Facebook Ads via Shopee (CPAS)

Simply put, the main function of CPAS is to synchronize catalogs between Shopee and your Facebook Business account. This synchronization makes it easier to attract high-quality traffic and create ads that generate revenue. Shopee sellers can benefit from CPAS because it allows them to dynamically personalize and recommend advertised products based on individual customer preferences and behavior. Additionally, the customer journey becomes more seamless as customers can go directly to product pages within the app. By tracking visitor data, you can retarget specific audience groups and optimize your ads for a higher ROAS.

Getting Started with CPAS

1. First, create a new ad account on Meta.
2. Grant Shopee access to your ad account.
3. Submit a CPAS request to Shopee. If the request is accurate, you will receive a Facebook invitation to accept the CPAS catalog within 7 business days.
4. Congratulations! You are ready to start CPAS ads on Meta.

Best Practices for Using Shopee

There are several considerations to check before launching a campaign on Shopee:

1. Start your ads 7–14 days before the Shopee campaign begins.

‍Shopee typically holds sales on dates like 1.1, 2.2, 3.3, and 4.4. If you start your ads only a few days before the sale, uploads may fail because Meta requires time to review new content. Generally, many Shopee sellers upload new content during sale periods, which causes the approval process to take longer. In the worst-case scenario, your content could be disapproved or rejected at the last minute. To avoid having your content approved only after the sale has ended, we recommend starting early with plenty of time to spare.

2. Avoid focusing solely on purchase conversion campaigns.

During longer campaign periods, Facebook collects a large amount of information for optimization. This is necessary to improve overall ad performance. Therefore, we recommend starting your ads 14 days before the sale and focusing your budget on “Add to Cart” optimization to collect as much data on interested customers as possible.

3. Scale your budget before peak dates.

Since you can modify current ad campaigns and manually adjust daily budgets, it is best to set up all ads in advance. An 8:2 ratio is generally recommended. For example, during the 3–14 days before the sale, it is advisable to allocate 80% of your campaign budget to “Add to Cart” ads and 20% to conversion campaigns. You can then adjust the budget to 20% for “Add to Cart” and 80% for conversion campaigns. This ensures you spend more budget on gathering traffic early on and more on retargeting and converting that traffic as the sale date approaches.

‍4. You must allocate enough budget to secure sufficient reach and conversions to fully optimize your ads.

5. Run dynamic ads and maintain a large catalog.
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Instead of micro-segmenting into smaller product sets, keep your catalog large. This is because CPAS works best with larger catalogs, allowing you to make the most of dynamic matching and personalize ads for individual potential customers.
Promotion dynamics and audiences
We recommend the following:

Promotion Principles and Audiences

Here are some optimization methods to boost marketing effectiveness:
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1. Integrating Shopee Branding
‍By using branding integration features, consumers know they can purchase specific products directly from a trusted platform. Since reselling is permitted on Shopee, some brands display an “Official Store” badge in their ads to indicate that their products are provided directly by the brand itself.
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2. Using Shopee’s Brand Creative Kit
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Shopee provides a seller kit containing attractive campaign frames that can draw extra attention to your products. If you don’t have a brand designer, you can freely download these from the Shopee Seller Education Hub to use in your ads.

3. Adding Highlights to Ad Visuals (e.g., GwP, Bundles)
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This is intended to make your ads stand out, capture buyer interest, and drive engagement in terms of clicks and conversions. Some sellers also include labels on product thumbnails so that each product’s USP is visible in the catalog view.

4. Targeting Diverse Audiences
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CPAS provides you with access to higher-quality, customized audience targeting. For instance, CPAS ads can be used for prospecting, retargeting past visitors, retargeting users who added items to their cart, as well as cross-selling and up-selling. Now is the time for a strategic approach.

5. Planning Sales Campaigns Around Local Holidays
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For international brands, it is essential to understand local holidays and key sales seasons. For example, Shopee hosts mega sales every month (e.g., 11.11, 12.12), which often see traffic peaks. In countries with many festivals and holidays, such as Malaysia and the Philippines, Shopee sellers prepare festive promotions year-round to match the mood. Most importantly, plan your promotional campaigns in advance to ensure the best results.

Two-Stage Funnel Strategy

Running ads based on a two-stage funnel approach can help you save on advertising expenses. This means running only two types of ads for the two parts of the funnel: the top (TOFU) and the bottom (BOFU).

With CPAS

If you are using CPAS, we recommend running ads using a Traffic Conversion (TC) approach. At the top of the funnel, you should focus on driving cold traffic from Meta to your Shopee store. This means your ads will be optimized for content views or clicks. The content used here could be a video that captures the viewer's interest, such as one showing the desired results after using the product.

Customers interested in the product are directed straight to the Shopee store and the in-app product page. CPAS then detects this pixel data, which can be used for retargeting. At the bottom of the funnel, we recommend running retargeting ads using carousel ads that highlight offers, deals, and promotions. For this, you should include more visuals related to promotional deals, gifts, and discounts. The ads should also be optimized for conversion so that Meta can drive high-quality traffic to your Shopee store at a relatively low cost. To maximize budget efficiency, it is also recommended to segment your audience so that visitors who have already purchased the product through the first stage are excluded from this stage.

Without CPAS

Due to certain restrictions, not all Shopee sellers can use CPAS. If you are restricted from using it, we recommend using a Traffic-to-Traffic (TT) approach for your ads. This optimizes your ads to drive traffic to your Shopee store. The difference is that for customers later in the buying journey, you can target potential customers who have already engaged with your Meta ads—for example, those who have watched a video for more than 3 seconds or clicked on an ad to experience an Instant Experience. Setting up CPAS can be difficult for individuals or companies without relevant experience due to Shopee's regulations and requirements. Additionally, as mentioned in the text, it is often difficult to achieve results without a profound understanding of the platform and the target audience. Please contact Disrupt if you would like to learn more about how to drive traffic to your Shopee store.

Conclusion

Setting up CPAS can be challenging for individuals or companies without relevant experience due to Shopee's specific regulations and requirements. Furthermore, as mentioned in the text, it is often difficult to achieve results without a thorough understanding of the platform and the target audience. Please contact Disrupt if you would like to learn more about how to drive traffic to your Shopee store.