Jon Q (00:00):

Hello everybody and welcome back to a remote episode this week, but we're only joined by the legend. That is Jon Loomer. Hey Jon.Jon Loomer (00:10):

Yeah, how you doing, Jon? Thanks for having me.Jon Q (00:12):

Honestly, this is such a pleasure because, well first I think people float the term OG around quite a bit, but I would describe you as the genuine OG of Facebook ads. So this is an absolute honor, and when I got started in Facebook ads, genuinely I learned so much from that. Your content and all that foundational knowledge, so much of that came from your blog, your content, the power hitters, all that stuff that you do. So thank you so much for that.Jon Loomer (00:47):

I appreciate that. It means I'm old, maybe been around for a while. Awesome.Jon Q (00:54):

I mean,Jon Loomer (00:57):

It is the O of og, but no, it sounds also something I'm proud of that I've survived this long. So yeah, it's pretty cool.Jon Q (01:07):

No, it's amazing. You weirdly have some sort of celebrity status within this business, right? So when I told our paid social team that you're coming on the podcast, there was a squi, our head of Paid social has written a note that I can read out. So I think this sums it up. So Jon Loomer with Five With Five, so incredible to have you on the podcast. When I first got into this industry, your content helped me so much. Just explaining things in terms I understood. Absolute game changer. Thank you so much. So yeah, there you go.Jon Loomer (01:46):

That's awesome.Jon Q (01:48):

Thank you. I think it's probably the case for a lot of people. So we're probably not going to talk that much weirdly about Facebook ads. In this episode, we're going to talk about you, your background, how you came to be, the Facebook ads, Jon Loomer. So to start with, should we kick off with, in your own words, what's your background? Who are you, what do you do? IJon Loomer (02:13):

Mean, it's a longer story every day. So in terms of the business side, look, I'm a philosophy major, had no idea what I want to do. Originally I wanted to be a sports writer, but that took a bunch of turns. First of all, philosophy, major thought I wanted to be maybe a teacher follow my parents for six months or so. I took some classes after I graduated to be a teacher. That didn't happen. I got married at a young age, 24, moved to Colorado and kind of took the first job I could find right away. So I was in insurance for five years and
(02:58)
I think there's nothing better than having a job that you hate to give you perspective really on what you want and don't want. I mean, you also don't want to get stuck in it forever. No, but luckily what it also did, we're talking 99 that'll age me a little bit. I was obsessed with fantasy sports, which also made me probably a terrible employee doing something that I didn't enjoy doing. So I was spending a lot of time looking at my fantasy teams and stuff like that. But I also started writing for fantasy sports websites started my own when starting your own website was a big deal. I mean, we're talking about 2002, 2003, something like that. And that actually led to me getting a job at the NBA overseeing fantasy games. What job? It was insane job to be able to just sit down with the development team and say, Hey, this game sounds kind of cool.
(03:57)
What if we did this and that? And then they go out and build it and, and you just kind of take it for granted that it happened. But overseeing that and content and just everything. And I didn't even realize what I was doing was marketing because I had no background in marketing, but that's essentially what it was. So I did that for three seasons, and the key point of this for what I'm doing now is that the NBA partnered with Facebook when there were 50 million people on the platform. And that was my first exposure to Facebook. And I fell in love with the platform. And so it was very early days. I mean, we're talking 2007 very early days of marketing on Facebook. So I wouldn't really say that's what I was doing. I was probably the first admin of the NBA Facebook group, the official NBA Facebook group before there were pages, that's where we're at.
(04:54)
But it was an amazing job, but we had to move to New Jersey to do it. Ended up having odds and ends jobs after that got laid off twice in the span of two and a half years and then started my website. The plan wasn't, ah, I'm going to start my own business. Honestly, I had had no clue how to start a business that was not really even an idea. It was simply, I'm going to use some of the stuff that I know and highlight some of my skills that I've learned during the past several years to get a job. Along the way, though, I was kind of spoiled in the jobs I'd have s not only at the NBA, I mean I did some pretty cool stuff after that. It was just tough time. We were talking 2008 to 2011. There was a lot of, so when it was all, yeah, economy issues. So I got laid off at a startup development company, got laid off American Cancer Society, but I was VP of Strategic Marketing, which again, just that title sounded crazy to me. Didn't even realize I was marketing until I applied for that job.
(06:07)
And then so I was spoiled, also, didn't want to move again. I had a family of three young boys and I've been asking my wife to move us across country to do that MBA thing. And everything else after that had been remote and I was like, we couldn't do this again. So number one, I was spoiled, wanted a job. I actually enjoyed. Now, number two, I didn't want to move across country again. So the result of that was I just didn't get a job. I would apply for stuff, it wasn't really into it and just start writing. So this website again was kind of like this resume breathing resume is what I was hoping it would be. And just kind of writing about social media marketing stuff and kind of the job search and whatnot. And then eventually I began using social media to build my brand once I started getting traffic to the website. And then that provided me more of a focus on Facebook marketing. And then I started using ads to promote it, promote my brand, and then I would start writing about Facebook ads. And then that ended up becoming my thing, but it was kind of this process and it wasn't this well thought out of goal that this is what I'm going to do. And then, so yeah, for the last 12 years, been primarily focused on what is now advanced meta advertising education, and that's what I do.Jon Q (07:52):

