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From Affiliate Marketing To Importing And Ecommerce

Marketing, social media, advertising

hughjasle

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I'll keep it short and simple.

Been doing affiliate marketing for almost 2 years now. Was working with a dysfunctional company for most of the time, but got out of that and on my own now a couple months back.

VERY happy with where I am now with affiliate marketing, but I want to build something I can sell off someday. A million a year in affiliate marketing is just that, a million bucks. That's great, but a million a year business is a million bucks AND you can sell it off for multiples if you do it right.

So that's my goal, use my skills and warchest i've built (and will continue to build) from affiliate marketing and put them towards businesses that I can sell off, first of which is importing goods and creating sites/brands around them.

I will mostly be using Facebook marketing for this as I go, I'm already a few steps in so I'll update in next posts so we don't have a wall of text here.
 
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hughjasle

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STEP 1: Identifying and Testing Various Products

I identified a couple products to work with and tested them to see if they were worth pursuing.

I did this with a few products (6) but one stood out more than the others and that's the one I'll be focusing on first.

I found these by creating good looking shopify pages for the products and running Facebook ads for them. The shopify pages were basically just shells of sites (just wanted to to quickly gauge interest). The users were led to ad the product to cart and checkout, but in doing so they would be greeted with a nice "Oops this is embarrassing, due to such high demand, we are out of stock! To make up for it, would you like to be added to our mailing list? To make things interesting for you, when we get the product back in stock, we will let you know AND send you a 30% off coupon for waiting."

This worked out well. I also did a few full tests after collecting over 100 emails, of just letting people check out and then refunding the money and emailing them the saying we were out of stock yada yada yada. Doing these two things I found I can get a sub $10 CPA. Sweet.

I tested the product at $100 a piece and face value on alibaba/dhgate is $8-15 (which I can get cheaper from past experience), either way - with the couple improvements I want + branding + packaging, the markup is definitely great if I can keep that CPA.
 

hughjasle

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I've been asked by a few ppl in PM's about marketing products on FB and how I tested mine and how others can better sell their products, so I'll give a few tips and ideas here.

Really every product is different and FB is a crazy beast where 1 ad done twice can yield completely different results.

Tip 1: spend the money - lots of it, it's just part of the game.

Seriously, even if it costs you $10k in testing, all it takes is finding ONE product/campaign that works. Once you get that one that works, you can create 10x that and more.

Tip 2: Instead of trying to figure out how to find an audience for your product, find a product that fits an audience instead. I knew what audience I wanted based on who I already knew spends money online.

I know everyone says this, but it's true. I went through 6 different products till I landed on the one I wanted to go with. Just kept hitting the same audience till I found one that "flew off the shelves".

Tip 3: For those of you that already have products that are selling decently and are looking to get on FB, place a FB pixel on your checkout cart.

It costs you nothing to do, just place the pixel there, FB will start keeping track of the purchases. Let it sit for a bit then go ahead and jump on FB ads and create an ad that targets users that are similar to those who already purchased your products. Doesn't get much easier than that.

**Like I said at the beginning, even those this tips worked for me, they may or may not work for you. Just free tips - may be worth that as well.

Good luck
 
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hughjasle

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Alright - Have a question for you Shopify users.

I have a few orders that have an exclamation next to it signifying that the "order may be fraudulent"

I am just gonna try calling these people on Monday during normal business hours to confirm they indeed are the person who ordered the product.

My question for you all is - what do you do in these cases? What have your experiences been? Is Shopify just super conservative and tend to over flag on the side of caution, or are they typically correct?
 

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hughjasle

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Wow - nothing on the above question really?? That's disappointing.

Anyhow here's a bit of an update from over the weekend. (Friday-Monday)



I started advertising and collecting orders. So far it's doing just as expected after all the testing.


Here is an *edited screenshot of the ad account on FB for the product:

http://screencast.com/t/HvHdEpp4



So only a total of just under $1500 spend. Should have been more but for some reason it didn't spend it's full budget one of those days. At the rate it's selling at (under $10 CPA) I'll sell out this week.



Speaking of sales - Here is a another screenshot (don't need to edit any personal info out of this one) but of shopify:

http://screencast.com/t/tDqaAxvPZpP



So its doing extremely well so far. Just over $22k in sales during those 4 days.




...Only issue is I may have jumped the gun ...




My product isn't in just yet. It's in transit to my fulfillment center as we speak and should be there soon. All orders know that they wont be shipped till the middle of this month, but still worries me. Guess I'm just spoiled from Amazon and my two-day shipping. It appears these people just don't care thus far thankfully.



