Experienced Internet Marketer diving into Ecom - Pt. 2

[Fernand]

Facebook Sale

I forgot to mention, I ran a facebook campaign for a few days.

View attachment 310

It a a Powerpoint video of a product, with 15 variations.

It was the 'free+shipping' method, and made 1 sale, and about 5-6 cart abandons.

View attachment 311

The final CPC is most important. I think my ad relevance was about a 7/10.

The sale came from lithuania.

The good news, is my revenue was about $5 (after aliexpress fees).

The bad news... the product was ordered just before the Chinese Lunar new year... so it's been almost 8-10 days, and the product is still not shipped from the supplier.

Theme Issues

Also, Shopifybooster theme has a few bugs (1 major one), that haven't been fixed.

And every time there is a new update, you need to re-do all of your theme changes...

This is absolutely annoying (unlike a theme update in Wordpress, which keeps your settings).

Anyways

Anyways, still need to update all my products in the store, and wait for a theme update...

Those are great metrics on your ad. Did you run it as a PPE? My PPE ads get around 10% CTR but only 0.5% Link CTR and a Link CPC of ~$1.10. Your link CPC is great at $0.38! How did you get the viewers to convert to link clicks so well?

 

[lefthook030]

so any results so far compared to Alidropship Plugin?

Does Shopify convert better? really curious

 

[Bod]

I read in WF that Yaros tested the checkout page of shopify in his plugin and it drastically reduced conversions compared to the one in alidropship plugin

 

[ferreira2u]

I read in WF that Yaros tested the checkout page of shopify in his plugin and it drastically reduced conversions compared to the one in alidropship plugin

@Yaros please change the plugin to integrate this checkout page

 

[Yaros]

@Yaros please change the plugin to integrate this checkout page

what checkout page?

 

[waterlion]

Those are great metrics on your ad. Did you run it as a PPE? My PPE ads get around 10% CTR but only 0.5% Link CTR and a Link CPC of ~$1.10. Your link CPC is great at $0.38! How did you get the viewers to convert to link clicks so well?

I ran a global ad (all countries), so many of the clicks were from tier-3 countries (lebanon, pakistan, etc).

The performance looks great on paper, and I ultimately want sales from all of those lower-tier countries (global sales, rather than just tier-1: US/AU/GB/etc).

But tier-3 are probably lower converting as well.

I was traveling the last 4-5 days, and didn't manage to put any more work in.

When I came back, I had +4 extra orders... when I saw the orders, it was funny.

My free+shipping worked great, except I forgot to add shipping costs to my products...

So users were putting in orders for $0 (and $0 for shipping).

So Zero actual sales were made

I made a small commission from Shopify ($29) (probably from signing up with my own affiliate link).

I'll try to put in more work this week, because in a 7 days, Ill be going to the Amazon of brazil for a 7 day adventure.

 

[waterlion]

Received a BIG order today, without any promotion + Shit load of technical issues

The order came in at $215. At first, I thought... wow, maybe the ADS site is still making profits...

But no, it was from shopify. Someone ordered 1 expensive item, and 1 high margin item.

Total was:
+$215 revenue
-$152
-$8 shopify fees
Total: $55 profit

I tried to use my aliexpress affiliate links to make the purchase on the website, but no matter how hard I tried, I kept getting an Aliexpress Timeout error.

Essentially, I missed out on an additional ~$15 profit because the Aliexpress system is really garbage sometimes. (I had a shit load of these issues 2 months ago).

I spent about 30 minutes with aliexpress tech support, but the conversation went in circles, because they didn't understand that their systems could continuously crash.

Anyways, $55 Today from shopify.

Update: Apparently, the commission came from buying alipocket coupons - $12.8 additional profit from the coupons.

So basically, I just need to click on the aliexpress affiliate link on my phone, and buy a bunch of coupons.

This will guarantee commissions from Aliexpress.

From then on, I can buy items using the desktop, or my phone. Whichever works at the time.

The commissions do not stack (alipocket + buying items).

Therefore, profit = $68

 

[Fernand]

Received a BIG order today, without any promotion + Shit load of technical issues

The order came in at $215. At first, I thought... wow, maybe the ADS site is still making profits...

But no, it was from shopify. Someone ordered 1 expensive item, and 1 high margin item.

Total was:
+$215 revenue
-$152
-$8 shopify fees
Total: $55 profit

I tried to use my aliexpress affiliate links to make the purchase on the website, but no matter how hard I tried, I kept getting an Aliexpress Timeout error.

