E23: Ben Clubley

Richard Hill:
Hi and welcome to another episode of eComOne. And today's guest is Ben Clubley. How are you doing, Ben?
Ben Clubley:
I'm not too bad. Thank you. How about yourself?
Richard Hill:
I'm really good, I'm really good, really good. Had a nice 10, 11 days off. I've been out and about and been in Norfolk in our family caravan with the family, so I've had a very nice chill, which has been great. But obviously looking forward now to doing a cracking podcast all on the topic of Facebook Ads. Now Ben has been with the company just shy of three years, and came on board via our graduate track, and pretty much embraced Facebook Ads from the outset. So Facebook Ads, Ben, tell us how you became our Facebook Ads expert.
Ben Clubley:
Yes. As you kind of said, I joined just shy of three years ago. And I think it was in the first month of me joining, one of the first things you got me to do is do a presentation on Facebook Ads, so it's kind of, as an agency somewhere, we were really looking to grow. When I joined, I took on around two Facebook ad accounts to begin with. And now I manage between around 15 to 20 accounts.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So, over those three years, all the other accounts going in, you pick up a lot of information, many strategies, techniques.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So, yes.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, so I think three years of doing anything, you obviously have a lot of experience, and a lot of real life stories and things you've tried have worked, tried, they haven't work, of course. Not everything works. And obviously, I know the specifics of the day to day of the actual ad accounts that you work on, the different types of clients, but I think for the listeners of the podcast, how would you sum up how Facebook Ads actually work?
Ben Clubley:
So, when we talk about Facebook Ads, we're not just talking about Facebook itself. So, underneath the Facebook Ads umbrella, we have Instagram, Messenger, Chat, and also the Audience Network.
Ben Clubley:
The Audience Network isn't really something people commonly know, but essentially, when you click on a new story on Facebook, sometimes you'll get an instant experience, it'll pop straight up on the screen.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And that's the Audience Network which Facebook has internally created.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So, when we're advertising, we're appearing on all of these platforms if you wish. And then how we get these ads in front of people is, with the targeting. So, there's many ways in which we can target people, whether it be remarketing to people who've been on your website.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
How they've interacted with your page, any videos you've posted. But then also targeting people based on their demographics, their interests, so what pages they've liked and interacted and commented with.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And also their behaviours, so what mobile device they're using, operating system, it really goes in depth.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So these ads are then natively placed within the platform so they don't seem like adverts. You can be scrolling any newsfeed, and you see a video and you're just watching it and you think, "Hey, that's actually an advert."
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all seen them, haven't we, obviously, yeah. So, we've got the four core areas, you've got Facebook, you've got Instagram, you've got the Audience Network and then we've got Messenger itself as well.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
And then within that you've got the different types of targeting that you can do, which we'll delve into through the podcast. So what targeting do you think delivers the best results for eCom clients specifically?
Ben Clubley:
So for eCommerce, I would say, what works best is the remarketing.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So how people have interacted with products on the site, so we use something called Dynamic Product Ads, which is one of Facebook's superpowers.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And how they work is, if you've been on the website and then you've viewed a certain product, or added a certain product to your cart, Facebook uses some tracking code called the Pixel, and they'll be able to track what has been on the website.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And they'll reload that back to Facebook, and then it will automatically put a product carousel in front of you on the Facebook newsfeed.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So if somebody's been on your website in the last seven days, and they've added a certain water bottle to the cart, backed out of purchasing it because life's got in the way, and they had to get... The tea was burning or whatever.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
They'd go away, go on to their phone later, scrolling through Instagram or Facebook and then there, they'll see the water bottle they were looking.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah. We've all had that. Yeah. So DPAs, remarketing, they're the two-key take-aways there. So Dynamic Product Ads, for those that are maybe just starting out, maybe pretty familiar with the AdWords network and the AdWords interface, it's obviously got some similarities to AdWords hasn't it? And Google Shopping.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah. So how it's set up is very similar, they both use a product feed. For 90% of our clients, we use the same feed for Google Shopping ads, and Facebook Ads, so it's really to set up. And then, as I said, the other piece we needed was the Pixel.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
The bit of tracking code. And adding parameters in there such as the content ID, so a product on the website will have a ID of 12345, that will match, in this feed, and say, "Okay, this product is 12345."
