And if anyone is getting good success then can they please share their strategy as I'm really dependent on fb ads to stay afloat with my business.
There are many strategies and it depends on your budget and business. Ecom is different than lead gen. In general, I'm using ABO, 3-5 ad sets, not more than 3 ads per set when testing. When scaling, it's ABO, ~5 ad sets with the 5 top performing audiences and 2-3 top performing ads.
Lookalike vs broad vs single interest vs stacked interest which one are you using?
When an ad account is really dialed in, you can just go broad and let 'er rip. Dialed in as in at least spending over $1k per day and thousands of purchases recorded. When prospecting for cold traffic, I'm using a mix of lookalike (3% or 5% purchase, 3% addtocart, 2% website visitor) and stacking 1-2 interests in an ad set. I'm looking to get over 5M people in the audiences usually (unless it's a local campaign), so whatever it takes to get close to 5M estimated users in the audience.
And are you still running fb retargeting ads? as it seems that fb retargeting is dead.
Yes. However, I'm using 30 day FB/IG engagers in place of where I would use 30 day website visitors pre-iOS14. Using mostly DPA.
And is excluding previous buyers from your targeting audience is a good thing? When you are selling something that people will only buy once without excluding previous buyers even though I'm selling a product that people will only buy once the ad seems to perform better compared to when I exclude the previous buyers.
I exclude past purchasers for some time frame at all funnel stages. For TOF/prospecting campaigns, I exclude 180day FB/IG engagers, web visitors, atc, ic, and of course purchase. Your TOF isn't really TOF unless you're using exclusions. HOWEVER, different budgets need different methods so don't go trying to get crazy with exclusions with $100 per day budget. If your budget is low, just exclude purchasers. ***But hey, if it makes sense to include past purchasers, then just do it. Worry about adjusting once you find your rhythm and are scaling.
There isn't a step by step method you can follow to print money with FB ads. You just sort of need to feel out the ad account and try to make the decisions you can. Your creative and copy is going to have a huge impact, arguably more than targeting. Just follow the best practices and simplify your ad account. Don't get all "meta" with audiences and exclusions when starting out.
