Don't Make These Mistakes With Facebook Ads (With Special Guest Anna Shipley- Flourish Digital)

Anna Shipley, a Facebook ads expert, shares her journey and insights into running successful Facebook ads for e-commerce businesses. She emphasizes the importance of understanding your customer and having a well-designed website before starting Facebook ads. Anna also discusses the common mistakes people make with Facebook ads, such as constantly changing the ads and not having enough content. She highlights the need for consistency in social media and email marketing to support the ads. Anna advises businesses to carefully consider their budget and financial sustainability when running Facebook ads. The principal themes of the conversation are: 1) Riding the storms in Facebook ads, 2) Knowing your numbers and margins, 3) The importance of bundles, and 4) Investing in a Shopify website.

Takeaways

• Understanding your customer and having a well-designed website are crucial before starting Facebook ads.
• Consistency in social media and email marketing is essential to support Facebook ads.
• Avoid common mistakes like constantly changing ads and not having enough content.
• Carefully consider your budget and financial sustainability when running Facebook ads. Don't panic if your Facebook ads have a bad week or day, ride the storms and trust the process.
• Good margins are crucial for running successful Facebook ads and acquiring customers.
• Bundles can be a great strategy to increase revenue and profits, especially for low-priced products.
• Investing in a Shopify website is worth the cost as it integrates easily with other platforms and provides a user-friendly checkout experience.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Background

02:14
How Anna Got Started in Facebook Ads

03:57
Essentials Before Getting Started with Facebook Ads

05:45
The Importance of a Well-Designed Website

08:48
Monitoring Metrics and Optimizing Ads

11:35
The Role of Email Marketing and Social Media

14:11
Lessons Learned from Running Facebook Ads

18:18
Considering Budget and Financial Sustainability

20:19
Introduction and Lessons Learned

22:45
The Power of Bundling Products

26:05
Why Shopify is the Best Choice for E-commerce

31:06
The Cost of Doing Business

34:35
Building a Strong Foundation for Success

Facebook ads, e-commerce, customer understanding, website design, content creation, retargeting, metrics, budget, financial sustainability, Facebook ads, riding the storms, knowing your numbers, margins, bundles, Shopify webs

Transcript

Melissa (00:00)
Hello and welcome to today's podcast. Super excited to have a special guest here today who's going to share lots of valuable information with us. We have Anna Shipley from Flourish Digital. Thank you so much for being here, Anna.

Anna Shipley (00:11)
Thank you for having me Mel.

Melissa (00:13)
Super excited to have you share some lots of information today. you are known as a, well you are a Facebook ads expert and you run Facebook ads for e -commerce especially and product based businesses, which is definitely one of the reasons obviously we have met and crossed paths before and love that we've met in person a few times. I can't even remember now if we have one or not. Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about the work you do?

Anna Shipley (00:32)
Yeah, a couple of times now, yeah.

Sure, well, I work mainly with e -commerce brands, as you said, product -based businesses. My main service is Facebook, really. That's what I've been known for. I did start off doing other things when I first started this business, social media management, but Facebook has just completely took over. That's what I mainly do. also I help businesses who come on board. Sometimes they just need some strategy help and...

Melissa (00:56)
Mm -hmm.

Anna Shipley (01:05)
Some consulting, I offer business consulting as well. For those who are just feeling a little bit stuck with the whole marketing funnel and just to give them that little bit of assistance in their strategy, I also offer that as well. But Facebook ads is mainly what I do.

Melissa (01:17)
Yeah, amazing. And so how did you get into this work? Like where did you get started in that? What have you done before?

Anna Shipley (01:24)
This really started by accident, but before this I did have an online store. So I had that store for five years from 2014 to 2019 and I had no plans on opening up or starting another business. I literally had started a new job in a school doing finance and admin and I was loving that. And I had that store, I sold that store. I had.

outgrown that store thought no that's it. And yeah this just started by one day a local florist asked me if I could help her grow her Instagram account. I had grown quite a large following with my previous business. I'd networked a lot and she said can you can you help me and I went okay I think I've just started another business and it just went from there literally just went from there. So yeah that's how I started.

Melissa (02:14)
And what was your brand? What did you sell in your online store?

Anna Shipley (02:18)
So I was called, my business was Sweet Little Dreams. That was all baby gifts and decor. I set out to have that store being, not the leader at the time, but a really boutique nursery items that I guess the Instamoms were buying from me. They were really buying from me to deck out their whole nursery. They wanted that luxe nursery, something that was on trend that you could not find in stores.

So that's what I mainly sold. And then I had a lot of, I guess I two types of audiences where I had another part of clientele who were grandparents or people, a lot of corporate businesses were buying gifts for people having babies. So that was the other side of the business as well. But every product complemented each other was very particular on what I sold and I had to all sort of fit in with the branding and my customers.

