Ecommerce Ads: What Is A Good ROAS For Facebook Ads?

Oct 22, 2022

Estimated reading time: 37 minutes

Facebook ads for eCommerce stores will never be the same. The question is: what are you doing to adapt to this new world and what is a good ROAS for Facebook ads in 2022 and beyond?

You might not actually know how to go about it and that’s ok. Because in this post, I’ll show you exactly how to turn this challenge into an opportunity.

An opportunity to get your best ROAS ever despite the recent privacy changes on Facebook. I’ll reveal the truth. The secrets pros don’t want you to know and have been hiding from you.

How to get ridiculous Facebook ROAS

By the way, these strategies are timeless. You can use them not just to beat iOS updates but also to build a sustainable eCommerce business.

Now, there’s a lot of stuff here! Don’t let it overwhelm you, just skip to your favourite topic below.

Close to the end of the article, I’ll answer some of the most common issues or questions we get from our students. Like, “How to increase ROAS facebook” or “what’s an average ROAS for eCommerce” or even “what is a good ROAS for facebook ads?” – we get those all the time!

We’ll finish with examples of great Facebook ads for e-commerce. Let’s go! 🚀

Industry Benchmarks For Facebook Ads

Before you launch or optimize any campaign, it’s good to know some benchmarks. These are not the “end all be all” but will give you an idea of what to shoot for.

Depending on your industry, CTR, CPC, CPA can vary greatly, as you can see below.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

It’s not a surprise the Pet industry gets the highest click-through rates. Who doesn’t love pictures of cute cats and dogs on the feed? Some are irresistible!

The lowest click-through rate award goes to the Finance industry. I guess people are more interested in cute animals than making money. I’ll leave that in the air!

>> The average click-through rate on Facebook across all industries is 0.89%.

Average Cost-per-Click (CPC)

On the CPC scale, the Finance industry is the most expensive. It makes sense if you think about it. First, it’s not a passionate market. Secondly, it has the lowest CTR which impacts the CPC.

Are you selling food online? If so, you’ll be glad to see how little you’ll pay for a click on your ads. The Food and Drink industry has the lowest average CPC.

>> The average cost-per-click on Facebook across all industries is 1.68%.

Average Conversion Rate (CVR)

Conversion rates are more related to ad congruency and landing page experience. The better these are, the higher the CVR.

Surprisingly, Jobs and Education have the highest conversion rates on Facebook.
On the other hand, we have the News industry at the bottom of the chart, with the lowest CVR. Quite natural, I would say since news is exactly that, news, not really a passionate product.

>> The average conversion rate on Facebook across all industries is 9.11%.

Average Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

This is really the most important metric of all. The previous ones are what I call leading metrics. The CPA is ultimately what will impact your results the most.

The Food and Drink industry takes the top spot, with the lowest cost per acquisition.

If you’re in the News industry, get ready to pay more for conversions. It has the highest CPA, almost $60 per conversion.

>> The average cost per acquisition on Facebook across all industries is $19.68.

facebook industry benchmarks
Source: Wordstream

By the time you read this post, the benchmarks might have changed. This is quite normal since traffic prices on Facebook are going up. More businesses are advertising there these days, making the auction more competitive. If there’s more demand, naturally ad costs will go up.

With recent iOS updates, it’s even more important for you to do everything you can to get your ad CTR up. Essentially, the higher the click-through rate, the less you’ll pay for a click, and the higher your conversion rate will be.
This will have a positive snowball effect on your business.

RELATED BLOG: Facebook Ads CRUSHED After iOS 14 Update? (Do These 3 Things NOW)

Your Facebook Ecommerce Strategy

In order to get the most out of your ad spend, you need a plan. You can’t just throw a bunch of ads out there and hope you’ll hit it big.
That’s called gambling! We don’t teach that here.

We teach a systematic approach to Facebook ads. The right paid traffic system can help you weather all storms, including iOS updates and privacy changes.

Understand The Audience

The first thing you need clarity on when building your ecommerce strategy for Facebook is the audience. This is especially important when you’re targeting cold traffic. This is true because cold audiences are not aware of you, so you have to build trust with them.

The way to build trust is to understand your avatar really well. I’d say even better than they do themselves. Only then, you’ll be able to craft ads that resonate and convert.

