Magento 2 Google Shopping Integrator Extension User Manual

Arpita Gupta

5 years ago

1.0 Introduction

The eCommerce store owners can now submit their products to Google Shopping and bring in new visitors to their site from the search engine with Knowband’s Magento 2 Google Shopping integration extension. The Magento 2 extension is designed to connect the store with the Google Merchant Center.

The Google Shopping Magento 2 integration module creates XML feeds and syncs them with the merchant center with the help of the cron jobs. All you need to do is to have a merchant account in the Google Merchant Center. The connection between the account and the store is done with the help of the API details.

1.1. Admin Features of Magento 2 Google Shopping Integrator:

Here are some of the key highlights of the Google Shopping Magento 2 connector:

The connection between the Magento store and the Google Merchant Center is set up at a few clicks.
The real-time synchronization makes the products listing, feed synchronization, and inventory management effortless.
Once the connection is established, the admin can list the products and related details with the help of a profile-based approach. The Magento 2 Google Shopping connector supports all types of products, simple, configurable, or downloadable.
The profile-based listing enables many-to-one category mapping options. The products of the selected category are synced in bulk with Google Shopping Magento 2 connector.
The attribute mapping becomes effortless with Google Shopping Magento 2 synchronization extension as well.
Additionally, the admin can view the product listing from the back-end of the Magento 2 Google Shopping integrator. The e-merchants can remove the listed products by clicking a button.
The Magento 2 Google Merchant Center connector is designed to achieve an error-free listing. However, in case any product is not listed successfully, you can view the error details at a button click.
The admin can create feeds for the profiles and sync them with the Google Merchant Center by executing cron in the back-end of the Google Shopping Magento 2 integrator. You can even schedule the time for feed synchronization.
The cron options offered by Magento 2 Google Shopping integrator even allow the store admin to sync the status of the products from Google Shopping to the store.
The audit log section of the Google Shopping Magento 2 connector keeps track of the status of the various task running in the back-end.

2.0 Installation

After purchasing Magento 2 Google Shopping Integration extension, the store admin will get the following files:

1. Knowband_Googleshopping.zip which contains the source code of the Google Shopping Integration Magento 2 plugin.
2. User Manual which includes all the details and helps regarding the extension.

Follow the steps mentioned below to install the Magento 2 Google Shopping Integration module at your store:

This extension requires Google Client API, so you need to add the “google/apiclient”: “^2.2” into the composer.json file and update the composer.

Get the Magento 2 Google Shopping Integrator from the Knowband store and download the extension package.
The package has a zipped file. Unzip the package.
Create a folder {Magentoroot}/app/code/Knowband/Google Shopping
Upload the extracted content in the above folder via FTP manager (like Filezilla or WinSCP – download here: https://filezilla-project.org/).
Now run below commands to install the plugin:

php -f bin/magento module:enable –clear-static-content Knowband_Googleshopping
php -f bin/magento setup:upgrade
php -f bin/magento setup:di:compile
php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy
The extension is now installed and ready for use. In Admin Panel go to “Knowband Extensions >Google Shopping”.
You can now configure and use the Magento 2 Google Shopping Integrator.

3.0 Admin Interface

Once the installation is complete, you can find the Magento 2 Google Shopping API integrator in the main menu. Click on Knowband and you’ll find the module as shown in the image below:

3.1. Connection Settings

The connection can be set up between the Google Merchant Center and the Magento store from this tab of Google Shopping Magento 2 integration plugin. You need to create an account at Google Merchant Center and obtain the client ID, client Secret and Merchant ID. Refer to Appendix A.

Google Application Name: Enter the name of the project/application that you created for Google Shopping in this section.
Google Client ID: Obtain the Client ID from your Merchant account and enter the same here. This will authenticate the connection between the store and the Google Merchant.
Google Client Secret: Enter the client secret to set up the connection.
Google Merchant ID: Provide the merchant ID of your Google merchant center account here.

3.2. General Settings

You can do the basic configuration changes in this section of the Magento 2 Google Shopping integrator. The various fields of this tab are discussed below:

Enabled: Toggle this button to activate this Google Shopping Magento 2 API integration plugin.

Exclude Out of Stock Products: The Google Shopping Magento 2 connector allows you to create a profile and list the products in bulk at the Merchant Center. However, some products may go out of stock. The admin can disable out-of-stock products by enabling this button. If enabled, only the in-stock product will be displayed in Google search results.

Exclude Products with Price less than: Enter a fixed amount. Only the products that are priced above the fixed amount will be displayed in the search results.

Sync Type: Select the synchronization type from the drop-down menu. The two options: Content API and Feed.

utm_campaign Parameter, utm_source Parameter, utm_medium Parameter: Enter the UTM for tracking the traffic received via Google Shopping.

Select your default language: The module offers multi-lingual support. Select the default language from this section.

3.3. Profile Management

The admin can create, edit or delete profiles from this tab of the Magento 2 Google Shopping Integration extension.

3.3.1 How to Create New Profiles?

Click on the ‘Add New Profile’ or ‘+’ sign in order to create a new profile.

This will redirect you to the profile management section.

Country: Select the Country from the drop-down list.

Language: The language will be selected by default as per the country selected.
Currency: The currency will be displayed by default according to the country selected.
Profile Title: Enter the name of the profile here.
Google Category: Select the Google category that you want to map the categories of the store.
Store Category: Expand the category and check the categories that you want to map with the selected category of Google.
GTIN: Here, you will map the product unique field so that the Magento 2 Google Shopping Connector can identify products according to the mapped attribute. You must also have to provide unique field mapping for product attributes as well. The various options to choose from include: Reference No., UPC, EAN13. The mapping can then be done based on the selected attribute.
Customize Product Title: Customize the product title by using the following place-holders.
{id_product} for Product ID
{product_title} for Product title
{manufacturer_name} for Manufacturer name
{supplier_name} for Supplier name
{reference} for Product Reference
{ean13} for Product EAN13
{short_description} for Product Short Description
{price} for Product Price
Material: Select the material of the product.
Pattern: Choose the pattern from the drop-down menu.
Gender: Select the Gender for which the product is intended. The options are Male, Female or Unisex.
Age Group: Select the age group that is expected to use the product.
Adult Content: Specify if the product has any adult content or not.
Color: Use the color attribute to describe your product’s color. This information helps create accurate filters, which users can use to narrow search results.
Size: The size attribute describes the standardized size of your product. Your product Ad will appear in the results that are filtered by size.
Size Type: The attribute describes the cut of your product. The supported value for this field includes regular, petite, plus, big, tall and others. This helps create accurate filters.
Size System: With this attribute, you can explain which country’s sizing system your product uses.
Product Shipping: Select the shipping method for the particular product.

Google Adsense:

Google Adsense refers to the campaign that you’ll run on Google Adwords. Custom labels, Custom Label 0 through Custom Label 4, allow you to create specific filters to use in your Shopping campaigns. Use these filters for reporting and bidding on groups of products. The information you include in these attributes won’t be shown to users.

3.3.2 How to Edit the Existing Profile?

The admin can even edit or delete the profile at a button click.

Click on the Edit or Delete button corresponding to each profile respectively, in order to edit or delete them.

3.4. Feed Management

The feed is created in order to display the products on Google search results. The admin can create N number of feeds and schedule the same for synchronization.

3.4.1 How to create new feeds?

Click on the ‘Add New Feed’ or ‘+’ sign in order to create a new profile.

This will redirect you to the feed creation page of the Magento 2 Google Shopping synchronization extension. The various fields of the interface are discussed below:

Select Profile: The list of the profiles created in the profile management tab of the Magento 2 Google Shopping Integration module will be shown this tab. Select the profile whose product you want to sync with Google Merchant Center.

Feed Label: Enter a unique name for the Feed.
Feed Upload Schedule: Select the schedule of the feed upload.

