3 Facebook ad campaigns Your eCommerce brand should be using

3 Facebook ad campaigns Your eCommerce brand should be using

Where most people fail with Facebook ads is they create just one campaign and show the same ads to their whole audience.

The fantastic thing about Facebook ads is that you can segment your audiences and your ads to show the right message to the right person at the right time – after all that’s what good marketing is all about.

Let’s look at the concept of a marketing funnel. The funnel starts at the top with the largest audience, in this case discover, and gets smaller as we refine the audience into dream and then do.

You’ll spend the majority of your budget on discover, then dream and then do as the audience size will get smaller. When it comes to return on ad spend though, you’ll likely find most of your sales come further down the funnel as these audiences are warmer. However as you can see from the image you need to constantly be feeding the top of funnel (spending budget here) to ensure there are always people moving down the funnel.

Top of funnel – Discover

Your top of funnel audiences are a completely cold audience. They haven’t heard of your brand and don’t even know you exist (yet). I call this discover because this is where we want them to discover your brand.

Middle of funnel – Dream

The middle of funnel are people who have heard of your brand. They may have seen one of your top of funnel ads, engaged with you on social media or perhaps even visited your website home page but haven’t taken any further action.

This is where we want to get them dreaming about having your product in their life.

Bottom of funnel – Do

The bottom of funnel is a much warmer audience. These people know your brand and your products and they have already visited your product pages and perhaps even added to cart, but they haven’t checked out yet.

This is where we want them to take action – in this case the “do” action we want them to take is to check out and finish their purchase.

As you can see these 3 audiences are filled with totally different people. Some who know you and your product well and some who have never heard of you. If you were to show someone at the top of the funnel an ad to finish their purchase it wouldn’t make sense to them. Just like introducing the brand to someone in the bottom of funnel would be a waste as they already know you and they are ready to buy.

For this reason you need to split your ad campaigns up into top, middle and bottom of funnel campaigns. Each with a different objective and message.

Top of funnel CAMPAIGN

Audience targeting

Include cold audiences.

Exclude all of your warm audiences.

Messaging

Use these ads to introduce your brand. Remember these people haven’t heard of you before so you want to tell them who you are, what makes your brand unique and your key message.

It’s not time to be salesy here, just act as if you’re talking to someone you’ve just met.

Creative

Videos work great top of funnel. Test them along with image ads.

Middle of funnel CAMPAIGN

Audience targeting

Include anyone who has recently engaged with your social media accounts and anyone who has visited your website. Exclude people who have viewed products, added to cart or made a purchase in the same time frame.

Messaging

In this campaign you’re talking to people who have already discovered your brand. Use these ads to introduce your products and highlight the features and benefits. You can assume they know your brand, but it’s OK to reiterate any key messages or brand values.

Creative

Test video, single images and carousels that showcase your best selling products

Bottom of funnel CAMPAIGN

Audience Targeting

Target people who have viewed a product or added to cart.

Exclude anyone who has made a purchase in the same time period.

Messaging

This is your warmest audience, before purchasers. In some cases these ads only need to remind people to go and check out, quite often they had every intention to purchase but life got in the way.

For others you may need to overcome objections like price, shipping, fit, quality and guarantees.

You can be more direct with your language in these ads and use the “Shop Now” button as they are already warmed up.

Creative

I recommend testing dynamic ads using carousels which will pull through the products they were looking at, or added to cart straight from your website. I also suggest having a non dynamic campaign for people who have opted out of tracking and testing carousels, videos and images.

There you have 3 campaigns to use for your eCommerce Facebook ads to ensure you’re delivering the right message at the right time.

As you start to grow your ad campaigns and increase your budget you can be even more complex and split out the timing of your ads to show different ads based on how long ago they abandoned cart etc.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve run a funnel before in your ads, or if you’re about to try it for the first time.

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Written by Karyn Parkinson

Karyn (“with a Y!”) Parkinson is an eCommerce marketing specialist with a knack for high-converting Facebook ad funnels and website optimisation.

Through her eCommerce marketing agency Unstoppable eCommerce and on-the-pulse training course eComm Ignitor, Karyn’s helped hundreds of eCommerce store owners across the globe boost profits, generate more revenue, and achieve an ad-spend ROI of their dreams. 

