As of April 2023, Meta has made changes to the availability of Shops on Facebook and Instagram for merchants operating in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). For a list of EMEA countries where Shops are available, please refer to the EMEA: Changes to Shops article on the Meta Business Help Center.

You can create a catalog and connect your eCom products to Facebook to improve sales by offering your products on your Facebook Business page.

Verifying product prerequisites

Before products can be published on Facebook, they need to meet the following requirements:

• Title: 150 character limit
• Description: 256 character limit
• Price: must be higher than $0
• Image: JPG, GIF or PNG format, at least 500 x 500 pixels
• Brand: must be visible in your eCom back office

Products that are marked as hidden in the back office will not be synced to your Facebook Catalog.

Finding your product data feed URL

Data feeds are URLs that will ensure communication between eCom and Facebook.

To get the product data feed:

1. Login to your eCom (C-Series) back office.

2. Navigate to Settings > Feeds.

   

3. Click Go to Custom Feeds.

   

4. Click View link beside Facebook Catalog - Variant IDs.

5. Copy ?include_variants=true&google=true&page=1 and paste it at the end of the URL in the address bar.
   • For example, the URL should look similar to https://www.example.com/en/feed/custom/18864/?include_variants=true&?google=true&page=1

   

6. Press Enter.
7. Copy the complete URL.

The variant feed is limited to 500 items per URL. To include all your products, you may need multiple URLs. Add the following to the end of the default URL, increasing the page number until all inventory items are included:

/?google=true&include_variants=true&page=1
/?google=true&include_variants=true&page=2
/?google=true&include_variants=true&page=3

Creating a Facebook catalog

If you do not have a Facebook Business page, you will need to create one to access your Business Manager.

Next, you will need to create a catalog in your Facebook Business Manager. Only business admins can create catalogs.

1. Log into your Facebook Business Manager.
2. Click the three horizontal lines at the top left corner.
3. Click Commerce Manager.

   

4. If it's your first catalog, select Get Started, then select Create a Catalog.
   • If it's not your first catalog, select Add Catalog in the Catalogs section.
5. Select the type of items to sell and click Next.
6. Click Upload Product Info.
7. Select the Business Manager account to which your catalog belongs.
8. Enter a name for your catalog.
9. Click Create.

   

10. Select your default currency.
11. Choose Set Automatic File Upload Schedule.
12. Enter the feed URL that you copied from your eCom store.
13. Set a preferred schedule.
14. Click Start Upload.
15. Click View Products to see the uploaded products.

We recommend creating a new catalog instead of using an existing catalog.

Uploading the product feed

After creating the new catalog, you will need to upload the product data feed using the URL you copied from eCom, in Facebook Manager.

1. Under Commerce Manager, select your catalog.
2. Open the catalog tab.
3. Select Data Sources.
   

   

4. Select Add Items at the top right corner.
5. Select Data Feed, then select Next.
6. Select Schedule Feed to set up an hourly schedule.
7. Enter the URL and click Next.
8. Enter a name for your scheduled feed.
9. Select a default currency. This needs to be the same as the default currency in your eCom back office.
10. Select Upload.

Correcting errors

After the upload, you can find a list of any errors in your Facebook Business Manager.

1. Go to Commerce Manager.
2. In the Catalogs section, select your catalog.
3. From the Catalog tab on the left, select Issues.

Yellow warnings are suggestive and can be ignored. Red are errors that prevent products from publishing and are addressed below:

After you have resolved the errors, click Upload Now, then click Request Update Now.

Creating a custom feed

Our support teams are not able to troubleshoot issues related to creating or using a custom feed.

You can create custom feeds to automatically:

• Replace short descriptions with the product title.
• Replace brands with the shop name.
• Indicate if a product doesn't have an SKU or EAN.

In your back office:

1. Go to Settings.
2. From the Website Settings column, select Feeds.
3. Select Go to Custom Feeds at the bottom right.
4. Select Add feed.
5. Enter a name that you can easily recognize, such as Facebook Custom Feed.
6. Create a copy of the desired feed, in this case, it will be either Facebook Catalog-Main Product IDs or Facebook Catalog-Variant IDs.
7. Select Save.

You will be taken to a page with the original feed's code. Now you can modify this by adding any missing information.

To replace short descriptions with the product title:

1. Locate the code line below:
   

   <description>{{ product.description | cdata }}</description>

2. Highlight it and delete it.
3. Copy the following code piece:
   

   {% if product.description %}
   
   <description>{{ product.description | cdata }}</description>
   
   {% else %}
   
   <description>{{ product.fulltitle | cdata }}</description>
   
   {% endif %}

4. Paste it where the previous one was.
5. Select Save.

To replace brands with the shop name:

1. Locate the code lines below:
   

   {% if product.brand %}
   
   <g:brand>{{ product.brand.title | cdata }}</g:brand>
   
   {% endif %}

2. Highlight them and delete them.
3. Copy the following code piece:
   

   {% if product.brand %}
   
   <g:brand>{{ product.brand.title | cdata }}</g:brand>
   
   {% else %} 
   
   <g:brand>{{ shop.title | cdata }}</g:brand>
   
   {% endif %}

4. Paste it where the previous one was.
5. Select Save.

To indicate if a product doesn't have an SKU or EAN:

1. Locate the code lines below:
   

   <g:gtin>{{ product.ean | cdata }}</g:gtin>
   
   <g:mpn>{{ product.code | cdata }}</g:mpn>

2. Highlight them and delete them.
3. Copy the following code piece:
   

   {% if product.ean or product.mpn %}
    	{% if product.ean %}
   		<g:gtin>{{ product.ean | cdata }}</g:gtin>
   	{% endif %}
   	{% if product.code %}
   		<g:mpn>{{ product.code }} </g:mpn>
   	{% endif %}
   {% else %}
   		<g:identifier_exists>no</g:identifier_exists>
   {% endif %}

4. Paste it where the previous one was.
5. Select Save.

After you have modified the feed, you can use the new URL to load it into Facebook:

1. Select View feed.
2. Copy the URL of the page that will open.
3. Follow the instructions to Create a Facebook catalog.

If you already have a catalog and simply decide to use a different URL, such as a Custom Feed, you don't have to go through all the steps again.

1. Go to Commerce Manager.
2. In the Catalogs section, select Data Sources.
3. Select your catalog under the Name column.
4. Select Settings at the top of the page.
5. In the Schedules section, select the button with three dots.
6. Select Edit.
7. Enter your new feed URL.
8. Select Save.
9. Select Request Update Now.

FAQ

• Check if your products have been approved. Facebook may reject products due to a few different reasons, such as:

  • There might be missing product information.
  • They don't comply with Facebook guidelines (for example, the sale of alcohol).

  Make sure products are visible in eCom: products that are not visible in your webshop will not be visible on your Facebook or Instagram either. After adjusting products visibility in Lightspeed, sometimes it may take a little while before they show up on Facebook.

• See the step-by-step on Facebook's help centre for Tagging products on Facebook.

What's next?