How To Add A Api Or Ftp Data Feed To Bigcommerce

Last Updated on April 1, 2022

For some lucky, creating a Google Shopping feed that works is a walk in the park.

But since you're here reading this article, I bet you're not 1 of them.

It's non rocket scientific discipline, merely it can exist very tricky to know what to fix and then to find where to gear up it.

I've set hundreds of Shopping campaigns and I've encountered well-nigh problems at to the lowest degree one time.

So in this article, I'll take you through the various parts of a shopping feed, how you avoid these devilish errors and how to become to fix them every bit speedily as possible.

Function 1   Bones Google Shopping Feed Fixes

Allow's start with the easiest part, the name.

The feed you need for Google Shopping is known under a ton of unlike names: merchant center feed, google shopping feed, production information feed, production feed, data feed, etc.

Those might sound complicated only all of these are the aforementioned matter: a file with all of the product data of your store in a format that can exist read by some other organization.

These kinds of feeds are used past a lot of dissimilar systems. But if you want to advertise your products in Google Shopping, yous'll need to adhere to Google'south requirements.

Google Shopping Production Information Specification

Google has a long list of specifications that details which information they demand and in which format they need information technology in.

If you lot're having problems with your Google Shopping feed, this is probably where things go wrong.

The information that you take in your Shopping feed is insufficient, or wrong.

The exact requirements depend on two things:

1. the blazon of product that you sell
2. the country you're selling in

In what follows, I'll start with all of the required items. If you're stuck, going through this list and understanding what goes on behind the scenes might requite you a clue how to fix it.

id

The production id is the number you utilise in your store to place a specific particular. It's important that the number is unique in your product feed. You can use your SKU number or the id generated by your store platform.

If you want to sell in the same country in multiple languages, you can employ the aforementioned production id for the same item in a unlike language.

title

For the product title attribute, you lot can describe your product in up to 150 characters.

Be sure to include the virtually important keywords at the start, considering Google often will bear witness only the first 35 characters, as you can see in the screenshot below:

Production listing ad with short product titles

In the Google Shopping portal, a bigger product title up to 75-100 characters is shown. But the majority of people won't run across this folio:

Google Shopping portal displays longer product titles

The product championship is one of the product attributes with the biggest touch on. And then make sure y'all include import product details like make, color, material or size.

Pro tip: a good product feed title usually as well is a championship with a lot of SEO benefits

Avoid promotional text in your titles similar Free Shipping or Limited offering.

For more tips on how to amend your production titles, read our Product Championship Optimization Guide!

description

The production clarification is where you give all the product details a customer cares about: features, dimensions, use cases, etc.

These descriptions don't show up in the search results, but they exercise in the Complimentary Listings section on the Shopping tab of the search results.

You take up to 5000 characters, but only a few of those will actually bear witness. In the screenshot, well-nigh 175 characters are shown. If we check the seller'southward website, the product description has over 1400 characters.

Then utilize the express existent estate smartly. Get your well-nigh important indicate across starting time. And although the residual of the product description might not be visible, it can assist Google to sympathise what other keywords your product would be relevant to appear for.

Every bit with the championship, avoid promotional text.

link

You have to provide a directly link to the production page (not your homepage) and it has to include the https:// (or http://) function. If y'all have a specific page for mobile traffic, you can supply that link via the mobile_link aspect.

image_link

This is the master product epitome. If yous have multiple images, utilize the additional_image_link attribute.

It'due south best to use the best quality prototype you lot have, preferably 800px 10 800px, but higher is always better. Ideally, the shot needs to be of the product on a white background.

Don't try to be clever by adding extra text or logos to the paradigm, that won't piece of work.

Just do take a look at the current search results. Information technology happens often that all products have the same image, oftentimes dropshippers that use the product images supplied by the manufacturer. That means that you lot could stand out with a different angle or higher quality image.

Let's take a await at another example of this tactic:

Seller #5 grabs the attention with a slightly different production image

google_product_category

The google product category attribute tells Google which category your product belongs to.

