Launching your first ad can seem complex. This guide walks you through the five key areas you need to prepare before going live with your first Tanganica campaign: uploading your products, setting up the tracking code, choosing the right campaign format, setting your budget, and checking your store's technical health. Each of these areas directly affects how well your ads perform.
Chapter 1: Uploading Products to the App
For Tanganica to know what to advertise, it needs access to your products. You do this by providing a link to your XML product feed — a digital catalogue of your store that Tanganica loads daily and uses to build your ads.
What is an XML feed and why does it matter?
An XML product feed is a file containing a list of all your products with their details — names, prices, images, availability, and more. You add it to Tanganica as a URL where the feed is accessible. We require it in Google Shopping XML format, which most e-commerce platforms can generate automatically. The more accurate and complete the data in the feed, the better the system knows who to show your products to and when. A poor-quality feed directly reduces campaign performance — even if everything else is set up correctly.
Required feed attributes
Attribute | What it contains | Watch out for |
| Unique product ID | Never change the ID of a product that has already collected data. |
| Product name | Must include key information: name, material, size, colour, brand. Avoid generic names like "Black T-shirt". |
| Product description | At least 2 sentences with relevant keywords. Don't just copy technical specs. |
| Product page URL | URL must work and lead directly to the product, not a category page. |
| Main image URL | White background, product clearly visible, minimum 800 × 800 px. No watermarks or overlaid text. |
| Price with currency | Must exactly match the price on your website. Any discrepancy will cause the ad to be rejected. |
| Product availability | Values: |
| Product brand | Helps the system accurately identify the product and target people actively searching for it. |
| EAN / barcode | Without a GTIN, the system has more difficulty identifying the product. If you don't have one, at least fill in |
Most common feed errors
Generic or empty product names. A name like "Winter Jacket" tells neither the customer nor the algorithm anything. Correct: "Women's Winter Down Jacket, Black, Size M".
Price in the feed doesn't match the price on the website. The ad is immediately rejected. Both values must always match, including sale prices.
Out-of-stock products marked as in stock. The customer clicks through, arrives on the site and the product isn't available. This hurts the conversion rate of your entire store.
Missing or broken image URL. A product without an image cannot be advertised. Check that all image URLs are accessible and unchanged.
Changing the ID of a product that has collected data. The system loses the history of that product and optimisation starts from zero.
Feed that is too small or not updated regularly. The feed should contain all active products. Every product is an opportunity to be shown and brings in new data.
Chapter 2: Setting Up the Tracking Code
The tracking code is a snippet placed on your website that monitors customer behaviour and sends this data back to your campaigns. Thanks to the tracking code, the system knows which clicks led to an order, who added a product to their cart, and on which devices customers are shopping. Without correctly set up tracking, we cannot launch campaigns.
Tracking events
purchase— required. The customer completes an order. Without this event we cannot launch campaigns. It is the primary optimisation signal and must be set up on the order confirmation page.add_to_cart— recommended. The customer adds a product to their cart. Helps the campaign identify interested customers before a purchase occurs, and speeds up the learning phase.
Most common tracking code errors
Tracking code placed on the wrong page. The
purchaseevent must fire on the confirmation page after the order is completed — not on the cart or payment page.Event fires multiple times for one order. This causes duplicate measurement. Make sure the event fires only once when the confirmation page loads.
Missing order value in the event. If the purchase event doesn't include the order value (the
valueparameter together withcurrency), the system doesn't know what revenue the campaigns are generating and cannot correctly optimise the cost-of-sale.
Chapter 3: Choosing the Campaign Format
Why we recommend starting with Performance Max
Performance Max is a campaign type that covers multiple ad placements at once, including Google Shopping and Search. Instead of managing each format separately, the algorithm tests where and to whom to show your products and gradually focuses on what delivers results. For a first campaign, it is the ideal choice.
What assets to upload to the campaign
Performance Max automatically assembles ads from the assets you upload. The system continually tests different combinations and determines what works best for your customers. That is why it is important for the assets to be varied and high quality.
