]]>
Are you curious the type of ROAS you might be able to achieve with YOUR store? Check out our ROAS calculator to find out! Make sure to "copy" the spreadsheet so that you can leave the "view-only" setting.
QUICK TIP: In this calculator, play around with the conversion rate, which tends to be more variable, to see how much your ROAS can improve or decline accordingly. Usually your AOV will be fairly static (unless you start implementing upsells or additional products/bundles), and the CPC typically will be around the $1-$2 range in Facebook ad campaigns. Sometimes CPC can be higher due to mismanaged ads, but it's also important to keep in mind that CPC is heavily affected by CPM (cost per impression) which is largely out of yours (or your advertisers) control.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us!
]]>Business owners who refuse to trust the experts they hired to help them in realms outside of their expertise may end up sabotaging their own success by refusing to accept the fact that they don’t know what they don’t know. Strong-arming campaign decisions and not trusting experts to do their job (whether it be ad managers, CRO/SEO experts, designers or some other field), only creates friction and poorly impacts the bottom line. With that said, you must do your due diligence and make sure that whoever you hire is actually good and trustworthy: be that by referrals, reviews or having a really good filter. If you have done your homework and hired the right people, you can rest assured that their expertise is worth trusting. Otherwise, I'm afraid you are very likely shooting yourself in the foot.
We see a lot of excuses for this type of misguided behavior, but frankly, overlooking and excusing it only leads to frustrating outcomes and poor results for both sides. See, business owners tend to wear many hats in the business, which ultimately makes them generalists, not experts. They’re essentially the captain, steering the ship, which is a very important job. But as you grow, you simply cannot handle ALL aspects of your business; you need to hire help. Thus business owners end up seeking out actual experts for various needs as they grow, hoping these experts can help them find the BEST outcome for their business. This in and of itself is a brilliant and essential business move! But here’s where it can go wrong if you struggle with control: not heeding expert advice or disrespecting years of experience only inhibits fellow collaborators from doing what you hired them to do, which is to help you.
This can be especially true in the Facebook ad space: clients should not try to add or remove variables to a delicate ad campaign that is carefully and strategically crafted, and expect ad performance to hold. Don’t get me wrong: some changes are needed or time sensitive and we just have to roll with it. Examples of this may be a sale ending, unexpected inventory issues, and so on. But clients who believe they can often haphazardly make unnecessary changes to a campaign on a whim, must be aware of the consequences of their actions (this may sound harsh, but it is just reality). To be clear: the gravest of consequences is often a rapid decline in ROAS. Many highly skilled ad managers are affected by working with a business owner who has a case of “chronic certainty,” meaning, they are dogmatic on their views and feelings of always knowing best or being right when it comes to business decisions. However, when a business owner is able to take a step back and realize that an advertising pro has years of expertise and advice to bring to the table, then productive and healthy conversations can occur. If not, many ad managers find themselves being burnt out and wondering, “if you’re going to repeatedly ignore my advice, then why did you trust me with this role?”
The tendency to strong-arm or control a campaign is more common at times when a campaign is temporarily struggling and performance is dipping. Ironically, this is the worst time for a business owner to overpower the campaign with less-than-helpful requests. An example is a client who wants to remove an introductory promotion from any ads at the same time that overall ROAS is dropping, particularly when the 15% off ads are bringing in the best ROAS. In this scenario, an ad manager cannot be held responsible for any further dropping of the ROAS since the client is requesting to remove one of the top performing aspects in a campaign. In this type of scenario (when a campaign is struggling), that is exactly when you should pull out all the stops with things that help campaigns (like a promo)....not remove them. Facebook ad campaigns will always experience highs and lows, and when a campaign is in a lull, it’s an even better time to step back and let the experts really shine with their suggestions for improvement. Business owners (even if the intention is well-meaning) who throw out required change after required change only end up hurting their campaign by not listening to the experts they hired to help them navigate the ups and downs of the very complicated and sensitive Facebook ad realm.
To be clear, there are indeed times where we just need to roll with necessary changes that a business owner needs. But it’s important to recognize what is necessary and what is problematic. Here are some examples:
Necessary: unexpected inventory or manufacturing issues (think Covid supply chain issues), a limited-time sale, a major website issue that requires pausing ads for a few days or more, an ad error, etc.
Problematic: poor inventory planning (not Covid related), removing an introductory promotion that is producing a high ROAS (and not digging into profit), not having a backup credit card connected to the ad account so that ads are paused when an issue arises with your primary credit card, wanting to often reduce spend or increase spend dramatically with disregard for Facebook ad best practices, or wanting to remove an ad image, video or copy that outperforms other aspects for non-urgent reasons, etc.
The next time you find yourself on different sides of an issue with an expert you hired to aid your success, try to make sure the other person or team knows that their views and expertise are being considered and are heard, even if you don’t fully agree with them. You will likely be surprised by the positive outcomes that will come from relinquishing the need to have full control of every decision. Sometimes compromise may absolutely be needed and, other times, you may simply need to give the expert the freedom to fully exercise their skills so that they can produce the best possible result for you without your interference.
]]>Credit for ROAS is often mistakenly given exclusively to ad managers-- whether it's good or bad ROAS. While running ads, the majority of our job involves ensuring our soft stats are on point so that ROAS will translate IF all other external factors are in line as well. If ROAS or CPA isn't in an ideal range, then we're really adjusting and tweaking to help move the needle in the right direction, with the understanding that there is a lot of it that is outside of our control. We're just doing what we can within our power to help mitigate any slump that, again, is caused by external factors.
As much as I would love to take all credit for high ROAS (and to be fair we do share impressive case studies with high ROAS), our soft stats are actually a much more important indicator of great ad management since higher ROAS is only possible IF the site metrics are dialed in. This is also something most agencies either don't understand (more often) or don't communicate (less often).
So yes, I'm totally calling out everyone who thinks ad managers deserve all the credit for high ROAS and all the criticism for low ROAS. As an ad manager with a decade of expertise in this field, I also used to mistakenly believe that full responsibility for a campaign's ROAS rested squarely on the shoulders of the ad manager. But this is simply incorrect and puts unnecessary strain on an already stressful endeavor that involves many moving parts both on and off of Facebook.
Curious about what your conversion rate and average order need to be at in order to get a high ROAS (because, again, ROAS is reliant on the health of your site metrics)? Check out our new ROAS calculator. Note that ideal soft stats in ad manager are typically in the $1-$2 cost per link click range and 1% link CTR range. While link CTR does vary a bit and ~0.5% can be just fine, the CPC is technically most important. Find out why by utilizing our calculator and tables in the link above.
]]>When scaling any social media campaign, it’s imperative to do so at a sustainable cadence.
Campaig performance is not always 100% consistent or predictable in an ad account -- it will fluctuate. Often the factors causing performance fluctuations are entirely outside of your control and in spite of thorough testing. Through our years of Facebook ad management, we have found that there are two common misperceptions pertaining to scaling that should be addressed:
When it comes to scaling and ad spend, we are only able to push a campaign’s (i.e. at the campaign level) or ad set's spend so much. In other words, there is a point where a campaign or ad set spend gets too high which will ultimately cause the CPA (cost per acquisition or cost per purchase) to decline. In other words, you can't just push ad spend quickly on all campaigns that are performing very well and expect the CPA to hold. This delicate balance of CPA in relation to ad spend, is extremely important to be familiar with and to monitor.
