The most important things I've learnt after losing $2,000 dropshipping

About 2 years ago, I started an e-commerce store, using the dropshipping model as my store's backbone. I have since put that store on hold, after going back to it twice in the span of one year.

Running the store was a character shaping experience, and I did learn a significant amount. (I know this sounds like a reflection essay, but bear with me)

To cut it short, if asked if I would do it again, I would jump at the offer without hesitation. The $2,000($3,000 of revenue-$5,000 of expenses) lost was a small price to pay for the lessons which I learnt.

Facebook Ads

With marketing being the biggest expense of e-commerce, it's understandable that Facebook Ads(my chosen form of paid advertisement) was the most useful skill which I took away.

Again, like any other e-commerce store, my store's biggest expense was marketing. Facebook ads to be exact.

Trying to spend as little as possible, ironic considering how much I lost, I turned to Google and Youtube and learnt everything about e-commerce through them.


I then found that knowing Facebook Ads was actually a highly sought after and highly paid skill. I started doing some gigs, helping out friends and family by driving traffic to their businesses, getting paid in commissions and retainers.

In fact, I've covered the simple steps to run profitable Facebook ads in some other posts you can check out for free, starting with how to create Facebook Interest Ads.

It's all about the customer

Just like every other entrepreneur, I started off just wanting to make as much money as possible. Because of this, I did whatever was cheapest and would allow me to have the least expenses(e.g. free shipping from suppliers). 

Because of this, my customers received a horrible experience, having to wait a whole month before they received their order.

I received countless complaints, charge backs and noticed that my 'returning customer rate' was horrible. I then decided to think from perspective of the customer, thinking of providing value, rather than just taking everything I could.

This led to me providing discounts, paying for higher quality products as well as shipping. Eventually, I managed to increase my 'returning customer rate', as well as the number of customers I got through word of mouth(without advertising).


That's what I've learnt after 2 years dropshipping, losing a pretty significant amount. I know it may not seem like much but it has shaped and changed my mindset, teaching me the basics of business.

How to Improve Conversions on Your E-Commerce Website

I've done several guides on Facebook ads, to provide you with some options to increase your ROAS with Facebook advertising.

However, many people get so obsessed with building audiences on Facebook ads that they forget about building lists on their own websites.

Even worse, some even miss out the essentials which make customers purchase. There's no point wasting your advertising dollars if your website simply doesn't convert.

The question then is, how can you tell whether your website is converting well? You simply monitor your traffic closely when you first start. When you notice yourself not making many sales or getting a ROAS of less than 0.8, take a step back to evaluate your website.

Reviews

After I added reviews to my E-Commerce website, I got my first sale the next day. I know, it sounds like an exaggeration, like one of those 'get rich quick' tactics. But it's 100% true. 

Reviews give your website visitors the final push they need to purchase. It provides them with social proof, which gives them confidence in your product, and hence convinces them to purchase.

Because I was dropshipping, I used an app on Shopify which allowed me to import reviews from my supplier.

If you run your own brand or have your own products and have not gotten your first genuine sale yet, you can ask your friends and family who have purchased to write reviews for you.

You can also 'fake' reviews by writing them yourself, but this isn't recommended due to ethical issues.

Email list

Another important tool e-commerce stores forget to utilize is an email list. Collecting an email list allows you to contact people who have expressed interest in your products by signing up.

This list allows you to send these people promotions and deals so that they would be inclined to purchase.

You can create an email list with email autoresponders. These autoresponders allow you to automate the process of sending out emails, by setting up a sequence which is triggered when someone first signs onto your list.

This sequence can contain discount codes and other promotions. It could also include cross-sells or up-sells to the product which your customer looked at.

The autoresponder which I use is GetResponse.

You can also launch one-time campaigns to send promotions to your existing list.

Customers will be enticed by a pop-up or a blank at the footer saying 'Sign up to our email list for updates!' or 'Sign up to our email list for 5% off your first purchase'.

