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Tips
30 August 2021
Get your shop ready for the festive season
As we approach the festive shopping season, businesses have an opportunity to reach shoppers where they're already spending time and discovering products. A recent survey showed that one in three online shoppers say Facebook and/or Instagram helps them to discover new products/services during the festive season1. And we know that these discoveries are leading to purchases: Of online shoppers surveyed in the US who use Facebook platforms weekly, 86% ultimately purchased the fashion, beauty, furniture or consumer electronic product they discovered on the platform2.
Here are some tips for you to reach new customers, drive discovery of your products and create more personalised shopping experiences this festive season:
Build a strong foundation with your catalogue.
Your catalogue contains the details that inform customers about your products in ads and shops, and provides them with the information needed to buy. A good-quality catalogue not only improves placement in search results helping customers discover your products, but also drives conversion by providing customers with the information they need to make a purchase. Here are a few tips to improve your catalogue quality:
- Make sure that your catalogue is up to date: inventory counts, products, price and product information.
- Add all catalogue fields: We recommend that you add all item specifics to help buyers make informed purchase decisions.
- Represent your products well: include concise product titles and detailed descriptions, product categories, at least three attributes such as colour, size or material, and accurate delivery information.
- Use several eye-catching visuals: Visuals are highly influential in purchase consideration, especially for lifestyle categories. Featuring multiple images and videos per product results in an average 21% increase in 'add to cart' and 'buy' actions compared to products showing just one image3.)
- Use one catalogue for ads and shops: We recommend using a single catalogue for both your advertising and selling on our platforms. It can help you manage inventory more efficiently, build your audience and sell from your shop. If you haven't yet set up your shop in Commerce Manager, use an existing catalogue if you have one, or select the catalogue you use the most if you have multiple.
Learn more about your catalogue on Facebook and Instagram.
Get your shop "windows" festive season-ready with collections.
A great way to build your brand and add some festive flair to your shop is by getting creative with collections. Customise your collections with the products you want to showcase, and use eye-catching imagery and design elements that build your unique brand identity and get shoppers in the festive spirit. We recommend featuring a minimum of eight products per collection.
- Be community-led: Appeal to the niche interests of your community by creating fun, thematic gift collections for the animal lovers, curious collectors, sports fanatics and beyond.
- Get playful and creative: Lean into what makes Facebook and Instagram unique with colourful, uplifting imagery and collection titles that join in on trending inspiration and community fun. View the FBIQ 2021 topics and trends report for some ideas.
- Stay mindful of price points: Consider curated gift collections across a range of price points. Entry "impulse buy" prices and price points under USD 20, USD 50 and USD 100 are popular ways customers shop to stay within their budget.
- Showcase what fans love about your brand: Create a collection that highlights top sellers and fan favourites.
Create a collection in Commerce Manager.
Drive discovery with shoppable content.
Product tags give your followers an opportunity to buy from every post, story or live video on Facebook and Instagram. They help people easily go from discovery to purchase, rediscover products they've shown interest in and see products in context – which will likely drive more sales. The most successful businesses use tags frequently across different formats:
- In feed: One of the best ways to get your products noticed is by consistently adding product tags to feed posts. Businesses can tag up to five products per post to increase engagement.
- In Stories: Using product stickers can help make your stories more interactive and engaging. Try offering an insider look at your products or share promotional updates in stories paired with a product tag.
- In videos: Engage in long-form storytelling around your products, collections and brand by tagging products in IGTV, Facebook Watch and Reels.
Learn more about creating shoppable content.
Reach more customers with Shops ads solutions
Our suite of personalised Shops ads solutions can help businesses move customers from discovery to purchase. Here are our tips to help you reach new and existing customers this festive season:
- Boost festive traffic: When you create an ad with product tags on Instagram, you can drive customers straight to your brand's product detail pages as soon as they engage with the ad. In a recent study, users interacted with ads with product tags at 1.75 times compared to with a single-image ad without tags4 .
- Add product tags to more campaigns: Add product tags to your dynamic ads and branded content ads5 to promote creator content.
- Reach qualified festive shoppers: You can use shopping custom audiences and lookalike audiences to reach new and existing customers on Facebook and Instagram.
Learn more about Shops ads solutions.
These are just a few of our favourite tips to help you reach new customers and drive discovery of your products this festive season. If you want to see how brands leverage these tools and tips, view Jane who is seeing success with custom product collections and product tagging to increase sales during the festive season.
We're also introducing new tools over the next few weeks to help sellers inspire confidence with shoppers and tell their brand story. To help buyers make more confident purchases and easily identify shops on Facebook and Instagram, we are testing a new label that identifies shops offering consistent shopping experiences. We are also giving businesses additional ways to designate that they are Black-owned in their shop on Facebook and Instagram. With these new features, we're making it easier for sellers to communicate the differentiated experience that they provide.
We're wishing you all the best this festive season and are excited to partner together.
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