Advertising products online seem straightforward. Simple enough at first, until you want to achieve more with your shopping campaigns.
In this post, you’ll discover the key factors to determine when you need to take the next step to a full-service data management platform. But first, let’s review what a Data Management Platform is and how it can benefit you and your business.
What is a Product Data Management Platform?
Data Feed Management Platform is a software platform used to collect and manage all your product data. This system allows you to have highly optimized information about your products, centralizing all those details into one file(product feed) to better promote your products across multiple channels, in different markets, and reach targeted audiences.
A Full-Service Data Feed Management Platform helps you with all your data management needs, from data feed creation, configuration, optimization, and synchronization, to customization.
Let’s dive into some of the reasons why and when you should consider a Full-Service Product Data Management Platform
Promote Products in other Countries, Currencies & Languages
If you’re looking to advertise your products in other countries, languages, and currencies there are a few challenges you might be facing.
To customize campaigns for different markets, you want to create dedicated feeds for each specific channel and customize your campaigns for each market you are going to sell on.
Here are some 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 need to be able to manage a large volume of feeds. This might not be that easy.
Here is where a full-service data management feed platform can help. The platform and service allow you to manage all your feeds, making sure they are all updated correctly as well as optimized for each country and channel.
Increase the Number of Products To 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.
Some of the typical challenges brands and retailers have when they increase their product inventory can be:
- Product variants are mixed up when the data is pulled from the eCommerce platform. They need to be adjusted and reordered to match Google’s 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 products 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. Keep reading to learn more.
Increase the Number of Distribution Channels
The more channels you advertise on the more technical issues you’ll have. Seriously, do you have that much time 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 and follow channel requirements. If you’re promoting your products in 5 different 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
Feed requirements to promote your products across channels are constantly changing. We’ve provided only a few examples above but there are hundreds of options depending on which country you’re advertising in. For more details on available channels, take a look at the full list of marketing channels and marketplace channels you can connect to
Customize Your Product Data With the Right Platform
Troubleshooting and customizing your feeds for the best outcomes can take up much time and resources. A Full-Service Data Management Feed Platform helps you save time on manual tasks by automatically displaying your products and effectively reaching the right customers on multiple channels.
Here are some typical examples of customizations and data manipulations Highstreet.io takes care of:
- Website scraping to get specific data that is not being captured in master feeds
- Adding GTINs from an outside source to be included in the feeds: these codes might not be available in master feeds or eCommerce platforms
- Reconfiguration of Product Titles and Categories to follow a specific channel’s requirements, including important information customers are looking for
- Adding product promotion information at specific times of the year
Time is money and leaving the technical details to a trusted feed management partner means you can focus on other important marketing matters. Learn how you can easily switch to a Full-Service Data Feed Management Platform. Contact Hightstreet.io experts for more information & Get Started!