00:00.031 --> 00:09.413
[SPEAKER_02]: The data tells you everything, so a lot of people are talking about now how, oh, you just put it into AI and it'll read it for you, but it doesn't understand your client.
00:09.553 --> 00:25.076
[SPEAKER_02]: It understands trends, but what the wide still isn't fed in from AI and that is what you need to figure out and understand the why and ensuring that you can communicate with your clients to understand that really does help.
00:27.668 --> 00:34.602
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Keep Optimizing Podcast to increase your traffic improve your conversion rates and grow your profits.
00:37.550 --> 00:38.771
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome.
00:38.931 --> 00:42.153
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Chloe, the host of this e-commerce marketing focus podcast.
00:42.173 --> 00:44.335
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not familiar, well, let me tell you what we do.
00:44.755 --> 00:49.599
[SPEAKER_01]: We release five episode mini series that dive deep into one e-commerce marketing topic.
00:50.139 --> 00:55.243
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be a channel like email or SEO or Facebook ads or a big topic like acquisition or attention.
00:55.603 --> 01:04.110
[SPEAKER_01]: And in each of those episodes, new ones released on Wednesdays, I get to interview a different expert to explore a different angle on making that marketing method work for you.
01:04.850 --> 01:10.613
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, after each five episode mini series, we take a week off to give you time to take action on all that you've learned.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Huge thanks to Jill Saskinger's for the intro to our guest for this episode, and if Jill's name sounds familiar, that's because she kicked off this year's Google Ads series, taking us through all the ins and outs of the new stuff on Google Ads and what we should and shouldn't care about.
01:24.881 --> 01:27.763
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you, Jill, for the episode, and thank you very much for this intro.
01:28.703 --> 01:31.344
[SPEAKER_01]: We are deep in Google ads at the moment.
01:31.504 --> 01:33.665
[SPEAKER_01]: We've done the episode with Jill on what's new.
01:33.765 --> 01:39.647
[SPEAKER_01]: We did the episode with Jill on how to revise your strategic plans due to how Google ads has been changing.
01:40.028 --> 01:42.168
[SPEAKER_01]: And this time we're getting super duper geeky.
01:42.208 --> 01:44.029
[SPEAKER_01]: We are getting into product feeds.
01:44.389 --> 01:56.014
[SPEAKER_01]: How you should have it set up, what tech you need, what you should be doing with the different fields, the image changes that are coming up, why descriptions are all important, and then we'll be getting into the nitty gritty of product types and custom labels.
01:56.874 --> 01:59.340
[SPEAKER_01]: enough in this one to keep your busy for a couple of weeks I reckon.
02:00.021 --> 02:03.770
[SPEAKER_01]: So make sure you listen right to the end so you don't miss out on my guest inside a tips.
02:06.086 --> 02:10.067
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, I'm chatting with Google Ads expert, Maryam Nasser.
02:10.487 --> 02:15.549
[SPEAKER_01]: Maryam has over 15 years experience in performance marketing, helping businesses around the world.
02:15.589 --> 02:21.091
[SPEAKER_01]: Scale was smart, data-led strategies across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads, and Beyond.
02:21.491 --> 02:26.172
[SPEAKER_01]: Since 2019, she's done all this via her consultancy 4M digital.
02:26.212 --> 02:30.954
[SPEAKER_01]: Maryam is also the founder of the don't-panic PPC global community.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Maryam.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, nice to be here.
02:34.795 --> 02:36.456
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome to have you on the show.
02:36.616 --> 02:40.038
[SPEAKER_01]: And how did you get into the world of Google ads?
02:40.058 --> 02:47.622
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got into Google ads due to my local newspaper putting an ad in there saying, do you like the internet?
02:48.002 --> 02:49.603
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, yes, I do.
02:50.043 --> 02:54.766
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went and I found them and I got an interview and then I said, yeah, and then I got a job.
02:56.060 --> 02:59.604
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the coolest story ever for getting.
02:59.664 --> 03:01.226
[SPEAKER_01]: The geekiest, most brilliant story.
03:01.466 --> 03:03.288
[SPEAKER_01]: So literally, do you like the internet?
03:03.328 --> 03:04.830
[SPEAKER_01]: We need someone to do internet for us.
03:04.870 --> 03:06.952
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was a digital agency.
03:06.972 --> 03:07.853
[SPEAKER_02]: So they were just growing.
03:07.873 --> 03:11.457
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there was like three people there at the time in PPC.
03:11.857 --> 03:15.101
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it was just my local Mercury newspaper.
03:15.601 --> 03:15.881
[SPEAKER_02]: It was...
03:17.002 --> 03:19.984
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was perfect there, it was like, do you like the internet at the time?
03:20.264 --> 03:24.486
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I was looking into banking and I was like, oh, I do like the internet.
03:24.506 --> 03:25.346
[SPEAKER_02]: I do like computers.
03:25.386 --> 03:26.567
[SPEAKER_02]: This is exciting.
03:27.107 --> 03:28.908
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it was made from a basically.
03:29.508 --> 03:30.429
[SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.
