Facebook advertising can feel like a minefield, particularly when it comes to creating perfected audiences. Now, you can automatically import your custom segments directly from Marsello with Facebook Audience Sync, saving you time and also ensuring your audience is always up to date!

The Facebook Audience Sync feature allows you to easily carry over your custom segments to your Facebook Ads Manager account where you can start creating compelling ads that convert customers. You don’t have to load a new audience every time you want to create ads; in fact, the Facebook Audience Sync is designed to update every hour, so it’s always up to date, ensuring that your marketing reaches all your desired customers. 

The world of social media marketing might feel a little overwhelming when you first get started, but by automatically loading your customer segments to your Facebook Ads Manager account, it’s easy to create promotional marketing campaigns that target both new and existing customers – this is where Facebook Audience Sync changes the game. The hard work is done for you as you easily sync custom segments to Facebook with just a few clicks! 

There are some things you’ll need to ensure you’ve done before you can use the Facebook Audience Sync feature. Let’s delve a little deeper.

Getting started with Facebook Audience Sync

First thing’s first, you’ll need to ensure your Facebook Ads Manager account is set up and ready to go before you can sync your Marsello custom segments.

Once your Facebook Ads Manager account is all ready to go, you can navigate to the Add-ons page in your Marsello admin and easily find the Facebook Audience Sync feature. Here you can connect your Facebook Ads Manager account to your Marsello account by completing the required Facebook permissions and following the set-up steps.

And when you’ve completed the set-up process, you’ll be able to start syncing your selected Marsello custom segments to your Facebook Ads Manager account. Connecting your Marsello account to Facebook opens up a wide range of marketing possibilities to various customer groups and not just those who you’ve added with the Facebook Audience Sync feature. 

One important note: as we’ve touched on, the Facebook Audience Sync tool allows you to create Facebook ad audiences directly from your Marsello custom segments – emphasis on the “custom segments”. By this, we mean that you can only sync segments that you’ve created yourself. If you haven’t created any yet, you can learn more about custom segments in our help center. 

One question you may have is, “How can I sync my RFM segments, i.e. Loyal Customers?” And it’s actually very easy! All you need to do is create a copy of your desired RFM segment (these are your ‘Loyal’, ‘Best’, ‘At-risk’ segments, etc.). From here, you can easily sync this new custom segment across to Facebook Ads Manager (make sure you name your new segment so that it’s easily distinguishable). Your segment will appear in your selectable Ads audiences as “Marsello: ” so if you named a copy of an RFM segment as Facebook-Audience-Loyal-Customers, it would be easily distinguishable in both Marsello and Facebook Ads Manager.

Now that we’ve got the need-to-know feature information out of the way let’s explore how you can get creative with your custom audiences and Facebook campaigns.

How to create Facebook ads that convert customers

There are a few different ways to break down social media ads, usually based on your goals. For the sake of keeping things simple, we’ll look at ads as tools for either retargeting or acquisition – meaning you’re using ads to either engage your current customers or attract new customers. 

Let’s break down these two advertising goals while showcasing how you can use Facebook Audience Sync to create innovative yet straightforward ad campaigns.

Retargeting Existing Customers with Facebook Ads

According to Niel Patel, 72% of customers are inclined to abandon their carts while shopping. That’s huge! Creating retargeting campaigns might be old news at this stage; however, it isn’t always easy to know how much retargeting is too much. Here’s a hint: your campaigns don’t have to be restricted to powerful tools like email marketing and dynamic retargeting tactics (such as AI-driven product recommendations). Integrating your retargeting efforts into your social media marketing campaigns can be a powerful way to re-engage shoppers in new and exciting ways.

With Facebook Audience Sync, you can easily create audiences from your Marsello custom segments. Your RFM Segments can also be a starting point as they help you to target specific groups of customers who are already organised by data-driven AI. For example, the Lost and At-Risk segments could be fantastic audiences for a win-back retargeting campaign that aims to re-capture those less active customers. 

