How to boost online sales with Meta catalog ads

Ana Milovan23.10.202412 minMarketing

You’ve probably noticed Meta ads featuring products from online stores that match your style, showing product names, prices, brands or even discounts.

Have you ever wondered how they know your fashion sense or that you need camping equipment?

Online advertisers rely on cookies, Meta Pixel and machine learning that categorize you based on your online behavior. What users see are catalog ads — a type of Meta ads designed specifically for online conversions.

If you’re an owner, manager or a member of a marketing team of an online store and haven’t used catalog ads to boost your sales yet, you’re likely curious about how to maximize this Meta advertising opportunity. In this post, we’ll show you how to get started and what to focus on.

#1 What is a Meta product catalog and how to create one

To enable Meta to link user interests with the catalog ads, you need to create a product catalog alongside Meta Pixel.

A product catalog is a data collection that includes the products that online stores want to advertise on Meta’s platform. Key details are for example product names, descriptions, images, prices, stock availability, colors and various attributes that help both potential buyers and Meta to target the right audience.

#2 Solutions for integrating Meta catalogs

Catalog is not just another sales method that needs to be updated with new products. You can easily link it with various platforms that automate management of catalog ads.
Some of the examples are platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, and other e-commerce solutions.
Are you a larger online retailer without centralized product data management yet?

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Integration via plugins, modules, custom XML, CSV, TSV or Google Sheets enables easy synchronization between your online store and Meta, ensuring that your data is always up to date and reliable. When you add a new product to your online store, change its price or introduce a new color, the catalog syncs with Meta accordingly.

You can set the synchronization frequency as needed or trigger it manually with a simple click on the button.

Based on our experience as a one-stop-shop for both marketing and development team who work with Meta catalogs on a daily basis, the optimal sync frequency depends on how dynamic your store is. Stores that frequently update prices and stock should sync multiple times a day.

If your sale promotion starts at 10:00 AM, the best timing for a sync is at 10:05. That will allow your ads to feature discounts and sale prices on the very first day, which will boost your ad performance.

#3 Effective management of Meta catalog

Even though product updates happen automatically, effective catalog management is crucial for the success of your marketing campaigns. The two most important activities for managing your catalog are segmenting and filtering products. You can segment products into smaller product sets for advertising.

We advise you that beside the main product set (master set), you also create an additional product set (in our clients projects, we usually name it main set). It should only include products which you want to promote in your advertising campaigns.

Exclude low-value products from your advertising sets, as advertising them may not be cost-effective. Also, avoid adding gift cards/vouchers or out-of-stock items. However, we recommend you to include out-of-stock products in your Meta catalog. These products won’t appear in ads but will help Meta’s algorithm make better recommendations and personalize ads.

Beware: Products that are not for sale may still show up in your ads if they are in your business records (e.g., free gifts with purchase). Be sure to remove them from your main set.

The number of sets and how you use them depends on the volume of products you sell and your advertising strategy. For instance, if your goal is to increase average order value, you might include only high-value products in a set. When organizing product sets, consider:

Segmentation: Divide products by categories, seasonality or promotions.
Filtering: Apply filters to include only relevant products for each campaign.

Filtering and segmentation in Meta catalog ads

Meta offers some built-in filtering and segmentation options. For example, there’s no filter for creating a set without discounted items.

If you want to advertise a promo code that applies only to regularly-priced items, you can create an internal labeling system (internal_label). That way you will prevent discounted products from showing up in your ads.

Unsure how to organize your catalog or whether it’s optimized? Let us help!

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#4 Match rate

Another key factor for successful advertising is the match rate, which measures the percentage of product IDs from recorded events in your online store, Meta Pixel or in SDKs that match products in your linked catalog.

In practice, this means that if a potential buyer views a product with ID:17 on your site and adds it to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, Meta understands this act and links this action to the correct product in the catalog. Later, Meta can show this user the exact product and a promo code to encourage them to finalize their purchase.

To ensure effective ads, it is recommended to maintain a match rate above 90%.

A key component to improving conversion tracking accuracy and other Meta events is CAPI (Conversions API), which sends data to Meta using a “server-side” solution. More accurate data enhances ad performance.

Interested in learning more about CAPI implementation?

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#5 Common issues

Advertising with catalogs can sometimes lead to problems, which can result in customer dissatisfaction and negative comments on your ads. Below is a list of some of the most common issues and ways to resolve them:

Low match rate

If your match rate is low, you can use the Meta Pixel Helper Chrome extension. It will show you what data is being sent to Meta from your online store. Later on, you can compare that data with your catalog data to identify issues (maybe it’s something wrong with the catalog or maybe your solution for Meta Pixel implementation doesn’t work correctly).

