Solved: Optimizing Facebook Ads Retargeting Strategy

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your retargeting. It's a common problem, especially the debate around using discounts. Tbh, your instinct to avoid them is a good one, as they can quickly devalue your brand.

The real issue isn't just about finding a clever retargeting "trick". It's about looking at your entire funnel, seeing where people are dropping off, and then hitting them with the right message based on how close they were to buying. It seems you have a bit of a leaky bucket in your checkout process, and that's probably the first thing we should talk about.

We'll need to look at your Funnel Drop-off first...

Before we even touch your ads, let's look at the numbers you shared. 250 add to carts, 160 checkouts initiated, and 50 purchases. That's a huge drop off. You're losing 90 people (36%) between adding to cart and starting the checkout, and then another 110 people (a massive 69%) during the checkout itself. In total, 200 of the 250 people who were interested enough to add your product to their basket are disappearing. That's an 80% abandonment rate at the final hurdle.

Pouring more money into retargeting without fixing this is like trying to fill a leaky bucket. You'll just be spending money to bring people back to a checkout process that's not working properly. Common reasons for this are:

• -> Unexpected Costs: High shipping fees that only appear at the very end are the number one reason people abandon carts.
• -> Forced Account Creation: People hate being forced to create an account to buy something. Always offer a guest checkout option.
• -> Lack of Trust: Your checkout page might be missing trust signals like security badges (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal), customer reviews, or clear return policies.
• -> A Confusing Process: Too many steps, a slow-loading page, or asking for too much information can frustrate people into leaving.

You need to go through your own checkout process on both desktop and mobile and be brutally honest. Is it seamless? Is it trustworthy? This is your first priority. Fixing a 10% conversion leak on your site is far cheaper and more effective than trying to claw back those customers with ads.

I'd say you need a proper multi-layered retargeting structure...

Once you've looked at your checkout, we can turn to the ad strategy. The idea of a single "retargeting campaign" is flawed. You can't talk to someone who just browsed your homepage the same way you talk to someone who had your product in their basket five minutes ago. You need to segment them based on their intent.

In paid ads, we talk about funnels: Top (ToFu), Middle (MoFu), and Bottom (BoFu). Your retargeting audiences fall into MoFu and BoFu.

• BoFu (Bottom of Funnel - The "Hot" Audience): These are your 250 people who added to cart and the 160 who initiated checkout. They are on the verge of buying. You want to target them with a very direct message within a short time window, say, the last 7 or 14 days.
• MoFu (Middle of Funnel - The "Warm" Audience): This is a much larger group. It includes anyone who visited your website, viewed a product page, watched a percentage of your video ads, or engaged with your social media posts. They've shown interest but aren't as committed. You can retarget them over a longer window, like 30 or even 90 days, with a different kind of message.

You need to create seperate ad sets (or even campaigns) for these two groups. Lumping them all together means your urgent message for the BoFu audience gets diluted, and you waste money showing it to the less-interested MoFu crowd.

You probably should forget about discounts...

So, what do you show these different groups if not a discount? Your gut feeling is right - you don't want to train people to wait for a sale. Instead, you change the message.

For your BoFu (Add to Cart / Checkout) audience:

The goal here is to push them over the line by building confidence and reminding them why they wanted the product. Your ads should focus on:

• -> Social Proof: Use your best customer reviews in the ad copy. A simple ad with a product image and a quote like, "I was hesitant at first, but this is the best purchase I've made all year! - Jane D." is incredibly powerful. Even better if you can use User-Generated Content (UGC) - a photo or video from a happy customer using the product.
• -> Overcoming Objections: Did they abandon because of shipping worries? Hit them with an ad that says "Did you know shipping is on us?" or "Don't forget our 30-day hassle-free returns." Address the potential reasons they stopped.
• -> Reiterating Value: Remind them of a key benefit. "Your [Product Name] is waiting. Remember that feeling of [key benefit, e.g., 'effortless style' or 'finally getting organised']? It's just one click away."

For your MoFu (Website Visitors / Engagers) audience:

These people are not ready for a hard sell. The goal is to stay top of mind and gently guide them back. Your ads should be more about exploration and brand building:

• -> Showcase Variety: Use carousel ads to show different products, or different uses/styles of a single product. This can capture their interest in something they might have missed on their first visit.
• -> Educate & Inform: Show them a short video about your brand story, how the products are made, or a 'how-to' guide. This builds a connection that isn't just about the transaction.
• -> Highlight Bestsellers: An ad saying "See what everyone's talking about. Discover our bestselling [Product Category]" can be a low-pressure way to bring them back to your site.

You'll need to seperate your prospecting efforts...

Now, to answer your final question about lookalike audiences. This is where people often get confused. A lookalike of your purchasers is an excellent audience, but it's for prospecting (ToFu), not retargeting. Its job is to find *new people* who look like your existing customers.

You should absolutely create a 1% Lookalike audience from your list of 50 purchasers. This will be a high-quality audience to go after. However, you must run it in a seperate prospecting campaign and make sure you exclude all your existing website visitors and purchasers from its targeting. Mixing prospecting and retargeting audiences in the same ad set is a recipe for messy data and wasted spend.

You mentioned you're on Advantage+ Shopping. While A+ is powerful for simplifying campaigns, it automates a lot of this audience work, often blending prospecting and retargeting together. To implement the kind of granular, multi-layered funnel we're discussing, you'll likely get better results and more control by using manual sales campaigns where you can create distinct ad sets for your ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu audiences. We've seen this kind of structure work very well for many eCommerce clients. For example, one campaign we ran for a cleaning products brand generated a 633% return on Meta Ads.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

As you can see, effective advertising goes a bit deeper than just picking an audience and an ad. It requires a strategic approach to your entire customer journey, from the first ad they see to the final click on the 'buy' button. Getting this structure right, testing the right creatives, and managing the budget between these different funnel stages is where real growth comes from, but it can be a lot to manage.

This is the kind of strategic thinking and implementation we provide for our clients. If you'd like an expert eye on your ad account to see where the biggest opportunities are, we offer a completely free, no-obligation consultation call where we can dive into your specific setup and build a more detailed plan. Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh