Are you using Facebook ads to get cold traffic to your drop shipping Shopify store? STOP!
I've seen countless posts on Facebook over the past few months from drop shipping newbies who aren't able to make money by sending Facebook Ads to their eCommerce stores.
Facebook ads aren’t anything new but in many of the beginner eCommerce groups, I'm seeing a lot of struggle.
That's why I wanted to explain why your Facebook ads aren’t converting and give you a strategy that will give you better results almost immediately.
Traffic Sources & Buying Intent
Traffic With No Buying Intent
The core of your problem is that when people are on Facebook, they aren’t specifically looking to buy products. So when they see your Facebook ads in their feed, they may be interested in your product but they usually don’t have intent to buy.
Let me walk you through an example scenario using a Shopify store that sells surfboards.
Let’s say you have a solid Shopify store that is optimized for conversions.
Your audience is scrolling through their feeds on Facebook and you decide to target them with an ad. The reason your customers see your ad is because they follow professional surfers and few surfing magazines, they’ve shown interest in that topic.
But even if they’re interested in the topic, you’re interrupting their viewing experience on Facebook by showing them an ad.
You can get people to convert this way, but since you’re interrupting their experience on Facebook you need to have an amazing offer, great copy, and a good website. That’s a tall order for a veteran marketer, let alone someone just starting out in business.
You want them to take out their credit card and buy right away, without having any previous intention of buying your surfboard. In that scenario, it’s unlikely you’ll convert many people.
It’s possible, but if you’re new to eCommerce and digital marketing, you’re not going to get it right from day one.
Does that mean you should give up? No, you should just refocus your efforts.
If you’re getting traffic to your site from your Facebook ads but no sales, you need to try a traffic source with higher buying intent.
Traffic With Buying Intent
To find traffic that will actually convert, use Google Product Listing Ads.
Let’s imagine the same scenario, you have a surfboard Shopify store that’s good to go. But this time, your lead is on Google searching for '8ft surfboard' and your Google ad appears.
If they click your ad and visit your store, they have a lot more buying intent. They’re looking to buy something and are actively searching for products. They're a warm lead that is ready to convert.
Which means when they click your ad, they are way more likely to purchase from you.
With Facebook, you’re targeting based on general interest instead of intent. This is a cold audience, meaning they aren’t ready to buy.
Google ads are targeted with intent and are only found by audiences looking to take immediate action.
If you’ve been following me, you already know that I suggest starting with Google PLAs.
But maybe you tried it once and didn’t love your results. Maybe you read something in a beginner group that said Facebook ads made someone a lot of money.
Either way, I’d say go back to Google PLAs and give it time to actually work. If you don’t see immediate results, take time to adjust your ads and have a little patience. It’ll work because you’ll be using the highest intent-based traffic, Google Product Listing Ads.
Google Product Listing Ads
Now let me show you a live example of Google PLAs using the search term we used before, '8ft surfboard'.
The first thing you see with your results are sponsored sites, those are all Google Product Listing Ads. Your Shopify store will appear in this section.
In each ad, you have a product image, your store name, a descriptive title, and the price. So not only are they searching for your products, but they know the price before they even land on your page. That means that they have a ton of buying intent if they click on your ad.
Now compare that to your Facebook ads. They’re scrolling through their feed and they see an ad that is something like save 50% on surfboards today.
Best case scenario, they click through. Now you not only have to convince them that they want a surfboard right now, but they should buy your surfboard.
If you want the complete rundown on Google Product Listing Ads, I cover it in depth inside my Drop Ship Blueprint. But if you’re just looking to just get a feel for it, look up Google Merchant Center. It's free, but you'll have to create a Google Merchant Center account.
- You'll also have to create a Google AdWords account because that's how you fund your Google ads. But if you're new and looking for easy wins then Google PLAs are your best choice.
As long as you are selling something within Google’s guidelines you’re going to get you a much better ROI (Return On Investment) than with Facebook ads.
With Google PLAS, it'll be a lot easier to learn what works and become a better business owner while actually making some sales. When you have some experience under your belt and your Google PLAs are bringing in customers, then you might consider using Facebook ads.
The Best Use Of Facebook Ads
In my opinion, the best use of Facebook ads is to capture leads. With well-targeted ads and good email sequences, you can really generate a lot of extra revenue.
I just released a course all about building those email sequences called Inbox Funnels. You can find it in the member's area of Drop Ship Lifestyle.