I think that's really interesting how that developed. What was your, I guess because most people would, I guess, get into marketing, get into Facebook ads and try and get a job, and was there a really big thing for you about education? Because you're clearly good at not just good at meta ads or Facebook ads. I still really struggled to change the name. I don't know, change, which I'm probably in the wrong job if I don't like change. Anyway, what was the big thing behind the education element of this for you?Jon Loomer (08:28):

I think there are a couple of contributing factors. Again, both my parents were teachers. My mom an elementary school teacher, my dad was a math professor, so that certainly probably contributed. I also always enjoyed writing. Again, I wanted to be a sports writer originally what I wanted to do. And so expressing myself in written word was something I was comfortable doing. I also, I'm sorry.Jon Q (09:05):

No, it's good. Carry on. Go forJon Loomer (09:06):

It. And I also, like I say, I'm an accidental marker. I really don't like selling. I'm not a comfortable seller, so I enjoy instead just showing you how to do things and just trying to be helpful generally. And really found early on when I created the website that was going to be the way that I could help the most people is creating content that helped, which in a way seems obvious, but it's not. Right.Jon Q (09:42):

Was there a point at which that really took off for you? Because I think, I'm trying to add the dates up in my mind, but I think when I seriously got into Facebook ads, you're kind of there and you're already doing your thing, but was there a point at which you suddenly noticed a difference in terms of your profile? Or was it just steady as you go, steady as you go?Jon Loomer (10:06):

There were several kind of events, pivotal events had happened. I mean, I would say when I started focusing on Facebook marketing was, I believe it was February 29th, 2012 when Facebook timeline for pages came out. And I just wrote a whole bunch of blog posts about all of these various features that people should know about. I mean, little things happened between then and during that year. So Mari Smith would mention me and link to me, Amy Porterfield would mention me. I always kind of saw my role, my niche as being the male option, because in Facebook marketing, everything was to me at that point, Mari Smith and Amy Porterfield. So those things were big. I think ultimately Power Hitter was the,Jon Q (11:11):

Yeah, that's a blast from the past.Jon Loomer (11:14):

So it was the opportunity that I didn't even realize was the gift that I needed, right? Because it was number one, it was for advanced Facebook advertisers because you didn't even touch it unless you truly cared about advertising and you were invested in it because that's where you get all the additional features. I guess probably technically we were in test mode at that point too, beyond what was considered the self-serve tool, which I think eventually became boosting and stuff. Again, it's kind of a haze at this point, but basically if you were serious about advertising, you used Power Editor now, it was extremely buggy and confusing as well, which again, bonuses for me because I can create content explaining how to use it.
(12:05)
And then my first true product, so I created a Facebook page review product at one point, that was my first product ever, which would be just like you submitted your page and I would record something, and it was something that wasn't scalable, but people bought it, which was fine. But my first true product, my first course was a power editor, of course, and that thing just changed my life. It just exploded because of the need for education on this thing. And again, I wasn't really doing the math to understand why this was the perfect fit. These are people who are already spending money deeply invested, and this tool which they needed to use was really confusing. And that was the perfect combination, really was from that point forward, I was focused on advanced Facebook advertisers. It just is what made sense.Jon Q (13:05):

