The #1 Reason Your Facebook Ads Fail

Summary

The speaker emphasizes the importance of testing business ideas before fully investing in ads, products, or services. They introduce the concept of 'baking muffins,' which involves creating minimal viable versions of products, ads, or business concepts to gauge market demand before committing significant time or money. This strategy allows entrepreneurs to test ideas, adjust based on feedback, and minimize losses. The speaker shares personal experiences, highlighting the mistakes of launching businesses without testing and explaining how small tests can lead to success in scaling ads and business growth effectively.

Takeaways

• 🚀 **Test Before Scaling**: Before investing heavily in ads, test your business or product idea to ensure it will work and be profitable.
• 💡 **Concept Validation**: Validate your idea with minimal investment to avoid significant losses if the product or business model fails.
• 🍪 **'Baking Muffins' Approach**: Create a minimal version of your product or service to test market response before scaling up.
• 🛒 **Mock E-commerce Store**: Set up a mock e-commerce store to test how potential customers interact with your product without actually selling anything.
• 💳 **Credit Card Trick**: Use the act of collecting credit card information as a conversion metric, but ensure not to process any payments during testing.
• 📈 **Market Feedback**: Use the feedback from your ads to understand what the market wants and refine your product or service accordingly.
• 🔄 **Iterate Variations**: Test different variations of your product to see which one the market responds to best.
• 📊 **Analyze Ad Performance**: Monitor how much money is made back from the ads to determine the potential profitability of the product.
• 📝 **Sales Page and Call Booking**: For software or service-based businesses, use a sales page and call booking system to gauge interest before development.
• 🎥 **Mockups and Videos**: Use mockups or scripted videos to represent products that don't exist yet to test market response.
• 💼 **Feedback for Product Development**: Gather initial feedback on your product to guide its development and ensure it meets market needs.

Q & A

What is the main strategy the speaker suggests before running ads?

The speaker suggests testing your business or product idea on a small scale before investing time and money, which they refer to as 'baking muffins.' This helps confirm if the market wants the product before launching full ads.

Why does the speaker recommend this strategy, even for advanced business owners?

The speaker emphasizes that many advanced business owners, like beginners, can waste money if they don't test their products or ads first. This strategy minimizes the risk of failure and ensures that the product will sell before significant investment.

What does 'baking muffins' mean in the context of launching a business?

'Baking muffins' refers to creating a minimal viable version of the business or product (e.g., a basic website or sales page) to test whether customers are interested before fully developing the product.

How does the speaker suggest testing a product without having the actual product ready?

The speaker suggests setting up a basic website or sales page with product images and pitches, running ads to it, and seeing if there is customer interest. You can either not accept payments or refund them immediately if someone tries to buy.

What example does the speaker give from their personal experience to highlight the importance of testing?

The speaker shares a personal story about launching a supplement company and spending time on manufacturing, webinars, and ads, only to find the product didn’t sell well. They later realized they could have saved time and money by testing first.

What is the biggest risk of not testing a product idea before launching it, according to the speaker?

The biggest risk is wasting months and thousands of dollars building a product that the market doesn’t want or that can’t be sold effectively through ads. Testing prevents this risk.

How does this testing strategy work for different variations of the same product?

The speaker recommends running ads for different versions of the product idea (e.g., different types of protein powder) to see which one resonates best with the market before developing the product.

How does this approach apply to software or SaaS products?

For SaaS products, the speaker suggests creating a mock version of the software, such as a UI demo or a scripted video, and running ads to see if potential customers are interested before fully developing the software.

What analogy does the speaker use to explain the testing process?

The speaker compares testing a product idea to baking cupcakes for a wedding cake. Instead of making a full wedding cake upfront, bakers make several cupcake samples to determine which flavor the customer prefers. The same approach should be taken with product testing.

What is the ultimate goal of this strategy, according to the speaker?

