What It Is
Merchandiser already knows which of your products perform best, because it sorts your collections by exactly that. The product-tag feed makes the same knowledge available outside your store.
It is an XML file that lists your products and gives each one tags that say where it ranks: among the top 20 of the catalog, between 21 and 50, and so on. The file is refreshed on a schedule, so the tags follow your sales, traffic and stock without anyone maintaining a list.
Example
<products>
<product>
<item_group_id>1001</item_group_id>
<tags>
<tag>BEST|TOP20</tag>
<tag>WOMEN-NEW|1-50</tag>
</tags>
</product>
<product>
<item_group_id>1002</item_group_id>
<tags>
<tag>BEST|21-50</tag>
</tags>
</product>
</products>How the Tags Are Calculated
The tags come from the same sorting rules that order your collections. A rule ranks a set of products, and the ranking is cut into tiers.
- Catalog-wide tiers
- A rule such as best performers ranks all your products. The first products get the top tier, the next ones the second tier, and so on down the list.
- Segment tiers
- A rule such as new arrivals ranks the products of one segment, for example women, men or kids, and the ranking is cut into tiers in the same way.
- Several tags per product
- A product gets one tag for every ranking it appears in. It can be in the top tier of the catalog and among the newest products of its segment at once.
Two details matter for campaigns:
- Pins are ignored. The tags are calculated without your pins, so they reflect what the data says and not where a campaign has placed a product on a page.
- Your store's order is not touched. The ranking for the tags is calculated separately. It changes nothing in your collections.
Because the tiers come from sorting rules, they inherit what the rules take into account. A rule that weighs size availability keeps a product that has sold out of most sizes out of your top tier.
How You Use It
The file identifies each product by the ID that groups its variants in your product feed. Your feed management tool, or the agency that runs your feed, merges the tags into the feed you send to Google Merchant Center, typically as custom labels.
With the tier in a custom label, campaigns can be built on it:
- a campaign with its own budget for the top tier,
- different bids for the tiers below it,
- a separate campaign for the newest products of each segment.
The segments then update themselves. When a product climbs into the top tier, the next refresh of the file moves it into the matching campaign.
Set Up for Your Store
Which rules are used, where the tiers are cut and which segments get their own ranking differ from store to store. The product-tag feed is therefore set up for your store by our team: you tell us how your campaigns are structured, and we configure the tags to match.
What Merchandiser Does Not Do
Merchandiser supplies the tags. It does not edit your Google Merchant Center feed, and it does not create or manage campaigns. Those stay with your feed tool and your advertising team.