You need to dig deep and find out your audience’s:

  • demographics (age, gender, income)
  • psychographics (desires, pain points, objections)

Psychographics are the most important piece here. That’s where you should spend most of your time in the research phase.

Build An Offer

Don’t be lazy here, do your research, it will save you so much time and money down the line.

The second step is to come up with an offer. Yes, an offer. Not a product. How’s that different? Let me explain.

A product is a commodity, it’s the thing you sell. An offer is a product plus a bunch of other value-added components that make it irresistible. Bundles are a great example of this. Your packaging, delivery, and guarantees are also part of the offer.

Offer creation is an art, it takes a deep understanding of your audience and what they want. Also, you need to tie your product to their wants, build value and make them say yes to the offer.

Engineer Your Funnel

Finally, the third step in your ecommerce Facebook marketing strategy is the funnel. What does your funnel look like? Do you only sell one product or have up-sells, down-sells, cross-sells?

facebook ads ecommerce funnel

Your ecommerce funnel shouldn’t be something you approach lightly. You miss out on a lot of revenue if you don’t structure it properly. This comes down to understanding your customer’s journey. Also, understanding what they need at every stage.

For example, for ecommerce, an up-sell would normally be more of what they’ve just bought. With info-products, that’s not the case.
So, your offers need to make sense in the prospect’s mind for your funnel to get you the maximum revenue.

The Facebook Ads Ecommerce Funnel For High Conversion

Now, let’s go a bit deeper into this ecommerce funnel thing.

Facebook Ads traffic is very similar to an offline store. Most people who pass by aren’t looking to buy. Until they see something that really grabs their attention and gets them curious enough to come into the store. Your Facebook ads are no different.

Here’s an example of a high-converting Facebook ecommerce funnel:

Source: Revenuehunt

If you’re wondering what UGC means, in the image, it’s user-generated content. An example is testimonials. This funnel is a bit advanced but will give you an idea of what’s possible. I’m sure you can get even more advanced than this.

RELATED: How To Set Up Facebook Ads Campaign For Your eCommerce Store [The Step By Step Guide]

Facebook Ad Campaign Structure For Maximum Performance

Having just a great offer isn’t enough to make your Facebook ads perform at their peak. You need a solid campaign structure in place. One that allows you to scale easily and have maximum control of the performance.

If you’ve read some of our articles, you know we talk a lot about ad sets. Specifically, that optimizations should be done at the ad set level.
Here’s an example of a properly structured campaign:

This comes straight out of Facebook Blueprint. Now, think about how you could apply this to your ecommerce business.

You could have a Conversions campaign for a specific product line. Ad sets are split into interests, a lookalike of added to cart and one of purchases, instead of locations. Notice the variety in the ad type, as well. This is crucial for you to get the maximum performance.

Each creative can have a different hook. A hook is something that grabs people’s attention, usually, it’s a headline or a statement at beginning of the ad copy.

Let’s say you’re selling skinny jeans for women. These could be your hooks:
> 20% off your first pair (image ad)
> skinny jeans that just feel good (video ad)
> soft to the touch made to last (carousel ad)

Don’t make the mistake of throwing a bunch of audiences into an ad set. Because it will be difficult to know which targeting is working. The more you can segment your targeting the more control you have.

Also, going back to the campaign level, create one for each product line or promotion. Furthermore, you don’t want to mix cold traffic and remarketing in the same campaign.

Best Facebook Ads For Ecommerce

At this point, you have a killer offer, a solid campaign structure draft but you’re missing something. The ads. You’re thinking about the promotion, the hooks but you’re like “what ads work best?”

Well, the short answer is you’ll have to test. But generally, these work best for ecommerce.

Dynamic Product Ads

These are the lazy man’s way to sell more on Facebook. They take the least amount of effort to set up and get results. Dynamic product ads are essentially automated ads.

All you have to do is integrate your product feed with Facebook. Then it will create ads using your products’ image, title, description, and price.

Video Ads

According to Topexplainers, 79% of people bought a product because of a video ad. That’s a staggering statistic!

The video ad below shows a line of supplements on the beach with the water flowing through them. It’s almost like a loop video, which is one of the top “attention-grabbers” on Facebook.

As you can see, your videos don’t need to be highly produced. In fact, the best performing videos on social are called “selfie videos”.
Why? Because they feel real and personal. And that creates a stronger connection with the audience.

Whether it is image or video, carousel ads are a classic for ecommerce brands.
You just can’t go wrong with them! Well, unless you’re selling something people don’t want. But that’s another story.

