Google Merchant Center

Google Merchant Center is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that enables businesses to upload and manage product data for Google Shopping, providing tools for product feed optimization, inventory management, and performance tracking to maximize visibility and sales across Google's shopping ecosystem.

Power end-to-end data operations for your Google Merchant Center API with Nexla. Our bi-directional Google Merchant Center connector is purpose-built for Google Merchant Center, making it simple to ingest data, sync it across systems, and deliver it anywhere — all with no coding required. Nexla turns API-sourced data into ready-to-use, reusable data products and makes it easy to send data to Google Merchant Center or any other destination. With comprehensive monitoring, lineage tracking, and access controls, Nexla keeps your Google Merchant Center workflows fast, secure, and fully governed.

Features

Type: API

SourceDestination

• Seamless API Integration: Connect to any endpoint as source or destination without coding, with automatic data product creation
• Visual Composition & Chaining: Build complex integrations using visual templates, chain API calls, and compose workflows with data validation and filtering
• API Proxy: Expose curated slices of your data securely with a secure and customizable API proxy that validates and transforms data on the fly
• Request optimization with intelligent batching, retry, and caching to minimize API calls and costs

Prerequisites

Before creating a Google Merchant Center credential, you need to have a Google account with access to Google Merchant Center and have OAuth2 credentials (Client ID and client secret) configured in the Google Cloud Console. The OAuth2 credentials are required to authenticate with the Google Merchant Center Content API.

To obtain OAuth2 credentials, you need to create a project in the Google Cloud Console and enable the Google Merchant Center Content API for that project. Once the API is enabled, you can create OAuth2 credentials (OAuth 2.0 Client ID) in the Credentials section of the Google Cloud Console. The OAuth2 credentials include a Client ID and client secret that are used to authenticate API requests. For detailed information about setting up OAuth2 credentials and enabling the Google Merchant Center Content API, refer to the Google Merchant Center Content API quickstart guide.

Authenticate

Create a credential in Nexla

1. After selecting the data source/destination type, click the Add Credential tile to open the Add New Credential overlay.

New Credential Overlay – Google Merchant Center

2. Enter a name for the credential in the Credential Name field and a short, meaningful description in the Credential Description field.

3. Click the Authorize button to begin the OAuth2 authorization flow. This will redirect you to Google's authorization page where you will be asked to sign in with your Google account and grant permissions to Nexla to access your Google Merchant Center data.

   During the OAuth2 authorization flow, you will be redirected to Google's authorization page. You must sign in with a Google account that has access to the Google Merchant Center account you want to connect. After signing in, you will be asked to grant permissions to Nexla to access your Google Merchant Center data. The required scope is https://www.googleapis.com/auth/content, which allows read and write access to your Google Merchant Center account. Once you grant permissions, you will be redirected back to Nexla, and the authorization will be completed automatically.

4. After completing the OAuth2 authorization flow, Nexla will automatically obtain and store the access token and refresh token needed to authenticate API requests. The access token is used to authenticate each API request, and the refresh token is used to obtain new access tokens when the current access token expires.

   OAuth2 access tokens expire after a certain period for security reasons. Nexla automatically refreshes expired access tokens using the refresh token, so you typically do not need to re-authorize unless you revoke access or the refresh token expires. The access token is sent in the Authorization header with the Bearer prefix for all API requests to the Google Merchant Center Content API. For detailed information about OAuth2 authentication and token management, see the Google Merchant Center Content API documentation.

5. Click the Save button at the bottom of the overlay. The newly added credential will now appear in a tile on the Authenticate screen during data source/destination creation.

Use as a data source

To create a new data flow, navigate to the Integrate section, and click the New Data Flow button. Select the Google Merchant Center connector tile, then select the credential that will be used to connect to the Google Merchant Center account, and click Next; or, create a new Google Merchant Center credential for use in this flow.

Endpoint templates

Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure data sources to ingest data from common Google Merchant Center endpoints. Select the endpoint from which this source will fetch data from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Available endpoint templates are listed in the expandable boxes below.

List Resources Of a Type

List all resources of a type (ex: account, products, orders) in your Merchant Center account.

