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Invented Product: Testing Market w/ Amazon Product Listing and Facebook Ads

Chibbs

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Hey all,

I recently started a new ecommerce business venture. When I moved to a new house and installed by weight room in the basement. I realized the I-joist ceiling was the perfect place to hang pullup bars & monkey bars. I came up with a design that allowed me to create a pull up bar product with a piece of steel pipe and some 3D printed parts.

I have since filed a provisional patent, generated a ton of marketing content, and listed on amazon FBM and PPC the next day. I have everything sorted out for the installation manual, product packing, etc. so the product is ready to ship.

This is where I'm a bit stuck. I would like to test the concept as quickly as possible, but I also don't want to waste advertising money bringing people to a product listing when I could be creating a sales funnel to capture emails and engagement. My plan now is to create a facebook ad to target market market and generate awareness of the product. However, I am reading up and most people suggest using a landing page to gather leads, which would require more efffort and money from me (seems like a product video is crucuial to landing page success).

I am wondering, in this type of situation, what would you all suggest a guy do. Immediately create a facebook ad to drive customers to my amazon listing or take the time to set up the sales funnel first?
 
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OverByte

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but I also don't want to waste advertising money bringing people to a product listing when I could be creating a sales funnel to capture emails and engagement.

Why wouldn't you want to bring people directly to product page if you have a product that is ready to ship? Do you want emails or do you want sales?

I suggest running Facebook ads for conversion objective and have them run direct to your product page. You don't need a video for this to get started just have good pics and copy and get started. If you don't have any sales start with low budget and work on optimizing your page.

Not sure where you saw advice to capture leads and emails instead of selling. All situations are different but in e-commerce context if you have a product ready to sell go direct response for the sale.

If you're new to fb ads then test a few creatives using objective conversion landing page view. See which ones have highest ctr after a couple thousand impressions and then use the winning post for a conversion purchase objective. You can run low budget engagement campaign using the same post id to get some social proof on the winning creative. Use the same post id for conversion objective and test different audiences. Rinse repeat test test test
 
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Kid

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If i were you i would capture leads on YOUR website.
It can be something simple done on free websites like wix.

If your ad budget is small, email would give you ability to resend your message
for fraction of the cost (instead of having them click CPC again).

If your budget isn't that limited, do ads to Amazon listing.
If people will buy, create website with lead capture to maximise return on ad spend.
 

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Please keep in mind that you cannot do proper attribution if you do (non-amazon) PPC to Amazon listing directly.
 
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Chibbs

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Why wouldn't you want to bring people directly to product page if you have a product that is ready to ship? Do you want emails or do you want sales?

I suggest running Facebook ads for conversion objective and have them run direct to your product page. You don't need a video for this to get started just have good pics and copy and get started. If you don't have any sales start with low budget and work on optimizing your page.

Not sure where you saw advice to capture leads and emails instead of selling. All situations are different but in e-commerce context if you have a product ready to sell go direct response for the sale.

If you're new to fb ads then test a few creatives using objective conversion landing page view. See which ones have highest ctr after a couple thousand impressions and then use the winning post for a conversion purchase objective. You can run low budget engagement campaign using the same post id to get some social proof on the winning creative. Use the same post id for conversion objective and test different audiences. Rinse repeat test test test

Wow, this basically confirms my initial thinking. I love the idea of a/b testing the creatives.

My experience with FB ads limited, so I'm a bit lost in the jargon but I'm sure it won't take me long! Looking into setting these ads up now. Thanks
 

Chibbs

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If i were you i would capture leads on YOUR website.
It can be something simple done on free websites like wix.

If your ad budget is small, email would give you ability to resend your message
for fraction of the cost (instead of having them click CPC again).

If your budget isn't that limited, do ads to Amazon listing.
If people will buy, create website with lead capture to maximise return on ad spend.
So you're saying, set up a landing page to capture leads and direct them to the amazon listing would maximize my return on ad spend. Seems to be a trade off here. As in this method would be better long term but longer to implement.

I am basically funding the marketing from my own pocket until I can get sales going (crossing fingers). I feel the quickest would be to run the ads straight to amazon to see if I can get at least a few bites and then roll out a proper funnel.
 