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So then Facebook will know which products people are viewing and interacting with and can show them similar products to those they're viewing on the website.
Richard Hill:
So, they've been to the website, you've got this set up, you've got the DPA set up, you've been and looked at the water bottle, which might be product 12345, you've been to the water bottle, and you could be one of several types of people. One that maybe just goes to the water bottle category product, puts the product in a shopping cart, goes to check out, but doesn't quite check out. Goes to that last step and you've got two, three, four, there's dozens to be fair, of different variations of how a customer will navigate a eCom store, but then basically what we can do is run remarketing campaigns to those people based on the intent of that search. So whether they went all the way to the checkout, they have a lot of intent, put five things in the checkout, we can then show them those five things, is what you're saying. Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, very, very powerful. A bit like, as anybody that's a regular listener to the podcast will know, that we are massive advocates of Google Shopping, because it is 60, 70%, although that's not an official number, but 60, 70% of our agency, is very much Google Shopping related at eComOne. And then Facebook Dynamic Product Ads is like the... I'm thinking about... Of a race, it's coming up from behind because the bottom line is, we're remarketing and we can set it up quite quickly because if we're already doing Google Shopping, we can set it up quite quickly and we're remarketing to people who have already shown an interest as a first step.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
So we're getting very high ROAS, it typically is quite common. Is that right?
Ben Clubley:
Yeah, yeah, I think, as you pointed out as well it's racing up behind Google, I'm not sure on the official numbers, but there's billions of searches on Google every day. And I think, per month now, the last time I checked, it was over two billion monthly users on Facebook. So that's nearly a third of the worldwide population.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So it's these two platforms which have these pretty much worldwide…
Richard Hill:
Yeah, domination. So, we're remarketing to these people that have looked at the water bottle, didn't buy it. And then either different levels of intent, so we can target them with something for a week, then something else, and then something else. Talk me through that timeline, the sort of things you can do then, to a person who has showed an interest in that water bottle.
Ben Clubley:
So what we like to do is, we will break the campaigns down so, between one and seven days, the first week, the users who have added a product to their cart and then abandoned, will see... They'll see the carousel of the product. We'll have some wording there. Maybe a promotion pull discount. And then between eight and 14 days, we'll adjust the text copy side, and maybe the imagery. Try a different format, a different style.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And that's because, of course, if they've had that seven days, they've seen the ad a couple of times and they haven't purchased.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Okay, maybe the ad doesn't resonate with them, so we try something different to get them back on to the site, and get them back to that cart and making the conversion.
Richard Hill:
So we're doing one style of advert for maybe seven days. Eight to 14, another style, and so on. Obviously as time goes on, they may be a little bit less likely to buy, but still we're in front of them, potentially showing them other products from the product set, maybe even a discount code or two after a certain time.
Richard Hill:
Okay, so Dynamic Product Ads, and remarketing. Two big take aways I think from the kick off of the episode. I think, listening as I do, to all of our account managers and our clients, one of the big headaches I hear, can be the creative side. Fortunately, obviously we are very fortunate in that we have creative within our agency to be able to create animations, video, obviously imagery et cetera, but for the guys that are listening in, what would you say to them? The guys that are struggling with that creative side? What advice would you give them?
Ben Clubley:
I would say don't over think it. So you might be trying to come up with this amazing idea, this flashy imagery or video with all these super high end Hollywood effects. But then, there's a couple of things. It's going to take you a while to do those
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Sometimes, and a lot of the time you'll have an idea, and it's way above your skill levels. Then other times you will just have a complete dull moment in brain. You will have no idea whatsoever. And what I like to think is just don't over think it.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Most of the time an advert will just work if it's simple, straightforward, so use a relevant image if you are advertising a gaming computer, maybe you just show the gaming computers themselves, or someone playing on a gaming computer. I have a couple of cop out techniques. So, as I said, I find the image and then just a straightforward headline is, "Buy gaming computers online." Just put that text over the image so it's simple. The call to action is there on the image.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
They can see it's about gaming PCs, and so you don't really need to be over the top, really flashy with the ads in some cases.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And then in terms of the ad copy as well. I tend to focus on the Unique Selling Points of the company. So if you're offering next day delivery, if you've got any promotional sales going on, if you've received any awards, list those and tell people why they should purchase from you.