I dunno if you do feel the pressure of this at all or not, but so you released the course, everyone's coming to you for advice and recommendations on Power Editor. You've got the content, obviously. Anyway, so the blog, the newsletter, you're now producing lots of content on Instagram, for example, but at that point in time, when it suddenly started to flip, did you feel a big pressure to come up with something every day, put content out every day, put new material out every day? Or was it kind of, yeah, we'll go as it goes and we'll produce what it needs, when it needs, how did youJon Loomer (13:46):

Say? Look, the years of 2014 through 18, it was almost too easy. Again, I didn't appreciate how hard that should have been to create something. Again, I'd never even thought of creating a business or building a brand or anything before. And so I didn't feel a lot of pressure. And then a weird, Google sent me so much traffic, and it was a weird thing too, where I would take it for granted because after a while, it's like it didn't matter if I was publishing seven blog posts a week or one or I, I would still get a ton of traffic. And honestly, that became problematic long term because it wouldn't last forever. But in terms of pressure, I mean, the toughest time really was when just the amount of questions coming in was just kind of overwhelming. Now that led me to building a team and getting some help, which was good. But also keep in mind, in those first really 10 years, I again felt lucky that I could do that while focusing on my primary strength. So I'm going to be on Facebook, I'm going to write blog posts. I didn't really do anything. I mean, I kept the podcast going here and there, but I was not doing video. The videos that you would see for me typically on YouTube would be screen share, basically a webinar, right? Yeah, a webinar replay,Jon Q (15:38):

Like prem looms.Jon Loomer (15:40):

And they were the lowest barrier of commitment of time. I recorded this already, let me throw it on YouTube, and probably nobody watched it, whatever. So I think these days it's way different for me because I felt like I had to build my brand back up again.Jon Q (16:03):

Yeah, my observation is that you got really well, really well, really well, and sometime around the pandemic kind of went quite quiet, and then you came back with your podcast and you started doing the videos on Instagram. What happened in that quiet phase? What was that?Jon Loomer (16:29):

So some of it was by design. So the entire business, the point of it too, was to spend more time with my kids at my boys as they were growing up. Some other background there, some perspective is that our oldest son is a cancer survivor. So he had cancer at a very young age. He's healthy and he's actually in med school now. That must have been, so that kind of changes your outlook on everything. So that was my primary focus. I want to create the freedom to spend more time with them and ultimately to be their baseball coach is what happened. And as they got older, that commitment became big, tougher and tougher, just all consuming. I started a team for them and used my marketing knowledge to build a brand around a team and actually still get phone calls to this day from people thinking I'm still running this team and not, but because first of all, that commitment was a lot. Second of all, there does come a point of burnout eventually as well with everything that was going on. It was the perfect storm, then the pandemic hits.
(17:53)
And so I had all these plans for 2020, and I just remember we were preparing to go on a trip, a baseball trip. Of course, everything was baseball and we weren't sure if it was going to happen. So this was March of 2020, and I for whatever reason, sent an email to my list talking about that, and also just asking people how they're doing. This was just in the very early stages of the pandemic. I just want to see what's going on and just got flooded with responses of people who were suffering sick, lost their jobs on lockdown in Italy, in Europe, and really it hadn't truly hit in the US yet, telling me to take it seriously, this and that. And then I'm like, okay, I'm supposed to sell with everything that's going on. I already don't really selling. So basically I scrapped everything that was planning for that year and really just lost.
(19:00)
I mean, at the same time, trying to run a baseball team through the pandemic and manage parents and their expectations and they think, oh, why aren't we playing? We should play. We should travel. We should do it. It was awful, honestly. So whether it's the anxiety of all those things or whatever, I mean, I definitely, I hear it from a lot of people who say, I went quiet, but the reality is also a lot of things I was doing for all those years, they weren't working as well anymore, right? So I was still blogging. I really would have to go back and look to see how frequently I still was, but I was still blogging. It just wasn't as impactful as it once was.
(19:45)
Google was sending me 10,000 plus people every day at one point, and then it became a fraction of that Facebook stopped working the way it used to organic reach and all those things. And I wasn't anywhere else really on social media. I didn't use Instagram other than it as an ads placement. And I was like, I'm not going to get on TikTok or Snapchat or any of these other places. I was kind of stubborn in that way too. I didn't want to change, but I was in this weird place where it's like I was still kind of benefiting from those huge years to the point where it was still sustainable, but we were on this decline and that decline was accelerated, I think because of everything that happened during the pandemic and how I handled it.
(20:42)
And it is funny because the timing of when everything came into a head mean, it was summer of 2022. I know I'm heading in a bad direction coaching at the time, 14-year-old son's team knowing this is also the last summer I was going to be coaching, moving on to high school, and he's our youngest. So that was going to be the end of my coaching life and not be able to then focus on business again, because really trying to make a huge pivot in the business would've been challenging over those last few years because of everything else was going on. So now as a hundred percent dedicated to that, it had more mental space and the decision was made. Okay, the one thing I'm not doing short form video, and that's got to be the new focusJon Q (21:40):