Kid

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I am basically funding the marketing from my own pocket until I can get sales going (crossing fingers). I feel the quickest would be to run the ads straight to amazon to see if I can get at least a few bites and then roll out a proper funnel.
That's also a good way. Be sure to set budget gradually. People advise $5-$10 a day budget for a start on FB to test waters. You can increase budget anytime so no problem in doing it quicker -when you'll get more comfortable with the system.
 
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samuraijack

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Hey all,

I recently started a new ecommerce business venture. When I moved to a new house and installed by weight room in the basement. I realized the I-joist ceiling was the perfect place to hang pullup bars & monkey bars. I came up with a design that allowed me to create a pull up bar product with a piece of steel pipe and some 3D printed parts.

I have since filed a provisional patent, generated a ton of marketing content, and listed on amazon FBM and PPC the next day. I have everything sorted out for the installation manual, product packing, etc. so the product is ready to ship.

This is where I'm a bit stuck. I would like to test the concept as quickly as possible, but I also don't want to waste advertising money bringing people to a product listing when I could be creating a sales funnel to capture emails and engagement. My plan now is to create a facebook ad to target market market and generate awareness of the product. However, I am reading up and most people suggest using a landing page to gather leads, which would require more efffort and money from me (seems like a product video is crucuial to landing page success).

I am wondering, in this type of situation, what would you all suggest a guy do. Immediately create a facebook ad to drive customers to my amazon listing or take the time to set up the sales funnel first?
What would a successful test of concept look like to you? If it's organic sales through Amazon then you'd need to rank for the search terms you are targeting and have reviews. What's your plan for these?
 

Chibbs

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What would a successful test of concept look like to you? If it's organic sales through Amazon then you'd need to rank for the search terms you are targeting and have reviews. What's your plan for these?
I rank no-where near the top in amazon. Right now I have no reviews and even my PPC campaign has had no results thus far. My product is sufficiently unique that it is different that anything else out there. I would like to drive people to the listing, get sales, get reviews, and slowly move up the organic rankings.
 

OverByte

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What's the product price point? Higher priced products will typically have longer cycles and benefit heavily from retargeting.

Also, I'd like to caveat my initial post and say that I did not realize you were running the fb ads to amazon vs your own site, as @maverick pointed out your attribution will be off and this may affect fb ad performance. Someone more experienced with fb and Amazon may be able to let you know. My experience is with fb to my own site. Still I think the method I laid out is the fastest to get you sales. I also believe fb has the ability to upload conversion data manually so if you get sales on amazon this may be a way where you can get proper attribution back to your adsets which will be important for ad performance as well as creating lla's in the future. You can still retarget based on post engagement audiences even if running on amazon though these won't be as good as website visitor retargeting. I suggest you start retargeting with a small budget ad set. Keep your eye on frequency if your audience size is small. Keep budget low so you aren't spamming your ads with a 5x frequency
 
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OverByte

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Also, Are you running amazon ppc?
 

Chibbs

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What's the product price point? Higher priced products will typically have longer cycles and benefit heavily from retargeting.

Also, I'd like to caveat my initial post and say that I did not realize you were running the fb ads to amazon vs your own site, as @maverick pointed out your attribution will be off and this may affect fb ad performance. Someone more experienced with fb and Amazon may be able to let you know. My experience is with fb to my own site. Still I think the method I laid out is the fastest to get you sales. I also believe fb has the ability to upload conversion data manually so if you get sales on amazon this may be a way where you can get proper attribution back to your adsets which will be important for ad performance as well as creating lla's in the future. You can still retarget based on post engagement audiences even if running on amazon though these won't be as good as website visitor retargeting. I suggest you start retargeting with a small budget ad set. Keep your eye on frequency if your audience size is small. Keep budget low so you aren't spamming your ads with a 5x frequency
Would you suggest I start my own website versus selling amazon? I'm not tied to anything here, just thought amazon would be easiest way to get listed.

Yes, I'm running Amazon PPC but don't think I'm getting any traction their since my product has no reviews.

Edit-- Price point is $25-55 range
 

samuraijack

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I rank no-where near the top in amazon. Right now I have no reviews and even my PPC campaign has had no results thus far. My product is sufficiently unique that it is different that anything else out there. I would like to drive people to the listing, get sales, get reviews, and slowly move up the organic rankings.