Richard Hill:
So it's a little bit like AdWords, add extensions, some of the USPs, unique things about that company, those products to stand out.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
I think also, I think the listeners will get quite a lot of value around understanding how they can also maybe, reverse engineer and look at competitors. Because there's certain tools within Facebook Ads, Facebook Ads library specifically.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Tell the guys a bit about that.
Ben Clubley:
So, the Facebook Ads library shows every single ad on Facebook.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So you go on, it's a search tool, you search for your client, it will show their page, you click on their page and it will show you all their adverts which they are running for that page.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So you can go in there, pick out four or five of your main competitors or some other companies within the industry, and then there you can get ideas of how they're styling their ads, the wording they're using. Of course, that way you can then think, "If it's working for them, it may work for me." Of course don't copy them.
Richard Hill:
I think that's the good thing. I think that is a real good take away there guys, I think if you're thinking of doing Facebook Ads, go to the Facebook Ads library, just Google that and you'll come... I can't remember the URL now, Facebook dot com, forward slash, hyphen library, or, forward slash library, one of the two.
Richard Hill:
Obviously everyone has a competitor no matter what level you're at, whether you're doing a hundred million a year, or just starting out. I spoke to a chap this morning who's just two months into his journey, doing several thousand pounds a month. All of you, go to the Facebook Ads library if you're not already running ads, and even if you are, and you're not familiar with it. Go there, look at the people in your industry that you aspire to be like or better than. Type in their account name, their brand name. I think you have to click on all ads now. It doesn't show them unless you click on all ads. So click on all, because it used to default to all, now it's changed recently, hasn't it?
Ben Clubley:
Yeah
Richard Hill:
Yeah, which always zero. So you think, "Oh no-one's running ads, no-one's running ads." Because I've made that mistake. Click on all, and bang, you will see the ads. And something that I find really impressive, if you're looking at a competitor's ad, and it says it's been running from January 2020. Well, hang on a minute, were now in August, so that ad's been running for eight months. Now, unless they are really lax and have let that slip, nobody in their right mind would let an ad run for eight, nine months, six, seven, eight months, you know, several months, without it being profitable, nine times out of ten. There'll be the odd exception of course. So you can get a feel for what's working in your industry. And get a feel for what competitors are doing.
Richard Hill:
And that's one of our starting points when we're looking at, can we help a potential client with ads? Who's doing what in that space? What are they already doing? What are other people doing, get some ideas on creatives, the language, the copy is always the sticking point that we talk about. Creative, you've got creative in design, but you've got creative in the language and in copy, two very different skills. So you can get a lot of ideas from the Facebook Ads library, yeah. Good.
Richard Hill:
So, obviously, we're a massive fan of ultimately, when a client spends 10 grand a month on ads, we need to be able to report to them on the success of that account. So, what metrics would you recommend that eCom stores should use to evaluate the performance of a campaign?
Ben Clubley:
The one we always rant and rave about is Return on Ad Spend. It's the same with the shopping ads in all the Google as well. So that's how much you spend, how much you made back. It's conversion value divided by cost.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
I believe in the columns tab on Facebook, it's actually called Website Purchases ROAS.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. A bit different terminology to Google Ads, yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So that's the main one. The conversion value obviously, they're always the key ones to look at, but then there is also a couple you want to keep an eye on. So reach, so how many people are you reaching. That way you can see, "Okay, I've got a hundred pounds behind this ad, but I'm hardly reaching anybody." So that's something to keep your eye on. You want to be reaching the right number of people.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Frequency is another one to keep an eye on.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So that is how many times the people you have reached have actually seen the ad. So, if you have a million impressions and a reach of one million, each person has seen that ad once. So it's got a frequency of one.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
But if you have half a million people reached and a million impressions, sorry, then you'll have a frequency of two.
Richard Hill:
Two. Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And Facebook when we've talked with them, they say, if you can look at a seven day timeline, you want to aim for nothing more than a seven frequency.
Richard Hill:
So, once a day almost?
Ben Clubley:
Yeah, once a day. You don't want to be there constantly bombarding their devices, that'll seem spammy.
