Shalene Massie is the founder of Rhythm of Birth and Postpartum Journey. She is a doula as well as a birth and postpartum educator.

And, she personally gave me fabulous tips for my own delivery and postpartum time surrounding the birth of my baby boy!

Today we’ll be chatting about how she grew her online business using Facebook ads.

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00:45 - A Passion is Born  

Shalene got started in the birth world when she was living in South Sudan, Africa with her family. She found out she was pregnant and thought, “You know, so many women give birth without the option of medical care. I want to experience birth in a primitive culture.” When she came back to the States, she knew she wanted to hire a doula to assist in her birth.

Living in a new culture also made Shalene want to learn as much about birth as she could. She knew she might be called on if someone was in labor - in South Sudan, it’s all hands on deck - and wanted to be as prepared as possible. Unfortunately, she, her husband, and daughter had to evacuate South Sudan due to warfare. But on the plane back, Shalene knew she could carry that passion with her. She knew it was time to start her doula training.

Shalene’s family moved back to the states in 2012, and she jumped right in. To date she has attended about 114 births and has been teaching for five years.

2:55 - In-Person Business to Online Business

One of Shalene’s greatest business successes is that from the time she started, she’s been able to stay constantly busy with her in-person doula clients and classes. Her doula training process lasted three years, and after that time she needed to decide how to grow her practice. Shalene was at capacity with her in-person clients, so she turned to the online world.

Shalene says she actually started backwards. Though she teaches birth classes, she started an online postpartum class. There is a huge gap of information related to the postpartum period, and her class grew like wild!

4:24 - Shalene’s Facebook Ads Strategy

A popular way to use Facebook ads is to get new webinar sign ups, which also builds an email list. Shalene did just that for her postpartum class.

About four to five months ago, she ran Facebook ads to a webinar signup page.

Shalene had a videographer help her create a video ad that she felt was powerful and this really increased the number of people who signed up for her webinar. She was pleased with how the ads were working.

Shalene is a student of our FB Brilliance course, and says she learned a TON of information in that course to guide her ad development and lead generation strategy.

(Side note: Shalene says that since FB Brilliance, she’s become very geeky when she looks at other websites, wondering, “Are they using Facebook pixels!? Are they targeting me?!” You’ll have to listen to this episode for a great business idea Shalene and I cooked up!)

And just a reminder, statistics say only 6% of businesses on Facebook are currently using ads. There’s a huge opportunity out there!

6:54 - Shalene’s Successful Facebook Ad

Let’s dive right into Shalene’s ad to see why it was so successful.

Ad Copy: Hello pregnant mama! Join a free, live, postpartum planning webinar.

(She gets right to the point and says ‘this is who I’m talking to’. That’s one thing that’s so important with ads! Talk ONLY to your ideal customer. Ok, back to the ad!)

“In preparing for baby, I spent so much time thinking about the birth that it’s easy to forget about the weeks of change after baby comes home. If you’re expecting, sign up for this webinar pronto! - New Mama” (Confession: that new mama was me!)

In this webinar, you’ll learn 5 ways to begin planning for your postpartum transition and life after your baby is born, a secret myth about postpartum, how to feel at peace and minimize the risk of postpartum depression, and 5 things you’ll be so glad to know postpartum. Plus, get a fun, free gift at the end of the webinar.

If you can’t make the webinar live, sign up to get the reply sent to your inbox.

Click this link to join a tribe of mamas for postpartum planning: (LINK)

(There are so many killer strategies Shalene uses in this ad: bolding important words, incentivizing viewers to stay til the end, and adding a sense of mystery.)

Headline: Free, live postpartum webinar.

And then she has her bit.ly link, and the fabulous video she created along with her videographer.

10:35 - Stats for Shalene’s Ad

Shalene has 64 likes, a few hearts, 23 shares, and 8,200 views on this particular video ad.

These stats are really solid! Trust me, even ads I run to 100,000 people don’t always get that amount of sharing!

If you’re outside of the business space, sometimes you really do have an advantage. People don’t share business webinars with their friend! But if they have a pregnant friend, they’ll share a great free class with them in their feed.

