Guide · Ultineo E-commerce
Product feeds: how shopping and advertising services find your catalogue
This guide is for a merchant who wants products listed by shopping and advertising services in several countries. A feed is your catalogue as a file that a service reads, usually once a day: what it reads is what you wrote. You will know which product facts to check, which range to send, and how to give each country and language its own address.
Checked against the product in November 2026
What a feed is, and what it needs
- A file that a service reads
A product feed is a file that shopping and advertising services read to list your products. They come back to read it, usually once a day.
- The facts of each item
Each item carries a name, a price, a photo, its availability and a link to its page. The feed copies your catalogue: a wrong price in the catalogue is a wrong price everywhere.
- One address per market
A product source is declared for one country and one language. Each country and language you sell in therefore has its own address.
- A range you choose
A feed does not have to carry the whole catalogue. Decide which categories it sends, and what happens to an item with no stock or no photo.
- Labels and tracking words
Labels let the service group your items, for example by brand. Tracking words on each link tell you later which visits came through the feed.
- Two reports to read
Your side shows what the feed published and what it left out. The service shows what it accepted: a generated feed is neither an approval nor an advert.
1. Check the facts your catalogue holds
A feed invents nothing. Each item leaves with the name, the price, the photo, the category and the stock recorded in your catalogue on the day of the read. Look for the products where one of them is missing or provisional.
Correct them on the product itself, never in a copy kept for the service: a second list is out of date at the first change of price.
Example. A kitchenware shop lists 240 products. The merchant finds 31 without a photo and 12 still priced at 1.00, the value entered when they were created. She corrects those prices first.
In Ultineo. In Products, a product holds its Name, its Brand, its Category, its Grade, its Price and its Stock. Images are added from its Images tab. The catalogue supplies the product information of the feed: incomplete data is corrected there.
2. Create the feed and keep it paused
Decide what one feed stands for. A sound rule is one feed for each service that reads your catalogue, with a name you will recognize in that service's console.
Keep the feed closed while you prepare it: nothing should be readable before you have checked it.
Example. A merchant sells in four countries and wants her products listed by one shopping service. She creates a single feed, named after the service, and leaves it paused while she checks it.
In Ultineo. In Feeds, click "Add a feed". On "New feed", enter a Name, choose the service that will read the feed, or Other, then click "Create the feed". The feed is created paused, and it already holds every country your shop sells in.
3. Choose the range the feed publishes
Not every product belongs in every service. Start from the categories that suit the service, then settle two cases in advance: the item out of stock and the item with no photo.
Keep single exclusions for the few products that must never appear there.
Example. A sportswear shop sends its three clothing categories and leaves its gift cards out. Items out of stock stay listed as out of stock. One jersey that the shop may sell only on its own site is excluded.
In Ultineo. Open the feed and its Products tab. On the Selection box, click Edit: leave "Published categories" on "All categories" or choose "Only these categories", then decide whether "Out-of-stock items" are "Left out" or "Listed as out of stock", and whether "Products with no photo" are "Left out" or set to "Use a photo of the same product group". On the "Product exclusions" box, click Edit, search for the Product by name or SKU, pick it and click Exclude: this feed never publishes it.
4. Read the feed before any service does
Open the feed as the service will read it, one market at a time. Compare a dozen items with their product pages: the name in the language of the market, the price, the photo, the availability.
Then read the counts: how many items were left out, and how many carry a warning.
Example. A merchant previews one market and counts 418 items. The same price, 9.99, appears on 57 of them: they were created with a provisional price. He corrects those products first.
In Ultineo. On the Markets tab of the feed, click Preview on a row to see the feed exactly as the service will read it. The preview works even while the feed is paused. On the Products tab, check "Left out at last build" and "Warnings at last build". A "Most repeated price" shared by many items is often a placeholder: correct those products first.
5. Give each country and language its own address
A product source is declared for one country and one language. Buyers there expect names they can read and prices in their currency. So one catalogue gives several addresses: one for each pair of country and language.
In the service, declare each address as its own source, with the same country and the same language, and keep a list of what you declared.
Example. A shop sells in three countries, and one of them has two languages. Its feed shows four rows, so the merchant creates four sources in the console of the service and notes each address beside its country and language.
In Ultineo. On the Markets tab, each row is a country and a language, with its "Feed address". In the service's console, add a product source read from a URL, choose the country and language shown on the row, and paste its "Feed address". To add a country, click "Add a market"; after removing one, delete the matching source in the service's console too.
6. Label the items and mark the links
Two settings prepare the day you read results. Labels sort your items into groups that the service can use, for example by brand or by category.
Tracking words are added to the link of every item. Give the feed a source, a medium and a campaign name, and do not change them without a reason: a word that changes splits your visits in two.
Example. A merchant labels her items by brand. Her tracking words are short and in lowercase: the name of the service, the word feed, and winter-range for the campaign. Later, she finds that campaign name among the sources of her visits.
In Ultineo. On the Products tab, click Edit on the "Item details" box. Under "Custom labels", choose a value for each "Custom label" you need: Grade, Brand, Category, "Top category" or "Product group", or leave None. Under "Link tracking", enter the "Source (utm_source)", the "Medium (utm_medium)" and the "Campaign (utm_campaign)": these words show in your Audience dashboard as the source, medium and campaign of those visits.
7. Activate the feed, then read both reports
Activate the feed only when its content is right. From the next read, there are two reports, and they say different things.
Yours says what the feed published. The service says what it accepted or refused under its own rules: read its report, and correct in your catalogue the products it names. A generated feed does not mean that the service accepted every item, nor that any advertising started.
Example. A merchant activates his feed on a Monday. On Wednesday, the service reports 402 items accepted and 16 refused for a missing photo. He adds the photos in his catalogue, then reads the report again.
In Ultineo. Open the feed, click Activate, check the "Current status" and the "New status", then click Activate again: the service notices at its next read, usually within a day. The figures of each Markets row appear after the first read or your first preview. Pause works the same way: the addresses of a paused feed answer "not found", and the service keeps the items it last read until they expire.
Checklist
Before and after the first read
- 1. Correct the product facts
Name, price, photo, category and stock, on the product itself and nowhere else.
- 2. Create the feed paused
One feed for each service, named so that you recognize it in that service's console.
- 3. Set the range
Categories, items out of stock, items with no photo, and the few products to exclude.
- 4. Preview each market
Compare a dozen items with their product pages, in the language and the currency of the market.
- 5. Declare one source per address
The same country and language on both sides, noted in a list you keep.
- 6. Read the service's report
After the first read, correct in your catalogue what the service refuses.
Go further
- Help articles
Prepare your product feeds with Ultineo E-commerce
Send your application: our team reviews each one before an account is opened.
Questions
A file that shopping and advertising services read to list your products. You paste its address into the service's console, and the service then reads it, usually once a day.
No. When it is created, a feed already holds every country your shop sells in. What differs is the address: there is one per country and language, on the Markets tab.
Yes. On the Products tab, click Edit on the "Product exclusions" box, pick the product and click Exclude. This feed never publishes it, whatever the other rules say. To publish it again, click Remove on its row under "Excluded products".
You choose. On the Selection box, "Out-of-stock items" are either "Left out" or "Listed as out of stock". The next read of the feed follows the new selection.
Yes. The feed is created paused, and Preview, on a row of the Markets tab, works even while it is paused. Its link is private and expires after a day.
No. The service that reads the feed decides what it accepts, and this is checked there, separately. A generated feed does not mean that every item was approved or that any advertising started.