How To Use Facebook Retargeting Ads To Boost Shopify Sales?

When it comes to Shopify marketing, building a connection between the merchant and customers is crucial to a brand’s success. Many techniques come into play when running Facebook ad campaigns for Shopify. One proven method to enhance sales is by retargeting your ads to existing customers.

Retargeting helps reach the audience that has already viewed or clicked on your Shopify ads on Facebook or is in the contact database. It works like a reminder to the customers that they have seen or been here before, which generates a sense of familiarity and trust. Statistics show that about 70% of people are more likely to convert when retargeted. 

Many Shopify businesses who run their ads on Facebook rely on this method. So, retargeting is a great solution if you’re looking for ways to boost your Shopify sales. 

Let’s unravel how you can retarget your Facebook ads for Shopify that will help enhance the conversion rates!                           

What Are Retargeting Ads On Facebook?     

Facebook retargeting ad is a digital marketing technique that targets the audience that has already viewed or clicked on your Facebook ad campaign. It entices them to revisit your Shopify store via the ads.  

It helps even when the customer has abandoned the cart or added something to their wishlist by reminding them to purchase. 

Here is how it works:

There are two types of retargeting ads:

• Pixel Retargeting – A code snippet that helps track the customers’ behavior on your store. It extracts data based on their actions and engagement. Facebook uses Pixel for this, which we will discuss later as it plays an important role.

• List Retargeting – When the customers’ information is stored in the database, you can retarget ads to them by using that information – social media account, email, etc. 

Note: People often mix the terms ‘remarketing’ and ‘retargeting.’ The two serve a similar purpose. However, remarketing focuses on sales or marketing emails sent to customers to re-engage them; meanwhile, retargeting focuses on attracting new customer audiences through ads on marketplaces or other platforms. Nowadays, people use the two interchangeably, too. 

Why Is Retargeting Important For Facebook Ads? 

With a wide audience, Facebook caters to billions of people globally. It is believed to outrank other marketplaces like Pinterest. Every day, several people click on an ad that captures their attention. When they see that ad again, the probability of them clicking to make a purchase gets higher than when they initially saw the product.

Keeping that in mind, here is why retargeting of Facebook ads is important:

• It Increases Conversion Rates:

Many ad campaigns aim to pique viewers’ interest during the awareness stage. However, customers familiar with your brand have already shown some interest. You may immediately benefit from a greater conversion rate by particularly marketing to them. 

Also, those who have left their cart unattended or did not check out get a reminder to complete the payment, turning existing customers into converting customers. 

• Helps In Gaining Customer Lifetime Value:

Retargeting ads help jog customers’ memories about your brand and motivate them to make additional purchases. As their buying frequency rises, their Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) also grows. 

• Creates Awareness:

Creating awareness of your brand is valuable when you aim to reconnect with customers and inform them about new products, features, or updates.

It follows a Pixel-based lists approach, which ensures that your message reaches those who have previously interacted with your Shopify store, enhancing the chances of re-engagement and interaction with your ads. 

Setting Up The Retargeting Audience On Facebook For Shopify Stores

Before running retargeted ads on Facebook, you need the following:

• Meta Pixel
• Retargeting Audience

To create these two, ensure that you have created and linked the following accounts and pages –

• Meta Ads Manager
• Meta Commerce Manager
• Meta Ads Account 
• Meta Business Suite
• Facebook Channel App – Facebook & Instagram by Meta

If you want to learn how to create these, click here for the creation process.

Another important point is to export the product feed from Shopify to Facebook. For this, you can use AdNabu’s data feed URL feature. 

AdNabu is an app designed to assist you in presenting your Shopify product data on Facebook, meeting all platform requirements. The app generates a distinct data feed URL, simplifying the process of exporting the product information. To learn more about exporting, you can visit this link.

Now, we shall delve into the prerequisites for running our Facebook retargeting ads – Meta Pixel setup and creating retargeting audiences.