Essentially, I missed out on an additional ~$15 profit because the Aliexpress system is really garbage sometimes. (I had a shit load of these issues 2 months ago).

I spent about 30 minutes with aliexpress tech support, but the conversation went in circles, because they didn't understand that their systems could continuously crash.

Anyways, $55 Today from shopify.

Update: Apparently, the commission came from buying alipocket coupons - $12.8 additional profit from the coupons.

So basically, I just need to click on the aliexpress affiliate link on my phone, and buy a bunch of coupons.

This will guarantee commissions from Aliexpress.

From then on, I can buy items using the desktop, or my phone. Whichever works at the time.

The commissions do not stack (alipocket + buying items).

Therefore, profit = $68

Insane order! Do you have any sales funnels running on your site?

 

[collection]

Nice threads Waterlion, I read all of it (I think).

I'm a little late to the party, but I wanted to mention a couple of things I noticed.
I believe 2 big mistakes in your first attempt was:

1. Targeting the whole world
2. targeting "online shopping" (something like that)

For # 1, unfortunately you collected all the click farm countries (Egypt, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, SriLanka, Nigeria, Philippines..)
They would have burned through most of your budget, a campaign wrecker right there.

# 2 While playing around with Facebook's Boost post app, I had keywords specific to my niche only, showing 2 million potential customers. When I added "online shopping", that number jumped to 29 million! As far as I'm concerned that is 27 million dissinterested people added to my advertising reach, and again, probably capturing those click farms. Anyone who searches "online shopping" is either doing research, to be your competitor, or is a click farm manager. I dont want them.

The beauty of fb advertising is accurate targetting, ignoring that is setting yourself up for failure. Nothing to do with the platform, shopify, alids or otherwise.

Cheers anyway, and good luck.

 

[waterlion]

Nice threads Waterlion, I read all of it (I think).

I'm a little late to the party, but I wanted to mention a couple of things I noticed.
I believe 2 big mistakes in your first attempt was:

1. Targeting the whole world
2. targeting "online shopping" (something like that)

For # 1, unfortunately you collected all the click farm countries (Egypt, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, SriLanka, Nigeria, Philippines..)
They would have burned through most of your budget, a campaign wrecker right there.

# 2 While playing around with Facebook's Boost post app, I had keywords specific to my niche only, showing 2 million potential customers. When I added "online shopping", that number jumped to 29 million! As far as I'm concerned that is 27 million dissinterested people added to my advertising reach, and again, probably capturing those click farms. Anyone who searches "online shopping" is either doing research, to be your competitor, or is a click farm manager. I dont want them.

The beauty of fb advertising is accurate targetting, ignoring that is setting yourself up for failure. Nothing to do with the platform, shopify, alids or otherwise.

Cheers anyway, and good luck.

Hehe, I completely agree with you. My targeting method was lazy to say the least. But I DID want to make global sales, rather than only tier-1 countries.

 

[waterlion]

Anyways, I ran some ads while I went into the amazon.

I did the free+shipping method, and got only a bunch of abandoned carts:



Afterwards, I received a paypal refund complaint.

Apparently one of my orders didnt leave China since back in December.

So I refunded the customer right away.

Other than that, another week of traveling, and women

 

[collection]

Hehe, I completely agree with you. My targeting method was lazy to say the least. But I DID want to make global sales, rather than only tier-1 countries.

I understand. I know India has a huge middle class (30 to 80million, something like that), theoretically as good hunting ground as any first world country, but I think it is impossible to reach them with FB ads. The click farms crowd them out, paying poor buggers $1 per thousand links clicked, to what end, I have no idea.

 

[waterlion]

Minor Update

I haven't done ANY work on my shopify site in the last month or so. Lots of traveling, but the real excuse is not actually wanting to work on it for a bit.

Refunds

Anyways, in the meanwhile, I had to refund 2 orders due to 1 order NOT having left China for over a month... and another order because it was lost somewhere.

About $30 in profits was lost. But all good.

Rolling Charges

Furthermore, I kept my shopify store running, without any sales coming through - that was another $100 or so.

ShopifyBooster

Shopifybooster released a major update (about 1 per month), that FINALLY fixed the cart.

I honestly can't believe that the cart was broken for such a long time (over 2 months).

So I've installed the latest update. Although the install process sucks, because you need to reapply all the settings every time.

