Winning Product #5: Cat Scratch Mat With Full Testing Strategy Using Facebook Ads

This week’s product is the Cat Scatch Mat.

As a cat owner with 2 cats that LOVE to scratch my sofas, this product is something I would definitely consider buying for myself and I’m sure a lot of cat owners around the world would like one too. This product has a good amount of orders on aliexpress and the reviews look great.

So let’s jump in and see how can we sell it with ad examples, selling strategy and more just for you 😉

1. Campaign Type & Optimization:

I begin with Website Conversion campaign optimised for Purchase. I don’t care about having zero data and the red color “warnings”. I ALWAYS go with a Website conversion campaign optimised for purchases.

If your ad, targeting and product are good then you will see link clicks followed by actions on your site.

Sometimes, I may choose the “Add to Cart” optimisation and that works too(Sometimes it can even work better than purchase optimisation). Each ad account acts differently and this is something you will have to test for yourself.

Facebook tries to scare us because we’re using a pixel with no data and warns us that we won’t get any sales. This is their way to drive us into choosing a different optimization event to milk even more money from us. They want us to start from View Content optimization and slowly progress to Purchase optimization. And by doing that we will burn a lot of money…

And I usually go with 1 day click conversion window.

2. Number of Adsets & Daily Budget:

I recommend launching 3 to 5 testing adsets per campaign. You should test out different targeting options, different audiences, different ad types and not just launch 5 identical adsets.

Recommended daily budget that I successfully use: $7~$10

I usually go with $8+ budgets.

3. Targeting & Strategy:

It’s a problem solving product in a really big niche so we will have to do our best and think what are the best possible audiences to target here. Going for just “cats” or “cat food” interests can bring sales but the audience will be too broad and I want to hit a bit more specific audience to increase my success rate. I have a general idea of the audience I’ll be aiming for and you’ll see my line of thought below.

I decided to target:

• Women interested in home improvement & are cat owners (age: 25-65+) – For the first targeting option, I decided to catch women who are into interior design and home improvement. My hope here is to catch women who think about buying new furniture and our product is something they might need.
• Women with cats (age:35-65+) – As simple as it is without any special additions. Just trying one of many options to target women with cats.
• Men who own cats & have their own favorite furniture piece (age:35-65+) – Some men have mancaves, some just have favorite sofa chair they bought to relax after a long day at work. If there are cats in the house, then our product can keep their favorite furniture scratch free.

Women cat owners are the most active on cat related fan pages and it’s not a secret that they like cats more than men. So my choice of targeting women only is nothing out of the ordinary. I went for ages higher than 25 because that’s where the majority of cat owners are.

My targeting included the big general interests like “cats” and I made sure to add popular cat food brands to make sure I get the cat owners and not just someone who like cats. Later on, when your pixel gets more data, you can then target “cats” and Facebook will make sure to target cat owners for you. Even without any interest, Facebook will know you’re looking for cat owners.

And my last targeting option are men who have a favorite piece of furniture like a fancy leather massage chair or a whole mancave filled with sofas and more stuff. If there’s a cat around, they probably really need our product!

BONUS TARGETING OPTION:

Target women+men who own cats and live in a wealthy area – You can target wealthy regions or target by income.

Women interested in home improvement & are cat owners (age: 25-65+):

Women with cats (age: 35-65+):

Men who own cats & have their own favorite furniture piece (age: 35-65+):

4. Ad placements:

I usually start only with Facebook feed but sometimes I mix it up and run it also on Instagram feed. Although if I decide advertising on Instagram then I usually separate and run a new adset only for Instagram users.

It’s just something I prefer doing but in both cases it should still work.

I run ads both on desktop and mobile. For Instagram ads, I target mobile users only.

Note: As you can see in this picture, I attached another “scare tactic” from Facebook that pushes you to basically spend more money by either raising your budget or going for a different optimization event. Do not be scared and run website conversion campaign optimised for purchase even if you have zero pixel data.

5. Ad Type & Copy:

In this case, I strongly recommend using a video ad. A video that shows cats scratching and ruining sofas followed by a few seconds footage of a cat sharpening his claws on this mat is the best way for people to get the idea behind this product. It’s also funny and relatable. You can use the video on aliexpress page and ask the seller if he has more footage of cats using this scratching mat.

The photos on the page are cool too and I created two photo ads. Cat owners will instantly understand what this product is about.

Here are the photo ads and ad text examples I created.

Examples:

The first 1200×1200 photo ad.

Second 1200×1200 photo ad.

Instagram 1200×1200 photo ad:

As you can see, the first photo ad has a text on top to better catch the attention of our audience. You’ve probably seen these text bars used on video ads and know how effective these can be. Same goes for photo ads, you can use them just be careful with the 20% text rule. To be sure your ad follows the 20% text rule, go to this link and upload your ad photo – https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay

In our case, it gave us the green “OK” approval which means our ad text is less than 20% and it will run normally. Anything more than “LOW” will dramatically impact your ads reach. If you get “Medium” or “High” amount of text, make sure you edit your ad to at least get the “Low” text amount. Unless of course your text is on your product – Then you can ask for a manual review and Facebook will approve your ad and it will run normally without any reach penalties.

The second photo ad is another one I took from the sellers page but this time I added a customer photo(bottom left photo) from Czechoslovakia. I did this to show a better side scratch protector and I wanted to remove that pole scartch mat because I don’t plan selling it at all(I want to focus on sofas, that’s why I’ll use only side and corner protectors).

The third ad is for Instagram – As you can see I used the same photo I used for Facebook feed but the text is different. This is because Instagram description text length is much shorter than Facebook’s and the links are not clickable. My call-to-action is to ask them to click the “Shop Now” button.

Note: If you’re planning only using photo ads, then make sure your product page explains really well how this product works. You can copy and edit some of the description photos you can find on aliexpress seller page and insert them into your description. If we don’t have a video, at least we can show some photos of how this product works.

These ads can also be used for the 3rd targeting option. Just change the ad text to men’s version.

6. Product Pricing & Selling Strategy:

Setting a price is an important step that if done right will help you keep getting sales with a healthy conversion rate. And if done wrong, your conversion rate is going to suck or you won’t even get any sales.

The product price on aliexpress is $7.70 for the corner protector and $12 for the side protector. Epacket shipping(USA) is free so our total is $7.70 for the corner protector and $12 for the side protector.

I think we can sell the corner one for $19.99 and the side protetor for minimum $24.99 or maximum $29.99 with free shipping. OR we can sell the corner one for $15.99 +$2.99 shipping and the side one for $21.99 + $2.99 shipping.

Sometimes a lower sale price with a small shipping fee can work much better than just selling it with free shipping. This is something you’ll have to test for yourselves.

Selling Strategy:

Profit margin isn’t the best so quantity discounts are a must here!

Offer your customers a good quantity discount. Don’t just go with 5% or 10% for 2 items but start from 15% for 2, 20% for 3 and 25% for 4. I believe most cat owners will look to buy more than one product so it’s important to give them a good discount.

Summary:

This product has good reviews on aliexpress and has enough sales to show us that this product has big potential. For many cat owners, like myself, this product is a must to stop the cats ruining our sofas. And with a good ad + price, this product might be the Christmas winner you were looking for.

I strongly suggest creating a video ad for this product but if you don’t want to or eager to try selling this product right now, photo ads are good too 🙂

Keep testing and success will come – Good Luck!

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Daniel Aloni

Daniel Aloni is one of the leading mentors in the Ecomhunt family. Daniel is a highly experienced Print On Demand seller with multiple 6 figures successful launches.

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