Ramping up too fast in spend or reaching too high of a level with individual campaigns or ad sets is typically unsustainable and is not considered best practice. A good rule of thumb for adjusting ad spend is to do so every other day (or max 1x/day) on live campaigns by ~20%. It is never recommended to jump from $1k daily to $5k daily (as an example) and expect the same performance to magically hold.
Campaign scaling must be done strategically and steadily. While duplicating campaigns to help speed up the process is possible, it's very important to understand sustainable scaling. When a business has a quarter or season that is typically their busy season, you can ramp up as quickly as reasonably possible but it’s really important to be mindful of not scaling too quickly or else performance can decline; it needs to be done methodically…not overnight.
Once in a while, the Facebook ad campaign stars seem to align, and you can leave a campaign running with little tweaking for some time, BUT it’s important to note that it is not usual. Once you take the time to build, test and monitor campaigns, you will need to continually make adjustments/improvements, often in response to various external factors that directly affect CPA. Ad and audience fatigue happen and performance will fluctuate even on well-tested and refined campaigns – that is normal. It doesn’t mean there is anything inherently wrong with the campaign, ad sets, or audiences if tweaks and adjustments are needed.
Continual testing allows you to refine and improve performance to where it can be steady for a good period of time, but you need to remember that this is not the case with all ad accounts and many factors go into play here. In fact, every single ad account is different and every business experiences ad (and audience) fatigue differently. This is why it’s extremely important to continually monitor CPA and spend accordingly, as well as make adjustments to the campaigns, in order to remain in a good CPA level in relation to the spend.
While it is possible to have some campaigns that can be kept live at a high ad spend for a longer period of time, once again, this is more the exception than the rule. As a rule of thumb, it is more typical to have to introduce new campaigns somewhat regularly and phase out old ones that are not working as well due to ROAS dropping or CPA rising.
Scaling is one of the hardest aspects of FB ad management and requires skill and experience to do it effectively and sustainably (whether that’s for just a season or for years). If you are struggling to maintain campaign performance while scaling, drop us a line to see if we can help! With nearly a decade in the Facebook ad space, we are Facebook experts who know the ins and outs of scaling and what is required to steadily build a campaign with consistent results.
]]>While keeping yourself in the know with your Facebook ad campaign is a MUST, obsessively checking your analytics or stewing over same day performance is a big no-no!
We get it: your Facebook ad campaign is your baby, and you are worried it won’t live up to your expectations – you’re getting lots of traction and clicks, but purchases are down today. You wonder, should you keep the ad going anyway? Or should you pause it until you figure out what is going wrong?
When you’re juggling your budget, the results/ROAS you want to achieve, and the metrics you’re getting on a given day, it’s sometimes not easy to ride out the up and down trends in the Facebook ad world.
Take it from a team of ad experts: DON’T STRESS OVER ONE DAY OF PERFORMANCE in your ad account! Why? Because there are many factors that go into an ad campaign’s performance. Post-holiday slow downs, fluctuations on certain days of the week (i.e. Saturday can often be different than a Monday), and seasonally can all affect ad campaign performance. You can't accurately judge performance based on day-to-day fluctuations nor is it a good idea to pause ads or make drastic adjustments in the account based on that (doing so typically harms performance). Monitoring daily is imperative, but looking at longer timeframes is imperative when making proper adjustments/changes/optimizations.
Instead of worrying about same-day performance, we recommend instead to look at:
This is especially important when making adjustments to an ad campaign. In fact, when considering trends, it’s important to take even 3-4 day trends with a grain of salt as that is a pretty short time frame. Same day performance should never take precedence when factoring your campaign performance as a whole, since the day-to-day performance can fluctuate significantly.
We know what you are likely thinking: can’t what’s going on in my ad account today reflect a negative “trend” that is starting?! The answer is simply no – same day performance does not yet venture into the “trend” category. This is why we discourage fretting over a campaign’s day-to-day performance since it will vary SO much. Longer trends (usually 7-14 days) are what you should focus on instead, and 30 day trends are when you can really evaluate how well things perform.
We realize it can be quite tough to not look at the day to day volatility or same day results, but focusing on longer timeframes with Facebook ads performance gives a much better gauge on your campaign’s overall performance. When you stop fretting over day-to-day performance and start to analyze longer trends, you will give yourself the best shot at improving your performance and finding lasting and profitable success with your ad campaign.
]]>Before jumping into paid advertising and especially before running a big sale, it’s imperative that you calculate your ROAS threshold in relation to your margins. Particularly during a sale, determining what sort of threshold for ROAS you will need to aim to remain above is very helpful.
Historically, when ecommerce stores have big sales (i.e. anything over 25%), our agency usually sees a substantial boost in ROAS and sales during the sale. In most cases, it makes a lot of sense to increase ad spend during the sale to capitalize on the great ad performance that a sale will elicit. This is why you must know your ROAS threshold. Knowing this will be necessary in order to accurately project the budget for the sale.
Not sure what any of this means? 🤔 Read on and we will break it all down for you, as well as give you an exact formula so you can calculate the ROAS threshold for your biz!
Here is an example based on a clothing store:
Let's say that for COGS (cost of goods sold), it costs them $50 to produce a $200 sweater. To “breakeven” on that sweater, they would need to spend no more than $150 on advertising to generate a sale. Because it takes $50 to produce that sweater, everything else (the remaining $150 revenue generated from the sale) is all profit. So, if we spend $150 on ads to generate that one sale, they are still “breaking even” on COGS ($50). This equates to a 1.33 ROAS needed for breakeven.
Now, let's adjust these numbers a bit and look at profit possibilities. Let's say they only spend $60 to generate a sale for, again, that sweater that retails for $200 and cost $50 to produce. This equates to a 3.33 ROAS with ad spend:
$200 revenue/$60 cost per purchase = 3.33 ROAS
In this second example, the clothing store is profiting and is well above breakeven. They spent $60 to get a sale for a product that cost $50 to produce. This equates to $90 profit for this sale, which is great!
Some of our clients give our agency the green light to continue to scale, or increase spend, as long as we're a little bit above their breakeven ROAS, where they’re making a good profit. For example, if a client’s breakeven ROAS is 2, we know that we need to take the foot off the gas with ad spend when it’s hovering just at a 2. But if we’re at a 2.5 or 3+ ROAS or well above that, then we can continue scaling. We obviously don’t want to scale fully at breakeven, but at least above it because that means they’re making a profit.
Want to input your own numbers to calculate your breakeven ROAS? Here is the formula to follow:
MSRP - COGS = Profit (or the max we can spend on ad spend to breakeven on a single sale)
Breakeven cost per purchase is when we spend the above profit amount to get a sale. We can use this breakeven cost per purchase to determine the breakeven ROAS (aka the ROAS we want to aim to at least remain above in the account).
Revenue / Breakeven Cost Per Purchase = Breakeven ROAS
Keep in mind that if you spend less than the breakeven cost per purchase with ad spend, then you're making a profit with the ads. 🙌🏻
We hope it’s clear to see that an ecommerce store cannot scale or successfully calculate ad spend budget for a sale without knowing this important number. What are you waiting for? Grab your calculator and figure out your breakeven ROAS today!
Have you been burned by a previous advertising/marketing agency and find yourself determined to have a “guarantee” before moving forward with a new agency? Truth bomb: You can’t expect guarantees in business. If you think you can, you’re in for a rude awakening...
We hope the below article helps you to understand why we, and no agency for that matter, can offer a guarantee of specific results.
