Show notes:

This week I spoke to Mark Chapman, President of the I Do Society and the wedding industry’s leading expert in Google Meta and TikTok ads. We discussed the significance of paid advertising strategies in 2026, emphasising the evolving landscape of social media and the pivotal role of short-form video content.

Find out more about the DIY Ads courses use code BECCA for a discount

Get your tickets for Wed Pros Live!

Chapters:

• 00:11 – The Impact of Live Events on Personal Growth
• 04:17 – Navigating the New Era of Wedding Business Marketing
• 10:03 – The Evolution of Wedding Advertising Strategies
• 22:53 – Deciding Where to Allocate Advertising Resources
• 26:09 – The Shift in Advertising Strategies
• 39:27 – The Impact of AI on Advertising
• 40:51 – Transitioning to In-Person Events

Transcript:

Mark
00:00:00.240 – 00:00:33.780
Okay, I love this question because from someone who spends a lot of time looking at my phone and looking at ads and things like that, a lot of our phone and our Internet algorithm is geared to tell us what we want to hear. When you go to a live in person event, there’s no algorithm telling you what you want to hear.

All of a sudden you are met with topics and conversations and experiences that you didn’t even know you could have because it is beyond the bounds of technology and it’s in person. Think for me is a high level summary of why I go to advertising conferences, why I go to wedding industry conferences, and I love every one of them.

Becca
00:00:35.060 – 00:01:36.940
I’m Becca Poutney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger, and you’re listening to the Wedding Pros who Are Ready to Grow podcast. I’m here to share with you actionable tips, strategies and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.

If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you love, then you’re in the right place. Let’s get going with today’s episode.

Today I’m chatting with Mark Chapman, President of the I Do Society and the wedding industry’s leading expert in Google Meta and TikTok ads. As well as running paid ad accounts for multiple businesses.

Mark and the IG Society have recently launched their DIY advertising kits to help wedding pros just like you learn how to run your own paid ads. I’m also personally super excited to have them here as this month the IG Society became the first ever sponsor of this podcast.

I cannot wait to talk all things paid ads with Mark today. So Mark, welcome back to the podcast.

Mark
00:01:37.100 – 00:01:41.260
Yes, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for many days. Thank you so much.

Becca
00:01:41.420 – 00:02:24.040
It’s an absolute pleasure. I’m thrilled to have you back. For any avid listeners, Mark was last here in June of 2025, so it’s not that long ago.

And if you want to go and listen to that, it’s episode 167. Now in that episode we did a real deep dive into paid advertising.

We are going to talk about paid advertising today, but from a slightly different perspect.

So if paid advertising is something you want to get really granular about, I recommend listening to both this episode and the episode we recorded back in June as well. But back to you, Mark.

I have to start this conversation by asking you, how are you feeling about being the first ever paid sponsor on the Becca Pountney Wedding Pros who are Ready to Grow podcast.

Mark
00:02:24.040 – 00:02:46.100
I have many emotions. One of them, I would say, is honored. I think it’s really exciting to be a part of that, to sponsor you. I’m super excited about it.

You do such a great job, but I know you weren’t fitting, fishing for compliments, but I’m going to give you one anyway. You do a really, really great job. And to be a part of that, to help small business owners in the wedding industry is my mission and passion.

And so it’s such a great opportunity to work together. So thanks.

Becca
00:02:46.100 – 00:04:10.060
Well, I’m thrilled to partner with you. And I was just saying before we hit record, like, to me, transparency is so key to everything I do. And so we’ll let the listeners know.

It wasn’t an easy thing for me to let go of because I’ve never had a paid sponsor on the podcast. Mostly because I find this is like a very precious item to me. This is a precious thing. I really respect my audience.

And so when you did approach me last year about it, it took me a bit of time to think it through because I knew if I was going to do it, I needed to make sure I did it with the right people, people with a similar ethos with me, with the right thing, because I value my audience hugely. But on the other side of things, it makes sense, right? Because it allows me to keep the podcast going for longer and keep it free for everyone.

So when we had a discussion and I was very open with you about that, and we’d already known each other in the past, I know what you guys do. It just felt like the right fit as we came into this year.

I know that it’s a gap in our industry where people know that they want to understand paid advertising, but can’t necessarily pay someone like you and your team to do it for them. And so they want to have a go at it, but it feels beyond reach. And so we’ll get into it later. But that for me, made sense for my audience.

I could see how it was going to help them. So I’m thrilled to have you as the first ever sponsor. And that is a title you will never lose. You can never be the first again.

Mark
00:04:11.020 – 00:04:13.260
I’m wearing it. I’ve got a badge. It’s awesome.

Becca
00:04:14.060 – 00:04:36.560
Amazing. Okay, let’s talk about the wedding industry then. Because like I said, we last talked back in June. We’re now in a brand new year. It’s 2026.

You just, like me, work with lots of wedding industry professionals. You’re out there at events, at conferences. What are you seeing on the ground is the kind of vibe of the industry right now as we enter 2026.

Mark
00:04:36.720 – 00:05:08.780
I’d say that 2026 seems to be shaping up to be a year that is more stable than past years. I think that there is, you know, everyone talks about pandemic post pandemic, and I really feel like that conversation is kind of closed now.

I think there’s a, you know, there’s a new reality post pandemic that people are settled into and they’ve made decisions in their business to either keep their business open and do things a little bit differently or go in a different. So I really get the feeling that 2026 is a year of more stability and more calm in the wedding industry than previous years.

Becca
00:05:08.860 – 00:05:29.420
Yeah, there’s definitely that air of positivity that I don’t feel like we necessarily had at the beginning of 2025. And what’s interesting to me, talking about this whole. We kept talking about pre Covid. Post Covid.