This seems to have done. It's remember in the first few and they're getting better and better and better and better and better, and it's looking great. Now, question on that time. So my kids are both really young, right? Yours have not flown the nest, but high school age do.Jon Loomer (22:01):

Got one left in high school, two that they're out. Yeah.Jon Q (22:05):

Okay. So yeah, you've almost done that kind of the young bit. And given that a big part of your motivation was to be around coach their baseball teams, spend time with them, do you feel you got the balance right looking back, because that's something you've always wondered. Will you look back and go, yeah, I've got that balance, right?Jon Loomer (22:31):

Yeah, I do. I do. It is. It is interesting. I don't really have any regrets because obviously I could have done some things differently where this wouldn't be as much of a chaotic time trying to get back to where things were. But at the same time, that may have taken away from the time I spent with them. Like, oh, so maybe I would've been stuff, anyone who wanted me to speak at an event during those years, they probably quickly realized I wasn't available Anytime from March through August, forget about it because of baseball, and that's pretty much when most of the events are going to take place anyway,Jon Q (23:25):

But massive respect on that, I think such a hard balance to get. So it's really interesting hearing you talk about that. We can't get too distracted, but I have my first baseball experience this summer, Jon, what's that? So we were on holiday in the US and we went to a Yankees versus the Astros game where? At the Yankees stadium in New York. And oh man, it was so much fun. It was so good. It was so good. It was quite slow game, and I think I understood enough of the basics to really enjoy it, but I'd love to watch more. It was brilliant.Jon Loomer (24:09):

And they've sped it up because they've added the pitch clock. So imagine going to a Yankees Astros game before the pitch clock and games were lasting four hours in some cases. But yeah, no, it's, I've always loved the game. My, I don't say raise my boys, I think kind of took that from me as well, that love of the game. And I think that's also where my love of stats comes from, which kind led into marketing as well.Jon Q (24:42):

I read about that, which I thought was interesting. Sorry, I've got a have a, because it's Friday evening, I feel bad though because it's, is it coffee time?Jon Loomer (24:53):

I already had my coffee the day. I'm only water now.Jon Q (25:00):

Yeah, I loved it. And I did read about the stats thing, which I thought was really interesting. So was that kind of understanding the stats and the figures behind baseball kind of got you into data analysis in a way?Jon Loomer (25:16):