The category attribute is no longer required. If you don't pick a category, Google will selection the most appropriate on automatically:

If you don't provide one, Google automatically assigns a product category to your products

This feature hasn't been effectually for likewise long, but Google's guesses of the product categories that I've seen were pretty authentic.

If you want to supply the information yourself, you can but utilize the pre-divers values from the Google Product Taxonomy listing. Don't just settle for the highest level category, try to be as specific as possible.

Example: you're selling a cycling jersey:

Don't settle for the full general category: Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Activewear

Only be every bit specific as possible: Apparel & Accessories > Wear > Activewear > Bicycle Activewear > Bicycle Jerseys

Beingness as accurate as you tin can help to increment your visibility.

If you're selling bundled products, pick the almost advisable category.

product_type

The product type is another category indicator. Information technology's not required but highly recommended. This one is mainly used for the organization of your Shopping campaigns.

This advertiser can organize her Shopping campaigns based on the product type attribute

You're also not limited to the categories that Google has, so yous can create your own subcategories to brand the organization easier.

Almost advertisers will send their ain site hierarchy into this attribute.

If you practise utilize this, be certain to include the full string. In the instance in a higher place, possibly your shop just sells cycling jerseys. So you could have:

Apparel & Accessories > Vesture > Activewear > Bicycle Activewear > Bicycle Jerseys > Woollen Jerseys

or

Wearing apparel & Accessories > Article of clothing > Activewear > Bicycle Activewear > Bike Jerseys > Nylon Jerseys

This allows you to admission all of these values when y'all're organizing your campaigns.

condition

The product condition is a required attribute for all products.

Options:

• new
• used
• refurbished

availability

The product availability is a required aspect for all products.

Options:

• in stock
• out of stock
• preorder

Annotation that items available for preorder are eligible to show in Google Shopping. If yous desire to forbid this, you can fix them to "out of stock" instead.

price

The product toll + currency is a required attribute for all products. For example 15.00 USD. The currency needs to friction match the country you lot're creating the feed for, it needs to friction match the cost of the production a customer would pay at checkout.

You demand to include VAT into your price, except if you're targeting the Usa, Canada or Republic of india.

Cost mismatches are one of the most common bug in a Google Merchant Center account. This is oftentimes the case if yous take multiple variants or if you're doing currency conversions!

sale_price

Use the sale_price attribute to communicate a special deal on a production. Information technology is an optional attribute with the aforementioned requirements of the product price attribute.

Here is what the sales_price attribute looks similar in a product listing ad

Common mistake #1

The attributes condition, availability, sales price, and price are pretty straightforward, simply Google is very strict about the accuracy of all the data in your production feed.

What you put in your feed needs to match the data on your website. If the price doesn't friction match, a product volition get disapproved.

To avoid this, make sure to update your Google Shopping feed is updated frequently and that the information for each product variant is passed correctly. Check in the Automation section below for some tools that make this process easier past integrating with your store.

gtin

Gtin or Global Trade Item Number is a unique product identifier. You probably know these better equally barcodes. Depending on you where you are located or source your products from, yous'll use a different organisation:

• UPC: 12 digit number mainly used in North-America
• EAN/UCC: 8,thirteen or 14 digit number mainly used outside North America
• January: 8 or thirteen digit number used in Japan
• ISBN: unique identifier for books

If you have multiple options, for case, a UPC code or an EAN number, you tin can use either one of them.

If you are selling a multipack or bundle, use the gtin of one of the products.

brand

The brand name of the company that created the product. Don't include your own store proper name or the proper noun of your distributor. If information technology'due south a product that you have created yourself and you've bought a UPC/EAN barcode from a party like GS1, exercise add your brand name here.

mpn

Mpn or Manufacturer Part Number. This is a number provided past the manufacturer of the product. It'southward required for products that don't have a valid gtin number.

identifier_exists

The identifier_exists attribute indicates whether a production identifier exists for this product. Here is how to use it:

• You resell items that have a gtin / mpn and a make: identifier_exists needs to be set to TRUE
• You sell one-time or custom items: identifier_exists needs to exist set to Imitation (Google then won't require a gtin, mpn number or make for these products in your data feed)

If you don't provide a value, Google volition set it to TRUE.

