How to Optimize Product Titles in Your Google Shopping Feed

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Without an optimized product feed, retailers waste precious ad spend and miss countless opportunities to convert shoppers. Google uses the attributes of your product feed as a proxy for keywords, so optimizing your product titles and other feed fields is crucial to improving PLA performance. Specifically, brands should focus on the product title, as it’s commonly overlooked and can make a big difference in your CPC success.

The Money is in the Details

Let’s use an example of a retailer with a product ad listed with the name, “Colored Trim Tee,” a product title format that we commonly see. The title lacks a brand name, gender, retailer name, and product descriptors. Without detailed information included, the number of queries it can match will be limited. This particular item was a poor performer online despite its popularity in-store for the retailer who used this naming convention. Once optimized, the product was titled:

“Dolce & Gabbana Color Printed Trim Tee at Retailer Name – Women’s Short-Sleeve Tee Shirts – Women’s Shirts”

Naturally, more robust product titles drive significantly higher traffic, which is more efficient over time, reducing wasted ad spend and unqualified clicks.

10 Best Practices to Consider When Optimizing Product Titles

1. Ensure that you include the most important words upfront in your title. Your selling point needs to be within the first 20 characters of your product title because that is where you capture consumer attention. It may not always be a brand name; it can be “Reversible Sweater” or “Cashmere Jacket.”
2. Utilize top queries from PLA and search at the front of your titles to maximize traffic, such as using “Record Player” instead of “Turntable” or vice versa.
3. Include the item’s full title, such as “Levis 501 Tumbled Rigid Wash Jeans.”
4. Include the brand name.
5. Include the size of the item.
6. Include the color of the item. Don’t list your product with an abstract color name like “desert snake boots.” That’s fun, but it’s not how your customers are searching for “green boots,” and it may cost you the opportunity to rank in Google.
7. Include the gender if applicable.
8. Include the retailer name.
9. Include the item type, such as “jeans” or “boots” or “dress.” In some cases, you may want to include technical manufacturer part numbers in the title like “Adjust Door Hinge Pin 2 – Part# 70332.” If you are a brand that has customers who search by part numbers for technical products or appliances, it’s important to consider including these searchable attributes as well.
10. Include any product descriptors that may be applicable, such as “skinny,” “ankle,” or “bootcut” for jeans.

Tip: Ensure that your feed has correct GTINs because it increases the chance of your products appearing in product cards, leading to higher conversions and engagement.

You may be wondering if this additional work to fully optimize your product titles is worth it. Based on our experience, we see an immediate lift in CTR, impressions, and revenue just by making basic product title improvements to a retailer’s feed. For one retailer, revenue and traffic increased overnight, and within three weeks, revenue had already increased 2.5x with traffic up by 3x!

It’s crucial to know which products are in your feed and what keywords are driving traffic to your products. To gain greater insights, analyze customer behavior by looking at factors that are driving click traffic versus just impressions. Keep your account goals in mind: the more accurate the information in your Google Shopping product titles, the better your shopping ads will perform.

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Victoria Flores

Victoria Flores is a Demand Generation Manager at Adlucent. She has a background in content marketing, SEO, and graphic design. Her passion for creative marketing allows her to develop unique and effective solutions to drive demand. You can find her out on the Texas trails or bouldering when she is not at her desk.