This tutorial will show you how to use BannerNow’s powerful retargeting features to create dynamic HTML5 banners that display products based on user behavior. By linking product data feeds to your banners, you can keep your ads relevant and engaging.

Prerequisites:

  1. a product catalogue in XML, JSON, CSV, or API format
  2. the DSP, SSP, or a recommendation system

Here is an example of the product catalog that we will be using in this tutorial. It has the product ID column, product description, product image, landing URL, etc.

Now, let’s create a BigTable connection for our product catalog. The BigTable is used when you have more than 100 products (it can even be used if you have 100 million products in your catalog).

Enter the product catalog URL (in our case, it will be the CSV file that is hosted on a website). Select CSV, refresh once per day (BannerNow will update all the product info daily). In the Advanced Settings, enter the Item Primary Key that matches the product ID column in your product catalog.

Our BigTable connection is now active, and it will automatically update the product data daily

Now, let’s create a Data Feed

Select BigTable as the source

Select the BigTable that we have just created

Select all the fields that will be used in the banner (like price, image, …)

Next, create a banner

Select a Bannerset

Select the Feed that we have just created

Next, bind all the items in your banner to the feed data

In this tutorial, we will be creating a banner that displays 2 different products.
For the first product, we will set Fixed Line to ON and the Row Number = 1

The same for the image, button, description and the landing URL:

And for the second product, simply set the Row Number = 2

Save the Banner and click Preview

In the Preview panel, you can input different product IDs to test the banner.
For example, entering 2,3 will load the products with ID 1 and ID 2 from the BigTable

Then click Publish

Next:

Select the Ad Network (in this tutorial, we’ll be using Google Ad Manager).
If you don’t need any Ad Network simply select the BannerNow from the Ad Networks list

In the Ad Tag generation panel, there is an additional input called Feed Items IDs where you can input the product IDs separated with the comma (,) or use the macros from the Ad Network.

For the Google Ad Manager, this macro will be %%PATTERN:key%% where the key can be replaced with the “product” if you’re targeting products or “segment” if you’re targeting a specific audience segment.
For another Ad Network, it will have a different format.

Next, copy/paste the Ad Tag in the Ad Network (DSP/SSP).
Here is a tutorial for the Google Ad Manager third-party Ad Tag publishing:

For the Google Ad Manager Unit, the setTargeting method needs to be added after addService():

googletag.defineSlot("/1234/adunit1/adunit2", [728, 90], "div-gpt-ad-123456789-0")
.addService(googletag.pubads())
.setTargeting("product", "5,8");

Obviously, the setTargeting method values should be dynamic (usually this is managed by the recommendation system), so simply update the Google Tag JavaScript code to use the product IDs from the recomendation system (or simply read the first-party cookies or the Local Storage where the product IDs that the user visited are stored).

Feel free to contact us if you you need any help with the retargeting setup.

Google Ad Manager step-by-step remarketing integration: