How to Run Facebook Ads from Scratch | The Authors Unite Show - Kris Sugatan

Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Authors Unite Show. Today I got Chris Sugatan with us. Welcome to the show.

Ah, that was good, Tyler. I love it. Yeah, Sugatan. I grew up with a lot of other Chrises, and so people called me by my last name. And when they did, they would ninja kick, literally kick my last name in the air when I would walk in the room. So when I decided to start my company, I was like, you know, suetan, and everybody just ninja kicks.

Yeah, I love it. And actually, just a little side note for me growing up, because there's a lot of Tylers out there actually, so people just call me by my last name Wagner, but they shorten it to Wags. They'd be like, yo, Wags, what's up?

Isn't it endearing?

It is. I actually, I liked it, you know, Wags. It was like short, it was cool. So either way. But yeah, so tell us a little bit more about you, what you do, and then we'll dive in.

Yeah, so I was actually a former career waitress and I was impacted heavily by Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Workweek when I walked into Barnes Noble and saw it in the bestsellers. This was when, oh gosh, 2009, I want to say, was when I discovered it and I became obsessed and I studied entrepreneurship and then I got my opportunity to start my own agency where we have now scaled 6 businesses to $10 million and we continue to scale another 6. Um, and in the span of less than 1 year, I now have 20 team members and we have also surpassed that 7-figure mark. So I started from having to sell my mattress and my camera. That's where I started so I can have $375. And I, $375 to last me for 3 months. And I asked 3 of my friends if I can couch it for 1 month so I didn't have to worry about rent. And I had a spreadsheet that allocated beans, rice, chicken strips for 3 months so I can stretch that out because I did not want to go back into being a server anymore. And that was the start of my journey. No joke to where I am now. It's phenomenal.

Yeah, no, very, very cool. The first, so first question that pops to my mind is, so these, these businesses that you scaled to $10 million, these were, were these businesses that you found that already had some revenue going and then you guys knew like the techniques to get from like $1 to $10 million? Is that what it was?

Yeah, they were generating somewhere between, um, $3,000 per month, um, to like $30,000 per month. And then we take them to 7 figures per month in basically around 6 months.

Okay, so tell us that process because I know a lot of the listeners to this show are probably around that like $10-20K a month range. So how do you get from, from there? Because I know it's way different. It's a way different structure.

Um, yeah, so our main catalyst is Facebook ads, and I know that your listeners are probably either have dabbled in it, tried it, failed at it, or have attempted to get freelancers to get them to scale and build a funnel for them. And that has all— they've probably lost money. For us, my entire team is self-taught. Myself is self-taught. I started off as a freelancer experimenting with Facebook ads. The great thing about your audience and, you know, to the aspiring authors is that you guys are all creatives and Facebook ads, a lot of the advice that is out there right now are outdated. Even the e-courses are outdated because a lot of the e-courses out there don't really emphasize a lot on creatives, which is the video ads. Um, And if you are watching an e-course on Facebook ads and they're not covering video ads, this is a big red flag. You need to get a refund and you need to get an e-course that does cover the video ads because that is what is actually going to give you that, get you from $10K to $30K in revenue. Even if you just have a very mediocre campaign structure. But your video ads is really on point, you will start to see some results. And that is one of the reasons why we have been so successful is because when I started the agency, which was last June of 2018, I immediately started it with building a creative team, a videographer and a graphic designer that I brought on board and a video editor. And you really will, and I'm just going to give you guys one tip. Look at all of your, look at all of your top authors that you admire, that you know is generating a million per month. And if you go to their Facebook page, on the right-hand side, it's going to say info and ads. It's a very small link. Okay. And it's, you're going to, it's so easy to miss, but it's there. And when you click on that, a popup is going to come up and then there's going to be another small link in that popup on the right-hand side, bottom right-hand side. So it's going to say Ads Library. And if you click on that, you can spy on all of the ads that they have running right now. And when you do that, you'll be able to see what are the most repetitive ads that they are doing and you can literally intercept that idea because that author has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads. I will guarantee that. And if you have the ability to just look at what are the ads that they're using repetitively, it's because that's the ad that's working. And you can, you can get ideas from that and customize it to yourself, your message, but you need to follow that template. And so I would have to say that That is very actionable that you can do right now. And if you're running Facebook ads and you're not seeing any results, that is probably like, do this now and you will see your results, your ROAS, your return on ad spend, or your revenue going up as a result of that. So, um, you have, you guys have one thing to leverage and that is your creative side because now what is successful is the video ads. That is what's driving success for scale. And obviously over time then you can hire on a media buyer who will improve on your campaign structure because campaign structure does matter in getting the most return out of your ad spend. But until then, just focus on improving your, your creatives and then you'll see that bad boy scale.