I realized when we’ve entered 2026, we’re actually now getting closer to 2030 than we are to 2020. So we need to stop looking back now. That is terrifying. But it is true.

Mark
00:05:29.420 – 00:05:47.020
It’s so true. And you know, and when we say. When I say, like that conversation’s closed.

It’s obviously a part of people’s business journey and an important part of people’s business journey, what they experience through that. But it’s also like, awesome. Okay, we experienced it, we learned from it. Like, focusing on the future is what is good for businesses, I think.

Becca
00:05:47.260 – 00:06:16.680
Yeah, absolutely. It’s kind of. We lived in that age and now we’re in a different era, really. And I think even things like people going out and socializing more.

Me and my friends were talking about this.

I feel like it’s kind of taken those five years for everyone to really get step back into wanting to be in person and not just want to be on the couch. And I think again, we’re seeing that reflected in the industry. More people are wanting to go out to in person events again.

Weddings are getting bigger again. And that kind of fear that was laid over seems to be dissipating somewhat.

Mark
00:06:16.680 – 00:06:23.240
Yeah, it is what it is. Here we are. And I love that you pointed out, actually if we round up, it’s 2030. That’s so crazy.

Becca
00:06:24.120 – 00:07:06.700
I know. It’s absolutely terrifying. So let’s not linger on that fact.

So let’s talk about paid ads then and where you see that fitting into the overall picture of marketing in 2026 because we’re seeing lots of shifts. Social media is gone crazy. I’ve recently written a talk called what the Social Media has Happened. Because that’s what it feels like.

It’s like what’s happened. We’ve gone from posting pretty photos to suddenly being expected to be full blown TV presenters all of the time.

People feel overwhelmed, people can’t keep up. We got the AI stuff going on. So in this kind of melee of marketing that people are feeling, where do you see paid ads sitting among that chaos?

Mark
00:07:06.780 – 00:08:18.240
I think I see paid ads actually taking it a step back and I’m actually going to share a little bit about my story real quickly here because I started out my journey in the wedding industry as a wedding photographer and at that time like I was overwhelmed with in person networking.

And I think that there’s an equivalent of like in the, in like 2008 when I was a wedding photographer, like there are all these networking groups and places to go and there’s a parallel to that to what’s happening now with what you mentioned about all these sorts social media platforms and trying to be everywhere all at once. And I found myself completely overwhelmed with like doing my job, running my business, trying to do all the networking.

And for me, when I discovered paid advertising and I learned it for myself and used it for our own business, it was something that I traded my money for time because I got to a point where I was like, I don’t have time to be in all these places at once.

And so I think that still exists today where paid advertising in 2026 is going to be one of those things where if you want to, if you don’t have any more time to like bootstrap your business and do that networking, it’s that thing that you should look into because it’s going to give you your time back. And yes, it does cost money. But I think everyone who grows a business knows at some point you only have finite resources of both. You have to choose.

Becca
00:08:18.560 – 00:09:16.530
Yeah. And time. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And the thing is, I think we forget that time is money as well.

And actually if we’re spending so much of our time creating content to go on social media, well, that’s actually costing us in other ways. We don’t always put a value on it, but it absolutely is. So yeah, you’re right. We have to spend money to make things happen.

And I do think we’re going to see a bit of a shift. It’ll be Interesting. This year I feel like we’re going to see a divide.

So I’ve started talking about how I see wedding professionals are going to take two routes when it goes to social media.

There’s going to be some that are all in with the reels and they’re going to grow and they’re going to get great visibility because they’re going to be all in and there’s going to be other people that are going to take a step back because they’re overwhelmed and start using it more as a kind of building trust platform for people who already know they exist rather than trying to reach new people. I guess if we’re looking at paid ads, particularly meta ads, I guess that kind of fits somewhere in between those two places.

Mark
00:09:16.530 – 00:09:38.670
No, it really does. Because short form video, whether it’s meta ads or TikTok ads, is incredibly important.

Like you, you really can’t run ads on either of those two platforms today if you don’t have some sort of short form video in your back pocket and you don’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out like creating 50 different videos. Like two or three really good videos can go a whole lot, a really long way for people.

Becca
00:09:38.990 – 00:10:03.070
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so that’s where we see paid ads sitting in 2026.

Do you think there’s any changes from last year or the last few years into 2026 and to what kind of strategies are working when it comes to paid ads? Are the same strategies following through or is it about social media in general? You mentioned the video.

We’re actually what is working is shifting quite fast in paid ads too.

Mark
00:10:03.230 – 00:11:55.330
There are two. I have two answers to that. One is that strategy that has stayed the same. And then there’s a second strategy that I feel like is very different. 2026.

The first strategy that stays the same is that couples need to see you in multiple places multiple times. Because let’s take Google Ads for example.

There isn’t a bride on earth who goes to Google and searches for like wedding venue and name the city or name the town, clicks on the ad and is like this is the venue for me and books her tour.

After clicking on the ad, she’s going to her homework, she’s going to look at your Google review, she’s going to look at your Instagram account, she’s going to look at your TikTok if you have it. And so the consistency of being seen in multiple places multiple times if you’re doing paid advertising is non negotiable.

And that stays the same in 2026.

The difference in 2026, where a strategy that changes, is actually the ad platform’s algorithms are so much better at finding the right person for you. What I mean by that is take Meta, for example, which is Facebook.

And Instagram, in 2025, announced a launch of called Meta Andromeda, which is a new algorithm or way of showing ads to the right person at the right time. It got so much better.

In the past, we would have, like, multiple campaigns, like an awareness campaign and then a remarketing campaign and the campaign in the middle. But now with the different ways that Meta and TikTok and even Google, in a way, show ads to people, you put your ads into one campaign.

