Dynamic ads campaign FAQ

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See below for for frequently asked questions on dynamic ads campaigns:

Facebook uses multiple types of signals to choose products from your catalog that it predicts generate the best outcome for you based on the optimization goal you have chosen. These are called product recommendations.

Facebook lists examples of factors that influence recommendations:

  • The products a person viewed on your website or in your app
  • The popular products in your catalog
  • Products your audience or people similar to them interacted with on Facebook and around the web

The same logic applies regardless of the way the audience has been defined, that is, in both retargeting and Broad Audience campaigns.

It's not possible to control the product recommendations but you can define limits for promoted products with product sets.

Facebook's best practices on product recommendations

The recommendation will fallback to select best sellers from the categories, in this example, the best selling pair of shoes as the third product if there is not enough data for better recommendations.

What product are feed formats supported in Smartly?

Supported formats in Smartly are XML/Google XML, JSON and CSV/TSV. See more information on feed files and supported formats.

Facebook will choose more products to show from the feed you choose and filter them for that specific campaign. The product recommendations might be from multiple categories if your dynamic ads campaign is not filtered down to one category only.

Why is the feed audience size -1?

If you use Dynamic Audiences FB might take up to 24 hours to calculate correct audience size and Ad Set needs to be active for accurate predictions. If your Dynamic Ads setup is correct, IDs in Catalog match Pixel/SDKs IDs and your Catalog tracks right pixel/app (and for DA Travel in Workspace you have linked Data Sources) your campaign is ok. 

What is the maximum file size of a feed file?

The maximum size of the feed file Smartly will send to Facebook is 32GB. However, as a general rule, a recommendation from Facebook and Smartly for faster processing is to keep the feeds as small as possible while keeping the catalog as large as possible.

Technical limits are listed at the Facebook Advertiser Help Center.

Can I use multiple feeds in a single catalog?

Yes, see "Adding multiple product feeds" in Catalog setup. We recommend doing this. 

Is it possible to create multiple campaigns from the same feed?

Yes. You can also use multiple audiences within the same campaign. Keep duplicate targeting in mind, though--there's no sense in retargeting the same product in many campaigns.

Do I need to change anything in Business Manager?

The Facebook account connected with Smartly must have admin rights in Business Manager. Only users with admin rights are allowed to create product catalogs in Business Manager.

Can I use a Meta Pixel that has been shared from another account?

If possible, we recommend using the Meta Pixel of the account you are using. If you still want to use a shared Pixel, you can set up the Pixel ID of a shared Pixel to override the account's Pixel. This can be done in Settings > Pixels. The Pixel needs to be first shared in Business Manager. More information here.

What should I write to the content_ids parameter to get the product ID filled there?

The product ID must be added there programmatically because it is different on every product page. The product id needs to be a string or an array of strings from the dataLayer of your website. The id needs to match the id column in the product feed to match the products. If you are not sure how to do this, please consult your IT resources and connect them with Smartly if needed. More information here.

What will happen to my retargeting audience if...

  • ...I create a new dynamic ads campaign using the same catalog?
    • The retargeting audience is catalog specific. As long as you are using the same catalog to create the new Dynamic Ads campaign the audience will be the same.
  • ...I change the product set used in my ad set?
    • The ad set audience will reflect the product audience collected to that product set previously. Note that the backfill might take up to 24 hours to happen.
  • ...I create a new product set?
    • The product audience is backfilled based on event history as long as the products in the new product set have been in any product set in the catalog when the Pixel or App SDK events have fired. Note that this might take up to 24 hours to happen.
  • ...I edit the creative template or add a new creative?
    • No changes will occur with the audience. Templates can be edited and created flexibly.
  • ...I pause the dynamic ads campaign?
    • This will not affect the audience. The catalog will still gather the audience, and it updates as well.

How does audience prefill work in dynamic ads campaigns?

Audience prefill in dynamic ads campaigns is catalog specific. Audience will start to gather from the moment you create the catalog. The only requirement is that when a Meta Pixel or App SDK event happens, it is recorded to a catalog only if Facebook's able to match it to a product belonging to at least one product set in the catalog.

Can I exclude users targeted with dynamic ads from other campaigns?