11:42 - Shalene’s Video Ad

Shalene’s video opens up with soft, lovely, music and a full-screen logo for her brand, Postpartum Journey.

She cuts to scenes of women caring for their newborns, and then text throughout, “Anxious about the postpartum transition…and caring for your baby? Feeling overwhelmed? 50%-80% of new mothers experience some form of anxiety or depression during the postpartum period, and many women find it hard to immediately bond and connect with their newborn.”

(That stat REALLY hits the pain point of her ideal customer, doesn’t it!? If someone was on the fence, she’s really reminding them that they need to take time for her class.)

And then we see the face of a new mother against a white background. She says, “You’re stronger than you think you are, and more equipped for this than you realize.”

And another mother saying, “You can do this. You are so much stronger than you realize. And you’re beautiful, too. The beauty comes from that strength.”

Then text on top of a lovely scene of Shalene helping a new mother, “Confidence and guidance in caring for your baby.”

Then cut to a mother giving her new baby a bath with a caption that says, “Peace of mind...” followed by more scenes of mothers and newborns, “as you care for your baby, and enjoy your postpartum experience.”

Then a shot of a hand tracing an outline, “Preparing your heart.”

We see a mother from earlier in the video telling viewers, “Be gentle with yourself.”

Then we see Shalene’s lovely face with these words, “You are beautiful and you are strong.”

Then a text slide outlining the details of Shalene’s class:

• Postpartum Plan
• Nutrition
• Setting Up Nursery
• Baby Basics
• Placenta Encapsulation
• Stories
• Encouragement
• Family Preparation
• Newborn Care Procedures
• Postpartum Depression
• Infant Sleep Consulting
• Healing and Strengthening after Pregnancy
• Babymoon
• Returning to Work

Followed by another text slide which reads, “This program is a great way to begin your preparation and learn ways to practically, emotionally, and mentally to prepare for the postpartum transition.”

Visit courses.postartumjourney.com to register.

WOW!  This is a jam-packed video that really conveys the value of what Shelene offers!

13:50 - Creating a Video Ad on a Budget

I was so impressed with Shalene’s video, I just had to know how she created it. “It was an exciting endeavour!” she says.

Shalene’s videographer worked for Virginia Tech, and lived close to her. Turns out, his wife was pregnant, so they traded services! He also taught her a lot about video editing, so she had skills she could take with her for future business videos.

Shalene turned to former clients to act as the stars of her video. And we love her strategy for getting the most out of the videos she recorded. During one longer video shoot she recorded a ‘10 Baby Basics’ videos. She ultimately included this content in one of her courses (genius!)

Along with recording the ‘10 Baby Basics’ video, Shalene asked about 10-12 women to come into her makeshift home studio and asked them to record words of validation or encouragement for other mothers.

A few scenes of the mothers giving encouragement, as well as clips from her ‘Baby Basics’ footage, made the final cut for Shalene’s video ad. (And you can bet a beautiful montage of those moms made it into her online course!)

So to recap, Shalene used several brilliant strategies to create her video ad:

• Trading services. This way, everyone can let their skills shine and get what they need - it’s brilliant.
• Thinking ahead to repurposing content. Shalene created course videos by using these generous ladies and their babies, but also took bits and pieces of those videos to create an ad.
• Something we didn’t mention earlier: Shalene got photo and video release forms signed by all participating clients.

18:11 - Shalene’s Crazy Good Cost Per Lead

I love talking numbers, so let’s get to it. (And if you’re on the fence about video ads, this will be the kicker to convince you!)

Shalene received 354 webinar signups from a cold audience, which means these were brand new people who had never heard of Shalene or her classes before. She got each of those leads for an average cost per lead of $1.38.

These are fabulous stats, guys. And this was the very first ad Shalene ran!

Another thing to point out:  Sometimes the number of leads you get can increase over the following week or so. Even with the campaign off you can get a few more along the way from people sharing the post or tagging their friends. Pretty cool!