The goal is to design a business that will be profitable and scalable through ads, based on what the market responds to, without wasting time and resources on products that won’t sell.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Importance of Testing Ads Before Launching

Before investing in any ads, whether you are a beginner or advanced, it's crucial to test if they will work to avoid wasting time and money. Many businesses fail when they launch ads without first ensuring there’s demand for their product. The speaker shares a personal example of launching a supplement company, investing in products and ads, only to see it fail. The key lesson here is to validate your idea by testing it on a small scale before fully committing.

05:01

🧁 The Concept of 'Baking Muffins' to Test Ideas

'Baking muffins' refers to testing a minimal version of your business idea to determine if it works before fully investing in it. Instead of creating a complete product or service, you make a basic version, like a landing page or ad, and see if people show interest. The speaker explains how this approach would have saved them time and money in past business ventures. They suggest running ads for products that don’t exist yet to gauge interest before finalizing anything.

Keywords

💡Ads

Ads, or advertisements, are a critical component of the video's theme, referring to the promotional content used to market products or services. The video emphasizes the importance of testing ads before investing heavily in them, to ensure they will be effective. An example from the script is the speaker's own experience with a supplement company, where they invested in products and manufacturing but failed to sell well through ads.

💡Baking Muffins

The term 'baking muffins' is used metaphorically in the video to describe the process of testing business or product ideas with minimal investment. It suggests creating a small-scale version of the product or service to gauge market interest before scaling up. The video uses this term to illustrate a low-risk approach to validating business ideas, as opposed to fully developing a product and then finding out it doesn't sell.

💡Conversion

In the context of the video, 'conversion' refers to the act of turning a website visitor into a customer through an ad. The speaker discusses how to test ads by driving traffic to a product page and seeing if visitors 'convert' or complete a purchase, even if they are not actually charged (as a way to measure interest without a full product launch).

💡E-commerce

E-commerce is a key theme in the video, representing the online retail environment where the speaker discusses testing product ideas. The video suggests creating a simple e-commerce website to test product concepts before fully investing in inventory and production, as a way to minimize financial risk.

💡Investment

Investment is a recurring concept in the video, relating to the funds, time, and effort put into creating a product or business. The speaker advises against heavy upfront investment without first testing the viability of the product or service through ads, to avoid significant financial loss.

💡Market Validation

Market validation is the process of confirming that a product or service is desired by the target market. The video stresses the importance of market validation before launching ads or investing in a product, using the 'baking muffins' approach to test ideas and gather feedback.

💡Product Idea

A product idea refers to a concept for a new product or service that a business might offer. The video encourages testing product ideas through ads to see if they resonate with potential customers, rather than assuming they will be successful.

💡Scalability

Scalability in the video refers to the ability to increase the size or scope of a business or product idea. The speaker suggests that once an ad campaign is proven to work through initial tests, it can be scaled up without the risk of losing large investments.

💡Traffic

Traffic in this context refers to the flow of visitors to a website or landing page. The video discusses driving traffic to test pages as a way to see how potential customers interact with ads and product offerings, which helps in determining the success of an ad campaign.

💡Webinar

A webinar is an online seminar or interactive session. The video mentions the speaker's past experience of creating a webinar for a supplement company, which did not sell well despite significant investment, illustrating the importance of testing ads before fully committing to a product launch.

💡Profit Margin

Profit margin is the amount of money left over from sales after all costs have been deducted. The video talks about the importance of designing a business to have a high profit margin when running ads, ensuring that the advertising is not only effective but also financially viable.

Highlights

The importance of testing ads before investing heavily in them.

The concept of 'baking muffins' as a metaphor for testing business ideas.

How to avoid losing money by launching ads without market validation.

The story of a failed supplement company and the lessons learned.

The idea of creating a sales page and ad graphics to test an idea.

Running ads to an e-commerce store without an actual product.

The strategy of not accepting credit card payments during the testing phase.

The danger of spending too much time and money on a product that doesn't sell.

The concept of designing a business around what the market wants for advertising.

How to quickly test different product variations with ads.

