Alex Rivera of Digital Blitz talks about how YouTube Ads get his clients more conversions than Facebook ads.  
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Video Transcript

Facebook Ads vs. YouTube Ads

Justin Sardi: Hey, what’s up everybody? Justin Sardi here, CEO and co-founder of TubeSift.com and VideoAdVault.com. And today we’ve got an awesome guest on. His name is Alex and he’s with Digital Blitz. And basically, long story short, he had made a post on Facebook about Facebook ads versus YouTube ads and cost per lead and basically analyzing this whole funnel that they had. And I found it very interesting so I reached out to him and was like, “Hey man, would you mind coming on and sharing this with us?” So, I thought it was awesome content and good context into why I personally like YouTube ads better, but I don’t want to ruin anything here. So, thanks for joining us, Alex, and excited to have you on today.

Alex Rivera: Yeah, happy to join. Happy to dive into it. Really, really love talking about YouTube ads so it’s my forte.

Justin Sardi: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. If you want to tell us a little bit about yourself, what your agency does, all that kind of stuff. And then even maybe a little bit on how you got into YouTube ads. I always love to hear that.

Alex Rivera: Yeah, sure.

Justin Sardi: And take it away.

Alex Rivera: Like you said, my name is Alex Rivera. I run a YouTube ads agency called Digital Blitz. So we do a done-for-you service, meaning we create the ads for our client, but we also do done-with-you, which is basically where we coach our clients on how to create their own ads. Essentially what we do is we primarily specialize in high ticket coaches, consultants, as well as service providers. We do work for SaaS companies as well, but more so just basically the kind of webinar, VSL funnel is really our bread and butter.

Alex Rivera: But the way I approach that or the way I came up with that comparison of Facebook versus YouTube ad post that you saw is a lot of our clients, right now I’d say 80% of our clients, Facebook ads were their performance tanks or their ad account got shut down. But for those that are still running Facebook ads, they just want to diversify and run over to YouTube, we’re able to pull those numbers with those clients so that’s how I pulled those data there.

Alex Rivera: But quick back story on how I got started with my agency. I actually, I got started with Facebook ads to begin with, I think it was 2018, is when I pivoted more towards YouTube. But essentially what I was doing is I had clients at the time. I think it was only eight or nine different clients, but I was only running Facebook ads for them and then essentially what I did was I started seeing more and more people talk about YouTube, but I didn’t really see many agencies offering it as a service. So, I just dove into that and I started little by little testing it out with some of my clients. So, I kind of started testing the ads that they would let us basically manage for them, and I’d say within four or five months really, I transferred all the clients over to YouTube ads just because it’s a lot more profitable and ever since then, that’s really what we’ve been specializing in.

Google has a lot of inside information about our audiences which is a benefit for our ads. Image by Christian Wiediger, Unsplash License.
Google has a lot of inside information about our audiences which is a benefit for our ads. Image by Christian Wiediger, Unsplash License.

Advantages Google Ads has over Facebook Ads

Justin Sardi: Nice. Nice. I mean, I’ve seen, especially with all the changes Facebook is making, taking targeting options away, banning accounts, I guess that’s not really a change, but a lot of people are moving to YouTube and honestly it’s like Facebook ads used to be, much more profitable, actually pretty easy to get started. A lot of people I think overcomplicate it and they’re like, “Oh man, it’s way too hard. I just don’t understand it,” when honestly, it’s way easier than Facebook ads too. I think.

Alex Rivera: Yeah, it really is. Like you said, there’s a lot of options. There’s just so much info that Google has on us. It’s pretty [inaudible 00:03:07].

Justin Sardi: For real.

Alex Rivera: It’s like you might as well leverage it while you can.

Justin Sardi: Yeah. I mean, it’s basically first-party versus third-party data and that’s what a lot of people are, they’re like, “Well, how can Google still have all this? Facebook’s not allowed to, the iOS updates, all that.” It’s like, dude, it’s first-party data. Google has all of this data on you. I mean, think about how many websites have Google analytics. I mean, they’re literally the largest search engine on the web. They know exactly what people are doing, Gmail. They just have an absurd amount of data.

Alex Rivera: Yeah, it really is crazy, but I always tell everyone, it’s kind of creepy how much info they have on us, but you might as well leverage it if you can.

Justin Sardi: Yeah. Right. So yeah, I mean, if you want to share a bit about that case study, love to hear it.

Alex Rivera: I mean, there’s a bunch, I mean, I don’t have the image pulled up but…

Justin Sardi: No problem. We can throw it on afterwards.

Alex Rivera: Okay. But yeah, essentially what we did was I think it was around $20K per month ad spend, but we started out with them at $6K and, let me pull up their ad account actually, because the biggest, I’ll put out a couple of big takeaways here when you compare Facebook and YouTube because it’s the same takeaways we see anytime we compare clients that are running YouTube ads and Facebook.

