Meta is rolling out two new automated solutions designed to improve product catalog adoption and performance. Initially available to a select group of accounts, these solutions are expected to be widely released in the near future.
These updates echo Google's recent announcement about automatically adding products to the Merchant Center from websites. It appears that advertising platforms are shifting from strategic feeds to leveraging data sources directly.
Automatic Product Updates from Website
Meta will crawl product pages to enhance the data of products already in the advertiser's catalog. This feature can be toggled ON/OFF, and advertisers can review and remove any automatically updated information. An existing feature, Automatic Product Video Updates, helps add videos to product feeds.
Automatically Created Catalogs from Website
Meta will create a product catalog using information from the website, which can be used in advertising campaigns and will sync automatically. However, individual product information cannot be changed through Meta’s interfaces for these automatically created catalogs.
Key Points
- Automatic Product Updates: Meta crawls product pages to update catalog data, which can be toggled and reviewed.
- Automatically Created Catalogs: Meta generates a product catalog from website data, syncing automatically but without manual editing options.
- Quality Control: Regular verification is crucial to ensure the accuracy of automatically retrieved product information.
- Catalog Creation: Meta scans the website to create a catalog with titles, prices, images, descriptions, and availability.
- Catalog Updates: Product data syncs automatically from the website, with changes reflecting in a few days.
- Ad Control: Advertisers can control which products appear in ads by archiving products or creating product sets.
- Compliance: Products must comply with Meta Advertising Standards to appear in ads.
- Disconnecting/Deleting Catalog: Websites can be disconnected, stopping data sync but keeping existing products, or catalogs can be deleted entirely.
These functionalities aim to improve catalog performance and simplify the use of Shopping Ads, though the quality of automated information retrieval can vary. Regular checks are recommended to maintain data accuracy.
For more details about automatically created catalogs from your website, visit Meta help center.