My failed ecom journey - 9000$ lost so far (18)
-I have tested 100 products to date, spent $10,340.
-I am at -90% ROI now.
-Was doing flex targeting and spending around $100 per product.
-Tried 50% PPE 50% WC, out of which half was add to cart objective, the other half was purchase.
-80% of products tested are proven products that sold a lot, have crazy engagement on their original fb posts, 20% were products that looked cool.
-Mine is a general store, products tested were kitchen stuff, gadgets, jewelry, pet stuff, watches.
They say eCommerce is so easy, if that is the case, how come I lost 9000$?
I didn't rush, collected significant data, but data doesn't say anything more than no one wants to buy anything.
Where did I go wrong? I really want to make this
First of all, it did go wrong by not opening a topic earlier man, I mean, it's not 9k lose out of the blue right? Share your banners/ads and shop url (+bounce rates, bounce pages, abondanded cart stats etc) so the e-commerce kings can have a look!
For example, here's a product we 'copied' standard affiliate rip n run style.
https://www.expressden.com/products/saladcutter
Here is their ad -> https://www.facebook.com/12883801779...0279120060372/
We ran it, and had very little comments, despite trying 10 different adsets, each with different highly passionate audience using flex targeting.
After $100 spend on WC, we had 0 purchases.
Yet, for these people, the campaign was super successful and sold thousands. WHY and WHERE did we make a mistake?
You are coming at it from a very counter-productive angle.
1. People don't say ecommerce is easy, they say it's good/hot. That means it's worth it, not that it's easy. I think most people here on STM keep saying that the easiest entry point into affiliate marketing is still mobile, but that ecommerce is a viable alternative and a likely target for scaling a business.
2. "How come I lost $9000?" - because you got angry and didn't let the data do the talking? You tried the same thing over and over again and expected a different result? You simply are the unluckiest person to run ecommerce? It's not a smart question to ask if you want real feedback and to find a solution.
Let's try to move it into a direction that hopefully makes you money.
You linked us the successful store and ad. What about yours? Let us have a look at your actual store and give suggestions of what could be wrong. There's not much we can tell for something that is not your store. We would spend time asking "Is yours like this?" - "Yes/No".
Show us your store. Products/angle die all the time.
Instead of just copying and running the same angle, try copying it over to a different Geo, or copy a product that was just about to take off.
Be creative and try products that haven't been run to death yet.
Use retargeting, LLA's, conversion campaigns.
Anyway, you're not owed success just because you tried, 90% of businesses fail by default.
Stop attacking the guy, I totally understand his situation.
With our general store, we also did similar and after $5000 spend.. 0 winning product success.
Seems like the standard affiliate approach of rip n run doesn't work in ecom.
I don't know who said ecommerce is easy. Since you have many more variables to work with and optimise, it is much more difficult than say, pops, where you only have about 3-4 variables you need to figure out.
That said, this guy certainly seems to have found success in ecommerce https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...h-amazon-surge and more seriously, I know many people on STM who are doing extremely well with ecommerce.
First up: sympathy. That's a tough break.
I've not heard good things about general stores at the moment - seems a lot of people aren't having much success with them. I'd strongly suggest that a thoroughly-researched niche store works better for most people.
( https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...g-Your-Produce )
However, let's dive in and really try and extract as much data as possible to figure out what went wrong.
So - can you share the actual ads you used? And what targeting did you use also? You mention you targeted "highly passionate audiences" - that's good, but there are a number of failure modes there.
It could also just be that the products weren't that exciting for people - can you share what products you've tried and failed? In particular, the products that you thought were home-runs that failed would be especially useful to see.
Being able to see your store would also be useful.
Agree with most people above; it's very hard to give any input without knowing what we're talking about, eg your store and ads.
Also, I'd seriously consider going after a niche, rather than a general market and copying.
For example, on the competitor site you showed, the related product to that salad cutter tool is a drone? Not something you'd want to copy.
Also, many of your competitors don't know what they are doing either. Maybe that product was a hit because they lucked out. Or is there a proven process at work that finds winners.
Can't tell in their case, but don't just assume it's the latter.