Product page

Finally, the most important part of your website. The product page. A crucial thing to keep in mind when you're driving traffic through ads is to keep everything consistent.

When you say your product is 50% off in your ad, make sure it displays that on your website. 

If it says 'free shipping' in your ad, make sure it's identical on your website. 

Your product images should also remain similar. Using the same angle, or same model would make customers feel more comfortable, as they would know that they've been brought to the right place after they've clicked the ads.

Inconsistencies cause confusion, raise suspicions and decreases conversion.

These are the things you should know before advertising in any way. Once you know this, and you start advertising, you'll know where to look if you find yourself stuck.

If you have any trouble, do let me know in the comments or contact me, I'll reply ASAP!

Thanks for your time!

How to Create a Facebook Pixel

Facebook pixels are the fundamentals of Facebook advertising. Without pixels, you miss out on the incredibly profitable tools provide by Facebook ads

Facebook pixels behave like cookies. They tag your customers, allowing you to track them and re-target them in the future. Pixels also give you the ability to create lookalike audiences, which is the ultimate goal in Facebook ads.

How to create a Facebook Pixel

1. Create a Facebook Business Manager

The first step is to create your business manager. Simply click here to set up your account

2. Data sources

Under events manager, you should be able to find a section titled 'Data Sources'. Look for the data source named 'Facebook Pixel' and click on the 'Get Started' button.

3. Name Your Pixel and Website

Next, you'll have to name your pixel and enter the website you would like to track.

Click on 'continue'

4. Select a Method to Add Pixel Code

You'll then have to select how you want to install the pixel code. It's recommended that you use the partner integration tool if you used a third-party platform to create your website.

However, if you built your website from scratch, or do not have support for the third-party platform you used, you can use the other 2 tools to help you install the pixel code.

5. Follow the Instructions

Facebook will now take over, and guide you through how you can install the pixel codes for the respective tools that you selected.

If you have any trouble installing your pixel, feel free to leave a comment or contact me and I will reply ASAP!

How to Create Facebook Lookalike Audiences

Lookalike audiences are the single most profitable ads on Facebook. What sucks however, is how difficult it is to get a large enough audience before you can even begin to utilize this tool.

If you do however, have a total of at least 1,000 unique visitors, this is the guide for you.

Lookalike audiences are designed to look for people who 'look like' your audience, hence the name.

They bring down your cost per click, cost per acquisition and hence increases your ROAS.

If you find yourself lost throughout any part of this post, check out my 'Crash Course to Digital Marketing Terms'.

Create an Audience

As mentioned, once you have about 1,000 unique visitors, you would want to create a custom audience based on your website visitors.

 If you're confused as to how you can do this, check out a post I did on 'How to Create Facebook Re-targeting Ads' .

You can also use the custom audience you create to re-target customers who did not convert, as stated in that post.

Unlike re-targeting ads, you don't have to exclude those who have purchased from you.

Create a Lookalike Audience

After creating a custom audience, you can create a lookalike audience by clicking on 'create audience' and selecting 'Lookalike Audience'.(excuse the quality, this was a screenshot)

Next, select your lookalike source(the custom audience you want to make a 'lookalike' of).

The location you select should be from the country which you have received the most sales from. If you are starting on lookalike audiences, you should already have some sales collected in your data.

Finally, your audience size should have a range of 1% per lookalike audience you create(0-1%, 1-2% etc.). You can create multiple lookalike audience by selecting the drop down next to 'number of lookalike audiences'.

And there you have it! Your very own lookalike audience. Lookalike audiences are unique to your ad account, that's why it's so much cheaper to advertise to a lookalike audience than an interest(less competition).

You would use your lookalike audience the same way you use a custom audience in your re-targeting ads.

Hopefully this helps! If you have anything you would like to clarify, do leave a comment or shoot me an email. I'll reply ASAP!

P.S. Once you've gotten about 1,000 counts for warmer audiences like add to carts, initiate checkouts, and purchases, you should create custom audiences and lookalike audiences for those too. Purchase lookalike audiences are the end goal. Work your way up from website visitors and you'll eventually get there!

