Ecom Business Hacks w/ Rod

Hey everyone, welcome to the
Facebook Ad Hacks podcast.

I'm your host, Rod Bland, and in
this podcast, I talk about how to

get better results from your Facebook
and Instagram digital marketing,

and the many lessons that I've
learned from being in the business

of e-commerce for the last 20 years.

Enjoy today's episode.

One of the most common questions that
I get inside my Facebook group is

how do I start a Facebook ad campaign
from scratch and get good results?

That's what we're going to be
covering in today's episode.

Now, because I recorded this as a video
with screen capture, you might want to

see the actual video itself, and I'll
put a link to that in the show notes.

So let's get into it.

Hey, I'm Rod.

I'm the founder of Rod Bland Agency.

We help people create, manage, optimize,
and do better with Facebook and Instagram

advertising, and in today's video, I'm
going to show the exact formula that

we use for our e-commerce clients,
whether they're small clients that are

only spending a hundred dollars a day
or larger ones that are spending $700 a

day, we use this same formula regardless.

So I'm going to take you through
everything that you need to do from

the way the campaign's structured,
the ad sets, the targeting, the

ads, the creative, the whole
shebang in less than 10 minutes.

Now, before you get carried away
thinking that I'm about to impart

to you a formula which is guaranteed
to give you successful ads no matter

what, there's a couple of caveats.

The first one is that you are actually
making sales through your website.

If you plan to make your first sale using
an ad, I really recommend against that.

If you can make sales through organic
means first, then at least it will

prove that your product is viable.

Secondly, if your website conversion
rate is something less than 1.5%,

then it's going to be very hard
for you to run ads profitably.

I'm not saying it's going to be
impossible, but in my experience the lower

that your conversion rate is for your
website, the more that you've got to spend

on ads to be able to generate a sale.

The third thing is you already need to
have a Facebook business manager set up.

You need to have an ad account set up.

If you haven't got any of those
things ready, then there'll be some

links to videos in the description
where you can learn how to do that.

So let's jump on the
computer and get started.

So the page I'm on here is ad manager
for one of our clients, and this uses

the exact same structure and set up
that I'm going to explain to you now,

and you can see over the maximum time
period from April 28th of last year,

we've had a return on ad spend of
5.22, about a $25 cost per purchase.

If you look at the last 30
days, that's 4.78 or $28.

If you look at the last 14 days, return
on ad spend 7.48, $18 cost per purchase.

It's been a consistently performing
campaign, we have rotated in

different creative as time has
gone along, but essentially the

structure that we initially set up
is still working eight months later.

There's a couple of other infrastructure
items that you want to make sure

that you've taken care of, which is
installing the Facebook pixel on your

website, configuring the conversions API.

Make sure that the domain is
verified, and make sure that you

have your web events configured.

I have videos that explain how to do
all of those things, and there'll be a

link to those in the video description.

So let's move on to audiences.

The best audiences still today in my
experience are those that are a lookalike

that is based on your previous customers.

And the larger that that source audience
is, the better that the lookalike

audience is that Facebook can create.

Where people sometimes run into trouble
is that their source audience doesn't

have very many people in it, like
less than a hundred, and that can mean

that the lookalike audience isn't as
effective as an interest based audience.

There's a couple of things I
always like to do when it comes to

creating a custom audience that's
based on previous purchasers.

You can create an audience
that's based on the pixel.

So if you go and create custom
audience, and then you say website.

Then you can use a pixel and you could say
last 180 days and you can choose purchase.

So if you've already had the
pixel installed for awhile, you

should already have this event
logged in your Facebook pixel.

So you can create an audience
that's based on that.

So we can say purchases
from pixel 180 days.

So that's one way for us to create a
custom audience consisting of previous

purchasers, which is fine, but it
will only ever go back 180 days.

What I find is better is download them
from say Shopify, or if your email

management system is Klaviyo, then you can
simply create a segment of people who have

placed an order and then synchronize that
audience to your Facebook custom audience.

From that, we then want to
create a lookalike audience.

I'm not gonna explain how to do that
here, because I've got other videos that

explain how to do that, but I usually then
make a 3% and a 5% look alike audience.

So as you can see here I have made
a lookalike audience of just people

from Australia, 3% of the population.

That ends up being about half a million.

5% ends up being a million.

So that prepares a lookalike audience
and also a custom audience consisting

of all your previous purchasers
There's a couple of other audiences

that I also set up for retargeting.

That is website visitors, 180 days,
Instagram engagers from the last

365 days, and Facebook page and Ad
engagers from the last 365 days.

That is all the custom audiences
that you need to get started.

If you don't have any data on your pixel
or you haven't made any sales, you really

need to make sure that you can make sales
without ads first, before you started

doing this, then you could use audience
interests and how to create a custom

audience based on interests is something
that I'll cover in another video.

So once you've set up your
custom audiences, the next

thing is to prepare your ads.

Now, if you don't know where to
start with creating an ad, the best

thing to do is to model someone
else's that's been successful.

And the best tool that I've found to
find ads that have worked previously,

apart from the ad library itself, is this
tool here, which is called Advertsuite.

I'll put a link to this
in the description.

It's not very expensive and
it's a lifetime license.

I use this tool all the time.

Totally worth the money.

The link that I put in the description
might actually be an affiliate link, but

I do use it all the time and appreciate
if you do actually purchase it that way.

Let's say I'm looking for
ads about wedding cakes.

The search mode up here
is going to be keywords.

Keyword type is ad text.

