An Intensive Step by Step Guide to Facebook Remarketing

You recently launched your Shopify site.

You spent all night working on it.

Fueled by coffee and determination, you pressed the green button and it’s now LIVE!

However, you look at your sales dashboard.

Your heart sinks into the floor.

0 sales.

A big, fat goose egg. 

People are flocking to the site, but they don’t seem to be ready to buy.

Believe it or not, people don’t always follow a straight path from visiting to purchase.

Sounds like you?

We’ll be guiding you step by step on how to create a world class remarketing strategy on Facebook.

Keep reading on for the exact steps on how to execute this!

Who is a retargeted customer?

Picture your customer, Beth.

However, Beth is a user who has NOT made the decision to buy and become a customer.

Beth stumbled upon one of your ads and engaged with it. She ended up on your website but never made a purchase. So close, yet so far...

There are a ton of users like Beth.

You must understand them in order to target them correctly.

Strategic marketers (like you) will target these users based on previous engagements with the goal of a conversion.

Let’s begin with the idea of a marketing funnel.

You can see the steps a user needs to experience before converting.

The retargeted customer is in the third stage of the marketing funnel.

Users at this stage are most likely decided on a product but are worried about a few things.

Those things can be fear, uncertainty, doubt, etc.

Your job is to convince them to finish the purchase.

How should our Facebook audiences look?

When creating these audiences on Facebook, you will separate them into different audiences.

As an example, you will be creating audiences for 1 Day, 7 Day, 14 Day, and 30 Day retargeting. This allows you to retarget audiences based on the time they engaged.

With segments based on when they engaged, you can convince users with a different messages based on where they are in the marketing funnel – and get on site and make a purchase.

The categories for making the retargeted customer audiences will include:

• All Page Visitors
• All Product Page Visitors
• All Add to Cart Visitors
• All Checkout Visitors
• Top 10% Time On Site
• PageViews – Frequency 2+

This categorizes the users by their actions.

Targeting by action will optimize the user experience, ultimately reaching a conversion.

Why will this optimize your user’s experience?

Each category depends on the user’s actions and journey down the funnel.

Remember how each stage in the funnel reflects their interaction on site.

The message sent to your user who abandoned a page 30 days ago will be slightly different from the user who was on site only one day ago.

You want to make sure your message covers components like urgency, ad goal, tone of voice, audience relevancy, and more.

For example, what is the difference in messaging for a 1 day cart abandoner vs. a 30 day product view abandoner?

Let’s compare Johnny and Jenny’s individual shopping experiences.

Johnny and Jenny are both interested in buying new yoga clothes from the same brand.

Johnny recently discovered this brand and was on site one day ago. He added a few things to his shopping cart, but didn’t make it to checkout. This made him a 1 day cart abandoner.

The ad sent to Johnny should be relevant to the items in his cart and his placement in the “commitment” stage of the funnel.

On the other hand, Jenny is familiar with this brand, but never committed to a purchase. However, the last time she was on site was 30 days ago. She viewed a few products but never added them to her cart. This made her a 30 day product view abandoner.

The ad sent to Jenny should be relevant to the items she viewed along with her being in the “interest” stage in the funnel. Because she took a lower value action, she is less committed and will likely need more convincing to trust the brand and its products.

Ad Creation for Retargeted Customers

Your audiences are set, now you’re ready to send them ads.

Since these users engaged with your brand before, they already know the basics. They’ve been hit with previous ads, so it’s time to get creative.

You want to create ads that are different for each audience day period (1 Day, 7 Day, etc.)

1 Day retargeting should have a different ad copy and creative than 7 Day, 14 Day, and 30 Day.

Why? Imagine if you were getting retargeting ads for a candy bar company.

The same ad appearing 30 days straight would not convince you to buy a candy bar.

If anything, it gets annoying and turns you away.

You want to send a variety of quality ads over time, so the customer will be eased into converting.

Alright, you know the overview, now let’s build it: step by step.

Step 1: Create the audiences on Facebook

• Log onto business.facebook.com
• On the top left, click the 3 horizontal dashes
• Select Audiences under Asset

Here are the step by step instructions on building out each category of audiences for retargeted customers.

All Page Visitors (1 Day)

1. Click Create Audience

• Select Custom Audience
• Select Website Traffic
• Make sure the company’s Pixel is selected
• In the dropdown menu, select All Website Visitors
• Enter 1 when it says in the past __ days

• Type in Audience Name – Company Name 1 Day RT (Pixel)
• Click Show description
• In Description, type – pixel – Your Initials
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 7 days.
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 14 days.
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 30 days.

