Successful eCommerce businesses aren’t built on random marketing campaigns, they’re scalable because of their foundational principles of advertising. On this episode of Marketing For eCommerce, I share my top 6 principles that are guaranteed to bring your marketing game up to the next level. They’re easy to integrate into your business model and will be well worth your time. Be sure to listen to this episode for all the details!
Outline of This Episode
- [0:32] These 6 paid ad principles need to be at the foundation of your marketing strategy
- [2:26] What dinner with friends can teach us about advertising
- [6:11] Treat your paid ads like seeds and learn from pumpkin farmers
- [8:45] How “M-to-M” can make or break all our advertising efforts
- [10:06] The secret to growing your eCommerce empire
- [13:18] Who is your buyer?
- [16:00] Here's how you actually work less and get way better results
Resources & People Mentioned
- BOOK: “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”
- Ep 21, “Follow These 4 Criteria To Find Your Best Niche Market”
Connect With Bryan Bowman
- On Facebook
Subscribe to Marketing For eCommerce on iTunes
Full Transcript:
Hello, welcome to Marketing for eCommerce. I'm Bryan Bowman and today I want to share six paid ads principles that will not only give you better results in your advertising and marketing, but will also give you greater confidence and just peace of mind in your, in your efforts because you'll understand what's going on. I think a lot of times where people, well I guess initially where people are frustrated, it's the technical stuff, right? It's where do I click, what buttons, you know, what, what goes where and how do I actually get my ads launched? Once you get past that phase. And, and typically that's actually never as hard as you think, right? You can get your ads up and running pretty pretty quickly. The bigger source of frustration is, you know, what's the strategy, what were we going with this, how do we get this thing to work longterm?
And I think having these principles and having this game plan, we'll just, it'll give you more confidence. And a lot of this, a lot of this advertising game is about being able to stick it out, like be in it for the long haul. And make it, make it, it's kind of like the difference between dieting and making better eating choices, like making it a way of life, you know, people can diet for a short term and they can do that really well, but then it gets hard or whatever and then they stop. But what soon as you make lifestyle changes, that's, that's that you're able to keep for the longterm. And the thing you have to understand is marketing and advertising aren't just like a one off thing that you try. It has to be baked into the fabric of your business. Like it's every part of it's part of your process.
There's budget allocated for it, it's part of the system, it's how your business runs. And that's difficult to do when you feel like you're firing from the hip all the time and you're just trying stuff out. But when you have these principles and you have a strategy and an overall outlook and you know where you're going it, again, you have more confidence and peace of mind and it's very easy then to bake it into your strategy. So, this is, these are principles that we live by and he come underground that they've made a huge difference in our business. So hopefully you'll have some good takeaways here and you'll be able to apply this stuff and, and start, start working it into your, to your advertising. So let's dive right in to the six paid ads principles. So the first is the ad money mindset.
And this one is the first one for a reason because so many things in life, life, business, doesn't matter what it is comes down to mindset. You can learn almost anything. I mean literally, if you've ever, there's a great book I recommend it's called mindset by Carol dweck. And when you understand the idea between the difference between fixed mindset and growth mindset, you realize, you know, talent, ability, these things can be developed, it can be cultivated, you can learn almost anything if, if not anything, but a lot of it's going to come down to your mindset about the thing and whether or not you can, you can be prepared to actually do it and learn it. And it's no different with advertising, so you have to have this ad money mindset and it's really interesting because, and, and this applies me too, so I'm not definitely not pointing fingers, but like you, you and I would not hesitate to go have an amazing night out with our friends and our family and drop hundreds of dollars.
Right? I mean, and especially when you imagine like Manhattan or Vegas or something I make could be thousand dollars, right? and it'd be amazing night. We have an amazing time. We won't even think twice about it yet. A lot of people, even the idea of like spending $500 on ads, they almost cringe at like the feeling of having to do that. And I think that stems from, you know, the feeling of I'm going to just drop this $500 and nothing's gonna happen. There's gonna be no sales. Oh man, that sucks, right? It just feels like you literally just through $500 out the window, like he just literally opened down the car window, open up your wallet and threw 500 bucks cash out the window. Or a thousand or 2000, whatever it is. Right. And I think that it makes sense why, why people would feel that way.
