January 14, 2025
min read
What are Supplemental Feeds? A Beginner's Guide
Understanding what are supplemental feeds enhances your ecommerce. They are used to add additional information to help improve product data.
Here is a comprehensive guide to utilizing supplemental sources in Google Merchant Center, specifically for enhancing free listings, also known as "surfaces across Google."
While many merchants focus on Google Shopping Ads for paid campaigns, free listings offer a valuable opportunity to increase product visibility without additional advertising costs. If you aim to boost your e-commerce business by attracting more organic traffic, this guide is tailored for you.
Note: The Google Merchant Center interface and terminology may evolve. As of now, “supplemental sources” is the updated term, replacing the older “supplemental feeds.”
Understanding Supplemental Feeds
Supplemental feeds are additional data sources designed to enhance your primary product feed in Google Merchant Center.
Supplemental feeds are vital for optimizing free listings and enhancing SEO by adding extra information to your main product data.
How Supplemental Feeds Function
Before delving into the specifics of using supplemental sources to enhance free listings, it's important to grasp the overall workings of Google Merchant Center. Essentially, Google Merchant Center (GMC) is a platform that enables retailers to upload and manage product information, allowing these items to appear across various Google surfaces, such as the Shopping tab, Google Search, and YouTube, depending on eligibility and configuration.
Free listings, a feature expanded by Google in recent years, allow products to appear organically in relevant search contexts. Unlike paid listings (Google Shopping Ads), free listings do not incur direct advertising costs. They rely heavily on data quality and relevance. Poor or incomplete data may prevent your product from appearing in free listings or reduce its visibility.
Supplemental sources, formerly known as supplemental feeds, are secondary data sets that complement your primary product feed. While your primary feed contains standard attributes like title, description, link, image link, and price, supplemental sources allow you to update or add specific attributes (e.g., custom labels, missing GTINs, shipping information, updated sale prices) without overhauling the entire primary feed.
In essence, supplemental sources provide additional information or updates to Google Merchant Center, enabling real-time corrections and enhancements to your existing product data. This approach ensures that your product listings remain up-to-date and comprehensive, increasing visibility and conversion potential.
Benefits of Using Supplemental Sources for Free Listings
Relying solely on your main feed might seem simpler, but employing supplemental sources offers several advantages:
- Timely Updates: Quickly implement price changes or flash sales through a supplemental source.
- Enriched Product Data: Add details like product highlights or bullet points to enhance your listings on free shopping surfaces, making them more appealing.
- Increased Eligibility: Fill crucial fields like GTIN or brand to improve search relevancy, even if immediate updates to the main feed are not possible.
- Easy Fixes: Address errors flagged by Merchant Center, such as missing required attributes, through a supplemental source without regenerating your entire primary feed.
In a competitive e-commerce landscape, every advantage counts. By providing detailed and accurate product data, you increase the likelihood of your items appearing in free listing results, crucial when competing with other retailers for visibility.
Essential Attributes for Google Merchant Center
The table below highlights key attributes from the Merchant Center Product Data Specification. Each row includes the attribute name, its requirement status, a brief definition, and a concrete running-shoe example.
Insights from Google's Documentation
Google offers a range of resources to help you understand how to use Merchant Center feeds and data sources effectively. Here are a couple of key references from their Help Center:
These guides provide detailed instructions on implementing supplemental sources, linking them to your primary feed, and understanding how the data is integrated. Google emphasizes that while supplemental sources are valuable for data corrections or additions, they cannot replace the main feed. Your primary feed remains essential as the foundation of your product data, with the supplemental source enhancing it.
A crucial point from Google is that the ID used in the supplemental source must match the ID of products in your primary feed. The system merges or updates data based on these IDs. If your supplemental source references a product ID not present in your primary feed, the additional data will not be applied to that product.
Advantages of Using Supplemental Feeds
Let's explore the benefits of supplemental feeds in more detail, particularly concerning free listings. Since free listings rely heavily on product information, optimizing this data can significantly impact your visibility and success.
Enhanced Optimization Capability
Supplemental sources allow you to fine-tune your data attributes to better target free listings. If you find that certain products perform better with more detailed product highlights, you can add these highlights through a supplemental source instead of modifying your entire feed, thereby boosting your ranking potential on Google's platforms.
Flexibility with Bulk Edits
Managing a large number of SKUs can make changes to the primary feed cumbersome. Supplemental sources enable you to quickly update attributes for a large group of items without the need to re-upload a massive file each time.
Correction of Missing or Outdated Data
If Google detects missing GTINs, brand names, or other discrepancies, your free listings may lose visibility. A supplemental source can swiftly address these issues, enhancing your product's eligibility and performance in organic results.
Segmentation and Testing
Supplemental sources allow you to make targeted changes to a subset of products, such as testing new titles or descriptions. By monitoring the impact on click-through rates (CTRs) for free listings, you can determine the effectiveness of these changes. Successful strategies can then be expanded to more products in your main feed or a larger supplemental source.
Setting Up Supplemental Sources
To create a supplemental product data source that enhances or updates your existing primary data in Google Merchant Center, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to the “Data sources” section
- Log into your Merchant Center account.
- Click on the gear icon (Tools and settings) in the top-right corner.
- Select Data sources from the drop-down menu.
2. Add a supplemental data source
Go to the Supplemental sources tab and click on Add supplemental product data.
3. Select your data input method
Choose how you want to provide the supplemental information. Options typically include:
- A file (e.g., CSV or TSV format).
- A Google Sheets template (either create a new sheet or link an existing one).
