Setting up product data feeds for Google Shopping using DataFeedWatch

Introduction

Having an effective feed for Google Shopping can increase the number of visitors to your online store and your products listed on the Google Search results pages (and beyond). When you have well-structured data in your Google Shopping feed, customers are able to find your products easily, thanks to the prominence of your goods in Google Shopping results pages. Using Data Feed Watch can make the organizing part a little easier.

When we were looking for methods to increase ROAS and had to optimize and scale the client’s product campaigns in a large-scale project on platforms like Google and META (Facebook), the idea of using a tool like DataFeedWatch (DFW) came to us. In this article, we want to share our experience.

The product feed for Google Shopping required significant improvement, which was hard to implement using only Google Merchant Center settings, without automation solutions that would allow us to:

• Get approval on the product feed to show the maximum possible number of products to the potential customers (the client has a pretty large volume of products to optimize that may be of interest to different audiences);
• Gain a detailed understanding of which product segments are more popular;
• Provide discounts for products from time to time;
• Bring more traffic and purchases to the site from specific channels, while considering that the client has discounts on products from time to time;
• Never have an empty title; rather, replace it with the ID file, which contains additional parameters to make sure products are available via advertisement channels;
• Customize descriptions in the product feed to A/B test and pass moderation for most products.

Below, we describe each setting to manage feeds and product data in detail:

Customize titles and descriptions

It is super easy to configure specific rules for the product data feed to customize titles, descriptions, etc. for products in DFW for multiple channels. For example, in case you need to fix empty fields, add extra details in these fields, correct information, or replace it with different details.

There may be gaps or things that require improvement in your product data feed, and the great thing about DFW is that you can quickly fix this with the help of additional functions.
This makes DFW a must-have tool when you customize your data for a variety of channels, such as Shopping channels on Google Ads, Pinterest, Catalog on META (Facebook), and Snapchat. It requires applying complex rules and adding more information from your website as all these things are a part of the process of boosting your advertising campaigns on any channel to the next level.
Alternatively, if you have to add more information to the product feed (e.g., if the title looks too short), you can easily supplement it with this rule. This way, you’ll never have an empty field, because you can just set it up based on your needs with the help of a file that contains additional parameters.

Try to include more information in the title to cover more people. A certain connection exists between the product title and the user request. The title should contain possible product variants, and you can ensure this with the DFW tool.

Click on Edit Values for the Title field.

Add the brand name as the prefix.

Add additional fields like color or collection of your product using the Combine tool and choosing the separator.

If the product description contains HTML tags, such as <p>, <b>, or others, you do not have to remove them because the Google Ads system will not show them.

You can change the description for certain products by clicking on the IF button.

Don't forget to change the link.

For example, delete the .shopify part from the link.

The result:

Currency/price adjustments

If you need to add currency to the price, you can easily manage this using the valid price field, for example:

The result:

Additional fields you can add

The DFW service gives you a chance to add additional fields if you need them.

For example, you can add other image links.

Custom Labels

Having custom labels in your Shopping Campaigns gives you more freedom and flexibility. The values submitted via this attribute will only be visible to you in your Google Ads account and they will help you optimize your campaign structure.

You can also filter products used in a specific campaign by literally any type of information.

Commonly used for custom labels: You can use up to five labels for each product at a time. Label your products based on the following:

• Seasonal marker
• Sale
• Price range marker
• Margin / Performance

Example: high-margin product

Products without GTINs

You can add additional field identifier_exists and assign the value FALSE to all products. Then, if you have MPN and Brand columns, the products will be uploaded to the Merchant Center.

Excluding Products

Naturally, there is also the option to exclude products from the feed (in case you are not interested in promoting them). You need to review your product feed and put all those products in a separate list and then create a rule that will filter out whatever is on that list, based on product IDs.

Discounts on Products in the Feed

Also, considering that the client has discounts on products from time to time, it was essential to use and change this constantly in product Ads.
In this case, you need to add two new columns to your main product feed: sale_price and sale_price_effective_date.

Through the sale_price_effective_date attribute, you can let Google know when the sale starts and ends.

If you do not submit it, the sale price will always be on. When Google finds an active sale, it will show a price drop label in Shopping Ads.

Unfortunately, even if you submit both attributes correctly, Google might still not show the price drop.

You must meet certain requirements in order for your ads to show sale price annotations:

• The base price, or the higher price, must have been charged for a period of 30 days (does not need to be consecutive) in the past 200 days.
• A sale price should not be charged for more than 30 days.
• The base price must be valid.
• The sale price must be less than the base price.
• The discount on the sale must be greater than 5% and less than 90%.

It is difficult to meet all these criteria at the same time, especially because of the first one. Prices in the fast-paced e-commerce industry are constantly changing. If you want to take advantage of this Google feature, you must establish a pricing strategy beforehand.

You can use DFW to help you properly map the sale_price and sale_price_effective_date attributes.

The main difference between sale price annotations and merchant promotions - is that the former shows a sale that is already included in the product price on the landing page and is available to all customers. The latter shows a promo code that will trigger an additional discount at the checkout, which is only available to customers who enter the promo code.

It is essential to fully understand this difference as you might want to use both strategies, but you need to be careful not to merge them.

Alternatives for how you can comply with Google’s requirements in case products get disapproved for these reasons:

Shipping

In certain cases, Merchant Center may constantly delete your setting on the Country of sale for a certain location. This method of fixing it can be faster than if you wait for Google support to fix this bug on their side. Simply add the county of sale through DFW:

Size

This attribute is used to specify the size of a product. You can specify any value that corresponds to your items:

Transit_time_label

This is the label you assign to a product to help assign different transit times in Merchant Center account settings.

Transit time labels [transit_time_label] are used to specify a unique transit time for each of the product categories in your shopping feeds, in case transit times vary. You may specify a transit time for each category using the "Shipping settings" in the Merchant Center. Transit time labels help to give your customers a more accurate estimated delivery date, which can help influence their purchase decision;

Gender

Three predefined values are allowed: 'Men' [Male], 'Women' [Female], and 'Unisex' [Unisex]:

Color

This attribute defines the main color(s) of an item:

Adult

Classifying products for adult users only by the attribute 'adult' affects where product entries are displayed:

Summary

DFW is a great tool that can make managing your online store's shopping feed faster and easier than Google's tools alone. We hope that you found this article helpful in understanding how it works and how to use it. If you want further improvements for your business, consider our services.