Why do many DTC brands struggle with Facebook advertising?

For many brands, Facebook advertising contributes to 90% of new customer acquisition, especially in the fourth quarter, optimizing advertising has become particularly important. Here are the common mistakes made by DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) brands in Facebook advertising and how to solve them:

Complex ad account structure

In the many ad accounts reviewed monthly, it is common to see confusing structure designs. For example, there are six campaigns in an account:

Two TOFU (top of the funnel) ABO campaigns, each with more than 10 ad groups, spending $30 per day for interest-based lookalike audiences.
The ad groups and ad content of the other two CBO campaigns are exactly the same, only the budget allocation method is changed.
Two remarketing campaigns are launched for global audiences, but the main target market is actually the United States.

This complex structure not only wastes budget, but also increases the difficulty of optimization. It is recommended to streamline the structure:

If you only sell products in one country, focus resources on one ad campaign and focus on promoting the main product.
Avoid too much remarketing, especially when the daily budget is only 3-5%, then remarketing can be done in moderation.

Complex ad account structure not only affects efficiency, but also easily leads to repeated contact with the same group of people, increasing ad frequency and customer acquisition costs, especially in Q4, every penny is crucial.

Lack of ad creative testing

It is difficult to expand the account scale without weekly ad creative testing.

Nowadays, it is extremely convenient to shoot and edit high-quality pictures and videos with mobile phones. Many of the best-performing ad videos are even shot only with iPhones.

Key points:

Test at least 5 new ideas per week.
Diversify content formats: static images, user-generated content (UGC) and video creatives are all worth testing.
Find out what form of ad content they prefer from friends and family to get first-hand feedback.

Lack of attention to new customer acquisition

If the ad frequency is higher than 1.6, it may mean that 60% of the budget is spent on remarketing, resulting in fewer opportunities to reach new customers.

Solutions:

Keep ad frequency below 1.2 and focus on attracting new audiences.
Regularly check quarterly data of ad accounts, including reach, impressions, and frequency metrics.

No hero offer

Successful DTC brands usually have a clear hero offer. For example, HexClad mainly promotes frying pans because it can drive second and third purchases.

Recommendations:

Analyze which products have the highest second purchase rate and focus on them as advertising content.

Not mastering core data

Many brands only focus on daily ROAS and ignore in-depth analysis of new and returning customer data. For example:

Track “new customer ROAS” (NC ROAS) on a monthly basis. If it is less than 1.1, it means that the remarketing budget is too high.
Develop daily and quarterly tracking indicators, including overall CPA, new customer CPA, 90-day LTV, etc.

Poor business economics

Brands with low profit margins and low average order value often find it difficult to succeed on Facebook ads.

Suggestions:

Ensure that the profit margin is between 70% and 80% and the average order value (AOV) is higher than $75 to support high-investment advertising expenditures.

Incorrect attribution of advertising channels

Many brand owners try to analyze the contribution of different advertising channels separately, but ignore the synergy between channels. For example, after a user sees a brand in a Facebook ad, he searches on Google and completes the purchase, and Google attributes it to the results of search ads.

Solution:

Comprehensively analyze data from multiple advertising channels to avoid misjudgments caused by single attribution.

Not using customer feedback

Many brands ignore the value of interacting with customers through email surveys. Questionnaires can collect valuable suggestions for improving products and new marketing inspiration.

Suggestions:

Send a survey email to customers every three months, especially those who have purchased multiple times, to understand what they like about the product.

Summary

The core of optimizing Facebook ads lies in execution. Find the key problems and solve them one by one. Don’t split your energy to solve multiple problems at the same time. The essence of e-commerce is a digital game. Track data, find the most important pain points, and focus on solving them.

Conclusion

Facebook advertising is an important tool for DTC brands to acquire customers, but many problems prevent it from reaching its full potential. I hope the above methods can help you optimize your advertising strategy and help your brand development.