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About product feeds

A product feed is a detailed representation of a retailer's entire product catalog.

Product feeds must be in a standard XML format, such as the Google Merchant Center feed format (which is what Voyado recommends) and must be directly accessible through an open URL.

The URL for a retailer's product feed (or feeds) is entered into the Engage back-end, by their Voyado team. If the feed exists in different languages, a feed can be defined for each language.

A retailer's product feed is then downloaded at predefined intervals and used to update the article register in Engage. Since an end-user's receipt, abandoned cart or abandoned browse often contains only the unique ID (the gtin) of an article, this can be matched to the data in the product feed in a process called enrichment.

This enriched, more detailed, information can then be used in, for example:

  • Email send-outs

  • Product recommendations

  • Abandoned cart and abandoned browse

Using an external product feed allows the enrichment for articles to be updated as needed and also keeps the information sent on receipts as small as possible, since only an item's ID needs to be sent.

Example of a product feed

<rss xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0">
  <channel>
    <title>ExampleShop.dk - Example</title>
    <link>https://www.ExampleShop.dk</link>
    <description />
    <item>
      <title>Taljebælte til line Showmaster®</title>
      <link>https://www.ExampleShop.dk/hund/aktivering-traening/traening/taljebaelte-til-line</link>
      <description>Taljebælte med indbygget forlængelse, som dæmper ryk fra din hund. Benstropper forhindrer, at bæltet kryber op over hofterne. Justerbart mellem 75 - 130 cm.</description>
      <g:id>041213-10-00000</g:id>
      <g:product_type>Hund > Aktivering & Træning</g:product_type>
      <g:brand>Showmaster®</g:brand>
      <g:image_link>https://www.ExampleShop.dk/pub_images/large/041213-10-00000_1.jpg?timestamp=1618572964</g:image_link>
      <g:condition>new</g:condition>
      <g:availability>in stock</g:availability>
      <g:price>199.00 DKK</g:price>
      <g:gtin>7315470000683</g:gtin>
      <g:mpn />
      <g:item_group_id>20381</g:item_group_id>
      <g:google_product_category />
      <g:identifier_exists>TRUE</g:identifier_exists>
      <g:color>Sort</g:color>
      <g:shipping>
        <g:country>DK</g:country>
        <g:service>Standard</g:service>
        <g:price>0.00 DKK</g:price>
      </g:shipping>
      <g:additional_image_link>https://www.ExampleShop.dk/pub_images/large/041213-10-00000_2.jpg?timestamp=1618572965</g:additional_image_link>
      <g:custom_label_0>281</g:custom_label_0>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

This simplified example above contains one item node. An actual product feed will usually have all of a retailer's products, which can be thousands or even millions of item nodes.

Go here to learn about using the product feed in email modules.

Important

The article register in Engage is created from the product feed as well as information taken from receipts. Products of interest are connected to the article register, not the product feed.

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