Google Shopping Feed for Magento 2 User's Guide

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1. Rocket Shopping Feeds for Magento 2 ...... 2 1.1 Getting Started ...... 2 1.2 Set up Google Shopping ...... 3 1.2.1 Shipping and Tax ...... 8 1.2.2 Run Adwords campaigns ...... 9 1.2.3 Enable automatic items update ...... 11 1.2.4 Set up Google Inventory ...... 12 1.2.5 Google Promotions ...... 13 RSF M2 User's Guide Support: http://help.rocketweb.com

Rocket Shopping Feeds for Magento 2

This guide covers features of the Rocket Shopping Feeds for Magento 2 extension. If you're running magento 1.x, please follow the guide for that version .

Search this documentation Getting Started Installation and upgrades

Set up Google Shopping Shipping and Tax Run Adwords campaigns Enable automatic items update How to use this guide Set up Google Inventory Google Promotions If you're just starting out with this product, you should follow the steps at Getting Started; otherwise, if you are looking for details on a specific configuration, use the left side navigation on this page to Feeds management find the appropriate information. Adding a feed Generating the feed Optimizing feed output Solution lookup General Configuration Columns Map Use the "search this documentation" for keywords that are relevant Categories Map to your issue. Product Filters Custom Options Get Support Configurable Products If the solution you are looking for cannot be found here, Grouped Products please submit a request using our Service Desk. Bundle Products Shipping Run Schedule Uploads Testing and Troubleshooting Cloning a feed setup

How-to articles Detaching feed generation from magento cron

File lists

Troubleshooting Google Shopping Feed

Installation and upgrades Run Adwords campaigns Testing and Troubleshooting Set up Google Shopping Optimizing feed output

Getting Started

Getting your products submitted to marketplace is a two step process and could take several iterations to get it right. The amount of effort you need to put in, depends on the quality of your catalog data and the amount of errors you'll be getting when your feeds are been reviewed.

1. Install extension 2. Setup the feeds Follow the Installation & Set up feeds following the upgrades steps. guide corresponding to the marketplace of your choice:

Google Shopping Google Inventory updates

Feeds management Adding a feed Generating the feed Optimizing feed output Testing and Troubleshooting Cloning a feed setup

Set up Google Shopping Prepare your Merchant Account Configure the feed Connect the feed to Google

Google will review your products, this process takes around 24 hrs to be completed, and results will be displayed under the Diagnostics tab in your Merchant Center.

Prepare your Merchant Account

If you don't already have an account, set up one: https://support.googl e.com/merchants/answer/188493

Once store is claimed and validated, we recommend the following:

1. Settings > SFTP and FTP - create an FTP account within the Merchant Center, generate a password and keep it safe as we will need it later. (see Fig 2.1) 2. Settings > Account linking - create link to your Google Ads account. 3. Tax - set the tax rules similar to your magento tax zones. Fig 2.1 SFTP and FTP settings

Configure the feed

1. Follow the steps on adding a feed section and use Google Shopping Feed under Feed Type.

2. Set the target Store View. If you have different store views for each target country, you may want to create a feed for each of those stores. When you change the store view, Feed Currency should be set on the default displayed currency for that store. (see Fig 2.2) Fig 2.2 Store view

3. Review Columns Map tab. Basic columns are preconfigured to match most catalogs. If the default value does not match your catalog, then you should change it to one that suits your catalog setup.

If your store sells Apparels, you'll have to add in the apparel required columns: color, size, gender and age_group. Since apparels are mostly configurable products, use the Variant Attribute directive to map size and color columns onto configurable attributes. If your apparels are simple products with custom options instead of configurable products, you should use Custom Options in the mappings instead of Variant Attribute. Custom Options directive allow you to choose which options hold that particular column information. (see Fig 2.3) Fig 2.3 Columns Map

US stores should not include tax in the product prices, so turn them off under the price and sale_price columns (see Fig 2.4)

More options on how to set your feed columns, can be seen at Col umns Map page.

Save Page !

