Experienced Internet Marketer diving into Ecom

[waterlion]

1 Small Sale

I blew through about $24 USD on adwords, and got one conversion, with a product revenue of $7.

The interesting thing was, that the aliexpress store changed the variation numbers, and added an additional variation, so the product would not purchase using 'automatic order'.

Interestingly, Alidropship has that covered as well, which is cool.

Other than that, I decided to lower bids on keywords such as '<niche> merchandise' and '<niche> store'.

Poor conversion rate on these.

SocialRabbit

I have significantly increased the reach of the Facebook posts by simply adding a link to all images in the gallery poster.


My page is 6.3k followers, so 1.4k reach is ~22% (which I believe is max organic facebook reach within your own page).

It hasn't generated crazy numbers of clicks, but maybe if I add product images into the gallery as well, it should be really good

Also, there is increased likes and sharing as well, which overtime, will grow the page organically (like worldofharry).

So the last few days have only been a partial success.

I'm looking forward to some updates to the plugin, especially fixing the conversion rate feature, so I can start targeting cheaper countries, on a global scale.

 

[waterlion]

Currency Converter Still Broken

It's been almost 1 month since I posted about the currency converter (in the top-right of the website) being broken.

It's still broken.

Geo's Opened up

Since the conversion rate for UK was abysmal (1 conversion in the last few days), I decided to re-open the website to global adwords traffic.

I lowered the max bid to $0.30 cents CAD, in the hopes of simply getting MORE traffic, for cheaper, in countries that don't offer Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, or some other source.



Temporarily changed to Indian Rupees

As a result, I have temporarily changed the site to Indian Rupees (due to a low CPC), to see how well the site converts with low-cost Indian traffic.

Nepal Payment Method

On December 30th, a follower on facebook wanted to make a purchase, but could not, because there was no payment method for customers in Nepal.

I don't expect to integrate anything like this, but it's interesting to note the extent of interest globally.

SocialRabbit

Organic Reach and Clicks has gone up substantially, even when my images have a link in the caption.



The Meme posts don't generate much traffic to the site (about 10 clicks in the last 5 days).

Also, only a tiny few new 'organic likes' to the page have been added.



Overall another week of Fail

As stated before, my general strategy is to have a site that can launch adwords ads globally, at a low cost, and generate GLOBAL conversions.

Unfortunately, we are still waiting for a working currency converter.

Otherwise the plugin is broken, and I'm just dumping cash down the drain with Alidropship.

 

[waterlion]

Currency Converter Fixed

As a quick note, Yaros spent some time fixing the currency converter issue last night/this morning.

It required some code update via FTP.

Global

Hence, I've added every single currency to the top-right hand bar...

And launched my adwords campaign again, targeting globally.

Thanks again Yaros

Transition/Potential Future Split test

I've also started looking into Shopify again (as much as I dislike the idea).

In particular, 'Shopifybooster' which is a crazy conversion-based theme, and

'Shopified' which is an app similar to Alidropship plugin (minus the theme), that allows importation of Aliexpress data (and much more).

I would love to split test my current Alidropship site, with the Shopify one.

 

[waterlion]

Adwords Spend

I spent another $15 Cad on adwords today, at about 35 cent CPC (44 clicks).

Zero conversions, zero cart views

Product Page updates

I've updated a couple more descriptions on the site.

Mostly based on what people are visiting based on the analytics.

Changed Pricing

I've changed the pricing formula, and lowered the cost of products within certain tiers.

My margins will be lower, but hopefully this will stimulate conversions.

Mailchimp Subs

Since launching the popup a month ago, I've accumulated 8 subscribers... yay.




The last 5 subs seem more recent, thus, there is an interest there.

The currency converter works fine.

I'm trying to use another plugin to append a currency to the URL, based on GEO of the visitor.

The next version of Alidropship will apparently adjust it to work with the Geo Redirect plugin.

Adwords Remarketing Campaign

Finally, my Adwords Display remarketing campaign has about 300+ impressions.

