In this episode, I am joined by Karyn, and we talk about must-use Facebook ad strategies for e-commerce businesses. We talk in detail about the importance of a niche, Facebook ads misses, different strategies for ecommerce businesses related to Facebook ads to reach the 3 types of audiences – cold, warm and hot, and the importance of Facebook Pixel and how to set it up. We also discuss top, middle and bottom funnels and how they work collaboratively to give you success in Facebook ads. Karyn also gives us a peek on how Facebook ads for e-commerce has worked for her clients through some examples and gives us some of her tips on taking courses and hiring people for Facebook advertising.
Important Links Mentioned in the Show:
Karyn With a Y Facebook Business Page
Angela Henderson Active Business Facebook Group
Angela Henderson Facebook Business Page
Prefer to read Discussion of Facebook for Ecommerce Businesses? Here’s the transcript:
ANGELA:
You’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast, with Angela Henderson, episode 11.
Hey there, you’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast, my name is Angela Henderson, and on this show we talk about improving your business, life or both. By having amazing and rich conversations with brilliant guests. Who will inspire you and who will give you tips and tricks, to help you grow both in life and in business.
Hey everyone, Angela here from Angela Henderson Consulting with another jam-packed episode of The Business and Life Conversations Podcast. Today we have the nicest person in the world joining us all the way from beautiful Tasmania, Australia to talk about must use Facebook ad strategies for eCommerce businesses. In the show today, you’ll learn why, if you’re eCommerce business that you must be using Facebook ads. You’ll also learn about Facebook ads myths, and we’ll also talk to you about what the difference between a cold audience, warm audience and hot audience is. We’re also going to talk to you about the importance of what a Pixel is, and how you need to set that Pixel up. And in regards to the actual Facebook ad strategy for eCommerce, we’re going to talk to you a little bit about what a top funnel means, a middle funnel means, and what the bottom end of a funnel means and how that’s all going to work collaboratively to get you the best success in Facebook ads.
Now sit back, enjoy the ride. It is a bit of a longer episode today because there’s so much goodness jam packed into everything that we didn’t want to leave you guys out of anything whatsoever. So, grab yourself a cup of coffee, tea, or even a glass of wine. Grab your pen and paper and let’s get ready to rock and roll.
Welcome to the show, Karyn.
KARYN:
Hi, thanks for having me.
ANGELA:
Hello, hello. How is good old Tassie treating us today?
KARYN:
Not too bad, a little chilly but not too bad. The Sun’s out.
ANGELA:
Tessie’s awesome, as you know my husband’s from Tasmania. I do love all things from Tasmania. However, I do not love the coldness I’m not going to lie about it. It is one of the things that I always say if you could take the scenery, the people, the food and move that into Queensland, that we have Queensland all year-round weather, it would be a match made in heaven.
KARYN:
Then everyone would live here and it wouldn’t be as good.
ANGELA:
That is true. Tessie’s that secret little gem of Australia where you do get your influx of tourists, but it’s not overly out of control. But it is, it’s a beautiful, beautiful place of Australia. So tell, I like the listeners to get to know the people that I’m bringing on board versus just jumping straight into the business. So tell us something awesome about Tassie that some of us might know about, and then give us a little bit of information about who you are and what your business is about.
KARYN:
So, what do I love about Tassie? I’ve been here since I was four, and I think what I really love about it is that we have everything. The Wildlife, the wilderness is so close. So, if you go to the CBD in Hobart, there’s this beautiful big mountain, Mount Wellington and there’s snow up there today. That’s built on a river as well, the city’s on a river and then you can drive in any direction in ten minutes and you’ll get to a beach. I love the beach, love taking my dogs for a walk on the beach. I have two labradoodles and yeah, everything’s so close. You can drive an hour to the East Coast and you’ve got Wineglass Bay, there’s so many beautiful walks and waterfalls. You’ve got all of that but then like I say, you can be in this magical wilderness and then you can drive 15, 20 minutes somewhere else and you’re in a city. So, it’s so close whereas some of the biggest cities on the mainland, you have to drive so far just to get to a beach, and I couldn’t live like that.
ANGELA:
You’re like “No, not for me.” Again, I totally agree anywhere you go, you’re not far from one side of Tassie, North, East, South or West. Also, what I love about Tassie, not that the rest of Australia doesn’t but I guess maybe because it’s more condensed is that you’ve got such beautiful produce, and vegetables and the food, I just feel..
KARYN:
The quality of the food is so good.
ANGELA:
The quality I feel is a lot fresher. I don’t know if that’s a thing or if that’s me being biased, but I genuinely think the food there is very different.
KARYN:
It is and it’s.. People take pride in their food here and I just spent a week in Queensland, and there was so many places we went and on the menu was Tasmanian this and Tasmanian that, because people really love that brand of Tasmanian-
ANGELA:
Absolutely, the oysters, the scallops, the fish there, etcetera.
KARYN:
Exactly.
ANGELA:
So Tassie we know is a rock house, it’s a powerhouse but tell us a little bit about you and the business.
KARYN:
Karyn with a Y came about because I got sick of everyone spelling my name wrong. It didn’t work, I get these lovely emails going, “Hi Karyn with a Y, ” and they spell it with an E but I guess I named the business after me rather than a specific thing because it’s always evolving. When I talk about always evolves, I used to teach social media in general and what I found is trying to keep up with Facebook, and Instagram, and YouTube, and Twitter, and LinkedIn, it just got too much. There were so many things happening and so many things changing that I decided I had to pick my favourite, which of course was Facebook.
Then over the years, Facebook advertising started to interest me more and more because I used to be more about the posting, and organic reach. As I took the shift to Facebook advertising, there was so much about it and I’m a bit of a geek. I love all the data side of things as well and all the numbers. So, I jumped into Facebook advertising and went headfirst into learning everything I could. I’ve been to different trainings all over the world. I’ve just come back from Hawaii, with Cat Howell at the Agency Accelerator and that was awesome. I decided that I really wanted to niche down because even within Facebook advertising, there is so much to learn and so many different strategies. I just decided, fell into eCommerce because a lot of my clients were eCommerce owners.
