Hello! Thank you for your kind welcome. I appreciate your thoughtful response and insight! You had some great ideas. It definitely sounds like you've been in this for a while also!
As far as Facebook look alike audiences, they do work really well. Of course, it's all about testing. I do find since lookalike audiences pull in similar data points and demographics, that conversions are typically higher. However, you have to test and each business is different for various reasons. I do find that retargeting ads work well too.
Facebook Advertising is actually one of my specialties. I find it fun to create campaigns, tweak, and optimize them for the best results. Here are some results from a few recent client campaigns.
Re: the giveaway / lead magnet - you're right. It's important to make sure it's laser targeted to the exact audience you want to get in front of. Your email list should be only current customers or potential customers. As a course creator, I use ConvertKit as my email marketing tool. The platform is quite intuitive, it connects easily with Kajabi (my course software) and I don't have to pay per email.
I do have to say that I do think in fact it's very important for many businesses to get found in Google. If you can hire an expert to leverage the power of SEO, it is very possible to get website traffic. I've done Search Engine Optimization for countless websites over the past 14 years, and there hasn't been one that I haven't increased their traffic for. I love sharing case studies and statistics to illustrate how I help businesses grow in Google. Perhaps I'll share some more posts with SEO case studies moving forward!
Thanks again. I appreciate your observations and insight. I love chatting about anything digital marketing!