Facebook Fires Up Shopping Custom Audiences & Product Tags 

In a timely boost for marketers and eCommerce brands across the world, Facebook has introduced a host of new tools to help businesses make the most of the Christmas rush.

“We’re announcing new products that can help your business adapt to the pandemic, get on board with the accelerated shift to online shopping and make the most of such an important season.”

Facebook’s flagship announcement is Instagram ads with product tags. The latest update makes it easier for the social media savvy public to browse and shop for your wares on Instagram, and is designed to increase awareness of your brand online.

You’ll now be able to have more flexibility when it comes to designing posts, and this should be a creative boost to marketers who are bored of the same ‘ole routine.

Ads with product tags can be created within Facebook Ads Manager, and businesses will be able to use commercial copy as opposed to traditional posts to promote their wares.

You can use photos, videos, or carousels for your ads.

A Long Time Coming

Instagram has been testing this feature for a year now, and launched last week. Product tags are indicated by white dots on the post, and users can click on the dots to find out more information about the product, including name and price.

Ads will show up in Instagram Explore as well as the News Feed, and users will be able to click through to a businesses’ website or make a purchase within Instagram (US only).

While Instagram has included product tags in posts since 2016, businesses couldn’t tag them in their own posts and in that respect this is a big change.

Setting up tags in your ads is a bit of a process, but it’s not too complicated. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Confirm eligibility
2. Create, or convert, to a business or creator account
3. Connect your account to a Facebook page
4. Upload your product catalogue
5. Review your account
6. Turn on shopping
7. Get tagging

To tag products within a post, follow these steps:

1. Hit ‘Add Photo’ within Instagram
2. Write your attention-getting caption
3. Tap ‘Tag Products’
4. Search and select the product you want to tag
5. Hit ‘Done’, then ‘Share’.

A Smart Way To Target Campaigns  

Audience reach has also been tweaked, with Instagram announcing changes to the way you might be discovered.

This is a good move for businesses on Instagram, and it’s another way that will encourage customers to make purchases or find potential items worth buying.

“With Shopping Engagement Custom Audiences, businesses now have the ability to reach people who’ve already shown interest in their product or brand by doing things like saving a product, viewing a shop or initiating a purchase.

And with Shopping Lookalike Audiences, you can grow your customer base by reaching shoppers who have similar interests to your existing customers on Facebook and Instagram.”

The Shopping Lookalike Audiences is a really interesting feature and will help brands and marketers expand their reach and unlock new audiences who might be interested in a product, but who haven’t previously interacted with it.

While the Shopping Engagement Customer Audiences should help businesses to retarget people who have shown an interest in a product, but are yet to convert.

Put together, these are two pretty nifty tools that can help brands secure more sales. Retargeting can be really effective, while the Lookalike tool will allow marketers to reach more high-value people than ever before.

As well as this, Instagram has also announced a discount feature for US shops. Businesses will be able to run sales, special offers and promo codes all within the Commerce Manager.

Make The Most Of IGTV

Aligned with this is the move, announced earlier in this month, by Instagram to expand shopping across IGTV.

The IGTV upate will allow shoppers to buy the products they see in videos and offers creators, brands and Instagram a further way to monetise. Users will be able to complete purchases in-app, or they can be directed to a businesses’ website.

IGTV videos are going to be made available on Instagram Shop in the future, although a specific date wasn’t mentioned.

Instagram will begin testing this feature on Reels soon, said TechCrunch.