Alex Rivera: But essentially what it is, the biggest thing is really the cost per lead. When people are coming from Facebook or the main reason people like to, I guess, start out with Facebook is because the cost per lead is so cheap. You might pay $3 to $5 per lead depending on what niche you’re in. But you’re dealing with really, really cheap leads whereas when you come to YouTube, you might spend around $10 to $15. But the thing is on the back end, they convert a lot higher. So when we look at the comparison, the last case I had just mentioned with the YouTube versus Facebook, I believe it was around 8,000 leads. Let me pull it up just so I can track with the actual numbers that we are pulling up.

Analyze your results with your video campaigns for better practices. Image by Liza Summer, License under Pexels.
Analyze your results with your video campaigns for better practices. Image by Liza Summer, License under Pexels.

Video Sales Letters

Alex Rivera: Okay. But yeah, I mean essentially I think I’m pretty sure that cost players around or about $2 or $3 more dollars extra. But the biggest thing was the show up rate on the VSL as well as the show up rate on the sales calls and essentially what that did was, again, there was a higher conversion rate, but the biggest thing here is the conversion rate from leads, people opted into calls was a lot higher because they have a lot more intent. Again, these are people that are searching for the help. So it’s like when they see something that, they’re basically searching around YouTube for education and when you’ve shown them a VSL, a training, a VSL, you’re basically answering their exact question. And they’re at the point where if they’re already searching for help, then obviously they want to take action very quickly. So, that’s another big thing that we saw was the, just again, the conversion rate on the back end. The show up rates as well as the, even on the calls, it was, even that was a higher close rate because, again, these people just have a lot higher intent.

Alex Rivera: So now that I have the numbers, the Facebook ads generate around 8,600 and the YouTube ads were around 5,000 leads so it’s basically 3,600 more leads from the Facebook ad side of things. The average cost per lead from Facebook ads was $7.21 whereas the average cost per lead on YouTube was $12.28. And just for more context, this was for a life coaching offer. So this was for a high ticket, let me see. The price point was around $3,500. Yeah, $3,500 price point. And again, we were just running a typical VSL funnel. So, once the lead ops in for the VSL, then they go to the calendar, book a call and then on that call, that’s where they’d basically pitch the sale or if they were a good fit.

Alex Rivera: The other big thing, like I said, the application rate. So basically anyone who opted in was the conversion rate of them actually booking a call and filling out an application. So, on Facebook ads, it was 10%, whereas YouTube, it was 13%. And even again, the strategy session show up or the sales calls show up from Facebook was 37% compared to YouTube was 57%. And again, that just ties back to more so the intent because sometimes we’ll still get here and there we’ll get a few canceled leads or canceled applications, people who just, more so tire kickers, they’re not really serious, they’re not really invested in, that are not really that serious about getting actual help. But the thing with YouTube, again, since we’re targeting based on intent, we’re targeting those people that are actively doing the research, they’re doing, they’re searching online for help so they’re a lot more serious, a lot more engaged about actually getting help.

Alex Rivera: As well as with Facebook, again, you’re mostly dealing with people that are kind of looking for a distraction, just scrolling through their feed and if you catch their attention with their ad then obviously they’ll take action there. But again, the intent is just a lot lower, which is why, again, some of these percentages are a lot lower. So now on the back end, like I said, now that YouTube essentially on the back end with YouTube has the higher conversion rates, on the close, like that, I guess I think this is probably, I would say this is the biggest thing that stuck out to me for this particular study case.

Alex Rivera: From the Facebook ad side of things, the close rate was around 15% whereas with YouTube, YouTube was 22%. And again, so the same exact funnel, so same exact VSL, same exact sales team. Literally the only things that changed was the platform. And then at the end, basically YouTube generated 83 sales whereas Facebook generated 50 sales where Facebook generated $175K, YouTube generated $290, basically $290,500K. Sorry, $290,000 with $500 and the return to ads is 2.8X compared to YouTube’s 4.7X.

Justin Sardi: That’s huge.

Simplifly your landing page

Alex Rivera: The total ad spend budget, the total monthly ad spend budget between both of them was 20K so they both spent a total of, well Facebook spent 62K and then YouTube ads spent just below that. So, even though it did spend $550 less, it generated almost, let’s say, almost $120,000 more in sales. So again, that just ties back to the back end, because again, the cost per lead was around $5 more on YouTube, but in the end it was almost twice as much profitability there.

Justin Sardi: Nice. Yeah. And that’s massive, man. So are you going basically an, or I guess you can’t choose necessarily in-stream versus discovery anymore, but you’re going a video ad to a landing page with an opt-in, they opt in, they watch the VSL, then they book a call. Is that what you’re doing?