Yeah, no, that is a great tip because most people actually don't know that. Um, I became aware of that, I think it was maybe like a year or two ago. And we've— you're so right with the video. Like, we've seen the most success with video ads, and I think the video ads get more reach, um, as well. At least seems that way.

Um, let me tell you why. Yeah, yeah, because when you understand this Then when you understand this, then everything kind of starts to make sense. Facebook is— you have to think about what is Facebook most interested in. Facebook prioritizes the user's engagement on the platform. So when you create something that engages the users because it feeds their addiction on the platform, which is what Facebook Facebook will not say this, but ultimately that's what they want. Facebook will reward you. So if you have a very engaging video ad, they will actually not only publish, give you more audiences for the people to watch it, but they'll actually give you those audiences at a cheaper rate than a video ad that's not engaging or an image ad that's not engaging. Actually, Facebook punishes you. And charges you more for a disengaging ad to discourage you from advertising on the platform. Now, if you understand, you know, how do I create a super engaging ad, um, things will fall into place for you because Facebook will reward you. And Facebook's algorithm or their, their ads algorithm is the most sophisticated and accurate working AI in today's world because the level of accuracy that they identify the person that is most likely to be interested in your book or in your product is so accurate. I think everybody is saying this because, oh, Facebook's in my thoughts. Like I just thought this and now I'm getting an ad. Um, but what it really is is that it aggregates data really well that they are able to predict what you are interested in next. Yeah, they're not getting in your thoughts, they're just able to predict. Yeah, very well.

It's funny that you said that. I literally had a conversation like Friday, I think it was, I think it was on Friday, with one of my friends, and he's like, dude, I've been having like calls with people, and then like I see an ad about something I spoke about on the call, and there's like all these conspiracy theories going on. I was like, do you have an Alexa or like a Google Home or anything?

He's like Well, the calls are definitely data collection. That's hard data they're collecting. So yeah, they are listening in that sense.

But well, and it's also highly likely, it's like if you're having a conversation about something, it's maybe you searched for it or like, or, you know, maybe you gave that information to Facebook. Like, and it's also every app is like connected to Facebook. So it's like, exactly at this point, I think 99% of people— I'm one of them— I have no idea how much data Facebook has on me, but I would assume it's more than I'm even aware of myself.

Like, yeah, 100%.

Yeah, just because every— like, I have like 50 apps, every app is connected to them, and like, dude, they could tell me more about me than I know about me.

So yeah, yeah, no joke, it's just the truth. I mean, I can't keep track The good thing is that it's anonymous. I mean, and it's not, it's not harmful. People are scared, you know, that, oh, they have all this data on me, but it really is just aggregate to them. There is no value to them, to the data until they see a pattern. So really the value is in the patterns that they see. That's the value, not your particular, like you, Tyler Wagner, right? That's not the value that they get. The value is in being able to collect the data and seeing the patterns and then being able to predict out of those patterns.

Got it. And so are you guys, and I'm sure you are, but are you guys doing like, you know, retargeting and stuff?

Oh, 100%.