But there's a great example, I think I heard it from Frank Kern years ago and I'll, I'll do my best to sort of paraphrase it, but it's so good because it helps you understand what advertising is and what it isn't. Okay. Especially with a strategy which we're going to talk about a and the other principals, but the example was imagine you could go and for $2,000 there was this software and you could put in all of your product data and the software would compute some stuff and then it would spit out who your ideal buyers were, what, what images they responded to, what copy they most resonated with, what, you know, what, what landing pages you send it. It just spit out everything you needed to know. It was just literally a printout and I just told you everything you need to know to run effective advertising.
Like would it be worth it? And you probably are thinking. Yeah, for sure. Like I know for sure 100 percent, 2000 bucks, and you'll give me this whole printout and tell me exactly what to do and in that scenario it makes sense. Well that's no different than what you're doing with your advertising when you're initially starting, you're investing in data, you are not, you're not spending money, it's not an expense and you have to have that mindset shift where advertising goes from an expense and and something you just, you know, I don't know, I'll just throw some money at it and it turns into an investment and investment in data and investment in understanding what converts and what works. So you know, what the heck to like scale and doubled down on and pay attention to. So you can ignore everything else, right? I talk a lot about essentialism and recognizing the vital few, the 80, 20, 90 10, the things that actually move the needle so you can say no to all the distractions and all the other stuff that doesn't work and double down on the winters, it's no different, but to do that you have to have that investment.
So the Ed money mindset is the idea that you go into it knowing like, all right, we're gonna, we're going to put some money into this, we're going to do it strategically, right? Because it can, it can definitely be wasting money if you just randomly throw up some ads. we're gonna definitely do it strategically. But at the end we're just going to have this printout and we're gonna know exactly what works. So first shift is having that ad money mindset and that's the paid ads principle number one. Now the second thing is you must test. I can't tell you how many times people will ask, they'll send an email, they'll, they'll comment, you know, whatever, send a message like, Hey, do you think this will work? What do you think of this, of option a or option b? Which one do you think will work best?
And the answer is always the same. You got to test it, you got to test it. I don't know, you gotTa, you gotTa test it, right? And it almost is like a little cliche, especially if, you know, if you, if you're around a lot of marketers like it, that's going to be the default answer. Like, who knows, like you, you gotta, you gotta try like I have no idea. and you have to, or you have to have that mindset like you're going to test, you're going to test everything out. It doesn't mean you gotta throw massive budgets and everything, you know, you don't have to test thousands and thousands of dollars every time you have an idea that you want to try or a different audience you want to target. You can use micro budgets, which is what we do. We take small budgets, wheat, there's key metrics we're looking for.
There are certain indicators, right? Kinda like if you were, if you were a scout and you know, you're looking for talent on the field and there's certain things you're looking for that indicate all right, that, that's something we can develop. It's no different with your, with your tests you're looking for, you have indicators and they tell you, okay, this, this is really good. And sometimes the indicators blatant, it's just you got conversions and you got them super cheap. So let's do it. Other Times it's, it's other metrics, right? It's, it's not as deep in the funnel, but they're definitely indicators that there's something there and there's a winner. So you can start with small budgets and then scale up and it's a lot like farming. and what I found is, you know, the farming has got it right. You've got to plan a lot of seeds and you see what you see, what's growing and and you take care of, you take care of those, you know, those plants and the rest you don't.
And maybe my analogy is a little off. I didn't even though I'm from the Midwest, I never actually did much farming so, but the bigger point is most people when they run traffic and patriotic, they don't plan enough seeds. So they, they, and I'll get to this in a second with one of the other, principles, but they don't plan enough seeds. They will mess around with the soil, right? Start digging around before a seed can even take root and start to start to grow and sprout, and they won't have the patience to wait for the harvest. So even if this thing is kind of showing signs and it's starting to grow, they won't actually wait to get the payoff from this thing and it's just lack of patients. So you have to be willing to test and you have to be patient to sort of write it out.