Fig 2.4 Product prices

4. Categorize products under Categories Map tab. First choose the right Feed Localization, which corresponds to target country and language of your store.

Use the autocomplete boxes for each of your categories to find a matching google taxonomy. For Taxonomy field you should always pick something from the autocomplete list, otherwise google will not validate them.

Here you have a chance to exclude products from certain categories, by unchecking the box from the right side of the

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category. (see Fig 2.5)

Google will not accept products without a valid taxonomy, and if you have products that are not assigned to a category, you could use the Include products w/o category to exclude them.

Save Page !

Fig 2.5 Categories Map

5. Select Shipping rates. Depending on the complexity of your store's shipping definition, you can provide the rates to google in multiple ways. This configuration allows you to map your shipping rates in basic shipping methods like: flat_rate, table_rates, free_shipping. (see Fig 2.6)

More complex shipping methods like carrier rates or rates by individual product can be set by following the Shipping and Tax gu ide.

After selecting the Shipping Methods, make sure you also select the target country under Countries select. Fig 2.6 Shipping rates

6. Set Run Schedule and Uploads Under Run Schedule tab, use the Add Schedule button and pick an hour when feed should regenerate daily. Batch mode should only be used for large catalogs and servers with low php memory.

Under Uploads tab, use the Add Account button and fill in the FTP account details created in preparation of your Merchant Center. (s ee Fig 2.7)

Save Page !

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Fig 2.7 Manage Uploads

Connect the feed to Google

1. Connect the feed with Merchant Center Navigate to Products > Feeds under merchant center and add a new feed (+ button) under Primary feeds, then follow the steps to register it:

Type = Products

Country of sale - your store sale country. Should correspond to the Feed Localization and Feed Currency set earlier at step 2. from feed configuration in magento.

Language - your store language.

Destination = Shopping Fig 2.8 Connect feed - Basic Information

Name = can be anything that would make it easy to identify it in merchnat center. Recommended is to match the one in magento to know which is connected to witch. (see FIg. 2.9)

Input method = Upload

Note: Instead of Upload you could go with Schedule fetch, and set the feed URL at next step, to the one generated in magento, but it's more convenient to use FTP uploads. Do this only if FTP uploads fail when generating the feed.

Fig 2.9 Connect feed - Name and input method

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File name = feed_.txt (see Fig 2.10)

Replace the with the feed ID in magento, as it can be seen in the feed management screen. Fig 2.10 Connect feed - Setup

2. Generate the feed Click Run Now button in the feed feed management screen. This will schedule the feed generation in the cron queue, and feed will be processed with the next cron run, usually it starts within a minute, so you'll have to refresh the page to see if has started. When feed is completed it will also upload to your Merchant Center per Uploads definition.

Feed will process daily as defined in the Run Schedule, so at this step if you need to, also adjust the Run Schedule. Check our guide on Generating the feed for more details. Fig 2.11 Generate Feed

3. Analyze results

Once the feed has completed, go into the Merchant Center and select the feed you just registered.

Check the number of item processed and see if there are any errors with processing. If there are errors, follow our Testing and

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Troubleshooting section to help solve them.

After all errors are cleared, register the feed live by redoing the step 1. only this time Mode = Live, and use the same feed_.txt fi le as used for the test one.

More on Google Shopping

Shipping and Tax Run Adwords campaigns Enable automatic items update Set up Google Inventory Google Promotions

Shipping and Tax Tax setup Both shipping and tax requirements depend on the feed's target country, please read Su Shipping setup bmitting tax & shipping google docs to understand what the requirements are for your feed.

Tax setup For most of the countries, value added tax needs to be included in the price. This is needed on product pages as well as in the price field in the feed. Exception to this rule applies to US, Canada and India stores.

To see the up to date list of restrictions please read google's Tax Policy.

