Experienced Internet Marketer diving into Ecom

[Debra Dennis]

Hi Waterlion, your journey is going great . I visit here everyday to see your updates.
I set a goal in Google Analytics just like you. However, the result is: http://prnt.sc/dirkdj .
How can I know where my orders came from?

Thank you!

 

[waterlion]

Hi Waterlion, your journey is going great . I visit here everyday to see your updates.
I set a goal in Google Analytics just like you. However, the result is: http://prnt.sc/dirkdj .
How can I know where my orders came from?

Thank you!

Your image doesn't load. But you can see where your conversions came from in acquisition data:



Also, don't set 'cart' to required if you have implemented paypal as well.

 

[waterlion]

Dec 13, 2016

Adwords

$20 more CAD spent (my adwords acc is in cad). Zero conversions, but lots of search data.

Yesterday, I spent $44 CAD on click data as well apparently.

By looking at the search queries, I was able to add more products to the site for categories I did not have.

Facebook

I setup an 'offer ad' through facebook, which allows people to claim a discount code. 17 claims so far, but no one used it today.

Analytics

Even worse, there were no abandoned carts, and just 1 person visiting the cart page today.

I tested to see if everything works, and it does.

Currency

I tried to add all of the currencies to the site, so users could shop in their own money... unfortunately, it doesn't work on my site at the moment.

Aliexpress Credit Card Flagged

The last 2 orders I made, were flagged, and rejected by Aliexpress... which is annoying, since the customer ALREADY needs to wait about 30 days for their products.

I believe this was because I used 2 accounts to order the items (because the first account could not order an item I had canceled).

This was annoying, since the cancellations came in at 1am in the morning, and I could only send an 'appeal' about 14 hours later... delayed products...

Snow Flakes Plugin

Just for fun, I added a snow flakes plugin, to see if customers would get more into the spirit of winter, and buy more... no results so far.

Instagram

My instagram page is at about 170 followers now. Nothing crazy, but I think within a month, it will be at least at 500. - IG is just for social proof.

Facebook Page

I will try making a facebook ad again, and target the entire planet, just to get Facebook PAGE likes.

Right now my page has about 8 likes, from the previous advertising attempt.

Maybe this will be beneficial for building trust like 'world of harry' and it's 120k+ likes.

Not the best results today.

Action plan

I think my product descriptions and images need to be standardized a bit better. For T-shirts there are HTML tables, and image tables, and other text that needs editing.

With already 150+ products, this will obviously require a few hours of movies to zone out with.

 

[waterlion]

Dec 14th, 2016

Snow plugin fuckup

So while browsing my site on the new microsoft Edge browser, I noticed a HUGE performance drop.

So basically, for the last 48 hours, while running ads, my site was running like absolute shit...

On internet explorer, edge, firefox, and everything except chrome.

Probably the reason why I didn't get any orders.

Disabled this right away.

Facebook Page likes

After spending almost $20, I now have about 2k likes on my facebook page within 24 hours.

That should be enough social proof.

The targeting was simply (my niche) + (likes online shopping) + (189 countries). This became about 1 cent per like.

I will try running a similar strategy with other facebook ads... 1 cent per like is pretty good.

Adwords

Adwords gave me a bunch of keyword suggestions for my site... i will implement those, but I won't launch until...

Aliexpress appeal

...my credit card has been approved with aliexpress.

Product Content

In the mean time, I will standardize my product descriptions a bit better.

Currency issue

Still trying to get multiple currencies working on my site. Yaros will look into this shortly.

Customer Exit Pop Feedback Survey

To understand why my customers are leaving, I implemented a 'feedify' exit popup survey plugin.

Cheers for now

 

[waterlion]

Aliexpress Direct Linking Fun

While browsing some other facebook groups on ecomm and dropshipping, I decided to have a little fun.

Just now I created a bunch of direct link facebook ads to Aliexpress products. Each product has a potential commission of $3-5.

But there is a large potential for upsells and cross-sells, since Aliexpress actively optimizes their platform for maximum buying potential.

But I'm curious if this will work.

Instagram photo captions

I added a bunch of captions to my socialrabbit photos. So instead of generic robotic 'this is cool, this is awesome', they are more organic and relevant.

Christmas and Chinese New Year Fuckfest

Apparently there is a huge fuckfest about to happen with shipping delays... for christmas all products will be delayed pretty badly...

Then Chinese new years has a 10-day break from Jan 20 to Feb 1st - this means no one is working.

Still waiting

Still waiting on the appeal of my credit cards. Sucks that I'm stuck waiting for payment approval.

That's it for now.

 

[Eric S.]

I'm not so worried about Christmas/New Years delays as everyone seems to expect that. Chinese New Year's however is another story. Not sure yet what I'll do about that.

The waiting is a pain. Once you get your email that the appeal has been accepted, you must wait another 24 hours before ordering anything. I made that mistake twice. For me, it only affected one order, but it is going to be very late.

 

[waterlion]

The waiting is a pain. Once you get your email that the appeal has been accepted, you must wait another 24 hours before ordering anything. I made that mistake twice. For me, it only affected one order, but it is going to be very late.

