The Meta catalog screen connects your products to Facebook and Instagram ads - and groups those ads by category, with no per-product busywork.
How it works
ZweiHost serves a single product feed - a link containing every product you mark “Advertise on Meta” in the product editor. You don't upload anything by hand: you add the link to Meta once, and Meta re-reads it on a schedule, keeping the catalog up to date. Turn a new product on, or let stock run out, and the catalog updates on the next refresh.
Auto-connect (recommended)
The fastest path is the “Auto-connect to Meta” panel: paste your Meta Business ID and an access token (a System User token with the catalog_management and business_management permissions, generated under Business Settings → System Users), then click “Connect catalog”. ZweiHost creates the catalog, a daily feed and one product set per category for you. Change your categories or products later, and click “Re-sync”.
Meta does not allow a group (product set) with no products, and your products only reach Meta once it fetches the feed. So on first connect we ask Meta to fetch the feed straight away and show “Waiting for Meta”: the groups are created automatically as soon as the products appear, usually within the hour. We check every hour for 48 hours. If Meta still has no products after that, open Catalogue → Data sources → ZweiHost feed in Commerce Manager, check it for errors, click “Request Update Now”, then “Re-sync”.
Your Meta Business must be verified to create catalogs via the API. If Meta rejects the request, its message is shown in the panel - verify your business (or check the token's permissions) and try again.
Prefer to do it by hand? The steps below achieve the same thing in Commerce Manager.
Steps to connect (manual)
- In Meta Commerce Manager, create a catalog (type: e-commerce) if you don't have one yet.
- Add a data source → “Scheduled feed”, paste the feed URL from this screen, and set it to refresh daily.
- For each category, create one product set, filtered by the product_type value shown in the table.
- Point a separate ad at each product set - so your “T-Shirts” ad shows only t-shirts and your “Jeans” ad shows only jeans.
Grouping by category
Every product carries a product_type value equal to its primary category path (e.g. Apparel > T-Shirts). That's the value you filter a product set on in Meta. So make sure every advertised product has a primary category - products with no category still ship in the catalog, but they won't fall into any ad group. If the primary category is hidden, product_type is the path of the nearest visible category above it, and the table counts the product there - a hidden category is never shown to shoppers, while its products stay in the catalog.
Tip: Meta can also auto-create product sets from product_type. Use whichever is faster for you - manual or automatic.
Bundles in the catalog
When your plan also includes bundles, they can join the catalog too. Open the bundle and, in the Basics tab, switch on “Advertise on Meta” in the “Meta catalog” card. Each bundle you switch on becomes its own catalog item: at the bundle price, with the separate total struck through (e.g. ~~84 €~~ 69 €). A percentage-off bundle shows its lowest possible price - the same “from” price as on its page.
Bundles carry the product_type Bundles (Комплекти in the Bulgarian feed), so you create their product set by hand, filtered on that value - auto-connect only creates sets for categories for now. A bundle stays out of the catalog while it is paused, is not cheaper than buying separately, has no image, or contains a product from an option catalogue or a personalisable product. A bundle shows as out of stock while any of its pieces is.
Google product taxonomy (google_product_category)
Beyond product_type (your own category tree), every product can also carry a google_product_category - Google's standardised classification (a numeric ID) that tells the ad systems what the product is (e.g. "Pants"), not just which of your categories it sits in. Meta uses it for better targeting. The same value also goes into your separate Google feed - see Google Merchant Center.
The value isn't set on this screen - it lives in your catalogue:
- On a category - in the category's SEO tab, pick a taxonomy from the search picker. Subcategories inherit it from the nearest parent with a value, so setting it on your parent categories is usually enough.
- On a product (optional) - the product's Organisation tab can set an override for that product alone, which wins over the category. Next to the field you see which value the product currently inherits.
A product with no value anywhere in the chain simply ships in the feed without the tag - both Meta and Google accept that. The setup is described in Categories.
Good to know
- Add your Meta Pixel and Conversions API in Settings → Analytics & tracking so the ads can retarget your visitors.
- The ad title and description can differ from your storefront copy - set them in the product's Meta advertising fields.
Next step
Setup is behind you. From here the work is day to day, and it starts with processing what comes in. See Orders.