Microsoft Advertising has introduced Product Explorer, a new feature of the Seller Center designed to help advertisers better understand product status and performance.
The tool provides a searchable view of product catalogs. Marketers can quickly see which products are working, which are having problems, and which are driving results.
Product Explorer is currently available to US marketers with fewer than 100,000 SKUs.
Product Explorer Brings Product-Level Visibility to the Merchant Center
Microsoft Advertising Ads Liaison Navah Hopkins announced the feature on LinkedIn.
According to Hopkins, Product Explorer was developed in response to marketer feedback regarding feed management and product visibility.
Hopkins provided Search Engine Journal with a direct quote, saying:
We heard industry feedback that it was difficult to keep tabs on and manage feeds from Microsoft. With the Product Checker, you can easily search and understand which products are rejected, working and which ones need to be optimized. This means less time manually hunting for reports, and more time making meaningful adjustments to your feed to ensure you’re achieving the results you want.
A new tool helps marketers identify products that are offering, denied, or limited by supply issues.
It also links to Microsoft’s Recommended Actions functionality. This gives marketers guidance on how to solve problems and improve product relevance.
Search, Filter, and Submit Product Data
The Product Explorer includes filtering on all feed characteristics and performance metrics.
Advertisers can filter products using fields such as:
- The subject
- Product ID
- Brand
- GTIN
- Product Type
- Custom labels
- and more.
Functional filters include:
- What appears
- Clicking
- Conversion
- Use it
- CTR
- Conversion Rate.
Advertisers can also combine feed attributes with performance data.
For example, they can identify products with low reviews within a specific product category. They can also review performance across custom label groups.
Filtered product lists can be sent for offline analysis.
According to Hopkins, one use case is to identify ineffective products. Marketers can quickly find products that are not visible or not visible and investigate possible causes.
The report can also help marketers evaluate feed taxonomy decisions.
Product types, categories, and custom labels are often used to organize campaigns. The Product Explorer makes it easy to review how those categories work.
The tool also provides a quick way to analyze product level performance. High-performing and underperforming products can be identified without creating separate reports.
Why This Matters to Marketers
Brand feeds continue to play an important role in shopping campaign performance.
Feed quality can affect visibility, query matching, and overall campaign results.
Historically, solving feeding problems has not always been easy.
Marketers often had to navigate between Merchant Center diagnostics, feed management tools, and campaign reports. Product Explorer brings much of that information to one place.
For advertisers who manage large catalogs, the biggest benefit can be efficiency.
The tool makes it easy to identify rejected products. It also helps marketers identify products that aren’t generating impressions or conversions.
That seems to help teams prioritize feed updates and development efforts.
The addition of product-level performance filters can also help marketers uncover trends that would otherwise be hidden within campaign-level reporting.
Next
Product Explorer addresses a challenge that many Microsoft marketers have faced for years.
Understanding feed health and product performance often requires multiple reports and workflows.
This update consolidates that information into a single interface.
The initial release is limited to US sellers with fewer than 100,000 SKUs. Microsoft says it is gathering feedback as it considers future improvements and extensions.
For ecommerce marketers, Product Explorer provides a direct way to monitor feed health and product performance. It can also make routine feed testing faster and easier to manage.
Featured image: Samuel Boivin / Shutterstock