1. Including tax in the price (non-US feeds) First make sure your products pages display the price including tax. You should check the setting under Stores > Configuration > Sales > Tax > Price Display Settings, should be set to Including Tax. Fig 3.1 Include tax in the price

The feed has to be configured to follow it by setting the price and sale_price columns in the Columns Map to the appropriate Price an d Sale Price directives, having the option Add Tax = Yes. (see Fig 3.1)

2. Explicit tax submission (US feeds) Define tax information by setting it up in the Merchant Account. Under Settings > Tax define the same tax rules you have running on your store. Another option to submit the tax is by creating a custom attribute on your products to hold tax information in google format, i.e. US:9 4114:8.75, then add the tax column to your feed under Columns Map and map it to the custom attribute you created.

Shipping setup

Depending on the complexity of your store shipping definition, you can provide the rates to google in multiple ways.

1. Basic shipping methods: flat_rate, table_rates, free_shipping If your store is setup with one of those basic rates, you can include the shipping information in your feed by adding the shippin g column to Columns Map and map it to the Shipping directive. Fig 3.2 Shipping methods

Then, under the Shipping tab of the feed configuration, set the desired methods and regions to be included. The feed will automatically compute the rates based on your shipping methods definitions in magento, and provide the feed with the appropriate google shipping format. (see Fig 3.2)

Read more about what the shipping options are, under Shipping guide. If for any reason the rates do not come through properly, you can always define them in merchant center instead of providing them through the feed. See guide on Merchant account-level shipping.

2. Carrier calculated rates: UPS, DHS, FedEx

Those rates cannot be computed through the feed, and those need to be setup in the Merchant Account under Settings > Shipping. Please follow the guide on Merchant account-level shipping. In order to have account-level shipping rates applied on your products, the feed should not include shipping, so make sure you have shipping turned OFF under the Shipping section of feed configuration.

3. Rates by individual product: i.e. free shipping items If your catalog includes a set of products that apply for free shipping, and the rest of the products have regular rates or carrier calculated rates, the setup has to be defined in both your merchant account as well as in your feed configuration as follows: Fig 3.3 Setup Rates

a. Create a custom attribute for your products and call it for example custom_shipping_rate, then fill in your free shipping items with US::Free Shipping:0 USD, leaving this attribute blank for the other products. b. Map this custom_shipping_rate attribute to the shipping column in the Columns Map. c. Set the catalog wide rates in the Merchant Account, similar to how it's defined for carrier calculated rates, bullet 2.

This setup has the following effect: the rates defined at bullet c) will apply for all products but the ones having a value defined in the feed.

Another option for setting catalog wide rates from bullet c), is when you have basic shipping methods defined in magento and you don't want to define them in the merchant center. For this case you could fill in the appropriate rates in the feed by setting a replace empty rule under Product Filters section to replace empty shipping values with ones computed through the Shipping directive.

Run Adwords campaigns

Shopping campaigns offer a simple and flexible way to organize your Google Merchant Center product inventory within AdWords. To understand how google campaigns work please follow Setting up shopping campaigns.

Once your feed is submitted and approved, create an AdWords account and connect it to your Merchant Account under Settings > AdWords. Doing so, your products should become available for shopping campaigns.

If your products are approved in Merchant Center but they are not visible in AdWords campaigns, you may need to contact a Google representative to help.

The basic product campaign is to bid the same way for all your products, but you can improve your ads by bidding differently on groups of products.

Edit your campaign in AdWords, and go to Product Groups and click the "+" sign to find out how you can group them. Those groups can be defined using the following columns in the feed:

Category - is the google_product_category column in the feed and also the main way to organize your products into groups. It is filled with google taxonomies that should have been set as part of Set up Google Shopping Brand - is your brand column in the feed, mapped by default to manufacturer attribute on your products. Item Id - is your item_id column from the feed and should be mapped by default to your product ID from magento. Condition - is the condition columns from the feed, by default all products having value "new". If you want to change that, create a new attribute on your products, set the accepted values on your products and map it under Columns Map. Product type - is the product_type column in the feed, and should correspond to magento categories. That is if, product_type is mapped to Product Type by Category directive in the Columns Map. Custom label 0-4 - should correspond to columns in the feed custom_label_0 to custom_label_4, and allow you to specify custom data on which you can group products. Those columns are not mapped by default in your feed, so you will need to add them.

