[2020 Case Study] $388,874.33 Revenue In 49 Days With 109% Increase in Returning Customer Rate

Facebook is constantly changing. Always new updates. Algorithm is never the same. It’s IMPORTANT to be on top of your game. Especially since the CBO roll out is happening soon…

I’m going to go over the strategies, systems, and campaign structures on how we profitably made over $380,000 in 49 days. 

Quick numbers breakdown before we begin:

AOV: $84
Niche: Sports Accessories & Gym Apparel
Monthly Ad Spend Budget: $80,000 (a little over 2K a day)

Initially, after having access to my clients account, I saw they had decent results with past ad sets. The creatives looked good. Copy was decent. They had 2 or 3 proven audiences but the brand struggled on scaling.

Every time they tried to scale, the cost per acquisition would skyrocket. ROAS would fall to the floor and they would barely make any money.

We started out by creating Custom Audiences. Here’s the list.

• WV: Website Visits
• VC: View Content
• ATC: Add to Cart
• IC: Initiate Checkout
• Pur: Purchase
• AEP: All Engagement Page
• EAPOA: Engaged Any Post or Ad
• VV 75%: Video View at least 75% Watched
• VV 95%: Video View at least 95% Watched
• VC + [Specific Product]

We set it up by creating all these audiences in both 30 days and 180 days (20 audiences in total).

And then from here we built Lookalike audiences for each one. Each Lookalike audience was set up like this: 1%; 1% to 5%; 5% to 10%.

Ad set budget level has worked pretty good with this account but they haven’t tried CBO and since CBO is starting to roll out permanently soon… we got to get started.

Right off the bat, we started optimizing for purchases. Didn’t really like the results from it since we were only averaging 1.8x ROAS per day on TOF and I knew we can do better.

I came up with a game plan and started optimizing for ATC. From there, COMPLETE GAME CHANGER. Purchases were rolling in. Add to carts were super cheap. And when we did retargeting our average ROAS was in the 6-7x range or higher!

So here’s how the campaign structures looked:

TOF

Using dynamic is my favorite by far. All the testing is done for you and you get winning combinations. Each day, depending on the budget and how the campaigns are looking, I would test different LLA and, of course, the ones making money I would keep and others I would turn them off.

My best Lookalikes were:

• Purchases 1% to 5%
• VC + [Specific Product] 1%
• ATC 1%
• VV + 75% 1%
• WV 1% to 5%

Personally, I start with 30 days and then from there go up to 180 days (there’s no Facebook Ads Guru Wisdom here, it’s just a preference).

In Ecom, I always see people with a short copy. But lately, I have been doing a little bit of long copy and it’s been working out.

Ad Copy Example:

• Top of the Ad: Testimonial
• Middle of the Ad: Identifying pain points and emotional benefits of using the product
• Bottom of the Ad: Discount Code + Shop Now

Like I mentioned before, this is where Dynamic Ads comes in play and really tests out what works and what doesn’t.

MOF

This is where your audiences are in the warm stage.

This is going to be:

• Engagement (Both Facebook and Instagram)
• VV 50%
• VV 75%
• VV 95%

Exclude purchasers and page viewers to avoid any potential overlap.

In MOF, I ran dynamic ads and tested with carousels, slide shows, and images that were submitted by customers.

BOF

BOF is when we target the website traffic that hasn’t converted into a sale.

Here are the audiences I use:

• ATC Exclude Purchase 3 Days
• ATC Exclude Purchase 7 Days
• ATC Exclude Purchase 14 Days
• VC Exclude ATC 3 Days
• VC Exclude ATC 7 Days
• VC Exclude ATC 14  Days
• VC Exclude ATC 30 Days
• WV 3 Days
• WV 7 Days
• WV 14 Days
• WV 30 Days

I am taking two different approaches with retargeting:

• DPA
• Conversion Campaign

Usually for these ads I run carousel or slide show.

For the 3 day audiences, I tell them about our free shipping if you spend X amount (I don’t mention discount).

For 7 day audiences, 10% Off

For 14 day audiences, 15% Off

For 30 day audiences, “Last Chance Deal” 20% Off

You can get 5x-12x ROAS on these retargeting ads alone

Scaling

This is where the juicy stuff begins.

Any winning audience or interests that works. We save it in a Google Doc to keep track of things. (This saves a lot of time instead of trying to remember and having to go back to Ads Manager and do research again.)

All our winning audiences we would split them in different ad sets and put them in one CBO and test it (4 or 5 ad sets max per CBO). We would have it compete with other winning audiences to see who would perform best.

And simultaneously, we also test these audiences in ad set level budget as well just to see if it will produce same or different results.

We started optimizing winning audiences around certain age ranges as well. Nothing too specific but 35-65+ or 45-65+ range per ad set. Keeping things as wide as possible is very important with Facebook Ads because you want the pixel to work with you and not restricting it by going too specific.

If you go too specific in the age it might hurt your results but you should always test.

Once we start seeing results and clear winners. We duplicate the winning ad set or ad sets into a new campaign. Each winning ad set had its own campaign. And each winning ad set we would duplicate 5x in a single CBO campaign and up the budget between 15% to 25%.

Now, the secret is NOT in the duplication (anyone can do that). The secret is in the RULES to make sure your cost per acquisition is not skyrocketing through the roof and you remain profitable (this is where a lot of people fail when trying to scale).

Most marketers, when it comes to rules, solely focus on the purchases and cost per purchase level but there’s a better way. More efficient. I like to focus on early key indicators (Cost of Initial Checkout or Add to Cart)

For example:

If I spend X amount and I get X amount of Add to Carts, then turn it off.

If сost per Add to Cart reaches X amount, then turn it off.

I’m not saying to delete any purchases rules because you’re always going to need those but start adding ATC and IC rules in there.

By doing this you will save a lot of money in the long run because you don’t have to spend as much to know if the ad set is a bust and you can make decisions sooner.

Creating rules around your early key indicators will play a major role in scaling (you MUST understand your numbers to make this work).

To wrap up this post, if you want to scale to 7 figures & beyond just know the real money is ALWAYS made in the retargeting & LTV.

Take it easy guys. Hope this helps.

Athor