Melissa (03:08)
Which is that's important though, is that as a buyer for that, like to really have that strong aesthetic of who you are and that also then helps obviously with, what you do now. If you know, if your client comes in with a strong understanding of who their customer is, makes a huge difference to how you can set up their ads, right?

Anna Shipley (03:11)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Let's try it.

huge difference, but you really need to know your customer. I really knew my customers I sent out at that time. I think that time that two surveys via email marketing, I sent them out. What do they want? What did they like? It was really an eye. It was an eye. I to see what they wanted. And that helped me buy stock for my store and just know that I was on top of everything. So it's really important to know your customer and that translates also into Facebook ads as well. Know what your customer

their needs, their wants, desires, all that sort of stuff, what keeps them up at night, all those things that you ask a customer. So yeah, it's very important.

Melissa (03:57)
Yeah. So what are the essentials before getting started with that? It's like, I'm sure you have people come to you and you're like, hang on, hang on a second. Let's just, let's roll back a bit. So what are some of the essentials before getting started? Like, what do they need to have in place or what should they have set up?

Anna Shipley (04:07)
Yeah.

First of all, I always look at their website conversion rate. Their conversion rate must sit at at least 2%. Now I have on certain occasions let that slip. I did start working with one client, he's still my client today and that was about 1%. But I knew her history. She had a large wholesale account, I guess.

Melissa (04:33)
Mm -hmm.

Anna Shipley (04:41)
customers buying from her wholesale. She was a very well -known product. She just had slowed down online sales and I knew that would pick up right away. someone, if you're gonna start Facebook ads website conversion rate, have a product that people want. I know people say, but how would I know if I'm not running Facebook ads? Well, you've got to do the groundwork first as well. Start collecting email subscribers. Have content on your website.

Lots of images, professional images, your website. can't express this enough how important it is to have a website that is designed professionally as well. I mean, you can start off. Some people do a great job with their website. They do it themselves. And I think, wow, that looks amazing. But yeah, you can't have a website that is not, I guess, user friendly and hard to navigate. It won't work.

Melissa (05:20)
Mm

Mm -hmm.

Mm.

never go and understand. Yeah.

Anna Shipley (05:37)
Yeah, unprofessional images, just won't work. You really need to do that work first before you invest in Facebook as because it is an investment.

Melissa (05:45)
Yeah, and that's it. Like there's no point sitting in the traffic if you're not converting the right numbers, the volume of traffic that you're having send there. And I think this is why I have that program where I have boost your conversion rate because I know people, and I don't do Facebook ads myself in terms of run them for people, but I definitely have it as one of the things I think people should be doing. But yeah, until they get that website converting,

Anna Shipley (05:51)
That's right.

Absolutely.

Melissa (06:12)
It's it is sometimes that chicken and egg like, what do you do first? You don't know if it's converting if you don't have enough people coming but also you cannot Just create that website once and then forget about it Like it has to be an ongoing thing where you yeah constantly updating your reviews or you're adding you Slide shows or doesn't have to be a slideshow but new imagery like your front -facing window I mean

Anna Shipley (06:15)
Yep, that's right.

Gnar.

Melissa (06:38)
just even going into the call to actions. The first thing I talk about in my conversion, five day conversion program is like, so many people don't have any call to actions on their website. Like you go there and there's no shot buttons or anything.

Anna Shipley (06:41)
I'm not gonna.

Yeah. Yep. That blows my mind how people yeah you can't you really need to be updating your website. I have a client who I do this for I think every two weeks we are updating her homepage banners. We send out an email with her every week and every week she gets a brand new banner to pop on her website to keep that fresh. I don't do any really high tech stuff with her but it's even I've even had a word to her to say

Melissa (07:02)
Mm

Anna Shipley (07:14)
It's come to the point where now you really need to redesign this whole website. It's only four years old, but four years is a long time and it's showing in her results with her ads. So we've had to have the hard talk where I think it's time to completely redesign the whole website. It's not working anymore for you.

Melissa (07:19)
Mm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, refresh.

Yeah, well, I when I look at the websites as well, you look at sort of ones from the past, for example, there's there's been a lot more white space, there's a lot more smaller photos and imagery. Now I what I see a lot of is like big, bold, large fonts, big, bold, all across the page. And it's block color, like you don't. It's changed a lot, right in the last couple of years alone.

Anna Shipley (07:40)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Huge images. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

It has. Yes, it certainly has. It has changed. I've seen that too. Big, huge images. It almost takes up the whole screen. Videos. I've seen some amazing video footage of the product. I think I saw one the other day was a shoe brand and the way they use the shoe was like it was almost like a 3D type image. It was incredible. It was really, really eye catching.

Melissa (08:02)
Yeah. And close ups like in detail imagery and stuff like that.

