LevelUp: Feeds and other Things

After Almost a year in business, and a very lax approach to systems and processes, ive been a busy bee lately

I thought it might be useful to tell you what ive been doing, maybe daily maybe not. We will see. Here is installment number 1.

It helps heaps to re-explain something when you are learning, so this is really helpful for me too !

Today ive have been working on and learning about -

Shopify Product Feeds.
Integration of Xero with Shopify
Facebook Product Catalogs and Best Practices
Reinstalling Consistent Cart
Wrangling with Google Workspace

Fun Stuff

Playing with Photoshop Text Effects (3D PaperCut mainly)
Making 3D Wall Murals to sell
Downloading Premium (pirated) Themes hehe..
Setting up a new website - day 1
Domain shopping and Logo Making

I will talk a bit about feeds!

(background - a Product Feed is sent to Facebook, Google, Pinterest and Instagram for your Insta & Facebook Shop/Google Shopping /Pinterest Rich Pins-as well as feeding your Facebook Catalog, Pixel Data, and Conversion Data)

Im currently Suspended from having a Google Merchant Account due to Misrepresentation - something that sounds Worse than it is.)

I've discovered that this Could be because ive left the H from my Address (47H) on my Google My Business Listing.
Or
Because i don't have my Payment Options written in WORDS as well as having icons displayed on my main page.
Or
Because i have products in my store that have an "Untracked Inventory"
Or
Because I have Products in my store that are "in stock" but stocked by someone else
Or
That i have some dropshipping items
Or
That ive not filled out my Target Audience settings and given a detailed breakdown of shipping costs to every country i sell to
Or
That im selling face masks
Or... .....Well the list is long, and goes on and on. All these pearls i found by reading the community forums on Google Merchants Help Section.

of course Google won't tell me what the issue is! Duh! I have to go through everything with a fine tooth comb!

And you can't resubmit your feed infinitely, you only have a few goes, so im trying to get it right before I resubmit it!!

I may never be approved, because I've had two "official" responses regarding the elegabilty of Print on Demand Products for Google Shopping, one says its allowed, the other says not allowed.

But im learning heaps anyway...! 😁

In 12 months Ive never successfully used any Google Marketing Product for Missfits , the last issue was Google saying my site had Malware (which it didn't) And Google is JUST LIKE FACEBOOK and is completely vague about giving you any good information when something goes wrong.

But if i can get it sorted, its less ad spend and more organic traffic, so it's worth chasing!!

Interconnected with the Google Product Data Feed extravaganza is my Facebook Product Feed and Catalog.

Missfits is ineligible for a Facebook Shop

(which happened when Shopify updated the Facebook Channel) my Commerce account was deemed a fail. NO REASON GIVEN OF COURSE!!

and have errors all over my Facebook Pixel Events saying "no product id." Or can't retarget 50% of visits "

Strangely though my ads still work and my conversion reports are accurate)

SO.. More time working on my Product Feed.

Originally I was thinking i could just edit my own data so it was all in order, but it seems you can't.

Even the Google Shopping meta fields deep in your product CSV file are actually redundant.

In the quest for the golden feed, I tried some product feed apps including Upfeed, "Feed for Google Shopping" by Simpshopifyapps, Feed by Socialhead, DataFeedWatch, and a couple more.

I abandoned them all for various reasons.

I tried Flexify - which used to be a feed just for Facebook but now covers Google and Pinterest.

(I installed it so could get my Pinterest feed sorted too as my enhanced Pins show most of my products as being out of stock. (this can wait for another post)

This is not a plug for Flexify, its too expensive and slow, but im going to carry on using it as i can't figure out how else to add the information to my products without fucking with my product data in a majorly risky way.

(do recommend Ablestar Bulk Editor however for basic edits)

Flexify showed me the huge rabbit hole that im down now, which is all the data that Facebook wants!! (mostly optional)

And darn it im adding information anyway so i may as well put it all in there!!

So i have started by using Flexify, and mapping only one product category (Combat Boots) including every scrap of information that is possible, initially for a new Facebook Product Feed. And new Catalog

This includes Color, Size, Style, Heel Thickness, Width, and about 30 other different attributes.

Progress EXTREMELY slow as the app uses the Shopify Bulk Editor as the input method and you may know the editor is like a snail on valium. There is no csv upload option (boo)

That took a long time.

And i will continue to work on this slowly every day bit by bit.

Ive been doing Xero and Accounting (ergh) tonight but i will write another post about that later on today.

Other things ive been doing today was to buy a new domain and start work on www.theimagination.store yey.

Tuesday, 16 February 2021

Feeds and other Things