Raw Catalog Ads
Product ads that show the plain catalog image without a designed template.
Raw Catalog Ads is a ad formats & placements concept that ecommerce teams touch every week, usually without agreeing on a definition first. This page sets out what it means, how to apply it at catalog scale, what to measure, and where it breaks.
Definition
Raw catalog ads use the feed image directly — a bare product on white — without any overlay, background, or brand template. Meta's out-of-the-box DPA is the classic example.
Why it matters
Raw catalog ads are cheap to run and easy to scale but leave money on the table when catalog imagery is thin. Adding a designed template (a la catalog creative) typically lifts CTR 20–60%.
Raw Catalog Ads in practice
Raw catalog ads use the feed image directly — a bare product on white — without any overlay, background, or brand template. Meta's out-of-the-box DPA is the classic example. A format is a set of constraints — ratio, duration, safe area, sound expectation and user intent. The same message performs very differently across two placements because the viewer's posture is different. Building for the placement rather than resizing into it is most of the difference between fine and good. Read it next to Catalog Creative, Dynamic Product Ads (DPA), Product Catalog.
How to get it right
Design for the dominant placement first, then adapt deliberately: reframe rather than letterbox, keep key content clear of overlays, and assume sound is off until proven otherwise. Where a placement has a distinct native language, respect it instead of exporting one master everywhere.
What to measure and watch
Report by placement, not just campaign. A blended cost per result hides the placement subsidising or draining the set. Watch early-view retention for video placements and thumbstop for feed placements, then adjust the creative rather than only the bid. Why this matters commercially: Raw catalog ads are cheap to run and easy to scale but leave money on the table when catalog imagery is thin. Adding a designed template (a la catalog creative) typically lifts CTR 20–60%.
Where Raw Catalog Ads sits in an agentic creative workflow
Xeli renders each concept into every placement's spec in one pass — correct ratio, correct safe zone, correct file requirements — so a campaign ships complete instead of arriving in fragments as resizes trickle in. In the context of ad formats & placements, that means the concept stops being something a person re-applies by hand every campaign and becomes a rule the system enforces on every asset it produces.