All Product Page Visitors (1 Day) – The URL depends on the company

1. Click Create Audience
2. Select Custom Audience
3. Select Website Traffic
4. Make sure the company’s Pixel is selected
5. In the dropdown menu, select People who visited specific web page
6. Enter 1 when it says in the past __ days
7. In URL Contains, type “/product”

• Type in Audience Name – Company Name Product Page 1 Day RT (URL)
• Click Show description
• In Description, type – product – Your Initials
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 7 days.
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 14 days.
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 30 days.

All Add to Cart Visitors (1 Day)

1. Click Create Audience
2. Select Custom Audience
3. Select Website Traffic
4. Make sure the company's Pixel is selected
5. In the dropdown menu, select AddToCart

• Enter 1 when it says in the past __ days
• Type in Audience Name – Company Name Add To Cart 1 Day RT (Pixel)
• Click Show description
• In Description, type – pixel – Your Initials
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 7 days.
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 14 days. Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 30 days.

All Checkout Visitors (1 Day)

1. Click Create Audience
2. Select Custom Audience
3. Select Website Traffic
4. Make sure the company’s Pixel is selected
5. In the dropdown menu, select InitiateCheckout

• Enter 1 when it says in the past __ days
• Type in Audience Name – Company Name Checkout 1 Day RT (Pixel)
• Click Show description
• In Description, type – pixel – Your Initials
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 7 days.
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 14 days.
• Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 30 days.

Top 10% Time On Site (1 Day)

1. Click Create Audience
2. Select Custom Audience
3. Select Website Traffic
4. Make sure the company’s Pixel is selected
5. In the dropdown menu, select Visitors by time spent
6. Enter 1 when it says in the past __ days and choose the Top 10% in dropdown

• Type in Audience Name – Company Name Top 10% Time On Site 1 Day RT (Pixel)
• Click Show description
• In Description, type – pixel – Your Initials
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 7 days.
• Repeat Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 14 days.
• Steps 1-9 and change 1 day to 30 days.

PageView Frequency 2+ (1 Day)

1. Click Create Audience
2. Select Custom Audience
3. Select Website Traffic
4. Make sure the company's Pixel is selected
5. In the dropdown menu, select PageView
6. Enter 1 when it says in the past __ days and refine by Frequency
7. Choose frequency to be greater than or equal to "2"

• Type in Audience Name – Company Name PageView Freq 2+ 1 Day RT (Pixel)
• Click Show description
• In Description, type – pixel – Your Initials
• Repeat Steps 1-10 and change 1 day to 7 days.
• Repeat Steps 1-10 and change 1 day to 14 days.
• Steps 1-10 and change 1 day to 30 days.

Boom. Now you know how to create all the different audiences needed for retargeted customers. On to the next one.

Step 2: Create the campaign

If you’re new to Facebook marketing, here’s an overview on what a campaign is.

A campaign tells Facebook what you’re trying to accomplish, like “conversions.”

There are various buying types and the most common is “auction.” This type tells Facebook to send your ad based on how much you spend.

So if your budget is high, Facebook uses their algorithm to send your ads to the best performing audiences.

Moving forward, we have two different options for our ads: DPA or non-DPA.

What is DPA? It stands for Dynamic Product Ads.

DPA allows Facebook to use data and dynamically display products your user would most likely purchase.

This is effective for retargeted customers since they already browsed on-site, giving useful data.

Has this ever happened to you?

You’re online shopping on your favorite clothing store and end up with a few items in your cart. You’re not ready to purchase so you exit the site.

Few days later, you see the items in your abandoned cart pop up in a Facebook ad.

Yup, that’s the magic of DPA.

However, there have been cases where retargeted customers react better to ads without DPA, so it’s best to test both.

Here’s a quick tip: When creating Dynamic Ads, you want to consider audience exclusions. With audience exclusions, you can set up targeting rules to avoid showing some products in your dynamic ads. This allows you to be very specific with who sees the ad and what they see.

Why is this important?

Exclusions are based on products in your catalog, allowing you to get specific with your audience.

For example, an audience exclusion can be made to target users who viewed products on your website but didn’t purchase anything within the past 30 days.

Learn more about audience exclusions here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/165516217407801

Here are the steps to creating a DPA and non-DPA campaign.

DPA campaign:

1. Click on the green “+ Create” button

• Enter Campaign Name as something similar “Initials - Retargeted Customer - DPA - Initials”
• Keep buying type as “Auction” and change Campaign Objective to “Catalog Sales”

• Update the Catalog to whichever product feed you would like to be pulled

Non-DPA Campaign:

1. Click on the green “+ Create” button
2. Enter Campaign Name as something similar “Retargeted Customer - NonDPA - Initials”
3. Keep buying type as “Auction” and change Campaign Objective to “Conversions”

All steps are same as a DPA campaign, except for the Campaign Objective being “conversions.”

