Creating product feed

A product feed is a file containing a list of products available in your online store. The file includes product details and attributes, such as product name, regular, and sale prices and availability.

Product feed is used for:

• Recommendations in email messages and on-site.
• Scenario events, such as abandoned cart or abandoned browse.

There are two methods to add product feed to ExpertSender CDP platform:

• Self-building method.
• A file import.

If you manage multiple online store websites via ExpertSender CDP platform, you can only add one product feed per website.

Self-building product feed

This method requires an active Web Tracking channel, which involves adding a tracking code to your website.

The tracking code collects product details from each visited product page and adds them to the feed on the platform. It takes approximately one week to add 90% of the products.

The self-building product feed excludes product pages that have not been visited by the customers.

If you change the product price, it will be updated in the self-building product feed during the next customer visit.

Activate self-building feed

To activate a self-building product feed for your website, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Web Tracking > Websites.
2. Click Create website button.
3. Add website Name, URL, and an optional Description.
4. Choose the website’s main language.
5. Check the box if:
6. You want to activate the self-building product feed,
7. If the product information added through the self-building product feed should not overwrite the product information added through import.
8. Save the changes.

Import product feed from a file

To import product information seamlessly, make sure the file is properly formatted.

File format

We support the following formats for a product feed file:

• Google Merchant RSS, Atom or CSV
• Custom XML
• Custom JSON
• Custom CSV

For more details on Google Merchant-based formats, refer to the official Google Merchant Center website.

We do not accept compressed .gz or .zip files.

Product parameters

Each product in the feed file should contain the following parameters:

Parameters marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

File hosting

The product feed file must be hosted on your website and accessible through a URL address, for example https://www.onlinestore.com/feed.xml

We support both HTTP and HTTPS protocols.

Product feed import: Google Merchant formats

Go to Settings > Web Tracking > Product feeds and click the Create product feed button. Choose the respective Google Merchant format from the list.

Basic settings

Fill in the fields:

1. Name the product feed. This name will be visible in the grid. Choose a distinctive name if you plan to add product feeds to your other websites, too.
2. Select the website to which the product feed refers.
3. In the field Google Merchant (RSS 2.0, Atom, CSV) or Custom XML field, enter the URL address of the product feed file.
4. Choose the file update schedule:
   • Every 3 hours – we will download product details from the product feed every 3 hours.
   • Custom – set your own download frequency using the cron sequence.

Preview

In this step, verify if all the product details have been loaded correctly. If you are satisfied with the results, click Save to finish the process.

If the product details do not display properly or if you notice a mistake, review the data directly in the source file, then add it again to the platform.

Product feed import: Custom CSV format

Go to Settings > Web Tracking > Product feeds and click Create product feed button. Choose Custom CSV format from the list.

Basic settings

Fill in the fields:

1. Name the product feed. This name will be visible in the grid. Choose a distinctive name if you plan to add more product feeds.
2. Select the website to which the product feed refers.
3. In the field Custom CSV enter the URL address of the product feed file.
4. Choose the file update schedule:
   • Every 3 hours – we will download product details from the product feed every 3 hours.
   • Custom – set your own download frequency using the cron sequence.

Once you are done, go to the Settings section by clicking the section name in the top bar.

Settings

Select the Currency used in Price and Sale price fields in the product feed file.

In the Advanced setting section, indicate how the product data is stored in your catalog. This will make it easier to read the data correctly. 

1. Toggle on Use Tab as value separator if your file uses tabs for this purpose.
2. Otherwise, specify the separator used in your file (e.g., a comma, a semicolon, or other).
3. Toggle on the next option if your file has headers (column names).
5. Next, enter the additional characters used in the file as:
   • Quote – wraps together a piece of text that should be kept as one value.
   • Escape character – turns the consecutive characters used as a separator into an integral part of data.
   • Comment – a character that denotes any spare text in the file, e.g., comments. We will skip such content during the import.
   • Character encoding – select encoding method applied in your file.

In the Preview section, you can check how your data has been read based on the settings.

Go to the Mapping section to assign product data from the file to product feed parameters.

Mapping

Mapping is a process of matching fields from one database with another. In this step, you will match fields from the product feed file with the product parameters in the platform.

During the mapping process, data from each column will be presented in separate rows. This is why we refer to the columns as rows in the description below.

1. Click the dropdown list displayed on the left side of each row.
2. Select a parameter that describes the product data in each row, for example, select Name attribute for a row that displays product names, and URL attribute for rows that displays product page URL address. Repeat this step for all the rows.
3. When all parameters have been assigned, click Save.

The product feed is now ready!