Are you in process of finding the best tool for creating and managing your Shopping Feed? In this post, we will help you figure out what feed solution to go for.

What is a Shopping Feed?

A Shopping feed is a file that you submit to Google Merchant Center containing your product data. It is a list of your products along with attributes that explain what your product is. Google uses the data you provided through your feed to create your ads on the Shopping tab. 

Google has a list of attributes that you can use to fill out the information about your product.

Attributes like id, title, price, image, link, etc are required and without this information, your products will not be accepted on Google. Attributes like product highlights, weight, material, size, etc are not mandatory, however, we recommend adding every applicable attribute and information to the product feed regardless of whether it is mandatory or optional.

Importance of a good product feed    

At Take Some Risk, we always emphasize the importance of making your Shopping feed as detailed as possible. This is because your feed can make or break your Shopping campaigns.

Some advertisers spend all of their time tweaking their Shopping campaigns but spend no time on the data feed. The campaign settings and bids can be perfect, but if no work has gone into the Shopping feed, the biggest opportunity has not been capitalised on.

The data feed is where the real opportunity lies for most brands but it gets neglected. By optimizing your data feed, you can turn things around for your brand.

Adding all the necessary data about the products in the feed helps your products rank higher on Shopping and show on all possible search queries. The richer your data is, the easier it is for Google to figure out what search queries it should show your ads on. This is why ensuring that your feed gets attention is key to getting sales.

What to do before creating your Shopping feed?

Before you create your shopping feed, set up your Google Merchant Center correctly. Here is a list of tasks you need to ensure have been completed:

  1. Shipping services have been set up.
  2. A return policy has been created.
  3. Sales tax settings are correctly configured.
  4. Your website is claimed and verified in GMC.
  5. Business information has been filled out.
  6. If there are any business identity attributes relevant to you (like women-owned business, veteran-owned, black-owned), make sure your Business information settings reflect that.  

Shopping Feed Solutions

There are several ways you can create and upload your feed in Google Merchant Center. Primarily, the following three options are used:

  • Google Sheets
  • Self-serve apps
  • Shopping Management tools

Google Sheets

If you only have a handful of products to advertise, Google sheets can be a quick and easy way of setting up your product feed in Google Merchant Center. 

Pros:

  • It’s a free tool. You can add as many products as you wish and you won’t have to pay anything to create your product data feed.
  • You can edit the feed easily and without any issues. If you know your way around Google Sheets, all the information can be updated without hassle.

Cons:

  • Creating a feed using Google Sheets can take a lot of time and effort because it is a manual process. 

When is it appropriate to use Google Sheets?

If you have less than 50 SKUs on your website and the product data rarely gets changed then Google Sheets can be used to create your feed.

The initial setup is going to be the most time-consuming part of your feed management process. After that, you can edit your products if they are updated on the website.

For more than 50 SKUs, Google Sheets becomes inefficient because of the number of hours needed to update everything.

How to create a feed using Google Sheets?

  • Get product data from your website and fill it in a Google Sheet.
  • To upload it in Google Merchant Center, go to Products > Feeds. Click on the + sign under Primary Feeds. 
  • Add your target country then select the language your feed is in.
  • Submit your feed and check after it’s done processing to see if there are any errors. If there are, resolve them.

Your product feed has been uploaded.

Self-Serve Apps

If your website has more than 50 SKUs, using an app like Google sales channel if you’re on Shopify/Product Feed Pro for WooCommerce or Feed for Google Shopping by Simprosys can be a good option.

Pros

  • Some of these apps are free, and if they’re not, they don’t cost much.
  • The setup is fast. Unlike Google Sheets, this method does not require time to set up the feed.
  • Any number of SKUs can be easily imported into GMC. 

Cons

  • Options for customization are limited. In an app like Google sales channel for Shopify, making bulk edits is a time-consuming task. Supplemental Feeds have to be used to make updates to the product feed.  

When is it appropriate to use these self-serve apps?

If you have 50-100 SKUs on your website and the information on the website gets updated frequently, using a self-serve app makes sense. After setting up the app and importing the SKUs to GMC, you might need to use rules in GMC or a Supplemental Feed to make changes to the primary feed.

For more than 100 SKUs, this method of feed creation can be limiting as you would need to customize the feed according to best practices and that can be time-consuming for a large number of products.

How to set up Shopify Google Sales Channel?

  • Go to Shopify app store and install the Google sales channel. 
  • Once you have added the app, click Connect Google Account, and then select your Google account.
  • Select your Merchant Center account.
  • Choose the target market and language.
  • Select Manually set up shipping settings in Google Merchant Center if you have already added Shipping settings in GMC. If not, choose the ‘automatically import settings’ option.
  • Click save.

Your Shopping feed will get synced to GMC under the name of ‘Content API’.

Shopping Management Tools

For 100+ SKUs, Shopping Management tools like Feedonomics or DataFeedWatch are great options for having a well-managed feed.

Pros

  • This option is a huge timesaver. You will need to specify how you want the feed to be set up and everything will be done according to your specifications. This saves you time and effort as you are outsourcing the entire feed creation and management process.
  • All the attributes can be easily customized based on your specifications.

Cons

  • The cost of this option is very high and might not make sense for small/medium-sized businesses.  

When is it appropriate to use Shopping Management tools?

If you have a large number of SKUs on your website that need plenty of customization and management, these tools can pay for themselves because of the ease they provide you. A managed service saves you time that can be used to optimize other aspects of your campaigns or business.  

Auditing & Reviewing Shopping Feed

After your feed has been up and running for some time, audit it bi-annually or annually to ensure that relevant attributes are being used and the titles/descriptions are optimized.

How to audit a Shopping feed?

  • Look at Google’s list of attributes and check if there are any attributes you might have missed that can be used. Google also releases new attributes so keeping an eye on this list helps you make sure that you don’t miss out on any new attributes.
  • Are Custom Labels being used? If not, add custom labels to help with campaign creation and optimization. You can also look at our guide to Custom Labels to learn how we use these to maximize the potential of our Shopping campaigns.
  • Make sure that your GTINs are updated for all products.
  • Are your titles and descriptions optimized for best performance? Our guide to writing the perfect Shopping title is a good resource for learning how to optimize your titles.
  • Are your product images optimized for ranking and generating sales? Make sure that you are displaying accurate images and using the additional_image_link attribute to show the product from different angles.  

Bonus Tips

  • Go to Conversion Settings in GMC and switch on ‘Auto-tagging for Free Listings’. This helps in tracking conversions from your free listings.
  • In GMC, go to Growth > Manage Programs and opt into programs like Free Listings, Dynamic Marketing, Customer Reviews, Product Ratings, and Promotions. These programs will require further setup but they will improve the performance of your shopping campaigns.
  • Go to Growth and opt into the Shopping Experience Scorecard. This helps you get a ‘Trusted Store’ badge and can improve your Free Listings/Buy on Google performance.

Any questions? Ask in the comments section below. You can also sign up for TSR’s Shopping Classes to learn more about Shopping Feed Optimization and Shopping Campaign Management.