Retailers Can Now Buy Facebook Ads That Only Run If The Right Products Are In Stock

It’s an ongoing challenge for retail CMOs to justify to their CFOs that digital ads drive in-store sales. So one can imagine the teeth-gnashing that must take place whenever brick-and-mortar players realize the products in their digital ads were out of stock for a significant time during a campaign. Talk about a waste, and not to mention it’s a bad brand experience for the consumer to run into a store for something only to find it cannot be immediately purchased. Facebook today is debuting a system called “dynamic ads for retail” that will, in theory, eliminate the above pain point. These new ads are designed to allow merchants to only serve Facebook promos of products that are actually available in a chain brand’s location. They come just in time for the holidays, as brands finalize their fourth-quarter ad budgets. “We are basically plugging into the bricks-and-mortar inventory and showcasing products that are available at a location close to the person seeing the ad,” said Maz Sharafi, director of monetization at Facebook. Read more at Adweek.