Assuming people want what you sell, carousel ads are a great choice. The biggest benefit is the ability to showcase multiple products or angles of the same product.

These types of ads drive a lot of engagement, which will in turn increase your click-through rates. What happens with higher click-through rates?
Yes… you pay less for clicks!

If you can tell a story throughout the carousel with images, that’s even more powerful. People can’t help but interact with the ad.

The Hidden Benefits Of Facebook Video Ads

According to Cisco, by 2022 videos will make up more than 82% of the consumer internet traffic. That’s 15 times higher than it was in 2017.

Another study by Nielsen showed that the cumulative brand impact on ad recall increases 74% after just 15 seconds of a video ad, and the purchase intent increases 72% after just 10 seconds of viewing.
That means video content is memorable and profitable. More than any other medium.

Facebook is trying to become the next YouTube. So, they love video content. In fact, video views campaigns are the cheapest you can run on Facebook.

Most ecommerce advertisers stay away from video content. Mainly because it takes more work and resources than images ads. And that’s why you should invest in it.

Another big benefit of running video ads is their longevity. Ever noticed your image ads starting to lose their “juice” after a while?
This is very common. The opposite is true for video ads. They tend to be more “evergreen” and convert long after image ads have “died”.

RELATED: 7 Examples Of Highly Effective Facebook Video Ads You Can Create At Home Even If You Are A Non-Creative Person

Key Facebook Ads Metrics To Boost Sales

Successful Facebook advertisers rely on a few key metrics to make smart, profitable decisions. Ignoring these will be the sure-fire way to going bankrupt.

Keep in mind any benchmarks we share here are for Conversion ads.
This is the objective we teach our students and the one we got the most success with. Other campaign objectives such as Traffic or Page likes will have different benchmarks.

CPM

This metric is where it all starts. On Facebook, the most common way to pay for ads is per impression. CPM means cost per 1,000 impressions.
CPM varies depending on the audience quality. Lower quality targeting will be cheaper, with lower CPMs. On the other hand, to get higher quality traffic will have to pay more for impressions.

Your question might be, “then, how much should I pay?”

There is no definite answer. The goal is to strike a balance between paying too little and too much. It’s kind of like an auction. You want to buy the best item but not overpay for it.

CTR

CTR refers to the click-through rate. It’s calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the total impressions.

Low click-through rates mean one of two things. Your creative doesn’t resonate with the audience or you’re targeting the wrong audience. Which, in most cases, happens when you have too broad of an audience.

You want to keep CTR above 1%. Anything below that can be an indication you have the wrong targeting or a message to market mismatch.

As you understand your customers better, your CTR will go up. So, if you’re an established brand, you should aim for 2 to 3% CTR.

CPC

This is the cost per click. Essentially, what you pay every time someone clicks on your ad. On Facebook, you have two types of clicks. Clicks on your ads and link clicks. In this case, it’s the cost per link click.

A high CPC is the result of poor creatives, wrong targeting, or both. In some cases, it means your audience is too specific, those tend to be more expensive.

However, a low CPC is not always an indication of great targeting. You always need to keep an eye on purchase ROAS. You might be targeting a cheap audience that doesn’t really buy much, and returns are low.
Of course, you want to keep CPC as low as possible.

Again, similar to CPM, you want to get the highest quality clicks for the least amount possible. At the same time, you don’t want too cheap clicks. So, there’s a balance here.
Around $1 per link click should be your benchmark.

Here’s a 3-Step Process Nobody is Teaching

The optimization process we teach our students is all about analyzing simple metrics. Then, take those metrics to make smart, profitable decisions.

For this process, you want to start from the end to the beginning. It sounds counterproductive but you’ll see how effective it really is.

Step 1 – Find The Leak

The very first step to optimize your Facebook purchase ROAS is about understanding simple yet powerful metrics. And the story they tell.

You don’t want to gamble when it comes to Facebook Ads. You have to look at your ecommerce funnel like this:

  1. Impressions
  2. Clicks
  3. Views
  4. Add to cart
  5. Initiate checkout
  6. Purchase

Now, a warning here…

What Is A Good ROAS For Facebook Ads?

If your store is generating $5,000 a month or less, you shouldn’t even worry about ROAS. You’re better off focusing on mastering the basics. That includes getting the right impressions, the right clicks, and the right eyeballs on your product pages. Learn how to do that in our free masterclass.

