5 Killer Facebook Advertising Strategies For Your Ecommerce Store

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As Facebook seems to make changes to its algorithms on a daily basis, it can be tough to keep up with what you can do on your Facebook page and what you can’t.

In my opinion, the best plan is to stick to relevant, fun content that’s not going to constantly spam people with stuff they don’t want. The easiest way to measure this is by seeing how many likes, comments, and shares you get for each post.

The reason we like Facebook for ecommerce advertising so much is because it’s a completely free way to test out those ads beforehand. You can send out a feeler for an ad, then see if any of your regular followers find it interesting.

For your well-performing posts, it’s a seamless process jumping from a regular Facebook post to a promotion. It certainly helps that Facebook has made it extremely easy for you to give them money.

But that poses the question: what are some of the best Facebook advertising strategies for your ecommerce store?

You can’t simply hit the publish button and hope for the best since that’s either leaving money on the table or making you look silly because you’re not targeting the right people. You might also find that the original post design could use some tweaks before publishing it as an ad.

All sorts of Facebook advertising strategies are littered throughout the internet, so we’d like to cover ones that are not only unique, but they actually work.

Therefore, keep reading to learn more about these ecommerce Facebook advertising strategies, and make sure you follow the Golden Rule (below) before implementing any of them.

The Golden Rule: Build a Sales Funnel and Email List

Let’s say you start posting Facebook ads and the response is exceptional. The sales start rolling in, your staff has plenty of work to do, and you’re in that wonderful situation where you have too many orders to fill, so it’s stressing you out.

Awesome! Congratulations.

But then a few months pass by and you’re starting to notice a dropoff in sales. You try out a few more Facebook ads, but every time you reboot the ad campaign those sales seem to trickle off a little more.

The problem is that you haven’t established an email list to get those customers coming back to your store. There’s also a chance that your sales funnel isn’t that great so the customer has no interest in returning.

In short, Facebook ads are just a starting point for your customer. If the funnel doesn’t guide them through your store with ease and prevent abandoned carts in the process, you’re going to have trouble capitalizing on the ads you pay for. It’s far easier and cheaper to keep a previous customer around than it is to seek out a new one, so there’s tons of value in having an email list.

Furthermore, you’re spending way too much money for the ads if your site doesn’t have an email list.

This way, you can send out reminder, receipt, promotional, and newsletter emails to hundreds or thousands of customers. Sometimes this is completely free, but most of the time it costs you a little for the email service and your time.

That’s why this is the Golden Rule. Your Facebook ads are nothing without an efficient sales funnel and email subscription form and list.

Now that that has been addressed, keep reading to find the best Facebook ad strategies for ecommerce advertising.

5 Killer Facebook Advertising Strategies

The first step to handling Facebook advertising is to understand how drastically different it is compared to Google advertising. When a person searches through Google they often have an intent to buy.

For instance, they’ll search for something like garden gnomes. Then, Google serves up the natural results and the sponsored ones. There’s no reason to think that the customer might find some of the ads appealing.

However, with Facebook, the user goes there to see what their friends are up to. They might see a cute garden gnome and click through to check it out, but the chances of them leaving are much higher.

Why is that so?

Because people don’t go to Facebook to shop. So, these strategies are built around getting folks to shop when they didn’t intend to.

1. Give Customers The Excitement of the Product

ecommerce facebook advertising strategies

What’s the most exciting moment of the product lifecycle? With most products, it’s typically the unboxing and revealing of what’s inside. People love the idea of receiving a product on the front stoop, then ripping it open to see the contents.

So why not attract more customer by showing them the best part of buying an item? This is rather common in the subscription box world, but it works for all ecommerce businesses. Take the example of Try The World; this Facebook advertising strategy utilizes beautiful images of the unboxing.

We see hands examining the products and showing what’s inside. It’s almost as if the customer can grasp the products and see them. This ties into consumer emotions, but it also helps that a free Paris Box is thrown in when you buy a Thailand box.

I absolutely love this combination, since it provides an incentive, but the photos also mimic the visual and “feeling” nature of a retail store.

2. Show Contrast For Customizable Products and Items With Multiple Variants

facebook ad strategy

Studies show that high contrast ads often improve click-through rates. So what does Nike do with this information? It creates a multi-product Facebook ad with popping colors, each of which contrasts with the others.

In fact, you could do this with the exact same shoes, where the customer would scroll through a barrage of different colors, thus producing a stunning ad which also shows them the variants in your shop.

Keep in mind that this ad’s effectiveness can’t only be attributed to the contrast between product colors. Notice how the background colors and bold fonts are also fighting for attention. These carousels are perfect for showcasing a wide range of your products, but it’s also important to place a link in the ad text.

Finally, both product variants and customizable products work well in this Facebook ad format. For instance, you might show an embroidered shirt with a red color in one picture and place that next to the same embroidered shirt with a different color and wording.

3. Take Advantage of the Competition’s Fame

ecommerce advertising

If your product is truly better than a competitor, or there is some sort of feature involved that some people might enjoy better, why not talk about it in your ad?

There are several good things about having reputable, more famous, competitors. And that all ties into the fact that people like seeing recognizable brands. So, if you talk about that recognizable brand, then state that there’s something better about your product, you have a better chance at grabbing their attention.

Let’s take a look at Microsoft. It’s obviously a well-known brand, but people, in general, think that MacBooks are better products. Mac sells perceived value, in that the products are often not much better, but customers think different.

So, Microsoft takes care of that by showing that the Surface actually has more pixels than the MacBook. Throw in some savings and you’re bound to get more customers.

4. Establish a Before and After

This ties into the first point we made in this article, but it puts your product into action. After someone opens the package they’re excited about using it.

ecommerce advertising

Blue Apron is known for displaying Facebook ads with its food box being opened, along with the “after” picture of the meal ready to eat. The great thing about this strategy is that every single product is taken out of the box and utilized in some way. And when you share before and after pictures, it helps people visualize how the product works.

Let’s say you sell razors. You could have the razor coming out of the box paired with a man shaving his face and smiling. The same goes for running shoes. A shoe on a shelf sounds like a good “before” picture, but someone running through a beautiful landscape sounds great as well.

It also helps that Blue Apron has the promotion where the first order is free. As you can see, some of the best Facebook advertising strategies pair clever images with incentives.

5. Create a Sense of Exclusivity

The Facebook company knows all too well about how exclusivity works to its advantage. By nature, people want to belong. That’s why Dollar Shave Club talks about its “members” and its “club” quite a bit in Facebook ads.

This not only allows you to tell a great story about your business, but it creates a situation where your customers are wondering what they’re missing.

Are You Equipped With the Best Ecommerce Facebook Advertising Strategies?

Here’s something that you should know- not all Facebook strategies work right off the bat. In fact, some of them don’t work at all for some online stores. The key is to make educated guesses and think about what your customers want more than anything.

Invest some time to research, gather ideas, and customize the ads based on the products you’re selling and the customers you’re targetting. What are your favourite Facebook advertising strategies? Leave a comment below

It’s easy to slap together any old Facebook post and hope that it gains tractions, but it all starts with the email list and sales funnel, then you should be inclined to utilize some of the strategies we outlined above.


 

Joe Warnimont

Joe Warnimont is a Chicago-based writer who focuses on eCommerce tools, WordPress, and social media. When not fishing or practicing yoga, he's collecting stamps at national parks (even though that's mainly for children). Check out Joe's portfolio to contact him and view past work.

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