Understand and use product groups

Product groups are used to specify which products from your Microsoft Merchant Center catalog should be included in a particular ad group.

What are product groups?

Once you create a shopping campaign, Microsoft Advertising creates a default ad group. Within this ad group is a single product group that contains all the products from your Microsoft Merchant Center feed. This product group is what you use to bid on instead of keywords, and all the products within this product group use the same bid.

Note

In order to understand product groups, first make sure you are familiar with both product ads and shopping campaigns.

We recommend that you break down the single product group into smaller product groups so that each product group contains closely related products. This will help you manage which ads to show and when to show them. With product groups, you can narrow down the default group into a customized list of specific products and divide up to 5 levels for each product group.

Product group attributes expando image

Attribute	Description	What you need to know
Category	Predefined product category Example: Software > Computer Software	You can have up to 5 categories per offer. Full list of taxonomy values: All languages Example feed file
Brand	Item’s manufacturer, brand, or publisher Example: Contoso Requirements: Alphanumeric 70-character limit 10-word limit	Do not add your store name as the brand unless you manufacture the product. Uploading an item for the first time will be pending review until the brand has been successfully crawled. Updating the brand of an existing item will be reverted to the pending review status until it has been successfully re-crawled. The review process can take up to 3 business days.
Condition	Condition of item Example: new Requirements: Valid options: new; used; refurbished	If no values are provided, the condition will be set to "new" by default. 'New' products are brand new and have never been used, with the original packaging never opened. 'Refurbished' products have been professionally restored, are free of defects, and come with a warranty. They may or may not have the original packaging. 'Used' products are anything other than 'new' or 'refurbished,' where the products have been used previously, with the original packaging opened or missing.
Item ID	A unique identifier for the item. Example: ISI1 Requirements: 50 Unicode character limit Recommended: ASCII only: alphanumeric, underscores (_) and dashes (-)	ID must be unique for each item in your catalog per market. If you have multiple feeds, the IDs of items across different feeds still need to be unique. Special ASCII characters (e.g., asterisk (*), comma (,), backslash (\), ampersand (&), etc. are allowed. The ID is the same as the merchant product ID (MPID).
Product type	Your category of the item Example: Home > Electronics > DVD Player Requirements: Alphanumeric 750-character limit Delimiters: greater than [>]	You can have more than one product type if your item applies to more than one category.
Custom label	Use to identify products for ad campaign filters Example: Best sellers, High ROAS, Winter Requirements: Alphanumeric Max 200 characters Single-value Up to 1000 unique values for each customer label attributes (up to 5000 labels total)	You can use up to 5 labels per offer. Use custom labels to add a value to the label, such as seasonal or sale items.

How do I subdivide product groups? expando image

From the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Product groups.

If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Product groups.
Select the ad group that contains the product group you want to edit.
Select + next to the product group.
Select a category to narrow down for your new product group. You can continue to add up to 5 levels per product group.

How can I view different product groups? expando image

From the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Product groups.

If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Product groups.
Select the ad group that contains the product group and subdivided product groups you want to view.
By default, the product groups are displayed in the table in the Hierarchy view. You can see how your product groups are organized by selecting the arrow next to the product group and drilling down to the subdivided product groups.

To view product groups in the List view, select the list icon above the table. This view lets you see your product groups across an entire account, campaign, or ad group from the table.

You can hover over the product group to quickly see all the products that are included in the product group.

How do I filter product groups? expando image

From the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Product groups.

If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Product groups.
Select the ad group that contains the product groups you want to filter.
Select Add filter.
Choose from the filter options and then select Apply.
Select Save, and then in the box, enter the name.
To apply a saved filter:
- From the collapsible menu on the left, select Campaigns.
  
  If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, select Campaigns.
- From the page menu, select the page you want to apply saved filters to.
- Select Add filter and under Saved filters choose the saved filter you would like to apply.

How do I make bulk changes to my product group's bids? expando image

You can make bulk changes to your product groups at the ad group, campaign, or account level.

From the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Product groups.

If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Product groups.
Select the checkbox next to the product groups you want to update.
Select Edit and then Change bids.
Increase or decrease the bid by percentage, with a maximum or minimum bid option.
(Optional) Select Preview to see what will change.
Select Save.

About product group performance data expando image

Structural changes to product groups, like updating or deleting product groups, appear immediately in the table.
Structural changes often necessitate the redistribution of existing performance data across the new structure. Once the data has been reprocessed and is up to date, you will no longer see the alert above the table.

What you need to know expando image

There is a one to one relationship between ad groups and product groups. In other words, each ad group has one product group and vice versa.
You can view your product groups on the Product Group tab within each ad group.
When viewing your product group, if there is a small triangle to the left of an item in the Product Group column, that row has been divided further by some other attribute. Select the triangle to expand that row and see the more granular segments.
Remember to "exclude" items that you don't want to be in your product group.
You can narrow down a product group in your catalog feed up to 5 levels. For example, Office supplies > Office instruments > Writing and drawing instruments > Pens and pencils > Pens > New