3 Steps to Conquer Facebook & Instagram Ad Anxiety

Aug 8

What's this episode of the lionhearted ceo podcast about?

Is the mere thought of Facebook and Instagram ads making you break out in a cold sweat? You're not alone! As the number one concern I hear from brilliant business owners like you, ad anxiety is real. But guess what? We're tackling it head-on today!

In this episode, we're breaking down:

The 3 most common ad nightmares (and why they're more common than you think!)
Why launching ads is just the beginning (think of it like having a baby – the real adventure starts after!)
The power of running two ads (and the tiny tweak that makes all the difference)
How to dip your toes back in without risking your biscuit budget
The truth about ad spend control

Your 3 steps to ad confidence:

💡 Start small: Begin with just £2-£10 per day
💷 Take control: Set your budget and stick to it like glue
🔍 Build your own evidence: See the results before scaling up

Remember, lovely, you don't have to dive back into the deep end. There are plenty of shallow ends to start in, from my Audience Builder course (cheeky plug alert!) to finding an ad manager who truly gets your business.

Ready to turn that ad anxiety into your secret superpower? Pop on those headphones and let's conquer this together, one cuppa at a time!

Hi! I’m your host Sophie Griffiths, a Meta ads expert and business growth strategist.

The LionHearted CEO podcast is designed for impatiently ambitious women who are ready to scale and often juggling motherhood alongside their thriving online businesses in coaching, course creation, or service-based business.

If you enjoy the podcast, here are some ways you can continue the conversation:

Social:

Love Instagram? Click here to watch a video I made on the Warm audience trap (hint, it's something almost every client struggles with!)More of a LinkedIn fan? I'm there too! Come and follow me here: Sophie Griffiths

Free Resource:

Ready to grow an audience of people who WANT you to sell to them? Radical idea I know, but it shouldn’t be! Click here to get access to my step by step guide to using simple, effective ads to build & nurture a community of superfans,

Work together:

Ready to build an audience of superfans who are excited and ready to buy from you?
Whether you are just starting with Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads, you have dabbled but want to build your confidence with your first funnel, or you're already killing it and you're ready for fast growth - I can help! Click here to choose the best option for you

Got questions?

DM me on Insta or LinkedIn
Email me here: hello@sophiegriffiths.co

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

[00:00:00] Hello and a big welcome to Lionhearted CEO, the podcast for unapologetically, impatiently ambitious women who know they want to stop being the bottleneck in their business and become the Lionhearted CEO they know they are meant to be. I'm Sophie Griffiths, a tea enthusiast, marketing and Metis ad specialist and firm believer.

The chocolate should never be kept in the fridge. Join me every Tuesday and Thursday for bold, imperfect, fun approach to marketing and scaling your business without burning out every few months. We'll dive into practical strategies and have inspirational conversations that will support you to create a thriving, sustainable business that brings you joy as well as financial freedom.

Okay, let's jump in. 

Hello in this episode, I want talking to you. If you have ever been burned by ads, you've spent money. You've not got your return. You've hired someone in and they've spent a load of money and you've not got the results you wanted. 

Or you [00:01:00] have run ads and they've done well. So you tried them again, maybe with a bigger budget and you lost all your money or you felt like you were losing all your money and you honestly have no idea whether you made your money back or not.

So now you you'll probably left feeling nervous. Worried about losing more money. Don't really want to invest in ads. Don't really want to invest in someone to do ads for you. It can be a really, really horrible place to be in, especially if you think your business could probably do with ads. If you're finding organic really hard, if you're not getting as many clients as you want, if you're not growing your email list, if your social media like growth is really static, you probably know that if you want to scale and grow your business, then actually ads could be an incredible way of doing it. 

And you see other people, you might even see my stories, where I share how my clients get amazing results. And you might see other people talking about them using ads and getting great results. But you're still feeling like, yeah, but I don't think they work for my business. I didn't really have the money to waste at the [00:02:00] moment or the money to just like flush down the drain. I'm just feeling really, really nervous about using ads and I'm not really sure. What to do to get over it. 

