Master Facebook Ads for dropshipping in 2024: a comprehensive step-by-step guide

Promotion and advertising

Author:

Baptiste

August 26, 2024

Contents

When you run your own dropshipping business, generating interest translates into sales. That's why it's essential to deliver the right message to your target audience at the right time. With Facebook advertising for dropshipping, you can achieve this.

Indeed, Facebook ads allow your business to gain visibility and reach. This way, you can further grow your business. Moreover, by delivering the right message to the right people, Facebook ads help you increase conversions and sales.

In this article, we’ll explore everything there is to know about Facebook ads for dropshipping. From setup to final launch, we've covered everything step by step in this ultimate guide.

What is the goal of Facebook Ads for dropshipping?

The goal of Facebook ads for dropshipping is to capture the attention of Facebook users, encouraging them to purchase products directly from your online store. In fact, Facebook ads are an effective way to promote your products to a targeted audience by leveraging the platform's advanced targeting features.

Additionally, they help drive qualified traffic to your dropshipping site, increase conversions, and generate sales. Then, present your products in an appealing way using eye-catching visuals, compelling descriptions, and enticing calls to action.

For businesses that sell digital products, a digital download app is essential. That's why we’ve summarized in this guide"The best digital download apps for Shopify"

How to advertise on Facebook for dropshipping?

If you want to learn how to use Facebook ads for dropshipping, here are some steps to follow.

Step 1: define your target audience

Identify your target market by analyzing demographics, interests, and consumer behaviors relevant to your dropshipping niche. Then, create detailed buyer personasto better understand your target audience’s needs, motivations, and preferences.

Conduct thorough market research to understand the problems your target audience faces, the solutions they seek, and the communication channels they prefer.

Step 2: set clear goals

Before you start creating the actual ad, you must first determine specific goals for your campaign, such as:

Increasing traffic to your website,
Generating qualified leads,
Increasing sales.

Furthermore, ensure your goals are measurable using metrics such as:

Click-through rate,
Conversion rate,
Return on ad spend.

Make sure your goals are realistic and achievable, considering your budget, dropshipping niche, and past performance. Ensure your goals align with your overall dropshipping business objectives, such as customer growth or revenue increase.

Step 3: set up a Facebook Page

To start running Facebook ads for dropshipping, it’s important to have a Facebook page. From your Facebook account, you can easily create a page for your business. You can find this option when you click on 'Pages' in the left-hand navigation bar.

From there, you’ll access the "Pages" site, where you can click the "Create a new page" button. Once there, you can start filling in your page’s information, such as the name, category, and description of your page.

A pro tip is to set your category to your website. Because you’ll want to direct visitors from this page to your dropshipping store. Then, click on "Create page" and wait a few seconds for Facebook to create your page. Once done, you can set your profile and add the photos that will represent your dropshipping store.

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Step 4: create a Facebook Ads account

When it comes to creating a Facebook Ads account, things can get a bit complicated. However, if you follow the steps in this ultimate Facebook advertising guide, you’ll have no trouble creating your Facebook Ads account. Let’s dive in and get started.

How to create a Facebook Business Manager account?

Interestingly, with the Business Manager account, you can manage all your advertising campaigns as well as other business aspects. And to start, you’ll go to the Facebook Business Manager homepage.

Next, click on the "Create an account" button and provide your business information. A pop-up window will appear where you can enter your name, business name, and business email address.

Once you’ve filled in this information and clicked "Submit," Facebook will take you to the Facebook Business Suite page. Once there, you can create your Facebook Ads account and start creating and managing multiple ad campaigns. Additionally, you can use this space to navigate through other business activities. Some additional business activities you can manage include:

Events,
Billing,
Appointments,
Orders, etc.

Step 5: install Facebook Pixel in your dropshipping store

After setting up your Facebook Ads account, the next crucial step is to install the Facebook Pixel. To clarify, a Facebook Pixel is a piece of code you place on your website to help track visitor activity in your store. For example, if someone clicks on a blog post or adds a product to their cart, Facebook Pixel tracks these events and logs them.

Moreover, the data collected by Facebook Pixel helps you track Facebook ad conversions and optimize them. It also helps create target audiences most likely to make a purchase. Indeed, this allows you to retarget people who have already visited and engaged with your store.