Assuming you have that mastered, you want to look at where the breakdown is happening. Is it from views to add to cart? Add to cart to initiate checkout? Or Initiate checkout to purchase? Once you identify the leak, you can fix it. And that’s one way to improve ROAS.

Fixing the leak might be a matter of improving your website experience. Maybe a faster theme or one that converts better with more psychological triggers, like urgency or social proof.

Step 2 – Optimize Audiences

Getting past the $5,000 a month in revenue takes a different approach. What took you here won’t get you to the next level. So, the next level is all about optimization.

In this step, you need to be “trimming the fat”, so speak. That means pausing or removing underperforming ad set elements:

  • entire ad sets
  • interests
  • locations
  • demographics
  • placements

This process will make your targeting more refined and precise. We’ve seen our students increase ROAS by 2 and 3X, sometimes even more, just by “timing the fat”, at the ad set level.
Powerful stuff!

Step 3 – Lookalikes

What you need to do at this stage is audience expansion.

That means start testing lookalike audiences. These will give you the ability to attract more people like your buyers. Which in turn will help increase purchase ROAS because now you’re being laser-focused with your targeting.

Lookalike audiences can give you tremendous scaling potential, as well. You can start with a 1% lookalike and then move to broader audiences similar to your customers.

Remember, there’s a balance here. You don’t want to have a lookalike that’s too broad.

The higher the percentage, the broader the audience. This means a 1% lookalike is more like your customers than a 4%, for example. But it doesn’t mean the 4% won’t be profitable, sometimes it can be even more.
That’s why you need to test and find the sweet spot for your specific business.

RELATED: The ROAS Formula: How To Keep Your Facebook Advertising Cost Down (4 Super Important Metrics That Tend To Slip Everyone’s Attention)

5 Ways To Increase Facebook Purchase ROAS

In order to increase your purchase ROAS on Facebook, you have to reverse engineer the process. Specifically, reverse engineer the customer journey. Your customer journey!
In other words, make sure you’re set up for success to get the best return possible. Here are 5 ways to accomplish that.

1 – Great Offer

No amount of sleek advertising or ad spend will be enough to convert without a great offer. That’s where it all starts!

You might not have heard of this before, but there’s a concept called “offer-hacking”.
What it suggests is you going through other businesses’ funnels and seeing the offers they give to their audience. It’s kind of like playing detective.

Study the biggest ecommerce brands. Go through their buying process, subscribe to their newsletters. You can get a wealth of information you can use to craft your own offers.
You don’t have to play the guessing game or reinvent the wheel. Trust me… it’s expensive!

Also, there are a couple of tools to help you spy on your competitors and non-competitors. Here are some:

Most are free, some are paid.

They’ll give you insights not only on what offers other ecommerce stores have but also where they’re getting traffic from.

2 – Understand The Market

I’ve made this mistake a couple of times and it cost me a lot of money. Both times, I got lazy and didn’t want to take the time to research my audience.

Not understanding your audience will be the most costly mistake you can make.
A lot of store owners set up their site and jump straight into Facebook, without even researching the audience. They launch some generic ads hoping to get the right customers.

Marketing and advertising are a game of attraction. What you put out is what you get in.

Before you launch an ad, you need to understand both your ideal customer’s demographics and psychographics.
Demographics are things like age, gender or income, surface-level stuff. On the other hand, psychographics is your prospects’ desires, values, and belief system.

Researching your audience will give you the ammo you need to craft killer ads that resonate, connect and sell.

3 – Campaign Structure

The right campaign structure is another key trait of great Facebook ads for ecommerce. Many ecommerce entrepreneurs think their success lies in the ads.
A portion of it does but it’s not what determines your success on Facebook.

Your main focus should be on the ad set level. Specifically, on the audiences. This is the secret of making Facebook ads work and probably 70% of your success.

4 – Optimize Ad Sets

All the optimization happens at the ad set level. This is where you have the demographics, interests, placements, and conversion events.

A lot of store owners make the mistake of optimizing their ads first. It’s like trying to fix a leaky bucket with sticky notes.
First, you optimize the ad sets and then you move to the ads. That’s the logical progression.

5 – Killer Creatives

Many entrepreneurs, especially beginners are guilty of this.
They start creating a campaign, pick the audience and throw some random copy and images in the ads. This is a sure-fire way to donate money to Mr. Zuckerberg.