In a way, yeah. I mean, look, so when I was in, I guess it could go also back to baseball cards as a huge baseball card collector. As a kid flipping over those cards and looking at all his stats and making sense out of 'em, and it's like, why are these in bold and italics? What is it about this player that makes him special? And I was obsessed for a time who should be in the hall of fame and who maybe shouldn't be based on their stats. And then of course, fantasy sports. So one of the things I did while I was involved in all that was I developed a rating system for determining who were the best players and just trying to evaluate a player's worth. So yeah, I think it was somewhat natural moving on, which again, it's kind of funny. My dad was a math professor.
(26:15)
I wouldn't say I was necessarily particularly good at math in high school, but there are certain things about math that I enjoy. And I did well enough in math that I tested out of math in college. So I never even took a stats class or anything in college. So it's all kind of silly, but the whole thing of probability and statistics that I think I still latch onto and evaluating which stats are important, which aren't, I mean, at the same arguments in baseball that we do in advertising. So for the longest time in baseball, people were obsessed with the three most supposedly most important stats for a hitter of batting average home runs rbis. And now it's like the batting average in rbis aren't that important for a pitcher. It's like how many wins do they have? And the wins don't matter anymore. And it's just kind of understanding that and why. And then with advertising, trying to get people to not be so obsessed with things like click through rate and cost per click and things like that. And it's like, what is your cost per desired action? That's all that matters. So there's absolutely some spill over there.Jon Q (27:38):

So it's like that practical application of maths,Jon Loomer (27:41):

Right?Jon Q (27:42):

Yeah,Jon Loomer (27:43):

I'm no math expert. I'm no stats expert. It's just like a basic appreciation for it, I think.Jon Q (27:48):

Yeah, no, that's really cool. We can't have a conversation without touching on where Facebook, sorry, meta ads are right now. And the last probably two years or so have seen enormous amounts of change. And I would argue the content from the likes of yourself, more needed now than ever given that people are just still, I think, trying to work out how to make the platform work best for them since big changes like iOS and there's more change coming. So what's your take on where Meta Ads is at right now? Do you have any concerns with where it's going and how have you seen this play out in terms of your coaching?Jon Loomer (28:43):

Yeah, it's funny trying to determine where this all started. The direction we're on right now, where it started, the easy answer is iOS 14, but I think it's before that, I think it was Cambridge Analytica, which technically is late is 2015, but I don't think it was really addressed until a few years later.Jon Q (29:04):

And they started pulling out different targeting options,Jon Loomer (29:07):

Didn't they? Correct. Started removing certain targeting options that started to be more of a focus on privacy and how are advertisers using this data, which is often confused what advertisers actually see and whatnot, but it's really what is the data that's being collected and how is it being used? And so then iOS 14 happened where tracking became an option across apps and websites for iOS users, which would impact attribution, which impacts optimization, which impacts targeting as well. And I think that though was META'S motivation for improving things like machine learning and modeling and all this stuff we're seeing now with optimization and broader targeting, also knowing in the meantime, removing interests all the time due to concerns about discrimination often times, again, how that's being used for manipulative purposes. So it's like, okay, well the solution is going broader and allowing the algorithm to find people, and it takes less of that focus off of the advertiser and their inputs and what they can be putting in there.
(30:38)
I think meta has also seen over the years, and they remind us over and over and over that advertisers often, especially these days, restrict the algorithm to their detriment, to the point they're getting worse results. It could be your own worst enemy, big time, can't you? Exactly. And it's understandable, and I was resistant to a lot of these changes too, because I'm someone who loved all the microtargeting stuff and let's find this small group of people who are super active and going to lead to great results. And I often say we were, the algorithm back then if we knew what we were doing could get amazing results. Of course, it didn't necessarily scale, but it was so cheap. I think the difference became over the years too, it just became more and more expensive because they're more advertisers, there's more demand. And so as a lot of us tried to hold onto some of those old strategies, but they just became less and less effective. So now we're at a point where, and it started I guess a couple years ago where Meta started expanding our audiences, which was crazy to me at the time. And I'm sure a lot of advertisers are like, I set a target these people, why would you target people beyond that? So it started out as an option for detailed targeting and lookalikes, and then there were cases where it became forced that you had no choice.
(32:17)
And then we ran into things like Advantage plus shopping campaigns, which stripped out all targeting inputs, and it relied entirely on your pixel data conversion history, prior people engaged with your ads. And it worked, and not for everybody, but for a lot of e-com businesses. It worked. Yeah, I was saying it worked really well. And then they took that same type of approach for what is Advantage Plus audience, where now our targeting inputs are only suggestions and to then go much broader beyond that, and that is the priority now that's prioritized. It's the default. You can switch back to the old targeting methods where it could expand with advantage, detail targeting, things like that. But it's like two clicks away. They try to discourage you, are you sure that you really want to do this? So that's the direction we're heading where our inputs mean a lot less.
(33:21)
They're just targeting suggestions, and then you're kind of trusting the algorithm to do its thing. So there's definitely a lot of trust that you have to put in the algorithm for that. It is not a ton of transparency either. One of the things I've always asked for is it would be really nice to know how many of the results came from the people I actually targeted, and how many of the results came from Meta Go and beyond that group. We just don't know to know how effective it is. But I mean, so we're still in this kind of middle ground where it's like, okay, this is the direction we're heading. There's still plenty of weaknesses in it. I write and record about it all the time. I mean, anything top of the funnel is probably going to be garbage, low quality results just because of the way it works.Jon Q (34:15):