Note: Remember what we stated earlier – you’ll need to create custom segments that are duplicates of your RFM segments if you’d like to market to these.

Let’s look at a few stats that really break down the effectiveness of retention marketing:

Custom Automations are here! Now, you can easily design and enable your own custom email and SMS automations, giving you full flexibility with your automated marketing campaigns. By pairing this new feature with Marsello’s other tools, such as RFM Segmentation and your loyalty program, you’ll be able to create the perfect email flow or SMS Campaign that stands out and sees results.

With Custom Automations, the options are endless. Automate campaigns that send to specific customer segments or trigger when a customer makes a purchase. Automated flows are perfect for requesting reviews, creating a referral email series, offering a post-purchase follow-up service or a timely cross-sell, just to name a few ideas.

Let’s check out an example of a retailer who’s seen success using Custom Automations. 

Home Goods Hardware encourages window shoppers to complete a purchase

Window Shoppers can be notoriously tricky to convert to loyal customers. This hasn’t dissuaded Home Goods Hardware, though. The beautifully branded homewares store, based out of Australia, was one of the first to create a Custom Automation and we love their ingenuity.

The campaign features just one simple email that welcomes customers within the Window Shoppers (those who’ve created an account with the store but not completed a purchase) segment and encourages them to make a purchase with a 15% off discount code. With a 49% open rate and 7.5x ROI, Home Goods Hardware are reaping the rewards of automated marketing and we love that they’re doing so by targeting smaller customer groups. There are only 512 customers within their segment and with a 4.2% conversion rate, they’re really making the most of a potentially forgotten customer group.

Read more about Home Goods Hardware’s success with Custom Automations.

To create a similar style of Welcome Newsletter to Home Goods Hardware, try customizing and enabling the “Welcome Newsletter Sign-ups” template found at the bottom of your Automations admin. This easy-to-use template is set up to target customers who’ve only just signed up (1 hour after they’ve created an account), and encourages them to make a purchase by offering a 10% discount. Customers then exit the flow when they have made an order or the flow ends. 

Let’s take a look at how you could use Custom Automations.

Integrating customized automations into your marketing

First thing’s first, the Custom Automations feature isn’t restricted to email campaigns! With the incredible open rates of SMS marketing (as much as 5x that of email marketing), they’re a powerful tool to add to your marketing campaigns. 

This isn’t to say that email marketing is anything to be sniffed at! With a drag-and-drop email builder, customizing your emails to showcase your brand and products is as easy as selecting what content you’d like to include. 

As we mentioned, Custom Automations are perfect for asking customers to leave reviews, incentivizing referrals, following up with customers after they’ve shopped, welcoming customers who’ve shopped recently, and more. Let’s break down some of these ideas

• Requesting Reviews – The ins-and-outs of requesting reviews and customer referrals are quite similar when it comes to defining an audience; you’ll want to target customers who are loyal and have shopped recently. Add a delay to your automation that targets customers 5-7 days after their purchase, giving them time to receive the product (if bought online) and use it. Make sure to be clear where you would like them to leave a review too! If you use social media most often, add your Social Icons with the email drag-and-drop builder. 

• Incentivizing Referrals – Much the same as requesting reviews, target loyal customers! Try setting up your automation to target customers who have shopped recently (last 5-7 days), and shopped more than three times. Remind them that this is an easy way to earn loyalty points and that their friend will also receive a gift too (ensure you’ve enabled your referral program within your Loyalty Program settings).

• Post-purchase Follow-ups – If you’ve got a product that needs to be replaced regularly (subscription-based beauty products would be one example), you could create an automation flow that reminds customers to refill their order after three or so months. 

• Welcoming Customers – Welcome new customers who’ve not yet made a purchase. Similar to Home Goods Hardware’s campaign, you could target customers who have signed up within the last day but not yet made a purchase, Each message within your flow could incrementally offer your customers a slightly higher discount, encouraging them to make a purchase. Alternatively, you could simply customize and enable the Welcome Newsletter Sign-ups automation which is found within the Automations tab of your Marsello admin.

