Product feed management is a part of any ecommerce business’s success. From remarketing on social to closing sales on marketplaces, it seems that every brand and retailer relies heavily on digital channels for success. So what can a top agency do to help their clients succeed? Here’s how you can use agile feed management to keep clients happy and help them win more online.
1. Test variations (and find top performers) faster
Clients turn to agencies in the hope of making the absolute most of their assets. This is because agencies have the dedicated knowledge and skills to turn an "okay" situation into an incredible one. The same goes for product feeds. Feed management solutions that allow you to make changes easily, dynamically, and in bulk also make it easy to test out feed variations to see what works best.
By pinpointing the most compelling product titles and descriptions for each channel, a business can maximize every ad and listing online. But it doesn't stop there. In fact, they can also optimize images, custom labels, product categories, and anything else that appears in a feed.
2. Localize and go cross-border
Cross-border ecommerce is the new norm. Competition - and opportunities - have driven businesses to expand into new regions and find new audiences. However, helping clients successfully go cross-border includes more than just translating a feed and sending it off to their local Amazon marketplace. A cross-border strategy can be a lot of work.
Strong feed management means you can tailor and distribute feeds according to the specific audience. It's easy to get on niche or local channels that make up that unique market. In the end, your clients can expand to their heart’s content without having to compromise on quality.
3. Use custom labels to drive more accurate bidding and ROI
Custom labels are one of the most powerful tools available to feed-based marketers and sellers. However, it can be very difficult to use them if you aren’t comfortable with feeds or you don’t have the right tools. This is why agencies are perfectly suited to custom label optimization, and it’s something clients will really appreciate.
Furthermore, top solutions make it easy to apply custom labels in any way, shape, or form. Whether you want to group based on price, popularity, collection, or anything else, it’s easy and scalable.
4. Reduce time spent on each client
Every client deserves special attention. However, if you can reduce the time needed to onboard and manage client feeds, that would be a win-win all around. In fact, the best way to manage clients is through a high-level of automation in regards to mundane tasks that shouldn’t require human oversight.
Fast connections, easy imports and exports, and intuitive data editing are all tools that make the job more manageable. That means your marketing professionals can focus on optimizing the feed in ways that really require skill and know-how.
5. Get alerts and notifications of potential issues
One reason businesses love to work with agencies is the reduction in time commitment. With an agency in charge of the day-to-day, they no longer have to worry about every little error or change. However, the product feed represents so much more than just a bunch of words and numbers. It’s the backbone of a business's product experience. Keeping on top of any issues means both greater returns and a greater amount of trust from the client.
This is why alert systems and automated notifications are so important with product feeds. If a feed doesn't export, or the client sends over a feed with errors, the account manager can get immediate notifications of the issue, so they can address the problem ASAP.
6. Create ads that are compelling and on-brand
Even though consumers have “become less loyal” to brands in the past decade, branding continues to play a big role in the success of brands and retailers. Millennials and Gen Z are, by all accounts, able to see straight through a business’s ads and campaigns. This is why it’s more important than ever to create a product experience that is compelling and consistent from touchpoint to touchpoint. This can be almost as important as the price point itself.
Better tools, especially when it comes to creative creation, enable an agency to craft ads that are unique to the particular client. While the colors, style, and message are all hand-curated, the right solution can dynamically apply that branding to all creative. For example: promotional data, logos, brand colors, customer reviews and comments, and anything else that defines the brand will engage consumers and let clients feel happy that their ads are getting a personal touch.
7. Easily integrate data no matter where it comes from (or in what format)
What’s better than a clean, optimized product feed? One that masterfully leverages data from numerous sources. Whether your client has data from Google Analytics or works with local inventories and promotional product feeds, the ability to reliably integrate all this data can be a life saver. Plus, those clients can take comfort knowing that their agency can manage any kind of feed that might be thrown at them.
By using a strong solution that does most of this automatically, you can be sure that data is always complete, up-to-date, and filled with rich information from all the relevant sources.
8. Never have an out-of-date feed again
A feed is seldom static. Whether it’s local inventories, order synchronization, or updated product details, there are always changes happening. However, feed management that manages data using scheduling or automation can ensure that every feed and attribute it always up to date.
Clients never have to wonder if they’re running the most optimized, up-to-the-minute ads and listings, and they can be confident that they’re getting the best results.
9. Get on the newest, and most important channels
Success in the mutlichannel world is often about careful planning… but it’s also a numbers game. There are obvious, must-have channels like Google and Facebook, but the game doesn’t end there. Consumers are spread across a wide array of channels. From comparison shopping engines to resales sites, local marketplaces, global marketplaces - the list is endless. It can be very hard for a brand or retailer to manage all these channels on their own. Luckily easy expansion and short time to market are completely possible when the right solutions are employed.
Better solutions enable agencies to simply move faster. Create or duplicate new feeds in hours. Instantly prepare for channel-specific requirements. Customize or distribute feeds with minimal effort. All of this means you can get clients on new channels, no matter how many or how complicated, without losing time.
10. Help clients feel fabulous!
Agencies are killing it right now. The ecommerce world is getting more complex every year, and agencies are saving brands and retailers from a whole lot of headaches. Sure, your team’s first goal is to help the client succeed - fulfill their requirements, helping them sell more, gain visibility. But you also want them to feel like they have control in this overwhelming multichannel world.
Feed management should help your team stay on top of every feed, attribute, and opportunity, giving businesses confidence in the way their brand appears online. From better ads to greater reach and clear oversight, you can give those clients something to be proud of!
Download Raconteur's Future of Retail report from Raconteur for insights on social commerce, predictions for the next big trends, and tips for multichannel success.
This updated post was originally published on March 11, 2020.
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