Dynamic Catalog Factory — Setup Guide

Turn your products into Meta & TikTok ad creatives in about 5 minutes. No design or ad-tech experience needed.

New here? The whole app does one thing for you: it takes your product photos, designs ad creatives with AI marketing text, and gives you a single feed URL. You paste that URL into Facebook/Instagram or TikTok once, and your ads stay updated automatically. That's it.
Important: this app creates new ad-creative images for your Meta/TikTok feed — it does not change your product photos in Shopify. So when you look at Products in your Shopify admin, you won't see any changes there (that's expected). The generated ads live inside this app and in your feed URL.

Part 1 — Inside the app (the easy part)

1Sync your catalog

Open the app from your Shopify admin (Apps → Dynamic Catalog Factory) and click the “Sync Entire Catalog” button. The app pulls in your products, writes AI marketing tags, and generates a polished ad image for each one. This takes a few seconds.

Tip: each product needs at least one image in Shopify.

2Choose your ad style

In the Template Selection area, click any of the five styles:

Clicking a style here sets it as your default and instantly regenerates every product ad in that look — including any products you've individually restyled. You can switch any time.

Want a different style on just a few products (e.g. a sale style on clearance items only)? Scroll to "All your generated ad creatives" and click "Select products to restyle" — pick the ones you want, choose a style, and apply it to only those. The rest of your catalog keeps its current style.

3Copy your feed URL

In the “Your XML Ad Feed URL” box, click Copy to Clipboard. It looks like:

https://dynamic-catalog-creative-factory.vercel.app/feeds/your-store.myshopify.com/meta.xml

This one link contains all your generated ads. Keep it handy for Part 2.

Part 2 — Connecting your feed to Meta (Facebook & Instagram)

This is the step most people get stuck on, so here it is click-by-click. You'll add your feed URL as a data source in Meta's catalog.

  1. Go to Meta Commerce Manager and log in with the Facebook account that runs your ads.
  2. No catalog yet? Meta shows a "Get started" tutorial page with a single "Add products" button — click it. (Already have a catalog? Open it and skip to the "Data sources" step below.)
  3. Add basic info: set "Choose what best describes your products or services" to "Online products." Leave "Connect to a partner platform" switched OFF — turning it on syncs raw Shopify data directly and skips your feed, so you'd lose the AI-generated creative images. Pick your Business portfolio, keep the catalogue Name, and click Next.
  4. Connect to tracking: a list of Pixels/SDKs appears — you don't need any of these for the feed to work. Leave every toggle off and click Next.
  5. Set permissions: you already have access by default. No action needed — click Next.
  6. Upload products: choose "Connect to a data feed" (it's pre-selected — "Use a spreadsheet or file to add and update your products automatically") and click Next.
  7. In the "Add products" panel, leave "Which platform is your file formatted for?" as "Commerce Manager," keep "Use a URL or Google Sheets" selected, and type your feed URL into the field manually (don't let your browser autofill it — autofill can silently substitute a different, previously-used URL). Leave the optional username/password blank. Click Next.
  8. On "Confirm settings," double-check the URL field shows exactly the feed URL you typed (click into it to expand if it's truncated). Set Default currency to USD, change Frequency from "Hourly" to Daily, and click Upload.
  9. If you already had a catalog and skipped the wizard above, the same feed setup lives under Catalog → Data sources → Add items → Data file → "Upload via URL or Google sheets."
Heads up: if the data source shows "0 products" or a "Data file failed to upload / unsupported format" warning right after setup, don't panic — 9 times out of 10 this just means no products have been synced in the Dynamic Catalog Factory app for that store yet (an empty feed has valid XML but zero items, and Meta's error wording for that case is misleading). Go sync your catalog in the app first, then come back and click Update or Re-upload data file on the data source page to force an immediate refetch instead of waiting for the daily schedule.
The screens Meta shows also depend on whether your Business Portfolio already has a catalog, and button labels drift over time. Look for the option that lets you add products from a URL on a schedule — that's always the one you want, whatever it's called this week.

