Add Google Merchant Center export
Learn how to use the Productsup platform to export your product data to Google Merchant Center (GMC).
Introduction
The Productsup platform lets you export your product feed to Google Merchant Center (GMC). The specific way of setting up the export in the platform depends on how you want GMC to ingest your product data:
Via URL - GMC can fetch your product data from a URL generated by Productsup.
Via FTP or SFTP server - Productsup can export your product data to the FTP or SFTP server provided by Google Merchant Center.
Via API - You can set up an integration between Productsup and GMC to automate and schedule data uploads.
You can choose any option based on the number of products you have and the rate of their data changeability. Usually, companies with a low number of products and a low data changeability rate tend to use either the URL or the FTP server option. In contrast, companies that turn to the API option usually have a lot of products and continuously change their product data.
If you opt for the URL or the FTP server option while having a lot of products whose data continuously changes, you need to send large product feeds to GMC very often. The API option is more efficient in this case because it involves sending only product data updates to GMC instead of entire feeds. This approach speeds up exports to Google Merchant Center.
Prerequisites
To export your product data to Google Merchant Center via any data upload option, you need:
A Google Merchant Center account.
For the FTP or SFTP server option, you also need:
Relevant FTP or SFTP server credentials, such as a username and a password.
For the API option, you also need:
GMC authentication in your Productsup account. See Add OAuth authentication to external systems for more information.
To add GMC authentication to your Productsup account:
Go to Authentication from the account's, project's, or site's menu and select ADD AUTHENTICATION.
In Type, select Google Merchant Center, give it a custom name as desired, and select Next.
Select Connect for Productsup to redirect you to a Google account page where you can give Productsup access to your Google Merchant Center account. Once ready, Google returns you back to Productsup. Close the confirmation window to proceed.
No previously uploaded feeds in the GMC account.
Tip
You can skip this requirement if you have never uploaded any products to your GMC account.
When you upload a feed to your Google Merchant Center account, the feed remains live for up to 30 days if not set up otherwise. If you change your product data, the feed remains live for 30 more days. All feeds you previously exported to GMC using any upload methods other than API conflict with the products you upload via API. Switching between different data upload methods may lead to data loss.
You need a clean GMC account for the API data upload option to work. Simply deleting your feeds in GMC doesn't have the desired effect. To clean your feed, perform either of these actions:
Upload that same feed again with the attribute
expiration_dateand set the attribute expiration date in one (1) day in the future.Upload an empty feed.
Your Merchant ID that Google assigned to your payment profile. See Find your Merchant ID for more information.
Upload data to Google Merchant Center via URL
To upload your product data to Google Merchant Center via URL, add the Google Merchant Center export template to your site and use the Productsup Server destination:
Go to Exports from your site's main menu and select ADD EXPORT.
Search for Google Merchant Center, select Add, give it a name as desired, and again select Add.
Select Add Destination, choose Productsup Server from the drop-down list, give it a name as desired, and then select Save.
Go to Dataflow to locate all the attributes mandatory for Google Merchant Center and map them from import to export.
Go to Data View to optimize your data as needed. See Optimize exports to Google Merchant Center with rule boxes for more information.
Upload data to Google Merchant Center via FTP or SFTP server
To upload your product data to GMC via FTP or SFTP server, add the Google Merchant Center export template to your site and use the Google Merchant Center FTP or Google Merchant Center SFTP destination:
Go to Exports from your site's main menu and select ADD EXPORT.
Search for Google Merchant Center, select Add, give it a name as desired, and again select Add.
Select Add Destination, choose Google Merchant Center FTP or Google Merchant Center SFTP from the drop-down list, give it a name as desired, and then select Save.
Set up your export destination:
The Google Merchant Center FTP destination:
In FTP User, enter your FTP server username.
In FTP Password, enter the password for your FTP server account.
Select On in Active to activate the destination.
Select Save.
The Google Merchant Center SFTP destination:
In User, enter your SFTP server username.
