Do your Flex Feeds use the categorization taxonomy that Google Shopping or some other provider has created? Do you want to expand your digital marketing landscape? Does your ad relevancy need improvement?
If the answer to any of the above is “yes,” then this new business rule was made for you.
As you may have noticed recently, comparison shopping, social media, retargeting, affiliate and other digital marketing providers are implementing similar product categorizations as Google Shopping and other major advertising partners.
Just look at Wanelo, Bazaarvoice and Facebook dynamic product ads (all of which Rithum supports!).
In the past — provided that a retailer has category mappings for particular digital marketing site — sellers could use mappings on their feed templates with a “CATEGORYMAPS” SYSLOOKUP function. But that function works only for mappings that are made to the same site the feed is for. (Not to mention, it’s somewhat cumbersome to use.)
We wanted to offer a more powerful, yet easy-to-use, solution that could work with category mappings for any provider in any feed.
*Drum roll*
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s welcome the new GETCATEGORYMAPPINGFORSITE function!
Only two parameters are required to use the new function: a provider name and a product category. The function will return whatever provider category is mapped to your product category — and you can specify any provider you want (as long as we have digital marketing category mappings for it). The name of the provider should also be entered just as it appears on the Rithum Digital Marketing category mappings page.
This function acts as a bridge, connecting the “internal” category data you have with the “external” category data you need. Once you connect all your categories to provider categories, the rule will take over and find the appropriate match from the list when you activate your feed.
In the example below, we’ve created a Flex Feed in which we are sending Google Shopping category values.
The helper function being used in the Digital Marketing Feed Merchandiser
We’re here to make your lives as online retailers simpler. Give this new business rule a whirl and let us know what you think!
Blog post by Lance Robinson, software engineer, Rithum