20:40 - Targeting Audiences

Let’s dive into the audiences Shalene targeted for her ads.  

BabyCenter is an app and website for new and expecting parents. Shalene targeted fans and people with an “interest” in this website. Note:  When you target a particular website interest on Facebook, you’re not just reaching everyone who ever liked that Facebook page, Facebook is so genius they’ll be sure to show your ad to people who have also visited that website very recently too.

Other interests Shalene targeted: the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and the general interest of ‘Natural Childbirth’.

Another brilliant move by Shalene:  She created a webinar lookalike audience. To quickly define, a webinar lookalike is a Facebook audience created by users who look similar to your webinar attendees. You can create one by uploading your list of webinar signups in the audiences section of Power Editor.

Surprisingly though, Shalene’s webinar lookalike didn’t generate leads! She reached about 663 people but had no signups. Like any smart business owner, Shalene quickly pivoted her strategy, turned off that ad set, and focused on ad sets that were generating affordable leads.

A quick note if you’re discouraged that you don’t have a big enough audience to create an effective lookalike, don’t despair! You can create a strong lookalike audience by creating a lookalike of your customers.

This audience can be small but mighty ecause you already know those people are interested in your products and not just freebie seekers. And chances are, people similar to them will also be interested in purchasing from you too!

Shalene also targeted the online app and community The Bump.

And an especially brilliant ad set that she created with the help of a friend:  Her friend suggested to target people looking at psychological-based material on Facebook, and add in the filter of pregnancy. This is so smart because Shalene’s course is largely geared toward moms wanting to avoid postpartum depression and other psychological complications after birth. Such a smart strategy!

Finally, Shalene created a super broad audience to target of pregnant women. She then narrowed this audience to:

• Women living in the United States
• Ages 24-35
• Who make at least $50K per year

Then Shalene excluded people matching one of the following criteria:

• Already had children
• New parents
• Parents with toddlers
• Parents with preschoolers
• Parents with adult children

She did this to reach women who were expecting a baby for the very first time, but hadn’t had that baby just yet.

Even with this narrowed audience, Shalene’s potential reach was 3.4 million people!

Bottom line, your business shouldn’t have any trouble finding audiences to target! The sky is the limit when it comes to who you can reach on Facebook (and why shouldn’t it be with more than 2 billion active monthly users?!)

28:20 - How did the Audience Targeting Go?

As we mentioned previously, Shalene’s lookalike audience did not produce any leads. From the leads she did receive, Shalene paid anywhere from $1.26 per lead at her lowest (from The Bump US ad set) up to $4.66 per lead (from Natural Childbirth General Interest).

This range does have a huge variation, but it’s actually very good! Shalene’s ad and copy are very compelling. It’s easy for a new Facebook advertiser to try 5 different ad sets, but maybe none of them work. And it’s not that the ad itself isn’t good, it’s just that some audiences don’t respond.

One of the biggest factors that will determine your success with Facebook ads is your ability to continue testing new audiences to find the biggest winners!

For future ads, Shalene asked her current clients what top apps or pages they follow, and will target those audiences. SO smart!

31:22 - Setting an Ads Budget

Shalene’s ads started on just $5 per day for each ad set. (To refresh:  Each audience she targeted hangs out in its own ad set) and she increased her ad set budget from there as her ads performed well. Once Shalene identified those top ad sets, she came up with a budget that felt comfortable to her and stuck with it.

Drawing in attendees to her webinar through ads worked well, but Shalene learned an important nuance to her ads strategy:  She set her campaign too far in advice for the webinar in hopes of getting more attendees.

Shalene discovered that she needed to narrow the time frame between sign up and webinar. To prove the point, her very first webinar had 100 signups and 20 live viewers. The next webinar, with the longer lead time, had 300 signups but only 10 live viewers.

With a longer time span between signup and webinar date, people were more likely to forget about her class! A valuable lesson learned. Shalene says she’ll only do a 7-10 day window for future webinar ads.

(Just a side note here:  Even a year ago it was easier to get live viewers to my webinars! The online business world is constantly changing and competing for people’s time and attention continues to get more difficult, but being committed to experiment and adjust as needed will help you to succeed.)