Don't try to be clever and ready the identifier_exists to Imitation to avoid having to look upwards or enter all the product identifiers. Google really needs this information to lucifer you with the right search queries.

Common mistake #2

For near products, Google requires two out of 3 product identifiers. These are the following attributes: brand, gtin or mpn.

Because a lot of sellers will have dissimilar product titles or descriptions, Google uses these product identifiers to figure out which products are the same.

If you don't supply the right information, your products might exist disapproved, or it will neglect to get clicks. This means it'due south in your ain interest to do the legwork to include these production identifiers.

If you haven't been using gtin or mpn identifiers, bank check with your suppliers, they should be able to provide them.

Merely I've also had many cases where a supplier didn't know or didn't take whatsoever product identifiers.

My next move is usually checking sites like upcitemdb or barcodelookup.

For example, I tried to find the UPC number of an Anker Powercore 20000 power banking concern. I opened upwardly upcitemdb. The screenshot below shows me all of the different product variations.

I presume Google has a like database.

If you don't add together the product identifiers to your shopping feed, Google volition lucifer your products based on the production titles.

So if your product championship is "Anker Powercore 20000 power banking concern", Google will testify Shopping ads with searches for power depository financial institution.

Just there are a lot of other means to describe this product: battery pack, external battery, etc. Thing is that your competitors are probably using a lot of these keywords. And if you utilise the same product identifiers equally your competitors, you're able to tap into this multitude of searches.

Special product attributes

Besides most of the required attributes covered above, some categories or cases require you to add together boosted information into your product feed. Apparel probably existence one of the most demanding categories.

item_group_id

The item_group_id attribute is necessary if you're selling a product that comes in multiple variations like a different color or size.

The aspect indicates to Google that there is one "cadre product", with minor variations. It allows customers to explore variations right in Google Shopping:

Selecting size and color straight from the Google Shopping portal

Each of the products that have the same item_group_id needs to have i product aspect that differs

For instance:

• Light pink chinos 34: item_group_id: chino12 color: pink size: 34 age_group: developed
• Blackness chinos 28: item_group_id: chino12 color: blackness- size: 28 age_group: adult
• Blue chino 32:item_group_id: chino12 colour: blue size: 32- age_group: developed

Below I'll encompass each of the attributes that are used in the variations.

If y'all submit multiple products with the aforementioned item_group_id, but with identical attributes, you'll see the "duplicate variants" fault. You lot can fix this by making sure each variation is unique.

color

The colour attribute is required for all clothes items and indicated the color. The value you demand to provide to Google needs to exist the actual color spelled out: black grayness, teal, etc.

If you have multiple colors, yous tin can provide up to three colors past putting a slash in betwixt colors. For example: yellow/green/white

gender

The gender attribute indicates the gender the product is for.
Possible values are male person , female or unisex .

size

The size aspect indicates the product's size. Multiple values are supported, but y'all accept to stay consistent across variations.

In our example above we were using the size for the pants: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, etc.

If you're too selling shoes you can utilize the common shoe size in your region: 7, 9, 9.5, 10, 10.v, etc.

Also, S, M, L, Xl are possible.

If the production contains two size dimensions, similar a pair of pants, you tin combine them separated by a slash: 32/34 for example (where 32 is the waist and 34 is the length)

age_group

The age_group attribute is required for all apparel items and information technology indicates which target audition the product is meant for. Possible values are:

• newborn : 0-iii months
• baby : three-12 months
• toddler : 1-5 years
• kids : 5-thirteen years
• adult : thirteen years & up

These values will help Shopping friction match products to search queries like "sun chapeau baby seven months"

And then in about cases, you lot'll use ready age_group to adult. Annotation that this is different from the adult aspect, which is explained below.

adult

The developed aspect is required if the products contain nudity or sexually suggestive content. If your product doesn't contain this, you don't need to supply it, information technology is set to no as default.

