five impactful tips to optimise your google shopping feed
We’ve all heard of Google Shopping and no doubt have used it to make online purchases. As the biggest advertising platform for eCommerce brands, it’s important to maximise its potential for your business.
With a myriad of benefits, advertising on Google Shopping is a must for eCommerce brands. Building trust, brand awareness and generating better quality traffic to your site to ensure your feed is up-to-scratch is imperative to make the most of this platform.
Google Shopping allows customers to search, view and compare products in an instant. And for advertisers? The platform makes sure you’re reaching the right audience at the right time, provided you’ve optimised your feed correctly.
In this article, we look at how to optimise your Google Shopping feed to boost your eCommerce store's success…
what is a google shopping feed?
The simplest way to understand what a Google Shopping feed is to think of it like an Argos catalogue. Holding all your products' current and up-to-date information for Google to scan, the search engine can then provide the user with the right product for their search query. For your product to be considered, Google reviews all information surrounding the item for relevancy before it can enter the auction for that search.
Everything from product title, pricing, imaging and the weight of the item is stored within your feed. It’s imperative you have an accurate data feed that adheres to the channel’s specifications, or you risk your items not showing up on the Google Shopping feed.
how to show on google shopping
Before you can even begin optimising your feed, you first need to make sure you're showing up on Google Shopping. To do so, you need to have the below in place:
a highly engaging eCommerce website
a product offering
a shopping feed
a Google Merchant centre
our five tips to optimise your feed
We’ve established that your Google Shopping feed is an important player in your online strategy. But what should you be doing to ensure your feed shows up on the platform when you need it to? Here are some of our top tips to help your products reach the right people online…
1) get your titles on point
If you’ve not optimised your titles properly, everything else you do is redundant. Product titles are absolutely vital for user search intent and determine if you show up for certain search queries. So, what should you be focusing on when creating product titles?
Google reads from left to right and gives you 150 characters to play with. But traditionally only the first 70 characters show, so make the first half of your product title count!
Your products are fighting for advertising space against hundreds of competitors. Your title needs to be clear and concise to make sure your product is easy to identify.
Keyword research should be high on your list of priorities when creating new product listings, helping to find the most searched for terms related to your product and adding these into your titles. Think like your audience when creating product titles and ask yourself how they would search for this item. Does your item have multiple names such as settee or sofa?
Be sure to add categories and brands to your titles to ensure you reach the most relevant users.
Prevent disapprovals by following these simple rules:
Avoid capitalisation
Don’t include promotional text
Avoid adding words in a foreign language
There are several ways to format your title as demonstrated below by DataFeedWatch:
2) get your gtins in order
‘GTINs’ or Global Trade Item Number are numbers assigned to products that Google can then use to identify products that are the same. For example, if retailer X sells a pair of red Nike trainers and retailer Y sells the same pair of trainers, they will both have the same GTIN for the trainers.
GTINs are a product’s unique ID which is created by the manufacturer. If an item is bespoke, such as a handmade product on Etsy, it will not have a GTIN. For products with a GTIN, getting the 13-digit number correct is imperative for your item to be listed on Google. Through these, Google can group all items with the same number and compare them with other products, matching to search queries. Without this number, your product won’t be grouped correctly and you may miss out on potential sales.
3) sell yourself in the descriptions
Much like your product titles, your descriptions are there to entice a user to select your product over that of a similar listing. Once they reach this stage, they have already seen your price and read your title. If they continue to your description, they’re demonstrating an increased intent and that they’re a more qualified user.
Your description is where you need to provide any information that may be asked about your product. Things to consider including are:
size
material
shape
pattern
special features
nail your google product category
If you want your item to show up in a specific product category, you need to take the time to research which category you should be in and manually add your product to it. For Google to enter you into auctions, your product must be in a category. If you fail to select one, Google will auto-populate one for you, leaving you at the mercy of their algorithm correctly categorising you. The more specific and granular you are with your Google product categorisation, the more relevant you will be in searches.
honesty is the best policy
The information you provide for your product listing needs to be accurate and the best reflection of your products. Incorrect pricing or poor imagery will only damage your reputation both to shoppers and to Google. If your product is £100 on your Google ad, it must be the same on your landing page.
Similarly, your imagery needs to showcase your product fairly. While attractive imagery is vital to persuade users to select your product, it must be the same imagery/product that will be displayed on your landing page.
Users want to feel like they can trust your brand. By displaying contrasting information between your ad and website, you’re signalling you’re not trustworthy and they will likely take their money elsewhere.
how a paid agency can help your google shopping feed excel
Google Shopping is an integral part of any eCommerce brand’s success online. King of the search engines, if you fail to use Google to its full potential, you’re only limiting growth. But knowing you should do something and actually doing it are two different things. Anyone can set themselves up for Google Shopping Ads, but getting it right is another task altogether.
Ensuring that your feed is fully optimised and putting the work in to benefit your business is something that many brands simply don’t have the time or resources for. Working with a specialist paid media agency, you can be sure that your Google Shopping efforts are not going to waste.
If you think your Google Shopping Ads could benefit from some TLC, our team of experts can lead the way.
