Learn Data Feed Management

Google Shopping

Formerly known as Product Listing Ads, Google Shopping is a service provided by Google. It allows customers to search for, view and compare products.

These products are displayed when a customer uses Google to search for a product. They can appear in the main search engine results page or under the shopping tab.

When running shopping campaigns, product feed optimization is of paramount importance. A fully optimized feed helps when Google determines when and where to show your ads. The more relevant your product is to a user’s search the more likely Google will show your ads. Also, this will increase the chance that someone searching for your product will find it and make a purchase.

When looking to optimize a product feed it is important to ensure as many data fields are populated as possible. Advertisers will also look to improve the primary elements of the feed.

Shopping Channel

A shopping channel is a third-party website you can list your products on. This helps extend your reach to new audiences and it helps you get more sales. There are multiple shopping channels to choose from. This includes some of the internet's biggest websites, as well as smaller, niche offerings.

Traditionally, there were two main types of shopping channel - comparison shopping engines and marketplaces. A third is now available, and is becoming increasingly important for many retailers, social media networks. Social media networks have some features in common with comparison shopping engines and marketplaces, in addition to other unique features.

MPN - Manufacturer Part Number

When uploading products to a comparison shopping engine or marketplace you will come across MPN. You might even use MPN when making purchases of certain types of products.

MPN stands for Manufacturer Part Number. It is a unique number that is issued by manufacturers to identify individual products. Normally, the MPN of a product is a series of numbers and letters.

Comparison Shopping Engines

Comparison shopping engines are websites that consumers can use to find multiple retailers offering the product they want to buy. They can compare the offering from each of these retailers and select the one that is most appealing. Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE) are also known as price comparison websites.

From a retailers’ perspective, comparison shopping engines are a method of online advertising. They allow retailers to upload their product data feeds, set bids for particular products or product categories.

Bing Product Ads

Bing Product Ads are a type of ad that uses your product data feed to display content-rich, real-time, and engaging ads to Bing users. They display while users conduct product related searches.

Bing Product Ads are primarily used by direct to consumer retailers and brands.

Bing Merchant Center

Bing Merchant Center is the tool you use to set up and manage product ads on the Bing search engine. In other words, it is very similar to the Google Merchant Center.

Product Feed Specification

Shopping channels have product feed specifications that outline how you must structure your product feed. These specifications help shopping channels offer a better service to their users by comparing the right products when a user does a search.

Product Feed Management

Product feed management refers to the optimization of product feeds in an effort to improve shopping campaign results.

Shopping Cart

In a brick-and-mortar store, a shopping cart is one small part of a much bigger system that enables you to make purchases. For online stores, a shopping cart is the whole system. In other words, a shopping cart is software that facilitates online purchases.

A more descriptive term for shopping carts would be shopping cart software or shopping cart platform.

Custom Labels

Custom labels are simply another attribute within the product feed. These can be used in your shopping campaign, which allows you to identify, group, filter and structure products in order to apply your product listing ad strategies.

GTIN - Global Trade Item Number

GTIN, or a Global Trade Item Number, is an internationally recognized system for identifying products. It brought together several systems to ensure they all adhere to a common structure. Helping both in-store barcode readers and online product databases. The non-profit organization GS1 developed the system.

Item Group ID

An Item Group ID [item_group_id] is an attribute that can be used within a product data feed. This ID refers to a shared attribute for products with close variants. They must be unique between the products. Such variants could include sizes or colors of a specific product.

Data Feed Attributes

Data feed attributes are elements within a product feed that define the product. Within every data feed, you have a list of products. Each product will have attributes listed with them. Such attributes can include ‘colour’, ‘EAN’ and ‘availability’. When creating a feed, accurately describing your products using attributes is paramount for potential customers to find your products when searching.

Product Variants

A specific item that is bundled in with related variants to form one distinguishable product is known as a product variant. Product variants have unique identifiers, such as price, and every variant is based on the same product definition.

Dynamic Repricing

Dynamic repricing is a strategy where product prices are continuously adjusted to respond to real-time supply and demand. A product’s price can change in a matter of minutes, with the goal of price optimization.

Data Feed

A data feed is a way of sending structured, current, and up-to-date information. Usually for use on a website, app, or another online tool. Two common types of data feeds are news feeds and product data feeds. We will focus on product data feeds.

Amazon ASIN Number

An ASIN, or Amazon Standard Identification Number, is a unique identifier for each product on Amazon. It is made up of 10 characters comprising letters and numbers and is Amazon's own system for managing its huge catalog.

Amazon Order Management

Amazon order management includes the tools and processes available to help you deal with customers who have made a purchase from you, including shipping their item. Amazon provides several tools to help you manage orders. In addition, there are third-party tools available. Third-party tools automate many of the processes involved and they help simplify complex operations, such as sellers who use multiple channels.

Amazon Product Listings

An Amazon product listing is the product page for each of the items you sell on Amazon. It is made up of the information you enter when you list your product including its title, images, description, and price.

Amazon Marketplace Ads

Amazon Marketplace Ads are ads that appear when users browse, search, and make purchases on Amazon. Amazon displays these ads when consumers are actively making a buying decision. Thus, making them an attractive tool for advertisers.

The pricing model is cost-per-click, so you only pay when an Amazon user clicks on one of your ads.

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads use your product data feed to display ads to Facebook users. This includes users who have visited your website.

How to Create Product Listing Ads

First things first, ensure that your business and products meet the requirements set out by Google to create product listing ads.

Assuming you have everything, including Google Merchant Center and a data feed, it’s time to decide how you would like to set up your product listing ads. For those with less time and technical background, Google made it possible to set up a product listing ad within the Google Merchant Center. However, it can be better to use Google AdWords, as it allows you to do so much more.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords is Google's advertising service. It lets you create ads to display on various Google-owned platforms, as well as Google's Search Partner Network.

One of the main places you will see AdWords ads is on Google’s search results pages. They are the listings labeled as "Ad" that can appear above and below the search results for some searches, particularly product-related searches.

Product Listing Ad

Product Listing Ads are ads that display more detailed information to users than standard text-based ads. Which encourages them to click through to your website. The information in the ads come from your product data feed. They are sometimes also referred to as shopping ads and can appear on various Google properties. Such as Google Search, Google Shopping, Google Image Search, as well as on the Google Search Partner network.

Google Product Category

The Google Product Category [google_product_category] attribute is used to categorize an item. This category is selected from the Google’s taxonomy. The full list of product categories can be found here.

Placing products in product categories is designed to help potential customers navigate their way to your product. This makes it paramount that you select the correct category for your product. Otherwise, you may end up with customers struggling to find what they are looking for.

Google Taxonomy

Google Taxonomy is the list of categories used by Google to help departmentalize products in a shopping feed. There are more than 6,000 categories and the full Taxonomy and category list can be found here.

In some countries, product categories can be subdivided. These countries include the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Netherlands, Sweden, Turkey and Norway. Other countries are not currently able to do this. Instead, it is possible to subdivide using ‘product type’.

Google Merchant Center

Google Merchant Center is where Google wants you to upload product data. This is where your products appear on Google Shopping and Google's eCommerce properties. In fact, all the products you see when you do a Google Shopping search were uploaded using the Google Merchant Center. You can also upload information about your eCommerce store.