Setting up the Facebook Pixel

You’re about to install the Facebook Pixel. However, before you can complete this, you first need to connect the pixel to your dropshipping store. In this example, we’ll show you how to install the Facebook Pixel on your Shopify store. To begin, you need to access your store’s dashboard, then click on"Online Shop" and select "Preferences".

Next, scroll down the page and locate the "Facebook Pixel" option, then click on "Configure Facebook". To continue, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Add a sales channel". Then click on "Connect account" to confirm that you authorize your dropshipping store to access your Facebook account. For security reasons, you'll need to enter your Facebook password. After entering the password, click on "Continue".

When prompted to specify access, click "Continue" to allow your store to integrate with Facebook. Then, it will ask for permission to connect your store to your Facebook account or page. Continuing with Facebook advertising for dropshipping, we will see in the next step how to integrate your Pixel into your dropshipping store.

Integrate the Pixel into your dropshipping store

Let’s continue using Shopify as the top-rated sales channel. From there, under "Business Manager", select the correct account connected to the page created for your store. Then, click on "Connect". For the next step, you’ll connect your ad account, which should appear as an option. Make sure to connect to the correct account.

In the next step, you’ll see and accept Facebook’s terms and conditions. This step will take you to Facebook, where you can review them and then click the "Accept" button. You’ll then be redirected to the “Shop” tab, where you’ll click on “Done”.

Now, you can go to your Facebook page and click “Connect” again, ensuring you’re logged into the correct page. There you go; you’re almost done fully integrating your Pixel, with just a few more steps to complete.

Testing the Facebook Pixel

Before finalizing the setup, you need to test your Facebook Pixel to ensure everything is correctly installed. To do this, on Facebook Business Manager, you must check for a checkmark to ensure Shopify’s setup is complete.

Click on "Next". In the next tab, enter your Shopify store’s web address and click “Send Test Traffic”. A new tab will open with your website. Then, click on a few products and return to the Facebook tab. If the Pixel is working, a green dot will appear, confirming that everything is in order.

However, if it says "Not Active Yet", you need to thoroughly test the Pixel using the “Test Events” option. To thoroughly test your Pixel, click on the "Test Events" tab and enter your Shopify store’s web address. Then, click on “Open Website”.

As in the previous step, perform some actions on your Shopify store, then return to Facebook Pixel. Most importantly, you must test your Pixel to ensure you’re obtaining the necessary data from your store. This way, you can make informed decisions that will help scale your store.

Step 6: conducting audience research

Audience research is one of the most important steps in Facebook advertising for dropshipping. To help you organize and refine your target audience, you should create a copy of the audience research spreadsheet. Below, we will go through all the steps of this process:

The four key questions for audience research

Specifically, the audience research spreadsheet is organized around the 4 key questions for successful audience research. These questions guide how you will conduct your audience research. In fact, this set of questions is designed to understand the interests of your target audience.

From this perspective, their interests are based on three aspects: their participation, the content they interact with, and the products they use. Let's look at the four key questions:

Who are the authority figures, influencers, and major brands in your niche?
What books, magazines, and websites does your audience interact with?
What types of events does your audience attend?
What other relevant products does your audience use?

In reality, the purpose of asking these questions is to tap into as many potential audiences as possible. Exploring multiple audiences will help you find unique groups that might be interested in buying your products. Now, in the spreadsheet, in the largest column on the left, you should add your questions. In the column next to each question, you should also have 4 to 6 empty cells to fill in with the answers.

Interestingly, you can conduct this research by searching Google for keywords. Guided by these questions, you can search for the necessary information to understand your audience.

Implementing audience research

Finally, you can use all the necessary information you’ve gathered in your research to create your Facebook ad for dropshipping. Once you have the data, enter the answers to the questions into your ad campaign. This ensures that Facebook targets audiences interested in the events, products, and content from your research.

Moreover, the research you’ve conducted will help you tailor the ads themselves to your target audience, generating interest. That said, audience research helps not only with targeting but also with attracting your target audience, generating interest, and increasing sales.

Step 7: creating a Facebook Ad

In this section, we will show you how to use Facebook ads for dropshipping. Once you’ve done thorough audience research for your Facebook ad, it’s time to move on to creation. Facebook ads are typically made using videos or photos. That said, you should strive to create very good visuals for your ads to immediately grab the attention of customers.