* - I edited out my personal information or any info that might give away my page/product
 
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hughjasle

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1) What fulfilment house/service do you use?
Don't remember off the top of my head. I'll have to look it up later. Dealing with some of the typical affiliate nonsense at the moment too keep money rolling on that side of things. But i'll do a post on them later once we see how they do with shipping etc.


2) What type of FB ads are you running? (carousal, video, etc)
I've used all the above. However, to answer your question, right this second the videos are doing the best on this product
 

hughjasle

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Another update:

The Ups and Downs

Sales have been going good. In fact got this fun message on Shopify earlier:
http://screencast.com/t/p4NhBu9e
So that was cool.

UNTIL.....

Got this other kind of fun message:

http://screencast.com/t/DrQluUqPy

So spent the day calling shopify and sending in my ID etc. Nothing left to do but wait till tomorrow and call them again :headbanger:

So I shut down the ad, didn't want another $5k a day worth of orders rolling in while I'm under some sort of review till I get this straightened out. Besides, I'm almost all out of the inventory I just ordered anyhow. Once I get things back on I can sell the rest of them no problem....



...or so I thought.


Turns out FB decided to flag my account and remove my payment method when I paused the ad. Guess they got mad and retaliated thinking I was taking my business elsewhere. So I filled out their various forums, and hit them up on every help channel they provide, and got word back saying, "sorry this happened, they don't know why it did, just add a new payment method"

So I did and at least have the account ready to roll again.

Just waiting for shopify to put my account in good standing again so I can get back to work.

Luckily during this break I began running test ads for 2 new products that I've been eyeing and the results looks promising :hurray:

***edited since the images showed up so only ant's could see them, now us mere mortals can see them with the links provided. Can't seem to win with these images working properly lately...
 

hughjasle

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Short update:

Been learning a lot about the Shopify platform and their do's and don'ts. I went fast and broke stuff. It happens. I'm learning as I go.

So Shopify is still "Holding my payments". I had to send in all kinds of proof that it's a legit business and not some scam. This sucks mostly because I am now in an odd position of having sold out my entire stock (500 units), but I haven't been paid out so I don't really want to ship them till I know I'm going to get the money. Meanwhile Shopify's banking partner doesn't want to release the funds do to so many orders that haven't been fulfilled. I basically sold out in a weeks time and my fulfillment company (amazon)was/is super slow to get my account (I didn't think it would be so hard to get someone to just ship my products but it seams I have to create a listing on amazon for my product first).

Anyways in a stalemate of sorts with Shopify, but my reps think the banks will release the hold next week as I have shown sufficient proof that I actually own the product I'm selling and not just scamming people.

I may just start shipping some out as further proof to shopify to release my funds.

Otherwise, my customers are starting to get antsy. A couple of the idiots who purchased multiple orders on accident are charging them back. I'm sure that doesn't look good so I'm trying to reach out to them and their banks and explain that the customers are idiots and I can just get them a refund if they would respond to my calls or emails - seems they'd rather just hide from their mistakes and do a charge back. Ugh.
 
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Brett877

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Did Shopify ever release the funds?

What are some of the dos and donts of Shopify? Thinking of trying it out...

Also how do you like aliaba was getting ready to place an order for some goods.
 

hughjasle

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Did Shopify ever release the funds?
Yes and no. They technically did release the funds, but I still don't have them. They have been good working with me to get through it and i beleive we are (as do they) just a matter of getting me paid out now. According to my daily email back and forth with them, my payment for roughly $60k should finally be sent to me tomorrow, Dec. 4th. So we'll see what happens tomorrow.

What are some of the dos and donts of Shopify? Thinking of trying it out...
hahaha, honestly I'm not the guy to ask. Still extremely new to it. I did find out there are a lot of things that can get your "flagged" by risk management.

Some of those things are:

  • Selling too much when you are still new
  • Using an off-shore corporations
  • "Certain" unnamed products or services are automatic flags they said, but wouldn't tell me what they were
  • Having too many unfulfilled orders (even if you haven't been paid by shopify for them yet)

That's all I've discovered thus far.

I am very pleased even though I have had plenty of issues. Shopify account managers have been good to work with thus far and their support seems to be available 24/7. Honestly I did more fire - ready - aim on this project so I expected lots of issues. I just wanted to run, see what breaks, and figure out how to do it right so I can explode on my second run. I'm already talking to my manufacturer about doing an order for 5k units this time which is 10x greater than my last order. Not sure if doing that large of an order is good or bad. Which leads me to your next question:

Also how do you like aliaba
I like it. Quick and easy to work with. I went through Alibaba payment stuff for my last order. I had never done that before and I know lots of guys here prefer NOT to pay via Alibaba claiming cheaper prices, but I was fine with the price and it seemed like I was more protected this way. Would be nice if we can get someone else to chime in on updated info on how to best purchase goods from manufacturers found on Alibaba. If anyone has any experience or knowledge on this, please speak up! I'm looking to do a $50k order and want to do it right. Also, I need to fix this shipping/broker/customs crap. It was a nightmare getting my last order in... That deserves it's own post.
 

