The Studio CEO: Business Coaching For Yoga & Pilates Teachers & Studio Owners

The Truth About Running Ads: What Works, What Doesn't, and What You Need to Know

• Jackie Murphy

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Episode 40: The Truth About Running Ads: What Works, What Doesn't, and What You Need to Know

Thinking about running paid ads for your studio or wellness business? Before you hand over your credit card to Meta or Google, there are three things I want you to hear first.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the biggest mistakes I see studio owners make when jumping into paid advertising—and how to avoid them. Whether you’re running ads now or just thinking about it, this episode will help you:

  • Avoid wasting money on campaigns that don’t convert

  • Understand what actually needs to be in place before you pay to scale

  • Learn how to run ads strategically (without letting AI drain your budget)

We cover:

  • The #1 sign you're not ready for ads yet

  • Why ads work—but only with refinement

  • What happens when you let AI make all the ad decisions

  • How to prep your business so ads lead to actual revenue

This is for you if:
You’ve been posting consistently but aren’t getting new clients, you’re wondering if ads could fix it, or you’ve tried ads in the past and didn’t see results.

🎧 Listen now to make sure your first (or next) ad campaign actually pays off.


Work with Jackie Murphy


Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously and scale to new heights without burning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. This is just the beginning. Hello and welcome back to the Studio CEO Podcast. I am your host, jackie Murphy. Let's go ahead and just dive right into today's episode. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 1:

We are talking about the truth behind running ads, diving into what works, what doesn't and what you need to know If you are thinking about running ads or if you are running ads for your business, before you hand over your credit card and spend money on ads. There are three things that I wish more people knew when it comes to running ads, because, bottom line, I think ads are absolutely amazing. They can a hundred percent work, but not if you're just lighting money on fire, chasing volume, trying to make it work, or letting AI blow through your budget while you wonder what's going on and what's working. So if you have been thinking like I need to get in front of more people, or I think I'm ready to run ads, but I don't really know where to start, or if you're like, oh my gosh, my content is not really converting like I want it to, should I just, you know, spend some money on it and see if that works, then this episode is specifically for you. I'm breaking down the three biggest misconceptions I see when studio owners go to run ads and what you have to know before you ever spend a dollar on ads. And each of these are going to come with a mindset shift, because running successful ads is not just about the platform or putting money to it. It really takes strategy. It takes refining your messaging and your leadership. So let's go ahead and dive in.

Speaker 1:

Number one I have to tell you this, and I want to be super clear that if you are posting on social media, if you are sending emails, if you have a website and those free channels of marketing aren't working for you, then running paid ads is not going to fix it. It literally is like lighting money on fire. Another way to say this is if your organic content isn't getting people to take action, to buy from you, to come to class, then your paid content most likely will fall flat too. Now I think when people see that their marketing isn't quote unquote working the way that they want it to, it's really easy to believe. Well, if this was just in front of more people, then people would buy. Like all I need to do is to get more eyeballs on this. And that assumes that the only issue that you have in your marketing is awareness is not enough eyeballs. It assumes that your copy, your marketing message, is already really strong, your call to actions are super clear, your buying journey is crystal clear and that the offer is really strong. Your call to actions are super clear, your buying journey is crystal clear and that the offer is really strong. And it assumes that all of that is in place and the only problem is that people don't know about it yet.

Speaker 1:

But if your current marketing message, your current organic content, isn't getting people to take action, it's not going to work on paid content any differently. Ads aren't the thing that are going to create buyers taking action. They aren't going to create demand, but they are going to amplify whatever is already happening, whatever is already there. So if you decide to start running ads and you put money behind unclear messaging, multiple, confusing offers, so you don't have a clear student journey or buyer journey, a funnel that doesn't fully convert, it's like turning up the volume on a song that nobody is dancing to, trying to get more people on the dance floor. And why this matters is that it has been proven time and time again that people need seven to 17 touch points before someone is likely to buy. And paid ads can accelerate that, but only if the offer and message are already working. Like 17 touch points of the wrong message, 17 touch points of the wrong offer, 17 touch points where your buyer is confused, aren't going to translate into sales in your business.

Speaker 1:

And so, before you go to run ads, I want you to really dive into your current marketing. Is your current marketing, your current organic strategy, consistently bringing in leads? Yes, or new students, and then ask are people engaging with the marketing I'm putting out there? Are they clicking on my emails? Are they asking questions in the DMs? Are they going to our sales page? If the answer to that is no, then you know that before you go to run paid ads you have some work to do.

Speaker 1:

And finally, the most simple way to see like are you ready for paid ads? Is to ask yourself have I had people convert? Cold people who don't know me find my organic marketing? Have I had them convert without any sort of ad behind it? And if not, we got to fix that foundation first, because what isn't converting for free won't magically convert when you pay right. It's just that you're spending more money to get the wrong message in front of potentially even the wrong people. So really dial in your organic or your free marketing strategy first.

