Scaling an e-commerce store can be challenging for starters and mid-level media buyers, but not impossible. One effective strategy that businesses can use to increase their revenue is Side-Step Scaling (SS-Scaling).
In this article, Ryan Steenburgh, a media buyer, e-commerce entrepreneur, and founder of the Ryan Dale Media marketing team, explains the Side Step Scaling strategy. He covers the process of testing before implementing SS-Scaling, the metrics that indicate performance, and how to execute SS-Scaling to generate additional revenue.
Ryan Steenburgh
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Let's dive into this article...
Part 1: Testing
Before implementing SS-Scaling, testing is crucial to identify the target audience that converts. The testing process involves 10 - 12 different audiences and 27 different creative variations with a 3x3x3 dynamic creative setup. The setup includes one campaign and five ad sets, with each ad set having three headlines, three creatives, and three copy angles.
It’s set up like this:
1 CAMPAIGN
ADSET 1 ->> AD (3 headlines, 3 creatives, 3 copy angles)
ADSET 2 ->> AD (3 headlines, 3 creatives, 3 copy angles)
ADSET 3 ->> AD (3 headlines, 3 creatives, 3 copy angles)
ADSET 4 ->> AD (3 headlines, 3 creatives, 3 copy angles)
ADSET 5 ->> AD (3 headlines, 3 creatives, 3 copy angles)
That’s how we find winning audiences.
Once at least five audiences have been proven to convert, businesses can proceed with the offer tests. This involves an ABO campaign and five ad sets, with each ad set having a dynamic ad/offer. If the budget allows, the offer ads can be tested at $100/day per ad set.
From there it’s setup like this:
ABO Campaign
ADSET 1 ->> AD/Offer 1 (dynamic)
ADSET 2 ->> AD/Offer 1 (dynamic)
ADSET 3 ->> AD/Offer 1 (dynamic)
ADSET 4 ->> AD/Offer 1 (dynamic)
ADSET 5 ->> AD/Offer 1 (dynamic)
However, if the budget does not allow it, a creative builder campaign can be created where all ads are crafted, and the post IDs are put inside each ad set.
If you can’t, just create a multi-offer campaign and let FB do the sorting.
The setup for that would look like this:
ABO Campaign
ADSET 1 ->> AD/Offer 1 - Ad/Offer 2 - etc etc
ADSET 2 ->> AD/Offer 1 - Ad/Offer 2 - etc etc
ADSET 3 ->> AD/Offer 1 - Ad/Offer 2 - etc etc
ADSET 4 ->> AD/Offer 1 - Ad/Offer 2 - etc etc
ADSET 5 ->> AD/Offer 1 - Ad/Offer 2 - etc etc
Part 2: Identifying Winners
The metrics to determine the performance of an ad set include ROAS/Cost per purchase metric, CPC, CTR, and CPM. Businesses can cut ad sets around half their price per product based on CPC/CTR if the budget does not allow running the ad set for at least one day.
For instance, if the account history has a $1.50 CPC (link clicks), and the offer test's CPC is $3.00 at $15-20 in spend (1 000 total impressions), the ad set will be cut. This is because all the back-end metrics are likely to be too expensive to run.
Part 3: SS-Scaling
Once you have identified the winning campaigns, it's time to implement the Side-Step Scaling (SSS) technique to take your e-commerce brand to the next level. SSS is a technique that allows you to quickly and sustainably scale your campaigns without risking the performance of your account.
Most people either try to scale the test campaign they found winners in or create new tests, but this approach is time-consuming and can be costly. On the other hand, SSS enables you to create three different scale campaigns that are initially lower-budget CBOs.
- Campaign 1
The first campaign is a plain CBO that maximizes conversions and spends approximately 70% of the total ad set budget on the top three ad sets from your test.
>> CAMPAIGN 1 - Plain CBO, maximize conversions, ~70% of what your total adset budget was on the top 3 adsets from your test
The second campaign is a CBO bid cap that requires a bid cap of 3-5x your average cost per purchase.
>> CAMPAIGN 2 - CBO BID CAP - Bid cap needs to be 3-5x your average cost per purchase
Finally, the third campaign is an ABO bid cap that requires a bid cap of 3-5x your average cost per purchase for each ad set.
>> CAMPAIGN 3 - ABO BID CAP Bid cap needs to be 3-5x your average cost per purchase (for each adset)
It's essential to note that you should not massively scale your budgets just because you're confident it will work. Instead, you should start with these three campaigns and monitor their performance closely. Typically, only one of these campaigns will perform well and scale.
Ryan used this very strategy to scale a campaign by over $900 000 in just 60 days making it earn a total of slightly over $1 150 000 in revenue.
By implementing SSS, you can scale your campaigns quickly, sustainably, and without risking the performance of your account. This technique has helped many e-commerce brands achieve remarkable results and generate significant revenue in a short amount of time.
Conclusion
E-commerce businesses can use Side-Step Scaling to generate additional revenue. Testing before implementing SS-Scaling is vital to identify the target audience that converts, and metrics like ROAS/Cost per purchase metric, CPC, CTR, and CPM are used to determine the ad set's performance.
Implementing SS-Scaling involves creating three different scale campaigns with lower budget CBOs. Scaling campaigns too quickly without proper testing and confidence can be detrimental to businesses.
