How to Build a Remarketing Campaign in Meta Ads

Key Takeaways

• Meta remarketing targets people who’ve already interacted with your shop - they’re 3-5x more likely to convert than cold audiences

• You need pixel tracking and Conversions API working together - browser-only tracking misses 30-40% of conversions under UK GDPR

• Build tiered audiences - cart abandoners, product viewers, and site visitors need different budgets and approaches

• Dynamic Product Ads automate creative - your catalogue feeds directly into ads showing what people viewed

• Always exclude recent purchasers - remarketing to yesterday’s buyers wastes budget

• Allocate 40-50% budget to cart abandoners - they convert highest

Why Meta Remarketing Works

Someone lands on your site, browses trainers for 10 minutes, adds a pair to cart. Then leaves.

Most won’t come back unless you remind them. That’s remarketing.

When you build a remarketing campaign in Meta Ads, you’re targeting people who’ve already shown interest. Cold traffic typically converts at 1-2%. Remarketing audiences? Often 5-10% or higher.

Here’s where shops get it wrong: they lump everyone into one giant audience. The person who spent ages building a basket gets the same ad as someone who bounced after 15 seconds. Different intent levels need different approaches. We build tiered audiences based on behaviour and weight budgets accordingly.

Setting Up Pixel Tracking for Remarketing

Without tracking set up properly, none of this works. You need the Meta pixel (browser-based) and Conversions API (server-side) both running.

Easiest route? Install through your platform’s official app. “Facebook & Instagram” for Shopify, “Facebook for WooCommerce” for WooCommerce. Turn on both Meta pixel and Conversions API.

Four events matter: ViewContent on product pages, AddToCart when someone adds to basket, InitiateCheckout on checkout start, Purchase on order confirmation.

Each event needs product IDs matching your catalogue exactly, value in GBP, content_type set to ‘product’. Check using Meta’s Events Manager. ID mismatches break Dynamic Product Ads entirely.

UK GDPR reality: your Meta pixel must respect opt-in consent. Conversions API helps recover tracking loss through server-side data that doesn’t rely on browser cookies.

Building Custom Audiences for Meta Remarketing

Business Manager → Audiences → Create audience → Custom audience → Website. Select your pixel.

Cart abandoners (1-14 days): Include AddToCart or InitiateCheckout. Exclude Purchase 7-14 days. Your hottest prospects - give them 40-50% of remarketing budget.

Product viewers (1-30 days): Include ViewContent. Exclude AddToCart 14 days and Purchase 30 days. Warm but need more convincing.

Site visitors (1-30 days): Everyone who visited. Exclude product viewers and purchasers. Lowest intent, smallest allocation (10-20%).

If an audience shows “too small” (under 1,000 people), increase retention to 45-60 days or combine tiers whilst building momentum.

This audience segmentation approach ensures you’re matching message to intent level. Name clearly: “WC – ATC no Purchase – 14d – UK” tells you exactly what it contains six months later.

Customer List Audiences

Create audience → Custom audience → Customer list. Upload CSV with email, phone, name, postcode, country.

Clean data first: emails lowercase, UK phones with +44, country as GB. Clean data hits 40-70% match rate.

Build separate lists: All purchasers (180 days) to exclude from cold campaigns, Recent purchasers (7-14 days) to exclude from remarketing.

Update weekly for high-volume stores, monthly for lower volume. Use lists both ways: exclude recent buyers, remarket new products to existing customers.

Setting Up Your Product Catalogue

Business Manager → Commerce Manager → Create catalogue → E-commerce.

Use Shopify or WooCommerce apps that auto-sync products. Manual CSV uploads are tedious and error-prone.

Required fields: id (matching pixel content_ids), title, description, image_link (500x500px minimum), link, availability, price/currency (GBP).

Update daily minimum, 4-6 hourly for fast-moving stock. Out-of-stock items showing in ads burn budget.

Create product sets for categories, margin levels, seasonal ranges. Target each set with separate budgets - high-margin products get more spend.

Building Your Dynamic Product Ads Campaign

Ads Manager → Create → Sales objective.

Campaign: Name it “RMK – Dynamic – UK – E-commerce”.

Ad set: Select catalogue and product set, choose Retargeting, pick remarketing audience (start with cart abandoners), location United Kingdom, placements Advantage+ (automatic).

Ad: Format Carousel for e-commerce, connect catalogue, CTA “Shop Now”. Need help with creative that stops the scroll?

If products don’t show: check pixel content_ids match catalogue IDs, check Commerce Manager Diagnostics for feed errors, verify audience exceeds 1,000 people.