Facebook Ads: Outsource or learn how to do them yourself?

Facebook Ads: Outsource or learn how to do them yourself?

When does it make sense to outsource your Facebook ads management?

A good facebook ads manager will cost upwards of $2k a month. If someone quotes you cheaper than this they are either a churn-factory or are still learning and you’re paying for them to gain experience.

Depending on your business, $2k a month for someone to manage your ads could be the best investment you ever make or it could bleed you dry in a matter of months.

Let’s have a look at the benchmarks we use to determine whether investing in your own knowledge vs outsourcing Facebook Ads is the way to go.

1. Turnover

The first metric I look at is turnover. This isn’t the be-all-end-all however it is a good start. If you are making less than $10k a month on your online store, management fees and Facebook ad costs will be a big chunk of your revenue. Sure you need to spend money to make money, however, I’d prefer to see you spend that money on ads rather than an ads manager in the beginning.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, you don’t want to spend more than you have on a service that isn’t guaranteed. Facebook ads are simply a media placement tool and are certainly not a silver bullet or magic wand. Secondly, when you do outsource your ads, if you’ve learnt the basics yourself, you will be able to sniff out a dodgy operator pretty quickly.

2. Gross profit margin & average order value

If your gross profit margin is too low, like a lot of startups are, you won’t have any money to reinvest back into ads. I recommend a minimum of 50% gross profit margin, with the aim to increase that as you scale. The first thing I do in my Ignitor program is to get people to work out their numbers. This is often a sobering experience and most of my students put their prices up after realising they simply have a hobby… rather than a money-making business.

3. Conversion rate

If your conversion rate is too low then it won’t matter how good your Facebook ads are. I recommend reading my blog all about working out whether you need to invest in your website or your ads but as a general rule if your website isn’t converting, running ads will just drive more people who don’t buy to your site.

 

4. Time vs money

You can pick to spend time or money as your investment for growing your store using Facebook ads. This is a super general statement but you need to have enough data to make decisions about your ads and the way you get data is by running ads, and it costs money to run ads. You can spend more money and get the data you need quicker, or you can spend less and the data will come in over a longer period of time.

5. Your risk tolerance

Do you have enough capital to invest in a few months worth of Facebook ads management PLUS the cost of the Facebook ads themselves without a return? When I work with clients I always aim for a positive return on investment. That’s my success metric. But as I’ve mentioned before, Facebook ads aren’t a magic wand or a silver bullet. As with everything in business, every investment is a calculated risk.

To answer the question of when is the right time to outsource your Facebook ads management, I recommend looking thoroughly at these elements when making this business decision.

If you’re ready to learn how to manage Facebook ads for your online store then check out eComm Ignitor.

If you’d like to talk to me about getting me to manage your ads for you, click here to book a call with me.

What our most successful Facebook ad clients have in common

What our most successful Facebook ad clients have in common

There are a few key elements that our most successful Facebook Ads clients have in common. Let me share them with you so you can see how you might improve your Facebook ads results too.

1. Great product

The first is a great product. Obviously. You can’t sell crap. Although a lot of people try. Do you have a product that you would gladly offer a 100% money-back guarantee on? If the answer is no, you might want to look at why.

2. Showcase behind the shine

People are sick of seeing the shiny, perfectly curated Instagram feeds. They want to see the real, raw and sometimes rough you. Our most successful clients showcase behind the scenes, they let their customers get to know the real them. People are curious creatures. They love to see behind the shine. Show videos of you packing and sending orders, what your office looks like, your design process, etc.  Let people get to know the face behind the brand. People intuitively like to connect with other people. In fact, now more than ever, we are craving human connection. Also, humans buy from humans and they love to see the face behind the brand.

3. Engaging organic content and highly engaged audience

Our most successful customers invest resources into their organic social and customer engagement. They have a team member dedicated to community management. Paid ads are only amplified by organic social and when you combine the two it’s a powerful force.

