Facebook Ads for Online Personal Trainers – Stage One

Nov 21, 2017

By Tim Saye


The first Facebook ad you make is not designed to sell your online personal training service.

Good advertising is much like building a great relationship.

If I kiss my wife that's fine because our relationship is beyond the point where that's appropriate. If I walk up to a stranger and kiss them on the lips it is could (and probably should) be termed as sexual assault.

Just like creating a good relationship, when advertising you need to deliver appropriate content for the phase you are in with a potential client.

Coming from nowhere and asking someone to buy from you is like walking up to a total stranger and asking them to get naked, it won't work and will cause a negative association with you and your business.

Your first advert is there to create awareness around who you are. This is the time you walk up to someone and say hello.


There are two very effective options that work really well for your initial introduction advert:

Option 1 – A list that will help your target audience solve a problem.


This video should be around 60 seconds long and only includes a very tiny expansion on each point. At this stage there is no need for scientific data or long details of anything.

This is just you, on camera listing some action steps that will give your target clients a great result that they want. Keep it short, engaging, very simple and specific to your target market.

You can film this easily on your phone. Tip, turn the phone sideways to film your video as this fills the screen on your resulting video.

One mistake most online personal trainers make at this stage is to make their video far to general I.e...

5 tips to get lean.
6 tips to get stronger.
5 ways to lose 5lbs.

… Better examples should be completely specific to your target client and resonate strongly with them i.e...

5 ways mums can lose 5lbs while running around after your kids,
6 tips to build muscle while not leaving your office,
5 tips for skinny guys to pack on muscle,
5 tips to lose weight in under 10 minutes a day.

Being more specific to your target niche client positions you as the expert that can solve the problem specifically for them.

Generic tips will appeal a little bit to a lot of people but these people won't see anything new from you or buy from you.


Option 2 – An interview or sections of an interview with someone who is already well known in your niche.


Length of time on this one is less important but keeping it under 10 minutes can be a good idea. You could split up an hour long interview in to a number of different video ads.

This gives a great introduction to you as it builds on the authority your interviewee already has with this audience and associates you with someone your target audience already knows, likes and trusts.


A really effective video advert at this stage should bring you video views at 1-3c per view.

You can later create an audience from the people that have viewed your video and target them with subsequent adverts and content. This content is designed to move viewers through to the next phase in your relationship where you offer something great in return for an email address.

In relationship building terms this is the point where having introduced yourself and started getting to know someone you ask for their phone number before leaving.

Using the audience of people that have viewed your initial video converts in to your free offer very well, in the same way you are much more likely to get a phone number if you took the time to say hello and introduce yourself first.

To get moving right now goo and make that initial video today, soon we will look at how you make it in to an advert and later on follow up that advert with the next step in your Facebook ads system.