Facebook + Shopify Method - My Twist - $2,185.62

In response to the Facebook + Shopify thread, I decided to make a run on it. There were a lot of people on both sides of the fence..some it worked for other's it did not. I did not follow the original method exactly, I used my own twist on it. More than anything this was a "test" to show people if you leverage your resources this could be done. I reached out to a couple of folks on here to partner up, but nobody was interested so I just did it myself.



Objective:
My primary objective is to get people to purchase a vacation voucher for a 5 day 4 night hotel stay in Cancun Mexico. They're only paying the shipping and handling. ($14.97) The vacation voucher has a $600 retail value. The purchaser is only responsible for paying the registration fee ($79). I am friends with a guy who owns a travel company, he's able to provide these vouchers for me at a steep discount.

Traffic Source:
I'm using Facebook advertising only. I played around with the conversions, I was actually getting better rates using PPC verses conversions using the pixel.

Ads & Targeting:
I setup a number of different ads. I have two primary groups women & men. Women's ads are targeted slightly different then menus ads, including the Facebook page I'm using to run the ads. My main hook is, along the lines of, just for supporting us in 2015, we're offering you this exclusive vacation giveaway.

(In the heading I do say, "Free Vacation Giveaway" , although it's technically not free, the voucher is free though they just pay shipping and handling to receive it!)

Landing Page:
My landing page is a static website made in wordpress, I used a domain that I purchased over the summer for another project but it's still related to travel so it works out fine. I opted not to use Shopify because there were not themes that I felt were good enough ("Solo" was okay but still required tweaking I didnt feel like doing..) for my purpose and I did not feel like working with a vendor to modify the theme to suit my needs as I knew I could do it quickly within wordpress using the Divi theme. For my cart I use a free paypal plugin, once you click the add to cart button you'll see your shopping cart, with the 1 item and the $14.97 s/h fee.

I have 1 link on the landing page, it's to my "Terms" section which clarifies the terms and states the purchaser is responsible for a reservation fee, and daily mexican taxes, etc.

I put a count down to trigger the "Sense of Urgency" and "Fear of Loss" mentality.

Did I Blackhat Anything?
Not entirely. The only thing that is "Grey" is in my Ad copy I stated, "Free Vacation Voucher" although it's not really free. I was going to create an ad that had a picture of a YT celebrity, then state, This offer is for [Persons] subscribers only. Then from there, goto unique URL that had their picture on it, etc.. but that's getting little too risky of lawsuit and I like to be as legit as possible. I do believe this would double my conversions though!! But I'm not that hard pressed...

Also, technically I'm not supposed to "Sell" the vacation vouchers, they're to be used as a gift. That's a little grey, since technically I'm not selling them, I'm giving the vouchers away for being a "loyal fan" (to what? I dont know it's just what the copy says lol) they just have to pay shipping and handling..

I was also going to create a spoof of a real travel website, so the visitor would "think" this is just a promotion from the travel website..however I decided not to go that route..
Conversion:

So far my data is as follows
My Daily ad budget is pretty high. I never test below $20... but I also have plenty of cash to make this happen. Sometimes I test with $100 daily budget just so I can get more real time data, I did not do that this time.

1,745 Clicks
$575.73 Spent (About $33 per click)
146 Sales @ $14.97 which is just about a 8.3%

Total Sales Revenue To Date: $2,185.62
Total Advertising Spend: $575.73
Cost Of Goods: $438 ($3/ea)
Shipping: $102.02 ($0.70ea)

Net before Paypal Fees and Taxes: $1,069.87

I officially went live with the ads on 12/24 so it's been very close to 6 full days. That puts me at roughly $178 per day.

If this can stay consistent for 3mos, I would say this is about a $65K/ yearly revenue stream in current state. Although that's not bad. I'm currently building a business that has 20 times that potential. So if this doesn't really scale I'm not really sure if I'll continue it. People may call it silly, but unless you're managing a portfolio with a lot of different service lines you won't understand.. energy should be put on the top revenue streams, this would not be one of them.