Yeah, yeah, because that's what we found is working pretty well for us is like we'll run like a value-add video, right? So it'll be a video just like about you know, how to become a successful author, how to write your book, something along those lines. And then we put a pixel into where that leads to into our site. And if anybody watches 25% more of the video or hits the site, then we have a whole retargeting campaign of like successful testimonials. And we see really good engagement with that, you know, 'cause we know we'll see somebody that like likes like 5 of our successful testimonial retargeting videos. And then we're like, Okay, this person's probably going to fill out the application soon, you know, they're coming in soon. So, I don't know, that's what we've seen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's great. That's a, it's a best practice strategy is what you're implementing actually. And one of those, just to take it a step further, is when you build those retargeting audiences, like for example, Black Friday, We actually don't run any what we call top of funnel ads, meaning that the ads are targeting a completely cold audience that has never heard of you before. We don't run those during Black Friday week. We run ads targeting top of funnel the month before because what we're doing is we're hoarding and building the retargeting audience during Black Friday. And so when you do a launch, this is a strategy that you guys can actually implement both as an author and for you as well, Tyler, is, you know, just at the cheapest cost to you. This is where a media buyer, this is their forte. Their forte as an ad buyer on Facebook is to get the cheapest cost to you, right? At the cheapest cost to you, just hoard that. Let's say you're having a launch. Let's say like in 2, in, you know, in 3 months I'm going to be launching my new book, right? The month before, you should be running some video ads to collect those people that would be interested in buying that book. Because then when you retarget, then you have a successful launch because all of a sudden you have a pool of 100,000 people who has expressed that they're interested. And then when you build hype, as you know, when you build hype around something, people become very interested, especially if you give exclusive discounts, for example, or exclusive access.

Um, you know, and I'm really, I'm really glad we're talking about this because I just think most people do fail with Facebook ads and the reason they fail is because they're focused on just like, you know, one picture campaign that's optimized for clicks. I think is like the average, or they just boost a post. Like that's their normal first thing because it's the easiest thing to do. And then they get, you know, maybe they get like 200 likes on the post, but they don't get any like conversions or anything. And they're like, well, that was a waste of $100 or whatever. Well, it's like, it is so much deeper than that, man.

Yeah, and really, for me, just to not discourage anybody just starting this, I self-taught myself for over a period of, over a period of 2 months, but I just watched one e-course. And immediately, I'm the kind of person that when I read a book, I don't finish because I don't pass until I've done that thing on that page. So I implement as I learn. And I think by, I would say, the 4th week of this one particular e-course that I learned on Facebook ads, I quickly implemented and I was able to see success relatively fast after, just with the media buying side, right? Just understanding like what you said. And then when I started implementing video ads, that's when I saw a lot of the success. When I was like a mediocre, I'm talking about super beginner Facebook ads person, I was able to turn $10K into $30K, which is where a lot of you guys are at. So I'm just saying that it is so doable to do yourself. Don't overwhelm yourself into thinking, like, oh gosh, like I need to hire somebody because this seems overwhelming. But really just take it step by step. Give yourself about 5 weeks, dedicate watching one really good eCourse that includes creatives as part of the eCourse. And then you'll see better success than you have. And do not pass up on this opportunity for Facebook ads. Do not give up because it is amazing. And who knows how long Facebook is going to last this way? Who knows? The government can be like, Facebook, we're shutting you down. And then we're like, now we've got to figure out Google, which is really terrible.

No, absolutely. And, um, so, you know, before, before we wrap up, because this was a lot of value on Facebook ads, I want to know, I want to know a little bit more about you. And I think one of the coolest parts of this interview is that you self-taught, right? I mean, you like got courses and stuff, but ultimately you self-taught. You had $375, if I remember exactly. Cause I think that's like the biggest thing that holds people back too, is it's like, they're like, I don't have any money. And it's like, well, you're a prime example of like, yo, self-taught.

Yeah.

Like that, like no excuses. So, um, but when you're not doing this, when you're not scaling businesses, what do you, I know you're in Mexico City right now, so I probably like to travel and stuff. Like what's more about you? What do you like to do?

Oh, I'm obsessed with what I do. It's not even work. Um, Honestly, but you know what I really do, do a lot of my downtime is I invest in my spirituality a lot. My, my spiritual— I think that one of the most defining turning points in my life, again, I was a career waitress for a long time, for about 7 years, and I was trying to get out year 2, year 3, and I was like, crap, man, for 4 years nothing is working. And I would have to say that the biggest shift shift when things started working was when I started listening to a gal guy. Gal guy. Now you have to investigate on why it's a gal guy. And it's not what you think. That's not what you think. But I started listening to Abraham Hicks. Have you heard of Abraham Hicks?

Yeah, yeah.

