Which product should you advertise first? How to pick your best seller and best variant
Which product should you advertise first? The one that’s already selling. Pick the product with the most sales and the most returning customers, lead your ads with its best-selling variant, and put most of your budget behind it. Then set aside a small share to test other products, so you have a backup ready.
That’s how we approached Meta ads for a DTC brand we worked with. We put most of the spend behind its best seller, and a small testing budget later found two more products that sold well through ads. Over our time working together, we took the brand from five figures to six figures in revenue.
Why shouldn’t you advertise everything at once?
Because your budget gets spread too thin to learn anything. When every product gets a little spend, none of them gets enough to show what it can really do.
If something is already working, that’s where the focus should go. It’s the low-hanging fruit. A product people already buy, and come back for, has proven demand. Ads just put it in front of more of the right people.
How do you pick the product to advertise first?
Check three things in your store data:
What to check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
Most sales | Proven demand: people already want it |
Most returning customers | Buyers like it enough to come back, which makes every new customer worth more |
Top category | Tells you which part of your range to build your ads around |
The product that comes out on top across these is usually the one to lead with.
What if your product comes in lots of variants?
Lead with the best-selling one. The brand’s best seller came in five colours, with nothing else different between them. Advertising every colour at once would have split the budget again.
Prospecting ads: show the best-selling colour
Prospecting ads reach people who don’t know your brand yet. We showed them the colour that already sold best, because it had the best chance of winning a first sale.
Retargeting ads: show the other colours
Retargeting ads reach people who’ve already seen your brand but haven’t bought. We showed them the other colours. That way they saw a different ad and a different option, which gave them a fresh reason to look again instead of the same ad twice.
How much budget should go to testing other products?
A small share, around 10 to 15% of your monthly budget, while most of your spend stays on the best seller. Even a top product can slow down for reasons like a change in trend or if the audience gets tired of seeing it. A testing budget means you already know your next winner before you need it.
For this brand, 10 to 15% of the monthly budget went to testing, and it found two more products that sold well through ads. Both came from a different category to the best seller, so it pays to test beyond your top category too.
Does this only work for e-commerce?
No. We use the same principle for any business with more than one thing to sell. A business with several services should lead its ads with the one that already brings in the most clients. A brick-and-mortar business works the same way: a restaurant, for example, can put its best-selling dish at the front of its ads instead of the whole menu. Start with what’s already working, keep a small budget for testing, and grow from there.
How did this work for the brand?
We picked the lead product from the data. The best seller had the most sales and the most returning customers.
We led with its best-selling colour. Prospecting ads showed that colour, and retargeting ads showed the others.
We kept most of the budget on it. Spend went where demand was already proven.
We tested other products on the side. 10 to 15% of the budget found two more products, from a different category, that sold well and gave the brand a backup.
The product page and homepage were set up to match, with ads going straight to the best seller’s page. We explain why in product page or homepage: where should your ads send shoppers?
Frequently asked questions
Should you advertise your whole catalogue on Meta?
Not at first. Start with the product that already sells best and that customers come back for. Spreading a small budget across every product makes it hard to learn what works.
What’s the difference between prospecting and retargeting ads?
Prospecting ads reach people who haven’t interacted with your brand. Retargeting ads reach people who have, such as visitors who looked at a product but didn’t buy.
How do you find your best-selling product?
Check your store data for the products with the most sales and the most returning customers, and the category that sells best overall.
Should you advertise every colour or size of a product?
Lead with the best-selling variant in prospecting ads, then use the other variants in retargeting, so people who didn’t buy see something fresh.
How much of your ad budget should go to testing new products?
Around 10 to 15%, with most of your spend on what’s already working. The goal is to have a proven backup product before your best seller slows down.
See the full project
Choosing the lead product was one part of a wider project for this brand, alongside product page changes, upsells and Klaviyo email flows. You can read how it all came together in the full case study.
Not sure which product to put your ad budget behind? Get in touch with One World Ideas and we’ll look at your numbers with you.