03:31.249 --> 03:34.911
[SPEAKER_01]: And now you've been in Google Ads for a while.
03:36.471 --> 03:38.072
[SPEAKER_01]: How important is the product feed?
03:38.212 --> 03:39.353
[SPEAKER_01]: What we're here to talk about today?
03:39.433 --> 03:45.896
[SPEAKER_01]: So now you spend a lot of time looking at product feeds, have done over the last 10 years or so that it feels to me like it's gaining an importance.
03:46.520 --> 04:07.596
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so originally a lot of people thought it was just plug and play and throughout the years it's become more and more important, but it's not a skill which everybody seems to want to do and fortunately depending on the tools you use you end up with having to put it in Excel and a lot of people don't like Excel anymore, they like to be more creative and stuff like that.
04:08.017 --> 04:11.760
[SPEAKER_02]: So the feed is just so important now and even more so
04:12.240 --> 04:18.609
[SPEAKER_02]: because of AI and everything else pulling that information in other places other than ads or free listings.
04:19.531 --> 04:26.921
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever come across a one-click tool slash integration for a Google merchant feed?
04:27.984 --> 04:33.506
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this many companies which say they're one click, but they're not.
04:34.006 --> 04:36.106
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is it depends.
04:36.527 --> 04:47.950
[SPEAKER_02]: So for example, somebody might have a beautiful website and they have a brilliant SEO person who's done all the basics on the back end of the website, making sure those SEO titles will be beautiful and things like that.
04:48.570 --> 04:54.932
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have a really good SEO person, then that feed is 10 times better than what it originally would have been in the first place.
04:55.572 --> 05:03.054
[SPEAKER_02]: And with that, you can use the tool in the free tools in Shopify, which connect it to the measuring center and you're good to go.
05:03.494 --> 05:12.057
[SPEAKER_02]: But the problem is now, we need more and more rich information in the feed, which, unfortunately, the platforms don't really push.
05:12.417 --> 05:17.825
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are tools out there, but for example, I'm testing out channelable at the moment.
05:18.446 --> 05:20.629
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's still not plug and play.
05:20.809 --> 05:22.271
[SPEAKER_02]: I still have to create the rules.
05:22.451 --> 05:23.513
[SPEAKER_02]: I still have to review it.
05:23.833 --> 05:28.821
[SPEAKER_02]: And they do have AI which supports it, but it's still not there.
05:29.622 --> 05:53.897
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think, in some ways, having asked the really evil question of is anything plug and play, I mean, I do think we don't want plug and play because, you know, it's about feeding these days in particular, it's about feeding Google the right information about your business and the more plug and play it is the more generic that becomes and therefore the less unique it becomes and the less good a job in theory, Google can do showing your ads to the right people.
05:54.317 --> 05:57.918
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly that, but also there's some things which you want.
05:57.958 --> 06:10.061
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you all sell Sony TVs, then the spec for that Sony TV, which is the same TV across multiple retailers, that spec, if you could plug and play and just pull in that spec easily, that would be a dream.
06:10.421 --> 06:15.243
[SPEAKER_02]: But unfortunately, that doesn't work for everybody, and that's where plug and play would work.
06:15.763 --> 06:18.203
[SPEAKER_02]: But then there's that bit in between.
06:18.283 --> 06:19.844
[SPEAKER_02]: So once once you have the basics,
06:20.524 --> 06:22.905
[SPEAKER_02]: which would be a dream of plug and play could actually do that.
06:23.445 --> 06:30.708
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we get to optimize and play with the feeds and start tweaking things to make us stand out more or understand our customers.
06:30.728 --> 06:38.732
[SPEAKER_02]: So if we know our customers prefer certain USBs over others, we can tweak our titles, for example, to highlight that information.
06:39.892 --> 06:43.694
[SPEAKER_01]: Would it be fair to say that what we ideally want is
06:45.492 --> 07:00.478
[SPEAKER_01]: a something that sits between the website and merchant and Google Merchant Center, that enables us to pull the best possible product information off the website, courtesy of, as you said earlier, the SEO team doing a great job of all the product copy.
07:01.678 --> 07:03.019
[SPEAKER_01]: and the images and all the rest of it.
07:03.580 --> 07:13.267
[SPEAKER_01]: But then enables us to optimize that data and also add the additional data, which Google requires, which our website does not require.
07:13.367 --> 07:17.411
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking like mapping to the Google product category levels and
07:18.231 --> 07:20.013
[SPEAKER_01]: consolidating colors.
07:20.413 --> 07:22.595
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we're not talking about crimson anymore.
07:22.615 --> 07:24.737
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about red and all that kind of stuff.
07:25.137 --> 07:26.298
[SPEAKER_02]: The tools already do that.
07:26.418 --> 07:27.819
[SPEAKER_02]: That's that's unfortunately.
07:27.859 --> 07:29.520
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the bit which I actually can do.
07:29.841 --> 07:31.602
[SPEAKER_02]: So, any not any.
07:31.842 --> 07:33.464
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say some tools.
07:34.544 --> 07:35.945
[SPEAKER_02]: usually a quite good at that.
