Meta Product Ads (Catalogue Feed)

Run Meta Dynamic Product Ads (also called Advantage+ catalogue ads) that retarget people on Facebook and Instagram with the exact competitions they browsed but didn't enter. This page covers setting up your Meta Pixel, finding your product catalogue feed URL, connecting it in Meta Commerce Manager, and fixing problems like missing competitions or "0 products matched".

Where to find it: Admin → Site Settings → Advanced (/admin/settings).

Meta needs two things from your site to run these ads: your Meta Pixel (which reports what visitors viewed) and a product catalogue of your live competitions (which tells Meta what those items are). Your site publishes the catalogue automatically as a feed — there is nothing to switch on and no per-competition setup. You set the pixel once, connect the feed once, and from then on it stays in sync with whatever is live on your site.

Add your Meta Pixel ID

The pixel is a hard prerequisite — without it, Meta has no browsing data to match against your catalogue and dynamic ads won't run. Set it up first:

1. In Meta, open Events Manager and copy your Pixel ID.
2. On your site, go to Site Settings → Advanced and find the Meta Pixel (Facebook/Instagram) section.
3. Paste the ID into the Meta Pixel ID field and save.

Two things happen once a pixel ID is set:

• Conversion tracking for Facebook and Instagram starts on your public site — see Tracking Pixel Events for the full list of events the pixel fires.
• A cookie consent banner is shown to visitors, and the pixel only loads after a visitor accepts marketing cookies. This is highlighted with a warning in the Advanced section when an ID is entered. It means your retargeting audiences only include visitors who consented — see Troubleshooting if your audiences look smaller than expected.

Find and copy your feed URL

1. Go to Site Settings → Advanced.
2. Below the Meta Pixel section, find the Meta Product Feed (Catalogue) box. It shows your feed URL.
3. Click Copy URL (the button briefly changes to "Copied!").

The URL is your own domain followed by /meta/catalog.xml (for example https://www.example.com/meta/catalog.xml). That's the address you'll paste into Commerce Manager.

Check the feed before you connect it

It's worth a ten-second sanity check before involving Meta: open the feed URL in your browser. You should see a structured listing of your live competitions with titles, prices, links, and images. If your live competitions appear there, the feed is working and you're ready to connect it. If a competition you expected is missing, see A competition is missing from the catalogue before you connect.

Connect the feed in Commerce Manager

1. Go to Commerce Manager → Catalog → Data Sources.
2. Choose Add Items → Use a URL.
3. Paste your feed URL.
4. Set the schedule to Hourly.
5. Set the upload type to Replace.
6. Finish and let Meta run its first fetch.

Replace is important. It tells Meta to rebuild the catalogue from the feed each time, so competitions that have ended are removed automatically. If you pick "Update" instead, finished competitions can linger in your catalogue.

Confirm the first fetch succeeded

After connecting, stay in Commerce Manager → Catalog → Data Sources and open your feed's upload history. A successful fetch shows the number of items imported — it should match the number of live competitions on your site. If the first fetch shows an error, check the feed URL opens in your browser and try a manual re-fetch from the same screen.

Once the catalogue is built and your pixel is active, pair the catalogue with your pixel in Commerce Manager's event settings, then create Advantage+ catalogue ad campaigns that retarget people with the competitions they viewed.

Understand what the feed includes

The feed lists your live competitions only. A competition is included when it is published, visible, and has a prize image. Competitions that end or are taken down drop out of the feed on the next refresh, so your ads never point at something that has finished.

Sold-out competitions are different: they stay in the feed but are marked out of stock. That keeps Meta's attribution intact (Meta still recognises the item people viewed and bought) while stopping new ad spend on them.

A competition with no prize image is left out, because Meta won't accept a catalogue item without an image. If a competition isn't showing up in your ads, check it has an image first.

Keep the catalogue in sync

• You don't need to update the feed by hand. It always reflects your current live competitions.
• Changes can take up to an hour to appear in Meta. Meta fetches the feed on its hourly schedule, and the feed itself refreshes every few minutes, so a brand-new competition may take a little while to show up in your catalogue. This is normal.
• A one-off failed fetch won't wipe your catalogue. If your site temporarily can't serve the feed, Meta receives an error rather than an empty feed, keeps the previous catalogue, and retries on its next scheduled fetch. You'll see the failed attempt in the Data Sources upload history; as long as a later fetch succeeds, no action is needed.

Troubleshooting

A competition is missing from the catalogue

Work through this checklist:

1. Does it have a prize image? Competitions without an image are excluded from the feed entirely.
2. Is it published and visible? Draft or hidden competitions don't appear. Check its status on the Competitions page.
3. Is it live? Competitions that have ended drop out; only live ones are listed.
4. Have you waited long enough? Meta fetches hourly, so a competition that just went live can take up to an hour to appear in Commerce Manager.
5. Is it in the feed itself? Open your feed URL in a browser. If the competition is there but not in Commerce Manager, trigger a manual re-fetch from Catalog → Data Sources.

Meta reports "0 products matched"

This means Meta can't match what your pixel reports against the items in your catalogue. The site keeps the pixel's product identifiers and the feed's identifiers aligned automatically, so the cause is almost always one of these setup gaps:

1. Is your pixel ID set and saved? Check Site Settings → Advanced → Meta Pixel ID. No pixel, no matches.
2. Is the pixel actually firing? In Meta Events Manager, use Test Events to browse a competition on your site and confirm view events arrive. Remember the pixel only fires for visitors who have accepted marketing cookies, so accept the consent banner while testing.
3. Did the feed import succeed? Check the upload history in Commerce Manager → Catalog → Data Sources — a failed or empty import means there's nothing to match against.
4. Is the catalogue paired with the right pixel? In Commerce Manager, check the catalogue's event settings and make sure it's connected to the same pixel ID you entered on your site.

My retargeting audiences are smaller than expected

The pixel only loads for visitors who accept marketing cookies in the consent banner, so your retargeting pool is your consenting visitors, not all traffic. This is expected behaviour and keeps your site compliant — you can't switch it off.

The feed shows an error in Commerce Manager

A single failed fetch is harmless: Meta keeps the last good catalogue and retries on the next scheduled fetch. If fetches keep failing, open the feed URL in your browser — if it doesn't load there either, your site is having a wider problem and the feed will recover when the site does. Only investigate further if the feed loads fine in a browser but Meta consistently reports errors.

Related pages

• Site Settings — the rest of the Advanced section and your other tracking integrations.
• Competitions — publishing competitions and managing their images and visibility.
• Marketing — your other marketing and campaign tools.