wizard of dork: advertising & marketing

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Facebook dynamic multi-product ads is what eCommerce stores needed

How can Facebook dynamic multi-product ads affect eCommerce?

Wizard-guide-to-Facebook-dynamic-multi-product-ads

You might have seen some Facebook multi-product ads yourself as well.

What is the main difference between the standard Facebook ads? Now you have the option to promote a number of unique products and their features in a carousel kind of ad.

Now if you have an e-shop that’s your hard sales breakthrough. You can select some of your finest products, TARGET the specific persons you want and then wait.

You could of course have a post with the product you are promoting and boost it but is that the same thing? The user will see at least 3 multi-product ads as an impression. They might see something they like in it. If the price is right they will click. Simple CPC (cost per click).

That way you can show your product variety, be very specific, extremely cost effective and create an awareness that can be quite product oriented.

That way you grasp the attention of a potential buyer that will view your variety and increase your sales! All that with an average CPC around 0, 05€. You get to show off your catalogue (or a portion of it) with extremely low cost.

Facebook has created a very powerful sales tool that may span across the smallest e-shop up to the biggest eCommerce retailer.

It’s all about relevance and perception if you ask me. Facebook algorithm nowadays is so smart and by giving you the chance to show more than one ads in the same space as one is the smart sales move to do. All because of relevance. When you win the relevance game the next thing to do is become even more effective.

Say you have an e-shop. You could go around with awareness ads promoting your stuff in general or you could go for a very specific ad that actually might not grasp the audience. Now Facebook dynamic multi-product ads change the whole set. They give you options in virtually the same cost or less.

You have a catalogue of products you want to show. Same goes for the user. They want to see the variety some times. But if I see what I want to buy on one specific ad then you have my interest. If the price is right I might even buy on impulse!

Some may say that this is the win move from Facebook on Google. I would say we have to wait. But to be honest, Facebook ads do manage to target way more correctly than a GDN ad. Google search might still be very effective, but the experience is not a much dynamic as a Facebook ad and considering the complexity of ads and the potential cost of specific words, then it’s a no go for a small eCommerce company.

In other words the definitive winner move nowadays for small eCommerce businesses is Facebook. I don’t say that you should not invest in Google. On the contrary. Your mix needs to be wide in order to reach wider in terms of customers. What I am saying however is that you should probably reconsider where to spend your budget in terms of mix.

We see lately that Facebook organic reach is plummeting.

There is one simple explanation for this. Facebook is getting smarter. Way smarter than we could predict at the beginning, thus penalizing some "not as much" great communication techniques used from time to time.

Now why is this happening? Well for me there are two reasons.

Firstly Facebook is growing exponentially. Why do we use Facebook? For a unique experience.
Normally a user wont be glad seeing product posts about toilet paper all the time. They want to see stuff relevant to them from people they care to follow. Facebook is a business. A business gaining money from their users. You do not want to make your client angry. Or else they will leave.
Therefore Facebook chooses to show you anything that would interest you. But that is not always the case right? I mean you are not always a multi-billion company trying to sell toilet paper on Facebook right? You may be a musician or a blogger trying to show people how amazing you are. Which is great and you should try that. But you wont be always interesting. And guess what. There are tons of stuff to see on Facebook and someone has to sort it out. That's the job of Facebook algorithm. Since Facebook is so huge then you will not be able to show out your work as easily on all your fans. Let's just say the world does not care about you. Especially if you are a brand.
Secondly, let's face it. Facebook is a business right? They say to you friend (Facebook page owner) that if you really want to sell your products or your music or whatever, you should probably pay something for it. Now at this point if there is any advertiser reading that, try and be honest. Facebook advertising right now is very cheap. You can reach out incredible amounts of people with a fraction of what you'd spend on TV. At the moment at least. Which is quite fair in my opinion. You are advertising don't you? What's the common tendency on advertising? To hate it. Now on Facebook you have a chance. There will be people that will see your message. But if you really did a good job you will be rewarded.

Engagement is the key.

If the people like your message they will interact with it. Simple as that. In the beginning of Facebook marketing we would do all kinds of shit to attract people to like our page (like likegating applications with contests) forcing people to like pages. Then of course you had another problem. People who come for contests rarely buy your products or engage with the page. They simply want to win something. So in that case you simply collect likes that will drop you page reach on 2%. I wouldn't even want to talk about engagement on that rate.
So what did the marketing geniuses did after that in order to get engagement? They did wall contests, asking people to share the contest image in order to create fake engagement. That didn't work either. As we said Facebook is getting smart.

What you need is balls.

Truly if you think you got the balls to provide something interesting everyday then go ahead. Facebook is survival of the fittest. You need to have a content mix. Do not for any reason just have one kind of posting. Just a link will not do the work. The mix should have links, photos and videos. Moreover there is one more thing. The type of posting is very important but you should also make sure to post something nice.
Which brings me to the reason I wrote this title. There is a way to increase your reach a lot. But have one thing in mind. Reach is not success. What you will do is bring the people in to the store. In order to buy they need to care. So be careful.
Anyway. How do you achieve amazing Facebook reach?

The Facebook video.

Facebook video is all about Facebook does right now. billions of videos are being watched each day. And Facebook is boosting video like hell at the moment. You can have an organic reach counting from 10% to 20%. Only a try can convince you about that. And trust me on that. I made my very own video too. I'm adding video in my very own mix too.

Now be careful. As I said. Keep the mix. Differentiate. Think like a user and try to create a shareable experience for people.
Follow me on Facebook too for a live show of what we learned here today.

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It began somewhat differently and evolved. We used to call it celebrity endorsement.