07:36.005 --> 07:59.494
[SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't say all of them because I have recently worked with an agency who had a fetal which doesn't pull in half the stuff where the automatic straight from platform to the mentioned center actually does automatically and it's just because they never updated their systems to include this basic rich data which we actually need in the fields which is when I question them they were like yeah it might be on the road road map and I'm like it's been
08:02.693 --> 08:07.019
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, but there are some really good tools out there, which support that.
08:07.500 --> 08:18.316
[SPEAKER_02]: But where you say Google Product category, you really want that on the website, and you can actually do that because we have our feed and our data, but you also need Google to find that information on your website.
08:19.177 --> 08:30.801
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the platforms most of them now allow you to categorize it, categorize the product, make adding all your metadata in there and things like that which make it even more better.
08:30.881 --> 08:35.523
[SPEAKER_02]: And that all gets passed down into the feed and goes to Google or your feed provider anyway.
08:36.797 --> 08:39.098
[SPEAKER_01]: not realize we should be doing that.
08:39.118 --> 08:41.239
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why I don't work brand side anymore.
08:42.899 --> 08:43.680
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's cool.
08:43.900 --> 08:47.341
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's assume someone's got a decent text set up to do all this.
08:48.241 --> 08:54.243
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the key things we need to make sure we're doing with that feed to give us?
08:54.744 --> 08:58.265
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they're kind of the basic 101 stuff above the plug and play.
08:58.965 --> 09:03.828
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if you've got a feed and you've plugged it any like, right, what can I do now to make this better?
09:04.269 --> 09:06.650
[SPEAKER_02]: The key thing I would say is look at your product titles.
09:07.091 --> 09:08.332
[SPEAKER_02]: What does it actually include?
09:08.592 --> 09:19.059
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're SOT, if a lot of brands don't have an in-house SOT, and so those product titles don't always, or they're all out of sync because they've got old products, new products, and whoever uploaded the product did the title.
09:19.519 --> 09:26.368
[SPEAKER_02]: So making sure that they have a uniform SEO title's fantastic and then understanding what additional you need to add.
09:26.388 --> 09:34.338
[SPEAKER_02]: So if they don't have brand in their titles, you can create a role in the Merchant Center and say a pent brand here.
09:34.858 --> 09:42.520
[SPEAKER_02]: If it doesn't have a color or a size in the title, you can also just create a simple rule in your merchant center which would auto pull.
09:43.381 --> 09:46.201
[SPEAKER_02]: If there is a size, it would pull the size into the title.
09:46.581 --> 09:51.583
[SPEAKER_02]: What I will say is if you are playing with rules, make sure that the brand goes at the end.
09:52.243 --> 09:55.929
[SPEAKER_02]: not in the middle, not at the start because you only see 50 characters at the start.
09:56.369 --> 09:59.935
[SPEAKER_02]: And instead, they already know it's your brand because it literally says it below the title.
09:59.995 --> 10:08.347
[SPEAKER_02]: So what you want to make sure is that you tell them that it's that red maxi dress or, you know, whatever it's supposed to be, make sure that that is in the first 50 characters.
10:09.337 --> 10:14.920
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought you say, when you're talking brand, it's not, I'm not John Lewis selling 20 different people's brands.
10:15.000 --> 10:18.702
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, I'm Mark's and Spencer selling Mark's and Spencer's.
10:18.722 --> 10:21.944
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, I don't want Mark's and Spencer at the beginning of all my product keywords.
10:21.964 --> 10:25.025
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty much the entire space gone with those words.
10:25.366 --> 10:31.369
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do, I need them in the title for optimization reasons, but I'm going to bung it to the end.
10:31.409 --> 10:31.649
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
10:31.989 --> 10:38.614
[SPEAKER_02]: because a lot of them do have the brand name to this start, and it's like, well, test it at the end, because a lot of them are like, no, because that's our brand.
10:38.654 --> 10:42.596
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, that's okay, but it's still going to be there.
10:42.656 --> 10:44.638
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just everybody who knows that it's you.
10:44.998 --> 10:46.879
[SPEAKER_02]: So we need to give them something which they actually want.
10:47.279 --> 10:51.582
[SPEAKER_02]: Always remember that when you're optimizing a feed, you're not doing it to please the brand team internally.
10:51.903 --> 10:55.565
[SPEAKER_02]: You're doing it because you want your products to be seen by a continued like people.
10:56.065 --> 10:57.306
[SPEAKER_02]: And what are those people doing?
10:57.346 --> 10:57.686
[SPEAKER_02]: What are they
10:58.827 --> 11:15.958
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, um, footwear brands where they name their shoes and they forget that it's like a shoe or it's um, like a type of like Mary Jane shoes and stuff like that and they forget that important bit because nobody's sitting there searching for the Tracy shoe they're searching for Mary Jane's
11:17.058 --> 11:27.084
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally, totally resonate with that one, same with some denim brands, anyway, but before I go down that rabbit hole.
11:27.424 --> 11:34.448
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so that's our kind of like 101, get those automations working, think about it rather than just deploy.
11:34.468 --> 11:39.892
[SPEAKER_01]: And presumably a fair amount of checking to make sure it's actually deploying the way we wanted to.
