The definitive guide to Facebook ads for eCommerce — Lessons From $697,840.43 Spent on eComm ads!
If you are an eCommerce owner, you probably know how big of a buzz is about Facebook ads.
And if you tried Facebook ads, you know that there is a chronic lack of quality resources to learn about eCommerce strategies.
I was annoyed by this fact when I started working with eCommerce clients so here I’m writing everything I learned from my eCommerce campaigns.
This post is going to cover everything from high-level strategy and thought process about Facebook ads to tactics you can use right away to improve your results.
[NOTE — This is a long-ass post But I believe it has everything you will need to run successful FB ad campaign. You can skip to any section you think you need to improve on as all sections work as standalone posts]
Before you start reading here are two disclaimers:
- I’m not a writer — and this post is likely to be pretty dry
- I’m not a native speaker. So I apologize for any grammar mistakes. This only means I had to try harder to get the opportunities because I couldn’t fast-talk myself into getting work.
This post is structured into 5 sections. Feel free to skip to any part that you think is necessary to you.
- High-level strategy
- Types of FB traffic
- On-site optimization
- Ad Creatives
- Media buying
High-level strategy
Why are FB ads good channel for eComm businesses?
When you are looking for a marketing channel for your eCommerce business you usually look for three things:
- Is your market on that platform?
- How much can you scale?
- What’s the initial investment to enter the channel?
Despite Facebook becoming overcrowded, it’s still a great channel for eComm businesses because it fits all three criteria.
You can start advertising with very low budgets and get the initial results really fast (IE generating sales). And at the same time, you can massively scale this channel to 6–7 figures a month in revenue.
To get more tactical, let’s cover the basic high-level framework of FB ads for eComm businesses.
Frameworks
There are many different frameworks and goals you can set for your campaigns but here are the three most common:
Day 0 — ROI positive
This is usually the case when FB ads are the main channel for acquiring new customers. If this is the case, you need FB ads to make you profit.
This is simple math, taught by most of the experts, etc. If you have $50 NET profit margin on your product, your goal is to have CAC of $25. This means that for every $1 spent on ads you make $1 profits.
Day 0 — Breakeven
This scenario is used when a company wants to use Facebook as a channel to grow their customer base. In this scenario Facebook ads are self-funding, meaning that you don’t need outside capital to expand your customer base. It allows you acquire massive amounts of customers and be open to the potential upside if you have some operational efficiencies coming up that will reduce your COGS.
Coming back to the 1st scenario: if you have $50 NET profit margin on your product, your goal is to have CAC of $50. This means that for every sale you make you are on break-even. (NOTE that your ROAS will be higher than one as you need to include COGS into the equation)
Day 30 — Breakeven
This is the most aggressive scenario that some companies use for massive growth. You will need to have very developed systems and analytics to make this work, as well as significant access to capital to fund for this money lost period.
In this scenario, you are relying on your LTV calculations and average customer profit after 30 days.
So if you have $50 NET profit margin on the first sale, and you know that after 30 days you AVERAGE customer makes you $100 in profits, you aim for CPA of $100 that will make you break-even on day 30. (NOTE that this is more common for SAAS companies as they have more predictive 30-day revenue projections than eComms, but having substantial loyalty and referral campaigns can make this strategy work)
Social network aspect
Facebook is a social network. And if you are to advertise on it, you need to accept this as a fact and put that into consideration.
You don’t need to game the algorithm; you need to feed it with what it wants.
People are on Facebook for two reasons:
- To engage with content they are interested in
- To connect with people they like
So when you are promoting your product, there has to be something unique about it. It needs to build a narrative and tell a story. You can’t sell commodities on Facebook as opposed to Google.
If you have a new and unique product — your ads can be pretty straightforward, but the emphasis is that at least SOMETHING has to be unique.
For example:
- Product
- Brand
- Cause
- Personality
- Humor
- Story
Product
Before we even begin to go into details about ads itself we need to address the element of the product.
Your advertising success is 50% the quality of your product!
Regardless of what anyone is telling you, the product is BY FAR the most important part of your advertising. By quality I mean: is there mass appeal and desire for the product that you are selling?
If people don’t want the product, don’t have the need for the product, you WILL fail. Period.
If the product is excellent, it does the marketing itself. You really won’t have a hard time creating promos around the product that people are eager for and spending money to get it.
If you don’t have access to unique products (dropshipping or reselling other people’s products), you need to create unique marketing that will be appealing to your market. Meaning, they need a story or some different kind of value provided as for why they should buy the product.
Now let’s get into the weeds!
To read the post in full, please go here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/8dqd3p/the_definitive_guide_to_facebook_ads_for/