How to Create Facebook Ads for Dropshipping?
Facebook ads can be incredibly effective for a dropshipping business. But, as with any other digital marketing strategy, you need to learn them first.
If you have a Shopify dropshipping store (or thinking of starting a dropshipping business), learning how to use Facebook ads is a must for you.
This is because, as far as dropshipping is concerned, there is a lot of competition on search engines like Google.
So, while SEO can be one of your strategies in the long term, Facebook ads can bring you instant results with a high ROI (Return on investment).
By the end of this article, you’d know how to create Facebook ads for dropshipping.
Let’s dive in.
How to Create Facebook Ads for Dropshipping?
Before diving into the ad creation procedure, let’s talk about some important things that determine your success in this industry.
Your Product
First, to have success with Facebook ads for dropshipping, your product selection must be on point. Focus on products that are selling well on Facebook.
If someone has already been selling that product on the platform, there is a good chance that you can do that too.
Plus, you want to focus on the products that were recently launched, preferably within 2 – 3 months. As it would be already popular, it would be easier for you to sell.
Website Optimization
Search your target keyword on Google and observe the dropshipping sites that come up. You want to create a site that’s better optimized for user experience, a factor that affects your Facebook ads’ success.
The landing page or product page should be easy to navigate and have a clean outlook. Importantly, focus your landing page on a single product without any distractions like the top menu and a sidebar.
Ad Creative
Your ad creative should be compelling enough to make your prospects click on your Facebook ad.
First, you need to grab users’ attention by introducing a problem that your product can solve. Then, show some benefits that your product can offer.
Finally, before you make them click with an actionable call to action, showcase some social proof.
As far as the ad media is concerned, a short and appealing video of your product would be ideal.
Consider Your Break-Even Point
Let’s say the product you’ve selected costs $10 on AliExpress, and its price on your landing page is $30. Your break-even point, in that case, would be $20.
So, you can afford to spend $20 to get a single customer profitably.
Testing Different Ad Sets
You also want to create multiple ad sets and test them out. This way, you’d be able to filter out the ad sets that can work best for your product.
For instance, an ad set that has minimum cost-per-click and a lower-than-$15 customer acquisition cost would be a good option.
Boost Your Business with Retargeting
Not all of your website visitors will buy your product on their first interaction with the product. And, the size of that audience can be pretty big.
Retargeting allows you to target the people that show interest in your product, but somehow don’t convert.
You can retarget that audience by setting up the Facebook pixel on your site.
Facebook will track your visitors, enabling you to create an ad specific to website visitors that didn’t take action on their first visit.
Email Retargeting
Email marketing is also an effective way to get in touch with the people that interact with your business.
What you can do is, set up an email opt-in form on your landing page. Make sure you offer something good in return for their emails.
The next step is to create personalized messages based on the behavior of your website visitors.
For instance, you can offer a discount or explain your product’s benefits in a retargeting ad to visitors that leave your product in their carts.
But, how do you target your website visitors with Facebook ads?
Using Custom Audiences for a Dropshipping Store
Facebook allows you to create your own custom audiences as well. These can be based on:
- Website visitors
- Content viewers
- Video watchers
- And, more
To retarget website visitors, what you can do is, install the Facebook Pixel on your site and add it to your Facebook ads manager.
If you are using WordPress, installing the pixel is pretty easy with this plugin.
Source: WordPress.org
Now that you know what product to target, who to target, and how to optimize your landing page, let’s dive into the ad creation process.
Create an ad and select “Traffic” as your objective. Then, select “Website” as the traffic source.
Source: Facebook.com
The next step is to define and schedule your ad budget.
Source: Facebook.com
Remember that you should define your audience before creating a Facebook ad for your dropshipping product.
Consider the following things while creating your customer avatar:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Interests
- Occupation
- Hobbies
- Purchasing history
- Life events
- And, more
Essentially, you want to narrow down your target audience as much as possible. And, the more you understand your audience, the better you are able to connect with them.
Next, you need to provide Facebook the location you want to target your ad in. For instance, if you think your target customers are in New York, select that. You can also select multiple locations to reach a wider audience.
Source: Facebook.com
Facebook also enables you to narrow down your audience based on multiple factors.
Source: Facebook.com
As far as the ad placements are concerned, you have two options.
- Automatic placements: Facebook recommends automatic placements because it optimizes your ads automatically to show to relevant people. So, your ad spend is optimized for the best results.
- Manual placements: You can also manually select the locations that you want Facebook to show your ad on. This can take a while; plus, manual placements aren’t as effective too.
Next, you’ll have to tell Facebook what type of ad you want to create.
- Is it a single photo or video ad?
- Is it a carousel ad with scrollable images or videos?
- Or, is it a collection of items?
Source: Facebook.com
After that, it’s time to optimize your ad media and copy.
Source: Facebook.com
As mentioned earlier, you want to upload your product’s video, preferably. A video is more appealing and easily grabs attention.
Remember that the sole purpose of your ad is to get your target customer to click on it. However, make sure that you don’t mislead them with wrong information.
You don’t want them to bounce from your landing page after clicking on your ad.
Moreover, your ad copy should be persuasive enough as well. The primary text of a Facebook ad is the first thing a prospect sees. So, you want to make it attention-grabbing.
Your ad’s headline can include your product’s name, and the description allows you to add its benefits.
Lastly, as you are trying to bring people to your store, enter your site’s link after selecting “Website” as the destination.
Source: Facebook.com
The next step would be to select the pixel if you have set one up on your website.
The pixel tracks your website visitors, providing you with actionable data to remarket your prospects.
Expanding Your Reach with Look-Alike Audiences
Source: Facebook.com
Creating a lookalike audience allows you to reach more people similar to your main audience.
Source: Facebook.com
You can create your lookalike audience by importing your custom audience as a source. Then, select the audience location and the size of your lookalike audience.
The bar at the bottom of the image tells you how close your lookalike audience will be to your source audience.
As you increase the percentage, the similarity of your lookalike audience to the source decreases.
The good thing is, you can create multiple lookalike audiences with differing percentages of similarity.
Source: Facebook.com
This allows you to test out different audiences before you land on the perfect one.
Final Thoughts
This was all about how to create Facebook ads for dropshipping. While you can also invest your time and money in search engine optimization, it won’t be a realistic strategy.
It would be nearly impossible to find a dropshipping product with low enough competition on Google. Facebook ads are a perfect way to grow a dropshipping business because:
- They are cost-effective
- They allow detailed targeting of your audience
- They bring instant results
But, your success with Facebook advertising will depend on a few things.
- First, pick the right product
- Second, your ad needs to be perfectly optimized
- Third, your landing page experience should be top-notch
If you can take care of the above three things, your success with Facebook ads for dropshipping is almost guaranteed.
Need help with Facebook ads? Contact us here!
If you want to know more about how Facebook ads work, click here.
