How to Generate eCommerce sales using  Facebook ads

Many eCommerce website owners and marketers are trying Facebook ads and finding that generating sales on Facebook is not that easy. On the other hand, there are many business out there that have been using paid advertising (FB & GOOGLE) for years and successfully generating sales. This difference in outcomes brings many eCommerce website owners to ask, “How come website X has been getting results from spending money on FB ads for YEARS and why is it not working for me?”

In this article, I will explain how successful eCommerce business making money using Facebook ads and Google ads, and what you should do in order to make it work for you.  You probably have read many articles about THE big secret or the SPECIAL 5 steps method to generating sales from your eCommerce business but actually, as in many things in life, success with paid advertising demands professional, well-planned work, rather than special effects.

Here are the 3 MUSTS for generating sales for your e Commerce using FB ads, Google ads or any other advertising channel:

1. Set a Clear Marketing and Facebook Advertising Plan:

Just like you would not make any sales if you built a website without the checkout page – if Facebook advertising is the ONLY part of your marketing plan, the chances that FB advertising alone will carry your eCommerce business to success in the long run is not a realistic one for most business.

The advertising part is to help you create sales while you increase all other traffic channels!  In the beginning, many sales will come directly from the ads, but later, a bigger part will come from various traffic that you should be building. Use advertising as your engine to carry the marketing train to success! Every business must create more traffic channels that are costing less than advertising, and the advertising will help feed those channels and increase them – for example: email marketing traffic, return visitors traffic, referred users traffic, social media traffic, organic traffic, affiliates traffic, and for eCommerce business with local brick and mortar stores – foot traffic to the store!

ALL of these are traffic and marketing channels that you will need to create and maintain. Using ads, including Facebook ads, are one of the best options out there to do so. Strategize how your FB ads will increase those channels before you advertise and make every $ spent on ads count!

Set email capture… Use ads that also collect likes… Engage your users with chat support and offer value… Create affiliate sign up page… Use tools to create more shares and more reviews… Look at competitors or other website for ideas to help in generating engagement… Garner “free” traffic from returning users… Take advantage of social media shares, views and referrals… There are so many things you can do!

Successful businesses know that advertising should be done differently when you are new business versus when you are an established business, and they set the plan and goals differently for every stage. So set a budget and goals for your advertising! Goals should include sales, email sign up, number of user visiting the website, likes (but please don’t run like ads ), engagement, new brand searches, new affiliates signups, users that reached checkout page and more.

Your goals should be realistic, by now you should know that 1-4% of the visits will buy from your eCommecre website. Then, estimate how much each visit will cost (cost per click) and how many visits you need to generate sale. Remember that users need time until they buy and many users won’t buy until the second or even the 10th visit, after they find the exact item or timing.

2. Know Your Potential Buyer’s Profile

The most basic building block of the marketing plan is to know who your potential buyer is. If you already have some buyers, you should know their profile.

The user’s profile is more than gender and age; it should include type, interests, status in life, country, location (from big city or rural area), brands he/she will like and as much info you can get. Try to find a person that represents this potential shopper before you start advertising on FB.  Advertising to the wrong users will be costly and not effective.

The best way to gather this info is to talk to your support team as they have the closest relation to the customers. If you already have few hundred buyers, use their email info and generate a LOOKALIKE audience using FB Audiences tool.  Later on, you will be able to target those users that have similar profile to your shoppers.

In the case that you don’t know your potential buyer, take an educated guess.

3. Get Advice from a FB Advertising Pro on How to Target Your Potential Buyers

The fact that FB advertising platform looks so simple to use (and it is simple) draws many small business and eCommecre owners to try it themselves. The advertising platform has many options, each of them is very simple to use but using the wrong combination can cost you: maybe 20%? 50%? Or even 100% more?  It all depends on luck, skill, and knowledge level of the platform.

The result of going it alone is that advertising dollars can be spent on the wrong users, the wrong targeting audience, with the wrong ads format, or using the wrong bid. Often beginners target too many audiences at the same time without any options to measure what worked (even if they have Google Analytics) or the worse do not stick to the plan they created.

The Facebook platform adds new features almost on a monthly basis and there are great opportunities and changes. The best practice of today will mean nothing in 5-6 months – Do you remember the likes frenzy? The new side ads? The new multi ads? – These days it’s video that will get you the most value for money but don’t count on it to stay the same in few months from now.

Successful businesses create a strategy, plan, identify buyer’s profiles and set goals. If you would like to know more about the exact targeting tools and ads you should use on Facebook – contact me

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