Inbox Funnels teaches you:
- What technology you should use
- The difference between evergreen and broadcast emails
- How to know your audience
- The highest converting copy techniques for writing emails
- How to stay out of the spam box
It’s the next step for your business but first, focus on your Google PLAs. Stick with the traffic source that has the highest intent and brings in people that want to buy immediately.
Did you find this article helpful? Are you using Facebook ads? Let’s have a conversation in the comments below.
i think it depends on the type of products
If you’re selling very inexpensive/cheap direct response type products (think late-night infomercials front-end products) then Meta Ads could make sense to cold traffic.
For anything high-ticket, remarketing on Meta Ads is a no brainer but cold ads direct to product pages are a waste of $$$.
Thank you! Great information! like always
You’re welcome, Emily! Happy to share 🙂
Well FB ads can work well too if done RIGHT!! Selling to cold traffic worked well a few years back, now FB is saturated with ads and people are getting annoyed by seeing those FB ads who try to make a sale right away. Like Anton said in a previous comment, best is to captured leads by offering something free which is of value to your target audience and the retarget those customers.
The disadvantage with Google PLA I see is that the customer is shown similar or even same products with Price, so I would guess that your price plays a very important role in the buying decision of the customer. If I get displayed 5 of the exact same specs/model I do go for the one with the cheapest price.
You don’t have this issue so much with FB Ads when you retarget and sell to warm traffic as you already gave the customers something of value and established some kind of relationship.
Thanks for sharing this. Is this possible even with low ticket items ($30 to $50) and still be profitable?
You’re welcome, AJ!
The short answer is yes, it’s possible.
However, it is MUCH easier to be success when following the Drop Ship Lifestyle system of drop shipping.
Not only does it allow you to earn more money per sale, it also allows for you to be able to spend more money on ads to acquire customers profitably.
You should check out this blog post I wrote explaining the differences: Shopify vs. Amazon vs. Dropshipping From China
Hope that helps!
Ok but ,..I think FB has record data about interest and they record what we doing ; especially about our behavior on facebook.
these data is collected and used it for targeting the ads campaign for advertiser.
I think on Facebook we use a good copywriting to attract the customer to be to visit and purchase our webstore.
how do you think
Hey Robi,
Like I say in the video, it is possible to run profitable Facebook ads to cold traffic BUT you have to be a great marketer to make it work. There are a lot of moving parts rather than just getting targeting correct. For someone who is brand new to eCommerce / internet marketing it often takes a large ad budget and a lot of mistakes to eventually find success with targeting cold Facebook traffic.
Thank you! Great information! I always learn something new from your articles
Happy to hear that, Mayra! Be sure to check back every week for our newest post 🙂
As a newbie you have opened my eyes. Now I visualise it for myself in this way:
Facebook is like large a shopping street with a lot of people walking trough and eating ice cream,
and Google is the stores in this shopping street with people in it who have intention to buy. 😉
Nailed it 🙂
Yes, but my question is how would you leverage competition from hundreds of other posters on Google Shopping Ads? It’s almost like selling on Amazon isn’t it?
Nope! My advice is to only compete with products that have 10 or less retailers listing them via Google Shopping.
It’s hard for me to explain in this comment but I’m hosting a dropshipping webinar this week that is covering niche selection. You can go ahead and register for the free training by clicking here.
It was always going to happen. Too many people were going for the get rich quick and while they were spending the time to learn how to run and operate an ecommerce store they let themselves down by running spammy ads to below average quality products and making the customers wait far too long for the experience.
Facebook always has its users front and centre and giving them poor newsfeed experiences by allowing spammy marketers was never going to last. If they see a drop off in engagement and hang time they’re most certainly going to do something about fixing the problem.
The “dropshipping from China” era of this business model definitely didn’t do legitimate sellers any favors in the eyes of consumers or platforms :/
Hey Everyone,
As many of you already know I created Drop Ship Lifestyle after selling a network of eCommerce stores and then trying to find a community of other store owners to network with… What I found was a bunch of scammers who promised newbies they would get rich quick by following their push-button systems!
This led me to create a new community along with online training that shares how to build a REAL online business.
I’d love to hear what you think… it’s a 2.5 hour dropshipping webinar designed to help you drop ship profitably… all for free.
Be sure to click here to check it out and send me your feedback!
If you go through the How To Drop Ship Profitably webinar and still have questions just contact me and I will help you out.
– Anton