Introduction: A Dollar Spent, 10 Dollars Earned

Return on Ads Spent (ROAS) is a key metric for companies advertising online.  Businesses may have budgets of different sizes, but many of the core elements of running the campaign remain the same.

Successfully setting a daily Facebook ad budget, testing different ad sets, and engaging the target audience multiple times are all key to growing your Shopify sales.  A little marketing planning can go a long way here, so make sure to have a blueprint in place before you begin!

Setting a Daily Budget

First off, Facebook ads provides an option of setting a “daily” or “lifetime” budget – we’d opt for the daily budget while starting out.  It provides a chance for more flexibility as the promotional campaign developers.

An amazing feature of Facebook ads is that Shopify businesses do not have to “break the bank” to reach their audience – even $10/day is enough to have your ads be sent out across the 2.7 billion Facebook users!  If you consider yourself a “Small-to-Medium” sized store at the moment, aim for a daily budget between $10-30.  Your ads will be seen, and the data collected from their performance metrics will be invaluable in how you further develop the campaign.

Test Ad Sets before scaling up

When framing your Facebook ad campaign, remember it’s not just one ad banner you are sending out your entire audience!  Remember from our post on Facebook custom audiences that effective Facebook ad campaigns segment their audiences based on key factors (e.g. – demographics, location, interest).  For each custom Facebook audience, you likely will roll out a different “ad set.” 

Each ad set is specifically targeted to one of your custom audiences, and from there, you can try different versions of the ad as a form of A/B testing.  For example, you may have three ad sets prepped for three distinct custom audiences.  Within each ad set, you roll out two versions to see which one better drives engagement and boost traffic to your store!

Better to Reach an Audience of 100 10 times than 100,000 people Once

Finally, please note it’s better to concentrate your ad sets to smaller audiences you can reach multiple times, rather than blasting out a single ad to larger audiences.  Marketing research has shown that customers need to see your ads 7-8 times before they consider purchasing something from your store. 

Thus, it’s more efficient to have a small audience you show multiple ads to rather than a broad audience who briefly see your ads only once.  Facebook ads breaks up these factors into awareness, consideration, and conversion.  You may have also heard of concepts such as AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) that conceptualize how customers are funneled to drive sales to your store. As you scale up your ads, remember the average customer needs exposure to your store’s promotion multiple times.  Otherwise, your ROAS will suffer.

Conclusion: Who can Help Analyze my Facebook Ad Data?

After running a Facebook ad campaign, setting a daily budget, and releasing your various ad sets, it can feel confusing how to make sense of the data collected – that’s where Ad360 steps in!  We specialize in analyzing your customer data and subsequently optimizing future campaigns.  Better ads mean more sales, so please reach out to try a free demo by Ad360 today!

Simple, Bold Strategies to Boost Sales with Facebook Ads

Introduction – Reach a Sea of Two Billion

While Gen Z may complain that Facebook is “lame” now, or “Meta” as we should be calling now, that is far from the truth when it comes to using Facebook Ad campaigns.  2 billion users is nothing to scoff at, and Facebook has built a remarkable ad platform to help Shopify business owners reach a wider target audience.

This blog post examines how Facebook ads are unique from Google Ads, as well as how targeting potential customers based on interests – rather than preferred keywords – could be the keystone to increasing your sales!

The Basics: Account Setup & Goals

First things first, you need a Facebook business account set up with an ad account in place.  Once you have Pixel (Facebook’s answer to Google Analytics) activated, connect your Shopify store!  You can do so by downloading the “Connect Meta” app on Shopify.

Next up, pick the “goal” of your ad.  If you were in the military, this would act as the primary objective – we’d recommend starting with “boosting traffic” or “conversions” to start, but Meta lists 11 different objectives here.  Depending on where you feel your target customers are in the “sales funnel,” you may want to simply bring awareness, get views, generate leads, or drive engagement.

Target Audiences: Time to Pick your Lane

Perhaps the most important decision for any ad campaign is designating your target audience.  Facebook allows you to segment customers into the following classifications:

1. Age

Self-explanatory.  Are you targeting the Gen Z or old folks?  Picking a specific age demographic usually helps your ad campaigns effectiveness and efficiency in driving sales.

2. Location

Again, straight-forward.  You can narrow down what region of the world you are placing your ads.  With Ad360’s software supporting your Facebook ad campaign, you can narrow down the search to a single city block!

3. Interests

This is where Facebook Ads can differ significantly in their function from Google ads.  Because Facebook collects profile data on all 2 billion+ users, setting customer interests can focus on their hobbies, interest categories, page likes, searchable keywords, Facebook usage, or online buying history. 

Pick hobbies listed on the Facebook Ad dashboard that align with your product (e.g. – a basketball player is targeted with Nike shoes ad).  Interests listed in their “Information about me” (e.g. – a fashion lover is targeted by a vintage clothing site) can also be important to consider when optimizing your ad placements for maximum sales growth!

“Stacking” or “Layering Interests” – Get as Specific as Possible to Increase Ad Effectiveness

Specificity is crucial to have your ads compete with larger-budget businesses.  For example, you could adjust the settings to advertise only to males 18-34 on the East Coast who have an expressed interest in sports or sports apparel

Even more, you can “stack” or “layer” interests to bring laser-precision to your custom audiences.  Using the example above, interest stacking could set an audience that shows ads only to males 18-34 on the East Coast, who have an expressed interest in sports/sports apparel or have liked the official NBA, NFL, MLB, or NHL Facebook pages!

Interest Layering more effectively narrows down your target audience; it could set an audience that shows ads only to males 18-34 on the East Coast, who have an expressed interest in sports/sports apparel and also have liked the official NBA, NFL, MLB, or NHL Facebook pages! 

In short, effectively “layering” interests for your custom audiences mean each ad creative will be tailor-made for different segments of your audience.  The more layers, the more precise the audience.  You can also exclude certain segments of these audiences to make the ad campaign’s target outreach even more efficient.

Conclusion: What to Do if Facebook Ads Feels Too Technical or Overwhelming

In conclusion, there are a lot of moving variables that factor into your Facebook ad campaigns.  Straddling this granular level of detail over several social media platforms can definitely make your head spin.  If you feel you could use some support analyzing and bringing all your different ad channels under one roof, reach out for a free demo by Ad360 today!  We’ll make it our mission to optimize your next Facebook ad campaign for success 😊