Are Facebook Ads Still Effective for E-commerce Businesses in 2024?

In 2024, Facebook ads for e-commerce businesses will continue to be a powerful tool. Despite the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, many organizations, businesses, and clients still rely on Facebook to drive their online ad campaigns. Meta ads for e-commerce platforms's ability to target specific audiences and deliver engaging, creative content makes them a favorite for reaching potential customers.

While preferences for meta ads for e-commerce can vary, Facebook consistently proves its worth. Its sophisticated targeting options and vast user base help businesses achieve high conversion rates. Whether it's captivating ad creative or compelling copy, Facebook's e-commerce strategy effectively captures attention and drives sales.

As meta-ads for e-commerce grow, the importance of connecting with the right audience through impactful ads cannot be overstated. Facebook remains at the top as the best Facebook ads strategy for e-commerce, a crucial part of the advertising mix, delivering results that keep businesses coming back for more.

Are You Wondering About How to Create Facebook Ads for E-commerce?

When planning e commerce facebook ads strategy, start by defining clear objectives that you aim to achieve with your ads. Once your goals are set, shift your focus to understanding your target audience and tailoring your approach to their preferences and behaviors. Create a content strategy that works best with the audience, ensuring your messaging is compelling and relevant. It's also important to set a budget for your advertising efforts, allowing you to allocate resources effectively to meet your objectives. At last, keep track and consistently monitor your campaign's performance and measure results against your goals to ensure you're on the right track and to make necessary adjustments for continuous improvement.

Did you know that Facebook and Instagram collectively have over 4 billion users worldwide? Yes, you read that right! To put this staggering number into perspective – the population of India and China when combined is around 3 billion! These social media giants have grown to such mammoth proportions that it’s impossible to imagine a world without them today.

Facebook ads for e-commerce businesses particularly, has become a melting pot for E-commerce activities in recent times.

Businesses of all sizes and verticals are vying for the attention of Facebook users and trying to convert them into customers.

But what differentiates the successful ones from the rest? Simple – effective utilization of Facebook Ads. These successful E-commerce businesses have adopted several innovative strategies that have helped them drive huge traffic to their online store. In this post, we will take a look at 10 such high-growth strategies and how to adopt them in your business.

Strategy #1: Use Custom And Lookalike Audiences To Acquire New Customers

Both Custom Audience and Lookalike Audience are Facebook features that allow you to target users with similar characteristics as your existing customers and followers. The difference between the two is that while Custom Audience is created based on people who already have a relationship with your E-commerce business, Lookalike Audience is created based on people who don’t know about your brand, but share characteristics with your ideal customers.

Both these techniques are great to improve conversion as the users targeted using these techniques have a high propensity to purchase from your brand.

How To Create A Lookalike Audience

1. As a first step, go to Audiences, a module of Meta Ads Manager.

2. Click on Create a Lookalike Audience

3. Choose your source.
4. Choose the country/countries for your lookalike audience.
5. Choose the desired audience size.
6. Select Create Audience to start using your first set of lookalike audiences.

Best Practices To Follow While Creating And Using Lookalike Audience

• When selecting your source audience, ensure that there is no audience overlap. This way, the same people will not end up seeing the same ad multiple times, resulting in a poor experience.
• Always pick high-quality sources for your lookalike audiences. For instance, you may be tempted to put every user who is on your email subscriber list. But this might not translate into sales as most of these people would not have even opened your email. Instead, using the list of people who took action (opened an email or clicked CTA) will give you better results.
• It is recommended to have at least 1000 people in your Source Audience

Strategy #2: Use Meta Advantage + Catalog Ads (Formerly Known As Dynamic Product Ads)

For consumers, this ad format might look similar to other types of ads on Facebook. The actual difference lies in its creation. Instead of creating an ad for every single individual product, you create a template that will automatically populate images and product details. The products displayed will be based on users’ past actions. These ads use Facebook Pixel (will learn more about this in later sections) to track user activity and display corresponding products in the ad.

