Facebook Dynamic Ads - having your digital marketing automated with Shopify

Facebook Ads have been a strong component in the advertising industry where social media gives eCommerce platforms a boost in their reach to their customers. The segmentation within Facebook Ads has been very successful, yet other social media platforms have increased their capabilities in the advertising space and have put pressure on Facebook/Instagram. Many businesses now question if Facebook Ads have a good return on customer acquisition, which then leads to are the conversion rates worth the Ad spend. Personalization and Dynamic Product Ads boost the effectiveness of your Ad campaigns which will give you the best yield in capturing your audience back to your online store.

Dynamic Product Ad defined

This type of Facebook Ad displays a single or a multitude of product Ads to customers that have already visited your online store, for them to return. It is displayed to profiled audiences that have shown via their behavior to be interested in the products that you are showing in the Ads. This is an important digital marketing strategy as it re-targets clients that could be returning customers, as well as loyal customers, with up to 70% of likelihood to convert. When using the Shopify Facebook Channel it will make this whole process a lot easier to operate. Using the Shopify product catalog, it will sync with your Shopify Facebook Channel so that you can use your product library to create your Dynamic Facebook Ads. You can start and pause these Dynamic Ads so that you can review the analytics and refine your Ad campaign as needed.

Reasons to use Facebook Dynamic Ads

Facebook Dynamic Ads can target 3 key customer behaviors:

1. Viewed content - Once a prospective customer views a product on your store, the Facebook Dynamic Ad will use that product to re-enforce the view as an Ad in Facebook within their Facebook feed. This will increase the desirability of the product in the hopes to bring them back to the store for that product so they can add it to the basket, and checkout.
2. Add to cart - As part of the abandoned cart recovery process, if a client leaves without checking out, the products in the basket are used for the Facebook Dynamic Ad for that customer to be enticed to finish the conversion process and checkout with their goods.
3. Product purchase - Using related products, upsells, and new products introduced to the store are then used by Dynamic Facebook Ads to promote additional purchasing with your Shopify Store.

These are highly personal and brand-focused Ads presented to users that have at least visited your site and looked at products. It does not operate with clients that have never seen or visited your online store.

Setting up Facebook Dynamic Ads

It might feel daunting to set this way of advertising, but it is well worthwhile to get through it since it sounds a lot more complex than it really is. When it comes to social media marketing, you have to have different types of Ads, such as "new customer" and "returning customer" - where Facebook Dynamic Ads capitalize on the latter, all the while optimizing the effectiveness of the former.

1. Sync your Shopify product catalog to Facebook so that the Facebook Business Manager can receive the content to set up your Dynamic Facebook Ads. This adds the full library of your products to Facebook which can take some to upload. Login into your Facebook Business Manager Account, click on Business Manager in the top left of your navigation bar and then click on Product Catalogs under the Assets heading. Add "New Product catalog" and then select "Create New Product Catalog" under the drop-down menu. Then give your new product catalog a name, and click "Create Product Catalog".
2. Once you created your product catalog, setting up your product feed will then create your product listings. This will then generate them automatically. The feed is a product catalog that can be viewed and represent different categories from your store. Different categories can be regional, can be product-specific, and specific demographics, and therefore group the right products for the right audience.
3. Creating the product feed for your online store, these are spreadsheets that list all the details of your products in CSV, TSV, RSS, XML or ATOM XML files. In a Shopify Store, you can enable the setting up of the product feed using the Facebook Product Feed App from the Shopify App store.
4. Your product feed must be aligned to formatting rules and must have all the required fields to be in sync between both platforms. There is example feed files to be able to review and use from the Facebook Support team. Once your product feed file is built, you will need to host it using FTP or add it to a cloud storage space like DropBox or Google Drive. If using the Facebook Product Feed App - that will automatically host it for you.
5. Once uploaded, from the Facebook Business Manager, click on "Add Product Feed" and select the file you just uploaded.
6. You can then name your product feed, adjust currency, and upload type for your feed - these can be recurring uploads or a single time. In a recurring situation, as products are updated, the feed will automatically upload itself (if using the App), to which then Facebook will regularly refresh its feed. The Facebook Product Feed App, adds to the eCommerce features of your Shopify Admin to keep your feed dynamic with all your products and services. You can determine the frequency of updating your feed to daily or weekly by pointing your URL so that Facebook can pick up your feed.
7. Give storage credentials to Facebook if access to your feed is secured, so that it can pick it up. Then click upload.

Setting up your Meta Pixel

Adding your Meta Pixel gives Facebook a way to track your audience when it comes to viewing, adding-to-cart, or transacting a product. Go to your Facebook Business Manager, then Business Manager on the top left of the navigation bar, and pick out Pixel under the Assets heading. If you have not created a Pixel, create one, or just grab your Pixel (15-digit ID). Go to your Shopify store and add your ID in the Admin area, under Settings, then Store, and then add it to the Facebook Pixel area, then save the settings. You are now set up to do your Pixel tracking.

Creating your Facebook Dynamic Ad

Go to your Facebook Business Manager, create a new campaign and select "Catalog Sales" under "Conversion" as your "objective". Give your Ad campaign a name and make it a descriptive denomination. You can also choose to A/B Test your Ads with Ad Spend optimization. Set up your targeting options. You can then filter the products that you would like to feature for this particular Ad by selecting the "+" function under each product. Once selecting the product set, hit create. Once created, visit the Audience section of Facebook Business Manager and do your settings for upsell/cross-sell - and ensure that you have your Keywords in hand for applying them here. These keywords will help target your audience. Once your Ad is refined, you are ready to launch your Dynamic Facebook Ad.

Dynamic Facebook Ad optimization

Much like all Ads, optimization of the messaging, audience targetting, conversion, and being able to re-target well requires a study of your Ad campaigns and their effectiveness. You have many levers to adjust with, including a budget, which products to target, and messaging.

Conclusion

Facebook Dynamic Ads are a powerful tool to re-target your audience and make your initial Ads to acquire new customers more effectively. It is important to note that while there is a technical aspect to manage, the Facebook Product Feed App does make things a lot easier to manage. If you require assistance in setting this up with your Shopify Store, feel free to reach out to us at wish@thegenielab.com