Yes. In Workspaces, you can toggle on Dynamic Audiences, select Prospecting and exclude the Catalog audiences in any campaign that support custom audience exclusions in Ad set (so all campaigns except Advantage Shopping Campaigns and Advantage+ App).

 

How do the dynamic ads audience exclusion rules work?

A person triggering a type of event configured in the exclusion rules will be excluded from targeting if the event happens for the same product (or product group) featured in the event that included the user in the audience.

Example based on Facebook's documentation:

Product audience is set to include ViewContent and exclude Purchase events. A person views product A and B and purchases product B. Unless A and B are variants of the same product group, the person will continue to remain in the audience because there's still a ViewContent event for product A.

Is it possible to use UTM tags for tracking?

Yes. You can use the same "Tracking" setup as for other types of campaigns, alternatively you can add tracking to custom web/app  URL, like screenshot below. More info on WS macros  for tracking. 

Is it possible to use tracking links for dynamic ad campaigns?

Yes, the product link in your dynamic ads with the click tracking URL. Please use {{product.url}} to refer to the product link in the tracking URL. Example; www.trackingcompany.com/12345/tracking/{{product.urll}}

Will dynamic posts get comments?

In short, yes. People can also like and comment dynamic posts and thus they will also be seen by the users' friends (therefore they can get social impressions).

How can I verify that my mobile app events work with dynamic ads?

For details, see Facebook App SDK modifications for dynamic ads.

When your destination is Web+ App, please make sure to always select the App in the UI for campaigns targeting iOS so that FB is able to send user to your app deep links even after iOS14 changes. 

For Sales ODAX + Catalog campaign, toggle custom app deeplinks and just select the app. Custom app deeplinks aren't required and if you don't fill them, they'll just be taken from Catalog for each product.

 

For App Deep Link Behavior, you have three options:

  • Always send the user to the given web URL
  • Launch app if it's Installed, otherwise, use web link
  • Launch app if it's installed, otherwise, direct to app store

Always send the user to the given web URL

With this option, even if the users have the app installed, they will always be sent to your website URL defined in the feed.

For this option to work, you will need to define your deep links in the feed configuration or in the creative template under "Use custom App Deep Links". You will need to define the links separately for Android and iOS devices. Note that if you enter anything under "Use custom App Deep Links", this will override any deeplinks you have configured in the feed.

Launch app if it's installed, otherwise direct to app store

For this option to work, it is recommended you send the following information in your feed and map it to your catalog: iOS URL, iOS app store ID, iOS app name, Android URL, Android app name, and Android package. This is especially the case if you are using Product Sales as your campaign objective. For app install campaigns, feed mapping might not be required. In addition to mapping the behavior in your feed, you can also use custom App Deep Links.

You can see the instructions in the beginning of this question on how to correctly verify that this behavior works.

Are location-based parameters such as shipping considered in Facebook's product recommendation engine?

Not with product catalogs. If you want to target different geographic areas with different products, you'll have to create separate product sets and promote them in separate ad sets.

Why are my images or Image Templates shown in a weird way?

See Diagnosing Image Templates.

On what level Facebook stores the learnings about user-product interactions?

At the point when a Pixel or app event fires, there needs to be a product with a matching ID that belongs to at least one product set. If that's the case, the learnings are stored in the catalog for that product.

This data is used to build dynamic ads audiences (retargeting and prospecting) and to choose the best products to show for each user.

 

What ad changes in Dynamic Ads creatives trigger the Facebook learning phase?

The Facebook learning phase is triggered with every change to the ad that requires the creation of a new creative.

The learning phase is not triggered if you only make changes to a feed field in the catalog or to an existing Image Template attached to the ad, and you don't change the ad itself.

More specifically:

  • Changing the Image Template attached to the ad to a different Image Template triggers the learning phase. When you attach a template to an ad, a preferred_image_tag is defined in the ad. Changing the template changes this reference. This means a new creative must be created, and this triggers the learning phase.
  • Editing the Image Template itself doesn't trigger the learning phase, because the preferred_image_tag stays the same (the template slot doesn’t change). There are still learning on Catalog, but your ad doesn't go to pending review. 
  • Changing the ad message, headline, or any other text triggers the learning phase, except when the content refers to a feed field and you're only changing text in the feed. When you don't change the feed field reference itself in the ad, the ad doesn't change and the learning phase is not triggered.