Selling more of your products with Facebook and Instagram ads

My conversations with online store owners usually go like this:

“I’d really like to sell more, can you help me do that?”

and my answer is usually “do you have an hour?”

There’s so much that goes into selling more of your products with Facebook and Instagram advertising.

In this episode, I talk about how you can use Facebook and Instagram ads to sell more of your products. 

When I talk about products I generally speak about physical products, but it could be digital products too. Although digital products often require a different approach.

To make more sales with Facebook and Instagram ads it’s important to already be making sales because the data you have up until now will help you calculate your future results as well as the ad budget you need to get there.

I’m going to talk about 3 different advertising campaigns you can run to sell more of your products and I hope that you’ll run at least one of these in the next few weeks.

Tune in 🎧

Download my free guide to get started with Facebook ads for your online store.

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Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
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Instagram: @bianca_mckenzie

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Transcript

Hey there and welcome to the New School of Marketing Podcast. Or if you’ve listened before, welcome back.

So at the time of recording this, we’re back in lockdown in Melbourne.

Last year we spent more than half of the year in lockdown so when the news came through I felt this rush of anxiety come on. Now, normally I’m a pretty down-to-earth person who rolls with the punches so I was actually surprised by how I felt and was trying to rationalise the lockdown decision. But then I thought, no, I’m allowed to feel sad and down. So I let myself just feel miserable for a little while and then picked up the pieces and got back on track.

So I sat down and thought of ways to help my clients keep selling throughout lockdown, just like I had done for most of the year last year. And kind of like I do all the time.

So today I want to talk to you about selling more of your products with Facebook and Instagram ads.

When I talk about products I generally speak about physical products, but it could be digital products too. Although digital products often require a different approach.

Today I’m focusing on physical products and the first step into selling more is that you are actually selling already.

Your online store isn’t just an idea. It’s already up and running. It’s open.
And even better if you’ve already made some sales to people who aren’t friends or family.

So you have an online store, either on Shopify, WooCommerce or another online store platform.
You’ve listed your products.
You’ve spent time sending traffic to your store from your social media channels and other places.
And you’ve made sales.

Now it’s time to make more sales and Facebook & Instagram ads can help you do this.

I say this very often and I’ll repeat myself again.
Facebook ads AMPLIFY.

What I mean by this is that Facebook ads can help you amplify what is already happening in your store without ads.

If you’ve sent lots of traffic to your store but you haven’t made any or many sales, you need to look into this first. You need to find out why this is happening and fix it.
Facebook ads cannot fix a conversion problem, but it can help you get data faster and help you fix the issue.

Anyway, that’s a different topic.

To make more sales with Facebook and Instagram ads it’s important to already be making sales because the data you have up until now will help you calculate your future results as well as the ad budget you need to get there.

I’m going to talk about 3 different advertising campaigns you can run to sell more of your products and I hope that you’ll run at least one of these in the next few weeks.

1) Abandon cart campaign

If you’ve ever shopped online you’re probably familiar with abandoned carts. I do this all the time. I know it’s annoying but it’s the way I shop.

See, I mostly look for things on my phone but when I’m ready to actually commit to purchasing I want to do it on my computer because the screen is bigger. So I abandon my cart on the phone and if I don’t get to the computer immediately, I’ll forget about what I was doing.

And I know I’m not the only one doing this.

So you really want to help me out and remind me to complete my purchase and you can either do this through sending me abandon cart emails or (and!) by showing me what I was looking at in your store through a Facebook ad specifically targeted at me.

To run this type of ad you need to set up a custom audience inside of Facebook ads manager and run a dynamic catalogue ad to show to this specific audience. For example, you can target people who have added something to cart for 14 days but didn’t purchase. The way you set this up in ads manager is to select your custom audience of ‘added to cart 14 days’ and create another custom audience of ‘purchased 14 days’ and exclude this audience from your targeting.

Your message needs to focus on getting people to take the final step and purchase. Don’t be afraid to tell people what step to take. We sometimes need to be told what to do.

There are a lot of different options to choose from when you’re creating this type of ad but they are so effective and you’d be missing out if you didn’t focus on recouping abandoned carts.

2) Retargeting ads

These ads are similar to abandon cart ads in that they’re also shown to your warm audience but it can be a bit broader than the 14 day abandon cart.

The idea behind retargeting ads is that you keep showing up in front of people who already know your business and have interacted with you in some way.

For example, you can retarget people who have visited your website in the past 90 days, or you can target people who have engaged with your Instagram account in the past 365 days. Or you can target them all.

Retargeting ads can be quite versatile and there’s no set formula for them. The main point of retargeting is to get in front of people who already know your business in a way.

So often for clients, I run retargeting ads that show them new products, or we run retargeting ads with up to 10 products in a carousel ad to show them what we offer and to take the next step (of buying).

To make more sales with Facebook and Instagram ads you need to get comfortable with asking for the sale, and if you’ve done things right (if there is such a thing as doing it right) you’ve already spent time showing them ‘get to know me’ content on social media so now it’s time to ask for the sale.

3) Lookalike and cold audience campaigns

This last one is last for a reason.

Many businesses spend forever and a day to attract new customers but they really should spend more time and money converting those they’ve already attracted and nurtured.

That’s why I mentioned abandon cart ads and retargeting ads first because it’s the low-hanging fruit that you should go after first.

So start with abandon cart and retargeting ads, then move on to lookalike and cold audience ads.

In a way, the words say it all. Your lookalike and cold audiences are people who don’t know you or your business. They’ve never heard of you, they’ve never seen your website or engaged on social media with you.

Getting in front of new people is a great way to sell more of your products but it also requires a slightly different approach because these are essentially people who don’t know your brand.

If you have a product with a price point under $100-$150 you can try advertising directly for a sales conversion.

If your product has a higher price point you probably need to ease into it with engagement campaigns and/or video view campaigns and nurture them so they get to know, like and trust you.

Let me also explain what a lookalike audience is, in case you haven’t heard this term before.

A lookalike audience is an audience that’s similar to your existing audience. Inside Facebook ads manager you can create a lookalike audience based on a custom audience that you have already created.

For example, you create a custom audience of everyone who has purchased in the past 180 days. Then you can create a lookalike audience based on that custom audience. Facebook will look for people with the same characteristics as your custom audience.

Pretty crazy and pretty clever.

So there you have it.
Three campaign types to sell more of your products with Facebook and Instagram ads.

1) Abandon cart campaign
2) Retargeting campaign
3) Lookalike/cold audience campaign

If you’re keen to get started with Facebook ads for your online store but you’re completely new to it, make sure you grab my free guide to getting started with Facebook ads for your online store. Inside this guide, I show you step by step how to set up your first and most lucrative Facebook ad for your store. I’ll pop the link in the show notes.

That’s it for this week’s episode.