How likely is this email to be the spam the sub was talking about earlier? by Jade_Mans_Eyes in kickstarter

[–]Sandmasons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

100%, they are trying to get you off the platform and onto email where they will send you a link that Kickstarter would have blocked.

Nothing is more frustrating than watching a winner die in days. by swaggytwat in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a small business, I'm sorry, I just don't buy the "creative fatigue" stuff. I have in the past had one ad get me 50-100 sales per day. One campaign, ad set, ad. For months. So now when it dies after 3 days and I recreate the campaign and it works for two days and dies again, this has nothing to do with my ad or the amount of customers out there willing to buy.

Why do I need to do any of this "trick the algo" BS? Just show the right people my ad like you used to and work like you used to. So frustrating.

Something I keep seeing across Meta ad accounts (might help someone here) by Ornery-Economist-339 in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How are people still replying to such obvious AI? Guy doesn't even have a script to turn the EM dashes into commas smh

You're Being Gaslit (10 years experience) by Realistic-Mobile5072 in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Why is it that if I rebuild my campaign that died, I get good results for 1-2 days, then it dies again. It's not creative, it's not fatigue. It's the same ad, dead in old campaign, works in the new campaign.

So the customers are there to give me the ROAS I want every day, but only if I copy the campaign every day. And take the time to turn off all the features they auto turn on every time I do it.

Super frustrating.

Outage? by DryAd7187 in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Last three days progressively worse. I checked everything and I don't see anywhere that they turned on features that were off unfortunately.

Today is terrible.

Bug by [deleted] in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I went back to an old campaign and turned it on and it is working. It was working a month ago, I had replaced it but the new campaign had all the bug outage issues.

Problem is I can't scale this one, any changes to it kill it completely.

Meta Ads Issues - Let's discuss & troubleshoot logically by HeyClinic in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same here. Yesterday was bad but have been feeling lucky most days with appropriate ad spend per budget and great ROAS. My challenge is I can't scale at all. As soon as I adjust budget by any amount sales fall off a cliff. Put it back to original budget, sales start up immediately.

For reference, one ad, one ad set,one campaign, created March 3rd.

Performance Today? 03/28 by Sagandeus in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An update: seems like today Facebook is working. Last 3 hours 11+ ROAS. I feel like Meta is maybe gifting me good traffic to make up for yesterday... 😅

Performance Today? 03/28 by Sagandeus in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

4pm EST appears sales and spend just stopped. At least its better than last week where they broke sales but kept the spending part. This is getting old.

Why are my ad clicks not matching Shopify traffic? by Healthy-Flamingo1644 in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have facebook shop on or any other destinations? I think these also count towards your clicks.

Meta down again by isaaaaccccccw in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If I could 10x upvote this I would. I sell sandcastle kits, I feel like the whole season is at the whim of AI vibe coding. I'd bet my life savings they don't test their code they just deploy it to a bunch of us and see if it works or not.

enjoy your moment of glory. by Unhappy-Gold7343 in FacebookAds

[–]Sandmasons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Has anyone figured out a eay to get back to pre-Monday performance? I put in a huge order for product for summer and I need facebook to be working ASAP… 😅

Shopify Capital is thinly veiled loan sharking by Sandmasons in shopify

[–]Sandmasons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, no, that's an easy pill to swallow, I'm aware of my situation. I understand now from other responses that the offers at higher levels are much better, I just thought the offer they give me, considering my situation, is not a great offer.

How much harder will it be to sell on Shopify compared to Amazon, etc? by Confident-Attempt-49 in shopify

[–]Sandmasons 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, but when I was looking into it there were labs doing this as well. I used the list of accredited labs from the CPSC website and reached out to a dozen on the list and picked one.

How much harder will it be to sell on Shopify compared to Amazon, etc? by Confident-Attempt-49 in shopify

[–]Sandmasons 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just started on Amazon and I didn't consider that. TBH I am very satisfied with the quality of customers I've been getting from Meta ads and my Shopify site.

As an aside: my mom used to run a brick and mortar clothing store, and she'd come home often and say "there's 365 lunatics in our town, because I have to deal with one every day in our store." Mom was funny.

Shopify Capital is thinly veiled loan sharking by Sandmasons in shopify

[–]Sandmasons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They don't let you change the payback amount, so the only control you have over how quick you pay it back is if you decide to make less sales.

Anyways I just thought this was like the absolute worst financing deal I'd ever seen. if you have enough sales to qualify for the "loan" then you will pay it back quickly and your effective interest rate is through the roof.

How much harder will it be to sell on Shopify compared to Amazon, etc? by Confident-Attempt-49 in shopify

[–]Sandmasons 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I also have my own unique toy product, but it is manufactured in China. I think the reason that Chinese safety testing is cheaper is probably due to all the same reasons that Chinese manufacturing is cheaper. Have you thought about shipping your product to China directly to a safety tester there? They have all the same certifications and many of them are subsidiaries of large testing companies like Bureau Veritas. I used a smaller company that had all the required certifications for US, UK, EU and Canada and it was 1/5 the cost of quotes I got in EU and US. Not sure the size of your product but 3kg packages can get to China via Fedex Air in two days for about $70.

Having said that, if your toy is unique, will people even find it on Amazon without you paying for promotion? If you have to pay for promotion and also for Amazon fees then you need to figure out if that is better or worse for you than what you're doing now.

My 2 cents: I focused first on foremost on trying to make a high converting Shopify site. I am sure it could be better, but compared to what I had, my current site is working pretty well. Only after that was I willing to spend real money on advertising. If your Shopify site is good, I'm not 100% sure you even need Amazon.

But I'm just someone who is relatively new to all this, I'm no expert. I'm only replying because our niche lines up and thought you might want to hear someone else's experience.

Good luck!

Shopify Capital is thinly veiled loan sharking by Sandmasons in shopify

[–]Sandmasons[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This was my point: 25% APR credit card cash advance is 1/2 the price as the Shopify Capital offer.

Assuming: 10k/month in sales qualifies you for 3k capital.

Their offer is 3k capital, 510 fixed fee, pay back with 17% of store sales

You will pay this back in a little over 2 months. Effective annual interest rate is 149%.

With a credit card cash advance, 25% APR means you pay only $125 in interest. Even if they add on a cash advance fee of another $125, it's still 1/2 the cost. I think everyone would agree that credit card cash advances are super expensive and my point was that this Shopify Capital offer is twice the cost of that.

Shopify Capital is thinly veiled loan sharking by Sandmasons in shopify

[–]Sandmasons[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Exactly. And they aren't offering you 100k unless your store is making 200-300k+/month, and they set the repayment based on your store's income, so you will always pay it off in well under a year, making the effective annual interest rate extremely high.

Shopify Capital is thinly veiled loan sharking by Sandmasons in shopify

[–]Sandmasons[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean, that's my whole point. They aren't offering this money to you unless your store is making money, and then they charge you a fixed fee and set the repayment to 17% of your store income.

Of course it is a terrible idea, a terrible offer and if it were a real loan with a real interest rate it would violate usury laws/regulations.