Hotline Integration

Hotline.ua is one of the highest-traffic shopping-comparison destinations for Ukrainian buyers, meaning a well-structured feed puts your catalog in front of shoppers who are already in comparison mode and close to a purchase decision. Because ranking on Hotline depends heavily on feed quality — accurate categorization, complete specifications, in-stock accuracy, and clean pricing — an automated, error-free feed directly affects how often your products are shown and clicked.

Unlike a one-time export, product data changes constantly: prices move, stock runs out, new SKUs launch. A connected feed keeps your Hotline listings synchronized with your actual catalog instead of a static file that goes stale within days.

Hotline.ua operates on a cost-per-click (CPC) model: you don't pay to be listed, you pay only when a shopper clicks through from Hotline to your store. Reported click costs vary by the position your offer occupies in the comparison list — cited figures put 1st position at roughly 8.4 UAH per click, 2nd at 7.8 UAH, 3rd at 7.2 UAH, and 4th place or lower at a base rate of around 6 UAH, with an additional charge for promoted placements. Sellers fund a prepaid advertising account, reported to require a minimum top-up of 540 UAH.

Because ranking factors reportedly include your CPC bid alongside product relevance, description completeness, and stock availability, a clean, fully-attributed feed can influence your position — and therefore your cost per click — as much as your bid does. Note: exact current rates and ranking weights are set by Hotline and may change; confirm live pricing in your Hotline merchant account.

Hotline.ua accepts several feed formats submitted either as a hosted URL (crawled automatically on a schedule you configure) or as a manual upload from your account dashboard:

1. Hotline XML / YML — a structured XML format, functionally similar to Yandex's YML standard, built around <item> elements inside a <shop>/<offers> structure
2. CSV — delimited text
3. XLS — spreadsheet, with the product feed required on the first sheet and no formulas, hidden rows, or hidden columns permitted
4. TXT — delimited text file

One documented exception: CSV and XLS are not accepted for products in the Sports & Recreation clothing category — those require XML/YML. The feed file must open with a valid XML declaration (<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>, or windows-1251 if you use that encoding) and the total feed is capped at 150,000 items.

Reserved XML characters must be escaped per the XML standard — < as <, > as >, and & as & — and control characters (ASCII codes 0-31, except tab, line feed, and carriage return) are not permitted anywhere in the file.

Hotline's published feed specification defines a small set of mandatory fields per item, plus a longer list of optional fields that materially affect matching, ranking, and approval:

Additional optional fields covered in Hotline's specification include guarantee (warranty length, with a unit attribute), region (oblast-level delivery availability), shipping (required when an item is on order), custom (bid management), payment, and delivery.

Feedance maps your product catalog to Hotline.ua's required structure without you hand-building XML:

1. Connect your store or product source (Shopify, WooCommerce, custom catalog, or an existing feed URL) to Feedance.
2. Select the Hotline.ua template and map your fields to Hotline's schema — id, categoryId, vendor, name, url, and priceRUAH at minimum, plus the optional fields you want to strengthen ranking with (image, stock, param, description, etc.).
3. Match your internal product categories to Hotline's category taxonomy so listings land in the correct comparison pages.
4. Feedance generates a hosted feed URL in Hotline-compatible XML/YML, escaping reserved characters and enforcing the 20-character id limit and other format rules automatically.
5. Submit that feed URL in your Hotline merchant account for scheduled automatic re-download, or trigger a manual re-fetch after major catalog changes.

Because Feedance keeps the feed synced to your live catalog, price and stock changes propagate to Hotline without manual re-exports.

Hotline.ua's own documentation states that sellers can update their offers multiple times per day, and that newly submitted products are reviewed and added to the catalog during business hours rather than instantly. Since Hotline is a comparison engine surfacing live prices and stock, feeds that update only once a day risk showing stale prices or out-of-stock items to shoppers who then bounce at checkout — which, under Hotline's CPC model, means paying for clicks that don't convert. Refreshing price and availability at least daily, and ideally several times a day for fast-moving SKUs, keeps listings accurate and protects your ad spend.

Based on Hotline's published feed requirements, the most common causes of rejected items or feed-level failures are:

1. Unmapped or incorrect categoryId — items assigned to a category that doesn't exist in Hotline's taxonomy, or mapped to the wrong one
2. Missing required fields — any item lacking id, categoryId, vendor, name, url, or priceRUAH
3. Non-manufacturer data in code or barcode — using these fields for internal SKUs or unrelated identifiers instead of the manufacturer's own article number or barcode
4. Placeholder, stock-photo, or watermarked images where a real product photo on a white background is expected
5. HTML markup or unescaped special characters inside name, description, or other text fields
6. Unauthorized control characters (ASCII 0-31, excluding tab, line feed, and carriage return) anywhere in the XML file
7. Feed exceeding the 150,000-item limit, which can cause the whole file to fail processing
8. Product page blocking crawlers or redirecting via JavaScript, preventing Hotline from verifying the linked url

The following are general feed-hygiene practices, not official Hotline policy, but they align directly with what Hotline's specification rewards or penalizes:

1. Keep the name field to a single, precise model designation — Hotline explicitly disallows bundling multiple models or promotional phrasing into it.
2. Invest time in accurate category mapping before launch; a mismatched categoryId is one of the most common reasons items don't appear where shoppers expect.
3. Fill in as many optional fields as apply (param, description, guarantee, region) — since Hotline's ranking reportedly weighs description completeness and relevance alongside your CPC bid, a thin feed can cost you visibility even at the same bid level.
4. Keep stock status current; since Hotline charges per click, sending shoppers to out-of-stock pages wastes ad spend under the CPC model.
5. Use real manufacturer codes and barcodes only, and real product photography on white backgrounds — both are explicit requirements, not just best practice, for approval.

Does Hotline.ua charge to list products?
No listing fee — Hotline uses a cost-per-click model, so you only pay when a shopper clicks through to your store, with reported costs varying by your position in the comparison list.

Who can sell on Hotline.ua?
Only registered legal entities — a FOP (individual entrepreneur) or TOV (limited liability company) — after submitting registration and tax documents and signing a seller agreement.

What feed formats does Hotline.ua accept?
Hotline XML/YML, CSV, XLS, and delimited TXT — except for Sports & Recreation clothing items, which must be submitted in XML/YML.

Is there a limit on feed size?
Yes — Hotline's specification caps feeds at 150,000 items.

How often does Hotline re-check my feed?
Hotline states sellers can update offers multiple times a day, with new products reviewed and added during business hours rather than in real time.

Can Feedance handle Hotline's category taxonomy automatically?
Feedance lets you map your store's categories to Hotline's taxonomy during setup so items are classified correctly before the feed is submitted.