If you’ve been running Facebook and Instagram ads for a while now for your eCommerce store, you have probably experienced your fair share of 4th quarter ad cost blowouts before. It happens every year, and if you are anything like me, you hope maybe this year will be different… until it’s not.

In today’s episode of Online Store Success, with me,  Jodie Minto, I discuss the latest and greatest tips and tricks for running successful Meta ads during the most crucial time of the year, the fourth quarter.

As we all know, this time of year can be a make-or-break period for many businesses, and running successful Facebook and Instagram ads for your eCommerce business during the holiday season can mean the difference between a profitable year and a dismal one…

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In this episode, I will be sharing my personal experiences and the tactics that have worked for me and my client’s online stores during this crucial period. We will discuss the importance of having a solid plan in place for your eCommerce social media ads, the types of ads that tend to perform best during the holiday season, and how to navigate the increased competition and ad costs that are often present during this time of year.

If you’re looking to optimise your ad strategy and maximise your profits during the fourth quarter, then you won’t want to miss this episode. So, tune into the full episode here to hear what’s working for me and my clients during the fourth quarter when ad costs generally blow out.  Enjoy!

Want my help managing your Facebook and Instagram ads? Take a look at my packages here:

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Transcript:

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of Online Store Success with me, Jodie Minto. Today, I am talking to you about fourth-quarter Facebook wobbles, because we are a week before Black Friday. If you’re running Facebook and Instagram ads, you have probably noticed that either your ad costs have completely blown out or completely stopped working. I just want to let you know first of all what you can do instead, what else you can try, and also to let you know that this is normal. It happens every year, and it’s always so frustrating. But let me share with you what’s working for me right now, and let’s hope that gives you some other things and other tactics you can try instead.

So what is working for me? Well, right now on the Facebook ads platform, it’s lead generation ads, and this lead generation style ad has a few nuances here that make it a lot more successful than others I’ve tried in the past. One of my clients inside of E-commerce ads academy actually shared this as a tactic she’s been using, and for a lead gen ad, these Legion ads, I mean, we set the objective as getting leads, but they often convert as well, and they end up getting sales right off the back. So you’ll see there’s a row as attributed to these Legion ads, which I’ve never actually seen happen before.

Let me take you through what they look like. These lead gen ads, first and foremost, create so that the viewer is asked to fill in their details on a Facebook form. We’re not sending them off to an external URL. We’re not sending them to our website. We’re actually just asking them to fill in the on Facebook form. These are a bit fiddly to set up. However, they convert a lot better in that more people will actually sign up versus if you take them completely off Facebook which just comes up with a little pop-up box where they can put in their details and go. So that’s the first thing. That’s an important thing is to incorporate the Facebook forms. As I said, they are a bit fiddly to set up. It is something that I actually teach inside of E-commerce Academy and help set up and connect to Klaviyo for my clients there.

Then the other important piece of the puzzle here for these Legion ads that thing convert is to share an offer. So sharing perhaps the same signup offer that you have on your website, for example, free shipping or 10% off or 15% off in the actual form. So what we’re actually offering and asking them to do is to sign up to get the discount because it’s the same. Think about it. If they land on your website, any other way you’re offering it there anyway, so why not put some money behind them and say, “Hey, would you like 15% off your next order or free shipping off your first order or whatever your free gift with purchase or whatever your offer might be?” We are using that as the lead-gen offer. So we’re running ads to Facebook on Facebook form, and the offer is, “Hey, would you like 15% off your next order? Sign up to our weekly newsletter list in order to reveal this exclusive code just for you.” And so they complete the form, and then it stays on Facebook on the thank you page of the form that pops up and says, “Thanks so much. You’re all subscribed. Here is that discount code?” And then that ad is actually connected to Klaviyo, where they then enter a list and a flow and get a series of emails saying thanks so much for signing up. Here’s that discount code again. And then there’s the follow-up.

One says don’t forget that code is about to expire. Here it is again, and here’s some of our best sellers. So it works really well. And like I said within the seven day attribution window on Facebook, you’ll often see that they’re getting sales right off the back of these lead gen ads. So they work really really well.

So that is what is working in audit. You know it was it was an acceptable level level of cost per lead. The conversion that’s my purchase conversion ads have definitely blown out as far as they’ve either kind of really slowed down in the number of conversions they’re getting, if any, and or if they are getting conversions, the prices anywhere between doubled and tripled, just in this last week, like which and we’re one week out or 10 days out I think to Black Friday and everyone’s hammering you know everyone is on in the ad space fighting for auction you know in the auction to get in front of people to advertise their black friday so if anything, I’ve wound down my spend on conversion ads and just focusing on that lead gen or with the ads that I am running with the purchase conversion objective.

I am simply just sharing my most successful, best selling products and or ad creatives. I’m not trying to test any new creatives under a purchase conversion or anything like that right now. I’ll wait until things come down on the platform. So that’s what’s working and not working on Facebook ads itself, but this is also a really great time to ramp up your email marketing.

Perhaps you have a special offer for Black Friday that you want to you don’t necessarily have to call it Black Friday. I don’t know why I have this thing where I just don’t like the term Black Friday. It just it doesn’t resonate with me for one because it’s an American holiday. It’s only something in Australia that we’ve recently sort of jumped on board and it doesn’t mean anything to me because we don’t celebrate or I’m in my family. We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia so I never even know when it actually is. It’s not like you know, for me ingrained is Boxing Day sales. It’s the day after Christmas.

