Selling things priced over $500 with Meta ads is hard. But is it impossible? Not necessarily. I’m going to explain why $500 is the cutoff price for “hard mode” on Meta, then walk you through three types of expensive products (and how to market them).
Why $500+ AURs = Hard Mode
There are two reasons that selling products with a $500+ AUR (average unit retail) is playing the Meta performance marketing game on hard mode.
The first reason is simple: when you’re selling at such a high price point, your potential audience of impulse buyers is very, very small compared to a $100 product. Many working millionaires will still scrutinize a $500+ purchase, especially if the product is not in one of his or her pet categories.
First purchase profitability on Meta typically depends heavily on impulse purchases from in-market shoppers. You get in front of people who are already pot-committed to making a purchase in your product category. Your product happens to win out, and they buy it.
Fewer impulse buyers = smaller in-market audience = that audience is harder and more expensive to find. This makes it hard to limit marketing to 25-40% of first purchase AOV (a typical goal for those seeking to profit on the first order).
The second reason is that higher AURs require you to spend more on advertising before you know what ads are working. To get a campaign out of learning mode you need to spend (your AOV * 50)/7. This is because you need 50 conversions per week to get out of learning mode.