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Congrats on your success.

You said that you have 6 different products, do you have a different site marketing each product on its own or one larger storefront with all the products listed ?

Any organic traffic or is it all paid ? Im going to be importing a product which retails for $350 a piece so I am going to take advantage of paid advertising any tips ?

Did you brand your goods or are they generics ?
 
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Sunscreen

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Can you explain how advertising a product on facebook is cost effective. I would have thought if they actually needed a product they would search on amazon or another ecommerce site. Sure they may belong to a community but they may likely won't want/need your product at that time nearly as much as using adwords for specific keywords or amazon ppc. Am I just stupid? It is obviously working for you I just can't see how you can get conversions at rates nearly as high as from other places.
 

hughjasle

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You said that you have 6 different products, do you have a different site marketing each product on its own or one larger storefront with all the products listed ?
I don't have 6 different products, I TESTED 6 different products and picked the top performer is all. When I was testing them (if they even made it to the point where I wanted to create a site to test actual checkouts/purchases of the product, I create complete new sites for each. This only takes like 30 minutes on Shopify per product so it's not a big deal to do.

Any organic traffic or is it all paid ?
All paid. Though, since turning off my ads to do selling out and placing the "sold out" sign on the store, I still get a good amount of traffic to the site now and emails almost daily asking when it will be back in stock. I wouldn't call that organic, more like, the after effects of mass marketing.

Im going to be importing a product which retails for $350 a piece so I am going to take advantage of paid advertising any tips ?
Test it before you get into it. See if you can actually make 10 sales before you put all your money down on ordering the product.

Did you brand your goods or are they generics ?
I branded them. However that was the only mod I did, they are otherwise 100% generic. I did get a different color than most of my competitors, but it was still a generic color. My original color choice would have pushed me back another 45 days in manufacturing time. So I took what was available.
 

hughjasle

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Can you explain how advertising a product on facebook is cost effective. I would have thought if they actually needed a product they would search on amazon or another ecommerce site. Sure they may belong to a community but they may likely won't want/need your product at that time nearly as much as using adwords for specific keywords or amazon ppc. Am I just stupid? It is obviously working for you I just can't see how you can get conversions at rates nearly as high as from other places.

Lots to cover here.

How it's cost effective just comes down to the numbers. I'm getting conversions/sales for around $10 each, product with shipping to me and then to customer included costs around $18. Product sales for $120. Total expenses are $28, total rev is $120. Avg total profit is around $92. There are other costs involved, this just gives an idea. Shopify has fees, some retarded shipping broker charged me $400 to get my stuff released from the airport and I have a feeling that price is going to differ one shipment to the next, I have a virtual assistant, etc.


I would have thought if they actually needed a product they would search on amazon or another ecommerce site.
I'm sure many people do. That's what I'd do myself - most of the time. However if there was a product I liked (like mine) and I saw a massive sale was going on and I know it was ending soon, I'd do it. This just comes down to marketing. Show people the current solution to their problem and how it's wrong, then show them your solution and how much better it is. Make the price seem like a no brainer and to get it at that price they have to act now as it's gonna sell out fast (which it did).

Sure they may belong to a community but they may likely won't want/need your product at that time nearly as much as using adwords for specific keywords or amazon ppc.
This question was hard to follow so I'm going to reword it to what I think you are asking before I answer it. LMK if I'm wayyyy off.

Q: Why would Facebook ads work since people who actually are in need of the product at that second aren't searching facebook but instead searching for it on google or amazon where you can advertise to them right there?

A: They both work. Sometimes people just don't know what they want till they see it. Just like all those soccer moms who go to Target for milk and leave with a shopping cart of stuff. Advertising is just a numbers game. Put the product in front of enough eyes and sales will come it. Just comes down to making the numbers work after that.

Am I just stupid?
lol I don't think so, But I can't answer that. If you really want an answer take this test and keep the results to yourself: http://www.quizrocket.com/stupid-test :tiphat:

It is obviously working for you I just can't see how you can get conversions at rates nearly as high as from other places.

