facebook-dynamic product ads implementation guide

8/18/2019 Facebook-Dynamic Product Ads Implementation Guide

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Table of Contents

Introduction to dynamic product ads .....................................................................................................................................

Dynamic product requirements .................................................................................................................................................

Creating a product catalog ...........................................................................................................................................................

Setting up the Custom Audiences pixel and/or SDK for dynamic product ads ....................................................

Creating your dynamic ad template ........................................................................................................................................

Dynamic Product Ads Implementation GuideReach your customers with highly relevant products, on all devices

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Introduction to dynamic product ads

Facebook’s dynamic product ads enable you to automatically promote relevant products from your entire

catalog with unique creative, showcasing one or more products, across any device.

Benefits of dynamic product ads on Facebook

• Scale: Promote all of your products with unique creative without having to configure each individual

ad.

• Always-on: Set up your campaigns once and continually reach people with the right product at the

right time.

• Cross-device: Reach people with ads on any device they use, regardless of their touchpoint for your

business.

• Highly relevant: Show people ads for products they are interested in, in order to increase their

likelihood to purchase.

Dynamic product requirements

In order to start, you will need to have the following:

• You need to have a Facebook Page.

• You need to have a Business Manager1 account for your business. Admin access will be required for

anyone planning to add/update a product catalog.• You need to create an ad account or be assigned to an active ad account.

• You must have a product catalog hosted online. In many cases, you can use the existing feed you

already send to other online shopping portals.

• You must have downloaded the Pixel Helper Chrome Extension.2

1. Link: https://www.facebook.com/help/1428785834029669

2. Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fb-pixel-helper/fdgfkebogiimcoedlicjlajpkdmockpc?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/help/1428785834029669https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fb-pixel-helper/fdgfkebogiimcoedlicjlajpkdmockpc?hl=enhttps://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fb-pixel-helper/fdgfkebogiimcoedlicjlajpkdmockpc?hl=enhttps://www.facebook.com/help/1428785834029669


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Creating a product catalog

About product catalogs

A product catalog is a file that contains a list of all the products you want to advertise. Each line of the

product catalog contains a description of each product, including an ID, name, category, availability,product URL, image URL and other product attributes. If you’re already advertising your product catalog on

other platforms, you can leverage the same catalog, sometimes called a product feed, and upload directly

to Facebook or through a third-party feed provider such as ChannelAdvisor or Mercent.

To upload a product catalog:

• Your business must be listed in Business Manager.

• You must be assigned as an employee of your business, or be an employee of an agency which is

assigned to this business.

For a complete detailed example of a product catalog, see the developer documentation referenced below.

product_id Title Link Description product_category

13028 Rugs for every... www.jaspers.com... Imported from Tu... Area Rugs

4820217 Keep Warm www.jaspers.com... Thousands of thro... Blankets

84902 Untz-Untz www.jaspers.com... Get the best soun... Stereo System

730202 Fashionistas... www.jaspers.com... Made from 100%... Purses


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Required product catalog fields

To use a product catalog, please make certain that your feed includes the required fields listed below. It is

important to note that all column names (file headers) must be in English.

Name Type Description

1 id

Max size: 100

string A unique identifier for this item (which can be a variant for a

product). If there are multiple instances of the same ID, all of those

entries will be ignored. This maps to retailer_id after the

product has been imported.

2 availability string Whether or not the item is in stock. Accepted values are:

in stock - Item will ship immediately.

out of stock - No plan to restock.

preorder - Will be available in future.available for order - Ships in 1-2 weeks.

3 condition string The condition of the product.

Accepted values are new, refurbished, or used.

4 description

Max size: 5000

string A short paragraph describing the item.

5 image_link string Link to an image of the item. This is the image used in the feed.

Maintain aspect ratio 1.91:1. Images will be displayed at 1200x630px.

6 link string Link to the merchant’s site where you can buy the item.

7 title

Max size: 100

string The title of the item.

8 price string The cost of the item and currency, e.g. 9.99 USD.

9 gtin, mpn,

or brand

Max size: 70

string gtin - The Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) can include UPC,

EAN, JAN, and ISBN.mpn - The number which uniquely identifies the product to its

manufacturer.

brand - The name of the brand.

Note: Either gtin, mpn, or brand are required.


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Common issues

• In the currency column, using symbols such as “$” will result in an error. Editing the currency to “USD”

or “EUR” helps eliminate the errors.

• Make sure the image URLs in your catalog link to high quality images appropriate for Facebook News

Feed. For example, if you plan to advertise using the carousel format, we recommend image sizes of

at least 600x600. Alternate image sizes will be accepted but may be cropped. See the complete image

guide here: https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/clicks-to-website/links

• The product catalog also supports deep linking into apps. To learn about how to deep link into your

app, read the detailed product catalog documentation linked below.

