Shopify + Facebook + Fidget Spinners (32)
QUICK BACKGROUND
Like many, I’m new to affiliate marketing but not new to entrepreneurship. I currently own a moderately successful local services business, but am wanting to increase income and gain more mobility.
While studying affiliate marketing, I saw Sapven’s post about doing $846,365 in 9 months with ecom and thought I would try my luck.
I started to research various niches and decided to jump on the Fidget Spinner fad.
I’m sharing my niche/numbers, etc, for a few reasons: 1) This will be short lived, 2) I’m not making a lot of money… in fact, I’m pretty sure I’m operating at a loss right now, 3) The market is already saturated, and 4) I want to LEARN as much as I can from this experiment. I can’t do that unless I’m an open book!
WHY FIDGET SPINNERS?
I chose Fidget Spinners for a few reasons:
- High demand
- Can dropship from AliExpress
- It will be short lived (This might just be me, but knowing this reduces pressure to make mega-millions and creates space to lose money while I learn)
SETUP
Here’s a quick list of everything I’ve done to set up for this experiment:
- Launched
Shopify Store - Added trust badges, free worldwide shipping, a 14-day money back guarantee to increase conversions
- Setup theme with coherent color theme
- Added plugins recommended in Sapven’s original thread to increase conversions
- Setup Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts (currently only using the Facebook account)
- Created name@domain.com and support@domain.com email addresses
CAMPAIGN RESULTS
I’ve chosen to stick to Facebook until I have the platform figured out. I’m likely losing money with this choice, but hoping the lessons I learn will be worth the tradeoff. So far, I’ve ran a ton of campaigns testing different things out.
I'm currently making my own creatives and copy. I've tried 4 - 5 variations, and so far, I haven't found any that REALLY stand out from the rest. Yes, there have been winners and losers but I don't feel I've hit the jackpot yet.
Here’s a list of the campaigns I’ve run so far:
Male 18+ (Multiple GEOs) - Static vs Carousel
GEOs: United Kingdom, United States, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Ireland
SPEND: $58.29
RESULTS: 1 Purchase (Ireland)
COST PER: $58.29
COMMENTS: Static definitely won out
Parents (English GEOs, 13 - 45)
GEOs: Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Germany, South Africa
SPEND: $29.48
RESULTS: 1 Purchase (Ireland), 1 Purchase (South Africa)
COST PER: $14.74
COMMENTS: Didn’t experiment long enough, picked a stupid age range
[English GEOs] | 18-30 | 50% Entire Store
GEOs: Sweden, Norway, Australia, Denmark, United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, United States
SPEND: $33.99
RESULTS: 1 Purchase (Sweden), 1 Purchase (Norway), 1 Purchase (Australia)
COST PER: $11.33
[Multi-GEO $4.99 Alpha] | M 18-24 | News Feed | CVR - Copy
GEOs: Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Ireland
SPEND: $77.43
RESULTS: 3 Purchases (Norway), 2 Purchases (Australia)
COST PER: $15.49
[English GEOs] | M 18-24 | 50% Entire Store - Copy
GEOs: New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Australia, United States, United Kingdom
SPEND: $112.10
RESULTS: 3 Purchases (New Zealand), 1 Purchase (Denmark), 1 Purchase (Ireland), 1 Purchase (Sweden)
COST PER: $18.68
[Multi-GEO $4.99 Alpha] | M/F 18-30 | News Feed | CVR
GEOs: Australia, Ireland
SPEND: $81.20
RESULTS: 6 Purchases (Australia), 2 Purchases (Ireland)
COST PER: $10.15
[Multi-GEO Cosplay Overwatch Fans] Genji | M 22 - 40 | News Feed | CVR - Copy
GEOs: United States, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom
INTERESTS: Blizzard ALSO Overwatch ALSO Cosplay
SPEND: $117.55
RESULTS: 9 Purchases (difficult to track which GEO, did not break out into multiple Ad Sets… yeah, yeah, I know!)
