Facebook Ad Strategies for Small Business Retailers

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Business can be a lonely game. But it doesn't have to be. Welcome to Boutique Chat, where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek. We'll hear from product based businesses of all types, retailers, e commerce and wholesale brands, along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat. Okay, guys, I am so excited for you to listen to this week's episode. Make sure you bring a notebook because you're definitely going to want to take notes if you have had any curiosity around Facebook ads. Whether you're brand new to Facebook ads or you're using an agency or maybe you're running your own ads and you just want to scale it a little bit greater. Facebook ads is just so such a moving target. There's always something to know. There's always a new strategy. There's always a new angle. So today I'm so excited. I'm bringing in our director of marketing, Jeff Ben. Many of you already know him inside of the Boutique Hub and Retail boot camp and Boutique Hub Black. He is a master when it comes to Facebook ads and really all paid traffic that comes to Google and all kinds of SEO strategies on top of it. Today we're breaking down everything you need to know on Facebook ads. When it comes to misconceptions, people have, budget issues, people have when to know you're ready, when, whether you're an online store or a brick and mortar, how can you break down the ad funnel to put it into use in your business? And when do you know if you find an awesome agency to run it and when do you know if you take it in house and run it? We're going to talk about that today as well. So get ready. Bring a notebook. We're going to. We're going to go in depth. So let's do this. Meet my friend Jeff and our director of marketing here at the Boutique Hub.

Hey, guys.

Welcome back to the podcast. This week I've got a familiar face around here. I don't even know what to call you anymore. It was the marketing unicorn. Now it's like Mr. Leopard Pants. You've got many aliases around the Boutique Hub.

I believe that's true. Actually. My trend finally caught on after five years. Leopard pants are in this season, so yeah, it's good.

I tagged you on Instagram the other day. I keep seeing leopard pants videos and I know boutique owners keep seeing them and sending them your way. So for. For those of you who don't know yet, Jeff Fenn is our director of marketing here at the Boutique Hub, and ads and paid traffic are one of his specialties. So we're gonna deep dive into it today. But the funny part is, as you teach on ads and traffic and in all marketing topics, really, leopard pants are always your analogy, always what you're searching for and teaching on. So nice to see that come full circle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're an important part to any wardrobe. As matter of fact, you wouldn't believe how many pairs I have that have been sent to me. I've never worn a pair, I don't think, but the. The, you know, people do have a tendency to send them to me.

You people have actually sent you leopard pants?

Yeah.

I think you need to, like, lay them all out and take a picture of them and put this in the Hub.

Maybe. Perhaps. Perhaps. That seems like something more that one of our team members would do.

I love it. All right, well, let's dig in. So I'm pumped that you're on the podcast today. And for today, we're going to hone in specifically on ads, because, man, there's always questions on ads every single day in the Hub from, when is it right to run my own ads? Should I hire an agency to run my ads? Or I've been using an agency and I want to take my ads back in house. But ads are such a moving target. Every time you log in, it seems like something's different on the back end of Facebook. And so it seems like it's a lot to keep up with. And I think sometimes just the overwhelming nature of it can stop people before they start. So hopefully today we can kind of dig in and take some of that mystery away for everyone. So let's start here. There's a lot of misconceptions and misnomers when it comes to running ads, so let's debunk a few things to get started. So how would you say, you know, when someone's evaluating, am I even ready to run ads? And people disqualify themselves, what would you say? How do you know when you're ready to actually start running ads?