Step 3: Set up your Ad Sets

An Ad Set tells Facebook who and what you want to target.

It’s where you can set the spending amount and where the ad goes. This is where your audiences will be placed.

For our retargeted customer campaigns, our Ad Sets will include the different audiences like All Page Visitors, All Checkout Visitors, etc.

Remember, you want to create ad sets for DPA and non-DPA.

DPA Ad Sets:

1. Go to the Ad Set level and click on the green “+ Create” button
2. Make sure that your ad set will be made in the Retargeted Customer campaign that you are building from.
3. Create a new ad set with each of the audiences that were made in Step 1: Create the Audiences on Facebook.
4. Input the following structure for the name of the ad set: “[Placement Initial] Audience X Day RT + [18-65+] + M/F”
   1. Placement Initials are the following [D] for Desktop // [M] for Mobile // [I-St] for Instagram Stories // [R] for Right Desktop // [I] for Instagram
   1. “X Day RT” would be for 1 Day, 7 Day, 14 Day, or even 30 Day RT
   1. 18-65+ is for the different age targeting - you want to start with 18-65+ and then narrow down by what the data shows
   1. “M/F” is for Male and Female targeting - again you want to start with both unless we know that the brand is 100% sure that only one will “work”
5. Once Step 4 is finished, you may "Skip Ad” and “Save to Draft”
6. Make sure that the Promoted Products have the correct Product Set that you want pulled from for your dynamic ads.
7. Add in the custom audience from Step 1: Create the Audiences on Facebook. An audience can be “Company Name Checkout 1 Day RT (Pixel)” audience. You will need to create ad sets for the remaining time durations such as 7 Day, 14 Day, and 30 Day before the campaign is complete.
8. Choose the placement you would like to be targeted. The main placements are Desktop only, Mobile only, Instagram only, and Instagram Story only.
9. For optimization and delivery, make sure that the ad delivery is based off “Conversion Events.” The event type is “Purchase.” The conversion window is 1 Day Click and the bid strategy for now is Lowest Cost.
10. Once updated, you may publish.
11. Repeat Step 1-10 and create for the rest of the audiences in Step 1: Create the Audiences on Facebook.

Non-DPA Ad Sets:

When creating a Non-DPA ad set, you may follow steps 1-5 for DPA ad sets.

You will then continue with step 6: Make sure the Conversion Event Location is under “Website > Purchase”

7. Add in the custom audience from Step 1: Create the Audiences on Facebook. You will need to create ad sets for the remaining time durations such as 7 Day, 14 Day, and 30 Day in the future.

8: Choose the placement that you would like to be targeted. The main placements are Desktop only, Mobile only, Instagram only, and Instagram Story only.

9: For optimization and delivery, make sure that the ad delivery is based off “Conversions.” The conversion window is 1 Day Click or View and the bid strategy for now is Lowest Cost.

10. Once updated, you may publish.

11: Repeat Step 1-10 and create for the rest of the audiences.

Step 4: Create the Ads

We're almost done building our Facebook retargeting campaign.

It’s time to create your ads.

Steps for creating ads:

1. Go to the Ad level and click on the green “+ Create” button
2. Make sure that the ad you’re creating is set to the correct campaign and ad set
3. You may create the ad with the following naming structure → “Ad_1”
4. You may “save to draft”
5. Now that you have made the outline of the ad, you may start to edit the ad.
6. Look at the following for directions for the “Creative” section.
   1. You can continue to create the type of ad that is needed for the type of audience as well as the RT time period.

Remember, all time period retargeting should have different ads!

This means that 1 Day retargeting ads should be different from 7 Day, 14 Day, and 30 Day.

Here is an example of variations in retargeting ads.

• 1 Day = Carousel Video Ad
  • 7 Day = Single Image Ad
  • 14 Day = Carousel Ad
  • 30 Day = Collection Ad

Why should you do this?

This is important because if a user is hit with all the different day retargeting sections (1 Day, 7 Day, etc.), they will not see the same ad repeatedly. Each time they are hit with an ad, it should be increasing in information and hold more value in helping them convert.

While creating your ads, keep this checklist in mind to have the best quality ad possible.

Subsection Checklist for Ad Creation:

1. Is there value in the text, headline, and description? Think value props, discount, offers, branding, and more.
   1. Is the URL correct?
   1. Did you input URL parameters in the tracking section? (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content)
2. Once you’ve gone over the checklist you may publish and start running your ads for retargeted customers.

You’ve done it! You created all the components needed to run a world class remarketing campaign on Facebook.