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Ask Me Anything - Facebook Ads [2M+ Ad spend]

PizzaOnTheRoof

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How would you go about setting up ads for a single product e-commerce business?

I'm using a WordPress landing page with a Shopify checkout link, and have already wasted $400 on Google Ads. Lots of clicks but no sales.

My product is unique in the USA but I'm worried people will just buy a cheaper solution used or just aren't interested in the product. It's a disposable version of a durable good. Meant to be used temporarily or just as a cheaper alternative because of lower manufacturing costs, shipping, etc.
 
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AniM

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What do you think of FB lead ads? Particularly for the real estate niche.

I'm an investor not a realtor and I've seen other investors say this is the ad type that performs best for them.

Makes sense to me as FB wants to keep the user on their platform (more $$$ for them) and the lead from is pre-filled with the user's FB account info so it lowers the hurdle of them entering info manually. But I'd love your take on it.

Also I'd appreciate any feedback on the following FB ad campaign I'm about to run.

I'm about to start a campaign to find motivated sellers. Most investors target the same audience with the same "we buy houses cash" type offer (wholesaling and flipping). I'm doing a different model where we buy with terms not cash.

The wholesalers basically submit low-ball cash offers that are only right for a small sliver of the market (desperate, has lots of equity, needs cash fast, house might need lots of repairs), but I can hit a much bigger market (any equity amount, nice houses in nice neighborhoods) and pay more as long as the seller can give us some time to pay them off. So our USP would be "We Pay Full Price For Your House".

I just want to drive inbound leads at an acceptable price and then I know how to pre-screen them over the phone.

Location-wise I'll be targeting a few counties in my state. Can't do pindrop as it would cross into other states. Not sure if it matters.

Demographic wise is where I'm stuck. I've heard a lot of conflicting advice on this. FB has all this data but I don't want to overtarget and I'd rather let FB find the right people for me, and then I can make lookalikes off of that. I don't have a list to upload or any warm pixel audiences to start with.

Here is what one real estate FB ads guy does. He makes 4 groups
  • No interests
  • Loan related interests (mortgage companies, refinancing, etc I guess)
  • House related interests (zillow, trulia, etc)
  • All interests (loan + house ones combined)
32091

He runs each one at like $5-10/day ($20-40 total). After a few days he sees if there's a clear winner, and then he'll trim the losers and duplicate the whole thing to scale. Do you think that's a decent way to go?

I plan to test ~5 different headlines, images, copy using FB's dynamic ad stuff. I can do it manually if you think it's worth it for better data.

I should know pretty quickly if I'm getting leads from the lead form or if they call. If the campaign bombs I can pivot without losing my shirt.

Is this plan good or is it a$$? Poke holes and tell me where I can improve.

P.S. Thanks for this thread, I've been learning what I can about FB Ads in order to run this campaign. That 'house hunting' interest tip is something I hadn't heard of.
 

Fabelmk

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How would you go about running ads for service business?
e.g carpet cleaning and house cleaning

How do you know when to start using pixel audience?

Thanks, pretty new to fb ads.
 

OverByte

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Turn everything else off and verticle scale that adset by duplicating it in the same campaign 2-3 times.

@Pritesh - curious why you would scale the adset by duplicating it vs increasing the budget? I've seen this recommended a few times but seems to be contrary to what facebook recommends and based on facebook docs this strategy implies a negative impact to delivery due to audience overlap across the ad sets. Could you elaborate on the reasoning behind this? Thanks
 
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EVMaso

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A professionally taken photo just looks like a stock image and falls in the banner blindness category. I'd also try adding some weirdness or try to induce the feeling of "something's off" with the ad creative, I know it's pretty vague, but the more weird or outrageous your product image is the more people will stop their scrolling and actually look at your ad text. If you can't do that a simple red border to the image or a red arrow pointing to the product also works.

The term you're looking for is "Pattern Interrupt". I have used it in real life display signage, and while it's hard to quantify its impact in my gut I know it works. All I want a potential customer to do is to pause and take notice, then I can swoop in to begin the close.

Great thread btw!
 

Pritesh

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How would you go about setting up ads for a single product e-commerce business?

I'm using a WordPress landing page with a Shopify checkout link, and have already wasted $400 on Google Ads. Lots of clicks but no sales.

My product is unique in the USA but I'm worried people will just buy a cheaper solution used or just aren't interested in the product. It's a disposable version of a durable good. Meant to be used temporarily or just as a cheaper alternative because of lower manufacturing costs, shipping, etc.