In fact, video ads on Facebook are the most effective way to market your dropshipping store. Additionally, using video ads will drive more engagement and thus produce better results. To create and launch a successful video ad campaign, you need to learn how to create high-converting video ads.

Above all, audiences love watching an engaging video that showcases the product they want to buy. Although image or GIF ads aren’t a bad choice, video ads are simply more effective and convert better. In this case, let’s see how to find a good product video.

Find a product video

You need to find a product video for the item you want to advertise. Indeed, the product video will serve as a template for editing. There are several ways to get the product video you need for your Facebook ad.

Sometimes, sellers may have their own product video that you can use as a template. However, often these videos don’t look professional. Additionally, depending on the supplier’s origin, subtitles in a different language may be embedded in the video.

Otherwise, you might get lucky and find a product video with good visuals on a supplier’s product page. This trend of adding videos to product pages is gaining momentum, but it’s not widespread enough to rely on. Unfortunately, suppliers don’t always include such videos on their product pages.

However, if you can’t find a product video from your supplier, you can use Minea. It is a powerful dropshipping product research tool that allows you to find a winning product with quality visuals. Indeed, it can help you find a product video from another supplier or competitor. You can also order the product and shoot the video yourself.

Editing the product video

Once you manage to get your hands on a product video, you’ll need to edit it. That said, there are several reasons why you need to do this, one of which is the length of the video. Indeed, your video ad should not last more than 30 seconds, as the attention span of your viewers diminishes over time. That’s why your video needs to be short and to the point.

Another reason you need to edit your video is that it can’t be the same as your supplier’s. Your Facebook ad for dropshipping is meant to help you stand out from the competition, and copying the product video goes against this goal.

Moreover, when it comes to video editing, there are many platforms you can use. Canva is an excellent video editing service, as its platform is specially designed for entrepreneurs. You can also check out this guide on the 5 best tools for video editing your products.

The importance of variations and split testing

To optimize and ensure the success of your Facebook ad for dropshipping, you need to create multiple variations of video ads and test them. A good tactic to use is to create three variations of your ad and run all three at the same time. In fact, the biggest difference between your three ads lies in the first 3 to 5 seconds.

This shows the importance of these first seconds and the impact they can have on converting viewers into customers. Moreover, by testing your Facebook ad variations, you can see which version converts the most and adapt it to a broader audience. Through split testing, you can learn what works best and use it in your future Facebook ad campaigns.

Step 8: setting up your Facebook Ads campaign objectives

One of the most technical aspects of this process is setting up the ad sets and campaign settings in Facebook Business Manager. These settings ensure that your Facebook dropshipping ad has the maximum impact at the lowest possible cost. Additionally, they tell Facebook how you want users to interact with your ad and which audiences to reach.

Creating and setting up your campaign

After choosing your campaign objective, you need to click the "Continue" button and name your campaign. Next, you need to configure your campaign. Most campaign settings don’t concern you, except for the budget optimization. This balances the budget across your different ad campaigns.

In fact, it is recommended to run three ads for each product, as this allows you to test different ads and find the one that performs best. Fortunately, if you use this tactic, you can use the budget optimization tool to ensure that the spending distribution is balanced.

To activate the budget optimization tool, scroll down the page and move the switch to the "On" position next to the "Campaign Budget Optimization" section. What this tool does is allocate more funds to the campaigns that perform well and less to those that fail.

Setting campaign budgets

Once you’ve activated budget optimization, you’ll be immediately prompted to set a budget for Facebook Ads in dropshipping. At this stage, your goal is to spend as little money as possible to test the ad variations.

With that in mind, to set the budget setting, you should choose the "daily budget" option rather than a "lifetime budget." Your daily budget should be between €5 and €10 while running the ads for 2 to 3 days. This is enough time to test your different ads on different audiences and see the results.

Since you’re running a post-engagement campaign, the information you’ll receive from running the ads for 3 days at $10 is invaluable. That said, the information you receive during this period sets the stage for your future marketing efforts. Finally, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide on how to set a"Facebook Ads Budget for Dropshipping" that might be useful to you.

Step 9: configuring Facebook Ad sets

Once you’ve set up your campaign, you can move on to configuring your ad set settings. First, you need to set up a schedule. Then, you need to choose the start date and time, and do not check the end date. Even if you only run this "Engagement" campaign for a few days, it has the potential to perform very well, which can help you increase your success. Now let’s look at some important settings:

Audience settings

Once you’ve set up the above setting, you will then customize your audience setting. In fact, this will help you reach the optimal audience for your product.

