Use a bulksheet to manage product groups

In a shopping campaign, a product group is a collection of products in your inventory feed that match criteria you specify. When you first create a shopping campaign, all of the products from your inventory feed are included in a single product group named All products. Because bids are set at the product-group level, all of your products initially use the same bid. It's recommended that you subdivide your products into focused product groups and set bids for these groups based upon your advertising goals. Learn more about managing product groups in Search Ads 360.

If you want to manually manage a large number of shopping campaigns and product groups, you may find it handy to use bulksheets instead of using the Search Ads 360 UI.

How to use a bulksheet to manage product groups

Here's an overview of using a bulksheet to subdivide product groups and set bids (the details are later in this article):

1. (Recommended) Download an editable bulksheet that contains the current set of product groups in one or more ad groups.
2. Edit the downloaded bulksheet to do any of the following:
   • Change bids or bid strategies for existing product groups
   • Subdivide product groups
   • Exclude product groups from an ad group
   • Remove product groups
3. Upload the bulksheet.

Note: Bulksheets can't create new shopping campaigns or ad groups within a shopping campaign. Use the Search Ads 360 UI to create Google Ads Shopping campaigns or Microsoft Advertising Shopping campaigns.

Download a bulksheet with existing product groups

1. Navigate to an advertiser that contains Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising accounts with shopping campaigns.

   Steps for navigating to an advertiser

   1. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   2. In the "Agency" list, click on the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   3. In the "Advertiser" list, click on the advertiser.

   4. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the advertiser page, which contains data for all of the advertiser’s engine accounts.

2. Click the Targets tab and click Product groups.
   
   The Product groups tab lists all product groups in your advertiser.

   Don't see the "Targets > Product groups" tab?
   Make sure your advertiser contains a Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising engine account.

3. Do either of the following:

   • Filter the list to include only the product groups you want to subdivide, exclude, remove, or set bids for.

   • Select the check boxes next to the product groups you want to update.

4. Above the reporting table, click the download icon .

5. In the Download report panel, under Include types, select the Product groups check box.
   It's not necessary to change any of the other pre-selected options. For example, leave "Columns" set to Editable columns (for re-upload) and leave the Include rows with no impressions check box selected.

6. Click the Download button.

Edit the downloaded bulksheet

Edit the downloaded bulksheet to do any of the following:

• Change bids or bid strategies for existing product groups
• Subdivide product groups
• Exclude product groups from an ad group
• Remove product groups

Change bids or bid strategies

Bids and bid strategies are only applicable to product groups whose Product group partition type column specifies Biddable.

1. Find the row that contains the product group you want to update.
2. Set the Action column to edit.
   If you're creating a new product group, set the Action column to create.
3. To change bids, update the maximum CPC value in the Product group max CPC column.
4. To change the bid strategy, update the value in the Advertiser bid strategy column. Learn more about applying a Search Ads 360 bid strategy using a bulksheet.

Subdivide product groups

1. Copy the row of the product group you want to subdivide.
   The row contains all of the IDs and other settings you need to create a new product group in the same ad group.
2. Paste the new row into the bulksheet.
   You can paste at the end of the bulksheet or any other row location that's convenient.
3. In the new row, update the following columns:
   • Action: set to create
   • Product group: use the following syntax to specify the inventory attributes and values that will be used to create new product groups:
     AND(INVENTORY ATTRIBUTE = "value", [INVENTORY ATTRIBUTE = "value", ...])

     If you specify only one inventory attribute, the product group subdivides the "All products" group. Each additional inventory attribute you specify subdivides the immediately preceding inventory attribute. The name of the inventory attribute must be in upper case.

     For example, the following Product group column subdivides "All products" into a group that contains products with the ComfyShoes brand:
     AND(BRAND = "ComfyShoes")
     Search Ads 360 automatically creates a product group that contains "Everything else" in the "All products" group.
     Search Ads 360 also automatically sets the Product group partition type for the "All products" group to "Subdivided". You can no longer set bids for the "All products" group. Instead, set bids for "ComfyShoes" and "Everything else".

     The following Product group column subdivides "All products" into a group that contains products with the SpeedyRacers brand, and then further subdivides "SpeedyRacers" into a group that contains products sold through the online channel:
     AND(BRAND = "SpeedyRacers", CHANNEL="online")
     Search Ads 360 automatically creates a product group that contains "Everything else" in the "SpeedyRacers" group.
     Search Ads 360 also automatically sets the Product group partition type for the "SpeedyRacers" group to "Subdivided". You can no longer set bids for the "SpeedyRacers" group. Instead, set bids for "online" and "Everything else".

   • Product group partition type: set to biddable or excluded

Exclude product groups

To prevent an ad group from displaying ads for a product group:

1. Find the row that contains the product group you want to update.
2. Set the Action column to edit.
   If you're creating a new product group, set the Action column to create.
3. Set the product group's Product group partition type column to excluded.

Remove product groups

1. Find the row that contains the product group you want to update.
2. Set the Action column to deactivate.

The products in the removed group will appear in the "Everything else" group.

Bulksheet columns for creating and updating product groups

Column name	Description
Row type	Enter product group
Action	Enter create to create a new product group. Enter edit to update an existing product group. Enter deactivate to remove a product group.
Engine or Account ID	Enter the name of the engine account that contains the product groups you're updating. If the account name isn't unique in your advertiser, specify the ID Search Ads 360 generated for the engine account instead.
Campaign or Campaign ID	Enter the name of the campaign that contains the product groups you're updating. If the campaign name isn't unique within its engine account, specify the ID Search Ads 360 generated for the campaign instead.
Ad group or Ad group ID	Enter the name of the ad group that contains the product groups you're updating. If the ad group name isn't unique within its campaign, specify the ID Search Ads 360 generated for the ad group instead.
Product group	Valid values are as follows: All products: Search Ads 360 automatically creates this group when you create a shopping campaign or additional ad group in a shopping campaign Everything else: Search Ads 360 automatically creates this group when you subdivide a product group AND(INVENTORY ATTRIBUTE = "value", [INVENTORY ATTRIBUTE = "value", ...]): Specifies criteria for subdividing a product group. If you specify only one inventory attribute, the product group subdivides the "All products" group. Each additional inventory attribute you specify subdivides the immediately preceding inventory attribute. The name of the inventory attribute must be in upper case. Learn more.
Product group max CPC	Specifies the product group's bid. Only applicable to product groups whose Product group partition type column specifies Biddable.
Product group partition type	Valid values are as follows: subdivided: Instead of containing products, the product group contains other product groups. Search Ads 360 automatically sets this value when applicable. biddable: the product group contains products for which you can set bids. Search Ads 360 automatically sets this value when applicable. excluded: the product group contains products that you want to exclude from appearing in the current ad group.
URL template	Optional. Enter a Search Ads 360 URL template if you want to override a template specified at a higher level.
Advertiser bid strategy	Use this column to set or remove a bid strategy for a product group.

Example

Here's an example of subdividing two product groups. (To save space, not all of the required columns are displayed here.)

Row Type	Action	Campaign	Ad group	Product group	Product group max CPC	Product group partition type
product group	create	Campaign1	Ad group A	AND(BRAND = "ComfyShoes")	4.00	biddable
product group	create	Campaign1	Ad group A	AND(BRAND = "SpeedyRacers", CHANNEL="online")	5.00	biddable