It’s clear that connected shoppers are fundamentally transforming retail, interacting with brands through many touch points including web, mobile, online marketplaces, stores, ads, connected devices, and of course social media.

Shoppers increasingly use these touchpoints not just to collect information, but to actually buy products. This means that the shopper journey has shifted almost entirely to where consumers shop - wherever they are - as part of the experience they are already having in an app, on the website or in a social feed. They want each interaction to be relevant, and for all interactions to be coordinated into a single, unified experience. One of the most important ways to deliver relevance is with digital advertising. How can brands ensure that their customers, or potential customers, are seeing the most relevant, in-the-moment product ads in their Facebook or Instagram feed?

Today at the NRF Retail Big Show, Salesforce announced the integration of Commerce Cloud with Facebook Dynamic Ads. Now, brands can leverage Commerce Cloud and Facebook in new ways to deliver relevant product information, and to drive conversion.

Facebook Dynamic Ads present relevant content to people who have expressed interest on your website, in your app or elsewhere on the internet. Dynamic ads reach people on any device, regardless of their original touchpoint with the brand. When a user clicks an ad, they are directed to the retailer’s website for the transaction. The retailer still owns the transactional relationship with the consumer.

With Dynamic Ads, Commerce Cloud customers can extend their brand and products to an enormous - Facebook has over 1.1 billion daily active users - engaged and active audience, drive shoppers back to their site and ultimately increase conversion and sales. Commerce Cloud is the only enterprise cloud commerce platform that enables brands to extend commerce to multiple channels, all united by a central (and centrally-managed) commerce platform.

Commerce Cloud’s direct integration with Facebook and Instagram connects your product catalog to these platforms and places the Facebook activity tracking pixel on your site. Direct integration with Facebook makes enablement fast and simple, versus having to spend money and time on custom development.

For brands, the beauty of this is that they are able to leverage Commerce Cloud's integration with Facebook to easily promote products and manage ads through the same control panel they use to manage their site. This is a key tenet of a unified commerce platform - managing all commerce channels, and being more productive, all from one platform.

Distributed commerce - the concept of shopping from any Internet-connected device, platform or application - will have a profound impact on retail. It is upending typical buying patterns, as consumers no longer follow a linear path but meander between touch points. However, it also presents significant upside for leading retailers and brands who can quickly and dynamically implement these capabilities.

Salesforce has a history of leadership and innovation in digital advertising with Facebook. Salesforce is a Facebook Marketing Partner across Ad Technology, Content Marketing, Community Management and Audience Onboarding. Recently we also delivered Lead Capture for Sales Cloud, empowering brands to supercharge their lead-generation machine with Facebook Lead Ads -- automatically and fully populated securely into Sales Cloud.

Commerce Cloud’s integration of Facebook Dynamic Ads is currently in beta and will be generally available in the first calendar quarter of 2017 to Commerce Cloud customers. Please contact your Commerce Cloud customer success manager if you are interested in setting up Facebook Dynamic Ads. Or stop by our NRF booth to learn more: you can find Salesforce in Booth 3431, where you can learn about all the ways we are delivering a unified commerce experience to enable you to connect with your customers in a whole new way. Talk to our experts, get a demo, learn what we’ve got in store for 2017, and much more.