Should I Use A Shopping Feed Specialist to Manage My Google Shopping PLAs?

What Can A Shopping Feed Specialist Do For Your PLAs?

A data feed or shopping feed is a file that lists all of your products that you sell on places such as Amazon, Bing and Google. But in order to have a worthwhile and effective data feed, you, as an online merchant, need to do much more than simply include a file of products.

Your products need to be sorted by groupings and attributes in a manner that not only falls in line with certain requirements (which differ from each shopping engine), but they need to be sorted in a manner that benefits you and the ROI you enjoy with your product listing ads (PLAs).

This is where a shopping feed specialist can truly help your online presence. If you have thousands of products, and/or have a large presence on a number of shopping sites, managing your data feeds can be a full-time job. Not only does this task require many hours of dedication and monitoring, but it also requires a certain level of expertise and familiarity. Assuming you’d probably prefer to dedicate your own man-hours toward drumming up more business, working with a data feed specialist can be a cost-effective way to take care of your online sales, without hurting your day-to-day operations.

Things To Consider With Your Shopping Feed

To give you a rough idea of what it means to truly manage a data feed, take this into account. You, as a retailer, likely have a certain set of “core products” that make up a huge part of your revenue. Brick and mortar retailers promote these items differently than they do the rest of their inventory. You, as an online retailer, also need to approach the PLAs for these products differently. A data feed specialist can help. One such way to approach these PLAs differently, within Google’s AdWords, is to create Product Targets for each individual SKU. This will allow you to bid that product on its own, and create specific negatives to make certain that you’re not getting irrelevant click traffic.

That alone is a tall task for any online merchant to complete, particularly if you have a large number of products to sift through and manage. But what about the idea of factoring in a web surfer’s intent?

PLAs are displayed based on keyword level intent signals. This means that these ads appear based on how users search for products. Being able to tap into a web surfer’s intent and behavior requires data analysis and an understanding of your market. It goes beyond simple surveys and polls. This area of data feed management requires true tech-savvy knowledge. Data feed specialists spend hours upon hours studying this information and dissecting data so that you don’t have to. In the end, the goal is to see the best ROI, correct? Simply bidding on a ton of PLAs won’t cut it. You need to know that your money is being put to good use, and that’s where a specialist can help.

Negative management is another aspect of your PLAs that you may not be optimizing. With negative management, you can have far more control over your marketing approach than you have at this moment. You don’t irrelevant traffic clicking on your PLAs, do you? That equates to nothing more than wasted money. You want motivated buyers who are more likely to become customers (either now, or down the line). By using negative management to your benefit, you can cut down on the number of irrelevant clicks. The data that a feed specialist studies religiously puts him in position to help you whittle away irrelevant traffic, and hone in on motivated buyers.

In The End, It’s About Making The Most Of Your Investment

PLAs cost money, but they can also make money as well. If you’re ads are attracting a ton of empty clicks (irrelevant traffic), you’re doing yourself more than good. A data feed specialist can help you make the most of your PLAs so that you and your business enjoy the biggest ROI possible.

Learn more about how a shopping feed specialist can help you and your PLAs. Call OperationROI at 1-888-277-5429 or fill out our contact form.