Campaign Strategy & Budgeting

Campaign Strategy & Budgeting
Understand how to set up a campaign funnel based on your ad budget, and how to optimally allocate the budget.

Ad Budget Tiers


Budget below $50/day


For stores with a daily ad budget below $50, we recommend concentrating on a single channel initially - preferably Meta for optimal results.


You should focus your ad spend on a select few campaigns, making sure that the budget is not spread too thin.


Rule of thumb: $10 per ad, per day (Meta).


Budget between $50-100/day


Similar to when the budget is below $50, we recommend concentrating on a single channel initially - preferably Meta for optimal results.


With a bit more budget to spend, you'll get more learnings and can exit learning phase faster.


You should focus your ad spend on a select few campaigns, but have the option to test more products at the same time, e.g. with a Product Catalog Campaign. Make sure that the budget is not spread too thin.


Rule of thumb: $10 per ad, per day (Meta).


Budget above $100/day


Order both Meta and Google Performance Max campaigns from the beginning.


Focus the most of the initial budget on Meta (80/20), and then after a few weeks you can start re-allocating based on performance.


Ask your CSM to help you set up a campaign funnel tailored to your business.


Rule of thumb: $10 per ad, per day (Meta).



Day 0-14 | Setup & Initial Learning


Strategy

Set up initial campaigns and enter the learning phase.


Top Funnel

Start with a top funnel campaign that features your best-selling product. Use either the Prospecting Campaign type, or the Single Item Campaign.


If you have more than a few potential best sellers, consider ordering a Product Catalog Campaign featuring a collection of these products. Run this campaign with around 20% of the total budget.


Rule of thumb: $10 per ad, per day (Meta).


If your budget is more than $100/day, include a Google Performance Max Campaign from day 1.


Bottom Funnel - when you have pixel data

If your pixel/dataset has a lot of traffic on it already (e.g. you've had the pixel connected to the store for a while, and there's some traffic), we recommend you order a Retargeting Campaign as well - focused on your 5-10 best sellers.

  • Meta: Allocate 80% of your budget to the top funnel campaigns, and 20% to the retargeting campaign.

Bottom Funnel - without pixel data

If your store is brand new with no pixel data, you should wait a couple of weeks before ordering the retargeting campaign, as it needs pixel data in order to spend its ad budget.

  • Meta: Allocate 80-100% of your budget to the top funnel campaign.

Action Plan

No action needed. This initial phase requires patience, and is all about our system (and the marketing channels) getting to know your business and products. We need to get data for the pixel, identify target audiences, and gauge performance of initial ads.


After ordering the initial campaigns, wait 14 days before doing anything. Make sure that the Wallet has enough ad spend to let the campaigns run uninterrupted.


Day 15-30 | Evaluation & Adjustment


Strategy

Check on the campaign performance, and make adjustments. The leaning phase continues, but hopefully we have identified some ads to scale further.


If you see a good results from any of the campaigns mentioned above, gradually start to scale the ad budget by no more than 15% per increase, and preferably no more than 20-25% per week.


Make sure that you track performance while scaling, as this can affect performance both ways. If the ROAS drops, consider lowering the ad budget.


If you dont see any results, feel free to submit a new campaign just like you did the first time. This time, focus on a different product among your 5-10 best selling products.


Remind yourself that this is a learning process

More often than not, the performance is not great after only two weeks of advertising. This is especially true if your store is brand new, with no existing pixel data.


Remind yourself that this is a learning process - over the next weeks and months, our systems and the marketing channels will get optimized to your products. Target audiences will be defined, and then refined. Metric's system will learn which products have potential, and what type of ads are performing for each. As we get more data, we can make better decisions and iteratively design ad creatives that we know will perform.


Retargeting campaign

If you didn't order this yet, now is the time. It might not spend all of its ad budget (due to a small target audience), but this campaign type is usually the best performing one.


Be mindful of the campaign spending vs. its allocated ad budget. If the ROAS is high, you should increase the ad budget to the point where the campaign is always spending its allocated daily budget.



Day 30+ | Optimization Phase


Strategy

Continue to increase the budget of performing campaigns, and lower the ad spend (or turn off) for bad performers. While ROAS is the best metric to identify winners/losers, you can also use CTR% and CPC to gauge ad performance when there's no conversions yet.


As a rule of thumb, you should have received an order by the time the campaign has spent 3x the price of the product on ad spend. For cheaper items, you can be as patient as 5-10x the price.


Continue testing

Keep testing with new products, ads and audiences.


Remember

Make sure to top up the Wallet to ensure campaigns run without interruption.



Analyzing Campaign Performance

  • CTR% (click-through rate): Out of all that see the ad (impressions), how many % of people actually click on the ad?

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    ​Benchmark for a good CTR?

    It varies a lot by industry and location. Below 0.9% is considered low, while a CTR between 1-1.5% can be both good and bad - depending. Anything above 1.5% is generally considered very good.


    CPS (cost per sale): Located below the conversions metric. This should be lower than the sale price of the product (note that you can sacrifice this metric a bit while in the learning phase).


  • Conversion rate: The average conversion rate of Shopify store is 1.4%.

    This means that, on average, 1.4% of visitors complete a purchase.

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    • Top 20% of stores achieve conversion rates above 3.2%

    • Top 10% of stores exceed 4.7% conversion rates


      If your conversion rate is below 1.4%, please consider making some design changes to your store. Reach out to your CSM to get some pointers, or to be connected with one of our partners that can help you out.


      AOV (Average order value): Increasing the AOV will make your profit margins a lot better, as shipping costs will be split between several products. A high AOV will decrease the ROAS needed to break even. This might be the difference between losing money and making a profit.

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      ​Look further into:

    • Bundling: Combining multiple products into a discounted package.
    • Upsells: Encourage to purchase a higher-end version of a product.
    • Cross-sells: Encourage to purchase related complementary products.
    • Free shipping thresholds: Offering free shipping when a customer’s order exceeds a certain amount to motivate larger purchases.