love to be able to see these people retarget. I'm gonna highly guess that they're not doing anything like that or they're not running any other ads because it's not popping up here in the information. They're not running any other ads to people who like their page either. So, Taco Super Galita, good on you for running ads. Hopefully you learn a little bit about this and say, well, how else can we do this better? Because it's throwing money away.

Yeah. You know, again, it's on a vanity. That vanity metric. Liking the page. There's no way to collect people's names and email addresses. There's nothing, you know, because they're a free food truck. Is this.

No, they're not actually, but they're showing their food truck.

Oh, I see. So they have.

Yeah.

Oh, I got you. Well, you know, the thing about it is, is we do catering, but they have this truck. So I guess it's not a food truck, but that's.

I thought it was a food truck first. Looks like when I saw it, I thought, oh, this is a food truck ad. And then I realized it's not just a food truck ad. It's a restaurant ad as well. Now, they could do two things here, because they got a restaurant where people come in and they've got catering. I would be split. Splitting your ads up and running ads to two different types of people. Because you're in Santa Monica, lots of office people, Lots of people work there. Run an ad for catering. That's your clientele for your catering side of your business. For your restaurant side of your business. Do a different ad. Don't put a truck in there. If I want to go out and eat good Mexican food, I don't want it to be from a truck. If I'm intending to go to a restaurant. Not saying your food is bad. I'm just saying that the mentality is, I'm going to a restaurant to sit down. I don't want to sit down. And plastic knives and forks out in front of a truck.

Yeah, it would be interesting to find out, hey, why are they even running this ad? Is it just. Hey, we just want to get people. Be in front of people. I'm looking here. I don't see I see nothing where it tells me where to go. No, there's no address, there's no phone number. It just says there's 24,475 followers that. Like this.

If you do click on the homepage, I'm wondering if the address is over there. It's got a lot address on the right hand side and stuff like that. But still it's a, it's a couple of steps. So think about it. The ad is going to appear in front of somebody. You're asking them to like the page. If they want to know the address of that joint, they have to go and find it. And you're making them work. Yeah, not a good, not a good move. So good pickup. Good pickup. All right, that's Tacos Super Galito. Let's move on. This one here is called Native Santa Monica. And Native Santa Monica has a few ads running. Very, very image driven. Focus here. What I do like about this, they've got the Book now buttons. You can see the Book now buttons. They got some great imagery if you click on the Book now buttons. Jeff, let's just take a look at this. The Book now buttons go to their website and it takes you straight to the reservation page. Excellent. Yeah, it's really good. I'm happy with these guys. I think a stronger call to action on the ads in the first place.

Would have been better. Like what do you want them to do? But overall, they're doing the right thing. They're directing them to a very visually stimulating website. Easy to book if you click on that Book Now. Easy Read now Book now button pop up comes along with time and dates and how many people you want to actually book in and that sort of stuff. So very simple.

Great.

I like the user experience on this one. So good on these guys for doing that. As I said, the only improvement I would say is give them a bit more of a call to action. Like book in for today's lunch or whatever it may be. So you can see they've got about six or seven ads I think running. I'm not sure who they're targeting in this case, but overall, give it a good score.

One thing I would look at here, now, they may just be doing some testing here, but if you look at their content as far as their written copy and expression of love through food by that particular person, I'm not going.

To say I think that might be their chef.

Yeah. But it says the same thing on every one of them.

Yeah, right.

It doesn't. It's like wouldn't I. Wouldn't you like to know what that really is?

Right, Exactly.

I mean, is that a dessert? Is that a beverage?

What is that you work shot? So, yeah, I mean, the food looks great. If I wanted to order that, I don't know what it's called, and I'd go there and say, oh, I want that food that was in the ad.

Yeah, I mean, I like that. The food that hugs, heals the soul. Local food. Check our amazing community hour offers or Community hour offers.

I don't think it's a plug. I think it's a heavy thing, but it's.

But what I'm looking at is I'm wondering if they're running. If they're running like, a series of test ads with, like, using a new Facebook thing that will split up. Because they have a lot of ads in here.

They do.

And it looks like almost everything's identical with the exception of the image.

Yeah, I'm running a test. But anyway, overall, that's pretty good.

Okay.

All right, last two. This one here is Sushi Oroku. They're running an ad. This is an Instagram ad now. Okay, so we're looking at Instagram. We're on Facebook, but we're looking at their Instagram ads. Okay, so you can see here, it says, visit their Instagram profile. So if you click on the Instagram profile, visit the Instagram profile button down the bottom. You may need to be logged in for this. Let's see. Maybe not, but what they're doing is they're showing you. Here's the thing with this is that they've got this exquisite beachfront sushi in Japanese cuisine. The only place we can put a URL or a clickable link in Instagram is in the bio where we are right now. If you click on that IG delivery, what we find is it's actually a chain of hotels or a restaurant group, IDG Group. And. And we'll see that if you scroll down just a little bit down the bottom, you've got order online. So you're not really booking, you're ordering online, and you've got four different restaurants to choose from. Personally, I'd be saying, let's run these restaurants separately. So we're not running the same Instagram. Because this. Remember, we found this through Roku Sushi Roku. Right. We found that through there. Now all of a sudden, you're taking us to a confusing spot. I'm not sure if I'm at Roku Sushi Roku or Katana or any of the Others. Right. So you want to make sure that you're telling people the story is continuing from what they saw in the ad in the first place.