Why Can’t We Offer Guarantees?
The results of any marketing campaign, and in our case specifically, Facebook ad campaigns are heavily dependent on the client (the business) holding up their end. This is why it’s quite literally impossible to guarantee results on something that is only partly within our control. Are you maintaining great site metrics? These site metrics determine how good of a ROAS you can achieve. Are you offering a good promo? Good promos help lower the barrier to entry for a first time customer, who are notoriously more expensive to convert. If you make it easier for people to buy, it’s going to cost less to convert them (thus bringing in a higher ROAS and lower cost per purchase).
You may be wondering: What can marketers control? Great question! What we can control are things on the ad side, or what we call "soft metrics". Soft metrics are important numbers that tell us whether or not an ad campaign ON Facebook/Instagram is performing well (excluding what those users do on your site). Examples of these metrics include: link CTR and cost per click. The closest thing to a guarantee that we can offer is our 8+ years of experience in Facebook ads and extensive expertise in the ecommerce niche in order to optimize these numbers to the best of our ability. We also use strategies and techniques from past high-performing ecommerce campaigns that we've already tested extensively. While every campaign and business is different, our experience with tried-and-true strategies allows us to generate the best results possible.
In addition to what we or the client can control, there are also other variables that we, nor the client, can't control, such as: the market, trends, competition, global pandemics, Facebook’s ever-changing algorithms, policies on Facebook, natural disasters, etc.
Working With A Qualified Agency
Before you panic and think that all is lost, let us help ease your mind: you have the ability to determine if the agency or ad manager you are looking to contract is qualified to bring you the results you’re aiming for. If you find a highly-qualified agency, it greatly increases the likelihood that you will reach your desired results, while also understanding that it may not happen. How can you determine if an agency or freelancer is truly qualified? Their reputation, reviews, and case studies should shed a lot of light on their expertise in the Facebook/Instagram niche. Additionally, they may provide an analysis of your account which will reveal how well they know the ins and outs of Facebook ad manager. Lastly, finding someone who specializes in your niche (such as ecomm or local service business lead generation) is an even better likelihood that you will hopefully achieve the results you are desiring.
Social Media Marketing: A Calculated Risk Worth Taking
Starting a business is a calculated risk that entrepreneurs take. Just like any risk it has the potential to fail, but it also has the potential to pay big dividends. Any decision a business owner makes should be a calculated risk; one where they assess all the possible angles, plan, prepare, and then make decisions. Investing in marketing is no different.
Marketing is a calculated risk that a business owner takes in an attempt to increase their sales, increase their exposure, or both. There are many different avenues that you can choose to invest in from a marketing perspective from radio, television, flyers, print, sponsoring little league teams, buying billboard space, creating a website, investing in social media marketing, etc. The list of potential marketing options is nearly endless, and none of them can offer you a guarantee of a certain amount of sales.
All marketing investments are a risk that the owner knowingly takes on; some risks are more likely to produce the desired result than others. In this day and age, it is safe to say that for online businesses, investing in social media marketing is a calculated risk that is worth taking. Every business owner must understand that a qualified and experienced marketing agency will be able to mitigate those risks and much more. As far as a guarantee, what a good marketing agency can guarantee is a certain level of service. They should have a solid track record of happy clients with evidence that they know what they are doing and are able to produce good results for businesses (case studies + testimonials). They should guarantee to stand behind their best practices and deliver the best service they can, but that’s it. Expecting an agency to guarantee a certain return on investment or specific results in a certain timeframe is an amatuer mentality.
Say Goodbye to a Fear Based Mindset
If a business is looking to hire a freelancer or an agency it is likely one of two reasons:
1-You see the value of investing money to have an expert handle your advertising, which will free you up as a business owner to put your energy and expertise into the things that are going to help your business grow overall. You are in a healthy place and feel ready to jump into working with a professional agency, knowing there is an element of risk but that the likely benefit makes the risk a no-brainer.
2- You think that you should be doing social media marketing due to a perception that everybody's doing it, so you should just do it. However, you haven't really thought about what it is really going to take, and you don't really know much about what's actually involved.
As an expert agency, the latter scenario is the camp where we see more business owners looking for a guarantee. This ultimately reveals a business owner who is not looking at the investment properly. Here is another truth bomb for you: you’re likely operating from a fear based mindset: fear of losing. That is already a losing proposition. We encourage you to shift your mentality to the perspective of a business owner who is positioning themselves within their market space and is ready to invest the money into a new form of advertising to supplement their business and to take that calculated risk without fear. This is where you will be more likely to find the results you are looking for.
Approach Your Campaign Holistically And With a Can-Do Attitude
It is imperative to properly look at any marketing investment from a holistic perspective, and in terms of how it fits into the bigger picture of your business. If you're looking for a form of advertising to magically solve your problems, or be your primary source of revenue, it sounds like you are looking for a short term result rather than thinking big picture/long term. Advertising agencies are understandably wary of potential clients who think that my form of advertising will be the quick fix-all for their business, and they're just going to “make a bunch of money” because they're investing in Facebook ads.Truth bomb: It is a very amatuer mentality to think that Facebook ads are like a math problem or an algorithm where all you have to do is simply invest money and it's just gonna make you a certain number of sales.
Are short term surges and boosts in revenue possible? Of course. But much testing, time and tweaking are required to refine any marketing campaign; you have to be invested in the process, not the outcome. Businesses that don't do due diligence and A/B test essentially waste their advertising dollars. Even though there are other standards and proven paths to follow in Facebook advertising, ALL Facebook experts still A/B test...and they should be A/B testing extensively.
Be Realistic and Optimistic
Before we close, we want to touch on one last thing. Obviously, every business needs to know what their metrics are to make their marketing investment feasible. E.g., if based on your metrics you need a 2 ROAS to make FB marketing feasible in the long term, that is important information to know. Every business owner should go into an advertising campaign knowing their break even points. Keep in mind that knowing this data is very different than offhandedly saying they expect to get that return. Be realistic about your metrics, while having optimism that your campaign will work out the very best it can when in the hands of an expert agency with years of experience.
We readily agree that it’s wonderful to have goals. But make sure you go into any advertising campaign with the understanding that it requires testing and there will be ebbs and flows in conjunction with that. Trust the experts have a dose of realism when it comes to expecting certain results overnight with your FB advertising campaign.
In conclusion, launching a Facebook ad campaign for your store can seem like a big investment. Honestly, it is. But once you've solidified your site metrics so that it’s great at converting visitors into paying customers, Facebook ads will be one of the most powerful tools for your marketing strategy that can take you from a budding online store to a thriving and growing business. It all starts with building a solid website foundation and having realistic expectations. Before you even dive into any ads for your business, make sure your site is performing well in order to get the BEST return from your Facebook advertising campaign. Taking this approach, in conjunction with being selective, discerning and smart about the advertising agency you hire, is the closest to a guarantee that you can secure for your business.
Since you have a new site, allow us to reiterate how much of a TEST running Facebook ads out the gate would be. If our agency works with a new website, we always ensure that businesses fully understand this. Let’s go through a couple important things to keep in mind.
First, with Facebook ads, the return is heavily dependent on two things: the website conversion rate and the average order value. Facebook ads are meant to amplify an already working foundation, but it unfortunately is not what makes the sale (the site does). It’s important that you make sure that you don't start running a new FB ads campaign expecting that alone to be the "fix," if you will. Obviously the Facebook ads need to be working well on-Facebook to produce a good ROAS, but if the website metrics aren't ideal, then the ROAS simply won't be there.