As for data, we get a 2.7% conversion for example on of our sites, so if you are not getting a few sales for every 100 visitors, there's something wrong. (This is not a statistically valid method with a 95% and up level of certainty, but it still falls within the bandwith of very likely ;-)
Originally Posted by Atnakov S
Affiliate marketing isnt Hard but its really not easy.
in order to really help you you will need to share more info.
from what i can read in your post:
-I have tested 100 products to date, spent $10,340.
thats WAY TOO MUCH PRODUCTS and it means that average you spent $100.00 per product.
thats really a low sum to spend on any offer and not only on Ecom.
it looks like other you have a problem with setting the campaigns (tracking , Funnel, Angle...)
or maybe you are targeting wrong target audience.
if you can share more info regarding the products and target audience im sure more Stackers will be able to share their advice.
currently your state of mind is "I lost $9000" this i believe is related to the fact that you do not know what happen.
as soon as you will be able to get assumptions and be able to know what went wrong you will see this as i have I invested $9000
feel free to PM me if you need more help.
Originally Posted by pekadis
Originally Posted by iAmAttila
I deleted my store, I basically took products that had good engagement on FB, and set them up, and tried different audiences. I copied the layout of phonebibi so it's not that.
I tested 40 products, maybe I did wrong by trying to spend too much per product, and should stick to testing small budgets, and killing what doesn't sell fast? What do you folks do?
$5/budget per day, run for a few days, if no sales, done and move to next product?
Or huge budgets, spend hundreds, and then move?
If the latter, you really spend like 100,000$ to find 1 winner product?
I am totally confused
@atnakov S
Good that you stopped - when you're not sure of what to do, you'll be spending money and not gettig results. Making a loss when there's a plan is not a problem, without a plan...well.
Now that you are starting from scratch, think about what you want to achieve.
Build a brand? Run a successful store? Make easy money? Run a big company?
There's no wrong answer here. If any of the above are what you want, it's a valid goal.
But just know where you are heading.
With e-commerce, yes, the money is there. And no, it's not that hard. But it's not easy in the sense that copying will work.
Especially on products that are trendy, as trends come and go.
With trends, you are either in early and make a lot of money or you are constantly chasing success and too late in the curve.
When you know what you want, start researching your niche. Find out who the big players are in terms of your competitors. Find out which brands there are.
Then see if there are generic products you can sell. Or brands that do well in another country and are not represented yet.
Go to forums and see where there's buzz. Both positive and negative. Both are good and learning experiences.
Buy something from your competitors. See how fast they ship. What's in the box (promo / upsell) Third party fulfilled, drop shipped or from their own warehouse.
In other words, do research.
Once you have a good picture of the industry you're in, you start making connections, see where you can buy, at what price.
Start to assemble your product range, keeping in mind the upsell process, different price points, different brands and manufacturers.
Make a decision whether to drop ship, keep your own stock and what to outsource and what to do yourself.
Start building out your site. Buy the first samples, write how -to articles, shoot a video of the product being used. Add all this content to your site while gathering hands-on experience with your products.
See the first traffic come in, see where you get traction, what's doing well. What do customers ask, where are the problems, what's working well. Build on these experiences by adding new products, brands, content.
Rinse and repeat.
But do the research / homework first. I'd like to see this thread turn into a success story. With this and the info your fellow members have given, you've got a roadmap.
If you are still unsure, or this is somehow to vague, send me a PM or reply below.
The ball is in your corner now - good luck!
If you want a roadmap for researching a new site and how to come up with niches and products, have a read of this: https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...g-Your-Produce
Just published on STM, based on detailed interviews with Pekadis and Sapven amongst others.
What is also important to realize is that you did NOT fail. You acquired experience. You gained knowledge. You have learned what doesn't work - which is as valuable as to learn what does work.
Use that knowledge in the rest of your affiliate marketing journey and sooner rather than later this will translate into Benjamins.
That's a very good point.
To quote Thomas Edison, who did OK in business, "I've not failed. I've just found 1,000 ways that won't work."
There's a notable uptick in success amongst people who have founded a business before, even if that business failed. (There was a massive study on this amongst retail businesses in Texas quite recently.)
Done it before? Done everything you can to learn from it? The odds are much more in your favour the second time.
Originally Posted by caurmen
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