With more than 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook has become the biggest social network in the world, a place where businesses are able to connect with potential customers and grow their base significantly.
Through the powerful features of Facebook ads, many eCommerce businesses are able to reach a broad but also a highly targeted audience, all while accomplishing different business objectives at any stage of the funnel. Facebook makes it easy for any marketer to use the advertising platform; you just need to know some fundamental strategies.
So, let’s get to know the most essential Facebook ads strategies that could help you promote your eCommerce business and boost your sales.
1. Build a sales funnel first
Taking the time to build your sales funnel is more important than your Facebook ads. You can have the perfect Facebook ads strategy, and the ideal creatives, but if your funnel doesn’t work or just doesn’t exist, you will not accomplish your sales goals.
Every business should know what their dream client looks like, but they should also know how to move them from awareness of their brand to purchasing their products. In a perfect world, you’d sell your most expensive products to all of your customers, but that’s not realistic; your highest-value products may not be what all clients are looking for. That’s why you need to build a sales funnel to provide value at each level that your customers can afford and, after making a purchase, move them towards the next level of your funnel.
2. Install Facebook pixel
Long before you start running your first campaign, it’s essential to install the Facebook pixel to track the interactions of the visitors on your website after they click on a Facebook ad.
The pixel is a piece of code that you copy and paste onto your website to track actions like product page visits, add to cart, add to wishlist and purchases. With this information, you can optimize your campaigns for the conversions or events that are important to your business; most importantly, you’re able to boost your conversion rate, reducing the number of abandoned carts by retargeting the people who added products to their cart but didn’t purchase.
3. Run retargeting campaigns
After installing the Facebook pixel, you will be able to retarget the audience that has already interacted with your website or Facebook ads.
According to Wishpond, 72% of online shoppers are likely to abandon their shopping carts before making a purchase, and without retargeting, only 8% of those customers return to complete their transactions.
For eCommerce businesses, this strategy is vital.
People who visit product pages or add products to their carts may need a slight push to complete their purchases. When running retargeting campaigns, consider changing your ad message to these retargeted customers by asking them if they forgot to complete their purchase. Add images of the product they’ve added to their cart, and even consider offering them special discounts.
For running retargeting campaigns, you’ll need to build custom audiences, made of people who already have a relationship with your business, such as website visitors and existing customers.
4. Build lookalike audiences
Using your custom audiences, you can also create lookalike audiences with the same demographics, likes, and interests of the people who already interacted with your site, one with a similar likelihood of converting, and target your ads to these audiences.
Many eCommerce businesses find this strategy builds sales when they use their own customer lists to find similar audiences. The more data you have about your existing customers, the more accurate your lookalike audience will be. It will work even better if you ensure to use repeat customers on the list: if your content has worked well with them, it will probably work with their lookalikes as well.
5. Target people based on their buying behavior
One new and exciting option when building an audience is to choose “Engaged Shoppers” on the “Behaviours” category in detailed targeting. With this feature, you are able to target people who are in the middle of buying a particular product RIGHT NOW!
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6. Use dynamic product ads
“Set up dynamic ads once, then let them work for you.” – Facebook.
Dynamic product ads are probably the best strategy to use on Facebook ads when you have an eCommerce business. They are personalized ads tailored to people’s interests. These ads automatically promote your most relevant products to people who have already expressed interest on your website or app.
To set up dynamic product ads, you’ll need to install the Facebook pixel, upload your product catalog to the Business Manager with all your products’ details, and run a campaign with the “Catalog Sales” objective- Facebook Ads will find the right people for each product! The best part is, you don’t have to create an ad for each product. Instead, templates in your product catalog will pull product names, images, prices and other information tailored to its audience, making it an excellent solution for eCommerce businesses with a large catalog.
With these ads, you are also able to retarget your visitors, reminding them of items they viewed or added to their carts but didn’t purchase.
7. Use a multi-product carousel or collection ad formats
When advertising on Facebook, it’s essential to choose the right ad format for your business, and for eCommerce businesses, the best strategy is a carousel or collection format.
The carousel format allows you to showcase up to 10 images or videos within a single ad, each with its own link. This gives you the opportunity to tell a story around your brand using creative and connected imagery, and display different products or features or explain processes in a fun way.
The collection format is a mobile-exclusive format that helps people to discover and purchase products and services more efficiently, allowing the visitors to have a better shopping experience and learn more about the products without leaving Facebook.
Both of these ad formats can be used with dynamic product ads.
8. Use a video ad format
Using videos instead of single images is a strategy most eCommerce businesses are using since Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes video content, meaning that your video ad will most likely reach your audience faster.
Additionally, the video ad format is more engaging. Although your approach will vary depending on your content, in general, videos are more eye-catching than text and still images. When using videos for eCommerce, do not forget to show your products in action.
9. Direct the traffic to the product page
When the goal is to sell your products, always remember to direct your traffic to the product page advertised in the Facebook ad, not to your home page. When a person clicks on an ad, they expect to reach the exact page for the product that captured their attention.
Remember that homepages will not convert the same way that a specific product page; they will build awareness and interest but are less focused on directly motivating purchases.
10. Use Facebook Offers
Did you know that you can offer discounts directly from Facebook? The Offers feature allows you to create coupons and discounts right from your business page! This is an excellent way to attract new customers; after all, everyone loves a bargain!
Click on your page’s timeline in “Offer” to create one, where you can also determine the expiration date, if it applies to online or in-store purchases, and even add a unique photo. After creating the offer, you can build an ad specifically to promote it- and your customers won’t even need to leave Facebook to redeem it: clicking on the ad gives them the code they need.
11. Get social proof on the ads
Have you ever noticed a post with thousands of likes and wondered how that happened?
Building social proof on your ads is an extremely powerful enhancement to any eCommerce campaign. You’ll first need to create an engagement campaign, where Facebook will optimize your ads to get the most likes, comments, and shares as possible; while you are increasing your reach, you are also building your social proofs.
Reuse ads from these engagement campaigns in subsequent campaigns with different objectives like conversions, catalog sales and more. Getting clicks on an ad that already has tons of likes, comments, and shares is far easier than on an ad that has none.
12. Advertise on Instagram
Advertising on Instagram has been effective for many eCommerce marketers. This social network is mainly focused on visuals, so having high-quality images of your products is essential when using Instagram as your advertising tool.
There are many options for advertising on Instagram, including Instagram Stories, where you are able to create canvas ads, immersive full-screen experiences designed to capture the complete attention of your visitors.
13. Upsell to existing customers
Another great Facebook ads strategy for eCommerce is to sell additional products to your existing customers. When a person has already bought from you and had a good experience, the chance they’ll buy again is higher. These sales are usually more natural than the ones to new customers since they already have trust in you.
This strategy is most useful for established brands since you need previous data from custom audiences, and it’s handy for new collections or product launches.
14. Create optimization rules
Keeping up with the daily fluctuations of ad campaigns can be nerve-racking, especially where you may be running dynamic product ads with a large catalog. This is when optimization rules become very helpful.
Facebook allows you to set up campaign rules to automatically adjust bids down when you reach cost limits or adjust bids up to take immediate advantage of low cost per results. You can also create other rules, like turning campaigns off when CPR increases or when your ads reach a high frequency, to avoid ad fatigue.
This is an excellent strategy to avoid wasting time on daily campaign management and save budget on campaigns that are no longer effective.
15. Test, test, and test again
Last but not least, always test your campaigns. You should do this from the start, to understand what works best, and thereby understand how different strategies will impact your ad performance- but never stop testing.
Facebook ads offer you a split testing feature, where you can test different variables without audience overlap, getting the most out of your budget.
If you‘re running an eCommerce business, start implementing these 15 essential Facebook ads strategies and start increasing your sales. Not sure how to create winning ads? Too busy to build a campaign from scratch, but want these results? Get in touch with us. As you can see, we’re passionate about great ad campaigns, and we’d love to become your new marketing department.