I was getting some great results for them, I thought the more you can specialise I feel in your field, the more that you can really learn everything there is to know about that particular thing. Whereas if I was trying to cover everything with Facebook ads, I wouldn’t be as good in any one particular area. So, eCommerce was it for me and there is still so much to learn, and my clients and I have fun trying all the different new things that come out, because there are so many changes to Facebook. So eCommerce was where I landed and that’s where my passion lies, and I’m continuously learning as Facebook updates things.
ANGELA:
I think again, we’ve talked about this in other conversations because we’ve known each other for a while now. The reality of it is that you must niche down, whatever your market is. People must niche and so if you’re listening out there and you’re kind of like, “No, I can serve everyone.” No, I’m going to call you crap on it. No, you can’t serve everyone because it’s not going to help. I know I even reached out to you with my new eight-week business program that’s coming out and I said, “Hey Karyn, you did some of my ad strategy for Finlee and Me, in my first business. I said, “Would you be willing to..” And that was eCommerce, but in the particular realm it wasn’t. We weren’t doing products with you, you were helping me with some eBooks and launches and things like that.
We did exceptionally well. You blew my socks off with that, but when I reached out this time around to help me with my eight-week coaching program Facebook stuff, you were like, “No, I’m not doing it.” I was like, “Hell no, she did not just deny me.” I was like, “Yes, no, I can do it.” But complete out of respect for you, you did it because not because you don’t want to work with me, you did because you’re like, “Ange listen, that’s not my head space anymore and I’m not going to be able to serve you the best I can because I niche down specifically into eCommerce,” which like I said I respected you immensely. So again, I think there’s something to be said that you can’t serve everyone. You can’t keep learning everything, because you’re going to spread yourself too thin and ultimately either you’re going to suffer burnout from having to keep learning everything, or it’s going to impact on your overall customer results. Would you agree?
KARYN:
Definitely. To me, I know that I can deliver results in that eCommerce space and I still get tempted. I get calls all the time from other people and they’ve got this great thing that they’re doing, and it might be lead gen or something. I’m like, “That sounds great.” Then once I stop and take a look back and I sign with you it’s like, “Well actually that’s not my zone of genius,” or whenever you want to call it but I do know people that specialise in those things. So, then I refer them on to those people, and at least I know they’re going to be looked after and they’re going to get a better result at the end of the day.
ANGELA:
Absolutely and again, I also am a firm believer that there’s enough work for everyone. I think people don’t want to niche because they’re like, “I’m not going to be able to meet my bills.” The reality of it is the more you niche, and you become no one for that specialty, you actually don’t have to go working harder because people will naturally just start referring on to you and then you become that specialist in that realm. So I couldn’t. I’m so glad that you’re niche, I’m so glad that we’re going to talk about the eCommerce platform because Facebook is evolving every single second I reckon.
I often hear businesses though say that their buyer isn’t on Facebook, so they aren’t going to do Facebook ads or, “No, I’m not going to bother”, but the reality of it is again, Facebook’s massive. I was looking at some research just recently and what I found was in the first quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.19 billion monthly active users. In 2016, Facebook brought in $26.9 billion again in U.S. dollars in overall revenue. Now that’s not profit, that’s still a nice chunk of revenue..
KARYN:
Huge numbers.
ANGELA:
.. are bringing in and I also would challenge people where if they’re not on Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Instagram, whatever advertising from a social media platform. I read that if you’re not on, I guess the band wagon, or whatever analogy you want to use is that within the next three years, it is going to be exceptionally hard to stay competitive in your market. Because times are changing, we’re no longer using yellow pages. We’re no longer using all those strategies that used to work. The one that I still think works really well is networking, importance of networking prior to social media. If you are in any space, Facebook, is where it’s at. I hear a lot of myths about Facebook ads and I thought instead of me talking about the Facebook ad myths, I want you as the expert to tell me about some of the Facebook ad myths that you can clear up today for us.
KARYN:
Definitely. So, you’re totally right with, My audience is not on Facebook”, and I think it’s really been a common misconception that the older generation is not on Facebook. Now my mum, she’s 67 soon and she’s on Facebook more than I am. She travels around on a yacht and she hates that she has to go in and out of Wi-Fi, because if it was up to her she’d be on Facebook so many hours a day. All of her friends are and they’re on there to keep in touch with their friends, their family. So many of us are living in different states, different countries now as you know yourself. And Facebook has provided this way for people to keep in touch and to communicate even though we live on different sides of the world. My family, I’m originally from South Africa and we call each other on our birthdays not on the phone, we call through Facebook Messenger.
We’re always on Facebook talking, and we can see what each other are doing and keep in touch with each other’s lives without having to call every week. I feel like so many people are on Facebook for that reason, and I think it’s total misconception that, “My demographic is not on there,” because there are so many people on Facebook and so many demographics. I’ve done everything from my normal eCommerce to selling pet cremations on Facebook. There are so many different industries that can work, whether it be automobile or dentists, everything and..
ANGELA:
Real estate, you got like..
KARYN:
Real estate is huge on Facebook. So, when you’re saying, “My audience is not on Facebook”, I’d challenge you then to think really who their audience is, and reach out and ask them because I think they’ll be quite surprised that actually a lot of them will be on Facebook. I’d be very surprised if they weren’t.
ANGELA:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more with you. My dad too, he never owned a computer before I left to come over to Australia, I got him the computer and was again, I’m not going to lie dad, if you are choosing to listen to this, but, “This is how you turn it on. This is how you press start.” Walked him through every single day, but now he’s not a genius but he can read the newspapers, he can do this, he can send me jokes on Facebook. He knows how to tag people, he now knows how to comment. I think it’s super important that they even have some library sessions for people 60 and over to learn and teach them how to use Facebook, to help decrease social isolation, get reconnected with family and things like that. So, I agree.
KARYN:
It’s this fantastic tool I think for all of those things.