How to Create Facebook Re-targeting Ads

So you've started Facebook Advertising and have gotten yourself a few clicks and possibly some sales. (If you're not sure how to do this, check out 'How to Create Facebook Interest Ads')

You've got all this data but aren't sure what to do with it. Well, you've come to the right place. 

Facebook pixel data can be used to build custom audiences which you can then use to make your Facebook Advertising more effective. 

Using Facebook pixel data appropriately can help you to increase your ROAS by decreasing your cost per click(CPC) or cost per acquisition(CPA).

If you have any trouble understanding the jargon used, check out my 'Crash Course to Digital Marketing Terms' here!

What is a re-targeting ad?

A re-targeting ad is pretty self-explanatory. It targets your customers again. 

The question here would be, why?

Customers are often differentiated by how warm they are. Warmth in marketing simply means how familiar the customer is with your brand. The warmer they are, the more familiar.

Generally, the further the customer moves down the marketing funnel, the warmer they would be, and the more likely they will convert if you do advertise to them again. In other words, a customer who has added to cart would be more likely to convert than a customer who only clicked on your link. 

This means that re-targeting customers who have added to cart would result in a higher ROAS that re-targeting customers who have clicked on your link.

Create a Custom Audience

Before you can re-target your audience, you need to create one first. 

You can do this by going to the 'audiences' tab of the ads manager, and under custom audience, click on 'Create a Custom Audience'.

Next, you'll have to pick a source to create your audience from. Obviously, you would pick the source you have been driving traffic to.

Finally, choose the criteria to filter your audience by. As mentioned earlier in this post, re-targeting customers who clicked on your link may not be as effective as re-targeting customers who added to cart.

You also should have an audience of at least 1000 people before you start advertising to them. You could start from customers who clicked, buy the more data there is, the better.

Because of this, you should maximize the period of the data collected(the maximum is 'in the past 180 days)

You'll want to create at least 2 audiences, one for the audience you want to re-target, and one for customers who have already purchased. This is so you can exclude the customers who have purchased, so you do not annoy them.

Create Your Re-targeting Ad

Next, you can create an ad using your newly formed audience. 

Create the ad as you normally would, but this time, deselect every country and interest you are targeting. This is because the audience you are targeting already has been filtered down. 

Also, make sure to deselect 'detailed targeting expansion' as that will burn through your budget.

Finally, the budget of your ad shouldn't be more than $5. Advertisers usually set a budget of $3 per re-targeting ads and get wonderful results.

Try it out and let me know how it goes! Re-targeting is extremely powerful in pushing customers who are still on the fence to make the purchase.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email!

How to Create a Highly Converting Facebook Ad

Generating a high return on ad spend(ROAS) is every marketer's wet dream. It's something they begin to chase from the first dollar they spend on ads.

Your low ROAS could be caused by several things. Your website, your ad or your audience. In this post, I will be covering what you could do to create a Facebook ad copy and image which works.

If you find yourself getting confused by any of the terms used in this post, check out my 'Crash Course to Digital Marketing Terms' to clarify!

Be Inconspicuous

The best Facebook ads are those which don't actually look like ads. They do such a good job of looking like another post, but is also able to capture the attention of the customer. 

This means you can't keep telling your customers that your products are '50% off!' or that you offer 'Free Shipping'. You can put that in your ad copy(the writing below the picture). 

In some cases, the ad creative(the picture) could feature your product with a 'limited edition' or a 'free shipping' at the corner, but do make sure it isn't the main focus of the creative.

Use Emojis

Almost every ad on Facebook utilizes emojis in its copy. This is works for a simple reason: it's catchy.

Facebook advertisers have been thorough testing, and have obviously found that emojis work extremely well. 

How do I know? Well, if it doesn't work, they would have stopped doing it long ago. 

Emojis do a good job of spicing up the otherwise bland text in ad copies, hence keeping customers interested and more likely to convert.

