How to Set Up Facebook Dynamic Ads to Grow an Ecommerce Business on Autopilot
Brad Smith — July 31, 2017 — July 31, 2017
For a site that’s used by over a billion people, Facebook can be… complicated. Even when you try to give them money.
If you’ve tried to create Facebook ads, you might have noticed it’s challenging to get your money’s worth. You’re not alone. Many marketers and business owners have lost money through the nose on Facebook ads. Like this man who burned through $ 600,000.
Yet there are over 140 million Facebook users who want to buy products on Facebook. This is a huge, untapped market of potential customers that is ripe for the picking.
Luckily, things are getting simpler through a tool called Facebook Dynamic Product Ads (or FDPAs for short). FDPAs are a lucrative approach to increase your sales through Facebook.
Why? Through the use of artificial intelligence, you can automate your ads to show the right products, at the right time, to the right people. It’s like having a personal robot optimizing your social media strategy.
If you are unfamiliar with FDPAs, they work like this:
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First, Facebook pays attention to which products your customers are looking at. Then, they use that data to show them the right ads based on products they’ve viewed.
FDPAs take some work to set up. But if you are familiar with traditional Facebook ads, they can be set up on autopilot in an hour or two.
In this article, you will learn how to create and automate FDPAs – and use them to get more sales.
Here’s what we’ll cover in today’s article:
- What Are Facebook Dynamic Ads?
- How Do Facebook Dynamic Ads Work?
- 5 Reasons Why Facebook Dynamic Product Ads Are Important to Your Business
- 3 Ways You Can Target Customers Effectively with Facebook Dynamic Ads
- How to Set up Facebook Dynamic Product Ads
- How to Run Facebook Dynamic Product Ads on Shopify
- 3 Facebook Dynamic Product Ad Examples to Create Dynamic Growth
- 4 Tips for Creating Better Facebook Dynamic Ads
What Are Facebook Dynamic Product Ads?
FDPAs are retargeting ads tailored to a customer’s browsing history. By integrating with your product catalog, Facebook will show potential customers the best ads for the highest number of sales.
How Do Facebook Dynamic Ads Work?
Like Facebook retargeting pixels, if a viewer visits your website and leaves, they will then see ads based on the pages they’ve visited.
Let’s say a prospective customer adds an item to their shopping cart.
They get side-tracked by one of life’s many distractions and abandon their cart. 7 in 10 people abandon items in their cart, by the way. Instead of losing the sale, you can show them ads that remind them of the stuff they abandoned.
But it gets better. You can also use FDPAs to automagically upsell your new customers.
If a customer buys from your store, you can show complementary products they may also want to buy. So you might show them an ad for a stainless steel toaster to match their new microwave.
Simply put, FDPAs are retargeting ads on steroids.
5 Reasons Why Facebook Dynamic Product Ads Are Important to Your Business
Aside from saving you time and making you money while you sleep, here are six benefits of using FDPAs over regular ads:
Done-For-You Optimization
No longer do you have to spend hours optimizing your ads. By using FPDAs, you’ll save time by uploading your product catalog and letting Facebook work its magic. Plus, if an ad stops converting, FDPAs will automatically change it to test a new option for you.
Tailor-Fit Ads
Each ad becomes tailored to your customers’ desires. Viewers see ads based on their browsing and purchase history.
This takes out a lot of the guesswork on your end. And it makes the buying experience more enjoyable for the customer.
Instant Customization
As your inventory changes or goes out-of-stock, your ads will reflect those changes.
Let’s say your ad says there are “10 in stock.” Instead of needing to change your ad the moment someone buys from you, FDPAs will change the ad for you to “9 in stock.”
What about when you run out of stock? FDPAs will pause itself, so you won’t oversell your products or pay for ads you no longer need.
Displays Ads Cross-Device
There’s no denying that your customers make buying decisions from many devices.
According to Facebook, over 32% of people who viewed an item on their phone finished the purchase on their desktop computer. With FDPAs, viewers see ads based on their browsing or shopping history, no matter the device.
So after shopping for your competitor’s microwave on their desktop, they will see ads for your microwave on their desktop and phone. How cool is that?
Cross-Selling
For customers who’ve already purchased a product from you, you can display ads with recommendations based on their purchase history.
3 Ways You Can Target Customers Effectively with Facebook Dynamic Ads
When it comes to Facebook targeting, the sky’s the limit. Anyone who uses Facebook is fair game. And the level of targeting Facebook allows you to use is insane!
There are many guides out there on how to target with Facebook ads. But here are three ideas to whet your appetite:
1. Target customers that have viewed your products
If a viewer visits your website and decides not to buy, FDPAs allow you to show the potential customer your product again. For example, if they looked at a microwave on your website, but left before adding it to their cart, FDPAs will show them the same microwave to see if they are ready to buy it.
2. Customers that have abandoned their carts
As mentioned earlier, nearly 7 out of 10 shoppers leave items in their carts. That’s a lot of potential sales slipping through your fingers.
FDPAs make abandoned carts a thing of the past. When a potential customer adds a product to their cart and leaves, your FDPAs will gently remind them of the items they left in their cart.
