STEFANO CAZZULANI: Welcome.
My name is Stefano.
I'm a product manager at Google.
And with Sara today, we're going to lead you
to a session on Merchant Center, Mastering Merchant Center--
tools and tips to make you more successful online.
So Merchant Center has always been the place for you
to bring your inventory online.
And we have come a very long way since the beginning.
We have been hearing your feedback a lot.
And we have been working hard to build a better solution for you
to manage and upload your inventory online.
As you can see, the recent redesign of diagnostic
makes it more intuitive and aligned with AdWords
so you can better navigate the platform.
So the agenda for today--
I'm going to talk about diagnostic
and the new, exciting features there.
And then I'll leave it to Sara to tell you
about feed management.
In the end, just join us if you have any questions.
So first of all, I would like you to meet Mia and Ben.
Mia is an outdoor enthusiast, and she
wants to buy hiking shoes.
And Ben owns a outdoor store and would like
to sell these shoes to Mia.
What we do today, we want to show you, with each feature,
we are going to present you how they are going to impact,
positively, Ben online.
So let's dive into diagnostic first.
As you know, diagnostic is the place
where you go and you quickly assess the health of your feed.
You can pinpoint the data that could impact your performance.
The feature I'll mention today fall in four categories.
First, we made the messages easier to understand.
Secondly, we work on filtering the downloadable report.
Fourth, we are presenting you with richer reports
so you can know what to prioritize
when you fix the issues.
And finally, a huge request from all of you--
we are actually integrating account reviews request
directly into diagnostics.
The new look of diagnostics is more similar to AdWords
and is meant to give you all the critical information
at a glance.
At the top, you have the three tabs.
You have Item Issues, Feed Issues, and Account Issues.
Then below, you see the key metrics
for the last moment in time.
Then you have the chart.
You can also hide section of the charts that you don't need.
So you can just follow the trend that you want.
And then, very important, you have a Filter tab
in the middle, which now will impact both the list below
and also the downloadable reports.
So a common piece of feedback we got from you
is that sometimes, it's hard to understand
what an error message means.
We know that.
So in the last few months, we have been working to rewrite,
completely, the error messages.
So beside doing that, we are going
to add more information that lead you to resolution.
You can see an example in the little pop-up.
And whenever available, we link directly from the issue
to the App Center article that explains that.
So in our case, Ben is a small shop owner.
He doesn't have time to memorize the feedback
and just read every time he has a problem.
With this feature, if there is a problem,
he just clicks on the article, understand what to do,
and fixes it in no time.
And of course, we just started to add more articles.
And we're going to continue to do that.
So tell us what you need, and we'll get it done.
Another thing that-- so you know that you
can view 50 samples, random samples, of items
affected by each issue.
And this is very, very useful.
Because you can actually understand if there
are patterns in the data.
We made it more accessible.
So it was just a label, now View samples next to each issue.
And for example, for Ben, he realizes
that generic images are really a problem in his feed.
Without even downloading the report, just in the UI,
he clicks on View samples.
And he realizes that all the generic images belong
to the same kind of shoes.
And he remembers that two weeks before, he
uploaded those shoes.
He had no time.
He just picked one stock photo for all of them.
That's a problem.
So voila, he knows what to fix right now.
I'm also happy to announce that this feature will
work for past data as well.
So you can just click in the chart,
select the point in time, and both download the report
and view the samples for anytime in the past 30 days.
We also heard, often--
and I think you must have experience that--
the downloadable report might be really huge and hard to manage.
You have all the errors come together, a lot of warnings.
You might not have the tool to manage that
and to understand, really, what to do.
So now I'm happy to say that the full report respects
the filters.
So in case of Ben, he sells in different countries in Europe.
He can just select Germany, for example,
and maybe pick only one feed.
And then he has a much more manageable file to work with.
But what if Ben has a really messed up feed?
This was another huge feature that you request us.
So I'm happy to announce that now, you
can download a report for each specific issue.
So Ben, for example, he has, probably, generic images.
So he just downloads that one, sits down with his webmaster.
They go through a very small list.
There's just that problem.
They can fix it in no time and get done with it.
So imagine, these days, if you have 100-megabyte file.
I mean, it's really impossible to manage.
With this new feature, you can cut through that in no time.
Another huge request we got from you
was that you want more signals to prioritize what to fix.
So the opportunity step in Merchant Center,
you might know that we tried to do it
by estimating the potential for future clicks
if you bring back an item online.
But of course, future click is just one signal.
And we can do a good job only with a subset of your item.
Our machine learning module needs a lot of data for that.
So unless this is reliable, we don't give you
that information.
And by the way, what if you care about the product type?
That has to be live.
Because you know, maybe there is a promotion on that.
The promotion has to be live.
So I'm really happy to announce that we
are adding seven new columns to the low-level report.
You get the five custom labels, product type,
and Google product category.
This is the data that you provide us already.
We give it back to you, together with the issues.
So in this example, Ben notices the two products
which are tagged with full promo, his full promotion,
are disapproved.
And of course, that cannot be.
They have to be live.
He's pushing the promotion.
So he fixes those two first, and now, with peace of mind,
can leave the rest of the problems for later in the day,
knowing that the promotion is running.
So you've seen that we've improved
messaging, the way to filter the low-level report.
You can also look at past data with the 50 samples.
And we give you better signal to prioritize what to fix.
But lastly, I would like to talk about account reapprovals.
We know it's a big pain point for you to request them.
There is a manual form.
You have to fill it up and then follow up
via email with support.