Part 3 — Connecting your feed to TikTok

  1. Go to TikTok Ads Manager and log in.
  2. Click the app launcher (9-dot grid, top-left) → Ads Manager (not "Business Center" — that's a separate org/team-management product with no Catalog Manager). On the "Select an account" screen, pick your account from the Ads Manager column, not the "Business Center" column.
  3. If you land on a simplified "Getting started" screen or a campaign-creation wizard instead of a dashboard, click "Switch to full version" (or "Exit" if it drops you into building a campaign) to reach the real Ads Manager dashboard.
  4. In the left nav (it may show icon-only if your window is narrow — hover to see labels, or widen the window) go to Assets → Catalog Manager.
  5. If a catalog already exists and was set up via "Sync from partner platform" (native Shopify/WooCommerce/BigCommerce connection), its "Add products" button will be greyed out — TikTok locks a catalog to whichever source type it was created with, so you can't bolt a feed onto a partner-synced catalog. You'll need a separate catalog for your feed (see next step). If there's no existing catalog, skip to the next step anyway.
  6. Click the catalog dropdown (top-left) → Create catalog. Industry: E-commerce. Upload method: "Manual creation" (NOT "Sync from partner platform" — that bypasses your feed the same way Meta's partner-platform toggle does).
  7. Fill in Business Center account and catalog name (defaults are fine). Default Currency is the one field to get right — it cannot be changed after creation. Set it to match your store's actual currency (check Shopify Admin → Settings → General → Store currency), not whatever TikTok auto-suggests. Skip the optional Data connection and Shipping fields, then click Create.
  8. In the "Add products" modal, choose "Data Feed Schedule" and click Next.
  9. On the "Feed Schedule" screen: name the feed anything, then type your feed URL into the Data Feed URL field manually — don't trust autofill, it can silently substitute an old URL you've used before. Leave "Add login details" off. Set Scheduled updates to Daily. For Update Method, choose "Replace your feed" rather than "Update your feed" — Replace removes products from the catalog once they drop out of your feed (e.g. deleted/unpublished in Shopify), so discontinued items don't keep running as ads forever. Click Save.
  10. Go to Product sources → your feed's name to check status. If it still shows 0 products, click "Request Data Now" to force an immediate fetch instead of waiting for the scheduled time (this button can be briefly disabled right after creation — try again after a few minutes).
Heads up: if products get rejected with an "Invalid value: price... must match the catalog's default currency" error, the catalog's Default Currency doesn't match your store's real currency (which is what your feed emits). Since that field can't be edited after creation, the fix is to delete/ignore that catalog and recreate it with the correct currency selected up front.

Keeping it updated (automatic)

You're done — and you don't have to repeat this. Whenever you add or change a product in Shopify, the app regenerates that ad creative automatically, and Meta/TikTok re-pull the feed on the schedule you set. Your ads stay in sync with your store on their own.

FAQ

What are “AI Credits”?

Each store starts with 50 free credits. Generating smart marketing tags for a product with Google Gemini uses 1 credit. They're only used for the AI text — generating the ad images themselves is always free and unlimited.

What happens when I run out of credits?

Nothing breaks. The app keeps generating ad images for every product; it just uses sensible built-in tags (like “BEST SELLER” or “SAVE 20%”) instead of AI-written ones. You never hit a paywall or an error.

Why do I only see one product after installing?

The app shows ads only for products it has processed. Click “Sync Entire Catalog” to process your existing products in one go (up to 50 at a time). After that, new and edited products are added automatically.

Do I need to re-upload anything when I change a product?

No. The ad regenerates automatically and your feed updates itself. Meta/TikTok re-pull it on their schedule.

Is my customer data used?

Never. The app only reads your product catalog (titles, images, prices). It does not access customers, orders, or payment data. See our Privacy Policy.

The feed URL shows XML / looks like code — is that normal?

Yes. That XML is exactly what Meta and TikTok expect. You don't need to read it — just paste the URL into the catalog setup as shown above.

Still stuck?

Email us at admin@peerware.site and we'll help you get connected.