Commerce Platform

Best Practices

We recommend that you use this checklist to maximize the quality of your commerce catalog:

Product Feed ID

The product feed is used as the primary source for updating product catalogs on Facebook, and fetched by Facebook periodically according to the configured interval. You should store the product feed ID, and use it to get upload status, errors, and to change upload schedule.

Catalog Batch API Support

Batch API is a great way to update items more than once an hour. You can update up to 5,000 items with up to 100 calls per hour. To create inventory, use the Feed API, Reference, Advantage+ Catalog Ads or Feed API, Reference, Commerce Platform.

Scheduled Feeds

Scheduled feeds don't support uploads more frequently than once per hour. If you need to update inventory faster, use the Direct Upload API or Batch API.

Schedule replace feed outside of working hours to avoid product update lag.

Seller Onboarding

Set up your catalog during seller onboarding and upload or configure your products using the Product Feed API. Reuse ads catalog to get benefits of using offsite and onsite signals.

Visibility

  • The id, title, description, price, quantity_to_sell_on_facebook, link, image_link fields should be visible.

  • The gtin or mpn plus brand fields should be visible.

  • The rich_text_description (preferably) or description fields should be visible, well formatted (no extra spacing, punctuation is correct), and informative (may contain information on item size, volume, origin, and so on).

  • Ensure that the variant field's (such as size or color) value is visible for every product variant sharing a common item_group_id, even those that are out of stock.

Format

  • Ensure that the description does not contain HTML tags or character entities.

  • Ensure that the price is in the correct format and currency.

  • Ensure that the sale_price is provided for items on sale.

  • Ensure that the google_product_category is (at minimum) 2 levels deep. Alternatively, use fb_product_category. Note that fb_product_category must be at least 3 levels deep (if a third level exists) to override our automatic tax calculation Learn about How to add a Google or Facebook product category for items in your catalog (Help Center article).

  • Ensure that product variants are sharing the same item_group_id.

  • Ensure that the availability and quantity_to_sell_on_facebook fields are populated according to an agreed upon strategy.

  • Use additional_image_link to add more product images (up to 10).

  • Make sure that product images satisfy catalog requirements.

  • Make sure that product titles satisfy catalog requirements.

  • Make sure that product descriptions satisfy catalog requirements.

Responsiveness

  • Ensure that the link URL responds with HTTP 200 OK.

  • Check the product catalog diagnostics tool for the following information each time you upload a new product feed:

    • Fix all upload errors, a product marked with an error will be rejected from your catalog.
    • Verify all warnings, some of warnings may affect product ingestion and prevent your product from being tagged or available for purchase.
    • Ensure that each product complies with the Facebook Commerce Policies. Product that violate the policy will be marked as rejected and will not be available for tagging or purchase.

Select Products for Ads or Commerce

For products that are used for Advantage+ catalog ads, create product sets which include only relevant products.

For Facebook Marketplace or Instagram Shopping with Checkout add quantity_to_sell_on_facebook only for checkout products. Products that do not have a quantity_to_sell_on_facebook set will not appear on checkout surfaces.

Localized Catalog Setup

When using localized catalog make sure that the main catalog feed has US as default country and the main currency is USD, otherwise the checkout would not work.