ANGELA:
Just because you’re 60, I’m only 21 years away from that, it doesn’t mean we stop buying. It doesn’t mean that we don’t, stop shopping and we just sit in our clothes for the next 80 years and don’t do anything. So again, that misconception that my buyers aren’t on Facebook, I think is really something that’s steering false and needs to be definitely cleared or challenged for those. Have you come across any other myths?
KARYN:
There’s quite a few myths around Facebook, and a big one I wanted to talk about was actually the privacy. A lot of people are skeptical about advertising on Facebook, or even being on Facebook based on Facebook collects so much data, they collect so much information. As an advertiser, you’re given all of those things, and Facebook marketing is so powerful because they do have so much data. They’re not the only ones, so many businesses know how to collect data and this is why things like the GDPR came about. We as advertisers and me as a page owner wanting to advertise, I can target specific people based on what they do, or based on their demographics but I’m never given a list of those. These are those people, or I’m never given their actual details. So, I can put that out into the newsfeed and target women who might be parents, might live in Hobart.
But I’ll never be given this list that say, “Hey, these are the people that you’re talking to.” Facebook actually has very, very strict privacy laws and they really do everything they can to make sure that they don’t breach those privacies. They were being very proactive with the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal that came through to make a lot of changes. It’s not good business for them to not have strict privacy either, so people want to feel comfortable using the platform. I think so big misconception is that we’re able to access a lot of that data and really we’re not. We’re able to utilise it definitely, and you’re able to utilise your ads based on that data and to get your ads out to people based on what they look like, and what they talk about. We’re certainly never given those details and we’re not able to access anyone’s personal information based on that.
ANGELA:
I 100% agree. I think the only reason why it appeared to be such a.. I mean I’m not minimising what happened, it was a big thing when all this went down with Facebook recently. The reality of it is that Facebook’s so big, of course everyone is going to hang onto that especially the media, like, “Oh my goodness, Facebook’s destroying privacy in this,” but the reality of it is it’s happening in every.. Every business potentially has a risk of their privacy being, or their customers’ privacy being compromised. It’s the way the world works and again I think like you said, Facebook has done so much preventative measures to ensure security and privacy, etcetera. That Facebook is not trying to deliberately mess anyone up, or breach anything. They try very hard and they’ve got the money to make sure that those measures are in place. So yeah, that’s cool totally great. Any other myths?
KARYN:
Really myths around maybe more the, some people think that Facebook ads well, don’t work. There’s one thing, mainly that’s around the audience not being on there, but others also think that it’s a set and forget thing. That you set up your Facebook ads and they’re just going to run forever and I’m just going to print money. I think a lot of there are so many success stories out there because it has been used so well that people think, “I’m just going to set this up, it’s going to run, it’s going to be amazing.” That leaves people very disappointed when it doesn’t happen. So, I think a big myth is that there’s no real strategy behind ads, and there really needs to be. I’m sure we’re going to talk about some of those today.
ANGELA:
Absolutely. I think again, it’s about the people that they’re seeing potentially in their feed like, “They’ve done it so I can do it,” but they’re doing it because again they’ve got a strategy. They haven’t just pressed the magic button that says show me the money and start putting money into my bank account, and does not work like that.
KARYN:
Worse still that boost button.
ANGELA:
Don’t get me started on the boost. I think again, you came to Brisbane one time and your presentation was Beyond the Boosts where we talk clearly about other strategies, which different topic for a different day, but no. Tell me, obviously you’ve niched down. So, by niching down, I also would assume that due to the different types of businesses, so the B to B or the B to C that clearly you would need different strategies that businesses can use to scale, because not all strategies are going to work. So, is this why you chose specifically again to really niche down on that B to C market?
KARYN:
Yeah, it’s definitely different strategies, B to C and B to B. All of it is relationship building at the core. You’re introducing either yourself, or your brand, or your product to an audience and then you are building that relationship whether it be telling them what you do, or showing them more about your products, and retargeting. A lot of it is that relationship building, but that’s done very differently with a B to B than it is to a B to C. For one, it’s more talking about themselves and a lot of that relationship building can be done with video these days on Facebook, which is excellent. Certainly, that’s why I’ve niched down for the one area, because it’s the same techniques that we can use for different. Every business is different and we change things around, but there are certain strategies that we can put in place, funnels as we call them that will work for eCommerce businesses, regardless of what they’re selling.
ANGELA:
Yeah, perfect. So, we’ve identified some myths, we know that 2.9 million monthly users are there, so it’s clear that Facebook’s a great channel that can address every stage of core that eCommerce conversion type stuff. From Facebook will allow us to talk about the brand awareness, generating revenue, creating loyal customers, so we want to jump into your strategies for eCommerce businesses related to Facebook ads. So, do you want to jump in and start sharing some of those strategies with us?
KARYN:
Sure. What we use Facebook for is to create a full sales funnel, and this is the same as any type of marketing on any platform is that we’re funneling people through what we want them to do. So, the first thing with Facebook is that we can reach a cold audience. A cold audience being people that have never heard about your business, they haven’t been to your website, they’re not fans on Facebook already and we can reach them through the amazing targeting options that we have. So, we can target based on age, and location, and gender, but then a lot of interest-based targeting. So, Facebook picks up those things based on what people do on Facebook, the pages that they interact with, the groups that they’re in, what they’re talking about in Messenger and on their posts.
So, if somebody’s always talking about how they love to go horse riding, and you know they’re going horse riding this weekend and they’re talking to their friends about it, then that marks them as having an interest in horse riding. A brand that sells horse saddles can target people that are interested in horse riding in a specific area, and the ad will show in front of that person. Then there’s also this amazing thing called the Facebook Pixel and the Pixel is this bit of code that goes on the back end of your website, and it feeds that data back to Facebook. So, it tells Facebook who’s been to your website, what they did, what actions they took, did they add to cart, did they check out? If they did check out, what did they buy, how much was it? Sends all that information back.
