How a product feed actually works
A product feed is a spreadsheet-like file, or a live connection from your store, that describes every product in a format Google and Meta can read. Each row is a product; each column is an attribute: title, description, price, availability, image link, brand, category, and identifiers. The platform ingests this data, validates it, and uses it to decide which products to show for which searches or audiences. The feed is not a marketing asset in the creative sense. It is a database, and its accuracy and completeness govern everything the shopping campaigns can do.
Why titles and attributes are the targeting
Shopping and Performance Max have no keywords. Google infers which queries a product should match by reading the feed, which makes the product title the most important field you control. A generic title matches vaguely and loses to competitors with descriptive ones; a title that front-loads the attributes shoppers search, brand, product type, key specs, colour, size, matches more relevant, higher-intent queries. Rewriting weak titles is often the highest-return work available on a Shopping account, because it changes what the campaign is even eligible to show for.
Required fields and the ones that quietly matter
Some attributes are required for a product to be eligible at all: id, title, description, link, image link, availability, price, and for most products a brand and identifier. Beyond the required set, recommended attributes like product type, GTIN, and custom labels improve matching and unlock better campaign structure, for example segmenting bids by margin or bestseller status using custom labels. Missing required fields cause disapprovals; missing recommended ones cause quiet underperformance that never shows as an error, only as sales that never happen.
Feed quality is a performance lever, not a chore
A feed is never finished. Prices change, stock moves, new products launch, and a feed that drifts from reality causes disapprovals and wasted spend on out-of-stock items. Beyond keeping it accurate, active feed optimisation, better titles, complete attributes, correct identifiers, and thoughtful custom labels, is one of the most reliable ways to lift Shopping performance. iClick treats the feed as a living campaign asset that is tuned continuously, because in feed-driven advertising the data quality is the ceiling on everything else.