If you want to group your products for use in a Shopping campaign, you'll need to setup custom labels in your feed.

Setting up custom labels

To use custom labels, you'll need the following:

1. Create new product attributes To create new product attributes in Magento, one for each label. If you already have an attribute, you can use that. If it's not a drop-down, that's ok too, but please be aware of its limits, and make sure it has consistent values, otherwise your grouping won't work.

We suggest you make these attributes dropdowns, and add the values you intend to use. This will give you one place to manage their values: if you have a typo, instead of editing each product, you just edit the attribute. This will also help staying consistent with Google requirements (see below)

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As an example, let's say you want to add a label named "season" to all your products:

a. Add a Magento attribute named Season, of type dropdown, and create all your label values to the attribute: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. (see Fig 4.1) Fig 4.1 Add a magento attribute

b. Add the Season attribute to all the relevant Attribute Sets. If you don't use Attribute Sets, you will still have to add it to the Default set.

Go to Catalog > Attributes > Manage Attribute Sets, pick your set from the list, then use Drag-and-drop to take Season from the right, and place it in one of the groups on the left. You'll have to do this for all relevant attribute sets. (see Fig 4.2)

After this is done, you can edit your products and fill in Season values. Fig 4.2 Add new attribute

2. Add Custom Labels to the feed columns

To include the new attributes in the feed as custom labels, you will need to do the following: a. Go to the feed settings, under Columns Map and add a new column, b. Name it custom_label_0, and select the new attribute ("season" in our example). You'll only need to do this once. c. Save and you're done! The new feed that generates overnight should include the new attribute.

You can repeat these steps for up to 5 custom_labels. The attributes you set can have any value you'd like to use in AdWords.

Google requirements

You can create up to five custom labels, numbered 0 through 4, for each item in your feed. You may submit one value per item for each custom label attribute. You should assign a specific definition for each of the five custom labels and specify the possible values for each. Then, you use these custom labels consistently across the products in your Merchant Center account, assigning appropriate values to each product according to your definition. Each of the five custom labels can have only one value per product.

Source: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/188494?hl=en

Limitations

You can only have 5 custom labels

one product can have only one value per label, so in total, a product can only have 5 labels and you cannot group more than 1,000 products with the same labels.

As custom labels are meant to allow grouping of items, only 1,000 unique values are supported for each custom label attribute across the items in your account. Products with a custom label submitted after the limit was exceeded won’t be included in product groups using this custom label. To correct the issue, update your product data to reduce the number of unique values for the custom label to less than 1,000.

Source: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/188494?hl=en

Setting up Price Buckets

Price buckets is a concept to help target campaign bids by product price ranges. I.e. products with price intervals:

< $50 $50 - $100 $100 - $500 > $500

To set them up, you would need to define a set of rules under Adwords Price Buckets feed setting and insert a new custom_label_0 column and map it to the Adwords Price Buckets directive in the feed Columns Map. Enable automatic items update Automatic item updates is a Google Merchant feature which improves pricing and stock information Benefits updates in Google Shopping. It uses microdata from your Product pages to maintain fresh price Prerequisite and availability info, by updating this several times a day. Step-by-step guide Troubleshooting Activating Microdata item updates on your feed config will add hidden microdata information on your store product pages. Make sure to clear cache and check your product pages to make sure they still render properly.

If you don't update prices more than once per day, you can still benefit from Microdata for stock information:

Google will be able to see when a product goes out-of-stock, or back in stock, and mark it in Shopping. This will prevent item rejection due to mismatched stock info.

Benefits

If you update prices during the day, regularly hold promotions and special offers, or have low-stock items that sell fast, then microdata will help you:

keep prices, availability and condition fresh in Google validate your products in Google's strict pricing consistency rules improve user experience, traffic to your product listings, and higher conversion rates because users already see the correct price on Google Shopping

In contrast, if you choose not to enable automatic item updates in your account, items with mismatched price and availability will be temporarily disapproved rather than updated.

