If you are one of those users who are relatively new at Google Shopping, you know how the platform works like a charm for businesses that are starting out. Being an eCommerce platform that allows organizations of varied sizes to come over the top of SERP organic results, Google Shopping has opened new avenues for several businesses worldwide.
However, the opportunity to top Google search results isn’t as easy as it sounds! You can’t get the best of Google Shopping only by investing all your budget in it; you have to do something more! When you are selling with Google Shopping, there are certain elements that you don’t want to miss, your product data being one such element.
Reasons why product data is so important?
Data feeds work as integral support of your Google ad performance and help improve your ad relevance. Further, Google has recently rolled out its new free ad feature, Shopping Ads, that allows businesses to secure free product placement, which again requires a solidly built data feed to beat the potentially high competition.
Yes, we know that you don’t want to miss out on the chance!
Even if it isn’t rocket science to set, most users get confused while creating Google Shopping feed and using their Shopify store. If you are one of those users facing problems in Google shopping feed management or are setting up their Google Shopping for the first time, this might be the article for you.
But first, let’s understand what Google Shopping Feed is!
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What is Google Shopping Feed?
A Google Shopping feed is like a file that is a conveniently organized list of all the products that an eCommerce store wants to advertise through Merchant Center. Your data feed helps you assign product attributes to every individual product on your store, which Google later uses to group your products.
To put it in simple terms, Google Shopping feed is like a well-curated spreadsheet that comprises all the information around your eCommerce store’s products in a spreadsheet format. This way, when the products are listed in a catalog format, Google can easily navigate and remember all the products that you deal in.
Why is the term data feed?
The answer is simple, the term ‘feed’ in Google Shopping refers to the act of continually keeping it updated. The Google Shopping algorithm processes data in a way that needs to be crawled by the Google bot; therefore, to allow Google to keep an update around your store, updating product data is necessary. When you update your feed in intervals, Google has updates on all the changes you have made with your store.
Now, if you are one of those users who is confused with their Google Shopping Ads journey or are having problems with Google shopping feed management, this might be the right article for you!
We understand the confusion with the creation and management of the data feed. Therefore, listed below are the seven essential Google Shopping Ads attributes required to list every product. They are:
- ID: your product ID is its unique identifier
- Title: comprises the name of a given product
- Description: details around a product
- Link: One that redirects to the landing page
- Image Link: URL that integrates to the main product image
- Availability: in stock or out of stock
- Price: comprises of the relevant currency
Now that you know everything around product feed data, it’s time to understand the significance of managing it.
Reasons to Manage Your Google Shopping Feed?
1. Improved relevance of your products
You would not want to miss out on the opportunity of being shown up at the right place and at the right time, right! Something similar happens when you manage and optimize your feed and fine-tune it so that the algorithm from Google Shopping can execute it.
The algorithm, being keyword-based, segregates the search results in a format where all the relevant categories, keywords, and product attributes (like ID, Link, GTINs) are considered while selecting the most relevant search result for a query that comes by users.
Therefore, it is one of the leading reasons you should maintain and manage a complete and updated feed with all the necessary fields. Remember, the more it aligns to the guidelines laid out by Google, the closer it is to show as a response to all the relevant search queries.
Further, under the instances where web surfers are going for a particular search query, it resembles a very close situation to a successful sale. Here, if your visitors aren’t satisfied with their search results, the results would be abandoning the site. However, when you have maintained your feed and its minute details, your product might end up being the winner.
Considering the chances of sale over a specific & detailed search, would you like to miss out on that opportunity of potential sale?
2. Increased ROI and improved conversion
The ultimate goal for every eCommerce store is to sell more and improve their reach over time. Here, your shopping feed also has something to contribute to the cause as product feeds help you secure the goal of increased conversions (sales) and an improved return on your investment (ROI) over your Google ads.
Are you thinking how?
The answer is simple; your product feed helps you put up the critical ‘first impression’ for your first-time visitors. Being a curated list of high definition product images, SEO rich product descriptions, and informative product title, your product feed does 50% of the work at enticing shoppers and giving them an excellent impression of the product at a glance.
When your product feed is maintained prominently, your visitors have the full information around the required fields in a few seconds of checking or surfing through their keyword-rich search query.
With an optimized, well-curated product feed, you are closer to your sale every time your visitors click on your ad!
3. It gives way to compelling ads
Understand it this way, when you are using Google Shopping for your business, you provide the search engine with similar information (bounded by specific guidelines). All the other millions of store owners are already using the platform. Now, are you making any effort to stand out from the other advertisers and merchants?
