How to Run Catalog Ads on Facebook

Want to automatically show the right products to the right people at the right time on Facebook and Instagram? That's exactly what Catalog Ads do, and they're one of the most powerful tools available for any e-commerce business. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from setting up your product catalog from scratch to building high-performing campaigns and optimizing them for sales.

What Exactly Are Facebook Catalog Ads?

Unlike standard ads where you manually upload a single image or video, Catalog Ads (often called Dynamic Ads) pull information directly from your product catalog. This lets you showcase multiple relevant products in a single ad without creating dozens of individual ad variations. Facebook uses its algorithm to automatically feature the products that a specific user is most likely to be interested in based on their behavior.

There are two main ways Catalog Ads work:

• Dynamic Retargeting: This is the classic use case. If someone visits your website and looks at a specific blue sweater and a pair of white sneakers but doesn't buy, a dynamic ad can show them that exact blue sweater and those white sneakers again in their Facebook or Instagram feed. It's highly personalized and incredibly effective at recovering abandoned carts.
• Broad Audience Prospecting: You can also use Catalog Ads to find new customers. Facebook takes all the data signals from people who have shopped with you and uses that information to show popular or relevant products from your catalog to new people who have similar interests and behaviors, even if they've never heard of your brand before.

The Foundation: Setting Up Your Product Catalog

Before you can run a single ad, you need a home for all your product information. This home is called a "Catalog" and it lives inside Meta's Commerce Manager. Think of it as a container that holds all the data for every item you sell.

Step 1: Create Your Catalog in Commerce Manager

First, navigate to Meta's Commerce Manager. If you haven't used it before, you'll be prompted to get started. You'll be asked to choose where you want customers to complete their purchase (on your website, in-app, etc.) and connect it to your Business Manager account and relevant Facebook Page and Instagram profile.

When you get to the catalog creation step, simply give it a name that makes sense for your business (e.g., "Main Product Catalog") and you're ready to add your products.

Step 2: Add Your Products with a Data Source

A "data source" is just the method you use to get your product information into your catalog. Commerce Manager gives you a few options, and the right one depends on your e-commerce platform and inventory size.

• For Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, etc. Users (The Easiest Way): If you use a major e-commerce platform, this is by far the simplest method. Most platforms have a direct integration with Meta Commerce Manager. In Shopify, for example, it's often as simple as installing the "Facebook & Instagram" sales channel app, which will automatically create and sync your entire product catalog for you. It handles updates to price, inventory, new product additions, and everything else automatically.
• Manual Upload (For Small Inventories): If you only have a handful of products (less than 50), you can add them one-by-one directly in Commerce Manager. It's time-consuming but a viable option for very small businesses just starting.
• Data Feed (The Power User Method): A data feed is a spreadsheet (like a CSV or XML file) that contains all your product data, formatted in a specific way. You can upload it once or, more commonly, host it on a URL. Meta will then regularly "fetch" the feed from that URL to keep your catalog updated. This is ideal if you have a custom e-commerce setup. Your file will need specific columns at a minimum:

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

Step 3: Organize with Product Sets

Once your items are in your catalog, you can group them into "Product Sets." This is incredibly useful for running targeted campaigns. Instead of showing products from your entire catalog, you can create sets based on specific rules.

Examples of useful Product Sets:

• Best Sellers: Group your top-selling items to target new customers.
• New Arrivals: Showcase your latest collection.
• Summer Collection: For seasonal promotions.
• Items Under $50: To appeal to budget-conscious shoppers.
• High-Margin Products: To maximize your profit per sale.

You'll select these Product Sets later when you build your ad campaign.

Fueling the Machine: Connecting Your Pixel and Conversions API

Your catalog is the inventory, but the Meta Pixel (and Conversions API) is the intelligence. This piece of code on your website tracks how people interact with your products. It tells Facebook who viewed what, who added items to their cart, and who made a purchase.

Without the Pixel, Facebook has no idea which products to show to which user. Connecting your catalog to your pixel data is what makes dynamic retargeting possible.

• The Meta Pixel: This is a snippet of JavaScript you add to your website. It sends "events" from the user's browser back to Facebook. Standard e-commerce events include ViewContent, AddToCart, and Purchase.
• The Conversions API (CAPI): Since browser-based tracking can sometimes be blocked (due to privacy settings or ad blockers), the Conversions API sends event data directly from your server to Facebook's server. It's more reliable and a must-have for accurate tracking in today's privacy-focused landscape.

