Editor’s Note: The author, Alex Ledoux, is a U alum who founded Eco Flower, a company that sells bouquets filled with synthetic flowers made from recycled materials. We invited him to share some of his secrets of success. He chose to write about Facebook advertising.
A week after graduating from the University of Utah in the spring of 2014, I accepted a full-time job in the automotive industry. A few long months later, I decided entrepreneurship was the only thing for me, and I jumped into running Eco Flower full time.
In January of 2015, Eco Flower (facebook.com/myecoflower) had under 2,000 likes. Now, in October of 2015, we have just under 75,000 likes.
Facebook has been a tremendous avenue in growing our business. In fact, it’s been one of our leading tools in customer acquisition that has helped take us to do over a $1MM in 2015 and on track to do over $1.5MM annually.
So exactly how have we done it? Below I’ll outline exactly how I test and perform Eco Flower’s Facebook’s advertising efforts.
Before we dive into exactly how I do it, it’s important to note the power of Facebook. What makes Facebook so powerful? 1.44 billion monthly active users , and it has the most comprehensive demographic targeting in the world.
Test, test, test
Believe it or not, there is no guarantee with Facebook advertising. Too often I hear people who throw $20 at Facebook ads, yield no results, and then run as far away from it as they can.
Simply put, it takes time to learn your demographic. You think you may know it, but do you really? Do you know the sex, exact age range, behavior and spending habits of your target customer?
Everything Eco Flower does is based heavily around testing. We spend a large chunk of our day analyzing patterns, click through rates, and conversions.
How exactly do you perform “testing?”
I break down the variables into three main categories:
- The demographic you choose to target (age, sex, behavior, etc)
- The graphic you choose to use (product photo vs social photo – someone interacting with your product)
- The text you use in your ad (what message are you trying to portray I start with coming up with six well thought out versions of each variance)
Let’s say I started a watch company with Kickstarter. Here’s an example of what my variance testing may look like:
| Variance # | Demographic | Graphic | Text/Message |
| 1 | Male 18-35 | Close up of our model watch “A” | Comfortable |
| 2 | Male 18-35 with an interest in Rolex watches | Close up of our model watch “B” | American Made |
| 3 | Male 18-35 with an interest in Fossil watches | A fashionable male wearing watch “A” | Classy |
| 4 | Male 18-35 with an interest in fashion | A fashionable male wearing watch “B” | Long lasting |
| 5 | Male 18-35 with an interest in clothing | The left side is a picture of someone wearing the watch, and the right side is a closeup of the watch. | Affordable |
| 6 | Male 18-35 with an interest in Kickstarter | The left side is a close up of a watch, and the right side explains the benefit in wearing this watch. | Adaptable |
Above is an example of six variances for each variable. I would then begin testing demographic #1-6 while using graphic #1 and text/message #1. After that, I know which demographic performs best.
From there I’d use the demographic # that performed best, with graphic #1-6, and text/message #1. From there, I know the graphic that performs best.
I then would test the best performing demographic with the best performing graphic, with text/message #1-#6. With that, I would know the best demographic, graphic, and text/message.
Final
From here, it’s rinse and repeat. There are thousands of possible variances, with some of them being gold mines, and it’s your job to find them.
Learn more about Eco Flower at ecoflower.com.
What was the actual ROI? I see a lot of people showing the revenue, but that’s not the profit, especially, when you invest in paid traffic. Sometimes, you might even lose money although having a solid revenue.