And again, with some of these other principles, hopefully you'll have that, that confidence in that peace of mind knowing that this is all part of a strategy. So it'll, it'll allow you to relax because if you don't, you'll, you'll end up digging up the seed before it even has a chance to, to produce any results for you. I'm in your ads. So that's the second principle is you must be ready to test. So you must test, test, test, test. All right, so the third paid ads principle is targeting is everything. So you can have an amazing message and if you line it up with the wrong audience, you're just going to get really crappy results. it's just not going to be a match. And I've talked about this before with, you know, remembering to always craft a message and an offer that's congruent with that buyer that you're targeting.
If you're targeting a certain buyer and you might have different buyer personas, I've talked about personas before, I'm on the show, you might have different personas and each of them have different motivators and different objections and you need to cater to those and you just speak to those. You need to overcome those. So you have to have that match. And I mean there's blatant mismatches, right? I mean, if you're in the Vegan space and you have in your advertising lots of, you know, meat products or what do. I mean? There's obviously a huge mismatch, but even within your, in your market, there's nuances, there's different personas that you need to cater to and you want to match that up because if your, your targeting and your message are off the whole thing will, the whole thing will fall apart. So you gotta make sure you, you really align those.
And again, there's an episode where I talk about buyer personas. Go check it out, I'm not sure which number it was, but we'll have it in the notes. So go check that out. And I go into more depth on examples of that, like actual breakdown of how it, how it works. So that's the third thing. All right, so the fourth paid ads principle. So let's summarize your first was ad money mindset. Second is you must test, third is targeting is everything. So the fourth paid ads principle is you win on the back end. Now what do I mean by back in? And I know probably you probably know most, most people listening know, but just in case, I've had, I've definitely had comments on ads and stuff where people have said, what do you mean by the back end of, you know, of the process.
so the front end is that initial sale. So if you go in and you buy, you know, a cup of coffee, that's the front end sale and maybe they upsell you. I'm a granola bar or something. Okay, great. So now they added, they added average order value, right? They got you to buy not only the coffee but the, the granola bar or you know, a Bagel and cream cheese plus the coffee. Okay, great. That was the front end sale. The second sale is now what do they do to retarget you to or remarket to you and get you to come in again and again and again and again. Okay. So that's the back end. So the front end, is that a first sale? That first transaction and anything that was purchased there and the back end is everything beyond that. After now you've, you've made the switch from being a prospect to now you're my customer.
So, the fourth paid ads principles, you went on the back end. So there's a very famous Dan Kennedy quote, I've said it before, I'll say it again because it just needs to be like ingrained in all of us as, as advertisers, especially now as things are so competitive online and in business, because the barrier to entry is low, right? It's easy to get into business nowadays because of software and technology that, you know, things that weren't available before and because of that, we need to be really mindful of this. So the quote is ultimately the business that can spend the most to acquire a customer wins. Now there's another part of this quote that doesn't get mentioned as much, but it's, it's huge, which is if you plan to make a profit on the front end, only you will grow slowly. If you grow at all, you must have a system in place, and this, I'm paraphrasing, but this is what you have to completely understand about marketing online and especially in eCommerce, especially in eCommerce because you have to be really mindful of your profit margin and have a system in place that maximizes profitability and maximizes, repeat purchases.
So you must have a system in place to maximize profit on your existing customers. And one thing I always tell students is, you know, understand you're not just making a sale, quote unquote, we're not running ads to make a sale. We're running ads to get a customer into our system, into our process which is built from the ground up with one purpose in mind, which is to increase the frequency of purchase, to get them to come back again. And again. Now we have other things in place which allow us to do that more effectively. But ultimately we're not just making a sale. We're not getting someone to buy some stuff. We're trying to get them into a system where we can nurture that relationship, build a bond, and actually get them to come back again because on the back end, that's where you win. That's where you make your profit and that's how you.