Frequently this is linked to a checkbox in your store'due south back-finish. I have had one client where this was all switched on by mistake, which acquired the products not to exist shown. So make certain this one is merely turned on if it needs to be.

custom_label_0-4

To terminate, I want to mention the custom_label attribute. These are extra pieces of information you tin add to your product feed. Adding custom labels to your Google shopping campaigns takes you lot into the optimization realm of your Shopping campaigns. (When you fix your campaigns in Google Ads interface, you're able to use these custom labels to define your campaign structure)

But I wanted to add them here in instance you want to provide extra information to your feed.

The Google Shopping Policies

Besides all of the required product attributes, there are too some meta requirements yous need to pay attention to. These are the various Shopping policies.

Violating these policies is what gets your Google Merchant Center business relationship suspended. I'll encompass each of them below and show you how to fix them.

Instance of a suspended Google Merchant Center business relationship

Prohibited or Restricted product policy

If you are selling products that are heavily regulated or not allowed on Google (categories like alcohol, developed content, tobacco, counterfeit goods, weapons, drugs, copyrighted content, etc.) you could run into these types of errors.

And then if you lot're not sure well-nigh your products, check the list of prohibited or restricted items.

This can change depending on the country you're selling in. So if you're expanding internationally, the grounds for disapproval might be dissimilar.

Landing page policy

Google wants the best possible experience for a user on your site. If the link you lot provide to the landing page is broken or returns a different kind of server fault, that product or your whole feed might get disapproved.

A 2nd common fault in this category is sending the user to the homepage instead of the specific product page.

Welcome gates or popups that cake the whole page are also not allowed by Google. Then if you lot exercise use a popup, make sure it'southward easy for the user to get around it.

Check the list of landing page restrictions.

Return and Refund policy

You lot need to take clear information on your site on how a client tin can get a refund or how she tin can render an order.

If y'all don't have these policies in identify, your feed will be suspended, and if it remains unsolved, your business relationship suspended.

Shipping settings

Yous need to provide accurate and consummate information with regards to the service (fast, slow, limited, insured, etc.) and associated costs.

If you lot are shipping from outside the land you are targeting you need to provide articulate data about the toll and type of service. Also, exist articulate most extra customs fees that might be applied to the social club.

The basic thinking behind this policy is: don't surprise your customer. Exist clear what to wait and what it's going to toll.

There are two means to fix your Shipping rates:

1. In your Google Merchant Center account (recommended)
2. In your product feed

I prefer #one because it gives you lot a good overview of the shipping rates that are agile.

If you include the shipping values in your product feed it overrides the values in GMC. That's where things often go incorrect.

Trouble 1: incomplete shipping value

There are two ways to pass the correct data for this attribute, one is to exercise this in a single field:

shipping: Us:::4.95 USD

Or add together all of the subattributes separately:

shipping_country, shipping_region, shipping_service or shipping_price(only this concluding ane is required).

Trouble 2: Calculated shipping rates

Sometimes, shipping rates depend on the weight of the production. If you've configured the different brackets in GMC, you need to make sure that you send through the weight value in the right format for each product. This includes the value + measurement unit.

Taxation settings

In most countries, the price y'all provide in your feed will include sales tax. Only in the United States you lot'll need to configure the taxation settings in Google Merchant Center: which states practise you owe tax in, what percentage, etc.

Going through all these attributes, I hope you've spotted the errors y'all were making earlier and have managed to fix them in your back-terminate.

Lifting your Google Merchant Center suspension
If your account got suspended and you've fixed the problems that led to that suspension yous can asking an account review.

In my experience, Google is really quick (a couple of hours up to 3 days) to lift an account suspension if you've put in the work to fix the problems.

