Customer Stories

Customer Story: Optimizing Google Marketplace and SEO with Plytix

Written by Emily Butel | Aug 14, 2024 2:17:15 PM

Safety First Aid Kit, a UK-based Medical supplies company, was on the hunt to find a way to have both website and Google Shopping optimized product data. Using a combination of feed management tools, spreadsheets, and an ERP, they struggled with finding the balance between managing their data and optimizing it, particularly for Google Shopping. They desperately needed a solution that would simplify their data while also maintaining high traffic quality. That’s when they discovered PIM—here’s their story.

The challenge 

Before introducing  PIM, Safety First Aid Kit’s product information was scattered across spreadsheets, Dropbox, their website, and an ERP system. This disorganized approach led to delays in launching new products and made it difficult to keep compliance information up-to-date. To make matters worse, their costly feed management tool could only pull together the bits and pieces of data that they had and would rely on website information to feed into their Google Shopping channel. To put it simply, this approach just wasn’t working. 

That’s because Google Shopping has strict requirements that don’t always align with SEO best practices. Safety First Aid Kit would make their product descriptions for SEO and their customers, but by doing so, they’d get error messages when sent to Google. While these uploading errors are common, receiving them means the Google Shopping listing won’t be approved. This puts most companies in a tough spot where they have to choose between: 

  • Destroying their website's SEO in order to fit Google Shopping’s requirements.

  • Avoiding advertising their products on Google Shopping, and missing out on potential sales.

  • Finding a solution that would allow them to have the best of both worlds.

Fortunately, the Safety First Aid Kit team recalled a demo they’d had with Plytix some years ago and realized a PIM system could be the missing piece—a piece that would help centralize their product information and maintain their SEO performance at the same time. 

The solution: 

In 2023, Safety First Aid Kit transitioned to Plytix to try and resolve their data issues and reduce their spend on other tech solutions. They found that Plytix provided a seamless and intuitive feed setup process, making managing product data much easier by comparison.

Previously their feed management tool only acted as a connector for the bits and pieces of their product data from the ERP and website to their sales channels. Now, Plytix was the central source from which data could be sent to all of their sales channels. This would allow the company to fine-tune their content to meet Google Shopping's strict requirements without needing to compromise on  SEO for their website. With Plytix, they’d also be able to integrate their ERP and centralize their assets within the PIM to provide a true single source of truth for all of their product data. 

Results:

“We were using Feedonomics previously. We switched to make cost savings as Plytix has a feed option (with Google Shopping). The feed setup process in Plytix was fairly seamless and intuitive. It’s still early days, but traffic volumes and quality have been comparable over the transition without the expected dip in performance. Our next task is to optimize product content in the PIM for the feed. We have more control now over content.”

David Lyall, Marketing Manager

 

 

Safety First Aid Kit decided to implement Plytix for many reasons, and they’ve already seen promising results in the first year.

  • Cost Savings and Seamless Integration: The feed setup process with Plytix proved to be seamless and intuitive for the Safety First Aid Kit team. They also found Plytix to be significantly more budget-friendly than their previous feed management tool.
  • Consistent Traffic Volumes and Quality: Safety First Aid Kit saw that their website traffic volumes remained steady without any nasty surprises during the switch.
  • Better Control Over Product Content: With a single source of truth, their team can store perfectly written and SEO-optimized website content alongside Google Shopping-specific content,  using Plytix as the connector to all of their relevant channels. 

    Overall, the move to Plytix has proven to be a strategic decision for Safety First Aid Kit. The company achieved cost savings, maintained high traffic quality, and gained better control over their product content. The change to Plytix not only helped them save time but it’s also made it easier to serve their customers more effectively. With continued optimization efforts, Safety First Aid Kit are excited about future improvements in their ecommerce performance, and we, for one, can’t wait to help them get there. 

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