Now there's three different things I wanted to talk through today. The first is if you've done it yourself before and now you don't trust yourself and you're worried you're gonna lose money. If you do it again. The second that if you've trusted someone else to do it, so this commonly happens if you've gone like all in with an agency and often you've spent a lot of money a month and just not seeing the results.

And the last one is actually, if you personally, haven't been burned by ads. But, you know, so many people that have it's a little bit like web. You're pregnant. And everyone takes a lot of joy in telling you about their really awful birth story. And you're like, okay. Okay, now I'm terrified of birth, even though nothing bad has ever happened to me. 

Everyone is telling me that's really bad. I find that is so common with Facebook ads. As soon as you say like, oh, I think I'm going to do ads. Every man and their dog wants to tell you why actually, you know, you shouldn't, I wasted later money. It's really [00:03:00] dangerous. Don't do it. So those are the three different scenarios I'm going to talk through today and I'm going to give you an actionable step for each one. That's going to help you take a step forward and feel a little bit more confident about ads rather than feeling like you have to leave him with two feet and go lose a later money. 

So the first thing is if you have done them before yourself and haven't got the results you wanted, so maybe you've done a course. 

Maybe you've just followed some YouTube tutorials. Maybe you did like an online challenge where they taught you how to set some ads up.

So you kept them up and running. Let's say you're doing lead ads. You start to see people coming into email lists. You're not really a hundred percent sure of what stats you should be looking at, but it seems to be working. People seem to be joining your list. And then you carry on with your business. 

You kind of like, oh, I don't really know. What's going on here. I'll just sort of let them run. And then you go and check back in with them and you're like, oh, okay. These now seem to be costing quite a lot. I'm spending like 10 pounds a day and I'm only getting one or two leads. And I'm not really sure what to do, and it feels like I'm wasting money. 

And so I just think I'm [00:04:00] just going to turn them off. I just don't feel confident having them on and spending the money every day because it doesn't really seem to be working. 

And you might also be thinking, are these people that are joining wireless? Are they even the right people. are they even my ideal clients? Are they actually going to buy from me? I have no, one's really replying to my emails. I haven't really seen anyone joining my Instagram following me. I really feel like I'm spending, you know, 70 quid a week, 300 quid a month. Or if not more, and they're just not working. This is really, really common. 

And now if you've listened to other episodes, you'll know that I go in with a lot more detail around why. Dads do or don't work. So I'm not going to go into that today. I'm not going to start giving you strategy tips on, you know, getting greatly that's because you could have chosen any kind of ads and be getting this kind of fear. Because the really key thing is I want you to understand. Is that getting ads up and running is the first step that's like giving birth to the baby. 

So when you, you know, how, when you're pregnant, you focus so much on like the bath and prepping for the bath and getting that birth plan [00:05:00] written and, and, you know, just getting that baby out. And then you're like, oh my God. I actually have to account for this baby. 

Oh, okay. I actually haven't given any thought to how I'm going to parent it. I just need to keep it alive. I'm just going to keep going until I kind of work out what I'm doing. Well, it's incredibly similar to ads. Okay. Getting them up and running is the first step. Actually knowing what to do with them after that is something that people don't really think about and think is just going to come naturally. 

And actually you need to have a bit of a plan and need to understand what good looks like for you. And if this isn't working, what do I do next? So what's my next step. It doesn't have to be a super complex testing plan. 

You don't have to be testing a million different things at the same time. It could be as simple as, okay. These are getting a bit expensive. My next step of my plan is to try a different image. The next step of my plan is actually going to be to try a different set of copy. So really it's just thinking about what is my next step. 

You always want to know that there was an action you can take. To try and get you the result that you're looking for

So if this is you and this is really resonating, my [00:06:00] action for you today is go back into ads manager, just rip the plaster off. You probably don't ever want to look at it again that you're like, oh, I can't bear to look at it. 

Just go back into it. Go back into your ad campaign. Okay. And just double check. You've got your one audience. I want you to have at least two ads running at all times. Okay. I don't want you to just have one ad running and you're like, oh, that's not working. That's their ads or what. As a terrible, they never worked for me. 