Prerequisite

You'll need to have price and availability columns in the feed, these are enabled and set up by default. Also note that the settings on your feed configuration will influence the output of microdata tags. For instance on configurable products or mapping attributes in the feed columns.

Step-by-step guide

1. Activate Microdata item updates from Stores > Configuration > Rocket Shopping Feeds Set the Enable Automatic Item Updates (Microdata) = Yes. and adjust "Include Tax in Microdata" to match the microdata prices. It is best to match the setting so that the prices are equal with the one displayed on the page and included in the feed.

Condition Attribute needs to be set in order to output the condition property of microdata.

To enable google remarketing tag on product pages you should fill in the appropriate setting on this page. Fig 5.1 Microdata setup

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2. Enable automatic item updates in Google Merchant. Go to Settings > Automatic item updates in your merchnat center

Click "Edit Settings" and check "Enable automatic item updates".

Select "Price and Availability" and check "Also update items that are 'in stock' on my website but 'out of stock' on Shopping." and cli ck Save changes. Fig 5.2 Enable automatic updates

Troubleshooting

Google provides a handy tool to see what microdata is enabled on your product pages. Just paste the URL to a Product Page and you should see all the items on that page with their respective price and stock status.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Microdata missing?

You should first verify that this particular product is included in the feed.

if the product is not in the feed, then microdata may not appear correctly if the product is missing Stock and Price columns in the feed, then microdata will be missing them as well and that all caches are cleared - you'll need to see a fresh Product Page for the new info to work. So a full clear of Full Page Cache / Block Cache / 3rd party Varnish caches will be needed before your product pages will contain microdata. The "Flush Cache Storage" button will clear all caches in a default Magento installation

If you use another extension that outputs microdata in the Product Page, you should consider disabling it, or removing price and stock info from its output. Our extension will always output the exact Product ID, availability, price and currency that you send in the feed - this is important for successful Google Merchant validation.

Set up Google Inventory Inventory feed is needed for shops where products go out of stock quickly, or prices vary throughout the day. In order to submit inventory updates, first you'll have to Se t up Google Shopping feed. This feed aims to keep your products up to date in google merchant center. By submitting this update more than once per day, you'll be keeping in sync the following product information:

price and sale_price availability

Pre-requirements

Setting up inventory feed requires a Google Shopping feed to be configured and submitted to google. Check the Set up Google Shopping pa ge to set up one.

Similar to Google Shopping, Inventory feeds are recommended to be submitted through FTP Uploads, so if you haven't done it already, configure an FTP account in your merchant account

Configure inventory feed 1. Clone your Google Shopping feed, and edit the Columns Map and delete all columns but: id, price, availability, sale_price, sale_price_effective_date 2. Update the schedule to generate the file around 3 times per day, or each 6 hours.

For example if your products feed is schedule at 1AM, the inventory update should happen at 7AM, 1PM and 7PM. (see Fig 6.1) Fig 6.1 Update schedule

Submit the feed to Google Fig 6.2 Register feed with Merchant Center 1. Register the feed with Merchant Center

Navigate to Feeds under merchant center and select + FEED button, than follow the steps to register it: Mode = Test, Feed type = Online Product Inventory Update Target country - should math the one set for google shopping feed. Feed name - can be anything, but for consistency, name it the same way as you did in magento. (see Fig 6.2) 2. Generate the feed Click the Run Now button in the feed feed management screen, and wait for the feed to complete. This will generate the feed file and also upload it to your merhcnat ceneter.

Feed will process daily, so at this step you may also adjust the Run Schedule if you need to. Check our guide on Generating the feed for more details. 3. Analyze results Once the feed has completed, go into the merchnat center and select the feed you just registered.

Check the number of item processed and see if there are any errors with processing. If there are errors, follow our Testing and Troubleshooting section to help solve them.

