What is a product feed?
A product feed is a structured file with one row per product: an ID, title, description, price, availability, image, link, and category, plus any custom labels. Channels read it to decide what they can show and how to show it.
Each channel has its own requirements for fields, formats, and categories, so one catalog usually needs several versions of the feed.
How does product feed management work?
- Ingest. Product data comes in from files, databases, and other feeds, and supplemental sources join the main one on a product ID.
- Cleanse and optimize. Rules improve titles and descriptions, map categories to each channel's structure, and add labels.
- Filter. Products that shouldn't run, such as anything out of stock, are held back.
- Deploy. Each channel receives the products and fields it needs, on a schedule.
| Field | What feed management does with it |
|---|---|
| Title | Adds brand, color, size, or gender in a consistent order |
| Category | Maps the catalog's own categories to each channel's structure |
| Availability | Holds back out-of-stock items before they're sent |
| Custom labels | Marks priority, margin, or seasonal products for campaign structure |
What is an example of product feed management?
One catalog, every channel
A footwear retailer sells 5,000 products. Its catalog exports every night, and inventory updates every hour from the warehouse.
Feed management joins the two on product ID, adds gender and color to every title, labels the best sellers as high priority, holds back anything out of stock, and sends a version of the feed to each channel every morning.
Product feed management vs. a spreadsheet export
| Spreadsheet export | Product feed management | |
|---|---|---|
| How changes are made | Item by item, in the file | Rules that run on every item, every time |
| How often it updates | When someone exports it | On a schedule |
| Channels | One file per channel, by hand | Several channels from one feed |
| Visibility | Hard to see what was sent | A record of every send |
Why does product feed management matter?
Channels can only show what the feed describes. Complete, current, well-structured products give them more to work with, and holding back unavailable items keeps budget on products that can sell.
- Better listings. Optimized titles and categories help channels match products to searches.
- Less wasted spend. Out-of-stock and low-priority products stop running.
- Current prices. Ads show what's on the shelf today.
How does Alli do this?
Alli by PMG's Product Feed Management is product feed management built into Alli. It brings product data together from files, databases, other feeds, and data already in Alli, cleanses and optimizes it with shared rules and AI enrichment from Generative Workflows, and deploys channel-ready feeds to every major ad and commerce channel on a schedule.
PMG's structured data team builds and maintains the feeds as a managed service, and every feed's status and send history is visible in Alli, with Alli Alerts watching feed health.
Product feed management FAQ
What's the difference between a product feed and a product catalog?
The catalog is the business's full record of what it sells. The feed is the version of that data a channel reads, formatted and filtered to that channel's requirements.
How often should a product feed update?
As often as prices and inventory change. Many retailers import hourly and send the full feed at least once a day.
Can one feed serve several channels?
Yes. A managed feed can send each channel its own products, fields, and format from the same cleansed data.
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