 

4. Great conversion rate

Conversion rate is a super important factor in the success of your Facebook Ads. If you think about it… doubling your conversion rate from 1% to 2% might not seem like a big jump, but when you double your conversion rate, you’ll double your return on ad spend. Doubling your return on ad spend from 4x to 8x is a big deal. If your conversion rate is too low then it won’t matter how good your Facebook ads are. We recommend reading our blog all about working out whether you need to invest in your website or your ads but as a general rule if your website isn’t converting, running ads will just drive more people who don’t buy to your site.

5. Solid gross profit margin

A solid gross profit margin is essential to successful Facebook Ad campaigns. If your gross profit margin is too low, like a lot of startups are, you won’t have any money to reinvest back into ads. We recommend a minimum of 50% gross profit margin, with the aim to increase that as you scale. The first thing we do in our Ignitor program is to get people to work out their numbers. This is often a sobering experience and most of our students put their prices up after realising they simply have a hobby… rather than a money-making business.

Ready to up your Facebook ads game? 

If you’re ready to learn how to manage Facebook ads for your online store then you need to check out eComm Ignitor.

If you’d like to talk to us about getting us to manage your ads for you, click here to book a call with me.  

 

Written by Megan Winter

Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.

Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact. 

3 reasons why no one is buying your offer

3 reasons why no one is buying your offer

You plan, prepare and promote your offer, expecting the sales to roll in. If you get it right, they will. But if they don’t there are usually 3 reasons for this.

There is nothing worse than putting your time, effort and money into planning, preparing and promoting your offer and… crickets.

If this has happened (or is happening) to you, don’t despair, you may be able to tweak a few simple things to turn it around.

This recently happened to Elizabeth, one of our Ignitor students, recently. She had an amazing sale on but no one was buying. Together, we look at the following elements, she made a few tweaks and like magic people started buying. However it’s not magic, it’s simple marketing.

A failed promotion sucks at the time, but I encourage you to look at it through a learning lens. Work out why it failed and improve it in real-time, or learn for next time. The beautiful thing about eCommerce is that you can make changes to your website and digital marketing instantly.

Ok, so let’s look at the 3 reasons why no one is buying your promotion and what to do about it.

Number 1: You’re telling the wrong audience

You may have the best promotion in the world but if you’re telling people who don’t care, of course, they aren’t going to buy. Dig into your analytics and see where your traffic is coming from and who is viewing your promotion. Where are you promoting your sale? Is it in a large group where your offer may get lost in all the noise, or is it in a very niche carefully curated group? Is it to a bunch of people who’ve never heard about you before, or is it to people who know, like and trust you.

You may also be telling no one. If you are relying on organic marketing alone, you may be missing out on people who are hanging out for the exact promotion you’re running. Social media is becoming a pay-to-play environment and even just a small budget to the right audience can deliver great results for your promotion.

Number 2: Your offer sucks

If lots of the right people are seeing your promotion but they aren’t buying, they are literally telling you that your offer sucks. It’s a tough pill to swallow but the truth is in the market. Your customers will tell you what they want – and what they don’t want – through their purchasing behaviour.

Now, here’s the thing. It could be that your offer is one that people don’t want… or they aren’t clear on what it is. If it’s the latter then you fall into reason number 3.

Number 3: Your messaging sucks

Confusion is the enemy. If people don’t know what they are buying, they simply won’t buy it. If you have an amazing promotion you need to communicate it in a clear, concise and compelling way. Don’t leave people guessing.

Look through a learning-lens and tweak, tweak, tweak

So, if you are in the middle of a promotion that isn’t going so well, look at these 3 reasons why no one is buying from you and tweak, tweak, tweak.

If you have run a promotion that flopped in the past, look at it through a learning-lens and work out what you can do next time to improve.

Written by Megan Winter

Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.

Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact. 

Should I Invest in Facebook Ads or my Website

Should I Invest in Facebook Ads or my Website

We recently got asked this question by one of our Ignitor students and it was such a good one I wanted to share it with you.

“Should I spend money on updating my website or use that money for Facebook ads?”

Such a great question. And the answer to this question really depends on a few important factors. There is not a blanket answer.

If you want to sell more on your online store there are simply 3 ways to do this:

  1. Increase the number of people coming to your website (traffic)
  2. Increase the number of people buying from your website (conversion)
  3. Increase how much they spend at the checkout (order value)

So, should you invest in Facebook Ads or your website?