I wouldn't waste money on Google unless you know exactly what you're doing. Most app/site placements in Google are botted clicks and is a sure shot way of losing money.

Like I said int the first post, this AMA is about facebook and not Google.
If you really want to stick with Google, place your ads on Youtube, those get you genuine visitors.



What do you think of FB lead ads? Particularly for the real estate niche.

I'm an investor not a realtor and I've seen other investors say this is the ad type that performs best for them.

Makes sense to me as FB wants to keep the user on their platform (more $$$ for them) and the lead from is pre-filled with the user's FB account info so it lowers the hurdle of them entering info manually. But I'd love your take on it.

Also I'd appreciate any feedback on the following FB ad campaign I'm about to run.

I'm about to start a campaign to find motivated sellers. Most investors target the same audience with the same "we buy houses cash" type offer (wholesaling and flipping). I'm doing a different model where we buy with terms not cash.

The wholesalers basically submit low-ball cash offers that are only right for a small sliver of the market (desperate, has lots of equity, needs cash fast, house might need lots of repairs), but I can hit a much bigger market (any equity amount, nice houses in nice neighborhoods) and pay more as long as the seller can give us some time to pay them off. So our USP would be "We Pay Full Price For Your House".

I just want to drive inbound leads at an acceptable price and then I know how to pre-screen them over the phone.

Location-wise I'll be targeting a few counties in my state. Can't do pindrop as it would cross into other states. Not sure if it matters.

Demographic wise is where I'm stuck. I've heard a lot of conflicting advice on this. FB has all this data but I don't want to overtarget and I'd rather let FB find the right people for me, and then I can make lookalikes off of that. I don't have a list to upload or any warm pixel audiences to start with.

Here is what one real estate FB ads guy does. He makes 4 groups
  • No interests
  • Loan related interests (mortgage companies, refinancing, etc I guess)
  • House related interests (zillow, trulia, etc)
  • All interests (loan + house ones combined)
View attachment 32091

He runs each one at like $5-10/day ($20-40 total). After a few days he sees if there's a clear winner, and then he'll trim the losers and duplicate the whole thing to scale. Do you think that's a decent way to go?

I plan to test ~5 different headlines, images, copy using FB's dynamic ad stuff. I can do it manually if you think it's worth it for better data.

I should know pretty quickly if I'm getting leads from the lead form or if they call. If the campaign bombs I can pivot without losing my shirt.

Is this plan good or is it a$$? Poke holes and tell me where I can improve.

P.S. Thanks for this thread, I've been learning what I can about FB Ads in order to run this campaign. That 'house hunting' interest tip is something I hadn't heard of.

I'm assuming most of them have an agency run their ads?
Lead ads are the best performing objective to get clients for any physical/tangible business and is the one I use. But, you need a system in place to deliver the filled leads to your email/phone instantly. If you're not so tech-savvy, you need to work with someone to set this up.

Warm leads convert miles better than cold ones. If you want to do it yourself, check the integrations/CRMs FB lead ads support to capture leads and implement it.

About your targeting question, I' wouldn't touch interests at all, to be honest, it's a real estate niche and just one conversion for you is worth a lot more than let's say someone in other B2C niches. Facebook's algorithm is a powerful thing, no doubt narrowing by interests will get you leads in the short run, but it will die down in a week max particularly if you're narrowing it further by county as well.

My suggestion, just 2 adsets: Male- age range- locations/zipcodes- leave interests blank.
Female - age range- locations/zipcodes- leave interests blank.

Obviously you will lose a lot of money at the start, but once you get around 10 or so leads, facebook's algorithm will know your exact target audience and these ad sets will not die until 5-6 months+

Getting leads from facebook for real estate is the easiest thing to do, if you're learning to do it yourself, don't give up. The rewards are insane and don't chicken out in spending money upfront to make the algorithm learn your audience. Every wannabe real estate advertiser targets Zillow, etc the interests you've shown, agencies do so as well to get them quicker leads. If you're in it for the long haul, follow my targeting and over the long run you'll be swimming in leads.


@AniM Edited the end section.
 
Last edited:

PizzaOnTheRoof

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I wouldn't waste money on Google unless you know exactly what you're doing. Most app/site placements in Google are botted clicks and is a sure shot way of losing money.

