It's no secret to any campaign manager that Google Ads does not utilize keywords in its shopping campaigns. To understand what search queries are relevant to the products being advertised, Google relies primarily on the data you provide in the product feed. This makes feed optimization a fundamental part of performance optimization and campaign scaling.  

We’ve worked directly with Google product feed specialists to understand what levers are available to campaign managers to maximize the effectiveness of a product feed. Below, we share all ‘secrets’ that we gathered to help you improve the performance of your shopping campaigns.

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Where to post changes

There are multiple places where you can override the product data from your original feed.

1. Make changes directly in your original feed. Although this option allows you to keep everything in one place, there are a few disadvantages to this method. 

• You will lose the original data
• Other channels may be impacted if they use the same source
• It is harder to manage and edit the data than in a supplemental feed

2. Create rules either in Google Merchant Center or a feed-management platform. This option allows you to streamline things and make changes at scale. For example, you can add certain words to the title based on a product type or another field. For example, if ‘product type’ contains ‘running shoes’ then add ‘running’ to the title.

Adding rules is great in certain instances, however, it can create a big mess in your feed if something is off due to the dependency of one field on another. We would suggest avoiding this option for feed optimization.

3. Create a supplemental feed. We find this option the most optimal. The easiest and most efficient way to create a supplemental feed is in Google Sheets. Just download the original feed, paste the data into Google Sheets, remove any unnecessary columns (item id needs to stay for mapping), and make any necessary optimizations to the applicable fields. 

Once you are done with feed optimization, link the supplemental feed to the original one under ‘Supplemental Feeds’ in Google Merchant Center. Google will source the data from the supplemental feed first and then turn to the original feed for any data that is missing in the supplemental feed.

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Title

Maximum number of characters: 150

Tips for optimization:

• If your campaigns have historical data, check the converted search terms and include the relevant ones in the title
• Check the landing page to see how the product is described and include the words that are unique to the product
• Check the most popular search terms in Keyword Planner and include them
• Search similar products and see how competitors describe their products

Important: Users will see only about 70 characters of your entire title, so make sure that the most important words are visible.

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Short title

Maximum number or characters: 150; up to 65 characters recommended.

This field is used in a discovery feed campaign and is displayed when users are browsing the web rather than searching for the product. This means the title will not be used to match a search query and does not need 'keyword stuffing'. Focus more on the user experience.

Important: Be concise unlike with long titles. No need to squeeze all features like in the long title, only a very high-level description (Ex. Men's Polka Dot Dress Socks)

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Description

Maximum number of characters: 5,000

Tips for optimization:

• Google uses descriptions for ranking in a similar way as webpage content. So ensure the descriptions are relevant to the product and don’t deviate too much.
• We asked Google whether HTML formatting helps with ranking like with a regular SEO. For example, Heading 1 has a higher weight than Heading 3. Google confirmed that it does. You can use an online tool that converts text to HTML such as this.
• Users rarely read the entire description in Google Shopping. You have the option to do some keyword stuffing at the end of the description by listing keywords separated by commas. Although it may help with ranking, you should consider the negative impact on user experience.

Important: Creating descriptions requires a lot of time investment. Descriptions do not have as much impact on ranking as titles. So you should decide whether crafting descriptions is the best use of your time if you have many products in your feed.

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Product type

Maximum number or characters: 750

Tips for optimization:

• In product type, you can list keywords separated by ‘>’. Example: “blue socks > cotton socks > over the calf socks”
• Product type is the only metafield that impacts ranking but is not visible to users. This gives you an opportunity to test competitor terms and other keywords that you would not include in titles or descriptions. 

Important: Google Shopping/PMAX use only the first phrase in Product Type for filtering or segmentation inside the campaigns. So if you plan to use Product Type in your shopping campaign, ensure that the first phrase is set up according to your planned segmentation. 

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GTINs

Did you know that Google tracks your Amazon purchases if you use your gmail to log into the platform? Google is then able to map all of your purchases to your Google profile and any Google Ads audience you were assigned to (in-market, affinity, etc.).

Because Amazon requires all listings to include UPC/GTINs, Google is able to understand what audiences are more likely to purchase a particular GTIN. It's reasonable to assume that this the case with other ecommerce platforms as well.

If other retailers also sell the same products as you are on Google, the engines is then able to combine the learnings from all advertisers for the same GTIN and apply them in its optimization efforts.

Important: You need to have a unique GTIN for each variant of your product - size, color, material, etc.

To purchase GTINs, click on this link.

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Gender

If you sell gender-specific products, make sure to fill out this field. Google also requires for gender to be specified for all apparel products (clothing, shoes, hats, etc.). There are three options for gender: male, female, unisex.

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Color

Google also requires advertisers to specify colors for all apparel products. If an item has multiple colors, you can list them in this format: “red/blue/yellow”. The primary color should be listed first.

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Size

Just like with colors and gender, size is required for apparel products. Depending on the type of product, the size specification is different (large, 32W 34L, 9, etc.). You can find the guidelines here. 

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Brand

As we work with different advertisers, we are surprised to see that the majority of product feeds do not contain the correct trademark in the ‘brand’ field. We’ve seen the field containing model names, product type along with the brand name, or other random things. Make sure this field contains only the brand name that is most recognizable by your customers.

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