Facebook Retargeting Case Study: How I Created A 7,425% ROI On A Single Campaign, In 24 Hours
This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on increasing sales conversion with Facebook Retargeting to make more sales from the traffic you already have:
- Part 1 – [You Are Here] – How we created a 7,245% ROI, off a single campaign
- Part 2 – [Read It Here] – How an eCommerce store generated $18,750 in sales from $114…
- Part 3 – [Read It Here] – Jedi Mind Tricks to laser blast your sales conversions today!
Here’s the hard truth about website sales:
Only 2-4% of your website traffic will convert on their first interaction with your business.
And there are WAY too many businesses who think that driving more traffic to their business, is the key to success.
“We just need to get 1000 more page views to hit our sales target…”
And to some extent, that works….but you’re leaving 96% of that traffic on the table.
If you’re serious about taking your business to the next level, you need to start thinking about how you interact, and engage with your customers.
Otherwise, you’re casting your line, without any bait. Something will bite eventually, but you may go hungry just sitting there and waiting…
Keep reading to learn how to set up Facebook Retargeting for your business….
Bonus: See how to integrate for Shopify, Woo commerce, Big Cartel and more!
The Facebook Fishing Formula: How To Hook Hot Leads With Facebook Retargeting For “Continued Conversations”
Last week we set up a campaign for a product that is in BETA testing, with very little traffic.
After setting up the Facebook Fishing Formula, within 24 hours we had some pretty unbelievable results…
Almost $300 in sales for a measly $0.04 investment!
And its still making sales and bringing back leads, this is the power of the Facebook Fishing Formula…
Our 2nd sale came in at $0.44 spend, not quite as high but still a 675% ROI and zero additional interaction from our team.
The campaign is only showing to specific, interested leads, so the total running costs to date are…$0.44 for $594 in return:
This is the most important thing you need to understand about Facebook Retargeting:
You don’t need a huge audience, high traffic volume, or even a 5 figure marketing budget to implement this.
Heck its not just for e-commerce either…this case study was for a service based business!
In fact, with very low traffic (20 people as the product isn’t advertised yet!) , and extremely low budget, we still managed to create sales to such a small audience.
Now we can’t guarantee you will see the same results (That would be foolish of us)
But by implementing this formula you can start to convert all those customers who are still on the fence with your products or services
Ask yourself this:
“Whats holding me back from taking steps and doing the same with my business?”
Perhaps you say to yourself “I just want to hit 1000 subscribers, then I’ll start sending my emails” or “I just need 3000 daily page views, then I’ll start” etc etc and we understand, because we’ve been there too.
And you’ve probably been told by most gurus that you cant implement or see results from conversion testing until you have much higher traffic…
Which is technically true, we would get a more accurate reading from a larger audience. Which is why we are running this for a number of clients in different fields to gather results.
But for simply implementing NOW at the early stages of this product, we have seen:
- Increased Sales
- Fully Automated
- Marketing budget wasn’t wasted on uninterested targets. (Ads are only shown to those who expressed previous interest)
- Running costs were minimal
- ROI was HUGE
- 20 minutes to set up
- No 3rd Party software or provider required. (The only cash paid is to your Facebook campaign)
And the best part?
We were able to do this despite working full-time with our agency, binge watching the new Daredevil, and all for less than a cup of coffee.
And you can implement the same strategies for your site….
The 3 Step’s To Using The “Facebook Fishing Formula” To Re-Engage Warm Leads And Get Increased Sales
There are 3 simple steps to the Facebook Fishing Formula:
Step 1: Have products or services on your website for sale
Step 2: Understand what your customer wants and needs from you, and where or why they are in your sales funnel
Step 3: Remind them what you have to offer
And here’s why this formula will work so well for your business. (And why this is like fishing for customers)
Have you ever been fishing in a fish-less pond?
Of course you haven’t
(I’m not even sure it counts as fishing if there’s no fish involved?)
Instead, you go to where you know the fish are, because your chances of catching a fish just improved by 100%
This technique tracks visitors to your site, and markets directly to them. This ensures you are only targeting those who have shown previous interest in your product or service:
Let me ask you this…
If you saw a fish was interested, swimming around your line…
Would you reel in and re-cast every 5 minutes, frustratingly hoping to hit something?
(But instead disturbing the water and scaring away all the fish)
Or do you persevere and try to keep that same fish interested?..
“Well duh Dan, we would keep at it of course!”
[Tweet “And that’s exactly why the “Facebook Fishing Formula” will help you keep warm leads swimming around your offer, and help convert them into customers.”]So if you’re reader to start converting more of your traffic today, lets get to work!