Like I said int the first post, this AMA is about facebook and not Google.
If you really want to stick with Google, place your ads on Youtube, those get you genuine visitors.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I meant I wasted money on Google Ads and am moving to Facebook ads, not how to set up G Ads.
 
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Pritesh

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How would you go about running ads for service business?
e.g carpet cleaning and house cleaning

How do you know when to start using pixel audience?

Thanks, pretty new to fb ads.


I personally used to do a lead capture funnel with a pixel in the past to get leads, but currently, lead forms perform a lot better for these services. The only downside is you cannot build an audience pixel, but I see no point in building an audience for these services.

Let's take an e-commerce site selling pet products as an example, yes building pixel is a good thing as people who have affinity to buy pet produces, will keep doing it. But, building an pixel audience for a one-off essential job is kinda pointless. I mean the people won't be actively looking for carpet cleaning on facebook, compared to actively browsing pet-related posts. Once you convert a lead just tell them to call you whenever they need the service done in the future rather than building a pixel to make an LLA or retarget them.

You might've seen a video on running Facebook ads that mention pixel, but that video wasn't for your business. Just run a lead form ads and call the leads, if you're seeing good results hire someone to automate the delivery of leads to your phone/email in realtime to improve your chances of closing leads.
 

AniM

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I wouldn't waste money on Google unless you know exact
Lead ads are the best performing objective to get clients for any physical/tangible business and is the one I use. But, you need a system in place to deliver the filled leads to your email/phone instantly. If you're not so tech-savvy, you need to work with someone to set this up.

Warm leads convert miles better than cold ones. If you want to do it yourself, check the integrations/CRMs FB lead ads support to capture leads and implement it.

About your targeting question, I' wouldn't touch interests at all, to be honest, it's a real estate niche and just one conversion for you is worth a lot more than let's say someone in other B2C niches. Facebook's algorithm is a powerful thing, no doubt narrowing by interests will get you leads in the short run, but it will die down in a week max particularly if you're narrowing it further by county as well.

My suggestion, just 2 adsets: Male- age range- locations/zipcodes- leave interests blank.
Female - age range- locations/zipcodes- leave interests blank.

Obviously you will lose a lot of money at the start, but once you get around 10 or so leads, facebook's algorithm will know your exact target audience and these ad sets will not die until 5-6 months+

Right, so I launched the campaign after I posted. So far I've gotten 4 leads at ~$9/lead.
1 has turned into a conversation and 2 I haven't been able to get a hold of yet. The last one had fake info as far as I can tell.

Lead quality should be much higher than outbound but yes they are still cold.

At least the campaign is running and I'm getting a good CPL. We'll see if the numbers hold but follow-up is the new problem I need to work on.

I am working on setting up a CRM and some automation so I get an email notification and maybe send the lead an immediate text/email. I am tech savvy so I'm not worried about doing any of this. Using zapier and already got my email notification set up but still need to pipe the info into a CRM.

As far as targeting goes. I ran with the 4 adsets I mentioned previously. The "mortgage-related" adset got 3 leads and the "no interests" got 1. I'm not sure how many impressions I need to make a statistically sound decision but I'm thinking of pausing the other 2 and letting the ones that are working ride. Do you think this is a good move?

Thanks for the advice on targeting but FB Housing ads don't allow you to target by gender or age anymore. I think they changed it a year or so ago due to some discrimination issues. You also can't target zip codes for the same reason. Just counties (and they don't have all of them lol) or cities (with 15+ mile radius which sucks if you're near a border).

I am targeting multiple counties + cities within driving range. I want to make sure the audience size is big enough.

I've heard other investors using FB say they get better results the wider they go, even targeting the whole state or multiple states, doing business virtually. One day I'll get there lol.

Right now I just need to figure out how to optimize and scale what I have right now, and follow up quickly.
 

Pritesh

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@Pritesh - curious why you would scale the adset by duplicating it vs increasing the budget? I've seen this recommended a few times but seems to be contrary to what facebook recommends and based on facebook docs this strategy implies a negative impact to delivery due to audience overlap across the ad sets. Could you elaborate on the reasoning behind this? Thanks

Unless you have a very tiny audience, audience overlap doesn't matter. You will not be outbidding your own ads as Facebook doesn't allow it compared to other networks like Google.

The term you're looking for is "Pattern Interrupt". I have used it in real life display signage, and while it's hard to quantify its impact in my gut I know it works. All I want a potential customer to do is to pause and take notice, then I can swoop in to begin the close.

Great thread btw!