Here are some general site metric correlations to keep in mind when running FB ads. If the conversion rate on the site is on the lower side, then the AOV must be high. And conversely, if the AOV is low, then the conversion rate must be high. Additionally, if we don't yet have the site data on those metrics with enough traffic, then it is really challenging to know whether or not we'll get a good ROAS because we won't know if the site foundation is optimal yet. If our metrics on Facebook are awesome but the website metrics end up being just so-so, then it'll be challenging if not impossible to get a good return, or ROAS (return on ad spend). This can be challenging financially for a lot of businesses, particularly when just getting started. Take a look at this helpful graphic we created to show where you need to be to get the highest ROAS possible:
With all that said, it's important for any new store owner to consider the investment, time commitment and risk involved when you're running FB ads to a brand new website. With a minimum ad spend at $2k per month, plus our ad management fees starting at $2.5k per month, it comes out to a $4.5k per month investment for 3 months ($13,500 total across those 3 months of running the ads). We do this math to show you that you want to make sure your site is in a good place before diving into FB ads with an expert agency. The 3 month time frame is standard for testing and optimizing a brand new Facebook ads funnel.
After starting the ads, ideally we'd love to reach a minimum 2+ ROAS (meaning you'll 2x your money invested on FB) soon after starting, but that doesn't always happen immediately with a "yet-to-be-cracked" Facebook ads funnel. It's best to expect it to take the ~3 months to reach ideal ad campaign metrics, but even then it's not guaranteed; particularly when we don't quite yet know the true site metrics.
Launching a Facebook ad campaign for your new store can seem like a big investment, but once you've solidified your site metrics, your FB ads will be one of the most powerful tools for your Shopify marketing strategy. It all starts with mastering your website metrics. Make sure your site is performing well in order to get the BEST return from your Facebook advertising campaign.
]]>Are you as nervous about the iOS14 update as your dog when the Fedex man rings the doorbell? Don’t panic! Although it may seem like it, this is not the Facebook-apocalypse. Have you heard about this update swirling around your biz owner social circles, but aren’t even clear what it really is? Let’s start with the basics...what is all this talk about iOS14 and why should you care?
The iOS14 update affects all mobile advertising on Apple products, specifically. Apple started rolling out a new iOS14 update that asks iPhone users if they will allow apps and websites to track them. When it comes to Facebook, if an iPhone user opts out of Facebook tracking, that means that Facebook cannot track the user when they click on your ad and go to your website.
What does this mean exactly? It means that it’s going to be increasingly more challenging to optimize your Facebook ads. Particularly because we won’t necessarily be able to track all conversions back to specific ads.
While this will have some effect, it’s important to keep this update in perspective. First, Apple phone users account for roughly half of mobile phone users. And while ad traffic tends to overwhelmingly skew towards mobile, mobile traffic let alone mobile Apple traffic is NOT the only traffic. There are mobile Android and desktop users who do not fall into this category. In a nutshell, this new change is not going to completely screw up your marketing and advertising plans. You’ll just need to adjust and adapt accordingly.
So how do you plan for this? First, make sure you do all necessary tasks in business manager and Shopify, such as verifying your domain, picking your events, and installing conversion API. This is the first thing you’ll want to do and we’ve created a free handy guide for you here. It has step-by-step instructions and even quick video walkthroughs which will allow you to tackle this in less than 15 minutes.
Next, you will want to start getting into the habit of using UTM tags. This is especially important if you’re not already using more sophisticated analytics like Wicked Reports. Don’t rely on Shopify analytics to help -- it’s best for tracking metrics like your AOV and conversion rate, but not necessarily where the traffic is coming from.
At the end of the day, if you are particularly worried, make sure that you start working with Facebook advertising professionals who can help you through this whole process. Now is not the time to try to “figure it out” yourself. Even if you’re a confident cat (pun intended) you’ll end up panicking with every glitch, every ad misstep, and every new change. Our Facebook ad agency is in business manager day in and day out and we're plugged into elite mastermind groups full of fellow FB ad pros in the know.
Facebook advertising is a complex process that involves more than the off-Facebook tracking aspect; optimizing ads actually begins with essential on-Facebook metrics that don’t even deal with what’s happening on your website. We are well-versed in how to comprehensively evaluate a campaign and use these on-Facebook metrics to make informed decisions with campaigns to help move them in the right direction.
Are you worried about iOS14 and want a top rated Facebook ad agency to take over so you can sleep as easy as Jake when sunbathing?
Ever have your Facebook ads ROAS start tanking out of the blue and wonder what happened? 🤯 You were sailing above 9 ROAS and scaling at a comfortable pace but then BAM....💥 you're barely making a 1.5 ROAS. What gives?
When this happens, there are usually 1 of 2 things going on.
1) Your ads were turned off and then turned back on again. Whenever this happens, it disrupts the algorithm and your ads need time to settle back into things.
This can be because:
-You manually turned off the ads
-You had a billing problem and your ads were paused by Facebook, or
-Your account was -gasp -- shut down. 🙈
2) The second possibility doesn't even have to do with what's happening on Facebook. It is that you are out of stock of key products in your store. 😬
When you sell out of products in your Shopify store or your items are on backorder, your website conversion rate inevitably drops. A lower conversion rate signals that your website is STRUGGLING to convert potential customers, which is never good. You're leaving money on the table when this happens! The website conversion rate must be at a good level when you run Facebook ads and is essential to running a successful Facebook ad campaign. If your conversion rate is low, you simply won't be able to achieve a good enough ROAS and your campaign won't be sustainable. Even worse, if you run out of stock and you have to turn off your previously high performing ads, you may never get that high ROAS back again. 😫
DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU! 😱🙅♀️ Make sure you plan accordingly with your suppliers and have plenty of stock on hand, particularly while scaling. If you plan on scaling your ad campaign and business, then you need to understand that running out of inventory will not make it possible. Out of stock items PREVENT scaling and sabotage FB ad campaigns!
We get asked all the time, "What's a good ROAS?" or, "What kind of ROAS should I expect?" And we always have to respond with, "It depends." The reality is that these are actually complex questions and completely unique to each business.There is not a one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to what a healthy and feasible ROAS is for your business.
For example, a 2 ROAS may be phenomenal and completely doable for one business, whereas reaching a 5 ROAS could be a huge struggle for another. There is so much that goes into a successful Facebook advertising campaign and it is not as simple as asking "What kind of ROAS can a dog leash store get with Facebook ads?" 👀🤦🏼♀️ Honestly, without knowing that dog leash store's average order value or website conversion rate, I wouldn't have a clue and neither would any other Facebook advertising agency.
You must approach a Facebook ad campaign holistically, being aware of all the different parts that make up your campaign. There are TWO main aspects of your campaign you simply must consider:
1- What’s happening ON Facebook and those key metrics that indicate how well things are working on Facebook (such as link CTR), and
2- What's happening OUTSIDE of Facebook (such as conversion rate and average order value) and how well your website is functioning. Frankly, what's happening outside of Facebook, will ultimately determine what you can or cannot achieve with Facebook ads. If you don't have your website foundation dialed in, then you're going to be pushing a boulder up a steep hill. It's going to be HARD!
