Introduction

Facebook continues to be one of the most powerful and cost-effective advertising platforms for Ecommerce businesses, and with the right approach, you can leverage it to drive targeted traffic and boost your sales.

In this blog, we'll be discussing the latest best practices and techniques for creating ad creatives, setting up targeting options, optimizing your campaigns, and tracking your results.

It takes a lot of work to run advertisements for your eCommerce business. Most online retailers overlook the initial purpose and method of their decision to run digital ads.

The mindset of the user of the platform they want to use should be reflected in a solid, sales-generating advertising strategy, with each ad campaign being tailored to certain segmented audiences and objectives. It should also incorporate numerous campaign kinds so that you may follow and connect with potential buyers and consumers at various touch points from the start to the finish of their customer journey.

In a nutshell: An omni-channel network using a range of ad types and platforms, cold traffic, and retargeting campaigns are essential components of the ideal eCommerce marketing plan.

This blog will discuss the best Facebook campaigns to utilize for each purpose, how to run Facebook advertisements for eCommerce successfully, and successful examples of these campaigns.
So whether you're just starting out with Facebook Ads for ecommerce or looking to take your existing campaigns to the next level, this blog is the perfect resource for you. Let's get started!

Let's start with the expert tips first:

Drive up Customer acquisition using Lookalike & Custom Audiences

The first tool in your arsenal for Facebook advertising is custom and lookalike audience optimization, which you can use to effectively draw in more customers.

Facebook Custom and Lookalike Audiences are vital in ensuring your eCommerce Facebook advertising strategies are performing well and reaching targeted new potential customer segments.  

You would better attract more potential customers who are actively looking for what you are selling by optimising these audiences.

Star eCommerce brand Dollar Shave Club is an example of one that has achieved this. They reached 1.6 million people by combining Custom Audiences and the visual narrative of collection advertisements.

The results? In comparison to conventional link ads, there was a 1.5x rise in social media subscriptions and a 30% decrease in the cost per subscriber.

The trick? putting expert strategies into practise will allow you to customise advertisements for your unique brand and market. When creating Facebook advertising for your online store, you should test the following three main expert Custom Audience hacks:

• Direct additional PPC channel campaign tactics using your best-performing Custom and Lookalike Audiences and the insightful data they provide to your Audience Insights (found in your Facebook Ads Manager).
• Remove certain Custom Audiences or Lookalike Audiences from campaigns if they are underperforming if you want to maintain a high ROAS.

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You should segment your consumers as much as you can in order to have more control over your brand awareness initiatives (using Lookalike Audiences). This makes Facebook PPC advertising more tailored, which increases their conversion chances. You can learn more about segmentation & creating customer personas here.

Use Intent-Based Targeting to Find Potential Customers Who Are Dissatisfied With Your Competitors

Reaching potential buyers who have already made a purchase from or connected with your top competitors is a crucial part of your overall Facebook marketing strategy to bring in new clients.

These potential customers not only have a high likelihood of making a purchase since they are actively looking to buy the kinds of goods you sell, but they are also searching for additional companies to purchase from.

How then can you direct your Facebook advertisements to prospective clients who are unhappy with your main rivals? utilising the ability of Facebook's interest-based targeting through intent-based Facebook campaign targeting.

In other words, you can make a custom audience that includes the brand name of a competitor as a "interest". Ad set level is where this is done.

But you'll need to make some adjustments. To create this particular bespoke audience segment, you must:

• Insert competitor-centric keywords into the detailed targeting section. The purpose of this is to make Facebook populate the appropriate domain, company name, or page.

• You will need to use very specific keywords to reach those customers if the domain name is not activated.

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Not only should you target these potential customers, but your techniques should also be designed to convert them or move them into your sales funnel. Without mentioning their brand name in your text, you should test a range of ad features and assets, such as photos, headlines, and Facebook CTAs, that demonstrate how your brand addresses a potential customer's pain better than your competition.

You must conduct research to understand these potential clients' mindsets and craft the ideal messaging.

Retarget Potential Clients Who Have Already Visited Your Store

Retargeting potential clients who have already interacted with your website is another crucial touchpoint in your sales funnel. In order to do this, you must first create Custom Audiences based on highly precise site behaviour before immediately modifying your advertising for this group.

The audience has previously engaged with your brand through awareness efforts and is at the shopping or brand-engagement stage, but they still require more persuasion. Your chances of converting Facebook users are increased by tailoring your adverts to the precise product pages they viewed.

Beginner Advice: Are you new to Facebook marketing for online stores? You must make sure that Facebook Pixel is installed on your store in order to benefit from retargeting Facebook advertisements.

Facebook Pixel is a "web analytics tool that enables you to analyse the performance of your advertising by analysing the activities visitors take on your website," according to Facebook. Visit the Facebook Pixel help page for step-by-step instructions on how to develop and install a Facebook Pixel that links traffic behaviour to your advertisements management.

