How To Set Up Facebook Shopping Campaigns

To set up a Facebook Shopping Campaigns, also referred to as Dynamic Product Ads, you will need to have set up a Facebook Ad Account and have made the connection between Facebook and Shopify through completing the Facebook Channel on Shopify.

Shopping campaigns allow advertisers to use an automatically generated product feed for retargeting to audiences who have previously visited the website, browsed products, or added to cart. You can, of course, also use Facebook shopping ads to appeal to prospective audiences who have shown an interest in similar products – this is called Interest Based targeting on Facebook.

What are the benefits of using Facebook shopping campaigns?

Now that we understand what Facebook Shopping ads do, what benefits do they offer advertisers compared to Facebook dynamic display ads?

Saves time 

Facebook shopping ads save time by providing valuable product data in the headline and description itself. These ads work well as they show the consumer the product listing as it appears on the website, the price and takes them directly to the product.

Ensures you aren’t promoting out-of-stock products

When you have the Facebook channel set up on your Shopify site, your products will be automatically updated to your product catalog on Facebook to ensure you aren’t promoting out-of-stock products. 

Reach more people

Using Lookalikes with Facebook dynamic ads is a great way to promote your Facebook shop to people who are likely to engage with your brand. Facebook’s Lookalike Audience is a way to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they’re similar to your best existing customers. Find out more about setting up Facebook audiences here.

More relevant ads

Facebook shopping ads are a great way to display both single and carousel (multi-product) ads to customers that have already visited your Shopify store. Facebook will use the information received through the pixel to feature the products that it knows your customers are interested in based on their behavior on your website.

As you can see, Facebook gives advertisers the tools we need to ensure that they’re targeting the most qualified consumers with the right products. So now you’re probably wondering what’s the best way to set up Facebook shopping campaigns…

Optimize Facebook catalog by using product sets

In our previous article How to set up the Facebook Channel you learned how to connect your Shopify account to Facebook to create a catalog and a Commerce account. In this article, we’re going to show you how to make the most out of your catalog and set up dynamic shopping ads on Facebook.

How to create advanced campaigns using Facebook product sets

As we mentioned above, Facebook Dynamic Ads campaigns improve targeting to a more specific audience by using audiences; they allow businesses to retarget visitors or purchasers from your website; Facebook’s system automatically shows the right products to the right audience based on its previous behavior. Marketers can create custom labels to gain some control over which products are promoted, which can be very beneficial for a special occasion or a sales campaign that only targets specific products.

Although the system will automatically retarget cart abandoners with the products left in the basket, by creating custom labels, you can cross-sell similar products or even promote a sale to previous website viewers by organizing your product catalog in Product Sets and setting a target for each of them.

Here’s how to create Facebook product sets:

1. Go to Facebook Commerce Manager – Catalogue – Sets

2. Go to Create Set

Here you can have two options on how to create your catalog. Which option you choose depends on how your optimized product titles are. If you haven’t already, you may need to SEO optimize your product catalog in Shopify – please see our previous article on SEO product page optimization on Shopify.

First, let’s discuss Facebook’s automatic option for adding filters to create product sets.

3. Select Use filters

You will then get this dialog box:

You can toggle the product type, match type, and additional filters to create a product set. This automatic version is a great option when your products have been SEO optimized on Shopify. The automatic categories for filtering are:

• Category (Related: Google_product_category on Facebook)
• Product Type
• Brand
• Price
• Current Price
• Product
• Retailer Product Groups Id
• Gender
• Condition
• Size
• Age Group
• Color
• Material
• Pattern
• Availability

However, for some marketers, the above options wouldn’t be enough, so you would need a custom solution to use Facebook’s Custom Labels.

4. The second option is to Manually select products to create custom labels.

Facebook provides marketers with custom labels to add product information that couldn’t fall under any other product feed field. For example, marketers could create the following fields as custom labels: name of the promotion a product belongs to, internal categorization, book’s author, records’ music genre, etc…

a. The first step to creating custom labels is Create set – Manually select products 

b. Next, you will need to name your new product set and manually select which items you want to fall into this product set:

c. Once you have selected the products you want to be in this set, click Create, and you will see this product set under Sets in your Commerce Manager.

Similarly to Google Shopping, on Facebook, you can manually select products to go into a new product set which otherwise may not automatically be grouped. Custom labels can help boost a promoted range of products, seasonal sales, promotions, etc. 

Once you have organized and reviewed your product sets, it’s time to create your Facebook campaigns.

How to set up Facebook shopping campaigns:

How to set up Facebook carousel shopping ads

1. Create your campaign

Firstly, go to Ads Manager and click + Create from this dialog box. Click Catalogue Sales.

2. Select your Shopify Catalog & name your campaign.

Ensure that you select the correct catalog (if your business account is associated with multiple catalogs).

Once you’ve associated the correct commerce account with your new campaign, go ahead and name your campaign.

After you choose the objective, you can name your campaign. Name your campaign in a way that describes what it’s advertising and who it’s advertising to, for example, Objective – Audience Type. 

In this instance, I have gone for Catalog Sales – Skincare

3. Select your product set & name your ad set

Once you’ve named your campaign, go to your ad set and select which product you set want to promote to this group of people. 

From the screenshot below that, I have selected the custom label we created in the previous step. I have also named the ad set after this group.

