Marketer’s Guide to Dynamic Ads

Dynamic ads are a key component in today’s digital advertising landscape. In this resource, I explain what dynamic advertising is and how you can utilise dynamic ads to increase online traffic and sales.

Dynamic ads are widely adopted in the ecommerce world but contrary to what many believe, they can be effective across many sectors including B2B.

Let’s take a closer look at what dynamic ads are, their advantages, and how to utilise them drive more traffic and sales to your business.

What are dynamic ads?

By definition, dynamic ads are a type of ads that automatically and dynamically change and show to users based in a personalised manner based on their interest and browsing history. Dynamic ads normally require a list of products or services that a business offers, often referred to as product feed that is frequently updated on an advertising platform such as Google Ads or Facebook.

The term ‘dynamic’ refers to the adaptability of the ads. When you run dynamic ads, each banner ad can be tailored based on several factors such as the geolocation, user behaviour, demographic and much more. Although these factors tend to be common across various advertising platforms, each platform can have its own unique data and algorithms which impact user targeting.

Dynamic ads are personalised in real-time and serve the most relevant product, ad copy, creative asset to each user that falls in the targeted audience group.

Dynamic ads also often used in remarketing campaigns to remarket a product or a service to people who have already shown interest when they interacted with an ad or visited your site.

Difference between Dynamic Ads and Static Banner Ads

Static ads or often referred to as Display Ads, are banner ads that show across various devices and locations for a specific group of audience. But unlike dynamic ads, they do not adapt and change in Realtime based on external data. Static ads can be quite effective for brand awareness campaigns or product launches.

Advantages of Dynamic Ads

Dynamic ads help advertisers and brands deliver more relevant ads to your target audience in an automated manner. And so, there are several benefits and advantages to using dynamic ads.

According to recent data, 80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers personalized experiences, and 75% of consumers are more likely to buy from a retailer that recognizes them by name, recommends options based on past purchases.

And that is the power of personalisation.

With that said, here are the 4 main benefits of dynamic ads.

Lower advertising cost – through Realtime personalised advertising technology, digital platforms can identify the relevant audiences and serve them with the most relevant ad. This allows you as an advertiser to spend less money on ad and consumers less likely to purchase.

Improved conversion rates – showing relevant ads to the right audience more often leads to more sales and higher sales conversions.

Increase return on ad spend & ROI – done right, dynamic ads can allow you to spend less and get more sales which will directly improve ROAS and ROI in your business and allow you to grow faster.

Reduce marketing overhead cost – because the ads are generated dynamically using your product information, you’ll need less resources and time to create ads throughout the ad campaign.

Now that we covered what dynamic ads are and how they can benefit your business, let’s take a look at some of the popular dynamic ad platforms.

Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic search ads are dynamic ads that show up on search engines like Google and Bing based on the content of your website, not keywords.

According to Google, “Dynamic Search Ads are the easiest way to find customers searching on Google for precisely what you offer.” Dynamic ads are quite effective for advertisers that have a large website or a large inventory of products or services.

Put differently, Dynamic Search Ads can complement keyword-based campaigns by leveraging the information on your website and serving your target audience with relevant ads.

With dynamic search ads, you don’t have to bid on specific keywords to find potential customer. The search engine analyses users’ search queries, scans your website for relevant content, and show your ads to the right audience.

In a nutshell, Dynamic search ads identifies new audiences and targeting opportunities and fills that gap by aligning your website content with the right audience.

Google Smart Shopping campaigns

Another type of dynamic ads is the Google Smart Shopping campaign ads. With Smart Shopping campaigns, Google’s machine learning shows your products through various of ads across multiple ad networks, including the Google Search, Google Display Network, YouTube and Gmail.

Smart Shopping campaigns use Shopping ads, Local inventory ads and Display ads (including dynamic remarketing and dynamic prospecting).

LinkedIn Dynamic Ads

LinkedIn dynamic ads allow you to engage your target audience with ads automatically personalised to them.

Here are key benefits

• Personalise the experience for your audience
• Automate individualized campaigns at scale
• Customize ads for your marketing objectives

There 3 types of LinkedIn dynamic ads

1. Follower Ads – to gain more followers on your LinkedIn Company Page.
2. Spotlight Ads – to drive traffic to your website or landing page.
3. Content Ads – to generate leads through downloadable offers.

Facebook Dynamic Ads

Facebook dynamics ads are a versatile and quite effective way to advertise your products or services. What makes them quite attractive for many advertisers is you can use the full range of ad types like single image, carousel, Stories on Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network.

When creating a Facebook ad campaign, if you use the Catalogue Sales objective, you’ll be automatically running dynamic ads. But you can also run dynamic ads using the App Installs and Lead Generation objectives.

With Facebook dynamic ads, you have two targeting options:

1. Broad audiences to reach new people who have not yet purchased from your business or visited your website but have shown interest in the types of products or services you offer.
2. Retargeting audiences which are people who have expressed interest in specific products on your website or app.

To create dynamic ads on Facebook, you’ll need to create:

1. A product Catalog which contains the products or services you want to promote along with information like product description, prices, images, availability, etc.
2. Facebook pixel or SDK (for mobile apps) to track your website or mobile app and measure your users browsing and interacting with your content.

Key Takeaway

Dynamic ads are a great way for advertisers to reach new audiences and scale their advertising campaigns with disproportionately less time and effort. As technology advances, dynamic ads platforms are only going to become more effective and precise in user targeting. If you are a business looking to grow and haven’t used dynamic ads yet, I recommend adding it to your current advertising and marketing strategy.