Detailed product catalog documentation

For more detailed documentation on product catalog requirements, please visit:

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-catalog

Uploading product feed(s)

To upload a product catalog to Facebook Business Manager:

• On business.facebook.com, find your ‘Business Settings’.

• In your ‘Business Settings’, select ‘Product Catalogs’ from the menu and click ‘Add New Product

Catalog’.

• Admin access will be required for anyone planning to add/update a product catalog.

https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/clicks-to-website/linkshttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-cataloghttp://business.facebook.com/http://business.facebook.com/https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-cataloghttps://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/clicks-to-website/links


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• Select ‘Create a new catalog’ or ‘Request access to existing catalog’. If you are requesting access for an

existing catalog, follow the instructions delivered.

• Start to create your new catalog by assigning it a name.


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• When you are finished, select ‘Schedule Upload’.

• Product feeds can be tab, bar, comma or tilde deliminated.

• For more details on product feeds you can visit:

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-catalog

• Select your new product catalog and choose ‘Add Product Feed’. Two options will appear:

1. Auto-Upload With URL

2. Upload File Manually

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-cataloghttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-catalog


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Recommendations

• We recommend you enter a feed URL and schedule either daily, weekly or monthly upload frequencies

in order to automatically keep your product catalog up-to-date. This ensures you never run ads for out

of stock products and automatically add new products as your catalog changes.

• In order to represent your inventory accurately, you should update your feed as often as your product

inventory changes. Most advertisers have found a daily update to be sufficient. If you need more

frequent updates, you can either connect to the API directly or work with a Facebook Marketing

Partners to enable more frequent updates.

• In some cases you may have to make changes to the encoding and delimiter settings. For example, for

catalogs that use quotes (”) in their description column, you may need to check the quoted fields check

box. Work with your feed management provider to understand the settings necessary for your catalog.

Viewing your product catalog

• Depending on the size of your file, your catalog may take several minutes to one hour to upload. When

it successfully uploads, it will appear in your Business Manager under the product catalogs page.

• In the product catalogs page, you can see when the feed was last updated, how many products were

added, removed or updated, and how many errors occurred by clicking ‘View Upload Status’.

• You may receive several warnings or errors the first time you upload your catalog. Warnings are

recommendations for things to fix to improve the quality of your ads. Errors indicate a feed was not

processed and you need to fix your feed before proceeding.

• If you already have a product catalog and need to make an update, find your existing product catalog

in the Business Manager, select the feed you want to update, and click ‘Upload Feed’ from the ‘Feed

Settings’ tab.


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Associate your pixel or app

• You may be asked to associate your Custom Audience pixel or app to your product catalog. This is

necessary in cases where your business has more than one product catalog, Custom Audience pixel, or

app. Associating your pixel or app tells Facebook which pixel or app will be matching to which product

catalog.

• To associate your pixel, navigate to the ‘Settings’ page in Business Manager, click ‘Product Catalogs’,

select your product catalog and click ‘Associate Sources’. Select the pixel or app that you would like to

map to this catalog.

Product groups or product IDs

You have the option of using product groups or product IDs when referencing a catalog. Product IDs

represent individual items. Product groups are used to distinguish products that are identical but have

minor variations such as color, material, size or pattern.

Consider using product groups when you want:

1. Customers to find additional colors, styles, or patterns of a particular product. Product groups are the

way you group all product variants.

2. To avoid retargeting a customer with a similar item if it’s unlikely the are going to purchase a similar

item. For example, a customer viewed multiple colors of the same shoe, but chose to only buy a black

pair of shoes and is unlikely to buy the brown version in the next month.

Submit Variant Data

Ensure you have a separate product for each variant (color, pattern, etc.), each with their own unique ID.

• Each variant must have have the same item_group_id defined.

• You must supply a unique image for items that differ by color, material, or pattern.

• The link attribute should lead to a landing page where that particular variant is preselected.

Product sets

A product set is a set of products in a product catalog that you advertise in a dynamic ad. Each product

catalog can have multiple product sets. Product sets are defined by filters in a product catalog and are

created at campaign setup.


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Validate your feed with the Product Feed Debug Tool

The Product Feed Debug Tool allows you to paste in a product feed and validate the feed for errors and

warnings, without creating an upload session or adding products to your product catalog. This is helpful

in early stages of integration when you don’t have a product catalog yet and don’t have a fully flushed out

feed yet. You can just paste your test feed, detect the errors and warnings, and ensure that the feed format

is correct, before actually setting it up for all of your products.

The tool is located here: https://business.facebook.com/ads/product_feed/debug

https://business.facebook.com/ads/product_feed/debughttps://business.facebook.com/ads/product_feed/debug


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Setting up the Custom Audience pixel and/or the Facebook SDK for dynamic

product ads

To show dynamic product ads to people who visited your website or mobile app, you will need to

implement the Custom Audience pixel on your website and/or the Facebook SDK in your mobile app.

