Some of the most successful businesses think about their long term strategy.
To do this there’s a couple of metrics brand owners need to take a look at.
The main one is your customer acquisition cost.
But if you want to get ahead in today’s competitive market, focusing on increasing your AOV is key.
The higher your AOV, the more profit generated per customer.
This can then be reinvested into your marketing for acquisition or retention.
It may seem like an easy task, but it can take some planning and effort from time to time.
So, let’s start with what is AOV?
The AOV means, Average Order Value. It is an essential metric of overall business health, and can be used as a lever to pull when you need more cash flow for other areas in your company.
To calculate your AOV, use this simple formula:
Total revenue / number of orders = average order value.
Often, AOV is calculated monthly, but it’s also possible to do so weekly or even daily!
Let’s see it in practice!
For example, your store had 1,000 orders and earned $23,000 in June 2022.
$23,000 divided by 1,000 is $23. This means that your AOV in June was $23.
$23,000 in revenue / 1,000 orders = $23 AO
Increasing the AOV will have a significant impact on your business.
If we use our example above, an increase by just $5 per order will result in a total gain/improvement from such action at 5k!
Why is knowing your AOV important?
Your AOV is one of the most critical metrics for eCom brands to track.
By knowing your AOV, you’re able to identify buying behaviors and trends to improve your marketing / sales strategy.
Without it, it’s hard to determine whether or not an expense on conversion costs and ad spend is worthwhile.
Keeping records is a simple way to understand shopping habits. You’ll notice there are certain items consistently bought together.
Knowing your AOV will give you insight to break through your pricing strategy and make it more effective by showing how much customers are willing to spend per order.
By increasing your AOV will help you understand how far you can go with the increased customer acquisition costs associated with paid advertisements.
For some tips on how you can increase your AOV, read our article here:
Or if you’d rather let us advise you, book a call with our team!
This can be the difference your business needs to help beat out your competition.
Your average order value helps your understand your customer’s buying behaviour.
Lately, we’ve noticed a lot of our clients are focusing on driving as much traffic as possible to their website.
Then their second focal point is increasing their conversion rate on their website.
Of course both are extremely important for success.
But, you need to focus beyond these two goals.
If you have a lot of traffic landing on your site with a high CVR, but your product price is very low, you might be just breaking even or losing money. Especially with the rising costs of advertising these days (and COGs).
Understanding Your Average Order Value
This means there’s another metric you need to keep in mind – your AOV, your average order value.
By increasing your AOV, your revenue should follow accordingly.
Unfortunately a lot of marketers and business owners underestimate the importance of calculating and understanding the AOV.
The more familiar you are with how much your customers actually spend each time they shop at your store, you can adjust your pricing and marketing initiatives accordingly.
Plus, understanding your AOV helps you optimize your current business model because you’ll understand your customers’ shopping behavior and know what to expect.
And, naturally, as you understand your customer’s behavior, you’ll be able to brainstorm ideas to make your product more attractive to your customers leading to a higher returning customer rate.
As you can see, your AOV is directly related to your brand loyalty
Getting to Know Your Customers
Even after the first purchase, paying attention to how much your customers are spending when they return to your store can provide a lot of information about your customer’s behavior.
Tracking their behaviours allows you to create personalized offers and marketing to keep your brand fresh.
And since these customers are returning, it’s likely they’re willing to spend more since they trust and know your brand and products.
Knowing your AOV is a very effective way to increase your revenue.
Maybe even the easiest way.
And, once your increase your profitability, it opens up the door for spending more on your advertising and product development
If you’re interested in finding out ways on how to increase your AOV, make sure to follow us on Instagram, subscribe to our newsletter, and podcasts!
Whether it’s product research to improve or innovate your product, or market research.
Researching to innovate your product will not only keep your customer happy, but will keep you ahead of your customers.
And, market research allows you to get to know your customers better to improve how you market to them.
In both cases, it’s a win win!
Even if you don’t have the budget for big research campaigns, there’s still a lot of benefit you can get from doing small scale research like social listening.
Looking at your social media comments, searching for what people are saying about your brand, and digging deeper into why people like or dislike your product are key ways to improve your product.
This can be time-consuming, so you might need to hire someone to do this for you, but it’s something that you can just do periodically instead of constantly.
Research is an expense that feels more like an investment. You might not reap the benefits immediately, but the impact that it can have on your bottom line can be lasting.
Jumping in marketing
Marketing
Increasing your marketing budget when you have the margins to do so allows you to get more customers through the door.