33:35 - A BIG Lesson Learned

While Shalene’s ads were on point, she didn’t see the sales numbers she was hoping for after her webinars. The reason? Her site wasn’t truly optimized for conversions.

Shalene didn’t have a video about her or her courses on any of the pages. So while she got a decent amount of traffic, people didn’t buy because they didn’t know enough about Shalene.

In the last 6 months she’s really taken the lead on strengthening her business in this area! She recorded a ton of sales, welcome, and thank you videos. Now, Shalene’s site is much more inviting to potential customers.

(At BBM, we are constantly tweaking our site and our pre and post webinar sequences. There is so much to that! It’s a conscious and continuous process.)

Simply put, there’s more to the sale than a Facebook ad to get an email subscriber. Of the people who attended Shalene’s webinar, she had a 10% conversion rate. That’s truly a fabulous rate! But now she’s got to work on getting people to show up live and tightening up her site for even more sales.

37:30 - How Shalene Serves Clients and Her Family Well

One of the best decisions Shalene ever made was to hire a nanny. Having a nanny on retainer is THE reason Shalene says she can meet clients during the day, and live an on-call lifestyle.

She used to pray and be on pins and needles that her clients would deliver in the evenings when her husband got home. And now, she doesn’t worry a bit!

Shalene did increase her fees to account for this expense, but she thinks it’s an absolute necessity for Mamapreneurs, particularly if you’re serving clients. Add this expense into your business budget for peace of mind.

39:50 - Plans for New Ad Campaigns?

I seriously can’t wait to see how Shalene’s next Facebook Ad Campaign goes when she tweaks her entire sales system!

She says she may not use a webinar as a freebie, but has a huge library of resources to offer via Facebook ads. She’s working with a business coach this month to answer those very questions.

We are so excited for Shalene’s testing of sales funnels. (We’re also testing new funnels constantly!) We can’t wait to see how her growth mindset, continuous testing, and heart for pregnant and new Moms helps her to scale her business over the next year!

42:10 - Shalene’s Adorable Mom Moment

It means so much to Shalene that her husband and daughters really support what she does. Especially with the crazy, on-call life of a doula. In fact, her family was so supportive they hustled to get her to a Christmas Day birth! You’ll have to tune in to hear how this whirlwind story turns out.

Connect with Shalene

PostpartumJourney.com

15% OFF Discount Code: BrilliantPP

A Free Labor Land Guide: bit.ly/laborprep

Goodness! I always feel like I have so much content to teach you all, that I constantly want to do solo episodes. I almost feel greedy to take over the podcast schedule...but not THAT greedy!!!

Let’s get to it!

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0:30 - The Struggle We All Face

The constant struggle we all face is getting more sales.Of course we need to make sales (we’re running businesses!) but we don't want to get the sale by being annoying or manipulative.

I often hear Mamapreneurs say, “I’m just not that great at marketing.” or “Selling just isn’t my strong suit.” And they almost use those phrases to excuse away the fact that their product sales just aren’t great.

Here’s the thing.

You don’t have to be great at marketing or selling to see great results!

What I want for you is to create an amazing, fabulous new product. I want you to structure a product launch that makes your audience crazy excited, gets them to show up, and leads them to buy your new product in crazy numbers. And you feel GREAT because you haven’t pressured them, you’ve not once been pushy or manipulative.

But you can only accomplish this goal by having an organized process in place that helps you launch your product well.

2:30 - Big Business Misconception

One of the biggest misconceptions in business is when business owners say, “I’ll create this awesome product. I know my audience wants it.” But they don't follow through to part two. Creating a product is great! But that’s only one part of the equation. You still have to build excitement for that fabulous product and give your potential customers a reason to come and buy NOW.

People will always have a reason to not buy immediately. That won’t help you or your business! And frankly, it won’t help your customers because you’ve got something fabulous for them and they need it in their hands as soon as possible!

In this episode, we’re going to talk about 3 ways you can get your audience excited about your new product.

