So you’ve found your audience, created a awesome design and launched your Teespring listing…now what? Below we’ll go through several steps you can take to get started launching Facebook ads to sell your products. Keep in mind our Facebook ad tips in this section pertain to selling products through Teespring in particular; if you want a more detailed look at Facebook ads in general you can check out this guide by Buffer.
Step 1 – Understand what Facebook wants
Visit Facebook’s “about ads” page which is intended for Facebook users (i.e. your buyers). Watch the introduction video and read through some of the FAQs on this page; once you understand what Facebook wants a buyer’s ad experience to be like, it will help you design quality ads. For example, Facebook wants ads to be relevant, non-intrusive and interesting for buyers.
Step 2 – Create your target audience on Facebook
Researching and creating your target audience is one of the most important steps of the process. In the Finding Buyers and Creating Designs sections of the Training Center we discussed different ways to perform audience research. Apply the insight you gained to Facebook’s Audience Insights tool to create your ideal target audience. For example, add filters for where your buyers are located, their age range, what their “interests” are, etc. If your design is for women who love horseback riding then their interests would be things like horses, horseback riding, related brands and products, other fan pages, etc. The more filters you apply the closer you are to narrowing your audience into a specific niche.
Step 3 – Create a Facebook Page
Next, you should create a Facebook Page with this audience in mind. You can use your personal profile to set up ads, however your ad selection and targeting capabilities will be very limited. It’s best to set up a dedicated page (or just use a relevant fan page you’ve already created) and populate it with content related to your niche.
Step 4 – Set up your ad campaign
Now that you’ve got your target audience saved and your page set up it’s time to create a Facebook ad. The three most popular ads sellers tend to use to sell Teespring products are Page Post Engagement (PPE), Click to Website (CTW) and Website Conversion (WC). Each ad type has specific advantages and disadvantages depending on what you’re trying to get your audience to do.
Step 5 – Create a quality ad image
Having quality ad images can impact your ad’s performance; for example metrics like relevancy score, CPMs, CTR and conversion rates, etc. Make sure to use eye-catching images and follow Facebook’s ad guidelines to optimize your ads. You’ll also need to create your ad image based on the ad type (PPE, CTW, or WC) as each one uses a different image size.
Step 6 – Add the Facebook Pixel to your Teespring Account
When you start running several ads to one Teespring campaign (e.g. with different target audiences) you will want to know which ad brings you the most sales and which audience produces the most conversions. You can add your Facebook pixel to your Teespring account under your account settings. Once the pixel is activated you’ll be able to track the flow of ad viewers and see how effective your ads are (e.g. how many sales you get from them, how many page visitors, how many checkout page visitors). As you expand your Teespring business the use of tracking pixels will become more necessary to your success – so get into the habit of using it now.
Step 7 – Launch ads & monitor results
Once you’ve got your ad image and audience set, it’s time to launch the ad campaign. At this stage you should decide on your ad budget and how many days you want the ad campaign to run. Generally we recommend setting an initial lifetime budget of $10 a day for the ad and after 24 – 48 hours review the results; pay close attention to metrics such as conversions, costs, reach relevancy score, click through rate (CTR), etc. We’ll discuss ad analytics in more detail later on.
Step 8 – Scale or stop your ads
Once you’ve reviewed your Facebook ad’s results you can make a decision about the next step. If the ad is generating conversions or high engagement you may want to “scale up” the ad and invest more money to reach a larger audience. If you’ve found a successful niche or design you can “scale out” by launching similar designs for for the same target audience or a related design for a new target audience. If you’re not seeing any sales or conversions you may need to kill the ad and review your target audience, design or ad image.
