5.08x ROAS in one month & first $10k/day in company history

The Main Result:

5.08x ROAS in one month & first $10k/day in company history.

During this month, there were $13,327.49 in sales that were directly attributed to email and ads.

Step 0: The Set Up

Eight days, yes, eight, before Thanksgiving, I signed a new client for Facebook/Instagram ads and email marketing for their ecommerce store.

This client is a local-ish brand that has been around for several years and has a decent organic following (25k+ followers on IG and 15k on FB). But, in the past they’ve been sort of burned by other marketers and advertisers and were fans of boosting a lot of posts throughout the years. There was a small-ish email list that had some cobwebs on it.

Most brands and businesses plan out 6-12 WEEKS ahead of time for Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM). 

I had a few days to prep for the damn ecomm Super Bowl, clients that had high expectations, and a pretty small budget.

Let’s get into it.

Step 1: Planning and Launch

This brand is a streetwear/life style apparel company. They have some cool design products and some solid creative in terms of photos and videos.

Before I did anything, I requested certain numbers and figures from the client. Hard costs, target margin, things like this, in order to figure out our target goal to acquire a new customer (cost per acquisition; CPA).

I ensured the right pixel was tied to the right ad account (they had a couple ad accounts, and pixels installed). I also got them set up on Klaviyo instead of Mailchimp for email*. I super recommend Klaviyo, it’s so powerful and integrates well with Shopify. *Mailchimp and Shopify broke up earlier in 2019

The (correct) pixel was pretty fresh so it didn’t have a ton of data. We had a healthy discount for the BFCM weekend available which is great.

I broke out the ad campaigns as seen below. All of these were for the conversion objective, with a purchase conversion event, and optimized for purchase:

• TOFU (top of funnel): interests and lookalike audiences based off past purchasers list (not pixel data, opted-into marketing from Shopify) and view content (pixel data)
• MOFU (middle of funnel): past website visitors, social engagers (last 90 days to ensure the audience sizes were large enough to spend during these tight sales windows)
• BOFU (bottom of funnel): people who viewed content or added to cart but did not purchase (last 90 days)

This a pretty “standard” setup to start off on ecommerce advertising. Stores with larger budgets and data get more options in terms of what custom audiences they can leverage and adding in more loyalty plays and win-back campaigns.

We had two custom creative options specifically for BFCM. All other images/videos were previously created. So we tested static images, videos, slideshows, and boomerangs. The ad copy was focused on the BFCM sale.

The email frequency is as below with a total of eight emails sent. One lesson learned – send even more emails. People are in purchase and deal seeking mode so all businesses are sending and competing for your attention.

Our send schedule was as follows:

• #1 – 11/22 (one week before)
• #2 – 11/28 (Thanksgiving AM)
• #3 – 11/29 (Black Friday AM)
• #4 – 11/29 (Black Friday PM)
• #5 – 11/30 (Saturday Midday)
• #6 – 11/31 (Sunday AM)
• #7 – 12/1 (Monday AM)
• #8 – 12/1 (Monday PM)

Again, send more emails next year. Earlier in the month, too!

We launched away.

Step 2: Management and Optimizations (BCFM)

Our campaigns were off and running, emails were out. Ad spend was minimal and this was quite honestly viewed as a test for them.

The sales were POURING in Friday morning. Many people went back to the email from Thursday, the day before, and made purchases. Ads were cooking with gas at absurd levels like 20x ROAS (return on ad spend).

I shut off ads and ad sets as the weekend went along so budgets were pushed to higher performers audiences and creatives. There was a mix of winners, no one piece of creative stood out across the stages of the funnel, – this is why we test!

Step 3: Results

The BFCM results were so good, they immediately wanted to extend our work together to focus on a Christmas sale and winter apparel drop!

Across the whole funnel and throughout the BFCM weekend, period between, and Christmas push, we generated a 5.08x ROAS and $3,885.49 in sales!

Across the eight BFCM emails, one in-between, and two for the christmas sale, with the automated flows I setup, we generated $9,442 in sales total. $1,452 from flows, $7,991 from campaigns.

First $10k+ day on Black Friday

These were excellent results and surpassed the client expectations, and yet again led to further work together to start 2020. I generated $13,327.49 in sales that were directly attributed to email and ads within one month and had a pretty small ad budget.

After just one month working together, we end up with new customers that were acquired profitably and a re-engaged subscriber base with more consistent emails moving forward (they were previously not being messaged to).

In the new year there will be a focus on scaling budgets up, testing new audiences, creative options, and further loyalty plays for past customers to maintain and build additional brand loyalty. With more time to plan out apparel drops, content production and sales, I’m excited to head into 2020 and continue to grow their business.

Next Steps

If you’re interested in acquiring new customers profitably through ads, turning one time impulse buyers into loyal fans through email marketing, and want a marketing partner to grow your business together, let’s talk!

I’d love to hear from you or answer any questions you may have.

DM on any platform or email matt@mattladydigital.com.

Thanks for reading!

-Matt