Mm

Yeah, yeah. And so focusing on your website first to sort of get some tweaks and stuff sorted before you start Facebook ads. And obviously the, the things that clearly people need to have pixels set up and stuff like that so they can do retargeting and stuff like that. and because I think that's a thing, like obviously we'll get into the different types of ads, but.

Anna Shipley (08:35)
absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Pixel is a must. Yes.

Melissa (08:48)
Retargeting is obviously a big part of, you can't just run cold all the time. It has to be a whole system of us, right, in place.

Anna Shipley (08:55)
Yes and no. It's changed a lot lately. It's really interesting. Yeah, it's retargeting for some people is just not working anymore. I think I have about two clients now out of all my clients that we are running retargeting ads for. And that's because they've been running ads for years. They're not brand new. This is why email marketing is so important because

Melissa (08:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Anna Shipley (09:24)
that needs to do a lot of the heavy lifting as well. That's right. Yes. So have that email marketing flow in place, the abandoned cart flow. We can test retargeting. And like I said, for one customer, one client, Eddie's working very well for her still, but she's been running as a long time. She has a really warm pixel, a very loyal.

Melissa (09:26)
It's the nurture, right? Once they're in, it's the nurture side of it.

Anna Shipley (09:47)
very, very low customers that keep coming back. So that works for her. I have another customer or client where it's not even working at all. No matter what I throw at it, a catalog, anything does not work anymore. And this used to work for her years ago. So it just depends as well. Advantage Plus campaign.

Melissa (10:04)
Yeah, it probably depends on how much you have on your website too, I assume, because a lot of people I work with, they've either got their own brand and they've got one product or one type of product in their category. Or then I also work with retail stores who have huge amounts of variety in their product and their stock. So then obviously it's gonna be quite different what you're gonna do for each of those different customers.

Anna Shipley (10:10)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

very, very different. And I have those customers, I've got one customer who's got one brand, one product I mean, with multiple colors. Low price point, 29 .95. So I had to go in with her with a very different strategy. With how I go in with say my, I've got a few children's boutiques that I work with because of my history having my online store, which was the kids space. A lot of those.

Melissa (10:38)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anna Shipley (10:55)
people on network to know my clients and that's a whole different strategy for them. You've really got to find that winning product. And this is where knowing your customer and I guess my experience with having that store, I guess I find it quite easy to find that winning product because I know what sells well. And it's just one that one product that sells well that people want, especially these days with the economy and everything, you really got to find something that people.

Melissa (11:10)
Yeah.

Anna Shipley (11:21)
really do want as opposed to it's a luxury need. You know what mean? Like it's something that, yeah, if it's for a baby, like something that they can, they have to buy for their baby. And so that, you've got to find that winning product. It's two different strategies that you need to work out.

Melissa (11:25)
Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah. And so what are some of the biggest mistakes people make with Facebook ads when they're getting set up?

Anna Shipley (11:42)
well, it is a big question. I'll give you two scenarios. If they're running them themselves and then they finally come across and think, I can't do this anymore. When they're running in them themselves. and I find a lot of people these days are running them themselves because I just can't afford to hire someone like me, I guess they are fiddling with their ads so much that it is hurting their conversions. Honestly, leave it alone.

Melissa (11:43)
That's a big question.

Mm

So they're not just letting it run to test what's actually going to happen. They just need to, yeah. Okay. So how long is that testing period or?

Anna Shipley (12:11)
Yes. They just keep.

Well, it depends on your metrics. It's hard to say because you've really got to understand the stats on your dashboard. And that's where people don't learn. So they just go, I'll just put up an ad. It's not making any sales. And they'll start changing things around. But really it's probably almost there to get a sale, but they've touched it and they've turned it off and they've, I don't know. I've seen one account that had so many ads. I didn't know where to look, but they just panicked. was turn off, start another one, turn off, start another one. And there was like dozens.

Melissa (12:17)
I mean, yeah.

Mm. Yep.

Mmm.

Yeah.

you

Anna Shipley (12:45)
When I guess for me when I'm running Facebook ads.

the biggest mistakes I see, and this is a huge one, is not enough content. It's something I explain to my clients before we get started. We need content and we need lots of content. And they just feel, guess when they come on board, they think, okay, Facebook ads is running, I don't need to do anything.

Melissa (13:01)
Mmm.

Anna Shipley (13:07)
But that's not the case. You need to get that content happening in refresh images, videos, UGC content. That's the biggest mistake I see when somebody hires someone else to run their ads. And the other thing I see, and this is mainly for people who manufacture their own products, I find they're the ones that they can't let go. So they're like, yeah, like.

Melissa (13:08)
Yeah.

Yeah. Like, I want to control everything.

Anna Shipley (13:33)
that color is wrong for, you know, that background. Or I don't like that word or I'm not sure about that audience. You just got to trust me that this is right. No one cares if that's a little bit shader, that green is a little bit darker than your logo because really they're looking at the product and how this is going to solve their problem. They don't care about the background color. So.