Location

Let’s start with the first audience setting adjustment, location. You need to start by removing all default settings under "Location" and setting it to worldwide.

One of the reasons you need to choose this setting is that you want to run a post-engagement ad, and you need to see which audiences might be interested in your product. Additionally, with global targeting, Facebook finds interested audiences faster. And, since you’re paying per day, this will help you spend less on this campaign.

Age and gender

The next step is to define an age range for your audience. Here, you’ll want to broaden the range, but not too much, to avoid prolonging the process of finding your target audience. In this section, you should make an informed estimate of the age group that your most interested customers are likely to belong to.

Additionally, you need to select the target gender. Depending on what you're selling, you may set a more specific target. Some products may be more appealing to one gender than the other. However, in all other cases, you can simply stick to the "all" setting in the gender section.

Detailed targeting

At this stage of Facebook advertising for dropshipping, you need to adjust your detailed targeting settings. In this section, you’ll identify the behaviors, interests, and characteristics of your target audience. For this targeting, you can use the audience research you conducted earlier in Step 6.

Here, you can type any characteristic into the search bar and add it to your targeting. However, this may broaden your targeting excessively. Since this is a post-engagement ad, your potential reach limit should be around 10 million. In other words, you need to consider this reach cap to avoid waiting several days for Facebook to reach your target audience. Therefore, you should avoid this, as you pay daily for advertising.

Now, if your potential reach becomes too high when choosing your detailed targeting preferences, you can use the "Narrow Audience" option. This section allows for further filtering by adding additional limits to the targeting.

Language

Here, you will set up the language of the ad. This helps Facebook target people who can read and understand your ad in the language you set.

Next, you’ll scroll down and click on the "Edit" button in the "Language" section. For example, if you want to target English speakers, you can choose the "English all" option to include both British and American varieties. Notably, you can also choose multiple languages to target.

Choosing the Ad placement

Finally, the only thing left is to choose where your ad will appear. Since you don’t want Facebook to search for audiences in the wrong places, you’ll first choose the "Manual" option in this section. This will allow you to customize the ad placement.

Next, for "Devices", you should leave "All devices" selected, allowing the ad to appear on both mobile and desktop. Finally, for "Platforms", you should uncheck everything except "Facebook" and "Instagram". You also have the option to choose where on Facebook you want your ad to appear. For the best results, uncheck everything except "Facebook News Feed" and "Facebook Video Feed."

In fact, you leave the "Facebook Video Feed" checked because people like to scroll through videos, which increases the chances of your ad reaching them. Finally, the ad set configuration process is now complete, and you are ready to launch your Facebook ad for dropshipping.

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Step 10: launch your Facebook Ad for dropshipping

You can now launch your Facebook dropshipping ads. When launching an ad campaign, you need to configure three sections: the campaign, the ad set, and the ad.

However, remember that you configure the settings based on the specific objective of the Post Engagement campaign. For example, you spend €5 to €10 per day, a relatively low budget, and target a global audience to gauge interest in your product.

However, for a conversion campaign, you’ll need to go back and modify your ad settings. So, without further ado, let's start by logging into Facebook Ads Manager and following the steps below:

Naming the Ad

The first section will ask you to name your Facebook dropshipping ad. Your name should be consistent with the name you chose for your campaign and ad sets.

Selecting a Facebook page for your Ad

After the ad name, there’s an "Identity" section where you can choose the Facebook page to use for the ad. Every Facebook ad is essentially a post you need to promote. Therefore, the ad must have a specific location, otherwise, the ad cannot be launched.

Choosing the post type

If you already have a post in which you want to place the ad, you need to set the post type and the objective. Since we’re showing how to create a first engagement ad, let's create a new post. On the same page, scroll down to "Ad Setup" and select "Create Ad".

Designing your Facebook Ad for dropshipping

Here, we tackle the most interesting and relevant part of our ultimate guide to Facebook advertising. This is where you need to decide on the appearance and composition of the ad. Continue scrolling down to the "Ad Creative" section and start with "Media". Then, click "Add Media" and "Add Video". A new window will open where you can choose and upload a product video.

