Facebook aligns with retailers to avoid out-of-stock disappointment
Facebook has unveiled its new "dynamic ads for retail" system, which will allow merchants to only serve Facebook promotions for products that are in stock in a chain brand's location. Building on Facebook's dynamic ads product, which allows retailers to target users based on their interests, the new feature will show local availability, display product summaries and offer similar items. The ads, priced on a cost-per-thousand rate, are being trialled by Abercrombie & Fitch, Argos, Macy's, Target, and Pottery Barn, and will be rolled out more widely in the next few weeks.

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.