Melissa (13:39)
Yeah.

Anna Shipley (13:57)
they're the ones that I've to be really a little bit gentle with and like, that's okay, it's just trust, let it just please trust me. And then if it's not working, we'll work it out, you know. So yeah, they're the ones who are really all over and I can understand it's their babies, their passions, their business. So

Melissa (14:08)
is.

Yeah, yeah. Just going back to you mentioned about the ones who are running their own ads, they don't they mess around with it too much. What are some of the what would be a good amount of time, as a generalization to sort of leave something in and test it? And then also what are the metrics that you would want to be checking?

Anna Shipley (14:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I usually say when you launch an ad, leave it for 48 hours. Let the algorithm do its job. At least 48 hours. And I know it's hard. I'm my own ads at the moment. I had a little peek this morning. I launched it last night. I won't touch it though, but I understand because you're seeing your money tick away and you think, my God, I haven't even got a sale yet. What do I do? But the metrics you really need to look out for, and this is what I do, and it's usually people who are not spending like I'm not talking about.

Melissa (14:34)
Mm -hmm. At least, surely. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anna Shipley (14:58)
high spins like people spending $1 ,000 a day. Look at the flow of your funnel. Look at the impressions. I can't many impressions. My general rule is if you've reached a thousand impressions and you've had no sales, it's time to flip it out. Whether it's duplicated, change the image or change the copy. You don't know what it was, but check the metrics as well. I have my columns set up where it shows your flow.

Melissa (15:05)
Mm

Anna Shipley (15:26)
landing page view your add to car initiate check exactly what a customer would do when they're shopping with you and you can start to see the bottlenecks. Now for me who's been doing this for a long time, I know, okay, there's a bottleneck right here. Let's go on the website and see what's happening. Yeah, there's something wrong. Most cases it's the shipping information. Most cases that I truck.

Melissa (15:32)
Yeah, journey.

Mm. Yep.

Yeah, so they're all adding to cart, but then they're all stopping there. There's something going on at the checkout. Yeah.

Anna Shipley (15:53)
you, most cases it's okay, there's not enough information about, you know, whatever. And usually always most cases it's the shipping. So it's analyzing those metrics, the soft stress on your dashboard and kind of what's going on. Why is it's not converting and understanding that because anyone can put up an ad that's not hard, but it's all the other bits and pieces. The metrics. Yeah. And knowing

Melissa (16:11)
Yeah. It's the steps and moving people through, you say, that funnel. yeah, getting them there is the first part. Then your website's going to do the work to sort of get them through to the end. And then as you say, yeah. And then as you say, like if they haven't bought this time, if they, if they've been added to your list or anything, like it's then the nurturing of those people with your email marketing to really boost that

Anna Shipley (16:20)
No.

That's right. Yeah. And this is where it goes back to the

Mm

Correct.

Melissa (16:39)
value so that you're not just looking at your ad as well going, what is the return on ad spend? But also, I mean, you obviously want to look at that, but you also then want to go, well, but has this customer then bought four more times in the last year? So then what are they worth? Was it worth doing the ad in the first place?

Anna Shipley (16:45)
Mm

That's right. That's right. Yes, absolutely right. Yeah. And this is, yeah, not only email marketing, it's also lately and I guess not lately, but this has come up a lot lately where people, if you're not consistent, even on your social media and you're selling a product, some people go and check you out on social media. And if you haven't posted on there in a month, they think you've closed down.

Melissa (17:10)
Mm.

you

Anna Shipley (17:20)
And I had that comment to me the other day. It actually was yesterday. I had a discovery call with a new client and she said, I haven't posted on my social media for three weeks. And I actually had the comment. She's running her own ads that, they thought I had closed down. I said, my goodness. Everything needs to work. The whole marketing, funding, email marketing. Absolutely. Yes. You can't just let it go because I'm running Facebook ads and that's going to do all the work for me. No, that's one part of the puzzle.

Melissa (17:34)
Wow.

Yeah, it's a system, right?

Yeah

Anna Shipley (17:47)
There's still work to be done everywhere else.

Melissa (17:50)
Yeah, and I guess that's it. Like, I know it's what I say to people, I know we've had this conversation when we've, met up and stuff, but it's like, they're not a magic bullet. They're a great asset to have. They definitely should be part of your whole marketing arsenal and system that you have in place. And they can be absolutely amazing for getting the right traffic or getting more traffic, but it's got to all work together and you cannot just be relying on that one thing.

Anna Shipley (17:58)
Yeah.

not.

yet.

Mm Yeah.

Absolutely, 100%. It really all needs to be working together.

Melissa (18:24)
Yeah, yeah. And so lessons learned, like what are some of the things that you would say to people, know, to, or guess lessons learned over your time just doing Facebook ads in general. What happens? What's going on?