Yeah. So, you know, this is one of the most common questions I see amongst new retailers, new boutique owners, new home and gift store owners is like, first of all, do I need ads? Like, will my business grow organically without paid promotion? Like, can I. Can I create a social media page? And. And following that will support my business enough to, like, realize My income stream dreams. I didn't mean to write that, but that's kind of cool. But anyway, so, so like. And so anyway, so anyway, so, you know, will it, will it work? Or, you know, like, is organic traffic enough? Do I need ads? And then if I do decide that, you know, it's probably a good option. Am I ready? And so on the first side, on the first part of that, you know, unfortunately in 2012, 2011, when Facebook first launched and people were just starting to get into it, it was not a pay to play platform. You could get on there, you could create a really great following. The people who engaged with your brand and your store saw your posts and saw your live sales and saw your products and, you know, they were always seeing your stuff. And you didn't have to pay, like, you didn't have to pay to make sure that people saw, you know, your items. And then we transitioned into this, you know, kind of a group method to increase that visibility again. And so we created custom buyer groups and VIP groups to increase that visibility again. But even that has tapered off, you know, in the recent years, visibility within the groups. And so, you know, my, my theory on can you grow a viable online new customer acquisition stream or a new product sales stream organically alone, I would just say you can, but it's very difficult and it takes a long time. And so ads offer us the opportunity to speed that up and get in front of more people instantly. But it's pay to play. And so, you know, like Facebook, this was always their intention is to become, you know, the largest advertising platform in the world. And they are, they are, you know, and they are by far. And so 94% of Facebook's income comes from ads. Like, they don't make money doing anything else. And Google's the same way. 90 some percent of Google income comes from ads. That's how they make money. And so that was their intention. And so my recommendation would be, if you really want to reach more people, if you really want to find new shoppers, if you want to get your brand in front of new eyeballs, whether it's local to come in through your front door, or whether it's national to just come on your site and buy, ads are a really great way to do it faster. It's possible organically, but it takes a lot of work and you're gonna have to stick to it long term. And it takes a ton of discipline. Ads are fast and they're more instantly gratifying. Now, the second side of that is you've decided, okay, I want to speed up the growth of my business. I want to get in front of more new sets of eyeballs faster. Am I ready? Like, is my Meta Business Manager account? Is my Facebook page, is my Instagram page? Is my website, is my store ready to attract, you know, 250 people on a Saturday to walk through the front door? Or is my website ready to show my brand to 5,000 new people a week? And so that, that's a, that's a complicated question. So I can, I can give you a few tips to just like, a few checklist items to make sure that you're ready. And it really comes down to just a few things. And so the first part is the relationship. Like, the, the, the, you know, how, how complete your Meta Business Suite is filled out. Like, have you gone through every single tab in Meta Business Suite and made sure that your, your Meta Business Suite access is set up correctly to the right people? And you have a protective person in there. You have a security person in there that's only in there to help you get your account back if it comes back. Have you gone through Metabusiness Suite and made sure that your ad account is linked and your commerce account is linked and your pixel is linked to and you know, and all of that stuff. And have you gone through there and make sure your payment details are correct? So is your meta Business Account 100% complete? If you don't know what Meta Business is and you haven't been through every tab, you're not quite ready. So that's check mark. That's check mark, number one. Number two comes down to tracking. So, so your pixel tracking. And so as online store owners, a lot of times there's this, there's this, there's this idea that if we have a website, people will come and they'll buy. But like, is your website ready? Like, is your online presence ready? Like, do you have pixel tracking on your website? Google and Facebook both? And is your, like, is your website continuous with your brand? Like, are you a pink, bubbly, you know, person that walks around with a jean jacket and a great big logo of your business on the back? Or are, are, you know, are you something else? Like, are you more serious than that? And so, and so, like, you know, like, you have to ask yourself that's an inside joke. But anyway, so, but are you ready? Are you ready, you know, to send a bunch of traffic to your people? And it comes down to two things. Like, do you have tracking in place? Are you able to see who's coming to your page and is your page on brand? Is it you? Does it reflect who you are? Because people are going to buy from you, they're not going to buy from your brand. They're gonna, they're gonna see one of your live videos or they're gonna see one of your promotional videos and they're gonna go, oh, I like her. I like, she's like me. She reminds me of me. I'm gonna go to her page and see, see what, see what she has. And then if your page doesn't remind them of you, they're gonna, they're gonna, they call them, they call it dropping people off a cliff. So like, so true. Push them all. You take, you take them all the way to the edge and then when they hit your site, your site doesn't remind them of your personality and you drop them off a cliff, you never hear from them again. So, and then like one other thing just to keep in mind is like when you start running traffic to your page like that, you'll have this huge group of people that hit your page. Do you have a method to not only resell to that small percentage that buy right off the bat, but stay in touch with that huge percentage that doesn't buy? And that's where like the pixel and all that stuff comes into play. So that's step number two. So number one is, do you have an in depth relationship with meta Business Manager? You got to get to know it really well. You should know it well. Number two is, you know, is, you know, is your website, is your entire online experience on brand, does it remind your customer of you, your personality, who you are, your tone, that sort of thing? Like, is that experience continuous throughout? And then number three is basically, do you have the money? Like, do you have, like, have you set away like in the previous year, did you think, okay, next year I'm going to allocate 20 of my funds to advertising to grow in my business. And, and you know, when I, when I get ready to get in, when I get ready to start really promoting my business and really start promoting my business nationally, do I have the funds to make that successful? Because when you first launch ads, right, when you first launch them, usually right there at first, they take off pretty good, they get going pretty quick. But if you don't have extra funds to fuel that fire and keep that upward trajectory going, it'll fizzle out and you'll think, man, ads don't work for me. Oh, I, I could never get them to convert after those first couple Sales, because Facebook is like a hungry dog, right? Like, so, you know, you first get a puppy and you feed it one cup of food, and before you know it, you're feeding it three. And before you know it, you're feeding it six. And before you know it, it eats the whole bag while you're gone at work for the day. And so, like, Facebook is like, Facebook is like that, right? And so we have to have enough funds to be able to fuel the rocket all the way to the stratosphere. And so just ask yourself, you know, do I have an extra 500 bucks a month? Do I have an extra thousand bucks a month? Do I have an extra 1500 bucks a month to spend on ads? And if the answer is no, you know, if, if right now you're, you, you are, you know, you're cutting the margins down to a half a percent, that's okay. Like, a lot of us have been there and like a lot of us are there now. But. And that's okay. Margins get tight times, and there's other options. There's other organic options that don't respond quite as fast, and things like Google Perspectives that will pump traffic to your site. That, that, that it, that are ideal for you. But if your margins are super tight, you're not quite ready.

