Bill Ross: Today I have with us Justin Brook, who is the founder of Ad Skills, a world leading training platform for digital media buyers. He's managed millions in ad spend, generated billions of impressions for top brands, and trained thousands of marketers in profitable pay traffic. Justin's expertise has been sought by industry icons like Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson, and he has built ad skills into the go-to resource for mastering online advertising. And scaling ROI.

Justin, welcome to our expert interview series.

Justin Brooke: Oh man, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Bill Ross: Yeah, great. My pleasure. Alright, now I know this is a short, quick interview to get people great value content in a hurry. So I'm just gonna jump straight into the question and that is, what is the most effective strategy you recommend for business owners to increase sales while also strengthening their company reputation?

Justin Brooke: Yeah, so I'm a, obviously a big proponent of paid ads, but I know that paid ads can be a little hit or miss unless you know what you're doing. Uh, so, but there is one type of paid ads campaign. That one day someone will make a liar out of me on it. But up until this point, and we're talking about thousands and thousands of campaigns, this thing has always been profitable, you know, and so this, I'm not a lawyer, this is not a guarantee, but is at a extremely high success rate, and that's because it's called retargeting.

It really can only work based off of. People who've already visited your website, right? So most people, they have seen this happen. They've gone to a website and they feel like ads are following them around. They're actually not following you. It's just a permission thing. And when you go on people's websites and you click that accept button, you know, it's like, do you accept cookies?

You're basically saying yes. You can track me, you know? So that's how that works. But it's not just retargeting. 'cause retargeting itself is Yes, good, smart. You should do it. I like to first start with retargeting all visitors, but then we want to create a little bit of a funnel. Out of it. Okay. And so you retarget all visitors with like a brand message.

I like, we'll talk about my favorite campaign here in a minute. Okay. Retarget, retarget all visitors, but then what you want to do is you want to move them along the funnel. Okay? And so, um, the next level is all leads. And so if people come through your lead magnet page, your opt-in page, your webinar page, wherever they've.

Enter their details and they've become a lead. On that next page, uh, you're going to, you know, have a new pixel there and you're making a new audience based off of people that have hit here. So now what you're gonna do is you're gonna exclude all visitors and you're going to include. All leads, right? And so now we're trying to move 'em along.

So the leads, we're gonna try and get them to buy something. So the all visitors, we're trying to get them to just opt in for something.

Bill Ross: Okay

Justin Brooke: Leads, we're trying to get them to buy something. And then you do the same process again for sales, right? So after somebody has bought, you normally have like a delivery page, a thank you page.

Log in and register page, you know? And so once somebody has paid, you make a new audience. So this is all visitors, all leads, all customers are all sales. Those are the three audiences I like to do. And each campaign is moving them along the pipeline, right? Sure. So that works extremely well if you just do that.

Now, there's a certain type of ad that I like to use when I'm doing these types of campaigns and I call it the Overnight Celebrity Campaign. Okay? And what that means is you're going to, for your all visitors, you're going to have testimonial ads. So if you're doing retargeting, all the networks let you do retargeting, Facebook, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, all the different networks.

They let you do this. Um. If you're using Google, it's gonna be a little banner ad. Um, if it's Facebook, it's gonna be a normal Facebook video or whatever, but what you want to do is a little. Customer testimonial, and I like to have three to five of them because here's what happens. Okay? This, this is what we're engineering.

Maybe you shared a blog post on social media. Um, maybe, you know, who knows how You got people to your website, referrals, blog posts. You're doing all your normal marketing type stuff and they land on your, your post, but they're not ready to buy yet. This is the first time they're introduced to you, but they read a blog post.

And the next thing they know, two hours later they're online and there's all these testimonials everywhere. Right? And so it's like, wait, I was just reading that guy's blog. Wow. I didn't know this guy was this popular. You know? Sure. And so what we get all the time is people telling me, yeah, I, I found you online.

You know, I saw a bunch of people talking about you. It's like, well, yeah, we made it look like you found us, but technically we found you. You know? But that is the natural buying journey. If you think about it, people read something, they check you out, then they go off and do their own thing, then they hear some good reviews about you, and then they end up buying.

And so we're just kind of speeding that process along. Sure. Uh, by engineering it. And so that's the overnight celebrity campaign. And, uh, it's been the most successful campaign that we've run. Like, that's the gun to my head. I need to make money for a client. That's the one that I'm doing.

