04 Sep How Facebook Ads Drives Sales for eCommerce Retailer Canvas on Demand
I recently had the chance to sit down with Gavin Jocius, who runs eCommerce retailers Canvas on Demand and great BIG canvas to talk about how they use Facebook ads to drive eCommerce success.
Because they can measure the return on a given ad instantly, their organization is constantly adding new ad creative and testing it.
They’re able to feed more budget to the high performing ads and pull down the ads that don’t effectively drive sales. Take a moment to listen to our conversation.
The major points covered in the discussion include:
- Mobile customers behave differently: From the time on page to the number of items they look at, the mobile customer than a desktop customer, so the mobile experience must be customized to accommodate that.
- Facebook is a great partner but tough to keep up with: Since Facebook has a hacker culture, it can be difficult to keep up with their frequent changes. But Gavin gave Facebook lots of credit as an excellent partner.
- Budgets should be flexible: While the fixed marketing budget provides for staff, email software, etc., eCommerce retailers should also have a variable budget. As long as you reach your baseline return on ad spend, the spending should continue.
- Other channels can be challenging: Pinterest and other channels don’t currently provide the same sense of urgency that drives sales as Facebook.
- Buy buttons won’t create urgency: Buy buttons don’t create a psychological trigger to buy right now. That’s still something the marketer has to create.
- Instagram ad capabilities are improving: When we talked, Canvas on Demand just got full access to Instagram’s improved ad platform, but it’s not certain yet whether sales will convert at the same rate as people interact on the channel differently than they do on Facebook. Gavin warned marketers that they need to allow at least 48 hours for their Instagram ads to be approved as the influx of marketers wanting to run ads will be significant.
- Customer service is key: Canvas on Demand emphasizes customer service as much as they emphasize their advertising efforts. Doing so increases trust and can be measured, but a lot of brands don’t invest in it. Canvas on Demand likes Spark Central’s platform for tracking their inbound inquiries.
Like many social media tactics, brands can apply Facebook advertising strategies very differently. Canvas on Demand has become a category leader with their approach, and there’s a lot to learn from their experience.