Most e-commerce platform integrations (like Shopify's) set up both the Pixel and CAPI for you with just a few clicks. If you're using a data feed, you'll need to make sure your pixel event is sending the correct content_id that matches the product's id in your feed. That's how Facebook connects a website action to a specific product in your catalog.

Building Your First Catalog Ad Campaign: A Step-by-Step Guide

With your catalog set up and your pixel firing, it's time to build the campaign in Ads Manager.

1. Choose the "Sales" Objective

Go to your Facebook Ads Manager and click "Create." For e-commerce catalog ads, your primary goal is almost always going to be Sales. This objective tells Facebook's algorithm to find people who are most likely to make a purchase.

2. Configure the Ad Set

This is where the magic happens. After setting up your campaign budget, you'll move to the ad set level.

• Conversion Event Location: Set this to Website.
• Performance Goal: Keep it as Maximize number of conversions.
• Catalog: This is the key. You'll see an option to select your new product catalog. Once you pick one, the targeting options will transform.
• Product Set: Choose the product set you want to promote. You can use your "Best Sellers" for new customer acquisition or "All Products" for your main retargeting campaign.

3. Select Your Audience

This is the most important part of the setup. You have two main paths:

For Retargeting (Winning Back Visitors)

Under the Audience section, you will see an option to "Retarget ads to people who interacted with your products on and off Facebook." This is your classic Dynamic Product Ad (DPA) setup. You can get very specific here:

• Viewed or Added to Cart But Not Purchased: The most common and effective retargeting audience. You can set the time window (e.g., in the last 14 days).
• Added to Cart But Not Purchased: A smaller, higher-intent group of people who are very close to buying.
• Upsell Products: Show higher-end products to people who viewed a certain category. For example, show your premium running shoes to people who looked at your basic ones.
• Cross-sell Products: Show complementary products to recent purchasers. For example, show phone cases to people who just bought a new phone charger.

Remember to exclude recent purchasers from your main retargeting audiences to avoid showing ads to people who just bought from you.

For Prospecting (Finding New Customers)

Select the option to "Find prospective customers even if they haven't interacted with your business." Here, you're relying on Facebook's algorithm to do the work. It will analyze your existing customer data from the pixel and find new people who look and act just like them. You just need to provide some broad interest or demographic signals, and Facebook will automatically show the most relevant products from your catalog to grab their attention.

For placements, selecting Advantage+ placements is often the best choice, as it lets Meta automatically show your ad across all placements (Feed, Stories, Reels, etc.) where it's most likely to convert.

Designing Your Ads: Creative that Converts

Even though the ads are dynamic, you still control the creative framework.

• Ad Format: The Carousel format is the default and most popular choice for catalog ads. It allows users to scroll through multiple personalized product recommendations. A Collection Ad is another excellent option, it opens up a full-screen, fast-loading "Instant Experience" when tapped, creating a mini-storefront right within Facebook.
• Creative Tools: This is a powerful feature hiding in plain sight. You can add a catalog-powered frame or dynamic overlays. This lets you add information directly from your catalog onto your images, such as a price, a percentage off sticker, or "Free Shipping" text written over the image.
• Ad Copy: Your primary text and headline need to be somewhat generic, since they'll appear with many different products. Focus on your brand's unique value proposition, an ongoing sale, or other benefits. You can also use dynamic text placeholders to pull in details from your feed, like the product's name or price using {{product.name}}.

A good headline for a retargeting ad might be as simple as, "Still thinking it over?" to acknowledge the user's prior interest.

Final Thoughts

Facebook Catalog Ads automate one of the most effective strategies in marketing: showing people exactly what they're interested in buying. By properly syncing your product data through a catalog, connecting your pixel for intelligence, and setting up smart retargeting and prospecting campaigns, you create an automated sales engine that works for you 24/7.

Of course, running successful ads is just one piece of the puzzle. When people start commenting on those ads with questions or sending DMs, you need a way to manage that engagement quickly and effectively. To help with that part of the process, we built Postbase with a unified inbox that brings all your social conversations into one place, so you never miss a chance to turn an interested ad viewer into a new, loyal customer.