Okay. You've always got to have two ads running with one difference. So I want you to have to have exactly the same ad, but with just one difference, generally speaking, that's either. The same ad, except for the copy is different. Or the same ad except the image is different. 

Okay. And it could be an image versus a real it could just be the same image, but with different color on the background, it could be the same image, but your photo on it is different. And have to go crazy and have two mega different ones, but you do have to have two different things. 

So go in, have a look, see what you've got there already. And just think, okay, how can I make one change to these ads? You can duplicate the ads in that. And if don't know how to do that, you can [00:07:00] just Google it duplicate the ads and then just change one element. Now you need to have two ads live. 

So if you have decided that the ad that's in there just isn't working for you. Then don't worry to start again. Just take what you've got and build on it. Say, okay, I'm going to have new graphics and I'm going to change the copy slightly. Now, obviously in an ideal world, you're going to have something like my course, the audience builder calls there to support you. 

You know, there's 40 graphics there. There's copy templates for use. You'd have to write your own copy. You can access to group calls with me so I can help you with this sort of stuff. But I get it at this point, You might not be wanting to invest in another course. 

You might just want to see if you can get them running yourself again. Okay. So whilst I would highly recommend you get expert support. I also understand that if you've decided the ads I'm going to work for you, you might just need to do a little bit on your own fast. So get the ads live again. Okay. 

Even if you're spending, like, if you really want to spend the minimum, like eight pounds a day, I get two ads running. Okay. And just keep an eye on them and just see what happens. And then if there's one that's working better than the other. [00:08:00] You'll know. Okay. That graphics, the one that people like, okay. 

I can build on that. Just start to see those little glimmers and start to see that actually can work for you. And once you starting to build your confidence up, either it's going to fly and you're going to be like, oh my God, this is amazing. Or you're going to be like, okay, I get it. 

This can work for me. And now I want some additional support. And that's when you can come and find me. 

The next thing is, if you've worked for an agency and you have spent big money with them, often, this is in preparation for a launch. And you've maybe spent thousands of pounds on them setting up your ads for you and doing the ads for your launch. And you're like, I spent a lot of money and just didn't feel like I got the return. This is one of the most common things people come to me with. They often feel like the agency didn't understand their business. They they just run the ads. They didn't give them any advice on. The messaging, around the launch, the lead magnet itself, the you know, the copy that they were using on the ads, the welcome email sequence, like that's all the stuff I work with my clients on is like around that. Wider piece of what does a really effective [00:09:00] ecosystem look like that we're going to plug ads into not just, well, the ads did their job. 

So the rest of it is up to you. Now often in this case, if you've worked with an agency. And you haven't really done the ads yourself, maybe cause you didn't want to get to yourself and that's why you outsourced totally understandable. It can be really hard. 

You don't want to have to learn how to do them yourself, but you're also really nervous about investing again. So the first thing I would do is really think about, is there a way you could run some really low cost ads to start to build your confidence up again? Something like Instagram profile ads are a really great way of starting to get people onto Instagram profile and starting to see like that momentum of people coming into your world. The next thing would really would be lead ads and they would be to grow your email list. 

That's when you're going to start really seeing like, okay, can these ads work for me?

But ultimately you have two options either you learn yourself. Or you get someone else to do it for you. Now, if you're absolutely like, I'm not going to do it myself, this is just not something I want to do. That's absolutely fine. Then when you're [00:10:00] looking for someone else to help you don't, you don't need to go to a big agency. 

Like there are so many incredible Facebook ads managers out there. That do so many different types of packages that some will set ads up for you, and then you just run them. Some we'll work with you on your entire funnel. Someone do one off power hours , obviously they were ads managers out there that will just run your account for you. There are different levels of support. 

You can get it. Doesn't have to be either. Agency level. I'm going to do all this for you, or you have to do it all yourself. And it's really stressful. There are so many levels in between. I obviously have the audience builder course. And then I also have my signature on one, my signature one-to-one offer, which is called ROAR. 

