Facebook Offers

Black Friday and the holiday shopping season are less than a month away. You're probably planning to run specials and are looking for new ways to bring back previous customers and find new ones. Facebook's recently launched Offers product can help you with both. This post is a guide to using Offers, Facebook's new coupon tool, to distribute discounts and reach new customers.

What are Facebook Offers?

Facebook Offers are a new type of post that look and work like a coupon. [facebook-offers-screenshot] Create an Offer the same way that you would create a status, photo, or video update. Facebook users then see the Offer and can click it to "claim" it. Claiming the Offer gives them access to a coupon code for your store. From here, they can visit your store and place their order using the discount code you've provided.

Who Can Create Facebook Offers?

Running a Facebook Offer has two requirements. First, your Page must have at least 400 likes. Second, you must promote the Offer to your fans and their friends. Yes, you have to pay to reach your own audience. This is increasingly how Facebook works for Page owners. Don't worry, the minimum ad spend is just $5. The greater your spend, the larger your reach. The number of likes that your Page has will dictate how much you can spend to promote the Offer. Get a $50 Facebook ad credit here from the Shopify team.

How to Create Facebook Offers

You can create an Offer the same way you would create any other post, right from your Page. At the top of your Page, where you usually post status updates, select "Offer, Event +." Then select Offer. You can choose to run an in store only, in store & online, or online only Offer. [facebook-offers-update] For this example, we'll create an online Offer.

Step 1: Redemption

In the first of four steps, you'll need to set the URL and discount code of the promotion. The URL should be as close to checkout as possible. If the coupon is for your entire store, you can use your homepage. If it's for a category, use a category page. For a specific product, use the product page. [facebook-offers-redemption] You can create the discount code in your Shopify admin panel.

Step 2: Basics

Next, create the Offer and set the terms. Your headline must be 90 characters or less, so keep your copy simple and to-the-point. Explain the offer and end with a call-to-action. Facebook recommends providing at least a 20% discount. Giving something away or having a "buy one, get one free" offer also work well. The image in your Offer should be eye-catching. Remember that Facebook is a very visual site. Include a person in the image, preferably someone using your product. Finally, set the total number of available discount codes, the expiration date, and the terms and conditions of your Offer. [facebook-offers-basics]

Step 3: Preview

In Step 3, you can preview your Offer on Facebook and see the email that people will get after claiming the Offer. Look good? Ok, now let's talk money.

Step 4: Budget

In Step 4, you can choose your budget for promotion. Your potential reach and spend depend on how many likes your Page has. You also have the option to promote your Offer using the Facebook Ads interface if you want to target the Offer beyond your existing fanbase. More on this in the next section.

How to Promote Facebook Offers

Just creating an Offer doesn't mean that anyone will see it. You have plenty of options, both free and paid, to get the word out about your deal. Let's start with paid promotion since it's required.

Paid

As mentioned earlier, you are required to promote your Offer. Otherwise, Facebook won't even post it to your Page's timeline. In the final step of creating your Offer, you can select an audience of your fans and their friends to promote it to based on your budget. This is the simplest and cheapest way to meet the promotion requirement. Best of all, Offers are displayed in users' news feeds, not in the sidebar like most ads. Since discounts and promotions are the #1 reason people like Facebook Pages, this is a good way to convert followers to paying customers and to increase customer lifetime value (LTV). You can reach even more users by clicking "Promote later using another Facebook Ad tool" in the last step of creating your Offer. While Facebook ads can help you reach a new audience with your Offer, you'll find two downsides to this approach: the ads are served in the ad sidebar, not the news feed, and clicks can be expensive. I recommend starting out by promoting your post as outlined above. If the return on investment (ROI) is strong enough, then you can consider running additional ads for your Offer.

Free

Ads aren't the only way to drive traffic to your Offer. You also have free options. First, pin your Offer to the top of your Facebook Page so that existing and potential fans can find it easily when they visit your Page. To pin your Offer, hover over it and click the pencil icon in the top right corner. Then select "Pin to Top." You can also like, comment on, and share the Offer, just like with any other post, on your personal Timeline or with specific friends. Like with other types of posts on Facebook, more engagement with the post will lead to wider distribution. If people like, comment on, or share your ad, Facebook will judge it favorably and show it to more people. You can even encourage people to share the Offer with friends in the headline. David Fischer, Facebook’s VP of marketing and business partnerships, recently claimed that 75% of Offer redemptions are due to friend-to-friend sharing. Make sure to funnel all traffic directly to your Offer rather than just sharing the discount code elsewhere. This will help the Offer's performance and make measurement easier. Include your offer in your email signature, share it on your other social networks, and send it to your email list. In addition to redemptions and sales, you'll also benefit from existing customers liking your Page. You can find the Offer's URL for sharing by clicking the date above the Offer and next to your Page's thumbnail image. You'll be taken to a page displaying just the Offer, not your entire timeline. Copy the URL and share it everywhere you can. [facebook-offers-permalink]

How to Measure Facebook Offers

Facebook Offers are more measurable than most types of coupons, online or offline. To measure the success of your Facebook Offer, you'll need to gather data from Facebook and Shopify. Your ad will show the total number of claims. Remember, this is only the number of people who clicked the Offer to reveal the discount code, not the number who purchased from your store. However, it's still a good number to track. To measure the number of actual purchases using the discount code, you'll need to check the sales data in your Shopify admin. Now you can measure the ROI of your Offer. The simplest way to calculate ROI is: ROI = (Revenue from orders using the discount code) / (Cost to promote Offer) Is ROI > 1? Congrats, your promotion was profitable! In early tests with clients, I've seen ROIs as high as 2-4. For every dollar they spent, they made $2-$4. If only all advertising worked this well. If your ROI is fairly strong, you can try to improve your returns by looking at your sales data. Create Offers for the specific products that were the most popular during the promotion. Test promoting the Offer with sidebar ads targeted to users with relevant interests.

Conclusion

Facebook Offers are an interesting new way to distribute deals and reach new customers. Facebook is notorious for dialing back the reach of products that work really well, so give Offers a try soon. Guest post by Fred Perrotta, the co-founder of Tortuga Backpacks, makers of the ultimate travel backpack. Contact Fred for help marketing your online store.