New Facebook Tools & Features You Should Be Aware Of (Part 2)

Facebook is one of the most dynamic social media platforms, with new features and updates being launched monthly, for both users and businesses. As marketers, we’ve already seen (and loved) plentiful new changes and features that have been rolled out for business pages in the first quarter of this year, although some of them were announced more than 6 months ago.

The second part of the guide to the newest Facebook tools provides useful insights into the latest features for Facebook advertising and how can marketers leverage them to their advantage.

Read the first part of the blog here: New Facebook Tools & Features You Should Be Aware Of (part 1).

Advanced Remarketing Features for Custom Audiences

Although custom audiences has been an advertising feature to use for a while now, Facebook has recently upgraded it with two new options: ‘People visiting specific web pages, but not others’ and ‘People who haven’t visited in a certain amount of time’.

The latest advanced remarketing features are well-thought out to help marketers create audience lists that exclude visitors who have already performed an action on the website or bring users back into the purchase funnel after visiting the website without converting.

One of the latest features within custom audiences is to target ‘People visiting specific web pages, but not others’. One way you can use this is to create audience lists that exclude conversion pages.

For example, you can create a custom audience to include people who have visited your contact page and exclude the ones who have converted and submitted an enquiry about your services.

Another useful option for Website Custom Audiences is to re-engage with people who haven’t visited your website lately or to bring them back in the purchase funnel by targeting ‘People who haven’t visited in a certain amount of time’. By choosing this option, you can include people who have visited your website in the last maximum 180 days but haven’t been back. One way to go about using this option for your business is to bring back and re-engage visitors who haven’t converted by reminding them of your initial offer or providing them with new incentives.

For example, if you are selling marketing training courses you can remind visitors that have shown their interest in a specific topic, a last minute discount or a free e-book if they register for the course in the next 24 hours.

Custom Audiences Tips

Here are two tips we wanted to share with you to help you make the most out of these new features within custom audiences:

• Create special promotions to attract people who visited your website, but have not converted yet. Maybe they need more information that supplements what they already know about your company or there is something extra you can add that will make them convert.

• Set up list sizes that make sense for your business. For example, if your target audience has a short conversion cycle, it doesn’t make sense to target it for a long period of time. On the other hand, there are industries where the decision process is longer and can go up to 120-180 days.

Dynamic Ads

Another exciting new feature within Facebook advertising for businesses is the dynamic ads, which offers you the possibility to promote items from your entire offer catalogue on any device, without having to configure ads for each of the product within your listing.

Dynamic product ads target Facebook users based on items they have seen or they have interacted with on your website or within a mobile app. Although it may look similar to a remarketing campaign, these ads have a couple of add-ons. One of the add-ons is that Facebook can show users similar products that might be of interest for them.

Another one is that you can leverage the lookalike audience recommended for your campaigns to expand your reach, meaning that Facebook can match your buyer personas to other Facebook users with similar characteristics and profiles that might be interested in your products. Also, according to Facebook dynamic product ad campaigns will be automated, so you will not need to manually create ads for your products.

image via Facebook.com

How do you set up dynamic ads? Create a product catalog or a product feed, with the list of products you want to promote on Facebook. Each of your products will have specific attributes that will work together to generate your ad: product ID, name, description, landing page URL, image URL, availability, and so on. Then, you will have to create a dynamic products ad template which will be automatically populated with the right products from your catalog.

Dynamic ads are currently available only using the API and only to selected partners, but Facebook will roll them soon via the Power Editor.

Are there any new features for Facebook advertising you want to share with us?