Shopify and Facebook Dynamic Ads

[LX-001]

Let's say you were advertising on Facebook for several months with your store and now you've decided to try out Dynamic Ads. On 1st of October I have created the catalog with the Facebook Channel app.

1. Can I use these Dynamic Ads to target anyone who was visiting my store before the creation of the catalog (visitors before 1st of October) or I can only target those customers who viewed my products after 1st of October (after the creation of the catalog)? The reason I'm asking is because  I had an error saying that Facebook could not match product id's from the Pixel and Facebook catalog on the first day, but it started to match the products on the next day after catalog creation. Seems like I can only retarget those people  who visited my site after the catalog creation.

2. Let's say I will close my Shopify store and open another one with the same products. I want to use my old pixel with old item ID's, but Shopify will create new item id's for my products and most probably they won't match my pixel data. What can I do about this? 

Thank you.

[pvoulg]

Hi @LX-001,

Even though you didn't have a Product Catalog setup, if your Facebook pixel predates the catalog it should keep the same product id formatting, so it should be able to match visitors to products. One way you can check that is by installing the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome add-on, and visiting a product page. If the product id matches the id of the same product in your catalog then I seen now reason for it to be unable to make an accurate match. Keep in mind that the matching error on the first day is not uncommon, as the pixel might track visits but the products may not be parsed yet.

As for your second question, indeed Shopify will create new IDs for a new store, which will definitely break the catalog/pixel matching. I don't believe there's a way around it, unless you manually inject the pixel code and choose another identification method (which would be fairly complicated). 

[LX-001]

@pvoulg 

Thank you so much for your reply. I have installed the Pixel Helper and the Shopify product id's do match FB catalog id's. 

The reason I got confused is because this chart does not show any data before the creation of the catalog (October 1st), this is why I thought I could retarget only those customers who visited my site after the catalog creation.  So, based on your message, this is completely normal that I don't see any matches for September, as long as product id's do match on Shopify and FB, I still can retarget visitors from September?

[pvoulg · Accepted solution]

Yes, the content matching is a catalog feature under Events, so it makes sense that it would only show data from the moment that it's configured onwards. If the pixel was capturing product IDs properly and they match with your catalog, then you shouldn't have any issues targeting them, under normal circumstances.

[LX-001]

It's a pleasure to communicate with someone who really knows what he is talking about.  Thank you very much for helping me out.

[pvoulg]

No problem @LX-001, glad I could help! Take care!