How to set up a supplemental feed: A Merchant Center guide

How can I use a supplemental feed?

• To add or modify product information, global trade item numbers (GTINs), promotions, materials, specific attributes, cost of goods sold (COGS), etc. to enrich your primary feed further.
• To fix errors in the Merchant Center, and resolve disapprovals on your primary feed.

For more information on GTINs and finding the most suitable universal product identifiers check out the link above

How to set up a supplemental feed

1. In Google’s Merchant Center, click “Products” on the left-hand menu, and then “Feeds”.

The next page displays an overview of your primary feeds and supplemental feeds. How do they differ? Your primary feed is the back-bone of products, pulling your catalogue of products directly from your website to the Merchant Center.

The supplement feed is used to change, enrich or modify attributes in your primary feed.

From the above page, start by clicking “Add Supplemental Feed”.

2. Next, you need to name the supplemental feed, choose the relevant “Google Sheet”, and click “Continue”.

Here, you can generate a new spreadsheet, or use one you already created.

When creating your supplemental feed (in Excel, Google Sheets, etc.), it’s critical that the product ID in the supplemental feed is identical to the product ID in the primary feed. Additional attributes (such as COGS, title, price, custom labels etc.) are linked to the item ID.

3. The first time you upload the supplemental feed, you must press “Fetch Now” to apply it to the primary feed.

From there, you can adjust how often the supplemental feed is fetched using the “Fetch schedule” drop-down menu under “Settings”.

Do bear in mind that if you use a content API, you may not see an update for 10-30 minutes.