So would you take it further as I'm going through here, Andrew? So like, as an example, that's the Pasadena place. Then I would click to here and I would then put that URL.

So you run an ad to people in Pasadena. Don't run an ad to people everywhere. Run an ad to people in Pasadena. Target those people and put the Pasadena link there to book a time for the Pasadena location for people in Pasadena.

Yeah, I think here's a big takeaway from this gang, is narrow the focus. Don't make it so broad. So when they go to a landing or they go to a page with their website or it's a booking page, that now there's too many distractions because now you're like, if you're gonna make it hard, let's face it, somebody else is gonna make it easy like the one we just saw, and take them right to a booking page. And it goes. It's clean. This is confusing.

In my opinion.

It is, it is a little bit. I mean, great, great, great Instagram page. Lovely pictures, lovely imagery. We're not going to talk about Instagram now, but they've got 6663 followers. Some of these posts should be getting a lot more likes than that. That's another story for another day. Let's flick over to the other one, the final one. And that is a. The gable Santa Monica. Nice looking restaurant. Scroll down. You've got, you've got. Once again, we're going to Instagram. This is another Instagram one. The Gables. Click on the visit Instagram first before we do that. Buckwheat baby cake topped with house made granola and coconut cream. Dig in. Okay, so it looks good. Nice imagery. I think that's. Wait, wait, wait.

It's not nice imagery.

Well, it's a nice picture of a car.

Well, yeah, because I'm seeing hands in the car. I don't really get to see the buckwheat baby tape. I was just. Oh, okay.

All right. I thought you were. I was lucky. Like, like the car on the T shirt. I thought that's what they're advertising.

It's a baby cake.

No, you're right. So here's the thing about these images, by the way. People take these beautiful images and you might have. This may be a. This may be a shot that's portrait, right? And it looks good in portrait. But when Facebook crop it and cut it. All of a sudden, you're looking at the wrong part of the picture. So make sure you check your pictures, because you want to see that. You want to show this housemate granola and can coconut. You don't want to see hand model cutting into it. Yeah, right.

Nice rings.

Yes. But when you click on this Instagram profile, as we open up the Instagram profile, you'll see that once again, it takes us to their. To their bio. And they have a link in their bio. Homestyle California Cuisine, located in the heart of Santa Monica. There's no real call to action there, but once again, click on the website, the website opens up, and you'll see that. Because what's the aim of it? You want people to come and book. Right. It's a home page. It's a homepage again. It's one of those things where you're gonna get people caught up and find out more about it, but they're not gonna take action because they've forgotten what they're doing there.

Yeah.

All right.

So I look at the menu. I find out more about it.

The press, don't get me wrong, I like it very.

I like the colors.

Very beautiful. Like that. But remember, you're running ads. You're trying to get people to book a table, send them to your reservations page.

It looks like a fun place.

Looks like a fun place. Yeah, for sure. I really like it. Like, none of these places. And we want to remind you, we're not knocking any of these places. We just want to try and help. See, there's that image we were talking about. Exactly what I said. I didn't realize I was guessing that's the case, but there it is. Now, it looks good like that, but when Facebook start cropping it, by the way, you can go back in your ad and crop it so that actually you do have the middle part or the part you're looking for. So they should just go back and crop it so we're seeing something that's relevant.

I like that. I like everything about this except that it's, you know, the one thing, the one takeaway that I get from this end, my little input, is this. These people who are running the Facebook ads, they're doing it such a way that it's almost giving Facebook ads a bad name.

Yeah.

Because I bet you if we called any of this and say, let me ask you something. Can you give me your ROI on those ads?

How are they gonna do that and tell you? Zero.

Yeah.

No idea.

Yeah.

So that's all I got for you today. Facebook ad. There's four of them. Some a good one there and a couple of Instagram ones which we haven't looked at before. And there you go. Yeah, hopefully that is good for you guys. Get some good ideas. If you've got any ads that you running a restaurant and you're running your own ads, send us the link. We'll happily dig through them and give you some feedback on them.

I think we should get a hold of sushi real quick because they have like all kinds of locations.

We can probably help them. I'm hungry.

Yeah, me too.

Let's get some food.

All right, well, it's about. Oh, it's 12:27. It's time for us to run and actually, excuse me. It's 8:30 in the morning. A little after 8:30. My apologies.

It's really not if I'm ready for breakfast, I want to get for breakfast.

All right, guys, thank you for joining us. Make sure to join us tomorrow for Q and A Friday, right?

Oh, yeah.

We've got a really good question, Andrew.

Oh, yes, it's related to. Can't wait to today's topic. I mean.

All right, we'll see you tomorrow. We are. We're working our way out of this one. Have a great week.