Note: Google Express is now Google Shopping Actions.
To use the Google Shopping Actions Feed, you need to join the Google Shopping Action Once you’ve joined the Google Shopping Actions program and completed the final validation.
Once you do this, you will have to create a regular Google Shopping Feed in your Google Merchant Account.
However, If you’re already created a feed on the Google Merchant Center, you can keep using the feed as you will be able to see that existing feed in the Google Shopping Actions dashboard by default.
In this doc, I will show you how you can easily create your WooCommerce product feed for Google Shopping.
Follow these easy steps to generate a WooCommerce Product Feed for Google Shopping
Step 1: Create New Feed & Map Your Product Attributes #
Go to your product feed dashboard.
Click on the Add New Feed button.
It will take you to the feed creation page.
Now, here,
1. On top, you will get the option to add a title to the feed. Give your feed a name.
2. Just under the title, you will see an option to select your preferred merchant. Simply click on the Feed Merchant dropdown button and select your preferred merchant from the dropdown or you can search in the dropdown box.
Select your preferred merchant, and all the required attributes will be loaded below.
Let’s select Google Shopping for this feed.
3. In most cases, this template is already configured and values are assigned properly, so you won’t have to do much work with this.
However, depending on the merchant you are generating feed for, there may be some attributes for which you need to assign values manually.
For example, when you select Google, you will see there are two Attributes that don’t have the values assigned.
- Google Product Category —
Category Mapping is basically merging your WooCommerce product categories with the Google product categories.
You can see that a default value is already assigned to this Category Mapping attribute – Google Product Category. Click on the Configure Category Mapping button which you will find under the Category Mapping value, and a new tab will be opened with the default category mapper – Google Product Category.
Map your categories here and click on the Update and Close button to go back to the attribute section.
However, you can create a new Category Mapper too. You need to click on the Category Mapping button and there you will get the option to create a new Category Mapper, and you can configure the mapper too.
You can follow this doc to learn how to create a new Category Mapper for your feed.
Now, once your mapping is completed, click on the Update and Close button, and the Category Mapping tab will be closed and you will back to the feed creation page.
- Manufacturer —
This should be the Brand name of the product you are selling. If you are the manufacturer, you can set the type as Static and input your company name here.
If you have different brand names for different products, you will have to save the value in a custom field or product attribute and then use that value here.
**You may also use Perfect Brands for WooCommerce, which will make it easier to assign and use brand names.
- MPN —
This value should be unique to each product. So you have to save this value in a custom field within each product and use that value here.
4. Also, if you want to add new attributes, you can click on the Add New Attribute button, and you will get the list of the optional Attributes of Google Shopping.
Or you can add a custom attribute by clicking on the Add New Custom Attribute button.
1. Product Brand is a required field for Google Merchant.
2. You need to insert either Product Brand + MPN or Product Brand + GTIN info. Any of them will do.
3. You can use the SKU value for the MPN attribute.
3. Google Product Category Mapping used to be required, now it is optional but recommended.
4. If you don’t have the values for the GTIN, MPN, or Brand, you can use the Identifier Exists attribute, it will list your product in the Google Merchant even if your product is missing a required field. This attribute is included at the bottom of your Google Shopping attributes list.
Step 2: Feed Configuration #
1. Scroll up to the top and here, you will see that there are two options, Product Filter and Product Settings.
- Products Settings
- Produkt-Filter
2. First, let us configure the features in the Product Settings. Click on the Product Settings button, and a drawer will open from the right side of the screen.
3. The first option you will see is Auto-Generate Your Feed.
This option is used to schedule an auto-update of the feed after certain intervals. Choose an option to set an auto-update or leave it as “No interval” if you do not want to set an auto-update of the feed.
4. Next, use the following options as needed.
- Select Country/ Region
- Select a Region from this dropdown menu if you want to include the Shipping info to your feed. Once you select the region, you will have to insert the Shipping attribute to your feed to get the Shipping values.
- You can follow this doc to learn how to include the Shipping info in your feed.
- Include Out of Stock Products
-If you want to include the out of stock products, then you can enable the option.
-For this feed, let’s not use this option and keep its value as “No“. - Include Variable Parent Product (Without Variations)
-If you want to include the parent feed for variable products, then you can enable the option.
-Few merchants such as Google Shopping or Facebook doesn’t require you to submit parent products, however, there are many other merchants such as eBay MIP, that requires you to submit product products in the feed.
-For this feed, let’s not use this option and keep its value as “No“. - Include All Variable Products Variations –
-If you want to only include simple products to the feed and no variable products, then keep its value as “No“.
-If you want to submit both simple products and variable products to Google Shopping, then choose its value as “Yes“.
-Let’s use this feature, and mark it as “Yes“, for this feed. - Include Variation Name In The Product Title
-Few merchants such as Google Shopping, suggest you to add the variation term to the Product name in case you are uploading variable products, however, it is completely optional.
-So if you want to include the variant terms to the variable product names, then you can set its value as “Yes“.
-Let’s use this feature, and mark it as “Yes“, for this feed. - Include Grouped Products
-If you have Grouped Products, then it’s best to submit the parent product of the Grouped product you created.
-So you should mark this option as “Yes“. - Exclude Invisible/Hidden Products
-You might have certain products on your store that are marked as hidden or invisible on WooCommerce.
-If you want to generate feed for Simple products only, then you can mark this option as “Yes” to exclude invisible products from the feed.
-However, product variants are by default marked as Invisible on WooCommerce. So if you include variable products to the feed, then you should mark this as “No“.
-Since in this feed we are including product variants, so we will not use this feature and keep it as “No“. - Skip any attribute if the value is empty
-Enabling this feature will exclude any attributes of a product if the attribute value is missing.
-For this feed, let’s not use this option and keep its value as “No“.
5. You can then find an option to add Track Your Campaign (Analytics parameters).
Use this option if you wish to add analytics parameters to product links on your product feed so that you can keep track of the products’ performance on Google Shopping.
6. Now, close the drawer and click on the Product Filter option. A new drawer will open from the right.
7. Click on the dropdown, and You will get the following options:
Choose the Products you want to include in the feed.
You may choose to include All Published Products in your store, or you may use one of the three filter options, Custom Filter, Category Filter, and Tag Filter, to include the products you require (or exclude the ones you do not want to include).
For a basic feed, you can keep it the same.
Step 3: Publish WooCommerce Product Feed For Google Shopping #
Now, that you’ve configured your feed, it is time to publish the feed.
Scroll back to the top, and you will find a Publish button on the right.
Click on the Publish button, your feed will be generated.
Once your feed generation is complete, you will be able to view or download the feed.
That’s it. Your WooCommerce XML product feed for Google Shopping is generated.
You can now either send this feed to Google Merchant Center through the Content API method, which is a bit complicated process. Or, you can download and upload this file to your merchant account manually and list your products on Google Shopping.
Learn how to upload your feed to Google Merchant Center through the direct upload method.
Learn how to send your feed to Google Merchant through the Content API method.
Also, you can have a look at the following docs to learn how to include Shipping and Tax information to your feed items:
How to include Shipping values into WooCommerce product feed
How to include Tax values into your WooCommerce Product Feed
