Dynamic Product Ads Implementation Guide

Reach your customers with highly relevant products, on all devices

Table of Contents
Introduction to dynamic product ads ..................................................................................................................................... 2
Dynamic product requirements ................................................................................................................................................. 2
Creating a product catalog ........................................................................................................................................................... 3
Setting up the Custom Audiences pixel and/or SDK for dynamic product ads ....................................................

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

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Introduction to dynamic product ads

Facebooks 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.
2.

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

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 youre 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

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

id

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.

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.

condition

string

The condition of the product.

Accepted values are new, refurbished, or used.

description

string

A short paragraph describing the item.

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.

link

string

Link to the merchants site where you can buy the item.

title

string

The title of the item.

price

string

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

gtin, mpn,

string

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

Max size: 100

Max size: 5000

Max size: 100

or brand
Max size: 70

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.

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.

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.

Select your new product catalog and choose Add Product Feed. Two options will appear:
1. Auto-Upload With URL
2. Upload File Manually

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

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.

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 its 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.

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 dont have a product catalog yet and dont 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

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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 an
audience 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

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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 IDs

from the product catalog have been viewed.

ViewContent

content_type,

Edit your Add to Cart button and shopping cart

pages to report which product IDs from the catalog
have been added to cart.

AddToCart

Edit the purchase confirmation page to report which

product IDs from the catalog have been purchased.

Purchased

content_ids

content_type,
content_ids

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

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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
Facebooks 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 which
pages (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

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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
couldnt 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 catalogs settings.

Matching IDs used in feeds and pixels or SDK: If you receive errors stating that products didnt
match, it is likely the product IDs being sent via the pixel for content_ids didnt 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 check
whether 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

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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.
4.
5.

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

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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

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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 youd 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 dont 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.

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10. Preview how your ads will appear by scrolling through the product previews. Product previews are
randomly pulled from the product set. Notice how the keywords change according to the products
being viewed.
11. Make sure to track conversions for your ads. For a complete view of your ads effectiveness, track both
website purchases and in-app purchases.

Track website conversions from your dynamic product ads. The Facebook Custom Audience
pixel can be used for tracking conversions across all devices utilizing Standard Events. For details
on conversion tracking using the Website Custom Audience pixel, please visit: https://developers.
facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/facebook-pixel/conversion-tracking/v2.3

If you have a mobile app, make sure you are set up to track purchases that take place within your
app. Detailed information for creating App Events, including tracking purchases, can be found here:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-ads/measuring/installs-and-in-app-conversions

12. Upload your ads to publish and set them live. Your dynamic product ads will begin delivering as soon as
people begin browsing products that match the rules that you have configured.

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Recommendations for product sets

Create product sets that help you organize products by value to your business. For example, you may
want to create product sets that divide by category, special promotions, or even by product margin.
Organizing your product sets by value will help you control your bids more effectively so you can
maximize your return on ad spend.

Avoid creating product sets that are too small. Small product sets may have difficulty getting delivery,
especially when the product sets contain products that get very few views.

Recommendations for ad formats and placements

Consider showing multiple products per dynamic product ad. Facebooks carousel ad unit gives you
multiple opportunities to show relevant products in a single bid, maximizing your opportunities for
conversion.

For the best performance, run your ads evenly across both desktop and mobile. Facebooks dynamic
product ads works across devices, so you only show relevant product ads to people who have visited
your website or app regardless of which device they use next. Instead of splitting by device, consider
splitting your ads by placements. Set different bids by right-hand side and News Feed to control for
image sizes and differing frequency rates in each placement.

Recommendations for optimizing for delivery and performance

Dynamic product ads will scale directly proportional to the amount of site traffic you get to product
pages. On high traffic days, you will be able to reach more people with dynamic product ads; on low
traffic days, you will reach less. In order to take advantage of your high traffic days, dont constrain
yourself by setting low budgets on your campaigns. Instead, control your spend with optimal bids.

With dynamic product ads, your audience is the set of people who take action on products on your
website within a certain time frame. If you need help getting started, try creating an audience of people
who have viewed a product in the past 7 days or added to product to cart in the past 10 days but
havent purchased in the past 10 days. Then, slowly optimize for better performance.

To optimize your ads, you have several different levers: (1) product sets; (2) your audience retargeting
rules; and (3) your bids. Consider how much value you place on people viewing different products at
different times. Advanced retargeters often create many product sets and audiences with different
combinations of bids. For example, people who viewed product set X may be worth more in the first 1
to 3 days since they took an action and worth increasingly less over the following 4 to 10 days.

Use your Facebook conversion pixel reports to keep track of important metrics like conversion rates
and cross-device conversions resulting from your dynamic product ads.

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