Formatting Google Merchant Center Archives

Populating Merchant Center with Proper Data

After your Merchant Center has been approved and you have completed the appropriate settings for shipping, tax, etc. it is a critical time. A time that will play a major part in determining your success using Google Shopping. It is time to create your plan for populating your product data inside Merchant Center.

You will soon discover that having well formatted data is going to be essential in order to properly segment campaigns inside the Google Ads interface.

Updating Product Data in Merchant Center

To get started you need to submit the products to Merchant Center that you want to have eligible to appear in Google Shopping. When submitting your products, there are four options:

Google Sheets – You make all of the changes manually to the product data using a Google Sheet. These changes are automatically applied to your account once uploaded.

Schedule fetch – You host a data feed file on your website and schedule a time for Google to fetch updates from the file. Once the fetch occurs, Google applies updates to your products in Merchant Center.

Upload – This is the most common. With this method you keep the file and schedule a regular upload into your merchant center using SFTP, FTP, Google Cloud storage or a manual upload.

Content API – The Content API for Shopping enables merchants to automatically upload product listings using an API connection.

The Process of Submit Products

Unless you have just a handful of products that rarely change in terms of inventory and pricing it typically is not viable to manually create and update a product feed.

The good news is that there are many 3^rd party Data Optimization Companies that specialize in getting data from your website to Merchant Center. The bad news is how do you know which data optimization company is a good fit for your company and for your needs.

The better a data optimization company is the easier they are going to make the process for merchants of taking data in their website and easily customizing that data into Google’s different fields.

Here are currently the different fields that are supported in Google Shopping. Not all the fields below are required, but the more fields that you populate the better Google is going to be able to match your products to relevant customer searches.

Being able to populate all or at least as many of these fields as possible is why using a 3^rd party data optimization company is usually an essential addition to your Google Shopping efforts.

Image if you have 5,000 products and after spending hours creating your initial upload you need to make changes to just a couple of these fields. It would take a long time, right?

Changes can be done using a data feed optimization company in a matter for seconds or minutes instead of hours.

Most fields are not required. Only 13 fields are currently required to have products approved in Merchant Center for non-apparel items and 20 fields are required for apparel items.

Note, some of the required apparel fields are only required in Shopping Actions not to be approved in Google Shopping. For information on Shopping Actions see my article – Google’s Shopping Actions – Changing The Landscape.

Choosing a Data Feed Optimization Company

Now that you have discovered why it is a good idea to partner with a data optimization feed company, how do you select which company is right for your business?

Typically, the price of this service can range from twenty dollars to hundreds of dollars per month so choosing the right company is going to depend on a few things:

Are you planning on using the data feed company to send your product feed to other comparison-shopping engines other than Google Shopping? Since Google Shopping is the largest comparison-shopping engine, typically all companies are going to have this feed well structured. The difference with the more expensive companies usually will be in how well they can structure the feeds going to other Shopping portals.
How does their system allow you to manipulate your data feed? The main purpose of using a data optimization company is to be able to easily populate your data feed. No matter what company you select there will be a learning curve; however, make sure you get a full overview as learning how to manipulate and submit your feed is essential.
Make sure you know how the company charges. Some data optimization feed companies charge additional based on how many products you have. Once you reach a certain number of products the monthly charge may start increasing.
Support is key. There is going to be a learning curve. Make sure whatever data optimization company you select offers full support in helping you get started as well helping with questions maintaining the health of your data feed moving forward.
Make sure you can easily review your feed. As time passes, you are going to want to be able to export your feed. With some data optimization companies that use an API, I have found that this is not possible.
Don’t sign a long-term contract! There are so many data optimization companies out there that don’t require a long-term commitment. There is no reason to be locked into anything other than a month-to-month agreement.

Working with Your Data

Once you have selected a data optimization company, the first step is importing your products into their system. It is within the data optimization company’s system, that merchants will format their feed and manipulate the data populating as many of the fields above as possible.

Remember, the more fields you populate the more effective Google will be in matching your products to related customer inquiries.

Also, start thinking about how it makes sense to segment your products. Google provides the custom label fields in order to help their advertisers segment their data.

The custom label fields serve no other purpose in your data feed other than to organize your products, so feel free to enter whatever data you want that will better help you segment your campaigns.

For more information on custom labels including ideas on how to effectively use, check out my article – Segmenting Product Data – Develop Your Plan With Custom Labels.

Submitting Your Feed

Assuming that by now you have already claimed and verified your Merchant Center and have completed your tax and shipping settings the last piece of completing your merchant center is submit your first product feed.

To begin submitting your first data feed you will need to navigate under Products in the left-hand menu to ‘Feeds’ and then click on the blue plus button under Primary feeds.

