Connecting a product feed to your Google Merchant Center enables shoppers to discover your products through Google Shopping and Google Product Listing Ads.
If you choose to use these Google products we recommend also connecting a reviews feed to your Google Merchant Center so your product listings can be augmented with review data. This will help you capture more search traffic as a result.
If you have followed our Google Shopping Set Up help article, but have failed to sync successfully, check to see if any of the below features or steps have been missed.
Google Shopping Identification Preference
It is best to practice to ensure all your products within Shopify have both a SKU and a barcode of any variant (UPC, EAN). The more information you can provide Google, the more chances it will have of successfully syncing feeds.
It's important to recognize that Google has compulsory requirements for merchants to provide either of the following options for each product:
Product barcode/GTIN.
Product MPN
Google's preference will always be for option 1.
See below on what constitutes a barcode or GTIN and where to input them against your products within Shopify.
Types of Product Identification:
Internal
Stock Keeping Unit (SKU). Generally eight alpha-numeric digits.
Manufacturer Part Number (MPN). Normally, a series of numbers and letters.
External (Global Trade Identification Numbers aka GTIN)
Unique Product Code (UPC) Generally twelve alpha-numeric digits.
European Article Number (EAN) Generally thirteen alpha-numeric digits.
International Standard Book Number (ISBN) Specific to books. Thirteen numeric digits
For a complete rundown on each, read Google's article
To input any of these options, find them housed under each Product listing page within Shopify. If you have variants already created, select the button "edit" next to the variant.
Mirroring SKU as MPN
As Shopify has no specific section to input a unique MPN, Okendo offers a toggle on/off feature where you can assign the SKU of your products to also be assigned as your MPN. This can be found in the Okendo Integration Settings (Settings > Integrations) for Google Shopping. This will help the matching of a product with Google but is not a guaranteed solution.
Google Shopping Feed App
If you are using the Google Shopping Feed App to pull your product feed into your Merchant Centre, please ensure the sync information it is sending, is set to the correct level. It's important to check two different area's within the app.
Integrations -> Feed Settings -> Default Settings -> Default Identification Management -> Select option.....Submit Brand Name, MPN (SKU) and GTIN (Barcode)
2. Manage Products -> Product XYZ -> Identifier Management - > Select...Submit Brand Name, MPN (SKU) and GTIN (Barcode)
Common Error Messages & Solutions
Missing value [gtin]: The identified product does not have an associated GTIN
Invalid value [gtin]: The input data in the identified products GTIN field on Shopify does not follow a valid GTIN template e.g. missing numbers
Violation of Shopping ads policy: Google may flag your product for a number of issues. If you click on the identified product, the violation should be available to read. Read more here
Ambiguous value [gtin]: The submitted GTIN of a product isn't recognised. The GTIN may be missing leading zeros or use a deprecated format, for example ISBN-10
Unsupported value (reserved) [gtin]: The submitted GTIN of a product hasn't been released for use yet by GS1.
FAQs: Google Shopping ads' reviews count not matching with Okendo
When integrating with Google Shopping, two feeds are needed so your reviews can be published. The product feed (or Shopping ads/offer feed) and the reviews feed (or Product ratings feed). Both these feeds are required to have product identifiers such as GTINs and SKUs. Both the product feed and reviews feed need to have matching product identifiers.
Okendo generates the reviews feed. We pull data from your Shopify inventory such as the SKU for MPN and Barcode for GTIN (see screenshot below):
The product feed is created by the merchant in the Google Merchant Center (or a third-party data app e.g. DataFeedWatch). To resolve any issues with the reviews count not matching, kindly check your Google Merchant Center to confirm if the SKUs match your Shopify inventory. Okendo does not create, control or modify a merchant's Product Feed in their merchant center.
If there is a discrepancy in the number of reviews, it's possible that the SKU or GTIN in your GMC does not match what you have in your Shopify inventory. To resolve this, kindly create/update your product feed and add product identifiers so have a better match.
Where to find the SKU in Google Merchant Center:
If you are still having issues in successfully syncing your feeds, please feel free to reach support@okendo.io