So anyway, if you don’t want to call it a Black Friday sale, you certainly don’t have two different tactics that we use in our email marketing. And when I say we, I don’t know I keep saying Wait, it’s really just me now at the moment with Alan Carr. It’s a one woman show while it’s currently listed for sale. So what I actually haven’t even planned it for next week yet but what I will probably do is either one or two things I will offer a gift voucher to everyone on my list and say this is a little thank you here’s $30 to use off your next purchase over X amount of dollars. You know, it’s eligible for the next week. I here’s how to use it and then I’ll send a series of follow up emails about that, or I will do a Black Friday sale and but I’ll only do it off some of my slower moving product. And perhaps I’ll offer like a further 20% off or a 30% off just to get some revenue coming through given that the Facebook ads have slowed down so much so the sales revenue is not looking so great.

So what is working for me? Well, right now on Facebook ads platform is lead generation ads and this lead generation style ad is there’s a few nuances here that make it a lot more successful than others. I’ve tried in the past and one of my clients inside of E commerce ads Academy actually shared this is a tactic she’s been using and for a lead gen ad these Legion ads I mean we set the objective as getting leads, but they often convert as well and they end up getting sales right off the back.

So you’ll see there’s a row as attributed attributed to these Legion ads which I’ve never actually seen happen before. So let me take you through what they look like these lead gen ads we first and foremost create them so that the the viewer is asked to fill in their details on a Facebook form. We’re not sending them off to a external URL. We’re not sending them to our website. We’re actually just asking them to fill in the on Facebook form. These are a bit fiddly to set up. However, they convert a lot better in that more people will will actually sign up versus if you take them completely off Facebook that just comes up with a little pop up box where they can put in their details and and Osseo so that’s the first thing that’s an important thing is to incorporate the on Facebook forms like I said they are a bit fiddly to set up. It is something that I actually teach inside of E commerce Academy and help set up and connect to Klaviyo for my my clients there.

Then the other important piece of the puzzle here for these Legion ads that thing convert is to share an offer so sharing perhaps your same signup offer that you have on your website, for example, free shipping or 10% off or 15% off in the actual form. So what we’re actually offering in and asking them to do is to sign up to get the discount because it’s the same I mean think about it if they land on your website and other way you’re offering it there anyway so why not put some money behind and say hey, would you like 15% off your next order or free shipping off your first order or whatever your you know, free gift with purchase or whatever your offer might be? We are using that as the lead gen offer.

So we’re running ads to Facebook on Facebook form and the offer is hey, would you like 15 In my case, would you like 15% off your next order? Sign up to our weekly newsletter list in order to reveal this exclusive code just for you. And so they complete the form and then it stays on Facebook on the thank you page of the form that pops up and says thanks so much. You’re all subscribed here is that discount code? And then that ad is actually connected to Klaviyo where they then enter a list and a flow and get a series of emails saying thanks so much for signing up. Here’s that discount code again. And then there’s a follow up one saying don’t forget that code is about to expire. Here it is again, and here’s some of our best sellers. So it works really well. And like I said within the seven day attribution window on Facebook, you’ll often see that they’re getting sales right off the back of these lead gen ads. So they work really really well.

So that is what is working in audit. You know it was it was an acceptable level level of cost per lead. The conversion that’s my purchase conversion ads have definitely blown out as far as they’ve either kind of really slowed down in the number of conversions they’re getting, if any, and or if they are getting conversions,

The prices anywhere between doubled and tripled, just in this last week, like which and we’re one week out or 10 days out I think to Black Friday and everyone’s hammering you know everyone is on in the ad space fighting for auction you know in the auction to get in front of people to advertise their black friday so if anything, I’ve wound down my spend on conversion ads and just focusing on that lead gen or with the ads that I am running with the purchase conversion objective.

I am simply just sharing my most successful, best selling products and or ad creatives. I’m not trying to test any new creatives under a purchase conversion or anything like that right now. I’ll wait until things come down on the platform.

So that’s what’s working and not working on Facebook ads itself, but this is also a really great time to ramp up your email marketing. Perhaps you have a special offer for Black Friday that you want to you don’t necessarily have to call it Black Friday.

I don’t know why I have this thing where I just don’t like the term Black Friday. It just it doesn’t resonate with me for one because it’s an American holiday. It’s only something in Australia that we’ve recently sort of jumped on board and it doesn’t mean anything to me because we don’t celebrate or I’m in my family.

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia so I never even know when it actually is. It’s not like you know, for me ingrained is Boxing Day sales. It’s the day after Christmas. So anyway, if you don’t want to call it a Black Friday sale, you certainly don’t have two different tactics that we use in our email marketing.

And when I say we, I don’t know I keep saying Wait, it’s really just me now at the moment with Alan Carr. It’s a one woman show while it’s currently listed for sale.

So what I actually haven’t even planned it for next week yet but what I will probably do is either one or two things I will offer a gift voucher to everyone on my list and say this is a little thank you here’s $30 to use off your next purchase over X amount of dollars. You know, it’s eligible for the next week.

I here’s how to use it and then I’ll send a series of follow up emails about that, or I will do a Black Friday sale and but I’ll only do it off some of my slower moving product. And perhaps I’ll offer like a further 20% off or a 30% off just to get some revenue coming through given that the Facebook ads have slowed down so much so the sales revenue is not looking so great.

So that’s what is working like I said for us right now when the when the can purchase conversion or usual ads kind of tank all of a sudden, we then opt try for different objectives in the ad auction so like I said the lead gen or the purchase conversion ones I do run the the trusted and proven ad creatives that have worked consistently well.

They’re the only ones that are that I’m using and they will be all promoting best selling products. I’m not trying to test anything new. Plus, it’s all about them targeting you know wrapping up your email marketing to your warm list and perhaps your organic social media.

So I hope that helps give you some ideas on what you can do because I know lots of people you know, freak out and obviously we all need revenue to come in to continue running our businesses and this should be a really busy time of year but often it’s yeah, if you if you rely heavily on unpaid ads it can occur can sort of come to a grinding halt pretty quick.

Thanks for joining me.