If you own an ecommerce store, you’ve probably tried various strategies to attract new buyers and retain existing customers:

• Post on social media
• Create product videos
• Send email campaigns
• Write blog posts

But have you tried Facebook ads for ecommerce? With almost 2.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook can offer your business many opportunities to grow.

Let’s start by exploring why Facebook advertising is worth it. Then we’ll show you ways to optimize your ecommerce ads for success.

?Bonus: Get Our Free Tool That Writes Your Facebook Ads>>

Why Use Facebook Ads for Ecommerce?

The major benefit of running Facebook ads is they enable you to reach your exact audience at every stage of the sales funnel.

So it doesn’t matter if you want to build awareness, get people to sign-up for your offer, or drive sales.

Facebook also has, undoubtedly, the best targeting options. You can target ads to people by demographics, location, interests, behaviors, and more.

Ad Strategies to Run the Best Ecommerce Campaigns

Check out these 9 key strategies with some helpful ecommerce facebook ad examples.

1. Nail your offer – it makes or breaks your campaign.

This is where it all starts — having a compelling offer for your audience.

Yes, you can leverage all the best techniques. But if the thing that you’re giving away isn’t irresistible enough, then your ads aren’t going to convert.

AnnMarie Skin Care does an amazing job with its ad, as you can see below. Its compelling offer was a 25% off flash sale on its products.

Flash sales are an effective tactic for generating interest in underperforming products. Not to mention, their time-bounded nature that sparks FOMO.

2. Retarget users who abandon their carts.

Are you targeting cart abandonment for more sales?

Here’s what ecommerce cart abandonment is about:

It’s when shoppers add items to their cart but then they leave without completing their purchase.

Stats show that 69% of online carts are being abandoned by users. And it happens for various reasons — high shipping costs, no coupon code, distractions, and more.

Regardless, Facebook ads enable you to give them a nudge to finish their order. You do that through retargeting, a strategy in which you show Facebook ads to people who’ve already visited your website.

What you should do:

Create an ad that shows the exact item/s they added to their cart. But before you’re able to do that, be sure to create a product catalog inside Catalog Manager. (See screenshot below.)

When you’ve uploaded your product catalog, you can then start creating a Facebook ad campaign using the objective “Catalog sales.”

Then in your ad copy, let your audience know that their cart is waiting!

?Key tip: Convince them to buy this time by offering a discount code

3. Create a custom audience of people who’ve viewed your product pages.

A Facebook custom audience are groups of people who’ve interacted with your business in one way or another.

That includes your current customer list, app users, and yes — those who view your product pages.

For this strategy, we’re going to target product page viewers only.

To get started, you first need to set-up the Facebook pixel on your ecommerce website. Make sure to add the View Content event code to your pixel code.

That way, Facebook can track when someone views a certain product.

GoSupps.com, a shop that sells supplements, used the Facebook pixel to understand the actions that people took on their site. Then they showed ads to those who previously browsed their products.

You can use your custom audience in different ways, such as creating Facebook product ads for that particular audience.

To increase conversion rates, offer a special discount. Showing related products that they might be interested in is good as well.

4. Create a lookalike audience of past buyers.

Here’s a Facebook ecommerce strategy that drives more sales.

Ever heard of a Lookalike Audience? A lookalike audience refers to an audience that shares similar traits with your best existing customers. This resemblance can obviously increase your conversion rates.

To create a Lookalike Audience, you need a custom audience of your customer list as a basis.

Then select that custom audience as your lookalike source when setting up a Lookalike Audience inside Ads Manager.

5. Advertise your best blog posts.

Sharing blog posts consistently from your ecommerce website to Facebook is a great way to drive more traffic. It also positions you as an industry expert.

But have you considered promoting them as ads?

The reason why I ask is that Facebook’s organic reach has declined. Fewer people see your posts. With more content being made, Facebook puts more value on relevant content and fights spammy posts.

If you already have a handful of posts on your page, advertising them increases their exposure. Here’s a cool way to do that:

Our tool ConnectAutomate detects your highly-engaging Facebook posts, turns them into ads, and promotes them to your target audience.

As you can see from the screenshot above, ConnectAutomate lets you set specific rules and conditions for the posts you want to promote — post likes, comments, reactions, shares, and more.

(There’s no need for you to keep watch over the performance of your organic posts!)

6. Include social proof in your Facebook ecommerce ad copy.

How often do you ask someone their opinion before you buy something?

Whether we realize it or not, we want to know what others think about a product or service we ought to purchase. This is social proof in action.

Social proof can manifest itself in different ways (consider adding these to your ecommerce social ads):

• User testimonials
• Influencer endorsements
• Awards or certifications
• Milestones (X app downloads, X customers reached, etc.)

By using social proof, you’re helping prospects feel more comfortable and confident doing business with you.

Thrive Causemetics, a luxury high-performance cosmetics brand, quotes a user testimonial in its ad copy:

Persuading potential customers through social proof is always worth your time and effort. The trust you gain from your audience can translate into clicks and sales.

?Related: Small Tricks to Gather Customer Testimonials to Achieve the Best Facebook Ad Results

7. Host a giveaway.

Contests and giveaways are an amazing way to build buzz around your business. After all, everyone loves free stuff!

Online competitions also help you build an email list and re-engage your leads. (Read: 8 Marketing Goals That Contests Can Help Achieve)

Whenever you’re hosting an online competition, run a Facebook ad for it.

Here’s an example of an advertised giveaway campaign:

The ad copy makes it clear what people should do to win — complete the short survey. It also makes it look easy by mentioning that the survey takes only 3 minutes to complete.

8. Incorporate words that trigger clicks.

When it comes to your Facebook ecommerce ad copy, the right words make the difference.

Experiment with attention-grabbing words like New, Because, Free, Grow, Cheat Sheet, Checklist, and Only. 

?Key tip: No matter what you’re offering, always use simple and understandable language.

?Related: 9 Tips to Write Great Facebook Ad Copy

9. Use video ads whenever possible.

There is no doubt that video has become more in-demand in social media.

New data on video marketing reveals the following:

• Marketers consider video a key priority.
• Facebook is a widely used platform for video marketing, next to YouTube.
• 88% of video marketers report that video increases their ROI.

A Facebook video ad can be especially useful for:

• Demonstrating how your ecommerce product works
• Telling your brand story
• Showcasing your vast selection of products

Fashion online retailer ZALORA uses its product images to create a video ad that showcases multiple combinations of its apparel and accessories:

To make your video content more engaging, use a carousel ad format. Carousel ads allow you to display 2 or more videos on cards in just one ad.

?Bonus: Get Our Free Tool That Writes Your Facebook Ads>>

Ready to Optimize Your Facebook Ads for Ecommerce

With these tips, you should be able to create Facebook ads for ecommerce. Of course, there is no one strategy that works for all businesses. The best ecommerce campaigns are the ones that continuously experiment to see what works.

To maximize your Facebook ads campaigns… We invite you to check out our tools:

?ConnectAutomate – Turn your best performing organic posts into Facebook ads. This ensures that each content you promote resonates with your audience.

?ConnectRetarget – Allows you to create pre-made retargeting templates to retarget people based on traffic source, number of visits, device used, and more.

?ConnectExplore – Find more interests to target that your Facebook ad competitors may not have discovered yet.

Did you learn from this article? What other questions do you have about using Facebook ads for ecommerce? Let us know in the comments below.