#167: How To Run High ROAS Digital Ads In 2023

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Claus Lauter: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the E-Commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today we want to talk about Facebook ads, Google ads, any kind of ads that will bring you many. And one of the KPIs that merchants and marketing experts in the e-commerce field are looking at is the return on ads spread. Also called RO ads.

Now digital ads. In 2023 are complicated, are time consuming, are expensive, and at the end of the day they're actually unreliable. So a lot of merchants and marketers put a lot of work in their ads and they don't still see high returns on there. So we wanna dive a little bit deeper into that. As an expert on this rule today, I have Paul Matvienko.

He's the c e o and co-founder of advisedly.com, and he has a vast experience when it comes to ads. Paul is a Ukrainian native. He has been working in e-commerce for over 10 years. He started selling online at the age of 18 and has loved the industry ever since. He has started several tech companies related to e-commerce, such as market places and flea market sellers and similar platforms like Facebook Marketplace.

In 2015, he called, founded at Wesley, previously alone as Retargeted app, which was the first application to make it easy for Shopify Mauritians to run Facebook dynamic ads. During the M V MVP testing of Advertly, Paul managed advertising budgets of more than 15 million. Of merchants and in his free time Paul enjoys surfing kiting and doing CrossFit.

So let's welcome Paul to the show. Hi Paul, how are you today?

Paul Matvienko: Hello Claus. I'm great. thanks for having me today.

Claus Lauter: Paul, return on Ed. Spend. Big topic, huge K p i and not always something that is very satisfying when people work with that. Gimme a bit of a background. What got you into the world of Facebook ads of Google?

Paul Matvienko: , great question. In 2015, Facebook released Facebook Dynamic Ads. It was very hard to integrate. You need to find developer 2015 for your store to integrate this very interesting technologies that Facebook just released. Facebook Dynamic Ads, it's basically when someone visits your website and.

Product page or added to card. And then he go to Facebook Live without making a purchase and go to Facebook or Instagram and he will then see exactly the same product that he just forgot to purchase , or didn't purchase. So this is the first technology that, , Facebook released product catalog, sales based advertising campaigns based on technology product enable ads.

I was. interested in how it works and I found, uh, Ukrainian guy, , who has, , Shopify's tour and I reached out to him and. Tell, okay, I have friend developer, let's, , integrate this technology and Facebook has this good technology. Let me integrate it to your store and, let's check it out how it works.

So we, integrated it very fast. We start trying ads and it start. Bringing two times more comparing to any average campaigns that he run, So I fall in love with the technology and I started with my co-founder, , application retarget app that, , basically automate the process of integration of this technology into Shopify,

Claus Lauter: Yeah. Now obviously things have become more complicated, so there is dozens of tools on each of these ad platforms, which makes it difficult to keep up with the latest changes, with the newest features and so on and so forth. Also, it's very time consuming, as I said, merchants.

In a perfect word scenario, you had to spend hours on the ad platform and that's not really what they want to do. They wanna sell their products and services. Now, give a bit of an idea on how you solved this issue.

Paul Matvienko: go back to 2015. It was only, , Facebook and Drop cheaps mostly.

Mostly who trying to achieve financial freedom by, , launching ads. Very targetedly, very effective at Facebook without diet and privacy regulations. And it was a great time. It was very easy. Facebook has just few campaigns but right now a lot of change. First of all, there are much more so entrepreneurs, running company being one person like site project, and this can be D two C brand as well, or job shipping and business. And this is a good persons having a good brand, but the technology on the advertising is changed a lot.

On Facebook, you have Instagram, you have TikTok, Pinterest, and other ad networks, and you have privacy regulation. And right now, in order to run ads, you need to know how to run ads or you lose your money. there is a big gap between what is necessary to run ads and how the so entrepreneur looks like and they're not matching.

That's why. So entrepreneurs needs very fast, efficient with small budget to run ads without hiring people and without, complicated settings. A automated iteration advertising campaigns requires knowledges, about your audience, and it requires a lot of investments into different task.

, and you without guarantee returns for the advertising spans. So this is not matching expectation that's why we Iran it wisely. So we want to match. , what it necessary for running ads efficiently and to help owner to focus on products, , quality and services that he working on instead of focusing on how to run ads and instead of running ads and analyzing that.

so this is a huge problem right now. .

