Why paid ads are important for your product-based business

Headshot of business woman Amanda Perry,

The world of digital marketing can be a confusing and complicated space and just knowing where to start can feel quite daunting.

Luckily, thanks to brilliant Digital Marketing Specialists like Amanda Perry, you’ll be able to navigate paid ads through ongoing learning, mentorship, support, and advice.

Described ‘like having an agency in your pocket’, Amanda founded The E-com Growth Hub to help smaller businesses take control of and successfully manage their own profitable digital marketing campaigns that work for their business. She also run digital marketing agency SOUP.

Here we chat with the entrepreneur and small business champion about her thriving community, Facebook retargeting, what to consider during COVID-19 and tools to know about.

How does The E-com Growth Hub help brands?

The E-com Growth Hub helps product businesses and brands grow online through Facebook ads. The hub is based on the 3 C’s; course, coaching and community. The course is an 8 module, in-depth self-paced course that will take you from beginner to having set up your first funnel. That’s where the second C comes in - coaching.

We have daily ads troubleshooting call where we screen share with the members and advise them on next steps to improve their ads, we also have a team of around 8 coaches who hold monthly calls covering everything from SEO to mindset, Instagram to PR (with the fabulous Rosie!) and everything in between.

The third C is the community, which is just so important - when you join the hub you know that everyone in there has either been through what you are going through and found a solution, or they are going through it right now!

We have some incredible wins in there and it is amazing to see brands finally understand how to grow their businesses!

Woman looking confused by maths equations

How much should brands be spending on ads per month?

This is a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question :) I guess the answer is - as much as you can afford to lose to begin with because there will always be a period of testing. DO NOT make the mistake of expecting to go from £10k a month to £100k overnight, even though some will tell you that it’s possible - it isn’t.

What exactly is Facebook retargeting? 

Retargeting is possible by using the Facebook pixel (a piece of code that sits on your website and tracks visitor behaviour). When we talk about retargeting, it means showing your customer content based on their behaviour on your site, for example - if someone has just visited your site and browsed, you would show the different content to if they had added to basked or put their payment details in. This is where the funnel comes in, the funnel relates to the journey a customer takes that leads them to purchase your product.

A mobile phone showing a potted plant

Credit: patchplants.com

Is it fine to roll out paid ads during this time? And is there anything brands should be extra careful with or wary of?

More than fine! We are seeing incredible results right now. One word of warning though - lead with empathy and sensitivity, both in copy and creative. Messaging should be directly addressing your customer pinpoints right now (which are very different from what they were a couple of weeks ago)

Highlight how you can be HELPFUL during this time, ie: sending the item directly to the recipient, adding in a gift card, etc.

What digital marketing tools should brands use or consider?

Here are the tools we often use to create our ads:

Canva: for creative, this is so quick and easy to use and although we also use Photoshop, this is becoming our go-to as they add more and more features (background delete is our saviour for product images!)

Wave.video: This is great for creating short videos for ads and you can include branding and text to talk about your product (be careful to not add more than 20% text or your video will get rejected by Facebook)

Momento: This is a brilliant app that will allow you to create short gifs or videos from images. This is great for adding movement into your creative and quick testing.

Is it better to use still images or videos for paid ads? 

This one really comes down to testing and will be different for different brands. We would always test out images, videos, and carousels as a first option, then look at slideshows and canvases next.


Ready to boost your e-com business? The E-com Growth Hub is a training program designed for any product business looking to grow their monthly revenue. Through coaching, guidance and community support Amanda and her team offer you everything you need to reach your goals, and achieve your success.


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