This feed is commonly referred to as the Google API - Services feed.
To distribute your products on Google, check that your products catalogue contains the data normally required.
Note: you don't have these values in your product catalogue? Contact the Lengow Support Team to find an alternative.
Preamble
We chose to indicate in this guide fields technical names given by Google, for two reasons:
- They are titles, which Google will communicate to you
- These titles are common to all languages in Lengow. Whatever version of this channel you use (English, French, Spanish, Italian, ...), this guide will refer to the fields mentioned on the structure.
In Lengow, you will find the title of these fields under the name indicated by Lengow in the language of the structure:
Add a channel catalogue
Add a Google channel catalogue in your Lengow account and select the service.s you want to activate:
- Google Shopping
- Google Shopping DisplayAds
- Surfaces across Google
Unless specified, following settings are for all Google services.
Multi-countries display
- Google Shopping and Display Ads services: If you display your products in multiple countries, you'll have as many Google Shopping feeds in Lengow as you need to distribute your products. Each Google Shopping feed is independent of the others and although there are similarities, requires a specific country settings.
Will some products in your catalog be displayed on Google Shopping and others on Shopping Actions?
Only one Google channel is required in Lengow! Many fields are common to these services. The structure made available in your account will automatically adapt to your selection.
Unless specified, following settings are for all Google services.
Match Categories
Match your categories with Google's through "Categories Matching".
Complete Attributes Matching
Match your products catalogue fields with the fields requested by the channel, based on field definition. If necessary, enter hard values, use functions and/or adapt the values by creating rules. For fields with valid values, select the suggested values or match with your products catalogue values.
Some fields are mandatory and must be completed for your products to be created or updated. Other fields are optional but Google recommends you fill them in to improve your products visibility.
Some special features for Google :
1. Set up your special offers/sales/Black Friday
1.1 Special offers/Sales
To set up special offers, fill in the following fields:
- salePrice.value: discounted price of your on sale product.
- salePrice.currency : currency of the discounted price.
- price.value: strikethrough price of your product (original price). Please note your original prices will only be visible on mobile devices.
If you prepare your sales or promotions in advance, fill in this field so that your reduced prices won't be displayed immediately:
- salePriceEffectiveDate: time period during which sales will apply. You have to follow this exact formula when you fill this in: "2021-06-30T08:00+0200/2021-07-27T23:59+0200" for all your discounted products.
Please make sure you use the right time zone in this formula according to your location (for example: +0100 matches the French time zone for the winter sales, and +0200 matches the summer time in France).
If you use this field, Google recommends you to optimise your feed at least 7 days before the first day of the sales period to make sure changes are taken into account.st 7 days before the first day of the sales period to make sure changes are taken into account.
Click here to read Google's documentation.
2. Delivery methods and costs
Here are the fields that are linked yo delivery method and costs. Please check the structure's definition for more details and to know whether it is a required or an optional field.
- shippingLabel : Shipping method. Find more information about it in the Google HelpCenter. This refers to the label you defined while creating a shipping method in your Google Merchant Center. In Lengow, you’ll indicate the shipping method label you want to apply to your product·s.
For Google Shopping service: you can either fill in this field or shipping fields (shipping.price.value, shipping.price.currency, shipping.country at the least and optionnaly: shipping.region, shipping.service, shipping.locationId, shipping.locationGroupName, shipping.postalCode).
It is possible to fill only one shippingLabel per product.
3. Add Custom Attribute
Google allows you to create additional attributes to those already offered to match your specific needs. Please confirm with your Google Account Manager if additional attribute is really required before adding it.
To add a custom attribute, 4 fields are to be filled in.
- customAttributes.name
- customAttributes.type
- customAttributes.unit
- customAttributes.value
You may add as many custom attributes as you need in Lengow.
4. Add Custom Labels
Google allows you to add up to 5 custom attributes in your catalog, with these fields:
- customLabel0
- customLabel1
- customLabel2
- customLabel3
- customLabel4
5. Manage your products service by service
When you activate a service, Lengow automatically pre-populates several fields for you to indicate in your optimized catalog the values expected by Google to display your products on the right service.