Notably, your video should not be longer than 30 seconds, preferably between 15 and 30 seconds. To continue, in the popup window, click "Upload", select a video, and click "Open". Once the upload is complete, you can view it in the Ad Creative section.

Launching your Ad

Before publishing the Facebook ad for dropshipping, double-check all the settings one last time. Check the campaign objective, your ad set configuration, and of course, the ad itself. Does everything look good? If so, now click on "Publish" in the bottom right corner.

Step 11: analyze your Facebook Ads and boost your success

Finally, after successfully launching your ads, there’s only one thing left to do. You need to monitor and optimize them. Analyzing your Facebook dropshipping ads is crucial to maximizing their success.

Fortunately, Facebook provides you with analytics data that you can use to analyze, adjust, and optimize your ads accordingly. Now, it's about knowing how to use this information correctly to improve and scale your ads for better results.

How to analyze Facebook Ads?

To start the analysis process, you need to customize your results column. At this point, a day or two after the ad has run, the campaign results should appear on the homepage of Ads Manager.

First, click on one of the three main tabs ("Campaign," "Ad Sets," or "Ads"). Then, scroll right to where the various results data columns should appear. You can customize the columns by clicking on "Columns: Performance" and selecting "Customize Columns" from the dropdown menu. At this point, you should select the metrics you want to analyze.

Analyzing Ad results

Now that the columns are organized, it's time to analyze the ad results. We will focus our analysis on these metrics:

Overall results
Counting ad appearances: impressions vs. reach
Click on the link
Video statistics
Frequency (regular viewers)
The cost of advertising appearances
Publish feedback
Content views
Add to cart, initiated payments and purchases

To avoid confusion, let's define some of these metrics. Reach is the total number of unique people who see your content. On the other hand, impressions are the number of times your content is viewed, whether or not it's by a unique viewer. Now, after analyzing your stats, you can make informed decisions and take the necessary steps to optimize your ads.

Scaling your success

Even if you have a well-performing Facebook dropshipping ad, you still need to take the right steps to ensure it stays that way. To this end, you should set up an ad hierarchy.

To get straight to the point, keep the number twenty in mind. The number 20 is the signal that you need to improve your campaign objective. Once you've achieved twenty content views (website) in an engagement campaign, you can move on to a "View Content" campaign. In this case, Facebook finds audiences who tend to view product content on a website.

Naturally, increasing the number of content views results in more additions to the cart. Thus, after achieving twenty additions to the cart, it's time to move on to a "Add to Cart" campaign objective. So, in this new campaign, Facebook finds audiences likely to add your product to their cart.

Indeed, some of them will make a purchase. But before moving on to the much-coveted purchase campaign, you must wait until you've reached a minimum of 20 purchases.

Conclusion

To summarize everything, there are key elements that must be considered to maximize interest and generate sales. That said, here are some key factors to consider when creating a Facebook ad:

Target audience
Highly optimized visuals
Call to action (CTA)
Price (both product price and ad budget)

Finally, you must consider pricing. Specifically, you need to account for the cost of your product and your budget for your Facebook dropshipping ad campaign. To achieve a good return on investment (ROI) in your marketing efforts, you need to optimize both your campaign budget and your product prices.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cost of Facebook ads for dropshipping?

In general, it is recommended to allocate an advertising budget equivalent to 20 times your product’s selling price. Therefore, if your product is sold for $25 in your store, it is advisable to invest around $500 in Facebook ads.

Is it possible to do dropshipping without using Facebook ads?

Yes, it is entirely possible to practice dropshipping without relying on Facebook ads. While many dropshipping stores have found success through Facebook, this platform is not the only one that allows store owners to reach their target market.

Do Facebook Ads work with Shopify?

To allow your customers to browse and purchase your products directly from Facebook, you need to set up Facebook as a sales channel on your Shopify online store. This will enable you to create a Facebook shop on your business page, as well as configure Instagram Shopping and create Facebook ads directly from Shopify.

Are Facebook Ads still effective for dropshipping?

Facebook ads are an effective way for dropshippers to promote their business and reach a wide audience of potential customers. However, it’s important to keep in mind that to retain these customers, product quality and fast delivery are essential.

What are the best Ads to use for dropshipping?

Facebook and Google are excellent choices for advertising your dropshipping business and increasing your sales. Google Ads target people who are actively searching for a purchase or information about it, while Facebook ads target people based on their interests.