Step #1: Have Products Or Services To Sell
Now this goes without saying, you can’t re-engage a lead into a customer, if you don’t have anything to offer.
If you are measuring traffic on your site, you will know that certain pages or products will attract more attention than others. Maybe it gets more traffic from other sources, or it simply outperforms.
Today we want you to take immediate action, so rather than setting up your campaign for all your products, lets get to work promoting your most popular items and see the effects
Here’s how:
Action #1: Create a list of your highest traffic products, including all images and sales copy to use.
Head over to your Google Analytics Account, and click on the “Reporting” tab:
Down on the left hand side are a bunch of options. Click on the “Behavior” Button:
This will show a new drop down menu. Select “Site Content” and then “All Pages”:
This will bring up new information in the main panel on the right. Scroll down below the graph until you find a list of your top traffic pages.
(They will look something like this)
Usually your top pages will be:
- Your homepage (seen with just the / symbol)
- Certain service pages that you perhaps promote, or people now search for directly (These are great people to try and chat with)
- Your main blog, if your are creating content
- An article or 2 that you have created
Today we’ll try to understand how to bring back traffic to those pages, and more importantly, how you could use those top traffic pages to bring back up to 70% more sales and leads with specific messaging to your viewers
Action #2: Create a file of all images you have for those products to use in your campaign
If someone else made your images, simply right-click on the images on your site, select “Save As” and then save them to your PC to use shortly
Now that you have your list of top pages on your site, lets break down why people buy, and how to target each page for higher conversions…
Step #2: Understand What Your Customers Want And Need From You, And Where They Are In Your Sales Funnel
There’s a reason only a small percentage of your first time visitors convert on your site
They either need more information, life gets in the way and they need to leave (and forget to come back) or worse, your site suffers from C.S.A.S
Or as we like to call it, “Crazy Sales Assistant Syndrome”
Imagine this situation:
You walk into a local store, looking for an item.
Before you can even look around, the clerk starts talking
“Welcome to Moe’s Fishing emporium! We sell fishing rods, reels, line, bait, waders and more! Please make a purchase. Please join our email list!!”
Hmm…
“That’s great, can you tell me which reel is the best to buy for this rod?” you ask, slightly puzzled and waving the rod in front of you….
But the clerk fires off the same generic information again;
“Welcome to Moe’s Fishing emporium! We sell blah blah blah……
Now if this happened in real life, you would back away and make a quick exit.
So why do people do this with their websites?
In reality, the conversation would move on to the next logical step.
The clerk could help you with any questions, or if they had seen you before, continue your previous conversation.
And this makes total sense to do!
Unfortunately, most websites don’t have anything more than who they are and sales pages of their products, which is why they only hit 2% in sales.
There is little help answering questions and so your potential customer often has to leave and look for information elsewhere, and when they do come back, its back to the immediate pitch…
To help visualize, the sales process that most people go through is this:
- You Recognize a Need or desire
- You then Seek Potential Solutions
- You Evaluate Solutions and further research
- You decide to Take Action
- Hooray, you Make The Purchase
- After Purchase Reflection
Unfortunately we try to push our online customers from stage 2 (Seeking products and Solutions) right to stage 5 (Make a Purchase) without guiding them along the way.
The 2% that do convert, are either incredibly eager buyers, or have already progressed through the other stages elsewhere.
By implementing stage 2 and 3 (Educating and Providing Solutions) you not only help to increase conversions, but you also lower returns in stage 6 (After purchase reflection)
The goal of the Facebook Fishing Formula is to stop focusing on the 2% and just relying on sending more traffic to your business
(Your filling a bucket with leaky holes!)
Instead increase the percentage conversions of ALL TRAFFIC to your business and bring back all those missed sales!
This will do 2 key things:
- All your traffic now and in the future will convert much much better
- Your customers get a better service from you!
So lets “Continue Some Conversations” with your customers
Action #1: Understand Your Customers mindset on your site
The first step is to try and understand that the mindset of your reader will be different, depending on which page of your site they have visited.
Look at your top pages and ask yourself:
“Where are my customers in my sales funnel?”
- Are they simply visiting your home and about page? (This is most likely New visitors and are relatively cold leads)
- Are they reading specific articles? (These people are closer to purchase. They are interested in finding solutions and are warm leads)
