Impact of Facebook AD Campaign on newly launched eBay Store.

BACKGROUND

Recently, We launched our first Indian Handicrafts Shop on eBay (MyEthnicShop) with over 30 Listings distributed in to following product categories:

• Home Furnishings -> Cushion Covers
• Wall Decor -> Tapestries
• Collectibles -> Brass Metal Bowls
• Collectibles -> Hand Carved Wooden Figurines
• Collectibles -> Brass Metal Vase
• Collectibles -> Brass Metal Flower Pot
• Collectibles -> Brass Wall Hanging
• Collectibles -> Marble Vase
• Collectibles -> Marble Plate/Wall Hanging

MyEthnicShop is an exclusive Store of Indian Ethnic Products sourced from 28 States and 7 Union Territories of India. We are here to Surprise, Educate and Enthrall our target audience with our amazing piece of Art and Craftsmanship and assist them in their Home Decor Projects. The target audience of this shop is today's women.

Most of the listings in the store are FIXED PRICE with 30 DAYS Duration. The Pricing, Categorization and Promotion of the Products is done by keeping in to consideration the Supply and Demand Data provided by TeraPeak (An eBay Market Research Tool). The Shipping Charges are also quite competitive considering the location and weight of the items. In order to distinguish ourselves with competitors, we have decided to use FEDEX as our carrier for all the International Shipments.

MARKETING STRATEGY

Instead of using eBAY ADCOMMERCE platform, we decided to KICKOFF our marketing strategy by running our first CPC campaign through FACEBOOK last week. The campaign executed for 7 days and targeted the following FACEBOOK USERS:

• Who live in one of the countries: United States, India, Italy, New Zealand, Canada, UAE, United Kingdom, Australia, France and Germany.
• Age: 18 and above
• Who like ethnic, handicraft, handicrafts, traditions or vintage
• Who speak Ethglish (U.K) and English (U.S)
• Who are not already connected to our Facebook Shop  "MyEthnicShop"

Here is the Campaign Creative:

MyEthnicShop
An exclusive Indian ethnic
shop for today's women. Visit
our eBay store and checkout
our fascinating Handicraft Collection.

Campaign Statistics

• The Campaign generated 740K Impressions with a Clickthrough Rate of 0.018% which was quite horrible;)
• The Unique Impressions were 41K which is 5.5% of the total impressions generated by the campaign.
• The Unique CTR was 0.316% which is quite low.
• As per Omniture Click-stream data, approx 84% of the visitors who landed on the Shop Listing Page bounced immediately while, 9% of the visitors browse through the store and watched 3 Wooden Handicraft Items before exiting the store.
• A mere 7% of the visitors exited the SHOP from Custom Content Pages like, About Us, Shipping Policy and Return Policy.
• Overall, Shop Conversion Rate was 0.0%.

Lessons Learned

The first area that requires immediate attention is the Campaign Creative. The Campaign Messaging completely lacked the PRE-CLICK EXCITEMENT and INTENT to visit the store. Their was no PROMOTIONAL OFFER or AUCTION MESSAGING in the content also, the messaging was quite generic and not targeted to a specific product category.

Secondly, the target criteria used in the campaign i.e. "Users who have interest in Handicrafts, Handicraft, Vintage, Traditions and Ethnic" was also quite generic, and doesn't clearly show interest in Indian Handicrafts.

Thirdly, the SHOP LISTING page which is also the TARGET LANDING PAGE of the campaign, didn't have that EXCITEMENT FACTOR which makes the visitors browse through the store and check the merchandise.

Fourthly, the type of merchandise listed in the store is also quite common and non-distinct from other competitors. Both new and existing eBay Buyers would highly prefer sellers with higher DSR and POSITIVE FEEDBACK as compare to NEWBIES like us. We definitely need to increase the BREADTH of our store by adding some UNIQUE HANDICRAFTS which have lower SUPPLY.

Fifthly, all the items in the STORE are FIXED PRICE with no option for BIDDING. That is also a major CONVERSION KILLER FACTOR. On an average, every visitor coming to the eBay Platform expects 30-50% DISCOUNT on the listed items, and considering the PRODUCT CATEGORIES we are dealing in, we have to offer BIDDING OPTION to our buyers on COLLECTIBLES and HOME FURNISHING items.

Sixthly, we have to constantly optimize the content of our listings using a professional LISTING TOOL to make it more enticing and actionable.

Last but not the least, we have to constantly optimize our Pricing and Shipping Strategy and open our store to CANADIAN, U.K, AUSTRALIAN, FRENCH and GERMAN BUYERS.

As usual, I am looking forward to hear your valuable feedback and criticism so; please feel free to post your comments.