Next, you will select your country of sale, the language for the content of your feed and the destination in Google that you wish your products eligible to appear. As a default Shopping ads are checked, for information on how to have your products eligible to appear in Shopping Actions see my article – Google’s Shopping Actions – Changing The Landscape.

Then, you will name your Primary feed and select the input method. The input method is going to depend upon your data optimization company, but most likely will be the Upload option.

If you select the upload option, you will enter the name and type of file exactly as it will appear coming from your data optimization company. In order to be successfully processed, this must be exact.

In addition, you can upload your new file manually on this page to test if it will be accepted.

Now that your feed is created there are a couple more items that you will need to format before your feed will be successfully submitted.

First, you will need to provide your data feed optimization company the ability to connect with your Merchant Center account. To do this you will need to provide them with your Merchant Center SFTP or FTP login credentials. To find these credentials, click on the wrench icon in the top tool bar and choose ‘SFTP/FTP/GCS’ under ‘Settings’.

Depending on how your partnered data optimization company connects, this is where you will be able to find the needed credentials.

The last thing that generally causes an initial feed to fail is the merchant not selecting their ‘Default currency’. This is the type of currency used to sell products included in the feed.

In order to select, click on your feed name and click on settings. Under ‘Default currency’ you select your correct currency and save.

That’s it. Your feed should now be successful submitted into Google Merchant Center. Google can take up to 72 hours to first process and approve your items, so you will need to be patient. Soon you will be ready for the really fun stuff – setting up your campaigns inside the Google Ads interface!

Final Word

Creating your Merchant Account and formatting your corresponding data feed is going to take some work. However, given that products advertised in Google Shopping are producing some of the highest returns on investment it is most likely worth the work.

As competition grows for advertisers using Google Shopping, it is going to take more than just sending a partially developed data feed and bidding the same for each item in Google Ads in order to be successful.

However, by fully developing your plan with your data feed you will gain an immediate advantage over your competitors.

For those of you with a large number of product offerings or product offerings that change frequently it will be essential to partner with a solid data optimization company. Use the list above in this article to determine the right fit and don’t delay. Customers are out there actively searching for your products and you want to make sure they can find you!

There Can Be No Google Shopping Without A Google Merchant Account {updated 1/14/20}

For many eCommerce merchants, Google Shopping is essential to their online sales strategy and new customer acquisition. With Google search ads becoming ever more expensive, many retailers are finding their best ROI opportunities with the implementation of properly optimized Google Shopping ads.

In order to fully optimize, advertisers adjust their Google Shopping product bids and segment their products within the Google Ads interface. For best-practices and effective strategies on optimizing Google Shopping within the Google Ads interface review my articles: Adjusting Google Shopping Bids For Individual Products, How Segmenting Google Shopping Campaigns Can Boost Profitability and Top Tips To Optimize Google Shopping.

However, before products are eligible to appear in Google Shopping products must first become eligible to appear. For products to become eligible to appear, they must be properly formatted and approved inside a Google Merchant Center Account.

In addition, for advertisers wishing to advertise their products using Google’s Shopping Actions Program, creating a Merchant Center account is also required for participation.

The Basics – Google’s Merchant Center

A Google Merchant Center Account is an account that Google requires merchants open before they can have their products eligible to list within Google Shopping or Shopping Actions. It is where merchants upload their full product data containing information on the products, they wish to advertise within Google Shopping network.

In order to get started, new advertisers need to create an account by visiting www.google.com/retail/solutions/merchant-center/ and clicking on the ‘Get Started’ button. When creating a new account, advertisers will be required to supply the name of their store, Website URL and whether the website contains content as defined by Google.

Next, an advertiser will need verify and claim the URL for the account they create.

In order to claim a website, owners have the options of adding some HTML code to their metatags, using information in their Google Analytics tags or information contained in their Google Tag Manager. Any of the methods will work and therefore it is left to the discretion of individual advertisers to select which method they prefer.

Once the tags are implemented, advertisers can quickly determine whether the process of claiming and verifying worked and if successful the site will change status to being verified and claimed.

In addition, an advertiser can determine if their account has been successfully claimed and verified at any time, by clicking on the ‘Account Settings’ link under the Settings link (wrench icon) in the top menu.

Once an advertiser has claimed and verified their account, they will have full functionality throughout the account. However, to properly manage their Google Merchant Center Account, advertisers will need to understand the layout of where different options and settings are located.

Exploring Google’s Merchant Center Layout

Each Merchant Center account uses a left-hand menu that includes the following options: Overview, Orders (if Shopping Actions is enabled), Products, Performance (if Shopping Actions is enabled), Marketing and Growth.

Overview

The overview is a dashboard containing a quick snapshot of the account. Although, for new merchants the dashboard will be blank, for existing merchants the dashboard becomes an important snapshot into the health of the account.