The idea of not taking payments while testing ads to avoid ethical issues.

The analogy of baking wedding cakes and testing with cupcakes.

Applying the 'muffin' method to software as a service (SaaS) businesses.

The potential savings in time and money by using the 'muffin' method.

Using mock software or scripted videos to gather initial feedback.

The importance of building businesses based on what works in advertising.

How to transition from a fake product to a real product after successful testing.

Access to the speaker's ad scripts and strategies for growing a business.

Transcripts

so before you run any ads especially if

you're a beginner but this super duper

applies you if you're Advanced and you

actually do something that takes

investment you have to do this this is

going to guarantee that when you

actually start to spend money on ads it

will work it will give you a basically

green light to actually start running

ads for your business and know that they

will work and you can scale them to the

Moon without you investing any money

effort or time and the reason you want

to know this is because 90% of people

not just beginners but Advanced people

all the way to me if you don't do this

you are going to launch ads you're going

to make a new product you're going to

launch a new business this is where it

gets really nasty if you're just

launching businesses without doing this

you're going to lose so much money and

then you put it up on advertising and

then it doesn't work for example I made

a supplement company back in a day I

made a whole webinar from it from it I

invested into the products the

manufacturing the whole shebang and then

I launched ads and it didn't sell well

at all it it it was like selling old

teeth and if you don't know I don't know

if you ever tried to sell old teeth via

ads it doesn't work I don't know why the

Market's not there maybe it's just I'm

before my time in 2025 selling old

people's teeth going to be crispy but

for real you just need to do this one

thing and this will fix all of it it is

called baking muffins so what does this

mean and how does this apply to your

business so baking muffins means making

as little as you can to test whether a

business or product idea works so like

all these videos I try to keep these

short so if you want to see the actual

YouTube ad scripts I use for this how I

test the ads for this on Facebook the

funnels I like to use these will all be

linked at the end of this video and

unlike other channels I don't have some

course to tell you because I've already

made a comical amount of money actually

doing this so you can just sit back

relax and take your skeptical glasses

off so what does this involve well let

me just give you a situation how I could

have determined whether that e-commerce

business that I made would have worked

or not so I made all these supplements

these biohacking supplements and whatnot

I made a big old webinar for them all

the manufacturing everything you know

what I could have done instead of

investing all that money time and effort

I could have just made the sales page

and then the first graphics for the ads

and website and then just made an

e-commerce store and then ran ads to

that e-commerce store without having a

product just made the big old page and

then the pitch and everything in fact I

could have skipped the pitch and just

made a basic e-commerce store and see if

that even gets traction but I know what

you're thinking but Alex what if they

come to the store and buy well right

before they buy I could have just not

accepted their credit card and I could

have counted that as a conversion wait

what am I what am I saying here am I

saying run traffic to websites that

don't actually have a product on them

run traffic to pages that sell products

that don't actually exist and don't

collect money yes that's exactly what

I'm saying here why let me explain so

look the most damaging thing you can

ever do in business is spend a month

making a product making all this stuff

without confirming that the market

actually wants it or most importantly

that it will sell from ads see a few

videos ago I talked about how to build

your business around what the market

wants in terms of advertising how easy

is it to advertise your customer how

unique is your product to get it to your

customer and how easily will you be able

to run ads at a high profit margin

because you are targeting or running ads

in a way that is highly profitable you

design the business for ads but before

we even go and design a business we

don't want to spend months and tens of

thousand of dollars or hundreds of

thousand of dollars or 500s of dollars I

don't know what range of business you're

in making a product and all these things

and then it goes to ads and it doesn't

work what is so much easier to do is you

make the pitch or the product offering

without ever doing anything else so for

example let's imagine I went and just

made an e-commerce website selling a

protein powder let's say I have an idea

or a spin for protein powder and I want

to see if it works what I can do is I

can make a simple

onepage or mostly empty website we don't

want to put a ton of time into this

maybe we have a homepage and then just

the product page selling it I'm assuming

at this point you've been to an

e-commerce webs site where they sell

protein powder or something like that we