In advertising, usually in Facebook, we call it a scroll stopper, but I didn't want to use technical terms to explain it.
In video ads, you need a scroll stopper in the first 3 seconds. In image ads, it's usually done by red circling something irrelevant in the picture so people stop and take notice. Fiddling with high contrast/saturation, etc there are many ways to stop a person scrolling through their newsfeed to take notice.
 
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Pritesh

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Right, so I launched the campaign after I posted. So far I've gotten 4 leads at ~$9/lead.
1 has turned into a conversation and 2 I haven't been able to get a hold of yet. The last one had fake info as far as I can tell.

Lead quality should be much higher than outbound but yes they are still cold.

At least the campaign is running and I'm getting a good CPL. We'll see if the numbers hold but follow-up is the new problem I need to work on.

I am working on setting up a CRM and some automation so I get an email notification and maybe send the lead an immediate text/email. I am tech savvy so I'm not worried about doing any of this. Using zapier and already got my email notification set up but still need to pipe the info into a CRM.

As far as targeting goes. I ran with the 4 adsets I mentioned previously. The "mortgage-related" adset got 3 leads and the "no interests" got 1. I'm not sure how many impressions I need to make a statistically sound decision but I'm thinking of pausing the other 2 and letting the ones that are working ride. Do you think this is a good move?

Thanks for the advice on targeting but FB Housing ads don't allow you to target by gender or age anymore. I think they changed it a year or so ago due to some discrimination issues. You also can't target zip codes for the same reason. Just counties (and they don't have all of them lol) or cities (with 15+ mile radius which sucks if you're near a border).

I am targeting multiple counties + cities within driving range. I want to make sure the audience size is big enough.

I've heard other investors using FB say they get better results the wider they go, even targeting the whole state or multiple states, doing business virtually. One day I'll get there lol.

Right now I just need to figure out how to optimize and scale what I have right now, and follow up quickly.

$9/lead is very good considering the ad just started. Over time the algorithm will optimize automatically since your campaign's objective is leads.

Do not pause your adsets, just put testing adsets on a $5-10/day budget and let it run for at least 3 days. Do not fiddle with adsets, I know it's hard seeing the money go, but this is where 90% of new advertisers fail. Do not edit anything whatsoever in adset, if you want to run a new test, duplicate it and run that.

About your impressions, usually 1k impressions should've you a good result if you're testing absurd interest targeting. But this should only be done when you've run out of laser targeted interests. But again, judge your ads by only conversion metrics, and let them run for at least 3 days even at low budget.

You can target by zipcode, and you can even make a callout ad saying Hey Arlington home owners. I never had a problem with those. Just don't discriminate in the ad saying hey Hispanic home owners, etc.

Facebook will do the optimizing for you if you spend enough money to get the data. Most people don't. If it's a small city, you don't even need >$1-2k to reach every single person with your ad. That's why I usually suggest not using interest targeting if it's a wide appeal business.
 

AniM

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$9/lead is very good considering the ad just started. Over time the algorithm will optimize automatically since your campaign's objective is leads.

Do not pause your adsets, just put testing adsets on a $5-10/day budget and let it run for at least 3 days. Do not fiddle with adsets, I know it's hard seeing the money go, but this is where 90% of new advertisers fail. Do not edit anything whatsoever in adset, if you want to run a new test, duplicate it and run that.

About your impressions, usually 1k impressions should've you a good result if you're testing absurd interest targeting. But this should only be done when you've run out of laser targeted interests. But again, judge your ads by only conversion metrics, and let them run for at least 3 days even at low budget.

You can target by zipcode, and you can even make a callout ad saying Hey Arlington home owners. I never had a problem with those. Just don't discriminate in the ad saying hey Hispanic home owners, etc.

Facebook will do the optimizing for you if you spend enough money to get the data. Most people don't.

Yeah I'm very pleased with $9/lead. If I can get the follow-up down this could be very profitable.

All my adsets are only on a $5/day budget already lol. (4 adsets = $20/day total). It's been 2 days so I'll let it run for another day and they should be at 1000 impressions each by then. Thanks for that number, now at least I won't do it prematurely.

I heard the advice from the Adskills course I just took that you should never pause campaigns or adsets but pause ads instead. But thanks for the reminder. I won't edit anything and when I want to kill it I'll pause the ad instead.