Once you clear errors, register the feed live by redoing the step 1. only this time Mode = Li ve, and use the same feed_.txt file as used for the test one. Google Promotions Google Promotions program help you list the special offer link along with your products on Google Shopping. (See Fig. 23.1)

Read Google's program requirements to see if your store can participate in this program. Prepare your Merchant Account Configure the feed Submit promotions feed to Google Submit promotions changes Troubleshooting

Google promotions are configured along with a Google Shopping products feed. If you don't already have a products feed, follow set up Google Shopping guide and come back to this page.

Prepare your Merchant Account

In order to submit promotion feeds to google shopping, you'll have to apply for program participation, use this form to request it.

Fig. 23.1. Special offer Ad

Configure the feed

1. Add promotion_id column to you products feed. Edit your Google Shopping feed and set a new column under Col umns Map called promotion_id. (See Fig. 23.2) Fig. 23.2. Adding promotion_id column

2. Configure the Google Promotions tab. Open the Google Promotions tab under the Google Shopping feed and complete the following: Set Enable Google Promotions = Yes Select the Include checkbox for the cart promotions you may want to send to google. Please read the program policies to make informed decisions on which promotion rules to include. Edit the Promotion Title and From/To dates for the enabled promotions to match google's editorial requirements. (See Fig. 23.3) Fig. 23.3 Adjusting included promotions

Submit promotions feed to Google

1. Register the feed with Merchant Center. Navigate to Feeds under merchant center and select + FEED button, then follow the steps to register it:

Mode = Test,

Feed type = Promotions

Target country - should match the one used to submit the Googl

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e Shopping Feed.

Feed name - can be anything, but for consistency, name it the same way as you did in magento. (See Fig 23.4) Fig 23.4 Register new promotions feed

Input method = Regular Uploads

Promotions feed will be uploaded at the same time with your products feed, check your feed Schedule if you need to adjust when it would happen.

File to be uploaded = promotion_.txt (See Fig 23.5)

Replace the with the feed ID in magento, as it can be seen in the feed management screen. Fig 23.5 Upload settings

2. Generate the feed The same way as you have uploaded the products feed, promotions feed will generate right after the products feed, and will be uploaded to you merchnat center. Click the Run Now button in the feed feed management screen, and wait for the feed to complete. This will generate the feed file and also upload it to your Merchant Center.

Once the feed is completed, check the status of your feed under your Merchnat Account. If it says it has been uploaded, check under Promotions tab to see your promotions listings. Fig 23.6 Promotion feed status

Submit promotions changes Once a promotion feed is submitted to google, it would not pick up updates automatically due to google policies. When you add new shopping cart rules, you would also have to edit the feed Promotions tab to include them in your feed. Mark the checkboxes of those new rules and make necessary rule detail edits.

Next you'll need to instruct feed generator to submit a new promotions feed containing changes. This is done by clicking the Submit as new promotion button. (See Fig. 23.7)

Don't forget to Save Page, than regenerate the feed. Fig 23.7 Increment Promotion IDs

Troubleshooting

1. Feed does not generate. Check feed's log and see if there's a permission error and fix it. Check if cron is running. 2. Feed is completed but not uploaded. Check the feed error log, and look for a line that looks like:

INFO (1): START GOOGLE_PROMOTIONS FEED #26

The next line under this should be specifying why feed is not uploaded:

INFO (2): No changes | in /var/www/magento_210/pub/media/feeds/promo_26.txt

Promotions feed has no changes from last generation, and as a result feed is not uploaded. If you need to submit it as a new promotion, you'll have to edit the feed configuration, under Google Promotions tab, and click the button Submit as new promotion. After that hit Save Page and regenerate the feed. (See Fig. 2.7)

Next generation feed would re-upload ad a new promotion, having new promotion ids. Log entry should look like:

INFO (2): Added 4 lines | in /var/www/magento_210/pub/media/feeds/promo_26.txt

This log entry indicates that promotion file has been generated and it has 4 promotion lines.