Big news for Microsoft Shopping advertisers: this guide is now current with Microsoft's latest product attribute requirements, including the new Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) readiness fields. If you submit a feed to Microsoft Merchant Center through GoDataFeed, following the guidance below will help your products clear editorial review faster, appear for more relevant searches, and stay eligible as Microsoft expands into AI shopping experiences like Copilot. It is written for new and existing GoDataFeed users.

TL;DR: Write descriptive titles under 150 characters, supply clean descriptions under 10,000 characters with no HTML or promotional text, use images of at least 220 x 220 pixels (250 x 250 for clothing and shoes), and submit GTIN, brand, and MPN wherever the manufacturer assigns them. Add product category, product type, and custom labels to control your campaigns. If you want your catalog ready for agentic commerce, map the optional UCP readiness attributes.

How do I optimize product titles for Microsoft Shopping?

Your title is the single strongest relevance signal in a Microsoft Shopping feed. Write titles that read the way a shopper searches, with the most important detail first. Microsoft allows up to 150 characters and accepts alphanumeric text. Do not enclose the title in quotes.

Include the attributes that distinguish the product from similar items:

• Appliances, computers, and electronics: brand, model number, and product type, for example Gateway GM5626 Desktop Computer.
• Media: title, author or artist, and format, for example Touch of Evil Kay Hooper Paperback.
• Clothing and accessories: brand, gender, size, color, material, and product type, for example Kenneth Cole Men's Black Dress Shirt.

Do not use all capital letters or promotional text such as "Free Shipping" or "15% Off." Microsoft rejects promotional language in titles. When you upload a product for the first time, or change the title of an existing product, the item returns to pending review status for up to three business days.

How do I write product descriptions that pass Microsoft's review?

Descriptions give Microsoft the context it needs to match your product to a search, and they are increasingly what AI shopping surfaces read when deciding whether to surface your item. Microsoft allows up to 10,000 characters.

Put the most useful information at the front, and include size, color, and pattern where they apply. Your feed description must describe the same product as the landing page description. It can differ in wording, but it cannot describe a different item.

Descriptions must not contain:

• HTML markup: strip tags before submission. If your source data contains HTML, use a feed rule in GoDataFeed to remove it.
• Promotional text: no "Free Shipping," no percentage-off claims, no calls to action.
• All capital letters: write in sentence case.
• Enclosing quotation marks: do not wrap the value in quotes.

As with titles, a new or updated description returns the item to pending review for up to three business days.

What are Microsoft's product image requirements?

Image quality affects both your data quality score and whether a shopper clicks. Microsoft recommends a minimum of 220 x 220 pixels for all product categories. For Apparel & Accessories > Shoes and Apparel & Accessories > Clothing, the minimum acceptable size is 250 x 250 pixels.

• Accepted formats: bmp, gif, exif, jpg, png, and tiff.
• Maximum file size: 16 MB.
• URL requirements: HTTP or HTTPS only, up to 2,000 characters. The image URL is case-sensitive, and changing the casing forces a re-crawl.
• No overlays: no watermarks, no animation, and no text of any kind, including promotional messaging.
• One primary image per item: use additional_image_link for more.

A white background helps the product stand out. Make sure your robots.txt file allows Microsoft Advertising to crawl your site, because your ad cannot serve if the crawl is incomplete.

Can I submit more than one image per product?

Yes. Use additional_image_link to submit up to 10 additional images, separated by commas. Additional images commonly show the product from other angles and follow the same size, format, and content rules as the primary image. They are not guaranteed to display.

Which product identifiers does Microsoft require?

Unique product identifiers help Microsoft match your item to the same product across the marketplace, which improves relevance and can speed up editorial review. Microsoft recommends tagging all three identifier attributes on every item where they exist.

• New products with a GTIN: submit gtin, brand, and mpn. You can supply up to 10 GTIN values, maximum 14 digits each, separated by a comma and space.
• Products without a GTIN: submit brand and mpn. This covers store brand items, antiques, replacement parts, and custom-made goods.
• Products with none of the three: submit identifier_exists with the value FALSE. This applies to handmade and vintage products.