Thing is, Dynamic Product Ads do the heavy lifting once set up properly. Catalogue feeds product images, prices, details directly into ads.

Campaign Structure and Budget Allocation

One remarketing campaign with three ad sets:

• Cart abandoners (40-50% budget): Include AddToCart/InitiateCheckout 1-14 days. Exclude Purchase 7-14 days. Highest ROAS.

• Product viewers (30-40% budget): Include ViewContent 1-30 days. Exclude AddToCart 14 days and Purchase 30 days.

• Site visitors (10-20% budget): Include all visitors 1-30 days. Exclude ViewContent 30 days and Purchase 30 days.

Use Campaign Budget Optimisation if all ad sets exceed 1,000 people. Otherwise set budgets manually to guarantee cart abandoners get 40-50%.

Start with £20-50 daily total. Scale once ROAS beats cold campaigns. ROAS benchmarks give context on success.

Excluding Recent Converters

Create a Purchase custom audience with 7-14 day retention. Then go to every single remarketing ad set and exclude this audience.

Why? Someone who bought from you yesterday doesn’t need remarketing ads. You’re wasting budget showing them products they literally just purchased. Annoying for them, wasteful for you.

Loads of shops skip this step. Then they wonder why their remarketing ROAS looks absolutely brilliant - they’re taking credit for sales that would’ve happened anyway from people who’d already converted. Don’t be that shop.

Managing Ad Frequency and Creative Fatigue

If ad frequency climbs above 5 per week and performance drops - higher CPC, lower conversion rate - you’ve got creative fatigue.

Solutions: reduce budget, shorten retention windows (14 days instead of 30), rotate creative every 7-14 days, or build recency tiers (1-3 days, 4-7 days, 8-14 days).

For tiny audiences under 2,000, fatigue hits quickly. Either accept higher frequency or expand by increasing retention windows.

Meta doesn’t allow hard frequency caps. Control it through budget, audience size, and creative rotation.

Measuring Campaign Performance

Let campaigns run 3-7 days before changes. Meta’s learning phase needs time.

After 2-4 weeks:

• ROAS: Should beat cold campaigns by 2-3x minimum. Cart abandoners often hit 4-8x with proper tracking.

• Frequency: Keep under 5 per week.

• Attribution: Check 7-day click numbers, not default 28-day which inflates results.

  
  

If stuck in “Learning Limited” with poor delivery, audience is too small. Merge with neighbouring tier or extend retention. Run a quick audit to spot issues.

Our approach focuses on sustainable improvements rather than constant tinkering. We make considered changes, then let them run long enough to matter.

Common Remarketing Mistakes

Lumping everyone together: One giant “website visitors” audience treats cart abandoners the same as people who bounced after 5 seconds. Build tiered audiences based on behaviour.

Not excluding converters: Always exclude recent Purchase events. Otherwise you’re remarketing to people who bought yesterday, wasting budget and annoying customers.

Catalogue ID mismatches: If your Meta pixel sends different product IDs than your catalogue contains, Dynamic Product Ads simply won’t work. Check this first when troubleshooting.

Forgetting Conversions API: Browser-only tracking under UK GDPR misses loads of conversions. You need both pixel and Conversions API working together.

No budget prioritisation: Giving equal spend to all audiences means your cart abandoners - the hottest prospects with highest intent - don’t get enough budget to perform properly.

Honestly, the biggest mistake is not running Facebook retargeting at all. These are people who’ve already shown interest in your products. They’re easier and considerably cheaper to convert than cold traffic. Want to improve your overall Meta strategy? Combine remarketing with prospecting properly.

Caio for now

Ali Puglianini

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should my remarketing audiences be?

Cart abandoners work best at 1-14 days. Product viewers stretch to 30 days. Site visitors can go 30-90 days. Shorter windows target hotter prospects but give smaller audiences.

What’s a good ROAS for Meta remarketing?

Cart abandoners should hit 4-8x ROAS with proper tracking. Product viewers typically deliver 2-4x. Site visitors might hit 1.5-2x. Remarketing should outperform cold prospecting by at least 2-3x.

Why aren’t my Dynamic Product Ads showing products?

Three common causes: pixel content_ids don’t match catalogue IDs, product feed has errors (check Commerce Manager Diagnostics), or audience is too small (needs 1,000+ people). Fix ID mismatch first.

How do I build a remarketing campaign in Meta Ads?

Install Meta pixel and Conversions API, create three tiered audiences (cart abandoners, product viewers, site visitors), sync your catalogue, build Dynamic Product Ads with proper exclusions, and allocate 40-50% budget to cart abandoners. Start with £20-50 daily. Need help? Get in touch.