Collection ads and Instant Experience on Meta

This guide is built from Meta's own pages: the Meta Business Help Center articles About collection ads, Supported objectives and placement options for collection ads, Design specifications for collection ads, Create a collection ad from Meta Ads Manager, Choose products to show in a collection ad, Best practices for collection ads and Troubleshoot collection ads; on Instant Experience, About Instant Experience, About Instant Experience templates, Supported objectives and placement options for Instant Experience, Add components to your Instant Experience, Instagram Instant Experience component specifications, Link your Instant Experiences, Best practices for Instant Experience and About Instant Experience metrics; plus the Meta Ads Guide collection specs for Facebook Feed. Checked on 10 November 2026. How campaigns, ad sets and ads fit together is in our Meta ads basics guide; this page is only about the collection format and the Instant Experience behind it.

What a collection ad is

A collection ad is a mobile ad with a large cover image or video at the top and a row of smaller product images below it. In Facebook Feed, the Ads Guide describes it as a cover image or video followed by 3 product images. The two parts behave differently when tapped:

• Tapping the cover opens a full-screen Instant Experience, a mobile landing page that loads inside Facebook or Instagram.
• Tapping one of the small product images opens that product's page on your website. Meta adds that This may vary by ad placement.

The Instant Experience is required: the cover image or video of the ad is simply the first image or video in the Instant Experience, and the rest of its products or images become the small images under it. So building a collection ad mostly means building its Instant Experience.

Instant Experience is not only for collection ads. Meta says it works with all formats, including single image, video, carousel and collection. It only opens on phones, and it can't be used in an organic Page post: to publish an Instant Experience, you'll have to attach it to an ad. This page covers it mainly as the destination of a collection ad. For swipeable cards that each link to their own page, see our carousel ads guide.

Do you need a catalog?

No. Meta's troubleshooting page says: You don't need a catalog to create a collection ad. You can add products to an Instant Experience from your catalog or enter product details by hand in Ads Manager. What you do need is at least 4 products or images, because the ad shows a cover plus a group of smaller items.

A catalog does unlock more. The Storefront and Lookbook templates need an ecommerce catalog, and with a catalog Meta can pick and order products for each viewer. The catalog rules for collection ads are:

• The product set needs at least 4 products.
• Meta recommends a product set of more than 50 products, while There is a maximum of 50 products that show after someone taps on your ad. A larger set gives the delivery system more to choose from.
• When a product runs out of stock, the product set updates itself to show items that are in stock.
• A product that breaks Meta's Advertising Standards is shown as rejected in the catalog, and you can request a review.

Setting up the catalog, feeds and product sets is covered in our Meta catalog guide.

Instant Experience templates

Templates are pre-designed layouts that, in Meta's words, need minimal, and in some cases, no creative assets. Which templates you see depends on the objective and ad format. Not every template works with collection ads:

In practice, Storefront fits a shop with a catalog, Lookbook fits products shown in use, and Customer Acquisition fits one action on your site or app; Meta says the last one works best with fewer components (images, text, videos), a concise message and a strong call to action. You can also skip templates and build a custom Instant Experience, covered below.

Collection ad specs

From the Meta Ads Guide page for collection ads in Facebook Feed, and the troubleshooting page for the Instagram ratio:

Some layout details from the design specifications page and the create page:

• In Facebook Feed, the primary text sits above the cover and the headline sits between the cover and the products. In Instagram Feed only the primary text shows, so Meta says to fill in both if the campaign runs on Facebook and Instagram.
• The product images under the cover may be adjusted automatically to 1:1 or 4:5.
• In vertical Stories and Reels layouts, the ad can look different depending on whether the cover is 1:1 or 16:9. A 1:1 cover in Instagram Stories may be adjusted to fit a 9:11.5 layout.
• Since March 2026, single media and Advantage+ catalog collection ads in Facebook Feed no longer show a URL in the ad footer.

Objectives and placements

Collection ads work with the Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads and Sales objectives. The troubleshooting page adds that Awareness only works with reach optimization, and that with the Sales objective You'll have to use the Meta Pixel; without it the ad can't be published. For Awareness and Traffic the pixel is optional but recommended if you want to see what people do on your site.

Collection ads only show on mobile devices, never on desktop, and are not supported on Messenger or Audience Network. Beyond that, Meta's own pages don't agree on the placement list:

The newer pages include Stories and Reels, and the About page says collection ads run across Facebook and Instagram Feeds, Stories, and Reels. The number of products shown also varies by placement. Since the pages differ, check the ad preview for each placement before you publish rather than relying on any one list. How placements work in general is in our Meta ads placements guide.

Creating a collection ad in Ads Manager

Meta is rolling out a new Ads Manager layout in which the collection format may no longer appear for you in Ad setup; you pick it later, in the Ad creative section. The steps on Meta's create page are:

1. Create a campaign with the Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads or Sales objective.
2. At the ad set level, in Conversion, choose the conversion location. For Traffic, Engagement and Leads that is Website or App; for Sales it is Website and shop, Website and app, Website, or App. For Awareness, choose Maximize reach of ads as the performance goal, or turn on store location features if your Page has a store.
3. At the ad level, under Format, choose Single image or video, or Carousel.
4. In Destination, pick an existing Instant Experience or click Create new and choose a template.
5. In Ad creative: for a single image or video, click Set up creative, choose Image ad or Video ad and turn on Site links (or Products, with Awareness, Traffic and Engagement). For a carousel, add at least 5 cards. Then click Edit under Format display options and select Collection.
6. Preview the ad in each placement, then publish.

