To sell products in the Google ecosystem, you need to first upload product information to the Google Merchant Center. This is done through feed,  a structured data file containing product information, usually in XML or CSV format. The process can be completed on Google Feed or via a Feed that synchronizes with an API.

This article provides a simple guide on how to create a Google Feed with Smart Feed, a powerful SHOPLINE tool that helps you manage and optimize product data, and upload it to Google Merchant Center, making your products visible on Google Shopping and other ad platforms.

 

In This Article

• Obtaining Product Status Description (App Initialization)
• How to Create a Google Feed
• Product ID Option Rule Description
• UTM Option Rule Description
• SKU ID Option Rule Description
• Style Value Description of Attribute Rules
• Smart Feed Filtering Rules Explained
• Further Explanation of Automatic Updates in Real Time

 

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Obtaining Product Status Description (App Initialization)

If Smart Feed is the first feed tool you use on SHOPLINE, you need to first initialize the App. To do so, simply extract product data from your SHOPLINE store, and it doesn’t require additional settings.

During this process, your use of Smart Feed won’t be affected. Getting store product information in the store initialization phase is necessary for syncing feeds. Only after obtaining the information can a feed be created, edited, and synced to the GMC platform. Since there could be a lot of SPUs in the store’s background, it will take a long time.

 

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How to Create a Google Feed

 

1. From the SHOPLINE admin panel, go to Apps and find Smart Feed. Click New feed on the list page to start creating a Google feed. Select the Google channel and click Add feed.
   
   
2. Fill in the basic information, such as:

• Feed name: Customize your feed name for easy identification and management
• Target market: Identify the country or region where the items in your Google Feed are primarily sold
• Language: Specify the language of the items in the Google Feed
• Status: If turned on, it means you need to upload the quotes to GMC immediately.
  

3. Select the range of products that you want to synchronize and upload to GMC.
4. Select the product field rules that you want to synchronize and upload to the GMC, including product title, product description, product price, product size, etc. (If you choose Macro tag as the field value for synchronization, it will be automatically updated with the adjustment of products information)
5. Click on the New feed button to create.
   

 

Filter Non-compliant Clothing Items

According to Google's requirements:

• If the Google product category or product type is Apparel & Accessories (ID: 166), you need to provide color, age, and gender information.
• If the category is Apparel & Accessories > Apparel (ID: 1604) or Apparel & Accessories > Footwear (ID: 187), you need to provide color, age, gender, and size information. 

If you click Filter non-compliant clothing items, Smart Feed will automatically help you filter products that do not meet Google's criteria if you are selling the products mentioned above.

 

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Product ID Option Rule Description

Smart Feed supports the following multi-format Item ID as a filler for Product ID to facilitate product management:

• SKU ID (default value)
• SKU
• SPU ID
• SKU_SPU ID
• SKU_Feed target market_Feed target language
• SKU ID_Feed target market_Feed target language
• SKU ID_SKU

 

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UTM Option Rule Description

UTM is the abbreviation of Urchin Tracking Module (UTM), which is mainly used for media platforms to track traffic sources in conjunction with analysis tools to produce detailed social media results data.

When you integrate multi-channel with multi-store, you can use UTM to understand the specific source of the goods converted by the order, including channel and store information.

Currently, Smart Feed supports feed synchronization of four mainstream channels: Google, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok. Merchants can choose whether to add UTM to the product links in feed synchronization and customize parameters’ names and values.

 

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SKU ID Option Rule Description

SKU ID refers to the inventory unit identifier of a product or commodity. SKU is the unique identification of an inventory unit, with distinct variants, styles, sizes, colors, and so forth.

This parameter is mainly used to guide Google to specific product styles and display products in the SKU dimension when it crawls data and users access product links.

If you use the SPU dimension to synchronize products, you can choose not to synchronize this parameter. In this case, clicking the link will jump to the first style under the SPU by default. We recommend making this function mandatory to avoid discrepancies between the link and the redirected products.

 

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Style Value Description of Attribute Rules

Right now, attributes such as color, material, pattern, and size all come from the products in the product details page in Products. Merchants need to set the style value according to the format supported by Smart Feed, so the app can access the above attributes and synchronize them with GMC.

 

 

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Smart Feed Filtering Rules Explained

There are two types of Smart Feed filtering rules:

• Specified filtering rules: Merchants actively specify rules when setting commodity upload rules to avoid violating GMC policies.
• Default filtering rules: Smart Feed sets the rules for filtering non-compliant products by default according to GMC policies.

 

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Further Information on Automatic Updates in Real Time

After creating Feed, Smart Feed will synchronize the information to GMV. But after uploading, it goes through two more states:

• GMC products review
• Obtaining GMC status every 4 hours

You can automatically edit and update product information in real time. But you still need to go through the above two statuses before the upload is finished and shown in Smart Feed. This process may take some time.