3:36 - #1 Hint at What’s Coming

The first way you can get people excited about your new product is to hint at what’s coming.

Use the principle of curiosity and pique the interest of your customers. You want people to know you’ve got something secret you’re working on. You’re testing and experimenting behind the scenes, and something exciting is happening. People love that sense of intrigue!

Ways you can do this:

• Share a photo of your computer screen. Maybe you cover most of the screen and show just a glimpse of the landing page you’re working on or your new course.
• Share shots of sketches, or bits of a new material you’re working with.
• Instagram stories are a great way to show behind-the-scenes of your shop.
• Use the P.S. line in your emails to hint at what’s head. (P.S. I’m working on something extra special, more news next month!)
• A fun twist to building curiosity: ask your customers what they think the new product might be!

But the big rule is this: DON’T GIVE THE WHOLE THING AWAY AT ONCE!

Most people spend so much time creating the product, but they put no time or energy into getting people ready to enjoy their product.

You can’t work, work, work, and then - Surprise! - give your audience this product they weren’t ready for. You’re almost catching them off guard.

Use the weeks, or even months, before your product comes out to prep your audience for the excitement ahead.

6:01 - #2 Get Your Audience Involved

You can actually get your audience involved in the creation of your product, and that goes a long way towards building excitement. You want customers to feel like they’ve had a part in creating the product which gives them a sense of pride and ownership in your business.

It might seem counterintuitive to the previous point, but both methods can happen at different stages in your customer journey. And if you time it correctly, your audience may not even remember exactly what you asked their input over by the time you build curiosity about the upcoming launch.

We’ve got several ways for you to get customers involved - and invested - in your product creation:

• Use a free survey tool like Google Forms to run an audience survey. While there are other paid options, like SurveyMonkey, you’ll actually have a good bit of options without spending money.
• A fun way to integrate social media and surveys is to use the app Polls for Pages by Facebook. Just search ‘Polls for Pages’ using the Facebook search bar. You’ll have the ability to ask practically any type of survey question you can think of, powered free of charge to you by Facebook. (Hint: Brilliant Business Moms did this back in June! What we heard from you is that you needed cost-effective tools to help you grow your business. And you needed time effective tools, since you’re busy ladies. In our Polls of Pages survey, we also asked what you wanted to learn about, and the highest voted topic was social media. That’s how we created our latest class, How To Be Brilliant On Social Media! This class was a huge hit because we delivered information our customers directly asked for.)
• When my sister and I wrote our first book, Time Management Mama, we involved the community at every level of development. We constantly asked in our Facebook group for advice and tips from our audience, and we included that collective wisdom in our book. This type of crowdsourcing really got people invested and willing to share with friends
• Another strategy we’ve used is to invite our customers to vote on covers of both our book and yearly planner. Inviting customers to vote on how your product looks is a simple and fun way to include them! You can ask their opinions about anything from covers, to packaging, to style.

11:30 - #3 Give Samples To Loyal Customers and Influencers Ahead of Time

Giving an early look or sample of your product to influencers or loyal customers who always rave about your business is a really smart move.

Oftentimes, you’ll see this happening with book releases. An author almost always sends out advanced release copies of her book to a group of people she knows will post great pictures and honest reviews of the upcoming release. (Which also taps into the building curiosity we talked about in #1!) People want to be in on the secret. You can use this strategy with any physical product, or online course, as well.

13:25 -  Surprise! A 4th Way To Get People Excited!

I know I said I’d give you three ways to launch your product, but I’m so excited I’ve got a fourth! This may seem like a no-brainer, but make your launch date solid, and start mentioning it several weeks ahead of time if you can.

What I often see happen is a business owner gets the first few tips right, they have their product in the hands of influencers and have been hinting at it, but they’ll say things like ‘Coming Soon!’ or ‘Coming Next Month!’ That guesstimate is way less powerful than giving people an actual date.

You want them to put a date on a calendar. Make your launch an event, and get people ready and waiting to grab your new thing! When you open the cart, you want customers who are ready to go and rushing to the page the day your product is live.

