We are sharing a case study from Ismael Mouhab, an e-commerce entrepreneur and Facebook ads expert who scaled his online clothing brand’s sales to $2 100 000 in Q1 2022.
Ismael shares with us what he learned from scaling the ad account and sticking with a very healthy margin of above 3.0 ROAS. He also goes further ahead to share how he set up data-driven creatives, created product offers, his ads stop loss or reactivation rules, and also how he compound scales his ads.
Note: Before we jump into the case study, Ismael emphasizes that on the screenshot, sales were almost $1 900 000 according to Hyros, meaning those sales were counted through click-through & did not count view-through sales which are estimated to total $2 100 000.
A Study Done by Facebook Says:
- 57% of all conversions are attributed to ads. Not the brand, not the product, not the targeting - the actual ad creatives.
- The fastest growing advertisers create and test 11x more ad creatives than their counterparts.
This means having better creatives equals a competitive edge. Relying on strong creatives is better than relying on audience data.
With that in mind, you will need to start creating more and better creatives without breaking the bank. Ismael and his team discovered a cost-effective strategy to come up with many creative - they call it ‘data-driven creatives’.
Data-Driven Creatives
According to Ismael, coming up with data-driven creatives takes 3 steps:
- Planning
- Creative production
- Optimization
1. Planning
Planning is understanding that you’re not selling a product but rather selling the problem it solves and how it makes people feel.
Example:
- Do not sell a coffee scrub, sell smooth and soft skin.
- Do not sell a protein shake, sell faster muscle growth and recovery.
Your creatives should answer your market’s question "why should I care? How is this helping me in my life?"
A great way to understand or have perspective on how people value things is by reading Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Key drivers of human behavior).
A breakdown of human needs and their value of priority. Understanding Maslow’s hierarchy of needs allows you to flip the script for your product from a ‘want’ product to a ‘need’ product.
Another way to understand people’s needs is by reading the 10 key emotional motivators (a study done by Harvard University).
After analyzing 300 universal emotional motivators with big data analytics tools, researchers identified the top 10 "high impact" motivators, which when used as creative hooks, simple day-to-day products can be easily sold.
So in the planning phase, your job is to:
- Identify your customer avatar
- Uncover their motivators & objections
2. Creative production
Before creating the script for the ads, Ismail says that he breakdown the main key points, which were:
- Motivators
- Benefit
- Hook
- CTA
- Angle 1,2,3.
To understand this, we need to take an example:
Example: You’re selling a protein shake.
Motivators: I want to grow muscles to feel confident & attractive.
Benefits: Easy to make a protein shake that enhances muscle synthesis for faster muscle growth. Hook: I spend too much money on chicken breast & lean beef.
Angle 1: Save money!
Ismael says that your hooks and angles do not have to be the same as the motivators. This is why you ideally have to create at least 3 different angles and test them out till you find which hook is the winner.
In this manner, we push products that are not allowed by Facebook, by selling the benefits rather than the product.
Best Performing Creatives
- UGC — The best advertisement in the world won’t beat a recommendation from a trusted friend. (Unboxing videos, Product reviews, lifestyle shots)
- Problem & solution — Explaining in short what’s the problem & how your product solves it. (You can also test a different order: ‘The problem your product solves’, might seem the same, but the result with a different response.)
- Founder’s story — The need behind coming up with the product idea which works as a ‘HERO’ story for your product that you’re buyers can relate to and competitors do not have.
3. Optimization
Great ads accomplish:
- Retains viewers after the first 3sec
- TOF: 2+ ROAS
Optimization is a continuous cycle of planning, testing, and optimizing.
Offers
An offer could be anything that is an excuse for the buyer to bundle up. Ismael says that he only uses offers to increase the AOV.
Examples of offers:
- ‘Free shipping for orders over $X (AOV + $5-10)’
- 1, 3, 6 pack. (Free shipping for 3 & 6 packs plus a free product or eBook)
Though do not be afraid to test out different offers, that make sense for your market & give you a competitive edge.
Good offer metrics to look for: (Example for a $35 product)
- 2.5%+ Conversion rate
- $65+ AOV
- 2% CTR (CTR is a valid metric only since we’re not able to attribute all of the sales)
Ads Stop Loss/ Reactivation Rules
Recently, by mid-April, there was an update from Facebook and most media buyers saw a drop in performance across all accounts. The solution for this update is to refresh the creatives or give it some time.