Here’s what a Meta Advantage + Catalog ad looks like –

How To Set Up Meta Advantage + Catalog Ads

1. Go to Ads Manager.

2. Click on ‘+ Create’.

3. Pick your campaign objective.

4. Depending on your campaign objective, you can select a catalog at the campaign or ad level. (Note: The catalog must be created separately in Facebook Commerce Manager. Check out the steps here).
5. Fill out the remaining details such as budget and target audience.
6. Publish the ad.

Best Practices To Follow While Creating And Managing Meta Advantage + Catalog Ads

• Always double-check for errors in your Pixel and catalog. If either of them is incorrectly set up, it may prevent the products from being displayed.
• Constantly update your catalog so that the ads do not display products that are out of stock.
• Ensure that every product in your created catalog has a high-quality non-pixelated image so that users are not subjected to a poor experience. Here is our guide on E-commerce product photography that can help you get started with amazing images.

Strategy #3: Run General Retargeting Campaigns For Users Who Visited Your Website

Retargeting campaigns enable you to reconnect with users who had previously interacted with your brand either on Facebook or some other website. For example, it could be someone who clicked on an ad on Instagram or followed your Facebook page. They are warm prospects and have a higher intent to purchase from you. Retargeting them via Facebook campaigns can easily convert them into your customers.

Best Practices To Follow While Running Retargeting Campaigns

• Add a discount or special offer in your retargeting campaign to sweeten the deal and reignite their interest in your brand.
• Keep an eye on the ad frequency. Do not send too many Retargeting Ads in a short span as it will have a negative rather than positive effect. Here are more tips on targeting your customers on Facebook.
• Be creative with your Retargeting Campaigns. Try adding photos taken by shoppers or influencers using your product, videos demonstrating how a specific product works, etc. These are social proofs that can convince the users to take the final step in their purchase journey.

Strategy #4: Attract Competitors’ Customers Through Intent-based Targeting

Intent-based Targeting is the approach of finding out the specific intentions and interests of your target audience and creating relevant and personalized ads for them. A great way to implement this strategy is by gaining insights into your competitors’ customer base such as demographics and preferences. Facebook Audience Insights tool helps with this. It offers detailed insights about your competitors’ customers, using which you can create buyer personas and build Facebook Ad Campaigns for them.

Best Practices To Follow While Attracting Competitors’ Customers

• Follow your competitors’ Facebook pages and engage with their content. You will start seeing their ads on your feed. Click the three dots in the upper-right corner of the ad and select ‘Why Am I Seeing This Ad?’ This will give you reasons why you are seeing the ad. In this, you can spot demographic targeting details like age, language, and location.
• Create a lookalike audience based on your competitors’ customer base. This will enable you to connect with new people who are likely to be interested in your products.
• In your ads, highlight the unique value proposition of your products and how they address the specific pain points of your competitors’ customers.

Strategy #5: Upsell To Your Existing Customers

Upselling is all about encouraging your existing customers to consider an upgraded version of a  product for better profitability. For example, encouraging a customer to purchase an iPhone 14 when they own an iPhone 7.

e-commerce Facebook ads are one of the best ways to target such users, thanks to their personalization capabilities. You can run automated Facebook upselling campaigns for customers based on their past interactions. You can leverage the data you have on their preferences, purchase history, or browsing behavior to create more tailored and relevant upselling offerings.

Best Practices To Follow While Upselling To Your Existing Customers

• Ensure that your upgrade is relevant to the customer’s present needs. Try to understand their wants before making a recommendation.
• Do not try to upsell a product that is above and beyond their budget as it can lead to a lost sale. Always offer a small upgrade. Your customers are not going to pay 2X even if you offer a much bigger feature set.
• Do not offer too many upsell options as you will end up scaring your buyer from the upsell and the original sale.

Strategy #6: Target Cart Abandonment With Facebook Ads

Cart abandonment has been a plaguing issue for E-commerce businesses for several years now. According to a study by Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate hovers around 70% even today. The most effective way to counter cart abandonment is by using Facebook ads. All you need to do is leverage different features of Facebook that help in retargeting users.

For instance, you can create Custom Audience based on users who have abandoned their carts. Use it to create tailored ads that address the specific needs and motivations of the target audience.

You can also employ Dynamic Ads to showcase the exact products that users abandoned. Along with it, add relevant information such as prices and descriptions so that it will reignite interest and encourage users to return to their cart and complete the purchase.

