Ad Intelligence
Runs and sources
Admin only
Everything on this page lives under Ad Intelligence → Admin, which needs the admin role.
Starting one
Admin → Data → Run everything. That does the whole chain in order: the paid source first, then its identity pass (it buys the landing page behind the watched shops’ Meta ads whose text names no product, so those ads can be joined to a product), then Meta’s library per country, then TikTok, then every watched shop’s catalogue in small batches, then the scoring and today’s picks.
It runs step by step, one request each, so no single step can hit a time limit. You watch the log fill in as it goes.
- Stop after this step — finishes what is running and stops.
- Retry from this step — appears after a failure, picks up where it stopped.
- Refresh now on a single source — when you only want one thing re-collected.
The nightly schedule runs the same chain in the small hours, so on a normal day you never press anything.
Reading a run
Each step reports the same four numbers, and they mean exactly what they say:
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| seen | How many records the source handed over. |
| new | How many of those Shopdeck had never seen before. |
| updated | Records it already had, refreshed. |
| errors | Records it could not use. These never stop a run — they land on the Errors tab with a reason. |
A run ends as succeeded, partial (it worked, but some records errored) or failed.
The sources, and what each can actually see
Worth knowing, because it explains most of the surprises on the Winners screen.
Meta Ad Library — free, but blind
It shows the ads, but no picture and no landing page. That is Meta’s choice, not a bug. It means an ad can only be tied to a product by matching words in the text, which works sometimes and not other times. It also only covers the EU properly.
TikTok Commercial Content
Gives pictures and landing pages, but only covers the EU, the UK and Switzerland — and it needs an approved production key. A sandbox key gets a polite refusal and no data.
TrendTrack — the one that costs money
Pictures and landing pages for Meta ads worldwide, including the US, Canada and Australia. It is the reason the product lists actually fill up. It charges per row it returns.
The catalogue reader
Not an ad source. It reads each watched shop’s own public product list — which is where every product title, photo and price on the Winners screen comes from.
What “skipping” means
TrendTrack is the only source that spends money, and Shopdeck keeps a reserve so a nightly run cannot empty your balance. When you are below it, the run says so once, at the start:
“1,240 credits left, below the reserve of 1,500; skipping this run — no market was asked and nothing was spent.”
It then does not walk through country after country repeating itself. The other sources carry on as normal.
Your balance shows up in three places: the run log, the connection test on the TrendTrack card in Setup, and the message after pressing Get the pictures on a winner card. There is no permanent counter on screen. See Connect TrendTrack.
When a run misbehaves
A run says running but nothing is happening
Why: Its process is gone — the platform ended the job — and nothing is left to finish it. Shopdeck says so after a few minutes of silence.
Fix: Admin → Data → Release stale lock(s). That closes it and lets the next run start.
Runs finish but Winners stays empty
Why: Collecting worked; matching did not. Almost always: no Meta page id on your watched shops, or no landing pages because you are only using the free sources.
Fix: Read the checklist on the Winners screen — it names which of the five conditions is not met. See Winners and creatives.
Lots of errors on the Errors tab
Why: Records the source returned in a shape Shopdeck cannot use. Individually harmless; repetition is the signal.
Fix: Three identical messages usually means a token, a permission or a limit, not bad luck. Group by message and look at the top one.