The #1 Mistake Luxury Brands Make with Meta Catalog Ads

Hey there

Luxury brands like yours spend years perfecting every detail—your products, your branding, your customer experience. Every Instagram post, product page, and packaging detail screams premium.

But there’s one place where even the best luxury brands unknowingly undermine their image: Meta Catalog Ads.

If you’re running product ads on Meta, you might not even realize that your brand’s prestige isn’t coming through the way it should. And the reason?

Meta's Default Image Selection is Hurting Your Brand

Meta catalog ads are nothing short of magic - the targeting power of catalog ads is unrivalled. No other ad type or platform comes even close.

That being said, there are so many crucial limitations to the catalog ad setup on Meta. For example – Meta’s catalog ads automatically pull the first product image from your website. In most cases, this is a plain, no-background product shot—great for a product page, but a disaster for an ad.

Why? Because it strips away everything that makes your product special.

A premium cashmere coat? Reduced to a flat cutout.
A handcrafted leather bag? No texture, no depth, no story.
A high-end Italian sofa? It looks just like any other generic couch.

Would a high-net-worth customer even stop to click?

You’re basically saying, “There’s this beautiful, elegant sideboard that you definitely want to buy – look at the worst possible picture I have”.

The Harsh Truth: If your catalog ad doesn’t scream luxury, it might as well be a discount store ad.

For example, Joss and Main faced this exact problem.

And this was their resulting catalog ad:

I’m sure most of you are running ads like these now, because you’ve got no choice. You’re limited by Meta itself. 

Given the option, wouldn’t you choose a better image (or images) instead, one that actually conveys your premium quality, USPs, features and benefits – things that make you a premium brand in the first place?

If these things aren’t prominent in your catalog ads, you might as well be a random secondhand furniture dealer selling out of your garage – customers won’t be able to tell the difference when seeing your ads.

Can you tell that J&M is a premium brand just by looking at the above ad?

Here’s how Joss and Main handled this problem:

J&M quickly realized that it’s not possible to solve this problem through Meta; it’s set in stone. They needed to modify the feed separately – using an external tool.

RetainIQ is one such tool. Using RetainIQ’s Enhanced Catalog Ads platform, J&M is able to automatically choose the best possible images for all their catalog ads.

Further, they are able to combine multiple images to create a new image for every catalog ad.

Using this multi-image feature, here’s what J&M’s catalog ads look like now;

Beautiful lifestyle images for that premium showcase

Close ups of fabric and materials

Highlighting their features and USPs (super important)

These are secondary images from their product listing

Multiple Variants

Highlight product variants in the same ad

Luxury Requires Premium Ads

Your catalog ads are often the first touchpoint between your brand and a potential customer.

If they don’t reflect your brand’s premium quality, you lose the sale before it even begins.

Shoppers scrolling through Meta need to see the value of your product instantly—before they even click.

With RetainIQ, you can create catalog ads that:

✨ Capture the luxury feel of your brand.
✨ Highlight premium materials and craftsmanship.
✨ Showcase lifestyle shots alongside product close-ups.
✨ Stand out from generic, basic catalog ads.

If you’re serious about maintaining your brand’s premium image, your ads need to reflect that.

If you’d like to try this out for yourself, feel free to reach out to us by clicking below.