These are the fields:
- destinationName.Shopping
- destinationName.google_display_ads
These fields are only available in the Attribute Matching if the service is activated.
Lengow gives you the ability to restrict the display of your products to a lower level (for example: product or category), thanks to Rules.
For products targeted by your rule, indicate the value “Yes” in the field corresponding to the service you want to exclude your products.
We strongly recommend that you use this type of rule when initially setting up your catalog on this structure, in order to progressively display your inventory on Shopping Actions.
#1 Activate the service in Lengow.
#2 Indicate “Yes” to exclude all your products from the service, during the time for you to set up your catalogue properly.
The deactivation of the service (#1 above) will override registered rules. The result will be the same as applying the "Yes" value in one of the destination fields in the Attribute Matching. The fields for the disabled service are hidden in the Attribute Matching. They will no longer be sent to Google for the service in question, but will be retained if reactivated later.
Manage your Exclusions
Google doesn't want to receive parent products.
> Lengow excludes them automatically if values filled in "offerId" and "itemGroupId" fields are the same.
> If values filled in "offerId" and "itemGroupId" aren't the same for a parent product, you have to create an exclusion rule to exclude them from the optimised feed.
You can add other exclusions:
- Products you don't want to display on this channel.
- Products from your catalog which don't match with Google expectations.
Products excluded with the Exclusion feature will be sent to Google with a 0 stock.
Please note that using an exclusion will impact all activated services on this channel.
To display a product on a service and deactivate it on another channel, use destination attributes in the Attribute Matching.
Preview your data
Check the data you are about to send to the channel using "Preview".
Note: Codes corresponding to matched categories in the "Categories Matching" step will be displayed at this stage.
Configure your Options
Configure options before sending your products catalogue to the channel.
Different tab will be displayed according to activated service.s:
- Costs: For all services.
- Tracking: For all services, except Shopping Actions.
- API ID : For all services *. Two steps are required:
1. Follow instructions displayed on the screen. Fill in your Google id. Once you are connected, if you have multiple Merchant ID, select the account where you want to send your products.
2. Fill in the Supplemental feed id matching with this feed in Lengow. Follow steps detailled in the guide: Google API Services - Supplemental feed
Need to update your offers more frequently?
Launch the channel catalogue
Before the first sending
Your products are already online on Google Display Ads or Google Shopping? Or is it the first time you send your catalogue to Google?
Depending on your situation, actions you have to realise may vary. Please refer to the case that matches your situation to know what to do to launch your products through API feed:
- Case #1: It is the first time your catalogue is sent to Google. Go directly the paragraph referring to indexing feeds frequency.
- Case #2: Your catalogue is currently sent to Google via CSV feed (URL) with Lengow.
- Case #3: Your catalogue is currently sent to Google via another way (a file directly uploaded in your Google Merchant Center for example)
For cases #2 and #3, make sure that once a product is sent through API, it’ll no longer be sent via CSV (or another source). This could complicate the switch to the API.
Follow our advices below before following the next point.
- Test your Google API - Services feed on few products only
- Create an exclusion, to narrow your test to part of your products.
- Make sure to exclude the same products from the Google Shopping URL feed which currently display your products.
- Sign in to Google and select your MerchantID at the "Settings" in Lengow
#At this stage, most of your products is sent to Google with your previous feed in Lengow (via URL) and a small part of your catalogue is sent with the new feed (via API). - In your Google Merchant Center, make sure products you sent through API are correctly set up.
In case they aren’t, modify parameters in the API feed until products are displayed and match with your expectations and Google’s expectations. - Display 100% of products you want to launch through API
- Modify the exclusion you set up for your API feed test, in order to display products you want through API
- Immediately, exclude the same products from the channel which is sending products to Google via URL (CSV feed).
#At this stage, you are sending 100% of products to display through API via API and none of them through URL (CSV feed).
- Test your Google API feed on few products only
- Create an exclusion, to narrow your test to part of your products
- Make sure to exclude the same products from the other source which currently display your products.