You put an ad for someone who doesn’t know anything about you into the same campaign as someone who knows a lot about you and just needs more encouragement to, like, book a tour at your venue or book a appointment with you as a photographer or a dj. So you’re compiling your ads all into one campaign, which is really scary and weird.

But the platforms are so much better at finding the right people for you, and that’s huge. It’s actually a timesaver for 2026 in a really big mind shift, and it alleviates a lot of work that people are scared about campaigns on.

Becca
00:11:55.410 – 00:13:16.980
You know what’s interesting as well, from a consumer point of view, I think, particularly on social media, the ads. Ads are becoming so much like the rest of the content. They’re kind of going back to that place of blending in.

And what’s interesting is that actually, if they’re doing their targeting right, they do reach you where you’re at. I was talking about this.

I was a guest on another podcast recently, and I was talking about how I literally saw an advert, watched the video, bought the outfit within, like, three minutes. It was ridiculous. And I was like, wow, I didn’t think I was that person. But it’s because the ad was so well timed to perfection.

It just hit me square between the eyes. I was like, I need to buy this immediately. And I did. And then I thought, what have I done? I’m pleased. I’m pleased with the result. The item arrived.

I was happy with it, you know, so. So that’s of worse. But on the other hand, another interesting story is I was talking to a friend just yesterday about these hair curlers, all right?

And she kept seeing adverts for these hair curlers all over TikTok. And all of the ads, you know, the ones where bas. It’s like Customers saying how great they are.

And she said to me I didn’t believe the real customers so I’m only going to buy them if you tell me they were good. I thought that was a really interesting insight. So the advert had worked, but she still wanted the personal like trust factor before she purchased.

Mark
00:13:16.980 – 00:14:39.070
You bring up a really good point here too because what you experience is actually more e commerce related to a product. And I actually bought my favorite vacuum cleaner off TikTok.

It’s like a little wand vacuum that I use every single day in my house and I like, I can’t believe I bought it off TikTok. And I was that lady too, you know.

But there is a really important expectation that I want to set for businesses in the wedding industry when it comes to advertising because there’s probably a lot of people like us that maybe have bought $50 product, $100 product, probably not more than $100. It’s sort of people’s like threshold of like, I’m willing to part with this money if this sucks.

But with, with the wedding industry and our service based businesses and the personal experience that it takes in order for someone who discovers you first from an ad to actually booking you and paying you money is quite long and obviously it’s a lot more money than an $80 vacuum cleaner or hair rollers. Right. So I want to make sure that as we talk about this, that ads are incredibly powerful and can be personalized.

But businesses in the wedding industry should have the right expectation of thinking like, okay, what is the reasonable next step that someone who sees me in an ad and doesn’t know anything about me is going to take? Don’t ask them for too much, don’t ask them to write you a check, don’t even really ask them to necessarily book a tour or a meeting with you.

Ask them to come to your website and maybe download something or like something easier, you know what I mean? Like we don’t want to ask too much because it’s too much too soon.

Becca
00:14:39.230 – 00:15:26.540
Yeah, that’s so true.

And what’s interesting about that insight is actually I think that’s going to call a few people out who are listening because I think when we engage with these ads, we do expect when we advertise something that people are going to respond the same whilst forgetting we’re selling a much bigger purchase, a once in a lifetime situation. And yeah, I feel like people judge themselves against the E commerce ads that they are engaging with themselves.

And so then when they don’t get immediate sales and immediate results. They’re like, this didn’t work, I don’t know what I’m doing. And then they switch off.

So let’s talk about a wedding industry advertising client maybe you’ve got that has some of these adverts that are running particularly on social media and are getting results for them. What ask are they asking for in 2026?

Mark
00:15:26.700 – 00:16:33.660
Yeah, a lot of times we are sending them to a website or a landing page that gives the couple or the person multiple options and different ways to convert. And what I mean by that is this is maybe that page has a form on it where you’re asking them, what’s your name? What’s your wedding date?

What’s your preferred method of contact? I’ll reach out to you. That’s great because some people may fill out that form.

But also on that page, maybe you have like a click to text button or a chat functionality where people can just ask a simple question like, do you have my wedding date available? Do you have this dress in this size?

And then maybe there’s another call to action on that page that’s like, hey, DM us through Instagram or go to our Instagram and find us there. The point is, is that the job of the ad is to get them to know you and to like you.

And then you get them to your website or your landing page and give them options to take a journey that’s comfortable for them. Because not every journey is going to be perfectly linear for every single bride and be the same. Not every bride wants to fill out a form.

Maybe she just wants to text you.

So I think that the, you know, I guess the thing I want to communicate is like giving people multiple ways to communicate and multiple different steps to take based on their comfort level.

Becca
00:16:33.820 – 00:16:45.420
And if I was to go on that page, that landing page, is it like a traditional link tree? You know, when people have their link in bio and it’s just a list of buttons?

Or is it more of a sales page, a pretty page, what does that actually look like?

Mark
00:16:45.420 – 00:18:23.310
In practice, that page has some very specific characteristics that help that bride or that couple to know exactly who you are. So it has a headline that tells who you are and what you do, what makes you different.

That page also has some testimonials, some real testimonials, like maybe it’s your Google business testimonial or testimonials from other places where you copy and paste it and you put the Google logo under that testimonial so that they know there’s Some social proof on you. And there’s some social proof on that testimonial to build trust.

The page speaks to the benefit of what you can do for them, not necessarily the features. We could have a whole hour long conversation about features versus benefits.

But features are like the vacuum cleaner sucks up cat litter, but the benefit of the vacuum cleaner is it makes your house clean if you have a cat. So anyway, that’s not a perfect example, but I think folks might get the idea. Don’t list the features of your service.

List or share with people on that page how they will feel when they work with you. So social proof how they feel when they work with you. Make sure it has a really strong headline of what makes you unique.