If you send people to an app, link them straight to products. Meta notes that Instagram supports product-level deep links if your catalog includes app links, but not deep links on other parts of the ad such as call-to-action buttons. More on app links in our app deep links guide.

Choosing which products show

With the Storefront template you choose between two options:

• Order dynamically (Meta's recommendation): the delivery system picks which 2 to 4 products appear in the ad, ranked by popularity or likelihood of purchase. The design specifications page also says to use this if the campaign runs on both Facebook and Instagram.
• Choose a specific order: you enter product names or IDs, and colour variation, in the order you want.

Meta's best practices for the products: if you pick them by hand, show a variety; tag products in lifestyle photos by entering the product name or ID and selecting where it appears; and send people to a destination with more products than the ad shows. Meta also points out that URL parameters added to the destination URL only track the people who click the link to your website, not the clicks on products. For a consistent setup see our UTM tracking links guide.

Building a custom Instant Experience

A custom Instant Experience is built from components in the Instant Experience builder. The ones Meta lists:

• Header: an image or text fixed at the top. Only one per Instant Experience.
• Photo and Video: single media items; a photo is only clickable with the Fit to width (Linkable) layout.
• Button: links to your website, an app store or another Instant Experience, and can be fixed to the bottom of the view.
• Carousel: 2 to 10 swipeable cards, each with an optional link.
• Text block: anything from a headline to whole paragraphs.
• Product set: products from your catalog, ordered by Meta based on performance, up to 50 per set.
• Store locator: directs people to your nearest store; needs Locations set up on your Page and always sits at the bottom.

One rule to know before you start: once you click Finish, the Instant Experience can't be edited. To change a finished one, duplicate it and edit the copy. You can reuse a finished Instant Experience in other ads, and you can link Instant Experiences to each other with photos, buttons or carousels, but Ads with linked Instant Experiences are only available on Facebook and do not show on Instagram.

Meta's best practices for Instant Experience: open strong, show your brand on the first screen, put the main point early because people may not reach the end, and give each screen a button or image that links to your website. Meta says Instant Experiences that only use one video or image tend to get less attention compared to longer Instant Experiences with 5-7 components.

What doesn't work on Instagram

An Instant Experience that runs on both Facebook and Instagram can only use components that work on both. Meta's Instagram component page lists headers, buttons that link offsite, Instant Storefront (photos only), photos, text blocks, regular video and product sets as supported. Store locator, product tagging and offers are not. Add the points from the sections above:

• The Lookbook template isn't compatible with Instagram placements.
• The Digital circular template isn't compatible with Instagram Reels.
• Linked Instant Experiences don't show on Instagram.
• In Instagram Feed the headline is not shown, only the primary text.

For format-level detail on Stories placements, see our Instagram Stories ads guide.

Measuring results

Ads with an Instant Experience get their own metrics in Ads Manager and Ads Reporting:

• Instant Experience view time: the average time in seconds people spent viewing it, including time in linked Instant Experiences.
• Instant Experience view percentage: the average share of the Instant Experience people saw, based on components viewed. With linked Instant Experiences it only measures the first one.
• Link clicks and Outbound clicks: taps that open the Instant Experience count as link clicks; outbound clicks are the ones that leave Facebook.
• Landing page views: counted when someone loads your URL from the Instant Experience and your pixel fires, so you need a Meta Pixel selected in the campaign. Since June 2025, Meta says, Instant Experiences will no longer count as a landing page view.

You can also see estimated results by component, which is easier to read if you give components clear names in the builder. For setting up the pixel and the Conversions API see our pixel and Conversions API guide; for columns and breakdowns, our Meta ads reporting guide.

How we build collection ads

This is our own practice, not Meta's guidance:

• We use collection ads for shops with a working catalog and enough products to browse. For a single offer or a lead form, a single image, video or lead ad is usually simpler.
• We start with Storefront and Order dynamically, and only switch to a fixed order for a launch or a sale where specific products must show.
• We keep the Instant Experience to components that work on both Facebook and Instagram, unless the campaign is Facebook-only.
• We make the cover work as an ad on its own, since many people see it without tapping, and we preview every placement because Meta's placement lists disagree.
• We judge the ad on conversions on the website, not on view time or link clicks, since a tap that only opens the Instant Experience is not a visit to the site.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Facebook collection ad?

A mobile ad format with a large cover image or video and a group of smaller product images below it. Tapping the cover opens a full-screen Instant Experience inside Facebook or Instagram; tapping a product opens its page on your website.

What is a Facebook Instant Experience?

A full-screen mobile landing page that opens when someone taps your ad, built from a template or from components such as photos, videos, carousels, buttons, text and product sets. It works with single image, video, carousel and collection ads and can only be published as part of an ad.

Do collection ads need a product catalog?

No. You can enter products by hand or use a template that doesn't need one. You need at least 4 products or images. The Storefront and Lookbook templates do need an ecommerce catalog, and with a catalog Meta recommends a product set of more than 50 products.

Do collection ads show on desktop?

No. Collection ads and Instant Experiences only show on mobile devices. They are also not supported on Messenger or Audience Network.

Can I edit an Instant Experience after publishing?

No. Once you click Finish, Meta doesn't let you edit it. Duplicate the Instant Experience, edit the copy and use that in your ad.

For more on Meta advertising, see our guides to Meta ads basics, Meta catalogs, carousel ads and Advantage+ creative. We build the websites and product pages ads send people to as part of our website development work. See all our services, or browse more guides.