In Password, enter the password for your SFTP server account.
Select On in Active to activate the destination.
Select Save.
Go to Dataflow to locate all the attributes mandatory for Google Merchant Center and map them from import to export.
Go to Data View to optimize your data as needed. See Optimize exports to Google Merchant Center with rule boxes for more information.
Upload data to Google Merchant Center via API
When you use the API option to upload your product feed to Google Merchant Center, Productsup continuously processes all changes you perform in your data and syncs only the changed parts of the data with GMC. The API uploads delta files only.
Besides automating data synchronization and helping you work with more products, uploading data to GMC via API also lets Productsup receive error responses from GMC as feedback files in Data Sources. You can troubleshoot your product data optimizations using these files.
To upload your product data to GMC via API, you should use one of the following export templates:
Google Content API for Shopping - Use this option if you need to export one product feed to one Google Merchant Center account.
Tip
If you have multiple parent GMC accounts to which you want to send your feed, add and set up multiple templates of the Google Content API for Shopping export to your site.
Google Content API for Shopping (multi) - Use this option if you need to export one product feed to multiple sub-accounts within your parent GMC account.
Tip
With the Google Content API for Shopping (multi) export, you can use multithreading to push products to GMC in parallel and speed up your exports.
Add Google Content API for Shopping export
Note
Google recommends limiting the size of the product batches you export from Productsup into GMC. The default batch size is 1,000 products. You can expect that Productsup typically sends batch sizes ranging from 100 to 1,000 products.
Go to Exports from your site's main menu.
Select ADD EXPORT and search for Google Content API for Shopping. Select Add, give it a name as desired, and again select Add.
Select Add Destination and choose Google Content API (single account) from the drop-down list. You can optionally customize the destination's description in Name. Select Save.
In Merchant Center ID, enter your Merchant ID. If you have a multi-client GMC, enter the Merchant ID of your sub-account.
Select the appropriate target country and language for the feed in Target Country and Target Language.
Define how often you want the platform to perform a complete product upload in Full Upload Interval (in days). To avoid product expiration, the platform exports new, deleted, changed, and unchanged products during a complete upload performed once every defined time interval.
Note
Google Merchant Center deactivates unchanged products after 30 days or sooner if a specified number of days have passed.
In Merchant Center Cleanup, choose Yes to remove products within GMC that do not originate from this destination. By default, this option is off.
Choose your GMC authentication in Authentication to use. If you haven't created the authentication in the platform yet, you can select Add New Authentication and create it, as previously seen in Prerequisites.
Select On in Enable Error Log File to let Productsup upload feedback files that contain export-related errors as a new data source. You can also download the zipped errors file from the Notifications window.
Tip
The ZIP folder may contain error logs spread across different files. You can search for something specific in the logs using a keyword, for example,
product ID. Some text editors let you search for a keyword across all files in a ZIP file.In Log API calls, select On for the platform to log calls to the GMC API. You can find the logs in the Notifications window.
In Log headers of API calls, select On to add response headers to the logs.
In API call logging end time, enter a date using the
YYYYMMDDorYYYY-MM-DDformat stating when the platform should stop logging API calls.Note
Do not let this feature run indefinitely, as it generates excessive files and slows down exports.
Turn on the destination by selecting On in Active.
Select Save.
Go to Dataflow to locate all the attributes mandatory for Google Merchant Center and map them from import to export.
Go to Data View to optimize your data as needed. See Optimize exports to Google Merchant Center with rule boxes for more information.
Note
The API is more restrictive than the FTP or URL upload. If you upload an incorrect category or if your feed is missing mandatory attributes, the product upload fails.
Add Google Content API for Shopping (multi) export
Note
Google recommends limiting the size of the product batches you export from Productsup into GMC. The default batch size is 1,000 products. You can expect that Productsup typically sends batch sizes ranging from 100 to 1,000 products.
Go to Exports from your site's main menu.
