If you’re an online merchant, Google Shopping Ads are an ideal way to boost your visibility. Also known as Product Listing Ads, Google Shopping ads is an advertising tool provided by Google. Known for being one of the best ways to drive traffic for your products, Google ads are displayed when users are actively searching for a product.
Google Shopping Ads are distinguished by their appearance, specifically their small boxes, containing real images of your products and details. This includes reviews, brand information, and prices, shown on the top of the regular search results list. Google ads also allow users to search and compare products from different brands, both of which are on the same SERP. This makes to be far more efficient than navigating to and from e-commerce site.
What are the Benefits?
Implementing Google Shopping Ads into your marketing strategy has many benefits. It can allow you to reach a wide audience of people who are actively searching for products, in real time. This makes it easier for users to find products they actively want to buy at the right time.
With this in mind, your chances of users actively making a purchase when they find a relevant product, are far higher! Not only will you be able to increase your conversion rate, but also make your presence on Google more prominent. This is done through a highlight in your products’ visibility, leading to an increase to traffic to your website, sales, and leads. Making it a win-win!
How does it work?
The campaigns developed on the Google Shopping Network, are “Individual Ad Campaigns”. Each Google Shopping Ad is created specifically for only one product. This is done with the agenda to be as specific as possible, allowing a focus on running an ad on the individual products.
When you set up an Ad Group we recommend you to be as granular as you can. You can do this by subdividing your products into manageable product groups. This would be determined by characteristic of your choice, i.e. brand, category, product type etc. By doing so, you’ll be able to assess and refine your ad strategy, based on the performance of your ads. You’ll also be able to set unique bids for each product, once your ad groups are set up!
- Google Shopping works with two platforms: Google AdWords and Google Merchant Center.
- Google AdWords platform is used to launch your Shopping Campaign(s). It’s used specifically to set up budgets, determine an ad schedule, determine location, and manage bids based on your ads performance.
- Google Merchant Center platform is used to create a feed of your products, including key attributes such as the price, color, product ID, photos, availability etc.
- Google also uses product data uploaded on Google Merchant Center to display Google Shopping ads.
What are the Best Bidding Strategies?
When setting up your Google Shopping Ads, we understand determining a budget can be confusing. In order to really maximise your ad spend and revenue, it’s essential to have a strategic approach. Here are a few ways to optimise your shopping ads!
- Keep an eye on the main KPI to assess your shopping ads: Impressions, CTR (Click-Through-Rate) and Conversion Rate.
- If Impressions are low for a specific product listing, you should increase your bid to get your product visible at a higher rank.
- If your CTR is low it may be because your product listings are not engaging enough. Despite being well ranked by Google, this could be because your bid is too high. This is apparent when a product isn’t relevant to your audience.
- If your Impressions and CTR are high, but your Conversion Rates are low, it could be due to the quality of your website’s landing pages. A poor User Experience (UX) can impact your ads performance!
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