Asset type | Requirements | Recommendations |
Images | Square 1:1 — min. 300 × 300 px (recommended 1200 × 1200 px) | Photos of the product in real use, not just a cut-out on a white background. No text or watermarks. |
Logo | Square 1:1 — min. 128 × 128 px | Must be readable even at small sizes. Don't use a version with a detailed background. |
Headlines | Short — max. 30 characters, min. 3 | Each headline must make sense on its own. Include varied styles: benefit, call to action, category name. |
Descriptions | Max. 90 characters each, min. 2 | Write about the value for the customer. Keep texts general — they are combined with different products from the feed. |
Why not to launch multiple formats at once
Smart Bidding needs a critical number of conversions to complete the learning phase and begin optimising effectively. When budget is split across multiple campaigns, none of them reaches this threshold — all remain in learning and performance stagnates.
Example: You have €200 in credit and launch three campaigns. Each gets roughly €65 — not enough for any of them to learn properly. If you put all €200 into one campaign, it has a real chance to collect enough conversions and start optimising. One campaign with sufficient credit will always outperform three campaigns starved of data.
CSS partnership and the advantage of lower cost-per-click
Tanganica is a CSS partner (Comparison Shopping Service). This means our Google Shopping ads enter a different auction than ads managed directly through Google. The result is that you pay up to 20% less for the same click. This advantage works automatically — you don't need to configure anything extra.
Chapter 4: Budget — How Much and Why
How the credit model works
Tanganica operates on a credit model. You choose the amount of credit you want to invest in advertising. The credit is gradually used for two things: ad spend (clicks and impressions) and a fee for orders generated by the campaigns. The fee is calculated from the order value captured by the tracking code — ideally excluding VAT and shipping, depending on your store's DataLayer configuration.
How much credit do we recommend loading?
For a start, we recommend credit of €200 to €400 per month. This gives the campaign enough room to collect data throughout the month and makes the results after 30 days meaningful and comparable. A lower credit doesn't mean lower risk — it simply means the campaign will have less data available and results at the end of the period will be harder to interpret.
Example: The average order value in your store is €50. With €80 of monthly credit, the campaign will generate at most a handful of orders — the system then can't tell whether it was a random result or a trend. With €200, the campaign has a real chance of collecting ten or more conversions from which meaningful conclusions can be drawn.
30-day attribution window
Tanganica uses last-click attribution with a 30-day window. If a customer clicks on an ad today and makes a purchase any time within 30 days, that order is attributed to the campaign and the fee is deducted from the credit. This applies even after a campaign is switched off — credit may continue to be drawn from orders that the ad previously influenced.
Most common credit mistakes
Credit that is too low. The campaign may stop before it has had a chance to collect data. Or it runs for the full month but there are so few orders that no conclusions can be drawn.
Switching off the campaign after the first few days. The algorithm needs a 30-day learning phase. Fluctuations in the first days are normal and don't tell you anything on their own. If you switch off the campaign prematurely, you lose all the data collected so far.
Chapter 5: Pre-launch Store Checklist
Ads will bring customers to your website, but the result depends on what they find there. Technical or content issues on your site can mean that even a well-configured campaign won't generate orders. Before launching, check the following:
Slow page loading. Pages should load within 3 seconds. Every additional second means a higher bounce rate. You can check your site speed directly in Tanganica under the Diagnostics section.
Site not optimised for mobile. Most customers arrive from mobile devices. If your site isn't mobile-friendly, customers will leave even after seeing a great ad. Test on a real phone, not just in a browser.
Broken cart or payment gateway. Before launching, complete a test order from start to finish. Every step of the entire process must work without errors.
Missing or poor-quality product pages. Every product page must have high-quality photos from multiple angles, a clear description of benefits, and information on availability and delivery.
Missing trust elements. Contact details, terms and conditions, return policy information, and customer reviews are critical for a first-time visitor. Without them, it is difficult to persuade a customer to make their first purchase.
Missing HTTPS or invalid certificate. A site without a valid SSL certificate is flagged as unsafe by browsers. Customers immediately leave such a site, and ads cannot be run on it.
Broken 404 page. If a link in the feed leads to a non-existent page, the customer sees an error. The feed should always point to active product pages.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact your account manager at Tanganica.