Meta Is Making Livestream Shopping Bigger Than Ever

Meta is stepping up its push into livestream commerce, expanding the tools it uses to turn live video into a more direct shopping channel across its platforms.

The changes span ads, affiliate tools and product discovery features across Facebook and Instagram, with live video ads expanding onto Instagram and rolling out globally on Facebook. 

The format is designed to sit alongside livestreams rather than simply promote them, pairing broadcast links with in-stream product tabs that point users towards external purchase pages.

The aim is to keep shopping closer to the moment of viewing. Instead of watching a stream and then searching elsewhere, users can browse and move towards a purchase while the content is still playing.

Meta is also working with live commerce platforms such as CommentSold, Firework, LiveMeUp, Sprii and TalkShopLive to help businesses and creators to host livestreams where people can shop in real time.

Facebook is also adding new shopping tools inside livestreams. These will let marketers show specific products during a broadcast, while viewers scroll through items, check prices and browse what’s available without leaving the video.

Payments are also being tweaked. Meta is rolling out support for virtual cards, allowing shoppers to generate one-time card numbers linked to existing Mastercard or Visa accounts. The company said: “By enabling transactions without requiring the direct sharing of credit card details with businesses, this aims to enhance consumer security and increase purchase confidence.”

Affiliate marketing remains another major pillar of the expansion. Partnerships now cover Flipkart in India and Mercado Libre across Latin America, while Lazada is being opened up to creators throughout Asia. Flipkart is also being extended to Instagram creators in India, broadening access to product links that can be embedded directly into posts and videos.

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Meta said creators in 22 countries can now tag products or add affiliate links directly on Instagram. “Businesses can make their catalogs discoverable for creators to search and tag, and creators can add affiliate links that direct people to specific products,” Meta said. “When creators feature products in Reels and Feed, people discover and purchase products while browsing, and creators can earn commission through the affiliate links they share.”

The affiliate push has already been building in the US, where Meta expanded access in March to include retailers such as Amazon, Shopee, eBay and Temu.

Behind much of this sits a shift in how Meta runs ads. Rather than requiring advertisers to pick formats in advance, its systems are moving towards automated assembly based on product data and creative inputs.

“Instead of manually choosing between different ad types, advertisers will provide both their product data and creative assets, and our ads system will assemble the best-performing ad for each viewer in real time,” Meta said.

The direction is already clear. Livestream commerce is becoming a battleground across social platforms, with TikTok pushing hard in the same space. Meta’s bet is that tighter AI-driven matching between viewers, creators and products will determine how much of that impulse-driven spending it can capture inside the stream.