Sales channel
Microsoft Advertising
Feeds are consumed by Microsoft Merchant Center.
Microsoft Advertising runs product ads across Bing, Yahoo and the Microsoft Audience Network from a catalogue uploaded to Microsoft Merchant Center. Its feed specification is closely modelled on Google's, which makes it the cheapest additional channel to launch once a Google Shopping feed already exists.
Feed specification
- Destination
- Microsoft Merchant Center
- Accepted formats
-
Text (TSV)XML (RSS 2.0)XML (Atom 1.0) - Refresh
- Scheduled fetches run on a daily cadence. Microsoft also supports importing a Google Merchant Center account directly, which copies the catalogue across rather than reading your feed URL, and that copy can drift from the source.
Attributes for Microsoft Advertising
Every attribute documented in this knowledge base that Microsoft Advertising accepts.
| Attribute | Requirement | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| availability | Required | Stock availability |
| brand | Required in some cases | Expected alongside gtin or mpn. |
| condition | Optional | Product condition |
| custom_label_0 | Optional | Custom label |
| description | Required | Product description |
| google_product_category | Recommended | Microsoft accepts the Google taxonomy values unchanged. |
| gtin | Required in some cases | Expected together with brand unless mpn is supplied. |
| id | Required | Product ID |
| identifier_exists | Optional | Identifier exists declaration |
| image_link | Required | Main product image URL |
| item_group_id | Required in some cases | Item group ID |
| link | Required | Product landing page URL |
| mpn | Required in some cases | Accepted in place of gtin, together with brand. |
| price | Required | Product price |
| sale_price | Optional | Sale price |
| title | Required | Product title |
What catches Shopify merchants out
The Google import is a copy, not a mirror
Importing from Google Merchant Center is the fastest way to launch, but it creates a separate catalogue that syncs on its own schedule. Publishing a feed URL to both channels from one mapping keeps them genuinely identical.
It uses the Google product taxonomy
Microsoft accepts Google's product category taxonomy values, so the google_product_category mapping carries over unchanged. This is the main reason a Google feed can be repointed with so little work.
Identifier rules follow Google closely but not exactly
Microsoft expects the same gtin, mpn and brand combination logic as Google. Where the two differ is in enforcement: an item that Google merely warns about can be rejected outright, so a feed that looks healthy in Merchant Center is still worth checking here.
Common Microsoft Advertising errors
- Duplicate product id A duplicate id error means two or more rows in a feed claim the same identifier, so the channel cannot tell which one describes the item and keeps only the last it processed. On Shopify it usually means the feed was built per product rather than per variant, or that a SKU used as the id is blank or reused across variants.
- Invalid value: GTIN The "Invalid value: GTIN" error means the feed supplied a value in the gtin attribute that is not a structurally valid Global Trade Item Number. Unlike a missing GTIN this is usually a disapproval rather than a warning, because a wrong identifier matches the item to the wrong product rather than to none.
- Mismatched value: availability The availability mismatch error means the feed says an item is purchasable but the crawled landing page suggests otherwise, or the reverse. On Shopify it is usually a stale feed after a sell-out, or an availability value derived from inventory quantity alone without accounting for variants that do not track inventory or that allow overselling.
- Mismatched value: price The price mismatch error means the price in the feed does not agree with the price the channel found when it crawled the landing page. On Shopify the three usual culprits are a feed that has not regenerated since a price change, a link pointing at the wrong market's storefront, and a tax convention difference between the feed and the displayed price.
- Missing value: brand The "Missing value: brand" issue means a channel expects a brand name for a product and the feed did not supply one, or supplied a placeholder it treats as empty. On Shopify it usually means the vendor field is blank, or holds a supplier or internal category rather than the brand a shopper would recognise.
- Missing value: GTIN The "Missing value: GTIN" issue means a channel believes a product has a manufacturer-assigned barcode but the feed did not supply one. On Shopify it almost always traces back to the variant barcode field, which is optional in the admin and therefore left empty across large parts of most catalogues.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use my Google Shopping feed for Microsoft Advertising?
Largely yes. Microsoft's specification mirrors Google's attribute names and reuses the Google product taxonomy, so the same mapping usually works. Publishing the same feed URL to both is more reliable than Microsoft's Google Merchant Center import, which creates a copy that can drift.
Does Microsoft Advertising require GTINs?
Microsoft applies broadly the same identifier rules as Google, expecting a gtin or an mpn together with a brand for products that have them. Enforcement can be stricter, so items that only trigger a warning on Google may be rejected here.
Primary sources
Channel specifications change. These are the official documents this page is based on.