And that is where we build your first ads powered funnel. So that is all about generating leads and getting people into a funnel. That sells a low cost or low ticket service. And we worked together for two months, we set it all up. We co-create it, we set up together. And then I can either continue running your ads for you, or if you want to learn how to do it and take it on yourself, then I [00:11:00] will teach you how to do it. So that's a good bridging part as well, where you're not necessarily. Committing to having a longterm ads manager, running your ads for you. 

And with that cost as well. So that would be my first thing for you. It would be, look at your options, decide whether you're willing to learn yourself, even if it's just the basics. Even if it's just a couple of campaigns. Could you learn yourself? To see if that will help build your confidence. And if not, if you're absolutely not for that, then look at your different options. 

Look at ways of working with people that don't necessarily mean handing it all off and spending thousands. Actually, how can I do something that is, gets me a little bit of a way that helps me test the water, see what it is. I'd also massively recommend you don't do it just before launch. 

Okay. I would really recommend that you do this at a point where in your business, where you're three to three months away from a launch so that you can get everything in place. You can build your email list and you can test things out in quite a low. Pressure scenario. Rather than this is the launch. This is, do or die, like either works or it doesn't [00:12:00] like, that's not going to be. A stress-free way of you running ads. 

And then finally, if you are the person that hasn't actually been burned by ads. But is terrified of ARDS because everyone else seems to have been both my ads and everyone else seems to be terrified of ads. I would just massively recommend that you take a small step. 

The first thing you could be could just be sappy ads, manager. It would even be just start to understand what ads look like. You can start ads from two pounds a day. Okay. We are not talking about, you have to spend hundreds of pounds here. And I think just some principles for everybody listening is you are always in control of how much money you spend. 

You can turn ads off anytime you choose your budget. Facebook will not spend more than you tell it to spend. Okay. So it's not a case of, oh my gosh, I'm going to start spending money. And Facebook is going to take all my money and it's going to get out of control and it's going to spiral. 

That's just not going to happen. You are in control. Okay. You are the business owner. You tell Facebook how much you're willing to spend, and it will spend that amount. So you [00:13:00] could spend a two pounds a day. You can spend 10 pounds a day. It will only spend that amount of money. Okay. So two pounds a day on engagement ads, something like that, maybe three to five pounds a day on Instagram. I'm getting people onto Instagram getting them to follow you. 

And then maybe eight to 10 pounds a day on lead ads. That's where you're kind of starting with budget wise. Start small. Start with something that feels manageable. That feels relatively easy. The ads to get people to follow you on Instagram are really easy. 

It's using content now. That's already on your Instagram profile. You're not even creating any ads. You're not having to write anything. You're not having to create any graphics. You're literally just telling Facebook to show your posts to more people. Okay. So that campaign is in the audience builder course. And you can get access to that for 197 pounds. So in the greater scheme of things is really not a big investment to test out and just see if it works. 

Because honestly, once you start getting the evidence for yourself, that's when you're really going to start to know if ads is something you want to do. Okay. So don't just [00:14:00] listen to everyone else, test it, but test it small, get a course of any course. It doesn't have to be my course, get a course, start testing things on a really small level. 

Okay. And just start spending a small amount of day. Keep checking in with the ad. So, you know, what's going on and learn, what should I be looking at? What stats are important here? What does good look like for me? Before you then start scaling it and spending more and more and more money. Right. 

I hope that was helpful. Okay. I know that spending money on something that isn't going to give you a return is just not something as small businesses that we can really do. It's why I'm so passionate about sharing information about ads that don't, you don't have to spend thousands to begin with. 

Let's start small let's test and then let's grow from there. Let's not just jump in with thousands of pounds and keep our fingers crossed that it's going to work. I hope that was helpful. And I will speak to you next week.

Thank you so much for listening today. Before you go, if this episode struck record with you, I'd be over the moon. If you could take a moment to rate, subscribe, and [00:15:00] leave a review, your words not only brighten up my day, but they are also the magic that helps others discover this lion hearted community.

Again, thank you so much and I will see you next week.