Also available are applications like Facebook Pixel Helper.

A Chrome software called Facebook Pixel Helper was created to assist users in quickly troubleshooting or validating their Facebook Pixel installation. Check it out right here.

As we know, all eCommerce Facebook campaign types can be used in conjunction with retargeting audiences. However, the secret to better ROAS is keeping the audience as segmented as possible. This means once one-time-only store visitors see and click your retargeting ad, they should be moved to the next segment – unless, of course, they convert. 

Make sure you fine-tune campaigns when running numerous Facebook campaigns to target and then retarget customers to make sure the same people aren't seeing the same advertisements despite moving "up" the funnel. The simplest approach to handle this is to modify targeting using Facebook's "exclude" option.

This guarantees that the ideal customer will always see the most pertinent Facebook advertisement at the ideal moment for conversion.

Request more business from your current customers

Next in your eCommerce Facebook campaign bag of tricks is retention. Targeting existing customers not only helps boost sales, but does so for lower spend. Why? Because your customers already know and trust you. Now, it is just a matter of reminding them. 

To set yourself up for success, this part of your Facebook strategy will also require strategic segmentation and targeting to drive Facebook PPC personalization. This means using a variety of ads at different stages. You should be targeting: 

• brand-new clients
• Customers who have only made one purchase Customers who have made several purchases but haven't done so in X number of months
• regular clients already existent
• Superfans of your brand

Use a variety of personalized campaigns, including: 

• Alerts for new products
• exceptional offers
• Upsells of goods or accessories
• Top-up product options
• Notifications of order changes
• Discounts and promo codes for events/birthdays

Track and retarget cart abandonment activity with a conversion pixel.

The ability to target cart abandonment with a Facebook ad can be a very effective conversion booster. This market segment not only has a high level of buying intent, but they are also already very familiar with and trust your brand. The perfect Facebook retargeting strategy will help you win them over.

Your cart abandonment Facebook campaigns are primarily directed at three target audiences:

• users who browsed product sites, added items to their cart, but never went to the checkout.
• users who visited the cart pages but did not complete the checkout process.
• Customers that attempted to check out but never reached the thank you page.

However, it's insufficient. Your Facebook cart abandonment advertising must be specifically tailored to each customer and the products they are interested in if you want them to be effective. Combining cart abandonment segments with dynamic Facebook advertisements is a productive strategy to achieve this.

To increase the likelihood of conversion, make sure you are triggering the right ads to the right audience at the right time.

We discussed how to leverage Facebook Custom and Lookalike Audiences to improve conversion rates as well as the kinds of campaigns you want to run for these various touchpoints on your customers' purchasing journeys.

It takes a lot of work to run Facebook ads for your eCommerce business. If you want to truly bring all your Shopify Facebook ads into one seamless strategy that is optimized for peak performance, it is all about PPC management and automation.

This means automating your: 

• Ad Structure 
• Campaign Targeting
• Ad creatives including content
• Campaign optimization

Leveraging Dynamic Ads

Dynamic Ecommerce Facebook ads are product ads designed to target both potential customers and existing shoppers who have actively shown interest in your products. And the more relevant products you can show interested shoppers, the more likely you can convert them.  

Why? Because relevant products mean relevant Ecommerce ads. And relevant Ecommerce ads mean sales.

The secret is knowing how to harness the power of this Facebook advertising automation correctly.

How Do Facebook Dynamic Ads Work? 

Dynamic ads are specifically created for online stores and retailers with a broad range or large volume of products.
According to Meta, Advantage+ catalog ads use machine learning to scale your product ads and to automatically show the most relevant product to the most relevant potential customer — based on each customer’s specific intent, interests, and previous user behavior. 

‍What is the main difference between Advantage+ campaigns and dynamic ads?

This mostly consisted of a name change. In contrast to the original Facebook Dynamic Product Ads, these revised campaign types include two options for targeting. This has made it possible for online merchants to connect with both current and future clients throughout the whole eCommerce buying.

These are the two target audience options sellers have with Advantage+ catalog ads:

• Broad audience. Deliver highly relevant product advertising to prospective customers who haven't visited your store or expressed interest in your products yet using a variety of data.
• Retargeting audience. Reach out to current customers as well as future customers who are already familiar with your store brand to send highly relevant product advertising based on interest and past user behaviour or activities.

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Benefits of Advantage+ Catalog Ads

• Includes sophisticated targeting options. Offers the ability to create dynamic campaigns that target new shoppers, previous store traffic, or existing customers.
• Drives relevancy on autopilot. Automatically shows the right product and ad elements to the right shopper, one who is actively interested in your product. 
• Reduces time budget. Eliminates a lot of the manual work that comes with creating individual product ads. 
• Incorporates automated optimization. Dynamic product ads continuously optimize without the need for individual ad management. 
• Offers advanced personalization. Dynamically adapts your social media ads content and creatives to match each specific user. 

