Creator insights: niche exploration and scaling ads

Last time we spoke to Khorshed we discussed how he took a $100 loan and used it to become one of the top Teespring Creators within his community! Below Khorshed explains some of the techniques he uses to promote his designs and products using Facebook ads.

Name: Mohammad K.A. (aka Khorshed) 
Teespring Creator since: May 2015
Preferred target market: US (with similar niches in EU)
Main method of promotion: Paid ads via Facebook

What is your main advertising channel at this time?

Facebook has always been my main advertising channel. After the recent updates to the Facebook algorithm I noticed my Page Post Engagement (PPE) ad performance started to go down, so I began using Website Conversion ads (WC). Currently I use PPE and Clicks to Website (WTC) ads to test new designs on my top niches and  WC ads have been producing the most sales for me.

Do you use Facebook Audience Insights before targeting a new niche?

Yes, I use Facebook Audience Insights regularly! When I start working with a new niche the first thing I do is use this awesome tool to check out demographic info; once I see there is enough people in this audience (20 – 40 million) I will do more research on them and after will work on making a quality design. The pages I rely on most for research is niche related e-commerce sites (shopify, etsy, etc.), accessories websites, B-list celebrities and public figures related to that niche. I also check out related magazines, online forums and organizations too.

Where are most of your buyers located and how do you target them?

Mostly I prefer to sell in the US however I do have certain niches in EU markets too. Whenever I start exploring a new niche I use Audience Insights to make sure that the general audience is between 20 million to 40 million people. When I am ready to launch an ad I focus on selecting the fan pages with the highest affinity and aim for a target audience size of 200k – 400k people.

“I focus on selecting the fan pages with the highest affinity” image source

As I mentioned earlier, WC ads are working well right now so optimizing these ads has produced positive results for me. I optimize my ads by focusing on the best performing audience and then scale the ad by adding more interests to new ad sets within my niche. For example, if after 24 – 48 hours of running an ad I see that a particular gender or age range is performing better, I will remove the other gender and ages and increase my daily ad budget to focus on the top performing audience; this is how I increase my sales day by day.

When targeting a new niche, how much money do you invest in ads before scaling or killing the ad?

Usually I start a PPE ad with a $5 budget, run it for 48 hours and see how people respond (i.e likes, comments, shares and most importantly…clicks). If I see a lot of engagement and link clicks then I will run a CTW ad, investing $10 more, using the same audience, and testing the ad for another 48 hours.

Once I invest $10 in the CTW ad these are some ways I determine if ad engagement is good:

• If the comments on my ad are positive and people start tagging their friends and family (example – “this is perfect for you!” or “check this out!”)
• If there are at least 20 link clicks on the ad
• If my custom audience shows 10 – 20 “View Content” conversions
• If my custom audience shows at least 5 “Add to Cart” conversions

Once I determine if the CTW ad is “good” (click here to learn more about the new Facebook pixel), I will start running WC ads. I budget $10 for every ad and depending on ad performance (i.e. CTR, CPM, conversions and sales) and will either continue to run the ad or kill it. If it’s good, (based on the criteria I mentioned above) I will increase the ad budget every day for more reach and adjust the audience based on best performing age, gender, etc. within that audience.