Dynamic product ads for your website

Start with a default Custom Audience pixel for every page of your website

Work with your web developer to place the Custom Audience pixel across all pages of your website.

You can find your Custom Audience pixel here:

http://facebook.com/ads/manager/pixel/custom_audience_pixel

If you do not already have a Custom Audience pixel created, you can follow the prompts to create anaudience from your website traffic. This Custom Audience pixel will be placed on every page of your

website.

Modify the Custom Audience pixel on key lower-funnel pages

In order to retarget customers at different stages of your purchase funnel, you must modify the Custom

Audience pixel. In addition to the code installed on all pages of your website, dynamic product ads require

three Custom Data events to be added to different pages of your website. Work with your web developer

to modify the Custom Audience pixel for each of the following pages:

1. Product pages

2. Shopping cart pages or ‘Add to Cart’ buttons

3. Purchase confirmation pages

http://facebook.com/ads/manager/pixel/custom_audience_pixelhttp://facebook.com/ads/manager/pixel/custom_audience_pixel


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On each page, add the appropriate standard events. These standard events must be added exactly as

described below, with no variations in spelling or case:

Page Event Name Required Paramenters

Edit your product pages to report which product IDsfrom the product catalog have been viewed.

ViewContent content_type,content_ids

Edit your ‘Add to Cart’ button and shopping cart

pages to report which product IDs from the catalog

have been added to cart.

AddToCart content_type,

content_ids

Edit the purchase confirmation page to report which

product IDs from the catalog have been purchased.

Purchased content_type,

content_ids

The content ID or content group reported from the Custom Audience pixel must be exactly the same as

the corresponding ID column or product group ID column from the product catalog. Most advertisers will

use a ‘Stock Keeping Unit or SKU’ as their content ID. You can also send multiple product IDs per page by

sending an array.

An example event ViewContent pixel event is shown below.

Detailed documentation for your web developer about adding these three Custom Data events:

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-audiences#setuppixel

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-audiences#setuppixelhttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-audiences#setuppixel


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Using a tag management partner

Many tag management providers have integrated with Facebook to make it easier to set up Custom

Audiences from your website and dynamic product ads. Please reach out directly to your tag management

partner to learn how to modify your tag to work with Facebook dynamic product ads. You can also place

Facebook’s Custom Audience code directly on your site.

Verify your pixel implementation

We suggest two primary tools for verifying your pixel has been set up correctly to use dynamic product

ads.

The Facebook Pixel Helper

Facebook Pixel Helper helps you confirm that your Facebook pixels are working as expected. Using Pixel

Helper, you can confirm if a Facebook pixel is added to your website, what standard events are on whichpages (e.g. Event ID: ViewContent), and which content_ids are being reported by clicking ‘View Event Log’.

You can download the Facebook Pixel Helper in the Chrome store:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fb-pixel-helper/fdgfkebogiimcoedlicjlajpkdmockpc?hl=en

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fb-pixel-helper/fdgfkebogiimcoedlicjlajpkdmockpc?hl=enhttps://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fb-pixel-helper/fdgfkebogiimcoedlicjlajpkdmockpc?hl=en


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Common issues uncovered while testing your pixel

• Matching your catalog to your Custom Audience pixel: If you receive an error stating the pixel

couldn’t find a catalog, you will need to fix your event sources in the catalog settings. Associating your

pixel or app tells Facebook which pixel or app will be matching to which product catalog. To associate

your pixel, navigate to the ‘Settings’ page in Business Manager (business.facebook.com), click ‘Product

Catalogs’, select your product catalog, and click ‘Associate Sources’. Select the pixel or app that you

would like to map to this catalog. If a different team member created the product catalog and then

placed the Facebook Custom Audience pixel, you may need to grant admin access (required) to add/

update a product catalog’s settings.

• Matching IDs used in feeds and pixels or SDK: If you receive errors stating that products didn’t

match, it is likely the product IDs being sent via the pixel for content_ids didn’t match products in your

catalog catalog. The content ID reported from the Custom Audience pixel must be exactly the same as

the corresponding ID column from the product catalog.

Retargeting Pixel Debug Tool

The Retargeting Pixel Debug Tool helps you debug the issues specifically related to retargeting. Once you

enter the pixel ID, the tool will report all the ViewContent, Purchase and AddToCart events.

You can also use this tool to see all the events fired for your user ID for the specified pixel ID. So you can

visit a product page on your website that fires pixel events for the specified pixel ID and double check if

those pixels fired were registered correctly when you visited that page.

Furthermore, to understand retargeting audiences, this tool allows you to enter an audience ID and checkwhether you are included in that audience to make sure the audience rules are setup correctly and you are

being correctly matched to the right audiences.