Richard Hill:
Important one. I think, the conversations I have with potential new clients, obviously if I'm initiating them into the world of Facebook Ads, "Oh, I don't want to have all those ads everywhere." Well, it's all the time, it's this frequency cap, isn't it? And it's obvious if you're seeing the same ad, day in day out, five times, 10 times a day, that is more intrusive and you get potentially more of a negative flavor for that brand, whereas if you get a reminder once a day, maybe a tad more in certain instances, depending on the product value maybe and the elements of that product, whether we've got people that sell five pound,but we've got one eCom store that sells product for about 30 grand, so there's a lot more things we're trying to get over. So potentially there's a little bit more frequency on that because there's more imagery, there's more things for the potential customer to understand. So frequency cap, a really important one.
Richard Hill:
I think quite often, when we inherit ad accounts, we can see a lot of budget being wasted where the frequency is like three, four, five times a day potentially. So I think that's a good one. But ultimately, what you're saying is the over-riding stat, as per most paid models, ROAS, Return On Ad Spend. So if you're spending 10 grand, whatever your number is listed is, Obviously those that are starting out, whether it's a hundred pounds a month, a thousand pounds a month, five grand, 10 grand, 50 grand a month, that's what you're spending, and if you're spending 10 grand a month, and you're getting a hundred grand back, that's a 10 times return, which typically works for most eCom stores. But it's understanding that.
Richard Hill:
So it's going back and making sure that your tracking is working which always has its own challenges, but I think that's another episode we'll have Andy, who's our head of technical, to maybe do some troubleshooting on ad tracking, because it can be quite interesting. But ultimately, you want to be making sure, what you're saying is that your tracking is working and that those columns are delivering the right results.
Richard Hill:
One I would recommend also is, when you're starting out, or even if you've been doing a while, is make sure that conversion tracking is working.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
So run the ads, buy something for 50 quid through the ad, and does it show 50 quid in the column of the value? And ultimately you each one of you listening in will have your own ROAS number that works. In some industries, a two to one works well. If you're manufacturing your own products and you've got a lot of margin in the two to one. There's not a lot of industries that works in, whereas if you're representing a brand and you're buying direct from manufacturer, distributor, you might need five times, 10 times, 20 times. Again, that then depends on what vertical you're in. So, if you're in home furnishings maybe a three, four, five works, whereas if you were in electronics, notoriously quite high margins, you might need a 15, 20 times return. So for every pound you spend, you're getting 20 pounds back, which is quite common in the electronics I think, isn't it?
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
So, in the perfect world, you run the ads, they work. But the reality of life is never that straightforward. If an ad in a campaign and an ad wasn't performing, so we've got everything set up like you said, we're running our Dynamic Product Ads, and we're running ads, and we've looked at the columns, we've gone, "Hang on a minute, we spent £500 but we've only got £700 back potentially. What would you do about improving the performance of that... Of a particular ad that wasn't performing?
Ben Clubley:
So I think one of the first things to do is look at the metrics, really analyze them. So if you've got a low number of conversions, why is that? You've got people clicking on to the website, so maybe they're clicking through on to this ad, viewing a product, and your ad isn't actually relevant to that product. So, they're being advertised on thing, and been sold something else. So obviously in that case you need to change the ad, make it more relevant to the landing page.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
If you're gaining many impressions, but getting few clicks, you should maybe check your budget. It may need to be larger, and also check the reach. So if you've got this small budget, you may need to look at expanding it.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, because you're not targeting enough people.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And then also if you are getting a few clicks, but you've got a large budget, it's getting shown to many people, maybe the ad quality itself isn't great.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So why not... It's sometimes a mystery for us as well, so, another thing you can look at is split testing.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So, putting a few different ad variations together, trying videos if you were trying images in the past, try different styles like carousels.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Find what works for you, maybe certain unique selling points work better than other ones.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
But don't always assume it's the ad as well. There's times you may think, "Okay, I'm not getting the conversions, they go into the site, but why aren't they converting?" Maybe it's because the checkout process is broken.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So, there's always those kind of things you need to check.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that whole checkout process, and tracking. Going back to the tracking, we've got... You've set it up, it's working, but then if you've got people or your development team on your website, you're on your website, your agency's on your website, what if the tracking and Pixel has been thrown out, or something has happened. And it does happen. As you know, but for the guys listening in, we've got an episode with Andy, who is our head of technical. Andy Burkett, a fantastic episode all about merchant feeds. But Andy spends a lot of his time fixing things that get broken. And if the tracking is broken, you still probably are potentially getting the orders, but it's saying you've had no orders. Well, quite often you have had the orders, not always, but your tracking has been broken.
