With over 4 billion active internet users every day, the Internet has quickly become a place for companies and retailers to advertise and sell their products.

But with a variety of platforms to choose from, it can be quite overwhelming to choose which platform is best for your e-commerce brand. In this article, we’ll be discussing which of the digital titans is best suited for your business: Facebook, Google, or Amazon?

Facebook Advertising

The Pros

Affordable: You can spend as much or as little as you want, making it ideal for small and big businesses alike.

Easy to Learn and Use: Facebook Ads are self-service, and there is a wealth of information available to new advertisers through Facebook Blueprint courses. Microtargeting: You can target users based on demographic information as well as detailed interests and behavioral targeting to reach audiences in a segmented manner.

Wide Audience: Facebook has 2 Billion active monthly users, and they span across ages and demographics.

Retargeting: The Facebook retargeting system allows marketers to track a user’s activity and redirect them back to the platform via an ad.

Lookalike Audiences: Facebook Ads have the ability to target audiences similar to your own.

The Cons

Diminished Organic Reach: Marketers are noticing a sharp decline in their organic reach, which possibly means more ad spend and less attention to organic page post engagement.

(Potentially) Lower Quality Leads: Misusing Facebook Ads could lead to “clicky” consumers who may not actually care about your product or service.

Time-Intensive: To keep frequency and reach in check, and to avoid ad fatigue, Facebook advertising requires constant monitoring and ad refreshes.

Creative Considerations: Simple text ads are not enough; creativity is essential for success with Facebook advertising.

How to Start With Facebook Advertising

Step 1: Set A Monthly Budget

Experiment to find out what works for your brand. Start with a smaller budget, and gradually increase it as you acquire insights into what works best for your target audience. This shows you what elements you want to spend more on.  

Let’s say your ad budget is $250. To find out if your experiment is paying off, you have to set realistic goals.

Step 2: Set Your Goals

For e-commerce ads, establish achievable goals such as getting products seen by followers of rival brands, advertising a sale to audiences who visited your website, and announcing a new product on your Facebook page.

The overall goal is to see these results for the lowest possible cost. To achieve that, you need to run ads, track them, and make necessary adjustments.

Step 3: Learn The Value Of Conversions

When it comes to advertising, you need to think about conversion costs or how much you need to pay to achieve the desired result. You can do this by publishing ads with the same goal across various audiences. This tells you how much it will cost to reach out to specific consumers. You can also figure out which audiences you can engage with at a cheaper cost.

Step 4: Measure Against CAC

Customer Acquisition Cost tells you how much you’ve spent to acquire consumers.

For instance: your marketing cost for Q1 is $1000, and you acquired 50 new customers.

That makes your CAC $20.

$1000 ÷50= $20

The CAC reflects your expenditures across different channels and shows customers acquired through these multiple platforms. It is not limited to Facebook alone. But because Facebook ad spend increases CAC, you need to ensure that your Facebook campaigns come with cheaper ways to gain new consumers. The goal is to see your CAC decrease while you maintain the same ad spend.

Google Advertising

The Pros

Instant Results: Google AdWords brings in faster results than other platforms because it owns the largest online display ads network.

Wide Array of Tools: Google gives you access to a wide array of tools that can help you with your ads, like the Keyword Research tool.

Wide Exposure: Google owns 71% of the search engine market, with display campaigns reaching 80% of users globally.

Analytics: Google also runs one of the best analytics systems available to marketers, which means tracking progress and results is easier.

Flexibility on Budget: You can tweak your ad spend and set a maximum cost-per-click (CPC), giving you full control over your budget.

The Cons

Keyword Targeting: Although keyword targeting allows you to reach the right audiences, not knowing enough about it, especially when it comes to adding negative keywords, could make your ads show up in the wrong search results.

Requires Additional Knowledge: Without a thorough understanding on how the tools work, you might end up wasting resources.

Requires Existing Reach: Ads from bigger and more well-known brands are usually prioritized, so if your company is just starting out, it might take a while to make your company more exposed.

How To Use Google Adwords

Step 1: Prepare The Campaign

First, set realistic and achievable goals. For each ad group, there must be a single goal. Next, you need to figure out a daily budget. Take your monthly ad spend and divide it by 30 to come up with the amount you need to spend daily.

