Microsoft Advertising has launched Product Explorer, a new Merchant Center feature designed to help advertisers better understand product health and performance.
The tool provides a searchable view of product catalogs. Advertisers can quickly see which products are serving, which are problematic, and which are generating results.
Product Explorer is currently available to US advertisers with fewer than 100,000 SKUs.
Product Explorer brings product-level visibility to Merchant Center
Navah Hopkins, Microsoft Advertising Liaison announced the feature is LinkedIn.
According to Hopkins, Product Explorer was developed in response to feedback from advertisers regarding feed management and product visibility.
Hopkins provided Search Engine Journal with a direct quote, stating:
We heard feedback from industry that it was difficult to keep tabs and manage feeds in Microsoft. With the Product Explorer, you can easily search and understand which products are rejecting, performing well and which need to be optimized. This means less time manually going through reports and more time making meaningful changes to your flow to ensure you achieve the results you want.
The new tool helps advertisers identify products that are being served, rejected, or limited due to flow issues.
It also connects to from Microsoft Recommended Actions feature. This gives advertisers guidance on how to resolve issues and improve product eligibility.
Search, filter and export product data
Product Explorer includes filtering for feed attributes and performance metrics.
Advertisers can filter products using fields such as:
- Title
- Product ID
- Brand
- GTIN
- Product type
- Custom labels
- and more.
Performance filters include:
- Prints
- Clicks
- Conversions
- Spend
- CTR
- Conversion rate.
Advertisers can also combine feed attributes with performance data.
For example, they can identify products with low impressions in a specific product category. They can also review the performance of custom label groups.
Filtered product listings can be exported for offline analysis.
According to Hopkins, one use case is identifying products that are not being served. Advertisers can quickly find products with little or no visibility and investigate potential causes.
The report can also help advertisers evaluate feed taxonomy decisions.
Product types, categories, and custom labels are often used to organize campaigns. Product Explorer makes it easy to review the performance of these classifications.
The tool also provides a faster way to analyze performance at the product level. High and underperforming products can be identified without creating separate reports.
Why it matters to advertisers
Product feeds continue to play an important role in Shopping campaign performance.
Food quality can influence viewability, query matching, and overall campaign results.
Historically, solving flow problems has not always been simple.
Advertisers often had to move from Merchant Center diagnostics to feed management tools and campaign reporting. Product Explorer brings much of this information together in one place.
For advertisers managing large catalogs, the biggest benefit might be efficiency.
The tool makes it easier to identify rejected products. It also helps advertisers spot products that aren’t generating impressions or conversions.
This visibility can help teams prioritize feed updates and optimization efforts.
Adding product-level performance filters can also help advertisers uncover trends that would otherwise be hidden in campaign-level reporting.
What comes next
Product Explorer addresses a challenge that many Microsoft advertisers have faced for years.
Understanding flow status and product performance often required multiple reports and workflows.
This update brings this information together in a single interface.
Initial rollout is limited to US advertisers with fewer than 100,000 SKUs. Microsoft says it is actively collecting feedback as it considers future improvements and expansions.
For ecommerce advertisers, Product Explorer provides a more direct way to monitor feed status and product performance. It can also make routine food audits faster and more manageable.
Featured image: Samuel Boivin / Shutterstock