- Or perhaps they are looking at products and services? (These people are “Deciding on a solution” and are relatively hot leads)
Looking back at the top pages from before, we can see that the top pages in order for our site are:
- Our home page
- An article on measuring how effective digital marketing is for your business
- Our services
- Our booking page to hire us
- And then a few services
We can now build systems in place to create “Conversations” around where we estimate our readers are in our sales funnel, and customize to bring them back and take action.
Each section will require different levels of interaction to bring your customers back.
Bonus: See how to integrate for Shopify, Woo commerce, Big Cartel and more!
Here’s how we break down each stage in our funnel:
1 #:Start Of Sales Process.
(Visited your site but not taken action by reading articles, or visited services pages)
A visitor to your home page needs to be prompted to return and further educated.
Push them towards reading your articles to learn the benefits of what you provide, and to help progress them through your funnel to learn more
In this situation this campaign will only be shown to visitors who have checked out your site, but not progressed through to reading articles, or your services pages.
Although at the early stage of your funnel, bringing them back to your content will help move them further along, and perhaps open up opportunities for more interaction and sales.
2 #:Seeking Solutions
(Visited your site and read articles on specific subjects)
In this campaign the reader has read your articles and is looking for solutions.
(They are at stage 2 in the sales process.)
Readers at this stage should be reminded to return to check out your services or further relevant articles.
Always try to remind them what they have viewed previously to create a highly relevant campaign
This campaign is ONLY shown to those who have visited those specific pages, keeping it highly relevant and costs low.
Here we are offering services DIRECTLY related to the content they have read to bring them back (Digital Marketing custom campaigns for the client to work through in their own business)
3 #:Evaluating Solutions
(Visited your site and checked out SPECIFIC SERVICES)
Those who have checked out your services page are very close to sale, and you can be far more direct with your messaging.
Here is a very simple campaign we use to bring back those who have specifically looked for SEO packages for their business
Again, this is only shown to those who have “Expressed Interest” by visiting this specific page.
4 #:Deciding To Make A Purchase
(Those who have visited your booking/add to cart/final sales page)
Finally, this campaign is for those who have checked out our “booking page”. These readers are extremely close to sale, and can be marketed to even more directly.
The booking page is the final step before discussing to become a full time client so it makes ZERO sense to not be following up with these people
What messages could you use for your top pages to bring your customers back and interacting with your content?
Take a look at your top pages from before, and have a think over where that customer is mentally in your process. What would you say to them?…
So lets take action now that you understand:
- Why your site is missing out on sales (People need reminding)
- To bring customers back you need to cater your messaging to the different stages of where your reader is in your sales funnel
This brings us to step 3…
Step #3: Remind Them What You Have To Offer (And “Continue The Conversation”)
Here is where the money is made so pay attention:
Even if you only set this up for your top products at first, 20 minutes here can make a HUGE difference in your bottom line. Converting previous visitors is the easiest way to grow your sales.
Lets get to work!
Action #1: If you haven’t already got one, create a Facebook Business page
Head to the top right of your Facebook page and find a small down arrow
Click the arrow and select “Create Page” from the drop down menu
Choose from 1 of the 6 page type options. If you’re a local business with a physical location choose that one, or choose “Company, Organization or Institution
Now pick your industry and enter the business name of you company
Next you will be taken through a sequence to add further information for your business. You could potentially skip this, but we advise taking the time to fill this out
Fill out the “About Profile” for your business
Add the website address and a “Name” to find your business on Facebook.
Always try to fill as much relevant information as you can.
Not only is this an easy backlink for your business, but your Facebook profile will generate traffic and help send potential customers to your business website.
The next step is to upload an image for your business.Like we say, its better to not miss all this, as the more legitimate your page looks, the more legitimate your business looks
Click “Save Photo” in the bottom right corner
The next option is to set up your “Preferred Page Audience”
If you do have a physical location that sells products, feel free to add the country in your preferred audience section
If you will be targeting internationally anyone who visits your site (as per this guide) then you don’t need to worry about it
Congratulations!
You now have a Facebook business page, and can start running Facebook retargeting ad campaigns
