GMB - Cars For Sale Feeds (Hoot Provided Service)

Owned by Brenton Rose
Last updated: Jul 12, 2023
3 min read

Hoot has now been approved as a participant in the Google Cars For Sale Program and can now submit inventory for advertisers who wish to have their cars presented in the Google Business Profile. Some Agencies were able to obtain a direct access to the program and those instructions can be found here. These instructions are for clients who do not have their own assigned FTP credentials to upload their clients data.

For a short video on this process please click here:

The process is simple:

You must obtain the advertiser’s Store Code that can be found in the info section of their GMB profile. By default these fields are blank and the code must be created. Although not officially stated we have found the only requirements is that the code must not start with “0” zero. Other info can be found here.

Once you have the code then place the code in the profile settings inside the Hoot interface.

 

Next Create the feed:

  • Open the inventory Feeds Page of your advertiser

  • Create the new feed seen here:

The feed requires the use of the Google My Business Store Code. There is a section that should already have this code in the Advertiser Settings. However (Not Recommended), alternatively you you place the code in the feed settings when creating the feed.

 

Once you submit and create the feed that is it. We will automatically add new advertisers when we process the feeds for Google. Google works with other providers so our feeds are not always selected by default. Clients can ensure we are the provider of choice by assigning us as the preferred provider once our feeds start being published to Google. Please see the documents below for additional help managing the inventory. If any questions please contact our support team.

To Manage the Vehicles Listings on your Business Profile get help here:

https://developers.google.com/vehicle-listings/integration-process/dealer-provider-choice

https://developers.google.com/vehicle-listings/business-profile/manage-vehicle-listings

 

Assigning Hoot as your Cars For Sale primary provider:

One of the most common issues we find when clients are first setting up the Cars for Sale feature is that the inventory is not being uploaded via the Hoot feed. This happens because there are multiple providers uploading feed data for dealerships. To ensure your account is using the Hoot Data you may need to update the provider selection inside the business account.

Google provides the link above identifying the process but lacks a detailed explanation of the process. Below is a quick summary of the steps needed and supporting screenshots.

The user making this change must have admin rights to the Business Property

  1. Find your listing on Google and Navigate to the Vehicle Listings Tab

  1. Turn off the “automatic selection” option

 

  1. Edit your Provider Selection to Hoot