Facebook's 'dynamic ads' come to Instagram

Since their debut in February, Facebook’s "Dynamic Ads"—which show consumers products they’ve previously expressed interest in—have garnered a ton of interest from brands, displaying a total of 2.5 billion products.

Now, the social network is extending Dynamic Ads to Instagram and adding features tailored to the travel industry, hoping it will give advertisers more opportunities to convert customers on mobile devices.  

"While many advertisers already use Instagram to promote their products, tailoring ad creative and targeting for every product in their catalog has been time-consuming," said a Facebook blog post announcing the move. "Now with Dynamic Ads, advertisers can showcase every one of their products automatically with dynamic creative and targeting, so they can show the right product to the right person every time."

 Dynamic Ads works by accessing products from an advertiser’s site that a consumer has either clicked on or saved to a shopping cart. From this data, it automates a specialized ad to fit the viewer. Dynamic ads will also show products that are related to the ones people have already shown interest in

The new travel features allow advertisers to target people based on flights they have booked or hotels in which they have expressed interest. "And to help advertisers offer people the best experience, the hotel options shown include dynamic availability and pricing, so people always see the most up-to-date information," the blog post said.

Jewlr, a Canadian jewelry retailer, performed an early test using  Dynamic Ads on Instagram. The business targeted people who had viewed products or added them to their cart, but had yet to purchase anything. Jewlr is now seeing three times return on ad spend, according to Facebook.

To extend a Dynamic Ad from Facebook to Instagram, a marketer would select "Instagram" under "Placement" when creating the ad on Facebook. And just like Facebook ads, performance metrics will be available for Instagram ads in Ad Manager.

Currently, Dynamic Ads for travel are currently in testing with advertisers, but will soon be more widely available for Facebook, Instagram and the Audience Network, Facebook’s program for serving ads to other mobile apps.