Set up your catalogue for dynamic ads for travel (flights)

30/11/2019

A catalogue is a shell that stores your inventory data. A data feed is the actual data file containing the details about your inventory that is used to populate the catalogue, including location, price and availability. You can have more than one data feed in a catalogue.

There are two options for creating product feeds with dynamic ads for travel (flights): upload a regular feed or use a feed-less solution, which will populate your catalogue automatically based on pixel fires and app event fires so you do not need to provide a feed.

In order to use the feed-less solution, you'll need to have a pixel set up. Then a person will need to search your website or mobile app. After searching, Facebook will automatically update your catalogue based on the things that person searched for. The flights in the catalogue include a combination of the origin airport, destination airport, departure date, return date (for round-trip flights), number of stops and travel class.

Create a catalogue using a feed-less solution:

Set up your catalogue to automatically populate using pixel activity

Benefits: Your catalogue can be populated automatically based on pixel fires and app event fires. Learn how to set up or modify a pixel.

Limitations: You will only be able to use one image for all ads if you do not provide a feed.

For this feature, your creative will need to be pulled from what comes from your pixel. In other words, you can't have destination-specific images if Facebook pulls from your pixel. Please note that if you're passing the price in your pixel, you can show the dynamic prices in your ads based on the price data in your pixel.

To use a feed-less solution:

Go to https://business.facebook.com/products/catalogs/.
Choose a catalogue name.
Select Flights (Flight tickets sold online).
Choose your Catalogue owner. If your catalogue belongs to a business, select it here. This will make it available for ads from that business' account and enable sharing permissions. Select your personal account if you will be the only person using this catalogue. After making your selection, click Next.
Select Use event activity to create a flight feed, then click Next.
Associate event source: On this page, you will choose pixels and apps that you want to associate with your catalogue. The ads you create with your catalogue will automatically show products based on customer behaviour within your apps or on your websites.
Note: You may have more than one event source available to connect. The system will show you how many you have available.

Click Associate Event Source.
A new screen will pop up prompting you to Associate pixels & apps with catalogue. Select the pixels and apps that you want to associate with your catalogue, then click Save.
After you click Save, you should see a message confirming that your pixel is now associated with your catalogue. Click OK.
Click Next in the bottom-right.
Now you'll add an image to be used in your ads. Click Upload.
Note: The same image will be used for all origin/destination pairs.
Bear in mind the recommended image specs:
- Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels.
- Image ratio: 1.91:1.
- To maximise ad delivery, use an image that contains little or no overlaid text. Learn more.
Click Create catalogue to complete.

Create a catalogue using a regular data feed:

Step 1: Create your catalogue

The following instructions will walk you through how to create a catalogue in Business Manager. Bear in mind that you can also create your catalogue from Ads Manager.

To upload a catalogue to Facebook Business Manager:

In your Business Manager, click Business settings in the top-right.

Under the People and assets tab on the right-hand side, select Product catalogues, then click Add New Product Catalogue.

Select Create a new product catalogue or Request access to a product catalogue if you're requesting access to an existing catalogue, and follow the on-screen instructions.
If you select Create a new product catalogue, start by assigning it a name and then select Type > Flights. Click Create product catalogue when you're ready.

Decide whether you want to give people access to your catalogue and/or pixel, or skip this and click OK.
Now that your catalogue has been created, you can upload your data feed.

Step 2: Create/upload your data feed

With dynamic ads for travel (flights), there are two options for data feeds: upload a regular feed or use a feed-less solution. After you create your data feed, we'll walk through the steps for both options.

Create your data feed

Add required fields to your data feed by creating a file with the column names below. They'll need to be written exactly as they appear here for your file to upload correctly. Column names must be written in English and include the required column names outlined below. Facebook supports the following file types: CSV, TSV, RSS XML or ATOM XML.

Required fields for flights

To use a catalogue, please make certain that your feed includes the required fields listed below. It's important to note that all column names (file headers) must be in US English. See the Supported flight feed formats and sample files section below this table for information on how to input these fields correctly based on the file format you're using.

	Name	Type	Description	Required
1	departure_airport	string	The IATA code for the origin (e.g. JFK).	Yes
1	origin_city	string	Name of the origin city (e.g. San Francisco).	No
2.	destination_airport	string	The IATA code for the destination (e.g. JFK).	Yes
2.	destination_city	string	Name of the destination city (e.g. New York City).	No
3.	image (max. items: 20)	object	Image data for this flight. You can provide up to 20 images for the flight. Each image contains two fields: url and tag of the image. You can associate multiple tags with an image. You must provide at least one image. Each image can be up to 4 MB in size.	Yes
	url	string	The url of the flight image. Note that if you want to use carousel ads, provide square 1:1 aspect ratio images which are 600 x 600 pixels. To show single flight ads, provide images with 1.91:1 aspect ratio image at 1,200 x 630 px.	Yes
	tag	string	A string that describes what's in the image. There can be multiple tags associated with an image, such as Land.	No
4.	description (max. size: 5,000)	string	A short paragraph describing the route.	No
5.	price	string	Price of the flight.	No
5.	url	string	Link to the external site where you can view the flight page. Deep link in ad creative takes precedence if both provided.	This is only required if you don't specify a Deep link on desktop when creating your ad or a template_url_spec in your API ad creative.

Supported flight feed formats and sample files

Below you'll find a chart that provides information on the types of flight feed formats available, as well as sample files.

