10+ Tips to Optimize Your Facebook Product Feed for Higher Sales

A structured and accurate product feed is the backbone of successful e-commerce marketing on Facebook. Whether you want to run Advantage+ catalog ads or market your products with the help of a Facebook Shop, it is the quality of your data feed that decides how your products perform or if they are even eligible to perform. An error-free, optimized feed ensures your items get approved quickly, and drive better results.

So, then, how can you optimize your Facebook product feed to ensure that it meets Facebook’s data feed requirements and also helps you maximize the visibility of your products?

If you don’t have the answer, don’t worry; that’s why we have created this blog. 

In this blog, we will cover some practical, easy-to-follow strategies for optimizing and improving the quality and performance of your Facebook data feed. 

Are you ready? Let’s quickly start! 

10+ Strategies to Optimize Facebook Product Feed

We will now deep dive into those strategies that you can use to optimize your Facebook feed. 

1. Use Correct Product Identifiers

When optimizing your Facebook product feed, you should add accurate product identifiers for all eligible products. These identifiers can include Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) or Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPNs). 

While both identifiers are optional fields and a merchant can skip adding them, adding them to your Facebook feed is recommended, as that will help Meta better classify your items.  

1. A GTIN is a unique number that you can find on barcodes or product packaging. Depending on your region or product type, it can include UPC, EAN, JAN, ISBN, or ITF-14. For example, a valid GTIN might look like 4011288296807.
2. If a GTIN isn’t available, then ensure that you are adding an MPN for the item in your feed. It’s a unique alphanumeric code that is assigned by the manufacturer in some industries to identify a product.  Example: JTP12895PER.

Note:  – Only provide a GTIN or MPN when you are sure it is correct. Incorrect identifiers can lead to product disapproval.  – Not all items will have a GTIN or MPN.

2. Utilize Optional Product Feed Attributes 

Optional attributes allow merchants to share additional information about their products, which can further be shared with potential customers. These additional product details also help Meta to better understand, categorize, and match your products to the right audience. 

For example, Meta recommends merchants add a Google Product category (GPC) for each item in their feeds. This is because GPC can significantly improve your ad’s performance. And GPC can also be used to create product sets by filtering categories, adding category-specific fields for products, etc.  

Another notable benefit of using optional attributes in your Facebook feed is that these fields help make your listings engaging and detailed. This further has a positive impact on click-through rates and conversions. 

For instance, by including some optional attributes like color, gender, and size in your Facebook feed, you can make your listings more informative. When customers see this information and know what they should expect from your product, they will be more likely to click, explore, and buy.

Pro tip: This official Data Feed Fields and Specifications page from Meta provides the entire list of optional attributes that you can add to your Facebook feed.

3. Optimize Your Product Titles

Product titles are often the first thing shoppers notice when they see your products in Facebook Shops or ads for your store. Thus, when you are optimizing your Facebook product feed, ensure that all titles are clear, accurate, and professional. 

In fact, Meta has shared some product title guidelines and specifications for feeds that you can follow. Some of the important points from their guidelines include:

1. The maximum character limit for titles is 200. Although Meta recommends you keep titles under 65 characters to avoid them getting cut off in display.
2. Avoid keyword stuffing and adding unnecessary words to your title. 
3. Ensure there aren’t any grammar, spelling, or spacing issues in your titles. 
4. Add titles in title case (capitalize the first letter of each word). 
5. Avoid ALL CAPS as it can look spammy. 
6. Also, avoid adding promotional text like “Sale” or “Free shipping.” 
7. Use numerals, e.g., “2-Pack” instead of “Two Pack.”  

4. Use High-Quality Images

Product images play a crucial role in deciding how shoppers interact with your listings or ads on Facebook. When you refine your feed and its attributes, also ensure that all the image_link attributes are in the proper format and clearly point toward the product’s main image.

As per Meta, a well-structured image_link attribute should look like this:

http://www.examplestore.com/products/jeans.jpg 

Such URL structures will help you avoid any product image issues.  

Now, regarding the actual image files those URLs point to, Meta recommends that the main product images should be in JPEG or PNG format, at least 500 x 500 pixels. Additionally, their sizes should not exceed 8 MB. 

Note: The image format (JPEG or PNG) and size (up to 8 MB) requirements shared above also apply to all other product images that you would want to use in your feed. However, the dimensions of the images may vary depending on whether they are to be used for Facebook ads or Shops.

