What Is CPAS? An Advertisement Form that Generates Sales for E-commerce Businesses

CPAS by Facebook stands for Collaborative Performance Advertising Solution, a form of Facebook advertisement that allows brands to collaborate with e-commerce platforms like Lazada and Shopee to sell their products.

The goal of this collaboration is to improve ad metrics. Before collaborative ads, brands had difficulty tracking which of their ad campaigns were successful if they didn’t have an e-commerce platform. However, with CPAS, brands can analyse their campaign success by collecting insights from the ads as they directly collaborate with e-commerce platforms.

CPAS Benefits Business Owners and E-commerce Platforms

Collaborative ads refer to Facebook advertisements that help simplify online purchasing. Online sellers with their own e-commerce websites or product consignments on other e-commerce platforms can set up their dynamic ads and create product catalogues that link back to their sale page. They can use the catalogues as advertisements to reach their target customer groups.

CPAS benefits both business owners and e-commerce websites. E-commerce platforms earn revenue from consignment sales as well as gain website traffic. As for brand owners, they can drive brand awareness and ultimately lead their target audience to purchase their product or service. 

Moreover, dynamic ads that directly lead to the website improve the brand’s chance to generate sales as the customers no longer need to leave Facebook to purchase the products on a different website.

For business owners with no e-commerce site, the destination website of their collaborative ads will be linked to the product catalogue on e-commerce platforms like Shopee or Lazada instead. Doing this won’t harm the business since CPAS will generate positive returns in terms of sales for the brand, and if the customers are satisfied with their purchase, there’s a good possibility that they will purchase again. 

What is the CPAS Working Process

Collaborative ads like CPAS allow e-commerce platforms that have partnered with Facebook to create catalogues, categorise products, and forward them to brands to set up their target customers. Currently, there are seven platforms in Thailand, namely Lazada, Shopee, JD Central, Power Buy, Top Market, Supersport, and Robinson Online, that use collaborative ads. 

Here are the steps on how CPAS displays the advertisements: 

1. The brand creates dynamic collaborative ads with product catalogue links to serve the ads to their target groups.
2. Once the target group clicks on the image of the collaborative ads, the system will take them to the page with the button “Shop Now.”
3. When users click the “Shop Now” button, the system will navigate them to the linked e-commerce website.
4. On the e-commerce website (either the brand’s e-commerce website or the consignment site), customers can order the products and search for other products of the brand. Suppose the target group didn’t complete a purchase but added the product to the cart, the brand can do a retargeting ad campaign to display ads to the customers for better recall.

How CPAS Benefits Businesses and E-commerce Platforms

Using collaborative ads, business owners can track their ad performance via metrics including reach, impressions, conversions, click, and return on ad spend (ROAS). This data can be analysed and used for strategic campaigns. Other benefits of CPAs include:

Grows sales exponentially

The benefit of CPAS is that it can effectively grow sales as dynamic ads can be set to display to the target group who are interested in the product or are likely to buy that product. This helps increase the chances of sales conversions. 

In addition, when customers click to look at the product via Facebook ads, the system will navigate them to the online store on the e-commerce platform, allowing businesses to close their sales deals faster. 

If businesses collaborate with online marketplaces like Shopee or Lazada, these platforms will earn commissions whenever brands generate sales and gain more traffic from website visits. Therefore, both brands and e-commerce platform owners can grow their sales volumes.

Optimises retargeting campaigns

Normally, business owners can’t install pixel codes on the e-commerce platform. As a result, when customers click to buy the product on the website directly, businesses can’t collect customers’ data or preferences. What CPAS does is help fill up this gap. 

When customers make a purchase via the ads, CPAS will collect all data of those who took a look at the products, those who added the products to their cart without checking out, and those who already made a purchase. This allows businesses to utilise the data for retargeting campaigns and serve the ads to the target group who have shown interest in the product.

Improves brand awareness and recall

Facebook is Thailand’s leading social media platform with the most active users. Therefore, collaborative ads not only help users purchase easily on e-commerce platforms and grow brand sales volumes, but they also build brand awareness, increasing the brand’s visibility to potential customers.

Measurable results for strategic marketing planning

Collaborative ad performance can provide insights into the actions and behaviour of the target group, such as products added to the cart and daily product sales. It can also measure ROAS so businesses can appraise their ad costs’ efficiency.  

Implementing CPAS insights beyond tracking click rates or CPCs aid brands in assessing campaign performance and will enable them to be more strategic and effective in ad planning.

What is the Type of Business Suited for CPAS?

While CPAS can grow sales revenue, this ad form may not be appropriate for every business type. Unlike Facebook campaigns, where brand marketers can create a campaign, advertise, and measure the outcome themselves, successful CPAS need collaboration between brands and online marketplaces. Hence, CPAS is suitable for businesses with an e-commerce website or a marketplace partner.

Conclusion

Collaborative ads are an effective channel where brands can expand their market and grow their sales revenue in partnership with leading online marketplaces. Brands interested in CPAS to drive their growth will benefit from Primal Digital Agency’s expertise. 

Find out all about what CPAS is and how it can help your business. Contact us and leverage our extensive experience in helping brands in various industries to achieve their business goals.