Google Shopping Feed Application by Simprosys: Complete Guide

In today’s digital marketplace, the success of shopping advertising campaigns hinges significantly on the seamless integration and accurate data tracking. This article delves into the critical aspects of setting up and managing shopping ads, emphasizing the importance of correctly configured product feeds, precise conversion tracking, and the integration of dynamic remarketing parameters. I will explain how full integration can be configured using the Simprosys application.

Simprosys InfoMedia is a developer of extensions to integrate your online store and advertising accounts. 

Simprosys extensions enable you to generate and import product feeds to Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, or Facebook. Additionally, this application allows for comprehensive tracking of e-commerce conversions. They also facilitate the tracking of essential dynamic parameters, ensuring the effective functioning of your dynamic remarketing.

Simprosys has an application for Shopify online store, as well as a plugin to work with the WooCommerce platform.

As a Google Shopping agency, we have extensive experience using the Simprosys application, particularly with Shopify, so I will provide additional guidance and detailed explanations regarding its use. 

The full name of the application is “Simprosys Google Shopping Feed”. You can find it in the Shopify app store by name or link.

The app is paid, and the cost depends on the number of products.

The main function of the application is to generate and send product feeds. You can send the feed to Google Merchant Center, Microsoft Merchant Center, and Facebook Product Catalog. 

You can also generate a separate XML feed for a fee. XML Feed will allow you to submit the product feed for your store to various other affiliate marketing platforms (other than Google, Facebook and Microsoft) and CSS networks.

Integration is quite simple and clear, so I will not dwell on each step in detail, I will describe what you need to do for customization.

1. First, add the application to your Shopify account.

After installation, you’ll have a 21-day trial period, allowing you to defer payment until later.

2. Set up integration with the Shopify account. Let’s take a closer look at the available options:

2.1. Note that you can import all products or only products from a collection. 

2.2. Select the priority Title and Descriptions to be passed to the feed. If you are using personalized Title and Descriptions for SEO, it is recommended to select them. 

Select the rest of the items depending on the specifics of your products.

In this section, we will look at the available settings and integrations using Google as an example since it is the most popular advertising account for shopping among the presented ones. In addition, integration with Google systems in Simprosys is the most multifunctional. Integrations with other advertising systems have a number of limitations.

To set up product feed export to Google, first set up integration with Google Merchant Center. To do this:

1. Connect your Google Merchant Center account. If you don’t already have a Merchant Center account, create one first. You can follow the Google instructions.

2. Select the integration settings in the Shopify app.

2.1. Tax (VAT/GST) Settings.

If you are going to work in the US or Canada, select No, My Product prices does not include Tax (VAT/GST). For all other countries, select Yes.

2.2. Also enable the Sale Price in the feed. This option allows you to display both prices in the product card, which makes the ad more attractive.

2.3. Append UTM Tracking Parameters to URL?

It is at your discretion whether or not to include this item. We use this function to see separate statistics from Google Free Listings and from Google Ads in analytics. Free listings retain the UTM parameters set by this checkbox, whereas ad traffic has its parameters overwritten by those specified in the ad campaign.

2.4. Product ID Format.

In most cases, the first option will work for you. Choose it unless you have a specific reason to use another format.

Done. After successful integration, you will find the product feed in the Merchant Center. It may take some time to load.

Simprosys uses the API method, so your feed will be named accordingly. 

Keep in mind that there is a limitation in your Google Merchant Center account for the API method: you can only transfer one data feed this way.

Selling products in different countries presents three possible scenarios. 

• First, all countries can share a common language and currency. 
• Second, countries can have a common language but different currencies. 
• Third, countries can have both different languages and currencies.

In the first two cases, you only need to add the required countries in the feed settings in the Merchant Center. To do this, click on the feed name in the Merchant Center and then adjust the list of countries. 

In case of different currencies, the price will be converted automatically according to the Google rate.

If the languages and currencies of the countries are different, you will need separate feeds for each country. But remember that only one data feed can be loaded via the API through the application. In this case, Shopify Markets settings will come to the rescue. 

Begin by setting up the countries in Shopify’s Markets section. Here, you’ll specify the language, currency, and page for each country. After this, use the Simprosys app to add separate product lists to the current feed. Each list should correspond to the required language and country.

Now more about this setting.

1. First, allocate all required countries to separate markets. In our example, all European countries are allocated to a separate marketplace. However, you can group countries with a common language and currency into single markets if you do not need to separate them at the Shopify level.

