1.2 Evolution of Advertising

Welcome back to this series on paid advertising.

 Now we’re just getting started here so we’re not going to go too crazy too fast. We want to make you feel comfortable, you know? Much like fresher week when you first join college, this first chapter is dedicated to giving you context for what's to come.

 Setting a strong foundation is just as important to master the skill. Which basically means you understanding the WHY of paid advertising is just as important as being able to know HOW to do it.

 Now picking up from where we left off in the last episode, we talked about how advertising has been around for quite a while, much longer than most other business practices you see today.

 But there is one key difference between the way advertising has been implemented in the last few centuries and the way it is done today. In fact, something changed in the last 15 years that has taken advertising to a level where it has never been before.

 Almost all advertising in the last 6000 years has been what we call spray and pray. That basically means, businesses had to splatter their messages to a large mass wherever it was possible and hope their target audience would pick up their message.

 For example, if your business was selling musical instruments and you ran a TV ad for it, you would be hoping that the people who are interested in buying instruments would be sitting in front of their TVs at that specific time.

 And even then, you only got one shot at sending out one message. You couldn't tell if your message worked, or if it didn't work.

Never in the history of the world have businesses been able to target exactly their audience until Facebook came around. Facebook began blowing up in 2008 and by 2011 there was no stopping it. And then, Facebook went on to purchase Instagram where everyone uploads travel photos, shares what they’re eating and stalks their exes. ‍

You know you’ve done it. Please stop. She was never good for you.‍

So between the Facebook and Instagram platforms they have all the information about who you are, what you do, what you like, and so on. Guess what Facebook is able to do with that much information - they can help businesses target their specific audiences. Each business is unique which means it comes with its own distinctive customer base and Facebook created the perfect bridge between the two.

But it's not just targeting that makes Facebook ads so special, it is the fact that it can test out various messages and creatives for different audiences. You can test out different ads on men and on women, changing up the way you talk and engage with each gender. You can market differently to specific countries, ethnicities, age groups, and so on. The power that it gives businesses today is incredible.

Now unlike just running a single TV ad and keeping your fingers crossed, you can test out different ads on multiple platforms with budgets that make sense to you.

And the best part is, you don’t have to spend all your money unless it's bringing in results.

All of this gives you endless marketing possibilities. It’s understanding THIS skillset is what's going to set you apart from a majority of digital marketers out there.

In this course, we aren't just going to walk you through the technical knowhow of the Facebook ads platform and how to run highly effective ads, we’re also going to teach you how to think like a marketer, to understand how businesses grow using marketing and how you can learn the tips and tricks that only a few ad marketers know.

Now, that’s enough context for you - let’s get into this. I’ll see you in the next episode.