Claus Lauter: Talk to me about in which areas your app helps the most with. Obviously there's a ton of different areas, but there's somewhere you can get the highest row as as quick as possible. How does that work?

Paul Matvienko: First of all, it's important to have really good integration if.

Talking mostly about Shopify clients. , Shopify has very good, , native integration with Facebook and Google, so it's very important , to have a well-integrated website and validates that it works. and at least understanding your audience. So making basic search what the keywords, what the interest, et c.

and we help, first of all to validate the integration. So it's good enough validate your website performance and it works and converts enough. We validate if your products or business really, , comply with Facebook or Google policy. We do it manually.

There is no automated solution here. And once all these things, Validated. We help customer to set up all the settings, like pixel product prioritization, , connect business if needed with account , or set up catalog. we recommend to start this final minimum, campaigns.

If it goes to Facebook, it should be. Two funnel customer acquisition, at least for, $30 a day. , campaign, not product catalog sales. It should be, , conversion optimize its campaign with your top best sellers and good creatives.

The first level, , customer acquisition, the CU audience. the second level is targeting, I do not recommend to start with dynamic ads. Start with objective conversions at first, because dynamic ads requires a lot of data and higher budgets. So start with, , just targeting and that's enough.

So $30 per, acquisition, campaign , and $15 , per day per retargeting. So we can have, , monthly budget from 1000 to 1000 and a half dollars a month. And that's bill be enough to start. , if we talk about Google as. . There is two type of campaigns , standard shopping and performance mugs.

, we recommend to start with, performance mugs, , since, , it's very easy to start with and if you go to standard shopping, , and performance marks include, started shopping as well, this same placement, so it's easier to start as performance marks, but started shopping, also worked in. Some cases, before, , iOS 14 update, you can receive results in the next day or day, like during the first week.

Right now, it's important to wait like weeks, and we recommend to wait at least months and do not, iterate on adset. , once a week. So if you have budget for $1,000, you need to, , have one clear, simple campaign change, analyze it , and change settings at least once a week to improve it and give it, , time, at least months , to start getting results.

. Measuring and attribution right now is became very complicated. Facebook and Google needs more time. Google Bonus takes at least the requiring at least to wait one month for , performance, Maxs or standard shopping.

Claus Lauter: Okay. I think there's a lot of, , good value in there.

. And you were touching on that the good old times when drop shipping and Facebook ads were very, very simple and easy and you would just throw some ads on there and then the sales were coming in. So this has changed. A whole market has evolved and is on a different level nowadays. Let's talk a little bit about numbers.

advertising becomes more, , expensive, so you need to have a good. And you need to wait, as you said, a month before you have enough data, then you can start optimizing what of kind of profit margin as a minimum. Does immersion need to make it work?

Paul Matvienko: It depends a lot on business and, , from our experience.

At least half of all entrepreneurs, they don't know what the returns they expecting or they think they're gonna be work for their business. Margin is very different , most clients just expecting to have at least, , two, three times x return of advertising spends. And this is something minimums they looking for.

In order to keep investing, entrepreneurs looking for, , four or six, X regener protect expense. , and there is a requirement that your product needs to be cost at least, , 10, $15. So the conversion, , cost per approaches should to be, , Nearly equal to your average, , order of your, store.

so this is important the margin is very different. Someone can take money on their delivery. Someone do not provide free delivery. There is no right answer here. It's really depend what products you're selling, but the meaningful price should. , really higher than, , potential cost per purchase that you are looking for.

like you can't sell stickers. You can't buy ads by selling stickers for $1. Facebook will not find any purchases for that price for you. In average, we focused on three x or general advertising expenses, minimums. This is our goals. It's how we optimize our campaigns for our clients.

Claus Lauter: okay. I wanna touch a little bit on technology now. Everybody by No should know that third party cookies are falling away. And then as you said, already tracking is becoming more expensive. How do you deal with the whole cookie scenario that's happening right now?

Paul Matvienko: , return of advertising span decreased at least two times, some And in comparing to 2022, it's two times, , less right now in average. , so in order to keep grow, the biggest impact for us was that Facebook and Google, Facebook mostly requires totally different set top, , how pixels works, , how it takes data, how data needs to be, analyze different campaigns , or different settings right now.

We works to fully change the product and integration became, , work harder. . And in order to get hiring towards, we, , fully review advertising strategies that we offering. And it takes us at least nearly whole 22 year, , to define based on our mistakes, what strategy, who works and what's not.