2. In the Simprosys app, go to the Shopify Markets section.

3. You may need to update the app for the feature to start working. Do this.

4. On the page that opens, on the right side, click Add Locals.

5. On the left side of the screen, include all the markets you want to add as individual countries in the feed. On the right side, for each market, check the checkbox for the languages you want to add.

6. Save the changes. In the window that appears, select “Yes, I am using any of the apps listed above for Language Translation.” and click on “Yes, Already verified”. Read about Language Translation apps below, in the “Important Nuances” section.

After that, you will see in the GMC that in the main feed, in addition to the primary market country, there will be lists of products for each country with the appropriate language.

The important nuances:

• To effectively advertise products across various countries, your website should support multiple languages and currencies. There are many special applications for this purpose. However, to ensure the Simprosys integration functions correctly, make sure to use one of the language translation apps that are whitelisted by Shopify.
• Keep in mind that multiple feeds for different countries in different languages via Shopify Markets integration are currently only available for Google Merchant Center. For Microsoft Merchant Center and Facebook Catalog, you can import only one feed that corresponds to the primary language and currency of your website. But in Microsoft, this problem can be solved quite easily by importing feed data from your Google Merchant Center account.

You can set up Google conversion tracking. So with the help of this integration, you will get:

• Conversions made tracking: add to cart, start of checkout and purchase along with the value of purchase,
• Dynamic remarketing parameters tracking.

Find the Google Dynamic Remarketing & Conversion Tracking section:

Next, link your Google Ads account:

Specify exactly what you need to include in the Script.

You may choose Dynamic Remarketing and get only this function. But I recommend selecting all checkboxes. In that case, you get both: Dynamic remarketing and Conversion tracking.

You also have the option to choose whether to create new conversions in your Google Ads account or use the existing goals.

If you have created new goals for Google Ads, they will automatically appear in the Google Ads account in the Conversions section. These conversions look like this:

You can also enable Google Enhanced Conversions For Web. To do this, first enable this feature within the Simprosys app. You may need to update the application to make the feature available. Do so if necessary.

Once you enable enhanced conversions in the Simprosys app, don’t forget to enable the feature in your Google Ads account.

To do this, go to Conversions => Settings. Find the Enhanced conversions section, enable the checkbox and select Google Ads API as a method.

Also, now you have the correct dynamic remarketing settings. You will see the data with dynamic remarketing parameters on the Google Ads audience source.

The integration works when you begin receiving data for the ‘ecomm_pagetype’, ‘ecomm_totalvalue’, and ‘ecomm_prodid’ parameters.

You can also add GA4 tag to the Shopify store using Simprosys Google Shopping Feed application.

This app automatically inserts the global site tag and the event snippets to the online store.

And also, it automatically links your Google Ads Account with your Google Analytics 4 Property.

Conversion and dynamic remarketing parameters tracking for the Microsoft Ads account are also available in the app.

And for Facebook:

Here are some important and useful features of the app that make working with feeds simple and efficient.

1. Do edits in bulks.

On the Manage Products tab, you can make bulk changes to products. To do this, just select the required products (you can use the filter) and choose the required action. It can be especially useful for assigning a Custom Label so that you can use it to filter products in the Merchant Center or Google Ads. Or you can set Google Product Category if it is not defined correctly automatically. 

2. Promotions Feed.

Allows you to create a promo feed for all or specific products. And then use this feed in Google Merchant Center.

3. XML feeds.

Also, we already mentioned that you can create individual XML feeds for an additional fee. XML Feed will allow you to submit the product feed for your store to various other affiliate marketing platforms (Other than Google, Facebook and Microsoft) and CSS networks. For the XML Feed feature, there is an additional charge of 35% of your basic monthly fee.

When launching Google Shopping ads campaigns, it’s crucial to ensure accurate data transmission. This includes setting up product feeds accurately and tracking conversions effectively, including purchase value and parameters for dynamic remarketing. Success significantly relies on the smart selection of an integration application.

There are several applications like Simprosys in the market, and you can choose something more complex and expensive or something simpler and free, depending on your goals. 

However, we urge you not to use free problematic extensions, as the effectiveness of their operation ultimately affects the effectiveness of your advertising activities — it is difficult to launch an effective, profitable smart advertising campaign on Google Ads if you have an incorrect feed or if you are not receiving all purchases in your ads account. Our many years of experience working with e-commerce projects on the Shopify platform have shown us that you can rely on the application by Simprosys.