eCommerce Advertising - Dos and Don'ts
In a world of online marketing, you are as free as you can be in terms of choosing the business model, BUT there are certain RULES you still need to follow.
Below, you’ll find VITAL things to remember if you do eCom.
DO’s
1. Always spy on your competitors – do not think that your business is unique; 99.9999% of everything is a modified copy of something made before.
Find similar-niche products using such spy platforms as Adspy. Find out about:
– their ads – what pain points they use, what kind of creatives give them the most of likes, what call-to-action they use
– their offer – are they cheaper or more expensive than you; what about free shipping; are they having money-back guarantees?
– their audience – what countries and age groups they target.
Check their Facebook business page and Instagram account. What kind of content do they post? Lifestyle or something else? If they are successful with it, you at least need to try the same as well.
Check what and how they sell on Amazon. Are they successful there? Do not be afraid to test different platforms.
Check Amazon/Facebook ads reviews (negative). What is it that their buyers don’t like? Try to fix this and offer with your product.
2. Make your website loading speed as high as possible – yes, it DOES matter a lot.
– Avoid very high resolution images – 800 or 1600 pixels will not make a big difference on mobile. You can also compress them using free online tools.
– Minimize http requests – in simple words, your page should have as few elements as possible – move towards simplification ALWAYS
– Enable browser caching – this will make the users entering your website for the 2nd time load faster
– Check the loading speed for yourself – you can use free online tools to measure it (for example, Google Insights or GTMetrix)
3. Make REALLY good ads – if you have well-converting Facebook ads, your targeting does not matter a lot. So, you should:
– Order or make yourself catchy creatives – test both videos and images
– Use testimonials in your text copies for social proof
– Test different landing pages (e.g., main page, “all products” page, product-specific page) and see which one converts better
– Make sure your product is displayed on your ad to show what you advertise
– Move towards native organic content
4. Make upsells to boost your average customer value:
– Introduce them immediately before/after the “Thank you” page after the purchase
– Retarget your previous buyers with new collections or promos
– Send SMS and email notifications to your customer list
DON’Ts
1. Avoid an overly complicated sales process.
– Make navigation seamless – the shorter the time spent on the website the higher the conversion rate
– Do not gather data about the customer aggressively – if you need leads, run Lead Gen campaigns; do not try to kill two birds with one stone
– Do not tire off the customer with many upsells BEFORE the purchase. You can introduce a few “you might also like” offers, but real upsells should happen AFTER the purchase.
2. Do not think that eCommerce is easy to do
– You need a lot of time to invest in the process – you can’t just set it up and leave be; it’s an iterative process
– You also need significant resources to invest in testing, finding a good team to help you handle the sales, providing customer support, etc.
– You also need to always monitor the market to find new better products to sell and see the trends within your niche
3. Do not use 100500 Shopify apps/extensions to your website.
– Speed really matters – extra apps that collect data on the backend mean extra http requests hence lower page loading speed (even if you don’t notice that)
– Facebook’s policies are clearly against anything that is not Facebook-related. I’ve seen numerous accounts installing an app that Facebook does not trust and have their results go down BIG TIME
– They will also distract you from concentrating on the tasks that really matter – such as optimisation of your funnel and creating better ads
4. DO NOT give up easily!
– I have not made my online business successful from the first attempt; very few of us were that lucky.
– Learn from your mistakes and do better in future – if you fail, think why this happened and what can be improved. Negative experience is often even more important that positive one.
– Mindset REALLY matters – have a mindset of an entrepreneur, not a person who wants to get a few extra $$ on the side.
Every month I choose a few entrepreneurs to personally help them scale their Facebook ads and businesses.
Watch the free training and apply here: https://www.ecommercescalingsecrets.com/home