• Enter your Google Merchant Center Merchant ID in the Merchant ID field. This is the ID of the managing account for fetching resources. The Merchant ID can be found in your Google Merchant Center account settings or in the URL when viewing your account.
• Enter the type of resource you want to fetch in the Resource Type field. Common resource types include products, orders, accounts, etc. The default value is products if not specified. The resource type determines which type of data will be retrieved from your Merchant Center account.
• The endpoint uses GET requests to https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{merchant_id}/{resource_type} where {merchant_id} is your Merchant ID and {resource_type} is the Resource Type you provide. The endpoint URL is automatically constructed based on the Google Merchant Center Content API base URL, the merchant ID, and the resource type.
• The endpoint uses token-based pagination (iteration.type: paging.next.token) through the nextPageToken mechanism. The response data path is $.resources[*], which extracts all items from the resources array in the API response.

This endpoint retrieves all resources of the specified type from your Merchant Center account. The endpoint supports pagination through the nextPageToken parameter, which allows you to retrieve large datasets efficiently. The response includes a nextPageToken field when more results are available, and Nexla automatically handles fetching additional pages. Common resource types include products for product listings, orders for order data, and accounts for account information. For detailed information about available resource types and the API response format, see the Google Merchant Center Content API documentation.

Fetch Performance Metrics Report

Retrieves merchant performance metrics matching the search query and optionally segmented by selected dimensions.

• Enter your Google Merchant Center Merchant ID in the Merchant ID field. This is the ID of the merchant making the call. Must be a standalone account or an MCA subaccount. The Merchant ID can be found in your Google Merchant Center account settings or in the URL when viewing your account.
• Enter the query string for the performance metrics report in the Query String field. This query defines the performance metrics to retrieve and dimensions according to which the metrics are to be segmented. The query should follow the SQL-like format used by the Google Merchant Center Performance Reports API. The default value is SELECT segments.program, segments.offer_id, metrics.impressions,metrics.clicks, metrics.ctr FROM MerchantPerformanceView if not specified.
• The endpoint uses POST requests to https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{merchant_id}/reports/search where {merchant_id} is your Merchant ID you provide. The endpoint URL is automatically constructed based on the Google Merchant Center Content API base URL and the merchant ID.
• The endpoint sends the query string in the request body as JSON with the format {"query": "{query_string}"}. The query string is automatically formatted according to the Google Merchant Center Performance Reports API specification.
• The endpoint uses token-based pagination (iteration.type: paging.next.token) through the nextPageToken mechanism. The response data path is $.results[*], which extracts all items from the results array in the API response.

This endpoint retrieves performance metrics reports from your Merchant Center account based on the query you provide. The query uses a SQL-like syntax to select metrics and dimensions from the MerchantPerformanceView. You can segment metrics by various dimensions such as program, offer_id, date, etc. Common metrics include impressions, clicks, CTR (click-through rate), conversions, and revenue. The endpoint supports pagination through the nextPageToken parameter, which allows you to retrieve large reports efficiently. For detailed information about query syntax, available metrics, and dimensions, see the Google Merchant Center Content API documentation.

Fetch Authenticated User

Returns information about the authenticated user.

• This endpoint automatically retrieves information about the authenticated user from your Google Merchant Center account. No additional configuration is required beyond selecting this endpoint template.
• The endpoint uses GET requests to https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/accounts/authinfo. The endpoint URL is automatically constructed based on the Google Merchant Center Content API base URL.
• The endpoint does not use pagination (iteration.type: static.url) and returns a single response. The response data path is $, which extracts the entire root-level object from the API response.

This endpoint retrieves information about the authenticated user, including account details and available permissions. This is useful for verifying authentication and understanding what data you have access to. The endpoint returns a single response with user and account information. For detailed information about the response format and available fields, see the Google Merchant Center Content API documentation.

Once the selected endpoint template has been configured, click the Test button to the right of the endpoint selection menu to retrieve a sample of the data that will be fetched. Sample data will be displayed in the Endpoint Test Result panel on the right, allowing you to verify that the source is configured correctly before saving.

Manual configuration

Google Merchant Center data sources can also be manually configured to ingest data from any valid Google Merchant Center Content API endpoint not covered by the pre-built templates, or to apply further customizations. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the content format, endpoint URL, date/time and lookup macros, path to data, metadata, and request headers.

The Google Merchant Center Content API typically returns data in JSON format. Endpoint URLs generally follow the pattern https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{merchant_id}/{endpoint_path}, where {merchant_id} is your Merchant Center Merchant ID. The endpoint requires OAuth2 authentication via the Authorization: Bearer {token} header, which is handled automatically by your credential configuration.

Once all of the relevant settings have been configured, click the Create button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the new Google Merchant Center data source. Nexla will now begin ingesting data from the configured endpoint and will organize any data that it finds into one or more Nexsets.