E-Commerce Follow Along - Silver Jewelry [MY] (10)
Hi guys.
I'm Ten from Malaysia. A little about myself. I'm 28, and had been actively trying my best to make Affiliate Marketing my full time career for the past 6 months +. I had dabbled in 7Search and POF, with little success. Currently I'm making the transition to mobile display.
Two years back, my GF hated her work so much that I hired a web developer and developed a website from scratch for her to sell jewelry. She has been doing e-commerce since 2012. However, the main stream of income for her business came from marketplaces (e.g. Lazada, Zalora, Groupon etc) while the website largely remained unused.
As I discovered and dabbled in affiliate marketing and subsequently joined STM, it opened up a whole level of possibilities for my GF's biz and the website. As I was juggling my full time work, and POF previously, I hired a marketing firm to launch and maintain managed Facebook ads on my behalf. I wouldn't say it was a total bad idea, as nett revenue vs ad spent was about at breakeven (0% ROI), with brand exposure. But I disagreed with the methods used by the marketing firm, as they did little to no split tests for everything, optimization, etc. Some days they just used 1 creative for the entire month. So, we parted ways, and I've decided to take things into my own hands, and be my website's first ever in-house affiliate.
So I spent MYR1500 (That's about USD400) to install an affiliate plugin in my website (so that I can really track conversions), and improved the sales funnel (included one page express checkout, live chat), minor changes here and there.
Would really appreciate all critiques and comments on the website (design, sales funnel, etc), campaign structure, everything 
Here goes a newbie!
Brand / Website: Vivere Rosse
Website category: Ecommerce (Silver jewelry), based in Malaysia / Singapore
USP: I'm going to market this brand as "The Experts in Affordable, Quality Silver Jewelry"
Budget per month: MYR2000 per month (about MYR60 per day) expenditure set aside for my ventures, assumed to be burnt for the sake of brand exposure. But will try my best, kicking and scratching, to net conversions with this budget.
Campaign #1:
For the first campaign, I will be doing CPS. I will try to promote Couple Rings, which is the most popular category among all products. Did some calculations and arrived at the 30% sweet spot as payout. Created an affiliate program that pays 30% CPS.
Campaign Structure: Will strictly follow Zeno's guide to structure this campaign.
Demography:
Will be targeting Females in MY, from age 18 to 35. Will split into two age groups: 18-25, and 26-35, assuming 18-25 age group's spending power should be lesser than the latter, as 26-35 aged ladies would be working by then.
Relationship Status: (edited)
In a Relationship and Engaged
Country: Malaysia
Interests: Just targeted Jewelry
Budget: MYR36/day (MYR9 per campaign x 4 active ad sets)
Placements: NF and RHS
Creatives: Created 5 creatives using product images from the website, with 3 active creatives in a campaign at one time (MYR3 per ad set. Is this too low?).
Ad copy: Same across all placements and ad sets.
Landing Page:
http://www.vivererosse.com/shopnow/couplerings.php as a pre-lander, after clicking CTA button will lead you to the Couple Ring's category page.
Tracking:
This is where I've struggled wit myself a lot. The free version of
Just submitted all ads for approval, will update with data after I get them. Thanks for reading this TL,DR post and I appreciate all feedbacks given!
-Ten
Hey good luck!
I see you are only targeting couples with your ads.
Goes with out saying than to target only girls in relationship.
Still try to play with the interests a bit so you can really target your right audience.
Also, I will try and use more standout creatives: Try a face closeup also i the pics and many other "strange" images as long as you have the rings on the side people will make the connection.
Also, there is no incentive for anyone to take action? Why not throw a 20% discount or better yet a 10$ gift card for those who come from Facebook for a limited time.
Looks good man, Good luck!
Interesting thread! Consider split testing more malaysian/singaporean-looking people on the images. Good luck
Originally Posted by kingkong1000
I would do it more national with local faces that is familar to the population, so people see its not an oversea company, its local...I think people would feel more comptible to order from you.
I am not sure I am following you. Are you trying to set up an external affiliate program for other affiliates? Or are you just trying to run your own marketing activities?
Hi Omrikos,
Thanks for the pointers! Yeah had overlooked targeting for relationship *facepalm that's what you get when you operate on 10 mugs of caffeine. Amended! Ads that my local competitors are running are all normal and predictable, as are my current set of creatives, so I guess weird strange images would really stand out. Noted for future split tests!
