Whatever the niche of your business, you need to be present on the Internet. Facebook ads for eCommerce will help you in this endeavor.
Even if you own a brick-and-mortar store or just do business online, it doesn’t matter, electronic commerce will be a significant part of your revenue.
If you have just started an eCommerce store, you are wondering what the next steps are. Well, definitely marketing that will improve your sales is an obvious first step.
Since Facebook is still the largest and most used social network in the world, Facebook Ads is something you have to invest in immediately, regardless of price.
So we will help you and explain everything you need to know to win with Facebook Ads for eCommerce in 2021.
Is it worth it to advertise on Facebook in 2021?
If you are also interested in finding the answer to this question, trust us that you are not alone.
Facebook ads are around for a long time and so you wonder if it’s still something really worth investing money in. Especially since people have probably informed you that the price of Facebook ads has risen significantly in recent years and that the price continues to rise often.
Still, all of these are nowhere near enough reasons for Facebook ads to lose their relevance.
Facebook has over 2.5 billion users, and several hundred million business users, which means that there is no platform in the world where you can reach such a broad audience. Especially at such a cheap price, although it has become more expensive compared to a couple of years ago.
If until 5 years ago you could count on organic reach, now that is no longer the case. The Facebook algorithm has changed numerous times and each update brought us changes that led to Facebook being what it is today.
Now posts from families and friends, as well as paid ads are practically the only thing you can see on your feed. Organic posts are now below 5% represented on the feed.
That is why our answer is that Facebook ads are absolutely worthwhile in 2021 as well as in previous years because they are the only way to improve brand awareness and reach a large number of customers.
How much does Facebook advertising cost?
Having told you that prices have gone up, but that it is still a very worthwhile investment to improve your eCommerce, you are now probably curious to find out exactly how much advertising on Facebook costs.
A lot of factors affect the price, so we can’t offer you just one answer to this question.
Some of the MAIN FACTORS that affect the price are primarily your location as well as the campaign objective.
However, there are some much smaller factors, such as the day of the week, and even the hours during the day, then what month it is, the industry to which you belong, etc.
According to available research, the average Cost Per Click (CPC) is around a dollar and a half globally.
For example, it is the most expensive in Australia when it comes to countries, while it is the most expensive for the finance and insurance industries.
When we talk about Cost per Like (CPL) there is an average of less, say about one dollar like in the USA. And of course the most expensive is Cost per app install (CPI) which in most developed countries exceeds 3 dollars.
Take all this information about prices with caution because they vary greatly due to all influencing factors, as well as due to constant changes.
How to run a Facebook ads campaign for eCommerce?
If you’re a business owner or you deal with eCommerce marketing, here are ways to be on top of your Facebook Ads game in 2021.
- Use Facebook Pixel
- Target broad audiences
- Your ads must stand out
- Giveaway
- The purchase should be the most important
1. Use Facebook Pixel
Did you hear about Facebook Pixel?
It is actually an HTML tag created by developers from Facebook that should be located in the header section of your website.
It has a very simple, yet very effective role that can help you a lot. The pixel will capture the Facebook profiles of all those who have visited your website.
You have probably wondered many times which part of your eCommerce store is most interesting to people who have visited the site.
This ANALYTICS TOOL will help you find out and evaluate how successful your ad campaign is and change what is needed accordingly.
You will get even more detailed information from just those who accessed your site via Facebook.
For example, you will have information on whether that person started an action, for example, did he/she select the number of products he wants to buy, but still did not complete the purchase action.
This way you will be able to target Facebook ads so that potential customers can return to your website and complete the action.
Pixel will help you not only with those who accessed your website as a result of a paid campaign, but will also give you information about everything that is a consequence of organic reach because although rare, there will be such cases.
Pixel is a key to understanding the behavior of people and targeting them later so it is one of the key pieces of running a Facebook ads campaign.
2. Target broad audiences
There are different tactics when it comes to choosing whether to target broad audiences or target just your niche.
