We have been sent to bring you the 7 commandments of social media advertising to guide you towards a better e-commerce performance. Therefore shalt ye keep our commandments and apply our teachings to the best of thy abilities.
#1 Thou shalt always choose the „conversion“ campaign objective
More than once have we heard the words of blasphemy, lost sheep that confessed having tried Facebook and Instagram ads but without success.
It was not only faith they were lacking but also expertise. They are lost for they do not know the teachings of the Facebook pixel and are ignorant of conversion objectives. So remember this teaching: if thou are running ads on Facebook or Instagram with the intention to sell thy product, select the conversion campaign objective. Solely relying on click ads shalt not bear the desired fruits. Google, Pinterest, Snapchat, Tiktok & co. have their own pixels that allow thou to track the behavior of thy fellowship. Learn their ways, include them in thy strategy and great things will come to you.
In order to run conversion ads, the social media gods demand the installation of tracking software like the Facebook pixel on thy website.
What is the Facebook pixel and what does it do?
The holy Facebook pixel is triggered every time a follower visits or takes action on thy website. These actions include purchasing from thy webshop or subscribing to thy newsletter. The behavioral data is then sent back to the Facebook pixel. This allows thou to track the actions taken by your fellowship after seeing your Facebook or Instagram. (Instagram and Facebook both use the Facebook pixel)
If thou tell the Pixel to track sales, it shalt learn over time which people are likely to convert thus delivering ads to people with a higher conversion probability. This is called conversion optimization. The miracle of conversion optimization works like this: Every account has thousands of interests, pages they follow, etc. While for a human it is impossible to compare every account based on these factors, the Facebook pixel holds the power to accomplish that miracle by finding profiles similar to the ones that converted.
So remember, thou shalt always use the conversion campaign objective if thy desires to sell online. Ignore this teaching and thou be wasting the potential of Facebook and Instagram ads.
#2 Thou shalt not use Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO)
If thou are ignorant of campaign budget optimization, read our blog post and thou shalt become enlightened.
CBO is Facebook’s alternative budget distribution option for which the algorithm automatically assigns your budget. This divine tool is meant to increase the performance of your ad for those who are new to the ways of social media marketing.
For the last 40 days and nights, we devoted ourselves to using CBO since we expected the Facebook gods to take manual budget attribution from us and replace it by CBO. However, we found the divine machine to not be more accurate than an experienced marketer, for we have been made in the image of God. Our religion demands to use different ads and ad sets that shalt compete against each other to determine the most profitable one. Once the most profitable ads and ad sets are determined, the budget shalt be attributed to the best-performing ones. I shalt teach you our ways before the arrival of CBO. Thou shalt attribute 10€ to each ad set and after a few hours, check which ad sets are performing better. Those with bad performance shalt sacrifice themselves to make space for ads and ad sets that fulfill their purpose. For those who are familiar with the ways of split testing, CBO will not hold any revelations and shalt be avoided.
Thou must exercise financial control and not rely on the holy Facebook algorithm for it moves in mysterious ways. There are cases of Facebook sinning and misleading poor souls with scammy techniques to fool you into spending more money than necessary. Use thy God-given free will to question their ways. You shalt not make assumptions without split testing for experienced marketers oftentimes understand the algorithm better than the company itself.
#3 Thou shalt choose the right conversion event
The Facebook gods have blessed us with 17 standard conversion events among which thou shalt find “add to basket”, “complete registration” or “purchase”. Those who seek enlightenment shalt find the complete list here.
If thou are trying to sell, thou shalt always optimize for the purchase objective, even if you have not yet been blessed with a purchase yet. This shalt track users sent from Facebook who made a purchase thus allowing the algorithm to work its miracle to find similar profiles that are likely to buy.
There are more teachings
Do not be afraid to get more creative with the pixel and custom conversions. The divine tools are versatile and allow their worshippers deep insights into the inner workings of their fellowship. The power of the algorithm can be used to track people who visited a specific website or added a product to the basket without making a purchase for example. Following these teachings shalt allow you to use remarketing campaigns to engage with these same people when they are back on Facebook or Instagram. If used correctly, these teachings shalt make your campaigns thrive for they are a very powerful tool to re-engage with you fellowship that almost bought, or that already bought.
