What places does your feed pass through?

Do you advertise on comparison engines using Mergado, and it happens to you that the modified product data reaches them with a delay? To give you a better picture of ​​how data transfer works, we are going to describe the process of transiting an XML or CSV feed from your online store via Mergado to a comparison engine.

We can imagine the process as traveling a greater distance when you have several transfers along the way, and the individual trains do not exactly follow each other.

1. Data on the side of your store

Feed generation

Online stores usually generate a new feed at specific times. The provider of your webshop solution can inform you about that, or you can find it in the store’s administration.

Example:

1. Suppose your store generates a new feed every 6 hours (at 4.00, 10.00, 16.00, and 22.00).
2. Therefore, if you change the data at 10.30, any change on the side of the engine won’t happen in the next five and a half hours because it still has an old feed.

It is usually the first source of delay you can work with either by knowing how new feed times were generated or by adjusting them to suit your requirements (e. g. more frequent generations).

2. Passing data through Mergado

Mergado downloads data every 2 to 4 hours

Another delay may occur in Mergado. Depending on the server load, it downloads data from an online store once every 2 – 4 hours. 

Example:

1. If you made adjustments at 10.30, your feed was updated at 16.00.
2. For example, Mergado downloaded the data at 11:00, 13:00, and 15:00, but your updated feed won’t be downloaded until about 17:00.

In this case, more than 7 hours may elapse between the changes you made and the first download of the feed by Mergado.

3. Data arrived at the comparison engine

Downloading data by the search engine also has its frequency. You can also find this information on the History tab in Mergado. Here, too, the feed’s transfer does not end immediately. The search engine needs to incorporate the changes on its side, and it can take time.

Where to save time when sending new data?

With what you already know about your feed path, try to:

• schedule data modifications so that they are entered into the search engine as soon as possible,
• adjust the frequency of feed regeneration from your online store,
• use the Regenerate Changed in Mergado option on the Export Settings tab

Check when you generate feeds and the times at which Mergado and the comparison engine download them. If you plan your advertising optimization, you will be able to speed up data transfer to a large extent.

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