Once a business gets more successful with Facebook ads, or if their business is doing really well already on eCommerce, they’re sending a lot of data back to Facebook. Facebook starts to see patterns in the type of people that purchase. They can say that they tend to be in this area, they tend to be in this age group, they tend to be female. What we can do, this is called a seasoned Pixel. Once you’ve got enough information on the website and on your Pixel, you can then set what’s called broad audience targeting. This is where Facebook is really, really powerful. So broad audience targeting is when you go, “Hey Facebook, I know that I just want to target people in Australia and I just want to target females. You do the rest.” So, you don’t set any targeting and from that Pixel information, they decide who to show the ads to.
When you can get to that state, I’ve just changed, to give you an example. One of my clients, we had a top of funnel ad running and generally top of funnel, we weren’t really aiming for too much return. If we can get $1 for every dollar, that’s fun because we’re going to get them in the retargeting. I switched things over to this broad targeting, so I gave Facebook an audience of like 20 million people and said, “Hey Facebook, you go for it. We’ve been collecting data for a year now, you do your best.” Now we’re making $4.50 for every dollar spent from a cold audience. So, these are people that have never heard of this brand before, and now this is four times the result we’re getting by actually not telling Facebook what we want, but letting them do the work.
So Facebook has this amazing built on algorithms that can actually do this. So people worry about their targeting and getting all of that right, but eventually what you’re actually getting sales and data is so that you can give Facebook free rein and let them do the work.
ANGELA:
So one of the things that again, for those listeners who still might be new to the whole business realm and wondering some big words and things like that, I just want to take one step back just so that everyone’s on the same page. That you’ve got three different types of audiences that we talk about guys and ladies. One is you’ve got a cold audience, you’ve got a warm audience, then you’ve got a hot audience. Some of the stuff that Karyn’s been currently talking about is that she’s talking about a cold audience. So just wanted to have Karyn have an opportunity real quick to talk about the definition of cold audience, what gets them to warm audience and what gets them to hot audience. So if you want to talk about that, that might be helpful for them that’s not as advanced yet than some of the others listening.
KARYN:
Definitely. So, a cold audience is somebody that’s never heard of you. If they see an ad in the news feed, they’re like, “What’s this Angela Henderson person? I’ve never heard of her.” Cold audience yeah, no knowledge of you in the past, haven’t dealt with you. Warm audience, they know who you are but they haven’t purchased from you yet. So maybe they’ve already seen an ad, or maybe they’ve already been to your website. They’ve dealt with you in the past, they’re like, “Yeah, I know this Angela chick,” but they haven’t gotten as far as to be working with you yet. A hot audience, they’re already our customers. So, these people have already bought from us in the past, maybe they’re a current client of yours. They’re our hot audience because it is so much easier to sell to a hot audience, than it is to a cold audience. So it’s always going to be cheaper to get somebody who already buys from you in the past to then buy from you again in the future.
There’s sort of our three different levels, and those levels come down to our retargeting with Facebook as well. So that top of funnel stuff, is going straight to a cold audience. So that’s your, “Hey, this is the product that we’ve got. This is what it does. This is why we think you should buy it.” The idea is that we want to get people to the website. What Facebook allows us to do is what’s called retargeting. So, if you’ve ever been to a website and you’ve gone and had a look at a product, maybe you’ve looked at a really cute pair of shoes and then you your boss walked in and you got off the website and you went back to work. Later on you were sitting at home and you’re going through Facebook, and there’s those exact pair of shoes. You’re like, “How the hell did that happen?” That is retargeting.
That is retargeting a warm audience now because they’ve already been to your website, and they already know who you are and that is what I do is get people to think, “Wow, that’s right. I was looking at that product and maybe I was looking to buy that.” So that’s what we call retargeting. That’s our middle of funnel is somebody that was looking at our product. When it’s called dynamic ads, so Facebook will actually pull through the images from the website for you, they’ll pull through the price and the description. So really you can set up an ad to show whatever product that we’re looking at, which is really powerful.
ANGELA:
Absolutely. I think again, they used to not have that and then that was implemented in and it’s yeah, I think it’s been a game changer for many businesses out there. All right so cool, as long as everyone’s on the same page with the cold audience, the warm audience, the hot audience and how that is associated with Facebook ads. Then again so your first Facebook strategy, what would you say is the overarching header for that?
KARYN:
Okay, I’d say your minimum funnel. It would be to do that cold audience, getting them top of funnel traffic and then you could just smoosh all your retargeting into one. But the thing is you have to have retargeting. So, a lot of people that I talked to in eCommerce they’re like, “I tried Facebook ads, they didn’t really work.” To give you an idea, one of my clients we spent, most of our money in the top of funnel, which is where you should put 70% of your budget and that’s showing that cold audience, but then all of our money was made in the retargeting. So, we didn’t make a cent off that initial top of funnel cold audience, but then retargeting those people that viewed products and retargeting people who added to cart, that’s where we made nearly $100 for every dollar put into that bottom of funnel.
Without spending the money on the top of funnel, we wouldn’t have had people trickling through the funnel. So a lot of people stop at that top of funnel level, just showing the cold audience and they never retarget. So my number one thing with the strategy is your minimum funnel has to have at least one level of retargeting.
ANGELA:
So just want to recap for them that are out there. So you would ideally first things first guys, you need the Pixel on your site. Without your Pixel, you’re pretty much, not much can happen. Correct?
KARYN:
Definitely, yeah.
ANGELA:
Number one, you’ve got to install your Facebook Pixel. Karyn, if I’m correct, you’ve got a blog on that on your site, do you not?
KARYN:
Yes, the Facebook Pixel is totally free too so you can go to install your Pixel. This is not some expensive technology that you have to pay for guys, it’s a free thing of Facebook, you can go to install the Pixel and there is like a five minute job. Facebook will even walk you through how to do it.
ANGELA:
Exactly right. Again, YouTube, Google it, you got It. First things first, you need the Pixel on your website because it’s going to be able to sniff around, take that data back to Facebook, so then you can set up your then cold audience top of funnel, correct?
KARYN:
Correct. Guys if you’re not sure if this is set up for you, there is a free google chrome extension you can download called Facebook Pixel Helper. If you download that, it installs on your browser and basically it will show you what Pixels are installed on your website, and if they’re set up correctly. So, you get a green light if it’s all good, you get a red light if there’s any errors.
