Setup a basic Google shopping feed

Setting up the feed

In this post and video we want to show you how to setup a basic Google shopping feed with our Woocommerce Google feed manager.

First step we create a feed and give it a descriptive name, choose the Google channel, the country we want to target, and the default Google category for our products.

Next we set the Update schedule witch is the time when you want the plugin recreate the feed so it wil contains the right products and the right product data like prices and removed or new products etc.

Category mapping

woocommerce google feed manager category mapping

Category mapping

After setting the ‘Update schedule’ we start with mapping the shop categories to the relevant Google categories. The select all the categories from the products we want to include in our feed. After that we can map the products to a google category. By default it is connected to the earlier choose default category.

With the dropdown you can easily choose the right Google category the products belong to. You will find all available categories from Google in the dropdown. When mapping a Google category to a top level product category the child categories are mapped to the same google category.

Remember, the products from the product categories you did not select will not be included in the google feed. So you must select at least one category in order to create a feed with products in it.

This is basically it. You can save your feed and start using it.

Special feed settings

There are settings that in some cases can cause a feed to generate errors in Google Merchant center. For example if you do not have a SKU for each product you would need to change the id to post_id in stead of the standard SKU.

An other example is that you need to have a unique identifier like a GTIN number, MPN and Brand. If you miss these identifiers you can set the identifier exist’ to False. Please note that Setting it to ‘False’ for products that do have an identifier will not work; Google will disapprove those products or even suspend your account.

Under ‘Highly recommended’ you find the Product_type field This field represents your webshop product category and i always set it to Product Category String. The ‘Product category string’ shows the product categories with arrows formatted like this: Mother category > Child > Grandchild

Try to set as manny Highly recommended fields as you possible can like the MPN and is_bundle field. This will give Google some vital data so it can match your products way better.

Save and view the feed

woocommerce google feed manager feed list

Feed List

Next step is saving your feed and check the feed in the feed list. It will show you the feed url, how many products there are in the feed, the status of the feed and action links.

When you click the ‘View’ button you can view the feed in your browser. Note that every browser shows the feed different and you should get familiar how to see the xml code in your particular browser. For example the Chrome browser will display the xml feed without a problem but Firefox you will need to add ‘view-source:’ for the url in the adres bar.

Activate your feed

The last step is to activate your feed. This will make the plugin renew the feed with the earlier set Update schedule of the feed settings.

Watch the video to see creating a feed in action. There will be video’s with more advanced setup of the feed and will show you what you can do more with Woocommerce Google feed manager.

Please let us know if you have any question about using the plugin and get te best out of it.

Manage Channel templates

Add, remove and update channel templates

We have updated the google channel template and i wanted to to take this opportunity to show you how the “manage channel section” works ie installing, updating and removing channels.

First of all visit the “manage channels” section of the plugin.
You will find the installed and Uninstalled channel templates we support.

You will need to install a Channel template before you can use him in the Feed manager. So when you just started with our plugin the first thing you will have to do is to install the Channel of your choice.

Installing and Uninstalling is really easy Just Click on the install or Remove button to either install of remove the channel from the feed manager.

Updating Channels is important

Updating the channels is really important. We will always update channels as soon as the channel makes any changes in their feed requirements. By updating your Channel templates you are sure your feed will be approved by the Channel.

A channel will show a red version alert when there is a new update. Click the Update button to start the update. It is that easy.

Unsupported channel?

When your missing a template where you would like to show your product on. Please request the channel in our Feature request forum and we love to add the channel to our list of supported channel templates.

Exclude product from your feed

Advanced product filter

As off version 0.31.0 from our wp product feed manager and version 0.18.0 of the Woocommerce Google feed manager we have added advanced filter options. It will make it possible to exclude product from your product feeds.

Before, you could exclude and include products only by selecting the right category under “Category Mapping” This is not always right because you may have categories where you don’t want to include all product.

There are many situations where you would like to be able to exclude certain product from your feed. For instance you would like to exclude seasonal products, unprofitable products, products out of stock and not available.

Advance product filters, how to

Let’s take a look at the new filter options where to find them and how they work.

Let say we have products with low price in one category where CPA will exceed gross margin. So we want to exclude products under 10 bugs in the Music category.

Under the Category mapping we find a edit button next to the sentence “All products from the selected Shop Categories will be included in the feed”

advanced-product-filtering

When we click this button we get af familiar setup we also find under Condition with the attribute mapping.

How to use it

advanced-product-filter-create

We first select a source field “Regular price” next we select in the dropdown “is smaller than” and fill in 10. When we save the feed we will no longer have products in the feed with a regular price below $ 10,-

That’s how easy it is to use. Take an other look at the video for a walk through.