On the plus side, they added a currency converter into the theme... which removes $14/mo fees from additional plugins.

Oberlo Aliexpress product imports

I've imported about 120 new products into my site.

My strategy will be to simply split a majority of them into individual products, so people can just scroll through on the main page.

This will be a long-ass process, where I wish I had a virtual assistant, or a partner I could trust

Facebook Ads

As noted before, I won't freely target the entire planet again.

Only tier 1 and tier 2 countries from now on.

Cheers

 

[waterlion]

Success All Around me but here ^_^

Seems there are a few threads popping up of dudes having moderate success ($5k+/mo).

I've focused considerably more on the store for the last few weeks, and have been reading success stories, and advice to get inspired.

The focus is still 100% on the shopify site (because of the # of apps available that focus on ecommerce).

Tier 1 Countries on Facebook

I've spent almost $100 now advertising on Facebook to Tier-1 countries (based on advice from a previous poster).

Basically, copy and paste the Tier-1 countries here into the facebook country targeting.

I made 2 sales... 1 was from facebook ads... about $30 profit... which was used up in further advertising.

Adwords Search Campaign

I tried adwords again, with using my previous campaigns from the AliDropship site, but also only focusing on tier-1 countries.

No sales as of yet, but I can see what most people search for.

Generic ads directly to my site are only semi-effective. I can see people scrolling through the listings, and some people get really far within the listings (page 11 for example).

Adwords Shopping Campaign

Shopify has a cool integration with google merchants, which allows you to list your items on their merchant listing (big images at the top of the search results).

The results have been amazing as far as traffic, but still no sales

Cleaning Up Shopify listings

I spent a considerable amount of time fixing up SEO title tags on my site, and adding custom information for the google merchant account listings.

I've split up as many products as possible, to have people who simply scroll through my site, to see more products that they might like.

Retargeting Facebook Ads

There are 2 cool apps in shopify that auto-create retargeting ads on facebook.

The cost is HUGE (10% of your adspend), but it's worth testing for now.

Maybe must customers are more willing to buy if they see the site a second time.

Tested Facebook Campaign Ideas

1. I've tried the Free+Shipping idea to a cheap high-ROI product ($7 profit before marketing costs). A lot MORE abandoned carts, once the customer sees the actual cost of the product.

2. I've tried a generic video ad that shows various products on the website. Lots of clicks - no conversions.

3. I've tried a lego ad (specific lego's for my niche) with a discount if they buy all 12, but still no luck.

Unfortunately, the shopify site does not provide currency conversions on the checkout page (which is retarded to say the least).

On the plus side, the cheapest clicks have been targeting 'purchase' intent, rather than pay per engagement, or page views, or video views.

I will continue testing the 'purchase' intent pixel in order to see if the costs will remain low.

Future Strategy Ideas

I honestly don't know what to do at this point, other than to find another niche.

Getting conversions on the website have been difficult and unprofitable on average.

'Shirts' and 'costumes' has been a major traffic source through adwords, so I will try marketing these a bit more on Facebook/Adwords.

I think after another $500 ad spend, I will start researching a new niche.

Cheers.

 

[waterlion]

US-Only targeting

For a few days, I focused 100% on US-only traffic. Facebook CPC's were about 40 cents each (targeting the purchase-intent pixel), and Google shopping ads were about $30-40 cents per click as well.

Facebook Ads

Made another large sale the other day... for a costume. I was excited to calculate the profit, until I saw they used my 10% off promotional code ^_^

The product was $189 on my site, minus 10%, so $170, minus 139 for aliexpress, so $31, minus 3% from shopify (from $170), so a nice big $25 profit.... add another $10 for using my own affiliate link... for a total of $35.

This didn't allow me to break even after expenses.

Shortly after, I increased all of my prices, to compensate for the low profit, hehe.

Adwords Shopping Ads

No steady sales traffic as well here either. You also can't target globally - your shopping ads.

Only general facebook ads can be targeted globally - unfortunately.

Instagram Ads

I did a very targeted Instagram campaign, US only, about 300,000 users. The CPM reached $15 CPM which was insane. Had to stop it asap.

Otherwise, not sure what to do right now.

 

[waterlion]

I also learned how to automatically import Aliexpress & Amazon reviews into my products with an app.

This lowers the limitations currently associated with Shopify (which still limits your currencies during checkout).

 

[johnny]

Congrats your big sale . By the way, could you please share how to create your own affiliate link?

