How to create a high-performing Facebook product catalog

Facebook product catalog, essential to advertise on Facebook

With Facebook’s dynamic ads you can automatically promote your product catalog on Facebook and Instagram without having to create hundreds of individual ads. Dynamic ads are shown in Facebook feeds, right-hand column (on a desktop setting), Instagram feeds and stories, audience network, and Messenger.

They will help you to reach and re-target users during their daily social media activities. Dynamic product ads are a fantastic way to promote your catalog of products to Facebook users that have previously interacted with your brand, or very similar ones. Facebook’s system automatically shows the right products to the right audience based on its previous behavior (thanks to Facebook pixel).

In order to begin advertising your products on Facebook, you need to create a Facebook product catalog. Like with any product feed, there are required attributes that need to be included in order for product ads to be approved by Facebook. Your Facebook data feed has to include the following mandatory attributes: ID, title, description, availability, condition, price, link, image, and brand.

The importance of a high-quality Facebook product feed

Creating a Facebook product feed can be easy (especially if it is done with a feed management solution like Channable), but optimizing it to get the best results is another story. There is a direct correlation between how well your Facebook product catalog is optimized and the success of your dynamic product ads. A high-quality Facebook data feed will enable your items to be more visible on Facebook and will also encourage users to click on your ads. So do not settle with a basic product feed, you need to optimize your product feed data to get the best results on Facebook ads.

Optimizations you shouldn't miss in your Facebook product catalog

As mentioned before, having an optimized Facebook product feed will help you to boost your product’s visibility, conversion rate, and click-through rate. But what kind of improvements can be done in your Facebook product catalog? Here are some examples:

1. Keep your Facebook product catalog up to date at least once a day - ideally once per hour
   It is not only important to submit clean error free data but also up-to-date information about your products. Make sure you update your Facebook data feed as often as possible. Facebook gives you the possibility to fetch your feed up to once per hour.
2. Avoid duplicates
   Make sure every product has a unique title, description, and GTIN. If you sell the same product in different formats, like sizes or colors, you need to group all variants.
3. Use as many optional values as possible
   Apart from the required attributes described above, we recommend you to use as many optional attributes as possible: age, color, product_type, gender, material, size, sale price, and shipping. All this additional information will help to boost your feed.
4. Optimize product titles
   Titles are a basic part of your ads because they are the only visible text on your product ads. That's why titles need to be as engaging and attractive as possible. For example, for apparel products, it is really convenient to include the brand + gender + product type + attributes like color, size, and material.
5. Help your clients find your product through a correct categorization
   Even if categories are not mandatory for Facebook, we highly recommend using them because it helps Facebook to match products in the same category, meaning that Facebook can show very similar products to the ones a user was interested in.

Channable, the solution to create and optimize your Facebook product feed

Channable is a feed management tool that offers a very simple solution to create and enrich your Facebook product catalog. We have all the information and tools you need, as a Facebook Marketing Partner, Channable can help you with:

Built-in Facebook product feed template

Channable gives you access to more than 2.500 up-to-date feed templates, including the Facebook template. Meeting all of Facebook’s requirements and avoiding possible errors.

Optimized ads for better results

Channable enables you to improve your listings with IF-THEN rules that systematically filter, modify, and improve your product catalog with just a few clicks. Apply all the optimizations explained before (and a lot more) in just a few minutes!

Daily synchronization of your product feed

When product information changes on your eCommerce platform, Channable synchronizes all changes with Facebook (and all your other channels). This helps you to communicate the correct information across all channels. Up to every hour!

Free technical support

In case you need guidance with the setup of your Facebook product catalog, Channable’s technical support team is always available to help you out. This goes for all your connections.

Channacademy, your personal learning center

Channable offers its own learning center, The Channacademy. Become an expert in feed management, learn how to set up your first feed, how to set rules, and much more to make you an eCommerce expert.

I really like Channable! The main thing I enjoy about using Channable is that it’s less time-consuming and it’s a very good way to build dynamic ads. We’ve tried a couple of different systems, so we have the experience to say that Channable is very good. Christian Haraldsen, Online Performance Specialist at Komplett

Create the perfect Facebook product catalog with Channable

If you want to get started with the Facebook product feed integration via Channable, you need to:

• Create a Channable account
  If you haven’t done so yet, sign up for your own free Channable trial.
• Import your product data from your eCommerce platform
  You have many options on how to import your products in Channable. You can do it with an XML or CSV file, or even directly from your eCommerce platform such as (Shopify, Magento, Lightspeed…).

When you are all set, these are the 6 steps you must follow in Channable in order to get a perfect Facebook product catalog:

Step 1: Setup

Navigate to ‘feeds‘ in the tool and choose the Facebook dynamic ads template. Choose your desired country and type of market for your connection.

Step 2: Categorization

With Channable you have the option to utilize the Smart Categorization functionality and save a ton of time placing your items.

Step 3: Rules

Channable’s IF-THEN rule system filters, enriches, and optimizes all your existing product information automatically. For example, you can apply rules to quickly exclude products you do not want to promote or add extra information such as custom labels.

Step 4: Finalize

Here, you ‘map’ the existing fields from your original catalog with the fields requested by Facebook. With Channable it is very easy to add additional attributes like age, color, product_type, gender, material, size, sale price, and shipping.

Step 5: Preview

Here you can have a look at the XML feed you have created. Please note that until this point, you don’t pay a dime to Channable. Once you are happy with your feed, you choose the price plan that fits your needs. Once your plan is selected, you will be able to copy the URL of your Facebook product feed to paste it into your Commerce Manager.

Step 6: Quality

See exactly which products, fields, or values need some extra love before sending your optimized product data to Facebook.