Anna Shipley (18:37)
No.

So many lessons. My god, where do I start? Lessons learnt. I guess. god, I wouldn't even know where to it's changed so much over the years. I think for me the biggest lesson is.

me. For me, budget. It's changing all the time. Always. Yeah. Yeah. I think actually two things are coming to mind. budget. A big lesson is I think you can't expect to have I don't know thousands of dollars come into your into your ads or sales revenue wise if you're only spending

Melissa (18:55)
I guess that's the thing though, it's always changing, right? Like one of the big things is it's always changing. You've got to just be always learning the new.

Anna Shipley (19:18)
I don't know $10 a day. think that's a big budget. That's not not even not even $100 a day. These days is a big budget. So that's a big lesson is really look at your finances because not only do need that monthly budget that monthly you know that $100 or $50 a day. Let's just say well $3 ,000 a month, but if you're hiring someone.

You need to pay for their retainers. You need to allocate that. So really look at your whole your your finances in general. And can you sustain that month on month? That's a big lesson. And a lot of people have had to learn that lesson where they've completely run out of money. So don't think you're to run Facebook. It's going to make you millions of dollars right away. It won't. And it will take time. It will make you money. I don't know how much, but it will in some cases.

guess another big lesson for me running Facebook ads is I guess what was it Mel I just had in my head.

Melissa (20:18)
That's right, I'll cut this bit so just think about it.

Anna Shipley (20:20)
Cut it

I could completely slit my mind. Yeah, there was something else.

Melissa (20:25)
You're always learning.

Anna Shipley (20:31)
got it. Okay. Another big lesson, and this has been the whole time I've run Facebook ads is you've got to ride the storms. So just because you're having a bad week or a bad day does not mean that your Facebook ads are completely crap. You have to ride the storm, the highs and the lows.

Melissa (20:39)
Mmm.

Yeah.

It's like the, yeah, a like the stock market, you know, like it's, you're in the long haul, like don't, if it drops, don't get out, like sort of stay there.

Anna Shipley (20:59)
Look away when it drops. And if you've got someone managing the ads for you, look away, like just know you're in good hands. Obviously you've hired them. You have to trust them. But yeah, there will be highs and there will be lows, especially when Meta is doing something behind the scenes. When there's a big change happening, you will expect a dip to happen. There's glitches all the time. There's all sorts of things happening every single time. So you will be riding the storm and you've just got to

Melissa (21:06)
Yeah, yeah,

the end.

Mmm.

Yep. Yep.

Anna Shipley (21:27)
You can't just go, that Facebook ads is crap, not doing this anymore. You can't do that. It really is a long -term game.

Melissa (21:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. And just touching on your first point there about the financials, like this is also what I always harp on about in all my programs and stuff and people are probably sick of me talking about it, but your margins, like if you don't have good margins in your product, then you can't afford to, like I always say to people, your margin is there to allow you to acquire a sale, right? It's your customer acquisition cost is gonna be there regardless of.

Anna Shipley (21:49)
Yes.

Absolutely.

Melissa (22:04)
where you sell, whether it's sell wholesale, whether you sell direct to consumer, whether you sell at a market, you have to pay somewhere to get a customer. And so you always need margin. And so for example, yeah, if you are just purely selling direct to consumer, or you want that to be your business model, you have to pay to get a customer, which is the Facebook ads or the retainer to get that customer.

Anna Shipley (22:06)
Yes. Yes.

Absolutely.

You have to. You do. have and at the first couple of months, you're probably losing because you need to allow if you're just starting and a Facebook ads, you're going to be losing some money and that's I'm very honest and upfront with all my clients. I tell them that's why there's a three -month contract because you we need to allow that time to test.

Melissa (22:30)
Mm.

Yeah.

Anna Shipley (22:45)
If it doesn't work and I feel like I can't make it work for you because your profits are dipping, because I look at all that, then it's not worth it. won't carry on. can't ethically, I can't do that. I'm just, I'm just, I don't know. I just cannot work with somebody. I can see their funds are dropping. There's no profit. They're not making any money. No, I can't work like that. And I will be honest and tell them, I've let go of a few clients over the years telling them this is not working for you. You're probably better off learning it yourself.

Melissa (22:53)
Mm. Mm.

Mm.

Anna Shipley (23:11)
But at the start, yeah, the profits will be low, the margins in everything, your costs will be high. But then it all starts to even out and it will start to work once all the testing is having. But those brands where it does work, they are really all over their numbers. They know what they're doing.

Melissa (23:21)
Yeah.

Mm.

