I have spoken with far too many advertisers over the years who are put in no-win situations. They have difficult clients with near impossible expectations. These clients do not set them up for success.
You do not need to take every client. The ideal partner will make your job easier. When you give yourself a better chance at success, you make it more likely you’ll have happy clients who will recommend your services to others.
Here are six priorities to consider when determining whether to take that next client…
1. Trust
This has to be first. I don’t care how much money they pay you or if everything is set up for success. If there isn’t a basic level of trust, it won’t be worth it.
The client is paying you for your expertise. They should not micromanage you. They should not constantly doubt your strategies and decisions. If they think they know better than you do, they should run their own ads.
Before running your first campaign, you and your client should come to an agreement on the overall strategy and their role in it. While their feedback is necessary for background and establishing what is important, you should determine how those goals are achieved — how your campaignsThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you'll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More are constructed, targeted, and optimized.
2. Industry
Some industries are naturally easier than others when it comes to attaining a high level of success with Meta ads. That doesn’t mean that you should avoid a challenge, but understand how industry impacts expectations.
Meta ads are challenging for service companies that you only need at unexpected times. While you can take advantage of Google Search ads for those cases, Meta ads will focus fall more on awareness and long-term goals.
You also need to be aware of industries that may be impossible or challenging to promote on Meta apps without violating terms and putting your ad account at risk. And if you can promote them, know whether there are special restrictions you need to be aware of.
Your best opportunity for success is in e-commerce. Meta ads optimizationThe Performance Goal is chosen within the ad set and determines optimization and delivery. How you optimize impacts who sees your ad. Meta will show your ad to people most likely to perform your desired action. More is designed with e-commerce in mind. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have success outside of e-commerce, but it’s a built-in advantage (or disadvantage) that you need to be aware of.
Finally, it’s helpful if you can find a niche by industry. It can be beneficial even to have an expertise in a challenging industry. You have a common approach, you understand the challenges, and know what works and what doesn’t. You may also become known for your expertise within a specific industry, and you can become a more attractive advertiser if you have that focus.
3. Ads BudgetA budget is an amount you're willing to spend on your Facebook campaigns or ad sets on a daily or lifetime basis. More
Speaking of built-in advantages and disadvantages, there may not be a better example than the ads budget.
If you take on a client who gives you a $500 per month ads budget, you have an uphill climb. There are limited strategies that you can use. Driving purchases will be a challenge. It’s not that you can’t make an impact, but that impact is likely to be limited.
More importantly, the wiggle room is nothing. The few campaigns you run have to work. There’s minimal testing. You need to get as much out of that $500 as you can. And more often than not, your clients expect a lot out of that $500 budget. Often unreasonable expectations.
The world opens up when your client lets you spend. Optimize for purchases? Leads? Sure. Do it all. Want to test some things? No problem. Higher budgets give you the freedom to experiment. But they also allow you to feed the algorithm with data to help optimize and give you the best possible results.
I realize it’s not as easy as saying you should get clients with unlimited budgets. They don’t grow on trees. But push clients who are unsure how much to spend, who are inclined to spend $500 or $1,000 per month. They are limiting their advertising potential.
4. Well-Built Website
Do not ignore the construction of a potential client’s website.
You craft the perfect ad. Potential customers are interested. They click. The page loads. And loads. And loads.
Once they arrive on the landing page, they aren’t sure what to do. The design is awful. Links are broken. Those potential customers abandon the site.
And yet, you’re responsible for the lack of sales your ads are driving. Don’t let this be you.
Investigate the performance of the website you’ll rely on before taking on a new client. It could be the difference between a successful engagement and a complete failure.
5. Brand Awareness
This item includes several things within it. When I say you should prioritize brand awareness, I mean that this brand already has raving fans. The company has invested in their organic social channels. They have an active email list that drives revenue. Potential customers visit the website organically on a daily basis.
The opposite is that no one knows this brand. Everything falls on your ads to be effective. And when you run those ads, every potential customer is learning about this product for the first (or nearly first) time.
Even if you don’t explicitly run remarketing campaigns, Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns and Advantage+ Audience targeting will prioritize pixel data, conversion history, and prior engagement with your ads. If that bucket is full, you have an advantage. If it’s empty, it’s a steeper hill to climb.
6. Prior Advertising Efforts
I was going to leave this off originally, but it can actually be a big deal.
Yes, it’s helpful if this new client already has the pixel and Conversions API set up properly. It’s great if they’ve set up events, custom conversions, and custom audiences, and you have access to all of these things.
But just as importantly, the client needs a clean advertising history. Have they or prior agencies violated rules in the past? Were the page and other assets flagged for policy violations and low-quality ads?
That could impact your ability to get good results, at least temporarily. You may need to rebuild a positive advertising history for the business.
Your Turn
I understand that not every advertiser or agency can be picky about their clients. But know that if you aren’t, you may just waste your time and frustrate everyone involved. Aim to have a specific type of client. Also make it clear that when some of these things are negatives how they should impact expectations.
Are there any other items you’d prioritize when picking a new advertising client?
Let me know in the comments below!