File format Description Sample file

CSV, TSV

Comma/tab separated file. The first row specifies the column header. Subsequent rows then supply the corresponding values for each route. Fields containing whitespaces or commas should be enclosed in "double quotes". Nested or multi-value fields such as image can be represented using JSON-encoded values or by a set of "flattened" plain-text columns labelled using JSON-path syntax (e.g. image[0].url, image[0].tag[0], image[0].tag[1]). Both conventions can be used interchangeably in the same file.

File format	Description	Sample file
CSV, TSV	Comma/tab separated file. The first row specifies the column header. Subsequent rows then supply the corresponding values for each route. Fields containing whitespaces or commas should be enclosed in "double quotes". Nested or multi-value fields such as image can be represented using JSON-encoded values or by a set of "flattened" plain-text columns labelled using JSON-path syntax (e.g. image[0].url, image[0].tag[0], image[0].tag[1]). Both conventions can be used interchangeably in the same file.	TSV "flattened" style - sample file CSV "flattened" style - sample file
XML	A root XML node encloses a set of nodes, each of which represents a route. The file must begin with the `declaration tag.`	XML - sample file

TSV "flattened" style - sample file

CSV "flattened" style - sample file

XML

A root XML node encloses a set of nodes, each of which represents a route. The file must begin with the declaration tag.

XML - sample file

Common issues

Make sure that the image URLs in your catalogue link to high-quality images that are appropriate for Facebook News Feed. For example, if you plan to advertise using the Carousel format, we recommend image sizes of at least 600 x 600. Alternative image sizes will be accepted, but may be cropped. See the complete image guide.
The catalogue also supports deep-linking into apps. For more information, visit our developer site.

Upload your data feed to a catalogue in Business Manager

To upload your data feed:

Select the catalogue that you want to upload a data feed for and click Add flight feed.
Choose your feed name and set your currency, then choose your upload type:
- Scheduled recurring uploads: When you choose this option, you can upload your feed at scheduled intervals from a website where your feed is hosted.
- Single upload: When you choose this option, you can upload your feed manually for a one-off upload. If you choose this option, you'll need to upload your feed manually whenever you change the file.
Click Next.
Complete the final steps, including providing a feed URL, and click Create Feed.

Note: Data feeds can be separated by tab or comma.

For more details on data feeds, visit our developer site.

Use a feed-less solution

Once your catalogue is uploaded, click below to learn best practices, how to view your catalogue, how to debug your feed and more.

Recommendations

If you're using multiple data feeds in one catalogue, make sure that the same inventory items belongs to the same feed every time. If the item is assigned randomly to different feeds, this may impact delivery and result in lower-quality recommendations.
We recommend that you enter a feed URL and schedule either hourly, daily or weekly upload frequencies in order to automatically keep your catalogue up to date. This helps you avoid showing ads for out-of-stock inventory and automatically add new inventory as your catalogue changes.
If you would like to show dynamic prices in your ads, you can use our pixel price feature. This feature is in limited release, so please contact your Facebook account representative for more details on setting this up.
In some cases, you may have to make changes to the encoding and delimiter settings. For example, for catalogues that use quotes (") in their description column, you may need to tick the quoted fields checkbox. Work with your feed management provider to understand the settings that are necessary for your catalogue.

Viewing your catalogue

Depending on the size of your file, your catalogue may take several minutes to one hour to upload. When it successfully uploads, it will appear in your Business Manager on the Catalogues page.
On the Catalogues page, you can see when the feed was last updated, how many products were added, removed or updated, and how many errors occurred.
You may receive several warnings or errors the first time you upload your catalogue. Warnings are recommendations for things to fix to improve the quality of your ads. Errors indicate that a feed was not processed and that you need to fix your feed before proceeding.
If you already have a catalogue and need to make an update, find your existing catalogue in Business Manager in the Flight feeds section. Click the name of the data feed and select Upload Now.

Associate your pixel or app

If you have not used the feed-less solution, you may be asked to associate your Facebook pixel or app to your catalogue. This is necessary in cases where your business has more than one catalogue, Facebook pixel or app. Associating your pixel or app tells Facebook which pixel or app will match which catalogue. Learn how.

Add flight sets

A flight set is a set of inventory in a catalogue that you advertise in your dynamic ads for travel. Each catalogue can have multiple flight sets. Flight sets are defined by filters in a catalogue and are created when you set up your ad campaign.

Note: Only catalogue admins can create flight sets.

To create a flight set:

Go to www.facebook.com/products.
Choose the catalogue that will contain your new flight set.
Click Product sets.
Click Create new product set. A window appears where you can add filters for your catalogue.
Enter a name for your flight set.
Use the drop-down menus to apply filters to your flight set.
Note: For flight inventory, it's recommended that you select all of your inventory for the flight set, unless your intention is to only advertise a subset of flights.

Validate your feed with the Product Feed Debug Tool

The Product Feed Debug Tool allows you to paste in a product feed and validate the feed for errors and warnings without creating an upload session or adding products to your catalogue. This is helpful in the early stages of integration when you don't have a catalogue yet and don't have a fully flushed out feed yet. You can just paste in your test feed, detect the errors and warnings and ensure that the feed format is correct before actually setting it up for all your products.

Try the Product Feed Debug Tool.

Complete your dynamic ad for travel (flights):

Implement a pixel and/or mobile SDK

Create an ad template

* Nguồn: Facebook