Select ADD EXPORT and search for Google Content API for Shopping (multi). Select Add, give it a name as desired, and again select Add.
Select Add Destination and choose Google Content API (multi account) from the drop-down list. You can optionally customize the destination's description in Name. Select Save.
In Parent Merchant Center, enter the Merchant ID of your GMC sub-account.
In Merchant Reference Column, choose the attribute within your feed that contains your merchant center name, merchant center ID, or seller ID.
Select the appropriate target country and language for the feed in Target Country and Target Language.
Define how often you want the platform to perform a complete product upload in Full Upload Interval (in days). To avoid product expiration, the platform exports new, deleted, changed, and unchanged products during a complete upload performed once every defined time interval.
Note
Google Merchant Center deactivates unchanged products after 30 days or sooner if a specified number of days have passed.
Choose your GMC authentication in Authentication to use. If you haven't created the authentication in the platform yet, you can select Add New Authentication and create it, as previously seen in Prerequisites.
Select On in Create Merchant Centers to let the platform create new merchant centers in your GMC account. This option only works when you use the merchant center name or seller ID as your merchant reference in Merchant Reference Column. By default, this option is on.
Select On in Enable Error Log File to let Productsup upload feedback files that contain export-related errors as a new data source. You can also download the zipped errors file from the Notifications window.
Tip
The ZIP folder may contain error logs spread across different files. You can search for something specific in the logs using a keyword, for example,
product ID. Some text editors let you search for a keyword across all files in a ZIP file.In Merchant Center Cleanup, choose Yes to remove products within GMC that do not originate from this destination. By default, this option is off.
In Reference Validation (regex), leave the default value
#.+#for Productsup to check whether your products follow the data structure required by GMC. Once the platform validates your products, it can send them to Google Merchant Center.From the Merchant Reference Type drop-down list, choose one of the following options depending on what the attribute you chose in Merchant Reference Column contains:
Merchant Reference Column contains the Merchant Center Name
Merchant Reference Column contains the Merchant Center ID
Merchant Reference Column contains the Seller ID
Enter the name of each newly created merchant center account in New Merchant Account Name. This setting applies only if you use the seller ID as a merchant reference.
Select On in Remove Empty Subaccounts to remove empty sub-accounts from your Google Merchant Center before running a new export. With this option on, the API deletes empty sub-accounts every time the site runs.
In Log API calls, select On for the platform to log calls to the GMC API. You can find the logs in the Notifications window.
In Log headers of API calls, select On to add response headers to the logs.
In API call logging end time, enter a date using the
YYYYMMDDorYYYY-MM-DDformat stating when the platform should stop logging API calls.Note
Do not let this feature run indefinitely, as it generates excessive files and slows down exports.
Turn on the destination by selecting On in Active.
Select Save.
Go to Dataflow to locate all the attributes mandatory for Google Merchant Center and map them from import to export.
Go to Data View to optimize your data as needed. See Optimize exports to Google Merchant Center with rule boxes for more information.
Note
The API is more restrictive than the FTP or URL upload. If you upload an incorrect category or if your feed is missing mandatory attributes, the product upload fails.
Export your feed to GMC via API
Note
When you export to GMC via API, you can't download your export file from the Files panel in the Overview tab of your export setup.
Export your product feed by selecting Export or Run in the top-right corner of your site's view.
Note
Make sure to export unavailable products with the status
out of stock. Otherwise, they appear available in GMC.Once the run completes, you can see the result in the Notifications window. To open Notifications, select the bell icon in the top-right corner of your site's view.
If the export fails, you can check error messages in the Notifications window provided that you have turned on the Enable Error Log File option as previously seen in Step 9 or Step 10. Otherwise, correct your feed and try again.
You can also go to Error Log and open your site's last run to see what went wrong with it.
Note
After the first upload in GMC, your products could take longer than expected to display in your account. If you have already exported your feed to GMC via API, the process should take less time.