Facebook’s targeting options are, without a doubt, unparalleled. If you’ve been doing any sort of product research online recently, you may have noticed how relevant Facebook ads have been.
However, Facebook’s massive user base does not come without a significant cost.
Yes, Facebook ads are expensive, leading some dropshippers to wonder if the business model can survive without the social media platform.
In this comprehensive FAQ guide, we’ll address this subject head-on and provide you with additional tools that will help you maximize your money while targeting your ideal clients.
So, let’s not waste any more time and get started!
Is Dropshipping Without Facebook Ads Possible?
Without Facebook Ads, you can still run a successful dropshipping business.
The fact that many successful dropshipping businesses got their start on Facebook may come as a surprise to some. Retailers can reach their customers on a variety of social media sites, not just Facebook.
You can also reach your target audience through a variety of other methods and mediums.
In addition, dropshipping was around long before Facebook was even a thought.
A Bit of History
Dropshipping has been around since at least the 1960s, when a few enterprising individuals saw its potential through mail-order catalogs.
Product advertising were included in these pamphlets. Customers who wished to buy something did so by placing phone orders that were then delivered to local shops.
JCPenney and Sears are two examples of corporations that grew quickly using this technique. Both of these businesses have grown substantially and now enjoy sizable profit margins.
The overwhelming needs of their customers, however, quickly swamped these businesses. They were having trouble keeping up with orders and needed to figure out how to fulfill the high demand.
Over time, they created and began utilizing inventory storage facilities called fulfillment centers. After receiving an order from a customer, the necessary goods were retrieved from the warehouse and delivered to the buyer.
Other businesses, like CompuCard, recognized a profit potential in reselling products from these fulfillment centers at a premium.
They planned to include the products in their upcoming mail catalog, where CompuCard’s increased prices for the identical items would be made available to consumers. CompuCard would have these fulfillment centers order the product once a customer placed an order and then delivery it.
Mass quantities
CompuCard not only avoided the cost of warehousing products but also increased profits by charging a premium.
If this business plan seems similar, it’s because it’s the same as the dropshipping plan.
So, you may have sales even if you don’t use Facebook advertisements; you just need to find a different platform or strategy that works better for your business and budget.
How to Dropship Without Facebook Ads?
Following our review of dropshipping’s pre-Facebook-ads history, we may move on to investigating alternative channels and tools.
The internet has made it easy to connect with people all around the world.
That’s not to imply you should go after every single person on Earth. To successfully promote your dropshipping business, you must first learn who your ideal customers are and where they hang out online.
Using the information at hand, pick the platform and approach that will allow you to communicate most effectively with your target audience.
Listed below are the various channels where you can spread the word about your dropshipping business. Each platform’s benefits, drawbacks, and some expenses are outlined.
It consists of the following items:
Instagram is among the most widely used social networking sites throughout the globe. When it first went live in October of 2010, it saw over 25,000 users in its first day.
About 100,000 copies had been downloaded by the end of the first week. As 2010 drew to a close, it had amassed a million users.
In the present day, it has more than a billion monthly users, making it the most popular photo-sharing site worldwide. People spend about 30 minutes per day using this app.
Facebook ads on Instagram
More than 130 million people every month tap on shopping posts, indicating that it is also utilized for research of products and services.
Furthermore, half of the consumers who browse products on this platform end up buying them online.
Instagram advertisements are also user-friendly for newcomers, making it quick and simple to make your own ad from scratch. A variety of advertisements are available, including the following:
Promotional Posters
Story Ads
Commercials in the form of Videos
Advertisements that revolve around a central point
Commercials on Instagram TV
Film Commercials
Commercials for products available for purchase
Browse Commercials
Archived Ads
Simply by virtue of the abundance of advertisements, companies have numerous possibilities for reaching their intended demographic. Instagram Shoutouts is another way to find influencers and prominent users to collaborate with.
Ad prices, on the other hand, fluctuate based on factors including who they’re aimed at, how competitive the business is, where they’re placed, and what time of year it is.
For instance, if you want to advertise during the fourth quarter when several vacations are approaching, you will need to allocate extra funds. Moreover, you can anticipate a slight increase in ad price if your market is a popular one.
Instagram Ads Manager is where you can do things like create a rough cut and assess your existing spending plan. Determine if your intended audience can be reached within your budgeted time frame by consulting the Audience Definition and Estimated Daily Results sections.
Tiktok
Instagram isn’t the only social media site that does well in this region. Also, since TikTok and Musical.ly merged in 2018, it has become impossible to avoid hearing about it everywhere you go online.
TikTok’s popularity skyrocketed when the pandemic kept everyone inside. More than 2 billion people worldwide have downloaded it on their Android or iOS device.
TikTok is a video sharing app where users can watch and upload short clips (15-60 seconds in length) on whatever topic they like, so long as they don’t break the rules.
At present, there are 680 million users of the app all around the world. You may see how many individuals, based on your parameters, will be exposed to your adverts merely from this.
On TikTok, you may promote your videos in three different ways. Advertise on TikTok, collaborate with influencers, or make your own videos.
TikTok Ads
In terms of advertising, TikTok provides a variety of options, each with its own set of advantages. To give you an idea of the kinds of advertisements you can peruse within the app, here is a selection:
Brand Takeover In-Feed Ads
Advertisements on TopView
Challenges using a recognizable brand’s hashtag
Marketing with Name-Brand Reputational Impact
If you want to get more views on your videos, TikTok may be a bit of a cutthroat environment. That means increasing your bid if you want to succeed in the auction.
