After debuting earlier this year, Facebook’s Dynamic Product Ad (DPA) product has been lauded by some industry-watchers as one of the company’s most ambitious releases in terms of functionality — enabling advertisers to automate retargeting across desktop and mobile with greater relevancy based on catalog or product feed data.
As part of my work at Nanigans, I’ve been monitoring the performance of DPA. We’ve observed more of our advertisers steadily coming on board in advance of the holiday season, as those that have already deployed DPA have seen pretty impressive performance.
This is particularly true on mobile, where DPA represents the most versatile and “hands-off” retargeting option on Facebook. While this fact alone presents value across industries, retail and e-commerce companies have been fastest to adopt this retargeting ad product among our customer base.
Retooling The Print Catalog For The Digital Age — A DPA Case Study
One way we introduce retail customers to DPA is to encourage them to think about the product as a way to retool their catalog business for the digital age. Many omni-channel retailers have tremendously successful traditional catalog businesses and see shopping behavior from those print catalogs moving online.
One of our retail customers quickest to adopt DPA had already seen success with Facebook’s carousel ad units, given their ability to showcase, similar to a traditional catalog, a variety of year-round and seasonally rotated products.
However, these ad units require the advertiser to select a static array of products. With constantly changing inventory and so many potential messages and offerings, the retailer wanted to also adopt DPA to more programmatically determine which products should be shown to particular buyers based on their browsing history.
Additionally, this retailer had a strategic imperative focused on maximizing the consumer behavior shift to mobile. Their in-house advertising team was looking for a hands-off solution to spur ongoing re-engagement of its shopper base in this area.
The company launched DPA on desktop and mobile with implementation support from Nanigans, and subsequent results validated the business’ commitment to the format. DPA mobile purchase rates surged 44 percent higher than the retailer’s other mobile Facebook ads, not to mention driving a 240-percent increase on previous desktop and mobile click-through rates.
One reason these results were so impressive was that by syncing with the product catalog, DPA units take into account whether a product is sold out or otherwise unavailable but can still retarget to given customers with similar personalized offerings that are available.
But that’s not the only use case for DPA.
5 More DPA Use Cases
OK, if you’re a retailer with an extensive product catalog, DPA makes a lot of sense; but what about flash sale sites, smaller e-commerce companies, or even online travel companies?
Again, think of DPA as a prime Facebook retargeting option. This is where the unit has a lot of untapped potential. Let’s go through five different use cases.
Convert more add-to-carts into purchases.
If someone abandons a pair of shoes in their shopping cart, DPA makes it easier to inspire them to complete a purchase. The ad could include the same pair of shoes or a selection of similar ones.
Fuel discovery of similar products in any given category.
After a shopper searches your site for a new premium coffee maker, you can dynamically retarget them with an ad displaying other brands or models they haven’t seen yet. In a comparable case, a travel site could target users who searched for four- to five-star Maui hotels with other similarly rated hotels in that city.
Cross-sell complementary products.
Retarget buyers of new printers who did not also purchase ink within the last 60 days. The DPAs can be used for various ink cartridges, tailored to the specific printer model they purchased.
Increase purchase frequency with your top customers.
When a customer buys a shirt of a particular style or brand, leverage DPAs to promote similar shirts to drive future repeat purchases. Additionally, a puzzle gaming advertiser could target purchasers of an in-app booster with related items that help users get ahead.
Grow average order value by upselling products with higher margins.
A boutique online advertiser can promote DPAs showcasing designer handbags to shoppers who have recently browsed less expensive handbags on their site.
While DPA is still a fairly new Facebook retargeting product, it’s absolutely worth looking into — especially with the holiday shopping season right around the corner. This case study and sample use cases should spur some ideas regarding how you can take advantage of DPA.
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