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AMA with 2H Media: Planning your 2023 marketing budget

SarahF_Shopify
Community Manager
210 7 95

2H Media Logo - horizontal (1).png

 

Marketing costs are rising, and we want to support you in creating a profitable plan for the year ahead.

Hit reply and post your question now to Shopify Partner and marketing experts, 2H Media.

Co-founders & owners, @MatthewHerchel and @AronMurch join us live on March 21 from 12-2pm EST to answer your questions on how best to reach your audience, which marketing channels to focus on, and how to plan a sustainable 2023 marketing budget. 

 

Matt Herchel and Aron Murch are the Owners of 2H Media, a marketing agency that specializes in helping luxury ecommerce brands increase sales by building video-driven Shopify websites that reduce confusion and increase conversions. 

As Co-Owner and CFO, Matthew plays an active role at 2H Media managing the overall operations and resources, and running the financial activities of the company. In addition to these responsibilities, Matt acts as the sales and digital marketing lead for the company, providing guidance and strategy to numerous growing businesses.

As Co-Owner and CIO, Aron plays an active role alongside Matt in managing the overall operations and resources, while implementing the information and computer technology systems, and overseeing the development and dissemination of technology for the business. Additionally, Aron’s the design and development lead, overseeing and implementing branding and ecommerce projects.

 

What’s in scope of this AMA:

  • How best to allocate your marketing dollars for 2023 based on your industry
  • Which marketing channels to focus on and why for your omni-channel business, such as email, Google, SEO, influencers, affiliates, display or programmatic advertising, SMS, influencers, YouTube, and social media such as Meta, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok
  • How to determine whether your marketing efforts are profitable and sustainable 
  • North American-focused
  • We can’t advise on very specific use cases because technology and integrations can get complex. Please rely on the Community after the event to help guide your use case.  

 

Rules of engagement: 

Our Shopify AMA hosts can’t claim to know everything. So if there’s something we can’t answer live that’s within the scope of this AMA, we’ll get back to you shortly after the event with an answer.  As always please adhere to our community guidelines and code of conduct.

 

Post your question now & RSVP for the live event here (so you can get email reminders). 

Sarah | Shopify 
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 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

Accepted Solution (1)

SarahF_Shopify
Community Manager
210 7 95

This is an accepted solution.

That’s a wrap folks!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our AMA with 2H Media, and BIG thank you to Matt and Aron for taking the time to chat with our community. 

 

Read the event summary on our blog now

Sarah | Shopify 
 - Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know! 
 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

View solution in original post

Replies 66 (66)

JunebugJewelry
Tourist
5 0 6

What is the best way to connect the analytics data when I get sales on my site from Facebook Shop? These sales show up as sales, but not conversions. Is there a way to get that data connected so that I am better able to market to these users outside of Facebook?

MatthewHerchel
Shopify Partner
46 2 48

Hi Junebug,

You will need to have a Facebook Pixel installed on your Shopify store.

Shopify has a great guide you can follow here:

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/promoting-marketing/analyze-marketing/facebook-pixel

 

Shopify won't actually show you Facebook conversions, but if you have your Pixel installed your Facebooks Ads Manager will record conversions made on your store.
The only conversion metrics Shopify provides at a Basic subscription level is overall store conversion rate regardless of where the traffic is coming from.

 

You can see where your Facebook Pixel is within Shopify by navigating to your Online Store you can click Preferences where you can find where to enter the Facebook Pixel Code.

MatthewHerchel_2-1679420141229.png

 

Connect with me here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-herchel/

rexa28
Visitor
1 0 2

How much do I need to spend on Meta ads on average to get a decent traffic to my website? Are there any other "free" alternatives to promote my website? How can I accelerate my sales?

AronMurch
Shopify Partner
8 0 24

Hi Rexa, Those are some really big questions!