You can spread your budget amongst different platforms allowing you to reach different audience groups as well as retarget them as well.
More marketing spend also means you get to run more campaigns, test more platforms, explore new angles.
All are incredibly significant to growing your brand.
Some other notable ways you can divvy up your saved COG spend is digging into your customer experience, improving your operations, improving employee satisfaction, and so much more.
The important thing to note is that, although you can save money from COGs, you need to make sure you’re putting that money back into your business, improving and growing it bigger and better for your customers and team.
If you want to hear more about COGs and how you can make them work with you rather than against you, check out our other content on this topic.
Is it something you’ve been breaking your head with lately?
We know it all too well…
I’ve been personally jumping on calls with brands and almost every single one of them tell me that they’ve been struggling with the rising costs of advertising and manufacturing products.
Almost every eCommerce brand could benefit from finding a couple ways to decrease cost of goods, resulting in increasing your margins.
Lucky for you, our team pulled together a couple ways to help you with this.
But before we get started, let’s explain what COGs are for an eCom brand.
What are COGs (cost of goods) for an eCom brand
In short, COGs are the costs to produce any products or services that a business is selling.
For example, COGs include buying the raw materials, shipping to your warehouse, assembling the products, the labor and manufacturing it takes to create or put together into the final product.
Of course, there’s other costs to be mindful of as a business owner like marketing and distribution costs, but those don’t fall under COGs.
And unfortunately, most of these costs have increased lately making your margins tighter.
So, to help brands combat this economic turn our team put together some tips to try and reduce the cost.
Plus, it never hurts to stretch your margin out more.
Let’s go:
Find lower cost materials:
We know, this is pretty obvious. And no, when we say find materials at a lower cost, it doesn’t necessarily mean to go for low quality materials. However, new sellers come up all the time or new tech that can provide the same raw material at a lower price. We highly recommend broadening your search to find cost effective materials because realistically this is probably our biggest cost and therefore, the first thing we need to look at to increase margins.
Negotiate a discount or deal for the materials:
Let’s say the above didn’t work and you’re stuck with your current manufacturer. Discuss deals or negotiate some type of discount with the current provider. Maybe free shipping to the warehouse or a reduction in the price based on amount of material, etc..
Move the manufacturing elsewhere:
Depending on your location, it could be that the current cost of manufacturing the products is a lot higher than somewhere else. Consider moving the entire manufacturing process somewhere cheaper, where the laboring costs are lower.
Join or merge with larger organizations:
Large orders can at times cost less. If your a small company you might not be able to reap these benefits. But, if you can partner with another company, you can take advantage of this.
Use technology and automate laboring where possible:
Labor can be a huge part of the COGs, and sometimes technology could help and replace that human factor, reducing the labor costs.
Of course, there’s tons more ways to lower your COGs, but we’ll leave it at that for now.
As we see prices rise across virtually every sector, it’s important to consistently check where you can save, but also find ways to attain more sales.
As eCom experts, our team understands inside and out how to grow a brand even in the most dire of times.
With our online marketing services, we actively find ways to help brands keep their advertising costs low because as the competition thickens so does the cost. Just like your COGs.
If you are interested in learning more about this or if you’re interested in hearing how we keep our client’s advertising low, book a call below
They may not be digital natives, but 55-75 years old, technology is close behind. They are more digital and consume more online than you think. This article explains why the Zen Gen could be a good target for your digital strategy.
The study of 1,500 participants in three markets (UK, Spain, and Mexico) found that people aged 55 to 75 are a much more important target audience for brands than they may think.
The impact of the super digitization driven by COVID-19 has accelerated the change in consumption habits of the Zen Gen forever.
If you are still not convinced of their potential as digital consumers, here are some facts that will not leave you indifferent: – 81% of the “zenners” surveyed have a profile on Facebook, 45% on Instagram, another 27% on Twitter, and, , there is a niche of 23% on Pinterest, the place of digital inspiration par excellence. – More than 80% of those surveyed do not find it challenging to navigate the Internet, and more than 70% consider that shopping online is easy or very easy. – Zenners are the generation that has increased the use of Instagram between 2016 and 2019 by 98%.
Each audience has specific characteristics to which we have to adapt. So now the question is, how do we address this generation? How do we get your attention? What do we do to make them loyal customers? Let’s see some data:
1- Pay attention to how they want to access your website: they prefer to access it. Make sure it’s designed to be accessed from a computer, but don’t ignore a mobile-first approach.