Hi King kong / Globejohan,
Hmm. I never thought of it using this perspective before. These images are taken straight from my suppliers, which I guess almost always feature Europeans. I'm sure I have a couple images lying around that's Asian though, such as below. Split test no.2!
Attachment 6224
Hi Cmdeal,
Yes and no. The affiliate plugin is designed as an external affiliate program. However currently I'm the only affiliate, given that we did not promote our affiliate program.. yet.
The original intention to get the plugin installed is to harness the reporting function to keep track of revenue from my FB marketing, as previously we couldn't really distinguish which conversions was driven by my marketing agency, which conversions occurred organically (is that the proper term).
Small updates: Ads are approved, gonna run them live at 12am (MYT, UTC+8). Thanks for the replies guys!
Edit: Oh, and I'm going to launch another campaign by using Multi-ads, featuring some best-sellers. Think this ad type is totally suitable for e-commerce websites like mine. Had anyone of you guys used it yet?
-Ten
First of all, let me say that you are being a great boyfriend. I really wish both of you the best success in their endeavour.
It is in this spirit that you should take my comments below which will be very honest:
These ads are weak.
They would be weak on most channels, both offline and online.
On a channel like Facebook however, they are TRULY poor.
These ads are just like the millions of ads that people ignore on Facebook every day. Think back to today ... if you logged into Facebook 10-12 time today you probably have seen up to 500+ ads. How many of those do you actually remember?
Exactly. You probably remember maybe 2-3. The rest of the 497 - 498 ads you have simply ignored. For most of your audience, your ad will be one of them.
Facebook marketing is distraction marketing. People are not on Facebook to look for and buy a product. They are there to gossip with their friends and share photos. So in order to succeed in distraction marketing you need to powerfully distract them enough with someone AS compelling to them as looking photos of them and their best friend from the dinner last night.
None of these ads do this.
The problem you have here is that you are much too close to the product. As a result, you think that the strong emotional responses that you have to your girlfriends' jewellery is the same response that your audience will have.
They aren't.
Your audience does not care about you or your girlfriend.
When you market something, it is like when you step up to a podium to do public speaking. It is NO LONGER about YOU. It is ALL about your audience.
This is why marketers stress the importance of focusing on benefits instead of features.
Benefits = your audience. Good.
Features = you. Bad.
Look back at your ads. Does the audience have a reason to care? To click? To buy?
Why should they care, click or buy your product? And why should they do this now?
Are you solving a problem for them? Do they see a connection between their situation and your products? And if so, do they have a reason to make a purchase with you? Right now?
Your main tag line is Exclusive Offers. Exclusive Offers? Who cares? That is about as compelling as saying "Good Quality."
Take off your boyfriend hat and put on your guerrilla marketing, scrappy affiliate hat. Think to yourself, if you were trying to drive AS MUCH affiliate commission for yourself with this offer on Facebook, what would you do? While the site looks nice, let's be realistic, no one is going to mistake it for Tiffany's or Harry Winston. In other words, just because you have a website, people are not going to just automatically flock to it. Instead, try to figure out why it gets sales on marketplaces like Zalora or Groupon. Trust me, it is NOT because what the consumer sees a tagline there that says "Exclusive Offers." It is NOT because they care about your girlfriend. Instead, I am willing to bet you a bowl of Katong laksa that without question THE main driver of sales through these channels is (the impression of) a massively discounted price.
Combine this with much better targeting and stronger call to action, and you will have a winner.
Now, STM is the only place where I'd get kicked in the nuts and yet felt compelled to thank that man who did that. 
Thanks for your honest opinion. Tbh I was also not convinced of my ads. I do almost always remember ads since nowadays scouting ads in my Newsfeed are the main reason why I still use Facebook, but I get your point.
I'd say I definitely need more work on my creatives and creativity.
Gave it some thought, and I came up with two angles that I could do -
1. Night markets (a.k.a pasar malam in my language) is a norm , and with it, lots of merchants hawking dirt cheap wares, including cheapo jewelry. So I could find wacky night market images, and put my ad copy something like "Why pay more? Get branded with a pasar malam price tag".
2. Target engaged females, and harp on the fact that weddings are busting their budgets. Offer a more cheaper solution for jewelries and wedding bands.
Not really THAT good though.
Mind letting me pick your mind further on distraction marketing?
And thanks for the well wishes and this long write up man, appreciate your efforts!
1 is not so good, 2 is slightly better
I feel a good book that can help you succeed would be "All marketers are liars" by Godin.
Create a story over your products. Market the story.
It's a strategy that will pay off any media you'll promote on.
Have a look at it and shot me your opinion!
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