Let’s delve into the actual set-up of automated flows to help you understand these ideas a little better.

Setting up your Custom Automations

You’ll find Custom Automations under the ‘Automation’ section of ‘Marketing’ within your Marsello admin. Once you’ve elected to create a Custom Automation, you’ll have a range of options that that help you set up your automation flow.

1. Name your automation. While your customers won’t see this, it will help you to find the automation within your admin and adjust or track its results.

2. Choose your trigger. Depending on what trigger you select, this will dictate how your customers enter the automation’s funnel. This essentially means that your customers must complete a specific action to receive your automation. Your trigger options include:

   • When an order is completed – When a customer makes a purchase, they will enter the funnel for your automation.

   • When a customer enters a segment – When a customer has been added to the segment because they have met the segment conditions. This is where your Custom Segments come in useful and allow you a lot of flexibility with marketing to specific customer groups.

   • When a customer signs up – When a customer has signed up via the POS, eCommerce, or an email collection features. 

3. Choose your audience. Select which Customer Segment(s) you want to target with your automated campaign. Not only can you opt to use the pre-existing RFM segments found in Marsello, but you can also create your own segments. For example, if you wanted to create a campaign to say, “thank you for your first purchase” that’s specific to just your online customers, you could create a segment that specifically excludes customers who shop in-store. The beauty of custom segments is that you can really drill down into specific sets of customers and create targeted marketing that not only sees results but really engages those customers and helps to foster their loyalty to your brand.

4. Choose your ‘exit conditions’. These are the conditions which specify when a customer will leave the flow. There are two options, which include: 

   • ‘When a customer makes an order or completes the automation flow’ – This is the default setting and ensures that the customer will leave the flow when they complete a purchase, or (if they do not complete a purchase) they will receive the entire automation flow. This condition is best used when the goal of your campaign is to incentivize customers to make another purchase.

   • ‘When a customer completes the automation flow’ – Automations with this exit condition will deliver all messages within the flow to the customers, regardless of if they make a purchase or not. This condition is best used when the goal of your campaign is to build a relationship with your customers, encourage loyalty or provide education.

The options don’t end there when it comes to customizing your Custom Automation. Let’s take a look at the finer details of setting up your automation flow.

How to customize your automated flow

As we mentioned, with Custom Automations, you aren’t just restricted to email marketing. Why not follow up an email with an SMS to really make use of those powerful open rates? Perhaps a time delay could help improve your open rates by positioning your messaging at a better time for all customers? 

For clear instructions on how to add-to and customize your automation flow, we’ve created an in-depth help article.

With a variety of options to choose from, Marsello’s Email Campaign Templates Library gives you numerous designs for creating stylish newsletters, announcements (such as sales and promotions), updates on stock, and more using the One-off Email Campaigns feature! Each template is designed so you easily create beautifully on-brand emails that see results, without hours of effort and edits.

Let’s dig a little deeper and learn about each template type.

Basic Templates

With full customization available, the basic email templates allow you to edit the design of each email so that it best suits your store’s brand, helping your customers to instantly recognize who they’re receiving mail from. You’ll have the flexibility to create emails that truly embody your store without having to start those email designs from scratch.

Themed Templates

Created by professional designers with years of experience in email marketing, these templates are ready for you to simply add in your store’s branding and relevant content, review, then send! With everything from color palettes to fonts, themed templates are designed to do the hard yards for you.

Custom Templates

This is where things get really exciting! You can now create your own custom templates, allowing you to save the designs of emails you know your customers love so that you can use those designs again in the future. Either save a previous campaign as a template or start from scratch and create your own email marketing masterpiece. 

Final Words

Email templates allow you to easily replicate the same style throughout your communications and create a recognizable experience for your customers. In turn, your customers look forward to your emails and the likelihood of them engaging with your communication efforts increases. Increase your email marketing ROI and start exploring and designing emails that excite new shoppers and loyal customers alike.

Excited to start using email templates? Learn how to navigate Marsello’s Email Template Library and get ready to start using them for yourself.