Yes, it is possible for a specific product that can make it big. However, chances are that your competitors are already presenting it in a better way with their product descriptions (for example). This way, won’t it be challenging to scale your business?
Relax, there’s a way here too! Your uniqueness stands in the form of how detailed and well-curated the product feed you prepare.
Google Shopping Ads can be a platform that is a bit crowded. But, when you have a well-curated data feed, you increase your ads’ chances of being showcased more often as they are more close to matching the search query.
It’s time to improve your ad relevance with a precise, detailed, well-managed, and keyword-rich product feed.
4. Unlocking advanced optimization techniques
As explained earlier, your product feed assigns product attributes to your eCommerce store. This way, you can always make your ads better by including all the essential attributes in the product feed as you are closer to the search query of Google, and your product feed is aligned with the structure required by the search engine.
Tip:
Some relevant instances of product attributes begin by labeling your chart-topping items and segregating them into a group of different price margins. You can even try out categorizing seasonal items.
Once you are well-versed with these defined sets of groups for different products, you can set a diverse range of bidding for them and even create individual campaigns. This way, it’ll be easy to remove the groups that don’t pour in desired results.
Considering the significance it has, you won’t want to miss out on the different ways in which you can manage your Google Shopping feed for the Shopify store. Yes, we have curated a list of all the ways you can manage your Shopify store; let’s have a look!
Google Shopping Feed Management for Shopify Stores
When you run a Shopify store, you understand how crucial Google Shopping ads are for you and your business. The need to continually manage and keep your feed updated on the latest information is the key to improved sales, even if you have to add a new image to your product feed.
Considering the random changes that need to be done, chances are that you might skip out on a few things from your management list. Therefore, we have come up with a curated list of optimizations that you should double-check on to get more clicks and boost your campaigns’ ROI. Check them out:
1. Excluding products that don’t bring profits
When you are running an advertising portfolio, you know that not every product listed in it will bring you the same ROI; every product has a different appeal to its users. Therefore, while you are managing your feed, try and judge your listed products and their performance over regular intervals.
The smart move with your Google Shopping feed would be to remove average performers from the list to improve the overall ad spend. This way, you are only focusing on the necessary products and improving your overall ad quality.
Let’s say you advertise apparel using Google Shopping and have included jackets over your campaign as well. The smart move here would be to remove winter garments and only focus on the summer items that bring relevant profits.
2. Using image optimization technique
The images you use in your product feed have the most significant role in enticing your customers, as this is the first thing they lay their eyes on. Therefore, we are quite sure that you would not want to risk it!
Try optimizing your images and meet every image requirement besides investing in a high definition product image.
Tip: Go for one or more images and try clicking pictures in different angles to be sure that you don’t end up getting lost in the crowd of standard stock images used by drop shippers.
To take things out of the ordinary, try using dynamic and vibrant images alongside the traditional product images. Further, you can also try using different variant images; it helps visitors understand the difference in products and their types.
3. Categorizing products into optional fields
When you use optional fields in your product feed, you can categorize your products in a well-defined manner. When you add relevant product details, it gives a better perspective of products present in your feed and how they perform.
While using optional fields in your product feed might seem unnecessary, this extra detail might help you create different personas for all your products and get you some extra conversions.
Tip: Your optional fields should include material, color, gender, size, amongst all the other relevant options.
4. Making the most of the custom labels for your products
Using custom labels on your feed is your next step towards optimizing your product feed for Shopify. When you create different customized labels for your business, you allow the search engine with more specified results, ultimately improving ad relevance and sales.
When you create labels to pair with the product feeds, you can try including seasons, price margins, or chart-toppers in the list. This way, you can focus on seasonal product categories at the peak of their sale.
5. Use accurate product and title descriptions
Product titles and descriptions are the most integral part of your product description. The reason being that these are the two aspects that provide the very first phase of information to your visitor (after product images, of course!).
Your product titles and descriptions are a key player in feed management as they help secure relevancy over search queries.
Wonder how?
When you use relevant keywords in your titles and product description, you provide Google with relevant search results to their query.
Tip: The SERP shows only the first few characters from the title and description (75 characters for title and 120 characters for description). You need to use it wisely to extract maximum conversion and ROI. A smart move is to push all the significant information and keywords on the first part of your description and title. Lastly, avoid using capitalization for your title, as this can be considered spam.
Conclusion
When you are using Google Shopping Ad for your Shopify store, you need to be careful about many things. You need to be very attentive around how you research your products while managing orders and exploring new avenues for your business, making it easy for the marketing side. With optimized feed for your Shopify store, improved sales are just the beginning.
