Tips for Improving Your Data Feed for Better Personalization

A well-curated data feed makes for a great user experience. Keeping your feed updated with detailed information means you can be confident all the work you’ve poured into developing great products, web pages, and marketing strategies won’t be let down by delivery that falls flat. Plus, understanding how your target users shop, what they’re looking for in a product, and which specific search queries you want triggering your ads will give you a major leg up on the competition.

Here are the basics behind creating an optimized data feed that feels relevant and personal to your target audience:

Optimizing & Categorizing Product Titles

The best-performing brands know more data is always advantageous when it comes to helping search engines place your ads. The more product information you provide, the better Google recognizes shoppers likely to benefit from your ad placement.

Accurate, descriptive product titles are the most important front-facing information you can give the search engine. It’s the first thing Google prioritizes when pulling data from your page and the key information potential customers will glance at before quickly deciding whether or not your ad is worth a click. Knowing how your target audience tends to shop will streamline this process considerably — include the brand, color, size, style, and model in product titles to take advantage of low-funnel searches from users most likely to be prepared for a purchase.

On the backend of your data feed optimization efforts, finely-detailed categorization of your product feed gives Google a wealth of information when populating search results. Utilize as many subcategories as possible when setting up your catalogue to give search engines the most accurate reading and help the algorithms identify search queries for a perfect match.

Keep Things Current with Dynamic Feeds

Dynamic feeds are the efficient solution to keeping your data feed accurate. Product availability, pricing, sale items, and seasonal promotions can all be updated quickly through dynamic product feeds without having to update the creative assets. Whether your website sells one specific item or a catalogue of thousands of products, up-to-date information on what’s in stock and what is temporarily unavailable is critical to maintaining a positive experience with users.

Customers also need to be able to trust the results of their search queries to reflect in-stock items priced correctly before they engage in an ad — nothing will undermine your marketing efforts faster than interested would-be shoppers ready to check out only to find their selected product unavailable or misrepresented.

Using High Quality Images to Build Trust In Your Products

It makes sense that a high-quality splash of color on a search results page can sometimes do more for your bottom-line results than any amount of clever ad copy or marketing game planning. Any ecommerce business aiming to gain momentum online must capture visual interest in some way, as 67% of users in one study based their purchasing decisions off of the product image’s quality.

The significance of a good image goes beyond simply harnessing users’ limited attention spans — to a customer new to your brand, a great product shot conveys the value of your business as a whole. Playing around with color combinations, lighting and the general aesthetic of your product images can keep things fresh and convey a sense of quality before a customer even lands on your homepage.

Applying Conversational Search Terms for Home Assistants

The popularity of asking digital assistants like Siri and Alexa for food recommendations, showtimes, nearby gas stations, and sports scores continues to rise. Voice-based shopping on home search devices like Amazon’s Echo Dot is expected to represent an 18% market share over the next two years, and 72% of parents who own voice-activated speakers have already considered shopping using those devices — in short, if brands want to be where customers are, voice search is a fast-growing piece of the marketing pie.

Though it may follow similar principles, training your data feed to respond intuitively to voice searches will vary from traditional typed, keyword-driven search results. Users tend to use a more conversational approach when asking questions out loud to a smart device, and 46% of the time those questions are related to local recommendations. Prioritizing “near me” search results, geographical data, and plain-language searches rather than lengthy keyword lists will boost your data feed up the rankings and position your brand as a helpful resource for frequent voice assistant users.