The key with the Facebook Fishing Method is to convert previous visitors as they are closer to sale, and already interested in your services…
But to do that, you need to be able to know who your previous visitors are:
Action#2: Create a “Facebook Retargeting Pixel” for your website
This will allow you to track and market to your previous website visitors back on their Facebook page.
Head over to http://www.facebook.com/ads/audience_manager
In the top right corner is a green button with “Create Audience”
Select “Custom Audience”. This will load a new screen and give you a number of options to work from.
In this instance select “Website Traffic”, as this is what we will be tracking
You can use facebook custom audience lists later if you are advertising to just previous customers or to your email list etc, but for now we just want to build our own custom parameters
Agree to the terms and select “Create Web Remarketing Pixel”
Finally, copy (Alt+C) the code and click “Create Audience”
You now have a facebook retargeting pixel ready to add to your website.
/happydance
For the time being, save this over in notepad to keep safe…we will add it to your website shortly
After selecting “Create Audience” a new section will pop up to adjust your campaign settings.
Select “Anyone who visits your website” and enter 180 days. Rather than a shorter period of time, we want to continue to market and retarget to those visitors
(If you were doing this for a time specific campaign, then you would adjust the duration to fit)
Then give the campaign a name and a reason to remind you of the project
And that’s it, you now have a facebook tracking pixel ready to add it to your website so that it can track each new visitor.
Action #3: Add your Retargeting Pixel code to your website
For simplicity lets show you how to add your code to your WordPress site.
(In the bonus section see how to add the code to Shopify, Woo-commerce Big Cartel and Thesis sites)
Log into your WordPress sites “Back-end” and on the left hand side are a number of options. Select “Appearance” to see a drop down menu, and then select “Editor”
If you can’t find this, leave a message in the comments below. For the first 48 hours after posting we will endeavor to answer all questions on how to integrate this in your business
This will load new options on the right hand side of your screen
Scroll down through the various files until you locate your “Header” file (Header.php)
This will open up your Header file to be edited
(Only make the changes we suggest here!)
Find the <Head> section of the code to add in your tracking pixel
Hit enter to create a new line below your <Head> section and then
Copy and Paste your tracking code (currently on your notepad) below the <Head> section
All that’s left to do is scroll down the screen and select “Update File” to save your pixel and start tracking visitors to your site!
Now that you have your tracking pixel in place, lets build your first campaign for your top traffic products.
Action #4: Design and create your Facebook Ad “Re-Engagement” campaigns
Remember why only 2% are buying from your site at the moment?
You need to help educate, advise and remind your readers to return and become customers.
So when designing your Facebook Fishing campaigns, its important to remember a few guidelines:
- Your reader needs to recognize your offer.
- Your images and messaging should be inline or “congruent” with your original offer or content.
So if your offering a service or product be sure to use images, colour schemes and messaging that is similar to the original offer.
If your reminder is too different, then the reader will feel dissociated with the offer. It just doesn’t “feel right” and they wont react correctly. They may even think they are on the wrong page or website.
Take this example from Infusionsoft
We recently checked out their services, but didn’t progress further than the “about” and “service” pages.
Their campaign is a generic “come back and chat” to check out their services, a nice and basic retargeting reminder bring back campaign…
We didn’t visit a sales page, so their offer is a gentle reminder to learn more:
But your campaign doesn’t need to be a work of art…
All you need are 4 simple things:
- A Call To Action that is relevant to your original message
- An image that is from your original offer/article
- Your logo so people remember who you are
- A human face to help build trust
Don’t over think this, just take action.
Notice how simple our campaign is here:
Its all simple copy and paste of images from our site. (High quality images and campaigns may work better, but please create at least one campaign and launch it today even if its a stick figure!)
- We have taken the original offer direct from the sales page, and shrank it down to fit on the image
- As there is a significant lack of Brad Pitt’s in our agency, we feature my ugly mug to show you that will be working with a trust worthy actual human being.
- The CTA (Call to Action) is based on the fact that the viewers have looked at the service already. This means they are looking for a marketing plan
- Finally we have our logo in the top left corner
Decide on your first page to promote and go collect all your images you need together. Copy and paste them from your site if you have to
Got them?
Great!
If your not a Photoshop wizard, head over to http://www.canva.com and create a free account