Alex Rivera: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And again, one thing that we saw, or we’re noticing too with YouTube is the landing page, the more simple it is, the better it tends to work. So if that is one part of it, obviously the conversion rates on the funnels, depending on, because sometimes with Facebook, we’ll see a landing page that converts really well, whereas you try to plug in that same landing page with YouTube traffic, it doesn’t necessarily convert as well. So, more often than not what we do is simplify the landing page just to increase the conversion rate. But yeah, to your point, that is the typical VSL funnel that we’ve been using for most of our clients. And again, it’s the same exact funnel for both platforms that this specific client was using.

Justin Sardi: Nice. Have you ever tried running the VSL as an ad and then just pushing that to a sales call booking or whatever, or does that, I don’t know? I’m just curious.

Alex Rivera: So we’ve tried it more so with done-for- you clients, whereas just because that is a lot more direct, we’re saying we’re taking it off your plate, book a call now, but what we typically find with that, it’s a lot less intent, because again, these are, they could be tire kickers because the barrier to book a call is so low. They’ve never seen you, they don’t know who you are, they never met you before. But if they see an ad and you’re telling them to book a call, at the time they might just book a call, but then a couple hours later or the next day they might completely forget about it or, the point is they don’t really see the value, they don’t [inaudible 00:10:44].

Justin Sardi: Right, right. And the VSL’s providing that value.

Alex Rivera: Yeah, exactly.

Justin Sardi: Hitting on all their problems, explaining the solutions, being like, “Hey, do you want us to help you solve this?”

Alex Rivera: Exactly. More often than not when you put it on the ad, you don’t really have them opt in for it, they don’t really watch the full thing or they’ll skip through it and that defeats the whole purpose because at that point they’re not really that…

Think about your video ad script and tell your story in a way that will resonate with your audience. Image by krakenimages, License under Pexels.
Think about your video ad script and tell your story in a way that will resonate with your audience. Image by krakenimages, License under Pexels.

Case Study

Justin Sardi: Yeah, they’re not as qualified. That makes a lot of sense.

Alex Rivera: Exactly. Now let me just pull up one of the ad accounts that we have here just to give you a glimpse of how we typically structure this out.

Justin Sardi: Yeah. Love to see that.

Alex Rivera: So this is one of the ad accounts that we have here. So this client is spending $1,600 a day and we’re using high [inaudible 00:11:24] basically for more so for tracking. But essentially what we do is you see TOF, MOF and then we have bottom of funnel too, BOF. So the top of funnel, that’s all the cold traffic and one thing I want to point out here is if you look at the cost per lead, some of these are pretty high. $30, $20, $25. Average is around $25, $30, pretty high. When we look at the cost per call, they’re very low, like $104, [inaudible 00:11:49], $45. This one’s a little bit higher, but for the most part, these are very, very cheap. The average is $95 a call and the cost per lead is $25 so that just shows you, look at that conversion rate where it’s, what is it?

Justin Sardi: Yeah, one in four. [inaudible 00:12:04].

Alex Rivera: And again, that just goes to prove what I was saying for us, the intent, these leads have a lot higher intent. You might be paying a little bit more for them, but the cost per call essentially is going to drop just because those leads are a lot higher quality.

Justin Sardi: Right. And I mean with the video ad too, are you putting the, you have a person on them, right? The main trainer or coach or whatever, are they in the video ads?

Alex Rivera: Yeah. So what we…

Justin Sardi: There’s also that connection there in the beginning all the way through it.

Alex Rivera: Yeah because I would say, I guess one of the biggest tips I can give to anyone in regards to YouTube ads is when you create your script, if you can tell your story and tell it in a very entertaining way, in a way that’s going to resonate with the audience, that’s what we see works best with YouTube ads. Because there’s a lot of, you could definitely create videos around giving it just value but what we found to work best is when you can provide value, but in a way of a story.

Alex Rivera: So with our clients, what we typically do is have them tell their own story. Since we write the script for them, we kind of jazz it up for them a bit but the main thing is just them telling their story in regards to they’re at a place where, no, they were at a place where their audience is right now and now they’re at a place where the audience wants to be. So, when the audience can understand that and resonate with that, that’s what really gets them to click off the ad and again, that’s really what gets the ads to be super, super profitable.

Justin Sardi: Right. Right. No, that makes a lot of sense.

Custom Intent Audiences

Alex Rivera: And any questions there in regards to the video? Because I always get asked a lot of questions in regards to the video strategy, but I always tell them the biggest thing is just the story component of it.

Justin Sardi: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so everybody always asks us, what’s the best way to target right now? I know that there’s tons of new targeting options that are rolling out all the time. What are you currently seeing working best as far as, or what are you using in most of your campaigns, I guess?