Another really, really important thing that became more important in 2025 was some sort of concept of pricing that you know, at least here in the states and like it’s really important that people know a range of pricing. You don’t have to put your whole pricing guide on there, but people got to know like, is this within something that I can afford?

So those things are like, if those are on the page, you’re giving folks a lot of really great trust information to decide if they want to click to text you, fill out your form, whatever that call to action is.

Becca
00:18:23.310 – 00:18:40.600
Okay, so it’s basically a curated page which is specifically designed with these cold customers or slightly warm customers, depending on whether we’re retargeting in mind, so that when they land on that page, it’s with them in mind. Is that page the same for a Google Ad or is that just social media ads?

Mark
00:18:40.600 – 00:18:58.120
No, it’s the same for Google Meta, TikTok. And also if your homepage doesn’t have those same things, I strongly recommend that you go and make your homepage like that.

Because even if you’re not paying for advertising, if someone doesn’t know you and they just get to your homepage. Right. You want those things to be on your homepage to get them excited to talk more to you. Yeah.

Becca
00:18:58.120 – 00:19:31.980
And at least at the top part of your homepage because people say to me, that’s on my homepage, Becca. And then I’m like scrolling for a mile before I ever get to it. We don’t want to scroll that far.

It needs to be at the top part, otherwise they’re clicking off straight away. Okay, what about the sectors that you think paid ads are working for right now?

Again, I don’t know how big the cross section of clients you have is in the industry. You may be skewed more towards a certain supplier type.

But from your perspective, are there particularly the types of wedding businesses that paid ads are working particularly well for right now?

Mark
00:19:32.300 – 00:21:07.390
No brainers are venues and bridal because those are typically like at the very start of the bride’s journey and she hasn’t quite figured out her way yet or the couple’s journey. So venues are obvious because there’s so many venue options and it’s really confusing.

So people do a lot of searching on Google for venues and venues are very visual as well as wedding dresses. So bridal is incredibly powerful with paid ads because it’s such a visual product in a way.

Both of those businesses are products because people are like they’re paying for the venue or they’re paying for the dress, even though there’s a service component that comes before acquiring that product.

With other businesses like photographers, DJs, florists and things like that, paid ads do work really well, but they’re a little bit trickier because it’s so much more human if you think about a DJ or a photographer and the fact that that couple is going to invite you to the most important day of your life. It’s such a personal decision about who you are, what your voice sounds like, what you look like, what you value as a human. Right.

Whereas like venues and bridal, it’s like, oh, I want that product and that doesn’t matter so much to people behind it.

So for paid ads for wedding pros who are providing a service, it’s really, really important that your paid advertising campaigns just really show who you are. It’s more important that you have short form video, your face to camera so they can hear your voice and see who, who you are and what you sound like.

So it works well for everyone.

But where I think most people have problems are actually the wedding pros like the photographers and the DJs, like I said, because they are oftentimes promoting their portfolio or their feature list when really.

Becca
00:21:07.390 – 00:21:54.270
They should be promoting themselves, how they’re made to feel.

I remember having a conversation with this pog on this podcast with a DJ about who was using a lot of paid ads and a lot of what he was doing was talking about like how to how you don’t want a dodgy dj like you don’t want, this is what you don’t want as your wedding dj and this is what you do want and that you know, this is going back a few years.

But that message worked well for him at that time because he was tapping into that emotions of People realizing, oh, no, I. I don’t want a bad dj, I actually want a really good party. And this is what you could have instead. And. And messaging him and chatting. And that was working really well for them.

So how do you think then that people come up with these benefits so that they don’t fall into this trap of just listing loads of features?

Mark
00:21:54.270 – 00:22:36.980
Oh, my gosh. You know, we’re so thankful for Chat GPT because Chat GPT doesn’t give out perfect answers all the time.

But you could literally go and list out, like, what you do, what you provide as a business, like, list out all those features and say, hey, chat, chatgpt, I want you to tell me, I want you to take these features and turn it into benefit statements that communicate how someone’s going to feel if they were to purchase these features for their wedding. That’s the quick, simple answer. There was a longer answer two years ago, before ChatGPT entered the room, but, like, really grateful for it now.

And of course, you need to edit it a little bit and you can ask ChatGPT to make it more fun or make it more professional. That’s one of the great things about that tool, is that it can shape language very quickly for you.

Becca
00:22:37.140 – 00:23:05.810
Yeah, absolutely. That’s well worth everyone doing.

And presumably you could put in some copy off your website or even your URL from your website, and it will pull information from there as well and give you even better answers that are particularly based on your business. Okay, how do we decide then where to spend our advertising money? We are in the wedding industry.

Maybe we’re a venue, maybe we’re a bridal boutique, or maybe we’re a florist. We’re thinking we want to do some paid ads. Do we go for Google? Do we go for TikTok or do we go for Meta?

Or do we spread ourselves thinly across all three?

Mark
00:23:05.810 – 00:24:43.010
You don’t spread yourself thinly. You want to really lay into, like, one platform at a time.

Most businesses should start with Google because if someone is actively searching for a business like yours, like Wedding DJ in London, do you want to be found when someone’s actively searching because they intend to find you? Google’s not very sexy. And Google oftentimes is where people click on an ad.

They found you, you, they write you down, they bookmark your website, they do something and they go back to their search because by the nature of Internet search, they want to find multiple options and they’re comparing. So it can look from a. I’m going down a rabbit trail of Google. I’ll get the meta in a second, I promise.

But it’s like it can look like Google’s not working because that’s how people search and especially for wedding businesses. But it’s really important that they discover you on Google. So start with Google and make sure that you are discovered there.

Second, either Meta or TikTok. To be honest, right now it’s a little bit of a toss up. We see both platforms working incredibly well.