PPC is hard to convert when you have no reviews. Can you get some through friends & family (make sure they don't live in the same household)? Lot's of sellers use full rebates to get the initial reviews. (Ad -> Manychat flow / landing page -> Amazon super url / SearchFindBuy method -> 1 week later customer submits review and you give them a rebate through paypal / giftcard).

Fb ads to landing page with super url will get you ranking for keywords in no time if your product is priced low or you use a deep discount code.
 
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Chibbs

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PPC is hard to convert when you have no reviews. Can you get some through friends & family (make sure they don't live in the same household)? Lot's of sellers use full rebates to get the initial reviews. (Ad -> Manychat flow / landing page -> Amazon super url / SearchFindBuy method -> 1 week later customer submits review and you give them a rebate through paypal / giftcard).

Fb ads to landing page with super url will get you ranking for keywords in no time if your product is priced low or you use a deep discount code.
I thought about asking some people I know to purchase the product but they seem to take that pretty seriously. Is this still common? I'm sure I could find some friends to buy it and leave a review but not trying to get banned.

Thanks for the tip on the super URL, do you use a specific super url generator? I read an article that said you need to regenerate the super url otherwise each sale affter the first is treated as a duplicate and doesn't "count" toward the algorithm.
 

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Would you suggest I start my own website versus selling amazon? I'm not tied to anything here, just thought amazon would be easiest way to get listed.

Yes, I'm running Amazon PPC but don't think I'm getting any traction their since my product has no reviews.

Edit-- Price point is $25-55 range

How does your listing look? Run ppc ads to it and drop the price to $14.99 and you will get sales.
 

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How does your listing look? Run ppc ads to it and drop the price to $14.99 and you will get sales.
Biophase, thanks for the suggestion. I will basically be giving the product away at that price point but worth a shot!
 
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Chibbs

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Just a quick update.

I am still running my amazon PPC campaign but I lowered the price of the product to under $20.

Right now I need to get the first sales and also test out which quantity the buyer is typically going to purchase (the product works as a system, I believe 2 will be the most common).

Today I am going to be learning facebook ads, pixel, etc so I get a better understanding of it. Hopefully can get this thing going!

What do you all think about asking friends to purchase and review the product? Is that viable?
 

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I am impressed with how much so many of ya'll know about this stuff! Have you come across a short-ish video that gives a good rundown on this stuff (post invention) like PPC, landing pages etc... This would not be my main future move, just mildly curious...
 

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A little update. The last two days I have had some traction. Have had 8 clicks on my product but no bites yet. I suspect my conversion rate will be low until I can get some reviews.
 
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Chibbs

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Looked into it a bit more and it seems like I am getting most of my ad spend at a generic search term with high CPC. So i turned off that search term. I don't think I will convert enough of that search term to justify the high CPC ($2.43).

Since this is niche product, I am going to save my money and pay more for the keywords that will convert. I am not solving the customers problem with my product for 90% off the broad search terms, I realize now that this is just going to cost me money and not convert. Amazon is making some cash off me!

My product takes advantage of a specific feature in the design of modern homes, so i expect that only 30% off the clicks for "home gym" or similar would have a home that is compatible for my product.
 

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Are you looking to build your sales around paid marketing?

I would say that your biggest issues with running FB ads to a physical product in the sub $50 arena is profitability. You are learning how to run FB ads at the most expensive time of year with the run up to Christmas. As a result you are likely to be running negatively the entire season unless you have a great funnel with strong upsells.

The only glimmer of hope I see to making profit is early January when you can guarantee lower ad costs and you can capitalise on the New Years Resolution brigade who will be out in full force with the ‘lose weight and get fit’ promises to themselves.
 

Chibbs

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Are you looking to build your sales around paid marketing?

I would say that your biggest issues with running FB ads to a physical product in the sub $50 arena is profitability. You are learning how to run FB ads at the most expensive time of year with the run up to Christmas. As a result you are likely to be running negatively the entire season unless you have a great funnel with strong upsells.

The only glimmer of hope I see to making profit is early January when you can guarantee lower ad costs and you can capitalise on the New Years Resolution brigade who will be out in full force with the ‘lose weight and get fit’ promises to themselves.
Thanks Razorcut. Would you wait for paid advertising in January or is there another strategy you might suggest without the facebook ads?

