Advertising products online seem straightforward. Simple enough at first…until you want to achieve more with your shopping campaigns.
Find out the key factors to determine when you need to take the next step to a full-service data management feed platform.
1. You want to Promote Products in other Countries, Currencies & Languages
If you’re looking at advertising your products in other countries, languages and currencies what are some of some of the challenges you might face?
In order to customize campaigns for different markets, you need to create dedicated feeds. If you don’t create dedicated feeds you can’t customize your campaigns for each market.
Examples of scenarios that require separate feeds
- If you want to tie a promotion to a certain country and not have that promotion show up in your other feeds. If you want to use dedicated promotions in certain countries and you don’t want the promotions showing up in other markets.
- When your product data from the master source contains some data that is only in one language and you want to remove it for other countries.
- Your inventory might change for different countries depending on where the merchandise is being stored.
Once you start advertising in more than one country and you’re creating multiple feeds for each channel in each country you’ll need to be able to manage a large volume of feeds that might not be easy. This is where a full-service data management feed platform can help. This type of platform and service takes on the management of all your feeds and works with you to make sure they are updated correctly and optimized for each country and channel.
2. You’re increasing the number of products you sell
As your business grows so can your product inventory. If you find you have ongoing technical feed issues because of the volume of your products then it is time to look at a full-service data feed management platform.
What are some of the typical challenges brands and retailers have when they increase their product inventory?
- Product variants are mixed up when the data is pulled from the eCommerce platform. They need to be adjusted and reordered to match with Google requirements.
- The more products you sell the more likely your products will sell out. If your inventory displaying in your ads isn’t up-to-date because it’s taking too long to synchronize with the website then the channel you’re advertising on might stop showing your ads.
- If you’re selling high volumes of product on your site the need for real-time synchronization of your products might be needed. You always want your website inventory to match the inventory displayed on other channels that promote your products.
If you’re having these challenges then it might be time to start working with a product data feed management company.
3. You’ve Increased your number of distribution channels
The more channels you advertise on the more technical issues you’ll have. How much time do you have to dedicate to feed issues?
Nearly every distribution channel you use to promote your products has different feed specifications. This means the product data within each feed should be customized to the needs of that channel. If you’re promoting your products in 5 channels that means 5 feeds times the number of countries you’re advertising in.
Some popular distribution channels include:
- Comparison Shopping Websites & Search Engine Marketing: Google Shopping, Bing Shopping, Nextag, Shopzilla & PriceGrabber
- Social Commerce: Facebook Dynamic Product Ads, Instagram Shoppable Posts
- Affiliate Networks: Rakuten/Linkshare, CJ, Awin
- Retargeting Networks: Criteo & AdRoll
- On-Site Services/Tools: Site Search, Recommendation Engines & Size Finders
The feed requirements for distribution channels to market your products are constantly changing. We’ve provided only a few examples above but there are hundreds of channel options depending on which country you’re advertising your in. How do you stay on top of the updates and new channels to use?
Send us an email if you want to talk about distribution channels for your market.
4. You need to manipulate or customize your product data
If you’re spending too much time troubleshooting or customizing your feeds to display your products effectively then it’s time to use a Full-Service Data Management Feed Platform.
What are some typical examples of customizations or data manipulations our client’s request?
- Scraping their website to get specific data that is not being captured in their master feed
- Adding GTIN’s from an outside source to be included in their feed. These codes are not available in their master feed or eCommerce platform.
- Reconfiguring Product Titles or Categories so they follow a specific channel’s requirements and include information the customer is looking for
- Adding product promotion information at certain times of the year
- Looking for a way to avoid these issues?
Don’t get stuck trying to deal with these issues yourself or taking your IT department’s time to work on feed issues. Highstreet.io’s managed service allows you to contact us if a change needs to happen right away. Time is money and leaving the technical details to us means you can focus on marketing your products.
To get more information on when to switch to a Full-Service Data Management Platform contact Hightstreet.io for more information. We develop product feeds for anywhere you want to advertise or syndicate your products.