While both approaches can be successful and help you achieve your goal and improve sales, nonetheless targeting broad audiences has proven to be a more cost-effective tactic.
Of course, it makes sense to try to target your niche, especially if your niche is something very specific. For example, you know that your clientele is mostly young men who like certain video games. Then pay Facebook to show your ads to men aged 18 to 30, who play GTA and Red Dead Redemption.
However, in this way you significantly limit the number of potential customers, and also Facebook will charge you much more.
What you need to do is avoid going narrow and focus on broad audiences. This way you will achieve several positive effects.
First, you will be shown to a large number of people and thus increase brand awareness, and also increase the potential number of customers.
Also, you will reduce the costs, because the narrower you go, the more Facebook charges.
Count on the fact that the Facebook algorithm is very advanced and that even if you go very broad, it will again very often target a narrow audience also. So you get two services for the price of one.
You can even try and have no target at all. No targeting strategy is becoming more and more popular. That way you are going to test the broadest possible audience. Only if you notice that it has not brought the desired improvements, then focus on having a bit more specific target.
Expanding an existing audience with Facebook ads
If you have had a target audience so far, and after our advice, you want to expand it and calculate that the Facebook algorithm will do everything for you, you can destroy it.
All you have to do is go to your ad set, select Audiences and find the Detailed Targeting section.
There, you will see an option that says ‘Expand detailed targeting’. Check it and save your settings.
Facebook will then take your budget and split it between your target audience and wide audience, and as the results of which audience responds better to your ads roll in, they’ll give it a budget priority.
Creating a new wide audience
If you don’t already have a target audience or just want to try and see how the algorithm does by itself, you can create a new wide audience.
You can do this by creating a new audience and selecting the option ‘Define a broad audience’ and let Facebook optimize who sees your products ‘.
This process may take a while because the algorithm will be going through tons of data, trying to determine which people would be interested in your business and products.
This option is great because it can help you discover audiences you didn’t ever think would be willing to buy your products.
Another great thing about it is that you can save time and exclude certain groups, like people who have already purchased your products.
3. Your ads must stand out
As we said, Facebook has billions of users. Therefore, the content on the feed is overwhelming for each user and that is why most users mechanically scroll down, without really looking at one post with attention.
And how to change that? Well, there is only one way, and that is to make your ads stand out.
If your ad is just one of many similar ones, even if you have great products almost no one will even get a chance to see them, because they just won’t click on your ad and enter your website.
That’s why you need to get their attention as best you can. This means your ads need to be creative and above all CONCISE.
If the video lasts too long or the ad has too much text, trust us, no one will bother to read your post.
You know that when you watch a Facebook feed, you scroll so that you don’t dedicate more than one second to any post if you are not interested. That means you only have 1 second to grab their attention.
Ways to make Facebook ads stand out
There are many ways to get your ads noticed among millions of others, and we’ll tell you some of the most reliable ways to do so.
1. Let them be natural
Try to make the design reminiscent of a regular feed post.
The first thing that is very important is that they are created in such a way that people can think that it is a post of one of their friends and not a paid ad.
Through years of watching TV and using the Internet, people are so sick of ads. Their brains have already been taught to filter out such content and therefore do not pay attention to something that looks like advertising to them.
2. Be unique
The only sure method in life to stand out, no matter what you do, is to be unique. The same goes for when you are creating ads.
Pay attention to every detail, from what color you use onwards and so only you can attract the attention of many people.
3. Your add must not be slow
As we have already said, you only have 1 second to keep people from scrolling down their feed.
That is why the biggest mistake is if the ad starts very slowly. Only if, let’s say, you have a famous person in your promo video you can expect people to definitely watch the video, even though it starts slowly.
Since this is probably not the case, your pace must be at the highest level from the beginning and make them watch the whole video.
4. Use GIFs
Lately, it has been noticeable that GIFs are a very good choice.
