Here's my story of a "small win" that might inspire you

I've been posting on this forum for a while now, asking a bunch of questions, etc. Some of you already know my story...

In short, I've been self-employed for over 10 years now. I've been a full-time IM'er (internet marketing as my main source of income) since 2020.

I've always had this one huge mental barrier though, and that was PAID TRAFFIC!

For the entire life of my business, I just used YouTube, Reddit and free Facebook groups to get traffic to sell my course. I always looked at paid traffic as this extremely complicated, highly risky endeavor that only an elite few people only truly understand.

I've dabbled in Facebook ads a few times before. The backend of Facebook business manager always gave me anxiety, but I managed to plow through and actually "give ads a try". However, aside from setting up my pixel, I had no clue what I was doing. I didn't know what a "funnel" was. I didn't know what "conversion events" were.

I'd always quit within a few weeks of running these ads because I didn't feel like my $5/day budget was being well spent. Why would I want to spend $150/month on ads that "may or may not work"??

My mindset towards ads was that they required a "professional marketer" to run them. Professional marketers cost money, but if I wanted to run ads that's what I needed to do.

Then I found HER...

She charged me $2500 for month 1, and it was going to be $2000 for each additional month. Month 1 was just the "onboarding month". The ads would actually be up and running in months 2 and on...

Her plan was to start with a monthly budget of $1500. So on top of the $2000 that she would be charging me, I'd also be spending an additional $1500 each month.

That's the cost of advertising though right??

Three weeks into month 1, I realized that I knew more about marketing that this person who I had already paid $2500. So I told her that I wouldn't be moving forward.

When I compared the price of running ads myself to paying someone to run ads for me, it became very clear that doing it myself was really the most cost-efficient way.

But I didn't know how...

So I did some research, and I found a really sweet course at a really affordable price. I'm not promoting anything here, so I'm not going to mention the course name. There are a bazillion different "how to run FB ads" courses out there though, so just find one...buy it...then take action on it.

That's what I did.

My mindset has now changed from:

"$150/month is a waste of money"

To

"I plan on spending $1500/month minimum because that's the cost of doing business".

Also by meticulously following what this course tells me to do, I know what specific "data" that I am looking for.

I'm only a few weeks in, but I'm actually really enjoying it now. It's actually FUN, because I actually feel like I know what I'm doing.

I have "engagement campaigns" and "conversion campaigns" running, and both are on point for the target KPIs that the course tells me to look for.

I do use my own click tracking software, because I don't want to rely on FB 100%. According to this software, I have made 6 sales as a direct result of clicking on my ad. The total amount earned was $674. The ad spend on this ad was $102.30. Thats a 6:1 ROI!

Now, I did lose a few hundred when I was still figuring things out. I made some dumb mistakes, but overall I've spend around $700 in my own personal "learning phase".

Now that I have things dialed in, and I understand this stuff, it's actually pretty easy.

So now I feel like I'm starting to actually take control over my income as opposed to just sitting around waiting for sales to happen from my organic traffic.

I just wanted to share that story. Maybe it will inspire some people who may be in the same place I was when it came to paid ads!