Additionally, you should:  

• Include at least one image for each item in your feed. 
• Ensure that your images accurately represent the product. 
• Avoid using images that contain offensive content or don’t comply with Meta’s Advertising Standards for ads or Commerce Policies for commerce.

That’s not all. Meta has many other specifications that you should follow. We recommend you check Meta’s product image specifications page to read those in detail. 

5. Fill in All Required Fields Accurately

Your Facebook product feed should have certain required attributes. If these fields are missing or aren’t filled in properly, then your products may fail to upload to your catalog and appear in ads or Shops. 

When optimizing your feed, ensure that these required fields are added for each item in the correct format: 

1. ID: This is the content ID, which is unique for every product. Meta recommends that for this field, you should use the product’s SKU number if possible. 
2. Title: Titles should be specific and relevant to each product. 
3. Description: Used to highlight the product features of the item. For this field, ensure that you are using plain text only, and not adding the entire text in capital letters. 
4. Availability: Used to highlight the current availability of the item. Currently, Meta supports these values for this field: in stock and out of stock. 
5. Condition: This field specifies the item’s condition. Supported values are new, refurbished, and used. 
6. Price: This field specifies the selling price of the item. Meta has specifications for this field, such as the price should always be a number, followed by a space and a three-letter ISO 4217 country code. 
7. Link: The link field is used for submitting the URL of the product page on your website. Must start with http:// or https:// and be hosted on your business’s domain.
8. Image Link: The main image URL for the product.
9. Brand: The product’s brand name. Max 100 characters allowed. 

6. Leverage Internal Labels

Internal labels help you easily filter items when creating product sets in your catalog. For example, you can use a label such as ‘winter’ for all those products that are part of a winter promotion. Later, you can use the same label to create a focused product set for specific ads or promotions.  

These labels are only visible to merchants and can’t be seen by your customers in ads or Shops. 

Here are a few tips for using internal labels:

• Put each label in single quotes (‘ ‘)
• Separate labels with commas
• Don’t use spaces at the start or end of a label
• You can add up to 5,000 labels per product, with each label up to 110 characters

Pro tip: If you have been using custom labels till now to filter product sets, Meta now recommends switching to internal labels. That’s because you can add or update these labels frequently, as many times as required, and that too, without the need to submit your products for policy review every time.

7. Avoid Duplicate Listings

While optimizing your feed, ensure that the same product hasn’t been added twice. If there are duplicate items in your feed, then the feed uploading process on Meta Commerce Manager might fail. 

To avoid this Facebook feed error: 

1. Keep checking items and their content IDs in your data feed. If you find any product with duplicate content IDs, then either its content ID is repeating, or the item is duplicated. Based on your findings, either correct the content ID to make it unique or remove the repeated item from the feed to avoid conflicts.
2. Also, if you want to edit some existing product information in your feed, then you should update that original feed file rather than uploading a new feed. 

8. Include Product Variants Correctly

If your products come in different variations, such as in different sizes, colors, or patterns, Meta recommends grouping them as variants. You should do this with the item_group_id attribute in your data feed. That will help Meta recognize that these products are related to each and that way your listings are going to be more organized. 

To add variants in your Facebook data feed, Meta recommends: 

1. You should add the same item_group_id value to all variants of the same product.
2. Assign each variant a unique content ID.
3. Also, include clear variant attributes like color, size, material, or pattern. 
4. Be consistent. If one variant has a size value, all others in the group should have it too.
5. Use a different product link for each variant that leads to a specific version on your website.
6. Keep all variants in the same data feed. 

Note: Refer to this Meta page to learn about how to manage product variants in your data feed.

9. Highlight Sale Prices

If you have any ongoing or upcoming planned sales of your products, you should include that information for each item while optimizing your feed. The optional sale_price and sale_price_effective_date fields can help you achieve this. 

These fields help merchants showcase discounts clearly to potential customers and also make listings more competitive. Moreover, adding these attributes will also help you ensure that your listings always appear with their correct pricing, especially during limited-time promotions. 

Meta recommends that: 

• You use the sale_price attribute to display the discounted price of an item. Moreover, you will have to use the same formatting that has been specified for the price field. 
• If your sale is time-bound, then you must use the sale_price_effective_date to specify the start and end dates along with the time and time zone. 

10. Follow Facebook’s Feed Specifications 

When optimizing your feed, always ensure that your feed is in compliance with the data feed specifications shared by Meta. 

