Google Product Taxonomy vs Product Bidding Category

[Jonathan Wu]

Hello,

We are getting into using the adwords api to automate building shopping campaigns for our clients. We just recently found that the Google Product Taxonomy which the feeds use for categorization are different from the Product Bidding Categories used in the API. Why was this done? You guys must have some kind of mapping from one to the other since you are receiving the items with the product taxonomy and taking bids with the product bidding category. Can you provide us with that mapping? If this is not possible, the API really is limited in any practical use since we can't create any automation for our clients without making our own mapping that will need to be updated when you change anything on either side. 

Regards,

Jonathan

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Jonathan,

It looks like the Google Product Taxonomy is a static list, so it is possible that it's outdated, but I'm still looking to confirm that. I'll post back here when I have more information on that front.

I'm curious -- do you have specific examples where Merchant Center shows products in a category that is not returned by ConstantDataService.getProductBiddingCategoryData, or vice versa? If so, could you send me screenshots from Merchant Center and ad group/criterion ID pairs where you see this occurring?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Jonathan Wu]

Thanks for looking into this. 

For examples, we already see that the Merchant Center Category "Animals & Pet Supplies" is different from the Product Bidding Category "Animals". In merchant center, there is a "Live Animals" category on the second level where Product bidding category does not have this sub-category. Pet supplies is found on the second level in the Product Bidding Category, and in the merchant center side, this is sub-category is part of the top level category. So it isn't just naming that is different, in some cases, they can be organized completely differently as well. 

Another difference is the Merchant center categories can go down 7 levels deep where as the product bidding category only goes down 5 levels. We were going through both taxonomies on Thrusday and Friday and found numerous small naming differences. One easy example is that Merchant center calls it "Soda" and Product Bidding Category calls it "Pop" (did someone from the mid-west make the product bidding categories?).

For feed upload, these differences don't make a difference since you guys seem to be resolving from one taxonomy to the other. But if we start migrating some of our clients to API upload, don't we have to start using ProductBiddingCategory? If we have a mapping from one to the other, it'd save us a lot of time and worry maintaining the mappings in case either side changes.

Regards,

Jonathan Wu

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[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for providing more details. I've passed your comments and examples along to the product feed and AdWords teams and I'll post an update as soon as I have more info.

Regarding your last comment "if we start migrating some of our clients to API upload, don't we have to start using ProductBiddingCategory?", by "API upload" do you mean using the content API to upload your product feeds, or are you referring to using the AdWords API to maintain your partition tree?

[Jonathan Wu]

Sorry, I meant using Adwords API to maintain the partition tree. Thanks for your help Josh. 

Regards,

Jonathan Wu

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[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Thanks for clarifying. I'm still waiting for some people to get back to me on the differences between the two category sets. I'll post an update as soon as I have more information.

[Jonathan Wu]

Any update on this?

Regards,

Jonathan Wu

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

No update just yet. I'll post here as soon as I have more information.

[HK]

Hi,

Wanted to mention that this is a show stopper for us. We need to be able to look across all categories sent via the Content API to the GMC and then turn around and call the AdWords API  to create Product Groups partitioned by those categories. The taxonomies really need to be identical. Although it would be technically possible for us to map them from GMC to AdWords (if the mappings were published), that would be less than ideal and error prone as the taxonomies potentially evolves.

Hopefully this is something that can be addressed soon.

Thanks,
Hans

 

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

We've investigated this thoroughly on our side and realize that the inconsistencies make GPC-based bidding very difficult. We are looking into possible work-arounds -- I'll post back soon with our progress.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Jonathan Wu]

This doesn't really help us since our customers are dictating what they what their feed to look like and how to bid on it. We have to execute as they specify.

We already made our own mapping between the taxonomies, but again, it's not ideal since any change on either side will break it. If you guys could provide a service that returns the product bidding category id based on a google_product_category string, that would probably be ideal...

Regards,

Jonathan Wu

On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 7:12 AM, <adwor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hi Jonathan,

We have an idea for a work-around to this problem and I was wondering if you would be willing to give it a shot. The idea is to use ProductType-based bidding instead of ProductBiddingCategory-based bidding.

ProductType is not tied to a predefined category taxonomy -- the categories are completely defined by the user when uploading his products to Merchant Center. As a result, bidding based on ProductType does not have the same category mismatch issues as ProductBiddingCategory-based bidding.

The work-around is as follows:

1. Update your existing Merchant Center products (either through the API or the UI), copying the Merchant Center google_product_category into the product_type for each product. For new products and ongoing changes to existing products, modify your feed upload so that you populate product_type with the same values that you use for google_product_category.
2. Create your ProductPartitions using ProductType dimensions that correspond to the product_type values in your feed.

If you are relying on Merchant Center to automatically populate google_product_category based on the other attributes of your products, then step 1 above could be somewhat difficult, as you'll have to first upload your feed, then retrieve the products to find each one's google_product_category, and then upload your feed again with those values copied to the product_type field. On the other hand, if you are already specifying the google_product_category in your feeds, then this work-around should be relatively straightforward.

If you're willing to give this a shot, please let me know. I would recommend trying this on a small Merchant Center account or a small subset of products in your Merchant Center account first just as a proof-of-concept. If all goes well then you can expand the approach to a larger set of products.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

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On 08/14/14 16:17:09 jonat...@datapop.com wrote:

Any update on this?

Regards,

Jonathan Wu

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 11:42 AM, Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team) <adwordsapiadvisor+josh@google.com> wrote:

Thanks for clarifying. I'm still waiting for some people to get back to me on the differences between the two category sets. I'll post an update as soon as I have more information.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

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[Jonathan Wu]

So far, only the US.

On Sep 2, 2014 7:01 AM, <adwor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hi Jonathan,

Sorry to hear that this work around won't be feasible for you. I'll ask the shopping team again if there's any way to produce the mapping between the two category taxonomies. For which countries would you need the mapping?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

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[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Jonathan,

I'm happy to report that with the exception of a handful of nodes, the two taxonomies now match at levels 1-5.

Cheers,

[Jonathan Wu]

Oh, is there an updated link for the merchant center taxonomy?

Regards,

Jonathan Wu

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[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Jonathan,

The link for Merchant Center is still here and has not changed. What has changed is that the bidding categories returned by ConstantDataService.getProductBiddingCategoryData now match levels 1-5 of the Merchant Center categories, with a few minor exceptions.

[Jonathan Wu]

Alright, thanks for your help.

Regards,

Jonathan Wu

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