The dropshipping model is trending, and for good reason, as it’s a quick and convenient way to sell goods online. And experienced dropshippers know that social media platforms like Facebook are the perfect place to target consumers.
Whether you're a green dropshipping business trying to get started or an established business looking to grow through new channels, it’s a good idea to scale your business through Facebook. Facebook offers businesses an array of intelligent tools to maximize marketing performance. It’s also the largest social network in the world, with 2.85 billion active monthly users (read: potential customers) as of 2021[1].
In this post, we’ll show you how to use Facebook to market your dropshipping shop through a comprehensive walkthrough of Facebook Ads Manager. We’ve also included some additional tips at the end to help you take full advantage of Facebook’s built-in tools and avoid some common mistakes that dropshippers make.
Why should you advertise through Facebook?
Facebook is the ideal platform for dropshipping businesses to access a wider consumer base and boost sales through targeted Facebook ads.
Not convinced yet? Take a look at these numbers.
Fast facts
Facebook stats:
- Facebook generated US $27.2 billion in ad revenue in Q4 2020[2]
- More than 200 million small businesses use Facebook tools[3]
- 40% of consumers have made purchases via Facebook[4]
- 49% of US shoppers find new products through Facebook[5]
- 26% of Facebook users who clicked on Facebook ads made purchases[6]
- An average Facebook user clicks on 12 ads per month[7]
Keep reading to learn exactly how to set up and promote your dropshipping store through Facebook.
Set up a professional account with Business Manager
Creating a Business Manager account is easy. Just follow these three simple steps:
- Go to https://business.facebook.com/overview
- Click Create Account
- Input your name, email, and business details and Submit
Add people, pages, and ad accounts
Add people
You can now add people, pages, and ad accounts to your Business Manager. Go to Business Settings to invite individual people to your Business Manager to allow them to access your Business Manager. Once they’re added, you can then add them to specific assets (pages, ad accounts, catalogs, and apps) and choose what level of permissions to grant them.
Add pages
Add Facebook pages to your Business Manager to manage your pages’ activity. You can choose who in your Business Manager can access and manage your page.
Add ad accounts
Use the Ad Accounts section in Business Settings to review and manage your ad accounts and ad accounts that others have allowed you to access.
When you open the Add dropdown menu in Ad Accounts, you can choose one of the three options:
- Add an Ad Account: If you’re the owner of an ad account, you can easily add through your Ad Accounts section
- Request Access to an Ad Account: If you’d like to access an Ad Account that you don’t own, you can request access in Business Manager
- Create a new Ad Account: You can create a new ad account in Business Manager (but note that this new ad account will permanently belong to the owner of the Business Manager)
Use Ads Manager to create ads and launch targeted campaigns
Ads Manager is an all-in-one tool that allows you to create, manage, and monitor ads across multiple Facebook platforms, such as your Instagram account.
Ads Manager makes it easy for you to manage your adverts across three different category levels:
- Campaign: Set your objects, budget, and ad delivery schedule
- Ad Sets: Create and manage multiple ad sets that target different audiences under one campaign
- Ad: Create several ads within one ad set to test various elements
Determine campaign objectives
Before you create a Facebook ad campaign, first consider which business goal you hope to achieve. Once you have a precise marketing aim in mind, you can choose which objective is suitable for your campaign.
Here’s a list of the objectives you can select for your campaigns:
- Brand Awareness: Increase awareness of your dropshipping business.
- Reach: Display ads to as many people as possible in your target audience.
- Traffic: Direct people from Facebook to your destination of choice .
- Engagement: Reach people who are more likely to like, comment, or share your post.
- App Installs: Directs people to a location where they can download your business’ app.
- Video Views: Share videos of your business/products with high-potential viewers .
- Lead Generation: Collect information from people interested in your business.
- Messages: Connect with potential or existing customers.
- Conversions: Encourage people to take a specific action on your business’ site.
- Catalog Sales: Showcase top products from your online store’s catalog.
- Store Traffic: Promote physical store locations to people who are nearby (doesn’t pertain to dropshippers but still good to know).
Set your budget and delivery schedule
Next, you can set up your campaign budget and schedule delivery for your ads.
There are two types of buying options: “Reach and frequency” and “Auction buying.” Both options let you plan and pay for your campaigns in advance. Auction buying offers additional flexibility to businesses to help reduce costs, but it’s limited to certain users. Fortunately, the reach and frequency buying option is available to all users.
Ads Manager also provides a campaign budget optimization (CBO) feature, a built-in tool to help you get more bang for your buck. For campaigns with at least two ad sets, we suggest using CBO to set one overarching campaign budget and automatically manage your budget across ad sets.
Decide who you want to see your ads
Use Facebook’s powerful AI audience selection tools to determine who will see your ad:
- Core Audiences: Define and create your target audience by selecting specific target demographics within an ad set.
- Custom Audiences: Create a target group of users who’ve expressed an interest in your business in some way.