3. Customers who have purchased products
Let’s say a customer buys from you. These people are much more likely to buy from you again.
In fact, according to a Wharton study, the odds of selling to an existing customer are 14 times higher than selling to a new customer.
On top of that, you can leverage their existing loyalty by sharing user-generated content to increase CTR while simultaneously showing appreciation and engagement.
Here’s how Jasper’s Market did this:
With FDPAs, you can show your customers complementary products they may also want.
How to Set Up Facebook Dynamic Product Ads
If you’re ready to set up your first ad, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it:
1. Set Up A Facebook Business Manager Account
Go to business.facebook.com and create a new account. Facebook will walk you through a simple tutorial to set everything up.
2. Upload Your Product Catalog to Facebook Manager
After you’ve set up your business manager account, you’ll want to upload your product catalog.
A product catalog is a file that contains a list of items from your store. This list should only consist of products you want to advertise with your FDPAs.
If you run your store on Shopify, you can download the Facebook Product Feed app and do this step automatically.
If you use WooCommerce, you can use the WordPress Product Feed plugin.
If you are doing this by hand, here’s an example of what your product catalog might look like:
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Once you click on “Product Catalogs”, click “Add New Product Catalog” to upload your own:
3. Change the Pixel on Your Website
By adding or changing a small piece of code to your site (don’t worry, it’s a simple copy-and-paste job), Facebook will begin to track user actions and optimize your ads.
Whether you have the pixel code installed or not, the easiest way to do this is to simply replace (or add) the code. For example, the ‘ViewContent’ event should look like this:
If you are still stuck, the help center on Facebook has a great tutorial to help you along.
4. Create a Template for Your Ads
Now that your product catalog is uploaded, it’s time to create your ads!
The easiest way to do this is by creating an ad template. Once you set up an ad template, your future ads will all follow this template. FDPAs offers many display and placement choices. You can select single-product or multi-product ads. You can display the ads in the news feed or in the right-hand column.
5. Start Your Campaign
Give yourself a pat on the back! Your ads are now on autopilot.
Facebook will work like a fine-tuned machine, gathering data from your visitors to deliver the best possible ads.
How to Run Facebook Dynamic Product Ads on Shopify
If you are on Shopify, here’s a faster way to run FDPAs.
It’s important to make sure that your products are visible in your Shopify store. Here are Facebook’s instructions from their business page:
Now you’re ready to set up your first ad!
Here are your next steps:
- Log in to Your Ads Manager Account on Facebook or access the Creating ad option on the Facebook ads extension page.
- From Ads Manager, click Create Ad.
- Select Promote a Product Catalog.
- Select a product catalog, then click Continue.
- Select an existing product or create a new one.
- Select your audience, placement, budget and schedule, then click Continue.
- Select your format.
- Add a call-to-action button.
- Preview your ad on the right. When you are ready, click Place Order.
3 Facebook Dynamic Product Ad Examples to Create Dynamic Growth
Many eCommerce owners have seen major success with FDPAs. Here are a few examples for inspiration:
1. SpearmintLOVE
SpearmintLOVE is an online children’s clothing store that gained a 14.2x return on their FDPA spending. Part of their success came from the ease of setting up self-optimizing, retargeting ads with FDPAs.
2. Good hYOUman
This feel-good apparel brand opted for feel-good FDPAs. As a result Good hYOUman received some feel good returns too – like 20.5x return on ad spend good.
Rather than offering discounts, the clothing company used the FDPA carousel to show people wearing their clothes.
3. Criquet Shirts
Criquet, an Austin-based men’s apparel company used FDPAs and saw an increase return of 80% by setting up a lookalike audience to expand their target market.
The company then put the FDPA carousel into action to retarget customers who made purchases in the past. In return, Criquet saw a staggering 91% increase in sales.
4 Tips for Creating Better Facebook Dynamic Ads
Ready to take your FDPAs to the next level? Here are four tips to help.
1. Add Reviews to Your Dynamic Ads
If FDPAs make automation so easy, why not add user reviews to your ads?
Adding reviews to Facebook ads increases customer time on site by 9.9% and increases your Facebook conversion rate by an average of 40%. Not to mention, shoppers that engage with UGC are 166% more likely to convert. With review-based FDPAs, marketers have reduced their cost-to-acquisition by 50%.
Still not convinced? Check out this webinar on maximizing paid advertisement with UGC and reviews.
2. Show Similar Items
When someone visits your site and shows interest in a pair of shoes, you can retarget that person by showcasing similar shoes in the display ads.
3. Display Complementary Items
A customer buys a new pair of shoes from you. She may also love a handbag, sunglasses, and other accessories to match.
Why not show her ads like this?
4. Increase Repeat Purchases
If customers purchase an item, think of ways you can leverage FDPAs to maximize their spending.
This could include subscription services or other items they use daily.
If you’re looking for ways to combat abandoned carts and casual “window shoppers,” FDPAs are perfect for your clients.
With a variety of targeting options in its arsenal, FDPAs are going to take advertiser’s marketing automation efforts to the next level.
Congratulations on taking the next step to master Facebook marketing.
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