If you are someone who is not good with short form video and it’s going to take a momentous effort for you to create a short form video or put your face on camera, don’t do TikTok go with meta ads, which is Facebook and Instagram, because you can do a lot of good, like good damage with single or static images as well. So meta is probably platform number two.

If you’re really good though at short form video and you like it and you Enjoy it, it TikTok is an incredible place because a lot of wedding businesses are so overwhelmed by just being on Instagram that they’re like, I can’t even think of doing TikTok yet. And so it’s this really wild open market where the click costs are cheaper and there’s a lot more ad inventory.

I’ll say that cost you a lot less, but it requires you to be better at short form video.

Becca
00:24:43.330 – 00:25:37.640
What’s interesting as well, I think right now about the TikTok algorithm, it kind of goes back to what you were saying about how they’re pushing out paid ads.

Really specifically I’m finding with my videos over there, they’re not necessarily reaching loads of people, but the quality of people they’re reaching is much higher. So if I look at my percentage reach versus my percentage engagement, like my engagement rate over there is really high.

Which says to me, okay, this video might have only been seen by 300 people, but 99 of those people have engaged with the video. So that’s a huge stat. So I do think there’s some interesting stuff going on over there.

And a bit like I was saying earlier, don’t expect the E commerce version of an ad the same on TikTok. Don’t expect to be reaching millions of people on there there. That’s. That’s false advertising. It’s not going to do that actually.

You only need to meet the very specific criteria of people that you want to reach on there is like how narrow an audience can you advertise to on TikTok?

Mark
00:25:37.720 – 00:25:50.700
Fascinatingly, a year and a half ago I would have told you to narrow down your audience to like, no more than 10,000 people. The way that meta and drama and TikTok’s algorithm works now is you actually want to widen your audience and let them do the work.

Becca
00:25:50.850 – 00:25:51.090
Work.

Mark
00:25:51.090 – 00:26:27.140
What happens is Meta and TikTok look at the content of your video and look at the text that you post with your video and it and it determines who should see this based on the content of your ad, which is like, mind blowing. And as an advertiser who’s been doing it for ages, and I have lots of gray hairs over it, I was like, so in.

I was like, target small and like go to small audiences. But in 2026, that’s actually not the strategy. You want to let Meta do its work.

And I say that, that like having gone kicking and screaming into it because I was like, there’s no way I’m going to let Meta decide who should see my ads. But we tested it and it works.

Becca
00:26:27.140 – 00:26:56.310
But sadly, we’re living in an age where the robots start knowing more than me and you, Mark. That’s the problem.

But actually, you know, that is fascinating because it is then pointing people to the micro niche, but they’re doing the work for us. So essentially for us, us as wedding pros, it should be an easier process because we’re not having to try and add all of these parameters in.

We’re going, here’s our advert. Please do the work for us and make it work so we give you more money wrapping.

Mark
00:26:56.310 – 00:27:27.160
What you’re saying in a like pretty bow is basically, this is like, your ad matters so much what you say and the content of your ad matters more than like being able to target specifically because Meta can do that work for you.

It’s almost like, like I’m going to conclude with this thought is that making sure your ad shows exactly who you are, what makes you unique is more important than anything else in your ad campaigns because the rest of it’s just button pushing and you can figure it out. But communicating what makes you different and unique is the thing that’s actually going to make your ads work.

Becca
00:27:27.560 – 00:27:57.200
Amazing. Well, that brings me beautifully onto my next question because as you said there now it comes down to button pushing.

And when we spoke back in June, we were talking about getting people to run your ad campaign for you.

And since then, as we mentioned earlier, you’ve decided to put together these DIY advertising kits so that people can learn to push the buttons themselves. So why did you decide to go down that route? Are you trying to do yourself out of a job. What’s going on? Yes.

Mark
00:27:57.680 – 00:29:04.170
No, I’m not, you know, there’s, there’s always going to be folks that just don’t have the time and they want to have it done for them and we’re totally okay with that.

But as I’ve gotten further and further along in my career as an advertiser in the world wedding industry, I’ve realized there are thousands and thousands and thousands more people we can help. And it took, you know, everyone who’s listening to this probably owns a small business, is building a small business.

It took a long time for me to be able to produce these kits because I was running my business and growing my business and we have thankfully no shortage of people who want us to help them. But I carved out time almost like writing a book. I was like, 2025 is the year we’re going to do this.

Yeah, I created that because there’s just so many more people we can help. And one thing to note too is that like these kits, we update them every three months. Months.

Because even though it’s just button pushing, it’s not just button pushing. You have to understand. And sometimes the buttons change and the algorithms change.

And so we want to make sure that anyone who decides that the kit is right for them and they’re going to invest their sweat equity and their time to learn the ad campaigns and push the buttons themselves, that they have the most up to date information. Because you can’t build a campaign and let it go for a year and expect it to produce results for you a year later without having made any changes.

Becca
00:29:04.640 – 00:29:31.760
That’s really key as well. So if people are getting your DIY advertising kit, they go through it, three months later, you make some changes.

Will they get an update from you to say, you know, we’ve gone in and made a change, or is that still to be decided?

I only talk from experience because I spent a long time teaching Pinterest and I would record these amazing videos and then like one month later they would change all of the buttons around and then I’d have to go in and record the videos again and try and tell everyone, like, what’s the new videos? So what’s the plan?

Mark
00:29:31.920 – 00:30:16.060
Yep. So if anyone who gets a kit, they can, they can purchase the next quarter’s kit.

Like so the winter kits are out right now so you can purchase the next quarter’s kit at a discount. And what we do is we let folks know, like, hey, this is what’s different in the ad platforms. This is what’s different in the next kit.

So you can purchase it if you want to, but you don’t have to because everyone’s at a different place.