ROAS, or return on ad spend, essentially means how much money you are earning back with your ads. For a business with really good margins, generally a 2 ROAS is considered great. For a business with not so good margins, the ROAS might need to be a 5 to make the campaign truly profitable. That may or may not be possible with their particular business and ket metrics. If they have a low average order value, (e.g. $20), and their website conversion rate is low for that AOV, (e.g. ~ 2%), then it's going to be really hard, if not impossible to get to a 5 ROAS with Facebook ads. If that were your website foundation, your ads would need to achieve an unrealistically high link CTR to get enough traffic to your site...and that isn't always possible. In this scenario, that website conversion rate needs to be considerably higher (i.e above 5% if not higher) with a $20 AOV, which is more reasonable than expecting an unreasonably high link CTR.
Here's another example: let's say a business has an AOV of $150 and their website conversion rate is above 2.5%, then a 5+ ROAS is likely very possible. 😎 Even if you have “just okay” margins, this is basically a dream scenario with a TON of Facebook advertising potential!
The point is: a good ROAS in 2021 is going to be different for every business. This isn't something we, or any agency, can determine without knowing certain business metrics from you. Don't get too hung up on achieving a certain ROAS based on what you hear from other businesses. Focus on YOUR metrics and figure out what a good ROAS is for YOUR business.
Are you struggling with your Facebook ads and want to know if we may be able to help you achieve a higher ROAS? Click here to fill out our form!
]]>
In a fast-paced word (that seems to only be getting faster), truly good communication is sadly on the decline. Whether you have been a victim of poor communication yourself or have just heard others gripe about it, it’s an undeniable fact that we can’t dismiss. Poor communication can result in tension and unnecessary frustration. A lack of good communication usually leads to others losing productivity, motivation and not wanting to readily collaborate with others.
So what gives? How can we be better and more efficient communicators and eliminate a lot of unnecessary waiting and back and forth?
Contrary to what some people may still believe, good communication is not exclusive to phone calls only.
In fact, phone calls are actually detrimental to our business in many ways. While some people’s gut instinct is to “hop on a call,” for us, it’s always been to send an email. Over our 7+ years of working in the Facebook advertising space, we found phone calls to be a total productivity killer and (mostly) a waste of time. Additionally, our work requires a clear paper trail to reference back to, and our service deals directly with text communication in the ads so we NEED to see it in text (not audibly).
Many agencies get an F when it comes to good communication...would you like to venture as to what they all have in common? You guessed it! They ALL focus on phone call communication as their primary method. We hear this complaint again and again from businesses- that agencies don't communicate well and their clients feel left in the dark.
This is why at TDM we EXCLUSIVELY communicate via email and we have a reputation of reliable, clear and consistent communication with our clients.
We even have a 100% success score and Expert Vetted badge on Upwork, both are accomplishments reserved for professionals who pride themselves on excellent communication in business. You simply cannot achieve those things without prioritizing reliable and clear communication.
If you want to improve your communication, or are looking for an agency that excels in having better communication, consider if you should move away from phone calls and switch to online communication. You might be surprised to realize that we are not the only professionals who feel this way. (Can we get a “praise hands emoji?”). As pressures rise and work days get longer, more and more busy professionals are searching for ways they can keep their sanity and find more margin in their lives. For those of you who are up in arms and thinking this is a crazy idea, consider this: many big time entrepreneurs and successful tech execs have brazenly shared that this is their policy as well. Mark Cuban has been famously quoted as telling Thrive Global in 2016: "No meetings or phone calls…Everything is email."
It goes without saying that work becomes much smoother when there is an ease of communication and there are less barriers to go through. Online communication makes life easier, more straightforward and makes for better communication all around. We encourage you to give a try! Remember, good communication does not necessarily equal phone calls!
Do you have a thriving Etsy store and are selling your ecommerce products like mad? That’s awesome! Being a successful Etsy store owner validates your proof of concept and proves that you have a good thing going. However, have you ever stopped to think how exclusively selling on Etsy could be seriously limiting your growth potential? Read on to learn more….
Like any ecommerce business owner, you know you should add in some paid advertising to drive new traffic to your products and have probably thought about utilizing Facebook ads (hence why you’re reading this). ;)
Did you know that it’s a BIG mistake to start running Facebook ads and send paid traffic to your Etsy store? This might seem counterintuitive, but let me explain.
Rather than send traffic to Etsy (which you don’t own), you should instead create your OWN Shopify store. The main reason you must do this is because you can't track or optimize your ads when sending traffic to a site you don't own. The good news is, with your own Shopify store, you can!
But don't just dive deep into Facebook ads after creating your site! You'll need to optimize your site FIRST so that it converts traffic well. If your new site is below a 1% conversion rate, you'll need to spend time optimizing your store for conversions before you invest a lot into FB ads. Trust us- it won't matter how much ready-to-buy traffic comes to your site, if your conversion rate is low, you're not going to make much money as many of those qualified buyers will simply not convert. This is a huge mistake and one that is avoidable with the right strategy.
If you want a more detailed explanation regarding the nuance of site metrics (because there IS nuance to all of this!), check out this video: Nuance with AOV, LTV and conversion rates with Facebook ads.
For additional information on the importance of having a strong foundation site-side before diving deeply into Facebook advertising, watch this popular video: Facebook Ads Won’t Fix Your Business If Your Website Foundation Is Broken.
The good news is, while you're working on optimizing your site, you CAN start to run ads on your own at a light/starter budget. Here’s the reality: you can’t profitably run ads to a new Shopify store website that has not yet fully dialed in their foundation. After running Facebook ads for clients for over 7 years now, we’ve seen that far too many businesses incorrectly believe that Facebook advertising is the missing piece to their business, instead of addressing issues on their site or ensuring their site foundation is built properly from the beginning. It’s important before you begin advertising on Facebook to recognize that Facebook ads are meant to complement and amplify an already working system. This is why when you transfer your ecommerce store from Etsy to Shopify, you must realize it will take time to get your Shopify site established. Once you do, the sky is truly the limit with Facebook advertising!
Don't know how to or where to start?? We got you covered with the Facebook side of things! We take the guesswork out of running a successful FB ad campaign with our affordable High ROAS Facebook Ads Bundle.
After generating over $35M in revenue for our clients via FB ads, we know a thing or two about how to run ads that generate high ROAS and allow Shopify stores to scale.
]]>Ah, boundaries. A sometimes uncomfortable, but absolutely necessary part of ANY healthy relationship. Those without proper boundaries will often find themselves becoming bitter, burnt out, or simply having no energy left at the end of the day for what and who matters the most to them.
While many are on the “boundary bandwagon” when it comes to personal relationships, often we don’t stop to consider how necessary they are in every aspect of life, and even more specifically when it comes to business relationships.
So, how do you identify what appropriate boundaries are within a professional working relationship? And, how do you begin to set and enforce boundaries when you haven’t yet communicated them or put them in place? We’re glad you asked, as we have spent a lot of time implementing boundaries into our professional lives and find them extremely beneficial.
Decide what business boundaries are the most important to you:
Wondering where to start? Take some time to think about what simply works and what doesn’t work for you. Do you hate working on the evenings and weekends because you want to spend time with your family? Good for you! This is a great boundary to reinforce. Just because your vendors or your colleagues like to work all hours, doesn’t mean that you need to. There is a lot of pressure in the Western working world to work too much and, frankly, too little emphasis on balance and resting on the weekends and evenings. It’s OK if it feels weird because everyone around you isn’t doing the same thing as you. You do you! Try to remind yourself that just because someone sent you a message or slacked you outside of normal business hours, doesn’t mean you have to reply until it’s convenient for you!
