Google PLA Categories vs Partition Categories

[Eshaan Jayalath]

Problem: Mismatch of Google Category Structures between PLA & Shopping Campaign Partitions.

 

We found that most of our Clients' Google PLA Category structures do not match with the new Shopping Campaign Partition Category (1-5) structures. Do we have any resolution to this major issue? As at now we cannot use most of the existing PLA Google product category structures when posting data to this new Google Shopping Campaign Partitions. When creating Partitions, it always throw the error INVALID_PRODUCT_BIDDING_CATEGORY due to this reason. Any solution to avoid this? Or Does Google have a plan to match Google categories between Partitions & PLAs 100%.

Thanks

[Sérgio Gomes (Shopping API Team)]

Hi Eshaan,

We're aware of the issues you mention and are actively looking for a solution on our end. We'll keep you posted as soon as we hear back.

Cheers,

Sérgio

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Sérgio Gomes

Developer Relations

Google UK Limited

Registered Office: Belgrave House, 76 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TQ

Registered in England Number: 3977902

[Eshaan Jayalath]

Thanks Sergio

Are we still on track for deprecating of Google PLA module in September? I am not sure how this is feasible without having the Categories mapped correctly. Is there a definite planed date for PLA deprecation? Everyone seriously wondering about this now.

Regards

Eshaan

[Sérgio Gomes (Shopping API Team)]

Hi Eshaan,

We are still on track for the deprecation, yes. We're working to solve these issues as soon as possible, and in the meantime we can only recommend using the category descriptions you get back from the ConstantDataService to match up to the PLA descriptions as closely as possible.

Cheers,

Sérgio

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Sérgio Gomes

Developer Relations

Google UK Limited

Registered Office: Belgrave House, 76 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TQ

Registered in England Number: 3977902

[Eshaan Jayalath]

Hi Sergio

Unfortunately it is the whole structure (parent / child) which does not match correctly, not the individual categories. I do not believe we can do this to mass majority of customers as we cannot guess the structure for each of them. It should be kind of exact match with PLA don't you think?

I would recommend Google to push the PLA deprecation date further until we get these issues fixed and allow a reasonable time-frame for customers to move over to the new Partition platform. Otherwise it is going to be a nightmare for Clients as well as for Google. Not a good way to introduce a new product I guess.

Regards

Eshaan