Credit Card Catalogs for Brands

Published on: Mon, 29 May, 2023 at 11:37 PM | Updated on: Thu, 14 Dec, 2023 at 4:25 AM

A product catalog is a data file that provides detailed information about the products on your site. Product feeds are useful for a variety of use cases, such as building out comparison shopping engines or product storefronts.

Create & upload a credit card catalog

In the left navigation bar, select Engage → Content → Products → Product Catalogs.
In the upper-right corner, select Create Product Catalog → Credit Card.
Fill in the fields as described in the Catalog field reference below.
Select Create.
Upload your catalog.
- Ensure that the file name and extension match the details you provided in the Upload Method field.
- See the File extension guidelines reference for more information.
- View an example file template here.
Select Done.

Catalog field reference

Field	Description
Product Catalog Name	Enter a name for your catalog. This will be visible to partners so that they can identify the catalog. If you have multiple catalogs, they should have unique names.
Labels	Optionally, use labels to make the product catalog searchable by keyword for partners.
Catalog Instructions	Optionally, include a PDF file providing partners with additional catalog usage details. impact.com recommends including this step.
Upload Method	Select 1 of 3 methods to upload your catalog: Direct upload This option is only available for file sizes < 1 GB. impact.com FTP server Larger catalogs can be uploaded to impact.com's FTP server. You'll receive login details and instructions once you create your first catalog with this method. The credentials will be emailed to all account users with technical permissions. You can check your account permissions under [Menu] → Settings → Account Users. You can use these same credentials for uploading subsequent product catalogs. Pull from URL Specify the URL location where impact.com can retrieve the product catalog. For FTP, the URL should be of the FTP directory and the configured filename needs to match the name of the file on the FTP server. The catalog is pulled periodically depending on the configured fetch frequency, which is set to Daily by default.
Access Product Catalog via API	Optionally, get API access so that you can maintain your product catalogs via API. This will enable you to query, create, update, and delete catalog items. See the API documentation for more info.
Mobile App Fallback	Optionally, reroute traffic elsewhere if users don't have your mobile app installed.
Restrict Partner Access	Optionally, permit only specific partners to access the catalog. Use the fields and arrows to restrict access to particular partner groups, and use the search bar to search for individual partners to make the ad only available to them.
Partner Download Options	Optionally, deselect any methods that you don't want partners to use when downloading your catalog. (All methods are permitted by default.)

File extension guidelines

When using .txt format, always save the file in UTF-16 encoding.
When using .csv format, always save the file in UTF-8 encoding.
For .aprx fields, if you prefer using your own text instead of impact.com's specified format, use the Description fields.
To open a downloaded file in Microsoft Excel if it's not in .xlsx format, do the following to avoid encoding issues:
1. Open a blank Microsoft Excel workbook, and in the upper-left corner, select File → Import.
2. Select the file format, e.g., CSV → Get data → Delimited.
3. Select the file origin, e.g., Unicode UTF-8 → Comma Separated.
4. Select Open File.

Review uploaded catalog health

After creating and uploading your product catalog, impact.com processes the file for errors. Errors can affect the availability of your catalog to partners as detailed in the following scenarios:

Scenario	Possible reason
Catalog not made accessible at all	> 10% of records have errors The file name doesn't match the file name you provided The file is empty
Full catalog made accessible	< 10 % of records have errors Note that the catalog may still have minor issues like warnings or duplicates, which you can fix if you wish.
Specific records excluded	The excluded records have errors, but erroneous records make up < 10%

Common error messages & causes

Error Message	Meaning
No catalog found for the request. Check if the file name of uploaded file is the same as the one registered with the catalog	The uploaded file's name doesn't match the name you provided in the Upload Method field when creating the catalog.
No attributes present in the catalog file	The catalog file is empty.
Catalog item with ID occurs more than once in the catalog, and those after the first will be ignored	There are duplicate product IDs in the catalog.
Record '1' has an error: (line 1) invalid char between encapsulated token and delimiter	Your delimited file contains invalid use of double quotes. Double quotes within a field's content must be replaced with 2 double quotes. E.g.: `8" Anvil` becomes `"8"" Anvil"`.
(startline 1) EOF reached before encapsulated token finished	Your delimited file contains an opening double quote and a new line prior to the closing of the quotes.
Error parsing (catalog type) field: with value: (field)	The product field value cannot be accepted.
Record (recordNumber) has an error: The number of delimited values (FieldsLength) does not match the expected (ColumnNamesLength)	The number of record fields does not match the number of column names in your delimited catalog.
No valid records were found in the catalog file	Your catalog has no records.
More than 10% of the records in the file had errors	More than 10% of records in your catalog records have errors and the file cannot be processed.