Facebook Dynamic Ads Updated with Broad Audience Reach
Facebook’s dynamic ads are the subject of a major change today. According to AdWeek, dynamic ads are currently being updated with the ability to reach broader audience segments.
Instead of the familiar implementation of remarketing lists, advertisers will now have the ability to reach audiences comprised of users who have engaged with multiple websites or content on Facebook looking for products similar to their own.
Facebook dynamic ads updated with broad audience reach
Since their introduction onto Facebook in 2015, originally called Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs), dynamic ads have proven to be an incredibly effective remarketing strategy for retailers on the platform.
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Advertisers have the ability to connect a product catalog that can then serve product listings to users based on how they engaged with specific products or pages on their website or app – in other words, ads are served dynamically.
Now, with the ability to target broader audiences, dynamic ads are going to become much more valuable to ecommerce retailers.
How dynamic ads currently work
If you’ve already implemented dynamic ads into your Facebook advertising campaign, then there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with how valuable they can be.
After getting started with dynamic ads, you’ll notice three main elements that can be utilized:
- Product catalog – Uploading a product catalog and assigning each product in the list with with specific attributes can be used to generate an ad. Product catalogs allow dynamic ads to create audiences and target users.
- Remarketing – Placing a Facebook pixel on your website or app will allow you to log and report when product IDs from your catalog are being viewed, added to cart, and a host of others. Dynamic ads are able to utilize this information, allowing you to create an audience to target based on the reported actions taken by users.
- Ad templates – Creating a dynamic ad template will automatically populate an ad with the right products. You can choose to show all products, or specify a single product set that you define. Depending on different variables, your ad will show different products to different users.
So what’s changed?
Previously, dynamic ads were almost entirely dependent on the amount of traffic a website was receiving.
In order to create an audience to target, advertisers had to be able to build a remarketing list based on users that had visited specific pages of their site. For sites that fail to garner a significant, steady volume of traffic, dynamic ads may not be the most appealing or effective advertising option.
“A lot of the time when you’re looking at site visitors or past purchasers, those audiences can be pretty small, especially for newer or smaller brands” said Ryan Bates, Digital Production Coordinator at CPC Strategy.
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However, this update has the ability to generate a great deal of value for smaller ecommerce retailers. Rather than targeting users based on remarketing options, Facebook will now analyze traffic patterns on retailer’s mobile sites and apps, as well as information on Facebook, to automatically serve targeted ads to users.
“Instead of having to leverage big prospecting campaigns to drive people to site, or to drive page likes – this is a good way for smaller brands to bring more people in and essentially ‘prospect’ in a remarketing campaign,” Bates continued.
How important is this change?
We sat down with Ryan Bates and Stephen Kerner, Retail Search Manager at CPC Strategy, to discuss the significance of this update to dynamic ads.
“This update brings Facebook more on par with Google, since it’s another strategy to attract people to advertise on their site, so that you can reach a broader audience. There’s not only a benefit to the advertisers but also for the users. With this data, advertisers will have better signals, which will improve relevancy – which in turn will drive the advertising cost down,” Bates went on to say.
“The reason this update is going to have a big impact is because it gives dynamic ads a wider audience to target. Instead of just going after people who have been to your site, you can now target people who have shown intent to purchase. Google thrives because they know – through keyword and other data they’ve collected over time – that they can nail down when someone is about to make a purchase. This update is the first way that Facebook is making that same type of optimization,” Kerner said.
“Now, you can tie in not only previously suggested site visitors but also people that have interacted with your page. It’s essentially like having a pixel on your Facebook page. It helps to show intent, whether they’ve been on a competitor’s site, or searching for a similar item,” Bates noted.
“One thing to note is that this is probably going to make Facebook advertising that much more attractive to people who have been skeptical about joining. It also shows how powerful Facebook data is and how much data they actually have access to,” Kerner said.
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