The exact numbers are not disclosed due to the NDA.
Goals
Sales of authoring fitness courses for women through paid advertising. There are several objectives within this goal:
- Creating a steady stream of monthly sales through paid advertising.
- Attracting Facebook and Instagram followers
- Building a loyal community on Facebook through content marketing.
About the project
At the start of work, the fitness trainer Viktoriya Borovskaya’s blog already had a big follower base of 490 000 people on Instagram. Instagram was also the main monetization platform through the sales of authoring fitness courses to existing followers.
Facebook had a follower base of a little over 1000 people. Direct sales of the courses through Facebook and Instagram ads hadn’t been used. Only two methods had been used on a regular basis: advertising of blogger’s own posts, and influencer marketing.
Work plan
- Facebook pixel setup for conversion tracking on the site.
- Search for “cold” audiences which will consistently generate new followers.
- Search for hot audience to create a steady stream of sales leads.
- Complex analysis of the existing Instagram followers and posts in order to create a content plan and choose a Facebook posting style.
Analysis of followers and content
Followers analysis is done not only within demographics, but also within the relevant interests. The competitors’ accounts with a good engagement rate are being analyzed as well.
The most effective way to conduct content analysis is through special social media analytics platforms such as Live Dune and others. After tracking the key performance indicators, we can identify more engaging content and create a content plan without relying on subjective opinion.
When designing posts, we were largely guided by the existing Instagram aesthetic. See some examples below:
There were not many Facebook followers, so the post reach remained at 50% for quite a long time. Once we grew the account to over 20 000 followers, we started advertising posts to the existing followers, since it increased the post reach at a low price.
Analytics setup
Before working with ads, it’s important to build a clear sales recording system. The purchase record was maintained on the sales and training platform GetCourse, which tracks UTM tags and partner tags.
We installed a Facebook pixel on the site and set up conversion events for conversion tracking.
We added tags to all Facebook links. We also created tags to advertise various courses. Thereby, we were able to measure the sales volume of each specific course from individual audiences.
Targeted advertising
Audiences for follower growth
Follower growth had to be steady and exponential. We tested over 50 different audiences and creatives.
We expanded geo-targeting reach to EU and CIS countries (where there had been confirmed sales). Creative testing, as is often the case, showed better results with short lively videos and trivial text, and not designer images.
As a result, cost per follower was on average around 40 cents. We grew the Facebook account to 28000 followers. The number of Instagram followers increased by 50 000 people at an average cost per follower of up to 20 cents.
Generating a steady stream of sales leads
Meeting this objective took more effort than gaining followers. Tests showed that product advertising to cold audience doesn’t always recoup advertising costs. It often depended on the subject of the advertised course. All the advertising with the conversion purpose lead to the landing page of a specific course, selection of courses or the sale/promotion page.
The main options that gave a 100% return on advertising costs were sales to warm audiences and sales through content marketing. Several main warm audiences were formed with the growth of the follower base and data collection from Facebook pixel:
- Visitors of the main site (retargeted audiences)
- Those who engaged with posts and ads on Instagram and Facebook (custom audiences)
- In addition to these audiences, look-a-like audiences were very effective.
The above mentioned bases are regularly updated, renewed and show the highest return on costs through advertising and published content.
To increase sales volume, it was necessary to fully engage cold audience. Specifically for this purpose, we developed a format of express workouts at a low price of only $10. The sale of such product worked perfectly on cold audience (We used detailed interest-based targeting).
Due to this, we managed to scale up sales more than threefold. Furthermore, all buyers of the inexpensive product got into the e-mail funnel and made additional purchases of higher priced courses.
In the ads we used both trainer’s videos and motion design. See some examples below:
Results
In 12 months there were over 30 launches of various paid products. The number of followers on Facebook increased by 27 000 people, on Instagram – by 52 000 people.
Facebook:
Instagram:
We achieved exponential sales growth through Facebook advertising as well as content marketing. If at the start of work the return on advertising and content costs was estimated at hundreds of dollars, now it’s estimated at almost $25 000 a month. ROAS indicator (Return On Advertising Spend) reaches 470% per month.
The exact numbers are not disclosed due to the NDA.
The amount of work is clear from the Facebook Ads Manager screenshots:
