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What is a Product Feed?

And what role do they play for successful eCommerce businesses?

Product feeds

Also known as product data feeds or data feeds - are files in a variety of formats (csv, txt, xml) containing any manner of different product information.

XML-icon

Extensible Markup Language (XML)

CSV-icon

Comma Separated Values (CSV)

JSON-icon

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

TSV-icon

Tab Separated Values (TSV)

In an eCommerce context, these 'feeds' are used by sales and marketing channels like Google Shopping, ebay, Pricerunner and Facebook to receive the product data from eCommerce merchants and then use it to display their product listings on their site.

Why are product feeds important in e-commerce?

Product feeds play a vital role in getting data from your online store to be listed on global marketplaces.

Each channel has specific requirements for how they want your product feed to look and how it should be structured. For example, Google specifies that each product must have an accompanying GTIN, while Miinto outlines that no brands may be included in product titles.

Data-Feed-Management

For digital marketers, product feeds are important as they are the line between a successful online campaign and a waste of online spending. For them, it's not just a matter of making sure the product feeds has all the requirements the sales channels require. For effective results, product feeds should be about more than just getting product data from one place to another.

Shopping channels use the data in your product feeds as a sign of the overall quality of your campaigns. Based on the content, feed completeness and relevant keywords, channels will decide whether or not your products should get displayed for a specific search query by one of your shoppers.

What are the benefits of an optimized product feed for digital marketers?

Better Quality Scores

As an online seller, the only thing you are providing to sales channels is your product feed. This means that it's the only thing for their algorithms to decide which listings should be shown to shoppers. So the information that you decide to include in your feed makes all the difference. The more detailed, complete and high-quality your data is, the better result you will get from your chosen channels.

Accuracy of your data

When you are selling online, there are a number of factors you have to complete to ensure success:

  • Does the listings on your store match those on the channel?
  • Has your inventory been recently updated?
  • Have you included new promotions, products or sales prices? 

Having a mismatch between your online store and sales channels can lead to suspension, so product management is about getting the right information at the right time.

Effective Product Data

When you are paying for every click, impression and sale, you want to adhere to the recommended methods and techniques which you know will get you the sale. Managing your product feeds efficiently gives you the control over your data which you need. 

What options are available to merchants wanting to start selling on multiple channels? 

1
Method 1

Using a spreadsheet to manually build product feeds.

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Method 2

Adding product feeds directly from your store using API.

3
Method 3

Automated product feeds from feed marketing platforms.

Who does automated product feeds work best for? 

Merchants with multiple SKUs 

If you only have 20 products, you probably don't need to use product feed automation tools. As eCommerce businesses grow and begin to stock more products, the need for a tool that simplifies and saves time becomes more relevant. 

Merchants with Product catalogs which frequently change

As mentioned above, it's crucial to give eCommerce channels up-to-date information. Any changes to your pricing, inventory, sizes etc need to be registered and exported quickly, which is where a tool that can automate the whole process will come in handy! 

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Merchants who Want to Sell on More Channels

Perhaps the most crucial use of automating product feed management is when it comes to multi-channel sales strategies.

Remember, the product feed you have isn't optimized for any channel, just your online store. So the demands of Google, Fruugo, Facebook and Amazon and going to vary greatly and it's up to you, the retailer, to meet those demands.

So this is where feed management tools come in, with pre-made templates that tailor a single feed import to each and every channel - without changing your original product data from the online store. 

A product feed management tool is the best option when it comes to managing and optimizing your product feeds for any number of channel exports.

About WakeupData

WakeupData is data feed management platform, which helps merchants on Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, Prestashop and more to optimize their product data feeds.

We support you every step of the way to set up integrations for your Google product feed, Amazon feed, Facebook feed and hundreds of other sales channels worldwide.

Apply for a 30 day free trial

We offer a user-friendly interface, intuitive design and a Customer Success Team to deliver ROI through feed management and optimization through effective Data feed management.  

Download our FREE Product Feed Audit Guide or book your live demo and free evaluation today.

Wakeupdata allows me, a person with no programming background, build the feed by myself from scratch and customize it as I go, which definitely has the potential to be a big time-saver.
Joni Helminen, Senior Specialist at OMD Finland