Be aware that this is a manual procedure, so there volition be an actual person looking at your account. If you're sloppy, lazy or didn't brand any changes, reviewing could take longer and longer or your account suspension could be permanent! If your suspension is lifted, yous nevertheless might get some errors for the feeds that are in your Google Merchant Middle account.

One time y'all see errors popular upward, you'll have a couple of days to set up them or delete the feed from your account. Just if the errors pile upwardly and yous don't fix them, you're on your style to an account suspension.

Part 2 Fixing Errors In Google Merchant Center

All of the information higher up will already improve your data quality and shed some light on any policies you might be violating.

When you're fixing your feed, you tin utilise the Diagnostics overview in the Products department of Google Merchant Center to see if you're making progress and indicate what other issues you need to ready.

The Diagnostics overview in Google Merchant Center

There are 3 types of problems in GMC::

Business relationship issues
These are bug that impact your whole account. For example, an unclaimed website, no Google Ads account linked or a missing render & refund policy.

Feed issues
These issues are related to the fetching, uploading or processing of feeds.

Detail issues
These are the majority of the bug you lot're trying to set up with this commodity, mainly related to the information quality.

Clicking on each section volition outline exactly what is incorrect and what you tin practice to gear up them.

Not every trouble has the same importance, In Merchant Center in that location are 3 different types of problems:

• Errors: critical issues that need to be addressed asap
• Warnings: important things to ready when you're done with the errors. These volition often increase visibility
• Notifications: suggestions to optimize your product feed

Hither is a look at a Google Merchant Center account with its share of bug:

Errors and warnings in a Google Merchant Center account

Past at present you should have been able to set up a lot your feed bug.

But some issues require a different approach. In this section, I'll tackle these with different approaches and new tools that can help.

Creating a shopping feed from scratch

If you're unable to get any of the integrations or feed generators to work, sometimes you need to get back to basics to detect the underlying effect.

With shopping feeds, that means creating a new unproblematic product feed from scratch where yous can control each and every variable.

You can exercise this when you're creating a new feed in Google Merchant Center. Google will generate a new spreadsheet that's linked to your GMC business relationship and which detects any changes and automatically updates the information in your product feed.

Create a primary product feed with Google Sheets

This is a very fourth dimension-consuming approach, plus all the data needs to be updated every bit soon equally something changes in your store. Then I simply utilize this approach if products rarely change or if I need to troubleshoot why a specific product feed won't work.

In that location also is an official google shopping feed template. It's a re-create of the template that you'll get from Google Merchant Center if you lot use Google Sheets for your product feeds. Be sure to too check tab ii in the certificate calledExample. This will illustrate how to use the template.

Product variations, Bulk Changes & Multiple Feeds

Luckily, y'all don't have to go through the above to create your shopping feed. Most ecommerce platforms volition have some kind of integration with Google Merchant Center. Shopify, for case, has its ain free app that pushes your products into Merchant Center.

And for some stores, that's all they need. But in some cases, you need extra flexibility or features that these basic setups are besides limited.

To me at that place are a couple of features that make dealing with product feed a lot easier:

• Properly handle product variations
• Ability to speedily make (bulk) changes
• Manage multiple product feeds
• Take advantage of custom labels
• Use optimized feeds for Bing, Facebook Ads, etc.

Some of these or must-haves, others will save you some fourth dimension.

In that location are a ton of tools out there that will aid you do this (skip ahead for a big list of them). They all piece of work in the following way:

1. Grab product information from the store (via an app, plugin, extension, API, etc.)
2. Ability to edit data in your production feed via the tool
3. Push feed(s) to Google Merchant Center

All tools below will do #i and #3. But non all will exercise #2.

With the gratuitous or inexpensive ones (except for Feed Rules), yous don't have the power to edit whatsoever of the data in your product feed before information technology gets pushed to Google Merchant Center.

That means no bulk changes, multiple production feeds or custom labels.

These often have the features that actually make the difference. They get under a number of different names: data feed management software, feed direction, shopping feed platform, etc.