And that's ultimately how you're able to scale because now you can work those profits back into the business. So it's this, it's this cycle because you have that back end in place at that system, not just sort of an ad hoc, alright, let's make an offer, right? We actually have a system that our putting our process, our customers through, we now have more profitability so we can take that, that profit and invest it into the front end, which now allows us to spend more than we could before to acquire a customer. So then we can spend more so we could spend more so we could spend more. And that's what allows us to outspend your competition. So it's a, it's so important and you really have to make sure that you build out this process and the system to leverage that. So principle number four, paid ads.
Principle number four. You win on the back end, paid ads. Principle number five is to know your buyer before you ever ever run any traffic. In fact, I would say before you create a logo, before you decide what products you're going to buy and source and sell it like all the way at the beginning, you got to get really clear on who is your buyer. Why are they buying? What are their objections? What motivates them to take action to buy? Because one thing that you learn real quick, when you start driving ads and you start trying to do this is something people always do. When they first started this, they tried to create desire. They think that their job is to create desire for their product. Your job is not to create desire. Your job is to project your ideal buyers, existing desire onto your product, so whatever they're already feeling, you need to project it onto your product and not created, and it sounds like not a big difference.
It's a huge difference because in the first scenario, you're trying to change someone's worldview. Good luck in the other. You're aligning with their worldview and showing them how your product is the best answer or you're, you know, for whatever, whatever their world view is. Everyone has different worldviews. Everyone has different ideas of what success is and what a win is and their situation and you need to align with that and there's a principle called the principle, what you want to just like, just like a principle number four, do you want to, you want to sort of bake this into your, into your thinking process. Like you always think this is always enter the conversation already happening in your prospect's mind. So the best example is like a watercooler example, right? There's two people having a conversation. Where do you, what do you think is your best chance of getting into that conversation?
Do you think it's a just kind of pop in and start talking about what, what happened last night and man, oh no, they're having their conversation. You're like, man, you won't believe what happened last night at the grocery store and you won't believe what happened at this barbecue. And there's like kind of looking at you like they were talking about, you know, something happening in a couple of weeks from now, you know, a vacation that Bob's taking and you just kind of barge in or do you listen to what they're talking about and say, oh, that's, that's crazy. You're going, you're going to, you know, you're going to Germany. That's awesome. That's so cool. I actually, I was just there. You got to check out, right? Like now that's, that's how you can enter that conversation. It's no different with your buyer. You've got to be really aware of what conversation is already happening in their mind so you can enter it and no, because you know their desire, you can project it onto your, onto your product.
So that is paid ads. Principle number five and number six, paid ads. Principle number six is let the Algo do the heavy lifting, let the algorithm do its job. And you know, every, every platform has their own algorithm and their own way they work. But this is probably most evident on facebook slash instagram. And I see this all the time. I mean, facebook and instagram are huge advertising platforms, pretty much every commerce seller leverages them. If you're not using either of them, you need to be. Obviously, I think that goes without saying. But the reason I say it's really evident on facebook and instagram is because facebook's algorithm has gotten really, really good. there were definitely times where we had to sort of intervene a little bit more, but it's gotten so good and there's always this temptation to go in there and want to like poke around with stuff and like change things and you know, it's, it's, it's 48 hours in and you're in.
You're already shutting things off and changing ages and changing targeting. Like you've got to let the algorithm do the heavy lifting. It is a ton of money, has been invested for that thing to work and you've got to let it do its job. when, if you want your ads to work, you have to get comfortable with. Going back to what we said before, when I said before with with testing, you have to be comfortable with putting a lot of seeds out there. And then like hands off and let the algorithm do its job. Let it cycle through that stuff. Yes. Let it spend some of your money and it's going to feel like, oh, why is it spending that? It's not working. This one's working. Just let it work. You got to give it some time. And then you go through and you and you clean house, right?
You clean up everything that didn't, that didn't meet your Kpi, you know, your, your, your metrics that you had said like your numbers and what you know is your break even and what you know you need for like click through rate. You cut those off, you say nope. Okay. And then you double down on the stuff that, that did well. But to do that, to get to that stage it, you just, it's going to require a little bit of data, a little bit of time. And I think that's something that most people and most people, they try to create the perfect offer. This is another thing, I used to do this, I did this for the longest time until like I wised up and I was like, this makes no sense is you spend all this time creating the perfect perfect image, right? Oh, you're editing it.