COST PER: $13.06
OVERALL RESULTS
It’s difficult to track ROI because customers can purchase more than one item per order. Regardless, I’ve been aiming to get Cost Per Purchase down to about $6. So far, I’ve failed to do that. The good news: I am making a little bit of money, but not much.
COMMENTS: Could track no correlation between Ad Spend / Performance on 5/17. I'm thinking someone shared one of my ads with a Facebook Group or something similar and that resulted in an increase of sales. On 5/18 I just got lucky, and someone made a huge order at the 11th hour. It was not the result of my marketing genius.
Keep in mind: My margins on Fidget Spinners (at current pricing) is about 50%. So, while I’m making money it’s just chump change at the money. Probably doesn’t even cover the cost of
WHAT I'VE LEARNED SO FAR
1) Must, must, MUST define process for testing ads PRIOR to launching campaigns (Doh! Why did I have to learn this the hard way?)
2) You should pick an audience and then a product. I'll remember this for future Shopify stores. Fidget Spinners are in high demand, but by who? Why do they buy? So far, I know kids pester their parents to buy them one and there are some adults (18 - 30) that are buying them to take to college/work. Who are these folks? Geeks? Gamers? Gadget Enthusiasts? Engineers? Clowns? Crap if I know!
3) Price products high to increase profit margin, then dial in your ads. Pricing low in hopes of volume sales won't work on a new store unless you're, 1) a pro marketer, 2) first to market with something.
QUESTIONS/HELP NEEDED
I could use some help with the following:
- Is there a better naming convention / organization method for my Campaigns and Ad Sets to better track performance?
- Does anyone have any advice on how to further narrow down my target audience? So far, I’ve narrowed down to Males ages 18 - 24, but have not done a whole lot of experimentation with interests.
I'm an open book. I'll share whatever is needed to make this as successful as possible. I’m open to any and all feedback. Thanks & take care!
Damn, the target audience is really tricky here! Try parents with kids from 5-16 years old I think (not sure the minimum age of the toy legally). I wouldnt aim for men 18+ or such, seems a bit dorky to me.
Regarding ads I would try an angle which makes the parents feel guiilty or afraid their child is missing something if they don't buy this toy.
Try otherwise a strong price angle "cheaper than instore bla bla".
Originally Posted by stickupkid
EDIT: I also might try a FREE Only Pay Shipping promo
Try running a video ad, cheaper engagement and higher conv rates typically?
You can retarget those who watched 90% of the vid with a discount.
Originally Posted by dazed1
UPDATE: Site Reveal + Creatives
Here are the 3 creatives I'm going to test in 2 different GEOs at $10/Pop (total budget of $60).
(and forgive me, I'm on mobile)
Creative 1 / AC 1:
Creative 2 / AC 2:
Creative 3 / still working on ad copy:
The design in Creatives 1 & 2 have consistently out-performed everything else I've tried, including:
THE PLAN
Tomorrow I'm going to start Creatives 1, 2, & 3, marketing to parents of school kids in cities provided by Google trends. On Thursday I'm going to launch a giveaway in hopes of collecting a bunch of emails and sending out a discount afterwards. The following week (unless I strike gold), I'm going to run a free + shipping promotion. Hopefully something lands - it would be great to make a little bit of money on my first venture in the affiliate marketing/ecom world.
I'm open to any and all feedback. If you have any questions, ask away! I'll be 100% transparent.
Cheers!
Creative 1 looks good, like the angle and copy there.
The image on creative 1&2 looks good to me, the third image is hard to understand what's going on, and the last image gives too much choice!
I'm sure testing will reveal more, but that's my first thoughts 
Have you tried video ads?
The image on creative 1&2 looks good to me, the third image is hard to understand what's going on, and the last image gives too much choice!
I'm sure testing will reveal more, but that's my first thoughts
i did manage 2 conversions on image 3 on a short run, more experimentation is necessary. Images 1 & 2 have won out so far but they haven't performed earth shatteringly well.
I've seen a lot of fidget spinner ads around, all video... Then again, given your angle, probably not so easy to make a video for it. You seem on the right track overall, just thinking that motion beats static most often - from current experience on FB for me but also previous experience with banners. Not 100% of the time of course, but always good to have 50% or so of your ads with some motion in them while testing.
