Ready to scale internationally? Find out with our Facebook Ecommerce Checklist

Written by Tom Wiseman
21st April, 2020

How do you know when you’re ready to scale your ecommerce business internationally?
If you’re looking to scale your ecommerce business in other markets, chances are Facebook will be one of your main acquisition channels.
But how do you know that your Facebook ads are ready to scale? Without clear guidelines for how your account is set up, you might be over-spending on under-performing ads.
We’ve put together a complete checklist that covers everything you need to have in place to successfully scale your campaigns on Facebook.
So whether you’re about to launch ads in a new market for the first time, or you’re looking to optimise your existing approach, the checklist helps you get the best possible return on ad spend.

What is the International Scaling Checklist?
The International Scaling Checklist ensures you’ve got everything in place to scale your Facebook campaigns into other markets.
All the information within the checklist is based on Facebook’s recommendations and the best-practice approach we’ve developed managing hundreds of millions of ecommerce ad spend over a decade.
You’ll find the checklist useful if you:
- Want to understand whether your ecommerce business is ready to scale your Facebook ads in new markets for the first time
- Have campaigns running in other markets, but aren’t getting the results you should be seeing
- Want to double check that your Facebook account is set up correctly
How the International Scaling Checklist works
The checklist is an interactive Google Sheet which you can make a copy of for yourself. The checklist is split into four important sections:
- Eligibility to scale internationally
- Technical set up
- Strategic framework
- Creative resources

How to use the Checklist
The interactive checklist is easy to use, and gives recommendations and best-practice advice, relevant to your current ad set up. First of all, if you haven’t yet opened the checklist yet, you can access it hereBefore you use the sheet, you will need to make a copy. This ensures that everyone can use their own sheet and you’re not overriding someone else’s data.
Go to File > Make a Copy, and save a version to your drive.

Then, when you’ve got access to your own sheet, you’ll just need to follow a couple of steps.
Step One
Tick all relevant boxes. We’ve added our notes and helpful links in the column to the right.
The sheet confirms when you’ve ticked enough boxes with a confirmation message in the column to the right.

Step Two
Tick off as many boxes as you can, and you’ll get a message confirming you’re in the best possible position to scale internationally.

Although it’s a good sign to have all ticked off all 28 questions, not all businesses will be able to do that.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that your business isn’t ready to scale internationally. It just means that there are technical optimisations, creative improvements, and strategic tweaks you can make to help you get there.
If your business falls short of eligibility criteria, that isn’t always an issue, depending on your business. We offer guidance in the column to the right.
What to do when you’ve filled out your checklist
Once you’ve filled out your checklist, you’re in a better position to understand what improvements you need to make to make your international scaling efforts more effective.
Next we’d recommend a detailed audit of your Facebook accounts. We offer free Facebook account audits for businesses we think can scale globally.
Drop us a message to request a free audit of your Facebook accounts. We’ll ask a few questions to establish your scaling potential, and then audit your accounts to find where improvements can be made to scale in new markets.