I would add that I am not tied down to anything just looking for the best way to get some initial sales and reviews
 
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Hey all,

I recently started a new ecommerce business venture. When I moved to a new house and installed by weight room in the basement. I realized the I-joist ceiling was the perfect place to hang pullup bars & monkey bars. I came up with a design that allowed me to create a pull up bar product with a piece of steel pipe and some 3D printed parts.

I have since filed a provisional patent, generated a ton of marketing content, and listed on amazon FBM and PPC the next day. I have everything sorted out for the installation manual, product packing, etc. so the product is ready to ship.

This is where I'm a bit stuck. I would like to test the concept as quickly as possible, but I also don't want to waste advertising money bringing people to a product listing when I could be creating a sales funnel to capture emails and engagement. My plan now is to create a facebook ad to target market market and generate awareness of the product. However, I am reading up and most people suggest using a landing page to gather leads, which would require more efffort and money from me (seems like a product video is crucuial to landing page success).

I am wondering, in this type of situation, what would you all suggest a guy do. Immediately create a facebook ad to drive customers to my amazon listing or take the time to set up the sales funnel first?
What search terms should I use to find it? MIght a few of us from your tribe doing searches hep? :)
 

samuraijack

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@Chibbs You should have a long term plan as many are suggesting here, but since your immediate goal is to test the market and see if people will buy your product and what they think of it, just focus on that now.
 

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@Chibbs You should have a long term plan as many are suggesting here, but since your immediate goal is to test the market and see if people will buy your product and what they think of it, just focus on that now.
Thanks. I think my key here is to get those first few reviews. Have not been able to cconvert thus far, anyone have a suggestion on those first reviews?
 
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Would you suggest I start my own website versus selling amazon? I'm not tied to anything here, just thought amazon would be easiest way to get listed.

Yes, I'm running Amazon PPC but don't think I'm getting any traction their since my product has no reviews.

Edit-- Price point is $25-55 range

Re: website vs amazon. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Pros to amazon are that the platform is provided for you and it provides a ready to go infrastructure along with access to a market, PPC abilities and probably most importantly TRUST. People will buy things on amazon from unknown brands because they know amazon will back them if the product turns out to be faulty. The con is you lose control which is the pro of the website route. With your own website you have greater control over the listing and probably most importantly have access to the appropriate metrics and retargeting abilities. This is the biggest benefit. The biggest con with your own site in my opinion is the lack of trust you must overcome with new customers. Reviews are a big part of overcoming this but there are other ways to get around it as well. Like offering a guarantee, lower price point to start with to reduce risk, you could also indicate the sale is limited and stick a NEW badge or something next to the product (these are all strategies for selling on your own site, not all applicable/possible on Amazon)

If you have a profitable product ideally you do both (amazon and own site), which one you want to start with is debatable.

As some other posters mentioned the price point of $25 will be challenging to run profitable PPC, even if that was 100% margin. If you have a $50-55 product though with a 50% margin or better I think PPC can work for you.

Also you can lower your price point to get initial sales and reviews but don't have to sustain that breakeven/loss price point. I believe @biophase has described a strategy similar to that for a new brand in his AMA (which is excellent and you should definitely read if you haven't and follow him as he provides valuable insight into the e-commerce industry). Basically if you think the product can be profitably you can sell at a loss to get reviews to climb through the rankings, note that is an Amazon strategy since Amazon will reward you with higher placement once you get reviews. On your own website I would say this is less valuable.

How much have you spent on PPC so far without any sales (would be good if you gave a breakdown of amazon vs facebook)? Also is this the first product you're selling? If so it's possible your product is ok but your listing is the problem...
 
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Chibbs

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Re: website vs amazon. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Pros to amazon are that the platform is provided for you and it provides a ready to go infrastructure along with access to a market, PPC abilities and probably most importantly TRUST. People will buy things on amazon from unknown brands because they know amazon will back them if the product turns out to be faulty. The con is you lose control which is the pro of the website route. With your own website you have greater control over the listing and probably most importantly have access to the appropriate metrics and retargeting abilities. This is the biggest benefit. The biggest con with your own site in my opinion is the lack of trust you must overcome with new customers. Reviews are a big part of overcoming this but there are other ways to get around it as well. Like offering a guarantee, lower price point to start with to reduce risk, you could also indicate the sale is limited and stick a NEW badge or something next to the product (these are all strategies for selling on your own site, not all applicable/possible on Amazon)

If you have a profitable product ideally you do both (amazon and own site), which one you want to start with is debatable.

