Most feed advice is written for a store with 300 products. At 4,000 SKUs the actual work is a cadence.
Feed health is an operating rhythm, not a project you complete.
What actually blocks serving
Required attributes stop a product from serving. Recommended attributes affect how well it competes. Identifier gaps such as brand, MPN, GTIN, age group, color, size, and gender quietly limit performance.
Freshness is the whole game
Align feed timing to site timing. Use scheduled fetch when data changes daily or less, Merchant API for intraday changes or many offers, and automatic item updates as a safety net rather than a replacement for accurate data.
Triage, because you will not fix everything
Use Priority fixes, download the issue CSV, join it to revenue and margin, and fix by class rather than product by product.
The operating rhythm
- Daily: sync with site updates
- Weekly: review priority issue classes and products with no campaign
- Monthly: audit identifier coverage and structured data
- Quarterly: review labels, countries, and shipping setup
Feed health tends to be nobody's job title. The stores that stay healthy make it somebody's calendar.