Additional boundaries to consider that will help keep you sane:
Other helpful boundaries to consider are having clear payment requirements and sticking within your pre-determined boundaries in this area. While it might be easy to let an excuse for non-payment slide, try to stick firm with your policy when it comes to receiving payment by a certain date. Additionally, a boundary that many entrepreneurs benefit from is one that relates to naysaying loved ones who don’t quite understand your desire to run a business. Oftentimes those that start their own businesses will unintentionally be burdened by judgement from friends & family or lackluster reactions to big wins. This doesn’t mean you can never talk about your business with those people! But make sure to have boundaries in place to spare yourself from unnecessary misunderstandings or unwarranted comments.
Lack of planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on your part:
We’ve all been there. That one business client or colleague that makes everything “urgent” and “time-sensitive.” While there are SOME instances where you truly have an urgent matter to resolve, try to be aware of the type of person who inflicts constant stress and urgency on you. Remind yourself to take a deep breath and consider if their request is outside of your boundaries and if it’s TRULY urgent or if it can wait until it’s a better time for you to handle. Know that their lack of planning doesn’t constitute an emergency on your part.
Communicate your boundaries clearly and early on:
Be extremely frank when it comes to discussing your boundaries. If you don’t want to work on weekends, make that clear from the get-go to those around you that they should not expect a response during that time. An extra layer of protection in this area would be to put on an auto-responder over the weekends and mute notifications from any work apps, such as Slack, etc. Similarly, if video calls are a no-go for you, communicate this up front, before your colleagues have the opportunity to just assume you will be ok with it. The sooner you can be upfront about your boundaries, the better.
Be redundant if necessary:
Be redundant because people need to be reminded. They’ll likely forget if they adhere to a different working style than you. Remember that if it’s important to you, then you need to firmly repeat your boundaries over and over again. For example: we include our “no calls” policy in our ads, our landing pages, our blog and on our form. We don’t want any surprises and want to make sure people understand that this is an important policy for us. Yes, sometimes people forget and that’s OK. It only becomes a problem if they’re excessively needing reminding and/or they’re disrespectful about your boundaries or pushy (which leads us to the next point).
Don’t stand for inappropriate/bad behavior:
People who push back excessively or just don’t get it will never respect your boundaries. Don’t waste your time and energy and professionally cut ties and move on. Remember: boundaries help keep you sane and calm and conserve your energy for what really matters. The fact is: people who whine about boundaries are often the ones who need it the most. We had one client who agreed to our “no calls” policy upon onboarding but, even after continual reminders about this policy, the client kept pushing for regular phone calls. It was clear that the client didn’t fully understand or respect our “no calls” policy and would be better suited for a different agency who did phone calls, so we politely ended our contract with them. To help them out, we offered to assist in finding a great replacement agency who would be a better fit for them. We sincerely knew this would be the best path for everyone in terms of their communication preferences. We also knew in our gut that they were never going to respect our boundaries; with this or anything else in the future. Well, they didn’t like that we were no longer going to be working with them, likely felt a bit rejected, and their response was unprofessional. When someone responds in a way that makes it clear they can't hear the word "no" and aren't used to not getting their way with boundaries or otherwise, it further cements the fact that in these circumstances, parting ways is a healthy and necessary decision.
Remember: you will always be reinforcing your boundaries but it WILL get easier over time. Saying no is ok and is healthy. It does take effort to reinforce your boundaries, but it is SO worth it. Through implementing and enforcing healthy boundaries in our business relationships, we have found more peace, margin and sanity in our lives; you can, too!
]]>While it's not a total deal breaker to be a startup or a new Shopify store, there are aspects of being a brand new business that make jumping into working with a professional agency challenging. On the rare occasion that we work with new stores, we like to see that there are a few key things lined up first. It can be a tricky situation when you are not quite ready for an expert FB ads team to take over and scale your ads. You may WANT to scale and THINK you're ready, but you're really only ready to scale if you have a strong foundation in place, site-side.
Unless you have the following key metrics in place, you’re not ready for an expert FB ads team to take over your ad campaign, even if you feel you are.
To be specific, you need the following metrics to be optimized:
Website conversion rate (at least 1-2%, however, this does vary with the price point of the products**)
Average order value (Above $50)
Lifetime value of a customer (Above $100)
** It’s important to note, that as a rule of thumb, higher conversion rates are more typical with lower priced products and lower conversion rates are typical with higher priced products. This is simply because it's easier to get people to buy more affordable items. So the 1-2% baseline doesn't necessarily apply to stores that sell items in the $10-$20 range....in that case, the conversion rate should be higher. We list 1-2% here, because that's a basic threshold. To learn more about the nuance of these metrics, click here to watch this video.
Most importantly, pro agencies like to see that someone is dedicated to working on the website conversion rate while the site is in development and after launching. The foundation plays such a vital role in how Facebook ads perform, so we like to make sure that the business is taking the website portion seriously. Facebook ads are meant to complement and amplify but not fix a business. We've seen many businesses expect Facebook ads to "make" the business upon launching, but without the foundation dialed in, that's simply impossible.
Another KEY aspect to consider is whether your inventory is fully dialed in without supply chain issues. Are you truly ready for growth? If you try to increase your Facebook ad spend upon reaching great results and then irresponsibly let things sell out on your site, this literally KILLS Facebook ad success. When this happens, your ROAS will inevitably tank due to the conversion rate declining rapidly on the site and you may have to pause ads completely until you're restocked, both of which are extremely problematic. We've seen this time and time again with businesses that have inventory problems and it really gets in the way of incredible growth that can happen with Facebook ads.
So, when you don't have that all dialed in yet, what should you do? Should you still work with a FB ads agency?
Not immediately. First, you should prioritize working with a conversion rate optimization expert to make it EASY to convert people on your site. That money that you would be spending on a FB ads agency should go to hiring an awesome CRO expert first -- that is most important. Because if your site sucks at getting people to buy your products, Facebook ads will not help or fix the problem. That's on the site itself.
But when you have zero traffic or sales, what should you do when you need that traffic data to help determine what needs to change? Start running some FB ads yourself at a low budget. Using a DIY guide, like our bundle, can help give you the right initial guidance to build your campaign on your own. This will allow you to run some ads, get some initial website data, which will then help you and the conversion rate expert to identify what FIRST needs to be fixed to improve the conversion rate.
Once you've gotten a little bit of traction site-side in terms of your foundation and fixed some holes, you can then entertain the idea of working with an expert team.
Remember: we cannot stress enough how important dialing in the foundation is BEFORE running Facebook ads. When you jump right into Facebook ads with an agency without any idea about the website foundation, you can end up bleeding a lot of money. Again, spend money on a CRO expert or coach first and run the FB ads yourself (to get traffic). Then, once you have optimized the site well enough (at least 1-2% website conversion rate), you're at the perfect time to find a great agency to take over the ads for you and take you to the next level.
Working with a new business and website is definitely a gamble; we have no data to go by. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get started with building a solid website foundation and optimizing your key metrics. If you’re a new startup that is looking to grow and wants to slowly start running ads in order to gain that valuable traffic data, check out our FB ad guides to learn our expert secrets while you DIY!