Set Hour: Select the number of hours in which you want to schedule the feed.

3.4.2 How to download feeds?

The admin can even download the feed from the respective profile. For this go to the Profile Management tab of Google Shopping Magento 2 integrator. The download option will be shown in the Feed Download section as shown below:

3.4.3 How to Edit/Delete feeds?

In order to edit or delete the feeds, click on the Edit or Delete button corresponding to each feed.

The admin even gets an option to view the report in case any error occurs while feed synchronization. This can be done by clicking on the View Error option as shown in the image below:

3.5. Product Listing

This section of the Magento 2 Google Shopping integration plugin shows the report of the products listed at the Merchant Center.

The Google Shopping Magento 2 integration module allows the following action to the admin.

Renew: The Renew button can relist the products whose listing has expired. Once this action is executed successfully, the action will be changed to ‘Halt’.
Delete: The admin can remove the product by clicking on ‘Delete’.
View Error: The admin can View Error occurred while listing the product.

3.6. Synchronization

The Synchronization tab of the Magento 2 Google Shopping Integration module offers a cron option for real-time synchronization. Here are the cron options available.

Sync Feed on Google Shopping: ‘Sync Feed’ cron will synchronize the feed on Google Shopping.
Sync Products Status from Google Shopping: This button can sync the product status from Google shopping to the web store.

3.7. Audit Log

The admin can view the status of the task running in the back-end in the Audit Log tab of Google Shopping Magento 2 Integration plugin.

4.0. Appendix

How to Create Google Shopping Account?

Before uploading your products on Google shopping, you must have your Google merchant account. If you don’t have then please follow the below URL:

https://merchants.Google.com
Follow the instructions given on the above URL and create your account.

After creating your account, you will be redirected to your merchant center homepage as shown in below screen:

Copy your merchant id highlighted in the above screen and save it in module configurations.

Verify your Website for Google Merchant Account

This verification process is a compulsory process to upload your products to Google Shopping. If you do not verify your site then the module will not be able to upload products and may result in an error.

To verify your website, please follow the below instructions:

Step 1: Go to the “Business Information” tab in your Google Merchant Account.

Step 2: Under “About Your Business” tab, provide the URL of your store. For example, https://www.example.com. Save URL.

Step 3: After saving the website URL, Under the “Website” tab, Click on “Claim Your Website” link. This will show you the link to an HTML file. Download this file and upload it to your root directory of the store.

Step 4: After uploading the HTML file, execute the URL given by Google in step 3.

Step 5: Click on the “Verify & Claim” link.

4.1 How to get a Client ID and Secret?

To get Google client id and secret you need to create a project in Google developer account. Please go to the below URL to sign into the Google developer account.

https://console.developers.Google.com

On the above URL, create a project by clicking the link shown in below screen:

Step 1: Name your Project Name and then click on the “Create” link. After creating a project, Google will redirect to the same page and your new project will be selected.

Step 2: Go to the library tab, search for “Content API for Shopping ”. Enable this API for this project.

Step 3: Click on the “Credentials” tab. This tab will show 3 tabs.

Step 4: Set your application name in “OAuth Consent Screen” and save it.

Step 5: Click on the “Credentials” tab and click on the “Create Credentials” button.

Step 6: After clicking the “Create Credentials” button, Google will be shown credentials type options. Choose “Auth client ID”.

Step 7: Set application type as “Web Application”.

Step 8: Set the “Authorized Redirect URIs” field. Your redirect URI is given on the module configuration page. Please copy from there and paste it into this field.

Step 9: Click on the “Create” button. After saving credentials, Google will generate the client id and secret for you. Copy and paste them into the corresponding field in module configuration.

Note: For more details instructions, follow URL https://developers.Google.com/identity/sign-in/web/devconsole-project

Note: If you are getting an error while getting your refresh token. Please also try after “Allowing Less Secure App” in your Google account.

For more values, please follow the below URL and read the documentation:

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7052112?hl=en