Like maybe it’s something that changes strategy with videos and like you’re good with that, you’re on top of the videos and you don’t need that extra help or that new help.

So basically we’re changing in every new quarter’s kit, like what’s changed with the ad platforms and giving people the option to upgrade at a discount account if they want to, but being very clear with them too, like this is what’s different and if you don’t need it, you don’t have to buy it. We just want to meet people where they’re at and make sure that people have the tool if they want it.

Becca
00:30:16.060 – 00:30:34.020
Amazing. So these kits then talk me through what they actually include. So I know that there’s three different ones.

There’s one for TikTok, there’s one for Meta, there’s one for Google. Are you just teaching me the technicalities, what buttons to push, or are you teaching me the overall strategy or both?

Mark
00:30:34.020 – 00:31:24.140
Both.

One thing that people find surprising when they dig into the kit at the very beginning is we actually have checklists for your website, checklists for your Google Business profile, checklist for your Instagram account, and there’s about maybe six or seven of those I think that are. That you have to do even before you build an ads campaign.

Because if you’re building an ads campaign but your website sucks and you’re paying all this money to drive traffic to your website, your ads aren’t going to work. So there is a shit ton of strategy in there which is related to everything that touches your ad campaign campaign.

And then strategy about how to create a great ad too and then how to videos for the button pushing bit that walk you through. Hey, this is the. This is the option you should select and why you should choose that.

This is what you should ignore because there’s a million buttons, especially in meta ads. It’s like fascinatingly overwhelming. So both strategy and checklists and like step by step guidance.

Becca
00:31:24.300 – 00:31:41.550
Okay, and how techy do I have to be? Because I know there’s a range of people that listen to this podcast.

Some people who would struggle even to edit a TikTok, other people that feel like they’re super techy. Do we have to be technically minded to understand or can anyone follow it? Could my kids follow it and understand it?

Mark
00:31:41.550 – 00:32:29.450
I love that.

Thank you so much for asking this literally Anyone can follow it because the difficult bits and the confusing bits are videos that you could literally watch twice and it’s literally showing you, like, you should check this box and like, it’s gonna. You have trust us because we know what we’re doing. We manage $30 million a year in paid advertising for wedding businesses. So just check that box.

And so you don’t have to be techie. You don’t have to like, take a ton of brain space. It does take time, though.

I think that’s the thing where people, what people should know is, like, it’s going to take time for you to like, go through your website and maybe make some changes there, go through your Instagram account, make some changes there, watch the videos and build your campaign step by step. So I think the techie bit is not a concern, but the time is a concern. And that’s the trade off.

You know, you pay for someone to do it for you, you save your time, you do it yourself, you spend your time and that’s okay either way.

Becca
00:32:29.450 – 00:33:09.070
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is an important point to make because you to know this is a strategy that you want to be serious about this year.

And if you do, then invest in learning how to do it properly. Don’t just go on a whim. Oh, yeah, I should just try some Google Ads.

Because you’ll be surprised then that it actually takes time and energy to put into it. But, you know, we’re at the start of a year podcast.

A couple of weeks ago, I was encouraging people to think about the pillars that they want to focus on for their marketing this year. If paid advertising is part of that and you don’t understand it, this is a great place for them to start. So we don’t have to be too techy.

We can follow it step by step. Step. Does it advise us or not on how much budget to put behind campaigns? How are we working out what to spend?

Mark
00:33:09.230 – 00:34:31.890
It does. So there’s a general, general advising.

And the trick with the budget is this is like wherever your business is at, you want to probably want to reach couples in a certain radius of your business. If you’re a wedding business in New York City, like, one mile radius is a really wild amount of people.

But if you’re out in the country, one mile is not enough.

So the tricky part about budget is that there’s no way to determine for every single business who’s looking at the kit, like, how many couples exist in whatever radius they want around their business.

So there’s some minimum budgets that we recommend, and I can actually share that here is like, if you’re going to start Google Ads or Meta ads, spend about $500 per month. Don’t go any lower than that. And one of the reasons is because you need to make sure that couples see your ads multiple times.

If they just see it once and Meta charges you for that, and you’re like, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t align with how couple shop. We talked about this sort of in the beginning of this episode was like multiple times, multiple places.

And the budget number plays into that. So you need to be seeing them multiple times. You need to be seen multiple times in multiple places.

And a budget of about 500amonth per ad platform is a really great place for most businesses to start. And then there are tools which you will see in the DIY kits. When you’re building your audience per se on Meta, it shows you how big the audience is.

And so without going too deep into the weeds, it gives you general advice. But you do need to do a little bit of homework to find out what’s the right radius for my business.

Becca
00:34:31.970 – 00:34:39.950
Okay, that makes perfect sense. Sense. Can people have a lower advertising budget than that, or do you think they have to start with that £500?

Mark
00:34:39.950 – 00:35:20.330
I’m really glad you asked that. And people ask me that every single day.

And the true answer is you really shouldn’t have a lower advertising budget than that because you’re going to be spending money. Couples will. Some couples will see your ads, but they won’t see them with the. The frequency they need to see your ads. And.

And that will make you think it doesn’t work because sometimes they have to see your ad seven times before they click on it and actually take action. But if you’re only spending $200 a month. Month. And that couple only sees your ad twice, Meta still charges you and takes your $200.

And unfortunately, you’re going to be like, ugh, it’s just not working. But it’s just a matter of meeting the human with the experience that they need.

And unfortunately, or fortunately, it costs a little bit of money to do that.

Becca
00:35:20.490 – 00:35:41.070
Okay, that brings me on to my question about return on investment. So we decide we’re gonna go all in. We’re gonna get our DIY advertising kit. We’re gonna put some ad spend behind it.

We’re going to run it for maybe three months. How are we then measuring whether or not that’s worked?