The Retargeting Pixel Debug Tool in Business Manager can be found here:

https://business.facebook.com/ads/retargeting_pixel/debug

https://business.facebook.com/ads/retargeting_pixel/debughttps://business.facebook.com/ads/retargeting_pixel/debug


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Dynamic product ads for your mobile app

Starting with the Facebook SDK

You need a Facebook App ID to use the Facebook SDK for iOS, Android or JavaScript (web). You can use

an existing app3 if you already have one. If you do not have an existing app, use our Quick Start4 to create a

new one. If you need help, follow our how-to Register and Configure an App.5

You will need to add the SDK to your app. We have a “getting started guide” available here:

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-ads/sdk

Prior to adding the SDK to your app, read the section below to also integrate the required App Events for

dynamic product ads.

Setting up App Events on key lower-funnel pages

To dynamically retarget your app users with relevant products, the same three required events must be

added to your app. Using the Facebook SDK for iOS and Android, you can send the following events:

iOS Event Android Event

FBSDKAppEventNameViewedContent EVENT_NAME_VIEWED_CONTENT

FBSDKAppEventNameAddedToCart EVENT_NAME_ADDED_TO_CART

FBSDKAppEventNamePurchased EVENT_NAME_PURCHASED

An example iOS AddedToCart App Event is shown below.

3. Link: https://developers.facebook.com/apps

4. Link: https://developers.facebook.com/quickstarts

5. Link: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/register

https://developers.facebook.com/appshttps://developers.facebook.com/quickstartshttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/registerhttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-ads/sdkhttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-ads/sdkhttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/registerhttps://developers.facebook.com/quickstartshttps://developers.facebook.com/apps


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An example iOS AddedToCart App Event is shown below.

Detailed documentation for your app developer about adding these three Custom Data events are here

(note, the content is located approximately 1/2 way down the page):

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-audiences/

v2.4#setuppixel

Verify your App Events

To ensure your App Events are being sent correctly, you can check your recent events in Facebook

Analytics for Apps.6

6. Link: https://www.facebook.com/analytics

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-audiences/v2.4#setuppixelhttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-audiences/v2.4#setuppixelhttps://www.facebook.com/analyticshttps://www.facebook.com/analyticshttps://www.facebook.com/analyticshttps://www.facebook.com/analyticshttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-audiences/v2.4#setuppixelhttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/dynamic-product-ads/product-audiences/v2.4#setuppixel


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Creating a dynamic ad template in Power Editor

Dynamic product ads look identical to other single or carousel ads that are available on Facebook and

appear in the News Feed and the right column. However, instead of individually creating an ad for each of

your products, you create an ad template that automatically uses images and details from your product

feed.

Before you proceed, verify that you have already uploaded a product catalog and have modified the

Custom Audience pixel on your website or App Events in your app.

1. From Power Editor, create a new campaign with the objective ‘Product Catalog Sales’.

2. Create a new ad set for that campaign and give it a name.

3. Create a product set. You can advertise all products from your product catalog or you can select the

set of products that you want to advertise. For example, if you want to create a product set of shoes,

select the category that contains ‘Shoes’. The filter matches the column names and products from your

product catalog.


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4. Click ‘Create’ to save your product set.

5. Select the audience and the targeting window in which you’d like to target your ads. For example, you

can set your targeting window to people who have viewed at least one product or added a product to

cart in the past 7 days but have not yet made a purchase. Click ‘Create’ to save your product set.

6. You can also layer on additional audiences, such as a Custom Audience or demographic targeting

by clicking ‘Edit Audience’. For example, you can exclude a Custom Audience of people who have

purchased offline or in store. Keep in mind that adding more targeting will greatly reduce the reach of

your ads and decrease performance.

7. Create a new ad using your existing ad set.

8. Choose whether one product or multiple products should be shown per ad. When you choose to show

multiple products, Facebook will show a mix of last products seen or highly relevant items from the

selected product set.

• It is important to note that showcasing multiple products in our carousel ad unit utilizes a square 1:1

aspect ratio images. Showcasing a single product will use one 1.91:1 aspect ratio image.

• If you don’t have multiple images for both aspect ratios, choose the option that best fits with your

feed.

• Full details on advertising specs are located in our Ads Guide: https://www.facebook.com/business/

ads-guide/website-conversions/links/?toggle0=Photo

9. Configure your ad with plain text and keywords. Keywords are pulled directly from your product

catalog.

https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/website-conversions/links/?toggle0=Photohttps://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/website-conversions/links/?toggle0=Photohttps://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/website-conversions/links/?toggle0=Photohttps://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/website-conversions/links/?toggle0=Photo


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facebook-dynamic product ads implementation guide

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