Here’s what Meta brought to Cannes Lions on the shopping front

Meta introduced a host of new shopping formats at Cannes Lions this year.

The tech giant rolled out Live Video Ads, a tool that lets merchants and creators promote live videos on Instagram. The feature will expand to Facebook across all markets, according to the company.

Meta said it is working with live commerce platforms like TalkShopLive and Firework to turn livestreams into ads. Plus, the company will offer Live Shopping Tools so people can browse products, check prices, and buy without leaving the video they’re watching. Live shopping is expected to become a $30 billion–$40 billion business within the US in 2026, Talkshoplive CEO Sandie Hawkins told Retail Brew in March.

This summer, Meta will also add a new checkout experience with payment giants Visa and Mastercard that will let people pay using a virtual credit card, so actual credit card details never get shared with the merchant.

One key focus for Meta seems to be around growing its affiliate program, which lets creators tag products from merchants. Creators in 22 countries can now tag products or drop affiliate links from a merchant’s catalog directly on Instagram. When someone buys through a creator’s Reel or Feed post, the creator earns a commission.

Meta’s affiliate program is also expanding to overseas markets with regional partners. E-commerce platform Flipkart in India and Latin America’s Mercado Libre will expand the affiliate program in India, Brazil, and Mexico, respectively. “Soon…we’ll bring Flipkart to Instagram creators in India,” the company said in a blog post.

In Southeast Asia, leading e-commerce platform Lazada will let creators use Facebook’s affiliate program. Creators in these international markets can tag products and earn a commission via shoppable posts.

In March, Meta said it was expanding its affiliate program to new partners including Amazon, eBay, and Temu in the US. At the time, Meta also said it was testing a similar affiliate program for Instagram.

Another change will be to product metadata across ads on Meta. Details like titles, prices, availability, and descriptions will become a core standard input for all Meta ad formats. Instead of manually picking ad types, brands can hand over their product data and creative assets, and Meta’s AI system figures out the best ad for each person in real time.

“Product data doesn’t just enable better ads, it’s also a key way to show up across Meta’s growing ecosystem of shoppable experiences,” the company noted in its blog post.

Overall, Meta wants products to show up where people already are, like in Reels and in creator content, and be able to easily shop there.