Bill Ross: That's great. So I, I have a question.

So the first actual ad that you're running to that whole all visitors audience essentially is your testimonials, essentially.

Justin Brooke: A few of them. Ideally, you know, maybe you got a short video version, you got a couple image versions, maybe you got a. Ugly text looking version. You want to engineer the experience that there's a lot of different people talking about you.

Bill Ross: Okay. So then the next step in that ad funnel would be, like you said, these are now people that have signed up as a lead. You've given 'em away something at that point in time. Is that more traditional, whatever advertising you're using to sell your product? Is that the idea?

Justin Brooke: Yeah, so I'm gonna, you know, for me, a lot of my testimonials are about my newsletter 'cause I wanna get 'em on my email list and I know if I get 'em on my Eli email list, it's a done game.

They're gonna buy eventually. Uh, so I would take from the testimonials, you know, usually it's like, man, this is the best newsletter. I love getting his emails. You know, whatever. And then they land on my page and it's about my newsletter, and they're like, oh, well everybody's talking good about this. I better join.

Right? And it's free. And there would be bonuses. You know, you do your normal lead magnet type stuff to make a good page. So then once they become a lead, now you do the retargeting again. But this time I'm usually gonna do like a limited time, like a seven day sale or a three day sale. And I actually saw that the first time I saw that I went to a Grant Cardone Page. And when I left, like it was literally like within seconds, like I was checking on this page. I was like, I don't know. I don't think I'm gonna buy that. And then I went to Facebook and immediately when I got to Facebook, there was like this 25% off or 75% off.

There was a code, you know? And I was like.

Oh, well, yeah, I'll buy, you know? Right. And so I clicked that. So that's kind of the funnel that I like to create.

Bill Ross: Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. So, so however people are getting, people are getting to them to their website, whether it's through social, it's through, um, LinkedIn or whatever.

But the smartest thing they can do is immediately set up a retargeting campaign following the structure you just put together, which I've got a lot of personal experience with as well. And I can vouch and say that it's fantastic. Now, my next question for you is. You know, a lot of people, depending on the size of their business, obviously are hesitant on paid ads.

They're concerned about, okay, how much is this gonna cost me? How much am I gonna spend? That kind of stuff. When it comes to retargeting, what, what are their expectations at that point?

Justin Brooke: I'm glad you asked that. I actually wanted to talk about this. This is the first campaign that I set up, like let's say you build a website or a funnel or whatever you put your tracking codes on there.

Pixels, whatever. You know, you're, you're done. No, you're not. You set up your retargeting campaign because when you don't have much traffic, when you're a small business, you don't have, you're not paying, you're only paying for the people that you're retargeting. So if you've only retarget three people. It might not even spend 15 cents a day, you know?

Bill Ross: Gotcha.

Justin Brooke: It's only if you have thousands and thousands of people that this is going to start costing you some money. But you gotta remember, like we typically see. At least 300% ROI on this. Wow. So that means, now remember, there's no guarantees, you know, lawyers back off. Right. But typically across lots of campaigns, uh, out, you know, removing the outliers, we will normally see, you put one, you pay $1, you make about $3.

Bill Ross: Fantastic. Fantastic. Alright. And obviously you, you put a little nugget in there as far as what you do in your own campaigns, and that is. Obviously that second step you're trying to get people on your email list. So, um, maybe you can share just real briefly with your email list, how you go about, um, pushing people to those offers.

'cause you said, hey, eventually they're gonna buy essentially.

Justin Brooke: Yeah, yeah. So we've got a, kinda like a time tested seven days. It's actually a nine day, I call it a seven day sequence, but it's actually a nine day sequence. And then the fast version of it is. Day one, not even really talking about me. It's like, here's the gift that I promised you.

Oh, by the way, you know my name's Justin. I ran ad skills. Uh, here's your thing. You know, so, 'cause they don't care about me yet. Right. Sure. They just, they really, they wanted the little carrot that we offered. Right. And so I just try to get a brief paragraph about me in there and then tomorrow. I'll come in with my story, you know, my backstory, what makes me an expert, you know?

