So you’ve realised the benefits of catalog ads (formerly known as DPA's) and you’re looking to kick off your first catalog ad campaign – wonderful!
Let’s talk about how you can get the most bang for your buck!
Here are 5 small things that top-performing marketeers do that can have a big impact on your Catalog ad performance:
1. Always include your brand in your Catalog Ads
A common factor we see across low-performing ad campaigns is a lack of branding.
This is a huge mistake.
If you don’t include your brand, your products will be drowned out by competing products in that product category.
You could actually lose out on sales to larger, more well-established brands in that product category that consumers are already familiar with.
You want your brand to be top of mind for consumers in your industry. So make sure that your brand is always visible in your ads. This will differentiate your products from competitors and boost your long-term brand growth.
2. Use persuasive elements to get consumers to take action
To be clear, we aren’t talking about Machiavellian-level manipulation.
Depending on your industry, small things like using humor or appealing to your consumers’ emotions can be enough to get them to act.
Other incentives that you can test could be discount codes or using the scarcity principle to light a fire under your customers.
We suggest that you experiment with different incentives to see which ones are most effective depending on where the customer is in the sales funnel.
3. Avoid overlapping ad campaigns
Nothing is more annoying than receiving constant ads for the same product.
When creating new Facebook ad campaigns, use the Audience Overlap tool to make sure you have properly segmented your campaign audiences. A little overlap is ok, but you don’t want to spam your customers.
Another reason you should avoid campaign overlap is because your ads will cannibalise each other when competing for similar ad auctions. All this does is increase your ad spend without increasing ad performance.
4. Split test your copy
Top-tier copy makes your customers laugh, smile, and (hopefully) jump for joy. Engaging copy is also a powerful way for your company to strengthen its brand identity and build long-lasting relationships with your customers.
But most importantly, dynomite copy sells.
Bad copy, on the other hand, is a bigger turn off than season 8 of Game of Thrones.
Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Certain words, phrases, and tones of voice will resonate differently with specific customer segments.
To find out what copy works best for your target segments, we suggest split testing different copy elements. An easy place to start is your headlines.
Keep the rest of your ad elements the same and measure the difference in response week by week.
Repeat the test for other copy elements in your ads and watch your conversions skyrocket!
5. Create separate product sets for different campaign goals
Creating different product sets that align with ad campaign goals is a great way to make sure that the products you want to promote get the right exposure.
For example, a campaign goal could be to highlight new product arrivals. In this case, creating a product set focused on your new arrivals is better than having a site-wide product set.
Because of how Facebook ad auctions work, your highest performing product ads (i.e.: ads with the highest number of consumer interactions) could receive more exposure than your new products.
When this happens, it’s hard for marketeers to understand whether the new products are a flop, if the ad creatives need to be optimised, or if the new product ads have simply been overshadowed by other high-performing products.
If you’ve started using catalog ads recently, you’ve likely seen a spike in ad performance. Whether you’ve achieved a 20% or 200% increase in conversions, we’re confident that you will be able to take your catalog ad game to the next level by following these simple tips.
Godspeed, marketing pioneers 😎