- Sign in to Google and select your MerchantID at the "Settings" in Lengow
#At this stage, most of your products is sent to Google with your previous sending method and a small part of your catalogue is sent with the new feed (via API). - In your Google Merchant Center, make sure products you sent through API are correctly set up
In case they aren’t, modify parameters in the API feed until products are displayed and match with your expectations and Google’s expectations. - Display 100% of products you want to launch through API
- Modify the exclusion you set up for your API feed test, in order to display products you want through API.
- Immediately, exclude the same products from the other sources which is sending products to Google.
#At this stage, you are sending 100% of products to display through API via API and none of them through URL (CSV feed).
How to pause your whole URL feed in your Google Merchant Center?
Go to your Google Merchant Center and pause the csv feed: Google Merchant Center > "Products" > "Feeds" > choose you feed > "Settings" > "Fetch schedule" > "Pause schedule”.
When the set up is done for your API catalogue and products are online:
Sending your data will be done automatically between Lengow and Google.
An URL is made available on the "Settings" tab for the API channel only for you to have a look to data that are sent to Google. If you use this URL in your Google Merchant Center, this will occur some errors.
Two different feeds are sent to Google through the API:
- Product feed: enables the integration and creation of products. It contains all the fields expected by Google. It is sent to Google once a day. If your products are free from errors, they will be created in Google and will appear online within 2 days, after the offer feed has been sent
- Offer feed: enables updates for prices, stocks, ... It includes only product id field and data which change frequently. It is sent to Google hourly. When Google get the offers feed, the update is almost instantaneous on Google.
Read Integration Reports
The three reports
- Products and Offers integration reports
Read product and offer Integration Reports to check that your products are properly configured, either at product creation level (product feed's named "Push Products") or updates (offer feed's named "Push offers"). These reports list only items which were rejected by Google. These reports are generated after each catalog push to Google.
- Find in the "Product Statuses" report, the status for each of your products. For each of your product with an error, Google specifies the reason for the rejection.
This report is generated once a day.
These three types of reports are available and downloadable in your Lengow account: "Channels" tab > select the Google channel > click on "Activity".
Errors
To help you correct these errors:
Google Shopping
- Read our guide: “Google Shopping, main errors to avoid”
- Read the explanations within the Google Merchant Help Center
- View the video of our webinar "How to fix errors for Google Shopping feed in Lengow?" (French audio / English texts)
- Read the content of this webinar and access to the links in this document (content in English)
Edit a product file
- Edit "product data"
Contact your Google account manager to edit this data.
- Edit "offer data"
Data is automatically updated as soon as the offer feed is sent out. If the supplemental feed id hasn't been filled in the "API id" tab, offers'll be updated only once a day.
Unpublish/Delete an offer
1. Unpublish
- Case #1: Only one Google service is activated for your catalog and you want to unpublish on or many product.s from this service
Fill in the "availability" field with the value "out of stock". Use a rule to apply this un-publication to all or part of your catalog.
-
Case #2: Several Google services are enabled for your catalog and you want to un-publish your products from only one of these services (and continue to display them on other services).
Fill in the field "destinationName. ..." corresponding to the service on which you want to un-publish the product.s with the value "Yes". Use a rule to apply this un-publication to all or part of your catalog.
In the Preview tab, the “1”value indicates that the product won’t be displayed on the service. The “0” value indicated that the product will be displayed on the service.
Example: I want to un-publish my products from Display Ads and I want to keep displaying them on other services. Fields will have to be filled in this way in the Preview:
- destinationName.Shopping: 0
It means the product will be displayed on Google Shopping - destinationName.google_display_ads: 1
It means the product will not be displayed on Google Display Ads anymore
2. Delete products
For all services:
As soon as a product isn't in the optimised catalogue anymore, this product is deleted in your Google Merchant Center.
Technicaly, when a product has been sent through API to Google, then isn't present for a later update, Lengow uses the "delete" function to inform your Google Merchant Center account about your product deletion.
This action leads to lose this product history.
Contact
Your Google account manager.
Useful links
- Google Shopping - Online Products feed structure and fields definition
- Summary of attribute requirements
- My products are rejected, why?
- View your published products
- Associate your Google Adwords and Google Merchant Center accounts (especially to display images in your Adwords ads)
- Specificities regarding "Unique product identifiers" for Google Adwords
- Shopping policies
