How to Use Facebook’s Dynamic Ads

Dynamic ads match the right people with the right products. Much like retargeted AdWords campaigns, Facebook’s ad service maximizes each dollar spent on digital advertisements. With such a large active user base, it makes sense for B2B and B2C companies to leverage the social media powerhouse in their advertising campaigns. Learn how to use the new capabilities to your advantage in your fall marketing campaigns (and beyond).

Why Dynamic Advertising?

According to a recent report in TechCrunch, Facebook recently reached 2 billion monthly users. This makes it by far the largest social media network, with 1.5 billion on YouTube, 328 million on Twitter, and 225 million on Snapchat. Facebook’s other platforms, WhatsApp and Instagram, boast 1.2 billion and 700 million users, respectively. This commands an unprecedented opportunity for marketers, and Facebook thinks so too.

Recent Facebook IQ research also found that American reliance on mobile is increasing, particularly when it comes to shopping. Mobile shopping is up 18% this year in the U.S., and up 56% from 2015. But this is only part of the story – Facebook also found that nearly a third of mobile shoppers prefer to explore new products using video.

This formed the basis for the dynamic advertising platform, which allows marketers to roll out videos in dynamic ads, not just static images. The platform also allows for a new option that targets separate family members within the same household. In other words, marketers can truly reach the right person, at the right time – not just their sibling or parent. This technology is another step toward the holy grail of marketers – the “360 degree view of the customer.”

Facebook doesn’t just focus on retargeting ads. With Broad Audience Dynamic Ads companies can reach customers who have never visited their site, but have shown an interest in similar products. After comparing RoAS over three recent quarters American Eagle Outfitters found that Broad Audiences was four times more effective than other ad platforms.

The Mobile Revolution – Social Media At The Helm

Dynamic advertising fits squarely into Facebook’s plan to become a true mobile and video-centric platform. It’s next in a line of such capabilities, from its acquisition of mobile exclusive Instagram to Facebook Live. Mobile shopping is quickly gaining steam with consumers, with mobile first experiences growing faster than desktop. It seems that 2017 is the year that consumers are overcoming their reluctance to engage in mobile-first shopping.

Facebook’s research found that mobile-first shoppers are 1.7 times more likely to find gift inspiration on Facebook, and 2.5 times more likely on Instagram. Around 50% of these mobile-first shoppers are parents, and that trend is expected to continue. This highlights the importance of entering the dynamic ad market when it’s still at ground level.

Google has previously led the charge in this regard, turning shopping advertising into a lucrative revenue stream. Now, it seems that Facebook is making a move to compete with the search engine giant by adding video to their existing advertising. And the movement already has followers.

One of the first adopters of Facebook video dynamic ads, Made.com, saw a 160% improvement in RoAS over other retargeting methods. Wayfair, the online home furnishings store, reported beating their customer acquisition efficiency by over 20%. As marketers realize the benefits of dynamic advertising, we’ll see the adoption curve grow.

Benefits Of Dynamic Advertising

Dynamic advertising essentially increases your chances of getting the right message, to the right person, at the right time. Its counterpart, native advertising, is more like throwing a campaign to the wind and hoping it reaches the right person. In the digital sphere, dynamic advertising has a few distinct advantages:

• It’s a time saver. Dynamic advertising doesn’t require any timely keyword maintenance. Rather, Facebook automatically promotes products when people have expressed interest in them, whether on your website or elsewhere on the web. All you have to do is upload your product catalog, and Facebook will take care of the rest.
• You’ll reach more shoppers. Even if a user hasn’t been to your website or app, you can still tailor results to their interests.
• Follow through to complete a sale. Remind customers of a product they liked or visited, but didn’t buy.
• Automatically connect with people across devices. Facebook’s dynamic advertising allows you to reconnect with shoppers via mobile or desktop, no matter where they shopped last.
• Attract more attention. Consumers can tune out dynamic advertising after a while. It’s a phenomenon called “banner blindness,” and it affects up to 86% of consumers today. Facebook’s video capabilities, on the other hand, engage consumers and make it harder to look away. Use video to make a connection and maximize your chances of completing a sale.
• Communicate emotion. It’s difficult to elicit emotion from a static image, especially when a recent study found that 0% (that’s right, a goose egg) of Facebook ads elicited an emotional response. Video presents an opportunity for advertisers to connect with a shopper at a moment in time.

How To Get Started

If you haven’t used dynamic advertising with Facebook, now is the time to start. Mobile shoppers represent a large slice of a lucrative proverbial pie. Use these tips to get started and drive your online sales with mobile:

• Create and upload your product catalog. This is a little like setting up your Google Shopping feed, if you’ve used the tool before. Facebook also says their tools are backwards compatible, so you should be able to upload an existing catalog if you have one. Once uploaded, your catalog becomes a virtual database that will connect with customers based on pixel instruction.
• Configure your pixels. Dynamic advertisements use custom audience pixels, so you either need to modify these from an existing application on create new ones. Once Facebook Pixel has been installed and configured, it will help track user actions (such as viewing content, adding to a cart, or purchasing), and send the data back to Facebook.
• Set up your ad template. Once you have a product catalog and pixels, your next step is to create a template for dynamic advertisement. This will be your “jumping off” point across all your products. You can choose a single product or multi-product format, and you can choose for them to appear within a News Feed or in a right-hand column.
• Let the games begin! Once you’ve entered the appropriate information, Facebook will pull in data from customer site visits and display your advertisements based on products they browse or key terms they search. After you put in the initial work, Facebook takes care of the maintenance for you. Best of all, the ads should reflect up-to-date inventory and pricing.

The Bottom Line

Dynamic advertising is the way of the future. In a world where consumers are becoming accustomed to ads, a targeted moment using video could prove to be the boost a prospect needs to become a customer. Facebook’s dynamic advertising with video helps make an emotional connection with a specific customer at an optimal moment. Once you upload your catalog and other pertinent information, Facebook will take care of the rest. When leveraged properly, dynamic advertising implements every advertiser’s dream, appealing to a customer based on a holistic view of exactly that customer.

^{* Adapted lead image:  Public Domain, pixabay.com via getstencil.com}