The gap between a product feed and an ad

Shopify Marketing Agency Your Catalogue Syncs. Your Ads don't

Shopify pushes your product listings to Meta on its own. It does not make the hooks, the video or the ads. That part is ours, with a strategist on the account.

First batch in days. No contract, no forced demo.

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What arrives

What A Shopify Feed Turns Into Here

What syncs by itself, what has to be made, and how long the making takes.

Automatic

What Shopify does by itself

The Facebook and Instagram sales channel is free on every Shopify plan and syncs your products into a single Meta catalogue. Edits propagate on their own, usually within minutes.

Shopify Help Centre

Not automatic

What still has to be made

Hooks, video, motion, offer framing and the decision about which SKUs deserve any of it. None of that is in the sync.

Turnaround

How long that takes

Five to seven days from an agreed brief to finished assets, with a strategist signing off every one.

The short answer

What Shopify Agencies Actually Deliver

Standard Shopify agencies build the storefront and manage the feed. We start where that stops, and turn the catalogue into ads.

In one paragraph

A Shopify marketing agency looks after the demand side of a Shopify store. In practice that means some mix of storefront work, which is theme development, apps and the product page, and channel work, which is paid social, paid search, email and lifecycle. The label is broad enough that two agencies using it can share almost no scope.

One thing sits outside all of it. Shopify already ships the connection to Meta: the Facebook & Instagram by Meta sales channel is free on all Shopify plans and syncs your products into a single Meta catalogue shared across Facebook Shop, Instagram Shopping and Meta Marketing. Product edits follow automatically, usually within minutes. What arrives on Meta is a listing, not an ad.

Quickads works on the missing step. Creative intelligence, creative strategy, creative production, influencer at scale and campaign management sit in one place, billed per creative rather than as a share of your media budget. A strategist signs off every asset, and a brief becomes finished assets in 5 to 7 days.

Sync statements here come from Shopify's Help Centre. We sell a competing service, so our judgement is interested and the sources are worth checking.

The native sync

How Native Syncs Fall Short

Shopify's free integration moves product images and descriptions. It does not decide the hook, the format or the framing.

The channel costs nothing

The Facebook & Instagram by Meta sales channel is free on all Shopify plans. Installing it is not a project, and no agency needs to be paid to switch it on.

One catalogue, every surface

Products land in a single Meta catalogue shared across Facebook Shop, Instagram Shopping and Meta Marketing. A SKU cannot be published to one surface and withheld from another.

Edits look after themselves

Change a price or a title in your admin and the edit propagates automatically, usually within minutes. Nobody has to re-upload a feed, and nobody has to be paid to keep the two catalogues in step.

Collections are geography-bound

Collections sync only for stores based in the United States. Outside the US you plan around product-level structure, whoever runs the account.

Where it stops

The sync moves a photograph, a title and a description written for a product page. It produces no concept and no hook, and no video at all. Nothing in the documentation claims otherwise.

Rows here restate Shopify's Help Centre documentation for the Facebook and Instagram by Meta sales channel. The reading of where it stops is ours.

Formats

Four Ad Formats Built From Your Catalogue Data

Creator video, motion statics, catalogue overlays and comparison assets, built from the products you already sell.

Format one

Creator and UGC video

Problem-and-solution openings shot by creators, directed to a brief built from your own product data.

Format two

Motion statics

Feature callouts, ingredient and spec framing, press and review badges, animated enough to hold a scroll.

Format three

Dynamic catalogue overlays

Borders, price and offer framing layered onto dynamic product templates, so a catalogue ad stops looking like a catalogue.

Format four

Comparison assets

Side-by-side and before-and-after framings, written to the claim you can actually substantiate.

The four gates

Four Gates Stopping Your Catalogue Sync

Meta will not sync a product that is missing required data. We read the feed and tell you which SKUs are being held back.

Gate one

A compliant listing

The image, title and description have to satisfy Meta's catalogue specifications. Thin descriptions and lifestyle-only photography are the usual casualties.

Shopify Help Centre, Facebook & Instagram by Meta

Gate two

A Google Product Category

Every product must carry one. Stores that grew by importing suppliers tend to have thousands of rows with the field left blank.

Shopify Help Centre, Facebook & Instagram by Meta

Gate three

It must require shipping

The product has to be a shippable thing. Digital downloads, services and bookings do not pass, however well they sell.

Shopify Help Centre, Facebook & Instagram by Meta

Gate four

It cannot be free

A zero price keeps a product out of the catalogue. Samples, gifts-with-purchase and trial units sit on the wrong side of this one.

Shopify Help Centre, Facebook & Instagram by Meta

All four conditions are Shopify's, published in its Help Centre. Which catalogues tend to fail which gate is our observation.

