3 levels of product feed optimization

Almost every eCom brand I know runs Shopping Ads and Performance Max campaigns.

But very few push these campaigns anywhere near their full potential.

Across 80-90% of the accounts we audit, including big, established brands… we find one consistent profit killer:

Poor product feeds.

That’s a serious problem because Google pulls data from your feeds to decide where and how to show your ads.

A better feed means your products will show up in more relevant searches AND rank higher in those queries.

In many ways, it has the same level of importance as creatives on Meta.

It sets the ceiling for performance, and it directly influences how many sales you make.

If this foundation is weak, none of your other optimizations really matter.

What really frustrates me is that… this isn’t hard to fix.

It doesn’t take much work to optimize your feed, and the returns you’re going to get from it are asymmetrical.

So how should you approach this?

I’d suggest every brand prioritize these 3 key areas:

1. Title Optimization

Your product title is your #1 ranking and relevance signal.

This is where most of the matching happens between your product and a user’s search.

Google needs clear, structured language to match your product to the right queries.

A weak title leaves Google blind.

A strong title tells Google exactly what the product is and who it’s for.

In most cases, a strong title includes:

• Brand (when relevant)

• Product type

• Key attributes people search for

• Variants like color or size

And just as important, these elements need to appear in the right order.

The first 30 to 70 characters are the most important.

Google cuts titles after roughly 70 characters, so you need to front-load your most important keywords.

One of the fastest ways to improve titles is through your search terms data.

Look at what queries are converting in your Shopping and PMax campaign.

Make sure those exact phrases appear in your titles.

Also, structure titles differently based on product category and search behavior.

Branded products should usually lead with the brand.

For generic campaigns (think "wireless earbuds" or "yoga mat"), lead with the product category and key benefits.

2. Attribute Accuracy

This adds to the foundation we built with titles.

Here we're talking about GTIN, brand, product category, and identifier_exists.

Boring stuff. But they form the data layer Google uses to categorize your products and match them across their ecosystem.

The good news is that these issues are straightforward to fix.

I’ll include a table below outlining what each attribute is, why it matters, and how to fill them.

Once you understand this, run this quick audit:

• Go to your Google Merchant Center

• Click on Products → All products → Diagnostics

• Filter for "Approved with warnings."

• Look specifically for items missing GTIN, items missing brand, identifier_exists issues, and category mismatches

• Fix the top 20% of products by spend.

You'll see an immediate impact after cleaning this up.

3. Feed Cleanliness, Image Quality & Strategic Segmentation

This final step is about removing friction and wasted spend that quietly drags performance down.

You don’t want your campaigns to spend money on gift cards, out-of-stock items, or products with bad images.

Every single feed has junk in it:

• Test SKUs

• Sample products

• Gift cards

• Zero-price items

Set up feed rules or filters to automatically remove these.

Next: Product images

Every product you promote needs a clear, high-quality image.

White backgrounds are often the standard, but you should always test lifestyle images.

They often perform better for visual product categories like fashion, home goods, or food.

Finally, use custom labels for segmentation.

They don’t boost performance on their own.

But they give you control over what gets advertised, bidding, and how different products are treated.

They allow you to segment products by margin, ROAS targets, seasonality, or strategic priority.

That makes it easier to create separate campaigns or asset groups with different bidding strategies.

For example, you might have one campaign targeting high-margin best sellers with a 4X ROAS target…

Another promotes clearance products with a 1.5X ROAS target.

This is how you guide the algorithm on what to push and how aggressively to push it.

That's the full guide to product feed optimization.

I understand this isn’t exciting stuff and takes a lot of time to set up & optimize.

But it’s necessary to get the most out of your Shopping Ads.

Google rewards brands that play by its rules.

Optimize your feeds, and every other part of your Shopping Ads will get much more effective.

Jackson

Founder and CEO of Echelonn.

P.S.

I go deeper into these attributes in a recent YouTube video.

Inside, you’ll see how we optimize them in our client accounts.

Watch it here.

How we can help:

Get a free Google ads audit: For brands spending more than $20k/mo. or making over 1 million annually, we’ll identify the key bottlenecks in your account, and turn it into a free 90-day scaling plan. Click here.

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