Last-minute ad copy and creatives will not get you the results you want. It would be foolish, after doing audience research to do this.

The research you’ve done previously on your audience will help you craft the ad copy. If you know their desires, pain points, and language, it will be much easier to sit down and write engaging ad copy.
Always have the ad copy prepared beforehand in a document. Then, all you have to do is copy and paste it to Facebook.

The ROAS Calculation Formula Explained

One of the most frequent questions in our mentoring group is “what is the ROAS formula?”

After LTV (lifetime value), ROAS is the most important metric in your business. Store owners that don’t understand it, will struggle.

ROAS simply means return on ad spend. It represents your profit from advertising.

So, ROAS is calculated by dividing the total campaign revenue by the campaign cost. If it cost you $1,000 in ad spend to generate $3,000 in revenue, your ROAS, in percentage, is 300%.

That means for every dollar you spend on ads, you get $3 back. And you’d probably do that all day long!

ROAS Formula Explained

You should know this formula by heart. It will determine the scaling potential of your Facebook ad campaigns. What would you rather scale? Campaign A with 1.52 ROAS or campaign B with 6.50 ROAS?

The answer is obvious. Also, keep in mind that when you scale, your average ROAS will naturally come down. But more on this in the next section.

What Is A Good ROAS For Facebook Ads and How To Scale Facebook Ad Budget Profitably?

Most people think there’s only one way to scale Facebook ad campaigns. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Here’s why.

Vertical Scaling

This is the one method everybody is doing. Which is basically all about increasing budgets. If you just rely on this scaling method, you’re screwed.
What most advertisers do is just keep increasing the budget, without considering the problems it brings. Or even worst do massive increases from $100 to $800 for example.

First, the campaign stops delivering the same results and then the ads start to fatigue and lose effectiveness. The algorithm can’t keep up with the sudden budget increase. Now, they quit and say “Facebook ads don’t work”.

Vertical scaling done right is about increasing budgets gradually. For instance, increasing 20 to 50% every 3 to 5 days. The less data you have, the longer you’ll have to wait.

Horizontal Scaling

Instead of increasing budgets, with horizontal scaling, you’re increasing reach. So, how do we do that?

By researching new audiences and adding them to new ad sets, with fresh targeting. With this type of scaling, you’re going wide and the possibilities are enormous.

Horizontal scaling is what will give you new blood for your business. You know targeting the same audiences over and over again is not a strategy. At least, not a long-term strategy. You need to have variety. This takes more work than vertical scaling but the payoff is worth it.

RELATED: Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling [The 5 Things You MUST Know To Scale Your Facebook Ads Profitably]

Creative Scaling

Scaling isn’t just about increasing budgets and adding new audiences. To scale effectively, you need to do it through new creatives, as well.
If you’re only using image ads, you’re limiting your scaling potential.

Creatives on Facebook can get saturated quickly, especially when you start dealing with 3 or 4-figure/day budgets. Which many ecommerce brands do.

You don’t have to come up with completely new creatives all the time. Sometimes, all it takes is turning an existing image into a video or carousel or even changing colors.

Offer Scaling

Sometimes entrepreneurs come to me and say “I’m scaling my ecommerce business, do you have any advice?”

The first question I ask is “how many offers do you have?”

They usually come back with something like “we have this one offer, converts really well!”

At this point, I pause and let my brain process the same thing I’ve heard a million times. And then respond “you’re not building a scalable business with just one offer”.
They look surprised as always and ask me to elaborate.

Have you seen any major brand you and I know the name of that has just one offer?

Scaling your brand with Facebook ads requires variety. That is even more true for your offers. The 50% off offer that took you to $5,000/month alone won’t take you to $20,000 or even $100,000.
So, in order to scale effectively, you need to come up with different offers to show to your audience.

Facebook Retargeting Strategies That Work Like Crazy

With recent iOS updates, retargeting audiences have shrunk significantly. Also, there’s less visibility of who is who. However, it doesn’t prevent us from still getting great results from remarketing on Facebook.

Video Viewers

The biggest impact of iOS updates was on data you own and control. For example, pixel data from your website. However, anything hosted on Facebook wasn’t affected.
That’s where video views come into play.

Currently, retargeting video views is the best way to minimize the impact of these privacy changes. Add to that, video content is the most powerful advertising medium.

