Facebook Content IDs Missing In Catalog With Shopify Data Feeds [SOLVED]

updated 14 October 2019

New systems, new issues. A never-ending battle in fixing which once worked fine. These changes are pretty normal as companies make improvements for the better, while at the same time breaking it in other areas.

Having a solution that is flexible to adapt in these situations are hard to come by, in this article I will explain the issue and provide solutions.

The First Issue

Shopify sends out content_ids inside Facebook’s Pixel tag. Instead of using the default id that is used in the data feed, which looks something like shopify_US_81191654332_1055121650148, it uses instead the product parent id (the main id) which is 81191654332. And submits content_type as product_group.

This means that Shopify is only submitting 1 product and not it’s variants.

If you are using Shopify’s native content API (app), they then submit product id’s that look like shopify_{country_code}_{product_parent_id}_{variant_id}

Solution 1

To fix this issue we need to match the id’s. Check with your current data feed supplier that you can generate feeds with the product_id. However, make sure you do not apply this to your default feed if you are using it with Google Shopping or any other channel. Changing these will wipe out the historic ranking, data and all the work you have done. You will destroy everything and start from scratch. So make sure to always create a new feed.

If you use my FeedArmy application you can set up separate feeds, one for Google Shopping which stays intact and uses
shopify_{country_code}_{product_id}_{variant_id} product id’s and one for Facebook using just the product_parent_id. Allowing you to keep your current data and ranking in Google and set up a correct new one for Facebook.

Below you can see the normal id’s (shopify_{country_code}_{product_id}_{variant_id})

And in the next image, we can see a client that has a feed with the product_parent_id

With all clients, I help and find solutions to all problems. So if you have further questions or need a specialist to help you out, then contact me below or leave a comment.