11:41.008 --> 11:46.877
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, exactly that it's thinking about the user and just making sure they're actually optimizing towards it.
11:47.558 --> 11:49.518
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of like our basic one or one stuff.
11:49.598 --> 11:53.159
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do we go to next?
11:53.179 --> 12:01.901
[SPEAKER_02]: So ultimately, once you've done your title, you need to think about your product categorization and what more details people need.
12:02.001 --> 12:06.881
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the biggest changes, which is coming, I think in January next year is the image size.
12:07.342 --> 12:12.342
[SPEAKER_02]: So now you have to have a bigger image size than what you've previously ever had to do.
12:12.762 --> 12:15.103
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's making sure that you're passing rich images.
12:16.143 --> 12:38.063
[SPEAKER_02]: also because the way AI works is making sure that you have the correct information in the feed so your description isn't just basic generic top line, it's actually about that product and the key details are in there because AI will start tweaking titles and doing a lot more in the future and that's something we need to be really careful of and also like stuff like
12:40.945 --> 12:48.651
[SPEAKER_02]: like what specs are important, what users look for, like a warranty and stuff like that, and making sure that those are included in the feed.
12:49.672 --> 12:52.474
[SPEAKER_01]: So as we quickly, that image is piece.
12:52.614 --> 12:52.835
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
12:53.735 --> 12:58.239
[SPEAKER_01]: It's required from January, but we can start uploading bigger images now.
12:58.459 --> 12:58.719
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
12:58.779 --> 13:04.604
[SPEAKER_01]: We, and we probably should otherwise all of a sudden our products are going to disappear in January if the image is not big.
13:04.624 --> 13:06.685
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot, I think a lot of brands do,
13:08.767 --> 13:11.770
[SPEAKER_02]: hundred, it's moving to an apartment, but it was before.
13:12.290 --> 13:29.207
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's just making sure that your products are scalable because of the different screens and stuff originally, you could see some absolutely all for images when you've been searching, whereas now they're trying to make it you more uniform and cleaner and better for the multiple screens where they're going to be showing your products basically.
13:30.127 --> 13:32.369
[SPEAKER_01]: 500 by 500 isn't that challenging?
13:33.009 --> 13:34.550
[SPEAKER_01]: No, but she'll shouldn't be.
13:34.570 --> 13:35.650
[SPEAKER_02]: It shouldn't be.
13:35.670 --> 13:41.674
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's the key thing it shouldn't be, but actually realistically when you go and have a look in how many retailers are out there.
13:42.354 --> 13:44.436
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of them do struggle with things like that.
13:45.211 --> 13:51.177
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the better descriptions and the better detailed information about the products.
13:52.299 --> 14:01.989
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's obviously something the whole business should be working on because we need it for for all things AI and search and everything not just our Google app product feed.
14:03.230 --> 14:11.915
[SPEAKER_01]: presumably that something which needs to be done quite urgently, but from, is it worth, well, what am I trying to ask you?
14:11.935 --> 14:14.176
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to ask you, how do you approach doing it?
14:14.216 --> 14:15.917
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it get the whole company together?
14:16.317 --> 14:19.479
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it pick off the first 20% and Google Ads team goes rogue?
14:19.999 --> 14:22.820
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you approach getting those improvements made?
14:22.840 --> 14:24.181
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we obviously want them everywhere.
14:24.560 --> 14:26.281
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you do want them everywhere.
14:26.501 --> 14:31.625
[SPEAKER_02]: Personally, I think they're shopping for you to be a collaboration between an SEO team and a PPC team.
14:31.725 --> 14:42.933
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, what's the data tagging Google to how we should be optimizing these products as well as understanding what does Google need on an organic side to support free listings?
14:43.074 --> 14:45.395
[SPEAKER_02]: And then collaborate and work together.
14:45.796 --> 14:48.618
[SPEAKER_02]: What can be fixed on the website should be fixed on the website?
14:49.258 --> 14:55.120
[SPEAKER_02]: We shouldn't be making rules to put clusters on things, because the more clusters you put on the more it breaks.
14:55.601 --> 15:04.044
[SPEAKER_02]: So if there is work which you can do to that website and make it better, it's not just going to help your product fee, but it's going to help your website overall and make it richer.
15:04.745 --> 15:12.408
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it would move to the PPC team where it's like, okay, we've got this information about more can we do with it and how do we optimize it?
15:12.768 --> 15:16.729
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's when we start looking at things like a column called product type,
15:17.950 --> 15:21.693
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't get used very often, but it helps Google ads to actually trigger keywords.
15:22.074 --> 15:26.218
[SPEAKER_02]: So for example, if we're coming up to Black Friday, I know.
15:26.478 --> 15:35.867
[SPEAKER_02]: But for example, if you're going to be doing a Black Friday sale, think about the category which you're selling and put Black Friday TV sale in your product type.
15:36.247 --> 15:40.110
[SPEAKER_02]: You can have up to five categories within that and it supports Google Trigger.
15:40.791 --> 15:44.555
[SPEAKER_02]: for such terms which people are searching for and making sure it's relevant.
