Your Shopping feed probably isn't what's holding you back.
Not “feed optimisation”. Not “product data enrichment”. Most accounts need the feed tidy, then a proper budget and a proper target. Here's when the rest is worth doing.
Chris Ogle 2 min read
In this one6 sections · 2 min read
The short version
- A tidy feed is enough for most accounts. Titles that describe the product, no errors in Merchant Center, the obvious words in.
- Tell Google what you'll spend and the return you need. Then step back and let it get on with it.
- The feed matters most near saturation, when Google can't find any more customers at the return you need.
- Watch what it spends. If it's using the whole budget at your target, give it more money before you touch the feed.
Every agency’s got a feed optimisation package.
Rewrite the titles. Add the colours. Fill in every optional attribute Google’s ever thought of. Then do it all again next month, because it’s a monthly fee.
I’m not against any of it. I just think most accounts are paying for it years before it matters.
Google’s right about titles.
Fair’s fair. Google’s own help page says your title “will be used to match your product to a customer’s search”. If a jumper’s called “Product 4471 Blue” and nobody searches for that, nobody’s finding it.
So the feed needs to be tidy. Titles that say what the thing actually is. No errors in Merchant Center. The obvious words in.
Nobody should skip that bit. The bit after it is what I’d question.
Google does what you tell it to do.
The way Google Shopping works now, you’re not really steering it product by product. You tell Google two things: the most you’re willing to spend, and the return you need to make it worth it.
Within a fairly tight window, it does exactly that.
Which means a lot of the job is stepping back. Giving up some control. That’s uncomfortable if you’ve spent years being told the account only works if someone’s fiddling with it every day.
So when does the feed matter?
When you’re close to saturation.
That’s when Google’s already showing you to nearly everyone who’s looking for what you sell, at the return you need. More budget doesn’t buy more sales at that return. There’s nobody left to find.
At that point, every gap in the feed costs you. The jumper missing the word people search for is a search you’re not showing up for. Then it’s worth going through the feed line by line, because that’s where the extra sales are hiding.
Before that point? Google can find your customers easily enough with the feed you’ve got. Polishing the titles is a lot of work for not much back.
Check what it’s spending first.
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Daily budget | £100 |
| Target ROAS | 5 |
| Spent yesterday, at that return | £100 |
| Is the feed what's holding it back? | Not yet |
If it’s spending the whole budget and hitting your return, it’s found plenty of customers. It needs more money. Better titles can wait.
Give it more budget. Watch whether the return holds.
If it’s spending £60 out of £100 and still can’t hit the target, now I’m interested. Either the target’s unrealistic, or it’s run out of people it can find. That’s when I’d look at the feed.
Minimum work, maximum revenue.
I’m always looking for the smallest amount of work that makes you the most money.
Sometimes that’s the feed. Most of the time it’s the budget, the target, and whether the conversion tracking is telling Google the truth. That last one’s one of the five problems I find in nearly every account.
If your feed’s fine, I’ll tell you it’s fine. You can stop paying someone to rewrite your titles every month. Seems fair.
Things people ask about this.
Does feed optimisation improve Google Shopping performance?
It can, and Google uses your titles to match products to searches, so they need to be right. But once the feed is tidy, most accounts get more from the budget and the return target than from rewriting titles. The feed starts to matter a lot more when you're close to saturating the market.
What should I fix in my Shopping feed first?
Anything Merchant Center says is wrong or disapproved. Then titles that don't describe the product properly, or that are missing the obvious word someone would search for. That's the tidy-up. Most of the gain is in there.
When is feed optimisation worth paying for?
When Google is struggling to spend your budget at the return you need, and you've checked the target is realistic. That's the point where it's run out of customers it can find, and a missing word in a title is a search you're not showing up for.
What's market saturation in Google Shopping?
It's when you're already showing to nearly everyone who's searching for what you sell, at the return you need. More money doesn't buy more sales at that return. That's when every gap in the feed costs you.
Can you look at my feed for me?
Yes. It's part of the free Google Ads audit. If the feed's fine, I'll tell you, and you can stop paying someone to polish it.
Google's own pages on this
Where this comes in.
- ServiceGoogle ShoppingBids priced on what each shopper is worth, not the cheapest click.
- ServiceFree AuditDone live on a screen share in 20 minutes. I'll tell you which of the five usual problems you've got, or that it's fine.
- BlogIs Google Ads worth it for a new brand? Not until people trust you.Anyone can make a good-looking ad and a decent Shopify site now. So polish doesn't sell any more. Whether anyone believes you does.
- BlogYou only need POAS tracking if your margins are all over the place.Not “profit intelligence”. Not “margin-aware bidding”. POAS is a good number. Whether you need to pay for a tool to work it out comes down to one question.