Meta Pixel Setup

To create a retargeting audience, you need the Meta Pixel.

It helps reach existing customers who have shown interest in your brand, like adding a product to their cart or viewing the content. It tracks the customer activity that helps you analyze their actions and engagement. For this purpose, we need the Meta Pixel. Along with Conversions API, Pixel helps build a connection that decreases the cost of the delivery system.

It is a code snippet you paste into your website’s HTML code. It then helps track the activity of the visitors on your Shopify store’s website so that you can optimize and personalize your ad campaigns for the customers who have already visited. 

If you have not already set it up, here is how to do it:

• In Shopify admin, go to the Sales Channels section on the left panel.
• In that section, click Facebook & Instagram.

• Select Open sales channel.
• Then, go to Settings and choose Data sharing settings.
• Navigate to the Customer data-sharing section.
• Click Enable data-sharing toggle.
• Select Standard, Enhanced, or Maximum in the Choose data-sharing level section. Preferably, choose Maximum for covering the majority of the people on Facebook. 

• Select your pixel from the list.
• Finally, click Confirm.

After the setup is complete, we can finally create our retargeting audience. 

Creating Retargeting Audiences

Now that you’ve set the Meta Pixel, we will focus on creating our retargeting audience. For this, we use ‘Custom Audiences’ that help us create a list of customers we will retarget our ads. This is based on the following factors:

• Customers who have shown interest in your products on Facebook.
• Customers who visited your Shopify store and spent time on it.
• Customers who checked certain pages of your Shopify store. 
• Customers who viewed your content (products).
• Customers who clicked ‘Add To Cart’ or ‘Add To Wishlist.’
• Customers who check out and buy the product(s).

In this part, you focus on the groups of people you want to retarget your ads to. Let’s see how you can create it:

• First, go to Ads Manager. 

• From there, on the left side, choose the three lines called All Tools. In that, select Audiences. 

• In the Audience section, click on “Create Audience.” If you already have an audience, your page will look like this:

If you haven’t created it, select Custom Audience. You’ll see this block:

You’ll notice two categories – Your sources and Meta sources. Your sources refer to those people who have interacted with your store outside of Meta. 

Meta sources are those where most interaction happens within any Meta platform. 

• Now, choose the one that fits. For example, we have chosen the Website option. Enter the name of the audience. Ensure that Pixel is active and has a green color next to it. 

• Choose the events –

The default here is ‘All website visitors.’ If you are new, we recommend using this option.

If you’re an expert advertiser, you can opt for the other two options – If you choose the second one, you must enter a URL path containing a particular value. For example, the path you want to enter is shoes. Ensure the URL path contains the value ‘shoes’ in it – yourstore.com/products/shoes.  

You can also refine the option by choosing the frequency or the device your audience uses. 

The third option, ‘Visitors by time spent,’ focuses on a customer’s time. This is done by percentile.  

You can add or remove people with the ‘include more people’ or ‘exclude people’ option. It pops up the same options as the event you have chosen. Suppose you want to remove the set of people who have engaged with your store but have not purchased an item. You can click on ‘exclude people’ and make the changes. 

• As you go below, you’ll notice the retention period. It denotes how long the customers will stay on the custom audience list. Choose the retention period –

Remember, the shorter the retention period, the smaller the audience list. It is best to max out up to 90-180 days so that you don’t miss out on any potential customers who have shown keen interest in your store. Here is how you can plan the audience segments for retention:

• Social engagers (Instagram and Facebook): past 90 days
• Website visitors: past 30 days 
• Viewed content: past 14 days 
• Added to cart: past 7 days 
• Initiate checkout: past 7 days 

Big businesses must opt for longer days, like 180 to 365 days. Smaller businesses can try for under 30 days. 