4. Set up your audiences

Enter your budget and scroll down to select your audience. This section changes when creating a catalog sales ad rather than a dynamic creative ad; through the Facebook pixel, we can retarget people who have interacted with your ads before. 

See the options below and decide which you want to target. In this case, we have chosen to target people who have viewed or added to the cart but not purchased.

Alternatively, you can promote catalog sales to an interest-based audience. Please find out more about setting up your Facebook Audiences and tailoring them to your business.

5. Add your headlines and descriptions.

To make this ad a carousel ad, make sure to click Dynamic Video as the cover media.

Unlike other Facebook ads, Catalogue or Shopping Ads require the use of special keywords (these keywords are the headers that you used for your product feed on Shopify). With the help of these keywords, Facebook will automatically populate your ads with the relevant product information when the ads run.

As you can see below, Facebook has automatically generated a Headline (“product. name”) and Description (“product. description”) 

Keywords and the actual product photo will be replaced by relevant information pulled from your product feed when the ad is served to a customer. While the product photos, titles, and descriptions will be uniquely customized to each viewer, the primary text at the top of the ad will appear the same for everyone, which isn’t automatically generated, so make sure you choose ad copy is relevant for all your products.

6. Finally, it would help if you preview your ad. Your changes will need to be published before you can preview how your consumers will view your ad. Once you’ve posted, click on the toggle at the top left of the preview and click Share a link.

Copy the link to your browser and toggle the placements to see how your ad will appear with product names, images, and descriptions.

How to set up Facebook singular image shopping ads

1. Create your campaign

Firstly, go to Ads Manager and click + Create from this dialog box. Click Catalogue Sales.

2. Select Shopify catalog & name your campaign

Ensure that you select the correct catalog (if your business account is associated with multiple catalogs).

Once you’ve associated the correct commerce account with your new campaign, go ahead and name your campaign.

After you choose the objective, you can name your campaign. Name your campaign in a way that describes what it’s advertising and who it’s advertising to, for example, Objective – Audience Type. 

In this instance, I have gone for Catalog Sales – Skincare

3. Select your product set & name your ad set

Once you’ve named your campaign, go to your ad set and select which product you set want to promote to this group of people. 

From the screenshot below that, I have selected the custom label we created in the previous step. I have also named the ad set after this group.

4. Set up your audiences at ad set level

Enter your budget and scroll down to select your audience. This section changes when creating a catalog sales ad rather than a dynamic creative ad; through the Facebook pixel, we can retarget people who have interacted with your ads before. 

See the options below and decide which you want to target. In this case, we have chosen to target people who have viewed or added to the cart but not purchased.

Alternatively, you can promote catalog sales to an interest-based audience. Find out more about setting up your Facebook Audiences and tailoring them to your business.

5. Add your headlines and descriptions.

To make this ad, switch off the Dynamic formats and creative toggle and select a single image or video.

Like carousel shopping ads, a single image or video ad can use special keywords (these keywords are the headers you used for your product feed on Shopify). To use these keywords in single image ads, click on the + on the left of each text box.

As you can see below, I chose the product name to be the headline and the short description to be the ad’s description. It’s important to note that you will still need to add your primary text, which will be the ad’s direct ad copy.

7. Preview your ad

Finally, it would be best if you preview your ad. Your changes will need to be published before you can preview how your consumers will view your ad. Once you’ve published, click on the toggle at the top left of the preview and clicking Share a link.

Copy the link into your browser and toggle the placements to see how your ad will appear with product names, images, and descriptions.

How to set up Facebook collection shopping ads

1. Create your campaign

Firstly, go to Ads Manager and click + Create from this dialog box. Click Catalogue Sales.

2. Select Shopify catalog & name your campaign

Ensure that you select the correct catalog (if your business account is associated with multiple catalogs).

Once you’ve associated the correct commerce account with your new campaign, go ahead and name your campaign.

After you choose the objective, you can name your campaign. Name your campaign in a way that describes what it’s advertising and who it’s advertising to, for example, Objective – Audience Type. 

In this instance, I have gone for Catalog Sales – Skincare.

3. Select your product set & name your ad set

Once you’ve named your campaign, go to your ad set and select which product set you to want to promote to this group of people. 

From the screenshot below that, I have selected the custom label we created in the previous step. I have also named the ad set after this group.

4. Set up your audiences at ad set level

Enter your budget and scroll down to select your audience – this section changes when creating a catalog sales ad rather than a dynamic creative ad. Through the Facebook pixel, we can retarget people who have interacted with your ads before. 

See the options below and decide which you want to target. In this case, we have chosen to target people who have viewed or added to the cart but not purchased.

Alternatively, you can promote catalog sales to an interest-based audience. Find out more about setting up your Facebook Audiences and tailoring them to your business.

5. Add your headlines and descriptions.

To make this ad, switch off the Dynamic formats and creative toggle and select collection ads.

6. You now need to set up your virtual storefront by adding a headline to your product catalog. You can choose whether to make the cover of the ad a dynamic video or image. Once this is done, add call-to-action text to your ‘fixed button’ and click Done. 

8. Add headlines and descriptions.

Next, you will need to add your own ad copy and headline to your collection ad.

9. Preview your ad

Finally, it would be best if you preview your ad. Your changes will need to be published before you can preview how your consumers will view your ad. Once you’ve published, click on the toggle at the top left of the preview and click Share a link.

Copy the link into your browser and toggle the placements to see how your ad will appear with product names, images, and descriptions.