And as you can guess, there’s a lot more I can teach on the subject of launches!

15:30 - Introducing Our Newest Mini-Class

I’m happy to announce our newest mini class is here! Last month we did a live class, How To Be Brilliant On Social Media, and it got rave reviews.

This month our mini-class is:

Brilliant Product Launches: Throw your Product the Party it Deserves + Earn Passionate Customers in the Process

And, as of today, the cart is open! You can get your ticket for $15.

The class will be held LIVE on Thursday, August 24th at 6pm PT and 9pm ET.

If you can’t show up live, still snag your ticket before Thursday, August 24th because we’ll be selling replays after that for $27. When you grab your ticket now, you’ll get access to the class and bonuses forever!

bit.ly/bbmlaunchclass

In Brilliant Product Launches you'll learn:

- How Launching a New Product is just like Christmas (plus how to ensure you're not coming across like the grinch!)

- How to Build Excitement and FREE marketing around your product.

- How to use Simple Psychology to Give your Customers just what they want

- How to Launch in a Way that has your Customers Thanking You (instead of running away in horror!)

(This happens to us at BBM every time!)

- Grab Plug and Play Strategies that you can use to Build Buzz so you'll have a Launch toolbox at your fingertips

(I don’t want to give you 20 exact ways to launch a product. That’s actually a lie! There are lots of ways to do it, and you have to figure out what works for you and your audience.  We’ll teach you principles, but you won’t feel frustrated over not being able to jump through tons of hoops.)

- Get Real Life Examples of my Own Product Launches and their results

(Even the ones that didn’t do well!)

Plus, we’ve got some wonderful bonuses for you:

• Email swipe copy for all different kinds of products from all price ranges
• Email templates to know what to say and when to help you get the sale
• Landing page template to know how to show off your product in the very best light
• Product launch checklists so you can know how to prepare for your launch, including: photoshoots, the graphics you need to create, what landing pages you need to create, and so on

We hope to see you in class!

22:30 - What Our Past Students Are Saying

Our social media class received some rave reviews, and I’ll share a few with you.

“I really loved the class. I’ve done a lot of research on social media, so I thought I knew a lot, but you really broke it down and the lightbulbs started to go off for me.”

• Jamie

“Class was fantastic and chock full of goodness and goodies as always.”

• An Anonymous Student

It means so much to me that this last student said our class was great ‘as always’! We work really hard around here to be so confident that our products will wow you, our refund policy is rock solid. If you’re not amazed, we don’t feel right keeping your money. Period.

Thanks for turning into this episode. I hope we’ll see you in class!

Brilliant Product Launches - Throw your Product the Party it Deserves + Earn Passionate Customers in the Process

bit.ly/bbmlaunchclass

Have you written off Facebook or Instagram ads as “just not for you”?

I want to encourage you to take a look at ads with fresh eyes this month as we explore how many different types of Mamapreneurs are using them to build their businesses.

You’ll hear from Etsy sellers, designers and membership site owners, bloggers and eBook writers, and course creators.

All of them are scrappy Mamapreneurs working with tight budgets - just like you! And all of them are finding success with Facebook and Instagram ads.

On this episode, we’ll hear from Melissa Kaiserman, who’s using Facebook and Instagram ads to bring in more sales for her Handmade Cash Envelope Organizers.

Melissa sells an affordably-priced product, and she’s able to bring in brand new people to her shop and make profitable sales.

Press play on the podcast player below to learn how you can make sales using ads too!

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If you've been around Brilliant Business Moms for long, you probably know Melissa Kaiserman. She’s basically an honorary team member of Brilliant Business Moms and an active member of our Facebook group -- always ready to answer questions and help people out.

It’s been way too long since we had her on the show and we're so glad she's here today. (Three years, can you believe it!?)

Melissa is the Etsy shop owner of A Time for Everything, where she sells amazing cash wallet systems for adults and kids. She’s also the founder of Makery Space, an online business providing practical help for Etsy Sellers.

Follow her on Facebook to watch her wonderful weekly show, Etsy + 1. She’s a total pro when it comes to selling on Etsy successfully.