Create facebook ad designs easily in Canva
Canva is a free resource which allows you to create images online. It has built in templates at the correct size to use for a variety of tasks and you can also buy custom images for $1.
If your shy and don’t want your face on your campaign then you can use the paid images on their site.
Watch the quick tutorial and then start your first design.
Select “Facebook Post” template. This will give you the perfect size to work with for your campaign

Head to Canva and select “Facebook Post” template to design your facebook retargeting ad
This will now load your image design area, and a number of options over on the left
Scroll down to “Uploads” and click to upload your images to use

Upload the images your made for your campaign swipe file earlier
A new pop-up appears on the right. Click the green “Upload” button and locate the files on your computer

Upload your own images to create a custom facebook ad with the template
Drag and drop your images across onto the white work area to the right of the screen.
You can click the corners to adjust size, and select if that image should be placed in-front or behind of each image. (Bring to the front/Bring to back)
Note:
To meet Facebook image guidelines for campaign approval, the text in your image cannot take up no more than 20% of the image size

Move your images on the template to design your retargeting ad
Notice how the text in our image only takes up a small area?
Once complete, save the image by clicking “Download” and then select “As An Image”
This will save the image to your computer for your first campaign

Finish your ad design by selecting “download as an image”
Now that you have your images created, its time to put them into action
Action #5: Set up your “Facebook Fishing Formula” in Facebook
Head back over to your Facebook account.
In the top right corner again, hit the little down arrow and select “Create Ads”

Select “Create Ads”
This will load up your goals for your campaign
Select “Send people to your website”

Create your first retargeting campaign
Enter the exact site page you would like your visitors to go to when they click on your facebook ad
(Be sure that this page is inline with your advert and not any old random page)
For example, if your campaign is around a service then send to that service page. If its about a specific product then send to the specific product page, or articles giving more information on the product

Give your retargeting campaign a name to remember it by
Give your campaign a name you will remember
I believe in you 100%
You’re going to kick ass and implement the Facebook Fishing Formula for every single product and service you have right?
So save time now and be concise…
Scroll down the screen to the next section. “Who do you want your ads to reach?”
This is where it gets interesting…Create an ad set and then select “Custom Audience”

Create a new custom facebook audience
This will bring up a few new options:
In the “Website Traffic” section, click the drop down menu, then select “People visiting specific web pages but not others”
We can play around with different variations later, but for now this is the simplest to get your campaign working for your business.
Adjust the URL settings from “URL contains” to URL equals”. This way you can target the EXACT URL (webpage address)
In the top box enter the website address for your product.
In the box below it, enter your after purchase page. (Or whichever page you have after a certain action is performed)
This way, your campaign will only be shown to people who have visited your product but not yet visited your “After Purchase”/Thanks/Order Confirmation page.
In the example of a booking for consultation page:
- The top URL option would be the booking page
- The bottom URL option would be your “Thanks for making a booking” page
Adjust the “In the Last” section to the maximum 180 days. Any visitors that meet this criteria in the next 180 days will be targeted. And if they purchase, the advert will no longer be shown to them.
Finally remember to give your audience a specific name. We recommend something like “Customers who visited X Product, but didn’t purchase”
Hit the blue “Create Audience button on the bottom right to save your new audience targeting criteria.
This will bring you back to you main “Who do you want to target section”

You can narrow this down later if need be
Now this sounds crazy but leave all of the other options here BLANK.
You have set all criteria for your audience based on the visitors to you site, and the actions they take.
Unless your products are location dependent, every visitor to your site should meet your advertising criteria