Best Practices To Follow While Creating And Managing Cart Abandonment Ads

• Incorporate social proof and user-generated content into your ads to instill trust and credibility, increasing the chances of conversion.
• Craft compelling ad copy and visuals that remind users of the items they left behind, addressing any concerns or hesitations they may have had during their initial visit.
• Test different timing settings to find the optimal amount of time that you need to give between cart abandonment and displaying an ad. Also, find an optimal frequency for showing the ad without frustrating the end users. Displaying an ad 17-20 times within a month is ideal.

Must Read: 17 Best Abandoned Cart Email Examples With Key Takeaways (+Free Templates)

Strategy #7: Install The Conversion Tracking Pixel

If you are using Facebook ads e commerce to market your online store, it is strongly recommended that you install the conversion tracking pixel. Pixel is a data-gathering tool that tracks ad performance, helps in optimizing them, and enables remarketing to visitors who have taken some action on your website. It is simply a piece of code that needs to be placed on your E-commerce store.

For example, a user spots one of your product’s Facebook ads on their news feed and clicks on it to visit the product page. However, they do not take any action and leave the website. The next time they visit Facebook, they will be greeted with a tailored advertisement for the same product reminding them about their unfinished shopping journey. This is the Facebook Pixel at play!

How to Install the Facebook Pixel?

One prerequisite before you install Facebook Pixel is to have a website. Once you have created it, follow the below steps –

• Go to Meta Events Manager.
• Click Connect data sources and select Web.

• Click Connect.
• Enter a name for your pixel and click Create pixel. This will create a new ID that you can view in Events Manager.

• Enter your website URL to check for easy partner integration setup options and click Check.
• If a partner integration is available to you, you’ll see it on the screen. Click Next and follow the onscreen instructions to set up your pixel and events through your partner’s website.
• If you do not have a partner integration, you’ll have the option to set up the Conversions API yourself using the personalized instructions or send the instructions to a developer.

Strategy #8: Utilize Facebook Multi-Product Ads

Facebook’s Multi-product Ads help you showcase multiple products within a single ad unit. Each product can have its own image and description. The goal of these ads is to drive traffic to your website and improve your conversion rates. For example, if you own an online fashion store, you can display the 3 top-selling shirts in this ad. Interestingly, many businesses use this ad format not only to display multiple products but also to tell a story or provide more details about a product through images from different angles. Here is an example of a Multi-product Ad –

Best Practices While Creating Facebook Multi-Product Ads

• Always place your most important or attractive image in the first and second positions. Because in the desktop version of the ad, only the first two images will be displayed initially while in the mobile version, only the first image will be shown.
• Ensure that your ad looks great as a whole and not just individually. Try using similar or complementary colors across all the images.
• Combine Multi-product Ads with custom audiences to reap its complete benefits. With this union, you can easily retarget people who didn’t make a purchase with similar products.

Must Read: 11 Ready-to-Use Facebook Ads Templates to Boost E-commerce Sales

Strategy #9: Use Facebook Video Ads

People love videos, particularly Facebook users. These stats prove this –

• Over 1.25 billion users viewed videos on Facebook Watch, Facebook’s in-house video streaming service.
• Facebook users gaze 5 times longer at video than at static content.
• Over 140 billion Reels get played across Facebook and Instagram every day.

For marketers and advertisers, this could mean only one thing – use this trend (love for videos) to attract visitors to your E-commerce website. And the best way to do it is via Facebook Video Ads.

Facebook Video Ads are ad placements that enable you to promote your brand or products via engaging videos. They provide a great opportunity to convey your brand’s message in a more engaging way. With the help of appealing visuals, audio, and various storytelling elements, you can create compelling narratives that can attract your potential customers.

Based on their placement, there are different types of Facebook Video Ads –

• In-feed Video Ads appear when a user scrolls down their news feed.

• In-stream Video Ads are mobile-only ads that appear in the middle of another video after 60 seconds of main video content.

• Marketplace Video Ads appear when a user is browsing through Facebook Marketplace.

• Stories Video Ads appear in the Facebook stories section as full-screen, vertical content.
• Watch Feed Video Ads appear on Facebook Watch Feed among other organic videos.