A celebrity would wear a product and the product would become famous.

Yeah right... I'm convinced...

Ethos as I've mentioned before.

Thing is the way they did it was outdated.

Yeah now I'm totally convinced...

Not that it stopped.

But now you don't want your favorite brand to be so mainstream.

You wanted it to be more meta. More Hipster perhaps?

So came the London Olympics and the classic sponsors were there.

By the way the P&G ad was really emotional.

Incredible. Let’s move on.

One of my favorite sports to watch during the Olympics is swimming and it also begins first.

So I see athletes and Phelps step in to the pool with headphones. Specifically beats by Dre.

Did he pay for a sponsorship? Nope. Nothing. Well he did payed the athletes.

OK. And made millions!

The move was brilliant.

And now of course its spreads everywhere.

Samsung did it.

Before the ad there was a media buzz all around about the black hooded people.

Well now I believe that this was obviously a campaign and you knew about it all along. But. It was a big buzz.

And while you were expecting for the consumer to feel deceived, he actually feels happy to see something as clever as that.

Thus triggering his wallet.

I believe ambush marketing is here to stay.

And I actually believe that in a while there won't even be a need for celebrities. The consumers will be doing it for the brand.

People love that. OK, maybe not all people but plenty for sure.

Personally I would love to be surprised be a brand.

If they manage to surprise me they might get me to trial the product. And of course if the product is good then it will get me.

A clever fresh way of advertising worth pay attention to.

Product placement all over us

As a sequel to ethos, pathos, logos I would like to talk about a nice type of advertising.

Product Placement.

Not the way its being done in Greece but generally abroad.

In Greece unfortunately it's bad. And it happens in two types.

1st: You view a video clip where Vodafone is the main star and not the artist...

2nd: You get the product placement label in the corner of your screen.

What I really love about the product placement in countries such as U.S. and U.K. is how much it perfectly fits, thus having much better effects.

I'd like to think I posses a personal Ad-block in my mind which allows me to filter bad ads and not see them.

The first time my Ad-block got tempted was quite recently.

Not more than 3-4 years ago.

I was in college and a TV channel had all night long Sex & the City.

So many all nights longs than I've seen each season about 5 times each.

So I noticed one thing. Samantha was holding some kind of juice from Starbucks. An orange stuff.

And suddenly I wanted it.

So the next day at college I begin to say this story to my friend Miltos. He also had seen the episode and wanted that orange thing too!

We almost almost got to Starbucks to buy whatever that shit was. We didn't. But we were close.

So I believe its all about subtlety. Let the product be part of the scene. On the background.

Don't make it the king of the show. It isn't! It's the show!

If you make it a king you just lost the game. Just blend it in and you've won.

There is a show in Greece sponsored by Ifantis.

It' all around the place.

I suppose you don't call that subtle.

Generally that whole craze about putting the sponsor in front.

People don't like that guys. Lets turn it around. Let see what product placement is.

You just PLACE it. You don't promote it.

So anyway I believe product placement is probably the best way to advertise on TV.

Its all about pop culture references now. Thanks to post modernism, television now has conscience such as the consumer (?).

So when the Big Bang Theory has Alienware and Mac's (which you can barely see but you know they are there) you've succeeded in product placement.

Razer will be begging to place something.

So what is the point? We take value of advertising and we do not abuse it because it loses its power. Because what is Product placement in the end of the day?

Appeal to Ethos.

Ethos as we accept pop culture. It's all about subtlety.

Aristotle.

Merely the fact that I am bringing him up makes me feel shame and tiny.

My favorite though will always be Socrates.

And Xanthippe

Nevertheless I would like to talk about the three principles of persuasion and their application in advertising in that article.

When you sell you obviously need to persuade people that your product is the best.

Nothing is bad or wrong.

It's all about how you sell. Aristotle defines persuasion in 3 ways.

Ethos, pathos and logos.

All these are an invocation to the inactive logic.

I have spoken about truth in advertising before.

I consider it of utmost importance. Sadly most ads in the world use pathos and ethos (completely distorted) and not so much logos.

Lets see what Ethos does.

Someone famous wears something branded. The brand must be good then.

Simple right?

Distorted? Completely.

Because what does it have to do if an athlete is being payed a lot of money to use a product with the fact that the product IS actually good?

Let's have a look at the Maslow Pyramid.

Pretty basic and easy to argue with stuff.

The deal though. Consumers who possess disposable income feel bad about themselves and need to find a common ground inside a team that will make him feel good. In one word?

INSECURITY.

Such as I was in high school with my nerd pals and they were making fun of us. But I felt good. Because I belonged somewhere.

You see a celebrity wearing Nike. He is cool. And you are not.

You try to be cool. Theoretically the product tries to persuade you with a lifestyle icon, thus gaining image.

An easy way to sell.

Let us move on to Pathos.

Appeal to the emotion.

How did that even happened? Children from Africa dying in front of your screen in order for you to feel guilt.

By the way. You laugh at ads? It's still the same. But instead of guilt they make you feel good to sell you their product.

I prefer that to be honest.

Now let us go to Logos which is the hardest part.

Because it needs to contain a basic truth in it.

Unfortunately in advertising Logos is almost non existent.

They don't give you a reason to buy.

They just give you a story.

How far can content go (which I am a big fan of by the way).

OK maybe far but we need to keep it in context.

That's it.

Not much and mostly known.

But we go by them many times unfortunately.

Advertising is not doomed.

It's in all of us to make it be good.

I love advertising and I always love a good ad.

Tactics is neither a crime nor evil.

Evil people are in Jail after all.