Forty-nine percent of in-store purchases are influenced by digital interactions—over half of which take place on mobile. As this trend grows, brick-and-mortar retailers must evolve their campaigns to reach people on mobile, showcase products and ultimately, move products off shelves.

In June, we announced new capabilities for marketers to drive foot traffic to their stores and determine the impact of their mobile campaigns on store visits and sales. Today, we’re reporting over one million store visits per day in 100,000 locations, and a growing number of retailers are using the Offline Conversions API to verify that people seeing their ads are making in-store purchases.

Today, we’re introducing new ways for advertisers to run smarter campaigns that achieve in-store results with Facebook.

Facebook dynamic ads are a proven way to drive online and mobile sales with more relevant product ads. Now, we're extending the power of dynamic ads to brick-and-mortar retail.

Many retailers already use Facebook ads to promote their in-store products, but until now it wasn't feasible to customize creative for every store location based on local product availability, pricing or promotions. Marketing out-of-stock products or inaccurate local prices can lead to a bad customer experience and wasted impressions. Now, with dynamic ads for retail, campaigns can dynamically showcase products available in the store that's closest to the person seeing the ad.

For example, if a fashion retailer wishes to advertise a nationwide sales event happening at every store, dynamic ads for retail will only showcase products that are in-stock at a nearby store and display the price found at that location. As the ads are linked to the local product catalog, if a product sells out in one store the campaign automatically adjusts so that people in that region will no longer see it advertised. Product selection for each ad can be optimized based on people's online and mobile shopping behavior.

Dynamic ads for retail give people the information they need to act on inspiration:

Local availability: An availability indicator on the ad shows people that a product is available at a store near them, and the store locator makes it easy for people to get directions.

Product summaries: Advertisers can use Facebook-hosted product summaries to give potential shoppers the information they need without leaving the Facebook app.

Different actions: Product summaries include ways for people to take actions like contacting the nearest store, buying online, or saving the product for future reference.

Similar products: Similar products available at the nearest store are featured so people can browse the aisles right from their phone.

We’re currently testing dynamic ads for retail with advertisers including Abercrombie & Fitch, Argos, Macy's, Pottery Barn and Target. The objective will become more widely available to eligible clients in the coming weeks.

“Extending the power of Facebook’s dynamic ads to in-store inventory opens up exciting new possibilities for Macy’s as an omni-channel retailer. We were excited to be the first up and running with Facebook’s dynamic ads for retail as it truly allows us to personalize product ads based on online behavior and inventory at the nearest Macy’s store. This bridges our online and offline channels to deliver a more engaging, relevant, and useful experience to shoppers." — Serena Potter, Group Vice President Digital Media Strategy, Macy's

“Dynamic ads for retail allows us to take our product assortment and not only personalize it based on a customer’s online shopping behaviors, but localize the assortment in real time. Facebook is helping us build a solid foundation to understand the impact digital marketing has on store traffic and sales by taking the results and tying them back to our customers who were not only exposed to a dynamic ads for retail campaign, but took further action and crossed our lease line. This is another step in putting our customer first by providing them with a seamless experience, which is at the core of our marketing strategy at Abercrombie & Fitch." — Billy May, SVP - Marketing, Direct-to-Consumer, & Corporate Development, Abercrombie & Fitch

“Argos’ Fast Track collection proposition offers the opportunity to pick up in-store in as little as 60 seconds and plays a pivotal role in our success. By connecting in-store inventory to Facebook, dynamic ads for retail allow us to leverage this strength in our mobile campaigns and opens up new possibilities for using our high-street footprint to drive sales in a mobile-first world." — Gemma Thompson, Online Manager, Argos

We're also introducing our first marketing objective built specifically for advertisers to drive more people to their stores or business locations. The store visits objective builds on the geo-targeting and ad format features of the local awareness ad solution and introduces store visits as the primary reporting metric and a new optimization model.

Store visit optimization helps advertisers reach people more likely to visit their stores, in order to decrease the reported cost-per-store-visit. For example, US grocer Albertsons was able to reach people more likely to visit their stores and decrease cost-per-store-visit by up to 40% in a recent test.

This new objective also includes improved geo-targeting, allowing advertisers to define a targeting radius based on population density and desired reach. Dynamic ads for retail leverage the store visits objective to take advantage of this new optimization model and more powerful geo-targeting features. Store visits reporting is an estimated metric based on information from people with location services enabled on their phone.

The store visits objective will roll out to all advertisers over the next month. Eligibility for store visits reporting and optimization depends on specific eligibility criteria including store size and location.

If you're interested in dynamic ads for retail, or would like to test store visit reporting and optimization, contact your account rep for more information.