 

There is no hard and fast rule on how much you need to spend to get decent traffic. We typically recommend $1000/mo at the absolute minimum for paid advertising if you are going to use paid ads as part of your marketing strategy. That said, this really comes down to the value you are trying to capture; Your entire marketing budget should be at least 10-15% of your target revenue. 

 

Regarding "free" options for promoting your website and accelerating your sales, nothing is really free. It's super important to value your time appropriately as a business owner and DIY can cost you a lot in the long run, especially if you are spending a lot of time working on marketing activities that are not really driving sales.

 

That said, if you have an abundance of time right now and a lack of funds for marketing, start with things you can control yourself:

  • Get really good at capturing video content on your phone
  • Stay diligent and active on social media
  • If you are selling locally, keep your Google My Business up to date
  • Look for online groups in your market that allow promotion
Aron Murch | aron @ 2h.media
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- Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
- To learn more visit 2h.media

Mussty
Excursionist
31 3 7

I'd love to ask about marketing strategy for a business focused on local deliveries.

 

We are a grocery store with 4000+ products and only deliver to about a 4 mile radius. 

 

Very different to a DTC brand selling nationwide/worldwide.

 

What should we focus on? Which platform(s) will best? How should we allocate our budgets? We are about to launch our store for home delivery service this week so this is super relevant to us!! 🙂

 

AronMurch
Shopify Partner
8 0 24

Hi Mussty,

 

As such a tightly geographically locked business, your situation is very different than a lot of the other merchants in this thread. 

 

To answer your question, there are a few things you should focus on:

  • Google My Business: This is easily the most important tool for geographically locked businesses, and it's free.
  • Print Marketing: Print ads still work very well. They're easy to overlook with how popular digital ads are, and can be difficult to track but a strong direct mail campaign to your city's key zip codes can be inexpensive and massively impactful. You can run one a few or even several times a year and make a huge impact. If you include a coupon code, that can be a great way to track performance.
  • Google Ads: We're big believers in Google Ads, and your location targeting will be really clear since you don't have to figure out where your customers are.
  • Organic social media can also be powerful for local businesses. Make sure to connect with local public figures (politicians, other businesses, etc.) Organic posting is the way to go. Getting mentioned by the right people will go a long way.
Aron Murch | aron @ 2h.media
- Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know!
- Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
- To learn more visit 2h.media
Mussty
Excursionist
31 3 7

Hi @AronMurch,

 

Thank you. I really appreciate your feedback. It has reassured me I was on the correct path. 

 

I am looking at launching ads within Google Maps and already found a leaflet distribution postal service to use. I was thinking of embedding some tags within a QR code link on the leaflets so that I can measure against that maybe? I've not used this before but I believe Google Analytics can measure UTM tags? I've done very minimal reading on this. Would you advise this and if so how should we best set it up? Or is the effort not worth the offline campaign tracking? I can't use coupon codes due to Shopify's native discounting stacking ability. I run promotions on multi-buy products, if I add a coupon it replaces the multi-buy discount as it's usually a better deal. I can only use Gift Cards during checkout not to effect discounting.  So I have a loyalty program that rewards value based Gift Cards and a referral program that again rewards both parties Gift Cards.  

 

What is your take on Meta with regards to location targeting ads? I've heard it might be more cost effective over google ads to begin with? 

 

Megan32
Shopify Staff
1 0 1

Hi! I really like this format and your advice/suggestions are incredibly valuable. I am a small business owner and I find myself in the  'throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks', phase of things. I would love to make more data driven decisions with my marketing budget and I am curious to hear how you would recommend getting started. For example in a previous response you mentioned, Measurable Deliverables, do you mind giving some examples of what you mean and how you would measure. For example 1) Instagram Post (Static), measure time/engagement/conversions? 2) Email, measure CTR/conversions/unsubscribed? 

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

AronMurch
Shopify Partner
8 0 24

Hi Megan32, Thanks so much for the warm feedback. I think we all move in and out of the "throwing spaghetti" phase as our businesses grow. 


To answer your question, I always prefer to focus on hard metrics such as site visits, and conversions.