Yep. I started listening to Abraham Hicks. And the one piece of advice that I got from listening to Abraham Hicks was to listen to your intuition and don't plan things 6 months to a year ahead. Just keep following your excitement, even if you don't know what's around that corner, because if you continue to follow your what excites excites you, not knowing what's on the other side, and no matter what, everything is going to work out. I was a planner, so I planned things down to the T, and nothing worked out. So I implemented this 2 advices, listen to your intuition and just follow your excitement, not knowing what's around the corner, and this was when I had the $375 to start with. My intuition was screaming, go on Upwork. And I remember thinking Upwork is like crappy businesses. Don't do that. That's temporary. But actually, and I remember resisting it intellectually, intellectually, my brain was like, that makes no sense. You're not going to find a lot of opportunity there because there's just a lot of small businesses there and it's bad, whatever.

Yeah.

And, and then, but then I listened to Abraham Hicks, who was like, go with your intuition. So I created a profile and it was actually what brought me to where I am now. I'm not even joking because through Upwork I became a top-rated freelancer. Through becoming a top-rated freelancer, I got a whole bunch of businesses coming to me. This is what enabled me to start my agency and start hiring my first team members. And it's where we are now. And no joke, to this day, as I continue growing these businesses and I am hit with many problems that I have to solve, and there's many paths to the solution, I use the two things. What is my intuition telling me? What, what of the solutions am I most excited to implement? And I don't know what the other side is of that. But it keeps working out.

Yeah, no, this is perfect. Like, um, and it makes so much sense because it's like you can't— there's like no skipping steps, you know? Like, I actually interviewed, and she's now a good friend of mine, and she makes 6 figures a year on Fiverr. She's a Fiverr Pro now, and she writes blog posts for— and, and like, you know, she still has other things that she's doing, but without that like first step nothing would have, you know, came from it. So I mean, it's, you know, that's the thing.

You will be faced with so many what looks like a fork in the road, and you really just need to go with what is the most exciting path for you at that time. And you keep following that, not knowing where it's going to take you. Um, but if you keep going there, You're— it's gonna work out, you know, because one thing, there is a concept about there's us and then there's our higher self. The best way I can say is that us intellectually, the top, the highest peak that we can go is at the top of the valley, the top of the hill, but our higher self is actually resting at the top of the mountain and can see far beyond what you, your physical self can see, or your intellectual brain can see. And so you kind of have to They have given us spiritually the tools of intuition and excitement as our emotion to guide us to what our higher self can see far beyond what we can see. And we gotta, you have to, you know, implement faith and trust, but it's actually also a tool that helps me manage my fear and anxiety because every time you're just like, I know it's going to work out. It may not seem like it now, but I know it's going to work out. And It's just, you know, as next year we're going to $10 million, personally, that is the growth rate that I'm going to take our company to. From, you know, we just, we achieved the $1 million mark. Now we're going to $10 mil next year. And for me, it's just like, that excites me. I have no idea how that's going to work out, but I'm going to keep going there.

Yeah, no, you're so right. I mean, it's, if you don't love it and it's not exciting, then you can't put in those 12-hour days. I mean, maybe you can a little bit, but not for long. Um, so the excitement's got to be there. That's the key. Um, so listen, this was awesome. I love what you're doing. Um, last question I have for you, because literally all of our audience, like, I think could get better at this even if they're already excelling at it. Um, where, if they are interested in what you're doing, how can they get in contact with you? Like website and then best social platform to connect with you.

Yeah, so, um, Sugatan.io is our website. We scale ecommerce businesses, but a lot of the principles that we do, basic principles, are applicable to any industry and niche because our template is literally a template. It is applied to every ecommerce business. It doesn't matter what niche or what vertical they're in. Then our social media, we have a private Facebook group that is free for anyone to join. It's called Facebook Ads for Ecommerce Growth on Facebook. This is where we, my team and myself, gives everything away for free in terms of what we've learned. It is for ecommerce specifically. If you guys are self-publishing, man, you guys are smart, really incredibly smart to do this because it is the time to do it and use Facebook as your catalyst. Figure it out. It is figureoutable. 15-year-olds are figuring out Facebook. I'm not even joking. And so you can figure it out. Just be persistent about it and, and join these private Facebook groups that like, you know, teach you how to use Facebook ads because you get real feedback from real people that are implementing some of these strategies. All the tools are accessible to you. So beautiful.

Thank you again. Yeah.

Thanks, Tyler. Thanks for having me. Good luck, everybody.