What is an SKU?

Understanding SKUs

SKUs should be unique, stable, and consistent across your ecommerce platform, feeds, and pixel events to avoid mismatches. Recycled or inconsistent SKUs cause attribution errors, disapprovals, and broken retargeting. A clear naming convention improves troubleshooting and reporting across teams. Tie SKUs to variants (size, color) so you can pause specific underperformers without removing the parent product. Keep SKU references aligned in your product feed and order systems.

Clean SKUs also speed creative and catalog operations. Dynamic templates rely on SKU-linked attributes to render price, review counts, and promos accurately. Using SKUs in pixel/CAPI content_ids enables SKU-level audiences and exclusions. When SKUs are stable, migration and platform changes are less risky. Document conventions and enforce them at creation to prevent drift over time.

Why SKUs matter

SKUs matter because they are the backbone of catalog accuracy and measurement. They ensure that ads, events, and product feeds point to the same item, which makes optimization reliable and prevents attribution errors. With SKU-level reporting, you can prune losers and scale winners precisely.

• Integrity: Prevents misattribution and disapprovals.
• Reporting: Enables SKU-level performance analysis.
• Accuracy: Ensures dynamic templates render correct product data.

How SKUs work

SKUs work as unique identifiers for each sellable variant that connect your catalog, events, and reporting. In the product feed, SKUs map to attributes like price, availability, and category. In pixels and server-side events, the same SKUs appear in content_ids so audiences and attribution line up. In analytics and dashboards, SKUs roll up to product and category views for decisions. Stable SKUs allow automatic exclusions of out-of-stock or low-margin items. When SKUs change, create redirects and historical mappings to preserve continuity and prevent broken tracking.