As some other posters mentioned the price point of $25 will be challenging to run profitable PPC, even if that was 100% margin. If you have a $50-55 product though with a 50% margin or better I think PPC can work for you.

Also you can lower your price point to get initial sales and reviews but don't have to sustain that breakeven/loss price point. I believe @biophase has described a strategy similar to that for a new brand in his AMA (which is excellent and you should definitely read if you haven't and follow him as he provides valuable insight into the e-commerce industry). Basically if you think the product can be profitably you can sell at a loss to get reviews to climb through the rankings, note that is an Amazon strategy since Amazon will reward you with higher placement once you get reviews. On your own website I would say this is less valuable.

How much have you spent on PPC so far without any sales (would be good if you gave a breakdown of amazon vs facebook)? Also is this the first product you're selling? If so it's possible your product is ok but your listing is the problem...
I ended up holding off on the facebook ads for now. I wanted to see if I can get some sales, which I expect would increase after I get some reviews.

Although currently it is not looking good for the PPC route. 21 clicks with no sales so far. I am thinking a curated advertisement such as facebook/instagram might be the way to go for me since my product is only viable for subset of the people searching on amazon for my search terms. People are searching for something generic which my product wont solve the problem for 90% of those people.

The other 10% who would buy it are my target and I am the only one offering this configuration so if I can find them I believe I can charge up to $65 w/ way over 50% margin.
 

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@Chibbs I think you should first define, what exactly you want to test. a) If the product itself is working for customers (like if they understand the concept, are able to use it, like the quality etc.) or b) if you can sell the product to someone = if there is a market for your product.

In your initial post for me it sounds like a), because you write "I would like to test the concept as quickly as possible, ...." In this case, the numbers about the ads, how much you spent etc. are not interesting, because in this phase, you don't want to test the market :)

I had the same problem: My (digital) product is ready as a prototype and I wanted to test, if people like it. But I wasn't able to sell it. It took me weeks to figure out, that it was the best for me, to first go for b) - if the market is ready and THEN, after I sold a few, to collect the feedback about the product from real customers.

My suggestion:
"My solution" to first go for b) won't work for you, because you want to get quickly reviews for Amazon. I think in this case it's even more important, that you know, that your product works as expected and people like it (meaning a). Otherwise you get bad reviews...

Therefore I'd focus on a) and for this the best way is to give out a bunch of your products for free in exchange for a review via e-mail (based on a questionnaire provided by you). If the reviews are positive, you know that your product works AND you have access to real customers. Ask them, if they can add this review also at Amazon and the most people will do ;)

How to get customers, that you can hand out the product for free? Facebook groups. Just become member of some groups, where you think your target audience is present. Be honest and tell them, that you'd like to test a new product and want to have feedback. Explain the idea of the product with a picture and create scarcity by saying: "Only the first [number of people you're willing to get a free product] until this Sunday will get it" and most likely you will get some testers. Use this chance to also understand demographics and WHY people think, they would need your product. This helps you optimizing your campaigns (targeting, keywords etc.) later on.

When you have reviews you can go on with Amazon PPC and in parallel with Facebook ads and a landing page with real testimonials. You know then much more about your target audience, know that your product works - then you are ready to test the market - it only took you X products for free and time. Testing the market with a product that is proven is much better than the other way around. Because you have lots of options to test the market (channels, price, ads, copy, images etc.) but limited options to change the product ;)

For my product I didn't chose this way, because I was able to test my prototype with people around me. I saw, that it works, therefore I went on with b) and get more feedback from real customers afterwards.

And finally: Congrats that you went this far with your product already! I feel with you - I'm still figuring out, how to place my product in the market (also fitness) correct, but every week there is progress!
 
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St. Petersburg, FL
Interesting product and marketing experiment. Thank you very much for sharing.

- Is this product for an unfinished room such as a basement or garage ? or just any room in a house ?
- If yes above, is there a way to target people as they move into new homes, or when they are looking to install a new gym in their garage / basement ? This must be pretty popular now that many rather not go to gyms.
- Have you considered licensing it ? (I am interested in this path for a few ideas of my own)
 

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