Whether you just opened your online store or already have an established customer base,
there’s no doubt that you’ve heard about the benefits of paid advertising. However,
for the past couple of years, the cost of digital advertisement has been on a steady rise.
For new online store owners, this increase might seem like a pointless investment.
In this episode of Ask Printful, I’ve invited our Paid Traffic Specialist, Josh,
to get his insight on how to best advertise your brand when you’re just starting out.
So seeing as over the past year, paid ads have been getting increasingly
more expensive. Are they still a relevant channel of growth in 2022?
Definitely. 100%. Paid ads, despite the increased cost, are still part of
any integral, robust growth plan you might have for your business. They’re key
to getting your product to customers who may not find it organically, but they will love
your product. They just can’t find it or haven’t seen it yet. They’re also great if you want to
scale up your business because they speed up the process of finding your product. You can wait
months for the customer to go out and find your product, or you can bring it straight to them.
I’ll say paid ads are getting a bit more tricky. There are increased privacy rules,
and the price has gone up a bit. But if you have your strategy right, you’re really going
to make a difference that way. You can see it in the numbers realistically. In 2021,
a record was broken for how much was spent on paid ads, and in 2022 that’s going to
keep growing. And the big driver of this is we’re seeing a decline in sort of traditional ads. Less
people are watching TVs. Fewer people are looking at billboards, posters, and magazines. People
are spending more time on their smart devices, like smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Those
are the key spaces where you’re going to be able to show your product to the world.
You’re going to get a lot more interest if you’re using paid ads to drive your business because
they’re not easy to manage. It’s not casting a wide net. You’re able to target the people you
know will like your business and provide them with a product that they will actually enjoy.
And that is kind of a necessary cost?
It is a necessary cost. As long as you take the time to plan out your ads and build a good
strategy, you’re going to be able to find that without spending too much money. It
will just take a bit more time to make sure you’re targeting the right people with the right product.
So it’s clear that these days it’s impossible to get anywhere with your
business without paid ads. But is there a place that you would say is good to start?
So obviously, you want to get your brand out there on as many platforms as you can.
But a good starting point for most marketers is Facebook and Instagram.
Google is really good, but it might be kind of complicated if you’re new to marketing,
and YouTube only really works if you have the budget to make it work.
With Facebook and Instagram, you can start advertising from as little as a dollar a day,
which gives you a lot of room to experiment, try new things, and really find your footing.
So I would highly recommend that. It’s also,
of all the major platforms, definitely the easiest to get yourself set up on.
So once you’ve set up and you’re ready to go, and you’re ready to start,
you’ve picked your platforms. What then makes a good ad? How do you make a good ad?
So all the major app platforms are very visual-based, so you really
need to get your visuals right. Text is very important, but it comes second to the visual.
So when you are planning your ads, make sure you get the right people
and make sure you have a really great offer to go along with it.
Kind of finding the best thing to tell people, like what are they going to be excited about?
Small details like eye contact really go a long way. So when you’re taking pictures of the models,
make sure they’re making direct eye contact with the camera and smiling as well. Because that
really helps sell your product and endears it to the customer. So once you have that,
throw in a sign-up bonus or a coupon code, and you’ve got the makings of a really good ad.
Sounds good. I just hope we didn’t freak anybody out. Solid advice.
I’m sure not.
Once you’ve set everything up, how do you target people?
It’s important to remember: when you’re starting out, you’re probably not going
to have the biggest budget in the world. So it’s important to capitalize on the market
you have already. Retarget your ads to your existing followers who’ve interacted with
your social media content. There’s actually a really neat way you can do this on Facebook.
If you go into the Facebook Ads Manager, select the audience settings, and go to
custom audience. You can choose an audience that fits the niche you want to advertise
to. You can also build an audience based on people who visited your page but may
not have interacted with your content. This is great because people are very busy nowadays,
and they may have loaded your page but had not enough time to go through it.
So then they’ll see your ad later, and they’ll come back to the page, go through your content,
and fall in love with your product. That’s a fantastic way of not losing potential customers.
Yeah. So you’re kind of taking everything that you have and making sure that you make the most
out of every person that visits your page.
Even if you have the smallest Facebook page,
if you advertise to them, not only are you reinforcing your brand in their minds,
it will help you build on that. Because they will then tell their friends, and that will help grow
your social media presence. And in turn, that will grow your remarketing audience.
That’s an interesting way to look at it because I feel like there’s
a misconception about paid ads that they have to go to somebody new like
they have to be attracting completely new people. But ads are a great tool to
make sure that you’re making the most out of your existing audience as well.
And what you’ve got to remember is: finding new people is great,
but not all those new people are going to want to buy your product or even look at
your product. Maybe it’s just not the right person. You can’t sell fishing equipment to
a man who likes skiing; they’re not going to be in the same group probably. I imagine anyway.
If you’re showing ads to people who are engaged with your product and like your product,
those are the ones who are going to come back. Maybe you’ve launched something new in your store,
maybe there’s something you’ve changed, maybe there’s a new design you have out,
and showing that to an audience who may have bought from you previously, they will really
appreciate your new line stuff, and those are going to be your repeat customers, and those
are going to be the high-value ones you want to keep, look after, and show you new stuff to.
That is a great point. Thank you. So now that we’ve covered everything that needs to be
done and how best to approach things and start things, is there something to avoid or not do?
Definitely. A lot of people, when they first go into marketing, they set up the
Facebook Business page, and the first thing they see is a Boost post button. That is
probably one of the laziest ways how you can advertise your product and it doesn’t really help
build the ads you want. Go out there and download the Facebook Ad Manager. It’s free.
It’s pretty easy to use, and there are plenty of courses out there provided by Facebook to show
you how to use it. Because in that you can build those retargeted audiences, as I mentioned, you
can build those custom audiences, you can manage your campaign to make sure it’s customized and
designed, and curated in a way that you want, and you can use to get the most out of your ad spend.
If you use the Boost button, you lose all of that,
and you rely on Facebook’s algorithms to kind of pick up the slack for you.
I’m just learning that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. Apparently.
Another common mistake people make is they constantly chase clicks. They try to get as
many clicks as possible, thinking it’s going to bring lots of people to the site and bring in
revenue. That isn’t necessarily the case. People might come, and they may not want
to buy something at that time. So what you really need to do is set up custom events.
You set these up when you want your customers to take a specific action,
such as add to the shopping cart or a product view. That way, it targets
people who are likely to take those actions, and that will help grow your business. And finally,
I’d say keep your ads light and don’t bombard your customers with walls of words. Let your product do
the talking, showcase your strengths, and you’ll naturally find a market that works for you.
That sounds like amazing advice. I learned a lot, and I’m sure everybody is
ready to start dealing with paid ads. So thank you so much for coming.
Thank you. And if you want any more advice, we have two great speakers in our Threads series
who are paid ads experts who can really help you optimize your campaigns. Additionally,
if you check out the Printful blog, you can find articles by me, where I teach you how to optimize
your Facebook campaigns and reduce any waste spend you might have, and really make the
most of your budget. Especially in a time when paid ads are getting more expensive.
So check that out.
Alright—now you’re ready to really get into paid ads. Let us know how it goes in
the comments! Don’t forget to check out our other Ask Printful episodes. See you then!