ANGELA:
Perfect. Then one of the tips that you’re saying there was that once you do that cold audience top of funnel out there, is not to get discouraged because you are going to spend a little bit more. Like you said, 70% of your budget initially in there, it’s going to be minimal, not minimal return but what you’re doing is again you’ve got to build that relationship with them. You’re building that trust factor with them so that when you get to the retargeting, you’re then already like you said, you’ve moved them from a cold audience to a warm audience.
KARYN:
Correct, and then that warm audience is what we retarget. Anybody that views content, that means they actually end up on a product page. So not just your homepage where they might’ve left but actually looking at a product, you want to retarget those people. Then for eCommerce, 68% of people who add to cart, don’t go onto check out. So it’s a huge lot of people that add to cart in the industry that never actually go on to purchase. So the big thing you want to do is then retarget those people, and this is what we call our bottom of funnel. So a top of funnel is getting that cold traffic in, a middle of funnel is retargeting anyone that might have looked at a product, and then a bottom of funnel is retargeting anybody who actually added to cart, but they left so they’ve abandoned their cart. This is where you make the most money guys. So if you haven’t set up this part of your funnel, this is what you really want to do.
It’s all dynamic, it pulls through the product that we’re looking at, or the product that they had in their cart and you can give them a message. This is the sort of thing we remind people about maybe free shipping that you might offer, or if you’ve got Afterpay you can tell them things like that, or even little quirky messages like, “Hey, we noticed you left this behind, are you sure you don’t want it?” Things like that and people might look at that go, “That’s right. I got distracted when I wanted to buy that.” You know people lives are busy, you get distracted all the time. So if you can make it really easy for them to jump back in and purchase, then you’re going to get results that way.
ANGELA:
Perfect and again like you said, that’s when the conversion will happen. Like as a mum, we’re doing a million different things, all the time that’s going on. Businesses, we’re busy like you said, our attention span is getting further and less and less in the world that we live in. So those helpful reminders should equally result in the conversions.
KARYN:
Definitely, definitely.
ANGELA:
Now in regards to, so you talked about the top part of the funnel, you’ve talked about the middle part of the funnel, you’ve talked about the bottom end of the funnel, but if someone who is new, really, really just starting out, what would be your number one tip for them to try and start getting their head around? Just in funnels in general because funnels can be a little bit hard just to understand.
KARYN:
Definitely they can mix those bits together. So the minimum, what we call a minimum viable funnel with Facebook ads is do your top of funnel which is just targeting who you think will be your target audience. That’s where I’d start. It’s all about testing. If your audience is not working well, then you change it up and you test something else. So targeting a cold audience and then when you set up a Facebook ad, you get these options of what you want to achieve. For retargeting, I would use one called Product Catalogue Sales. That’s where you get what’s called this dynamic ads where pulls through the products, and you can target anyone who’s viewed a product or added to cart in the last 14 days. That would be my minimum funnel that I would go so I just put in new fresh audience through your funnel, and then retargeting everyone all at once. That would be the easiest thing to set up and what I would call a minimum viable funnel.
ANGELA:
Yeah, perfect. Perfect, perfect. So once I’ve got that Pixel on and then they’re on the back end of Facebook. Do you have any tips for those out there they’ve never done it, slightly overwhelmed, might not have the money to pay for an ads manager like you and I have? So what would you suggest that they do? What are their learning points? You’ve got a course coming up very shortly again, you’ve had your first round which was very successful and you got your second round coming up in August. So obviously there’s courses that people can take which again, if you guys you’re listening to this and you’re like, “Yep, I can probably do that top end, middle end, but I’m really going to get confused at the bottom end.” If you genuinely want your eCommerce business to grow, you must invest whether or not it’s a good course, or whether or not it’s through someone managing your ads, you do need an expert, but obviously you pay a little bit more when someone is doing the whole kit and caboodle.
But, you’re going to have to invest at some stage because if you’re trying to create a new product, have your website going, whatever.. Facebook ads, you can’t be a specialist in all areas of your business. I mean it’s not viable. I’m not a specialist, nor do I ever want to know much about Facebook ads. Right? So would you agree with that? Like yes, you can start and I think you can play around and do it to the bottom and I think yes, people will still see sales. I think at the end of the day though, that if you genuinely are serious about growing your business through Facebook ads, you need to learn it a little bit more than just testing and boosting. Would you agree Karyn?
KARYN:
It’s such a vital tool for your business. So if you can learn to do this stuff yourself, one you’re going to save you money on paying someone like me to do it for you. Two, it’s something you can look after ongoing and if you get those tools in your belt, the starting point for people who are thinking, “Look, I just do not have the money to pay someone right now, even for a course.” If you search for Facebook Blueprint, Facebook actually has a free training videos on how to set up this basic stuff. So if you start setting up your Pixel, or if you really want to set up that Product Catalogue but you’re not sure how, Facebook blueprint is a good starting point. There’s no one really to hold your hand through the process, but they do have videos. So if you’re okay learning that way, that’s where I would start off.
ANGELA:
Absolutely, because again it’s not about overwhelming you guys but it’s about having a real conversation like we are today, that there are different.. You just can’t go out there and press boost, and hope that you guys are going to have a million dollars in your pocket. It comes down to Facebook ad strategy for eCommerce business owners in particular, and that you have to be able to have a funnel with the top, middle and bottom. You’ve got to be able to know that when to retarget and when not to retarget. What does retargeting mean> And being able to like Karyn said, I think very early in the pieces that you’ve got to be able to assess the data. Where are they coming from, what ages are they?
It comes back to also knowing who your ideal client is because if you’re just running ads and I see it all the time, people are just pressing the bottom boost, boost, boost. They don’t even know who their target client is, if your ideal client is a 38 year old female like mine is with a lot more behind it, but if all of a sudden I don’t know that and I’m targeting 60 and 70 year olds, I’m wasting money. So you really also need to make sure that before you start any of your Facebook ads, you know your ideal client.
