Product feed: the highest-return hour of work in an online shop
In shopping campaigns and Performance Max it is not keywords that decide, it is the feed. Disapproved products, bad titles and missing attributes mean part of your range never appears — and you pay for the rest.
- For shopping campaigns the feed is what keywords are in search: it determines what you appear on at all.
- The product title is the strongest field. Word order in it matters more than any campaign setting.
- Disapproved and non-serving products are the most common silent loss — check diagnostics before campaigns.
When a shop says shopping campaigns or Performance Max are not working, the first place we look is not the campaign. It is the feed. In the large majority of cases there is more money there than anywhere in the settings — and it is found faster.
The reason is simple. In search advertising you tell the system what to appear on using keywords. In shopping advertising you tell it using product data. The feed is your targeting.
Start with diagnostics, not optimisation
Before improving anything, find out how many products are showing at all. In Merchant Center, go through these states:
- Disapproved items. They do not show at all. The most common reasons: a price mismatch between the site and the feed, missing shipping or returns information, a prohibited category, a missing identifier.
- Items with warnings. They show, but in a limited way. Typically a missing GTIN, a wrong category or a low-quality image.
- Non-serving items with no error. The trickiest group: formally everything is fine, but the product gets no impressions. Usually it has a bad title or sits in a category where it has no chance.
What percentage of your range received at least one impression in the last 30 days. When it is below 50 %, there is no point tuning bids — half the shop is closed and you do not know it. This figure belongs in the monthly report just as much as cost of sale.
The product title: the strongest field in the feed
The system matches a query to a product primarily by title. What is in it, and in what order, matters more than anything else.
What works:
- A structure that fits the category. For fashion,
Brand + product type + gender + colour + size. For electronics,Brand + model + key spec + colour. For consumables,Type + brand + volume + pack size. - Most important words first. The title gets truncated in the ad; anything past about seventy characters may not be visible.
- Words people actually search. If customers write “joggers”, do not put “leisure trousers” in the title.
- Internal codes out. Nobody searches “XK-2291-B” and it takes up room.
How to verify it is working: in the search terms report for shopping campaigns, look at which queries your products appear on. If they do not match how you name the product, you have your answer.
The attributes that actually matter
| Attribute | Why it matters | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
title | Main signal for query matching | Internal codes, missing brand, wrong word order |
gtin / mpn / brand | Product identification, offer comparison | Missing or wrongly filled; the product is then disadvantaged |
price and sale_price | Must match the price on the site exactly | Mismatch after a promotion, or with a different currency or tax — leads to disapproval |
availability | Advertising out-of-stock goods pays for disappointment | Updated once a day for a range that changes hourly |
image_link | Decides the click more than the text | Watermarks, text in the image, low resolution, white product on white |
google_product_category | Determines which competition the product is in | Too generic a category, or simply the wrong one |
product_type | Your own taxonomy for splitting campaigns | Left empty — the range then cannot be split by margin |
custom_label_0–4 | Free fields for your commercial logic | Unused; yet this is the key to managing by margin |
Custom labels: where the money is made
Five free fields the system does not interpret at all, but which you can split campaigns by. Recommended uses:
- Margin band. High, medium, low. The single most important label — without it you cannot set different return targets for differently profitable parts of the range. See margin by category.
- Turnover. Bestseller, standard, slow mover. A different commercial priority, a different target.
- Price band. Cheap accessories and expensive items have different conversion rates and different sensible costs per acquisition.
- Season. Lets you switch parts of the range on and off without rebuilding campaigns.
- Stock state. Last units, restocking. Stops you spending on goods you cannot deliver anyway.
Four silent killers
- Price mismatch. A promotion goes live on the site and the feed updates six hours later. Products get disapproved in the meantime. The fix: more frequent updates or a live pull from the shop.
- Variants without correct grouping. Ten sizes as ten separate products with no shared identifier means fragmented data and the same thing repeated in the ads.
- Shipping and returns. Missing or wrongly configured information leads to whole groups of products being disapproved, and it is often overlooked because it does not look like a feed problem.
- Images that show nothing. In fashion and equipment the first image decides the click. A product on a white background from an unflattering angle loses even at a better price.
Maintenance rhythm
- Daily (automated): check disapproved items, alert on any jump in their count.
- Weekly: products with no impressions, new warnings in diagnostics.
- Monthly: share of the range receiving impressions, review titles in the highest-earning categories, update margin labels.
- Before a season: the whole feed again, including images and availability. See seasonality.
What to take away
A feed is not a technical appendix to a shop, it is a commercial document. It decides what you appear on, to whom and at what price. Before anyone next proposes rebuilding campaigns, find out what percentage of the range received an impression in the last month. That figure usually ends the conversation and redirects the work to where it pays back.
Common questions
Why are my products not showing in shopping campaigns?
Most often because of disapproval in Merchant Center. Typical reasons are a price mismatch between the feed and the site, missing shipping or returns information, a missing product identifier, or a prohibited category. The second large group is items with no formal error that still get no impressions — there the culprit is usually a bad product title or an unsuitable category. Always start with diagnostics in Merchant Center, not with changes to campaigns.
How should I write product titles in a feed?
With a structure matching the category and the most important words at the start, because the title gets truncated in the ad. For fashion, brand, product type, gender, colour and size works well; for electronics, brand, model, key specification and colour. Use the words customers actually search rather than internal terminology, and leave out internal codes. You can verify it in the search terms report: if the queries do not match how you name the product, you know what to fix.
What are custom labels in a feed for?
They are five free fields the advertising system does not interpret at all, but which you can use to split campaigns and asset groups. The most valuable use is a margin band, because without it you cannot set different return targets for differently profitable parts of the range and money flows to where things sell most easily. Beyond that it pays to label turnover, price band, seasonality and stock state, so you do not have to rebuild campaigns with every change.
- Performance Max Optimisation Guide 2026, Involve DigitalBackground on the link between feed quality and Performance Max results. An agency source; verify specific attribute requirements in Merchant Center Help.