9 Must-Use Expert Facebook Strategies for Expert eCommerce Entrepreneurs

To really win at Facebook marketing you need a variety of campaign strategies. Campaigns that take into account who your potential shopper is and where they are in the conversion stages of your online store – dividing them into groups of people who are, say, getting to know your brand, have visited your site a certain number of times, or who have bought from you before.  

What really sets the pros apart from amateurs when it comes to Facebook strategies is that pros play the long game with conversion funnel strategies.

Coming up with a variety of campaigns that reach various segments at various stages is fundamental to a winning Facebook strategy. Why? Not everyone wants to “buy now.” Creating long game conversion funnels can go a long way to setting up brand awareness and promotion sales. Some buyers need more proof – more time to be wooed before they make that cash sale.

Here are some potential shopper stages:

• Cold leads: people who haven’t met your store before
• Lukewarm leads: traffic that has browsed your store but took no action
• Blog/content readers: regular traffic coming from your blog content
• Warm leads: potential shoppers who almost bought from you
• Repeat customers: People who have bought from you before

The ideal conversion funnel should include a variety of ads that attract, convert, close and boost loyalty. Start off right by creating a variety of Custom Facebook Audiences, including a segmentation of potential shoppers, and create ads or promotions based on what stage they are at and include cross-channel marketing incentives.

So what are top campaigns every eCommerce marketer needs to ensure they are reaching potential shoppers across every conversion stage? Here are the 9 must-use expert Facebook strategies for online store marketers.

1. Run Recurring Retargeting Campaigns

On average, as many as three quarters of online shoppers will abandon shopping at checkout and if you’re not running retargeting campaigns the chances of them coming back to make the purchase is less than ten percent. By running recurring retargeting Facebook campaigns you can increase CTRs by as much as ten times.

Creating the perfect retargeting campaign means taking a look at insights and creating highly segmented campaigns that target potential shoppers at the right time. Look at where in the buying process they are ‘jumping ship’ and why they would be doing so.

For example, according to Search Engine Land, up to 55% of shoppers abandoned checkout because they feel the store’s shipping fees are too high, therefore creating a retargeting campaign offering a shipping discount could get those shoppers back in a buying mood.

2. Test Upsell Campaigns

In the United States it is estimated that as much as 40% of revenue is earned from repeat shoppers: customers who have bought from brands already. This kind of data is hugely valuable when planning out your conversion funnel Facebook ads because it tells us that upselling campaigns could be very lucrative and are worth a test.

So, what is an upsell campaign? It’s a campaign that specifically targets your shoppers, showing them related products that go with what they have bought.

Say you’re selling in the clothing apparel niche and your customer just bought a dress; you could then direct ads to shoppers who bought that specific product with upsell campaigns for an array of matching accessories. Or you could create campaigns that revive past shoppers from months ago with product updates or discounts.

3. Beat Newsfeed Clutter with Video Ads

In 2018, if you’re not already using video ads, you are falling very far behind the pack. With newsfeed real estate competition heating up, video ads are no longer a friendly suggestion – they are a Facebook ad necessity for eCommerce business. Not only do they offer marketers the lowest CPC, but according to Adobe, video-viewing shoppers are 1.8 times more likely to buy.

There are so many video campaign options out there: from boosting UGC videos of shoppers using your products to showing behind-the-scenes footage of new products before they launch and showing season trends – the possibilities are endless and there’s certainly a video type to suit any level of the conversion funnel your target audience is in.  

4. Run Multi-Product Dynamic Facebook Ads

Another must-have expert Facebook strategy is running multi-product ads.

Facebook multi-product ads increase conversions by showing customers a variety of product options or highlighting different product benefits in one ad. But their real power lies in combination with Dynamic Product ads.

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads are remarketing ads, either single or multi-product display, that are automatically displayed based on what products someone viewed on your site. According to Facebook, the following brands reported considerable ROI increases with Dynamic Product Ads:

• Shutterfly reported a 20% CTR increase
• The Honest Company reported 34% CTR increase
• Target reported a 20% increase in conversions

To sum up: If you want to run with the big boys, you need to take ad automation to the next level – making Facebook Dynamic Multi-Product Ads a must.