So, how do you leverage video views for retargeting?
For example, you can create an audience of people who saw 75% of an educational or entertaining video. Then, you can show those folks an offer. Now, they’re more likely to sign up on that.

Email Subscribers

Another great way to reduce the impact of iOS updates is by leveraging your list. This is your most valuable asset. It is the traffic you control.

Facebook gives you the option to upload a file and create a customer list audience. As you probably already know, not everybody opens your emails.
So, retargeting your list gives you the chance to be in front of those who forgot to check your emails.

You can segment your list however you want it. I’d recommend splitting it into customers and leads. For leads, you can give them coupons or welcome discounts. For customers, you can sell them more expensive or complementary products.

Checkout Page Abandonment

Did you know that on average 69% of people who add stuff to the cart leave the site without buying?
That’s a staggering stat!

If you’re not retargeting add-to-cart users, you’re leaving money on the table. In some cases, depending on your revenue, it can make a big difference in the bottom line.

Most Valuable Customers

As you probably already know, Facebook allows you to upload a list of customers. What you might not know is that you can also upload a list with LTV.
LTV means lifetime value and it’s the single most important metric in your business.

This retargeting strategy works well if you have a large customer base. Because we only want to upload a list with the top 100 to 1,000 customers. Essentially, the most valuable customers.

You might be wondering, why would you do this? Let me explain.

As mentioned before, not everybody will open your emails. Getting in front of your most valuable customers on a regular basis with relevant offers will help increase your LTV.
Additionally, you can create a lookalike and go after people similar to your most valuable customers.

What To Do When Your Facebook Ad Is Stuck In Review

We all hate that feeling. My ad is stuck. Is it going to be rejected? Did I do something wrong?
Don’t panic.

Sometimes it takes up to 24 hours or more for your ads to be fully reviewed. Facebook is quite fast actually when it comes to the review process. Some ad platforms take longer.

You have two choices when your ad is stuck in review. Either wait or contact Facebook support. Luckily, these days, you can contact their support. I remember a few years ago when reaching out to someone on Facebook was a nightmare.

All you have to do is click on the question mark and a pop-up will show up on the right side of your screen.

Then, follow the steps presented to you. Once you submit a ticket, it will open inside Messenger, where you can chat with a Facebook representative that will speed up the review process for you or help you resolve any issues.

How To Find Your Facebook Ad Account ID

This one is pretty straightforward.

You can find your account ID next to the Campaigns title and selecting the account you want from the drop-down menu.
Easy as 1, 2, 3.

Facebook Ads Learning Limited: What To Do About It

Whenever you launch a new campaign or create an ad group, Facebook will start the learning phase. This is when the algorithm is collecting data points to properly optimize your ad sets.

For Facebook to properly optimize ad sets, it needs at least 50 conversions per week. So, if you’re seeing this warning, it’s because you’re getting fewer conversions.

One quick solution for this is to optimize for an event with more conversions. An event further away from the bottom of the funnel.

For example, for your store, instead of optimizing for purchases, you might optimize for the add to cart event. This can help deliver better results.

Now, you can also not do anything and let the ad sets run limited, which is fine.
Just be aware you’re not getting the absolute most out of your ad spend when this happens.

How To Get Over Facebook Ads Saturation

When your frequency starts climbing above 5 and performance dips, you know it’s time to freshen things up. Ads saturation can be easily fixed with new creatives.

You can also get over ads saturation with different offers.

People will get tired of seeing the same offers over and over again. For example, instead of a welcome coupon, you can give them free shipping above $50.

Ads saturation is more common with larger budgets and campaign scaling. Keep an eye on the frequency column and make sure to prepare for when you need new ads.

However, if the frequency is high but the ad is still profitable, I would leave it running though, until it stops working.

Why Your Ad On Facebook Is Not Delivering

Your ad copy is ready, you have beautiful creatives and you’re feeling good about this new campaign. But something happens… or better yet, nothing happens! Your ads are not delivering.

A couple of things could be causing this. First, make sure your audience size isn’t too narrow. Anything below 1,000 people will likely not run.

Secondly, be sure the event you’re optimizing for is on the list of events you chose to use. You can do so by going to Events Manager >> Aggregated Event Measurement >> Configure Web Events.

The last issue could be related to a platform bug. If you’ve got the previous two sorted, I’d recommend contacting Facebook support.

