Feed Import lets you connect a Google Sheets file to a campaign and generate creatives at scale — one row in your sheet produces one creative. When your data changes, you can re-sync the sheet to update your live creatives without rebuilding the campaign from scratch.
Before you start
Feed Import works with Creative Masters — a special type of creative that acts as a template. Before connecting a sheet, you need at least one Creative Master set up in your campaign.
A Creative Master is a regular creative that has been marked as a Master. It defines the asset slot names that you will map your sheet columns to. Creative Masters cannot be published directly — they exist only as templates for the creatives that the import generates.
To mark a creative as a Master:
Open your campaign and create a new creative (or use an existing one).
In the creative settings, enable the Master toggle.
Name your asset slots clearly — these names will appear in the mapping interface. Using names that match or closely resemble your sheet column headers will make mapping faster.
You can have multiple Creative Masters in one campaign with different layouts or sizes. The import will generate each creative using whichever Master you reference in the sheet.
Step 1 — Prepare your Google Sheet
Your file must be a Google Sheets file. If your data is currently in Excel (.xlsx) or another format, you need to convert it before connecting. To convert, open the file in Google Drive, click File → Save as Google Sheets. Once converted, use the Google Sheets version for the import.
Structure your sheet so that each row represents one creative you want to create. Put your column headers in the first row of the first tab — NEXD reads the first tab of the file and treats the first row as the header row automatically.
At a minimum, your sheet needs columns for:
Creative name — what the generated creative will be called in your campaign
Creative Master — the name of the Master creative the row should be based on
You can also include columns for creative size, platform / DSP, asset slots, click actions, and trackers. These are all mapped in a later step.
If your sheet contains image URLs, those URLs must be publicly accessible. If you are linking to assets stored in Google Drive, make sure sharing is set to Anyone with the link for each file. Assets behind a login or restricted sharing will fail to load in the generated creatives.
Step 2 — Add a Feed Connection
Open the campaign where your Creative Masters are set up.
Click Feed Connection. A Data Integration modal will open.
Click Import from Google Sheets and complete the Google authentication flow. You will be asked to grant Read and Write access to your Google Drive. Write access is needed so NEXD can write the generated ad IDs back to your sheet after import.
Once authenticated, select the Google Sheets file you want to connect.
NEXD will automatically read the first tab of the file and use the first row as column headers.
Step 3 — Map your columns
This is where you connect your sheet columns to creative fields and asset slots. The interface shows the fields on the left and lets you select the matching sheet column on the right.
Required fields — these must be mapped before you can import:
Creative Name — the column containing the name for each creative
Creative Master — the column referencing which Master creative each row is based on
Optional fields:
Creative Size — if left unmapped, the size of the referenced Master is used
Platform / DSP — the target platform for each creative
Asset slots — the interface shows the combined list of asset slot names across all Creative Masters in your campaign. Map each slot to the sheet column that contains the relevant asset URL or value:
master_1_asset_1 → [your sheet column]
master_1_asset_2 → [your sheet column]
Click Actions — map globally (applies to all assets in the creative) or per individual asset slot:
Global click action → [your sheet column]
Per-slot click action → [your sheet column]
Tracking — impression and click trackers can be mapped globally or per asset slot:
Impression Tracker (Global) → [your sheet column]
Impression Tracker (per slot) → [your sheet column]
Click Tracker (Global) → [your sheet column]
Click Tracker (per slot) → [your sheet column]
Any mapping errors will be flagged here before you proceed. Fix these before triggering the import.
Step 4 — Run the import
Once all required fields are mapped and no errors are shown, click Import. NEXD will read each row in your sheet and create a creative in the campaign based on the referenced Master. After the import completes, the generated ad IDs are automatically written back to your sheet.
Large sheets may take a moment to process. Do not close the tab while the import is running.
Updating creatives after import (Manual Sync)
Feed Import does not sync automatically. If data in your sheet changes after the initial import, you need to manually trigger a re-sync to update your creatives.
To re-sync:
Open the campaign and go to the Feed Connection you set up.
Click Sync.
NEXD will re-read the sheet and update the existing creatives with the new data.
Your creatives are updated in place — nothing is deleted or recreated.
Things to keep in mind
Creative Masters cannot be published. Only the creatives generated from them can be published.
If a row references a Master name that does not exist in the campaign, that row will fail validation before import. Check that Master names in your sheet exactly match the names in your campaign.
Row-level errors during import are not currently reported individually. Errors are surfaced in the mapping validation step before import begins.
Only Google Sheets is supported as a data source. Excel files must be converted to Google Sheets before connecting.
Image URLs in your sheet must be publicly accessible. Assets stored in Google Drive must have sharing set to Anyone with the link — restricted files will not load.
Large sheets may take a moment to process. Do not close the tab while the import is running.
Feed Import is currently available upon request. If you'd like access, reach out to your customer success manager and we'll get you set up.