So all visitors to my site are definitely seeing my ads again.

Zero clicks, but that's ok. I will improve the ads for display, and see how it goes.

Otherwise, still not looking good so far.

 

[waterlion]

1 Sale this morning

Made one sale this morning at the reduced prices.

The customer also used my 10% discount code.

Customer Shipping Inquiry

Another previous customer asked when their package would be delivered for a birthday present.

Unfortunately, the birthday is today, and they will need to wait another 3 weeks for the present

That's it for now.

 

[Fernand]

Currency Converter Fixed

As a quick note, Yaros spent some time fixing the currency converter issue last night/this morning.

It required some code update via FTP.

Global

Hence, I've added every single currency to the top-right hand bar...

And launched my adwords campaign again, targeting globally.

Thanks again Yaros

Transition/Potential Future Split test

I've also started looking into Shopify again (as much as I dislike the idea).

In particular, 'Shopifybooster' which is a crazy conversion-based theme, and

'Shopified' which is an app similar to Alidropship plugin (minus the theme), that allows importation of Aliexpress data (and much more).

I would love to split test my current Alidropship site, with the Shopify one.

Interested to see how your split test goes. Shopify's abandoned carrt recovery is much more optimized than ours right now.. something the dev team really needs to work on.

Do you have to pay for the Shopified app? Have you considered Oberlo?

 

[waterlion]

Interested to see how your split test goes. Shopify's abandoned carrt recovery is much more optimized than ours right now.. something the dev team really needs to work on.

Do you have to pay for the Shopified app? Have you considered Oberlo?

There is a facebook group that asked members either 'oberlo' or 'shopified'. They all agreed shopified is much better.

But I have also looked into oberlo.

 

[Fernand]

There is a facebook group that asked members either 'oberlo' or 'shopified'. They all agreed shopified is much better.

But I have also looked into oberlo.

What was their reasoning behind that?

 

[waterlion]

What was their reasoning behind that?

They said shopified was more feature-loaded.

 

[cristiane]

Hello is it possible to use the plugin alidropship with another platform to change the options and themes?

 

[waterlion]

Hello is it possible to use the plugin alidropship with another platform to change the options and themes?

A woocommerce version is in the works.

 

[waterlion]

No more adwords

I turned off adwords, after another 1-2 days of running traffic, with zero conversions.

Even with multi-currencies on the site... no luck.

The search queries show everything that I would basically target. No more negative keywords.

My assumption is that the keywords are just only interest-based, and not buy-based.

ie. '<niche> store', rather than '<product>' keywords

Facebook Interest

My last hope for this project, is to retry globally-targeted Facebook & Instagram ads, at a cheap cost.

Just like how I was getting 1000 fanpage likes for ~$6-7 USD...

Maybe I can make some viral product posts.

If this does not work...

If Facebook or Instagram don't work...

Then either my niche is fucked with dropshipping from Aliexpress,

Or the website design is currently only working at a ridiculously low conversion rate.

The next few days, I'll be moving to a new brazilian city, so I might need some more time than usual to test.

 

[Wizardius]

To a bit inspire you this is still an informative journey.

My thoughs on this:

- either your niche is not that "good" (i mean, you can sell anything pretty much), but of course something like dog necklace would be a top notch
- or something wrong with ads you're doing

What i'd do (depending on niche), i wouild rely on fb ad and do a lot of testing with 5$ day methods, pretty sure eventually you hit the right ad. Btw did your niche is competitive? Is there a site that in top doing same? Maybe check their strategy

Also looking forward if this possible for you to try with shopify, would be very interesing and helpful

Thanks!

 

[waterlion]

To a bit inspire you this is still an informative journey.

My thoughs on this:

- either your niche is not that "good" (i mean, you can sell anything pretty much), but of course something like dog necklace would be a top notch
- or something wrong with ads you're doing

What i'd do (depending on niche), i wouild rely on fb ad and do a lot of testing with 5$ day methods, pretty sure eventually you hit the right ad. Btw did your niche is competitive? Is there a site that in top doing same? Maybe check their strategy

Also looking forward if this possible for you to try with shopify, would be very interesing and helpful

Thanks!