]]>
I've been managing Facebook ads for 7+ years now and for the longest time I was trying to figure out why I had some campaigns that would bring in insane ROAS and others wouldn't. I knew I was a great Facebook ads manager, but why did I have some campaigns that didn't bring in amazing results? Why didn't ALL the campaigns I worked on bring in high ROAS? What exactly was the difference between these campaigns that got great results and ones that didn't?
After a bunch of digging and working with dozens of businesses, I discovered that the businesses with high ROAS ad campaigns had their website foundation fully dialed in. They were essentially holding up their end (which is what they're responsible for) which allowed them to reach high ROAS with their campaigns.
But the businesses that had low ROAS? I was always trying to figure out what was going wrong; it finally became clear to me that all of those businesses had one thing in common- they DIDN'T have their website foundation dialed in. So it wasn't actually my fault -- those businesses weren't holding up their end and I was incorrectly taking ALL the blame.
What I’ve learned is that the website foundation needs to have the following metrics in order to be ready to find huge success with FB ads
Conversion rate - you want this number to be at least 1%, if not well above 2%
Average order value - you want this number to be at least $50
Lifetime value of a customer - you want this number to be as high as possible, but really no less than $100
Keep in mind that these numbers can fluctuate among businesses and those numbers I just shared are really just an average baseline. While it can be challenging to wrap your head around how these numbers will affect your ads, I’m going to do my best to explain how they do in this video.
For starters, if you have low cost products, such as something that is only $15, then you really should have a much higher conversion rate than just 2%. In simple terms, that’s because a $15 purchase is an easy purchase to make and also because it can be very challenging to make Facebook ads profitable with a low cost product -- there are things like ad space competition that can drive the ad costs up a bit and you’ll need that higher conversion rate to help even things out. This might also mean that your AOV is under $50 and that’s OK with Facebook ads as long as your LTV is high. This is because it’s not realistic to expect that all low cost products will be profitable with first time customers through FB ads. You essentially need really a high conversion rate for this to be possible.
What this means, is that the AOV doesn't necessarily need to be $50, as long as the LTV is higher and the conversion rate is higher. And on the flipside, the LTV doesn't necessarily need to be super high, as long as the conversion rate is higher and even the AOV is higher. So these thresholds or baseline metrics are just a baseline -- some business' metrics will need to look a little different. Finding the "right" formula for your business to work, particularly with FB ads, is a delicate balance when it comes to your foundation. If one area in your business’ site's foundation is too low, then you must adjust accordingly by making sure your other metrics are better.
Let me help clarify further by giving you a few specific examples:
These metrics are different for every business, so it’s really just important to understand that there is nuance to all of this. If one area is lacking, another area must make up for it. And in some cases, that’s unrealistic for your business or, with Facebook ads, it can be unrealistic to expect certain outrageous metrics from Facebook IF some or all of your metrics are lacking.
Here’s a quick RECAP and simple way to think of things:
If you want to know if your site metrics are aligned well for Facebook ads, fill out our form and we’ll let you know.
]]>How much should you spend on ads?
The short answer? It depends, but usually at least $2k/month for 2-4 months.
We recommend allocating at least $2000 per month on ad spend when you're running a Facebook ad campaign and to anticipate it taking at least 2-4 months of testing to find the best results. With that said, there are MANY factors that affect your ads -- including but not limited to your website foundation -- so it's impossible to guarantee that that amount of time will apply to everyone. For some it takes less time, for some it takes longer. The fact of the matter is that if you have major hangups in your funnel, such as a low website conversion rate, you're not going to reach your ideal metrics with your Facebook ad campaign UNTIL you address that website hangup.
One thing to keep in mind is that you DON'T want to throw $6k into ads your first month (instead of $2k each month for 3 months) and expect that to give you all the testing data you need. You can't rush testing. You need to give FB's algorithm enough time to settle in and optimize. FB ads can be a slow and long process....definitely not overnight.
What if you can't afford $2k/month? The reality is, we've seen FB ad campaigns immediately take off and hit their ideal metrics with a mere $5/per day. With my husband's guitar teaching business, we always kept super low ad spend...often just under $500/month, but mostly around the $250/month mark. But this is the exception, not the rule.
If you're strapped for cash, that's OK. You can still run ads at a low ad spend and get an initial gauge on what's working and what's not. This will give you some low amounts of traffic which can help you figure out what needs to change site-side too. This is best done on your own, essentially to get your feet wet. We, (and most advertising agencies), require a minimum $2k monthly ad spend when we manage your ads. The reality is that level of budget allows us to effectively test. Without it, it makes our job much harder and, really, all we want is to see you succeed...so we don't want to impede our efforts.
If you're in the position where you can't afford $2k/mo and want to get your feet wet with ads, your best bet is to use expert FB ad guides to help you DIY.
Every advertiser has been asked these questions before: “What are brand guidelines?” and, “Do we REALLY need them for our online store to be successful with advertising?”
At TDM, portraying your business's brand identity cohesively and accurately is extremely important to us. Branding guidelines support our Facebook marketing initiatives by ensuring that all creative content is relevant and related to your brand. Strong branding also aids in brand recognition, which is particularly important when retargeting warm audiences. When we are able to reference a brand style guide, it helps us establish your content with a strong brand voice that resonates with your target audience.
So, what exactly should you have together before you start a formal advertising campaign? We recommend the following:
Official brand guidelines help your online business appear professional and stand out amongst competition. Not having brand guidelines increases the chances that your voice may come across mixed and your creative will likely not make a lasting impression on your target audience.
Lastly, it’s important to trust the design or marketing agency you are working with. In our case, we do our very best to ensure our adherence to our client’s specific brand guidelines, but sometimes situations arise when we reserve the right to use our expertise and discretion in content creation. Understand that we only use this discretion when we feel the success of a campaign is at stake, and we never veer far from the guidelines, as this is simply a no-no! An example of this is that Facebook blue gets drowned out in the newsfeed, so if one of your brand colors is close to it, we may avoid using it and stick to your other colors. Just as with any other aspect of a Facebook ad campaign, it’s important to trust the experts in this area, who live, breathe, and sleep Facebook advertising.
Do you have stellar brand guidelines and feel ready to take your Facebook advertising to the next level? Apply now to get a FREE review of your ad account and get expert recommendations!
👋 Did you hear about the BIG new Apple iOS 14 update coming soon in early 2021? In a nutshell, Apple will soon ask users after this update if they want certain apps to be able to track them. Honestly, transparency in this area is great! People want to know how they're being tracked. We totally agree with being clear and up front about how data is being used. But on the flip side, this does affect how we as advertisers can use the Facebook pixel specifically with Apple mobile devices.
For those who opt out when they receive this message, the pixel will not track them while they're on Facebook/Instagram and click on an ad to another site. But what does that mean in terms of the ads they see in their feed? Because they opted out, their experience on mobile (not desktop) likely will be much different and less personalized than people who've opted in.
Keep this in mind: while mobile traffic is (mostly) king, Apple isn't the only company that makes phones. In 2019, about 45% of smartphone users used an iPhone. That leaves 55% to Android and other brands. 🤷♀️ And this new message doesn't guarantee that people will opt out. Sure, there will be plenty that do, but also plenty that don't.
So long story short, this is a new change coming soon.
Here's our advice: don't worry; be aware. Yes, as a business advertising on Facebook/Instagram, you will need to make adjustments with this change. We all will. At the end of the day, Facebook advertising (and social media advertising in general) is still and will continue to be a MAJOR avenue for small and large businesses across the globe. This will not change. We just have to adapt to the new policies that are introduced over the years, just like we have with the CCPA, CBO, mass ad account shut downs and so many more changes from the past.