Hey There! Spend more money please 😀
You will see this warning in the corner. Ignore it.
Yes you will only target a few people. The EXACT people who have already shown interest in that product.
If you adjust the settings to a larger audience, you will simply waste your advertising spend showing it to the wrong people.
Our campaign had a list of 20 people only and saw a 7,245% return, so don’t worry about a small audience.
Remember, Facebook is a business. They want you to spend money!
But now you have a simply system in place for marketing in facebook to bring back and re-engage previous site visitors again and again!
Talking about money, your target audience is now set so lets adjust the budget for your ad spend:
Budget:
There’s only 1 real answer of how much to spend. You need to run a test based on your own traffic
For very small audiences, you might only spend a few dollars per day. If you are getting huge numbers, adjust to accommodate your traffic. (It will be worth it)
Schedule:
Run your ad continuously. It will only be shown to your EXACT audience who meet your criteria, so the chances of spending your entire budget is low
Change the “Optimize For” section:
Click the drop down menu and select “Impressions”
Normally impressions would be a poor option to choose, as it attempts to show your campaign as many times as possible
Because your campaign is only being shown to specific people, it will only be shown a few times, and so the cost will be either very low, or very targeted
Finally you need to adjust the remaining pricing settings
We normally run $0.01 cent above the “Suggested Bid”. There is room to move on this, in that if you raise your bid price then your campaign should be shown more often.
You might see an ROI faster, but you would need to ensure that your reader doesn’t feel overwhelmed by too many reminders
And that’s your retargeting budgeting set up!
Your Facebook Fishing Formula is minutes away from being finished and sending traffic back to your business. We just need to add your images from earlier, and add your written sales copy to entice them in….
Action #6: Add your retargeting images and compelling sales copy
Scroll down to the “Create Your Ad” section
We always use the “Single Image” here for 2 reasons:
- We can try variations of the same image. Different colours etc and split test easier
- If you have too many options, people will choose to take no action.
Don’t distract them with multiple images like in a carousel, instead get them focused on taking 1 clear action:
Click the “+” symbol and add your image into the section. You can add up to 6 images, but the written copy will always be the same.
This means that your written copy must make sense with your different images….
We actually recommend using variations of the same image and A/B test them.
(You would be surprised how the number of clicks can change depending on the button color or the persons hair color in your campaign image….)
Now to create the written “Copy” for your campaign.
Remember:
Your copy, like your images, must be similar or make reference to your original offer.
Headline:
This should reference your original article, guide or service
Text:
This is the section below your image. Use this as a sub-headline that reinforces and details your headline
Call to Action button:
There are a number of options here but we recommend using “Learn More”
Getting your site visitors back to your site/page is the number one goal. The page should help to educate and bring to a sale. If your button is “Buy Now” it can cause resistance to click through.
Show Advanced Options:
Facebook is pretty sneaky. So far you can only add a few words for your offer…..unless you click the “Show Advanced Options” on the bottom left side
muwahahaha

muwahahaha
This will allow you to add another 200 characters and is hugely beneficial!
You should use this section to remind the reader of the benefits, and the offer of your product or service.
They have already visited and shown interest, so remind them why they should come back…
Finally, in the bottom right hand corner click “Place Order” to start your campaign!
Your image and campaign will be checked to ensure that your text meets with the Facebook guidelines.
After it has been approved, your campaign will start showing to your audience!
Conclusion
The Facebook Fishing Formula is an incredibly effective way to easily increase sales from the traffic you already generate to your business, and from all future traffic you collect
Yes, it takes time to implement
But by using this Facebook Retargeting and The Facebook Fishing Formula you know that you are converting already interested leads…
Those leads you lost who were incredibly close to a sale but needed a quick followup
The added bonus is you don’t need to pay any 3rd party paid software, lowering your costs even more!
We do this for every new offer, article and guide that we produce. The ROI and running costs are so good, we would be mad not to, and so would you
Our current spend for the BETA campaign is still less than $2.00 and $600 in sales.
You don’t need to be a huge business, with major traffic or a huge audience to take advantage of this.
You just need to make the most of EVERY visitor to your business….
So how are you going to take action?
Leave a comment below of how you implemented this into your business, even better, add a screenshot of your new campaign images for feedback!
Action To Take Now
Be sure to follow the 3 steps to make sure that your Facebook Fishing Formula is worth the time and effort you put into it:
Step 1: Have products or services on your website for sale
Step 2: Understand what your customer wants and needs from you, and where or why they are in your sales funnel
Step 3: Remind them what you have to offer with basic Facebook Retargeting
And that’s it!
I’ve packaged up a killer set of bonuses for you to help you with Facdbook Retargeting and to set up your OWN Facebook Fishing Formula:
- A Video Walk through of every stage
- PDF Download of the article
- PDF Checklist
Click the image and enter your email to access the entire bonuses!