Facebook Ads Conversion Windows Explained

The conversion window is the period conversions can be credited to a certain ad. At the time of this writing, Facebook supports the following attribution windows:

  • 1-day click
  • 7-day click (default)
  • 1-day click or 1-day view
  • 7-day click or 1-day view

As you can see above, Facebook will choose the 7-day click by default. Typically, the shorter your sales cycle the smaller your attribution window will be.
Here’s how to use these settings to your advantage:

  • Low-price: for products that are more impulse buy, you want to have a shorter window, for example, 1-day view or 1-day click
  • High-price: if you’re selling anything above $100, it’s better to use a longer attribution window, 7-day click or 1-day view

Think of it like this, low-price/shorter window; high-price/longer window.

The reason for this is that cheap products take less consideration and sales happen mostly on the same day. On the other hand, more expensive products take multiple touches, making the sales cycle longer.

RELATED BLOG: The 5 Things You MUST Know When Creating The Audience Size On Facebook

Ideal Audience Size For Facebook Ads

Many people ask me “what’s the ideal audience size for Facebook?”

The answer is it depends on your objective and niche. If you’re going after cold traffic, I’d recommend between 1 and 5 million. For remarketing, you need at least 1,000 people for your ads to perform optimally.

You might be wondering, for cold traffic, why such a big audience. This is due to recent iOS and algorithm updates, larger audiences tend to perform better. The more data the algorithm has, the better.

On the other hand, if your audience is too broad, your ads will likely not convert.

Typically, the broader you go, the lower your CTR will be. If the audience is too specific, you’ll be paying more for clicks and conversions.

So, try to keep the audience in the green. Also, test different audience sizes. You might find that an 800K audience is better than 2 million, for your particular business.

What To Do When Your Facebook Ads Have Low Reach

Low reach is simply a symptom of an underlying condition, in medical terms. This likely means your audience is too small, in other words too specific.
It’s more quite common when you’re targeting remarketing audiences.

Another issue can be audience overlap.
Audiences shouldn’t overlap by more than 30%. If that happens, it could lead to low reach and you competing against yourself in the auction. Which sounds good in the personal development space but not when you’re paying for traffic.

The next diagnostics are related to budget and bidding. When your budget is too small or you’re not bidding high enough, it can lead to low reach. For example, this is quite common with Cost Cap.

Another reason your ads are not reaching as many people as possible is average or poor creative quality.

Those 3 metrics are indicators of ad quality. When your ads fall below Above Average, Facebook starts to gradually reduce your reach. They will choose to show advertisers with higher quality creatives.

Additionally, beginner advertisers can judge performance based on a little bit of spending. Sometimes, it’s too early to tell if your ads are getting good reach or not.
Give the algorithm some time to properly optimize and take your conclusions based on solid evidence and data.

How To Share A Facebook Ad

Sharing a Facebook ad is now easier than ever.

I still remember when it was almost like finding a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, for us, Facebook is always improving the interface and user experience.

All you have to do is go to the Ads tab inside Ads Manager, search for the ad you want to share, and click View Charts. From there you can get a sharing link.

As easy as that! 😉

This Is How You Remove Comments From Facebook Ads

If you’ve been running ads for a while, you’ve probably got some negative comments. Welcome to social media!

Luckily, there’s a way to hide those comments from your Facebook ads. Here’s how:

On the right to the comment, you’ll find three dots. Click there and a pop-up like the one on the image will show up. From there, select Hide comment.

Boom! With a few clicks, those nasty, spammy comments are gone.

Best Ecommerce Facebook Ads Examples

Need inspiration for your next campaign?
Here are some of the best ad examples to unlock your inner genius.

We’ll take a look at ecommerce ads from different industries. Even though it might not be your industry, it’s always good to see what’s working for other brands. What’s working for them can work for you as well.

Check it out.

Watches & Accessories

The headline reads “An Automatic Watch Worth Every Penny”.

Vincero is an affordable watch company. But their products look expensive.

This is a feature-driven ad. But it shows you the features customers care about the most when considering a new watch.

Women’s Fashion

Fashion Nova is a brand with personality. Their marketing strategy is influencer-driven.

Here they’re giving a discount and also saying there are new items in stock. Also, they make it easy for you to get a discount, no need for a code.

In the end, they hit the consumer’s ego with “Hot and Fresh”. So many powerful persuasion triggers in such few words.

