DPA & Shopping
Dynamic Product Ads (DPA on Meta, Shopping on Google) generate ad creative automatically from your product catalog. The shopper sees the items they actually viewed, added, or wished for — not generic creative.
Active Reach connects your product catalog once and routes it to every product-feed-driven surface across Meta and Google.
What gets generated
| Platform | Surface | Triggered by |
|---|---|---|
| Meta | DPA — dynamic product ads in Feed | Cart abandoners, product viewers |
| Meta | Collection ads | High-intent browsers, full catalog discovery |
| Meta | Feed ads | Top-of-funnel — broad-audience product reach |
| Shopping ads | Search intent matching product titles | |
| Discovery ads | Cross-surface Google placements (Discover, YouTube home) |
All five render from the same product catalog source — connecting once gets you all the surfaces.
Connecting your catalog
Pick a source
Active Reach supports product catalog sources from:
- Shopify — auto-sync on every product update
- WooCommerce — REST API pull, configurable cadence
- Custom CSV / Feed URL — for non-platform stores
- Aegis Active Commerce — native catalog
Connect at /dashboard/[workspaceSlug]/connected-products → Catalog source.
Map fields
Each platform requires specific fields (title, description, image URL, price, availability, condition, etc.). Active Reach maps your source fields automatically; override mappings at Catalog → Field mappings if your source uses non-standard names.
Link to Meta and Google
For Meta:
- Active Reach creates a Product Catalog on your Meta Business Manager (or uses an existing one you select)
- A Product Feed is populated from your source
- A Product Set is created per cascade rule (e.g. “best-sellers”, “out-of-stock-soon”)
For Google:
- Active Reach creates a Merchant Center account (or links an existing one)
- The catalog is pushed to Merchant Center on a 30-minute cadence
- Shopping campaigns reference the Merchant Center automatically
Verify
A test product is pushed to each platform and Active Reach polls the platform to confirm it’s accepted. You see green for each platform when the round-trip succeeds.
Managed vs BYOM
DPA / Shopping works in two onboarding modes:
| Mode | Who owns the catalog account |
|---|---|
| Managed | Active Reach holds the Meta catalog and Merchant Center; you’re a sub-asset under our umbrella. Fastest onboarding. |
| BYOM (Bring Your Own Manager) | You hold both. Active Reach connects via OAuth and pushes catalogs to your accounts. Required for established advertisers with existing catalog history. |
The user surface is identical — only credential management differs. See ads overview for the broader managed vs BYOM model.
Product set targeting
The same catalog can produce many product sets — subsets defined by rules over your product attributes. Sets are the unit you target with ads.
Common sets:
| Set | Rule |
|---|---|
| Cart abandoners | Products viewed or added to cart in last 7 days, where no purchase followed |
| Top sellers | Top 20% by revenue over last 30 days |
| Newly listed | Products added in last 14 days |
| Stock running low | Inventory < N units |
| Category-specific | Products in category X |
Create and manage sets at Ads → Product sets.
Cross-platform consistency
The same product set definition produces:
- A Meta Product Set (for Meta DPA)
- A Google Custom Label (for Google Shopping campaign filtering)
Both are kept in sync automatically. If you change the set’s rule, both platforms reflect the change on the next sync (typically within 30 min).
Conversions feedback
When a shopper buys a product they saw in a DPA / Shopping ad, the conversion is reported back to both platforms via the Conversions API. This closes the optimisation loop — the platforms learn which product/audience pairings convert and adjust delivery accordingly.
Combining with retargeting cascade
DPA / Shopping pairs naturally with a retargeting cascade — the cascade defines who sees ads, the product set defines what ads they see. A typical cart-recovery cascade uses:
- Audience: cart abandoners (defined by segment)
- Product set: items that abandoner specifically added (resolved per-impression from event history)
- Frequency cap: 6 impressions across Meta + Google
- Suppression: removed instantly when purchase fires
What’s next
- Cart recovery ads — the full cart-recovery playbook including payment-link delivery
- Conversions API — server-side conversion reporting
- Retargeting cascade — multi-platform audience coordination
- Product catalog — catalog source admin