11/25/2024
If you already have a product in commerce or B2B, here's some underrated solutions to try to boost your rev:
Optimization
From my time building Meta's ad delivery system, I know this is crucial. Your website needs perfect technical implementation or you're throwing money away. Key technical elements that feed into ad algorithms:
Server-side API integration (crucial since iOS 14)
First-party cookie implementation
Advanced matching parameters
Custom conversion events
Real-time event logging
Most importantly: track every meaningful user interaction server-side. At Meta, we saw 3-4x better ad performance with proper server events vs client-side only.
First-Party Data Collection
This is what powers modern ad algorithms. Essential data points to collect:
User behavior patterns
Conversion paths
Time-to-conversion
Cart abandonment signals
Feature usage metrics
Pro tip: Log these events immediately server-side. There's a 30% data loss on average with client-side only. This means having your own first party data pixel or first party intelligence app instead of relying on third party pixels like the default you get from Meta, Google, or whatever ad platform you're using.
Algorithm Optimization
Having built these systems, here's what actually matters:
Event quality scores. These are more accurate when tracked server-side instead of a third party pixel.
Server-side conversion matching
Bidding strategy alignment
Creative performance signals. This one is most obvious.
The algorithm weighs server-sent signals 2-3x more than pixel data.
Email Engagement
I'm a huge advocate of having a combination of paid and email marketing. When they work in tandem, you get the highest quality signals that can feed into each other for retargeting. Here's some flow that people usually miss:
abandoned cart for ecommerce
abandoned intent for b2b
Note that abandoned cart/intent are explicitly different from abandoned checkout. At the checkout stage, you've already collected email address and have high-intent for conversion. Email marketing is going to be even more effective at the stage right before. For ecommerce, its going to be at the point of adding the cart. For B2B, it could be viewing the pricing page.
Most people don't implement these flows because it often requires some manual work but if you're able to stitch user sessions across their history, you can use your cookies to understand if the visitor has shown interest in purchasing before and have a specific email flow for it! This is probably the most underrated solutions.
Pro Tip: Sync email engagement data back to ad platforms via server events. This improves targeting by 25-30%.
The key is quality first-party data feeding into platforms' algorithms. With proper implementation, I regularly see 2-3x ROAS improvement.
