A Marketer’s Quick Guide to Dynamic Ads

Do you remember when you go to the mall, see something you like, and then go without it? Then you’d leave the mall and think about it all the way home, wondering if you made the right decision until you forgot about it. That was until you saw someone with exactly the item we wanted. Ah, the good old days.

Today you cannot leave an item in your shopping cart without it following you all over on-line. Who do we have to thank for that? Technically, a lot of people – marketers, retargeting tools, Al Gore’s internet – are focusing on one thing for the purpose of this article: dynamic ads.

Dynamic ads allow brands to change the ads that are shown to users based on their behavior.

Let’s examine what exactly dynamic ads are, what their benefits are, and how they’re used on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Dynamic ads are often used in remarketing campaigns to reach users who have already interacted with a brand. More about it here.

Static ads, on the other hand, don’t adapt to external data, so they tend to appeal to a wider audience for brand awareness or product launches.

An advertising banner can look like this:

Or so:

They vary in size and placement depending on the platform on which they are displayed.

The benefits of dynamic ads

Ad personalization is one of the greatest advantages of using dynamic banner advertising. In a 2020 study by Innovid, 43% of respondents agreed that ads should be personalized.

Additionally, 30% of respondents said they liked brands more when ads were personalized. It’s easy to see why – there’s nothing more annoying than receiving an irrelevant ad that isn’t related to you or your interests. In fact, it’s a major reason people get ad blockers.

In 2020, AudienceProjects surveyed people in the US, UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland and found that avoiding offensive or irrelevant ads was the second most popular reason they received ad blockers.

The more personal the ad, the better the chances that it will resonate with the audience. This brings us to the next benefit of dynamic ads: relevance.

While an ad may be personalized, it may not be relevant to the user’s current stage in the buyer’s journey.

For example, imagine you’ve heard about a brand but aren’t entirely sure what they do or what they offer. Getting an ad to request a product demo may be too big a leap. You may need more maintenance before you get that interest in their products.

With this in mind, with dynamic ads, you can only show ads that hit the user where they are. That way, you can move them further down and get more sales for your brand.

This brings us to a return on investment (ROI). For the reasons mentioned above, your dynamic ads can optimize your return on ad spend (ROAS) as they are more targeted and relevant to each user.

How dynamic search ads work

What are dynamic search ads?

Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) are dynamic ads that appear in search engines like Google and Bing based on the content of your website, not keywords.

When marketers set up search campaigns, they bid on specific keywords and create ads that match the intent behind the keywords. For example, let’s say you are a website operations company and you want to rank for “Best WebOps Platforms” for the keyword. You have to bid and win to be shown in the search engine when a user searches for that keyword.

With dynamic search ads, you don’t have to bid on the keywords. The search engine analyzes the user’s search query and scans your website for relevant content. When the search engine finds it matches what the user is looking for, it will automatically generate the ad with a heading and text based on a relevant landing page on your website.

The main benefit of using DSAs is that marketers can target audiences who may be outside of the keywords they are already targeting in their campaign.

Think of dynamic search as a safety net. Even a well-designed search campaign won’t target all of the keywords your user personality might be looking for. Dynamic ad identifies new targeting opportunities and closes this gap by targeting your content to the right users. This will give you additional traffic and a greater range.

It also saves time. With dynamic ads, you don’t have to match the keywords, set up bids, and make copies of each ad.

My recent browsing sessions have included many furniture and home decor websites. That’s why my Facebook feed contains the following ads:

And why I see ads like this when I surf online.

They work just like normal dynamic ads and tailor their content to the user for better results.

You can take your display ads one step further by creating responsive dynamic display ads. I know it’s a mouthful, but the concept is easy to understand: a responsive ad adjusts its size to fit the space on the page.

For example, you’re on a website and minimizing the page to make room for another window. A responsive ad would adjust its shape based on this new area – just like a responsive website.

This makes for a better user experience and ensures that your ad will serve correctly regardless of the screen size.

Dynamic remarketing ads

For example, suppose I go to the Sabai Design website to look at furniture. Then I put a lovely emerald green couch in my shopping cart, but I don’t complete the purchase.

If the brand creates dynamic remarketing ads, these couch and similar styles will appear when I scroll social media or browse websites over the next few days or weeks.

Dynamic remarketing works by pulling the product feed from your website and using user data to show your visitors ads that will push them into your funnel.

You can target different ad groups, from visitors who have only visited your product pages to visitors who have already bought items from you.

Once you have the ad copy and offers, the ad platform you are using will do the rest. This means pulling the relevant product information to display that particular user.

LinkedIn Dynamic Ads

When you create a dynamic ad on LinkedIn, you’re targeting users based on their profile, including demographic information such as location, work experience, company, and job title.

There are three main formats that can be used when creating ads in the professional network:

Follower Ads

If you want to get more followers on your LinkedIn business page, create a followers ad. This encourages people in your ad group to follow your page and learn more about your brand.

Spotlight ads

Do you want to drive traffic to your website or landing page? Use a spotlight ad. You can also use it to advertise upcoming events, highlight your products or services, or attract new email subscribers.

Content ads

Content offerings are great lead magnets. This dynamic ad format allows you to generate leads through downloadable offers. You can manage these leads in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager or export them to a CRM such as the advertising software of the HubSpot Marketing Hub.

You will find that none of these ads are showing as carousel, single-image, video, or text ads. This is because dynamic ads on LinkedIn are only formatted to appear in the desktop view in the right sidebar. Like this:

Facebook Dynamic Ads

It looks a little different on Facebook. In this case, dynamic ads are ideal for brands with a large inventory of products and / or services. Unlike LinkedIn ads, when creating a dynamic ad on Facebook, you can choose any ad format including single image, carousel, story, or collection.

Here’s how Facebook dynamic ads work: You can create a retargeting campaign to reach consumers who have previously interacted with your brand or to reach a wider audience that matches your user personality and may be interested in your products or services.

To set up a dynamic ad on Facebook you will need:

• A catalog – This contains the products and services you want to advertise with descriptions, prices, pictures, availability and other relevant information.
• Facebook Pixel or DSK – You need to install a Facebook pixel on your website or your SDK for your mobile app in order to record how your users are behaving on your web pages or in your app.

From there, set up your campaign in the Ad Manager to outline your ad goals, ad format, copy, and call-to-action (CTA) by product group.

Each time a user matches your targeting parameters, the machine learning program uses the pixel to collect user data and select relevant products or services from your catalog to display on mobile devices, tablets or desktops.

This saves time for marketers because they don’t have to create an ad for every single product or ad group.

You may no longer need these drives home from the mall to decide whether to do so Really should have bought something. Dynamic ads give you several ways to reconsider your decisions.

Whether this is a good thing varies from person to person, but from a marketing standpoint, it’s another opportunity to attract a consumer. Why not take it?