The Google Ads Product Data Feed Optimisation Guide
Today you’re getting access to the exact product data optimisation framework…
That we use to scale our client’s campaigns and drive serious growth.
If you’re serious about scaling your brand…
Here’s what’s in store for you:
- 4 beginner tactics
- 7 advanced strategies
- 6 pro level optimisations
Plus a behind the scenes look at my entire system.
Let’s jump right into it!
Here’s an overview of what’s to come:
Why It Matters
Before we jump into the optimisations.
It’s important to quickly note why product data optimisation matters in the first place.
Simply because the quality of your product data…
Directly impacts your campaign health and performance.
In other words:
The better optimised your data, the better Google is able to show your products to the right people at the right time.
It’s crucial for performance, especially for your Google Shopping and DSA campaigns.
Data Feed Optimisation Software
Another quick note before getting into it, is the software required to optimise your data.
The only tool I use is DataFeedWatch (DFW).
I’ve been using it since 2017 and it works incredibly well.
The best part?
You can access it today for free.
Click the link for your 15-day free trial.
Beginner Tactics
This is where all the foundational optimisations are made.
The first step?
Mapping Internal Fields
This is the process of mapping your shop’s data fields to that of DFW.
It does wonders for:
- Ensuring data accuracy
- Giving you the control you need
- Creating and optimising data feeds later on
Here’s an overview of how it looks:
URL or Variant URL
Do you stock single products or products with multiple variants?
If so, be sure your id and link fields are variant specific:
Image Link
Have multiple images?
Make sure you select the image which is the most optimised.
This makes such a big difference for your campaign performance, especially CTR:
GTIN and MPN
Two fields which can take a lot of time to enter manually.
But really improve the quality of your data.
Within the backend for most of our clients, their:
- GTINs are entered in as barcodes
- MPNs are entered in as SKUs
With product mapping, this is resolved within seconds:
Once you’ve gone through and mapped all your internal fields:
You can save it and proceed to the data feed creation.
Advanced Strategies
With the product mapping now completed, it’s time to continue onto more advance strategies.
The first one may surprise you…
Using Facebook Product Ads Channel Type
You read that correctly!
Although you’re creating a data feed for Google Ads:
When selecting your channel type, pick Facebook Product Ads.
Why?
Because it allows you to exclude variants.
You can see in this example:
- Included products: 6,801
- Excluded products: 35,814
When you consolidate variants, you consolidate data which improves campaign performance.
With your feed now created, it’s time to build and optimise it.
Standard Fields
First is to make sure all your standard fields have been correctly entered.
A great place to start is the internal fields you had mapped earlier, for example:
- id
- title
- link
- price
- condition
Adding Product Descriptions
This is an excellent way to fill in descriptions which may have been missed within your backend.
Here’s how to implement it:
Custom Shipping
Have a range of shipping costs based on item weight?
This is light work for DFW.
Using the shipping_label, you can add static values based on the weight of the product:
Once you’ve done so, you can then setup custom shipping policies using these static values within your Google Merchant Center account:
Include/Exclude Products
This is an excellent way to make sure you aren’t trying to show products that:
- Are out of stock or
- Don’t have an image link
The impact?
A cleaner data feed and most importantly:
Saving wasted spend by ensuring your budget is only going to products that are in stock.
Categorising Products
This is where you map your products to Google friendly categories.
You simply select your product_type field and map them to the respective category:
Merge Product Variants Control
This is where you determine:
- If you want to merge variants
- Assign variant selection to custom fields of weight and shipping_label
In one simple view, you get to make your selections:
Pro Level Optimisations
This is where we take things up a notch.
These aren’t for the faint hearted but will do wonders for campaign performance.
Using Product Type To Label Product Performance
This is where you leverage the product type field to label products based on performance, for example:
- Top performers
- Mid performers
- Poor performers
You’ll need to create a Google Sheet to map and create the labels.
Here’s how this rule looks within DFW:
With this strategy, instead of optimising the products within Google Ads, you’re doing so on a data feed level.
You need to be highly organised and structured to ensure you make no mistakes during setup alongside ongoing management.
Creating Product Hubs
This is great if you have product hubs that perform really well and you want to:
- Single them out
- Create a campaign focusing on them directly and
- Assign additional budget increasing their exposure within Google
You do this by using the product_type field, here’s an example:
Creating Custom Categories
What if you wanted to create custom categories to have the same impact as product hubs but on a larger scale?
You’d want to use the custom_label field for this.
Here’s an example for football boots:
Building Your Google Shopping Campaigns
With your custom fields now created, you’ll pass this product data directly into Google Ads (once you’ve setup the data feed within GMC).
The best part?
The amount of control you get and the ease of setting up/managing your campaigns.
To configure, navigate to your Shopping campaign > Ad groups > Product groups and refine your product targeting:
Variations Of Product Labelling
We’ve gone through custom product hubs and categories however, this same logic and methodology can be applied in many different scenarios, to group products by:
- Sale (product tagging during major sales)
- Seasonality (summer, winter etc.)
- Cost (<$20, >$100 etc.)
Product Title Optimisation
For general product title optimisations (similar to how we did it for product descriptions) DFW is great.
However, if you’re planning to use keyword data to optimise the product titles of your best performing products purely for Google Ads, we recommend using a dedicated Google Sheet instead.
Bonus: Get Started Today
All of this can be a lot of work, it also requires time and expertise to get it right.
If you need a hand with your Google Ads management, reach out and we’d be happy to help.
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