Since most of you know Melissa already, let’s dive right in.

1:20 - Using Facebook Ads in Her Business

Melissa enrolled in FB Brilliance but had a slow start to actually running her own ads. Her fear of getting something wrong, and hesitancy to do the work knowing it would require tweaking, stopped her for several months. But in the summer of 2016, she decided to dive in.

The very first campaign she ran, she targeted interests that she thought would be a good match for her product. She knew people who followed organizational blogs would be her ideal target market. Interestingly, not as many budget-conscious folks who follow Dave Ramsey or frugal blogs buy her products, since they’re not big spenders. Melissa’s campaign targeting organizational groups did okay, giving her a cost per click in the $0.20 range.

Then she decided to do a lookalike audience of her email list. She had been building her list for a while with content centered around living on a budget and, naturally, her blog matched her shop well. Once she targeted a lookalike audience, Melissa’s cost per click went down to $0.08! “This is a lot smarter way to target my ad set!” she thought, rather than focusing on a general interest.

Finding that perfect combination is all part of the learning process. And thanks to Melissa’s commitment to test and not give up, one of her biggest wins was right ahead.

She decided to do a Christmas campaign and then she decided she would use her customers as a lookalike audience. She downloaded her orders from Etsy and uploaded the customers to Facebook and Facebook was then able to create a lookalike audience. This audience was even more targeted than an email list since it was created from the emails of actual purchasers. Her cost per click in that campaign was around $0.04! And to cold traffic! You guys, that’s crazy!

4:00 - Defining a Lookalike Audience

Let’s stop for a moment and define what a lookalike audience is, for those who may not know.

To build a lookalike audience, you give Facebook a piece of data, for example, Melissa’s customer list, and what Facebook does is take the people you have and go find you about a million other people on Facebook who are really similar to that initial bunch. Then, Facebook shows your ad to those similar people. You can see why lookalike audiences are so powerful!

4:50 - Womp, Womp. A Few Bummers!

With Etsy, you can’t directly track how people get to your shop. (Although, following our advice, she sent people to a page on her blog and then redirected to her Etsy shop.)

However, Melissa could see her shop sales and traffic increase during the time frame her ads ran, and she realized “here absolutely was a correlation, even though she couldn’t pinpoint one for one.”

Another slight bummer, Melissa noticed her cost per click did go back up after the first of the year. It was hard to get back to that $0.04 to $0.08 cost per click range. Her current campaign averages $0.09 per click.

Also using lookalike audiences, Melissa ran another set in the Spring that received about $0.12 a click. But still, Melissa is happy with the performance of her lookalike audiences! Facebook knows what it’s doing!

6:58 - Melissa's Successful Ads

Let’s dive in and look at some of the successful ads Melissa ran to drive traffic to her site at an amazing rate.

In this slideshow video ad, Melissa focused on her bread-and-butter cash wallet system. She showed a selection of those wallets in the slideshow. Her content appealed to the concept: “Are you trying to find the right envelope in your purse, but it’s a mess? Try something that’s pretty and will last for years!”

For those listening, we’ll describe the ad below.

Ad: During the ad she shows the cash envelope at different angles, and at the end, she uses the tagline, “Find the beauty in budgeting.”

Body: Does living on a cash budget have you rummaging in your purse at the register for the right, beat-up, paper envelope? Find the beauty in budgeting with this handmade, laminated, cotton envelope system wallet that’s lovely, durable, and will last for years.

Headline: Organize your budget with a cash envelope system wallet.

Coupon Code: For Free US Shipping, Use the Code: FACEBOOK

(But Melissa tells us that only one person has ever redeemed that coupon code! Isn’t that interesting!?)

9:38 - What Program did Melissa Use to Make a Video Ad?

Melissa just used the native slideshow creator within Power Editor. That’s how easy it is to make an ad! Have fabulous product photos, upload them to Facebook, and let them do the heavy lifting for you.

10:08 - What Sales can She Attribute to Her Ad?