If you want to limit your spending, you can do so through the TikTok Ads Manager.
The app has two budget options for ads: Lifetime Budget and Daily Budget. You can limit how much you spend each day or over the course of the entire campaign with the Daily Budget feature, while the Lifetime Budget determines the total amount you can spend on your TikTok ads.
You can read more about TikTok marketing through this comprehensive FAQ Guide.
Popular TikTok Users
TikTok commercials aren’t the only way to promote your business on the platform; you can also team up with influential users to boost your reach.
You can either suggest a method of advertising for your product, or you can give them the freedom to come up with something on their own. But if you have a certain branding strategy in mind, it’s ideal to suggest it in advance.
Most of the advertisements on this site take the shape of testimonials or ratings of products or services. They can more easily promote your products because their following already trust them.
Content Creation
Your own content creation is an option as well.
Time is of the essence, especially at the outset of your dropshipping venture. However, it could be a source of income if you consistently provide engaging content.
However, this approach stimulates a great deal of thought and originality. Because it costs nothing to publish on the service, there is nothing to lose by giving it a shot.
YouTube
It comes as a surprise to many that YouTube, behind Google, is the second most-used search engine.
Paid content on YouTube
More than 3 billion searches are performed on the platform every month, demonstrating its immense popularity.
Whether you choose to take advantage of the platform’s built-in advertising features or reach out to the community at large, the high volume of visitors makes it an ideal venue for product promotion.
You can choose to work with well-known YouTubers, buy commercials on the platform, or produce your own videos, depending on your budget and time constraints.
Popular YouTubers
Make sure that the people who watch the most popular YouTubers are also the people you want to sell to. They don’t have to work as hard to win over an audience because they already have their trust.
Asking for reviews is a subtle method to get the word out about your product. As long as the review is credible and accurate, you should be good to go.
YouTube Ads
In order to promote your business on YouTube, you can use YouTube advertising. Commercial options on YouTube range from text links to video spots.
TrueView In-Stream Ads, the commercials that appear before a video is shown on YouTube, are extremely well-liked.
These are the most common forms of video advertisements, and the advertiser only forks up cash once the ad has been viewed for longer than 30 seconds or when the viewer interacts with it.
The duration of these spots ranges from 12 seconds to 6 minutes.
Ads that cannot be skipped during playback may also appear before, during, or after a video. These are typically between 15 and 20 seconds in length.
Advertisements such Bumpers, Overlay Ads, and Video Discovery Ads are also available.
Content Creation
Your products can be the focus of content creation if you’re feeling ambitious. Those with a large fan base and a flair for originality have the best chance of making a splash with this form of marketing.
Don’t worry though; it’s something that can be developed gradually with time and effort.
You might put your efforts into producing content that features your own items to show off their value.
The use of Google is probably old hat to you. Given that Google controls more than 70% of the global search industry, this is, well, not surprising.
It is without a doubt the most widely used search engine worldwide.
Promotions on Google
Google’s platform supports pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which is a popular method for businesses to promote their wares.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a technique of online marketing in which the advertiser forks out cash each time one of their adverts is clicked.
They are referred to as “Google Ads” on Google.
Marketers and business owners often resort to paying for ad space on sites like Google to attract customers rather than relying on organic search engine rankings. Simply put, they pay for a set amount of visits.
If you use Google Ads, you’ll just have to pay for the actual traffic that you get. Because of this, the cost is heavily reliant on the volume of said traffic.
In addition, you may use Google to limit your advertising expenditures by establishing a budget. Your ad spending can be temporarily halted or modified at any moment.
However, keywords are subject to a bidding system in PPC advertising.
In this auction, your Ad Rank is determined by multiplying your CPC bid by your Quality Score.
The cost-per-click (CPC) bid you submit indicates how much you’re willing to spend for each click on your ad. Your Quality Score is calculated using a variety of factors, including the quality and relevance of your keywords, your landing page, your ad text, your click-through rate, and the performance of your Google Ads account in the past.
Your chances of success increase in proportion to the CPC bid and Quality Score you submit. The user’s intent behind the search must also be met by your ad for it to be displayed.
All this might mean a higher price tag, but it also depends on the keywords you use. Think it through and figure out how to come out on top in the bidding.
As an advertising platform, Pinterest is useful if you know how to use it, and some may even call it a hidden treasure.
Even if there isn’t much to the platform at first glance, individuals unfamiliar with it may nevertheless feel intimidated.
Pinterest
Basically, Pinterest is an online pinboard where people may save and share pictures. Everyone who needs inspiration goes there, especially for clothing, food, and home improvement projects.
Advertising on Pinterest may be done in two ways: through promoted pins and through regular pins.
Promoted Pins on Pinterest are available and function through a bidding system. These pins are visible in both Pinterest feeds and search results.
As opposed to this, “organic pins” are just pins that you make yourself on Pinterest. When someone taps on your pin, they’ll be taken straight to your service’s info page.
However, women make up the vast majority of Pinterest users (77.1%). If your store caters to women, this could be a plus, but if you cater to men, it could be a huge drawback.
Consequently, you should focus your marketing efforts elsewhere if men make up the bulk of your target demographic. If you want to market to women, one possible perspective is to have them purchase the products as gifts for the men in their lives.
Key Takeaways
Your success as a drop shipper won’t depend on Facebook alone. A large number of websites, such as Instagram and TikTok, might drive customers to your dropshipping business.
Finding the right platform that works well with your products and finances is all that remains.