Catalogue scale

Scaling Massive Shopify Product Catalogues

Pushing hundreds of SKUs into a catalogue produces hundreds of raw listings. Deciding which ones deserve a real ad is the work.

Look at what a retainer is priced against, and that job is nowhere in the formula.

One store, under Credo's published model

  1. One channel, a month $1,000–$2,000
  2. Each additional channel, a month $500–$750
  3. Setup, once $1,000–$2,500
  4. Of media spend above $10,000 a month 15%
  5. What the fee grows with Channels

Not one line on that list gets larger when your catalogue does. The setup fee is scoped as “research, auditing, initial ad copy”, which means copy is bought once, at the start. Catalogue depth never enters the price at all.

Figures in the panel come from Credo's survey of marketing providers; the grouping and the last row are our reading of its published model.

Where a Shopify agency wins

Where Agencies End, Quickads Begins

Theme development, the app stack, email and lifecycle, and PDP conversion work are all real and none of them are ours.

Genuine agency work, and we do none of it
  • Theme and storefront development. Liquid, sections, page speed, the checkout experience. We write none of it and we do not touch your theme.
  • The app stack. Choosing apps, installing them, untangling the four that now do the same job. Nobody at Quickads does this.
  • Email and lifecycle marketing. Flows, segments, the broadcast calendar and the deliverability housekeeping underneath. Not ours.
  • Conversion work on the product detail page. Layout, reviews, badges, the buy box. We hand over ads and stop at the click.
  • SEO for collection pages. Structure, internal links, the copy that makes a collection rank. A different discipline from ours.
  • It is cheaper than the in-house hire. By Credo's arithmetic the agency route lands around $33,000 a year, against an average United States PPC manager salary of $72,844.Credo, citing Indeed salary data
Where the creative gap opens
  • Copy is bought once, at setup. Credo's setup fee of $1,000 to $2,500 is scoped as “research, auditing, initial ad copy”, and the model carries no production line after it.Credo, PPC chapter
  • The fee is attached to channels. $1,000 to $2,000 a month for one channel, then $500 to $750 for each additional one. Catalogue depth is not a variable in that sum.Credo, PPC chapter
  • A cut of media above ten thousand. Credo's model adds 15 per cent of ad spend above $10,000 a month, so the bill tracks your budget rather than your briefs.Credo, PPC chapter
  • The modal deal has a floor and a term. 50.97 per cent set a retainer minimum of $1,000 to $3,000 a month and 30.52 per cent require 6 to 12 months, though 26.3 per cent require no minimum term.Credo, PPC chapter
The pipeline

Completing Your Meta Advertising Pipeline

Shopify automates the catalogue data. The creative step at the end of the pipe stays empty until somebody makes it.

FROM YOUR ADMIN TO A LIVE PLACEMENTYour ShopifycatalogueFacebook & Instagramby Metasales channelA single MetacatalogueFour sync gatesImage, title, descriptionA Google Product CategoryRequires shippingNot freeThe creativeShopify ships none of itTHE STEP WE PRODUCEQuickadsShopify documents every step up to the gates. The creative step is the one its documentation leaves empty.Illustrative diagram of the documented sync sequence. Representative, not client work.

See What Your Catalogue Looks Like As Ads

Give us a product feed and one live Meta account. You get the angles a strategist would test and a first batch of finished assets, with nothing signed.

Triage

How A Catalogue Becomes A Test Plan

Two worked examples of SKU triage, using the shape of a catalogue rather than a named client's results.

Example one
  • A 400-SKU apparel catalogue. Most of it shares a silhouette and a shoot. A strategist picks the ten products carrying the season, gives those bespoke creative, and builds one template the rest of the range flows through.Illustrative example, not client work
Example two
  • A 60-SKU health and beauty catalogue. Fewer products, more claims to handle. Each hero SKU gets its own angle set and its own claims review, and the long tail runs on catalogue overlays.Illustrative example, not client work
The engine

Our Direct-To-Consumer Ad Production System

Five links in one engagement: creative intelligence, strategy, multi-format production, influencer sourcing and campaign execution.

Creative intelligence

Computer-vision models trained on more than 32 million ads show which formats, hooks and pacing are live in your category. That read also tells us which of your SKUs is worth a concept and which is fine as a catalogue listing.

Creative strategy

A strategist picks the products, sets the angles and decides the format mix before anything is produced. A model recommends. A person decides, and signs their name to it.

Creative production

Statics, motion, video and copy built for the placements Meta actually serves, on a 5 to 7 day turnaround from brief to finished assets. How many concepts and how many assets is scoped to your engagement rather than sold as a fixed allowance.

Influencer at scale

Creator video briefed against the same products in the same batch. The creator cut and the studio cut reach your account together instead of one turning up from another vendor a fortnight later.

Campaign management

We will run the Meta account if you want it run, from structure through budgets to iteration. If you have buyers you trust, we stay out and hand them named, correctly sized files.