And no, I don't think you can target by zip code anymore for housing category ads. Facebook removes age, gender and ZIP code targeting for housing, employment, credit ads - Marketing Land

Unless you know some trick I don't... ;)

I'll be testing different creative for sure. Right now I'm modeling other investor's ads with a few tweaks to get a baseline. Then I'll get funky with the copy and images and see if I can improve.
 

Pritesh

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Yeah I'm very pleased with $9/lead. If I can get the follow-up down this could be very profitable.

All my adsets are only on a $5/day budget already lol. (4 adsets = $20/day total). It's been 2 days so I'll let it run for another day and they should be at 1000 impressions each by then. Thanks for that number, now at least I won't do it prematurely.

I heard the advice from the Adskills course I just took that you should never pause campaigns or adsets but pause ads instead. But thanks for the reminder. I won't edit anything and when I want to kill it I'll pause the ad instead.

And no, I don't think you can target by zip code anymore for housing category ads. Facebook removes age, gender and ZIP code targeting for housing, employment, credit ads - Marketing Land

Unless you know some trick I don't... ;)

I'll be testing different creative for sure. Right now I'm modeling other investor's ads with a few tweaks to get a baseline. Then I'll get funky with the copy and images and see if I can improve.

I guess they didn't retroactively apply these new changes to adsets running before the update because I just checked a client's ad account and they are still active. People who already have adsets running will have huge advantage. They banned the interest targeting "likely to move", on August 14 as well a few years back and advertisers who had that interest could still run their ads.
 
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So I got to 1000 impressions on all 4 of my adsets and I haven't had any more leads come in. :(

I'm planning to pause the 2 ads that got 0 leads and then maybe duplicate the campaign with the 2 that did work. Hopefully they pick up a different segment of the audience pool. Do you think that's sensible @Pritesh ?

I also want to test some new creative.

What's the best way to split-test in Facebook? 2 ads in one adset or 2 different adsets?
 

PizzaOnTheRoof

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Damn, over 700 clicks and thousands of impressions and only 2 sales... :/

Vastly cheaper than google though.
 

Pritesh

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So I got to 1000 impressions on all 4 of my adsets and I haven't had any more leads come in. :(

I'm planning to pause the 2 ads that got 0 leads and then maybe duplicate the campaign with the 2 that did work. Hopefully they pick up a different segment of the audience pool. Do you think that's sensible @Pritesh ?

I also want to test some new creative.

What's the best way to split-test in Facebook? 2 ads in one adset or 2 different adsets?

You want multiple ads in a single adset to test, otherwise how will you judge the performance if two different ads are targeting two different audiences.
 
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Pritesh

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Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I meant I wasted money on Google Ads and am moving to Facebook ads, not how to set up G Ads.

For single product ecom store, I've laid out some strategy in my previous replies on how to set up a testing campaign. Go from there. You'll need to spend money to train the FB pixel to recognize buying audience in your niche.
 

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Hey guys,

I am here to answer any questions you might have about Facebook ads.
I have around $2M+ Ad spend experience on Facebook (85% agency, 15% personal). Total paid ads experience of $7.2 M+ if you include Google Ads.

I am here only to talk about Facebook ads, as my experience with Google Ads is extremely one dimensional and I cannot give you any advice on that despite it being the majority of my ad spend.

I have run all types of ads on Facebook from app installs to dynamic product ads, from whitehat to cloaked ads, from lead gen to conversion, for ecom stores to small businesses almost everything. I have quit the agency to start my own and right now I am running only eCommerce ads for passive income and lead gen ads for offline service-based businesses.

I reserve the right to respond to questions that might force me to reveal my ad strategies, I particularly will not entertain any questions that directly ask me for my personal ad testing techniques, etc. I have my own approach to doing things, and revealing it would just not be in my best interests. I can, however, provide you critique on your ad testing approach.

Please do not ask me long-winded questions or stack 3+ question in a single post, I urge you to value my time.

All answers are my opinion and based on my experience, YMMV.

Finally, I am also working with a select group of individuals who need lead gen services for their business for video testimonials for my new agency, you can check it out here: FOR HIRE - Looking for Clients/Leads/Sales For Your Business? I am Your Guy
Hello there,

How do you see Fb advertising for industrial paints and coatings in general?? I work in a coatings factory and we want to start selling online. Right now we only sell B2B but we want to star B2C since we have lost 70% of the sales in 2 weeks.

Thanks and enjoy your day
 

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Video ads > Carousel > Single Image.
Yes. Video ads are great but have lead to tons of trash traffic to my website & pixel.

