3 Things I Learned from Running an ad with 0% conversion.

If you’ve done my 5 Tips to to Finally Launch course, you know that day 1 spends some time on the topic of listening to people that have walked the road before you. This was one piece I struggled with when I started my entrepreneurial journey. I thought that my degrees meant I had a decent grasp on setting a vision and plan. I thought my years of experience in small business meant I was solid on execution.

So, I skimmed over some stuff and went on my way, doing my own thing. That thing turned out to be a 6 month side track from my key goals.

Okay, okay, so listening to people who have successfully developed their own vision and ideal client is one thing. I totally understand— it’s different than working with a larger company where someone’s unique personality isn’t one of the main factors in developing a connection. There’s definitely space for me to learn in that realm.

But, process and execution? Oh man, I’ve totally got this. 

I was so sure I was solid,  I found myself writing off words of wisdom/warning shared on the She Means Business podcast I was listening to the other week. In this specific episode, the closing discussion was about how as an entrepreneur, there’s are going to be moments of failure. Not just let down, but true failure. And I get it, failure isn’t really a thing we talk about in the entrepreneur/solopreneur world. What clients would want to work with us if we failed? (spoiler: all of them. But that's for another post.)

Besides, I wasn’t going to fail. If I could get through 800-level stats, along with courses on personality assessment, professional communication, and graduate level finance, all at the same time, it’s pretty clear I know systems and how to successfully get shit done.  I quickly moved on and skipped really thinking about the topic of failure, and continued doing my thing.

The week I launched a new Facebook ad for my 5 Tips to Finally Launch course, I was so nervous and excited (that feeling never really goes away for me).  I had such great hopes for it, because I was launching it as a freebie in celebration of my new direction and clarity.

As soon as the ads went up, things were looking promising. I started off with a click conversion rate of about 1% and a cost per click of about 30 cents; I was right on the money for the industry standard. By the end of the run, I was at 2.5% click conversion and a CPC of 25 cents.

Except, I had literally no new subscribers or sign ups. Like, the true Webster’s definition of literally. 0. Zero. None.

WTF, right? I had absolutely no idea what was up. With no numbers I should have had something to show for my investment. Especially considering my mastermind group had great positive feedback about the page. The copy and strategy was solid.

So, what do you think happened?

The universe showed me that anyone can fail, that’s what happened.

My DNS went down and I had no clue. I was traveling during the week this ad was running and I didn't have access to the internet on my computer. The page on my phone wouldn't load, but because it did on someone else’s phone I didn’t freak out. (It was apparently cached…) I didn't even realize my whole site was down until the day the ad ended.

There are so many systems lessons we could unpack here. But systems aren’t what I want to focus on.

There are three lessons I learned that are bigger and so much more important than systems pieces.

1.Understand there will be hiccups along the way.

I don’t care how much visualization or mindset work you do around success, there will be freak out moments and moments where it feels like the universe totally left you hanging. But that’s all a part of the bigger plan. Things will pop up and be completely unexpected, you’ll be caught of guard, you’ll be okay, because...

2.Resilience will get you there.

It would have been easy to just not do paid Facebook ads for this piece again. In fact, it was somewhat tempting. There was suddenly a lot of emotions connected to it. Going back and figuring out what happened wasn’t fun. But, the days after showed me that maybe there was a why for what happened…

3.It’s gonna be so much better than you thought.

Before I went back and relaunched the ads, I took a step back and checked in with the universe. I already knew I needed to re-address my systems piece, but what if there was something else? I decided that although I had already asked for feedback in the mastermind I’m in, I would ask again. This time around I got really great specific feedback on a couple things I could tweak to be better. I used this unexpected opportunity to make something even better. (And the results were amazing!)

Just remember, you’re absolutely amazing and can conquer any challenge or goal you set, the thing to is, sometimes those wins may look just a little different.  And, if you're looking for a way to get jumpstarted on those goals, check out the 5 Tips from the Trenches to (finally) Launch course!