How to Set Up Your Shopify Product Feed

A product feed is a file containing all your product data — titles, prices, images, and availability — that advertising platforms use to automatically create and target ads. This guide walks you through setting up your UpFeed product feed and connecting it to your first advertising platform. This takes about 5 to 10 minutes.

1 Generate your product feed

After installing the app, your feed is automatically generated. Open the UpFeed app homepage and copy the feed URL — you'll need this when connecting to each advertising platform.

If you've added or updated products since installing the app, the changes will be reflected in the next feed update. Your feed updates 4 times daily, so product changes — inventory, pricing, photos, and new products — are always reflected in your ads.

2 Set Google Product Categories

Google Product Categories help advertising platforms understand exactly what you sell, so your ads are shown to the right audience. They are required for Google and Pinterest, and recommended for all other platforms.

To set categories, click Set/Edit Google Product Categories on the app homepage, then click Map Categories. Match each of your store's product categories to the most relevant Google Product Category.

Skipping this step may cause products to be rejected by Google or Pinterest, or placed into a broad catch-all category that performs poorly in ads.

3 Configure feed settings Optional

UpFeed gives you control over what products appear in your feed and how they are structured. These settings are optional but can significantly improve the quality and relevance of your ads.

Feed behaviour

Found under the Settings tab in your feed. Key options include:

• Exclude out-of-stock products — removes unavailable products from your feed so you never pay to advertise items you can't sell.
• Include variants — when enabled, each product variant (e.g. size or colour) is listed as a separate item in your feed. Recommended for apparel and footwear, as platforms like Google and Meta can match ads more precisely to what a shopper is searching for.

Exclusions

Also in the Settings tab, you can exclude specific products from your feed without removing them from your store:

• Exclude by tag — add a tag like no-ads or internal to any product in Shopify and enter that tag here to keep it out of your feed.
• Exclude by product ID or variant ID — enter specific Shopify IDs (comma-separated) to exclude individual products or variants.
• Featured product photo — choose which product image number appears in your ads (e.g. enter 2 to use the second product photo). Useful if your first photo is a lifestyle image but you want a clean white background image for shopping ads.

Column mapping

Under the Mapping tab you can customise which Shopify fields map to each feed attribute. The required fields — id, title, description, price, availability, brand, image_link, and link — are pre-mapped automatically. You can also:

• Add custom attributes using Add New Attribute for platforms that support additional fields.
• Reorder columns by dragging rows — useful if a platform expects specific fields near the top of the feed.
• Remove optional columns you don't need to keep your feed lean and reduce the chance of validation errors.

4 Connect to an advertising platform

Select your advertising platform below for step-by-step instructions on adding your feed URL:

Not sure where to start? If you're new to product feed advertising, begin with Google Merchant Center — it has the largest reach and your feed will also power free product listings across Google Search.

Note that most platforms take 24–48 hours to review and approve products after your feed is connected. Microsoft Ads can take up to 3 weeks for initial review. Your ads won't serve until products are approved, so it's worth connecting your feed as early as possible.