How to Create a Catalog on Facebook

Turning your Facebook Page into a full-fledged storefront starts with a powerful tool: the Catalog. This guide breaks down exactly how to create your Facebook Catalog, add your products, and start using it to power your advertising and shopping experiences across Facebook and Instagram.

What Exactly is a Facebook Catalog?

A Facebook Catalog is a digital container that holds and organizes information about all the products you want to sell online. Think of it as your master product inventory for the whole Meta ecosystem (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger). Instead of manually creating ads for every product, a catalog allows you to store details like product names, images, prices, descriptions, and variant information in one centralized place.

But it’s more than just a list. A well-managed catalog is the engine behind some of the most effective social commerce features available today. A properly set-up catalog lets you:

• Run Dynamic Ads: Ever browsed a product on a website only to see it appear in an ad on your Facebook feed moments later? That’s a dynamic ad, powered by a catalog and a Meta Pixel. It's one of the most effective retargeting methods out there.
• Enable Shopping Tags: Tag products directly in your Facebook posts, Instagram posts, Reels, and Stories. This creates a seamless "see it, tap it, buy it" experience for your followers, dramatically shortening the path to purchase.
• Build a Facebook or Instagram Shop: A catalog is the foundation for creating a native storefront on your Facebook Page or Instagram profile. Customers can browse your collections and even check out without leaving the app.
• Create Collection Ads: Showcase a primary product or video alongside a grid of related items from your catalog. This immersive format works fantastically on mobile and encourages browsing.

In short, if you sell physical goods online, creating a Facebook Catalog is not just a good idea - it’s an essential step to building an effective social selling strategy.

Your Pre-Flight Checklist: What You Need First

Before jumping into the setup process, a little preparation will make things run much smoother. You’ll be able to get your catalog up and running in a single session if you have these items ready to go:

• An Active Facebook Business Page: Your catalog needs to be associated with your business’s presence on Facebook.
• A Meta Business Suite Account (formerly Business Manager): This is the central hub where you manage all your business assets, including ad accounts, pages, and catalogs. If you don't have one, setting one up is your first priority.
• Admin Access: You'll need Admin permissions on your Business Suite account to create and manage catalogs.
• Your Product Information: You need an existing list of your products, whether they're on an e-commerce platform like Shopify or just organized in a spreadsheet.

Creating Your Catalog: A Step-by-Step Guide

Once you’ve got your checklist sorted, it’s time to head over to Meta’s Commerce Manager. This is the main dashboard for all your catalogs and shops.

Step 1: Get to Commerce Manager

The easiest way to find Commerce Manager is to go directly to business.facebook.com/commerce. Alternatively, you can navigate there from your Meta Business Suite dashboard by clicking "All Tools" from the sidebar menu and selecting "Commerce Manager" from the list.

Step 2: Start the Catalog Creation Process

Once you’re in Commerce Manager, you'll see a screen that shows any existing catalogs. If it’s your first one, you’ll be prompted to create one.

1. Click the blue "Add Catalog" button.
2. You’ll be asked to select your catalog type. For most businesses selling physical products, "E-commerce" is the right choice. Other options exist for specific industries like automotive, real estate, and travel, which use different product fields.
3. Click "Next."

Step 3: Configure Your Catalog and Add Products

On the next screen, you'll need to decide how to add your products and configure your settings. This is the most important step, and you have three primary methods for getting your items into your new catalog.

Method 1: Connect a Partner Platform (The Best Way for E-commerce Stores)

If you use an e-commerce platform like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or Adobe Commerce, this is by far the easiest and most reliable method. These platforms have direct integrations that create a live, automatic sync between your website's inventory and your Facebook Catalog.

• Select this option and choose your platform from the list.
• You'll be prompted to log in to your e-commerce account to authorize the connection.
• Once connected, the integration will automatically import all of your product information - images, titles, prices, stock levels, and more - and keep them updated. Any time you add a new product or change a price on your site, it will be reflected in your Facebook Catalog within hours.

Method 2: Upload Product Info (The Manual & Data Feed Options)

If you don't use a partner platform, you’ll need to upload your product information one way or another. After selecting this option, name your catalog (something clear like "YourBrand - Main Product Feed") and then you'll move on to a screen where you choose your upload method.

Add Items Manually

This method is only recommended for businesses with a small, static inventory (fewer than 50 products that don't change often). You will add each product one by one, filling out fields for:

• Image: Upload a high-quality product photo.
• Title & Description: Your product name and a short paragraph about it.
• Website Link: The specific URL for this product page on your site.
• Price: The price and currency (e.g., 25.00 USD).
• Availability: In Stock, Out of Stock, etc.

While straightforward, this approach is extremely time-consuming to maintain. If you manage more than a handful of products, the Data Feed method is much better.

Use a Data Feed

A data feed is a spreadsheet (usually a .CSV, .TSV, or .XML file) that contains your product data organized in columns. You upload this sheet, and Facebook "reads" it to populate your catalog. While partner platform connections are easier, a data feed gives you greater control.

The best part about this method is the Scheduled Feed option. Instead of manually re-uploading your file every time something changes, you can host your file at a specific URL (like one generated by a product feed management app or your website's backend). Then, you tell Facebook to automatically "fetch" the updated file at regular intervals - hourly, daily, or weekly. This keeps your stock levels and prices accurate without manual work.

Your feed will need to contain specific required header columns. The main ones are:

id,title,description,availability,condition,price,link,image_link,brand

• id: Your product’s unique Stock Keeping Unit (SKU).
• title: The name of your product.
• description: A brief product description.
• availability: Must be ‘in stock’, ‘out of stock’, or ‘preorder’.
• price: The price with a three-letter currency code (e.g., '19.99 USD').
• link: The direct URL to your product page.
• image_link: A URL of the primary product image.

Optimizing and Managing Your Catalog

Creating your catalog isn't the final step. To get the most out of it, you'll want to organize your products and address any issues that pop up.

Diagnose Issues

In Commerce Manager, look for a tab called "Issues" or "Diagnostics". This is your command center for finding and fixing problems. Common errors include:

• Low-resolution images: Product photos should be at least 500x500 pixels.
• Missing required information: Forgetting a `price` or `description` for an item.
• Broken website links: The URL in the `link` column leads to a 404 page.
• Website price mismatches: The price in your feed is different from the price on your website. Facebook will often disapprove items with this error.

Create Product Sets

A Product Set is a smaller collection of items from your main catalog. You can group items together using rules. This is incredibly useful for targeted advertising. For example, you can create sets for:

• All products in "Tops" that are on sale.
• All items from your "New Arrivals" collection.
• Products where the price is less than $30.
• Items from a specific brand or material.

With these sets, you can then run an ad campaign that only shows your "New Arrivals" to your most engaged followers or retargets website visitors with items from your "Best Sellers" set.

Final Thoughts

Creating a Facebook Catalog is the foundational step for any brand looking to sell effectively on social media. Whether you connect your e-commerce platform automatically, use a scheduled data feed, or add products manually, a well-managed catalog opens the door to dynamic ads, product tagging, and a much smoother shopping experience for your customers.

Once your catalog is powering your social commerce, attention shifts to creating great content that promotes those products. This is where we built Postbase to help. Our platform streamlines a modern content workflow, with a visual calendar to plan campaigns and reliable, video-first scheduling for your Instagram Reels, TikToks, and Stories. We make it simple to publish the engaging content that gets eyes on your catalog, all from one dashboard that just works.