Note: While this tactic can be effective, your marketing efforts shouldn’t be exploitive. For example, if you’re an apparel retailer that’s suddenly selling hand sanitizer, you’ll only forge distrust with consumers – and potentially get your ads banned.  

Sites like Facebook are prohibiting exploitive tactics in ads by banning promotions for things like face masks.

If you’re planning to market relevant products, stick with items that are already in your catalog or ones that are truly in line with your brand. 

3. Tap into influencer and community marketing

Digital content consumption is likely to increase in the coming days and weeks as more people turn to the web. Consumers are spending more time on websites and social media – with most doing it to pass the time, keep up with the latest news, and seek inspiration and entertainment.

Consider tapping into that online attention by teaming up with influencers or even your existing customers. Send them product samples or create joint content pieces together. 

Encourage your community to tag you in their posts. Emphasize the fact that with many businesses being forced to close, customer engagement (even if it comes from no-cost actions like liking or sharing posts) goes a long way. 

Check out this post from home decor store Pretty Little Home, which thanks customers for the support that the community has shown the business. 

“Whether it’s a like, tag, share, or order on the website... It really means the world especially at a time like this,” read the post. 

4. Spread the goodwill

We’ve known for a while that good deeds and corporate social responsibility can drive customer engagement and loyalty. That’s why if your business can afford it, consider launching an initiative designed to help those in need during this crisis. 

It can be a charitable campaign, a special offer for the less fortunate, or even a job opportunity. One brand that’s doing this well is the fitness store Gymshark. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many gyms have been forced to close their doors, resulting in trainers and fitness instructors losing their source of income. 

To help out, Gymshark announced that it’s offering an hourly rate to personal trainers struggling to find work. Trainers would be doing online workouts in partnership with the brand and earn money while they’re at it. 

The post was widely shared on Instagram and thousands of people liked and commented on the post. 

5. Constantly reassure your customers

Building trust is more important than ever. You won’t be able to drive sales if shoppers don’t feel safe and secure buying from you. That’s why you need to constantly reassure your customers about the health and safety precautions that you’re taking to keep everyone safe from COVID-19.

How often are you cleaning and sanitizing your store? What are you doing to protect your staff? What measures are you taking to protect your customers? Be specific and outline everything in your customer communications assets (e.g., email, social media, in-store signage). 

A good example of this practice in action comes from LA Cafe in Downtown Los Angeles. While the restaurant is closed to diners, LA Cafe still accepts online orders that can be picked up or delivered. 

To make people feel safe about ordering, LA Cafe published a detailed post outlining everything that it’s doing to address COVID-19 concerns. 

6. Run promotions

If sales are slow (and they likely are during this period), it may be a good idea to run a promotion to entice people to buy. 

Do note that you’ll be competing with plenty of other brands for shoppers’ attention, so you want your promotions to be as relevant as possible. The best way to do this is to send offers based on each customer’s shopping history and brand interactions. 

Consider the case of the designer footwear retailer Bulo Shoes, which couples Marsello's loyalty program with email marketing automation to send marketing messages that are always on-point. With Marsello’s help, Bulo Shoes’ automated emails are set up in segments based on customers’ previous behaviors. The store runs separate automated campaigns for first-time customers, abandoned cart recovery, lapsed customers, and to wish customers ‘Happy Birthday’. 

By sending automated emails that are triggered by customers’ actions, Bulo Shoes are able to reach out to customers in the most relevant and timely way, and thus maximize both revenue and customer engagement.

What if you can’t sell or fulfill orders?

The new measures and policies around COVID-19 have been particularly tough on SMBs that are deemed “non-essential”. In addition to store closures, some businesses have been forced to shut down their offices, facilities, and fulfillment centers to slow the spread of the virus. In such cases selling and fulfilling orders – even those made online – isn’t achievable at this time. 