These specifications include some important points such as: 

• Data feed files can only be in CSV, TSV, XLSX, or XML formats. 
• For one-off file uploads, the maximum file size is 100 MB. In case of scheduled feeds, the maximum size of feed files should be 4 GB.
• Additionally, you can only add up to 1 million items per feed. If you have more items, then Meta recommends that you split those into multiple feed files and upload them separately.  
• The limit for each row in your data feed is 5 MB. 

Coming to the specifications related to the contents of your feed: 

• Your feed should have all the required attributes that we have already discussed above in the blog. 
• Additionally, if you are interested in running hotel, flight, destination, vehicle, or property ads, then Meta expects your data feed to have certain specific fields. 

For example, to run hotel ads, your feed must have the hotel_id field. 

So, ensure that you customize each feed according to its guidelines. 

• Beyond that, if you want your customers to complete their purchases directly on Facebook, then you must add certain additional required fields (quantity_to_sell_on_facebook and size) for items in your feed. 

The list of data feed specifications doesn’t end here. There are additional requirements based on your industry, region, and scheduled feeds. You can read about those in our detailed blog on Facebook product feed specifications. 

11. Regularly Update Your Facebook Product Feed 

Your job isn’t done after you prepare your Facebook feed once and use it to upload items to your catalogue in Meta Commerce Manager.

You must regularly update your feed with fresh product data, such as pricing, availability, or any other updates. Regular updates to your data feed file will ensure that your Meta Commerce Manager catalogue contains updated product information, which can further be displayed to your customers via ads, shops, etc.

Note: If you use scheduled fetch, then without any manual intervention, your feed will update automatically at pre-defined intervals.

As a pro tip, we recommend that you use a product feed management software to keep your data feeds updated. These tools are designed to assist merchants in preparing their Facebook feeds that are compliant with Meta’s requirements. And using these tools, you can easily: 

1. Optimize your feeds (with or without AI, depending on the tool’s features) 
2. Sync your entire feed to Meta Commerce Manager accurately 
3. Bulk edit products in your feed 
4. Spot and avoid common Facebook feed errors
5. Ensure that as soon as any changes are made to your online store’s product data, those changes start to reflect on Meta.

Conclusion

Optimizing Facebook product feeds isn’t difficult. However, it does require you to follow some essential steps, such as adding accurate and complete product data to your feed, following Meta’s feed guidelines, and regularly updating your feed.

If you follow these steps carefully, then your Facebook feeds are always going to be error-free, you can easily avoid product disapprovals, and reach the right audience more effectively.

Good luck!

FAQs

1. How can I make sure my Facebook product catalog always reflects the latest updates from my data feed?

Set up a scheduled data feed in Commerce Manager to keep your Facebook product catalog updated with the latest inventory. This allows Meta to pull updates from your product file hosted online automatically.

You can schedule uploads hourly, daily, or weekly. This keeps your catalog and data feed in sync without manual effort.

If your store runs on a partner platform like Shopify or WooCommerce, you can also connect it directly to Meta with the help of sales channel apps and native integrations. These tools help ensure that as soon as you edit product data in your store, updates sync to Meta right away.

2. What are the best practices for optimizing product titles and descriptions in a Facebook product feed?

Titles need to be specific and relevant to the item you are selling. They should be written in title case and ideally be under 65 characters. 

Descriptions should clearly highlight the unique product features, like the material and color of the item. They shouldn’t sound repetitive with titles, be written in plain text, and be within the 30-9,999 character limit.  

3. How can I improve image quality in my Facebook product feed?

Use clear, high-resolution images that show the entire product with a white background. Also, Meta recommends that you avoid adding overlays like promo codes or any type of watermark. 

Additionally, showcase the product from multiple angles, include some close-up shots, and use the JPEG format (and not PNG) for better clarity.

4. Why is including product categories important in a Facebook product feed?

Product categories help Facebook classify products for better ad targeting. Use Facebook’s predefined categories for consistency.

5. How should I manage out-of-stock products in my Facebook product feed?

You can use the availability field to inform Meta about the current availability of an item. If the item is unavailable or not in stock, you can submit the value as ‘out of stock’ in your feed and further upload it to your catalog.   

Check Out These Related Articles:

• How to Connect Shopify to Facebook
• Shopify Facebook Product Feed Apps
• Facebook XML Product Feed Example