Here's where advertising gets fun and interesting. Sure I may be getting the lowest conversion rate compared to other traffic sources, but perhaps my cost per sale is the lowest due to my low cost per 1,000 people who see my ad.

For example (all numbers are made up here):

Cost to run on google for " I want to buy that Hugh Jasle's product right now" is $6.25 since it is so direct many people are bidding and the cost is thus high. BUT for every 3 clicks there I get a sale. So my end cost is $18.75 and my conversion rate is 1/3 or 33%.

Cost to run an ad on facebook for women between the ages of 18 and 25 is $0.14 per click. However those people aren't nearly as qualified to purchase as the google ones so I only get a sale for every 65 clicks. That's a 1/65 or 1.5% rate compared to the 33% of google. However since my clicks are so much cheaper, my cost per sale is only $9.10.

In that example I made FB the lower cost but it could very easily go either way.
 
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Havox

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Test it before you get into it. See if you can actually make 10 sales before you put all your money down on ordering the product.

How did you test? I was thinking about testing on forums and FB groups as to their opinions on the products.

How it's cost effective just comes down to the numbers. I'm getting conversions/sales for around $10 each, product with shipping to me and then to customer included costs around $18. Product sales for $120. Total expenses are $28, total rev is $120. Avg total profit is around $92. There are other costs involved, this just gives an idea. Shopify has fees, some retarded shipping broker charged me $400 to get my stuff released from the airport and I have a feeling that price is going to differ one shipment to the next, I have a virtual assistant, etc.

Would you be able to explain in detail what expenses are charged when ordering from alibaba? Shipping? Duties? I've been reading through @Walter Hay thread, but I've still have yet to understand the underworkings. Any material you can provide would be greatly appreciated as well.
 

hughjasle

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How did you test? I was thinking about testing on forums and FB groups as to their opinions on the products.
A quick idea on how I tested is on my second post in this thread. In short, made a site for the product on shopify and running traffic to it to see actual customer engagement. Asking people for their opinions in forums would have done nothing for me. Probably would have told me to screw the idea since others are selling the product for nothing on amazon.


Would you be able to explain in detail what expenses are charged when ordering from alibaba? Shipping? Duties? I've been reading through @Walter Hay thread, but I've still have yet to understand the underworkings. Any material you can provide would be greatly appreciated as well.
Don't konw what thread ur talking about. Off the top of my head there weren't any alibaba fees. Just the cost of the products, shipping costs, customs/broker fees, packaging for shipping to customers, shipping to customer, shopify fees, mechant (payment) cost fees, and i can't think of any more off the top of my head.
 
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Havox

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Don't konw what thread ur talking about. Off the top of my head there weren't any alibaba fees. Just the cost of the products, shipping costs, customs/broker fees, packaging for shipping to customers, shipping to customer, shopify fees, mechant (payment) cost fees, and i can't think of any more off the top of my head.
This is the thread I'm about. I actually thinking maybe you could elaborate with numbers like how much the customs/brokers fees were.
 
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Thanks for your information regarding to selling on FB, it is definitely an eye opener for me. I will definitely look into it as I want to expand my channels from the traditional eBay and Amazon.

Good luck on your business, and I shall keep following it to see how it develops!
 

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Lots to cover here.

How it's cost effective just comes down to the numbers. I'm getting conversions/sales for around $10 each, product with shipping to me and then to customer included costs around $18. Product sales for $120. Total expenses are $28, total rev is $120. Avg total profit is around $92. There are other costs involved, this just gives an idea. Shopify has fees, some retarded shipping broker charged me $400 to get my stuff released from the airport and I have a feeling that price is going to differ one shipment to the next, I have a virtual assistant, etc.



I'm sure many people do. That's what I'd do myself - most of the time. However if there was a product I liked (like mine) and I saw a massive sale was going on and I know it was ending soon, I'd do it. This just comes down to marketing. Show people the current solution to their problem and how it's wrong, then show them your solution and how much better it is. Make the price seem like a no brainer and to get it at that price they have to act now as it's gonna sell out fast (which it did).


This question was hard to follow so I'm going to reword it to what I think you are asking before I answer it. LMK if I'm wayyyy off.

Q: Why would Facebook ads work since people who actually are in need of the product at that second aren't searching facebook but instead searching for it on google or amazon where you can advertise to them right there?

A: They both work. Sometimes people just don't know what they want till they see it. Just like all those soccer moms who go to Target for milk and leave with a shopping cart of stuff. Advertising is just a numbers game. Put the product in front of enough eyes and sales will come it. Just comes down to making the numbers work after that.


lol I don't think so, But I can't answer that. If you really want an answer take this test and keep the results to yourself: http://www.quizrocket.com/stupid-test :tiphat:



Here's where advertising gets fun and interesting. Sure I may be getting the lowest conversion rate compared to other traffic sources, but perhaps my cost per sale is the lowest due to my low cost per 1,000 people who see my ad.