KARYN:
Definitely, any kind of marketing. That is a big thing is if you’re spending money on ads, it makes far more business sense to spend money on learning how to spend it properly. Otherwise, you’re just literally throw money at the wall and hoping something sticks.
ANGELA:
No. I totally, it’s so funny because my previous podcast guest used that same analogy but with spaghetti, literally just like not even 40 minutes ago. That is so funny, too, too funny. So, are there any other strategies that you think that they need to know or do you think that is sound enough for them to start out with? Because if that is, my next question is I’d like you to show three different examples of when Facebook ads for eCommerce has worked really well for your clients.
KARYN:
Yeah. So a couple of other things that we do in our funnels. So that’s like our basic funnel, but there’s a really cool campaign that we run which is called The Thank you campaign. That is an ad that goes to people after they do purchase. So, a lot of people will spend money getting the purchase and then that’s it, we’re not going to do anything once they’ve purchased. This particular ad shows for three days after someone’s made a purchase, and it’s a video thanking them. It works best if it is the person who owns the business, or a team of people behind that business actually on camera saying, “Hey, thank you. Thank you for your purchase.” You can make a funny video, you can make it a bit creative. There’s no calls to action here, there’s no links or anything like that. You’re just literally saying, “Hey, thanks for your purchase.”
It actually converts really well so people tend to go back. People love being thanked and can you imagine in the online world seeing an ad thanking you for a purchase? Like it is a great introduction to that brand, but it tends to make people go back to that website and purchase more. So people do see a good return on these ads even though we’re not asking them for a purchase, because hey how many times do you say it makes you stand out and it gives like a right first impression.
ANGELA:
Again, I think people are forgetting, they’re treating people like I said in the last episode, they’re treating people like numbers, verses treating people like people. Again, this is just one way that it is a free.. Well yes, you’re still running the ad spend I guess but what I’m saying is it’s a minimal cost, but your risk is low but your gain is so high because you’ve actually gone. You’re doing something personalised for these guys, you are taking that time. So you haven’t just ended up the sale, you’re just still nurturing post sale. Again, these type of people that are buying from you, they’ll then talk in other groups for you. They become your minions and will advertise for you, all because of the fact that you’ve done one additional step which is thank you ad.
KARYN:
You’ve got to think about it as if they were in your store. So, your top of funnel ads is like your storefront. You got the name of the business, you’ve got some stuff in the window and you’re telling people what you’re about, and you get them in the door. Then once they’re in the door, they can see your products a little bit closer. You give them a bit more information, maybe your store person goes and helps them. Then when someone picks something up, that’s like retargeting that bottom of funnel. You’re like, “Hey, this is why you should buy that product that’s in your hand.” So it might be in the shopping cart and you’re going, “Hey, look at this. These are the features of it and I’m going to give you a free gift wrapping if you bought it now.” That’s the same as saying, “Hi, this is in your shopping cart and I’m going to give you free shipping.”
Then once that person actually goes to the counter, gives the product, gives them money, you wouldn’t stand there and not say thank you. So, think of it as a real life environment and go, “Hey, thank you for that purchase.” Taking people through that in-store experience online, because that’s what people are missing. When they buy online is they miss that communication, and that relationship that they get when they go into a store. So, if you can make them feel just as appreciated buying online, you’re really going to stand out from other places that they could buy it.
ANGELA:
I totally agree 150%. So once they do the thank you purchase ad, is there anything else after that you reckon they should be doing?
KARYN:
It depends on the products, but we also run a lot of cross selling campaigns. So, if people have got more than one product that goes together, so say for instance you sell dog collars and you sell dog leads. If somebody’s got a dog collar in their cart or even if they’ve just purchased it, you can run an ad to those people and go, “Hey, did you know we’ve got this matching lead that’s going to look amazing with your collar, and if you buy it now we’re going to put it in the same order so you don’t have to pay any shipping.” Things like that. So cross selling is really powerful on Facebook and again, all of that is automated through the Facebook Pixel. So Facebook can tell what they’ve just bought, all what they’ve just added to their cart, or even what they’re just looking at and say, “Hey, we’ve got this hand cream, but did you know that we’ve got a face cream in the same fragrance. So if you loved that hand cream, you’re going to love this one as well.”
Then you can time when people get an ad as well, so say you’re selling supplements and someone just bought a 30-day supply of supplements. You can have an ad go out to that person maybe like 27 days later going, “Hey, we noticed your supply is just about to run out. Would you like to purchase another one now?” So there’s all that after sales stuff that a lot of people stop once they get the sale. So you’ve still got the thank you, then you got the cross sales and then you’ve got these timed ads of like, “Hey, we noticed that you loved this last time, you’re about to run out.” Even maybe you sell clothing and you get a new range in, you can then target the people that have bought from you in the past and say, “Hey, we’ve got this new range in, we know you’ve loved our products in the past, but you might like this now as well.”
A lot of people neglect this warm audience of people that’s in this hot audience of people who are past customers. Then there’s also with eCommerce a lot of special occasions so you’ve got Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, Valentine’s Day. All these different things there’s Afterpay day, Vogue Fashion Week, amazing things that you can then go, “Hey”, and then show your hot audience. So not just showing a new audience again, show those people that have added to cart in the past, your warm audience or purchased in the past, your hot audience and go, “Hey, it’s Mother’s Day and you could buy this for your mum and we’re going to give you free gift wrapping.” Whatever it might be targeting that hot audience because a lot of people tend to just show all their stuff to a cold audience, and forget about their warm and hot audiences.
ANGELA:
Yeah again, these are all the little things that are going to make or break the difference for bang for your buck, but again, comes back down to strategy. If you’re just winging it and you don’t actually have your funnels written out, and your strategy in place, then you’re never going to be able to track what’s working, what isn’t working, what you need to change up, what you keep, all those things. So again, just trying to bring it all around collectively. You have to be able to have a Facebook strategy.