Demonstration of the Meta Pixel Helper Chrome plugin in action

Incorrect or incomplete product data

If product names, descriptions or images are missing, check if your sync plugin/module is working correctly.

If you are using custom XML, check if it includes all mandatory data and if it is formatted properly. More info HERE.

If your product doesn’t display data included in your online store, you can use so-called supplementary feed. With it, you can add the internal_label to filter products.

Old products in ads

If discontinued products appear in your ads, check if your sync option is set to “replace” or “update”.

– With the replace option, the new file will completely overwrite all information and delete products that no longer exist.

– The update option will add new products and update existing ones, but will not change anything for products that are no longer in the feed. In this case, the products must be manually deleted from the Meta catalog.

For faster processing of product catalogs, we recommend updating with faster frequency and replacing with less frequency and at the time when you have the lowest sales in the online store (e.g. at night).

#6 Sales catalog campaigns

On Meta, you can choose between classic sales catalog campaigns and Advantage+ shopping campaigns.

Classic sales catalog campaigns

Classic sales catalog campaigns are for displaying ads based on products from your catalog. With these campaigns, you have more control over the settings – you can set target groups, i.e. choose between prospecting campaigns, where you can target according to goals, interests, etc., or remarketing campaigns, with the help of which you can set ads for abandoned carts, upsells, cross sells or other custom targeting.

Editing the target group in the classic sales catalog campaign

Advantage+ shopping kampanje

Advantage+ shopping campaigns are more automated. With them, you can set basic parameters such as campaign goals, budget and duration. The Meta algorithm then automatically optimizes targeting, placements and budget allocation. The advantage of these campaigns is that you can decide how much of the budget you are willing to invest in existing customers – in this way you “force” Meta to find you a new audience or potential customers (of course before that, it is necessary to determine who your existing customers are).

Which type of campaign is better to use? We will give you the most popular answer in advertising – it depends.

Based on our experience, both campaigns can be equally effective. Under certain conditions, one may work better than the other, while under other, the results would be completely different. Which settings to choose depends on your products, their price and type, advertising strategy, size of target groups, quantity of events and advertising budget.

We advise you to initially test both alternatives. It may turn out that the winning way is also in the combination of both types of campaigns.

Are you looking for advice from someone who knows how to optimally test different campaigns and choose the right advertising strategy?

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#7 Visuals for catalog ads

Catalog ads allow various display formats, such as single image ads, video, carousel or collection.

The platform also allows us to define dynamic elements that are displayed in catalog ads – e.g. product name, price, discount percentage, if the product is discounted, brand, etc. With these add-ons, we can display our products in different ways, which improves the user experience and increases the chances of conversion.

For example, a dynamic catalog with prices is on average 20% more effective than ads without prices. Ads with displayed discounts or/and savings are on average 45% more successful than those who do not have this information (source: https://confect.io/blog/catalog-ads-guide-for-meta-facebook). These possibilities are offered by the platform itself, but we can also download the so-called frames, which can additionally help with brand recognition and the standout of the ad.

Some of the world’s largest online retailers also use platforms or tools which allow them to design custom catalog ads. An example of such a tool is the platform confect.io.

#8 Catalog Ads Case Study

We are sure that you are also interested in how catalog ads work in practice. By restructuring existing campaigns and introducing new, dynamic catalog ads, we increased online sales for our client by as much as 68.5% in one month.

After a few months, the ongoing prospecting campaign is still the most successful, as it ensures the influx of new customers and sales growth. That enables our client to grow their online business.

Demonstrating the improvement of advertising results using the ad catalog

Conclusion

The importance of the Meta catalog for an online store can be seen in several aspects:

Automation and efficiency
Automated ads creation using catalog and product groups, which saves time and effort.
Accuracy and up-to-date product info
Regularly updating the products in the catalog ensures that the information is always accurate and current.
Targeting and personalization
Advertising with the help of a catalog allows better ad targeting according to the interests and behavior of users, which increases the relevance of the ads and consequently the conversion rate.
Analysis and optimization
The data enables an in-depth analysis of the ad performance and thus better optimization of marketing campaigns.

Catalog ads are therefore very important for online retailers, as they bring growth in online sales. If you have not already tested them, now would be a great time to start. And if you need any help with, you know who to contact.

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Finally, back to your fashion style and camping gear. Wondering what Meta thinks you’re interested in? Check here.

Ana Milovan

Specialistka za digitalno oglaševanje