For advertisers with account history, the dashboard will display a summary overview of their products including a graph displaying active products, expiring products, products awaiting review and disapproved products for Surfaces across Google, Shopping Ads and Shopping Actions (if enabled). In addition, the dashboard will show a graph displaying the account’s paid click history as well as Google announcements.

Orders

This link will only appear for merchants who have been approved to have their products appear within Google’s Shopping Actions.

Within the orders section, merchants will find orders from Google Shopping Actions that are Pending, Pending Delivery and All Orders (history). The Orders link also contains historical return data again for Google Shopping Action orders only.

Products

The Products link is going to be the most used of the links within the left-hand navigation. Within the Product link, merchants can access ‘Diagnostics’, ‘All Products’ and ‘Feeds’.

Diagnostics – This section shows advertisers any potential issues with products within their submitted data. Diagnostic information can be viewed based on destination (dynamic remarketing, shopping actions, shopping ads or surfaces across Google); although shopping ads is the default view. In addition, the diagnostics data can be viewed by the Country ads are served as well as by specific Feed.

Reviewing the Merchant Center’s diagnostics is essential in determining which products are eligible for display in Google Shopping and/or Shopping Actions. These insights are NOT available in the Google Ads interface and is one reason that reviewing the Merchant Center Account on a regular basis is highly recommended.

Diagnostics will provide the number of items currently disapproved, awaiting review, expiring and active. In addition, the diagnostics link contains information on the status of the account, feeds and individual items. If there are issues present in any of these areas, diagnostics will also generate links helpful for fixing listed issues as well as provide examples to items with current issues and the ability to download all items affected by listed errors.

In this account example, the diagnostics view contains links to affected items with errors in the feed. By clicking on the ‘View samples’ link an advertiser can determine how many of their products are currently being affected and by which issues. Note, that not all listed issues will keep products from being eligible for display; however, next to the issue Google will list if the error causes products to be disapproved or if this issue is a warning.

All products – The ‘All products’ link allows advertisers to view all of their products. They can view details on individual products by clicking on the title.

In addition, advertisers can filter and search for specific data based on Title, ID, Price, Clicks, Condition, Availability, Status, Channel, Country or Language.

The ‘All products’ link is essential to use when confirming whether a specific product is listed and what attributes for specific products have been indexed into Google’s database. This can be done through this view quickly without the need to open and review the actual data feed.

Feeds – Within the feeds link, advertisers can review current feeds as well as create and schedule new feeds. Feed types are categorized into Primary Feeds and Supplemental Feeds.

Primary feeds are used by Google Merchant Center to upload product data via text (txt) files, XML (.xml) files, Google Sheets or the Google Center API.

Supplemental feeds are used by Merchant Center as a secondary data source to provide additional attributes to your primary feeds or to provide additional data to be used within Feed Rules.

For more information on Supplemental feeds, review my article – Using Supplemental Feeds in Merchant Center.

Once a data feed has been successfully uploaded, approved products are eligible to appear within the Google Shopping network for 30 days. So, at the absolute minimum merchants will need to re-upload their data monthly. However, typically for eCommerce merchants where their product information changes, in order to stay current with data, products will require more regular uploads typically daily or at least weekly.

The process of uploading a new data feed is the easy part of getting items approved in Google’s Shopping network. More involved is creation of the actual feed. Google currently supports 46 different attributes and although not all attributes are required it is recommended that advertisers populate as many fields as possible that are relevant for their products.

Current supported attributes include: link, title, description, price, sale_price, sale_price_effective_date, mobile_link, image_link, id, brand, condition, manufacturer, mpn, gtin, identifier_exists, shipping_weight, product_type, shipping, multipack, is_bundle, adwords_grouping, adwords_labels, excluded_destination, expiration_date, promotion_id, availability, availability_date, google_product_category, color, size, size_type, size_system, material, pattern, additional_image_link, age_group, gender, adult, item_group, custom_label_0, custom_label_1, custom_label_2, custom_label_3, custom_label_4, shipping_height, shipping_width, shipping_length and cost_of_goods_sold.

Don’t worry, there are 3^rd party data optimization companies that work with advertisers for a nominal fee to set-up regular data feed uploads and populate different fields based on information currently contained within eCommerce websites.

Performance

The performance link will appear for retailers who have been approved to sell products through Google’s Shopping Actions program.

The performance view allows advertisers to keep track of retailer standards to make sure they are meeting Google Shopping Actions performance standards as well as keep track of Shopping Actions promotions.

Note, advertisers participating in Shopping Actions that meet top retailer status will have their items shown more often in Shopping Actions while those who consistently fall below standards may find their products eventually suspended from appearing within Google Shopping Actions.