‍

Best Practices While Creating Facebook Video Ads

• Always create Video Ads that work without sound. Oftentimes, people listen to videos in areas where they cannot switch on sound.
• Prefer creating vertical videos that are suitable for mobiles. Most modern users use their smartphones to view Facebook.
• Make your videos short (less than 15 seconds) so that users will always watch till the end.
• Put your most compelling part of the message at the very beginning of the video to grab the attention of the users.
• Follow the design guidelines proposed by Facebook while creating Video ds.

Strategy#10: Use Facebook Automated Rule

Facebook’s automated rules can automatically check your Ad Campaigns on a preset schedule. It can either send notifications or make changes to the campaigns according to the action set by you in the rule. For every rule, you select the criteria that trigger the rule, the action that the rule takes on the ad, and the Ad Campaign to which the rule has to be applied. A rule can be based on an ad, an adset, or at the campaign level, but not a combination of different levels. You just have to create a separate rule if you want to target a different level.

Some of the things you can do using an automated rule are –

• Pause a low-performing ad when it hits a specific metric
• Increase your ad budget when you garner a certain number of clicks.
• Increase your bid if your total daily spend is below a certain amount
• Increase your budget based on return on ad spend (ROAS)
• Turn off a specific campaign on a particular day of the week.

How To Create A Facebook Automated Rule

1. Go to Ads Manager.
2. Select the box next to an Ad Campaign or the ad to which you would like to apply the rule.
3. Select Create a new rule from the Rules dropdown.

4. Pick a rule type according to your need and click Next.
5. In case you picked a Custom rule, enter the Rule name, the campaign to which the rule needs to be applied, conditions, action, and other parameters such as time range and schedule. You can adjust the Time range and Schedule.

6. Confirm the type of Notification you want to receive and add Subscribers to your rule so that they can receive notifications.
7. Select Create.

More Facebook Ad Tips You Should Know

Besides the above 10 tips, here are a few more essential tips you can follow to master the art of Facebook Advertising –

• Facebook constantly comes up with new ways to showcase ads. So keep a watch on new tools and features that get introduced in the Ads Manager. More importantly, make sure to take advantage of it straight away.

• Always set budget caps in your campaigns. It will protect you from unwanted ad spend. Also, it will help you in scaling your ads without impacting profits.

• You do not need huge budgets for running a successful Facebook ad. It is more important to optimize the campaign and maximize the output of the existing one.

• Always have a clear goal for your Facebook campaign. It could be increasing brand awareness, selling a product, or even creating an account. More importantly, there must be a simple call to action, encouraging users to take action toward this goal.

• Try including numbers in your ads. If you are showcasing a product, highlight how much it costs. If you are offering a discount, highlight how much the discount percentage is. Here are some examples of best Facebook Ad Campaigns to get you started.

How To Track Your Facebook Ad Funnel and Identify Problems?

Your Facebook Ad Funnel can be riddled with challenges and your ad campaigns can often run into performance issues. The key question is how do you identify problems and how do you know it’s time to refresh your E-commerce Facebook Ads? Thankfully there are a few techniques and tools you can use for this. Here are they –

1. Charts in Ad Manager:

Once you click on View Charts against a campaign in Facebook Ads Manager, you will be able to view some basic information about your campaign such as CPM, Viewing Frequency, Reach, etc. all of which can help identify delivery and cost issues.

2. Reports in Ad Manager:

‍This feature gives you a more in-depth analysis of cost and performance metrics. To access reports, click on the Reports button in the upper-right corner of the Ads Manager screen. Upon clicking Custom Report and changing the view to Trend, you can easily identify ad fatigue. For instance, you can spot issues in the form of reducing clicks/conversions.

3. Ads Manager Rules:

These are nothing but the automated rules which we discussed previously. All you need to do is set cost or performance thresholds, which will give you automatic notifications when the Ad Campaigns reach those points.

How to Choose the Right Budget For Facebook Ads?