I'll put in wedding cake, and
then I'm going to sort by likes.

Then you just click on search ads.

What that gives you is the
most popular ads at the top.

See this ad 59,000 likes
405 comments, 2500 shares.

So that was a pretty popular ad and they
obviously spent a lot of money on it.

Chances are that might
be one you can model.

Let's see if we can still
look up the original ad.

So in my view, they do a lot of
things wrong especially with the copy.

That's just a wall of text there.

However, I think what it illustrates
is that a good piece of creative is

probably the most important part of
the ad when it comes to wedding cakes.

Now I want to move on to how to
set up and structure the campaign

within the Facebook ads manager.

Once you're in ads manager.

If you're not already there, just click
on the little hamburger icon, click on

ads manager, click on create, and we're
going to create a conversions campaign.

In the name of the campaign, I
always put my initials, conversions,

CBO, because it's campaign budget
optimization, and the date.

In the adset I use this naming convention.

So P is for prospecting.

C is for custom audience.

Lookalike, AU 3% Klaviyo placed order.

So I can identify the targeting
that's been used to create

this particular ad set.

Then I have the date once again.

Then for ad name, I use
this naming convention.

OP is for original post.

Image number one, and put
the headline in there.

Since we're going to be using the example
of cakes, the headline is going to be

'Almost too good to eat' and then the
date, and then we click on continue.

Moving on down the page pretty rapidly.

The campaign objective is conversions.

You don't need to add anything
else to the options there.

We're not doing an AB test.

We're going to turn on campaign budget
optimization and in your daily budget,

my suggestion is that you work on the
rule of thumb of $35 per ad per day.

So if you've got a budget
of anything up to $35 then I

wouldn't run any more than one ad.

If you've got a budget of say a
hundred dollars, then you might

want to test three different ads.

So let's just put in 35 and then
in the options here, the campaign

bid strategy, lowest cost is fine.

Click on next.

This is in my agency demonstration
account so I don't have some of

the conversion events set up here.

But I'm going to use the
inactive events anyway.

So the conversion event that we want to
optimize for is going to be purchase.

The conversion event location
is going to be the website.

If you have this message, which says,
verify pixel, you need to go and fix

that if you've got an eCommerce store.

Because this is the demo account,
that's why it's not actually configured.

In the custom audiences
section, I just type in look for

lookalike, there it is there.

Location is defaulted to Australia for me.

I'm not going to put in any
additional detailed targeting, I'm

going to leave automatic placements.

Optimization and delivery, I'm going
to be optimizing for conversions.

In the attribution setting, we've got 7
days after clicking 1 day after viewing,

and when we get charged, impressions.

All of those we're going
to leave as the defaults.

Then we click on next.

Now we're onto the ad section.

So we've got an ad name.

This is where you want to connect
your Facebook page and your

Instagram account, if you have one.

In the ad set up, we're
going to go with create ad.

Now I'm going to show you
how to create the image ad.

I would suggest if you have additional
budget that you create an image

ad a carousel ad, and a video ad.

For more information about
how you create those formats.

I actually have a PDF, which I'm
going to put in the video description

below, which you can download.

It has all the details about how you
set those ads up, but for now, I'm

just going to create the image ad
only so you can see how it's done.

I'm going to turn off dynamic
formats and creative, choosing

a single image or video.

It will automatically select a
catalog so I'm just going to get rid

of that so I can add my media in.

I've got a cake image that I've
already added here previously.

So I'm going to select
that then we go next.

Now, as far as the format of the
images go square is the safest

option, ideally 1080x1080 pixels.

We're going to leave these
all at the original format.

Click on done.

Then we've got our primary text.

So we'll put in a primary text of
celebrate that special occasion

with a delicious chocolate mud cake.

Order yours online today.

I also always like to include
some emojis in the primary text.

The best place for emojis
is this one, emojipedia.

So let's just see if there's a cake emoji.

Got one that's pretty close.

There's a birthday cake.

We'll put that in at the
start of the primary text.

We're going to use a headline of almost
too good to eat, and in the description,

we'll put in order online today.

The call to action, we've got Shop
now, and the website you want to

make sure that your URL is there.

In the display link, because the website
URL has to have the HTTPS in front of

it, you could just put just the URL
only without that as the display link.

In the tracking you want to make sure
that your pixel is selected there.

So you can see, I haven't
used any different ad creative

for the different placements.

If you use a square piece of
creative, it is going to work in any

placement when it comes to image ads.

In Instagram stories and other placements,
they will add in some additional

color because it is a tall format.

You are then ready to
hit the publish button.

So this video doesn't end up being too
long, I'm going to finish things up there.

So this will give you an ad campaign
that has a cold audience in it.

You can also create another ad set,
which has got your warm audiences in it.

.
And that's it.

Hopefully I've been able to
edit this down under 10 minutes.

I hope you found this useful.

I hope it answers the question
of how you can get started from

scratch with a Facebook ad.

That particular format I've used
with many e-commerce clients.

And as long as the conversion rate is
good, it always produces consistently

good results, and it doesn't
require a whole lot of fiddling.

So once you get your ad set up, don't
change anything for seven days, let data

accumulate, and then act after that.

Thank you so much for listening.

If you found this episode useful,
here's two ways I can help you

grow your business for free.

Firstly, subscribe to my
YouTube channel at rodsyt.com.

Secondly, join my free group at
rodsgroup.com, and finally leave

me a five star review so that I
can reach more people and I can

get the attention of some amazing
guests that I can bring on the show.

I'll catch you in the next episode.