Product feed titles: the complete UK guide to writing titles that convert

Your product title is the most important field in your Shopping feed. Not close — significantly more impactful than description, image, or category mapping. Get titles right across your catalogue and you'll see measurable CTR improvements within weeks. Get them wrong and you'll keep paying for clicks on queries that don't convert.

Why titles matter so much

Google's Shopping algorithm uses your product title as the primary signal for query matching. When someone searches "women's waterproof walking jacket navy medium", Google evaluates your title against that query. If your title is "Berghaus Women's Hillwalker Interactive Jacket" you might match. If your title is "Berghaus Women's Hillwalker Interactive Jacket | Navy | Medium" you'll almost certainly match.

Titles also determine whether a shopper clicks. In the Shopping results interface, your title is the primary text the shopper reads. A title that clearly communicates what the product is, who it's for, and what variant it is converts better than a vague or brand-only title.

Research across UK Shopping campaigns consistently shows 25-35% CTR improvements from title optimisation alone.

The anatomy of a good Shopping title

Every well-performing Shopping title contains some combination of these seven elements:

1. Brand — who makes it
2. Product name / model — what it is
3. Product type — the category it belongs to
4. Key attribute — the most important distinguishing feature
5. Colour — particularly for fashion, homeware, accessories
6. Size — for apparel, footwear, anything dimensional
7. Material — for construction, homeware, outdoor equipment

Not every title needs all seven. The art is choosing the right elements in the right order for your specific category.

Optimal title structures by category

Apparel & Fashion:
Brand + Product Name + Gender + Colour + Size
Before: "Wax Jacket"
After: "Barbour Beaufort Wax Jacket — Men's — Navy — XL"

Footwear:
Brand + Model Name + Type + Colour + Size
Before: "Running Shoes"
After: "Brooks Adrenaline GTS 23 Running Shoe — Black/White — UK 10"

Consumer Electronics:
Brand + Model Number + Key Spec + Type
Before: "Wireless Headphones"
After: "Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones — Black"

Home & Garden:
Brand + Product Name + Key Attribute + Size
Before: "Casserole Dish"
After: "Le Creuset Signature Round Casserole Dish — Cherry Red — 24cm"

Sports & Outdoor:
Brand + Product Name + Sport/Use Case + Key Spec + Colour
Before: "Waterproof Jacket"
After: "Montane Phase XT Waterproof Running Jacket — Men's — Blue — Medium"

Books:
Title + Author + Format (if non-standard)
Before: "Product Management"
After: "The Lean Startup — Eric Ries — Paperback"

Automotive Parts:
Brand + Part Name + Compatibility + Part Number
Before: "Brake Pads"
After: "EBC Brakes Greenstuff Brake Pads — Ford Focus 2018-2024 — DP21790"

What to cut from your titles

These elements consistently hurt rather than help Shopping performance:

• Marketing language: "Amazing", "Brilliant", "Quality", "Best", "Premium" — these waste characters and trigger no queries
• Your brand name appearing twice — once is enough
• Symbols and special characters: Pipes (|), asterisks (*), exclamation marks — no evidence these help, may hurt readability
• Call-to-action language: "Buy now", "Shop here", "Click to purchase" — Google actively penalises promotional language in titles
• Price information: "Only £29.99" — prices display separately in Shopping results, including them in titles wastes characters

Title length: using your 150 characters wisely

Google allows 150 characters for titles. Most merchants use fewer than 70. This is a missed opportunity.

On mobile (where most Shopping clicks happen), approximately the first 70 characters are visible before truncation. Design your title so that the most critical information — brand, product name, primary attribute — appears within the first 70 characters.

Use the remaining characters for secondary attributes that refine match quality: size ranges available, material specifications, compatibility information.

Implementing title rules without changing your website

The most common concern from ecommerce teams: "We'd need to change hundreds of product titles on our website, and our developers are busy."

You don't need to change your website. Feed management tools like Trajekt let you apply title transformation rules specifically to your Shopping feed output — leaving your website titles unchanged. Rules run on every feed refresh, so new products automatically inherit the correct title structure.

A simple title rule might look like: prepend the value of the "brand" field, followed by the existing title, followed by " — " and the value of the "colour" field, followed by " — " and the value of the "size" field.

This single rule can correctly reformat thousands of product titles without a single website edit.

Testing title performance

Since Google Shopping doesn't offer native A/B testing for feed attributes, the most practical approach:

1. Create two product groups in your Shopping campaign with different title structures applied via feed rules
2. Run both for 4 weeks with consistent bidding
3. Compare CTR, impressions, and conversion rate between groups
4. Apply the winning structure to your full catalogue

Even rough segmentation (old title format vs new) over a month will reveal whether your title changes are having a measurable impact.