If you’re in this predicament, try the following tactics:

Delay shipments and offer generous rewards

If you can still technically sell online but are unable to fulfill orders, you could run special promotions to get people to buy. That’s what Madame Fancy Pants, a Wellington-based retailer is doing. Due to the coronavirus, the team at Madame Fancy Pants are unable to ship out products in the time being. But they’re still taking orders online, with the commitment to fulfill those orders once isolation measures have been lifted. 

To encourage people to buy, Madame Fancy Pants sent out a one-off email campaign using Marsello. The email lets their customers know that Madame Fancy Pants will be rewarding shoppers with double loyalty points for their full-priced purchases.

Enable Wishlists

Another tactic for keeping your customers interested and excited while you’re unable to fill their orders is to allow them to create wishlists of the items you usually stock. Check out our recent blog on top apps for Shopify for ideas on which apps you could use to integrate this feature into your store. 

Wellington-based pet products retailer, Smack Bang, have done a wonderful job of communicating this recent update with their customers through their social media channels. Check out this Facebook post (note that they’ve even pinned it to ensure customers see the update) that lets their customers know that although they’ve had to shut up shop with the COVID-19 lockdown enforced in New Zealand, their customers can now create wishlists on the Smack Bang online store. 

Consider digital products 

If possible, sell digital products like ebooks, digital art, online consultations, or even courses. 

One retailer that’s currently promoting digital products is Vroman’s, Southern California’s oldest independent bookstore. Like many other retailers, Vroman’s had to temporarily shut down its operations because of the coronavirus. 

To continue driving sales, Vroman’s is encouraging shoppers to purchase its ebooks and audiobooks instead, and the bookshop provides instructions on how to do this on social media and on its website. 

Sell gift cards

If you’re not offering gift cards online yet, now is the time to sell and promote them. Digital gift cards give your customers the chance to support your business so you can secure much-needed income. In turn, your shoppers can enjoy your products and services once this crisis is over. 

Consider the example of Pink Marble Studio, which offers lashes, nails, and waxing services. The company recently started offering gift cards online that customers can redeem at a later time.

Retail tip: For more results, sell these gift certificates at a discount rate to further entice your customers to make a purchase. 

Keep up with social media and content marketing 

Just because you can’t sell online, doesn’t mean you can’t connect with your customers. Maintain an active presence online by regularly updating your social media accounts and sharing valuable, ‘non-salesy’ content with your audience. 

Doing so will help you grow your platform, traffic, and follower counts so that when business picks up again, you can hit the ground running. 

We love this example from Australian wholefood retailer, Bare Wholefoods:

Bare Wholefoods cleverly show that they’re still actively and safely delivering customers’ orders with a photo of outgoing orders ready for shipping. They add a message of genuine gratitude to their customers for their continued loyalty and support. Updates like this help customers to feel confident that they will get the products they’ve ordered, and also gives them the morale boost of knowing they’re helping support the local economy. 

Notify customers with stock updates

Chances are you’ll find that changes to shipping or production translate to slower restocking times – you may even find yourself out of stock or running low before you can restock, but there’s plenty you can do to keep your customers shopping with you.

We’ve mentioned using wishlist tools that enable customers to create lists of items they’d like to buy that aren’t currently available, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Why not let your customers know when their desired items are back in stock and actively prompt them to shop with you.

Online multi-brand retailer, The Iconic does a great job of this. When an item or size is out of stock, customers with a registered account are prompted to automatically at the item to their wishlist and sign-up for a ‘back in stock’ email, all through a beautifully designed pop-up. Notice the clever addition of product recommendations that may get customers to shop in that session anyway.

SMS campaigns are quickly paving the way in a new era of marketing. With estimated open rates of 99% and read rates of 90% in the first 3 seconds, SMS marketing is the best way to ensure your marketing reaches your customers and is fast becoming a necessary tool in any retailer’s kit. So what does this mean for you and your customers? What do you need to know before you get started, and how can you make sure you’re getting the most out of your SMS campaigns? 

First thing’s first…

Introducing Marsello’s SMS Campaigns feature!

What is Marsello’s SMS Campaigns feature?