Originally Posted by manu_adefy
Oh, I've seen that one. Do more of what works, obviously - especially if you are already on a good path with image ads.
Originally Posted by manu_adefy
OK, so I am in your target audience as a parent of 2 kids who want one.
Would be seriously p'd off if I got those things after 3 weeks of waiting.
Audience selection is bang on. fulfilment process - seriously have my doubts.
You're going to be dealing with parents who have their kids nagging daily about those damn things. When they finally give in and say yes, they want to put an end to the nagging.
2 or 3 weeks of waiting will not resolve that situation.
Think about that. Think about how that would influence your copy. See how that would set you apart from the competition if you get everything lined up.
In any case, good luck with this.
BTW - @stickupkid is so right about the fear of missing out for parents.
We literally discussed this in the morning as one of the reasons to get one.
If you use this in your ad copy, you have to add the "why buy from us".
quick shipping, coolest spinners available, tested for safety. doesn'r break like all the other crap. Unique selection no one else carries
Above are just some suggestions, reasearch would put you on track of a potentially winning angle
The store at the bottom floor of my building sells fidget spinners... @pekadis has a point with the big waiting times for something that got much too common.
It might not always be bad, but I would personally be worried about the dropshipping model for an item readily found at the corner store for 5 EUR. Saw it today when coming back home.
I think the fidget spinner is too saturated already with too many people trying to sell it. Great product but fierce competition.
Tip: look where no one else is looking!
E.g.
Everybody - really everybody - is doing ecommerce in ENGLISH. Get your site translated into Spanish and run Spain + LATAM (huge market!), German and run DACH, etc.
--> less competition --> cheaper traffic
--> less product fatiguee for your type of products --> higher CR
www.gearbest.com understood this very well it seems.
Check their similarweb analytics: https://www.similarweb.com/website/g...t.com#overview
No English speaking markets in their top 5 markets.
Originally Posted by pekadis
Some of our spinners are unique, not-found-in-stores-types. People would suffer the shipping times on those, but then I'm back to where I started: who is the friggin target audience for that? It's not parents anymore!
EDIT: In the spirit of learning, I would love your critique of my product page. I went through and re-worked the copy this morning. I did my best to address FUDs, show benefits, and apply pressure for the sale.
Originally Posted by cbrughmans
Originally Posted by manu_adefy
Don't think the product page is bad at all. Copy is good too.
x remaining out of 50 and then quoting long shipping time is a mismatch though. Would imply either hugely inefficient ops or false statements about stock.
Everything else is fine and nothing I'd consider a big hurdle for sales.
Focus on other areas first on your route to success, this part is good enough.
Originally Posted by pekadis
186 - Added to cart
114 - Checkouts initiated
56 - Purchased
I'm losing a ton of people between checkout / purchase
I would also try other images, these are too clean/webshop-ish.
This is golden, rip some here; https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/fidgetspinner/
These are pretty normal stats
186 - Added to cart
114 - Checkouts initiated
56 - Purchased
Mention that shipping only takes 2 days - see what the impact is.
If the impact is huge, start building your own stock. You'll get some pissed off clients, but at least you'll know the impact of long vs short shipping times and you'll know if its worth it (or not) to maintain your own stock instead of dropshipping.
UPDATE: New Campaigns Launched (Results Pending)
It took me a few days to get the MISSING OUT-themes campaigns created and up on Facebook. For whatever reason, about 75% of the ads were not getting approved. I modified the images, optimized the ad text, and tried again. They were finally approved and posted last night.
I used Zeno'a method of creating 3 duplicate ads per ad set, and then culled the 2 worst performers per ad set. I targeted 3 cities in Australia that were at the top of Google Trends for "fidget spinner." So far, the results have been pretty ugly:
I've spent $22 across 9 ads (3 dif images per city), and have nothing to show so far:
At what point should I cut my losses on this campaign?