• Give your audience a name and write a description-

• Once entered, click Create Audience below. That way, your custom audience is ready. Here is how it will look:

Other Types Of Popularly Used Custom Audiences: 

Now, if you’re looking for other ways to set up retargeting ads on Facebook, you can use the following methods to reach your audience- 

Customer Lists

It is a type of custom audience where you have your audience’s data, called identifiers – email addresses, locations, phone numbers, etc. Facebook then matches the profiles of the audience with their database. A customer list is usually a TXT or CSV file. Here is how to set it up:

• Go to Ads Manager. In that, go to All Tools > Audience > Create Audience. A drop-down will appear. 
• In that, choose Custom Audience and select Customer List. 
• Add the identifiers and upload your customer list (use MailChimp or import files). 
• Get it confirmed and resolve any issues it creates. 
• A green tick denotes that it has mapped the identifiers correctly and is ready to be hashed. A yellow exclamation mark denotes that not all identifiers have been used and that you need to resolve the issues before hashing. 
• Once the hashing is done, select ‘Upload and create’ to upload your customer list. 

Engagement 

This is used when an audience has engaged and taken action on your ads on all Meta platforms. This includes watching videos, checking a lead generation form, or following a Facebook page. It is the best source to create Lookalike Audiences (a group of audiences that is similar to your existing audience).

Types of engagement custom audience are:

• Video views
• Lead form
• Facebook Page
• Instagram account
• AR experience
• Instant Experience
• Events
• Shopping

App Activity

This helps create a custom audience for those engaged in your app. You can send customer data to Meta from your app and use that data to include your Custom Audience with the help of Meta SDK.

To create this, do the following:

• Go to Ads Manager > Audience > Create New. 
• In Create New, select Custom Audience. From there, select App from the Source menu.
• Choose ‘which app events you’d like to base your audience on.’
• You can include or exclude people and set a retention period (minimum 30 days and maximum 180-365 days).
• Select Refine by and add details to the app events based on your Custom Audience.
• Choose ‘the type of details you want to specify.’ 
• You can also choose the audience based on the events they chose on their device – Android or iOS.

For post iOS14 changes and setup, click here.

• Give an audience name and click Create Audience. 

Retargeting Ads On Facebook For Shopify Stores 

The custom audience is set; we can finally use it to retarget our ads. For this, we need to build a sales funnel that helps in separately targeting and optimizing the audience based on the stage of the funnel – 

• Upper Funnel – Social media engagers and website visitors.
• Middle Funnel – Viewed content (products).
• Lower Funnel – Added to cart and initiated checkout.

To make this work, ensure you exclude the elements in the lower funnel and prioritize the ones in the upper funnel. 

Retarget Ad Campaigns 

Like creating new ad campaigns, retargeting ad campaigns also happens in the Ad Sets Section on the Meta Ads Manager. 

For this, we will add our custom audience. Let’s see how you can run your retargeting ads:

• In Ads Manager, navigate to All Tools and select Ads Manager.

• Go to ‘+Create’ and choose a campaign objective. Let’s say you choose Sales. 

• Choose a type of campaign setup and continue.

• We have chosen the manual sales campaign. This is how it will look:

• Click ‘New Sales Ad Set.’ If you want to create an ad campaign, you can follow this blog, which explains in depth how to create a campaign.
• Considering everything is already set – tracking, location, demographics, etc., scroll down to Audience. You can click on ‘Switch to original audience setup’ for the following section to appear:

• Keeping the sales funnel in mind, add the upper funnel elements – social engagers and website visitors. Then, add the lower funnel elements. This way, you can easily segment out the audience to successfully prioritize the customers you want to visit your ad. 

• For example, by removing customers who have engaged with your website from your social media engagers, you’ll focus exclusively on those who haven’t taken any actions on your site. This enables you to retarget this specific group of potential customers further down the sales funnel.

• Now, include the custom audience:

• If you’re new, don’t select Advantage custom audience. If it is ticked, deselect it. 