So we have been working to integrate this
into diagnostics.
So whereas the previous feature are launching next week--
we're very happy about that--
this one is something we are working on.
And you'll see, you can request a review next to each issue
and actually follow up and understand what's
going on with your request.
This is something we are launching the next few weeks.
So we really hope that all these features
are meeting your needs.
Go check them out as soon as they're live
and give us feedback.
And now to Sara for some feed management news.
SARA PFENNINGER: Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
Yeah.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Sara.
And I'm a product manager at Google
responsible for feed management in Merchant Center.
Today I would like to show you how your life could
be significantly made easier with our new feed management
tool.
Over the course of last year, we launched
a beautifully newly redesigned Feeds tab in Merchant Center.
The goal of the new feed management tool is manifold.
First of all, it allows you to send us your raw data
from a variety of different formats
and then tie them all together in Merchant Center.
Next, wee provide you the tools and features
needed to modify and optimize your product data.
Therefore we launched supplemental feeds as well as
new feeds rules.
And lastly, you can go international
in only a few clicks.
Let's all embark on a journey now, together
with our merchant, Ben, and help him
sell his hiking boots to Mia.
Over the remainder of the presentation,
you will encounter examples of Ben.
The Feeds tab is now a one-stop place for you
to manage your product data independent
whether you submitted it through Content API,
through a spreadsheet, or through a text file.
Here you can see a screenshot of how the new Feeds
tab looks like.
At the top, you can see the primary feeds,
which contain the main product data information
that you provided us.
At the bottom, you can see the supplemental feeds.
A supplemental feed is a secondary feed
used to add more data or to override existing data.
What is the main motivation for Ben to use a supplemental feed?
I would like to highlight three typical use cases.
The first example why Ben might want
to use a supplemental feed to add more data
is to set up a custom label.
Ben can send the custom label for all his hiking
boots that are particularly good price for value.
Later, when setting up a campaign,
he can then refer to those custom labels
to bid higher on those labeled hiking boots.
Another example to use supplemental feeds
to add more data is to set up a promotion.
Ben might want to--
fall is starting soon.
So Ben might want to set up a promotion for his newest fall
collection.
He can do so by submitting promotion IDs
in a separate supplemental feed, indicating
which products should be used for the promotion
And lastly, why would Ben utilize supplemental feeds
to overwrite data?
Ben has very frequent updates to availability,
because he's selling a lot of his hiking boots
very frequently.
Supplemental feeds are designed to support
frequent online inventory updates.
He can therefore submit price and availability updates
in a separate supplemental feed to always take
the latest value.
Once you have configured--
or registered-- all your primary and supplemental feeds,
you can configure feed rules.
Feed rules, in the new feed management tool,
have been redesigned and reimagined.
They're now more expressive in nature
and treat all data sources equally.
Here you can see a screenshot of the new feed rules UI.
On the left-hand side, you can see the attributes
of the Google feed specification,
and on the right-hand side, the values
that have been assigned to those attributes.
For example, Ben was able to get more offers live
by setting his condition values to new,
because he knows he only has new hiking boots in his store.
In the following, I would like to walk you
through the key benefits of using feed rules
and why, maybe, also some of you might want
to consider using feed rules.
The biggest use cases to get more offers live.
As we saw in the previous example, Ben--
when diagnosing the errors, Ben noticed
that he has many disapproved offers, because he's
missing condition values.
With only three clicks, he was able to set all the condition
values for all his offers to new.
Because he knows he only has new hiking boots, and like this,
all got his offers live.
Another interesting reason to use feed rules
is to optimize your product data to get more clicks
or to get higher in the ranking.
Ben might want to prepend the brand and other information
to the title to get more clicks.
And last, feed rules can be used to unlock new opportunities,
not only supplemental feeds.
But also, feed rules can be used to set up a custom label.
So Ben might want to use feed rules instead
of a supplemental feed to label all his best value products
that he can later refer to in a campaign.
Let's have a closer look how the feed rules editor looks like.
There are a number of operators available to you
divided into two sections, the sources part, and later,
the modifications part.
In the sources part, you can assign a value
to a required attribute.
And then, in the modifications part,
you can further optimize your product data
by appending values or find and replacing values
with more common expressions.
Once you have configured all your feed rules,
you might want to test them.
As part of our new feed management launch,
we provide you with efficient tools
to troubleshoot your account and test any changes.
For example, here in the screenshot,
you can see instant preview.
We recently launched instant preview,
which lets you see any changes on an offer by offer basis
instantly for each feed rule that you have.
So here you can see the title value
before and after prepending the brand.
Ben has registered his feed and configured feed rules.
And now he's celebrating his initial success in Germany.
Now Ben would like to grow and expand
to neighboring countries.
Multi-country targeting allows Ben to use--
to manage his single feed across multiple countries
and languages.
For example, in this-- with only a few clicks.
So for example, if Ben wants to expand to Switzerland
with a different currency, we automatically
convert the currency for Ben.
Let's quickly recap what we've seen.
In the first part of the presentation,
we saw the newly redesigned and improved Diagnostics tab.
In the second part of the presentation,
we saw many exciting new features for you
to manage your feed and to make your life easier.
Ben was able to send us his raw data from a variety
of different sources.
He then added additional data through supplemental feeds
and configured feed rules to optimize his data.
Last but not least, he decided to go international
and was able to do so in only a few clicks.
I'm convinced that you will also enjoy the many new features
that we have in Merchant Center to manage your feed
and to diagnose errors as much as Ben does.
We will stay a bit longer in the room
should you have any questions.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]