Your first enrichment run
What happens on your first /tools enrichment run, how to read the Feed Health Score and per-field results, and how to get your new feed URL into Google Merchant Center.
Your first enrichment run is where /tools turns the catalogue you connected into a Merchant Center-ready feed. It rebuilds the fields Google cares about, scores the result out of 100, and shows you exactly what changed per field and per product. Then you copy one feed URL into Merchant Center and Google fetches it on a schedule. Nothing in your store or source feed changes.
What the first run does
The first enrichment run reads the catalogue you connected, whether that's Shopify, a feed URL, or an uploaded CSV, and rebuilds up to 20 fields per product to Google's spec: titles, descriptions, Google Product Categories, brand, colour, size, gender, age group, material, custom labels, recovered identifiers and more.
None of this touches your source. The improvements live in a supplemental layer and are served to Google through a new feed URL. See How enrichment works for the mechanics. Your store, feed or file stays exactly as it was.
Small catalogues finish in minutes. Large ones run in the background in chunks, with progress shown in the app: you can close the tab and come back.
Reading your Feed Health Score
When the run completes, you land on your Feed Health Score: one number, 0–100, summarising how Merchant Center-ready your catalogue now is. Above 90 is the target, and it's your baseline for everything that follows.
| Score | What it means |
|---|---|
| Above 90 | Google has complete, trustworthy data. This is where feeds win auctions they were previously losing. |
| 70–90 | Google is showing you, but you're leaving impressions on the table: usually thin titles or vague categories. |
| Below 70 | Structural gaps, most often missing identifiers or categories, are capping your visibility. |
A full explanation of what the number weighs is in Feed Health Score explained.
Reviewing the per-field results
Under the headline number, /tools breaks the run down by field and by product, so you can see exactly what changed and what's left. The practical way to read it:
- Scan the big wins. Titles and categories usually move the score most in one pass: you'll see how many products each was improved on.
- Check the recovered identifiers. Products that were invisible for want of a GTIN, now matched, are the ones most likely to start showing.
- Handle the residue. Enrichment fills what it can confidently determine; the products it couldn't are listed with a reason each: usually a genuinely unlabelled item with no identifier anywhere. Provide what's missing and re-run to lift them.
Deep dive Getting your feed into Merchant Center
Once you're happy with the run, the last step is one-time: point Merchant Center at your /tools feed URL.
- In /tools, copy the stable feed URL from your store dashboard. This single URL always serves your latest enriched feed: you never regenerate or re-upload it. See Your feed serving URL.
- In Merchant Center, go to Products → Feeds and add a primary feed. Choose the scheduled fetch method (not upload) so Google pulls fresh data on its own.
- Paste your /tools feed URL, set the country and language to match your feed, and pick a fetch frequency. Daily is a sensible default; match it to how often your prices and stock move.
- Save. Google fetches the feed, processes it, and your enriched products start flowing into Shopping.
From then on the loop is automatic: your source updates, /tools re-enriches on schedule, and Google fetches the result: no manual step in the middle. If a product is disapproved after processing, work it with Fix disapproved products; the fix almost always belongs in the feed, and /tools flags many disapproval risks before Google ever acts.
After your first run
Your feed is live and scored. From here:
- Re-run enrichment after providing any missing inputs to push the score above 90.
- Keep an eye on score movement: /tools monitors continuously, so an upstream data regression shows up as a change log entry rather than a silent loss of impressions.
- Once conversion data is flowing through Merchant Center, you're ready to connect Google Ads and open BidSmart.
Running more than one catalogue? Each store enriches and scores independently: see Managing multiple stores.
Step by step
- Run enrichment. With your store connected and mapped, open Optimise and start the enrichment run. /tools works through your catalogue, rebuilding up to 20 fields per product.
- Read your Feed Health Score. When the run finishes, /tools shows a Feed Health Score out of 100. Above 90 is the target. The number is your baseline for everything that follows.
- Review the per-field breakdown. Under the score, see what changed by field and by product (titles rewritten, categories assigned, identifiers recovered), and the products that need your input.
- Handle the residue. Enrichment fills what it can confidently determine. A small remainder is listed with a reason each. Provide what's missing and re-run to lift those products.
- Copy your feed URL into Merchant Center. Copy the stable feed URL from /tools. In Merchant Center, add it as a scheduled fetch feed. Google pulls the enriched feed on its own schedule from then on.
Frequently asked questions
How long does the first run take?
Small catalogues finish in a few minutes. Large catalogues process in the background in chunks, and you'll see progress in the app while it runs. You don't need to stay on the page.
What if my score isn't above 90 after the first run?
That's normal for catalogues that started with big gaps. The breakdown shows exactly which products and fields are holding the number down. Provide any missing inputs it lists (usually a handful of genuinely unlabelled products) and re-run to close the gap.
Does the first run change anything in my store?
No. Enrichment is non-destructive; it writes to a supplemental layer and serves the enriched version through your feed URL. Your Shopify store, source feed or uploaded file is never modified.