If you have lots of traffic coming to your website and no one is buying, then you need to improve the conversation rate of your website.

If you don’t have anyone coming to your site, then you really need to get some traffic to your website to see if it converts or not.

If you have traffic but aren’t getting any sales:

Ok, if you’re starting with lots of traffic and no conversion, there could be 2 issues.

  1. The wrong people coming to your site
  2. Your website needs to be improved and optimised for conversion

Have a look at your google analytics and see where your traffic is coming from. If you’re confident that you’re attracting the right people to your site but they aren’t buying, then yep, it’s time to improve your site.

A good conversion rate in eCommerce is around 3%. If yours is lower than this you can improve your conversion rate in a couple of ways:

First, let’s look at 5 behind the scenes tech checks to run on your website to make sure you’re optimised for conversion rate. If you need to increase your conversion rate start by running these 5 tech checks.

Next, you want to make sure that when people hit your site they have a great user experience. Let’s look at 5 onsite must-haves your online store needs to make sure you’re optimised for conversion rate.

If you need more people to come to your site:

Typically a good conversion rate is 3%, but if you don’t have anyone coming to your site you won’t be able to draw any conclusions on your conversion rate. If you have a really high conversion rate but hardly anyone is visiting your site, chances are your site isn’t getting the exposure it needs to grow. Your mum buying your products doesn’t count. A data set of less than 1000 unique visitors per month, you need more traffic.

What we recommend here is that you get your website as ready for traffic as possible yourself. Shopify allows you to setup your online store quickly, cheaply and you don’t need any web development skills. Don’t spend thousands of dollars building a fancy schmancy online store. Start with the minimum viable product.

Then, run traffic to your site and see if it converts.

As we always say in our program, until you test, it’s just a guess. So don’t worry about getting your site perfect, get it out to market and let your customers tell you if it’s working or not.

Remember, your website is not a tattoo

So start where you are.

If you have less than 1000 visitors per month, spend your money getting people to your site and pay attention to what the data is telling you. You can learn how to get more people to your site in our course eComm Ignitor.

If you have more than 1000% people per month and your conversion rate is less than 3%, spend your time (and possibly money) improving your conversion rate. We teach this in our eComm Ignitor program. We can do a website audit for you and highlight exactly what you need to improve.

Written by Megan Winter

Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.

Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact. 

3 must-have types of Facebook Ads

3 must-have types of Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are a powerful marketing tool and you can have great success with them… you can also flush a lot of money down the drain.

The type of ads you run are imperative to the success of your campaigns. So let’s have a look at 3 must-have types of Facebook Ads you need to run in order to have successful Facebook Ad campaigns and sell more on your online store. 

1. Introduce your product to people who don’t know you exist

Using Facebook ads to introduce your brand and your products to potential customers are the most common types of ads we see.

These are important because how can people buy from you if they don’t know you exist?

The most common mistake people make here is they go in for the kill on the very first ad people see. It’s like asking someone to marry you on the first date.

Rather, we want to introduce yourself and peak interest and curiosity enough for people to want to get to know you better.

 

2. Build trust in your brand and your products

Once people have become aware that you exist, they often need a little more information before making a decision as to whether your product is right for them or not.

This is where you showcase the features, advantages and benefits of your products so people can imagine your products in their life.

People are also starting to purchase with purpose more and more, and this trend will continue to grow. You need to highlight your brand values and communicate what you stand for so people can see if your business aligns with their values. You need to give people a reason to buy from you rather than the ocean of choices available to them.

3. Remind people to complete their purchase

So often, people will be browsing an online store and they might even add to cart then… the phone rings, the kids scream, the boss walks in… and they close their laptop or turn off their phone.

Sadly, a lot of brands are leaving so much money on the table by not running ads that simply remind people that you are there.

Not everyone thinks about your business and products as much as you do. Sometimes they just need a simple reminder.

So if you’re running Facebook ads, check to make sure that you’re running these 3 types of ads.

And here’s the secret sauce. Make sure you are running these ads to the right people. A reminder ad to someone who’s never heard of your brand before would make zero sense.

If you want to learn how to run Facebook ads for your own online store, you have to check out eComm Ignitor.

Written by Megan Winter

Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.

Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact.