RSS, XML, Atom - What is it and how will it allow me to use the Web more efficiently? Feed management

Hello everyone!

Yandex.Direct feeds are the real lifesaver for large online stores that allows you to automate the creation of ads in Yandex.Direct. And how to do this is a matter of technology ..

On the Internet there are a huge number of online stores with a large assortment for which you need to drive traffic in order to receive sales. However, one big, big problem pops up here - how to advertise so many product positions in Yandex.Direct? Is it really necessary to select keywords and write ads for each product? No! It is enough to take advantage of what is below and.

A bit of history

Last year, Yandex released in the BETA version such interesting things as dynamic ads and feed management. They were created to work with sites containing information about a huge range of services or goods. With these innovations, Yandex has made life easier for owners of sites that would like to be advertised in Yandex.Direct.

What is a feed?

A feed is a file containing information about a product or service. There may be several formats:

YML (Yandex Market Language). Specially designed file format for Yandex.Market;
And a couple of obscure ones - GZ and TSV;
You can also use compressed ZIP files.

All these formats are used by the Direct and Market to obtain information that is displayed in the ads. Of all the above, the first two are most preferred.

What is a feed for?

As you already understood, feeds are needed to transmit information about the assortment of the online store, but how to use this information in Yandex.Direct. Very simple! Take advantage of dynamic ads (k). However, it should be remembered that this kind of ads serves exclusively as an addition to existing advertising campaigns, because it is still at the beta testing stage.

How to create a feed?

For beginners launching the Republic of Kazakhstan in the Yandex contextual advertising system, this question is an edge, since there is no clear and understandable information on how to create a feed. So I, looking for information for this lesson, went through a lot of sites, looked at a few videos, but didn’t find anything suitable, since apparently creating a feed for most webmasters is not difficult.

I had to think a little about my head, as a bright thought immediately occurred to me - if you can use the YML (XML) file format in Yandex.Direct and Yandex.Market is a popular thing, then there is some kind of generator or template for such files. I was right and stumbled upon an XML site map generator that YML can generate - MySiteMapGenerator.

Using it, you can very easily create a file for both Yandex.Market and Yandex.Direct:

When you open the generated YML file, you will see the following:

A set of code with all the data on products whose pages are indexed by a YML generator. All this here is called the Yandex.Direct feed, or rather Yandex.Market.

Other ways to create a feed:

Using special plugins for your CMS. For example, for WordPress CMS, there is a Market Explorer plugin. If you have a different content management system, then look;
Using Excel, you can create a CSV file, but this option is less preferred than YML (XML).

What to do with the Yandex.Direct feed?

After you have created a feed, it will need to be uploaded to Yandex.Direct for verification. You can do it this way:

You can find more information about feeds in Yandex Help, here is the link.

We kindly request: if you liked the material and helped in solving the problem, please share the link in social networks.

See you soon!

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What is a feed for?

Below are instructions for creating a tab-delimited data feed. If you prefer to work in a text editor, skip the steps below, but make sure that your feed meets the format requirements listed at the bottom of the page. You can also create a feed using Google Sheets. Read how to do this. To create an XML feed, use the following instructions:,.

Data Feed Examples
You can see examples of feeds in TXT and XLS formats. Please note that the .xls file is an example only. Google does not support feeds in this format.

Creating a data feed

Step 1. Open a spreadsheet program

In spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel, you can easily create a data feed and convert it to the format you want.

Step 2. Create a title bar

In the first row of the spreadsheet, indicate the names of the attributes that describe the product (one in each column). In order for your products to appear on Google Shopping, you must provide information about them in a strictly structured form. Two types of attributes will help you with this:

mandatory
recommended.

Products for which the required attributes are not specified will not be processed. Recommended attributes can be omitted. However, we recommend that you do this so that your products appear more often in search results. Check out the example title bar below and find out the attributes you need for the selected target country.

Step 3. Provide product details

In the lines under the heading, indicate product information according to the selected attributes. Please note that each product should be given a separate line, and information about it should be distributed in the appropriate columns. For example, the product description should be in the column with the heading "description". If the attribute value for this product is missing, do not fill in the cell.

Step 4. Convert the spreadsheet

Most spreadsheet programs allow you to export data to a tab delimited text file. This is the kind of file you should send to the Google Merchant Center. You can create it in several ways. Below are two of them. You can create it in several ways. Below are two of them.

In Microsoft Excel save the spreadsheet as a tab delimited text file (.txt). To do this, select Save as... on the menu File and specify the desired format. Drop down menu File type select Text files (with tab delimiters) (* .txt).
Using Google Sheets You can upload any of your spreadsheets to the Merchant Center or set up regular data downloads. about this feature. In addition, you can download or download the table by going to the menu Fileby opening item Export and selecting the TXT extension. A tab delimited text file will open in a new window. Select Save as... on the menu File browser to save this file as a text file with the .txt extension.