Supplements

This is a video ad from a supplement company called Organifi. It’s announcing their home-prepped pumpkin late.

A brilliant ad! What they’re doing is “throwing rocks” at coffee shops and positioning their product as a healthier, cheaper, and smarter choice.

Instead of saying straight out loud, our product is better than what you can get at a local coffee shop, they’re creating a new opportunity.
Now you can get a healthier pumpkin late, faster and cheaper in the comfort of your own home. Only with Organifi.

Beauty Brand

You’re probably familiar with the beauty giant, Lancôme.

This is a 10-second video ad showing before and after results with their Serum formula. A powerful technique here, called results in advance.
It makes the consumer imagine themselves getting that same result.

Also, “in just 7 days” pushes the skeptical over the edge. Be careful with before and after ads though. Make sure you go through Facebook’s ad policies.

Clothing

A great ad from Calvin Klein.

This is a classic example of an ecommerce ad playing with scarcity, which creates urgency. Big brands know how to take advantage of end-of-season promos.

Red is the perfect color here as it drives desire and works well in combination with the urgency trigger.

Notice the first sentence is formatted differently. You can use a tool such as Facebook Fonts for this. It’s another great way to grab people’s attention on the feed.

Above all, this is a great offer. The best psychological triggers won’t matter without a strong offer.

Mattress Brand

If you live in the USA, you’re probably already sleeping on a Purple mattress or know someone who does.

This ad reminds us of the importance of real-time marketing for ecommerce. Real-time marketing is based on life events and things happening now.

As store owners, we want to take advantage of occasions such as Labor Day to flood our site with ready-to-buy prospects. Again, your offer needs to be great to pull this off successfully.

Black Fridays or Cyber Mondays are another example of real-time marketing or as I call it, “occasional marketing”.

Survival Niche

Another example of a great offer.
I can’t stress how important it is to get this right. The best advertising won’t work without killer offers.

Stealth Angel Survival is an outdoor company that sells survival equipment. This one is similar to Vincero’s but with more social proof.

The ad hits your ego as well and creates a sense of ownership, which increases desire.
Besides, it’s a pretty cool product!

It’s always better to have images of your product in action, in your ads, rather than on a white background.

Lifestyle Brand

A mentor of mine once said, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

I believe this ad from Rip Curl captures the essence of that statement. If I had a crystal ball, I’d say this is a remarketing ad. The copy and hashtag suggest people are already familiar with the brand.

It doesn’t look like an ad.
Also, the setup speaks to the audience, explorers, and adventurous people. Typical from Australian folks, which is the country they’re targeting.

Stop Gambling And Start Profiting

Apple might have thrown us a curveball with privacy changes. But getting a great average ROAS on Facebook is still possible. In fact, some brands are getting better results than ever.

These supposedly “lucky brands” follow the same strategies and principles you’ve learned in this post. These brands don’t gamble their money on Facebook. They have a system that generates predictable results.

Ecommerce success isn’t complicated. You simply model what the successful stores are doing. If it works for them, there’s a pretty high chance it will work for you too.

As you’ve learned, when it comes to the question of ‘what is a good ROAS for facebook ads’ – advertising is just one part of this whole success equation. The other part is making sure you have great offers and products worth raving about.

And don’t just sell products, create a community of people that embrace your brand’s essence.

Now, back to you. We’d love to hear your thoughts… what was your main takeaway from this article?

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Silvia Myers

Silvia Myers

Traffic Ninja & eCommerce Coach

Silvia is co-founder of Traffic Ninjas, teaching product makers and brand builders how to sell their incredible products online without having to discount or spend their hard-earned cash on things that don’t work.

Together with her husband and co-founder, Kristen, Traffic Ninjas equip eCommerce stores with an underground Ninja method specifically designed for small business owners, teaching them how to be profitable and sustainable and actually earn an income from selling their products online.

The Traffic Ninjas community has grown from Sydney, Australia to 35+ countries around the world with small business owners achieving amazing results.

3 Comments

  1. Kushal Sen

    Crazy amount of information!

    Reply
    • Kristen Myers

      Hey Kushal, glad it helped and see you around the Ninja community! 🙂

      Reply
  2. John Waugh

    What really sets the pros apart from amateurs when it comes to Facebook strategies is that pros play the long game with conversion funnel strategies.

    Reply

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