.jpg)
If you’ve never used a catalog ad to promote your business on social media, you’re probably wondering where to begin. This blog post will walk you through the essentials of catalog ads, from setup to optimization. Plus, we’ll share a secret method for creating effective catalog ads that will help your products stand out in the feed and grab customer attention.
Catalog ads are shoppable ad formats designed to showcase the products, services, or experiences you sell online. You’ve definitely seen them before—those clean, scroll-stopping product images in your Facebook feed, often against a plain white background.
And they’re not just on Facebook. Catalog ads are used across multiple platforms, including Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and TikTok.
As any online advertiser knows, there are countless ads and product recommendations vying for your customers attention. So what makes an online catalog ad so effective?
Catalog ads are used by many online social media platforms, most notably, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest. For all of these platforms, you will have the option to upload your product feed via CSV, XML, or have it directly imported from the product feed from your ecommerce website (think Shopify, WooCommerce, or similar ecommerce sites).
However, each social media platform varies slightly on how to import this data, so be sure to take a look at the requirements for each, or you risk having your items and product data formatted incorrectly, which will cause issues when it comes time to create your ads.
Additionally, each of these platforms have slightly different formats of catalog ads, so let's take a look at some of the differences between each one.
When you use the Meta Ads Manager for managing your catalog ads, you have a couple of different options of ad formats to choose from, including carousels, collections, collaborative ads, and finally there are Meta Advantage+ catalog ads (which you may know as dynamic ads). If you haven’t used any of these before, here's a quick breakdown of each type:
Note that some of these formats are only available for mobile, such as collection ads. It’s also worth mentioning that in order to manage your Instagram catalog ads with the Meta Ads Manager, you will need to have a professional Instagram account that is also linked to your Facebook Business Manager and Meta Ads Manager accounts.
💡 Pro Tip: You don’t need a separate website to create catalog ads in Meta’s ecosystem—you can create, advertise, and sell directly within Facebook and Instagram.
Snapchat’s catalog ads offer a highly visual, interactive shopping experience tailored to a younger, mobile-first audience. With a variety of formats, brands can capture user attention and drive direct product engagement.
On Pinterest, businesses can promote their catalog products using two primary ad formats: Shopping Ads and Personalized Collection Ads.
Pinterest also offers dynamic retargeting, allowing advertisers to reconnect with users who have previously visited their website or left items in their shopping cart.
Before uploading a catalog, businesses must first claim their website on Pinterest. This involves verifying ownership by adding a DNS TXT record or uploading an HTML file to the site. While this process may sound technical, Pinterest provides clear, step-by-step instructions to guide users through it—making it accessible even for beginners.
TikTok’s Shopping Ads make it easy for brands to integrate their product catalogs into engaging, short-form video content. With TikTok’s unique blend of discovery-driven commerce and viral trends, catalog ads help brands connect with consumers in a more organic and engaging way.
No matter which platform you choose, setting up successful catalog ads requires careful planning and organization. Here’s what you’ll need:
This serves as the foundation of your ad catalog. Most businesses pull this data directly from their website, but a well-structured spreadsheet can also work. Be sure to include all product variants—if a shirt comes in three colors and three sizes, each variation should be listed separately.
Clear, visually appealing images are essential. Ideally, you should have multiple images per product, with a recommended size of at least 500x500 pixels for best display.
Your catalog should include pricing, SKUs, inventory levels, and any other relevant product information to ensure accuracy across platforms.
Define your budget, target audience, and key performance metrics before launching your campaign. Are you focusing on sales, engagement, or retargeting? Identifying success indicators early on will help optimize your strategy.
Consider how your catalog will integrate with your existing tech stack. Ensuring real-time updates and consistent product data across platforms is crucial to avoid discrepancies that could impact your ad performance.
By taking the time to answer these questions, you will set yourself up for success when it comes time to start setting up your catalog ads.
As mentioned above, the ways of setting up and adding items to your catalog vary between each platform (because of course, that would be too easy if they were all the same). Luckily we’ve gone ahead and looked into all the deets for each and saved you the hassle. So here’s what you need to know, broken down by platform:
File Limits:
Here is a closer look at a graphic from Facebook comparing each upload method and the requirements.
Other requirements for using data feeds:
Methods for adding items to your catalog:
They also accept compressed files (.zip, .giz, .gz, .bz2 and others) but do not support encrypted, password-protected compressed files. Google Drive and Dropbox feeds are also not supported.
Let’s be honest—just reading about all the different catalog upload requirements can be tedious. And actually manually formatting and uploading files for each platform? Even worse. But the good news is, there’s a faster, simpler, and way more efficient way to do it—one that works seamlessly across all platforms.
One thing many businesses don’t think about when starting with catalog ads is how they’ll manage their catalog over time. At first, when you have just a few products, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. But as your inventory grows, so does the complexity—and without a solid management system in place, things can spiral out of control fast.
A poorly managed catalog doesn’t just create internal headaches for your team—it also hurts your customers’ experience. These are the most common mistakes some of our customers have experienced when it comes to managing their catalog ads:
❌ Disorganized tagging makes it harder to track and promote products efficiently.
❌ Outdated inventory leads to ads promoting products that are out of stock.
❌ Inconsistent product details create confusion and reduce customer trust.
❌ Incorrect pricing or descriptions result in higher return rates and negative reviews.
Managing catalog ads isn’t just about keeping things tidy—it’s about ensuring your ads perform well and drive conversions without frustrating your customers. But with multiple stakeholders involved, real-time inventory updates, and cross-platform consistency to maintain, catalog management can quickly become overwhelming.
So, what’s the best way to manage catalog ads without the hassle? We’ve got the perfect solution…
Enter Marpipe, the game-changer for managing catalog ads effortlessly. With Marpipe, you don’t have to deal with the manual grunt work of catalog management—most of it is automated. Simply upload your catalog once, and Marpipe takes care of the rest. At the end of the process, all you need to do is add the generated .CSV file to your social media ad accounts, and your products are automatically added to each platform.
Yes, it’s that easy. It’s basically magic.
But here’s where it gets even better. Marpipe doesn’t just manage your catalog—it enhances it.
Enriched catalogs are the best way to make your ads stand out amongst the sea of other catalog ads that your customers are bombarded with every day. And this is done by spicing up your ad creative with things like, in-image copy, customer testimonials, reviews, badges, sale prices and different backgrounds.
Marpipe will help you take your boring white background catalog ad, and make it eye-catching, memorable, and most importantly, effective.
And with shoppers becoming increasingly savvy about online ads, and stricter privacy rules for advertisers, it's clear that having enriched catalog ads will play an essential role in making sure that your ads are seen and clicked on.
Enriched Catalog ads are a great way to reach new customers, boost your ROI, and increase your ROAS. If you're thinking about launching a catalog ad campaign, keep in mind the tips we've shared in this blog post and you will be well on the way to a successful catalog ad campaign.
Still not convinced?
Brands using enriched catalog ads with Marpipe have seen their ROAS triple in just one month. If you want to know more about how catalog ads work, or how to create an effective campaign that resonates with your target audience — we've got you covered.