How are we getting our return on investment and understanding whether the paid ads are Working for us.

Mark
00:35:41.470 – 00:37:00.670
There are two ways to do that. One is by measuring conversions and placing code on your website.

And there’s also instructions in the kit and I promise I’m talking about the kit in a second, but there’s instructions in the kit for how to do that, how to set up your conversion tracking so you can see what are people doing after they click on your ad on your website? Are they filling out the form? Are they clicking to text you? And measuring that? That those leads gives you an idea of like, oh, okay, this is good.

I got so many leads for this many dollars that I spent. But one thing that’s tricky is that like we said, not everyone’s going to click on an ad and fill out a form.

And there’s also a lot of privacy issues that exist, especially in the UK and in the United States. There’s more. There’s privacy issues that are growing here, which are good because privacy is really important.

But tracking isn’t always perfect because sometimes people have privacy settings on their device that don’t allow them to be tracked.

So for most wedding businesses, you’re going to run ads for three months, six months, a year if you can, and you’re going to look at your business and you’re going to be asking people, when you talk to them like, oh, how did you hear about us? And they’re going to share their story of how they heard about you. They’ll mention the ad campaigns a lot of the times.

And you’ll also see, you’ll see business growth if you advertise consistency without start stopping and being consistent and showing what makes you unique. There’s no reason why your wedding business shouldn’t experience between 20 to 60% growth in that time time from running a great ad campaign.

Becca
00:37:01.070 – 00:37:46.570
That’s really helpful. And I think it’s important again to see it as that bigger picture and not to like you say, because the thing is, we’ve all done it.

We’ve all clicked on an ad or Google Ad or a meta ad and learned about the business screenshot it, I do that all the time and then come back to it on a different device on a different day. Google it, find it on TikTok and then maybe purchase.

So it’s not always this kind of, you know, as we said, we’re living in a marketing theme park world. It’s no longer just this very simple, simple funnel. People are coming at it from all over the place.

And so actually we need to look at an overall picture of our business growth. And okay, have we grown this year. And therefore has the adverts that we placed played into that?

Because it’s no coincidence if we started them on this date and then we started to see the business trajectory go up.

Mark
00:37:46.650 – 00:38:42.060
And there’s one more side benefit, Becca. Like a lot of businesses that have really good referral sources, referrals are best. Like, referrals beat ads all day long.

There’s no question about that. Right? Like a warm referral where someone’s sister used you for your wedding and now the other sister’s back to get married.

That’s amazing because they haven’t experienced there already. Sometimes. Actually, not sometimes, nearly every time.

If you have a really good ad campaign, those people who are referrals also see your ads and they think, wow, like, this business really has their shit together. Like, I’m also seeing them on Instagram, I’m seeing them on TikTok. I found them in the paid sponsors area of Google.

They must really be doing good things.

There’s this fascinatingly amazing perception that people have when they see that your business is advertising that they think you’re doing well and they want to work with you. And that’s really cool, too.

And also, if your videos are good, it helps that person who is a referral feel even more comfortable about booking a meeting with you or a tour or whatever, even faster.

Becca
00:38:42.220 – 00:39:46.670
Yeah, that’s a really interesting side benefit for sure. And it’s right, because when we see a business everywhere, we have that perception.

This business must be really good and really successful because we’re seeing them everywhere. And something in our human psyche tells us that that is the case.

You know, it’s funny, since I’ve upped my Tick tock and Instagram game this year, people are like, we can’t stop seeing your face everywhere. You must be having your best year ever.

I’m like, that’s a really interesting parallel that you’ve put in your head because you’re seeing me all the time. You’re making the assumption I’m having my best year ever, but you don’t know that for a fact.

You just think it because I’m everywhere all of the time. So, yeah, absolutely can see that.

I cannot go, like, away from this part of the conversation about paid ads without asking a tiny little bit about that big subject, AI. Are we gonna see AI impacting the success of our paid ads? Is the AI overview on Google, like, impacting the sponsored links on Google?

Give me a short answer. Even though it’s a huge subject on how AI is impacting paid ad or is it not Right now AI impacts.

Mark
00:39:46.670 – 00:40:51.080
Paid ads because of the algorithms we talked about, about how Meta shows the ads to the right person at the right time. That’s all AI fascinating. So it makes our ads perform better. The AI search result on Google hasn’t impacted paid ads for wedding businesses yet.

And I believe this is part, in part because a lot of people search for a business and they add on their city or their town name and by the nature of that search, Google wants to show them the map. And so the ads are still showing and doing just as well, even though there are many, you know, there’s AI summary on many other searches.

It’s fascinating how for small businesses, and we’re really grateful for this, that like it hasn’t impacted them, maybe it will more in the future. I don’t know how Google is going to change that AI summary if it’s going to start including paid sponsorships in the summer, who knows.

But as of right now, it’s looking really good and people are still searching locally and they’re seeing the business on Google Maps, which is also part of the ad platform, part of where your ad gets promoted. So it works well.

Becca
00:40:51.240 – 00:41:33.540
Amazing, fascinating journey into paid ads.

Before I let you go, I want to change direction entirely in this conversation, Mark, because you may or may not know that this year 2026, I am bringing my own wedding industry event to the UK and it’s very exciting and very terrifying at the same time.

And so as part of my podcast at the beginning of this year, whenever I’m speaking to my educator friends who go to lots of events, speak at lots of events, I want to get some insights into in person events from them. So I’ve got two questions for you. I’m going to ask you the first one which is this. What do you think?

Having attended lots of industry events makes a good industry event.

Mark
00:41:34.100 – 00:41:45.760
The opportunity for small groups to happen in some sort of comm, some sort of like deeper conversation ways and that happens differently, different events. But for me, when I’m having one on one conversations, I learn so much love that.