Yep. So yeah, knowing your numbers, that's actually my next podcast topic. I'm going to be talking about knowing your numbers. It's one of those things that, my gosh. I think, I, I didn't see this time, but, at laughing style, I do the business couch and every single person that I sat down and chatted to was all like came back to numbers. It's all about your numbers. Like you've got to understand them in business and you got to know what's going on. You got to know, let's say, if you're, if for you, if you're running,

Anna Shipley (23:35)
That would be a good one. Know your numbers. It's so important.

Yeah, it is absolutely.

Melissa (23:59)
ads for a retail store, they've got to have a margin in your overall gross profit margin. You really want to be knowing what that is. Like if they're at 40%, it's gonna be really hard to really hard to make money.

Anna Shipley (24:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm hmm. Really hard. Well, that's why we always work on. Yeah, like I'll ask them, what's your what products do you sell that have a high margin? So let's start with those. I've got one client who has a boutique store and and she manufactures some of her own products. So we'll go for them. We'll sell them because it's a high profit for her. She doesn't have to pay anybody else. So she that's she's a perfect example of someone who knows her numbers, who's all over her. Even

Melissa (24:19)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Mm.

Anna Shipley (24:38)
Some people manufacture their own product, you know, I'll tell them what are your costs involved with your product and everything so I can start to work out, what costs do I need to acquire this customer? They're usually retails, the ones who are selling other people's products, like shops and what have you. We like to see their costs around the $25 mark, cost per result. Anyone who manufactures, obviously it differs because they're manufacturing themselves.

Melissa (24:58)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Anna Shipley (25:04)
But yeah, we're gonna have a general sort of rule and what sets to get higher than that. So okay, need to something needs to change your costs are too high. So that's why even I need to know the numbers as well when I'm working with these clients. And sometimes that clients have no clue like, I don't know what the margin is. Okay, well, what's something that's really high and I've had to teach them some of them. Because they just don't know really important.

Melissa (25:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. It's just a crucial element. think people guesstimate too much, essentially. They just think, I think that's what it is. Anyway, let's move on because I could go on about that one for a long time.

Anna Shipley (25:34)
They do.

Yeah, they do. my God. Yeah. And that's your next next episode, so we'll leave it for that.

Melissa (25:45)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, so getting started. Yes, get this sort of understand what the numbers are analytics wise on the website. So knowing, first of all, having the right pixel setup, they've got to have the know what their conversion rate is, what the average order value is, what is there a particular average order value that you look for or

Anna Shipley (25:54)
Yeah. Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Yes.

look, yes, actually. I like to work with products that are around $25 and over. If someone comes to me and they're selling, I don't know, something that's worth $15, it's not worth it for them. Their return on ad spend will be so low, it's just not viable for them to run Facebook ads. And this is when we start to work on a different strategy. So for the client who I mentioned earlier, who sells

Melissa (26:12)
Mm

Anna Shipley (26:32)
one product in multiple colors, retail price, 29 .95. Now, like I said, this is a perfect example where, know, due to the economic, what do call it, crisis, I guess, people aren't buying two, three of these products, they're buying one. So we had to change things up. So we introduced bundle offers. So I love bundle. I could talk about bundles all day. So we did that. We did a bundle of four on a website.

Melissa (26:51)
Bundles, love some bundles. I love me some bundles. Yeah.

Anna Shipley (26:59)
I did a reel about this actually, I think last week. And she did 10k in sales in I think it was about two months when we introduced, well, what are we in August? Three months. Yeah. And she didn't even know. And I said, have a look at this. I did a screenshot. I did a reel on it. She was more joking as she saw her at the retail at the trade show. She came down and I said, have a look at this. She couldn't believe it. And I said, well, there you go. That's just from a bundle and it was a buy four and they had a discount.

Melissa (27:02)
yeah.

Anna Shipley (27:27)
So now we're gonna introduce another bundle, which is a buy two, buy two of these and they get another discount just to lower it because I think that will start to slow down. But bundle it up if you do have a low price product.

Melissa (27:27)
Mm

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and if you've got the one product that you sell as a brand type of thing. And I think that's it. Like, yeah, one of my clients, has, she has a 10 pack bundle and that's one of my best sellers and her product's $29 .95.

Anna Shipley (27:42)
than the one product, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it depends on the product. Yeah, I had another client who sold affirmation cards and they were I think 1995 beautiful affirmation cards for kids and I said to her, this is going to go off. I love this. And we worked together. We did consulting for a few months and then I started running a Facebook ads and we put together some bundles on a website. So she had affirmation cards and then she had other bits and pieces that complemented the cards and she created gift boxes. So she went from selling a product

Melissa (28:14)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Anna Shipley (28:18)
from 1995, the bundles were around 79 .95. It boosted her revenue and her profits so much. I can't give you the exact amount because it was a few months ago now, but it was incredible. They were her best sellers. She went and bought some nice white boxes, some nice little, what's that stuff you put inside the boxes? don't know, like, it's just that straw stuff. I don't even know the name. And she put that in there. She packaged up really beautifully. She put a little sticker on the box.

