Optimize your product feed for Shopping ads

As you already know, Google Shopping Ads are made up of a list of products and their details that you provide to the Google Merchant. This product list, also called the product feed, is the basis of good advertising. Shopping ads are a great way to reach a wide range of customers across many networks. However, if your ads don’t bring you the desired results, there may be two issues – incorrect bidding (for classic Shopping ads) or poorly built product feed. The product feed includes information about your products, which Google Ads then uses to create Google Shopping Ads. Because you don’t create creative copy for your Shopping ads, just like for classic text ads, the content of this feed also determines what product data users see. Therefore, the product feed and its correct setup is extremely important for good Shopping ads performance.

1. Make sure the product feed contains all the necessary information

If you are creating a product feed for Shopping ads manually, keep track of what specific product data need to be included. Some of the data is required for all products – product identification number (ID), name, brand, URL, price, description, image link, availability. Others are optional or required for some product types only. You can find the full list of attributes that are available to define the products in your feed here.

2. Use the proven product name structure

The product name replaces the keywords of the classic text ads as well as their titles. Therefore, it must be clear to the users directly from the title what the product is or what they find when they click through to your online store from your Shopping ad. Here are some best practices to formulate names for specific product types: Apparel: Brand + Gender + Product type + Attributes (color, size, material) Consumables: Brand + Product Type + Attributes (Weight, Quantity) Hard goods: Brand + Product + Attributes (size, weight, quantity) Electronics: Brand + Attributes + Model Type + Model Seasonal: Opportunity + Product Type + Attributes Books: Title + Type + Format (hardcover, eBook) + Author

3. Important things first

While Google allows up to 150 characters for a product name, this length may change for different formats of the Shopping ad. Be sure that only the first 70 characters, followed by three dots, of the full product name may be shown. So if the product name is more extensive, put its basic attributes to the beginning of the title.

4. Choose the appropriate images

Image quality for Shopping ads is important for two reasons: it determinates whether your ad is approved and whether users opt for your product. First of all, poor image quality may result in your ad being disapproved, meaning it won’t show to users at all. Secondly, if Google approves the ad but the image is not that clear it may discourage users from clicking through to your e-shop. Therefore, use only high-quality images. Products must be clearly visible, ideally separately on a white background. Both model and color must match the product name. Learn how to best optimize images for your Shopping adshere.

5. Follow Google policies

Like classic text ads, Shopping ads must also obey the generally applicable Google Ads policies. These restrict some forms of text, such as excessive use of irrelevant characters, spelling, promoting inappropriate products, etc. You can briefly familiarize with the advertising policies in one of our older blogs.

Use BlueWinston and don’t waste your time

If you don’t want to waste your precious time optimizing your Google Shopping product feed, we’ve got a simple solution for you. With our unique tool BlueWinston, you can upload data to your Google Merchant account directly through the Google Content API. BlueWinston is able to process product information and upload it to your Google Merchant account at an extremely fast rate using a regular price comparison product feed. The main advantage of the Google Content API process, unlike the classic XML feed, is that changing prices or product availability will be applied in seconds – and so your Shopping ads are also updated quickly. When uploading a regular feed, it takes much longer time. If you use CMS ecommerce platforms like Shopify or Magneto, the BlueWinston plugin also creates XML product feed for you. You don’t need programmers or other third-party tools to use BlueWinston and advertise through Google Shopping.