This leads to targeting audiences outside the custom audience, which is not ideal in this scenario. We only need to focus on the custom audience we have created for better conversions. For more advanced businesses, this can be a good option. However, retargeting is best served to those we know will convert rather than finding new audiences for whom we must start with brand awareness. 

• You can skip the age, gender, and location attributes. A retargeting campaign does not require that because we will narrow down our audience, which may result in missing out on other customers in our custom audience. So, it is best to let that option be as it is. The same goes for Detailed Targeting because we’re already serving people interested in the brand. 

• Your custom audience will automatically get updated. The same goes for other types of custom audiences – app activity, engagement, and customer lists. 

• Structure out other custom audiences based on the sales funnel. 
• Now, set up the budget to monitor the expenditure. 

Determine the appropriate expenditure for every stage of the sales funnel. Start by setting modest or moderate daily financial limits for each target audience, ranging from approximately $20 to $60. This can be estimated by the audience size:

• Businesses with smaller audiences: A small budget will suffice for the audience, like those who abandoned their cart in the last seven days.

• Businesses with bigger audiences:  A larger budget for those who visited your website in the last 180 days, ensuring that the ad campaign reaches the maximum number of customers, which will help drive maximum conversions. 

Optimization Of Meta Retargeting Ads

Monitor your retargeting ads regularly to ensure that it is up-to-date and optimized. This is done by updating the budget and tracking the reach frequency in the Ads Manager’s Campaigns section. 

Frequency is the average number of times a customer from your retargeting audience has seen an ad in a particular time frame. This can be tracked based on days or weeks. This helps ensure that the monetary limits and the overall campaign are evenly balanced for all the customers in the audience. Frequency can change if you update the budget. 

So, experiment with your budget and track the frequency. You’ll eventually find the ideal frequency for every sales funnel segment. 

What Are Advantage+ Catalog Ads (Dynamic Ads)?

Advantage+ catalog ads, also popularly called Dynamic ads, are a great way to retarget personalized ads to audiences based on their activity and behavior. It uses videos, images, and links to the store’s website. Meta uses an algorithm that tracks customer behavior and retargets ads based on it.  

For example, if you’re someone who loves shopping, you will be retargeted with ads based on your past shopping ad views or purchase history. Like this ad by Zara:

This is a useful method for cart abandonments or initiating checkouts. For this to work, you must upload your product feed to Facebook. 

Post iOS14 Launch: Retarget Facebook Ads For Apple

The retargeting settings for Apple devices changed after the launch of iOS 14. This involves users opting out of app tracking, which was there before the update. 

Here are the changes Apple users must remember while retargeting:

• Longer retention periods for longer visitor tracking. 
• More retargeting objections apart from the Conversion objective.
• Gathering own first-party data of customers.
• Retargeting with the help of first-party data. 
• Creating more custom audiences for Instagram and Facebook.
• Tracking visitor activity for the entire website rather than specific landing pages. 

Best Shopify Facebook Retargeting Apps in 2023 

Check out the latest apps for retargeting your ads on Facebook:

App Name	Features	Pricing	Review
Ako Loyalty & Retargeting Ads	– Offers VIP Tiers, Referrals & Reviews. – No manual codes required for point redemption. – 1-Click Social Login feature for quick conversions and customer acquisition. – Get CRM Insights. – Boost sales with shoppable messages.	Free Gold: $19/month Platinum: $49/month Advanced: $99/month	4.5 ⭐
Scalify: Facebook & Google Ads	– Personalized Facebook & Instagram ads in minutes. – Fast ad optimization. – Algorithm helps boost sales. – Track profitable Lookalike Audience.	Basic Plan: $49/month Pro Plan: $99/month	4.1⭐
Dynamic Retargeting Ads	– No integrations needed. – Ad campaigns take a few clicks to run.  – 1,000 ad impressions each month (free forever). – Customers generate an extra $3 for every dollar spent.	Free forever $25/month pay-as-you-go	4.3 ⭐
Madgicx	– Quick audience finder. – AI-powered analysis for insights. – Ad automation for safe budget keeping even while offline.	Free	3.2 ⭐

For more retargeting apps, click this link.

