It seems like nearly every person teaching methods on dropshipping nowadays is telling people to use Facebook Ads as the primary traffic source. It’s so prevalent in fact that you might be wondering if dropshipping without Facebook Ads is even possible.
First off, I'd like to point out that dropshipping as an online business has been around longer than Facebook so that should be your first indicator to the answer to that question. However, it would be disingenuous to not at least acknowledge the fact that Facebook Ads have certainly made it much easier for people wanting to run a dropshipping business to get their products in front of the right people.
Without a doubt the #1 reason everyone and their brother, their sister, their uncle and even their 2nd cousin twice removed are using and teaching Facebook Ads for dropshipping is because there really has been no other advertising platform with the same kind of precision targeting capabilities that Facebook offers. That’s why Facebook will most likely continue to reign as the king for traffic sources dropshippers prefer to use for years to come.
Nevertheless, it is certainly possible to do dropshipping without Facebook Ads and below I’m going to discuss some of the other potential traffic sources that dropshippers can utilize along with how to best utilize them for a dropshipping store.
Google Ads
Apart from Facebook, Google Ads is probably where you are likely to see the most success as a dropshipping store. Google has a specific type of campaign type called “Google Shopping” that is a great fit for dropshipping stores that have an assortment of products offered on their site.
It can be a bit of a beast to learn along with getting it setup and running properly so if you are interested in learning more I would highly recommend you check out the free resource below called “The Ultimate Guide to Google Shopping”.
Resource: The Ultimate Guide to Google Shopping
Google Ads is much more than just shopping campaigns though. You can also run Google Search, Google Display and Youtube campaigns as well. However these channels tend to better lend themselves to stores or funnels that focus primarily on just one product or a set of products that are closely related.
Microsoft Advertising (Formerly Bing Ads)
This is Microsoft’s equivalent to Google Ads and they offer many of the same types of advertising options like Shopping and Search campaigns that run on the Bing and Yahoo search engines. Although, they do not have the same amount of traffic volumes Google does the combined reach of both Bing and Yahoo together can many times be more than people think.
One great feature about Microsoft Advertising is that they are set up so similar to Google Ads that you can just import all the same campaigns with settings and targeting straight into the Microsoft platform and they are ready to go.
This makes it a great traffic source to easily add into the mix once you have some Google campaigns that are performing well and you are looking for some additional channels to scale up your traffic and sales.
Pinterest Ads
Pinterest can be a hidden goldmine for some e-commerce store owners and dropshippers and I have known people that have done quite well with it in the past. However, there are a few things about Pinterest that you really need to consider before giving it a try.
Most importantly it’s worth mentioning that many e-commerce stores will have a tough time finding success on the Pinterest platform due to the nature of its users and how they use it.
The demographics on Pinterest skew VERY heavily towards females and the majority age range tends to be on the younger side. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as many studies show that women generally have a higher purchase behavior online than men, but you need to be aware of this because if you do not have a store or products that cater to this audience you are going to have a tough time finding success here.
The targeting capabilities on Pinterest are very much lacking compared to places like Facebook so those who find success here usually have products that have more mass appeal and larger margins to play with.
Snapchat Ads
If you have an e-commerce store that caters to a young audience, Snapchat might be a good place for you to try. It is still relatively new to the advertising game and I have to admit that I have not met or known of anyone personally that is having success as a dropshipper on Snapchat Ads. However, like any new traffic source there is always potential and you can bet someone is going to figure it out.
Conclusion
There are other notable traffic sources I could mention like Twitter Ads, Native Ad networks like Taboola and of course just growing your traffic organically on the search engines, but those are typically not sources that lend themselves well to dropshippers.
Hopefully, in reading this I’ve helped you to see that dropshipping without Facebook Ads is indeed possible and in fact there is an entire world of traffic outside of Facebook that you can begin using to grow your dropshipping business.
Which of these traffic sources will you try first?
