Meta Business Manager: affiliate channel guide

About this guide

This is a ChannelEngine guide on the Menlo Park-based affiliate channel Meta Business Manager (née Facebook Business). Here you can find information on how to request a Meta Business Manager account, how to configure this affiliate channel on ChannelEngine, what the specific requirements are, and more.

Table of contents

Commercial information

How to request an account

Associated costs

Channel features

Settings and configuration

Channel-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Product selection
• Categorization
• Mappings
• Pricing

Commercial information

How to request an account

To start advertising on Meta's properties, go to the Meta Business Manager page and log in with your Facebook account.

Associated costs

Meta Business Manager does not charge setup or monthly fees. However, you pay for every click on ads linked to the products listed – and this cost varies. For more information on the cost per click (CPC), check out the Setting your ad budget and schedule page.

Channel features

Meta Business Manager is an affiliate channel, it does not support marketplace actions such as processing orders or shipments.

This channel generates a feed you can upload to your Meta Business Manager, but all order handling is done on your webstore.

Settings and configuration

Setting up each marketplace on ChannelEngine follows the same flow, though not every marketplace includes the steps listed below.

1. Go through the Setup.
2. Create a Product selection.
3. Complete the Categorization.
4. Set up the Mappings: content, offers, and carriers.
5. Configure the Pricing: rules and currency conversion.
6. Finish the Activation.
7. Check the Listed products overview.

Channel-specific requirements and exceptions

Setup

On ChannelEngine

Settings

• Do not expose actual stock - if enabled, the stock of available products is shown as 1 (one) and the stock of unavailable products is shown as 0 (zero).

Conversion tracking

• Cost per click (CPC), excl. VAT/sales tax - to use ChannelEngine's conversion tracking, enter your Cost per click here. This allows ChannelEngine to automatically calculate costs and return on investment (ROI).

Product selection

To generate a product feed, create a selection of all products to be listed on Meta Business Manager. Note that once you save the selection, it can take up to one hour before the feed is first generated. After the initial generation, the feed updates hourly.

You can find the product feed location on the Product selection page. This URL does not change unless you remove the affiliate channel and re-add it later – and is what you need to add to your Meta Business Manager Center account.

To generate a feed via Meta Business Manager, which you can then upload to ChannelEngine, check out the article How to create a data feed for your catalog using a template in the Meta Business Help Center.

Categorization

Before you can map your products' attributes, you need to categorize your products.

Mappings

All products (required)

• Age group - the product's target age group. E.g.: kids.
• Availability - the product's current availability. E.g.: out of stock.
• Brand - the product's brand or manufacturer. The maximum number of characters is 100. E.g.: Fairphone.
• Category - the product's category.
• Color - the product's color. The maximum number of characters is 200. E.g.: black.
• Condition - the product's condition. E.g.: refurbished.
• Currency - the currency in which the product is priced.
• Description - the product's description. HTML tags are not supported, and the maximum number of characters is 9,999. For additional requirements, check out the article Product description specifications for catalogs in the Meta Business Help Center.
• Gender - the product's target gender. E.g.: unisex.
• Google category - the product's most specific category on Google, either as its name or ID. For more information, check out the article Data feed fields and specifications for catalogs in Commerce Manager in the Meta Business Help Center.
• Group ID - the SKU of the product used to group its variations. E.g.: Parent SKU.
• GTIN - the product's unique ID, such as its EAN or UPC.
• ID - the product's SKU or Merchant product number.
• Image link - the product's image URL. The main requirements are listed below, and additional requirements can be found in the article Product image specifications for catalogs in the Meta Business Help Center.
  • File format - JPG or JPEG.
  • Resolution - at least 500x500 px.
  • File size - at most 8 MB.
• Manufacturer part number - the product's MPN.
• Material - the product's main material. The maximum number of characters is 200. E.g.: pineapple leather.
• Pattern - the product's pattern or graphic print. The maximum number of characters is 100. E.g.: leopard print.
• Price - the product's price.
• Product link - the link to the product's detail page in your webstore.
• Shipping country - the ISO 3166 code of the country where the product is shipped from. E.g.: AQ.
• Shipping price - the product's shipping cost.
• Size - the product's size. The maximum number of characters is 200. E.g.: Small, 10 months, M, etc.
• Title - the product's title. The maximum number of characters is 200, and the recommended number is 65.

All products (optional)

• Additional image link - the product's additional image URL. Multiple links can be separated by a comma ( , ), semicolon ( ; ), space (  ), or pipe ( | ). For the requirements, refer to Image link.
• Adult content - defines if the product is strictly for adults or not. E.g.: false.
• Custom label 0-3 - the product's custom tags, which can be used when filtering. The maximum number of characters is 100. E.g.: spring sale.
• Inventory (or Quantity to sell on Facebook) - the product's stock available for this channel. E.g.: 50.
• Mobile link - the link to the mobile version of the product's detail page in your webstore.
• Offer price - the product's offer price. If mapped, the Offer price effective date attribute must also be mapped.
• Offer price effective date - the period when the offer price is valid. The format is: YYYY-MM-DDT23:59+00:00/YYYY-MM-DDT23:59+00:00. E.g.: 2025-10-01T13:30-01:00/2025-12-31T23:59-01:00. If mapped, the Offer price attribute must also be mapped.
• Product has a GTIN (EAN, ISBN, UPC etc.) - defines if the product has a unique identifier. E.g.: true.
• Sale price - the product's sale price. If mapped, the Sale price effective date attribute must also be mapped.
• Sale price effective date - the period when the sale price is valid. The format is: YYYY-MM-DDT23:59+00:00/YYYY-MM-DDT23:59+00:00. E.g.: 2025-10-01T13:30-01:00/2025-12-31T23:59-01:00. If mapped, the Sale price attribute must also be mapped.
• Visibility (or Status) - the product's status on the channel.

Pricing

If your target countries have a currency different than your own, you need to set up a currency conversion.