Bonus: Strategies For Facebook Retargeting Ads 

Having a smart strategy at hand will result in high conversion rates. Retargeting is a great way to get more clickthrough rates, but with a strategy, you go one step ahead of your competitors. Here are some you must execute:

1. Remind The Customers Of The Items In Their Cart:

Sometimes, customers add items to their shopping cart but don’t check out. This may be because they forgot or lost interest. Remind them to complete the purchase before the product goes out of stock. This creates a sense of urgency and results in more engagement and conversion rates. 

2. Take Them Back To The Journey When They Initially Purchased:

Remind them of the smooth process of buying an item when they initially purchased it from your store. Use Custom Audiences and Dynamic Ads to track customer activity and determine what items they purchased. Then, map out what the customers have shown more interest in and then retarget the ads to them. 

3. Be Creative With Ad Copies And Images:

Check out what’s trending amongst people. Look at how competitors are attracting your target audience. You can draw an analysis based on the age groups, genders, and locations. Make the customer feel that you’re directly talking to them.

4. Do Not Rush:

Rushing will not generate good ROI. Choosing the right sales funnel to garner traction for your ads is crucial. First, focus on creating brand awareness so that your potential customers learn about your services. Notice who made the conversions. Then, start retargeting to that audience with new ads. 

Conclusion

Retargeting Facebook ads is a good strategy if implemented with a smart plan. It helps with more conversions by targeting the customers who have already visited your Shopify stores. With cold customers, you have to begin with building brand awareness, and then, with time, they can also turn into your retargeting audience.  

If you add Dynamic ads to the list, you’ll go a step ahead with your ad campaign because of Facebook’s advanced algorithm that personalizes the ads for the customer and caters to their interests. 

So, jump right on to the journey of generating more ROAS and expanding your business on Meta!

FAQS 

What is the cost of remarketing ads on Facebook?

After setting up your first campaign, your retargeted ads will become 50% cheaper per click than when you initially set up. This percentage may vary depending on several factors, such as your business type, region, country, campaign objective, clickthrough rate, etc. 

So, the price drops after you choose to retarget your ads. Retargeting proves to be a good strategy when it comes to saving costs on advertisement. Dynamic ads also cut down on advertising costs.

Do I need the Facebook Channel app for retargeting? 

A Facebook Channel app helps connect your Shopify admin account to your Facebook ads account and business pages (Meta Commerce Manager). All the products in the catalog become available on all Meta platforms. With the app, setting up your Ads Manager becomes possible. Similarly, for retargeting your ads to the audience, you need the app to create your target audience and rerun those ads. 

Is it possible to retarget the Facebook ads without Pixel?

You can retarget Facebook ads without Pixel. You can choose the following:

Engagement through videos: With the help of Custom Audience, you can direct new videos to those who have previously seen your ad videos. 

Customer Lists: This is possible with an existing audience database. Go to your ad account > Custom Audience > Customer List. In the Customer List option, you can create a custom audience by uploading the audience list and adding your ads.  

Lookalike Audiences: Although this isn’t entirely for retargeting, it can help reach new audiences that match your existing audience by targeting based on their demographics and interests. They will engage, and you can retarget your ads based on their engagement. 

Using lead forms: By filling up forms, the customer enters their data, and with that data, you can create a custom audience and retarget your ads.

What are Facebook Dynamic Retargeting ads? Is it the same as retargeting ads? 

Dynamic retargeting ads are an advanced version of retargeting ads where Facebook takes your product catalog and automatically generates ads for your potential customers using images, videos, etc., with the help of advanced algorithms. It is comparatively more powerful than standard retargeting.