A simple thumb rule when it comes to Facebook Ads is – start small. Avoid spending too much on your initial campaigns. Create small-scale campaigns and collect data on how your ads are performing. Focus primarily on metrics like Cost Per Click, Cost Per Mille, Cost Per Action, etc. for every ad. Use this data as your guide to determining the ideal budget for your future Facebook ads. An ideal starting point would be ₹300-400 per day. See how your results are faring for 2-3 weeks given the overall context of your ad campaign.  From there, you can scale your ad budget.

And you must also consider your goals while determining the budget. Based on that, you can develop an e commerce Facebook ads strategy for how you want to distribute your ad budget over campaigns or ad sets. For example, if your goal is a higher ROAS (Return On Ad Spend), then you must distribute more of your ad budget to those ads that will drive conversions.

About ANS Commerce

ANS Commerce is India’s leading E-commerce service provider that empowers businesses of all sizes to streamline their operations including their marketing efforts. ANS Commerce offers end-to-end solutions, from performance marketing to warehouse management.

Our expertise in performance marketing can help you build targeted and engaging campaigns across Facebook to drive brand awareness, improve conversions, and maximize ROI.

With ANS Commerce as your trusted partner, you can unlock the full potential of your online store and achieve sustainable growth in today’s competitive landscape. To know more about ANS Commerce, book a demo now.

FAQs

1. Does Facebook Ads for E-commerce Businesses Still Have an Effect in 2024?

It has been observed that clients and businesses still choose Facebook ads for e-commerce businesses to run their e-commerce ad campaigns. The choice varies as per the users and clients; however, it still holds the success ratio in comparison to others in context to the high conversion rates of ad creatives and copies.

2. What are Some of the Best E-commerce Facebook Ads Type?

Some of the Best E-commerce Facebook Ads Type are:

• Carousel ads 
• Domain ads
• Collection ads 
• Instant experience ads 
• Video ads
• Lead ads

3. How do Businesses Make Good Use of Facebook as an E-commerce Platform?

You can easily create a Facebook shop. and make the process easy by engaging your products with meta ads ecommerce for the best shopping experience. This process makes it convenient and easy for businesses to reach out to their potential target audience and drive sales with the help of social media platforms.

4. What are Some of the Best Ways to Get Results for Businesses With Facebook Ads E-commerce.

There are an ample number of ways to get results from an e-commerce Facebook ads strategy. Some of the ways to drive results are mentioned below:

• Set your target audience.
• Portray a story through video ads. 
• Prioritize the abandoned cart.
• Make good use of shopping campaigns.
• Use trending and multiple product ads.
• Create referral programs.
• Organize interesting giveaways. 
• Offer discount codes. 
• Measure offline sales with the help of different conversion lift tools.

5. How can One Plan for Their Facebook E-commerce Strategy?

There are some short and simple steps that need to be kept in mind to plan for the Facebook e-commerce strategy.

Step 1: You need to define your objectives that you're planning to achieve with the help of the e-commerce Facebook ads strategy.

Step 2: Focus on your target audience.

Step 3: Plan the content strategy. 

Step 4: Keep your advertising budget in mind and work accordingly to achieve your objectives. 

Step 5: Monitor your results and measure them.

6. Which Four are the Best Facebook Ads Strategy for E-commerce?

The best Facebook ad strategies for e-commerce are:

• Create e-commerce Facebook ads that are authentic and relevant to your brand.
• Know about your target audience so that it makes it easy for you to plan e-commerce Facebook ads.
• Plan your theme and work accordingly to achieve the objectives of your meta ads for e-commerce.
• To engage your audience for meta-ads e-commerce, create video ads that your audience can connect with and interact with.

7. What are the Main Four Facebook Ad Formats for Meta-Ads Ads E-commerce?

The main four Facebook ad formats for meta-ads ads e-commerce are:

• Video
• Collection 
• Image 
• Carousel

8. How Can One Make Their Facebook Ad Effective?

• There are an ample number of ways to make your Facebook ads effective. Some of the best ways are mentioned below. 
• Redevelop your Facebook page. 
• Focus on your target audience and create the ads accordingly. 
• Keep track of the placement and ad formats. 
• Define your goals and objectives.
• Understand the analytics tools required to look after your business. 
• Build your community as per the requirements of your business.
• Connect and work with the best e-commerce Facebook ads management tools. 
• Plan your budget in a healthy manner.

‍