2- Their purchase is planned, rarely impulsive. That’s why you should focus on building a coherent funnel strategy. Also, they check their email. Make sure that you also have an ’email marketing strategy.
3- Zenners buy online because it is more comfortable. You should be aware of bringing them a comfortable and accessible digital experience too.
4- 25% of the participants said that one of the reasons for not completing an online purchase is that the website is unreliable. Pay attention to your website and your landing pages.
5- Direct-to-consumer communication is essential for this generation. They need to trust your brand and perceive the digital store as a 100% secure space. Be transparent and make them feel included.
6- The key reason people over 55 choose a brand is a trust:
The quality of the product or service
The process of purchase
The generation of a unique experience
It would help to think about “Brand Awareness” and UGC campaigns. For them is not about the price. It is about what makes your brand unique and your commitment to their needs.
7- They demand a more ethical digital shopping experience. Highlight the importance of sustainability when choosing their products. People between the ages of 55 and 75 are a much more important target audience for brands than they could imagine. ‘Zen Generation’ has grown up straddling the digital and analog worlds. They have long represented the absolute center of attention for companies and marketers. It is the largest generation in history.
Here’s the last thing you should know: when Zenners like a brand, their level of loyalty is higher than that of other generations. So, once they make a purchase, the chance of becoming a returning customer is more elevated.
This generation has much more assumed digital skills. If you believe that your product or service fits with Zenners, you should start working ASAP on a Digital Ad strategy for them. And we would love to accompany you on the path to getting your new potential clients! (Source: Study form GoodRebels over 1,500 participants from 3 markets: the United Kingdom, Spain, and Mexico)
A while ago we started working with a new client. They sell elegant leather notebooks with different paper refills.
I will tell you how the creative process works when I start working with a new brand.
Not so long ago, if you wanted to sell a notebook, you would put a nice picture of it. You will state the colors available, the measures, or the number of pages. A big colorful stamp with an enormous price on it and a call to action would be something like this: “Buy it now for only XUS$.”
Nowadays, people are overexposed to ads. Our job as creatives is to find a way for our brand’s ad to stand out from all the rest. But how do we do that?
We leave the rational side aside and connect with our target audience’s experiences and emotions.
What is that about? Coke doesn’t sell a black beverage with bubbles in its ads. They sell happiness. And that’s what it’s about. For our new client, selling notebooks wouldn’t be enough, so what can we sell?
We sell memories. That ticket that you glued in your notebook from the concert you went to with a friend ended with the two of you dancing with strangers until sunrise.
We sell therapy. The nights you spent filling pages in tears after a heartbreak and preferred writing all your thoughts down rather than in an SMS to your ex.
We sell entertainment. All those meetings you had to attend and spent daydreaming and drawing random things.
We sell peace. You remembered all those birthdays and anniversaries because you wrote them down and avoided a misstep.
We sell value. That autograph you asked your idol for, you couldn’t have done that if you were only carrying your laptop.
We sell feelings. That letter you wrote someone you loved so much even though life made you take different paths. We all know it wouldn’t have been the same to write it on a computer.
These are all emotional things you can relate to with paper. It gives your product a much bigger dimension than a simple notebook.
So, the goal is to take a piece of paper. Start thinking about all the insights you can, and always take the last ones you think about.
They will always be more specific and intelligent. The first ones you thought about will usually surprise no one. They are not as relatable to them because they are the one’s everyone use.
For example, think about technology, so many years of innovation, product launches, better cameras, the fastest computers, etc.
The paper has something none of these products have. It never runs out of battery. Who never wrote an essential thing on its cellphone and ran out of battery when they needed it the most and didn’t have access to the info?
That’s something everyone can relate to. Creating an ad for a notebook saying it never runs out of battery is surprising.
It makes your ad stand out from the others. People may even tag a friend and tell him that your product solves his battery problems.
And if you have a good message, you don’t even need a complex execution. You can just put the last laptop released on the market, and the time its battery lasts, for example, “14 hours of battery” and the price: $1400. And next to it, your brand’s notebook, “Unlimited battery,” 60 dollars. And you got it.
Remember something: A picture is worth a thousand words. Imagine an ad with an autograph drawn in Paint on a computer and the “real” one on paper next to it. You have to close with a copy saying, “It’s not the same.”
Or a printed letter and a handwritten one next to it. And again: “It’s not the same.”
You don’t even have to explain anything else. You immediately connect your target audience to a feeling. All of us prefer handwritten letters. All of us prefer autographs on paper because we find writing more personal.
