Wicked Quick: why product content syndication matters

Disclaimer: As a native of New England I enjoy sharing my region’s slang with the world. “Wicked” is a general intensifier. It’s ultimately the better substitution for “really” or “very”; therefore this article is going to be very quick 😉

For this week’s Wicked Quick, I’m sharing a Q&A from IRCE 2019 where I caught up with Marcus Rottmaier, CRO, Productsup. He gave us the low down on why retailers need to care about product content syndication and the challenge retailers have with transparency and control over the quality of their product content. Here’s the transcript and audio from our Q&A session:

What's Productsup?

Productsup is a leading Software-as-a-Service solution for product data sourcing, transformation optimization syndication to various designated export destinations such as retailers, marketing, performance marketing channels, marketplaces, marketing automation platforms, or anything where product data needs to get connected to and basically the format needs to be transferred based on the specific requirements those export channels have.

Why does product content syndication matter for retailers?

Well, retailers face various challenges in their various touchpoints they have with their product catalogs. It starts with our data sourcing, where do I get the data from? So typical data sources, or shop systems, PIM systems, or simple dynamically updated flat files dropped on an FTP server - that can then get transferred into a platform and optimized in order to meet those requirements. Let's say performance marketing channels, if a retailer wants to drive sales through Google, Facebook, Pinterest, performance display channels, affiliate marketing, those channels all have different format requirements. And you need a centralized platform to not just create syndications to those channels to get your products listed; but you also need to transform the content in a way so your products get completely listed, but also stick out from a content perspective.

What's the biggest challenge today that this is solving for retailers?

The biggest challenge, I believe, when talking to retailers is transparency and control about the quality of their content they have. And they want to publish on various destinations. A retailer, a marketplace, performance marketing channels, they will have different specifications, how they expect retailers brands to deliver their product content. And, again, a centralized platform helps them to basically not just individualize the data, but putting in the right format, the right quality, those these destinations need.

What do you think retailers should really be rolling out now when it comes to the latest technology?

I think they should be prepared on on what's coming next where the various touchpoints of consumers are. Voice search is next to visual search is definitely coming. Think about smart refriderators, smart cars, wherever a consumer can purchase products. A retailer should be prepared to deliver the product information in a way so the consumer has the best kind of consumer experience basically.

And for a listen of the audio track, check out:

/sites/default/files/getelastic/Marcus-Rottmaier-CRO-Productsup.mp3