Finally, you have to create a landing page. If, for instance, the goal is to drive traffic to a sale or coupon deal, an entire page dedicated to it makes it easier for consumers to find out all that they need to know about it.

Step 2: Know Your Consumer

Once you’ve set your goals, figure out who you want to reach and how you should engage them. Keyword research helps you ensure that your products are seen by the appropriate prospects. For better results, each product must have a unique set of keywords. Once you make the campaign more visible, you need to create a strong message or a call to action to entice consumers to perform the desired goal.

Step 3: Set Up The Campaign

After you’ve created an account, open the Campaigns tab on Google Adwords and click the blue plus sign. Select “Search Network” as your campaign type, and pick your goals. The great thing about Adwords is that you have total control of how the campaign runs. You can even choose specific countries, states or cities where you want your ad to run.

Next, select a bidding strategy based on your goals. Let’s say you aim to drive traffic to your eCommerce site. The “Maximize Conversions” option should be best.  Finally, write ad extensions such as sitelinks and callouts. These should add more depth and provide more information about your ad.

Step 4: Write Powerful Copy

An ad is composed of three elements: the headline, the body, and the url.

The headline must have a maximum of 25 characters. The body copy should have two lines, and each must have not more than 35 characters. As for the url, it should lead people to the platform where you want them to go.

Amazon Advertising

The Pros

Ads Auto Pause: Ads are automatically paused when products go out of stock.

Unique Algorithm: Google AdWords bases ad exposure on keyword and page relevance, while Amazon Marketing Services ads use product reviews and sales to decide which ads are prioritized. This could prove more useful to some businesses who do not have a solid content pool yet.

Huge Buyer Pool: Amazon boasts the largest number of buyers compared to other ecommerce platforms, so you’re sure that there will always be people in the system who are interested in what you have to offer.

Integrated Platform: Amazon will not only run your ads, it is also the biggest ecommerce platform. This means that you can run your ads and prompt your potential audience to buy directly from the platform at the same time.

The Cons

Time-Consuming: A lot of steps you have to take to set-up your campaigns are done manually, which takes up a lot of time. Even gathering and downloading analytics reports can take time. The same thing can be said in targeting audiences.

Wide Number of Sellers: Setting up shop on Amazon can be risky for small businesses as it’s likely they’ll drown in the vast ocean of Amazon sellers.  

How To Optimize Amazon Ads

Step 1: Establish An Organized Campaign

For this step, you can take advantage of your Google Adwords organizational skills to start a well-structured campaign on Amazon. You must create separate campaigns for every single main product category. Under each campaign, link up with more specific ad groups.

Let’s say you run a women’s clothing line. Start with three of your best-selling pieces.

• Workout shirts
• Sports bras
• Workout pants

Next, create ad groups specific to each category. Under workout shirts, you can have tank tops, long-sleeved and short-sleeved shirts. After this, come up with 15-30 unique keywords for each ad group to ensure your ads remain relevant.

Step 2: Write Compelling Copy

The message has to be informative, but also creative. Being very specific about the features or benefits of your products should also help you gain visibility. To stand out in a crowd of competitors, you can instill a sense of urgency. If you give consumers too much time to think about making a purchase, they probably won’t buy anything in the end.

Step 3: Bid On Brands That Sell Similar Products

By bidding on popular search terms from well-known brands, you can gain exposure. This way, you can convince consumers to buy a way cooler product but from a lesser known brand. Just do a basic search on Amazon. For instance, you can look up workout clothes. From the search, you can find and then choose the brands that come up the most.

The Final Showdown: Facebook, Google or Amazon?

Basically, Facebook raises awareness with the help of audience targeting, Google further creates brand awareness with its extensive reach and analytics, while Amazon is where users go to compare brands and finally make a purchase.

It’s also worth researching specific metrics for each e-Commerce platform. Statistics such as conversion rates and cart abandonment rates must also be taken into consideration before committing to a specific platform.

It’s a hard decision to make, but each platform has its own pros and cons, and ultimately, you can opt to even choose all three.

Now, get out there and dominate the Internet.

The post Facebook, Google, Amazon: Which Ad Channel is Right for Your Ecommerce Brand? appeared first on Earn With Anish.