For example, if someone taps the play button it will open up the video with the website below the video, counting as a visit...most people aren't scrolling down to view the website. I’ve had 500+ visits with 0 website engagement.

Single image ads have higher CPC...but have gotten me higher quality traffic because it actually loads the website & people actually engage the site.

It’s weird.

Have you ever noticed that with your video ads?
 
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Pritesh

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Hello there,

How do you see Fb advertising for industrial paints and coatings in general?? I work in a coatings factory and we want to start selling online. Right now we only sell B2B but we want to star B2C since we have lost 70% of the sales in 2 weeks.

Thanks and enjoy your day

You're thinking the wrong way. You can sell almost anything on Facebook provided you can target your specific audience with it.
Go here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/audience-insights/
Check if your perfect customer can be targeted using the various options there.
If you can target them, check the size of the audience, and make an informed decision.


Yes. Video ads are great but have lead to tons of trash traffic to my website & pixel.

For example, if someone taps the play button it will open up the video with the website below the video, counting as a visit...most people aren't scrolling down to view the website. I’ve had 500+ visits with 0 website engagement.

Single image ads have higher CPC...but have gotten me higher quality traffic because it actually loads the website & people actually engage the site.

It’s weird.

Have you ever noticed that with your video ads?

Are you boosting your video posts/running Engagement ads? Those deliver you bottom of the barrel traffic and will never convert.
 

MisterBHZ

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Are you boosting your video posts/running Engagement ads? Those deliver you bottom of the barrel traffic and will never convert.
No. I don’t boost anything. I don’t run PPE either. I run either traffic or conversion objectives & the issue happens on both. This only happens with video.

When I use video in ads, people spend 10 seconds or less on my site. When I use a single image, people spend 2 minutes or more on my site.

This happens because when a person sees the video on their TL...they will tap the video instead of the CTA button. The video opens up full screen with the website below it. That's a big problem when it comes to website engagement.

I prefer to use video over images because its cheaper & gets way more traffic. But if it leads to the bulk of people leaving after a few seconds then whats the point?

I attached a pic showing exactly what I’m talking about.
DF870871-FD48-49B3-B9A3-4EB335AD5E73.jpeg
 
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The-J

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Yes. Video ads are great but have lead to tons of trash traffic to my website & pixel.

For example, if someone taps the play button it will open up the video with the website below the video, counting as a visit...most people aren't scrolling down to view the website. I’ve had 500+ visits with 0 website engagement.

Single image ads have higher CPC...but have gotten me higher quality traffic because it actually loads the website & people actually engage the site.

It’s weird.

Have you ever noticed that with your video ads?

I've noticed this myself but it's far from universal. What's required is to optimize for the lowest funnel action (or the lowest funnel action you can afford to optimize for) and you should see traffic quality improve.

Second, take a look at the placements. Video placements are numerous and just because you select "Feeds" category doesn't mean you're getting the best placements. Single image ads are almost always only in feeds FB/IG or right column (assuming you turned off Audience Network) but videos have a bunch more placements to choose from. In general, the FB feeds and IG feeds placements perform the best (have seen this across over 20 accounts) but you still want to test that too.

If you are doing this, then the issue is likely with the ad itself rather than the format. Sometimes you get ads with high CTRs and garbage conversion rates down the funnel, and that's generally because the crowd your ad is attracting is not interested in the rest of the stuff you have to offer.
 
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Hi Pritesh. Great thread with great advice. You really know your craft!

I have previously been running FB Ads for the fitness industry, and now I am trying to launch a Print-on-Demand e-commerce store. So I hope you can send me in the right direction with my FB Ads strategy.

We have 2 different products - there are 12 different designs to each product (so far).
We are not totally sure of our persona yet, but I believe 90 % of our buyers will be women and I believe that the age will not exceed 35-40 years old. We ship to most European countries and the US.

How would you go on with the targeting here? I noticed you wrote a lot about targeting broad in the beginning. Is women aged 18-35 too broad? It has to be said the budget for the ads will be around 20-30 USD a day combined, so cannot test that many variations of interests. So maybe it is just better to go broad in the beginning?

With a small combined budget of lets say 30 USD a day - what would your approach be? I am thinking of doing this the following way.

Test 2 different designs for Product 1 with broad ad-set - 5 USD a day per ad
Test 2 different designs for Product 2 with broad ad-set - 5 USD a day per ad

Then I would take a totally different design from product one and test it with 2 different ad creatives with 5 USD each.