Richard Hill:
So, it's just going back a step then, we're saying look at the targeting, look at the creative, split test and get in there. And how often would you recommend looking at that?
Ben Clubley:
With the frequency, looking weekly. So, you don't want to be hitting people too many times, that's maybe why they're not clicking through, it's seeming spammy, so they might not click through then.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And then I would say every week you need to be going in, checking these metrics.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Making sure you're not spending too much. Your budget may be too high, too low.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Products go in and out of stock of course as well. So you need to check what you are actually advertising. You may have an advertisement for a certain collection, but then if half of the collection is sold out, and you're sending a thousand plus people to that page per day.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And then instead of usually 20, 25 to collect from, 20 of them are out of stock, now there's only five and they're maybe not the more desirable ones. So you're spending this massive budget on only five products.
Richard Hill:
On something that isn't available potentially.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So it's things like that you need to keep an eye on.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. Understanding what's in stock, what's got a margin, what the most popular, like you say, that issue with the feed potentially isn't it? If you're still serving ads to a product that is now out of stock, that's a feed challenge where you're not updating the feed regularly enough. Which again, we've got episodes on feeds on the podcast as well.
Richard Hill:
So, Facebook Ads, you work on a lot of different campaigns, literally hundreds of campaigns, specifically on Facebook over the last three years, what would you say is the best Facebook Ad campaign you've seen, and why?
Ben Clubley:
I wouldn't pick one individual campaign, I would say, we see the same campaign type work well for our clients, and that is the Dynamic Product Ad.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Targeting people within that first seven days.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
They've added a product to their cart and they didn't purchase.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
It's like I said earlier, life's got in the way, they've gone away. It's that reminder where maybe they would have gone, "Oh, what was I looking at earlier? I've completely forgotten." So it's just that reminder. Getting them back on the site and converting.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
We see the highest conversion rates there as well, the highest return on ad spend, really for eCommerce stores, that's one of the first places you should look is the Dynamic Product Ads.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
There are some other methods you can use with Dynamic Product Ads, so you can include them within a collection ad.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So how that works is, you'll have the traditional carousel of products, but that will be placed underneath a image or video.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Which you can design so that you can get slightly more creative with it. So if you're showcasing a certain collection, they've been on the website and viewed a shoe range. You can then have a video showcasing the shoe range.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. So you're using a combination of strategies there where you're using a strong creative, whether that's a professional video from a manufacturer or a brand or from the in-house team, or from an agency like us, but then also layering in the DPAs underneath it so you're getting both. You're getting that brand wow. And I know we do that a lot with a lot of high end... Well, a lot of different products, without giving away too many names.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Where you've got that manufacturer brand video, which is the wow of the brand and that sort of brand exposure. But then underneath, "Oh." You're seeing the products that you've just looked at within the last seven days.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And when you click through on that ad, you click on other products, it brings up a instant experience. So it's like a mini storefront within Facebook where it will showcase some of the products you've been viewing. It'll link them, kind of, categorize them together so it might have some the best sellers, products they may like. Sort them slightly. And then if you click on one of those products, it will take you to the product page on the website. So it's like a middle step.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it creates a website, in effect, or webpage within Facebook.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
So you're seeing the product lists, and obviously you're staying on Facebook, Facebook likes you to stay on Facebook. So, you're getting better exposure, better user conversions because you're staying on Facebook. Facebook can control that user. Control is probably a strong word, but can track that user more so on their own platform.
Richard Hill:
Okay, so I think there's a definite theme here. DPAs, now obviously eCommerce and DPAs, eCommerce and shopping on Google, but on Facebook, we're saying DPAs, Dynamic Product Ads, for obvious reasons really, you're looking for a product, and now you're seeing that product in your Facebook feed. I think... I would imagine everybody listening in has seen those style ads. So if you run an eCom store, you need to be running them. And it is quite straightforward to set them up, you know, get up and running.
Richard Hill:
But I think when you get up and running, we then, potentially, we... I say we, clients, people listening, hit that challenge of, "Well..." We get asked it all the time, people that are starting out definitely, or starting in with Facebook in the different channels. Where do we start with budget? That's the million dollar question. What would you say to that? So, we've got a Facebook, a lot of people listening in they're like, "Right, we're going to start that. Where do we start with budget? What's a good starting point for ad budgets?"