Speaker 1:

And that may seem foundational, but this is why marketing skills having that foundation is so, so important. Just like you don't want to build a house on a shaky foundation, you don't want to build a business, you don't want to build a marketing campaign on a shaky marketing foundation, you have to have those foundational skills of what to say, how to pique curiosity, how to get someone listening, how to get someone to trust you. How to build credibility, how to get them to take action, how to pique curiosity, how to get someone listening, how to get someone to trust you. How to build credibility, how to get them to take action, how to get them to buy. You have to know those skills before you go and you put money towards ads. Okay, the second thing that I want you to know that ads work, but there's a but. But they require refinement and testing. So often when you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to go run ads, you can assume okay, if I just launch an ad and get it running, then people are going to see it and buy from me right away, and this creates unrealistic expectations and often leads to disappointment when the first version of your ad doesn't work in quotes doesn't work, because even expert marketers know that no ad is perfect out of the gate.

Speaker 1:

When you are running ads, you are essentially paying for data, and the data that you get back from running your paid ad tells you what to tweak, what to do differently, what to test next time and when you know how to really look at that data and analyze it and use a strategy behind it, then you can get to a place where ads work for you for sure. But it's almost a skill and, like any skill, they're going to require experimentation, practice, implementation, analyzing it and then repeating that whole process. When you think about copywriters and marketers, they're testing different variations of ads, they're writing different headlines, they're changing the image, they're changing the font color on the ads, they're writing different headlines, they're changing the image, they're changing the font color on the image, they're changing the call to actions and they're tracking the performance based on data. Why this works. According to WordStream, the average Facebook click-through rate across industries is about 1%, which means that 1% of your people that see your ad should click on it. But small improvements, like tweaking a headline, narrowing your audience down, can drastically reduce what you're paying for someone to see your ad, click on it and potentially become a lead or a buyer. In fact, just changing a headline can improve ad performance by up to 500%. So give yourself permission to test.

Speaker 1:

Your first version doesn't need to be perfect, but it does need to be monitored and improved. So ask yourself am I testing multiple versions? Do I know what a healthy cost per lead is for my offer? Am I looking at the data daily or weekly and adjusting from there? Okay, number three you need to know enough to protect your money from AI, and this is literally changing all the time. So, essentially, what can happen is when you go to run ads, you may think, oh, I've seen like the button to boost a post on Instagram. I'll just boost a post and spend money that way and follow their recommendations. They know best.

Speaker 1:

First, let me say boosting a post is most likely a waste of your money and it is going to not help you get new eyeballs on what you want, what you're boosting, whatever post you're boosting. But here's what you have to know that these ad platforms are built to spend your money. They are not built to protect your money. Their AI recommendations for your copy, for your ad, spend for your target audience. They aren't optimized for you, but they are optimized so that your budget gets used very easily, very quickly, and they can be like look, we got you some results, but those results don't necessarily mean that you're going to get an ROI in your business. So if you don't understand the platform, it's really easy to spend hundreds or thousands and actually have nothing to show for it in your business. Meta has Advantage Plus, google has Smart Bidding, and so you really have to understand one.

Speaker 1:

I like to turn off those options until I really know that the ad is working, and working for a long time, and you have to know how to do that and then what to do instead. You don't have to be a tech expert, but you do need to know enough to refine your audience, to know where to put your ads so that they show up in the right place to set your budget and to read the data, because business owners who understand even the basics of ad reporting are three times more likely to get a positive return on investment. So what you want to understand is a lot of these ad platforms actually recommend daily optimization for the best results. So you looking at your ads daily, or someone looking at your ads daily to optimize, tweak, turn on, turn off, shift things around if you need to. So, whether you are like just starting out or you're currently running your ads, I think it's highly important that you know how each ad platform works so that you can know what to look for, know how to read data and know how to optimize that platform, instead of just giving free reign over to the platform and saying spend my money, go for it, because they will, they'll be happy to. So just ask yourself do I know how to read the data? Do I know how to read the dashboard? Am I clear on what my ad is meant to do? Am I trusting my message that if I get someone to it, the message is so good that someone is gonna convert from that?

Speaker 1:

So, to wrap this all up, should you run ads? Yes, eventually, but you can't run ads as a band-aid and not as a shortcut, and not before. Your foundational marketing skills are so, so solid. So if you're not there, what I want you to do is nail your organic messaging marketing and get so clear on your offers. That is what we do inside of the Studio CEO program. Then from there, you can learn the basic ad strategy and testing so that you are protecting your money and really optimizing your chances to get a good ROAS or a good return on ad spend.

Speaker 1:

When you do that, ads become another lever. They become this other tool that you have in your business that you can use. But even then, you wouldn't want your entire business to be built and reliant on ads, because these platforms change anytime, any day, and you have to know that your skills in a market, a marketer, is so solid that you could run successful marketing on any platform, whether it be paid or free. So I want to let you know that if you are ready to turn on ads for your business you're like I have my marketing message, I know it's dialed in Then I do teach that inside of the grow mastermind.

Speaker 1:

Don't teach how to run all types of ads everywhere, because I have found in my 13 years in the industry that the best two types of ads that you can be running in the yoga applies industry are meta ads and Google search ads. So that is what I teach you how to turn on for your business inside of the grow mastermind. It's currently sold out in full, but we are opening up enrollment in September. So if you're like, okay, jackie, I really want to learn how to run ads in this industry specifically, then I would highly recommend being ready for the Grow Mastermind. Enrollment is going to open in September. All right, my friends, I hope this helped you. I hope it gave you a little bit of like look out for this, be careful of this so you aren't wasting money. We want to save you money, we want to save you time and we want your business to grow. Thank you so much.