Marketing

The marketing link contains Promotions and Product reviews. Both promotions and product reviews are free to use; however, you will need to request that they are enabled from the Google Shopping team before you see them in your Google Merchant Center console.

Promotions allow advertisers to stand apart from their competition who sell the same or similar products. A strategic way to bring added emphasis to product listings, review my article, Enhancing Google Shopping Using Promotions for details on creating and implementing promotions within Google Merchant Center.

For advertisers who collect product reviews, this feature allows their product ratings and reviews to be shown directly on their Google Shopping listing. Note, for a merchant to qualify to use product reviews they must have a minimum of 50 product reviews gathered within the last 12 months. In order to remain eligible, merchants will need to update their product reviews at least once per month through a data upload into their Google Merchant Center account.

Growth

The Growth link contains suggestions from Google to grow your account and includes Opportunities, Market insights, Shopping Actions insights (if approved) and Manage programs.

Opportunities – Lists where there may be potential opportunities to increase your traffic using Google Shopping. Examples of opportunities include fixing errors on historically high traffic Shopping ads.

Marketing insights – This view shows popular products on Google that you’re not currently advertising. In the “Personalized” view, the products are selected based on how similar they are to your most popular products and ranked based on how many clicks an ad for that product is likely to receive. Along with the products, you’ll also see prices for those products from other retailers.

The “Personalized” tab shows you products that you might want to advertise based on your current products, ranked by how many clicks an ad for that product would receive. These products are related to what you’re currently advertising.

Shopping Actions insights (for merchants who have been accepted into Shopping actions) – This view helps advertisers understand your price competitiveness on Shopping Actions and how you can win the buy-box. This view allows advertisers to filter by specific products in order to gain insight into which products they are winning buy box with Google Shopping Actions.

Manage programs – This view allows advertisers to easily manage which available features are enabled within their Merchant Center account. Currently available programs include Surfaces across Google, Shopping ads, Shopping Actions, Dynamic Remarketing, Customer Reviews, Local inventory ads, Merchant Promotions and Product Ratings.

Settings

The final option located as a Wrench icon in the upper menu is Settings.

Settings are broken into two subcategories – Tools and Settings.

Tools consists of all the settings a merchant needs to complete in order to have their account approved. These include Shipping and returns, Sales tax, Business information, Payments, Shopping ads setup, Shopping Actions setup (if approved), Customer Reviews setup and Surfaces Across Google.

Shipping and returns – where a merchant formats their shipping and return information. Information submitted here needs to fully match what is listed on the website.

Sales tax – where a merchant formats where and at what rates they collect sales tax on orders.

Business information – The business display name along with address and customer service contact information.

Payments (merchants with Shopping Actions) – payment information of where Google will send settled money received from orders placed using Google Shopping actions.

Shopping ads setup – Information regarding participation in Google Shopping ads including notices, status and product/business information.

Shopping Actions setup (merchants with Shopping Actions) – Information regarding participation in Shopping Actions including notices, status and product/business information.

Customer reviews setup – Data about the number customers who have opted in and completed Google’s Customer Review surveys.

Surfaces across Google – Information regarding participation in Surfaces across Google including notices, status and product/business information.

The Settings subcategory includes Content API, Account settings, Account access, Preferences, Linked accounts, Automatic improvements and SFTP, FTP, GCS.

Content API – Historical data for the account regarding successful and failed API calls. This is where you can create a Google API Key for your Google Merchant Center account.

Account Settings – This includes time zone and language as well as account status and where you can close your account.

Account Access – Allows merchants to grant access to their Merchant Center account to different users that they wish to be able to access their account.

Preferences – Allows merchant to adjust access levels for various users and control levels of automatic notifications from Google.

Linked accounts – Allows you to link your Merchant Center Account to your Google Ads account. This must be done prior to being able to serve product ads within Google.

Automatic improvements – Allows merchants to enable automatic item updates for price, availability and both.

SFTP, FTP, GCS – Access to SFTP, FTP and GCS settings in order to be able to upload products directly into your Merchant Center account based on these available delivery methods.

Final Word

Although once a merchant has setup their Google Merchant Center Account and have their product data automatically and successfully updating, it can be tempting to forget about the Merchant Center and fully concentrate efforts on optimizing listings exclusively within the Google Ads interface.

Optimizing listings and categories within the Google Ads interface is essential to the success of Google Shopping Campaigns. However, equally important is the regular monitoring of the Google Merchant Center Account.

For it is only within the Google Merchant Center Account that advertisers can view issues related to their product data that may prevent items from being eligible to display; learn insights regarding other advertisers and configure account information such as shipping, tax and contact information.

For these reasons, without constantly monitoring your Google Merchant Center Account it will not possible to fully optimize your Google Shopping listings.

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Andy Splichal

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