I do, I think the big positive in all of this, for me anyway, I like the emphasis on creative that there is now. I think that's a really cool thing, but I do miss probably the somewhat nerdy approach of layering on really detailed audiences and then stacking everything up. AndJon Loomer (34:41):

That's honestly the hard part for me transitioning to this direction because I was not the kind of person who enjoyed creating the ad itself. I was more focused on all the levers. I don't want to manipulate you with my copy and creative, I just want to make sure my ad is shown to the right people. I know that my people like my approach of not being a hard sales manipulative person. So now if you're saying I've got to create the right copy and creative to attract the right people, now all of a sudden, yes I am. I becoming more of a marketer salesman. Those skills have to be prioritized. That's a different job. That's been a different, that's been an adjustment. Yeah,Jon Q (35:28):

It's a completely different job. It's the same with PPC and it's a different skillset, which is good and bad, I think. But I personally, I do love that emphasis on creative. So Jon, that was fascinating and it was so good getting a little bit of a behind the scenes glimpse and a view on your story where can, obviously people could go and find you online. Will you be out and about at all this year? I know Social Media Marketing World's your event, right? And I was, when was I there? 2018 maybe?Jon Loomer (36:13):

Well, so I spoke I think seven years in row that my job, I think it was seven years in a row. I spoke at Social Media Marketing World 2014 to 20, if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, the last time was as the pandemic was rolling in.Jon Q (36:27):

Oh yeah, because they put one on, didn't they? Just before the world went mental.Jon Loomer (36:32):

And it was one of those where I was like, are you sure we're going to do this again? We weren't quite certain how bad it was yet at that point. Then we did it. I just remember there's hand sanitizer everywhere and whatnot.Jon Q (36:47):

What great, mad, mad times. You don't do much else though. That's the only event you choose to speak at. IJon Loomer (36:54):

Mean, again, that was by design initially. I'm hoping to get out there more for more events now. I've had other opportunities. It is just trying to sort out the right ones. I've had actually a couple of 'em to go overseas, which sounds great. It's justJon Q (37:16):

Come to London, Jon, come toJon Loomer (37:17):

London. Well, there's one. There was going to be in Prague that I think sounded great, and I was going to miss my son's birthday and nah. Yeah, I would love to go to London. Just the timing has to be right too. I'm not coaching anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't have conflicts because of kids, but yeah,Jon Q (37:39):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Commitments. It's a big commitment, isn't it? And obviously, so where can people go find you, obviously john luma.com, give us a listJon Loomer (37:47):

That's the best place because now these days, not only do I have the blog posts there, but all my videos are posted there too as special post types where you have the video and a short blog post below it. But otherwise you can find me anywhere on social. So it's TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, all those places except for Facebook are at Jon Luer. Jon Luer is Jon Luer digital. But yeah, that's where you can find me know.Jon Q (38:24):

Excellent. Well look, thank you so much and I hope you have a great rest of your Friday, and thanks so much to everyone for listening in.Jon Loomer (38:32):

Oh, fantastic. Thanks so much, Jon.Jon Q (38:37):

That was amazing. That was really cool because yeah, it was great.