Traction and Scale - Creative

Learn How Facebook Dynamic Product Ads Work

Learn how to make your Dynamic Product Ads more effective with eye-catching creative and dynamic attributes.

In this lesson, I'm going to guide you through the fundamentals of dynamic product ads. We're going to cover the basics first and then move into more advanced topics as this model progresses, so hang in there with me if you are already familiar with DPA's.

Every DPA Starts At The Product Feed

DPA's use the data from products on your website or within a spreadsheet to build creative for your target audience, through retargeting based on the pixel information. If you haven't learned about target audiences or pixel setup yet, feel free to go back and check out those modules.

Every DPA starts at the product feed. These can come in multiple forms, but usually you'll see a product feed listed on a website through XML or downloadable as one of these forms.

As a URL, you'll see it, something similar to products.xml, which is then appended onto the back of your URL. Or, as a download this can be accomplished through multiple plugins or apps available depending on your platform.

Quality Data Matters

The quality of your data is tantamount in order to show products to your target audiences properly. Quality data not only gives context to what is being advertised, but it also helps you as an advertiser to structure your campaigns correctly. Utilize as many options as possible when it comes to categories, tags, gender, size, color, and price.

The custom labels come into play when building your ads, since Facebook doesn't allow color, size, gender, or several other categories to be added by default.

Google typically confines you on your product images to a white background, so that the product itself stands at the forefront and the data controls who wins out, and everyone's product no matter how similar, will have the same chance of getting a click.

Quality Photography Makes Sales

Facebook encourages you to use a more lifestyle-based or stylized photo that shows the product in use or out in the wild. Just make sure that your photos are high-definition and they fit the minimum standards here.

DPA's Can Target Broad Audiences

DPA's can be used to target broad audiences and are best served by sending people to collections pages based on target markets. Typically, DPA's fall into the middle or bottom part of the funnel that we've talked about in other modules. We place them there because individuals are more likely to purchase from the brand, since they have already visited the website. We're trying to provide them with a unique value proposition, whether it's a percentage discount, free shipping, or social proof campaign, in order to nudge a purchase.

Flex Your Creative Muscle

Ad copy is where DPA's can get fun. They allow you to flex your creative muscle, and are the reason why you want to make sure you have clean, well-structured data like we addressed before.

Within the text, you can use the plus button to pull data from the product feed. This allows you to utilize the same ad for multiple purposes when paired with retargeting.

Here we have some examples that showcase text, product data, and creatives.

Stunt Puppy uses a play on words with mastiff savings alert, and then uses mastiff again for the coupon code.

Talaria Flats uses an unboxing video and a collection ad, and then showcases the products underneath.

Larson & Jennings pulls product data in for the brand and size of the watch that they are offering 25% off of.

Kit & Kin displays cheeky photography and text on the image to capture attention.

For the ad text, we see the use of data fields to show a targeted individual, a product type and price, a specific brand, or green-colored items when used in conjunction with an Earth Day sale.

Understanding Deep Link URL's

Probably the most fun piece of DPA's is the deep link URL. Most marketers overlook this piece because it's optional and they aren't sure how it works. The deep link URL will take your audience to any dynamic page you wish, based on the dynamic fields that Facebook allows.

This can be done through filters, like brand equals product dot brand. Or, color equals product dot custom label zero.

URL structures of course will vary depending on your platform. The best way to utilize DPA is with a little code that's not provided in the default list. Product dot URL gives you the entire URL of an individual product, so that you can connect to an exact product variation without needing to type an entire URL string. And then, you can append tracking or promo-specific information onto the end of the URL. Product dot URL coupon equals whatever your coupon code is.

So, to recap, DPA's are built using the structured product data from a website or file, and can showcase to broad audiences you define. But, they work best with warm or hot re-targeted audiences towards the bottom of the funnel. Utilize lifestyle images and the deep link URL option to ensure that your audience goes exactly where they expect the ad will take them