I Ran Multiple Marketing Campaigns for my Shopify Store

Photo by Wojtek Witkowski on Unsplash

Hey, thanks for dropping by!

During the month of May 2020, I built a Shopify store from the ground up. I used various ad services such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Pinterest to market my products.

My store is an apparel store that sells my own designs on various options such as hoodies, t-shirts, and hats. Some of the skills I’ll be cultivating are:

• Project management
• Digital marketing (Facebook Ads, Snapchat Ads, Pinterest Ads)
• Writing
• Creative design
• Branding

I decided I wanted to get as much experience with digital ad platforms as I could. With a store that is exclusively online and essentially follows a dropshipping model, the internet is my primary source for drawing traffic.

Here’s is a walkthrough of just what I learned in two weeks devoted to ad work on different platforms.

At the bottom of the post, I include a color-coded spreadsheet of my exact results, along with my biggest takeaways.

My first week of working on ads was spent using the internal marketing system built into Shopify. They have really made it easy to create ads right there, without having to mess with Facebook Ad Manager andy of the other ad managers.

One could do just fine crafting all their ads right there.

I created a Facebook Ad and a Snapchat Ad this way. Facebook is tried and true; who’s not on Facebook? Snapchat is super popular with a younger generation, and ads are tailored for the fast consumption that users are used to.

During my second week, I created another Facebook ad, this time with the standalone Ad Manager, and then tried a boosted post as well.

I also debuted an ad on Pinterest. Pinterest probably wouldn't be everyone’s first idea for ad work, but there are a lot of niche consumers on there, and using the right audience controls can lead to good results.

Snapchat Ad

Snapchat continues to grow in popularity, especially among the younger generation. I felt like my product would most resonate with the younger generation anyway, so this is a great platform.

What my Snapchat ad would look like for anyone

For the Snapchat ad, I used a mockup of my design on a hoodie, t-shirt, and hat. If people clicked on the ad cover(with the hoodie), they would then be able to click through and see the t-shirt and hat.

Snapchat is about grabbing attention, not so much about intriguing copy or long dialogue. There isn’t even much room for it when you’re creating the ad, just the brand name, and a headline.

A fast-paced ad for a fast-paced audience.

Pros:

• Quick and easy creation
• An audience that consumes a lot of content
• Easy to look professional

Cons:

• $20 dollar daily minimum budget(which can rack up quickly if you don't’ set an end date!)
• Limited options for narrowing your audience

Facebook Ad

My Facebook ads was the carousel design, where the viewer can swipe through the ad to see the different designs.

The first slide of my Facebook ad as it would appear to a desktop user

Facebook Ads look to me more like the “traditional” ad design. Probably because it’s the most commonplace.

A Facebook ad probably provides the best opportunity to use great copywriting, awesome graphics, and smart formatting in conjunction to make a quality ad.

I did my best to create an ad that covered all those bases.

Finding your audience is one of the most powerful aspects of Facebook Ads. With so many users(and with how much Facebook knows about each of them ), you can cater your ads to certain interests.

I entered interests that reflect what my brand is about. Things like “Bible” and “Jesus” ensure that the people who see my ad most likely will be familiar with what it’s about. Thus, it will be more likely to resonate with them.

And remember, Facebook also owns Instagram, so if your ads get approved, they’ll appear on both sites!

Pros:

• One of the largest potential audiences in the world!
• Lots of options for customizing that audience
• Spend as much or as little as you want, over any time span
• Lots of different formats and customizations

Cons:

• More customization means more chance to be rejected
• Facebook Ad Manager can be a confusing place to navigate if you don’t know what you’re doing

Facebook Boosted Post

My boosted Facebook post

A boosted post is one of the simplest ads anyone can do. It is just a regular post that you spend a little money on for it to be promoted to other users.

A boosted post will show up in a non-followers feed and say something like “Promoted” on it.

I’ve boosted posts on Instagram before, but I wanted to create one on Facebook to see how it compares to the exclusive Facebook ad.

I whipped up a graphic on Canva that included my design and some text and background. I’ll show you how here!

Pros:

• Quick and easy
• Cheap
• Any post can be boosted; no matter how old
• A lot of the same audience controls as a traditional Facebook ad

Cons:

• With its simplicity, not much room to adjust and improve

Pinterest Ad

My Pinterest ad as it would appear on a computer

This wasn't one of my first ideas for an ad, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. Pinterest has a lot of random interests and niche markets. If you can think it, you can find it on Pinterest.

One of the things I find most interesting is how a pin can spread. If you save something you like, it might be suggested to someone with similar interests.

So if someone pins my ad to one of their boards(which a few people did), that becomes part of their “interests” and could be shipped to their followers or like-minded pinners.

That opportunity for the quick spreading of one of my designs was really attractive to me, so I try it out. I created an ad, got some results, and didn’t spend a dime. As a matter of fact, I got a bunch of credit left over. They gave me $100 in free credit for creating a new ad account. Talk about a steal.

Pros:

• Niche market
• Lots of opportunity for spreading of ideas
• $100 in free ad credit!
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Not quite as wide of a user base as others
• Niche market could be confining

Alright, all this is great, but what did my ads actually do?

Here’s a little spreadsheet marked with colors. Green is most desirable for that particular metric.

My results for my store ads

Snapchat blew everyone out of the water on total impressions, meaning people who saw the ad. This would result in a very well spent $20 if all I cared about was people seeing the ad.

But ultimately, interactions are more important than impressions. Interactions are when people take part in your call to action. Whether that’s a swipe up on Snapchat, a “Shop Now” button push on Facebook, or a website visit from Pinterest, you want people going further with your ad. Pinterest won the gold medal for interactions, and it makes Snapchat’s impression win look like child play. My Pinterest ad had nearly 5 TIMES as many interactions as the next contender.

I want interactions to lead to sessions. Sessions is something my Shopify store records for each marketing channel. A session would be when somebody sees the ad and interacts with it, which leads them to my store, where they then spend a period of continuous activity. Again, Pinterest takes the cake with its ad drawing 91 sessions, which is more than 5 times as many as the next best.

The last two metrics measure the effectiveness of the money I spent on each ad, something that must also be considered to decide where is the best place to focus marketing funds.

I must say, Pinterest both surprised and impressed me as a marketing platform.

Though it only showed up in the middle of the pack for impressions, it turned those around for much higher rates of interactions and sessions.

Snapchat has a high risk or high reward.

Facebook is what everybody uses, and for good reason.

But Pinterest is a sleeper pick that could just be what puts you ahead.