Yea, I received an email indicating the appeal was accepted. Now I need to wait another 24 hours

 

[waterlion]

Dec 15th, 2016

Aliexpress Appeal

As stated previously, still waiting on approval.

I created another aliexpress account under my VPS, and used another credit card to submit 1 order.

That payment is also being verified at the moment.

Adwords

Reading over Yaros' adwords case study, I definitely missed a few elements for a successful campaign.

Didn't come to mind to use retargeting to recapture customers. The general consensus is they need to see your brand 3-7 times before becoming a customers.

I'll pretty much just clone the strategies, including ad copy, and test that for my site again.

Facebook Ads

The direct to Aliexpress campaign generated about 10-20 clicks, but no conversions. Not a big deal.

The ad campaign for my website generated about 40 likes/clicks, and zero conversions...

Optimize pages

Still need to optimize my pages a bit better. Haven't actually gotten around to that.

Currency Issues

As a side note, the Facebook campaign generated a good amount of traffic from the UK, but I can't change my currencies on the site still.

Yaros is looking to implement cookies in the next release.

Facebook Groups

I've joined 2 facebook groups focused on ecomm.

Looking to get more advice from top-tier guys running big volume, and gain some deep insights.

Cheers for now.

 

[waterlion]

Heatmap

Finally got some results from my heatmap.



A lot of clicks on that.

Or this:



Not sure which one the heatmap is pointing to, because it varies depending on the resolution of the screen.

So the action plan?

Add a link to Free Worldwide Shipping OR fix the currency converter sooner than later.

Ok, after further inspection, users are 100% trying to convert the currency on the site... which doesn't work for me at the moment.

 

[merten]

Good action plan. I use adespresso for fb ads, you can filter down your best ads and focus on that one. However after running 300 website traffic 0 conversions.
Keep up the good work. I'm doing it almost the same way. Going for adwords now and having organic traffic total 150/200 a day.

 

[waterlion]

Good action plan. I use adespresso for fb ads, you can filter down your best ads and focus on that one. However after running 300 website traffic 0 conversions.
Keep up the good work. I'm doing it almost the same way. Going for adwords now and having organic traffic total 150/200 a day.

A lot of sources say that facebook traffic is pretty good, if you can get viral campaigns (good images/videos, lots of engagement, viral items like fancy spinning jewelry).

And yea, I think adwords is the better platform if you can single in on the converting keywords, since more people buy 2+ items on your store anyways.

 

[Nor]

Dec 15th, 2016

Aliexpress Appeal

As stated previously, still waiting on approval.

I created another aliexpress account under my VPS, and used another credit card to submit 1 order.

That payment is also being verified at the moment.

The reason why aliexpress is closing your orders is because your making multiple payments to aliexpress and having them ship to different addresses which is setting off red flags in their system. To speed up the process, contact aliexpress via support chat.

Also read this, it 100% relates to your problem plus will relate to the rest of the users using alidropship once they start to get more and more customers paying on their website. Link:

http://ask.oberlo.com/d/313-orders-closing-has-almost-destroyed-my-business/9

 

[Poni]

Thanks for sharing this Nor! The red flag is probably due to waterlion ordering from Thailand and having a registered address elsewhere because he isn't pushing any volume yet.

 

[Nor]

Thanks for sharing this Nor! The red flag is probably due to waterlion ordering from Thailand and having a registered address elsewhere because he isn't pushing any volume yet.

certain countries like thailand, india, africa in general, trip red flags faster because fraud occurs more in those countires. The best way around all of this mess is called ali pocket

check it out: http://sale.aliexpress.com/__pc/poc...ffa36a1b87ecd20-1482002199198-05500-eub6yrrBy

basically you buy preloaded gift cards for your account and then use that money to order items for your customers, therefore no red flag being tripped.

 

[waterlion]

The reason why aliexpress is closing your orders is because your making multiple payments to aliexpress and having them ship to different addresses which is setting off red flags in their system. To speed up the process, contact aliexpress via support chat.

Also read this, it 100% relates to your problem plus will relate to the rest of the users using alidropship once they start to get more and more customers paying on their website. Link:

http://ask.oberlo.com/d/313-orders-closing-has-almost-destroyed-my-business/9

I contacted Aliexpress support, and the CS agent said she would expedite my situation.

It's been exactly 4 days now...

Thankfully this happened now, because I would have some REALLY pissed off customers with more orders in the future.

Adwords

In the meantime, I setup the adwords campaigns in the same style as Yaros' adwords case study.

Basically, my bids for the USA are WAY too low - putting me in position 4-6.

AU is a bit better, and UK is pretty good surprisingly (I did have a single order from there).

Which brings me to my next 2 major points about this plugin as of this moment.

Currency Converter Broken

Currency conversion is still broken.

As stated in a previous post, a LOT of users are trying to see how much the products cost in their currency.

I felt their frustration today, when I tried to book a flight from within brazil, but kept getting prices in Real (brazilian currency), instead of USD.

Google Translations Broken

Any attempt at installing google translate onto the site, breaks the site at the footer.

I would LOVE to have the site auto-translate based on browser language.

This way, you can run GLOBAL traffic, at REALLY CHEAP adwords rates.