Note: My Facebook CTR's are really good. I've spent A LOT of money on Facebook, google, eBay over the years, I know how to create good ads...

Resources Used:
DollarPhotoClub.com for my stock photos
Domain was one I had in my domain inventory
My "Freebie" is a vacation voucher I have access to
Wordpress for my Static Site
--Divi Theme
--Ultimate SEO plugin
--Paypal Cart Plugin
Facebook Ads
Probably 16 hours in total on the setup (8 hours on the site build, 8 hours on the ads, targeting, images, etc)
Order Fulfillment is through my warehouse..Although postage is less, the $.7 includes time for printing the label and packing the envelopes by staff.

What's Next:
I may scale this I may not. I have limited inventory on the vouchers, I may purchase more though. To scale this up, I may reach out to friends I have large followings on YT and IG, they often run giveaways and what not, so I may see if they're interested in partnering. Some of their fans are already being targeted on FB anyway

Where this can fail:
Although I don't consider this a "fail" if I'm unable to acquire more vacation vouchers, it's essentially over. However, I'm sure if I drop $5K on them, the actual source of the vouchers won't have a problem with me purchasing more ;-)


Pics:
The Landing Page

This is what it looks like if you click the add to cart button

This is my Facebook Ad Data for this Ad Set

Questions And Answers from The Thread:

Q: What are some advertisement tips you can provide?
A: Click here to my response

Q (Via PM): Would you be willing to partner on this? I don't have too much experience.
A: At this point I'm no longer seeking a partner. I was only looking to leverage someone's expertise so I didn't have to spend the time to do it myself. At the current time I'm not interested in partnering with anyone too junior as I don't have the time as I'm in build mode. Unless you have a very specific skill / expertise that I'm looking for (AKA REALLLY good developers or engineers) I'm not interested in partnering.

Q: Can you send me the download link to your website?
A: Click here to my response


Q: What's your Skype, let's chat! I will even pay you
A: Sorry, I rarely Skype. I'm a little old fashion, I typically do business the old school way. Face to face or in person. And sorry, I'm not for hire. My hourly rate would be between $500-$1000 depending on how I'm feeling that day.


Q (Via PM): Can you share your contacts with me?
A: Sorry, I've spent a lot of time (Time = Money) working to establish and maintain relationships, I'm not just going to give them away.

This is a great motivational thread, mate. I am thinking to try the same Shopify+FB method in the New Year. Thank you for the motivation.

What do you think, do you need to have a great budget for ads to get any money out of it?

No. You can start small and scale appropriately.

Also pay attention to detail. Sometimes people rush to throw up a half ass site that looks so ridiculous, and they wonder why they're not getting results, similar with their ad copy.

Yeah, my budget isn't really big and I would love if I could start small. Thank you.

What tips could you provide when making an advertisement?

Tip #1: Browse facebook for ads that you see on a regular basis. If you see them regularly, the advertiser knows they are working so they keep running them. Save all of those ads with the copy. Use them as a model to build you own.

Tip #2: Use high quality imagry, invest in stock photos.

Tip #3: Don't go over board when testing, some folks over due it down to shapes, and colors of shapes.. that's getting to granular..I'm sure there is some value to be created from there as you'll really know which ad is working the best.. but unless you test with 30,000 impressions (in my opinion) the results are still random. Plus it takes up too much time

Tip #4: Find audiences thare are engaged with their product, industry, etc. People who are engaged respond better to ads, my ads are so responsive because I only target to people who are engaged.

Note: PEople who like "BMW" are not necessarily engaged, people who like "F80 M3" will be more engaged. If they're engaged, they have a higher propensity on clicking on your ad providing it's related towards their market..