So we have a lot of data on, , what strategies works, right? and we have profiles of new customers getting to our, , product. And we just matching based on data what campaigns works, for what clients. And we applying the same parameters for the new clients that we have. By doing so, it mostly automated, but by doing so, new clients, no need to invest into tests.

They already get the campaigns and strategies that works for their budget for their. . , so right now our returns investments average growing because our system , evolving. We had very bad times, , during, second, half year of 2022.

Claus Lauter: now. I think that's a huge advantage.

, why reinventing the wheel while there's someone out there who has already, , the data and you can basically profit from day one from the experience that you have Now, if I wanna install the app and run or work with advisedly, how does the process work? What's the step-by-step process to get it up and running?

Paul Matvienko: so the first step is integration. When you install our application to your Shopify store, it's just one click. You need to connect Facebook and Google account, and we have step by step, , fully automated process. That guides you. And, it takes, , five, six step and in the end you will have great integration set up, Grady Integrated.

You also can request the call with our support team to if you need help. So it's free. , the second step , that we will advisor will analyze your score and we will offer you some recommend tactics that will work for your steward. If you connect Facebook, , and depends on your data, you'll receive some recommendations.

, if you don't have traffic as example, we will recommend you to start, , advertising, , on Facebook to acquire new traffic, , with particular, , budget. And we will also tell you clearly based on other data that we have from other scores, like, , once the average would.

We give some expectation for customers we help with ad messages. We fully integrate product catalog. So the next step is just to Launch based on our recommendations. And that's it. , then you'll receive, , updates about your campaign. And if there is anything needs to be changed or improved, we will let you know.

Claus Lauter: Now I really like the approach that I can profit as a merchant from the data that you have as a overall company. basically, You are benefiting from the data that others have generated for their stores. , gimme an overview on the pricing structure. What do you charge for that?

Paul Matvienko: We have three pricing plans. the, First of all, we have free trial. You can start, , for free, and writing ads for , first two weeks. Our goal is to help you to get results for the first two weeks without paying us, and then you need to sell on the. We have, , two plants, which is most popular.

It's $99 and $249. They difference mostly by limit of advertising spans that you have. You have very small store with small budget, like below $3,000. There is $99 for you. If you have higher budgets, , like 5,000 or 6,000, you need to go to higher. and you will be able to spend more. , on the higher plan, we will provide more support.

We'll provide, , more advertising platforms and strategies for you because you will have more budget. Clients with higher budgets requires more personalized supporters. That's why the difference with. .

Claus Lauter: Okay. No, makes perfect sense. How much time do I need to invest before I get started?

So is there any kind of homework that I need to do as a merchant?

Paul Matvienko: The customers who know their they're very motivated to grow. So they at least try already to run it, , themselves or try to work with advertising experts. They have bad experience, but they have really good motivation and very good website.

They have unique bread . The motivation and the good website that's working and the person who want, , to find potential customer, first of all, , this is very important. , he know already, he has, , Facebook out or Google it out. He has budget and he understands at least what he's selling.

We like to work with, , D two C brands and there are a lot of D two C brands, which managed by one person. There are a lot of good job shippers right now as well with good website as well. , so that's enough. ,

but , if clients comes to our website in store application without having. Any idea whom to sell, how Facebook works. We are not, the best , for this kind of customers. So the minimum sales is very important for us, and we're looking for at least 10,000, revenue. At least in your revenue, , to have, , the customer.

So , we will have validation that. Actually grow this and scale

Claus Lauter: this business. , yeah, that's a very good indication for someone thinking about it. So yes, you need to have sales, you need to be in the business, you need to have a general understanding how Facebook ads work. And obviously you need to have a product that is sellable.

So, great tip there. Cool. Where can people find out more about your ,

Paul Matvienko: just go to website wisely.com. , I think this is the best place. , to learn more. There is video as well. That helps. I'm always happy to receive any, , comments on my email pm advisor.com

Claus Lauter: okay, great. I will put the links in the show notes then you just one click away. Paul, thanks so much for giving us an overview. Generating ROAS with ads will , never go away. It's a very important step in every marketing strategy of every merchant and I would highly recommend our listeners and viewers to have a look at your app and, , try it out.

I'm sure it will give some good results. Thanks so much.

Paul Matvienko: Thank you Claus.