What exactly is Google Product Feed?

Google Product Feed is information about all your products that you want to be listed on Google and partner sites. The feed has to be formatted for Google to crawl through easily and return one or more products as results for relevant search queries. The catch though is that you dont get to choose keywords you want your Product Listing Ads/ Google Shopping Ads to show for. Instead, Google does so by itself based on your product feed and the user search query.

This process of Google showing Product Listing Ads of an advertiser to relevant users is similar to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to an extent. When structuring various elements of your product feed, keep in mind the Google crawler.

You can either build your product feed manually using a spreadsheet, or you can use extensions, app, plugins etc that extract and format data from your website.

Why is it necessary to structure Product Feed?

A well-structured product feed helps an advertiser by showing right ads for relevant search queries. And when the content of the search query and the corresponding ad are the same, there is a better chance to earn a click from a potential prospect.

Structuring product feed by labeling the products and their details clearly also eases the process of feed optimization and management.

What are the key elements of Product Feed?

• • Product Title – The name of the product, better if it is unique.
  • Product Description – A line or two explaining the product for users to get an idea in the first look.
  • Google Product Category – Google has listed down more than 6000 categories and subcategories, your products need to be categorized accordingly.
  • Product Type – Incase you dont find a relevant Google Product Category, you can adjust your websites taxonomy to help Google categorize your product.
  • Image – A suitable product image with a white background as recommended by Google.
  • Price – One of the most important factors that drive a user to buy or not to buy. Set the price keeping in mind the competitors.
  • Brand – It could be your own brand or a different brand you are reselling for.
  • Apparel Categories – When selling apparels, additional information needs to be provided.

• Gender – Male, Female or Unisex

• Color – Product Color

• Size – Product Size

• Fit Type – Regular, Petite, Plus or Maternity

• Sizing System – UK, US or others

• Age Group – infants, kids, teenagers, adults etc

• Manufacturer’s Product Number (MPN) and Google Trade Identification Number (GTIN)
  

• Sales Tax – You can set taxes using Google Merchant Center.
  

• Dispatch and Delivery – Free shipping, flat rate shipping, carrier based shipping etc can be set using Google Merchant Center.
  

• Availability – Preorder, in-stock or out of stock, mention this too.
  

• Condition – New or old, the condition of the product has to mentioned.
  

• Custom Labels – Custom labels are for your benefit, they help organize the product feed.

Google Product Feed Management Software?

Google Product Feed is without a doubt a lengthy and exhausting project, but it is trivial to the success of Google Shopping Campaigns. For better handling of the same, leading companies have developed Feed Management Softwares.

Feed creation and management is a topic in itself. Feed creation and management tactics with more resources on Google Shopping will be made available for better help on a dedicated blog.