You’re convincing their subconscious that paper is an incredible thing they need in their lives with only 4 words.
With good insights, your target audience will feel identified with moments and your brand. There’s nothing more powerful than that.
And how do I know my insight is good? Try to show it to people, and their reaction should be: “Oh, that also happens to me.” If they tell you that, you got it.
It would help if you considered the brand you’re working with before creating your ad. Think about the brand you’re working with as a person. Is it a young man on a skate, a businesswoman in a suit, or a grandpa? How do they talk? All this will help you put a voice on your brand. See if you should use humor or be more elegant. Speak in a formal or a casual tone, what kind of design you need, and many more things.
And always keep in mind your target audience and who you’re talking to. That person you created would never speak to a kid the way they would to an adult or a businessman the way they would a hipster. Keep this in mind when you choose where to publish your ads too. Does your target audience consume this platform a lot? Or is there a better way to get to them?
Finally, never forget your call to action. Tell people what you want them to do. It can be a button on your ad. For example: Buy, Subscribe, Follow, Register.
And that’s it. You’ve got your ad!
When you started reading this, I’m sure you didn’t need a notebook. But I can assure you you’ll buy one in the next few days. When you do, remember the importance of good creative communication and book a call with Dimniko’s team! 😉
How much “excess fat” you have in your blended ROAS (every new asset you test is going to reduce your return) Do you need to improve your performance? (do you need the new winning ads to be hit targets, or are you already there?)
Set a testing budget per day or per week, then work out how many assets you could test with that budget. This will tell you how long it will take before trying every help. For budgeting, start with all spending in testing, and then move to approximately 80% of the TOF budget in evergreen and 20% in testing.
Dynamic Creative ad set per concept (creative theme, hook, message, etc.). If it’s: “This pill stops headaches,” that would be one concept in one ad set. If it’s: “This pill relieves stress,” that’s another ad set, and so on.
I wouldn’t launch each ad set at the same time. Instead, stagger them every couple of days so you do not have to optimize and audit their performance. Instead, you can check in over a week on each of them.
Single ads, ads set in the same campaign
This is where you’ll pull out the Dynamic Creative assets that get the most spend or show the most positive signs (use the Post ID from the dynamic creative ad to keep some data against the creative).
For audiences, start with broad, then if wide isn’t profitable or successful, move to lookalike audiences or interest audiences for testing.
CBO Evergreen campaign
Audiences you can rely on if you have them. If not, then broad, LLA, and interest stack ad sets.
You were winning ads from a previous activity if you have them. If not, this will be the place you duplicate the single winning ads if they continue to perform well in the single ads ad set above.
All winning ads go into every ad set and turn off if you’re finding new testing ads that beat the evergreen campaign. Or if the evergreen campaign is not profitable and hitting targets.
When you’re ready to optimize, only turn off ads if the duplicate performs better. We’ve seen it countless times when you duplicate an ad. It doesn’t continue the same performance. For example, if you’re getting a 3x ROAS from the testing DC, and a 2.5x from the single ad, don’t pause them until you’re getting the same in the
Evergreen campaign, and even then. It may be best to leave all ads live if they’re exceeding KPIs.
Note that creative testing can still include retargeting. BUT, the success of the ad account is driven by what happens at the top of the funnel. We also know that TOF campaigns will do some retargeting on their own. If you don’t have the greatest exclusions set up.
Suppose you’re new to setting up Facebook & Instagram ad campaigns. You might realize that Facebook chooses the “Automatic Placements” option by default. You’d be justified in wondering if this is the best option for you.
I’m not going to beat around the bush: this is not what I recommend. Choose “Change placements” and observe the proposals of the social network one by one.
In the case below, all placement options are checked. It will be essential to sort through them, as some may not be relevant to your brand.
As you can see above, the four significant territories where you can decide to display your ads are :
Facebook Instagram Audience Network Messenger
By choosing the “Edit Placements” option, you will have the ability to target by device type.
Facebook Ad Placements
If you don’t choose to target Facebook users on their computers & smartphone, you won’t have access to all existing ad placements.
If you choose to target only “Desktop” users, you can select the “Thread” and “Right Column” placements.
Instagram Ad Placements
Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012 was the best strategic move made by the social network. With over a billion users, Instagram allows advertisers to extend the reach of their ads.
Threads – Stories
Audience Network Ad Placements
This platform will allow you to extend your reach beyond social networks into partner apps & sites.