If you want to read up on what Facebook says about this upcoming change, check out their page here.
If you are an ecomm biz owner with a new Shopify store and are wondering how you can find growth via FB ads, you’ve come to the right place! Most of the time, it is recommended that you start experimenting with Facebook ads on your own. While this may seem surprising to hear from an expert FB advertising agency, the reason is simple: it's expensive to pay an expert to run FB ads for you (e.g., with our agency there is a minimum of $4.5K monthly investment), so it's in your best interest to try it on your own first and get some of your metrics established before hiring an agency.
It's very rare that we run a brand new campaign for a new Shopify store; when we do, we make it clear that this is a HUGE TEST even for us (or any ad agency). FB ads is a big test anyway -- I repeat, a big test -- but it especially is when you don't have a cracked funnel and no site metrics to go by (i.e. no conversion rate, no AOV, no LTV). Why? Because that means you don't have proof of concept. If your site conversion rate is totally abismal, then it doesn't make sense for you to pay for a bunch of traffic because the site won't convert them.
No two Facebook ad campaigns are the same-- there is so much more to it than what happens on FB, such as: your products, your website, your product pictures, your site speed, your prices, your target customer, what barriers you may have in place on the site, your average order value, your lifetime value of a customer, your site conversion rate, etc. As you can see, A LOT of factors contribute to the success of a campaign holistically.
I'll be completely honest. FB ads are challenging. Not every Shopify store can build a successful FB ad campaign; often because there is not a good enough foundation in place which allows for a high return. Don't make this mistake and expect FB ads to be the magic wand that is going to make your store profitable. It's not going to be profitable UNLESS you have a great foundation in place. And even then, it's not a guarantee! It's completely unrealistic to expect this.
So, what should you do? You should start small on your own and gather important data and insight that will HELP you first establish a solid foundation on your website. This imperative step will then allow you to run a profitable FB ad campaign.
Feeling stuck and wondering how you can do this? You can use our FB ads bundle ($97) to get you started with the basics. Then, once you've made some improvements on the site and with your metrics, you can graduate to the next level of having a pro team raise your ROAS even further and help you scale.
]]>
Recently our agency implemented a change in policy that is becoming more and more popular, especially in the era of COVID -- requiring communication to be exclusively online. While this may be viewed as a radical policy by some, the overall response has been extremely positive and we have been encouraged by the respect and adherence to this policy change that our clients are extending to us. Our clients are thriving and busy business owners themselves who appreciate efficiency and crystal clear communication.
While some people’s gut instinct is to “hop on a call,” for us, it’s always been to send an email. Over our 7+ years of working in the Facebook advertising space, we found phone calls to be a total productivity killer and (mostly) a waste of time. Additionally, our work requires a clear paper trail to reference back to, and our service deals directly with text communication in the ads so we NEED to see it in text (not audibly).
You may be wondering that surely there must be an exception to this rule? Yes, there is. But it’s not hopping on a phone call. ;) If a unique situation arises and a longer explanation is needed with visuals, our team will make videos with our favorite screen-recorder, Screencastify. This has proven to be a very effective AND efficient way to communicate when an email just doesn’t quite fit-the-bill which, to be honest, is a rare occasion.
You might be surprised to realize that we are not the only professionals who feel this way. (Can we get a “praise hands emoji?”). As pressures rise and work days get longer, more and more busy professionals are searching for ways they can keep their sanity and find more margin in their lives.
In fact, this recent and insightful article outlining the wry observations of Taylor Offer might say it best:
“Taylor spent the day working alongside an overly stressed friend employed by a large company. The friend had about eight meetings sprinkled throughout the day. Taylor eloquently explained that after listening to the meetings, he realized most of them could’ve been streamlined with emails or PDFs. Minutes of small talk, reading through presentations and waiting for everyone to join the call could’ve been spent doing actual work.... If only he didn't have meetings all day, he could have done his work in a few hours and been done by noon, with no stress…,’ Taylor wrote. ‘Am I the only one who doesn't think all these meetings are so necessary?’”
Many busy professionals don’t take the time to stop and consider how disruptive phone calls really are to their everyday life. For example, if we scheduled a call every time we were asked, we would be left with very little time in our schedule to do what we do best—managing winning Facebook campaigns and doing it well to ensure our client’s revenue multiples. Repeatedly disrupting our workday in order to participate in a phone call that is better handled over email—(which is often far more efficient)—can add up to a lot of lost time from ad campaign management, which is not only a disservice to ourselves, but also our clients.
Before you write this idea off as NOT being possible for you, consider this. MANY business fields are not only able to thrive with online-only communication, but are actually prime opportunities to switch to this model. If you are in the field of online (basically) anything, you can likely make the switch with ease! Some examples are (but are not limited to), online stores, ANY online profession (such as graphic design, web development, SEO, coding, any writing jobs, marketing, social media management, etc). This obviously doesn't apply to all businesses and professions, but again we want to stress how this is extremely possible for any field with a strong digital presence.
We realize this idea may not be popular with all and not everyone prefers email or online communication. BUT the reality is that online communication is absolutely necessary in today's business world so you NEED to be proficient at it. Opposite to contrary belief, phone calls are NOT necessary and you can get away without doing phone calls (not the other way around). If you're dealing with people in different time zones or work hours or busy schedules, it can be extremely challenging to sync up your schedules for a call that could take weeks to schedule, when the reality is that you could simply type out your response at the time that works for YOU and in a timely manner (NOT weeks away!). How many times have you tried to schedule a meeting or call only to pinpoint the best time for both (or all) parties is a week or more away? Then you get on the call and realize this could have been handled much faster and more easily a week ago if you had used an alternate method of communication, (like email!). 🤦🏼♀️ In this way, phone calls tend to delay communication and halt our productivity unnecessarily to the point that it feels like we're stuck back in the 20th century.
For those of you who are up in arms and thinking this is a crazy idea, consider this: many big time entrepreneurs and successful tech execs have brazenly shared that this is their policy as well. Mark Cuban has been famously quoted as telling Thrive Global in 2016: "No meetings or phone calls…Everything is email." In the same interview he elaborates when asked about his email preference saying, “Love it. Live on it. Saves me hours and hours every day. No meetings. No phone calls. All because of email. I set my schedule.” How many busy business owners and professionals can relate to this sentiment? Isn’t that what we all need? More margin in our lives and the ability to save hours every day and be in control of our own schedule rather than bending to everyone else’s agenda at every whim? Perhaps saying no to phone calls is what the modern-day business world is missing. Elon Musk shares similar sentiments and has been quoted as saying regarding meetings and phone calls, “It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”
Time is money. Eliminating unnecessary and disruptive phone calls from your workday will end up giving you more time to do what you do best-- ultimately putting more money into your pocket along with more sanity and desperately needed margin into your life. We hope that it is easy to see why email is the preferred communication for our agency and why this is a trend in the modern-day business world that we don’t see going away any time soon. Welcome to the future!
It’s your turn! We’d LOVE to hear your thoughts. Do you agree? Have you made the plunge to moving exclusively to online communication only? If not, what's stopping you from doing so? If this sounds like a game changer for you too, we encourage you to skip the YEARS it took us to implement this policy in full and start today. It CAN be done and we (as well as Mark and Elon!) are proof of it. You'll be ahead of the curve and will quickly notice how much more productive, efficient and happy (and less stressed!) you are.