How to Build an Effective E-Comm Facebook Ads Funnel
Whether you’ve set up a paid Facebook ad or not, you probably know that the way to increase sales on Facebook is to advertise. What you may not be aware of is that not all Facebook ads are created equal. There are different types of ads for different stages in your marketing funnel. While some people might think a funnel is just one long event with different steps, this isn’t true—it’s three distinct events that happen at the same time. So, what should go into your top-of-funnel, mid-funnel, and bottom-of-funnel campaigns? Let’s dive in!
If you’re trying to increase sales on Facebook, set up conversion funnels to reach users at each stage of your pipeline.
For example, say you’re a clothing brand. You can segment users by the number of times they’ve visited your site, then target them with ads based on where they are in the funnel:
- Brand awareness – Users who have never interacted with your brand online before
- Engaged users – Users who have visited your site once or twice but haven’t purchased anything yet
- Purchase intent – users who have visited several times and searched for specific products, or potentially have added products to their cart
- Loyal customers – retarget to users who have previously purchased your product
As you go through each step in your funnel, keep in mind that there may be different times when your user is ready for each step. The funnel isn’t meant as strict guidelines; instead, think about how many steps each person could take before becoming a customer/client/etc. then build in the corresponding content that they need at each stage in the funnel.
What goes in your top-of-funnel Facebook campaign
Top-of-funnel ads are purpose-built to attract new potential customers, and they’re a great place to start your Facebook marketing efforts. The targeting options you have for top-of-funnel campaigns can be pretty diverse, but they all allow you to target based on demographics and interests. If your business is new or doesn’t have much of an audience yet, then you may want to consider using lookalike audiences as well.
These types of ads are designed primarily with two goals in mind: brand awareness and lead generation. As long as those are the objectives for your campaign, a top-of-funnel ad is an effective way for getting started without having any prior knowledge about your audience or what kind of content will resonate with them (you’ll learn more about this later).
What goes in your mid-funnel Facebook campaign
The mid-funnel Facebook campaign is where you’re building your brand recall, driving traffic to your website and re-engaging users who have already visited your site.
- Use a retargeting campaign to build awareness and drive traffic to your website.
- Use a remarketing campaign to re-engage users who have already visited your site.
- Start offering discounts if they haven’t purchased yet — push them over the edge!
What goes in your bottom-of-funnel Facebook campaign
If you’ve made it to this stage, you’ve done your job. Your ads have successfully attracted new customers and built brand awareness in their minds. Now you can use your bottom-of-funnel campaign to get them to take action on their new knowledge and continue the relationship with your brand.
The first step is to use retargeting ads (or remarketing) to remind people who have previously visited or interacted with your site that they need to buy something from you soon. If someone adds something to their cart but doesn’t complete checkout, it’s likely that they’ll forget about the product altogether if there’s not some kind of follow up reminder. Typically, we see that it takes more than one website visit for someone to purchase, depending on your product or service. The more people are reminded, the more likely you will find them at the time they are ready to make the purchase. The goal here is for potential buyers who have already taken a step towards buying something from your site but haven’t completed checkout yet will be more likely to complete their purchase after seeing an ad reminding them of what they were interested in earlier on in time (like having seen an ad for it again).
Conclusion
By following these tips, you’ll be able to set up a Facebook ads funnel that is optimized for your target users and the actions you want them to take on your website. All together, this will help you get more awareness, conversions, and sales from your Facebook ads. It may seem like there’s a lot of work involved in setting up a successful funnel, but it’s worth taking the time to do it right! If you don’t have enough experience running paid campaigns on social media yet, then please reach out to speak with our Facebook Ads experts!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Megan Sternke
digital marketing strategist - team lead
Megan is a Digital Marketing Strategist here at Magnetic North. In her time here she has explored her interests in campaign development & execution, graphic & web design, and social media marketing. One of her favorite parts of her job is fostering relationships with clients and finding new ways to bring value to her accounts.
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