Melissa (28:32)
Mmm.

Tissue and stuff, yeah, yeah. Feel it.

Anna Shipley (28:48)
They were her best seller. So, amazing.

Melissa (28:50)
Yeah. Do you have a particular, do you have a particular bundle app that you would recommend or use?

Anna Shipley (28:58)
good question, Mel. I don't have... These are bundles they've created themselves and just popped on the website. So they haven't actually used an app. No, it's not an app. They've just put an image up and called it a bundle, a four -pack bundle, put some images up, taken photos. The lady with the gift box, took a photo, a really nice photo of the box.

Melissa (29:05)
Yeah, so it's not a bundle app. It's just a new product being created. Yeah.

Mm. Yeah.

Anna Shipley (29:22)
And so I mean, there was individual photos as well, close ups. And we just created the bundle. She created another collection in a store, bundles, and it just grew from there. She went from like two, three bundles to about six. So it had its own collection in a store. So it wasn't actually an app, but there are apps out there that can do that for you.

Melissa (29:32)
Yeah. Yeah, perfect.

Yeah, and I think that's where as well, just touching on that, you mentioned the photo. So I always recommend like I've got to, I think the podcast I did not long ago was eight different product images you need on your website. And one of the ones I always talk about is yeah, that gathering of the product so that even if you're not yet doing the bundle, you've got a photo when you originally have your photos taken. And this is obviously for brands in particular.

Anna Shipley (29:51)
yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yep.

Melissa (30:03)
that you have a bundle photo almost taken because when you're ready to do a bundle, you've got like the three pack photo showing that that's how many you get because yeah, I had a client do, she had sunscreen and her photo was a five, five of the product in the photo, but she had a three pack bundle. I'm like, that does not make sense for the customer. Like you can't do that. You're either gonna have that five bundle or take a photo with three, right? Like make sure it makes sense for the customer.

Anna Shipley (30:06)
Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, yeah.

It needs to make sense because you don't and that's another you don't want to confuse the customer on the website. It's like you don't want them to think when they're on the website. So yeah.

Melissa (30:39)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so just and again, let's just touch on this because I see it come up again. And I, you anytime you're in the groups, the Facebook groups like like minded and those sort of groups, you see them come up and people, people talk about the cost of the website. And for me, I, I love Shopify, I know you probably love Shopify. And to me, it comes back to you're to make more sales. If you've got a Shopify checkout system.

Anna Shipley (30:48)
Yeah.

Love Shopify.

that. Yeah.

Melissa (31:07)
So the amount of costs that you spend on Shopify, you're going to make back in sales because it's simpler system, right? Would you agree with that?

Anna Shipley (31:10)
Yep. You will. Yep.

Very simple. Yeah, absolutely. And Shopify integrates with everything so easily. Klaviyo. Just apps. I mean, when I had my store on Shopify five years, five or six years ago now, it didn't even have all the apps it has now. And back then I thought it was the Beesneys. There is so many themes you can use that's suitable for your brand. Just everything has just come a long, long way and it's just

Melissa (31:21)
Yeah.

Mm

Mm.

Anna Shipley (31:41)
to me, I would not even think about anything else. And if you're a brand and you're looking at starting a store and you're like, no, can't pay for that. It's too expensive. You're going to be paying for it later on and you're going to be spending more money later on switching from Wix because Wix does not integrate very well with a pixel or Facebook because I didn't work with Wix websites. You're going to spend more money hiring someone to do that transition.

So I say spend it once, spend it wisely, go to Shopify and it's done and it's yours.

Melissa (32:12)
Yeah. Yeah. I, when I see those comments, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like it's gonna cost you more money and you're to lose sales if you don't have it personally. mean, I dunno, I'm an online shopper. I shop all the time online. And if I get to a checkout that makes me go and get my card, forget it. I'm like, if I have to get up and go get my card or find my card number, I'm out.

Anna Shipley (32:24)
Yes.

Me too, yeah.

Mm Yeah. And I've done that many times where I've wanted to email them, say, hey, just not to be rude, but really sorry. I'm an e -commerce specialist, Facebook as blah, blah, blah. Just a little tip. I've wanted to do that time. Yeah.

Melissa (32:50)
Yeah, it drives me crazy. anyway, think, yeah, but it's, you know, and I guess that's where running a business costs money. It's definitely where you need that price and you need that you need the right price, you need the right margins, you need to attract the people, you've got to understand all those pricing. But the cost of doing business is paying for a website or paying for ads or paying to get customers. So knowing your numbers and getting that right.

Anna Shipley (32:59)
Mm -hmm, it does.

It is. Yeah.

