Hi djwilko12,
Thanks for using our plugin and reaching out to us.
The attribute Category path is meant to be mapped to Google’s g:product_type field. See: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324406?hl=en
As you can see in the examples given on the above page characters such as > need to be encoded. That is why you see the “strange characters”.
The default category mapping for Google feeds is this one, you need to leave it as is: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3s6atpc2esmvd0s/catmap1.png?dl=0
The above mapping will put the Google category taxonomy ID’s in the feed when you have completed the category mapping on the ‘Category mapping’ page. See paragraph 3 of this tutorial: https://adtribes.io/setting-up-your-first-google-shopping-product-feed/
When you want to put the name of your original WooCommerce categorie(s) in your feed, for example in a custom label, then you need to add this field mapping to your feed configuration: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tjyltzzzlreknj6/catmap2.png?dl=0
Hope this helps?
All the best,
Eva