KARYN:
Definitely. That can be as simple as after you’ve listened to this podcast, sit down with a pen and paper and go, “Okay, who’s my target audience? Okay, I’m going to write down everything I know about my target audience.” And then go, “Okay, if they came into my store, what would be the steps? Then if I could contact that person at any particular stages, when would it be and what would I want to say?” Writing all those things down and taking notes, and then you can start to structure together your funnel. Then Facebook allows you so many different tools to target people based on what they spend, when they spend, how much they spend, what they buy, all these things. So if you think of each one as a trigger, like if this happens, then that happens. If they buy this product, then I want to show them this ad, or if they buy that product, then I want to show them an ad in 30 days. Just start to write down all of that stuff and know that it’s probably possible, no matter what you can come up with that we can put together so many different funnels based on that.
ANGELA:
Fantastic. Now we’ve talked about all the differences on the different funnels that you can have. Tell us, give us a few examples of Facebook ads for eCommerce that has worked really well for you.
KARYN:
So I have a couple of clients that have done really well. One we might talk about is The Skin Care Clinic and so I still look after their ads. They are an amazing company. They’re Australian owned. They’re based in Tassie as well which is probably why I love them. They are chemical free skincare but nasty chemical free I should say. So they’ve got no nasties, but it’s stuff that’s proven to work. So not just full natural, we hope this will do something but some really big brands like Osmosis and Aspect Doctor that that worked really well. Then we’ve got this business that sells all these different things and they were a brick and mortar clinic. So they still are, but then we’ve got this thing that, Okay, normally we have people come to us and we’re able to look at their skin, and we’re able to tell them what they need and give them these products and that they’re more high end products as well.” So getting people to spend a little bit more on their skincare.
“How do we then take that and put it online?” That was one of the biggest challenges. So, getting the right people as well and then going, “Okay, what can we do?” So what we started doing is they do free online skin consultations. Which is a really good example of, is “What can you do in your business to then overcome the fact that they’re buying online?” So they went, “Hey, you email us a picture and tell us your skin concerns, and we’ll get back to you with,” and they’ve got qualified skin clinicians that are getting back to these people going, “These are the products that we recommend for you.” That’s taking away that barrier of what we were missing out on from being in store to online. So now we have great success with them, they’re getting nearly $20 for every dollar that they put into Facebook advertising. That’s an amazing result for Facebook ads and it comes from that amazing service, and also the great range of products that they’ve got.
We do a lot of retargeting, a lot of bottom of funnel stuff and like I mentioned before, they are one of the ones that we’ve got up to nearly $4 off our cold audience for every dollar that I put in, which is amazing.
ANGELA:
Absolutely hands down. Gaye is great, I’ve worked with obviously Gaye also and she.. but Gaye had a willingness again to learn and realise that again the strategy needed to happen. The time and the effort that happened so I’m hearing this, she is a success story but it’s also mindful that it didn’t happen overnight..
KARYN:
Definitely.
ANGELA:
Facebook is all about testing. Just when something works, you might have to test something else. Your audience might change slightly. But Gaye has done a phenomenal job and the Facebook ads definitely show and substantiate what can, hoe powerful Facebook ads for eCommerce can be when done properly with top end, middle end, bottom end funnel and all those other things in between.
KARYN:
That’s a really good point about things not happening overnight, and also being willing to ride that wave because when Gaye first came to me, in our first three months we did 20 extra turn, which is crazy, and it was really hard for me to say to Gaye, “Look this wasn’t actually what I was striving for. I was really happy to get you $5.” She’s like, “20 is a pretty good thing.” I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, 20’s great.” Then we’ve had months where recently we got down to 4 x, which for a lot of companies is still a great result, but for Gaye it was like, “Well, this is really a lot lower than what we used to.” So that was me going back to them, “Things have changed in Facebook, we’re going to have to change our approach a little bit and these are our results for this month, but I’m confident that we can get back up.“
There are people that would have gone, “Look Karyn, you’re fired. The results are not getting what I wanted anymore and you’re fired.” Whereas Gaye was like, “Yeah, I understand. I understand things change, I understand our approach needs to change,” and we came back up the next month at a 15 extra 10. Changed our approach, we changed what Facebook was working. We started using broad audience targeting which is what Facebook’s favouring at the moment. You really need to be willing to either invest in your own skills to be able to change as Facebook changes, or to trust the person that’s doing the work for you. Because things do change with Facebook, and you’re not going to get a consistent result month in, month out. Things change seasonally, but they also change when Facebook makes a major algorithm change, things can tank really quickly and you need someone that’s on the board to switch around and go, “Hey, that’s fine. We’re going to turn around, and we’re going to do something different.”
You need to be willing to ride that and I think that’s what makes Gaye successful business owner, because she was willing to trust me that things would turn back around and they did but yeah, a lot of people would have just cut loose there and then.
ANGELA:
I’m currently getting ready for my eight-week business coaching program, and again I’ve taken the plunge and hired someone to do that and etcetera, etcetera. There’s a few things where I’m like, “Okay, I’ve just got to ride the live. I’m just going to ride it. I’m just going to..” So I too am sitting in that process going, “Okay,” there’s a couple things I’m like, “Why is this happening and why is that happening?” So I think it’s okay to ask questions and if they’re a dud well then yes, absolutely let them go but my guys from Mad Science have been brilliant and they’ve answered everything that I’ve needed. It comes down to exactly what you said, you communicated with Gaye. You told her that the changes have been happening.
Same thing with these guys, I had questions, they took the time to communicate to me. They’ve explained to me why and I’m like, “Great, I’ve just got to ride the wave. Things don’t happen overnight.” So I think it is important, but that does lead into a good question though is that when the people have decided to either take a course, or hire someone to do the Facebook ads, because obviously the course is going to be cheaper because the people aren’t doing it for you. Then when you hire someone you’re paying more because it’s their job to manage everything for you. Do you have any tips, because there are some dud Facebook people out there, people? There are some just that there’s dud business coaches out there, there’s dud Instagram, there’s dud everyone out there. What types of question or tips would you give to people in regards to when they’re looking to taking your course or hiring someone?
