Automapping: How it Works

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Automapping is the process of programmatically assigning URL to products. This process is enabled by connecting Retailer Catalog Feeds containing active URLs on a website and Product Records for linked Syndigo accounts.

Article Contents:

• How it Works
• How to Get Started
• Turnaround Time
• Troubleshooting

How it Works

1. Retailer Catalog Feed

A Retailer Catalog Feed is a listing of products and URLs which are available on a website. The Catalog Feeds contains a unique identifier (UPC, GTIN, and/or Manufacturer Part Number), URL, Brand Name, and other meaningful information about the product such as stock status, price, etc.

To configure your account to access these retailer catalog feeds a website connection needs to be set up. In the Connections experience, add a Website Connection for each website where enhanced content publication is required. (Note: Website Connections for Digital Shelf Analytics are managed by a Syndigo account representative.)

Once a connection is made you can visit the Website Configurations tab for that website. If there is a feed available with that connection, you will see the primary unique identifier that our platform uses to match your products to the feed items.

By default, any website connections you add that have a retailer catalog feed will try to automap URLs with your products. You have the option to disable automapping for this or any of your connections if you would like. You also can define the individual features enabled by default on the automapped URLs – enabled or disabled.

• Enhanced Content
• Analytics
• Compare with Live
• High Frequency Analytic

2. Brand Labels

Brand Labels are the consumer brand name which a company uses to sell on websites. For example, Proctor & Gamble sells under Bounty, Dawn, etc. A Brand Label is established by the relationship between a company (Syndigo account) and website. One company (Syndigo account) can have several Brand Labels.

The mapping process between Catalog Feed and Product Record in the Syndigo platform considers three conditions:

1. Unique ID match
2. Brand Label match
3. A connection to the retailer website

In order for an automapping to be made all three conditions must be met. 99% of automapping issues (e.g., “automapping isn’t working”) can be attributed to either:

1. Brand Label doesn’t exist
2. Unique ID is not present on the product record

How to Get Started

1. Ensure your website connections have been added and configured for all desired retailers. Inside the Website Details settings of each Retailer, you can manage URL Automapping Configurations under the Website Configurations tab.
   • Make sure the option “Yes, automap URLs from this website to my products” is selected, and enable or disable the features that should be set by default on automapped URLs.
     

     

2. Next, gather a list of all Brand names and provide this list to Syndigo.
   • Some tips for gathering the list of brand names:
     • More is better. Include all known, different spellings, abbreviations, and formats: spaces and no-space versions, hyphens, and other special characters. Don’t worry about case sensitivity.
     • When assigning brand labels, it’s important to consider variations such as “Mt. Dew”, “Mt Dew” and “Mountain Dew” as unique entities. Punctuation, case, spaces, and other factors matter in distinguishing these variations. For example, if a retailer uses the brand label “Mountain Dew” but the brand is only associated with “Mt Dew” in the product database, the automapping process may not recognize them as matching entities in all cases.
     • Once Brand Labels are gathered, click here to create a support ticket and send list to support team.
3. Lastly, complete each product record’s attributes with as many applicable unique identifiers as possible.
   • UPC
   • GTIN
   • MFG Part # etc.

Best practice: Select all items you want to automap from the Products index, then export an Attributes Spreadsheet. Add all the applicable unique identifier fields then complete the IDs for each product. Then re-import the spreadsheet back into Syndigo. For detailed instructions, follow the video tutorial in this article.

You can also opt to manually add the product identifiers into the Enhanced Content Data View yourself.

Turnaround Time

Depending on the retailer, automapping of URLs may occur quite frequently – sometimes on a monthly, weekly, or even daily cadence. Other retailers may provide their latest catalog data at a more irregular frequency. In general, the larger the retailer, the more frequently they provide the latest product information to Syndigo.

If URL discovery is required urgently, create a support ticket.

Please note: While waiting for URLs to be automapped, you don’t have to wait to prepare enhanced content! Publish any enhanced content when ready, and after it is approved, and it will go live the next time Syndigo processes a retailer catalog that includes the product page URL information.

How to know when automapping is complete?

When automapping is successful, the URLs will appear in the URLs tab of your product records.

If the expected URLs do not appear for any product record within 2 weeks after all preparation steps have been completed, investigate that the information provided is accurate.

Troubleshooting: Potential Reason for Unsuccessful Delivery

• The list of Brand names provided to Syndigo does not include the Brand name value that the retailer has on file.
• The relevant unique Identifier type has not been added to the product record, or it is inaccurate.
• In some cases, the retailer may be providing an incomplete set of catalog data or the product has not been flagged as live on their website.

If you ever have any questions regarding automapping, please reach out to our support team or your Syndigo representative.