Catalog Best Practices

DoorDash’s catalog is a centralized database of your items and their content (e.g. images, descriptions, etc.). DoorDash uses your catalog as the source of truth for which products your brand(s) own, how product content appears across the DoorDash marketplace, and which products are eligible to run ads & promos on. 

If your catalog is incomplete, inconsistent, or outdated, it can directly impact product visibility, ad delivery, and performance. Following best practices helps ensure your products are accurately represented and ready for campaigns.

Use a syndicator to update your catalog

DoorDash recommends updating your catalog through one of our partner syndicators. You can inform us of which syndicator you work with by going to the Settings, then Integrations page in your Ads Manager account.

Syndicators are product management platforms that DoorDash uses to obtain product information (images and attributes). They are the primary source of truth for product content and allow you to manage updates consistently across platforms.

Benefits include:

• Centralized management of product content (images, attributes, identifiers)

• Greater consistency across retailers and platforms

• Reduced risk of manual errors

If possible:

• Use Salsify or Syndigo for faster, automated updates

  • DoorDash Direct Connection in Salsify and Syndigo Active Products allow you to upload content that's only accessible by DoorDash and not by any other retailer. You must subscribe to these feeds in order to publish content updates. These feeds include additional required content fields and enable a more complete, higher-quality SKU setup.

  • If you use Salsify Direct Connection or Syndigo Active Products, DoorDash will pull content from these feeds first, with Salsify Open Catalog or Syndigo Marketplace being secondary if there is missing information.

If you leverage Salsify’s Direct Connection or Syndigo’s Active Products, you may be eligible for our fully automated content pipeline, with your content updates reflected on the DoorDash marketplace within 24 hours.

Available syndication partners vary by region. In Australia, DoorDash supports SKUvantage, while in Canada, DoorDash supports 1WorldSync. Please reach out to your account manager for more details.

Ensure complete and accurate product data

Incomplete or mismatched product data is one of the most common causes of catalog and campaign issues. Before publishing updates, confirm that the information is complete and matches what's on your website, including:

• Product names follow a consistent structure

• UPCs and GTINs are accurate and match your internal systems

• Images are high quality and correctly assigned (primary or auxiliary). Images must be under 2MB and a JPG, JPEG, or PNG file type

• Attributes (size, variants, etc.) are complete. All sizes should be abbreviated (e.g. oz, kg)

Innovation items: 

An innovation item is a new product that hasn't yet launched in stores or on the DoorDash marketplace, but is being prepared for future release. In practice, this means it's a new SKU (e.g., new flavor, size, or product line). It may already exist in your catalog system (Salsify, Syndigo, etc.), but it shouldn't be visible to customers yet.

If you use Salsify Direct Connection, enter the future launch date in the Launch Date field to prevent the item from going live early.

If you use another setup, notify your DoorDash Account Executive or email cpg-catalog-updates@doordash.com before sending the content. Include the GTINs or UPCs and the intended launch date for each item.

Content guidelines

Image guidelines:

Item name guidelines

DoorDash will infer your item name based on the information provided. Below are some guidelines the DoorDash team uses for item names:

• Text guidelines:

  • Special characters - most need to be removed. Special characters that do NOT need to be removed are & # % ! + - ‘ .

  • Character count - <80 characters (ideally), 100 characters (max)

  • Spelling & Case structure - use title casing for item names with the first letter of each word capitalized unless there is a transition word (e.g. and, to, for, by, with, of, the, in, from, on). Abbreviations should remain in capital letters

• Sizes & UOM guidelines:

  • Location - include size and UOM after cleaned item name

  • Size exceptions - if the size is part of the item’s differentiator, it should be included with the item name

  • Extended sizing - used when there are multiple items in a pack. Indicates both the size of each individual item and how many there are (e.g. A oz x B ct)

  • All UOMs will be abbreviated (e.g. oz, L, kg)

  • Where needed, include the leading zero (e.g. 0.5oz)

Regularly audit your catalog

Catalog quality should be monitored continuously by referencing the Catalog and Retailers page in Ads Manager to:

• Audit the accuracy and breadth of your catalog and each item’s content

• See which items are tied to your brand, available for you to advertise on, and purchasable by consumers on the DoorDash marketplace

• Understand which items are included in your business reporting

• View which retailers are selling each item

For larger catalogs, use exports and filters to audit at scale.

Common issues to watch for

Incorrect GTIN/UPC or product information

Reasons this may occur:

• Content updates are not instantaneous and may take up to 5 days to be reflected

• Product(s) at a retailer may not be properly linked to corresponding items in DoorDash’s catalog 

• Retailer elects to display their own content over the content you provided to DoorDash

• DoorDash may edit the content in accordance with guidelines

• Incorrect GTIN/UPC exists in the DoorDash catalog

Missing products

Reasons this may occur:

• Product is not in the DoorDash catalog

• Product is not assigned to the correct brand in DoorDash’s catalog

• Product is not listed at any retailer, or retailer did not provide sufficient information for us to link the item to the corresponding item in your DoorDash catalog

Content is accurate at one retailer but different for another retailer

Reasons this may occur:

• Retailer-controlled content - some retailers use their own content rather than content in the DoorDash catalog. This is indicated with a yellow Retailer content tag in the Retailers page of Ads Manager

• DoorDash catalog and retailer catalog products are unlinked - retailer did not provide sufficient or correct information for us to be able to link to the corresponding item in your DoorDash catalog

Delayed updates: your updates may not have been properly or completely pushed via your syndicators, or DoorDash may still be in the process of updating your content

Discontinued items: may exist in your catalog so that we can attribute historical sales for the product in your business and campaign reporting. 

• If the product is truly discontinued, then no merchants will be selling that product and the product will not show up on DoorDash for purchase. 

• If you are seeing a discontinued product being sold on DoorDash or are seeing recent sales attributed to a discontinued product, that indicates that a merchant is telling DoorDash that they are still selling and have inventory for this product

How to resolve common issues

• Confirm that updates were successfully published in your syndicator or shared with DoorDash via a flat file

• After 5 business days, if content still looks out of date, please reach out to your Account Executive or email cpg-catalog-updates@doordash.com. Include as much information as possible, such as GTINs/UPCs, product details, retailer details, screenshots, etc.

Catalog’s impact on Ads/Promos

In order for an item to be eligible for Ads, the item must exist in your DoorDash catalog, be linked to the correct brand, and be linked to corresponding items at 1+ retailers. 

Inaccurate or missing product images/titles/attributes can impair ad relevance, click-through rates, and conversion. Clean, up-to-date catalogs help your ads appear accurately, improving performance and reducing wasted spend.

If updates are needed, once your content updates are ingested and synchronized, corrections propagate to live campaigns and listings. Allow for a five-day sync delay.