If you do decide to go with the latter and the performance does not go back up then, decrease the budget and try broad campaigns and see how they perform. And then move to scaling campaigns again.
Ismael and his team came up with their ‘Stop Loss and Reactivation’ rules that save them a lot of time.
Stop Loss Rule
The job of this rule is simple to stop ads inefficiency. Turn off ads if:
- It’s spent in the last 4 days (Inc. today) > 1.5 - 2x CPA
- And 0 Purchases in the last 4 days (Inc. today) = Turn off the ad
- Or if purchases in last 4 days (Inc. today) > 0 & CPA in last 4 days (Inc. today) > 1.5 -2 x CPA
Reactivation Rules
The job of this rule is to reactivate ads that had good results but did not show up due to delayed attribution.
Turn on ads if Impression in last 4 days (Inc. today) > 0 & Purchases in last 4 days (Inc. today) > 0 & CPA in last 4 days (Inc. today) < Target CPA
Compound Scaling Strategy
Ismael’s team came up with the compound scaling strategy, which according to him, is the motherload of all scaling strategies.
This strategy is only effective with:
- Seasoned ad account
- 3rd party tracking
- Large budgets
So without further ado, here is how he laid it out.
TOF Scaling: 3 CBO Campaigns
1. Interest CBO Campaign: $2 500/Day
Adset #1 → Winning combined Interest #1 → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v Adset #2 → Winning combined Interest #2 → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v Adset #3 → Winning combined Interest #3 → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v Adset #4 → Winning combined Interest #4 → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v Adset #5 → Winning combined Interest #5 → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v Adset #6 → Winning combined Interest #6 → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v
Here, you should combine winning 2 or 3 interests per adset for a bigger audience to lower the CPM.
2. Broad CBO Campaign: $2 500/Day
Adset #1 → Broad → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v
Adset #2 → PUR Stacked LLA (1% 3% 5%) → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v Adset #3 → ATC Stacked LLA (1% 3% 5%) → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v Adset #4 → PV Stacked LLA (1% 3% 5%) → 10 ads (5 winning ads + 5 general ads) → 1-day c/v
Broad adsets are usually the best performing adsets across all campaigns. Broad adset will take most of the budget then PUR LLA would be the 2nd best and this would be almost 99% of the time, though keep all of the adsets turned on to give the algorithm more leeway.
3. CBO Incubator Campaign: $500/Day
Adset #1 → Winning Interest/LLA #1 → 5 ads → 1-day c/v
Adset #2 → Winning Interest/LLA #2 → 5 ads → 1-day c/v
Adset #3 → Winning Interest/LLA #3 → 5 ads → 1-day c/v
Adset #15+ → Winning Interest/LLA #4 → 5 ads → 1-day c/v
If you find a winning adset/ad do not turn it off even if you duplicate it inside the CBO campaigns #1 &
MOF/BOF ABO Campaign:
Adset #1 → WV 1-14 days → Extra 10% OFF → $75-100/day
Adset #2 → WV 15-30 days → Extra 10% OFF → $75-100/day
Adset #3 → WV 30-60 days → Extra 10% OFF → $75-100/day
Adset #4 → WV 60-180 days → Extra 10% OFF → $75-100/day
Adset #5 → FB & IG PE 1-30 days → $75-100/day
Adset #6 → FB & IG PE 30-60 days → $75-100/day
Adset #7 → FB & IG PE 60-360 days → $75-100/day
Adset #8 → VV 95% → $75-100/day
Adset #9 → VV 75% → $75-100/day
Adset #10 → VV 3 sec → $75-100/day
Tip: You need to exclude different audiences to avoid overlap
DPA Pixel Targeting Campaign:
Adset #1 → Stacked winning Interest → Season/ Best selling products → $100/day
Adset #2 → Broad → Season/ Best selling products → $100/day
Adset #3 → PV 180 days → Season/ Best selling products → $100/day
Adset #4 → FB & IG PE 360 days → Season/ Best selling products → $100/day
Conclusion
Relying on the compound scaling strategy allowed Ismael to scale his ad account and generate $2 100 000 in sales in the 3 months of Q1 while maintaining a healthy 3.0 ROAS.
Ismael used the Reveal Bot tool to generate the campaign rules and Hyros for tracking his campaigns.
