Facebook ads
for e-commerce

Why store owners get misled by their own dashboards

Open almost any e-commerce ad account and you'll see a return on ad spend that looks healthy. Then open the bank account and it looks very different. The gap usually comes from three places: purchases counted twice by the pixel and a platform integration, revenue reported before shipping, taxes and returns, and products with thin margins getting most of the budget because they sell easily. Facebook ads for e-commerce have to start with honest numbers, or every decision after that is built on sand.

So the first thing I do for a store is not an ad. It's a test order, then another one, comparing what Meta reports with what your store reports. Only when the two agree do I trust the dashboard enough to move money around.

The catalogue is the heart of it

For most stores, the product catalogue in Meta Commerce Manager does more work than any single ad. Once it's connected, Meta can show each person the products they're most likely to buy, build carousels automatically and run dynamic remarketing for people who viewed or abandoned items. A good catalogue needs:

• Product titles people understand, not internal codes.
• Correct prices in Canadian dollars and live stock levels, so you don't advertise sold-out items.
• Clean images on a plain background, plus lifestyle images where available.
• Product sets grouped by margin or category, so budget can be steered.

The same product data usually feeds Google Shopping, so improving it once helps both channels.

Prospecting, remarketing and the role of each

A healthy store account has two kinds of campaigns. Prospecting reaches people who have never heard of you and usually has a lower return, because it's building future customers. Remarketing shows products to people who already visited, and usually looks fantastic in reports, partly because many of those people would have bought anyway. If you cut prospecting because it looks expensive, remarketing dries up a few weeks later. I keep both running and judge them together, along with email, which often turns a first purchase into a second one through email automation.

Canadian seasons and shipping

Online shopping in Canada has a strong fourth quarter: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, then the run to Christmas and Boxing Day. Ad costs usually rise during those weeks because every store competes for the same feeds. I build audiences and test creative in October, so the best ads are already proven when prices climb. Shipping matters too. Delivery across a country this large can be slow and expensive for remote regions, and free-shipping thresholds or regional targeting can change whether a campaign is profitable at all. If you only ship to some provinces, or charge more for the North, the ads should know that too, so you don't pay to reach buyers who will abandon the cart at the shipping step.

When the store itself is the problem

Ads can only send people to the checkout. If product pages load slowly, photos are poor or checkout asks for an account before payment, a big share of paid visitors will leave. When I see that, I'll say so plainly. Sometimes the best next step is a faster, cleaner online store, from $4,800, rather than more ad spend.

How I report for stores

Every two weeks you get spend, purchases, revenue and return by campaign, plus what I changed and why. Once a month I add new versus returning customers and the products that got the most spend. Management starts from $700 a month and is part of my Meta ads management service. If you sell on marketplaces too, my marketplace advertising page covers Amazon and Walmart.