So I will be doing 2 different testing methods. The first one I test the different designs and products against each other. And for the other method I test the same product and design with different ad creatives against each other. Hope that makes sense?

I also have retargeting in mind of course. But I guess that does not make sense in the first 3-7 days, as the pixel needs to be warmed up first?

Planning to launch next week. Would absolutely love a little feedback so I don't burn all my money immediately :)
 

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I've noticed this myself but it's far from universal. What's required is to optimize for the lowest funnel action (or the lowest funnel action you can afford to optimize for) and you should see traffic quality improve.

Second, take a look at the placements. Video placements are numerous and just because you select "Feeds" category doesn't mean you're getting the best placements. Single image ads are almost always only in feeds FB/IG or right column (assuming you turned off Audience Network) but videos have a bunch more placements to choose from. In general, the FB feeds and IG feeds placements perform the best (have seen this across over 20 accounts) but you still want to test that too.

If you are doing this, then the issue is likely with the ad itself rather than the format. Sometimes you get ads with high CTRs and garbage conversion rates down the funnel, and that's generally because the crowd your ad is attracting is not interested in the rest of the stuff you have to offer.
Yeah...I’ve been testing for years. No matter the video, the issue persist on FB. Like you said, images show up mostly on the main feed whereas videos show on the main feed, video feed & others. That could be the culprit.

IG doesn’t have that problem with video. I’ve gotten higher conversion rates on IG. It just costs more & gets much less traffic.
 

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You're thinking the wrong way. You can sell almost anything on Facebook provided you can target your specific audience with it.
Go here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/audience-insights/
Check if your perfect customer can be targeted using the various options there.
If you can target them, check the size of the audience, and make an informed decision.
Thanks for your answer. Nice reframing

I have checked the audience in every country where we sell and it seems to be around 400k per country. I used the keyword "paint(material)". I do not mean this is our ideal client, but just an orientative data. In my opinion, it is not a big audience but maybe just enough??

Besides that, another question that comes to mind is: What do you think is a good strategy/funnel to get the client from the social mindset to a buyer mindset since users do not go to Facebook to buy but to socialize. Or it is not THAT important??

Thanks again!!
 
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Pritesh

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No. I don’t boost anything. I don’t run PPE either. I run either traffic or conversion objectives & the issue happens on both. This only happens with video.

When I use video in ads, people spend 10 seconds or less on my site. When I use a single image, people spend 2 minutes or more on my site.

This happens because when a person sees the video on their TL...they will tap the video instead of the CTA button. The video opens up full screen with the website below it. That's a big problem when it comes to website engagement.

I prefer to use video over images because its cheaper & gets way more traffic. But if it leads to the bulk of people leaving after a few seconds then whats the point?

I attached a pic showing exactly what I’m talking about.
View attachment 32672

Plenty of ad networks use such techniques to arbitrarily inflate clicks, but when you have a person on your website, even if he miss clicked, you have his attention. If the visitor doesn't engage with your content on the website afterward, maybe look into a better lander experience.
I don't bother with this fact much tbh, just focus on faster lander load times and engaging lander. Every advertiser has to deal with what you just mentioned, but video ad inventory for FB is huge, so it's a small price to pay.
 
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Pritesh

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Hi Pritesh. Great thread with great advice. You really know your craft!

I have previously been running FB Ads for the fitness industry, and now I am trying to launch a Print-on-Demand e-commerce store. So I hope you can send me in the right direction with my FB Ads strategy.

We have 2 different products - there are 12 different designs to each product (so far).
We are not totally sure of our persona yet, but I believe 90 % of our buyers will be women and I believe that the age will not exceed 35-40 years old. We ship to most European countries and the US.

How would you go on with the targeting here? I noticed you wrote a lot about targeting broad in the beginning. Is women aged 18-35 too broad? It has to be said the budget for the ads will be around 20-30 USD a day combined, so cannot test that many variations of interests. So maybe it is just better to go broad in the beginning?

With a small combined budget of lets say 30 USD a day - what would your approach be? I am thinking of doing this the following way.

Test 2 different designs for Product 1 with broad ad-set - 5 USD a day per ad
Test 2 different designs for Product 2 with broad ad-set - 5 USD a day per ad

Then I would take a totally different design from product one and test it with 2 different ad creatives with 5 USD each.

So I will be doing 2 different testing methods. The first one I test the different designs and products against each other. And for the other method I test the same product and design with different ad creatives against each other. Hope that makes sense?

