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Add Product Catalogs as a Brand

When adding a retail product catalog, there are 4 steps you need to complete, which help showcase your offerings, enhance customer experience, and streamline the buying process. Follow the 4 steps below:

Step 1 - Check program ad settings

Before adding product catalogs to your program, ensure that they are enabled in your ad settings. Partners will not be able to view your product catalogs unless this setting is enabled.

  1. From the left navigation bar, select [Menu] [Menu] → Settings.

  2. On the right, under General, select Ad Settings.

  3. In the Ad Types section, under Product Catalogs, ensure that [Checked box] [Checked box] Enable product catalogs for this program is checked.

  4. Select Save.

Step 2 - Add a product catalog
  1. From the left navigation bar, select [Engage] [Engage]ContentProductsProduct Catalogs.

  2. In the upper-right corner, select Create Product CatalogRetail.

  3. Enter a unique Product Catalog Name (this is how your partners will search for it).

  4. Optionally, enter Labels that partners can use to search for this product catalog.

  5. Optionally, select Choose File to upload a PDF document with Catalog Instructions so partners understand how to navigate your product catalog.

  6. Select a [Radio button] [Radio Button] and apply one of the following Upload Methods for your product catalog: Direct Upload, impact.com FTP Server, Pull From URL, or Integrated Shopping Cart Import.

    • Once you have chosen an upload method, select a Format where applicable or choose an Integrated Shopping Cart Import.

    1. Select a [Radio button] [Radio Button] to apply a Format.

    2. Enter the Upload File Name for the product catalog with its file extension. The name you enter here must match the name of the file you upload.

      • E.g., starks_catalog.xml, starks_catalog.txt, starks_catalog.csv.

      • If you're using a CSV file, replace spaces in the field names with underscores.

    Format

    Description

    Google Merchant Center

    impact.com currently supports Google Merchant’s text-based formats [External link] (tab-delimited TXT files, not CSV files), as well as XML files [External link] (RSS and Atom).

    eBay Commerce Merchant Center

    impact.com supports both text-based (.TXT.CSV) and XML formats for eBay Commerce, and when using a .CSV file, ensure you replace spaces in the Field column with underscores; also, view the eBay Commerce Merchant file fields.

    Connexity Merchant Center

    impact.com currently supports .TXT and .CSV file versions of Connexity's product catalogs [External link]. After generating your product catalog, you can upload it to impact.com.

    CJ Affiliate by Conversant

    impact.com supports various formats for CJ Affiliate product catalogs [External link], including .TXT, .CSV, .PSV, and .XML files under the Product Feed Specifications: Shopping (Google Format) section. After generating your product catalog, you can upload it to impact.com.

    Custom format

    impact.com also supports custom-formatted catalogs. You can upload files in . XML.TXT, .CSV, and .PSV, and formats.

    1. Enter the Link URL field.

    2. Fill in mandatory the Catalog Item ID and Name mandatory fields.

      • View the Custom Format file fields for a full list of fields.

      • See the example below of formats to follow when entering product details.

    3. Optionally, add Custom Fields to your product catalog, select Add Field, then choose one of the following fields from the [Drop-down menu] [Drop-down menu].

    Example

    name, id, url, manufacturingcost, mycurrency, mycategory
    ACME Bird Seed, 1234567, http://example.com/products, 20, USD, Accessories
    
  7. From the [Drop-down menu] [Drop-down menu] choose the Language and Currency in which the catalog will be displayed for partners.

  8. Use the fields and arrows to select Service Areas for geo-targeting.

    • Your Available areas are the service areas targeted by your program. You can change this in your program settings as follows:

    Manage available service areas
    1. From the left navigation menu, select [Menu] [Menu] → Settings.

    2. Under General, select Manage Programs.

    3. Select the ID of the program for which you want to adjust Service Areas settings.

    4. Under Program Information, navigate to Service Areas.

    5. Use the [Drop-down menu] [Drop-down menu] and [Unchecked box] [Unchecked boxes] to select or deselect service areas as needed.

    6. Once you're done, select Save.

  9. Optionally, set up mobile fallback.

    Configure mobile fallback

    You can set up mobile fallback on your product catalogs. This option allows you to send traffic to your mobile apps, which allows partners to use generic ads for a single app across many platforms.

    1. In the Mobile App Fallback section, [Toggle on] [Toggle on] Reroute mobile traffic from this asset if impact.com didn't detect that your app is already installed.

      • Alternatively find an existing product catalog and select [Down caret] [Actions]Edit.

    2. From the [Drop-down menu] [Drop-down menu] options under Android and iOS, select a fallback option for each platform. This selection will then be populated with the URL to download your app.

      • impact.com will automatically detect the device type of the consumer and direct them to the appropriate app store to download your app once mobile fallback is set up.

    3. Select Save.

  10. Optionally, set up advanced settings.

    Advanced settings

    Advanced settings allow you to restrict your product catalog to specific partners and specify their download options.

    • Select Allow access to only specific Partners to restrict access to this product catalog. Enter the partner account names into the search field, and use the [Checked box] [Checked box] to select partners that should have access.

    • Enable which Partner Download Options you want to make available to your partners for this catalog. Options you can enable include FTP, API, or Partner Portal Browser Download.

  11. Select Create to create the product catalog entry and move on to the upload screen (for direct uploads).

    • Otherwise, if not adding your catalog via Direct Upload, you'll return to the Product Catalogs screen and continue the process below.

Step 3 - Review product catalog health and troubleshoot

Each product catalog has a health score that highlights any issues. To reach the excellent range, resolve errors, warnings, and duplicates.

  1. From the left navigation menu, select [Engage] [Engage] → Content → Products → Product Catalogs.

  2. If a catalog has any errors, warnings, or duplicate line items, you will see how many of each are present in the Health column.

    • Poor - More than 10% of required information is missing. The catalog must be fixed and re-uploaded.

    • Good - Some crucial fields, like category or status, may be missing. Fixing this is necessary to unlock the full benefits.

    • Excellent - A healthy catalog, this product data set is best positioned to gain the mentioned benefits.

    • Pending - Your catalog is uploading and processing.

  3. Select errors, warnings, or duplicates to view line items with problems.

    • Only the first item in a set of duplicates will be represented in impact.com; all items duplicating the first will be ignored.

  4. Address the issues, then re-upload the catalog to impact.com using the same method you used to upload the original catalog.

    • Upload methods that automatically fetch the catalog should automatically update when the next fetch event happens.

Step 4 - Make catalogs available to partners

After adding the catalog and reviewing its health, proceed to the final step to make it available for your partners and ensure your products are featured in the Product Marketplace. This could attract more program applications. Consider creating workflows to automate your program application processing.

  1. From the Product Catalogs screen, find the catalog you just added.

  2. Under Actions, select [Drop-down menu] [Drop-down menu] → Make Available for Use for the catalog you just added.

    Note: Enable direct product links, add the product landing page domain as a deep-linkable domain in the Allow Partners to deep link to specific pages on my site section of your tracking settings.

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