15:45.015 --> 15:54.165
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't put some in really generic in there because you'll end up in loads of impressions and Google think that it's not actually relevant and you could lose traffic.
15:54.625 --> 16:03.234
[SPEAKER_02]: But putting important in key information in there which you might not fully have in your feed, like that is like a no-brainer and something which I tell everybody to do.
16:04.342 --> 16:10.564
[SPEAKER_01]: could that also be things like, if you're a milliner, I'm coming up with the most random examples today.
16:11.205 --> 16:21.929
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a milliner, it could be Ask Got Hat type things or if it's the beginning of the wedding season, it could be wedding guest dress, but you change that over to Christmas party dress.
16:21.949 --> 16:23.089
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll get to talk to you about it.
16:23.169 --> 16:23.589
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
16:23.609 --> 16:24.230
[SPEAKER_01]: That's sort of thing.
16:24.250 --> 16:24.350
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
16:25.550 --> 16:26.091
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool.
16:26.191 --> 16:31.561
[SPEAKER_01]: So any other, so we've done kind of like the basics of the titles, the data, the images, the description, all of that.
16:31.661 --> 16:34.988
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we're getting more tactical with the product types field.
16:35.408 --> 16:38.234
[SPEAKER_01]: Any other tactical stuff we should be doing with our feeds.
16:39.070 --> 16:57.094
[SPEAKER_02]: I personally think, well, when we're using them, so for example, if you're using it in Google Ads, just make sure that when you're building out your campaign to use in custom labels and not any other category, which might optimize, because recently I was speaking to some teams and they were like, well, exciting them and not to miss their feed.
16:57.454 --> 17:05.179
[SPEAKER_02]: forgetting to check what they're actually using in Google Ads and they were using the product type, but changing all the product types so the feed completely dropped out of their campaigns.
17:05.840 --> 17:13.985
[SPEAKER_02]: If you use custom labels, custom labels don't tend to change because we use those for categorization when we are, like building out campaigns.
17:14.426 --> 17:19.849
[SPEAKER_02]: And always make sure that you liais with whoever's touching that Google Ads account before you start changing things.
17:20.230 --> 17:23.112
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you make a change, you want to see what happens.
17:23.612 --> 17:26.314
[SPEAKER_02]: And the quickest way of doing that is seeing the Google Ads data.
17:27.403 --> 17:34.448
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd be fair to say that the difference between product types and custom labels is custom labels are ours and only ours.
17:35.068 --> 17:39.812
[SPEAKER_01]: And Google isn't using them for anything, but we might be using them to make Google do something.
17:39.912 --> 17:43.995
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas product types are stuff we can use, but which Google is also using.
17:45.649 --> 17:48.890
[SPEAKER_01]: And are we still on the custom labels?
17:49.030 --> 17:51.050
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it still five, number zero to four?
17:51.230 --> 17:52.871
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is always frustrated me.
17:53.531 --> 17:54.091
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it is.
17:54.391 --> 17:55.831
[SPEAKER_02]: Same as product types, product types.
17:55.871 --> 17:57.432
[SPEAKER_02]: You have five as well.
17:58.032 --> 17:59.672
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is why it starts getting confusing.
17:59.712 --> 18:06.774
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, because you have Google product category, you have then you have product type, and then you've got custom labels.
18:06.834 --> 18:10.115
[SPEAKER_02]: And all those three can be played with, however you want to do it.
18:11.144 --> 18:13.265
[SPEAKER_01]: but they affect different things in the feed.
18:13.345 --> 18:15.245
[SPEAKER_01]: So custom labels is where we're.
18:15.545 --> 18:18.446
[SPEAKER_01]: When I used to do this, which was a very long time ago, everyone.
18:18.486 --> 18:22.688
[SPEAKER_01]: So the chances are, Maryam is gonna tell us this is a terrible idea to wait for her answer.
18:22.868 --> 18:24.628
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't don't log off before we get to that.
18:25.008 --> 18:27.769
[SPEAKER_01]: But we used to use them for price points.
18:28.409 --> 18:31.950
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, zero to five pound price points or five to 50 and so on.
18:32.030 --> 18:38.312
[SPEAKER_01]: We would use them for data we couldn't get in kind of like categorization or male female stuff.
18:38.332 --> 18:39.473
[SPEAKER_01]: And there were other very,
18:40.673 --> 18:43.814
[SPEAKER_01]: Very solid details we were using for it.
18:43.834 --> 18:46.915
[SPEAKER_01]: It was very black and white where a product fitted in that.
18:46.955 --> 18:48.395
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that still the best way to use it?
18:48.475 --> 18:50.096
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there any kind of no absolute?
18:50.836 --> 18:53.697
[SPEAKER_01]: I will always set this up as a custom label.
18:53.937 --> 19:02.959
[SPEAKER_02]: It always keep custom label for M2 for promotions and offers because especially with the bigger brands because they don't tend to do a blanket.
19:03.059 --> 19:04.920
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always certain set products.
19:05.240 --> 19:08.281
[SPEAKER_02]: So it always keep custom label for free for any promotion.