Headlines and Descriptions

You'll want to make sure your headlines and descriptions are as thorough as possible. If you're selling a brown cap, call it a 'Brown Baseball Cotton Cap'. Make sure that the headlines and descriptions match the ones on your website,

Customers like consistency, so if you can provide them with that, they will be more likely to convert.

Links and Call to Action

When adding links, the website URL should usually lead directly to the product page. This reduces the distractions which you expose your customer to, increasing the chances of them purchasing.

As for the display URL, you'll want to make it the main page of your website(The 'www.abc.com')

Finally for the call to action, make sure it's accurate to what you want your customer to do. This may be the most important button on your ad(well, it's the only button, but you get the picture).

How to Create Facebook Interest Ads

Interests Ads are the basics of Facebook Advertising. It's a step above boosting posts as it allows you to target people on Facebook on a deeper level.

Interest ads work well because they tackle the main reason why people buy, interest. By picking an interest which fits your product, you significantly increase your click through rate which leads to an increase in your conversion rate.

If find yourself confused by the terms used in the post, check out my 'Crash Course to Digital Marketing Terms'

1. Pick an objective

First things first you'll need to decide on what objective your business is looking for. Usually, if you're looking to make sales, or are in the e-commerce space, you would pick conversions.

2. Name your campaign and set a budget

It is recommended by Facebook as well as experienced advertisers to use Campaign Budget Optimization(CBO). CBO helps you find your best performing ad sets, spending more of your budget on them and increasing your Return on Ad Spend(ROAS).

The daily budget should be set according to how many ad sets you intend to create(10 ad sets is a good amount). A general rule of thumb is to use a campaign budget of $50 if you're planning to do 10 different ad sets.

If you have no experience, use the default of 'lowest cost'. The other options are for highly experienced advertisers who know exactly what they are doing. Doing it wrong will burn through your budget incredibly quickly.

3. Set up your Ad sets

Click next until you make it to the page shown above. You'll want to pick purchase as Facebook automatically optimizes your ads to give you what you ask for. Ask for subscribes, and you'll get likes, ask for purchases and you'll get purchases. Generally, businesses look opt for the option of sales.

Next, you'll need to pick a country. I've found that targeting one first-world country per ad works the best. Also, the default option is 'people living or recently in this location' but just targeting 'people living in this location' works much better.

Leave the other options as vague as possible. As this is still the testing stage, Facebook will begin to provide you with data on the demographic which leads to the most sales. Only then should you target specific age groups or genders.

Under detailed targeting, key in the interests which best fit your ideal customer. You could add several interests into a single ad set, but I've found that splitting them up into multiple ads is much more effective.

Make sure to deselect 'detailed targeting expansion' as it will shred through your budget, and defeat the purpose of targeting specific interests.

As for placements, it's usually advised to only advertise on Facebook and Instagram feeds and stories and deselect Audience Network and Messenger. This allows you to receive higher quality traffic, which leads to more sales.

Leave the ad running continuously and monitor it. If you see your cost per click dipping below $0.90-$1, you may want to consider killing that ad set.

Creating the ad copy and creative should be pretty self explanatory. Facebook has a pretty thorough guide.

If you have any troubles, just leave a comment or shoot me an email!

A Guide to Effective Facebook Advertising

Digital marketing is an incredibly sought after skill, which has become quite synonymous with Facebook Ads.

Facebook has a user base of over 2 billion active users. Facebook Ads gives advertisers the ability to advertise to its massive user base.

There are hundreds of thousands of advertisers bidding for a spot on Facebook's platform. This makes it incredibly competitive. There are also advertising agencies charging thousands of dollars each month to help companies do their advertising.

Despite this, advertising on Facebook isn't all that difficult. Of course it takes practice and experience, but all you need to stay ahead of your competition is know that being profitable with Facebook Ads is just doing these 3 things.

*If you don't understand any of the terms used, check out my 'Crash Course to Digital Marketing Terms'

1. Gather (Appropriate) Data

The most important thing to know when starting on Facebook Ads is that the whole game is about data. The person with the most (appropriate) data performs the best. 