BingAds

Had a quick look at similar keywords in Bingads... pretty much negligible volume.

Most of their traffic for my keywords, comes from 'Syndicated partners' which is garbage traffic from parked domains, and other shady sources...

But it's also from search engines such as 'Duck Duck Go', which is a staple in Android Chrome replacement browsers, such as the 'Dolphin Browser'.

There WAS a case study of someone who managed to run successful campaigns on Syndicated traffic... but it involved several weeks of filtering sources.

Food for thought

Finally

So I'm basically sitting on my ass, waiting for appeal approval, along with major fixes in the Alidropship plugin.

 

[waterlion]

Appeal Approved, But...

So the appeal was approved today (6 days later). I contacted chat support & sent an email.

Anyways, afterwards, I decided it's best to pay using Alipocket payments, so that I don't need to deal with verification in the future.

Bought the cards... but the payment system fucked up again.

I'll just make a list, and then provide the solution:

1. alidropship plugin hangs at 'checking cart' or something similar (the point where the items are in the cart, but the browser doesn't open)

2. Payment through app, impossible (tells me I need to login, or re-login because the session expired)

3. Payment through desktop aliexpress.com (the system is currently busy, please try again later)

4. Payment through mobile browser... same shit as above... redirects to app install... and go back to step 2.

Solution

Basically, once the item is in the 'my orders' page, you need to 'add to cart', and buy the items, one by fucking one.


Nonetheless, I'm happy I can finally start marketing again.

I will change the currency on the site to Australia because we STILL don't have a fix for the currency options on Alidropship.

Anywhere but Canada and USA seems to be cheaper to advertise in by at least 50% (ie. 0.50 cent clicks instead of $1)

Salut

 

[waterlion]

1 Sale

After a few days of nothing happening, this morning I got 1 sale.

Profit was about $10. After adwords costs and fees, pretty much nothing.

Removed Plugin

I removed the wow-herd effects plugin. No sales boosts with it.

Adwords

All ads look similar to Yaros' case study. Emphasizing Discounts with % and $ signs, call-out extensions, etc.

I've segmented 2 campaigns - mobile/tablet vs desktop. So far, all of my sales have been from desktop.

Shipping

I found that a lot of users were leaving due to shipping concerns, so I decided to re-implement shipping with e-packet (at least for australia, for now).

Nothing Else new

 

[waterlion]

+1 More Sale

Seems the sales come in frequently within a certain time frame.

Once again, desktop. No sales on the mobile platform thus far.

 

[waterlion]

Site Updates

Last 4-5 days I haven't had any sales, but I toned down my ad spend due to christmas.

Customer Survey Removed

Removed the feedify plugin, since I received absolutely zero customer feedback.

Discount Popup

Re-added my discount popup - 10% discount for their name/email.

Changed GEO

I changed the site currency for now to british pound, and am targeting England / Northern Ireland with adwords.

Australia was a bust - 2 sales, but not enough to recoup advertising costs.

Adwords Campaign Updates

I redid an entire campaign by:
- aggregating similar keywords into single adgroups (there was a lot of overlap between adgroups)
- added optimized adcopy
ie. Need {Niche} Necklaces? Save $5+ Up to 80% Discount, etc.
ie. Added some {KeyWord: Insertion} adds to compensate for users looking for very specific keywords

- changed the GEO to GBP/north ireland

SocialRabbit Captions & Bugs

I started adding about 100+ captions to my socialrabbit images.

Unfortunately, the captions do not get added when importing the images.

Bug noted here: https://forum.alidropship.com/threads/social-rabbit-image-gallery-bug.525/

I also removed the link from the Facebook Poster Feature.

Reason?: Every link back to the site featured a terrible 'Reach'. Every low Reach figure you see below is associated with a link-back.



Instead, the Facebook Poster will simply post an image, and a call to action to visit the store - exactly like instagram.

I will continue testing this.

Shipping Added

Added supersaver shipping for now... for a cost of ~$7 USD.

Remarketing Campaigns

Adwords had zero impressions for remarketing in Australia... despite very general targeting (global + all devices at $0.60/click).

I setup a basic remarketing campaign on Facebook/Instagram as well. So if they visit my site, AND visit facebook, they will see my brand again. - Still testing.

Collages for Top Products

I'm designing some basic collages for homepage-listed products, to improve the design.

Here is a good free one: https://www.befunky.com/create/collage/

Title Updates

I'm going to start adding prefixes and suffixes again to items: ie. Super Cool <item> of Dreams

Diablo-style (if you get the reference).

Also, I think indicating the number of variations in the title is great too (plus a collage of at least 3-4 images as the featured product image).

ie. Super Cool <item> of Dreams in 8 Variations ... or ... 8 Types of <Prefix> Item <Suffix>

Conclusion

I really hope to at least continue a 1+ sale per day momentum...

and I REALLY hope to see some bug fixes coming out soon for Alidropship and SocialRabbit.

 

[merten]

What do you mean with removing the link? You mean the link in the template in social rabbit? When I post an image manually the reach is indeed much better than automated posting with social rabbit. Still need improvement but it's doing its work and saves time.