- Lookalike Audiences: Grow your consumer base by letting Facebook generate and target a specific audience based on a sample audience you create.
Choose where your ads will appear
Pick the location (or placements) where you’d like your ads to be displayed.
You can choose between the following options:
- Feeds: Shows up in users’ inbox, desktop, or mobile device feeds.
- Stories: Displays in stories feed at the top of users’ homepages.
- In-stream: Pops up before, during, or after video content.
- In-article: Appears in Instant Articles in Facebook mobile app.
You can either set this up manually or use automated placements to optimize your budget and get the most out of your Facebook ads.
Design your ads
Now, for the really fun part – designing creative ads.
Facebook offers pre-made ad templates for convenience, but you can also create original ads from the following formats:
- Single image.
- Video.
- Carousel of scrollable images or videos.
- Collection of images or videos that opens up into a full-screen.
- Instant Experience ad that opens up into a full-screen experience when clicked.
Make sure to use visually appealing designs or images and write original and engaging content to attract your target audience. And don’t forget to set a call-to-action button to inspire users to click on your ad.
Track your campaigns
One of the best ways to improve your marketing campaigns is to collect data and analyze key metrics.
See how campaigns are performing
You can find an overview of campaign performance on your Ads Manager Account Overview page. Here, you can see alerts, recommendations, and campaign trends.
Look into detailed metrics
To see more detailed performance results at each level of your campaign, go into Ads Reporting. In Ads Reporting, you can view various metrics like click-through rates, the number of people reached, and more. The specific metrics that are more valuable are the ones that directly pertain to your initial campaign objective. You can even create customized reports of specific ad results.
Use your findings to improve campaigns
Once you’ve analyzed the relevant performance data from a campaign, incorporate your insights into future campaigns. We advise tweaking your most successful campaigns and testing out a new element like a different ad format or placement channel. Ads Manager will do the heavy lifting for you through its auto-optimizing feature, so create a variety of different ad types to see what lands. You can also use the A/B testing function to test different copy and designs to learn what’s generating the most user engagement.
These are just a few of the many ways to use Facebook ad tools to scale your business and increase your return on investment (ROI).
Last-minute tips
Research your target audience using Facebook Audience Insights
One AI tool that we haven’t mentioned yet is Facebook Audience Insights.
Facebook Audience Insights provides valuable information on people connected to your Facebook Page and people on Facebook. View a demographic breakdown of people who are similar to your current audiences, like age, location, work experience, and more. You can also use Audience Insights to learn about your audience’s hobbies, behaviors, preferences, and lifestyles – all of which can help you identify your target audience.
Work with an industry expert through Facebook Business Partners
If you’re interested in working with a partner to grow your dropshipping business, you can link up with a Facebook Business Partner. Facebook Business Partners can help you with everything from planning your marketing campaigns to analyzing your performance results.
Watch out for notorious Facebook bans
This tip is our final piece of advice for dropshippers, and pay attention because it’s an important one.
Like most social media platforms out there, Facebook has the right to block accounts or restrict access to certain functions. And Facebook bans on dropshipping ad accounts are not unheard of.
One reason for this is false advertising or low-quality products. To avoid this issue, you should avoid creating material that resembles spam by using real photos of your products. We know that this can be a challenge for dropshippers, but there are still some ways to make sure that the products you’re advertising are the products your business provides. You can ask your suppliers for product samples to confirm quality or for high-quality photos of their products.
In addition, be careful to avoid posting ads that involve topics that are official “no-nos” on Facebook – like politics, religion, and discrimination. We also advise you to err on the side of caution and steer clear of sensitive topics, in general, to avoid accidentally upsetting or alienating anyone in your target audience.
Conclusion
The world of retail is rapidly evolving. As consumer demands, interests, and buying habits advance, businesses must continually adapt to keep up. Use this guide to tap into the world of Facebook and enhance your dropshipping sales potential.
Want to learn how to scale your dropshipping business through Alibaba.com, a global leader in B2B ecommerce marketplaces?
On Alibaba.com’s dropshipping center, buyers can exclusively source from Gold Suppliers and Verified Suppliers. These are the two highest tiers a supplier can attain on Alibaba.com, and both require company and factory verification along with paid membership. In addition, the built-in Trade Assurance program on Alibaba.com protects buyers in the rare event that they’re dissatisfied with delivery time or product quality. You can purchase with confidence, knowing that Trade Assurance will investigate, mediate, and resolve your claim if you’re dissatisfied with your purchase.
Check out Alibaba.com’s dropshipping center to explore more opportunities.
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References:
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
- https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2021/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2020-Results/default.aspx
- https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/FB-Q4-2020-Conference-Call-Transcript.pdf
- https://blog.wholesale2b.com/20-ecommerce-statistics-for-dropshipping/
- https://blog.wholesale2b.com/20-ecommerce-statistics-for-dropshipping/
- https://www.kleinerperkins.com/perspectives/internet-trends-report-2018/
- https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/
- Facebook generated US $27.2 billion in ad revenue in Q4 2020[2]
