If you want to win on Target’s digital shelf, you need a comprehensive content strategy — with a heavy emphasis on optimizing product detail pages (PDPs).
To help you build better PDPs that drive conversions and capture consumer attention, Target’s digital team shared best practices during a recent Salsify webinar, “Get Ready for the Holidays: Creating Best-in-Class Product Pages with Target.”
Here are the team’s expert tips for creating conversion-driving product experiences on Target.
Optimizing Your Target PDP: Content Quality and Scorecard Basics
To have a best-in-class Target PDP, you must master several fundamentals — including images, text on images, product titles, and various badges — to achieve the highest content health score, according to Lauren Van Voorhis, senior product content planner at Target.
- Images: Target requires at least three images, including a hero image and secondary images, that can be overlaid with text.
- Video: Target requires at least one video, which Van Voorhis says drives high customer engagement and conversion on Target.com.
- Titles: Built from Target’s internal guidelines, these elements are concise item descriptions that power internal and external search.
- Badges: Target offers several PDP badges, including wellness and diversity badges, that summarize key product traits.
- Feature bullets and long copy: These elements contribute heavily to the content health score. Van Voorhis says feature bullets are more concise and highlight key features, while long copy requires at least 50 keywords and allows brands to provide more in-depth product descriptions.
All of these elements drive content quality on product pages, but there’s another indispensable asset brands need to convert Target shoppers: rich media.
The Importance of Rich Media
Rich media — also known as rich product content and enhanced product content — includes videos, comparison charts, and 3D images, and is a significant conversion driver (6%-13% on average) for Target product pages.
These assets also allow brands to communicate details that product titles and feature bullets can’t capture.
Food and beverage sees the largest lift from rich media compared to other categories, according to Mara Alexander, a digital content lead at Target.
“Why is rich media so important? It allows the guest to really understand your product, your brand, especially if you are newer to Target, or maybe you are going into a different type of assortment,” she says. “This space really allows you the flexibility to show the guest how they can add this item into their life.”
Alexander says that companies can use rich media to tell brand stories, share product instructions, and build trust, all of which improve PDP performance.
“It [rich media] can really help translate not only into traffic, but also into conversion,” she says.
How Wellness Badges and Label Information Drive Conversion
Wellness badges are visual icons positioned below the “Add to Cart” button, and they’re one of the key ways customers recognize health and wellness items on Target, says Heidi Cristaldi, Target’s data acquisition lead for wellness and label data. 
Image Source: Target
Guests who interact with badges are twice as likely to make a purchase, Cristaldi says.
Target is also collecting label information, including:
- Fact panels
- Ingredients
- Allergens
- Warnings
If a product goes in or on the body, Target’s legal team requires it to display the information to Target guests (the company’s name for its customers).
Target determines if an item needs label information based on its product type. Label information can also show up as a drug fact tab. 
Image Source: Target
Cristaldi says Target guests are highly engaged with this content. However, more than 25% of these items haven’t been updated in the last year.
“It is your responsibility, as the vendors and owners of these items, to keep your label information updated via Salsify ... so that our guests can have the most up-to-date information,” she says.
Navigating Image Management at Target
Tom Margot, Target’s senior manager for data acquisition, offered some tips for navigating Target’s image management process, which he admitted is far too manual today.
To avoid issues with image carousels, Margot shared these best practices.
Be an Early Bird
Publish images early before the holidays to allow time to fix any issues, especially since no or low-quality images are the reason why 44% of shoppers abandon their carts, according to Salsify’s “2025 Consumer Research” report.
Collaborate and Communicate
Provide additional context to your Target data specialist by sending screenshots of the carousel, so they can see what you’re seeing and help troubleshoot it.
If you don’t see changes reflected in the image carousel or in the correct image order, email screenshots to ingestion@target.com.
Post-Holiday Clean-Up
When reverting seasonal content, some may still appear on the page. Direct outreach to your Target data specialist is going to be your best option for fixing this.
“I know it’s excruciating, but a screen grab and an email is going to be the quickest and lowest-effort way to get that experience on our site that you're looking for,” Margot says.
Create Better Product Experiences With Salsify
Salsify’s partnership with Target streamlines the process of getting compelling product experiences live on this channel.
For example, you can use Salsify’s direct connection to NIQ’s Label Insight, which Target uses to power its online and in-store wellness icon program, to automatically translate product packaging images into relevant product attributes like vegan or cruelty-free.
“This is a huge win. Salsify is the only third-party outside of NielsenIQ that Label Insight actively recommends to their brands,” says Pat Healey, senior network success manager at Salsify.
Salsify’s Label Insight knowledge base article includes detailed setup instructions. Once your team completes the process, you can begin publishing directly to Label Insight.
Feel Confident in Your Target PDPs
Salsify can also help you create and manage enhanced content for Target. For example, you can create custom enhanced content pages and preview layouts before they go live.
You also can syndicate enhanced content in bulk to Target, making scaling easier and ensuring better brand consistency and accuracy across your products, Healey says.
“No matter how many items you manage, you can be confident your product pages tell a cohesive story and deliver a best-in-class brand experience,” Healey says. “At the end of the day, success on Target comes down to getting your product pages right — fresh, accurate, engaging, and conversion-ready.”
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