Yep, the next idea will be to use facebook again, with global traffic.

 

[waterlion]

Some quick updates

I haven't done any new work on the website... losing momentum from traveling and enjoying life.

SocialRabbit

The facebook page, organically does not bring in any sales at all (6.3k likes).

At the moment, I only post meme's to the facebook page, but nonetheless, the memes do not generate any sales, only page/post likes (small numbers).

Adwords Display Network Remarketing

Apparently, I spent about $10 CAD on remarketing clicks... 0 conversions, but ~28 clicks on my display ads.

Lots of clicks from Kosovo... could indicate fake clicks.

Facebook/Instagram Ads

Basically, this is the only thing I need to do. Really... but not motivated at the moment.

Also, the small fear that if facebook/instagram ads do not work, then marketing to my niche is a failed project...

And I will need to find another niche.

 

[ZbigniewPL]

I see your adwords adverts almost on every page which displsys adwords. It looks fine, i dont know exactly what is the reason of 0 conversions. Im having the same problem withbl my niche and adverts too. Anyway group posting brings great resoults. About 10 orders from groups on FB in two weeks. Try it.

 

[waterlion]

I see your adwords adverts almost on every page which displsys adwords. It looks fine, i dont know exactly what is the reason of 0 conversions. Im having the same problem withbl my niche and adverts too. Anyway group posting brings great resoults. About 10 orders from groups on FB in two weeks. Try it.

That's exactly my concern as well. Why the website does not convert with Adwords.

I'm less interested in a few orders per day from group posts. More interested in spending $X,XXX per day in marketing to scale as much as possible.

 

[waterlion]

Site & SEO Optimizations

I decided to do the bulk image upload to server within alidropship (cool feature).



Now, I'm using a trial subscription of WPMUdev 'Bulk Smush' plugin to resize/re-optimize all of the images (about 4000+).



I'm also using 'Media File Renamer' plugin to rename the image titles & slugs to SEO-friendly titles.



So no more 'j35b23hkdsf.jpg', instead 'niche-necklace.jpg'.

I had to temporarily Vertically-scale my server for more RAM and CPU, because the optimizations were crashing the server due to the amount of resource usage.

Once the optimization is complete, I can scale back down (I love automation).

Facebook Powerpoint Video Ad

I initially created a Slideshow ad with about 8 images... but I didn't like the music you could attach.

So I made a simple 8-slide .mp4 video in MS powerpoint, and uploaded the video as an ad.

Targeting was global once again - english only.

Conclusion

- trying to get better SEO links
- starting up my final advertising attempt with this niche

 

[waterlion]

Broke 20% of my site

The smushing went really slowly, but it finished within a few hours.

But the 'media rename' plugin broke a good chunk of file names, thus causing images to disappear, or overwrite.

I had products with no featured image, or with the a single image being used for every single image for that product.

Product Auto-Update

Thus, I started a product auto-update from the alidropship plugin.

This was a good decision, because 44/158 (28%) of my products listed were no longer available in Aliexpress.

But the auto-update sucks as well, because it erases your 'fake' product price, so you need to re-add them all.

Either way, I need to fix about 10 products that ARE still listed, but need to be DELETED and re-imported and edited.

Otherwise, my database is now full of duplicate media images. Oops

Facebook Video Ads

Got a shit tonne of impressions, and a few clicks.



My site was broken for a big chunk of the time, so the bounce rate is terrible.

I added some tracking to the facebook links so I know where the clicks are coming from now (specifically).

Still no sales from facebook, but a good start in learning.

Instagram has a shit-load of 'Likes', but few actual clicks.

Conclusion

Be careful with the media file renamer

 

[lefthook030]

have you figured out how to change currency on geo location?