Can we talk about that for a second longer? Just the budget. So what is your thoughts on the ability to start some things on $5 a day? Like, what is a realistic budget to start? What should people be planning for when it comes to ad spend?

Okay, so the $5 a day budget is very specific to one strategy. And so I advise a lot of times for people to start at five or ten dollars a day. And that is for what we call a rapid testing cycle. And so you might start an ad. So say I did a live last night for blue hats and blue hoodies. Right. That's my collection. And see, I'm diversifying. That wasn't left.

I wasn't letting my hands.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, so say I did a live sale last night and I didn't quite have as many attendees on there as I wanted. Yeah. And I bought two packs of each, and I only sold through half a pack on my live. So I have one and a half packs left of each. And I need to sell those things. Like, I know that once spring hits, hoodies aren't selling and I need to sell them.

Yeah.

And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the recording of that live. I'm going to Load it up into an ad campaign, and I'm going to start out at $5 a day, right? And so that $5 a day, that $5 a day is only for what we call rapid testing. And so that's for the first 48 to 72 hours of the campaign. And all I'm watching for during that time is I'm spending five bucks a day. So I'm gonna spend 15 bucks to test it. And if my click through rate comes in above 3%, I've hedged my bet. I've said, okay, I'm relatively sure that's the fastest horse in the, you know, on the starting line. I'm gonna bet on that one. And so then I say, okay, my Click through Rate's 3%. I'm prepared to spend more as soon as my first sale comes in. But that $5 a day is only for that preliminary period. So just don't think that you're going to become a millionaire off of $5 a day.

Okay?

It's for rapid testing only. It does it. Well, you know what, it rarely happens. We did have a boutique Hub Black member go crazy on $5 a day recently, but it's rare. It's very rare.

So then would you say once you're past that rapid testing period and that $5 a day, as you're then setting your budget on different types of campaigns, is it relative to the size of your business, how much inventory you have, how much traffic you're hoping to attract? Like, how do you set the rest of your budget past that?

Okay, so yeah, a couple things here. So, all right, so let's start back at the beginning. So like we, we, we put up a, a live sale replay. It doesn't have to be a live sale replay. It could be anything. But we put up a live sale replay. We spent $5 a day for the first three days. Our click through rate came back in an 8%. So we're golden, right? Like we, we have a lot of confidence that this is in front of the right people. People are engaging in it, they're interested in it. And so we're like, okay, here we go. And we sit there and we watch and we wait until that first hoodie sells and then that first hoodie sells, right? And then our, and then Facebook reports our return on ad spend. So we sell a $60 hoodie for six bucks. We have a ten to one return on our ad spend. That doesn't include shipping and that doesn't include cost of goods, by the way. So, and if I have an agency that doesn't include retainer, but so we have a 10 to 1 return gross on that, on that, that, that hoodie. And so now we're like, okay, here we go. So immediately you say, okay, I sold my first one for a ten to one.