I also have retargeting in mind of course. But I guess that does not make sense in the first 3-7 days, as the pixel needs to be warmed up first?

Planning to launch next week. Would absolutely love a little feedback so I don't burn all my money immediately :)

Is it a niche print on demand store?

If it isn't, for mass appeal products I'd recommend running a Conversion>Dynamic creative ad.
I recommend at least 5 different products in a similar category to test, 2 is a bit too low.
But if 2 is your ceiling, test 5 different creative at least 2 of product A and 3 of product B.
The audience, in this case, would be broad no interests, 18-45, Female, whole country (if you ship it).

After 3 days,
Go to the Breakdown tab (usually top right near reports) -> By dynamic creative asset. Check which image is the standout winner. You could also test different Headlines and Body during dynamic creative creation.
Next Breakdown -> By delivery -> Age

These should give you enough metrics to get you started to test different audiences. Like you mentioned you want to test broad interests in this phase around 2-5 million audience each adset.


Thanks for your answer. Nice reframing

I have checked the audience in every country where we sell and it seems to be around 400k per country. I used the keyword "paint(material)". I do not mean this is our ideal client, but just an orientative data. In my opinion, it is not a big audience but maybe just enough??

Besides that, another question that comes to mind is: What do you think is a good strategy/funnel to get the client from the social mindset to a buyer mindset since users do not go to Facebook to buy but to socialize. Or it is not THAT important??

Thanks again!!

The best way to research funnels would be to find how your competitors are doing it. Even Google ad competitors would have a lander/funnel for you to take inspiration from. You can also go to Facebook pages of similar businesses, then go to Page transparency and see if they're running any ads or go here: Ad Library or just google your service and take the top ad results as inspiration.
 
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These should give you enough metrics to get you started to test different audiences. Like you mentioned you want to test broad interests in this phase around 2-5 million audience each adset.

Hi Pritesh. Really appreciate the reply. Unfortunately I launched the ads before I saw your reply. Next time I will look into your advice though :)

I did the following:

I have split my target audience into 2 geographic areas. For both area I run 3 ads. So it looks a bit like this:

Geographic Area 1:
- Product A Design 1
- Product A Design 2
- Product A Carousel of 4 Designs

And the same for Geographic Area 2.

It is definitely a challenge to have a small ad budget when you need to test. I will pick the winner though and then start to test creatives.

I am just a little freaked out about one little thing. I do NOT run ads for the US, but I can see that I get a lot of visitors for my Ads LP from New Jersey, US.Does anyone have any idea how that can be haha?
 
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Just a quick question for all you bright people. Have been searching around the internet and couldn't find a clear answer (maybe because there isn't one).

I know it all depends on niche, target audience etc. But what would you say is the statistical relevance when split-testing?

I read somewhere in here that 1000 impressions and 3 days - but I guess that it is different for each audience and niche?

I have 2 different audiences of between 1,5-2 million people. So far I am running 6 different ads with each on around 2000 impressions. I know that it is probably to early to tell when my audience is so huge. But would you say that after around 4000 impressions I could kill of the bad ads and continue with the best performing ones?

Please take in fact that I do have a small budget, so I need to kill some of these ads in order to test new ads. Otherwise, I would of course let them run more in order to get a more significant relevance :)
 

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Just a quick question for all you bright people. Have been searching around the internet and couldn't find a clear answer (maybe because there isn't one).

I know it all depends on niche, target audience etc. But what would you say is the statistical relevance when split-testing?

I read somewhere in here that 1000 impressions and 3 days - but I guess that it is different for each audience and niche?

I have 2 different audiences of between 1,5-2 million people. So far I am running 6 different ads with each on around 2000 impressions. I know that it is probably to early to tell when my audience is so huge. But would you say that after around 4000 impressions I could kill of the bad ads and continue with the best performing ones?

Please take in fact that I do have a small budget, so I need to kill some of these ads in order to test new ads. Otherwise, I would of course let them run more in order to get a more significant relevance :)

Is the product impulse buy?
For impulse buy products which doesn't take much decision making, having 8000 Impressions and 5-6k reach is enough to judge the ad set. Running 2 ads in one ad set? 4000 impression is enough per ad. Then you need to figure out the problem. Is it an audience? is it copy? was your ad relevant to the audience? The overall message of the ad should resonate with the audience. If not, then no amount of impression will tell you the correct answer.
 

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