How you are billed

Per creative, never against your media budget. No annual prepay and no lock-in, so what you commit to is a batch rather than a year.

How an engagement runs

From Product Feed To Active Campaign

Connect the store, let a strategist triage the best SKUs, and get finished assets back each batch.

01 · FEED

What is syncing

Send the product feed and read access to the Meta account. We check what has reached the catalogue and what stalled at one of the four gates.

02 · TRIAGE

Which SKUs earn a concept

A strategist shortlists the SKUs worth producing for and the angles to try against them. You sign off the batch before any work starts.

03 · PRODUCE

Five to seven days from the shortlist

Assets arrive finished, named and sized for the placements you run. A strategist has reviewed each one against your brand before it leaves us.

04 · LAUNCH

Back into your account

We launch and iterate inside your account, or hand the batch to your buyers. What the batch shows shapes the shortlist for the next one.

Line by line

Comparing Quickads Against A Shopify Marketing Agency

Asset-based billing and creative specialism against a fixed monthly retainer, read line by line.

Marks in the first data column, Quickads, are ours; marks in the second are our reading of Shopify agency scope and of Credo's published pricing model.
What you are buyingQuickadsA Shopify marketing agency
Finished ad creative built from your feedYesPartly
Creative briefed from your product feedYesPartly
A read of what your category is runningYesNo
Creator and influencer video in the same briefYesNo
A strategist signing off every assetYesPartly
A price that ignores channels and media spendYesNo
The Meta account run as well as fedYesYes
Theme and storefront developmentNoYes
Email and lifecycle marketingNoYes
Product page conversion work and collection SEONoYes

The last three rows go against us, and the row above them is a tie.

The first batch

What The First Batch Looks Like

Three concepts built from your own feed. Look at the creative before you decide anything about volume.

Look At The Creative Before You Decide On Volume

Send the product feed and we will build three concepts from your own SKUs in five to seven days. No annual prepay and no lock-in, so nothing about the first batch commits you to a second.

Shopify brand FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions For Shopify Brands

Fast answers on catalogue syncs, pricing models, turnaround and Meta campaign management.

What does a Shopify marketing agency do?

It runs the demand side of a Shopify store. Scope varies widely, but the common pieces are theme and storefront work, the app stack, email and lifecycle marketing, collection SEO, and paid media on Meta and Google. Two agencies using the same label can hand you very different statements of work, so read the scope line by line.

Does Shopify already handle Facebook and Instagram ads?

It handles the plumbing, not the ads. The Facebook & Instagram by Meta sales channel is free on all Shopify plans and syncs your products into a single Meta catalogue shared across Facebook Shop, Instagram Shopping and Meta Marketing, with edits following automatically. What it delivers is a product listing. The concept, the hook, the video and the copy are still somebody's job.

Why are my products not showing in my Meta catalogue?

Almost always a failed sync condition. Shopify documents four: the image, title and description must meet Meta's catalogue specifications, the product must carry a Google Product Category, it must require shipping, and it must not be free. Digital goods and free samples are the two that catch people out. Collections are a separate matter, as they sync only for stores based in the United States.

How much does a Shopify marketing agency cost?

In Credo's survey of marketing providers, a typical PPC deal is $1,000 to $2,000 a month for one channel plus $500 to $750 a month for each additional channel, a setup fee of $1,000 to $2,500, and 15 per cent of ad spend above $10,000 a month. Credo also found 50.97 per cent set a retainer minimum of $1,000 to $3,000 a month. Quickads bills per creative instead of against your media budget, and quotes on a call rather than publishing a rate, because format mix changes the number.

Does Quickads run the Meta campaigns, or only make the creative?

Both are on the table and you pick. Campaign management is one of the five things we do, so the account can sit with us end to end. Where a store already has buyers it likes, we keep out of the account and deliver finished assets to them instead.

My catalogue has nine hundred SKUs. Where do you start?

By triage, not by covering everything. A strategist shortlists the SKUs worth producing concepts for, using a read of what is running in your category, and the rest stay as catalogue listings until something changes. That shortlist gets revisited every batch as the season and the offer move.

Does Quickads build Shopify themes or run email marketing?

No. Theme development, the app stack, email and lifecycle, product page conversion work and collection SEO all sit outside what we do. A Shopify agency or a freelance developer is the right hire for those, and we will say so if that turns out to be your bottleneck.

Is there a minimum contract for a Shopify store?

No. There is no annual prepay and no lock-in, and the first batch lands before you commit to anything. Worth knowing what you are declining: Credo's survey puts 30.52 per cent of PPC providers on a 6 to 12 month engagement, and a further 26.3 per cent on nothing at all.

Before you commit

Test Creative Quality Before You Commit

Send your product feed and one active Meta account. You get a category read and a first batch of assets.