5. Reach New Shoppers with Lookalike Audiences

Lookalike audiences allow you to target audiences who are similar to people who have already shopped at your store. It’s a great tool for the beginning of the conversion funnel to help you build brand awareness for those more likely to be interested in what you are selling. You can create lookalike campaigns based on conversions – people who have engaged with your content, email lists and page likes.

When segmenting your audiences and campaigns, think about who you’re talking to – what they are interested in, where they are located and what their habits are.

6. Merge Facebook Ads and Content Marketing

If you want to create a well-structured Facebook marketing strategy, you need to include both hard-sell tactics aimed at getting warm leads to push checkout, and interest campaigns delivering relevant content aimed at colder leads: i.e., content marketing.

When it comes to eCommerce marketing, especially when budgets are smaller, it’s tempting to go straight for the jugular: creating hard-sell campaigns and promotions to sell products to warm and cold leads together.

But to be a successful Facebook marketer you need to cover all fronts and all buying stages. By blending your content marketing and Facebook strategies you will build branding and establish yourself as an authority in your niche, all while you turn cold into warm leads and gather engagement data and web traffic you can use for killer remarketing campaigns.

7. Share Your Brand Story

Another Facebook strategy to include in your strategy should be to show off your brand’s personal side. By using your brand’s unique story in boosted posts and campaigns you will be able to communicate your brand’s story to more people and build brand awareness.

If you don’t think it’s a worthy investment, think again! A Facebook study found that when Refinery changed ads to brand stories, there was an 87% increase in landing page traffic.

There are a number of ways you can create brand stories to incorporate in your Facebook strategy. Here are just a few to get the creative juices flowing:

• Give short pieces of your story in a series of posts like the above example
• Tell your story on video

• Write your brand story in a long-form post with great images showing your store’s ‘human side’
• Create a Facebook ‘Behind the Scenes’ album that you can build and add to
• Do regular Facebook Lives
• Use social responsibility to make a difference and tell a story  

8. Match Up AdWords and Facebook Ad Strategies  

When it comes to eCommerce traffic, we know Facebook and AdWords is an absolute must. But are you working your strategies in tandem? Lining up strategies can have huge payoffs and it is super simple to do. Here’s an example of the approach:

Step 1: Build brand awareness and get web traffic with Facebook ads

Step 2: Run AdWords remarketing campaigns to retarget those audiences who are searching for keywords you’re bidding on

By partnering up these two strategies, by the time a searcher is looking for what you’re selling they will already recognize your name and thus increase your chances of converting.

New to AdWords? Check out our What Do I Need to Know About Google AdWords? guide.

9. Turn Happy Customers into Loyal Customers

Last, but by no means least, you should be using Facebook marketing to turn your happy customers into loyal shoppers and brand fans. Think about your shoppers and what added service, value or offer you can create for them specifically. How can you stay fresh in the mind of those happy customers?

A great way to approach this is to run a specific special, promotion, or exclusive content post aimed at past buyers. By using custom audiences and conversions these ads will run automatically based on the rules you set. Or you can use Facebook campaigns to share surveys where you ask for your customers’ valuable insight.

Whichever way you tackle these campaigns, what’s important is that you have at least one campaign in your Facebook strategy bag of tricks that is exclusively aimed at repeat happy customers to ensure you turn them into loyal customers.

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There you have it, 9 must-use expert Facebook strategies if you want to start driving sales and upping your eCommerce game this year. The bottom line in creating a well-rounded Facebook strategy is this: always go back to the basics – to your target audience and ideal shopper. Think about them at every stage, from getting to know your brand to pushing checkout, and tailor your campaigns to each stage. Remember to keep your audiences as segmented as possible and adapt your promotions to each segment so that you are talking their language and increasing your ad engagement.

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