Found in the ‘Campaigns’ section of your Marsello admin, Marsello’s newest feature allows you to send one-off SMS messages to your customers who have given express permission to receive SMS marketing from you (more on this later). If you’re not already a user, you can try Marsello free for 14 days here.

SMS campaigns are available to Marsello Pro retailers through an add-on subscription. Once you’ve chosen your subscription package, you can start sending SMS campaigns to customers who have opted-in to receiving SMS marketing… although there’s an art to SMS marketing to ensure you’re making the most of it.

When you consider that SMS marketing has the highest engagement levels of any marketing medium, it’s no wonder why they’re so effective when paired with email marketing campaigns.

Notice how they cleverly link to their store URL to get customers shopping or browsing right away!

Marketing guru, Neil Patel recommends creating SMS drip campaigns. The idea is to send customers automated SMS messages based on how long they have been subscribed and to use this to incentivize customer loyalty. The model has great potential, and while Neil recommends the following, there are plenty of ways that you could scale this to suit your business: 5% coupon right after a customer opts-in to your SMS marketing campaigns; 10% off after 3 weeks; 20% off after 2 months. 

To recreate something similar to this, you could create three separate campaigns. The first would trigger to act as a welcome message when customers first complete a purchase (you’d need to create a segment for this). The second triggers after a customer has been with you for six months (another segment). Then a final message that says ‘Thanks’ to your customers for staying for an entire year (and hopefully offers them an incentive to shop with you).

Or, why not simply message customers once with a one-off coupon promotion. It’s increasingly common to receive SMS marketing that offers customers a percentage discount when they use a certain code at the checkout, for example:

Holidays are the perfect time to get in contact with your customers. Good Dog’s adorable Valentine’s campaign is the perfect example of keeping it to the point, and even being a little bit subtle.

Final words:

SMS marketing is arguably an unrivaled marketing tool and the perfect companion to your email marketing campaigns and promotions. And with great power comes great responsibility (as they say); by this we mean, you need to ensure your marketing campaigns are compliant with all relevant laws. And compliance isn’t the only thing you need to be thinking about.

With the 160 character restriction and incredibly high open rates, it’s vital that you’re keeping your messages concise while also convincing your customers to covert (be that shop during your promotions or simply visit your website to join your loyalty program). There are numerous ways you can structure your campaigns and messaging, so keep an eye out for our upcoming blog on SMS Marketing 101. 

Until then, remember that SMS Campaigns are now available with Marsello as a Marsello Pro add-on feature. Learn more about the Marsello SMS Campaigns pricing.

If you’re going to put time and effort into developing compelling email marketing (and you should!), you want to make sure you’re getting a notable return on investment (ROI). Much like setting your audiences with paid advertising, directing your email marketing to specific segments based on customer’s shopping behavior is a powerful (and some would argue essential) tool that will go a long long way to helping you retain, engage and convert your customers.

Above, you can see an example of Marsello's customer segmentation grid. This calculates customer segments for you based on an industry-renowned calculation known as RFM – organizing your customer database based on their individual purchase recency, frequency, and monetary spend. Learn more about customer segmentation here.

When you couple customer segmentation with marketing that encourages that specific group to complete a CTA, or call to action (think directive prompts such as: "use a discount code", "complete a purchase", or "leave a review"), and you ensure the email is intentionally geared towards the customer group your marketing to, you’re much more likely to get the results you’re hoping for. Read how Yuccs used customer segmentation to increase conversion rates and maximize customer engagement during BFCM.

Create eye-catching emails

“We sent a new stock alert out and saw great results. We gave our Best Customers segment ‘Early Access’ which we got some lovely feedback on in-store. And then followed it up a few days later to all our other segments. We moved over half our new stock in just a week, which we’ve never even been close to before! Now we need to get more in. Not a bad problem to have!”

How retailers are using One-off Email Campaigns:

Learn how Sigi Skin’s success helped them see a 48% increase in day-to-day revenue following a One-Off Email Campaign for Mother’s Day.