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Facebook ads can be incredibly cost-effective for scaling your customer base. But once you’ve acquired new customers, you need to keep them. By focusing on customer retention through Facebook ads, you can not only boost your eCommerce sales, but also improve the ROI on your ad spend, because you’re reaching customers who are more likely to make a purchase.

According to a report from Aberdeen Group, 90% of eCommerce merchants that use Facebook regularly are pleased with their results.

Customers are liking and sharing your content on Facebook then coming back to purchase more products. Great! But here’s the rub: 70% of the merchants surveyed also said they still had trouble with retention.

To get the most bang for your Facebook ad buck, keep these 7 core strategies for retention in mind.

1) Upsell: Educate customers with a more expensive product.

If you have customers in your market who like to shop, then it’s probably not a bad idea to offer them a more expensive option or add-on.

In one of our most recent Facebook campaigns, we started seeing an uptick in the number of people completing their purchase after reading an article on one of our themes.

This was our first clue that it might have worked and, sure enough, we started showing those ads to similar customers who were interested in buying another theme or discount package. We ended up selling two extra themes and three more bundles as a result.

This strategy can be especially effective when you’re launching a new product. If you’ve got a new product that’s difficult to explain, then start by writing an explainer article and focus on the value of your product to the potential buyer.

Keep in mind that this strategy doesn’t work if you’re targeting over-the-top buyers who are interested in every single item all at once.

2) Cross-Sell: Inspire them with add-ons to make the original purchase even better.

If you’ve got a product that’s already selling like hot cakes on your site, then it might be worth adding some cross-sells to your Facebook ads.

Sometimes, the best way to get customers to buy an over-the-top product is by starting with an add-on. Maybe it’s a complimentary item or accessory or perhaps one of the many other products that you sell.

You can even leverage this strategy to get people to buy multiple products.

Do you sell two different types of complimentary products? Try offering a discount bundle with both (all) of them.

3) Use Dynamic Ads Based on Customer Data: For example, show related products or services.

Instead of showing the same ad campaign every time, try showing ads based on customer data like previous purchases or interests.

You can also take things a step further and use dynamic ads to show related products. For example, if they’ve bought an expensive product from you, then try offering complimentary products through your dynamic ads catalog.

The same goes if you have smart bars on your site for email signups or social sharing. Show those customers ads based on their signup actions and get them to engage further with your products.

4) Use a broad audience: Include all Facebook users within your target list.

How many people do you know who only use Facebook?

Do you really want to exclude them from your ads? You can also focus on a narrow audience to boost ROI. If you only want to focus on high-value customers, then target a specific group of potential buyers.

This strategy works well if you have a large enough audience that includes all or most of your target audience. It also allows for more precise targeting since you’re not relying on an unknown audience segment.

You might even consider showing different ads to these high-value customers depending on the season, time of year, etc. (see #3 above).

5) Use Email Lists: Engaging with past customers to bring them back and buy again.

If you’ve got a list of customers who have proven to be loyal customers, then it might be worth mailing them directly to encourage them to buy yet again.

This can also work well in the opposite direction –if you know that a customer has bought from you in the past and is likely to buy again, then consider sending them an email about your new products, special offers or new releases.

Do run emails on a regular basis? Consider creating bespoke email templates for each customer type.

If they’re interested in a certain kind of tools, then create an email that contains useful information about those tools rather than just sending them an advertised discount code.

6) Branding: Best time to build your brand presence with your audience is right after the buy.

While contrary to traditional marketing, we believe it is easier to share your brand with those who just purchased from you, and turn them into evangelists than it is reach cold prospective customers.

If you sell T-shirts and see a spike in purchases in the summer, try running special promotion on Facebook that includes your most popular designs.

You could also encourage sharing of your brand once they’ve purchased from you, which will appeal to those who are interested in your products but haven’t made the decision just yet.

This could take the form of a discount code for the particular design that was purchased or something similar.

7) Content Promotion: Reaching out to past buyers with more unique content.

If you have content on your site that isn’t directly related to what you do (or sell), then it might be worth using Facebook ads to promote that content to people who might find it useful.

For example, if you run a blog that explains social media marketing, then you could promote your blog posts to people who are interested in that topic.

This is particularly effective when used in conjunction with ads for similar products and discount codes.

If people like your content, then they’re more likely to be interested in your products too – or at least more likely to take an interest when they see those ads.

How does it work?

The only difference between this strategy and the others we’ve covered is that this one isn’t directly about bringing people back after they’ve made a purchase from you.

Try applying all 7 of these strategies in a retention program via Facebook ads and see how much your sales and ROI will grow.

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