Here are the results of our latest test as of November 1st, 2021.

Sometimes, our best ads are no longer enough to hold the fort.

In such cases, we tend to adapt and diversify ads that work again and again...but there comes a moment when this strategy no longer works.

For an e-commerce client that sells candies and snacks, that’s what we did.

Here are some of the ad variations we published throughout the years.

You may have noticed that we often feature all the products that our client sells, as they are from extremely well-known brands that help us make sales.

Over the course of our tests, we realized that the audience that was making the most purchases was mostly young, as evidenced through our Hooks (e.g. ‘Product Reactions,’ a concept taken from YouTube thumbnails), but also through partnerships with trendy influencers.

But as previously explained, all these variations were starting to make our account unstable, so in October, we tested a brand new approach.

For our new ads, we decided to continue featuring as many products as possible, while also using the social and linguistic codes of our target audience.

We came up with the idea of filming an Unboxing with a cell phone and doing an ‘Inboxing' (literally packing up a box) with a sticker we found on Instagram/Tik Tok!

"I placed an order. Can you please make a video of it?" is the question we received from a customer, which inspired us to make this 100% authentic ad.

Needless to say, it’s a video our target audience enjoyed throughout the entire month of October! 😁

As explained, this approach seems to have worked because we replicated 2 already successful strategies:

• Featuring as many products as possible
• Using the content/linguistic codes our audience uses and enjoys

We all know the impact that an Unboxing video can have on your advertising results, but don’t neglect Inboxing! If this format applies to you and your business, we suggest you try it!

latest test as of November 8th, 2021.

It’s sometimes difficult to pull the plug.

Especially when a campaign is keeping your cost per result well below your target limit.

But, it’s the game you must play when you run Lead Gen campaigns.

One of our Media Buyers would know, as they experienced this first hand for themselves for one of our clients.

Like many other Lead Gen businesses, the client in question had to switch over to Special Ad Categories and suffered a short period of increased advertising costs.

Their funnel? Messenger, which our client uses to connect with professionals in the construction or agricultural industries who are in need of equipment financing or loans.

In September, this was their CPL (for Messenger).

This CPL wasn’t so bad for this client, knowing that their CPL was $10.32 per result for a standard campaign and no Special Ad Categories last November.

But, there was nevertheless a problem. One that you’re bound to encounter with Lead Gen campaigns: lead quality.

Messenger Campaigns allow you to apply tags when managing your messages. A message received from one of your campaigns is identified by an ID, such as the one picture in the image below.

This tool allowed us to understand that this ad was not generating qualified leads, in addition to eating up all of our budget (although for a very low CPL). Nevertheless, this ad met the chopping block anyway.

• “The leads you’re sending me aren’t good enough. We’re losing money.”

Our Media Buyer had to take action. He had already tried to launch new ads, but the budget wasn’t being allocated to these new ads.

• “How valuable are these leads to you? How much are you willing to pay for qualified traffic?”

Our Media Buyer got an idea on how to optimize the campaign, but he knew what it would lead to later.

• “$20. I think $20 is the best we can do!”

Our Media Buyer thus decided to cut the problematic ad that took up the entire budget at the end of September and reassured our client.

• “OK, your CPL may go up in the next few weeks. We’re keeping an eye on it, but it's for a test.”

Here are the results of the campaign 4 weeks after our Media Buyer took action.

We were close to hitting our client’s limit, but we ended the month with $19.46, and our Media Buyer received this email.

By simply challenging Facebook and putting an end to what the platform deemed our ‘best ad,’ we managed to relaunch the whole funnel without having to change our approach or lose time trying to find qualified leads again.

The process was simple: determine a max CPL, follow our leads’ quality and reassure your client of the incoming cost increase.

The Messenger tag has now become an essential campaign metric, just like ROAS for a conversion/purchase campaign.

Here are the results of our latest test as of November 15th, 2021.

Lead Gen is complicated...episode n°2933!

A reality we discussed in detail in our last iOS 14 Squad email about Messenger campaigns.

The client of this week’s test is a Lead Gen client that puts prospects looking to renovate their homes in touch with renovation contractors to receive free quotes.

We have a much better idea of how our campaign is doing this time, as our conversion objective lets us know if/when a prospect submits their project on our client’s website after seeing one of our ads, like this:

We have information about how many leads our campaign generates and how many of these leads (Client Details Submission) convert.

However, whenever it comes to renovations, one topic of discussion always comes up: the price.

How much does it cost to do this [renovation]? How much does it cost to replace [x]? What’s the cost???

Price is clearly a sensitive topic in this domain. If the cost of renovations is too low, prospects will think it’s a scam. Too high, and they’ll think you’re trying to take advantage of them. But, what is the average cost of renovations? This is what prospects really want to know, and not knowing scares them.

So we changed our funnel, but not our offer!

Advertising to our leads in more or less the same way, we found a way to address their concerns quickly and easily: a Quiz!

As you can see, we didn’t drastically change our ads. We only changed the tagline, which directly mimics our audience’s #1 concern: How much do roofing renovations cost?

Here are a few images of the Quiz.

In fact, this is more than just a quiz: the prospect is actually filling out a submission form, and the answer to their question “How much does [x] cost?" will come in the form of 3 free quotes from renovation contractors near them. We then end on an opt-in page and have them fill out a few final details.

This format allowed us to generate leads that we could re-engage via email (if they did not fill out the entire form) in order to get more project submissions.

Here are the results in October.

It seems almost impossible, but for our Roofing Campaign, we cut our cost per lead by 63% and cost per submission by 92%, even though the budget had practically doubled!

And our ‘Roofing’ theme is but only one; imagine what would happen if we ran different ads for different renovation projects using the same strategy throughout the month?

In September, we spent $5,953 and had an average CPL of $39.96. In October, thanks to our quiz campaign, our account’s global CPL resembled the following:

This strategy was successful for several reasons.

1/ The most important: We were able to optimize for our final objective. In other words, our Quiz campaign was optimized to receive exactly what we were looking for: project submissions, rather than just leads.

2/ We bypassed the obstacle of prospects blindly asking for a quote (without necessarily having any information about renovation costs or our client’s offer) by enticing them with a quiz. At the end of the quiz, we offer answers to their questions with information from certified experts. At this point, the prospect is already engaged and is less likely to back away: they want answers now!

If you haven’t tried a Quiz funnel yet, don’t hesitate – even if you’re an e-commerce company.

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