What Are the Proven Best Practices for Complete Product Content?

Remember the thrill of getting straight As on your report card? (Or maybe you were a rebel who doctored your grades before showing your parents.) 

Perfecting your product detail page (PDP) can give you the same rush while improving the shopping experience, discoverability, and conversion — a win-win-win. 

The Salsify Content Completeness Score (CCS) helps brands measure and score their PDP performance based on important factors like imagery, enhanced content, and more. Explore the importance of complete product content in building engaging shopping experiences and a deep dive into the Salsify CCS and how to ace it.

Complete Product Content’s Influence on Customer Satisfaction

No customer wants to play Nancy Drew, searching high and low for their desired product content. It needs to be easily accessible, detailed, and high-quality, or they’ll jump ship and look elsewhere. 

Three of the top reasons that shoppers abandon their carts, according to Salsify’s “2024 Consumer Research,” are: 

• No or low customer ratings or negative reviews (56%);
• Low-quality product images and videos (45%); and 
• Incomplete or poorly written product titles or descriptions (42%).

Shoppers can be swayed, however, by engaging, comprehensive PDPs that cater to their desires and build trust. 

For example, here are three of the top factors that shoppers find “extremely” or “very” important when deciding to complete a purchase, per Salsify consumer research:

• High-quality product images (76%);
• Pricing and discounts (76%); and
• High customer ratings (72%).

A Google survey also reinforces the importance of product content and pictures, saying that 85% of respondents find them important when “deciding which brand or retailer to buy from.”

Product content optimization — and a perfect Salsify CCS — can give your unsatisfactory PDPs a makeover that will have customers coming back for more. 

What’s the Salsify Content Completeness Score (CCS)?

The Salsify Content Completeness Score (CCS) is an evaluation metric that gives brands a score of 0–100 based on their product content’s overall quality and completeness. Note: This data is obtained from publicly available sources only and does not contain the confidential or proprietary information of Salsify customers. 

Below are the Salsify CCS categories and the requirements for achieving a perfect score of 100 for each. 

• Product title length: 80-plus characters 
• Product description length: 250-plus characters 
• Product description bullet points: Five-plus bullets 
• Number of images: Five-plus images 
• Number of high-quality product images that shoppers can magnify online: Three-plus images
• Number of videos: Two-plus videos 
• Enhanced content: Enhanced content must be present to achieve a score of 100. 

Salsify created these best practices by assessing the top-performing brands and product pages on retailer websites. 

By offering concise, detailed product descriptions; high-quality, aspirational imagery and videos; and enhanced content, you’ll satisfy customers and get a perfect Salsify CCS. 

Proven Best Practices for Complete Product Content 

Why are these categories so important to an overall perfect Salsify CCS and product completeness, and how do they impact digital commerce success? 

Hook, Line, and Sinker: Reel in Customers With Your Product Title

Product titles are your first (and sometimes only) chance at capturing consumer attention. If you don’t properly convey the right info, they’ll move on to the next best thing. 

Search engines will also scan your product titles to determine when to show customers your products based on their search terms.

Optimizing your product title with the right keywords, descriptors, and character length is crucial to ensure your products show up in the right places and don’t get overlooked. 

Product Titles: What You Need for a Perfect Salsify CCS

Eighty-plus characters will earn a perfect Salsify CCS.

Get Your Product Descriptions Nice, Right, and Tight 

Think of a product title as the top of the funnel (TOFU) and the product description as the middle of the funnel (MOFU). By offering customers more in-depth, engaging product info, you’re leading them further down the path to purchase. 

Product descriptions are your opportunity to explain your product while adding a dash of personality — conveyed in 250 characters or more. Customers should feel confident in their knowledge of what your product does and how it will enhance their lives.

Accurately conveying this info without inundating shoppers is tricky. Bullet points can help make things nice and concise while still packing a punch. 

Product Descriptions: What You Need for a Perfect Salsify CCS

Two hundred and fifty-plus characters plus five or more bullet points will earn a perfect Salsify CCS.

‘I Can See Clearly Now:’ The Importance of High-Quality Imagery and Videos 

High-quality imagery and videos elevate a one-dimensional PDP shopping experience to an immersive one. 

High-quality photos and videos that depict the product in use inspire shoppers to envision themselves using your product. Videos like how-tos and try-ons are also crucial for instilling confidence in shoppers. 

According to the animated video production company Wyzowl, 90% of video marketers attribute using video to raising brand awareness, 86% say it’s improved web traffic, and 87% say it’s generated leads.

From the customer perspective, Wyzowl says that 91% of shoppers learned more about a product/service by watching an explainer video, and 82% have been influenced to purchase a product after watching a video. 

The impact of video marketing can’t be overlooked. 

Images and Videos: What You Need for a Perfect Salsify CCS

A perfect Salsify CCS requires five-plus product images, three high-quality, magnifiable product images, and two videos. 

Enhanced Content = An Enhanced Experience

Enhanced content, which can also be referred to as rich media or below-the-fold content, is content that goes above and beyond what’s typically required of a PDP. Shoppers need to scroll down the page to locate it, as it’s usually under the product description. 

It creates more memorable content and helps you better convey your brand story by featuring things like comparison charts, image galleries, and graphics. 

Better yet, recent research by Salsify and the Digital Shelf Institute (DSI) revealed that 87% of consumers find enhanced content helpful.

Enhanced Content: What You Need for a Perfect Salsify CCS

You need it: Brands must display enhanced content on their PDPs to achieve a Salsify CCS of 100.

The Benefits of Perfecting the PDP and the Salsify CCS 

Shoppers have endless options at their fingertips, so they’re not afraid to leave you in the dust if your product pages fall below expectations.

However, by following the Salsify CCS best practices for product content optimization, they’ll always feel catered to and satisfied by their interactions with your brand. You’ll score high on the Salsify CCS and in consumers’ hearts. What could be better than that?