If you’ve already registered a feed with your Google Merchant Center account, use the same name as the specified file.

Step 5. Submit data feed

Ensure that the file you create complies with the format requirements below and.

Format requirements

The file must contain plain text with a tab delimiter.
The first line in the file should be a heading consisting of attribute names separated by a tab character.
Each product should be placed on a separate line, and attribute values \u200b\u200bshould be separated by tabs.
There should not be a tab character at the end of lines.
Attributes should not have tabs or line breaks.
For group attributes, such as tax and shipping, sub-attributes must be specified with a colon. For more information on taxes and shipping, see.
If the attribute takes several values, specify them with a comma, for example, "blue, green, red". If the comma is included in the attribute value and cannot be used for separation, put the backslash "\\". For more information, check out our feed specifications. Please note that for some attributes, for example "id" or "description", only one value can be specified.

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In March, Yandex.Direct finished testing smart banners and made several additions to the format. Updated smart banners pass moderation faster, any field from the feed can be pulled into the header, and creatives can now be viewed before saving. In addition, the format is new types of feeds, including the universal feed Yandex. Thanks to him, almost any business can launch smart banners.

Let's see how to create a campaign with smart banners using the universal Yandex feed.

What is a feed in Yandex.Direct

When creating smart banners or dynamic ads in Yandex.Direct, you need to prepare a feed file that contains information about the product range. On its basis, the system forms an ad in accordance with user requests. The feed data set in the feed determines what information will be shown to the user in the ad.

You can add the entire range of products or services of the advertiser to the feed or a separate category that needs to be promoted.

Let's move on to creating a campaign in the Yandex.Direct interface.

Default settings

Add feed

You can create a feed during the campaign setup process or on the Feed Management page.

There are several types of feeds in Yandex.Direct that are suitable for different lines of business:

retail - Yandex.Market feed, but also suitable for smart banners;
hotels
cars;
the property;
air tickets;
another business.

The document format, a set of required elements and technical requirements depend on the type of business. You can save up to 20 feeds in Yandex.Direct at the same time.

After choosing a topic, you need to upload a file in CSV format or provide a link to its location on the site. By reference, the file must be accessible via HTTP, HTTPS or FTP. Feed size cannot exceed 512 MB.

Also, the system can automatically remove inappropriate UTM tags from links in the feed if you enable the corresponding option at startup.

You can download examples and templates of almost all types of feeds in the Yandex help center.

After downloading, the file will be sent for validation, which usually takes no more than a few hours. The system checks for the presence of required elements, their correct name and the absence of repetitions.

If the verification is successful, the feed status will be updated to "Download successful." Then you can select it in the list and add it to the campaign.

Customizing Your Other Business Feed

Using a feed like “Other business” you can download any of the following:

yandex universal feed;
adWords Special Feed
adWords Travel Feed.

All files must be in CSV format. The file can also be downloaded as an archive with the extension .zip or.gz. Column names should be placed in the first row, and data on the advertised offer in the next. All data must be in UTF-8 encoding. Columns are separated by commas, so you should avoid them in the feed.

The universal Yandex feed for smart banners contains the following required elements:

ID - a unique identifier of a product or service;
URL - link to the landing page;
Image - link to the image for the banner.
It is also recommended to add additional elements that will make the ad more informative and attractive:
Title - the name of the product or service;
Description - description;
Price and Currency - price and currency;
ID2 - the second identifier for stores with e-commerce connected to the Metric;
Old price - price without discount or old price.

You can download the Yandex universal feed template in Yandex.Direct Help.

Additional feed settings

After the feed has loaded and validated, you can add URL parameters to the link that will transfer data to the analytics system. To do this, select "Add options to links."

And one more option: you can enable the substitution of the title from the feed into the banner text by activating the option “Substitute text from the feed as the header”. Be sure to include the feed item that should fit into your ad, such as Title.

Create creative

A smart banner is created using the creative designer.

The design of the announcement depends on the type of business. Each presented topic has its own specific layouts and image format.

The new “Preview” feature allows you to see if the elements of the feed are correctly pulled into the ad. To do this, select the desired one from the list of downloaded feeds.

The ad builder allows you to add your own background image, organization logo, call to action button and change their color.

In some layouts, you can enable the option "Special offer". It makes it possible to add clickable text to the banner, and with its help draw attention to the action or discounts. To do this, fill in the field with the text of the special offer, select a color scheme and provide a link to the page of the site where it is located.

A feed can have many items, and offers can scroll in the form of a carousel or mosaic.

After saving the creative, you need to add it to the banner group for the campaign. Maximum in one group can be 50 banners.

Set filters

After creating the banner, you need to configure the settings for the ad group. A prerequisite for smart banners is to configure filters. Using the filter, the advertiser can specify which products from the feed will be shown to the selected audience.

First determine the audience of the show:

were interested in similar products online;
viewed products on my site
both groups.

A smart banner may show all or some of the items in the feed. To limit their number, write down the conditions for the selection of goods.

For smart banners, you can set up to ten conditions and combine them with operators " AND " . In one condition, there may be several ranges combined by the operator " OR " . Range selects products that fall within the specified interval.

In one campaign, you can create several groups of banners, divide them into categories and show users a proposal that is most relevant to their interests.

If you’ve chosen the “Optimize clicks” or “Optimize conversions” strategy when creating a campaign, you’ll have to limit your CPC.

Fill in the remaining fields for the banner group: negative keywords, tags, and also check the time and geographic targeting settings again.

Finally

Smart banners are an effective way of advertising on the networks, which helps to tell or remind the audience about the proposal that interests her. Using the feed partially automates the creation of campaigns and allows you to make bulk changes to them. This helps specialists save time and control the ad groups in the account.

In modern online stores, thousands or even tens of thousands of products. Manually launching contextual advertising on the entire range of products is simply impossible, so Yandex and Google offer users to use product feeds (they are also called YML or XML feeds).

Product feed is a systematic and structured list of data on product offers or services. As a rule, the main formats for product feeds are CSV, TSV, XLS, XLSX. Names are indicated in rows, and attributes of goods or services are indicated in columns.

Product Feed Example:

Why do I need a feed

Create and quickly adjust a large number of advertisements.
Automatically adjust advertisements depending on the presence or absence of certain goods in the warehouse (display only relevant ads).
Filter ads by category, price and other parameters.
Add additional product features.

How to use the product feed in Yandex.Direct

When dynamic ads run on the search network, their content may change depending on the content of the feed. That is, ads are easy to update. This largely explains the high conversion rate of such ads.

How to create a dynamic feed ad

In the future, the campaign can be optimized, for example, using the Get Direct service.

Yandex allows you to create dynamic ads only on a limited range of topics:

electronics and accessories;
appliances;
industrial equipment;
clothes;
furniture;
garden;
sporting goods;
construction Materials;
children's products;
tires and wheels;
cosmetics and perfumes;
property For Sale;
sale of new cars;
sale of used cars;
airticket sale;
hotels, hotels.

How to use feed in a campaign with smart banners

To get access to smart banners, you need to contact the Yandex.Direct support service, since this toolkit is still in beta testing. The essence of this type of ads is to launch banners based on data from the feed. Smart banners, as well as dynamic ads, have high conversion rates. Pay per click.

Smart banner example:

When creating a campaign with smart banners, you need to specify “Feed” as the data source, select the desired feed from the list and add banners. You can load no more than 50 banners, while one banner can be tied to several positions in the feed.

For details on how to set up a campaign with smart banners, read in the case.

It is worth adding that smart banners consist of two parts: constant and variable.

The permanent part of the smart banner includes:

advertiser logo
special offer;
link leading from a special offer to the advertiser's website;
information about promotions and discounts;
call to action button.

The changing part includes:

image of a product, work or service;
product offer;
old price of a product, work or service;
the new price of a product, work or service;
the size of the discount on a product, work or service.

retail goods;
property For Sale;
cars sale;
sale of auto parts;
hotels, hotels;
airticket sale.

How to use feed in Google Ads

Dynamic remarketing and dynamic display ads let you show ads for products that interest a particular user. In the case of dynamic remarketing, ads can be set, for example, to users who have previously visited the site. Of course, when creating such advertising campaigns, a product feed is also used.

How to create dynamic ads for ads on Google search

To create a dynamic search campaign, you need to set the type of the new campaign “Search Network Only” - “Dynamic Search Ads”:

In this type of campaign, the feed allows you to target specific web pages. To add a feed, select "Commercial data" - "Page feed":

Done! There are no restrictions on topics.

2. Click "Download feed":

4. Download the feed XML file.

In the process of creating a campaign, we can associate remarketing terms with a previously uploaded feed.

How to use feed in product listing ads

This type of ad is implemented using Google Merchant Center . Product Listing Ads Now Available not in all countries.

To create a Product Listing Ads campaign:

create a Google Merchant Center account
create a Google Ads account
upload a product feed to the Google Merchant Center
establish a link between the Google Merchant Center and Google Ads
verify site URL rights.

Choose the type of download and upload the file. After that, click "Continue":

There are no restrictions on topics.

How Dynamic Ads Work - Hamleys Toy Store Case

Result:

From July 1, 2017 to July 31, 2017, an advertising campaign was launched using the XML feed for the Hamleys offer. Moreover, all the settings in the tested advertising campaigns were identical. Campaigns differed only in the method of generating ads.