Yeah, it is absolutely. But having said that as well, don't feel like you have to do everything right away. Take your time. I mean, when I had my store, I think I was two years in before I even thought about running Facebook ads. I knew I wasn't ready financially. I wasn't ready. I knew my website wasn't quite where I wanted it to be. I started very slow. Like I was no one wants to sell product to a brand new person.

Melissa (33:23)
Mm -hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Anna Shipley (33:41)
I got a lot of knockbacks and then I started to slowly increase more of my offerings and more products and the website got a bit nice and then I changed my logo, rebranded because you you go through that growth period. And then I thought, okay, well, I've got enough product here, I'll start running some Facebook ads. Very low budget back then. I wish I knew everything I knew now back then. I'd love to open up another store just to put all that back into practice. But then I've had a client,

Melissa (33:50)
improved.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Thanks

Anna Shipley (34:08)
poor lady who just can't like you wanted to run Facebook, I spent all this money on branding like $6 ,000 on branding, what have you. And honestly, does it match for products? I don't know. I'm not a brand expert, but then decides no, I want to be big. And I said, but hold on, you're only 12 months in, you really got to take time. But they have this mentality where I have to replace my full time job wage and I want to stay home with my kids and I want to do this.

But the hurting sounds, you've really got to take the time. You really do. It's not something you jump in straight away because her bottom line of dollars and everything, like she was, it was hurting her. She had no money in the end. She's like, I'll run Facebook ads. want to, okay, we'll give it a go. But yeah, we pulled them within a couple of months. She was not ready. So steady growth, take the time.

Melissa (34:48)
on.

Yeah, I don't guess that's where knowing what your business, what you want your business to be like, do you want it to be a long term sustainable business that's going to grow and grow and grow? Or yeah, and I mean, if people have the budget, they can obviously throw money at things straight away or work. But yeah, it doesn't mean that everyone has to do that or that you need to do that to build a business.

Anna Shipley (35:04)
Correct, yeah.

throw it at me.

Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right. Take your time, do your homework, do the things that are important, grow your email list, imagery, have a Shopify site that looks amazing and is user friendly. So start off with the most important parts first, then step into the next stage and the next stage and keep growing from there. But it's not going to happen overnight. It won't. And when you see people, people compare themselves. but that brand is doing so well. But they've been in business 10 years or five years or six years, not.

Melissa (35:43)
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So get the foundations right and really grow from there. Yeah, that's really important. Thank you so much for sharing this. And it's been so amazing. where can people find you and find out and actually just let me know you've got to do you have a program that people can take as well that if they're not just doing your like you actually started I'll start that again. So Anna, how can people work with you?

Anna Shipley (35:46)
six months. So yeah, it's really hard. Great.

You

So they can work with me a few ways. Obviously if they want the ads managed by me, I offer that. I've got two packages available now, we have a brand new package. One's more, a little bit high level, which includes email marketing. The other way they can work with me is if they're running their own Facebook ads and they want to get the ads audited, they can book in a one hour live session with me and we work through that together. We screen share, it's recorded, they go away and they action whatever we have.

Melissa (36:22)
Mm

Mm

Anna Shipley (36:39)
discussed on that call and they get an email with some point forms on that. There's a couple of ways there. That's the most popular ways I also offer a VIP day. So I set up all the ads for you or do all the research everything and then you just go ahead and manage it yourself because some people just don't know what to do audiences or do all the research and it's all yours to manage. So they're the main ways you can work with me.

Melissa (37:00)
Yeah, great.

Yeah, I love it. There's a few different options for people, depends on where they're at. And you're on Instagram under Flourish Digital underscore.

Anna Shipley (37:06)
Yeah. Correct.

That's correct, that's where I am most of the time, yeah.

Melissa (37:13)
Yeah, showing up and doing crazy reels and I love watching them as well.

Anna Shipley (37:17)
I did go a little bit serious for a while there and people noticed. But I'm back to my, I went all serious and all, like quiet and all sophisticated. That's not me. So I went back to being smart ass Anna and really.

Melissa (37:24)
You do any little what?

I think authenticity is where it's at, right? Like if people want to know who they're working with.

Anna Shipley (37:37)
yeah, and I've noticed my reach has increased in my engage, but just by me doing my silly reels and by, but like that, there was a serious message in them. It's not just, you know, there is a serious message in those reels. And I'm having fun making reels again. So yeah, yeah. I did get a bit carried away with my content actually. get a bit, the Italian blood comes out. mean, I get all passionate.

Melissa (37:53)
That's good. That's what we want.

Anna Shipley (38:01)
like I'm on a tangent. But that's where you'll find me. Yeah.

Melissa (38:01)
We love it. It's all good. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much, Anna. I really appreciate your time and I hope you will have taken a few little tidbits to help them with their ads and their business in general.

Anna Shipley (38:07)
Thank you, Mel.

I hope so.

Thank you so much, thanks for having me.

Melissa (38:16)
Thank you.