put the whole pitch we put an image of

the product on the page we have

everything that we use to sell and then

what we do is we send traffic to that

page and if it doesn't convert we assume

hey this product sucks people don't

actually want this and what we start

doing is we start then running traffic

to different variations of our idea so

we're let's say we have a protein powder

that has vegetables thrown to it then we

have a protein powder that increases

your IQ and then let's say we have a

protein powder that improves your skin I

don't know okay and so what we do is

instead of going and making a

formulation or building a business

around all three of those products what

we're instead going to do is we're going

to run traffic to the page and the

person will go through the site just

like any other site say we're using

Shopify in this example right here we

can build the entire website up until

the cart checkout we can even take the

person's credit card and payment

information and then just refund them

instantly or not take the payments at

all and if you take payments while doing

this you are a stage five poople head

and I'm not suggesting doing that what

we want to do is we want to say hey if I

spend $100 on ads right here how much

money will I make back and very quickly

we'll see oh wait this this product is

actually clicking and advertising this

product is something that people are

actually buying and so we start running

traffic to these pages and of course

we're going to lose money doing this but

not as much money and time as we would

have lost if we launched the entire

business and it didn't work and then

what we're going to quickly do is we're

going to have the market tell us what

variation variation one variation 2

variation three or even confirm entire

business model all together they're

going to tell us what they're looking

for and then then what we're going to do

is we're going to go and start actually

building the product and making the

advertising for this see what a lot of

people do is they make the entire

product business advertising funnels

everything before even testing if the

market wants it that is like baking an

entire wedding cake without tasting what

it tastes like it's like baking an

entire wedding cake without checking if

people actually want it instead what do

people do when they're baking wedding

cakes for weddings they make dozens and

dozens of little cupcakes and then they

give this to the person who's having the

wedding and they say which cupcake do

you like the most and they go this

cupcake and then they make the entire

wedding cake this is what we are doing

with ads so for example what could I

have done better when I was launching my

SAS companies like hyos and my original

autoresponders and other SAS companies

well a lot of times I'd launch a SAS

company and the product would fall flat

and I'd be like oh this doesn't work for

mads I wish I just hadn't invested

hundreds of thousands of dollars to see

if this works or not what I could have

instead done is made maybe just a sales

page for the software and then a call

booking page and then had when it start

getting calls start actually doing the

calls and then at the end of the call

say hey by the way this product isn't

here yet but you can get on the wait

list and I can contact you when it's

here this would have saved me bazillions

of dollars in time because I can get

this entire process right here done in

about two days and see what SAS prodct

will actually get me calls or customers

coming in same can be done in e-commerce

same can be done with virtually anything

I could have made a mock software or a

video of a software that doesn't exist I

could have just had the UI put together

and then a video running the product but

it's really just a scripted video of me

running something that looks like the

product but it's not actually here and

then see how people respond to that run

ads to that you can even also use this

when Gathering feedback and initial

feedback on your product as well always

always do this because again what we

want to do is we want to build

businesses based around what will work

in advertising what's going to work

easily advertising so that we can scale

it really far and if we want to see

what's going to do that without going

investing tons of time and tons of money

we can go and make little muffins or

empty businesses that don't actually

sell anything but look like they sell

something and then see how the market

responds to that first when we see a

powerful response then we take

everything down we take the magic

lightning that we just discovered then

we bottle that up then we make the

product and then we go berserk with the

ads and that's how you're going to

almost guarantee it your ads will work

day one so that being said if you

actually want to see how to run the ads

I have my entire ad script everything I

do in video ads right here you want to

see how to actually grow this business

and actually find the best advertising

for it once you kick it off once you

take it from the fake empty product to a

real product this is right here and you

want to see in my opinion the best ad

funnel or the best way to sell a product

well that that's oh my gosh just

confusing where I point at it's

somewhere on this video popped up on the

screen right here I have nothing else to

tell you I'll see you in the next video