Do not enter your store name in the brand field unless you actually manufacture the product. Keep brand values to 70 characters and 10 words or fewer.

Which attributes give me better campaign control?

These fields do not change how your listing looks, but they determine how well you can segment, filter, and bid on your inventory in Microsoft Shopping and Performance Max campaigns.

• product_category: Microsoft's predefined taxonomy, equivalent to google_product_category. Up to 255 characters, using the greater-than symbol (>) as the only valid delimiter. Category IDs are now supported in place of full string values.
• product_type: your own category structure, up to 750 characters, also delimited with >. You can submit more than one product type per item.
• custom_label_0 through custom_label_4: your own campaign filters, such as margin tier, seasonality, or best sellers. Maximum 100 characters, single value, up to 1,000 unique values per label.
• availability: accepts in stock, out of stock, or preorder. Defaults to in stock if left blank.
• condition: accepts new, used, or refurbished. Defaults to new if left blank, so submit it explicitly on any item that is not new.
• included_destination and excluded_destination: control where each product appears, using Shopping_ads or Local_inventory_ads. Every product must target at least one destination.

Which attributes are required for apparel?

For all Apparel & Accessories products targeting France, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States, Microsoft requires age_group, color, gender, and size. Missing any of these is a common cause of disapproval for clothing catalogs. Use consistent size values across your catalog rather than mixing formats like "small," "M," and "Lg."

How do I optimize pricing, sales, and promotions?

Price accuracy is verified against your landing page, so keep your product pages and your feed in sync.

• price: submit the base price in local currency with two decimal places and no symbols. For the United States, exclude tax. For the United Kingdom, include VAT.
• sale_price and sale_price_effective_date: submit both together. If you update the sale price but not the effective date, the sale price stays active.
• promotion_ID: up to 10 promotion IDs per item, separated by commas, with a 60 character limit per promotion. Promotion timing follows your local time zone.
• shipping: required for Austria and Germany only. Use a period as the decimal separator regardless of currency, and enter 0 for free shipping.
• unit_pricing_measure and unit_pricing_base_measure: use these for products sold by weight, volume, or length so shoppers see a comparable unit price.

How do I prepare my Microsoft feed for UCP and agentic commerce?

The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is a shared standard for structuring product data so AI shopping agents can evaluate and act on it. Microsoft Merchant Center supports UCP-ready feeds, which is what powers product experiences inside Microsoft Copilot. Standard feed attributes handle discovery, meaning whether your product is found. UCP readiness attributes carry the commerce details an agent needs before a purchase decision, such as your return terms and any required consumer warning.

All three attributes below are optional. Your products will continue to serve in Microsoft Shopping campaigns without them. Add them when you want your catalog prepared for AI shopping surfaces, or when a product carries a legal or safety disclosure obligation.

Name the return policy field exactly return_policy_labels

Microsoft's product attributes documentation lists this row under the display name "Exception policy," but the accepted feed header is return_policy_labels, spelled exactly that way and plural. A column named "Exception policy" will not be recognized. GoDataFeed outputs the correct header automatically when you map the attribute in the Microsoft template.

Your default store-level return policy is configured in Microsoft Merchant Center, not in your feed. The return_policy_labels attribute only flags which products follow an exception to that policy, so the store-level settings need to exist first for the label to mean anything.

Map consumer message type and content together

Some products carry a legal or regulatory disclosure obligation, such as a California Proposition 65 warning, a safety notice on a power tool, or a required disclaimer on a supplement. Map consumer_message_type and consumer_message_content as a pair. A warning type with no text, or text with no type, is incomplete.

Microsoft accepts only four HTML tags inside the message content. If your source field wraps the warning in additional markup from your ecommerce platform, use a feed rule in GoDataFeed to strip the unsupported tags. Long legal warnings often contain commas and line breaks, so make sure those characters are escaped or removed if you submit a delimited file format.

Compliance with warning requirements is your responsibility as the merchant. GoDataFeed passes the values you provide and does not generate, validate, or interpret legal warning text. For current requirements, see Microsoft Advertising: Product attributes.

How do these differ from the Google Merchant Center attributes?

