Bing Shopping Feed: Complete Setup Guide for E-Commerce Brands
Learn how to set up and manage a Bing Shopping Feed for Microsoft Advertising. This guide covers feed setup, required attributes, best practices, and common issues.
A Bing Shopping Feed is a structured file that contains your product data and powers Bing Shopping Ads, which are now part of Microsoft Advertising. Google Shopping usually gets most of the attention when people talk about product feed advertising, but Bing Shopping is still worth paying attention to. Competition is often lower, cost-per-click tends to be cheaper, and ads reach users across Microsoft’s search network.
If you run catalog ads on more than one platform, setting up your Bing Shopping Feed correctly matters. It affects how often your products appear, how they’re shown, and how efficiently your ad spend is used.
What Is a Bing Shopping Feed?
A Bing Shopping Feed is a product catalog file formatted for Microsoft Advertising shopping campaigns. It works in a similar way to Google Shopping feeds. The file includes details about each product you want to advertise, such as:
Product titles and descriptions
Images and additional image links
Pricing and availability
Product identifiers like GTINs, MPNs, and brand
Product categories and custom labels
Shipping and tax information
Microsoft Advertising uses this feed as the data source for your shopping ads. These ads can appear in Bing search results, across the Microsoft Audience Network, and on partner sites.
Why Bing Shopping Matters
Bing’s overall search market share is smaller than Google’s, usually around 3–6% globally. Even so, that still represents millions of daily searches. The audience is also different. Bing users often skew older, tend to have higher household incomes, and frequently show strong purchase intent. For many e-commerce brands, this audience converts well.
Bing Shopping campaigns also come with some practical advantages:
Lower CPCs, often 30–50% cheaper than Google Shopping
Less competition, which can mean better visibility
Easy setup through Google Shopping campaign imports
Strong ROAS for many advertisers, sometimes comparable to Google
Setting Up Your Bing Shopping Feed
Step 1: Create a Microsoft Merchant Center Account
Before uploading a feed, you need a Microsoft Merchant Center account. This is separate from your Microsoft Advertising account, but the two connect directly.
Sign in using your Microsoft Advertising credentials
Navigate to Tools > Merchant Center
Complete store verification and set up tax and shipping
Step 2: Format Your Product Feed
Bing supports several feed formats:
XML (Atom 1.0 or RSS 2.0)
TXT (tab-delimited)
CSV
Each product in your feed needs certain required attributes.
Required attributes include:
id
title
description
link
image_link
availability
price
brand
gtin or mpn
condition
Recommended attributes include:
additional_image_link
product_type
google_product_category
custom_label_0 through custom_label_4
sale_price
Step 3: Upload Your Feed
There are a few ways to upload your feed into Microsoft Merchant Center:
Manual upload You upload the file directly through the interface. This works well for testing or smaller catalogs.
Scheduled fetch You provide a hosted feed URL, and Microsoft fetches updates on a schedule. This is the most common setup for ongoing use.
Content API For large catalogs or frequent changes, Microsoft offers a Content API that allows programmatic feed management.
Third-party feed tools Feed management platforms, like Marpipe’s feed management tool, can help organize products, resolve errors, and manage feeds across multiple platforms, including Bing.
Step 4: Validate and Fix Errors
After upload, Microsoft Merchant Center processes the feed and reports errors or warnings. Common issues include:
Missing required attributes
Broken image links or invalid URLs
GTIN or MPN mismatches
Pricing format issues
Unsupported characters in descriptions
Errors must be fixed before products can run. Warnings do not block ads, but they’re still worth addressing.
Common errors to look out for in a Bing Shopping Feed
Bing Shopping Feed Best Practices
Optimize Product Titles
Product titles matter more than almost any other attribute. Bing generally recommends titles in the 50–80 character range that include:
Brand name, if relevant
Clear product name
Key attributes like size, color, or model
A descriptive title performs better than a vague one.
The challenge? Each platform has different feed requirements, formatting rules, and optimization best practices. Managing separate feeds for Google, Bing, Meta, Pinterest, TikTok, and other platforms becomes overwhelming fast.
The Multi-Platform Feed Approach
Many brands maintain one master product catalog and use feed tools to format it for each platform. This reduces duplicate work, limits errors, and keeps product data consistent. It also makes testing and optimization easier across channels.
Marpipe’s feed management platform supports this approach by letting brands manage and distribute feeds across multiple platforms from one place.
Common Bing Shopping Feed Errors and Fixes
Missing GTIN Some categories require valid GTINs. Add them where available. For custom products, set identifier_exists to false.
Invalid image link Check that image URLs work, use HTTPS, and ensure images are publicly accessible.
Missing shipping information Set default shipping in Merchant Center or include shipping details at the product level.
Price mismatch Make sure the feed price matches the price on the product page. Use sale_price attributes instead of changing base prices during promotions.
Measuring Bing Shopping Feed Performance
Once campaigns are live, track key metrics such as impressions, CTR, CPC, conversion rate, and ROAS.
Inside Microsoft Advertising, the Product Groups report lets you analyze performance by SKU, category, brand, custom label, or price range. This data helps guide budget decisions and optimization over time.
Take Your Bing Shopping Feed to the Next Level
Setting up a Bing Shopping Feed is just the beginning. To maximize performance across Bing and all your other advertising platforms, you need strong product feed management practices and the ability to create compelling product ads that stand out.
Marpipe helps e-commerce brands manage their product feeds across multiple platforms and transform those feeds into beautiful, high-performing catalog ads. Whether you're advertising on Bing, Google, Meta, TikTok, or Pinterest, Marpipe gives you the tools to organize your product catalog with our free feed management platform, enrich your product data with AI-powered optimization, create branded catalog ads that convert better than generic product listings, and scale across platforms without manual work.
Our feed management platform is 100% free, making it easy to coordinate feeds across all your advertising platforms without additional costs. You get professional feed management that scales with your business, with no per-product fees, no usage limits, and no hidden catches.
For brands looking to maximize catalog advertising performance, Marpipe's enriched catalog ads have driven an average 53% ROAS increase compared to standard product feed ads. By giving you complete creative control over how your products appear in catalog ads, we help you stand out in crowded feeds and convert more browsers into buyers.
What’s the difference between a Bing Shopping Feed and a Google Shopping Feed?
They’re almost the same. Both use the Google Product Feed specification for formatting. The differences are small — a few platform‑specific attributes and the merchant center you use to manage them. Most brands just build a Google Shopping Feed first and then import it into Bing.
Can I use the same feed for Bing and Google Shopping?
Yes. Bing accepts Google Shopping feed formats, so you can point both platforms to the same file. Some brands even keep one feed URL and connect it to both Google Merchant Center and Microsoft Merchant Center.
How often should I update my Bing Shopping Feed?
Daily updates are usually best. That way pricing, availability, and inventory stay accurate. If your stock changes quickly or you run promotions often, update more frequently — even multiple times per day. The Content API or automated feed tools can handle that.
Do I need a GTIN for every product in my Bing Shopping Feed?
For most products, yes. GTINs (UPCs, EANs, ISBNs) are required, especially in categories like electronics, media, and apparel. If you sell items without GTINs, handmade, custom, or vintage, you can set identifier_exists = false in your feed to get around the requirement.
What’s the maximum file size for a Bing Shopping Feed?
Microsoft Merchant Center allows feed files up to 4GB. That’s enough for most catalogs. If yours is bigger, split it into multiple feeds or use the Content API for uploads.
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