Ben Clubley:
I would say the first thing to do before you actually get your ads running is make sure you've got the Pixel on that.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Give it a week or so of tracking so you've got some good data. And then the budget really depends on the numbers of viewers you're getting on your website. So if you're getting 30, 40,000 people on your site a day. Over a thousand products being added to your cart, you're probably looking around the £200 mark per day budget.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And that's just because, of course, you're remarketing to the people who have added to your cart.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So you're hitting a thousand people per day, but if there was maybe only a hundred people adding products to their cart, then of course you don't want to be bidding that amount, as the frequency will be too high, they'll be absolutely bombarded. They'll find it quite spammy and irritable, and they might not purchase.
Richard Hill:
So a good way to do it then is to get the Pixel on, so everybody listening in, whether you run ads or not, get the Pixel on, because one day, if you're going to have a successful eCom store, you are going to run Facebook Ads. It's like saying I'm going to have a successful store and I'm not going to run AdWords, well, you are, I think. That's a very broad statement. And you are going to run Facebook Ads, eventually. You just maybe have not had success with it yet. But when you dial them in, there's nothing like paid ads to as we know. So we get the Pixel on. We're building the audiences. So we're building the shoppers, or potential shoppers and then we can use that multiplier of a thousand product searches.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
So potentially then, somebody could start for several hundred pounds a month, couldn't they?
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Depending on the scale of their business.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
But really the key take away is to get the Pixel on there. Make sure that's working, so we know when we do finally press the button, I know we've got a mixture of people listen to the podcast. We've got guys... I know we've got guys that spend hundreds of thousands a month on Facebook Ads, because some of them are our clients. And then we've got people that are just deciding, they've maybe been used to pressing the boost button and had no success, which is understandable. But get the Pixel on, make sure that's tracking properly. There's a couple of Chrome extensions that can help you to check that the Pixel's tracking properly. And then, when you've built those audiences, and you can see in the back end of Facebook, the Pixel, you can see how many people are in the audience. I know, we've got a recent client at the moment, that came on board with us for AdWords not that long ago, a few months ago. And they didn't have the Facebook Pixel on, but they're doing... I think they're doing about 100 grand a month on Google Ad, you know who I'm talking about.
Richard Hill:
And they have now got several million people in their audiences for Facebook ready to go. And any week now, I think it's going to be first week of September, they'll be running their Facebook Ads, but straightaway we'll have hundreds of thousands of people to target.
Richard Hill:
So I think the big take away there is, obviously the budget will be relevant to you guys, but I think get the Pixel on, and if you are already successful with Google Ads, and you already have a very well trafficked site. You've got all these people that have got an intent. They've already been to your website, so it's almost... It's as close to free money I think as you can get when it comes to marketing.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
I know we've had this conversation before. You're targeting people that have already shown an intent, and the conversion rates specifically on remarketing are usually... They are high.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
So get the Pixel on and make sure that we press the button. And get started.
Richard Hill:
So, what tools would you recommend for Facebook Ads on the creative side, or any other tools specifically to the guys that are listening in.
Ben Clubley:
So there's paid for ones, which are the obvious ones, Photoshop, InDesign. There's also Adobe Spark Post, which you can use for creating creative for Instagram and Facebook stories.So then when you've that showing there using the whole mobile screen. But then there's also free ones available. So I use, and I know a lot of people use Canva, so that's nice simple, drag and drop image creating.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
For the text copy itself, if you want to include emojis a good tool there is a website called Emojipedia.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So you can just go on that website, it lists all the emojis out there.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
You can search for what you want and then you can just copy and paste that straight into Facebook/
Richard Hill:
Yeah. We're a big fan of emojis aren't we?
Ben Clubley:
Yeah. So, of course it's eye catching. It's not going to work for every single company. If you're selling a really high luxury product, I think if you go look at all the ads for Louis Vuitton, Gucci, they rarely ever use emojis.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. So that's brand language. It's maybe not as professional. which is understandable. Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
But then if your saying we've got five star rating over three and a half thousand reviews, go and use a star emoji and show you've got the five stars. Instead of typing out five star reviews.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, your just trying to break up that... Everyone's in their feed and you're just trying to get them to stop aren't you? So if it's just text, it's harder to look at.
