Welcome to The Paid Social Performance Battle

The showdown where your favorite brands compete to see who is winning on paid social.

How it Works

1. I compare two paid social Facebook Ads library accounts and see who is killing it

2. You vote for your favorite for a chance to win a prize (worth €997)

______________________________

MasterClass vs Studio (Previously Monthly)

So, before going further, let us understand what these brands do and why I picked them.

MasterClass: MasterClass offers online classes created for students of all skill levels. Our instructors are the best in the world.

Studio: Studio creates hands-on classes with the world’s best creators.

______________________

But before that, I have an announcement to make.

For the last two months, I have been running a paid social mastermind group, and I have only accepted 25% of all the applications. So, why do people join this group and pay €19/month for it?

They get:

• Exclusive chat with other paid social marketing pros (no more individual jumping on Zoom calls)

• They ask for landing pages, ads, and campaigns to get quick feedback

• They also jump on bi-monthly calls to learn what's working for us on paid socials

• Content, community, rant, and more.

So, if you are interested in our paid social marketing group, then I'd highly encourage you to apply where folks don't just learn from me but from each other too. And the best part? They love it!

Here's a tweet from our mastermind last week:

👉 Apply here if you want to level up (prices will increase to €29 after the 20th membership, at the moment, we have 15).

Next week, we'll have Dara Danny sharing her secrets.

_____________________________

Back to the newsletter

The Positioning

Both are similar products – one focuses on content with celebrities and the other on creators.

The other difference is that Studio focuses on “hands-on” learning while Masterclass is for “all skill levels," so both are addressing different markets.

That’s about what they are and how they are different (positioning).

The reason I picked these two is that they both use their teachers' credibility to sell their courses.

Ads that appeal

Caveat: I’ll be only picking slightly older ads that are still “active” – they tell me that those ads are performing “well”. We’ll be evaluating two to three of the best video ads and some single-image ads.

Note: Click on the ad first and check them out, and then look at my evaluation afterwards (to understand it well)

• Hook - Show, don’t tell with his performance

• Intro

• Credibility

• Benefit

• How

• JBTD

• CTA

Now you can use this for your ads too. Surprisingly, he didn’t even use the brand name once in the entire ad. Also, it is weird that they don’t use captions at all.

Let’s jump into the MasterClass ads.

Apparently, MasterClass does not use the teacher all the time; instead, they use clips and add more content that supports the teacher.

We are using Esther’s ads because they were recently launched in October and are still active. She teaches Relational intelligence. I had no idea who she was until I saw her ads.

First, wow! I have never heard about this term, so I am naturally curious to learn more.

Learning:

• The hook directly addresses someone who is a leader and manager because they need to fire someone

• Credibility is the face of the celebrity

Key learning:

• Long videos – add more hooks and open-loop questions

• Use stage as a hook

• Agitate the pain by asking a question

Now that we have a good idea of how their video ads are working, let’s see how good their single-image ads are.

I’ll talk about below each add what stood out to me as learning.

Studio

Nothing fancy other than an open loop about “Relational Intelligence”. I guess they wanted to use Esther’s credibility and face to sell the course.

How you can apply it to your ads/marketing

• Use stage as a hook with an opened ended relatable yet deeply insightful question

• If you make videos longer than 60 seconds, use two hooks and add more questions

• With your ads, you can follow this structure – Hook > Intro > Credibility > Benefit > Benefit > How > JBTD > CTA

• Sell “What” with a promised land in the picture

• Primary Text on Facebook Ads focus copy does not matter that much

• Always use credibility even if you are a known face

• You can explain your product or service with text and a talking head ad together

The Short of It

A credible face does get attention, but you still need a hook that gets your audience’s interest more than a face. And if your video is more than 60 seconds, at least have two hooks (one in the beginning and second in the middle)

Now It's Your Time to Decide.

Let me know which brand's ads you liked the most by simply responding.

Cast your vote for a chance to win!

Respond with:

• A - Studio

• B - MasterClass

The prize (worth €997)?

• Paid Social Yearly Mastermind Subscription (228€)

• 300€/hour for a free call with me

• 469€ of one-time entire marketing audit for your brand

I'll share the result in my next newsletter.

Newsletter of the week - Check out Growth Waves 

Daphne is definitely my favorite DTC growth person.

Why? Content is relatable, actionable, and worth reflecting on.

She shares the questions I have that get me thinking about growth from a completely different perspective.

👉 Check Growth Waves

Product of the week - GetLumina

My colleagues usually ask, "What's this camera?" Why does this keep following you where ever you go? And the best one -- Can I have it too?

Instead of telling, let me show you:

Lumina is my hack for better video podcasting and Zoom calls. I paid $300 & I paid for shipping too; their Black Friday says it is $150. Grab it while you can.

You get a further 10% discount with this code: aazar

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Happy Growing with Paid Social,

Aazar Shad

What did you think of this newsletter? I appreciate your feedback!

Amazing • Good • Meh • Bad