- Using the Content API (for automated updates that require technical setup).
4. Enter required details
- File name: Ensure the name matches your actual file name, including any extensions.
- Product ID: Use matching IDs for each product to link your supplemental data to the correct items in your primary feed.
- Feed label: Assign a short label using letters, numbers, hyphens, or underscores to help organize and filter your products in campaigns.
- Language: Specify the primary language used in your supplemental file.
5. Link the supplemental data to a primary source
Select the primary data source (your main feed) that the supplemental feed will enhance.
6. Finalize and create
- Click Create data source to complete the setup.
- You can now manage your new supplemental feed under the Supplemental sources tab in your Merchant Center account.
Best Practices for Product Data and Supplemental Sources
To optimize your product data and supplemental sources, consider these strategies:
Maintain Consistent and Unique IDs:
Ensure there is no overlap in IDs across multiple feeds unless they refer to the same product. Inconsistent IDs can lead to confusion and data processing errors.
Optimize Titles and Descriptions:
Titles and descriptions are crucial for organic search visibility. If your primary feed’s title is vague, use a supplemental source to add clarifying details like color, style, or other relevant attributes.
Utilize Product Highlights:
Product highlights can significantly enhance your listing's display. These appear as bullet points under your description, showcasing unique features. If certain features are not captured by a single description field, product highlights are especially useful.
Use High-Quality Images:
Eye-catching, high-resolution images can make your free listings stand out. If you need to update or correct image links, such as switching from a slow or broken CDN link to a more reliable hosting solution, use a supplemental feed.
Adhere to Google’s Policies:
Ensure your supplemental feed updates and product data comply with Google’s content guidelines. Non-compliance can lead to product disapproval or account suspension.
Examples and common usecases
Understanding the practical applications of supplemental sources can illustrate their power in enhancing free listings. Here are some scenarios where they can be particularly beneficial:
Adding Sale Prices for Promotions
If you run a jewelry store and offer a holiday discount on select rings, your main feed might list regular prices. Instead of updating the entire feed for a temporary promotion, create a supplemental source with:
- id: Product IDs for the discounted rings.
- sale_price: The discounted price, e.g., 99.99.
- sale_price_effective_date: The promotion's date range.
Once the sale ends, you can remove or update the supplemental feed, reverting to the main feed’s data.
Correcting Brand Names
If your primary feed has incorrect or missing brand names, your free listings might suffer in visibility. Quickly correct this by creating a supplemental source with:
- id
- brand
Enter the correct brand name for each SKU to resolve this issue without re-uploading your entire catalog.
Adding Missing GTINs
Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) are crucial for product classification and visibility. If some products lack GTINs, add them in a supplemental file to improve categorization.
Enhancing Descriptive Information
If your product descriptions are generic or too brief, create a supplemental source with expanded descriptions or bullet-point highlights for select products. This allows you to test the impact of richer descriptions on click-through rates in free listings.
Below are some frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to supplemental sources and free listings, along with straightforward solutions or clarifications.
FAQ
Do I still need a primary feed if I only want to use a supplemental source?
Absolutely. A supplemental source can never replace a primary feed in Google Merchant Center. You must have at least one primary feed with baseline product data. The supplemental source is only used to add, override, or correct existing information.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a primary feed necessary if I only want to use a supplemental source?
Yes, a primary feed is essential. A supplemental source cannot replace a primary feed in Google Merchant Center. You need at least one primary feed to provide the foundational product data. The supplemental source is used to enhance, update, or correct this existing information.
Can I link multiple supplemental sources to a single primary feed?
Absolutely. You can connect several supplemental sources to the same primary feed. For instance, you might use one supplemental source to update sale prices and another to correct brand information. Just ensure there are no conflicting updates between these sources.
Are supplemental sources applicable only to free listings, or can they be used for paid campaigns too?
[Supplemental sources are applicable to both free and paid listings. While they are particularly effective for optimizing free listings by adding essential data, the same principles can be applied to paid ads. However, this article focuses on free listings.
How can I assess whether the supplemental source has improved my free listings performance?
Monitor your Merchant Center performance metrics. Navigate to Performance > Free product listings to check for changes in impressions, clicks, or conversions after implementing your supplemental feed updates. Additionally, use the “Diagnostics” tab to verify if any errors have been resolved.
Does the order of attributes in the supplemental source file matter?
Generally, no, as long as your header names align with Google’s required attribute names. However, the id column is mandatory. Ensure you use the correct attribute names (e.g., sale_price vs. sale_price_effective_date) as specified in Google’s documentation.
How can I avoid data conflicts between my primary and supplemental sources?
When setting an attribute to override data from the primary source, make sure it is intentional. Some merchants accidentally override accurate data with outdated or incomplete information, leading to confusion. It is advisable to maintain a version-controlled record of your supplemental sources to track the changes you make.
Conclusion & Additional Resources
Supplemental sources are a powerful yet often underutilized tool in Google Merchant Center, especially for brands and e-commerce businesses looking to enhance their visibility through free listings. By strategically using a supplemental source, you can keep your primary product feed stable while making frequent or experimental updates to product details, sale prices, brand information, and more. This approach can significantly improve your product’s eligibility and prominence on Google’s free listing platforms.
As Google continues to evolve its free listings ecosystem, adopting a flexible data management strategy can provide a competitive advantage. With minimal effort, you can optimize your listings, quickly address errors, and experiment with new strategies to drive organic traffic. This is particularly crucial when competing against larger retailers with dedicated teams for listing optimization. A well-organized supplemental source system can help level the playing field.
Additional Resources and Official Guides