The only time she ever tried to figure a sales percent increase was from her ad campaign from last August. During that time period, she saw a 63% increase in sales from the same time frame a year prior.

Summer can be pretty slow for Etsy shops unless the shop is seasonally focused. What a great strategy to run ads to create sales during a slow time! The ad ran for just 5 days and had tremendous success.

Moody Sisters Skincare also used ads to overcome their summer slump, resulting in their best month ever! To go from a very slow month to the best is pretty cool! You really can get started at $5 a day.

12:30 - ROI

I know these questions are a bit theoretical, but I love asking them! Even if you can’t use the Facebook pixel on Etsy, you can still do detective work and see how it’s helping your shop. Especially if you're getting affordable clicks like Melissa!

So, doing guesswork while looking at her Etsy sales, Melissa compared the difference in sales from the same time period in previous years. That’s where she came up with that 63% increase we mentioned earlier. Her return on investment was 5 times what she spent on ads, which was $50. And, half of her ad sets were the organizing interest sets that weren’t as effective. The other half was her highly effective lookalike audience.

Because this particular ad was so effective, Melissa has kept the same ad and changed the copy a bit as needed. For example, at Christmas, she might mention how her wallets are a great gift. She also changed her coupon to be more versatile and simple. Melissa now uses the same ad and ad set repeatedly and just runs it when she wants some more affordable traffic with targeted potential customers.

Can you see why ads are so fun!?

Melissa has received some criticism for not spending money on promoted listings. In general, her Etsy relevancy has always been pretty good and she shows up in search. For Melissa, why would she spend all her ad budget to get people already on Etsy to her shop? It’s more worthwhile to find people who haven’t gotten there yet and send them over.

15:56 - Pattern by Etsy and the Facebook Pixel

I wanted to talk some about Pattern, Etsy’s new selling platform, and the Facebook pixel. Melissa has the scoop! She recently started a free trial of Pattern. In the beginning, she wanted to try out Pattern but didn’t see great benefits right away.

At this point, the platform has gone through a few iterations, and Melissa can see the benefits.

Someone who can’t manage inventory or shipping for more than one shop would probably enjoy Pattern. You can send people to a domain without the distraction of Etsy. It’s your own space, in a way, but still connected to Etsy. Everything from inventory to orders to shipping is managed in one spot.

As of this recording, it is possible to install the Facebook pixel on Pattern. You can’t do the standard event code, but you can use your Pixel ID code. Pattern also allows for Google Analytics tracking, which is a huge advantage! If you have a Pattern shop, you could send people there directly and not to Etsy through a redirect, giving you a clearer picture of what’s happening.

Plus, you can get back in front of those who haven’t bought yet with retargeting ads!

18:29 - The Etsy Scoop

Melissa is our Go-To Etsy Expert! We had to get her take on what’s new at Etsy.  

“The main thing right now is that there’s a ton of testing and experimenting happening,” she says. Melissa cites tons of changes coming from Etsy since about February of this year, including:

• A New Shop Manager
• New Stats
• Yes Checkout
• even a CEO Turnover!

Through all the testing, Melissa’s best advice is to be patient and hang in there. Don’t panic and don’t go changing a bunch of things.

Often Melissa says she’ll see something tested and then hear people making definitive statements about a change Etsy made. Don’t panic over theories! Keep doing what you're doing that’s working well.

Sometimes you can make small changes, but don’t stress about them. For instance, Attributes is a new factor Etsy added that affects relevancy. This feature is actively being tested and constantly changes. They haven’t made any permanent changes, but you can choose attributes that might naturally fit the listing. Don’t stress!

This is exactly the kind of stuff she addresses in her Etsy + 1 show... it’s on Thursdays at noon Pacific. She addresses Etsy changes, her thoughts about it, and practical applications. Like Makery Space on Facebook to catch the show.

(Isn’t Melissa totally an encyclopedia of information!?)

23:16 - Melissa’s Adorable Mom Moment

Right before recording, Melissa had a funny moment! Turns out that one of her teenagers with YouTube ambitions had swiped her recording equipment, and Melissa was scrambling to find the pieces before our interview!