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How to Create Facebook Dynamic Ads the Right Way

Typically, this entails setting up your campaign in your Ads Manager (formerly Facebook Business Manager), selecting the appropriate aim, and then choosing your catalogue at the campaign or ad level — depending on your campaign objective.

For sales objectives, you would select your product catalog at the campaign level, while engagement and traffic objectives will require an ad-level catalog.  

You can then choose to retarget existing customers or store visitors, or, target a broad audience to attract new potential customers.

You must first select your product catalogue before creating your ad set if you want to create an Advantage+ catalogue ad. Choosing the product set from your product catalogue that you wish to promote with this campaign is what this signifies.

As a result, it is preferable to start by making sure that your product catalogue collections are ready for success before setting up your dynamic product ad campaigns.

What Are the Top Facebook Dynamic Ads Best Practices?

Facebook dynamic ads—or, as they are now known, Meta Advantage+ catalogue ads—are automated advertisements. But that doesn't mean that these campaigns can't be improved.

To do this, you must first create a solid foundation by modifying and segmenting your campaigns using the advice we provided above, and then you must adhere to these DPA best practices.

• Opt for a larger product set. Yes, creating collections in your catalog can be powerful, but ensure they aren’t too small or that you’re stuck with far too many small campaigns. Why? The larger your product set is, the more options Meta has for relevant ads and product recommendations. 

• Review your Facebook pixel and catalog to ensure there aren’t any errors that prevent certain products from being displayed or recommended. 

• Ensure that you consistently update your catalog (preferably with eCommerce automation) to avoid out-of-stock products.

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How to Optimize Your Facebook Dynamic Ads?

Here are our top Facebook Dynamic Product ad optimization hacks.  

Tweak Your Campaigns to Ensure You Get the Best Results for Your Ad Spend

You need to ensure you are obtaining the optimum performance for your ad spend in addition to staying inside budget.

In other words: ROAS.

This indicates that you should make sure your goal ad spend for Facebook dynamic advertisements suits your entire eCommerce marketing budget. You should also make sure to keep an eye on and adjust these campaigns continuously.
This ensures that they are not completely consuming your spending for PPC and social media marketing and that you're getting the best DPA value for your money (ROAS)

Incorporate UGC and Reviews into Your Facebook Product Ads

Consider including user-generated content (UGC), reviews, and star ratings in your ad creatives for specific product groupings or smaller campaigns. This can be done by:

• Making the header text interesting (like the Piglet in Bed carousel ad example below)
• using only a testimonial in your advertisement's copy
• manually producing specially crafted promotional materials for a few DPAs

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This option may seem like work, but the results could be well worth the effort. 

Test Dynamic Creative Templates 

Although the automation of Advantage+ catalogue advertisements is its main selling feature, you may still experiment with different creatives for different campaigns.

We're not referring to dynamic advertising' capacity to enable the automatic usage of images and catalogue details in the creation of ad templates. We're talking specifically about imaginative templates that firms can create and include in their product advertisements.

The correct framework and manual creative editing might help you stand out from the social media crowd in campaigns with smaller product sets.

Dynamic ad templates offer a host of options. Here are a top few for instance:

• They may be time-based, in which case the image overlay corresponds to the remaining time for a clever holiday offer.

• To increase visibility and identification, they can incorporate branded design features like frames.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Nail the basics

There is no magic formula to have profitable Facebook ads and every brand will need to find its own winning combination. To set yourself up for success, the customer persona definition and targeting along with the content, in terms of brand messaging,content format and themes, that work for your brand are things that are non-negotiable when it comes to a successful Facebook ad campaign.

Make the Algorithm work for you

The Advantage+ catalogue ads formerly known as Dynamic ads are a great way to let the platform bring your results using the performing combinations of customer persona targeting and content with you having to keep tweaking it manually continuously. If you’re not too tight on the budget then this is certainly a good option to go ahead with

Take the complete conversion Funnel into consideration when creating ads

Most conversion funnels contain multiple touch points for the user to engage with the brand and each of those is an opportunity to convert a visitor into a customer. Leverage the most out of each touch point, have customers increase their Lifetime value with your brand by targeting them at the right time with the right brand messaging and have the retargeting strategy work its magic.

Accurate Tracking & Attribution are life savers

With so many changes happening across platforms with new privacy rules kicking in every now and then, ads becoming more and more expensive with the global competition rising, tracking & attribution are your best friends when you’re trying to maintain the effectiveness & efficiency of your Facebook ad campaigns.
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Know how to make the most of Facebook Ads

Digital marketing presents many opportunities to drive brand awareness and grow revenue. However, you need to understand the fundamentals and capabilities available to make the most of Facebook. 

Tealbox Digital, an ecommerce marketing agency, can help you through this journey of optimizing your marketing budget plan and making the most of Facebook ads.

Book an intro call with us today to explore this option for your business.