Google Shopping Feed Tools

The main benefit of these comes out when you're managing multiple production feeds. That tin can be google shoppings feeds for multiple countries or a feed for Google and another for Bing Shopping.

These are the main providers of this software:

• GoDataFeed (paid plans starting from $39/mo)
• Channable (paid plans starting from €29/mo)
• DataFeedWatch  (paid plans starting from $34/mo)
• Sales&Orders (free & paid plans starting from $twenty/mo)

You lot'll come across the pricing varies widely between the unlike tools. Don't make a determination purely based on cost. If you're interested in any of these tools, sign upwards for a trial and explore what they can practise for y'all.

Pro tip: almost of them volition include a costless setup, which will assistance you get your product feeds ready in no fourth dimension!

Google Merchant Center Feed Rules

Feed Rules is a picayune-known characteristic in Google Merchant Heart tin can practice some of the things these platforms can, the merely departure is that you can practice it for free.

Calculation a custom label via Google Merchant Middle Feed Rules

You tin use these to add together new data to your Google Merchant Eye data feed and brand bulk changes. In the screenshot to a higher place, I've used the functionality to add a custom label to the feed, depending on the product type.

Google Shopping Feed for Shopify

A quick search in the Shopify app store shows you've got plenty of choices:

Google Shopping Apps in the Shopify App Shop

Opinions over which one is the best vary. I'g a big fan of the standard Google Shopping app by Shopify. information technology used to exist buggy just they've worked hard over the concluding couple of years to improve it.

Just beware that if you follow all the steps in their setup, yous'll create a Smart Shopping entrada. It's not the stop of the world, simply something to be aware of and learn more than most.

Here is the list of solid options:

• Google Shopping app by Shopify (gratuitous past Shopify) link
• Feed For Google Shopping (paid Simprosys InfoMedia) link
• ShoppingFeeder (costless & paid ShoppingFeeder) link

Some of the data feed management providers mentioned above, also have their own Shopify apps: Channable and DataFeedWatch.

Google Shopping Feed for WooCommerce

To generate your shopping feeds on WooCommerce, there are many plugins out at that place. Two of our favorites:

• WooCommerce Product Feed PRO link
• WooCommerce Google Feed Manager link

Autonomously from the above, all the feed platforms besides offer WooCommerce support: GoDataFeed, Channable, DataFeedWatch & Sales&Orders

Google Shopping Feed for Magento

To get your Magento product feed working, there are enough of extensions available:

• Google Shopping M2 (paid Magmodules) link
• Simple Google Shopping M2 (paid Wyomind) link

Most of the information feed direction providers mentioned in a higher place, also have their own Magento extensions: Channable (M2), DataFeedWatch (M2).

Google Shopping Feed for BigCommerce

BigCommerce now supports Google Shopping on all plans via the Sales&Orders app.

Other BigCommerce apps that volition help you with Google Shopping:

• DataFeedWatch link
• GoDataFeed link

Google Shopping Feed for Shift4Shop (3dcart)

Shift4Shop also offers Google Shopping support with a diversity of modules:

• Automatic Google Shopping Feed (paid 3dcart) link  screenshot looks like it +5 years former, so don't know about the quality of the app
• DataFeedWatch (paid) link
• GoDataFeed (paid) link
• Sales&Orders (paid) link

Google Shopping Feed for Prestashop

• Google Shopping Merchant Middle Module (paid) link
• Google Shopping Consign (paid)  link
• Google Shopping Feed in 3 min (paid) link

Master the subtle tweaks of the setup

You fabricated information technology till the terminate, congrats!

At present you lot know how and where to prepare the problems with your Google Shopping Feed.

If yous'd like to know what to do after setting up, check out my Google Shopping course. Through a series of video lessons, you'll learn how to ready your Shopping campaigns for maximum impact. The feedback from our students has been really great so I encourage you lot to bank check it out!

How To Add A Api Or Ftp Data Feed To Bigcommerce,

Source: https://www.storegrowers.com/google-shopping-feed/

Posted by: georgewithen.blogspot.com

Share this post