5 Advertising Mistakes That Could Be Costing You Thousands of Dollars

With 300+ growth campaigns under my belt, I’ve compiled the top 5 mistakes appointment-based businesses make when advertising their services.

After launching 300+ campaigns, auditing hundreds of ad accounts, and personally generating outsized returns as high as 22x from ads, there are 5 common mistakes made by owners, operators, and marketing managers alike.

Although they are easy to fix, they are hard to spot. Once spotted, they are guaranteed to increase throughput, lead flow, and the number of customers you can sell to.

Don’t believe me?

We added 116 booked calls and 100k new ARR to a company’s bottom line in 30 days. Check out the free training on exactly how we did it here.

But let’s be real.

Qualified booked calls and customers.

Isn’t that what everyone wants?

This article comes at a special time for my company and me. We no longer work on hope. We literally guarantee the end result you want, or you don’t pay.

Granted, you have to be the right fit for us to offer such a wild guarantee. However, as we get better and better, we continue to refine, trim, iterate, and so forth.

With that being said, we always be sure to avoid these common mistakes. These 5 alone get us going on the right path every time. So if you’re an appointment-based business looking for more booked meetings and customers to buy from you, listen up.

You may be making these mistakes.

Mistake #1: Targeting Too Broad an Audience

When it comes to advertising, the allure of reaching a vast audience can be tempting. However, casting too wide a net often means wasting resources on uninterested individuals. Wasting money on people who don’t feel your thing is a fit. Wasting time on prospects who aren’t your dream customer.

Narrowing down your target audience ensures your message resonates deeply with those most likely to convert, pay you the most, stay the longest, and be the most enjoyable to work with.

Imagine having a localized room full of people eager to hear about your services and buy from you rather than a stadium of indifferent bystanders.

Solution: Leverage detailed customer personas and utilize platforms’ advanced targeting features to zero in on your ideal clients. Only the best of the best. This focused approach maximizes ROI and ensures your ads are seen by those who matter most. Some specifics:

• Align your messaging to the sliver of the market that is your BEST customer. This includes: your creative, copy, landing page, and back-end messaging. All of this must be aligned with the person you can best serve and needs you the most.

Mistake #2: Ignoring the Power of Retargeting

Many businesses fail to harness the full potential of retargeting, missing out on low-hanging fruit. Retargeting helps you stay top-of-mind with potential clients who have already shown interest in your services but haven’t yet converted. It’s about nurturing those warm leads until they’re ready to take action.

Solution: Implement retargeting strategies across your ad campaigns to re-engage visitors who have interacted with your brand. Use personalized messaging to address their specific needs and pain points, making it easier for them to choose your services. Some specifics:

• Retarget page visitors, that didn’t opt-in with various ads that address common challenges and obstacles.

• Retarget lost leads with a small budget to promote cross-sell or down-sell offers.

Mistake #3: Neglecting Ad Creative and Copy Tests

Your ad’s visuals and messaging are crucial in capturing attention and conveying value. Bland, uninspired creatives and copy fail to engage and convert. In the noisy market we live in today, your ads need to stand out and speak directly to your audience’s desires and challenges.

Solution: Invest in high-quality visuals and compelling copy that tell a story. Highlight benefits, use emotional triggers, and include strong CTAs. A/B tests different creatives to identify what resonates best with your audience. Some specifics:

• Generate at least 10–15 new ads every week. The ads that work at $50/day won’t work at $100/day and so on. Maybe they will, but they will eventually die. That’s a lesson for anything that’s working in life. If you aren’t improving, you’re degrading.

• Take into account the tests that gain some traction and squeeze every last drop out of them as you can. Meaning, use the same creative but adding color filters, music, copy, cuts, etc.

Mistake #4: Underutilizing Video Content

Video content has become a dominant force in digital marketing, yet many appointment-based businesses still underutilize this medium. Videos can communicate more effectively, building trust and demonstrating value in ways that static images and text can’t.

Solution: Incorporate video content into your advertising strategy. Showcase testimonials, behind-the-scenes looks, demonstrations of your services, etc. Engaging video content can significantly boost engagement and conversion rates. Some specifics:

• The best way to make video ads is by creating 20–30 hooks and 2 video “bodies” and CTAs. If you use 20 different hooks on two different video bodies, you can have 40 new ads to test in a fraction of the time.

• Pro tip: The first 3 seconds of your video (your hook) determines 80% of the result. So, you must focus 80% of your time on your hooks.

Mistake #5: Failing to Track and Analyze Results

Running ads without tracking performance is like driving using your rear-view mirror. Without proper analysis, you can’t understand what’s working and what isn’t, leading to wasted ad spend and missed opportunities for optimization.

Solution: Utilize analytics tools to track key metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost per acquisition. Regularly review your campaign performance and make data-driven adjustments to improve results continually. Some specifics:

• Changes in your ads, targeting, etc, will change your results. However, you must be tracking down the funnel. Your CPLs may go up, but you may be getting the right people into your funnel. Therefore, your CAC goes down, which is all we care about anyway.

• Your CAC must be 25% of LTV or another good measure is a 3:1 LTV to CAC ratio. At RGM, we aim to have 10:1 or more because we know this will dwindle as you scale up. An outsized LTV to CAC allows for massive opportunity to scale. In the beginning, look for a crazier return so to speak. Additionally, you’d find it to be quite lucrative to get the CAC back and then some within 30 days so you can reinvest into more advertising.

Conclusion

In summary, avoiding these five common advertising mistakes can allow you to capture more leads, customers, and ultimately bottom-line revenue. By targeting the right audience, leveraging retargeting, creating compelling ads, utilizing video content, and analyzing your results, you can significantly boost your ROI and attract more clients to your appointment-based business.

Don’t let these mistakes drain your resources and hinder your growth. Do the damn thing and in due time, your business will flourish. If you’re looking for more insights on lead generation and booking more qualified calls, check out our free training where we added 116 booked calls and $100k ARR for an appointment-based business in just 30 days. Watch the free training here.

Thanks for joining me on my mission to change the scammy narrative behind advertising and to help small businesses use it efficiently to drive growth for services that materially change the world for the better.

Until next time.