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Catalog ads for Meta through the Marketing API

· updated November 11, 2026 · 2 min read

Catalog ads show products from your catalog. Meta chooses the products for each person and fills names, prices and images from the feed. In Runads a catalog campaign is a draft like any other, with three differences: no files, text templates, and a catalog in place of a pixel.

Before you start

  • A catalog in Commerce Manager with a product feed, and a product set.
  • The catalog connected to your pixel or app events, so that Meta can report sales.
  • A token with access to the catalog and the catalog_management permission: see create a Meta app.

1. Write the template

A catalog ad has no files. Its text is a template, typed in the ordinary text rows:

  • Primary text, for example {{product.name}} — free delivery;
  • Headline, for example {{product.price}} (optional);
  • Description (optional).

Meta fills the {{product.…}} fields for every product.

2. Build the draft

Under the brief choose the objective Catalog sales and fill the countries and the daily budget. Click Build without a model; it needs at least one text. Or describe the campaign to the model. The draft gets one catalog ad per text.

3. Choose the catalog

In the campaign choose the Product catalog, then the Product set. The builder requires both. If Meta does not list your catalogs, or the list is empty, type the IDs from Commerce Manager.

Then choose the Conversion event, for example PURCHASE.

The landing link is still required: the Marketing API asks for a link in the creative.

What differs from other campaigns

  • The campaign is a sales campaign that promotes the catalog; each ad set promotes the product set.
  • No pixel is chosen in the builder. The pixel or app events of the catalog report the conversions.
  • A catalog campaign has no Advantage+ creative enhancements and no question about multi-advertiser ads.
  • Changing the objective of a campaign to or from Catalog sales rebuilds its ads.

We set up catalog campaigns as OUTCOME_SALES with the catalog as the promoted object. We have not yet checked this on a real catalog, so run Check in Meta first and look at the result in Ads Manager after publishing.

Audiences

The draft targets countries, ages and gender like other campaigns. Retargeting by product views or cart events is not in the builder: set it in Ads Manager after publishing.

Next: publish paused.