Product Feeds (Froogle File)

By Multichannel

For use with Google Shopping (incl. Free Listings), Facebook Shop and more

This document describes how to set up a product feed for use with marketing platforms such as Google Merchant Center or Facebook Business Manager. At Intelligent Retail this is commonly referred to as a ‘Froogle File‘.

We offer a product feed in tab-delimited text file format (.txt) for use with Google properties, and for Meta properties we offer a product feed in tab-separated values file format (.tsv).

A product feed (Froogle File) is a chargeable service – if you would like to have this feature enabled please contact our sales team at ecs@intelligentretail.co.uk for more information.

 

Product feed (Froogle File) settings

By default the Froogle File is usually set to only include items that are in stock. If there are products that you wish to be excluded from the Froogle File entirely, these can be controlled using the product ‘Feed Exclusion’ tag set. Find out how to set one up here.

There are various settings to determine what products will be included in a product feed that our team can adjust for you, such as:

  • Including ‘Leaf’ Options – This includes the lowest level product options and products without options.
  • Including Display Products – This includes the products as they are displayed on the website, not including the options underneath.
  • Stock Level – In Stock Only / Purchasable Products (In Stock and Available to Order) / All Products.
  • Image Required – Only products with images will be included.
  • Full Text Required – Only products with full text descriptions will be included.
  • Barcode Required – Only products with a suppliers barcode will be included.
  • Brand Required – Only products with a brand assigned will be included.
  • Price Required – Only products with a price will be included.
  • MPN Required – Only products with a Manufacturers Part Number (Manufacturer Code) will be included.

If you wish to have any of the above settings adjusted – please contact the helpdesk.

 

Rebuilding of the product feeds (Froogle File)

The product feeds are rebuilt automatically overnight based on data contained within the latest upload from Connect. When combined with feed scheduling in Google Merchant Center or other shopping platforms, it is possible to achieve fresh daily updates to the data available to those platforms.

 

Checking the contents of your product feed (Froogle File)

You can access your Froogle File by adding /frooglefile.txt to the end of your URL in your browser’s address bar. e.g. https://www.mydomain.co.uk/frooglefile.txt. To view the file in a more friendly format, save and open the file in spreadsheet software. Instructions for how to do so in Excel and Google Sheets are below.

Microsoft Excel

  1. Save the file locally by right-clicking the page, click ‘Save as‘
  2. Find the downloaded file (likely to be in your Downloads folder)
  3. Right-click the downloaded file, click ‘Open with‘ and select ‘Excel‘

Google Sheets

  1. Save the file locally by right-clicking the page, click ‘Save as‘
  2. Login to Google Sheets and open a blank Spreadsheet
  3. In the top menu click ‘File‘ > ‘Import‘
  4. Select the ‘Upload‘ tab on the pop-up and click ‘Browse‘
  5. Find the downloaded file (likely to be in your Downloads folder) and click ‘Open‘
  6. On the Import File pop-up select your preferred Import location from the drop-down
  7. Leave the Separator type as ‘Detect automatically‘
  8. Click the ‘Import data‘ button

 

Using your product feeds

Product shopping policies

Google, Meta etc have rules on what can and cannot be sold via their platforms. These are common sense restrictions that cover areas like counterfeit and dangerous goods. For more information on restrictions visit the links below:

Meta’s Commerce Policy

Google’s Shopping Ads Policy

 

Minimum data requirements

For products to be eligible to show as listings on Google and Meta properties there are minimum requirements for product data and that varies by the class of product. For example clothing requires additional information to be supplied, as do products that are currently available for pre-order only.

The core fields that cover the minimum data requirements are built into the Froogle File by default and their values are taken from product data in Connect. It is the retailer’s responsibility to ensure that their product data meets the minimum requirements for any products that they are looking to promote.

Find out what fields in Connect data is taken from, and how to use tagging in Connect to enhance your product feed, in the article linked below:

Attribute Tagging for Google Shopping / Free Listings (Froogle File)

 

Google’s product data specifications

Use Google’s Product Data Specification to identify data requirements, data enhancements and how to format values for use with Google Shopping and Free Listings. Accurate data allows Google to match products in the feed to queries made by its users.

As mentioned, core product information fields are included in the Froogle File by default. These include:

id
title
description
link
image_link
product_type
availability
condition
price
shipping
brand
gtin
mpn

 

The team will set up your product feed (Froogle File) fields when you begin using this feature. Additional fields can be added to the product feed (Froogle File) based on your requirements for attributes such as colour, size, gender, age_group, google_product_category, custom labels, and more. Values for these fields can be pulled from tag sets, product options or be specifically defined. Please liaise with the team to let them know what additional fields you will require in your product feed (Froogle File).

 

Fetching the product feed (Froogle File) in Google Merchant Center

To submit products for inclusion in Google’s Free Listings or to make them available to be used in Google Ads as part of Shopping Ads, you will require a Google Merchant Center account. For convenience we recommend creating a Merchant Center account with the same Google account that you use/intend to use with other Google properties, such as Google Analytics, Google Ads and Google Search Console. This makes it easier for you to connect properties at a later date.

Follow the steps below to submit your product feed (Froogle File) to Google Merchant Center:

  1. Open your internet browser and enter the following into the address bar to go to Google Merchant Center:
    https://www.google.co.uk/merchants
  2. Sign in to Google Merchant Center using your Google account or create a new account if you don’t already have one.
  3. Select ‘Products‘ from the menu and then click ‘Feeds‘.
  4. Under ‘Primary feeds‘ click the blue + button to create a new feed.
  5. Go through the sections below to complete your setup

1. Basic Information

  • Select your ‘Country of sale‘ e.g. United Kingdom
  • Select your ‘Language‘ – English
  • Select your destinations: Tick ‘Free listings‘ and/or ‘Shopping ads‘ depending on what you wish to use.
  • Click ‘Continue‘

2. Name and Input Method

  • Name your feed – e.g. Froogle File
  • Select ‘Scheduled fetch‘ as your input method.
  • Click ‘Continue‘

3. Setup

  • Enter the name of the feed file: frooglefile.txt
  • Fetch frequency: Daily is recommended. You can change this setting in Google Merchant Center at a later point.
  • Fetch time: e.g. 10:00am (Avoid fetching overnight as this is when the Froogle File may be rebuilding and could result in partial data being fetched. Choose a time of the day when you are less likely to be performing an upload or restarting the website.) You can change this setting in Google Merchant Center at a later point.
  • Select your Time Zone: e.g. (GMT) Greenwich Mean Time (London)
  • Enter file URL: https://www.[your website address]/frooglefile.txt
  • Leave the optional URL password protection login info blank.
  • Click ‘Create feed‘

Once your file has been uploaded and Google have processed / reviewed your product data, you can view the status of the products in your Google Merchant Center under Products > Diagnostics.

Google Merchant Centre works with your Google Ads account. Within your Ads account you can then set up a Standard Shopping or Performance Max campaign so that your product ads will be displayed to people when they are searching on Google and potentially when visiting other platforms. You can view the performance of your Free Listings within Google Merchant Center > Performance > Dashboard > Free Listings tab.

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