Give a marketing channel more time before you deem it unprofitable

Give a marketing channel more time before you deem it unprofitable

In today's world, everyone wants some instant gratification, which doesn't always happen, and that's why a lot of us will write off a marketing channel if it doesn't produce positive results right away.  I have been guilty of this, I'm sure you've been guilty of this, and there are even big-time marketers that have been guilty of this, but we all have to be a little more patient and wait a few more days, weeks, or even months to see the true potential of some campaigns can have.

About a month ago, I launched a multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace where people could list their products and sell them to the masses.  It's like eBay but super niched down and I did all the research and put together this site because I knew it was going to work.  Fast forward to the present day, and I've paused all of the ads, I rarely post on the social platforms to bring in traffic, and I thought it was all a waste of time.  I quickly noticed that my sales never dropped after this, I was still getting contacted about specific products on my site, and the buyers were always gravitating towards my marketplace.

Why was this?

I assume it's because I was getting super targeted with my advertising and marketing that I got in front of all the right people, but my ROI was just horrible.  I needed to stick with it and keep the ads going to break even after a few months before the profits start to roll in, which is what I'm doing now

If I didn't catch onto this, I would likely have written off this website as a failure and moved on, but instead, I'm working on it and posting about it to social platforms to bring in as many people as possible without breaking the bank with ads lol.

Below are a few things you should focus on so you don't write off a website, campaign, or anything before it's been able to show it's true potential.


Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, and Adwords
I use these three platforms for almost all of my websites because they give me the broadest reach.  I like Facebook ads because of the targeting; I love Adwords because they have loads of traffic, and I fill in the gaps with Bing Ads because there is still some quality traffic there that I can convert.

My ads weren't bringing in a ton of sales, not nearly enough to make them worth running, so I paused them all because it seemed like a waste.  After figuring out the people kept coming back, making purchases, and my ads weren't even running anymore, I quickly realized that everything would compound and the people will gradually come back over time.  I may not profit on the ad today, next week, or even next month but at least I'm always getting in front of the buyers who will come back to my website when they're ready to make a purchase.

Social Media Marketing
A lot of times, people will hope to see their reach per post hit 10,000+, and their engagements go through the roof, but it just doesn't work like that unless you're already successful.  I rarely hit 10k reach per post, and I do just fine with the majority of my websites.  One of my recent giveaways hit 8,000 viewers, and 2,000+ engagement, and that was a crazy time for me. 

Most of my posts don't do go so crazy, which is why I started to not schedule or post anything for a while until I had someone contact me saying "Hey there, is your website still active?  I checked your Facebook page, and there hasn't been a post in 3 months, so I thought I should ask before buying anything" and that got me thinking. 

If you're not posting, people will think your business has gone under, and that means they won't even check out your links and add something to their shopping cart.  This means you could be hurting yourself because you stopped posting when you see only 200 people reached and three engagement on average.  Keep posting, the numbers will increase, and you can always bring in additional sales that will build up over time. 

Remember, no one was successful overnight


Email Marketing
I have a love-hate relationship with email marketing because I want to send out millions of newsletters each day, but I know that people will get annoyed and unsubscribe if I flood their inbox.  You'll have to take it slow and send out a bunch of emails over time before someone decides to purchase from you.

You'll have to send out six emails on average before someone will click a link and make a purchase on your website, which is a lot because that means it could be six weeks of newsletters going out before you make a dollar off of someone in your list. 

The good thing is that emails still convert like crazy and people will stay signed up for years, or even decades if you don't spam them.  Send out quality newsletters to recent blog posts you've published and send out random emails about giveaways and discounts you're running.  People will gradually learn to trust you, and they will check out your website first for something they need to buy before they go to Google or another search engine.

Retargeting
At first, you may think your retargeting isn't working because you only see a few clicks and no one is making a purchase.  I thought the same way until I forgot to turn off my retargeting and it ran for a few weeks lol.  I checked back in thinking I was going to turn it off, and I was pleasantly surprised that I was profiting from all of my campaigns.  Some campaigns were slightly profitable while others were bringing in 2x or 3x the investment, which is amazing.

I'm sure I would have known the entire time if something was profitable, but I didn't have my tracking set upright, and that means none of my data was coming through and telling me where the sales came from lol.  Yes, I know that's a cardinal sin in the online marketing realm, but it was an honest mistake for a newer website lol.


In conclusion,
Don't give up on something if it isn't profitable from day one.  You need to invest some time and effort before you start to think, "Is this website worth it, or should I scrap everything?".  Most of the time, a website has the potential to be profitable, but we get impatient and want instant results, which don't happen.  Take your time, work on your site, and never write anything off unless you're confident it's not working. 


Thanks for reading

- Tommy
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/TommyCarey