The news: Meta is testing two tools aimed at enhancing retail media campaigns across Instagram and Facebook, per Adweek.

• The first, called “product set optimization,” helps retail media networks improve performance across groups of SKUs and streamlines product catalog creation.
• The second feature, “product insights,” measures whether ads optimized at the individual SKU level drove incremental sales.

Meta previously offered limited resources for retail media networks to optimize their ads because its algorithm was designed for single-brand retailers.

Why it matters: The tools could help Meta snag an increasing share of the nearly $200 billion in retail media spending.

Meta’s current retail media strategy centers on retailers seeking AI-powered solutions. But while retailers have doubled their share of Meta budgets allocated to Advantage+ shopping campaigns, those campaigns weren’t purpose-built for retail media networks that require SKU-level measurement and closed-loop attribution.

The updates position Meta to compete more aggressively for performance-driven retail media dollars that typically flow to onsite networks with stronger commerce data. As retail media budgets grow more outcome-focused, improved SKU-level optimization and measurement could make social platforms a more defensible part of retailers’ media mixes.

Implications for retailers and marketers: Meta’s new tools move its platform closer to the SKU-level optimization and closed-loop attribution that retailers are used to getting from onsite networks. That could make it easier to show the incremental lift, giving brands more confidence in shifting performance-driven dollars to social.