A custom feed is a feed template that can be modified and is unique to your account.

Custom feeds allow you to control the fields, validation rules, settings and so on. This is opposed to common channel templates which are pre-built and maintained by our system and ready to be added to any store. When it comes to new feed field specifications we update all feed templates. Any modifications to the template fields of a custom feed will need to be maintained by you.

Please note any custom feeds created will require you to add the feed fields to the template, map the feed fields, and then recompile the feed in order to move forward with being able to generate a feed pull URL or feed submission. We have the ability to enable product categories based on Google's taxonomy within the custom feed template settings.

Custom feeds can be set up with the below output methods:

• File Format: XML, Tab delimited, Comma delimited, Pipe Delimited, JSON
• File Compression: no compression, zip, gzip
• File Encoding: UTF-8, ASCII, CP-1252

Custom feeds can be submitted via feed pull URL, FTP, or SFTP within the feed settings for the custom feed template. 

Cloning a feed creates a custom feed

When you clone a common feed we generate a custom feed using all of the existing setting you chose to clone over. This means you can customize a common feed template by cloning it. Cloning a feed allows you to add or remove feed fields, add or remove validation warnings and errors, change the file format, and so on. 

How to clone a feed

Adding your custom feed template to other stores on your account

You can also make custom feeds available for any store on your account, across all of your stores. This is especially useful for agencies or anyone with multiple clients or stores. For example, when you want to customize your Google feeds or build a feed template for a special use case and use it for many of your clients.

One advantage to custom feeds is that you can make them available to add to any store on your account.

Example use case

You are an agency and you manage digital advertising for many clients. There is a channel or feed template that does not exist in our system. You build a custom feed template for one client, but now you want to add the same template to other clients in your account. 

Enabling a custom feed to be available for all stores

To make your custom feed template available to add to your other stores follow these steps:

1. Open the custom feed
2. Go to Template
3. Find and enable the checkbox for 'Make available to all stores on this account'
4. Click "Save"
   
   

Adding a custom feed to other stores

To add your custom feed template to your other stores follow these steps:

1. Open the desired client store
2. Go to 'Feeds'
3. Click the plus button to add a feed template
4. Choose 'Channel Templates'
5. Find the custom feed template by searching the template name OR scroll to the end of the list
6. Select the desired template to add

Best Practices

When it comes to creating a custom feed this new feed cannot be named the same name as an existing custom feed. For example, if you have a feed name "Wunderkind" within your account under one store you would need to name the custom feed "Wunderkind 2" within the second store in order for the feed to update as expected.