19:10.401 --> 19:12.422
[SPEAKER_02]: The other four, you can do whatever you want with it.
19:12.722 --> 19:16.044
[SPEAKER_02]: So I always say zero would be like your top main category.
19:16.064 --> 19:18.565
[SPEAKER_02]: So if it was fashion, it'd be dresses, et cetera.
19:19.066 --> 19:20.967
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you can break it down from there.
19:21.427 --> 19:23.448
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's normally how I'd do it.
19:24.422 --> 19:29.467
[SPEAKER_01]: point of those is that then you can group the products together within Google Ads and your campaigns.
19:29.808 --> 19:46.404
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a lot of people now pass profitability so profit in their and do margins as well and that kind of works but you need to be able to have a way of putting that into the feed which is where people struggle and that's where the likes of feed platforms support that.
19:47.916 --> 19:54.759
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so in, so we've done product types and custom labels any other tactical items we should be using in our feed.
19:55.920 --> 20:07.544
[SPEAKER_02]: I will honestly say that I look at feeds all the time and there is so much you can do in terms of optimization and learnings depending on what's going on in your Google Ads account.
20:08.265 --> 20:10.766
[SPEAKER_02]: But nobody tends to optimize their feeds.
20:16.028 --> 20:19.551
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can set that up in your back end, but some people don't set it up.
20:19.872 --> 20:39.150
[SPEAKER_02]: So they allow Google to actually just do it themselves and when Google does it themselves, sometimes you're talking about nail varnish, but because of the way you've named it, it's actually put it under car and car paint and things like that, so making sure those basics are in there would actually put you in a better stead than trying to
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[SPEAKER_02]: play with your titles when you don't have any categorization.
20:43.354 --> 20:49.699
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would say step one is just make sure you've got the basics ready especially because we're moving into Q4.
20:50.179 --> 20:53.262
[SPEAKER_02]: Ensuring more of that's there then start having more on top.
20:53.302 --> 21:02.570
[SPEAKER_02]: So start testing the titles, start testing your product type and making sure that you have a full description and then you move on to
21:09.783 --> 21:20.226
[SPEAKER_01]: And you say testing, can we AB test with this or is it you take half the best sellers and improve them and the other half the best sellers and don't improve them or is it like week on week testing?
21:20.266 --> 21:22.086
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you go about running the test?
21:22.426 --> 21:25.347
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you're doing it manually, it's very, very difficult.
21:25.687 --> 21:28.988
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're using a feed tool, you can actually AB test properly.
21:29.448 --> 21:39.043
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're doing it manually, it's more takes some add the tweak using a supplement feed because you can have literally a Google sheet and create supplement feed, and you can make that tweak.
21:39.765 --> 21:44.272
[SPEAKER_02]: And then so this is this, this is this, this is this user custom label, custom label four.
21:44.732 --> 22:07.338
[SPEAKER_02]: Because, you know, it's it's normally empty and then literally label it up and then you can test But the one thing to keep in mind is if you're doing split testing, just make sure that it's fair and in when you do the split Like remember if you're doing it say in October, make sure the products are correct for October A lot of time when people are testing it's like these are our best sellers and it's like, yeah, it's August
22:08.170 --> 22:16.254
[SPEAKER_02]: what's the best balance in October because if we split these and then you've got 10 of them which are best sellers and the rest aren't, this isn't a fair test.
22:16.654 --> 22:23.998
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things I like to do is just make the tweak to some of the products and just monitor them and see where they just drop off or maintain or grow.
22:24.578 --> 22:30.221
[SPEAKER_02]: And then if I'm happy then I roll it out and that's normally how I do it but I don't do AB testing.
22:30.261 --> 22:34.243
[SPEAKER_02]: I just like to do a little bucket of products and then roll it out slowly.
22:35.583 --> 22:42.805
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything else the audience needs to know about their product feeds other than and hopefully you've all got this Optimizer get the data right.
22:43.105 --> 23:00.031
[SPEAKER_02]: Please, please, please Anything else though they need to know before they get into get stuck in I think that's everything you need to know before you get stuck in Remember that if your feed is huge then you and you want to actually look at it You have to look at it in Excel because Google sheets cannot open huge
23:04.992 --> 23:20.617
[SPEAKER_02]: So for example, the likes of videos coming to the shopping feeds and stuff like that, like they've been talking about videos coming to shopping feeds and not all retailers have a video of their products, but if they do, that will start being pulled in and AI is going to start using that data and things like that.
23:20.937 --> 23:23.818
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's thinking getting the basics.
23:24.600 --> 23:27.263
[SPEAKER_02]: and then be like, what more can we put in that?
23:27.703 --> 23:29.225
[SPEAKER_02]: What, how do we make this better?
23:29.365 --> 23:31.507
[SPEAKER_02]: Where's what, what information's missing?
23:31.547 --> 23:39.576
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think like what information missing is technically still sitting within the basics, which is, is quite frustrating and everyone's like, oh, I've got everything.
23:39.876 --> 23:43.420
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you actually sit there and look at it, it's like, oh, no, we actually don't.
23:44.490 --> 23:53.098
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, go look at your feed, everyone, that's really fundamentally, you know, if you, if you don't go and look at your feed as a result of this episode, I don't know what you're doing.
23:53.118 --> 24:03.708
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very, I'm, thank you for picking for letting us pick your brains about everything product feed optimisation list does make sure you stay changed right at the end because I think we can all anticipate that mariams inside a tips are going to be good.
24:06.220 --> 24:09.462
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, Maryam, so far we've gone deep into your product feeds.
24:09.562 --> 24:13.104
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you get to ours with your insider knowledge about the whole of Google Ads.
24:13.284 --> 24:20.168
[SPEAKER_01]: So for the fellow inquestions, your answer can be anything to do with Google Ads, which weirdly enough does include everything we've already been talking about.
24:20.809 --> 24:21.629
[SPEAKER_01]: Very many you ready.
24:22.129 --> 24:23.010
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I'm ready.
24:23.530 --> 24:25.551
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, let's start with new be advice.
24:25.651 --> 24:31.335
[SPEAKER_01]: If we've inspired someone to take their first step, what do they need to know to give themselves the best chance of success?
24:32.275 --> 24:36.919
[SPEAKER_02]: I would remember that Google Ads changes all the time.
24:37.400 --> 24:44.766
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you're first starting, when you learn something, just remember that if you speak to somebody, they say, that's not relevant anymore.
24:45.146 --> 24:46.528
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't take that as a negative.
24:47.068 --> 24:50.291
[SPEAKER_02]: Just be like, okay, I've learned that, and then keep moving forwards.
24:50.731 --> 24:56.877
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people talk about match types nowadays, and it's like, well, match types isn't a huge thing anymore.
24:57.277 --> 25:23.346
[SPEAKER_02]: like phrase match, how should I split my campaigns and we're migrating away from so many different types of things which we learned a long time ago and when you first start a lot of people are reading what we all wrote years ago and it's like it's unfortunately it's not that relevant so when you first started also say join a community and ask questions and just make sure you enjoy it because if you don't enjoy it then you're not going to keep up with it changing
25:26.667 --> 25:28.509
[SPEAKER_02]: like literally every month.
25:29.330 --> 25:35.097
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the change has always been big, but it's been so big in the last 18 months, two years.
25:35.837 --> 25:40.543
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you've started, of course, you've got to keep optimizing, so what's your favorite way to improve performance?
25:41.535 --> 25:44.158
[SPEAKER_02]: Reading the data, the data tells you everything.
25:44.378 --> 25:56.072
[SPEAKER_02]: So ensuring obviously that your conversion tracking is working, which is an ongoing conversation with many of people recently, because websites change things drop off and things don't get spotted.
25:56.452 --> 26:00.016
[SPEAKER_02]: But once you know that it's about reading the data and understanding it,
26:00.737 --> 26:23.734
[SPEAKER_02]: a lot of people are talking about now how oh you just put it into AI and it'll read it for you but it doesn't understand your client it understands trends but what the why still isn't fed in from AI and that is what you need to figure out and understanding the why and ensuring that you can communicate with your clients to understand that really does help.
26:24.647 --> 26:26.869
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from with that.
26:26.909 --> 26:32.893
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, the AI could do part of it, but you also need to get in there and see the nitty gritty yourselves.
26:33.113 --> 26:37.917
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't imagine how long it would take to train an AI to properly analyze Google Ads results.
26:38.197 --> 26:40.299
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it would be a while, quite a while.
26:41.340 --> 26:45.343
[SPEAKER_01]: If someone listening wants to learn more, is there a cheap or free resource you would recommend?
26:46.085 --> 26:51.688
[SPEAKER_02]: So specifically for feeds, I would say that there's not many resources out there.
26:51.828 --> 26:54.849
[SPEAKER_02]: I talk a lot about it because I kind of enjoy it.
26:55.310 --> 26:59.972
[SPEAKER_02]: And communities, we're all talking about feeds at SEO community as well.
27:00.032 --> 27:03.714
[SPEAKER_02]: Talk a lot about feeds, because obviously they are doing part of the work.
27:04.154 --> 27:08.276
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would say those are our key locations, so joining communities.
27:08.836 --> 27:27.760
[SPEAKER_02]: I am creating a course about feed optimization and there'll be a foundation and a defense version, but that is still in the making, which will hopefully be out early next year, depending if Google completely cuts us, been able to do anything with our feeds and when we're no longer able to optimize it, then that might be on the pan, but we'll see.
27:28.180 --> 27:31.083
[SPEAKER_01]: We will say, and you run one such community, don't you?
27:31.103 --> 27:32.765
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you tell us a little bit about that, please?
27:33.225 --> 27:37.089
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so I run a free PPC community called don't panic PPC.
27:37.650 --> 27:44.076
[SPEAKER_02]: We run events within our community, so within our discord community, and then we run events for everybody else.
27:44.176 --> 27:45.578
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have a thing called,
27:47.039 --> 28:14.091
[SPEAKER_02]: a coffee break check in where we run every two weeks and we hang out for 30 minutes or we talk all things Google or Meta or anything anybody's got a question about, they come hang out with us and it's all free and then as well as my community there are quite a few other PPC communities like PPC chat where they have a session on a Tuesday afternoon where there's questions and everybody answers them and they're all saved within this chat so you can actually go back and read
28:15.211 --> 28:25.738
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you're learning PPC that is a fantastic place to go back and read stuff and if you want to talk about a geek about it then don't panic PPC is more of a voice and kind of hanging out place.
28:26.438 --> 28:27.599
[SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.
28:27.779 --> 28:32.582
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, crystal ball time, what's coming up in the next six to 12 months that we should be getting ready for?
28:33.282 --> 28:36.985
[SPEAKER_02]: Video, rich data and AI optimizing things.
28:37.871 --> 28:42.255
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I think the AI optimizing things is the biggest part.
28:42.675 --> 28:58.487
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you haven't got your basics right, when AI optimizes your information, I'm really intrigued to see what it's going to do, because some of the things it's doing in Google Ads accounts is quite interesting, like changing our ads and then what it changed it to gets disapproved.
28:58.968 --> 29:02.631
[SPEAKER_02]: So if that's happening, I can't imagine what it's going to do to our feeds.
29:03.251 --> 29:05.592
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's definitely the trajectory we're on, isn't it?
29:05.652 --> 29:09.854
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the, all the ad platforms want us to give them assets?
29:10.534 --> 29:15.936
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and data so they can work out who to show our ads to to keep us spending money with them.
29:16.537 --> 29:17.437
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
29:18.118 --> 29:18.338
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
29:19.099 --> 29:21.980
[SPEAKER_01]: So data data data everywhere, which includes, of course, your product feed.
29:22.101 --> 29:24.142
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, Mary, we are very nearly at the end of the show.
29:24.182 --> 29:31.046
[SPEAKER_01]: So please, like the audience know where they can get in contact with you if they want help with their Google ads and those product feeds.
29:31.066 --> 29:35.689
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to get in touch with me, you can find me on LinkedIn by searching for Miriam Nasser.
29:36.189 --> 29:40.092
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find my website on 4mdigitalconsulting.com.
29:40.592 --> 29:44.755
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to find the community, Google don't panic PPC and you should find us.
29:45.578 --> 29:46.279
[SPEAKER_01]: then pull us that.
29:46.499 --> 29:48.380
[SPEAKER_01]: I am thank you so much for being on the show.
29:48.420 --> 29:52.644
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been an utter pleasure geeking out about Google product feeds with you.
29:52.664 --> 29:53.424
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for being here.
29:53.824 --> 29:54.305
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
29:56.539 --> 30:03.286
[SPEAKER_01]: It will lovely bit of geeking out about product feeds there, and of course this is stuff which you can do tomorrow and it will make an impact.
30:03.306 --> 30:12.014
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess the first thing is interrogate what you've actually really got in your feed, is it accurate where are the holes, fix those, see how you can improve your titles?
30:12.535 --> 30:16.378
[SPEAKER_01]: That's clearly super important from what Mary am was saying.
30:17.099 --> 30:21.603
[SPEAKER_01]: then start working on getting your images so they're all more than 500 pixels square.
30:21.663 --> 30:24.346
[SPEAKER_01]: So you'll be all right, come January and your products when you're going to take it down.
30:24.666 --> 30:25.767
[SPEAKER_01]: Start working on the descriptions.
30:25.787 --> 30:27.689
[SPEAKER_01]: You can mean the right information to the AI.
30:28.089 --> 30:33.494
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can move on to the more tactical elements with those product types and the custom labels.
30:33.934 --> 30:42.462
[SPEAKER_01]: Dip key difference between those being product types is used by the Google AI system to target custom labels you use only or that you can use the product types as well.
30:43.042 --> 30:45.165
[SPEAKER_01]: you can get the links to everything we discussed.
30:45.185 --> 30:48.709
[SPEAKER_01]: The transcript of the episode are notes more at keepoptimizing.com.
30:49.129 --> 30:55.177
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also use our special direct to episode short links that's keepopt.com for the episode number to get to this page.
30:56.118 --> 30:59.362
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you get to the website, please add yourself to our email list.
30:59.762 --> 31:03.605
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Keep Optimizing podcast.
31:04.106 --> 31:12.312
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to get into all our Google ads content, then just scroll up your feed or use the short link KeepOpt.com for such Google ads.
31:12.953 --> 31:24.422
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to go even more geeky in the world of product feeds, then check out episode 304 with YouTube woo from our meta ad series where we get into both the
31:26.703 --> 31:31.305
[SPEAKER_01]: product data in detail because I think it's really going to help you build on what we've been discussing here.
31:31.965 --> 31:40.528
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, please tell your fellow marketers about the show and that we're covering Google ads at the moment because I want to help them as well to improve the performance of their e-commerce marketing.
31:41.108 --> 31:46.270
[SPEAKER_01]: Have a great week and make sure you listen to the next episodes so we can help you to keep optimizing your marketing.
31:49.011 --> 31:51.011
[SPEAKER_00]: Access everything, keep optimizing,