KARYN:
I would ask the person, and in saying that, there is a bad rap from a few bad people but there are a lot of really good marketers out there also that really do have your best interest at heart, but it’s between weeding the two out. So, with Facebook advertising I would ask them what was the last thing you invested in your own learning? So like when did you last invest in building up your own skills? And ask them the last couple of big changes with Facebook and do a bit of research yourself and find out what those are. Anyone that is on the ball and does this seriously, and is on Facebook as much as I am, should know straight off the top of the head, what’s the big changes and what’s the patterns that you’re seeing at the moment. If they don’t know the light has changed that you know came out a couple of days ago, then they haven’t got their finger on the pulse and they’re not keeping up to date with those changes.
If they’re using the same strategy that they were using last year, it’s no good anymore. Facebook changes so much. Like with Gaye’s ads, we’d be running the same strategy for six months and it was working so, so well. I’m like “Wow, this is great.” Then things can fall apart so quickly as they make a big change, so you need to know that it’s somebody that keeps up to date and somebody that’s not like, “I know everything there is to know about Facebook advertising. I don’t need to learn anymore.” Because I know a lot about Facebook advertising but there are people out there that know so much more than me and I’m always in masterminds to communicate with those people. Be asking them questions and be surrounded by other people so that if something goes wrong and I go, “Oh my God, this is not working,” I can jump in a mastermind and they go, “That’s a bug and it’s happening to me too.”
So by someone saying, “Yeah, look I pay for this training course or I pay for that,” doesn’t mean that they’re a beginner, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know what they’re doing. It means that they are humble enough to go, “I don’t know everything and I’m going to have some people who support me.” That’s going to be so much better for your campaign because if something goes wrong, they’ll have other people to reach out to rather than just trying to wing it themselves. So never be afraid of people who are admitting to you that they’re still training or that they’re still doing these other things because, I’d say that kind of person is actually going to be better than someone that says, “You know what? I’m fantastic and I don’t need to learn anymore.”
ANGELA:
So true. It’s the one thing that I say to people when I’m having a chat with them, if they’re going to have me their business consultant and I say, “You’re not just getting me for my expertise in the business realm, you’re also getting me for my connections but more importantly, you’re getting me because I’m always upskilling myself and the new techniques that I’m able to share with you as a coach.” So, I went to Social Media Marketing World, I’m going to the Maldives for a mastermind, etcetera. People are like, “So you don’t know everything?” I’m like, “No, I don’t know everything, but because of my connections if I don’t know something, I can tap into their knowledge to get an answer for you.” So I’m with you, I think it’s imperative that those types of questions are being asked. So no, so perfect. I just want to recap for people if they’re listening.
So today we’ve talked about the audience, we’ve talked about the warm audience, we’ve talked about the hot audience. We’ve talked about ensuring that you’ve got a Pixel on your site, and if you don’t know how to do that, just Google it. It’ll take you about five minutes to do that. We’ve talked about if you’re in the new space, you need to, you don’t have the money to do this but you can go Google Facebook Blueprint and you can, Facebook will walk you through the free course.
We’ve also talked about the top end of the funnel, the middle end of the funnel and the bottom end of the funnel. We’ve talked about a thank you purchase ad that you can run, we’ve talked about cross selling campaigns that you can have, we’ve talked about timed ads that you can have, but if you are going, “Okay, great. I don’t have time to learn. I don’t have time to learn because I think this is an important thing. I don’t have time to go through all this, decipher it and I may or may not still not have an end result but I am ready to go to that next step and take a course.” Tell us a little bit, listeners, where they can learn about your services, Karyn or where they can follow you on social media platforms. Because I know one of your Facebook courses is coming up very soon, so if they are sitting there going, “I’m just going to take Karyn’s course, it’s valid, it’s legit.” Where can they start finding more information about you and your courses and platforms?
KARYN:
So the eComm Accelerator is coming out very, very soon and they can find out more about it at www.karynwithay.com. eComm Accelerator is me walking you through how to set up all of these funnels but as well as that, I brought on some of these peers. One of them is Kaleb Ufton, who is an amazing website optimization specialist. So he’ll actually go through people’s website live on calls and he’s going to be telling them what to change to actually get that conversion rate up, because Facebook ads aren’t a silver bullet so if you have the most amazing Facebook ads in the world, and this is something I learnt from my first course, we were getting these great click through rates and cheap traffic, but their websites just weren’t converting. So now I’ve looked at this as a holistic approach and gone, “No, no. we actually need to get their websites converting as well.”
So that’s part of the course now, and also Jo McKee is an amazing copywriter, so she’ll be teaching people how to write copy for their Facebook ads. Because that’s really the hardest part for me, I’m not a copywriter. So, I thought, “You know what, I’ll bring in someone that knows what they’re talking about.” So we’ve got Jo McKee and we’ve also got Jeff Minnichbach, who is a graphic designer who specialises just in Facebook advertising ads images and videos. So, he’s doing some training on how to make your images and videos clickable as well.
So, it’s a whole course just for eCommerce businesses, launching very soon and yeah they can get some updates at www.karynwithay.com .
ANGELA:
Perfect, perfect. And before we say goodbye, share with us something that maybe people would not know about you.
KARYN:
I’ve been skydiving three times, once out of a helicopter over the Swiss Alps.
ANGELA:
Good, very fun and where were the other two times?
KARYN:
Once in Launceston and once in Hobart.
ANGELA:
Okay.
KARYN:
Not quite as exciting but..
ANGELA:
But still very, very, very fun.
KARYN:
Still very cool.
ANGELA:
Well thank you so much for your wealth of knowledge today around the Facebook ads and eCommerce, more in particular. And for those that are listening, my team and I will be putting together the whole transcription for this episode at www.angelahenderson.com.au and of course I cover all sorts of related business and life topics inside my Facebook group, The Australian Business Collaborative, we’ve got a few thousand people in there at the moment. So make sure you join the community, I’d love to see you in there but for now, have an awesome day and yes, look forward to having you guys tune into my next episode, next week. Until then, keep smiling everyone. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast with Angela Henderson. www.angelahenderson.com.au.