If you run both channels, do not copy column headers between them. Microsoft uses return_policy_labels, consumer_message_type, and consumer_message_content. Google uses return_policy_label (singular), consumer_notice_type, and consumer_notice_message. The underlying values are usually reusable, so you can map the same source field to both channels in GoDataFeed without rebuilding the data.

How long does Microsoft take to process my feed?

Processing time depends on which attribute changed. Microsoft publishes these windows:

• Titles, descriptions, images, product URLs, and brand: up to three business days for editorial review, on first upload and on every subsequent change.
• Price and availability: up to 24 hours. If an update does not pass initial review, it goes to an additional review of up to three business days.
• Shipping: up to 30 hours on first submission, and up to eight hours for updates.
• Product deletions: up to 12 hours. Set availability to out of stock before deleting a product so it stops serving immediately.

Because edits to reviewed fields reset an item to pending status, batch your title, description, and image changes rather than making them piecemeal across several days.

Troubleshooting

My feed is not uploading over FTP. Your FTP credentials become active after you receive your welcome email from Microsoft. Microsoft Merchant Center supports both ftp://feeds.adcenter.microsoft.com and ftps://feeds.adcenter.microsoft.com. If you use the FTPS address, set the port to 22 under Feed parameters > Advanced Settings in GoDataFeed. For full setup instructions, see Feed: Microsoft Advertising (Bing Shopping) - Submitting a feed to Microsoft Advertising (Bing Shopping).

My products are disapproved with an image error. Check that the image meets the minimum dimensions, is under 16 MB, uses an accepted format, and loads over HTTP or HTTPS without a redirect. Confirm your robots.txt allows Microsoft Advertising to crawl the image URL.

My clothing products are being rejected. Apparel & Accessories items targeting France, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States require age_group, color, gender, and size. Check that all four are mapped and populated.

My price is flagged as mismatched. Microsoft verifies the feed price against your landing page. Confirm your product page reflects the current price, and remember that United States prices exclude tax while United Kingdom prices include VAT.

Frequently asked questions

What is the character limit for a Microsoft Shopping product description?

Microsoft allows up to 10,000 characters in the description field. The description must not contain HTML, promotional text, all capital letters, or enclosing quotation marks, and it must describe the same product shown on your landing page.

What image size does Microsoft Merchant Center require?

Microsoft recommends a minimum of 220 x 220 pixels for all product categories. For Apparel & Accessories > Shoes and Apparel & Accessories > Clothing, the minimum acceptable size is 250 x 250 pixels. Images must be under 16 MB, use bmp, gif, exif, jpg, png, or tiff format, and contain no watermarks, animation, or text.

Do I have to add the UCP readiness attributes to my Microsoft feed?

No. Microsoft lists return_policy_labels, consumer_message_type, and consumer_message_content as optional fields. Your products will continue to serve in Microsoft Shopping campaigns without them. Add them when you want your catalog prepared for agentic commerce surfaces like Microsoft Copilot, or when a product requires a legal or safety disclosure.

Why did my product go back to pending review after I edited it?

Microsoft re-reviews certain attributes on every change, not just on first upload. Editing a title, description, image URL, product URL, or brand returns the item to pending review for up to three business days. Price and availability changes process faster, usually within 24 hours.

Can I reuse my Google Shopping feed data for Microsoft?

Largely yes, since Microsoft's specification closely mirrors Google's, and product_category uses the same taxonomy as google_product_category. The field names differ for the UCP readiness attributes, so map those separately rather than copying headers across. In GoDataFeed you can point both channels at the same source fields.

If you need additional support, contact our support team for further assistance. Be sure to provide any affected SKUs or screenshots of where you are encountering an issue.
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Related Help articles:

📌 Feed: Microsoft Advertising (Bing Shopping) - Submitting a feed to Microsoft Advertising (Bing Shopping)

📌 Feed: Microsoft Advertising (Bing Shopping) - Setting up Microsoft Local Inventory

📌 Feed: Microsoft Advertising (Bing Shopping) - Invite a user to Microsoft Merchant Center

📌 Data Feed Source File Specification