The Ads You Need for Each Stage of Your Sales Funnel

For your sales funnel to be as efficient as possible, you need to make it targeted and most importantly, automated. There are 3 main stages to every sales funnel: Attract, Convert and Re-Engage. To run a successful advertising strategy you must have ads dedicated to engaging customers at each stage of the funnel. To get you started, we’ve outlined the top ad campaign types you need to snag customers at each phase of your sales funnel:

Stage 1: Attract

The Attract stage of a sales funnel is one of the most critical. Without this stage, nobody knows your company exists, and it’s next to impossible to land new customers.

According to TeamWave, the first viable vendor to reach a decision maker has a massive 74% chance of making a sale, if they present the information the right way. During this phase, the most effective ads you can use include the following:

• Top Customer Lookalike. Top customer lookalike ads target audiences similar to your best customers to drive new ecommerce traffic.
• Website Visitor Lookalike. Website visitor lookalike ads target audiences similar to your site visitors to drive new traffic and promote ecommerce sales.
• Targeted Audience. Targeted audience ads segment audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviors online. This helps encourage high-quality website visitors and higher ecommerce growth.
• Friends of Page Likes. Use these ads to target friends of people who Liked your Facebook page
• Around Me. Nab more local customers with “around me” ads, which target Facebook users in the surrounding neighborhood.

So many people concentrate their efforts on re-engagement and retargeting ads, but you need to bring in prospective customers and spark interest before there’s even anyone to retarget to! Right? That’s why Prospecting is so important. Prospecting finds and brings in new customers for you to surprise and delight.

Stage 2: Convert

The Convert stage is where you take interested prospects and transform them into customers. It’s what earns you sales and, ultimately, keeps your business afloat. How well you convert customers during this phase has a direct and pronounced impact on your ecommerce sales and bottom line.

• Dynamic Product. Dynamic product ads create a carousel ad that shows potential customers products they have already viewed, but not purchased. It’s helpful for promoting re-engagement or coaxing that on-the-edge customer into a purchase. After all, they know they want that product, sometimes they just need a little reminder.
• Website Visitors. Website visitors ads target anybody who’s visited your page, regardless of where they bounced. This can help customers keep your brand fresh in their mind and come back to you when they need a product, good, or service.
• Abandoned Carts. Target all of the customers who left the site before they finished making a purchase. Ideal for decreasing your abandoned cart rate and driving more ecommerce sales, these ads are a safety net that helps you keep people from bouncing permanently.
• Upload List. Upload a .csv or .txt file of at least 500 customers with email addresses, and these ads will target them. One of the most productive forms of retargeting, these ads allow you to reach out to customers who have already given you their contact information and engaged with your brand.

Stage 3: Re-Engage

According to HelpScout, you have a 60-70% probability of selling to an existing customer and only a 5-20% probability of selling to a new prospect.  With this in mind, it’s critical to re-engage your existing customers and ensure they come back to your brand for future purchases. This is your time to shine, here are the ads to help you do it:

• Top Customers. Bring your best customers back to your store with top customers ads.
• Ready Customer Bring back past customers who we think are likely to make another purchase with ready customer ads.

Vantage Sales Funnel

We believe in this strategy so much that we created a dedicated sales funnel for every Vantage customer! As you can see above, every store has a sales funnel that provides strategic ad campaign recommendations to ensure you’re engaging customers at every stage and most importantly, making sure you aren’t losing any revenue long the way. Setting up your sales funnel in Vantage will not only provide your ecommerce store with a continual source of recurring revenue, it will automate your growth.

Better Ads Make for a More Robust Ecommerce Sales Funnel

As you develop your ads, it’s essential to consider your customers’ positions in the sales funnel. The more targeted your ecommerce ads are to those positions, the more likely it is that you’ll convert customers, attract new clients, and enjoy a healthy, robust, and thriving business.