Data Feed Management

Data feed management revolves around managing your Data Feed. The idea is to optimize your Data Feed so that your webshop will produce better results. Data feeds are also used for selling products through channels like Amazon and Google Shopping. Lastly Data feeds are used to update your webshop (and vice-versa).

What is a Data Feed?

A Data Feed is the document in which several product details are tracked (ID, name, color, stock, etc.). These files are comparable to an excel-file and are updated daily or hourly. The Data Feed files are linked to several channels such as Amazon and your webshop, providing information as necessary.

For example:

one type of shoe with ID: 1 and name: A will be priced down next week. The only thing that needs to change is the Data Feed where price is changed and all channels will be updated to the most current version of the Data Feed. Source: Searchenginewatch

Exporting Data Feeds made easy for you

While Data Feeds offer a simple solution for keeping stock and updating your channels there is a drawback. Most channels use their own variation of Data Feed interpretation. This means that, while google uses the category ID you may have named that same category SKU. To change this manually for every channel would be a lot of work and may even require you to keep multiple Data Feeds active.

So, to address this problem a couple of programs are developed to aid in exporting your Data Feed to a variety of channels. (Source: Ecommercewiki)

Optimizing Data Feeds

When managing Data Feeds is important to optimize them so customers will find you easier and you rank higher on various channels. Google for instance has an algorithm where it reads the product name from left to right, seeing the words on the left as most important and the words on the right as least.

So, in practice:

The customer finds “Timberland 6-Inch …” because he/she searched for “Timberland boots” on Google. The brand is displayed first, second is the type, after type comes size, and finally the gender. To promote your products in the right way it is important to keep in mind how people will search for these products. This can change per product type so carefully research your channels. (Source: CPC Strategy.com)

Want to delve deeper into Data Feed Management? Head on over to the Data Feed Management topic on www.ecommercewiki.org.