--- schema_version: "1" id: 322431622c8911a9151a3adaab2dd37eeebe8fc97972de6131e00ea8b52ece0a title: Built-In Catalog Objects collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/mktg/264-0-0/mc_pers_catalog_object_built_in.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=mktg.mc_pers_catalog_object_built_in.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: f397bb5a712f0d8cb524921ae130f4dd2a12822729986804ac4217909bec0bed description: Built-in catalog objects enable you to quickly begin building your catalog and define its structure. Personalization uses catalog objects to interpret and understand customer engagement and affinities. Personalization collects behavioral data about your customers in the context of your catalog. Catalog objects can be standalone entities, or they can relate to one another to provide a more granular structure for your catalog. products: - Marketing - Salesforce Personalization release: "264" --- # Built-In Catalog Objects Built-in catalog objects enable you to quickly begin building your catalog and define its structure. Personalization uses catalog objects to interpret and understand customer engagement and affinities. Personalization collects behavioral data about your customers in the context of your catalog. Catalog objects can be standalone entities, or they can relate to one another to provide a more granular structure for your catalog. Built-in catalog objects include these items. | Item | Description | | --- | --- | | Product | Product is the only catalog object that has pricing, inventory, and SKU support. Products are also the only catalog object that a customer can purchase or add to a cart. Products can’t be a related catalog object for another catalog object. | | Article and blog post | Articles and blog posts don’t have any special or unique characteristics. However, they can’t be a related catalog object for another catalog object. | | Category | Category is a related catalog object for product, blog post, and article catalog objects. The cardinality value you select for category (One per Item or Many per Item) applies to all its associated catalog objects. Category can’t be a related catalog object for custom catalog objects. | Products, blog posts, and articles also have an optional base URL setting that you can use if your catalog items have relative URLs. ## Related Catalog Objects You can relate catalog objects to one another to provide a more granular structure for your catalog. For example, adding brands as a related catalog object for products helps you create logical subdivisions. Adding other related catalog objects, such as features, sizes, and colors, provides more granularity for your products. You can also add related catalog objects to promotions to improve Einstein Decisions for personalized next best offer recommendations. Related catalog objects help define affinity and interaction data across your entire business. ## Cardinality for Related Catalog Objects When you relate catalog objects to one another, you define the cardinality of that relationship using one of these options. - One per SKU: ![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-mktg-mc_personalization-264-0-0-production-enus/16bf1f60-f44c-4260-a56e-f052cfe515a3/images/icon_note.png) Note This option applies only to the built-in Product catalog object. - If the `relatedCatalogObject` type is present in an item action event—Personalization adds it to the item's set of catalog objects and tracks statistics for that catalog object only. - If the `relatedCatalogObject` type isn’t present in an item action event—Personalization doesn’t track statistics for any existing catalog objects, unless there’s exactly one of that existing catalog object. - One per item: - If the `relatedCatalogObject` type is present in an item action event—Personalization sets the catalog objects for that type on the item, replacing any existing catalog objects for that type. If there’s more than one in the event, Personalization uses only the first in the list. Personalization also tracks statistics for the catalog object. - If the `relatedCatalogObject` type isn’t present in an item action event—Personalization tracks statistics for an existing catalog object of that type if one exists for the item. - Many per item: - If the `relatedCatalogObject` type is present in an item action event—Personalization adds it to the item's set of catalog objects. Personalization also tracks statistics for all of the catalog objects for that type associated with the item. - If the `relatedCatalogObject` type isn’t present in an item action event—Personalization tracks statistics for all existing catalog objects of that type associated with the item. ## Catalog Object Attributes Catalog object attributes provide metadata that Personalization uses when managing data. Examples of attributes include ID, name, URL, dates, inventory, price, currency, and rating. ## Stock Keeping Units Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) are optional metadata of the Product built-in catalog object. They're unique identifiers that you can assign to variants of products in your catalog. You can assign child SKU IDs to a parent Product ID to represent variations of the same product, such as distinct patterns of a shirt. The SKUs you assign to a product appear on the product's Item Edit screen and its statistics report on the Personalization UI. You can use SKUs to organize and differentiate products in your catalog if your website features product families and a single Product Detail Page (PDP) displays variants of the same product. For example, you can use a unique child SKU ID to represent each distinct pattern of a shirt in your catalog, all connected to a single parent Product ID. You can also use SKUs for purchase tracking if your website's purchase flow excludes Product IDs and includes only an SKU ID on the purchase confirmation page. In such cases, if you have correctly associated Products with SKUs in your catalog, Personalization uses SKU merging to track purchases back to their associated Product IDs. Since SKUs only work with the Product built-in catalog object, you can't use them with any other built-in or custom catalog object type. You also can't use SKUs with product recommendation campaigns. While SKUs are helpful in managing your product catalog, not all integrations require the use of SKUs. We recommend using them only if they meet your catalog management needs. ![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-mktg-mc_personalization-264-0-0-production-enus/16bf1f60-f44c-4260-a56e-f052cfe515a3/images/icon_note.png) Note SKUs aren’t stored as an attribute or related catalog object of the parent Product ID. Additionally, Product IDs and SKU IDs share a namespace. Therefore, you must avoid using identical values for a Product ID and an SKU ID in the same catalog. For example, avoid having both a Product ID and an SKU ID set as `id001` in the same catalog. #### See Also - [Create a Custom Catalog Object](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=mktg.mc_pers_catalog_object_custom.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Personalization collects behavioral data in the context of the catalog that you create and uses catalog objects to assess and analyze customer engagement and affinities. You can add more detail to your catalog by using custom objects. The more detailed you make your catalog, the more granular your insights are regarding customer engagement and affinity.") - [Static Relationships](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=mktg.mc_pers_catalog_profile_static_relationship.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Use static relationships as ingredients in Einstein Recipes to help determine which additional related products to recommend to your customers.") - [User Profile Objects](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=mktg.mc_pers_user_profile_object.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Gain a deeper understanding of your users by creating user profile objects.")