How are you selling without ads?

If not, focus on that first.

If you aren't selling through other channels:

• How are you confident that your product is validated? How did you decide that you have a Product-market Fit ?
• Your Pixel does not have enough conversion data to look for the right audience.
• You do not have Organic Creatives & Captions tested that you can confidently test as ads.
• You do not enough Social Proof or UGC to aid conversions from advertisement

Skipping 'selling without ad' part, will require you to spend money on ads to test & figure out what works, what doesn't in terms of:

• Offers
• Ad copies & Creatives
• Strategy
• Targeting
• Audience
• etc

That requires time, money, and patience. Without capital, it can be tough.

<aside> 👀 Bitter truth: Ads help scale the sales of products/services that sell well without ads.

</aside>

Things to try to sell without/before running ads:

If you implement these steps before launch or as early as possible when your store is new, your business will benefit significantly:

• Setup Lead Capture with Shopify Forms (FREE): If you can't sell, at least capture your traffic to build trust and sell via email.
• Use Shopify Email (10,000 Emails FREE per month) for Email Marketing, before jumping into any advanced or costly platforms.
• Setup the essential email flows automation: Welcome, abandoned browse, abandoned cart, abandoned checkout, order confirmation, feedback/review request after fulfilled order, win back, etc.
• Enable Shopify Inbox, setting up Instant Replies.
• Setup Shopify Shop Channel: Pay attention to what % of products are not getting listed for missing categories. Update them.
• Setup Facebook & Instagram Sales Channel (Meta Business Manager, Ad Account, Pixel, CAPI, Catalog, etc).
• Setup Google & YouTube Sales Channel (Google Merchant Center, Google Analytics, Google Ads, YouTube).
• Setup TikTok Sales Channel/TikTok Shop.
• Reach out Manually via Email & DMs: If your sales are low, and you/your team is not spending most of their time to actually interact with customers or potential customers, then you are on the wrong track. I am not talking about mass campaigns. Pure one-to-one conversations. Quick ideas:
  • Customers:
    • Order delivered, review request sent, review received?
      • Yes: Reply publicly to their review and then privately to express gratitude/apology (for positive/negative reviews respectively) once again and built connection.
        • Included Image/Video?
          • Yes
            • Reward them with a discount coupon for their next order.
            • Request them to share it on Social Media adding your brand as a collaborator.
            • See if they are interested in becoming a Creator/Affiliate.
          • No
            • Request them to add image/video in the review and/or share it on Social Media adding your brand as a collaborator. Promise them a discount coupon.
        • Make sure negative reviews and comments are addressed publicly with professionalism and empathy.
      • No: Reach out to ask about their experience with the products
  • Potential Customers (Email Subscribers, Followers, Commenters etc):
    • Email/DM and ask if they need any help to place their first order.
• A Review Plugin. ( Try https://judge.me/ at $15/month before spending more)
• Shopify Collab for partnering up with Creators cum Micro-Influencers: Free products in-exchange of contents (they'll post in their account, give you permission to use as ads, plus honest review/feedback). Be careful about giving away products without getting content in return.
• Discount (Tip: Avoid sitewide discounts & deep discounts that might burn money, attract low-quality customers. Improve AOV discounting for higher order value).
• Ensure cost, inventory, etc., are up-to-date for all products.
• Integrate Triple Whale's FREE Founder Dash (Add other expenses beyond Inventory cost). Measure the metrics that matter.