 

As Matthew mentioned in another post, I would run the following reports:

  • Sessions by referrer
  • Sessions attributed to marketing

This will let you know where your traffic is coming from. Google ads manager, facebook pixel, and Google analytics will also be able to provide more information.  

 

Be careful not to get too caught up in the other metrics. You want your post engagement to be high but high post engagement doesn't help you if those posts don't drive leads so focus on site visits and conversions. For email, CTR is important and so is open rate but unless they're super low (less than 50%, and less than 2.3% respectively), put your effort elsewhere.

 

If you are managing to drive decent traffic to the site, look at your conversion rate next. If it's less than 3%, it needs work. If it's less than 1%, it needs serious work.

 

I hope that helps!

Aron Murch | aron @ 2h.media
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- To learn more visit 2h.media

GHETTOFF
Visitor
1 0 2

Is is possible to add visual content to sms texting?

How does a small business go about adding their products as a store via shopify with the likes of an instagram.

 

SarahF_Shopify
Community Manager
210 7 95

Hi @GHETTOFF , you can explore the SMS apps in the Shopify App Store for availability around adding visuals: https://apps.shopify.com/collections/sms. And to sell your products on Instagram you'll need the Instagram Shopping feature with Facebook and Instagram by Meta. Here's our quick guide to get you started: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-sales-channels/facebook-instagram-by-meta/quick-guide

Sarah | Shopify 
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 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

MatthewHerchel
Shopify Partner
46 2 48

Hi Ghettoff,

 

There are 2 types of text messages SMS (Short Message Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service).

Through SMS you can send:

  • Text
  • Symbols
  • Emojis

Through MMS you can send:

  • Everything in SMS
  • GIFS
  • Images

We do a fair bit of email and SMS marketing with Klaviyo and they have a great article that explains the differences here.

 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by your second question but you can add Instagram as an additional sales channel within Shopify and tag your products so they appear within your posts. This is called Instagram shopping and you can find more information here.

Connect with me here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-herchel/

TRB28
Tourist
5 0 6

Hi Matt + Aron,

 

 I currently have being utilizing a 3rd party analytic company called North Beam to help me determine where my ad dollars are best being spent. It has helped me to see more truth into our data rather than solely relying on the reports Meta / Pinterest have to offer.

 

I own a subscription based business and I am constantly battling to determine if my CPA should be based on initial purchase or LTV? For example our ad manager will generally have us between a CPA of $25-$42 give or take, if I see us creeping over $30 I feel like I am spending too much because a single order cost only $38 + shipping. Our ad manager tells me that I shouldn't be focused on that though because generally our customers stay with us for at least 4 months which gives us an LTV of at least $152 + shipping. What do you think about this?

 

I have been questioning if I should start moving some of my ad spend off of Meta and onto TikTok even though we don't have a large following on Tik Tok yet. I just feel like Meta is never giving me growth and only giving me consistency but at a higher cost then I would like. What are your thoughts?

 

Lastly in regards to budgeting I know they say to aim for 10-15% of your Revenue, Do you review your percentage each month and then tweek your marketing from there? I have been trying to focus on that this year but every-time I want to make changes to our ads / budgets our ad manager says it will hurt its performance

SarahF_Shopify
Community Manager
210 7 95

This is an accepted solution.

That’s a wrap folks!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our AMA with 2H Media, and BIG thank you to Matt and Aron for taking the time to chat with our community. 

 

Read the event summary on our blog now

Sarah | Shopify 
 - Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know! 
 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

johnnybravo2342
Visitor
2 0 0

hi i need help desperately my shopify isnt working im missing some important options in my menus to fully setup my page  

MatthewHerchel
Shopify Partner
46 2 48

Hey @johnnybravo2342 You can send me an email to matthew@2h.media and we can discuss further.


Connect with me here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-herchel/
johnnybravo2342
Visitor
2 0 0

i sent out an email hopefully i can get my shop fixed