For example (all numbers are made up here):

Cost to run on google for " I want to buy that Hugh Jasle's product right now" is $6.25 since it is so direct many people are bidding and the cost is thus high. BUT for every 3 clicks there I get a sale. So my end cost is $18.75 and my conversion rate is 1/3 or 33%.

Cost to run an ad on facebook for women between the ages of 18 and 25 is $0.14 per click. However those people aren't nearly as qualified to purchase as the google ones so I only get a sale for every 65 clicks. That's a 1/65 or 1.5% rate compared to the 33% of google. However since my clicks are so much cheaper, my cost per sale is only $9.10.

In that example I made FB the lower cost but it could very easily go either way.
Great reply thanks!
 

hughjasle

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Been in a sort of funk for all of December.

Ad prices are ridiculous during the holidays so I mostly backed off everything and took the month off.

Kicking things into gear again now that the holiday's are over, BUT I've been really struggling to think if all this work on ecommerce work is worth it.

I re-orded with my manufacturer 1k units but this time I am trying to use Shipwire to do all my fullfilling. I was able to meet with them at CES a couple days ago, and honestly their prices weren't that good. I spend countless hours dealing with getting my product to them only to find out that it's not really gonna save me money (even cost more) than just hiring a kid to do it out of my house.

So whatever. I'll be able to turn my ads back on in a week or so and clear out this inventory. I'll be able to decide at that point if I want to continue or not.

If anything - I've once again learned that the grass isn't always greener. Just different, and grass in the end is still grass.
 
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theag

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Somehow missed this thread. Cool to see you got up and running so fast with your own products! Looking at how quick you got those your sales figures I really have to get a couple more expensive products in my line.
the grass isn't always greener. Just different, and grass in the end is still grass.

Tell me about it. So true.
 

hughjasle

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Forgot to post final numbers on that first batch of 500 units.

Rough numbers~
Returns/Refunds/Chargebacks ended around 6%. Good. I estimated far more so that's great.

Ads: $4k
Shipping: $3k
COGS: $5k
Fees/Brokers/Returns/misc.: $3k

Total Expenses: $15k

Total Revenue: $55k

Profit: $40k


What I learned:
  • My product can use a LOT of improvements. Just don't know if I care enough to do that.
  • I have no idea what i'm doing lol
  • I hate having to rush. I lost a bit of $ by doing everything last minute instead of planning it out first
  • as much as I complain - it still wasn't that hard, just have to learn how to do it right through experience.
  • Don't know if/how to make this business into a sellable asset.. which is the main reason I started it. Would love pointers here.
  • If I can figure out the above and want to continue, I will hire someone to take care of all the inventory and shipping crap. I hate that part of it.
  • I need to better protect myself with a new LLC or something just for this product. I don't want a lawsuit that can take down my other stuff.
  • Finally - Taxes on selling physical products SUCK.
 

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Ads: $4k
Shipping: $3k
COGS: $5k
Fees/Brokers/Returns/misc.: $3k

Total Expenses: $15k

Total Revenue: $55k

Profit: $40k


Those are absolutely amazing margins and you need to start scaling ASAP
 
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hughjasle

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Those are absolutely amazing margins and you need to start scaling ASAP
Trying to. Gonna see how well it sells this time around. If I can get similar results then I'll try and smash a huge quantity of them.

Only catch is I have seen about 10 other people (that i've seen) running the same thing now all on FB ads as well not to mention the 200 people selling them for 1/3 the price on Amazon, and all the discount sites like groupon, wish, etc. selling them for peanuts as well.
 

nomeus

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Made 40k in one month, don't know if thats worth it.. lol

I think it would be wise to continue until costs are in your favor.

Are the customers from ads landing on generic shopify product page or some sort of landing page?
 

hughjasle

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I think it would be wise to continue until costs are in your favor
What costs in my favor?

Are the customers from ads landing on generic shopify product page or some sort of landing page?
ads go straight to my shopify product page with the checkout button on that page. Literally its just some images of the product a quick description with bullet points and how to use the product and price with the checkout/buy now button. Nothing fancy.
 
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prof

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Super cool thread.

It's impressive you're getting $100+ sales from cold traffic. Are you going from page post > hard sell landing page > offer on Shopify?

I imagine the product must really have some kind of story behind it or really solve a pain?

Can you reveal anymore about your flow leading up to the transaction?
 

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