Result of working with dynamic product feed ads:

findings

Product feed used:

When you run dynamic ads on the Yandex and Google search networks.
In campaigns with smart banners in Yandex.Direct.
In the dynamic display campaigns of Google Ads.
In product listing ads, use the Google Merchant Center.

The feed allows you to unlock the additional potential of contextual advertising. In addition, the ability to customize and run ads with a product feed allows you to make it more “flexible” and effective.

These tools on Google have been around for a relatively long time. At Yandex, they are in open beta testing and are likely to change. However, ad campaigns with product feeds have already worked well.

GetDirect experts tested the new Yandex XML feed and shared the results.

Now in online stores, thousands and even tens of thousands of products. It’s theoretically possible to launch contextual advertising manually on the entire range of products, but it will take more than one month.

There is good news, some time ago in Yandex there was an opportunity to launch dynamic search campaigns using an XML feed.

Dynamic XML Feed
An XML feed is a list of products listing all the necessary categories: name, price, size, color and other metrics. The feed helps launch contextual advertising for several thousand products in just one hour. Many have already heard about this tool, but not everyone understands what it is and how to use it. We are telling.

Benefits of an XML feed:

The ability to create and adjust a large volume of advertisements.
Ability to quickly edit a large volume of advertisements.
The ability to automatically adjust advertisements depending on the presence or absence of certain goods in stock: display only relevant ads.
Ability to filter ads by category, price, availability.
The ability to add additional product characteristics to the feed, which helps to flexibly generate ads.

Why the appearance of an ad generator based on an XML feed will positively affect the contextual advertising market:

The Yandex tool solves problems that previously had to be accessed by paid third-party services.
When used correctly, the ad generator will allow you to create a large flow of targeted traffic.
Saving working time is a definite plus.
The painstaking collection of the semantic core was an optional step when launching contextual advertising.

We apply on a real project.
We tell by the example of a case what an XML feed is and how to work with it.

Creating dynamic ads requires standard settings that you would apply to an advertising campaign in search or in the YAN. The emphasis in the case is not on campaign settings, but on how, other things being equal, conversion can be increased.

The case was made for a children's goods hypermarket. To add a feed to your account, go to the "Feeds" section in your account.

The feed can be downloaded either from the computer, by downloading the desired excel-file, or specify a link to the feed on the Internet. The second option is most preferable, as it will automatically update advertisements, synchronizing with the feed and excluding ads from the display for those products that are not available according to information from the feed.

After adding the feed - it must pass validation. Validation refers to checking the feed for correct syntax.

If everything is fine with the feed, then the status “upload successful” will appear and the number of items in the feed will be indicated.

Then you’ll be able to create a campaign with dynamic ads.

The essence of dynamic ads is this: Yandex, when analyzing the content of the feed, automatically generates relevant ads: this type of advertising is most relevant for those stores whose feed is very voluminous or whose product range often changes. We also note that a dynamic ad will not compete with a regular ad. Choosing the most relevant ad for display, Yandex is guided by the statistics of impressions and clicks, click price and quality factor.

When creating an ad group, you must select the feed data source and specify the feed that you loaded directly.

To further monitor the effectiveness of the advertising campaign, add parameters to the links. For example, in this form:

subid \u003d dynamic-feed & subid1 \u003d kolyaski & subid2 \u003d (region_name)

To get targeted to specific groups of products in the feed, you need to set a filter in the group settings.

In the Yandex.Direct report, you can see search queries that showed dynamic ads.

This report can be used as a starting point for collecting relevant semantics for regular search and YAN campaigns. Such an approach to the collection of the semantic core will require significantly less labor costs, while it will be more effective with a higher probability.

Tips for working with dynamic ads:

You should not set higher bids than in regular search campaigns and in YAN.
You should always use adjustment bids to show your target audience groups, by time targeting, and by region. The minimum betting ratio is 50%, the maximum is 1200%.
Refinements should be added to the ad templates.
Always use the Product Categories and Price Range filters.
For high-quality collection of the semantic kernel, additionally use reports on search queries.
Do not forget about the “Goods in stock” filter: it is universal for many topics.

Limitations of dynamic ads.
The list of topics available for advertising is limited:

electronics and accessories;
appliances;
industrial equipment;
clothes;
furniture;
garden;
sporting goods;
construction Materials;
children's products;
tires and wheels;
cosmetics and perfumes;
property For Sale;
sale of new cars;
sale of used cars;
airticket sale;
hotels, hotels.

Conclusion
Note that the described tool is still in open beta testing. It is likely that he will undergo a series of changes that will make it even more convenient and efficient. In particular, the expected expansion of available topics will significantly increase the number of users of the Yandex innovation. But now the block of dynamic ads has proved to be an effective marketing tool.