# Vehicle Categories: Google Product Category by Body Style

Source: https://ducted.app/help/kb/vehicle-categories
Category: Feeds & Mapping

Google Vehicle ads, Meta and TikTok Automotive, Pinterest, Snapchat, Criteo and Microsoft all want to know *what kind* of vehicle each record is - a car, an ATV, a motorhome, a boat. Ducted keeps that in one place: the **Google product category** project field.

## Your industry decides what you see

Set your project's **Industry** (Settings tab) and the category list follows it: a powersports dealer is offered ATVs and UTVs, motorcycles, snowmobiles, personal watercraft, golf carts and trailers; an RV lot sees motorhomes and travel trailers; a marine dealer sees boats, sailboats and yachts; a car dealer sees cars, trucks and vans. Tick **Show all industries** when you carry something outside your usual mix.

If your source is a **recognised platform**, there is usually nothing to do: the platform knows which column carries the vehicle type, so your project arrives already classified and new values classify themselves on every refresh.

## One category, or one per body style

Open your project's **Settings** tab and add a **Google product category** field. It has two modes:

- **One category for all records** - the classic setting. Pick from the vehicle quick list (cars, ATVs & UTVs, motorcycles, RVs, boats...) or type to search Google's full taxonomy.
- **By body style / column** - for mixed inventories. Choose the column that describes each vehicle (body style, vehicle type, class, category...). Ducted lists every value it finds in your data, with record counts, and you assign each value a vehicle category. Values you don't assign take the **fallback** category.

Ducted pre-fills the table from known vocabulary (SUV, Crew Cab, Side by Side, Class A, Fifth Wheel, Pontoon...). Pre-filled rows that are only a *similar* match show a percentage badge - review them and tick **Mapping reviewed**.

You can add a second column: when the first column's value isn't assigned, the next column is consulted, and so on, before the fallback.

## What your feeds receive

Either mode exposes three columns to every feed in the project:

| Column | Value | Used by |
|---|---|---|
| `google_product_category` | full taxonomy path | Pinterest, Snapchat, Criteo, Microsoft Shopping, TikTok catalog |
| `google_product_category_id` | numeric id (e.g. `3018`) | Google Vehicle ads, Meta product catalog |
| `google_product_category_vehicle_type` | `car_truck`, `powersport`, `rv_camper`, `boat`... | Meta Automotive and TikTok Automotive `vehicle_type` |

Template feeds map these automatically - **AutoMap** picks the id or the path based on what the template accepts, and fills `vehicle_type` on Meta / TikTok automotive templates.

## Google Vehicle ads accepts only four categories

Google's vehicle-ads spec allows **916** (Cars, Trucks & Vans), **920** (Recreational Vehicles), **4243** (Travel Trailers) and **3018** (ATVs & UTVs, US only). Motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles and golf carts are not eligible. If your project classifies those too, the Vehicle Listing Ads feed's **Filters** tab offers a one-click **Keep only accepted categories** filter, so ineligible vehicles never reach Merchant Center as rejected items. The other channels take the whole taxonomy.

## Health check

A feed that uses the derived columns warns when records fell back to the fallback category - that means new body-style values appeared in your data. Open project settings, assign them, and the warning clears on the next save.