Tip #5: You have to "buy data" there is noway around it. If you're new and have $50 bucks to your name.. don't think you're going to start bank rolling. You'll blow that $50, but you'll learn some things that work, some things that dont.

Tip #6: Give yourself time to learn. Experience is key, experience takes time and will cost you some money.

Tip #7: Give yourself time to learn facebook advertising platform. It can be confusing for rookies and if you set it up wrong can can be a hassle navigating.

Tip #8: Did I say use high quality images? This is a must

Tip #9: "sex" does not always sell on facebook. For example, a bunch of hot women in bikinis doesnt really work from my experience. If your selling men's razor blades a hot girl in a bikini with glasses holding the razer blade probably is not the best choice..

Tip #10: Understand how things work. Understand what your data can tell you.

• Low CTR but high converting site, means fix the ad.
• High CTR low converting site, fix the site.
• Low converting site, low converting ad = stop the campaign, create a better site, create a better add and research the offer to determine if it's really "valuable". Chances are you don't have the skills required to create high quality content.
• high converting site, high converting add, high refund = congratulations you're a hype man, now find a better converting offer, one that's actually valuable and "not all hype"..
• high converting site, high converting add, low refund rate = SCALE LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW! Then from here you can start to tweak it and squeeze out your expenses!

Nice post, thanks

Thanks so much! Can you PM me the download link to the full wordpress setup?

aBoss said:

Thanks so much! Can you PM me the download link to the full wordpress setup?

Click to expand...

No offense aBoss, but you've been here for some time. You have 113 posts and 17 thanks which means you don't do to much sharing in knowledge, you probably spend more time leaching. I get it, everyone comes here to get some info, tools, free stuff, etc but you gotta give back at some point too..

To answer your question directly. No. I provided the Theme (Divi) and a screen shot of my actual landing page (Something very rare here so you can copy if you want) along with my niche (Something else very rare).

That's more then enough. What I will do is show you how basic my Divi setup is, I'll let YOU build your own, unless you want to pay me to do it for you.

hitch said:

No. You can start small and scale appropriately.

Also pay attention to detail. Sometimes people rush to throw up a half ass site that looks so ridiculous, and they wonder why they're not getting results, similar with their ad copy.

Click to expand...

Almost everybody does that , then they get scared of losing more and runaway... Thank you for sharing

Hi mate can you pm me your skype please? I will pay to talk to you. Need advice for facebook ads. As i said i can pay you. Thanks buddy!

Wow very great post! I'm making some money promoting Youtube videos via Adwords but would love to test FB as well. I noticed you say to target engaged audience, could you share with us how to do this? Also any tips for proper targeting? Thank you!

Ps: I'm getting $250-350 per leads, so far this month only 2 leads for $600.

Nice post man, thanks for the inspiration

hitch said:

1,745 Clicks
$575.73 Spent (About $33 per click)

Click to expand...

Great thread OP, but just to point out where you put "About $33 per click" 575.73/1745 is actually $0.33 per click, not $33

Good to see you are on the right way. Good luck scale it up

Thank you for all tips mate, they are super valuable!!

This is an interesting twist of the original method. So you did not use website conversions but clicks to website as your objective?

From the 3rd screenshot you provided I see that your CR was only 0.5-1.5, however?
So did you target a broad audience?

Also, unlike the original method, your method only works for people living in USA. If you are from outside of USA and have to physically ship the gift card as airmail letter, you have to pay the money you get from your buyer for postage, so not much profit possible. Even required to send them registered, otherwise the buyer just could open a claim for not received and your money is gone. Sending a registered airmail letter from here to USA is about $5-6, so you can only make small profit. because I cannot charge a fancy number on shipping, they see the actual cost from the stamp on the letter.

Thank you for your contribution good sir

Incredible twist on this method. Frank is going to have a boner when he sees this.

• high converting site, high converting add, low refund rate = SCALE LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW! Then from here you can start to tweak it and squeeze out your expenses!

i love that part , thanks man u rock