Your ad can then appear :
in a native way
in the form of a banner
in the form of an interstitial (an ad that takes up the entire screen) in integrated videos
in rewarded videos (the user who watches this video wins something)
Facebook Messenger Ad Placements
You will have two main options:
inbox (have your ad displayed between two conversations)
private messages (encourage users to engage in a confidential discussion with you)
Choose the proper placement according to the marketing objective.
The truth is that not all placements work with all marketing objectives. It is often mandatory to remove some of them.
Awareness Campaigns
All placements work well if you choose an awareness objective (Brand Awareness / Reach). It is a question of developing your brand’s visibility, and for that, it is necessary to repeat your message many times.
Consideration Campaigns
This type of campaign is chosen most by brands to create authentic interactions with Internet users. Many objectives are available, and the relevant placements can change:
Traffic: all placements are good except for the Audience Network interactions: all placements are good
App installs: you are restricted to mobile placements, and I recommend excluding the
Audience Network
Video views: automatic placements can be enough for lead generation
Lead generation: all placements except Audience Network
Conversion Campaigns
These campaigns aim to encourage users to buy or take more decisive action than a simple click or interaction on a publication.
Conversions: all placements except the Audience Network
Do you feel stuck with your Lead Generation Strategy? Everything has a season. It’s not always summer but if you take some measures, you can make it feel summerish. Here are 3 ways to revamp your lead generation marketing strategy and make it hotter.
Revamp your video marketing
Video-based content, such as webinars, live demos, streams, and result-driven informational videos on websites and social networks continue to perform well. The driving force behind this trend is consumers who prefer watching video-based content rather than reading text. Also, in a new marketing ecosystem where more people work remotely, they have more time and freedom during the day to watch videos on the internet.
Partner with social media influencers
Today, more brands are looking to influencers as a part of their lead generation marketing strategy. Fundamentally, influencers are individuals, brands, or digital entities who possess a higher level of authority in the niche a company is trying to reach. While they largely operate on social media, influencers come with different approaches of marketing to their audiences.
Create hard-hitting lead magnets
Share your detailed, real-world experience in the format of:
In-depth guides
Comprehensive how-tos
Detailed case studies
Resource libraries etc.
These methods do not guarantee leads, but they are worth trying.
A few weeks ago I was working with a client on their organic content to help compliment the work we’re doing on the ad side. When both organic and paid social media work well together, it creates a perfect storm for your audience. The client was in awe at the information we shared, so I wanted to toss it out for other brands to benefit from them as well. So let’s run through them:
Instagram’s algorithm makes it easier to go viral this way and prioritizes accounts with a small number of followers over accounts with a lot of followers on this.
2- Ask questions on your post captions
People will then answer and interact. The algorithm gives more value to how many comments you have per post than to how many likes you have. And your comments also count so it’s important for you to answer every comment even if it’s something simple. The questions could be simple too, I’m sure you saw accounts asking “Which of these pictures do you prefer?” “Which look suits me better?” “Which team are you rooting for tonight?” or “Are you a pizza with pineapple kind of person?”. These kinds of questions will encourage people to answer and debate, you can tell them what you think about their opinions too, and all this will generate engagement and make your account appear more often on the explore tab or when Instagram suggests accounts for people to follow.
3- Post stories talking
If you are comfortable on camera, try to upload informal stories: it gives a lot of value to your brand. Either the founder or employees could talk about themselves, their daily work, the brand, and new things they are working on or preparing at any level. It’s nice to meet the real people that are behind a brand, it makes it more personal and it makes your target audience become more loyal.
4- Include your clients in the decisions
If you want to launch a new product, why don’t you ask in stories what your target audience thinks? This is an amazing way to anticipate the reception a particular product will have on the market, if you should modify something or if your target audience would prefer something else entirely, or maybe a variation on your original idea, be it another color or whatever. Create a quiz, for example: “When do you normally take your cereal bar?” and you put options “For breakfast”, “When you go cycling”, “For a picnic”, “As a mid-afternoon snack”, and people can interact. Or “We are going to release these new sneakers, which color would you like them to be?” And offer different color options. Getting your audience to feel part of your brand’s decisions will generate greater loyalty on their side.
5. Keep in mind the kind of models you are using
We tend to think the better someone looks at our posts the better the post will perform. But this isn’t the case at all. The perfect models are the ones who look like your content audience, this includes models of their age and different body shapes so they can easily identify with your content.
I hope these hacks will make your account grow and help you connect and interact with your audience more. Please tell us what you think of them, share your experience and let us know if you want us to share more of them!