Becca
00:41:45.840 – 00:42:34.030
I think, you know, I was having again I was having a really similar conversation with someone yesterday about events and how the education is great but sometimes they don’t necessarily want that education and I stopped them and I said education is like one third of the reason you come to an event. Like the other two thirds for me are just as important which is connection and inspiration re energizes and so you’re right.

I think it’s really Important to have space for that deeper connection. So I’m going to take that into my planning for my March event. Okay, second question for an attendee.

Why do you think people should prioritize or should go to industry events in the first place? I know you go to them, I go to them. But people listening, maybe that’s not on their agenda this year.

Maybe they’re scared of becoming the burnout networker, but why should they prioritize? Maybe some industry events this year?

Mark
00:42:34.030 – 00:43:07.680
Okay, I love this question because from someone who spends a lot of time looking at my phone and looking at ads and things like that, a lot of our phone and our Internet algorithm is geared to tell us what we want to hear. When you go to a live in person event, there’s no algorithm telling you what you want to hear.

All of a sudden you are met with topics and conversations and experiences that you didn’t even know you could have because it is beyond the bounds of technology in its in person. And I think for me is a high level summary of why I go to advertising conferences, why I go to wedding industry conferences.

And I love every one of them.

Becca
00:43:07.840 – 00:44:27.720
That is so interesting. That’s like, that’s blown my mind as a thought concept because you’re so right.

We are like in this world where we’re just being shown the things that the big people in Silicon Valley want us to hear and see.

And actually by getting out in real life and in person, we get to experience different cultures, different people, different religions, different insights, rather than just a whole room full of people that just look and sound and think like us. And in those spaces, we can have really meaningful conversations. And I think we all grow off the back of it. So thank you for that insight.

I’m glad I asked you those questions. They were great responses.

And I love an industry event and so it’s always good to hear from other people about their experiences, what they like about industry events. And I’m excited to bring Wed Pros Live to the UK in March. Okay, before I let you go, one final thing.

I always end my podcast with the same question, which is, what’s one thing you wish you’d known sooner in your own business? Now, I know that you answered this back in June. I don’t know if you remember what you said back in June. I do, because I wrote it down.

So I want to know your answer to this question and let’s see whether it’s changed, because I do think we evolve. We change. What we’re thinking about grows and is different at different times.

So whenever I have a repeat guest, I find it fascinating to see whether they say the same thing or something different. So what’s one thing you wish you’d known sooner in your business?

Mark
00:44:27.960 – 00:44:54.320
I wish I had known to measure my time.

That is something that as I’ve grown as a business owner, I have realized, like, holy crap, sometimes I spend a lot of time on things that I should just pay someone else to do. That could be bookkeeping. That could be literally anything.

I wish I had known sooner to measure my time and hold myself accountable to not doing stupid stuff. That in using my brain and my time for where I’m best in my skills.

Becca
00:44:54.480 – 00:45:14.640
Yes, that’s what I’m thinking about right now. We had Colleen on the podcast a few weeks ago and she was talking about measuring your time in 15 minute increments. And I did that exercise.

So for 10 days straight, I measured every 15 minutes of my workday and I wrote down what I did and the results were fascinating. Have you ever done that yourself? Have you done a time audit?

Mark
00:45:14.640 – 00:45:45.200
I did, yeah.

And like, I love that you pointed out that you did it for a specific period of time and you’re not doing it forever because it sounds overwhelming to like, literally every day, but if you did it for a 10 day period, you found patterns and things and maybe it’s like, hey, once a quarter, twice a year, you just like, oh, I’m going to do this time measurement thing and I’m going to see how my time is being spent. I love that there’s an app called Toggl T o g g L which has a free version which I’ve used in the past to measure my time.

You just click a button, start, say what you’re doing, stop. There you go.

Becca
00:45:45.280 – 00:46:06.690
Yeah, well, I just logged it on an old fashioned spreadsheet, but it was fascinating.

And if you’d have asked me before I did that exercise where I spent most of my time, the result that I would have said would have been wildly different to what I found when I actually logged every 15 minutes of my day. And that was a big eye opener. So, yeah, I’m on board with that. Do you want to know what you said last time on the podcast?

Mark
00:46:07.009 – 00:46:07.810
I can’t wait.

Becca
00:46:09.250 – 00:46:35.220
Last time you said, what you wish you’d known sooner is that business is always evolving and changing. And that’s okay.

And what’s interesting is actually, I feel like that’s come out in this episode anyway from just the way the world shifted, the way that you’ve shifted your business and added these DIY kits in as well as having just the one to one model, but also how you’ve realized that you gotta hand over to the algorithm because they know all they.

Mark
00:46:35.220 – 00:46:37.300
Know all for better or for worse.

Becca
00:46:38.980 – 00:47:12.210
Fantastic. Mark, it has been such a pleasure as always to chat with you.

Thank you again for being the first ever sponsor of the Wedding Pros who Are Ready to Grow podcast. It’s an absolute pleasure to partner with you on this.

For those listening, if you’re interested in finding out more about the DIY advertising kits and getting a special deal, all of the information you need, all of the links are in the show notes and if you’ve got more questions or you’re not sure if it’s the right fit for you, reach out to me, reach out to Mark or someone else at the IG Society and we’re more than happy to chat. Mark, have a great rest of your day and I’ll see you very soon. Soon.

Mark
00:47:12.370 – 00:47:13.330
Thanks Becca.

Becca
00:47:13.730 – 00:47:31.730
Such a great conversation. Always love chatting to Mark. All about paid advertising.

I know it’s an idea that can boggle some of your minds, but hopefully these new DIY advertising kits are going to make it slightly clearer for you. As I said before, all of the information’s in the show notes. If you’ve got any questions, just reach out and ask. I’ll see you next time.