In a perfect world, every e-commerce consumer that sees your Facebook ad would follow the same path to purchase. They view your ad, click on it, add the items they need to their cart, and checkout. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world and as much as we would like, not everyone follows this orderly path. Often times they'll put items in their cart and simply leave before purchasing, or browse through a handful of items, get distracted, and click away from your website. Because of this, retargeting ads are an essential part of your digital marketing strategy, and, in particular, Facebook's Dynamic Placement Ads (DPAs).
What are DPAs?
DPAs are used to promote your products to consumers who have expressed interest on your website through specific actions, such as adding items to a cart or browsing various products but leaving before purchasing. While they look like other Facebook ads, instead of having to individually create ads for specific items, they dynamically pull in images and details from your product catalog.
Why should I run a DPA?
These are tailor-made ads, used to perfectly retarget your customers not only by advertising the exact products they've already viewed on your website but also giving you the chance to spotlight specific promotions, sales, or shipping offers within the ad copy in order to entice viewers to complete their purchase. These ads work to keep your products and company at the forefront of your consumers' minds, even when they're not on your website.
While these ads are great for retargeting purposes, you can also utilize them to prospect towards new and potential customers. Using broad audience targeting, your ad can reach people who've expressed interest in products similar to yours, even if they haven't visited your website. Facebook creates an audience composed of users who are similar to (or look like) those who have already purchased from your site and shows them products that they think would be relevant to them.
How do I set up a DPA?
There is a little extra work you have to do in order to get your first DPA running correctly, but thankfully you should only have to do it the one time.
- Install a Facebook Pixel: This is a piece of code that you put on your website that helps communicate information between your website and Facebook. This code allows Facebook to know what products to show to who along with helping track how much revenue your ad is bringing in.
- Set up a product catalog: Once you link your e-commerce products, Facebook will be able to pull in related information such as price, location, and availability. This catalog should continue to update automatically, so you shouldn't have to worry about doing it manually every time you run out of stock or add to your inventory.
- Create your ad: This includes deciding on the size of your audience, along with writing benefit-rich copy in order to entice users to make their purchase. Remember, every ad is going to be different so you want to stick to broader benefits on why a consumer should purchase from your company (free shipping, 25% off, etc.).
At first, running a DPA can seem a bit overwhelming. But once you have your pixel installed and product catalog created, it should be smooth sailing and you'll quickly start to see a high return on ad spend. If you have questions on how you can incorporate these ads into your ad strategy, contact the digital marketing experts at Informatics!
