Getting started with International Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads offers great opportunities for both ecommerce merchants and online buyers with it’s unique Facebook Ads solution. It’s real upside however, is the power its international ads present for merchants in finding buyers all around the world in any international market. 

In this article you’ll read about how to get started with international Facebook Ads for your ecommerce store, and tips to scale your international ads across markets.

Why International Advertising?

There are more than 2.7 billion monthly active users on facebook all around the world. Facebook alone offers a huge untapped market full of potential customers for your store, the only question is how to reach them effectively.

The Adsmanager solution provides extensive targeting options for your products. You can reach potential buyers by location (countries, cities, area codes), gender, age or even by behaviours, interests and profile…

Are you eligible to sell internationally?

Before considering selling worldwide through international Ads, Facebook requires your business to first provide a user friendly and seamless experience to consumers. Displaying your store in the local language as well as prices in the local currency are crucial. You also need to set-up an international payment solution and offer infrastructure for cross-border shipping and returns. Finally taxes and duties need to be included at your checkout.

Glopal’s international ecommerce solution manages every step in the global ecommerce process from discovering international markets and international buyers for your products, automatic HS product classification, tax & duty calculation, through to customs documentation and shipping label generation and returns.

Our tailored ecommerce solution is designed to manage your entire international  process, enabling you to sell into any international market. You can find out more here.

Launching international Facebook Ads

Facebook’s ad solution presents a really in-depth choice of advertising variety. However we will focus on the multi-countries, multi-languages settings and tools provided by Facebook:

1. Dynamic Product Ads (Catalog Sales objective)
2. Single Image, video or slideshow (other objectives like Awareness, Traffic, Conversions etc)

Dynamic Multi-languages Product Ads (Catalog Sales objective)

There is a prerequisite set by facebook before using product ads:

1. Set up your product catalog in Facebook - This can be done through a manual process or via connection to a partner platform such as shopify.
2. Local site domains added to Facebook traffic permission - This can be done in the Event Manager > Pixel Setting
3. Domestic audience size between 1,000 to 50,000 - This needs to be the number of people who have converted through your domestic ads

These prerequisites are in place to ensure Facebook users receive a positive and local buyer experience from international stores. If these prerequisites are met, then you will be able to set up your international Product ads

Setting up your Ads:

1. Add two feed supplements - Two localized feeds need to be added in. One for Country and one for Language, to the domestic product catalog. This is set up in the Commerce Manager > Catalog > Data sources > Add new feed.

The Country feed will be used to add prices in local currency as well as local landing pages. The Language feed will be used to add product title, descriptions in local language - more info here

1. Build a multi-country lookalike audience - If you do not know your local market audience, you will need to build a multi-country lookalike audience to ensure your Ads convert the right buyers. This can be done in Audience > Create Lookalike audience > Choose source > select countries.

This audience will automatically be populated based on your seed domestic audience demographics, interest, behaviours features. For example, you can use people tracked by your conversion pixel to create this audience. - more info on creating a lookalike audience here

1. Set-up a Facebook campaign - Once your feeds are added and your audience is created, you’ll need to set up your campaign. This is done by selecting Catalog Sales objectives. In the Ad Set section select the targeted audience as well as the countries you want to reach.

If you want to test different audiences, you can launch one Ad Set by audience, however you don’t need to have one Ad Set by country as you can break down the performance by Country.

Dynamic Multi-languages Single Image, Video or Slideshow 

If you don’t have a product catalog or if your main goal is to drive awareness or traffic to your website, Facebook offers other options to advertise globally. This can be done through a series of dynamic, multi language Ads with different formats, allowing you to find a perfect fit for your brand.

• A slideshow is an animated video built from 3 to 10 images, where you are also able to add music. Slideshows are easier and more affordable to build than a video ad, whilst also providing quicker loading times on mobile devices. Their goal is to tell a story, so you can add a pitch image among others branded or products images. Slideshow ads are available for any campaign objectives on Facebook and on Instagram: Traffic, Conversions, App installs or Video Views objectives.

Here is the easy process to set-up some dynamic multi-languages ads (outside of product ads):

1. After selecting one of the following campaign goals: Reach, Brand Awareness, Video, Traffic to website, App Installs, Conversions to website, multiple ads can be created with the DLO (Dynamic language optimisation) feature from Facebook in the Ad section > Language.  

You can set-up up to 48 languages manually by adding each ad in another language with the local URL. Facebook would then dynamically show the optimal version of the ad based on the language spoken by the person seeing your ad.

1. There is an alternative option to automatically translate your default language ad in the same Ad section > Language. However this Automatic Translation option shows a limited number of available translations: either from English (default language) to 16 other languages or from 9 default languages to English. The number of ad placements is also limited when using the Automatic Translation Facebook tool.

Once you have set up your ads, either Dynamic Multi-languages Product Ads or Dynamic Multi-languages Single Image, Video or Slideshow, all that is left is to launch and start reaching buyers worldwide.

How can Glopal help?

Glopal’s international ecommerce solution enables merchants to meet the necessary criteria set by Facebook to launch Ads, by localizing your catalog product feed into the required languages and prices for the target international markets, optimize campaigns to drive higher conversions and ultimately, a greater ROAS.

We manage every step in the global ecommerce process from discovering international markets and international buyers for your products, automatic HS product classification, tax & duty calculation, through to customs documentation and shipping label generation and returns.

Our tailored ecommerce solution is designed to manage your entire international  process, enabling you to sell into any international market. 

We can help you to launch Facebook Ads Globally:

• The solution localises your domestic product feeds into over 100 languages and 25 currencies, providing buyers with the same local experience they’d expect and enabling you to advertise all around the world
• Our payment solution allows accepting over 25 currencies via credit cards, Paypal and more.
• Glopal’s international shipping creates a seamless and simple process, enabling merchants to ship their products overseas at a cost effective & competitive rate.

To scale your international sales and find new global buyers through Facebook Ads, get in touch with one of our ecommerce experts.