Alex Rivera: Actually let me pull it up, pull this one back up again because this is a good example. Because what we see, I mean, it depends what niche, but for most niches we can use in-markets and with in-markets, that’s essentially Google creating an audience of people that they see are shopping around, basically they’re tracking online behavior and they group these people based on what they’re shopping around for, they’re in the market for it.

Justin Sardi: Right. So they know, but based on Google searches, what websites are being browsed, I mean, it’s pretty, they have that data.

Alex Rivera: Exactly, exactly. So for this client, they’re basically a real estate coach. They have clients basically start their real estate business with real estate investing. So for his audience or his targeting, we’re doing in markets for home equity loans, as well as in market for new apartments, if they want to flip them. So this is actually working really well. So I would say that, as well as custom intent audiences, which is a custom audience you can build. And with those, you’re essentially putting the keywords that, you put a keyword in an audience and you basically create an audience of people who are searching for that keyword on Google. So, even though they’re not on Google when you target them, when you show their ad, you’re targeting based on what they’ve searched for in the past. So, that’s what’s been working really well, I would say for the most part, at least for these past couple months, that’s really been our biggest, our winning audience for across the board with I guess different niches. I’ll say…

Justin Sardi: Yeah, I’ve seen that as well. Custom intent Google searches are phenomenal. And I mean, typically if you were to go to Google and pay for their PPC, you’d be paying, especially some of these things, you’d be paying a couple hundred bucks a click. Just the bidding is very competitive. When you can literally take what people are searching for, hit them when they’re on YouTube and get clicks for next to nothing.

Look at the different ways you can reach your ideal audiences. Image by Pixabay, License under Pexels.
Look at the different ways you can reach your ideal audience. Image by Pixabay, License under Pexels.

Competitive URL audiences

Alex Rivera: Literally, literally, and then one of the audience too is the competitive URL audiences. Those have been working really, really well, especially for B2B. Those are typically our go-to audience assessed out with. But I would say right now, custom intent and competitor URLs, when it comes to custom audiences, those are definitely a top two right now.

Justin Sardi: Nice. Yeah, we’ve been, I was actually digging into some of ours, we were getting dollar leads in the internet marketing niche from targeting click funnels. Literally just targeting click funnels sign in page. That’s it, that’s the only thing in there and we just have an ad that relates to that. We just mention like, “Hey, if you’re into funnel hacking,” or whatever, use those buzzwords that those people are going to know, it’s essentially like retargeting ClickFunnel’s website. I was like, how [inaudible 00:16:19]?

Alex Rivera: Yeah, literally, literally. One other thing too, I mean, we only do this more so when clients start scaling their budget, but what really ultimately works in regards to dialing into your ideal clients, when you start layering it. So I don’t know if you guys are doing that yet, but [inaudible 00:16:32].

Justin Sardi: Yeah, when you do the and/or?

Alex Rivera: Yeah. Yeah. If you do…

Justin Sardi: Combined segments, they’re called, yeah.

Alex Rivera: Not the combined segments, but if you layer an audience and keywords within the same campaign. So it’s like…

Justin Sardi: Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

Alex Rivera: For instance, because you brought up if you’re targeting ClickFunnels, if you use that same URL audience and then you layer that with keywords, basically it’s like you’re targeting people that are similar to people that are visiting ClickFunnels, but if say, for you guys, for instance, they’re also searching for YouTube ad software, YouTube ad tools.

Justin Sardi: [Inaudible 00:17:02] or whatever.

Alex Rivera: Yeah. And they’re searching for, so it’s even higher intent. We typically don’t do that until we validate the audience and the keyword and we combine what works best and like once you get to that point it works really, really, that’s honestly that’s the most profitable at that point.

Justin Sardi: Nice. Yeah, I’ll have to check that out.

Alex Rivera: Yeah, definitely, we’ll try it out.

Justin Sardi: Cool, man. Well, appreciate your time and we wanted to keep this kind of short around 15 minutes or so. So, appreciate you coming on. And if people do want to get in contact with you, what’s the best way to do that? Obviously we’ll link below this video, but what’s the best way to reach out to you?

Alex Rivera: So my email is Alex@digitalblitz.co. You can also check out some case studies in some of our testimonies as well is @digitalblitz.co/take. On there as well I have a training video basically gives a whole outline of what we talked about today. How YouTube ads compare to Facebook ads, but as well as more high level, what our base strategy is with YouTube ads. So, you can go ahead over there, watch the video and check that out.

Justin Sardi: Awesome man. Appreciate your time and love the results you’re getting and looking forward to keeping in contact.

Alex Rivera: Thanks for having me on.

Justin Sardi: Yeah, buddy. Later.

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