And so for me, that's my, like I started with only a six, $2 a day Google ad budget, and I turned it into six figures, right? So now it's like, oh wow, that's an interesting story, right? This guy, he's got something here, day three, it's always an us versus them. And I like to keep the us versus them like a topic, like don't, you don't need to go ragging on other people and saying bad, bad, bad, mouthing other people.

So for us. In the ad world, we badmouth the free traffic guys, right? Just like the free traffic guys badmouth us, you know? Sure. So the enemy, us versus them is, is SEO. Why would you do SEO? It takes so long and you got, and if you do something wrong and your rankings are gone, you know, so. Some kind of an us versus them.

So now I've told my rag is the richest story. I gave 'em a free gift. Rag is the richest story. Us versus them. Now we're, we're like best butts at this point. You know, we're on the same team. They understand my backstory. They know my mama at this point. So now next thing you gotta do is you gotta show them, you gotta walk it out.

You gotta show them what you do. And so this is demonstrating your expertise. Now, that could be a demo of your product for me, because I sell courses and information means I'm gonna be giving them some valuable information on day four, five, and six. So one, two, and three was getting to know me. Day four, five, and six.

I'm dropping sauce. I'm, I'm bringing gifts. I'm, I'm wowing you. I'm delighting you. 'cause day seven, I'm dropping the hammer. It's, it's time to buy. It's a full sales letter. Like it's, I, I believe sales is like being pregnant. You can't be half pregnant. You are either all the way pregnant or you ain't pregnant at all, you know?

And so. Day one through six was time to be nice and giving and all that. You know, now it's time to sell. And when I sell, I sell, right? If you believe in your product, sell the thing, right? So day seven is sell, and then day eight, I drop a bunch of testimonials. So day eight's emails like, Hey, I know yesterday I told you my product's the best thing since sliced bread.

I'm obviously biased, but look, here's what everybody else says. Testimonial, testimonial, testimonial. So I normally will do two testimonials, a buy link, two testimonials, a buy link. And I'll, I'll make that sucker. I don't know, you know, as many testimonials as you got, you know? Gotcha. And then finally, day nine.

All right. I learned this tr, I think I learned this from a Seinfield episode. Um, what happens is, or whoever it was, they get out of the cab and they go to pay the cab. And as soon as they hand the money to the cab driver, the cab driver starts going, oh, I'm so sorry. I must have made you upset. I must have made you so mad.

Uh, and so then the guy is like, oh, no, you didn't make me mad. So he gives him a little bit more money, right? It, it turns out the cab driver, this was a trick. Like he knew that, that if he just, so day nine. So if you think about it, my sequence. I got, got to know you, gave you a bunch of stuff, sold you something, showed you testimonials.

I've given you everything and if you haven't bought by now, you're gonna get an email from me that's gonna look very personal and it's gonna be like, I'm so sorry. I must have offended you. I saw you didn't buy. I must have done something wrong. Can you please just let me know what I said that made you not wanna buy?

And so many people will write back and be like, no, dude, I loved it. I loved everything. You, I just didn't have my credit card yet. Or I just had a question, you know? And so all of a sudden they start getting the real objections and man, I'm slinging deals on day nine.

Bill Ross: So now you have lessons from Seinfeld.

That is amazing. That is fantastic. Well, I just wanted to say, Justin, thank you so much. You have given. Such a clear description of how to bring and build business and traffic and sales and into profits and, and you went far beyond just the, you know, that that foundation of retargeting and even broke down, you know, your email strategy, which is, is amazing and I appreciate that.

Uh, I did have one more simple question for you. If people wanna know about more about you, your services, how can they get in touch with you?

Justin Brooke: Well, I wouldn't be much of a marketer if you couldn't just Google me, you know? So, um, yeah. So you, if you Google Justin Brooke, you're gonna find my website. You Google ad skills, you're gonna see ads about ad skills.

If you go on YouTube, I've got a bunch of free stuff, you know, search up Justin Brooke, or ad skills on YouTube. We've got years of videos that we've been uploading. Um, so check out the free stuff first, right? I wanna wow, you, you know, get involved. You know, you start visiting our properties, you get a little retargeting pixel on you.

Don't worry. We'll, we'll get you and, you know.

Bill Ross: that's great. All right. Well listen, I appreciate the time. Again, tremendous value, tremendous information. I wanted to say thank you. Thanks for being with us, and, we'll be talking to you soon. All right. Thank you so much.

Justin Brooke: Thanks.