You shalt consider offering special promotions to your fellowship using remarketing campaigns. The holy books speak of vouchers for a price reduction, free shipment or any other incentive to convert the user to a client. A lost sheep that already put one of your products in their basket but did not checkout is easier to convince than somebody who doesn’t know your product.
Thou shalt not be ignorant of the fact that this requires your Facebook pixel to be installed and running.
#4 Thou shalt use the right location targeting
Make sure that thy sacred message reaches followers with open ears. Praise the social media gods, for they have provided us with location targeting.
How to find the right location targeting?
If thou are trying to spread your message in Europe, for example, do not take the easy path and simply choose “Europe” for location targeting. Thou shalt make a selection of countries that have a promising market for your product and a receptive audience for thy divine message.
Hence, thou shalt always choose countries with a product-market fit and a high buying power for your e-commerce shop. Thou will reach people with a higher buying power that are more likely to convert and also, the amount of infidels, fake accounts and bot traffic is going to be significantly lower if thou put effort in your targeting.
If you’re not sure which countries to target, make us of Google to find the richest countries.
For Europe, thou shalt select the 10 most promising countries and put them into every ad set. Then, thou shalt narrow the ad set audience down using interests. The teachings of this sacred technique shalt be elaborated in point 6.
#5 Thou shalt not assume customer behavior
You are not God. Be wary of assuming too much about thy audience.
I shalt explain by an earthly example: Assume thou desires to sell a pink smartphone case with little unicorns and glitter all over it. Thou shalt not assume that this product should be targeted to a younger, feminine audience and shalt not exclude men from targeting. Thou shalt honor parents and grandparents for they could buy this product for their children and grandchildren.
This is only one facet of the devil manifesting himself through cognitive biases. Thou shalt not assume customer behavior based on thy opinion for you shalt lose your way.
If thou desire to segregate by any age or gender, thou must create split tests to reveal genders and age groups that are converting, for this is the only way to find knowledge. God acts in mystical ways and thou will be surprised by how your fellowship might behave just the opposite way than thou expected.
#6 Thou shalt separate each ad set by interest
As thou already have learned in the fourth commandment, thy list of countries shall be used for every ad set and thy audience shall be narrowed down by using interests.
Thou shall create every ad set to be identical in terms of settings, placements, etc. except that each ad set will use different interest targeting.
This is the way if thou desire reliable and scientific results. Thou cannot compare ad set performance if each ad set is completely different.
Following this commandment allows thou to identify the best performing interest targeting for the interest is the only difference between the ad sets.
Thou shalt find interests by typing them in the search bar with the ad set and the suggestions button shall reveal related interests. Gather the most promising interests, write them down and distribute them equally for each ad set.
Thou must seek to find interests related to thy product, but do not restrict thyself to those products. If thou desire to sell a designer smartphone case, thou shall find interests that match people generally interested in fashion. This can include broad keywords like handbags or even specific brands or products. Thou shalt research the most popular handbag brand on Google.
In general, you should spend a solid chunk of your time on research to make sure that you have a diversified database.
A word of caution: Thou shalt never have the “Expand your detailed targeting” option selected for it doesn’t work in your benefit.
#7 Thou shalt not be greedy
Many of our brothers and sisters seek to learn how much budget to use for Facebook and Instagram ads.
If thy wish is to identify the best audiences, thou shall use a budget of 10€ per day per ad set. If thou has 5 ad sets competing against each other thou must use a budget of 50€ per day.
The system requires a certain sacrifice for the algorithm to learn what works. Beware, for in some cases 10€ is not enough. If thou wish to sell an expensive product, like a 1.000€ TV, thou must invest more than 10€. By giving the ad set only 10€ you might not even get a conversion. This act of faith is an investment more than anything else. Once you identify the most profitable audiences, your faith shalt be rewarded and you shalt multiply your ROI.
Pro tip
For those who are lost with the questions budget, we suggest to check out our ROI calculator for it shall guide you trough the times of budget uncertainty.