While photos are too static and are not a great way to attract someone’s attention, GIFs do not have that problem. On the other hand, creating a GIF is not as complicated or expensive as it is with making videos.
That’s why GIFs create the ideal balance between being catchy and cheap.
5. Tips regarding ad content in 2021
No two businesses are the same. Be it their marketing approach, their brand color, or their relationship with their customers, every business is unique in its way.
But there are some UNIVERSAL TIPS that every business can benefit from when it comes to Facebook ads for eCommerce:
- Use user-generated content – people love seeing content past customers as it convinces them that your business provides quality service and products.
- It is necessary that you include a call-to-action button in your ad
- Carousel ads are a great way of showing multiple products or different angles of the same product
- Name 1-3 benefits of your product
4. Giveaway
All people love gifts. That’s why giveaways are something every business has to organize from time to time.
The very value of what you will give is not so important, because people above all love gifts and love to win. Of course, the more valuable the award, the more people will participate, but that is not the only measure of the success of this type of campaign.
Use Facebook ads to let people know you’re organizing a giveaway.
We are sure that it will attract all those who have already bought from you, but certainly many others who maybe never even heard of you until now.
But when they see you are organizing a giveaway, they will participate. Discounts and giveaways are the most effective ways to attract people’s attention.
The terms of the giveaway should be simple, but again to get new customers or at least followers as a result. So let the primary term of participating be to like your social media pages and tag a few friends.
You will very easily get a large number of new followers that way. And then when you are constantly appearing on their feed, they will surely decide to visit your website at least once. And you can calculate on your own if that every 10th person who visits your website will buy something, it will greatly increase your revenue.
You will achieve all that for the price of the Facebook ads and a few of your products that you will give. It’s a negligible expense for a company’s budget, and it can bring you a real boom.
Tip: It’s best to target people who live relatively close to you for an ad or giveaway, so you don’t have to pay expensive shipping if you have to send a gift to the other side of the world.
Although if you think that there may be interest in your products everywhere in the world, then expensive shipping is not something you should avoid. It is up to you to decide.
5. The purchase should be paramount to the whole campaign
So far we have taught you that you can focus on views, clicks, and so on. But more and more marketing experts and business analysts are advising you to focus your Facebook ad campaign on those who are likely to make a purchase.
Wondering how to do it?
The Facebook algorithm is very smart and with the help of various criteria it can very precisely separate those who have a serious intention to buy something from you and those who are just looking around.
One of the criteria used by the algorithm is that it focuses on people who spend longer on your website, rather than those who just go in and out in less than a minute.
Then if someone is expressly focused on a particular product, the algorithm will guess he or she was really amazed by the product.
The only reason why he or she didn’t complete action is that buying immediately is very rare for people when they first visit your website. That is why you need to improve the whole situation by “reminding” that person to finish the purchase.
For all these reasons, it is recommended that you use a 70/30 rule and that 70 percent of the budget be devoted to the purchase, and 30 percent be for clicks and views.
How to optimize Facebook ads in 2021?
It’s certainly not enough to just pay for Facebook ads and wait for your revenue to double. This is not a magical solution but requires many other steps to be taken.
First of all, we mean optimization. Just as search engine optimization (SEO) is very important because it will affect the positioning of your website on the search engine, so ads optimization will help it reach the right audience.
And finally, it will make you more successful than your competition which is the ultimate goal of every business.
To optimize Facebook ads for eCommerce focus on:
1. Ad schedule
Someone to whom the work of social networks is not close, probably thinks that it does not matter at what time of day you post certain content.
But there is a significant difference between the time of day as well as the days of the week.
For example, various analyses have shown that the photo posted on Instagram on Wednesday afternoon and Saturday afternoon will have the highest number of likes.
So you need to analyze when the peak moment is and optimize your ads accordingly. Once you make a custom schedule, you will see how much it will positively affect your goal.
This will primarily have two positive effects. The first is to cut costs because the campaign will run only a few hours a day instead of all day. And the second benefit is that you won’t be annoying to people.