Of course, you'll start without data, but on your journey you'll have to be constantly building useful data. You'll need a Facebook Pixel on your website to help you collect that data.

'Useful' being the imperative word here. Add to carts, link clicks, and initiate checkouts if you're looking for sales(which applies to most e-commerce businesses). Likes, follows and engagement only matter if you're trying to grow your page(not recommended if you don't have deep pockets).

Generally, it's a good idea to start off with interest targeting to gather data at the beginning. Advertisers do this by constructing an 'ideal customer' and targeting interests based on his/her traits.

At this stage, don't expect to get too many sales, you may get a few, but just breaking even at this point is an extremely likely outcome. Remember, you're still gathering data and competing with others.

*Facebook is pretty good at optimizing to give you exactly what you ask for. If you ask for sales, they'll give you sales, if you ask for likes, they'll give you likes.

2. Retarget

After you've collected some data, you can start re-targeting the audiences you've built. 

Of course, you should only re-target people who have seen your ad but didn't convert. Showing your ad to them for a second time could remind them of your product, or be that final kick that they need before purchasing your product.

You can re-target people who have clicked on your link, added to cart or initiated checkout. The warmer the audience is, the better they will convert.

The same goes for page follows. Re-target the people who engaged with your post, and they will likely like your page in the future.

3. Lookalike Audiences

This is where the profits start rolling in. Profits meaning you'll start making much more than you spend. Much, much more. If you do it properly.

Using the same audiences that you've gotten from your interest and re-targeting ads, you can create a lookalike audience. 

A lookalike audience is essentially a group of people who share the same traits as the people who purchased from you(if you decide to create a lookalike audience from your purchase audience).

An audience should be of a pretty large amount before you start creating lookalike audience from it(about 1,000).

Once you've reached this stage, you should be able to generate steady profits from your Facebook Ads.

Because the lookalike audience is one that you've created, you'll have a lot less competition and hence it will get significantly cheaper to acquire each customer.

However, you should continue testing your interests and re-targeting your audiences to scale.

If you had any issues understanding or have anything to add, please do leave a comment or contact me at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com', I'll get back to you ASAP. 

If you liked this post, I post many others like this, do check them out and give me a follow if you think I'm providing value!

Life Hacks to Help You Save More Money

On this blog, I like to talk about saving money and keeping it for investing. The more money you save, the more money you invest, and the more money you make.

I've went over some creative ways you can use to keep saving money interesting in a previous post.

If you are already saving money effectively, try to apply these other habits to your life to save even more! I do admit however, that this is venturing into extreme cheapskate territory.

Collect rain water

I know, it sounds cheap. But hear me out. According to Statista.com, on average, an American family of  4 spends approximately $72.93 a month if each person uses 100 gallons per day. 

Considering an average toilet uses 1.5 gallons of water a flush and a 10 minute shower takes approximately 20 gallons of water(about fifty 1.5 litre bottles), $72.93 is a pretty conservative

estimate.

The point is, we use a lot of water. Hence, it's good practice to store up water during a rainy day, just in case a not as rainy of a day comes by. 

Rain water can be use for many things. Watering your plants, washing your floors. Heck, if you're adventurous enough you could even use the sun to distill it for drinking. 

Saving $5-$10 a month by utilizing rainwater may not seem like much, but over a year, that adds up to a pretty significant amount.

Switch to LEDs

Light Emitting Diodes(LEDs) are significantly more energy efficient than incandescent or florescent lightbulbs, being able to emit the same brightness while using up to 75% less energy(Source:Arcadia).

On top of that, they last longer, meaning you don't have to switch them out as often. 

Using LEDs cuts down your electric bills, without you having to consciously remind yourself to turn of the lights(although, that's a good habit to have).

On top of saving money for yourself, you're also doing your part by being more eco-friendly.

If you have anything else to add, please do leave a comment or reach out to me at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to check out my other ones and give me a follow!