 

[johnny]

And @waterlion! with product cost you $139 I think this is the high risk, because you have a deal with refund, return or another problem with product. I have a few dispute with PayPal, that was a little big hard to resolve.

 

[waterlion]

Congrats your big sale . By the way, could you please share how to create your own affiliate link?

I'm not sure of what affiliate link you are referring to.

And @waterlion! with product cost you $139 I think this is the high risk, because you have a deal with refund, return or another problem with product. I have a few dispute with PayPal, that was a little bit hard to resolve.

I've had to refund 2 customers from all of my sales thus far. One was because the item never managed to leave china.

The other, because the customer waited much longer than she needed to.

I refunded both customers, without any issue, but I understand what you are saying.

I have a friend who made thousands of dollars dropshipping watches and pet food from china.

His account was shut down because customers were complaining of long shipping times.

But if Yaros isn't having serious issues, then I don't see the problem.

 

[waterlion]

A couple Sales, But No Profit

Facebook Video Ad

I made a hyper-targeted video/product ad.

Lego for that fan-based niche. LOTS of clicks, but no conversions.

Facebook Catalog Ad

Facebook added a new ad type, called the catalog ad. I linked it with the 'conversion' pixel.

This brought in about 3 sales, which was nice.

They were not profitable after all expenses for the day, but it was nice to see the conversions come in.

Customers were buying products that I had not optimized the descriptions for.

Clicks were very cheap (12-20 cents/click), and my ad-relevance 9 (never reached this high before).

Facebook Retargeting Ads

The shopify app that allows for automated retargeting ads ran it's course, but ultimately did not make any new conversions.

Still interesting to know that if you visit my site, you are officially going to see ads from me on Facebook from now on

Facebook Ads Spend (last 30 days) (Mar 12 - April 11th).

I've spent $276 on facebook ads.

Related Products App

One customer purchased through a shopify 'related-products' type of app (which takes an additional 4% from your sale.

But for some reason, this app didn't track the conversion, and the 4% wasn't subtracted (good for me).

Coupon Usage

Customers started to actively use their coupons... 10% Discount. So I had to increase my prices to compensate for the loss in revenue - still made sales.

Google Shopping

I tried my best to make this work, but users were simply not buying from my shopping ads.

Clicks were relatively cheap (20-40cents USD/click), but no conversions.

All sales were made in the USA, since your site can only target a single country in google shopping (there is very little you can do to circumvent this without getting banned).

Adwords Ad Spend (last 30 days) (Mar 12 - April 11th).

I've spent ~$73 USD on Adwords in the last 30 days.

Additional Attempts


Adwords Dynamic Search Ads

I tried to make this work as well - but no impressions were created.

Basically, adwords will create a headline for all of the pages on your website.

Unfortunately, this didn't work for me for some reason (not sure why).

But in theory, this could create search ads for ALL of your products, and then you can target all countries (unlike Shopping ads).

Bing Shopping Ads

Tried to make this work, but having technical difficulties integrating the product feed as of this moment.

Will try to get this fixed.

Rough Revenue & Expenses

I made $310 USD revenue (after discounts) from sales.

Subtract $197 for cost on Aliexpress.

Add ~ $17 for cashback (affiliate links)

(average margin on products is 68%)

Pre-marketing Revenue: $130

Minus $276 for Facebook

Minus $73 for Adwords

Minus $54 for Shopify (Monthly + 2 apps)
-------------------------------------------------------
Total Net Loss: -$273 USD (last 30 Days)

Total items sold: 8

Conclusion

Facebook was interesting to learn. Catalog ads are great though, for further testing.
- Low CPC when coupled with a conversion pixel.

Adwords didn't work out at all - no matter how many times I tried (shopping or search).

Over the course of this month, I installed and tested several apps on Shopify.
- More emails captured, and an additional sale, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Product descriptions are not TOO important, but I'm sure can boost conversion rates nonetheless.
- it's not cost-effective for me to hire a VA yet to edit the descriptions when I'm not profitable.

I'm still willing to test Bing shopping ads (Bing converts much higher than Adwords, within all niches on internet marketing).

As of this post, I've paused Facebook/Adwords.

I will pause this site completely on April 19th (before the next billing date), if BingAds does not bring in any conversions.

Future

I personally enjoy updating this thread (it's fun to catalog).

I will continue with shopify, and jump into a new niche, moving forward.

Maybe even update this thread on my personal blog instead (for SEO juice ^_^ )

Cheers