Richard Hill:
So we've got Adobe, which you've talked about, we've got the free sort of Canva style. Obviously there's paid options for Canva and what not. So there's a few different options there. And then obviously we've got for Facebook Ad, Ideas. We talked already about the Facebook Ad's library.
Ben Clubley:
There's also Facebook Creative Tool. So, when you're creating an ad, if you add a single image in, Facebook will say, "Do you want to turn this image, or images into a video?"
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And it'll allow you to then create a slide show. And they've introduced some new ones recently. So if you've got con tactless pick ups.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
They've got some COVID-19 related slide shows in there. So that way you can just turn a single image, it's going to have an overlay, a bit of animation there.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And just make it slightly more eye catching, because Facebook report that a user will gaze at a video five times longer than a static image.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So it's that scrolling through your feed, you're trying to make people stop scrolling and read what you've got to say.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And the best way to do that really is doing a video.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. Brilliant. I think that brings us almost to an end. I think a lot of key take aways there. I think the main one is Dynamic Product Ads and remarketing, and obviously the different ways you can do that. And obviously the measuring tracking. And I think really keeping an eye on that ROAS and understanding what you're spending and what you're getting and checking that all the tracking is working consistently. I think we talk a lot about the 80, 20 principles throughout our agency. And the 20% of inputs that give you 80% of the outputs if you like. And then that's very fractal, so there are two or three things that you can be doing. And I think when you look at eCom stores, and Facebook Ads, the thing you need to be doing is Dynamic Product Ads, remarketing. And I know we've said that about four times now, so we'll stop at that.
Richard Hill:
But that is, I know, we know, that's where you are, as an eCom store, going to get the best return. And then you can build out the prospecting campaigns, the deeper level remarketing, the longer remarketing and the prospecting and then layering in the two. So I always like to finish on a recommendation, a book recommendation with every podcast. Do you have any recommendations?
Ben Clubley:
I'm not a massive book reader myself.
Richard Hill:
Okay.
Ben Clubley:
Mostly information I get tends to be blogs.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
And so I find the AdEspresso, they have some fantastic blogs on Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, every month they'll also get a collection of ads and they'll break down why they worked or why they didn't work. So it's always good to look at their blogs. And then, the obvious one, of course, is Facebook Blueprint.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So they're free mini courses. If you're looking for anything, how to set up a catalogue, there'll be a course on that.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
All the way through to pretty much anything you're going to do on Facebook Ads. There will be a small 10 to 15 minute course on it for you to go and learn how to do it.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So if you're looking to really get into Facebook and manage it yourself, the Blueprint is the great point. And then there's also resources in the back end of Facebook, talking quite a bit about what features are coming up in the future, so, one quite recently is, Facebook, of course introducing shops.
Richard Hill:
Huge news. Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
So on the pages themselves, you can include a store front within the page. It's being trialled in the USA at the moment, and what you can essentially do is turn your normal Facebook business page into a store.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
You can break your products down into collections.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
Give them headers, and then people can then add to their cart and purchase within Facebook.
Richard Hill:
All within Facebook without leaving. Yeah, it's great. So two big resources there, AdEspresso, something we have a paid membership there, for reference. Something we, you and I very much stamp of approval from eCom@One, and eComOne, we've had a paid membership for about five years now I think. We're an annual membership. All of our Facebook team have access to the paid part of that as well, but obviously their free stuff is amazing as well. And then the Facebook Blueprint training is all free as well, and then you can, if you want to go another level and get certified, you can get certified can't you? In all, I think, seven or eight different areas.
Ben Clubley:
Yeah, yeah. It's more for different levels, it's worth noting as well.
Richard Hill:
Okay, well thank you very much Ben for being on the podcast.
Ben Clubley:
No worries.
Richard Hill:
It's been an absolute pleasure. I think this has definitely has been a real eye opener to really just have a Facebook Ads specific episode. If anybody listening wants to get hold of you Ben and wants to reach out to you, what's the best place to contact you?
Ben Clubley:
My email is ben@ecomone.com.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Ben Clubley:
You can contact me there for any inquiries regarding Facebook if you need any help getting the Pixel up on your site. We said that's the first place to start, so if you need any help with that, feel free to message me. Or if there's anything... if you want your ads looking at, if they're not working, also feel free to contact me there.
Richard Hill:
Great. Well thank you Ben. Thanks for being eCom@One, and thanks very much. Bye.
Ben Clubley:
Thank you. Bye.