Marketplaces
Why Product Data Is the New Paid Ads: The Case for Investing in Optimisation
Why Product Data Is the New Paid Ads: The Case for Investing in Optimisation
On Amazon, sellers have been leaning on ads for years to push visibility. That playbook doesn’t translate directly to marketplaces like B&Q or Debenhams. These are much newer, Mirakl-powered marketplaces where advertising is only just starting to appear. For most sellers right now, the main way to grow is through the quality of your product data.
Paid Ads vs Marketplace 2.0
It’s easy to assume every marketplace runs the same way as Amazon. But if you’re selling on B&Q or Debenhams, you don’t have a mature ads platform to fall back on. The only way to compete is by having complete attributes, titles that match how buyers search, and trustworthy content that platforms can actually rank.
- Debenhams’ Mirakl marketplace announcement: Mirakl Newsroom
- Rise of specialised marketplaces: Mirakl Blog
- Enterprise marketplace growth (~38% year on year): ChannelX
Product Data as a Growth Engine
Marketplaces reward three things: completeness, relevance and consistency.
Fill in every field and you show up in filters.
Use the words customers are actually searching for and you rank higher.
Keep your data consistent and you build trust, which means better conversions.
The difference is simple: ads rent attention, but optimised product data earns attention and keeps earning it.
Marketplace 2.0 Means Gaps to Exploit
These marketplaces are still growing their catalogues and recruiting sellers. That leaves gaps. In some categories there’s very little competition, which means if your listings are well structured and detailed you can grab top organic spots faster than you ever could on Amazon.
- Marketplace expansion and seller opportunity: Storfund
- Debenhams scaling quickly with Mirakl: Mirakl Newsroom
Why Fix Data Before You Buy Media
- Immediate ROI. Every product you optimise is one that ranks and converts better without spending a penny on ads.
- Future proofing. Retail media will eventually grow on B&Q and Debenhams. When it does, optimised data will lift both organic and paid results.
- Scalable expansion. Once your data is clean, you can push it across other Mirakl marketplaces quickly and consistently.
How Optivise Helps
Optivise is designed for sellers on Mirakl platforms. It fills in more than 95% of attributes automatically, writes product copy that converts, and turns Amazon ASINs or supplier CSVs into Mirakl ready feeds in minutes. It also scores your data with a Listing Quality Score so you know what needs fixing first.
If ads are limited today, product data is the one channel you can rely on. Fix it first, then layer in paid media later.