How to Implement Product Feed Optimization

Carolin Puls 9/16/2022

These tips and steps will help you with the implementation of product feed optimization.

Table of contents
  1. This is why you should optimize your product feed
  2. This is how you implement product feed optimization
  3. Time and current data are money

If you sell your products in your own online shop or on online marketplaces, you need a high-quality product feed that includes all information. The challenge of using different sales platforms lies mainly in the different specifications that you must take into account on the marketplaces, social media platforms, or comparison websites.

But a simple feed is not enough to distinguish you from your competitors and achieve more conversions. Your content must be high-quality, up-to-date, and perfectly prepared for each platform. In simple terms, you transform your product data, descriptions, and images to achieve your e-commerce goals. To make this work, you should implement product feed optimization, which helps you convince your customers and sell your products even better.

This is why you should optimize your product feed

In theory, digital marketing is simple. Your potential customers search for products online, see your offer or your ad, click on it, and become buyers. However, in practice, there are some guidelines to follow to ensure Google and Co. actually play out your offers to the searchers. This optimization takes time, especially if you want to advertise on different channels.

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The internet offers you many different ways to advertise your products.

As a rule, marketplaces and third-party platforms require information about the product name, price, product category, and quantity. These master data are supplemented by a concise product description, availability, and other attributes relevant to your customers, such as GTIN (Global Trade Item Number), size, or materials. You save these data in a digital file, the product feed. Unfortunately, you cannot simply use the originally compiled files on other platforms by copy-and-paste, as these may require a different format or have other mandatory fields that you must fill out for your ads to be approved.

Without software, you have to register on each sales platform to manually create and update each product individually, which ties up valuable personnel resources. Without feed optimization, you have to update changes in product availability separately on each marketplace. By implementing product feed optimization, you are able to upload your master data to any platform and run more efficient ads. The optimization of your product data therefore significantly contributes to the visibility of your ads and thereby to the increase of your sales.

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Product feed optimization can affect various areas of your online marketing.

This is how you implement product feed optimization

How do you now start with your product feed management? The software Channable supports you in the implementation of your product feed optimization. This way, you can centrally manage your content for more than 2500 e-commerce channels.

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This is what your Channable feed could look like.

Feed management is all about filtering, enriching, and optimizing your product data so that it can be played out on every platform. To succeed in this, you should follow these tips.

1. Fill out mandatory fields as well as optional fields

A field that is optional for Google, for example, may be compulsory on another advertising platform in order to make your product ad visible. First, you fill out the mandatory fields in Channable. Then you work on the additional fields.

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Channable shows you mandatory and optional fields for each of your products.

By using rules, you can also have fields filled out automatically. Enriching this information helps to better classify your products. In addition, the probability of convincing your potential customers of your offer increases when you provide them with all the relevant data.

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Your product data is filled out almost by itself with a if-then rule.

2. Categorize your products

The correct categorization of your product feed is crucial for the output as a relevant search result. With Google Shopping, this is even a prerequisite for your content to be shared. This ensures that your ad also appears when your customers only search for the corresponding category and not the specific product – you thus increase the probability that your offer will be noticed. With easy-to-set rules, you can effortlessly export your product feed correctly. Channable also offers you a quality check to get the most out of your product data.

3. Optimize titles and descriptions

With precisely formulated titles and product descriptions, you make it easier for marketplaces and ad software to publish your content, as they can easily determine which search queries to assign your products to. In addition, clear formulations specifically address your customers and draw their attention to your offer. Ideally, you should use relevant attributes such as brand, color, size, or materials in your titles and product descriptions. Search words that perform well are also ideal for titling. But be careful not to make your titles too long, as they may not be fully displayed to your customers. For example, Google Shopping has a character limit of 150 characters for the title. You can also use simple if-then rules to optimize your texts.

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If-then rules can be defined quickly and easily.

4. Ensure your data is up-to-date

The most essential thing for successful product feed optimization is to keep your data up-to-date. If you advertise products that are currently out of stock or if you display a wrong price, your customers will be dissatisfied and will not shop with you. In addition, outdated data can lead to a temporary exclusion from the sales platforms used. On the other hand, Channable always supplies all platforms with current product data and inventory in real time, ensuring maximum sales.

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The daily, automated update of your product data on all sales platforms contributes to your sales success.

5. Use performance data

Not every product will perform equally well, depending on the season and interests. If you use the performance data of your articles as a guide, you can exclude some products from marketing at specific times. This leaves more budget for other ads, and your customers will only notice your items when they are seriously considering buying them. This control reduces scatter losses and optimizes your conversion rate. Regardless of performance, you can also assign custom fields to your products, such as “Top Performer” or “Low Performer,” which allows you to adjust the scope of your bids to achieve the best possible return on investment.

6. Optimize your ads

Channable's SEA tool allows you to automatically run dynamic ads based on your product data feed. By applying smart rules, you can quickly and easily create your campaign structure, keywords, and ads. No matter what ads you want to create and run, Channable simplifies the creation process significantly.

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You can create sales-promoting ads with just a few clicks with an optimized product feed.

You can also use performance data and order synchronizations with the different marketplaces to optimize your campaigns. From this data, you then generate even deeper insights for your upcoming promotions.

Time and current data are money

Implementing your product feed optimization can become a decisive competitive factor, as it contributes to the effectiveness of your online marketing and the increase of your sales. Your customers may find your ads more relevant than those of your competitors. Therefore, feed management is suitable for companies of any size, because automation of the tool saves you time and money when marketing your products. With just a few inputs, you can serve a variety of sales platforms and thus increase the success of your company.

Carolin Puls
Author
Carolin Puls

Carolin ist freie Texterin und Pressereferentin mit einer Leidenschaft für das geschriebene Wort. Als ehemalige Brand Managerin in der FMCG-Branche hat sie umfangreiche Marketing-Erfahrung gesammelt und währenddessen berufsbegleitend ihren Abschluss als Marketing-Betriebswirtin gemacht. Heute erstellt sie PR-Texte, Pressemitteilungen und Social-Media-Inhalte, immer mit viel Kreativität und Herzblut.

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