You're like, ah, creating, you're doing all these little tricks and stuff to make this perfect image and then you're like, you're, you're, you're going and you're creating all this perfect and copy thinking about the different angle at, you're going to approach this and trying to put all this copy together and the perfect. You're trying to like be a perfect copywriter. Right? And then you, you know, you, you do all this research if you could find the perfect audience to target and then you launched that ad and you're like, all right, sweet. And like you're checking it, you're refreshing the screen. Like, refreshing, refreshing, right? Like, all right, let's see if this thing is making any sales. It's like it's been three hours. This thing hasn't sold anything yet. And, that typically won't work even even, even if you let it run for a long time, a typically won't.
The Algorithm won't, probably won't save that, that perfect ad and make it come back from never really working in the first place. what's a way better strategy is you try a lot of different things and you let the algorithm work on a lot of different options. any, anyone who does any kind of advertising on any platform will tell you you got to go wide, go narrow, you got to go wide and then you go narrow. If you start to narrow, you got, you got nothing to work with, so you've got to go really wide and then you have to go narrow. And that's how you, you find your winners and you can scale from there. So hopefully that gave you some, some new ideas and hopefully as you kind of journey into your advertising, you know, I guess future, you have a little more clarity on kind of what to expect.
So these are six principles to live by as a marketer, as an advertiser is have that ad money mindset, like get mind right first. So you're ready for everything that's about to come and realize that this whole thing is an investment in data and investment, in knowing an insight and in knowing what's going to work down the road too. You must test, you got to be willing to test stuff, plant enough seeds and be patient so you can see which ones are going to have the chance of yielding a good crop and and really giving you a return. A targeting is everything, so make sure you're, you're matching up your audience with your message and getting clear on what what the WHO. That audience is a. You went on the back end, you gotta, you gotta be ready and you have to have a system in place.
This is probably of all the things that I've talked about here, this is probably what we focus on most with our students and people who go through our programs is building this system because this is the. You have to have this systems thinking to be able to to win nowadays online and in business period. Again, because the front end is easy. A lot of people can get it on the front end. I mean, you know, you probably know how easy it is, right? Throw up a store on shopify, throw up a listing on Amazon, get some product, boom, you know, get it shipped over. In fact, now he just drop strip at aliexpress boat. It's super easy, right? Boom, boom, boom. No, you know, almost no barrier at all. So because of that, the front end competition is fierce and it become more important than ever to have a backend system in place so that you're not firing from the hip and every time that new customer comes in, boom, they're in the system and they're.
And they're getting, they're getting, they're getting the, you know, they're going through every, every piece that you've set up, all to maximize the value of that customer and, and really to provide them the most value and to nurture that, that lead and that customer and build that relationship so that they have no reason to ever to ever leave. there's a great quote by Paul Dejoria, billionaire founder of, of John Paul Dejoria, the founder of Paul Mitchell, and he says, you are not in the a customer in the product business. You are in the reorder business. You are not in the product business, you are in the reorder business and because you want to create that loyalty so that people keep coming back again and again and again, but you also create an amazing product that they're excited to come back and get again and again and again.
So that's, you went on the back. And Number Five, know your buyer. You are not creating desire. You're projecting your ideal buyers, existing desire onto your product. And number six, let the Algo do the heavy lifting. it's tempting to want to go in there and start tweaking things, you know, 24 hours in or two hours in. It's okay, you can admit it, I know, but you gotta you gotta plan a lot of seeds and hands off and let the algorithm do what it does best. So again, implement that stuff and your action items is to pick at least one of these things, but definitely all six of them, if you can implement it. And now not we start getting better results, but start going out into the marketplace with greater confidence knowing that you've got a strategy while everyone else is a running around playing whack a mole and shooting from the hip. So with that, have an amazing, amazing rest of your day and I will catch you on the next episode.