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Digital Ad Feeds FAQs

How does the feed service work?

CrescoData connects to the source platform(s) or feeds. It cleans and normalizes the data to ensure consistency. The platform then reformats and optimizes the feed according to the specific channel where it will be used. Updates are automated, so any changes in product information, pricing, or stock availability will be immediately reflected in the latest feed.

Feed Enhancement Capabilities of The Cresco Data Platform

In addition to feed creation, product update automation, and publishing, The CrescoData Platform offers advanced feed enhancement capabilities, including:

Feed Enrichment:

  • Merging multiple data sources.
  • Enriching feeds with additional sources such as relational data, ERP systems, and conversion rates.
  • Adding dimensional data and keywords.
  • Applying customer-specific rule-based overwrites.
  • Adjusting text order for optimized presentation.

Images:

  • Hosting images on our content delivery network (CDN).
  • Resizing images to meet destination requirements.
  • Changing image backgrounds (e.g., converting to white).
  • Adding watermarks for brand protection.

Content Creation:

  • SKU generation.
  • Unique product identifier creation.
  • Extracting additional product details such as color, size, and brand.

Data Cleansing:

  • Standardizing text by removing:
    • All capital letters.
    • Repetitive text.
    • Sales promotion text.

Pricing:

  • Currency conversions.
  • Band-based rounding to avoid unnatural pricing.
  • Adding or subtracting percentage-based price adjustments by destination, brand, or category.
  • Tax calculations.
  • Sales promotions handling and automation.

Sales promotions can be automated and scheduled. Promotions can be explicitly applied to brands, categories and channels.

This will be automatically reflected in the next feed update. When it is reflected on the ad channel will depend on the channel update speeds.

If there is a change in the source connection the CrescoData alerts system will pick it up. To prevent any service downtime please email support@crescodata.com with any technical changes. Changes in connection methods will incur a cost.

Yes, the CrescoData platform can merge multiple feeds and also set rules to determine which content or information is taken from which source.

CrescoData Supported Import Methods

CrescoData supports various import methods for seamless data integration, including:

  • File formats: JSON, XML, CSV.
  • Database imports.
  • API connections.
  • Web scraping.

Tips for Providing a High-Quality Feed:

  • The more detailed the feed, the better the results.
  • Ensure the feed contains a complete list of products, including color and size variants.
  • Variants should be structured as either:
    • A list of variants with a group ID to identify the product.
    • A list of products, each containing a sub-list of available variants.

Variant Attributes:
Each variant can have unique attributes, including:

  • Price.
  • Title.
  • Description. (Not compulsory, but recommended for best results.)

CrescoData can work with feeds provided via an API (requiring authentication) or a fixed URL that generates a full product feed.

For RESTful APIs, useful features include:

  • Pagination to handle large datasets efficiently.
  • Querying for the last update time to reduce traffic and enable faster updates. CrescoData checks every 5 minutes for changes made in the last 5 minutes.

For static URLs with full product lists:

  • Fast response times are ideal to allow CrescoData to refresh feeds as quickly as possible (preferably every 5 minutes).

A RESTful API with a last update query is the most scalable solution, but it is not mandatory.

Required Information for the Feed
  • The more comprehensive the data, the better the integration.
  • The feed should include a complete list of products, including color and size variants.
  • Variants can be structured in either format:
    • A list of variants with a group ID to identify the product.
    • A list of products, each containing a sub-list of variants.

Each variant can have unique attributes, including:

  • Price.
  • Title.
  • Description. (Optional but recommended for better results.)

Onboarding Process for Digital Ad Feed Setup

  1. Customer signs the Statement of Work.
  2. Merchant provides CrescoData access to their product catalog.
  3. Merchant grants CrescoData access to their advertising accounts.
  4. CrescoData creates and tests the feed, then connects it to the relevant advertising channel.
  5. Feed Activation: Based on the integration type:
    • A fixed URL is provided to retrieve the latest feed at regular intervals, or
    • Direct API integrations update products automatically (e.g., Google).
  6. 14-day warranty period for the customer to provide feedback or request changes.
  7. Feed transitions into ongoing support.

The Diagnostics Section of The CrescoData Management Portal allows you to trouble-shoot issues and should be your first port of call before logging a Support Ticket. In there you will find historical logs of all data movements down to a particular product or order level. 

Steps to take before logging a Support Issue:

  • Customer identifies an issue and identifies a SKU
  • Customer checks the source and mapped records to identify the source of the problem (source system, CrescoData mappings or destination mappings)
  • Customer logs into The CrescoData Management Portal
  • Customer accesses The Diagnostics Tab
    • Search for the SKU item number 
    • View the record from The Source System 
    • View the Channel response 
  • Depending on the error:
    • Customer either fixes it at The Source
    • Click the republish button to resend to The Channel
    • Raises a ticket in The CrescoData Support Portal providing the following information:
      • What time the issue started
      • A list of sample products with the issue
      • A screenshot of the error
      • The channel that the issue is applicable to

Watch our video guide for more details of how to troubleshoot digital ad feed issues

In addition to the diagnostics release, we have also improved the way you can export information out of the Management Portal. Information is now exported into a CSV column format based on the filters set and the columns selected to be exported, allowing for ease of manipulation to troubleshoot issues.

In addition to the diagnostics release, we have also improved the way you can export information out of the Management Portal.

Manual exports can be done via the management portal to extract information such as products, orders, prices, stock levels and more. This data can be filtered to limit the output to specific items. A future update is planned to schedule these exports on a regular basis.

Automated feeds can be setup that are maintained in real-time providing a current list of e.g. products. This feed can be downloaded at any time via a URL.