Consider, for example, how many times you happen to create an aversion toward a particular product or company if you see their ad several times in one day and even worse if it was repeated a few days in a row. This, for example, often happens on YouTube and is very counterproductive.
2. Likes and shares
Don’t neglect the importance of likes and shares, because that is a very important measure of success today.
If people see that you have a lot of shares, and especially likes, they tend to think that it is a very high-quality product or eCommerce store.
Just like the person with more likes on the photo is more popular.
So there is one thing you have to do. When you run an ad campaign, you will be offered two options. One is for a new ad to be created for each campaign, while the other is the “Use Existing Post” option.
You should choose “Use Existing Post” for a very simple reason. In this way, you will optimize the campaign so that all posts are actually part of one larger post, and thus you will get likes to be added together and displayed as one count.
All successful businesses do that, and when you look at the fact that one campaign has several thousand likes, they must have optimized this way.
3. Ad rotation
There is another way to avoid people getting fed up with your posts and hide you or just not even paying attention to whether you are publishing something new.
You will achieve this by rotating ads. It is true that it will take extra time, but it will be well worth your time.
The point is to create several design variations of the same Facebook ad, almost like you are creating a whole new campaign every time. And then you optimize those different variations of the same ad are shown on different days.
That way people will not subconsciously remember what your ad looks like and just skip it as if it doesn’t exist. It will attract their attention every day, over and over again.
Then they will stop and read what it is about, even if the person recognizes the ad as the one he or she saw yesterday. That way you increase the probability that someone will visit your site and like the ad.
We recommend ad rotation in any case, but it is a must if you have a narrow target audience.
Then you will surely be seen by the same people every day and you must avoid becoming annoying to them.
When you choose the no-targeted approach, then there is a real possibility that you will not be annoying to people if you have just one version of your ad for a prolonged period of time.
But if you’re “attacking” just your niche, ad rotation is the single effective strategy.
How to target eCommerce store owners on Facebook?
Targeting eCommerce store owners is a bit more complicated than when customers are your target.
Business-to-business (B2B) is something you should not neglect, on the contrary. Customers are much more likely to buy something randomly or unplanned compared to businesses so that is why this is a bit more complicated when comparing with B2C.
As you know, every business has a BUDGET and allocates its costs in great detail. It is something that is planned in advance. Therefore, if your ad only appears to them, but does not draw their attention in the right way, it is very unlikely that they will spontaneously decide to buy it and jeopardize their budget.
That doesn’t mean Facebook ads are useless for B2B. Because behind these businesses are people whose attention you can certainly attract.
The best way to do this is to target business page admins. An admin is usually a business owner, so this is an ideal way to reach out to such people. Target business-related publications because that’s where the audience you need is when you want to focus on B2B.
There are two more ways. You can also choose to target job titles, so it can be an owner, CEO, or some other position. You can also target industries, as we have already said.
So be sure that Facebook ads are of great use when trying to reach other eCommerce store owners, you just need to pay even more attention to targeting.
Related: What are Google ads and how to use them.
Conclusion:
Facebook remains the biggest social media in the world and its ad service is still among the most used.
The Facebook algorithm gets better at targeting people and finding interested customers with every update, which is why social marketers favor this platform over others.
To make sure that your Facebook Ad campaigns remain successful and effective in 2021, there are a number of things you can do, and most of them we have mentioned to you in this article.
First of all, you should remember that Facebook ads are very profitable, no matter how much they cost. And they are certainly cheaper than Google ads. Then don’t forget to use Pixel, as well as to reach a wider audience, either by expanding your existing one or by creating a new broad audience.
It is suggested that you prioritize optimizing for purchase above all other options, as the algorithm is much smarter now and we can bet they will further improve it.
Optimization is equally important so that you do not waste resources without effect. And lastly, remember that when your goal is B2B, you need to do a few more things compared to B2C.
Good luck with your Facebook Ads campaigns in 2021. and thank you for reading!