A NEW DIRECTION
In the meantime, I've been thinking... I'm not sure that parents are actually my target market. Yes, parents with naggy kids are buying these like hot cakes... but they are typically buying the cheapest spinner they can find. In addition, the market is entirely saturated with your basic tri-spinner, as many here have already said.
If you look at my store, however, there are ALL KINDS of different fidget spinners. Premium metal spinners, bi-spinners, quad-spinners, multi-colors spinners, spinners that look like Shuriken, etc. I might be wrong, but I don't think parents are my target audience to sell those. Instead, it's probably gadget enthusiasts, people that work at tech companies or just like toys.
So, how do I sell premium spinners ($15+) to these people?
That brings me to an experiement I'm running...
Many people claim that fidget spinners help them focus and I've even heard one person (in my own life) claim that spinning helped them increase productivity. So, I've decided to launch campaigns aimed at people who want to increase their productivity.
I've used an Ezra Firestone-type funnel that looks like this:
FB Ad >> Pre-sell Page >> Product Page >> Checkout
So, top of the funnel. Here's my FB Ad:
Once they click the ad, they go here.
I have 2 ad sets in this campaign with interests that look like this (using narrow audience function):
Productivity >> Tim Ferris >> 4 Hour Work Week >> Gadget
Producitcity >> Tim Ferris >> 4 Hour Work Week >> Toys
Each of these Ad Sets have audience sizes that are less than 15,000.
I'll let you know how it goes!
I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts? Do you think I'm on the right track here? Is it one to shut this project down and move on?
I'm hanging on at the moment to learn as much as I can!
Cheers!
First off, I appreciate you sharing all this, as now a lot of people can learn form this.
So here's what I found:
A guy leaving a review that it helped him quit smoking...
"I ordered this item because I'm trying to quit smoking after a 2 pack a day habit for 25 years and it was recommended by a friend after I complained about anxiety especially with my hands. The item arrived about 7 hours ago to my office. I opened it up and spun it and thought "well this is neat but stupid... I should have saved the money." 7 hours later I'm still constantly playing with it and while I have stopped for a couple of cigs im well below my average because it has kept my mind off of smoking much more than without. I would recommend this to anyone with any anxiety issues or who is trying to quit smoking. I'ts a very simple item but its strangely addictive."
from: https://www.amazon.com/product-revie...4HP9PG5YFEJ81Z
This is why you research first.
So the above is a problem that someone has found a solution for. I wouldn;t have come up with this myself, but through research, there's another angle you can try.
Now, the question is, can you convince people to try this at a solution at a scale that makes sense and brings you profit. Now you've got something new you can test.
Do more research like this.
But I would drop this as a project.
Why?
I don't think you should ever focus on a product. You should focus on people.
In your case, if you like to target gadget lovers, do that. Through spinners and what not.
But focusing on how you can sell a shuriken 15$ spinner to gadget lovers will be a shortlived success, even if you get the results you're after.
Being able to sell to gadget lovers because you understand what they need, build up a relationship with them through offering them advice, showing them cool new stuff that you know they want, that's something you can build a business on.
Just my 2 cents.
Just wanted to add - Amazon is great for research like this.
But - it's from people who already bought and bought through Amazon, so keep that in mind as it doesn't show you the objections people might have to buying on your site
Originally Posted by cbrughmans
Excellent thread! I was actually thinking about doing this one myself just for fun, but then I noticed (like others) that they have them for $5 at the 7-Eleven counter by my house...
Hey guys I'm pretty a newbie here, but I am setting up a specific ecommerce store (I call it platform/destination) cause would be diversely structured: in that vertical (wellness&health lifestyle) would have an info-products part, an affiliate mobile apps section and a products section. All three I would start with affiliates (but with a widget to let customers check-out on my site, with the redirection working only in the backend) and after data start coming in of bestelling, I'd insert bestsellers private label products with my own brand, dropshipping for medium converting ones. Any thoughts? I know would be a lot of work but I want to build a brand around that platform in that vertical. Thanks for the time you take giving feedback.
Originally Posted by hyppodrome
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