Launching a new eCommerce shop can be quite challenging. The main issue is, unlike brick 'n' mortar shops that rely on location and foot traffic, an online shop doesn't have the same type of "foot traffic".

A new eCommerce shop has to build that traffic from the ground up as if they set up shop in the middle of the desert.

Obviously, organic SEO and organic social media play a part, but it can be difficult to scale quickly with these free traffic channels, unless you have an unusually large following on social media.

If you have an advertising budget, running PPC ads can be an effective way to quickly scale traffic and sales for your new shop.

The main PPC ad channels are Google Ads and Facebook/Instagram Ads. TikTok is another huge social media platform that is gaining in popularity with advertisers.

All of the social media advertising channels are similar to each other, with only minor differences for each channel. Google Search Ads is much different than social media advertising because you display your ad when people search keywords on Google.com.

This makes set up and management of a Google Search Ad campaign much different than a social media ad campaign.

It also makes it very powerful because you can show your ad to people when they're showing intent, meaning you can show your ad when they're searching for "blue widget". "Blue widget" being whatever it is you sell.

So which ad channels should you use for the best return on ad spend?

When first getting started, I recommend allocating most of your ad budget to Google Search & Shopping Ads. Make sure you're building your retargeting audience in Google, Facebook, TikTok, etc. Once that retargeting list becomes large enough, you can test out a retargeting campaign.

Once your shop has 2000+ customers, it's time to start testing out a "lookalike" audience on your social media ad channels. You simply upload your customer list to say Facebook, which allows you to create a "lookalike" audience. These are people Facebook has deemed to be similar to the people on your customer list. You can then setup a campaign advertising to this "lookalike" audience.

Is it worth running social media ads that aren't retargeting past website visitors or targeting a lookalike audience? Sometimes, but only if your product is what I consider an 'impulse purchase' type of product.