Facebook Dynamic Product Ads use your product data feed to display ads to Facebook users. This includes users who have visited your website. Facebook Dynamic Product Ads has significant potential for:
- Remarketing campaigns
- Upselling
- Cross-selling
- Combating shopping cart abandonment
- Increasing conversion rates
Like most tools available on Facebook, Dynamic Product Ads are mobile friendly. They also engage users because they:
- Display products the user has already shown an interest in purchasing
- Offer rich, dynamically generated ads featuring images, prices, and more
Facebook is able to achieve this through the Facebook Pixel. It is a piece of code you load on your website that lets Facebook track what users do, what pages they look at, or whether they make a purchase. Then, Facebook uses this information to target those users. It will populate your Dynamic Product Ads with information taken directly from your product data feed, which you must upload to Facebook.
In addition, Facebook recently announced an update to Dynamic Product Ads, which lets you target “broad audiences”. For example, users who have not visited your website before, but have shown (through their browsing habits) an interest in buying similar products to yours.
Alternative to Product Listing Ads
Before Facebook introduced Dynamic Product Ads, Google’s advertising products (as well as the advertising products from other shopping platforms) had an advantage because of user intent.
In other words, consumers use Google Search or Google Shopping when they want to buy something. This is the purchasing intent indicator.
For a long time, Facebook didn't have the ability to target ads at users based on buying intent. Dynamic Product Ads gives it this ability.
How to Set Up Facebook Dynamic Product Ads
Set up a Catalog - Catalog is the term Facebook uses to refer to a product data feed. Thus, setting up a Catalog means uploading your product data feed to Facebook, keeping it up-to-date, and optimized. DataFeedWatch automates this process.
Build an audience - Facebook displays Dynamic Product ads to its users who have previously visited your website or app. For example, they may have viewed a product or made a purchase. Also, they might have put items in a shopping cart, but abandoned it before completing the transaction. Facebook tracks these actions using the Facebook Pixel (which you install on your website) and App Events (which you install on your app). It then uses this data to create your audience.
Create ads - the final stage is to create a template for the ads. This is what Facebook will deliver to your audience with information from your Catalog. You can create different campaigns for each audience you create. This is beneficial as you can build very specific audiences. For example, you can create an audience of people who have visited particular pages on your website, but haven't visited others. Or, you can create an audience of people who haven't visited your website in a while.
Broad Audience Update Rollout
In January 2017, Facebook started rolling out an update to its Dynamic Product Ads that lets advertisers target users who have not visited their website or app. This means you can now target two different types of user:
- A custom audience of users who have visited your website or app
- A broad audience
Facebook is maintaining its focus on buyer intent with its rollout of broad audience targeting. When you select broad audience targeting, Facebook will show your ads to users who have visited websites that sell similar products to yours. The Facebook Pixel and App Events tools give Facebook this information.
Using a broad audience means you are not as reliant on traffic to your website for Facebook Dynamic Product Ads to deliver a return on investment.
Not everyone has access to the feature, but Facebook is rolling it out. You still need to upload a data feed to Facebook and you still need the Facebook Pixel installed on your website for the broad audience feature to work.
Using Facebook Dynamic Product Ads
Facebook Dynamic Product Ads let you stay front of mind with potential customers. It also re-engages previous customers, upsells customers, and finds new customers.
Thus, it is a tool that can deliver a significant return on investment.
