Prepping Your Product Feed for the Holidays
The clock is ticking for advertisers to prepare their products for holiday shopping. With Black Friday fast approaching, optimizing Google product shopping feeds for advertisers isn’t optional — it’s critical. Millions of U.S. shoppers are expected to search online during the holiday season, with Google being a top destination.
To ensure products show up prominently to capture valuable traffic, marketers should consider these two strategies to get Google shopping feeds ready to win this holiday shopping season.
1. Optimize product titles with core data inputs
Google product titles are one of the most influential factors in shopping feed performance and visibility. Take the time to review and refine them to be clear, concise, and keyword-rich. This effort helps advertisers appear in top positions for the most valuable search queries.
Advertisers should focus on including the most significant, descriptive terms in their titles and prioritize brand recognition by including the brand name in their titles. For example, if your brand sells tables, use the specific type, like “Dining” — as in “[Brand Name] Modern Dining Table With Metal Legs.”
Advertisers can also strategically refine their product titles using three powerful tactics:
- Competitive analysis: Analyze competitors’ titles to identify successful naming conventions and keyword patterns, ensuring your brand’s titles are both relevant and competitive
- Keyword research: Perform keyword research to either refine existing title terms or discover new, high-volume keywords. This strategic addition of terms will significantly expand audience query reach and product visibility
- Review auction insights: Review Google auction insights as they are an essential tool for understanding the competitive shopping environment. Auction insights allow advertisers to know where they stand against competitors in the auction in order to identify opportunities and defend their impression share
2. Utilize product attributes and highlights to reach relevant queries
Another way to optimize product feeds is through the strategic use of product attributes and highlights. Product attributes are fields in the Google Merchant Center product feed, such as color, size, gender, fabric, and dimensions, whereas product highlights act as key selling points or callouts, such as “American-Made” or “High-Quality.” Leveraging these features gives shoppers the information they need instantly, drawing customers in and driving valuable clicks from Google.
These specific terms allow products to serve more frequently and precisely for relevant, long-tail search queries, dramatically increasing visibility. For example, an advertiser’s sneaker products may be more visible on shopper search queries for “women’s pink sneakers” rather than just “sneakers.” Analyzing competitor listings can help identify commonly used attributes or product highlights that improve relevance and competitiveness.
Hot tip: The “custom label” attribute, also located within the “additional details” section of product feed, allows advertisers to organize products for campaign structuring, such as segmenting promotions or creating dedicated ad groups, although they do not directly influence Google’s ranking. An example is creating a custom label, such as “Clearance.” By assigning labels to certain items, advertisers can effectively segment products from their main inventory. This then allows them to create a dedicated shopping campaign that targets only those products, maximizing promotional effectiveness.
What this means for marketers
A successful Google product feed begins with strategically analyzing and refining product titles and attributes. With intense holiday competition in the shopping space, advertisers’ products must stand out. These recommended product feed strategies are key to unlocking products’ highest potential and visibility, ultimately aiding in driving incremental revenue. The time for preparation is now. Is your Google product feed truly optimized for holiday shoppers?
