The quality of a product feed is very important for a successful campaign. This article provides some tips on how to format a good-quality product feed.
Basic tips
- Make use of good feed management software or tools
- Create the feed in an XML, JSON, or CSV format and make sure it is available online and update the feed regularly
- Include as much product information as possible. At least the mandatory fields, but highly recommended to also add all high-priority fields if available with your products
- Do not add fields without content
- Ensure standardisation within the fields (consistency)
- No unnecessary punctuation (e.g. do not use euro signs. A separate field already indicates that all amounts are in euros)
- Always use whole numbers (Good is 10.00, not 10.-)
- For numbers, use US notation where possible (i.e. full stops instead of commas)
- If there are several entries in one field, separate them by a pipe (|) (e.g. for the category path or product characteristics)
- Do not leave fields blank
- Make sure at least one image is available per product and preferably only the largest size. Adding additional images is an advantage
Tips for CSV feeds
- No more than one product per line
- Give each field within a column the same type of information
- Do not leave any rows blank
Additional tips
- Include all available GTIN's, such as an EAN code with the products when available
- Add only individual products and no other data, such as website content, category pages or promotional texts
- Add a category and category path in separate fields. Sub-categories cannot be processed by the Daisycon feed system. Also add the Google Category ID
- Provide stock and shipping information in the feed
- Do not add url-parameters to the urls that do not match parameters from the campaign settings
- Create a new feed if a publisher has specific requirements