Looking for opportunities to attract more online business?
Google Shopping (formerly known as product listing ads) has become an increasingly popular paid channel to entice shoppers. Text ads once dominated the paid search space, but now marketers are spending more money on Google Shopping than text ads; including many of our clients.
While Google Shopping is not ideal for every business it is important to understand the options and when you should invest. Some industries have more of a challenge because of hefty competition in the space; apparel is a great example of this, given the depth and breadth of the options online. However, the best way to find out if Google Shopping is right for your online store is to investigate the competitors, search results and when ready, give it a go – the proof is in the pudding. If you aren’t listing your products directly with Google Shopping, you should be.
Why Google Shopping Now?
Up until recently, Amazon dominated the Google Shopping space by investing a lot of money into ads in order to promote product sales on their site. With nearly everything these days being sold on Amazon, other retailers were left out of the equation, unable to outbid the giant retailer. In late spring 2018, Amazon pulled back on this enormous budget, opening the door for other retailers to gain visibility among shoppers. Now, is a great time for eCommerce retailers to take advantage of the platform. You must have a Google Merchant account and optimize product images and data feeds to see measurable success. Ultimately, we have found that the key is to test all of your products to learn which ones produce a desirable ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).
Example 1:
In one client’s particular situation,we updated their Google Shopping data feed and went from a measly 2 products to 43. We saw a 45%jump in spend (which was expected) but their revenue increased 84%. The investment of time and spend was definitely worth the return. In a short window, the shopping campaign accounted for 62% of paid Google sales.
Example 2:
Restructuring Google Shopping ads is also another way to improve performance. Ad groups can be broken out by category, type and other attributes. One of our clients has two ad groups, but we built out new ones for a total of five. For products that didn’t fall into our major categories we created a miscellaneous ad group to capture traffic and learn what sells in order to break those products out in future enhancements. This simple restructuring increased shopping revenue by 529%. The campaign had amounted to 7% of paid google sales but after changes were implemented it jumped to 23% of the paid google sales.
Why is Google Shopping Worth it?
- Typically generates a lower CPC
- Provides images to improve shopping experience
- Amazon has reduced their budget in this channel which has opened opportunities
- The ads show the product price right upfront making it easy for consumers
- The listings display before text ads in search results
Sounds tricky, What do I do?
Just because you manage text/search ads does not necessarily mean you are equipped to launch shopping ads. It’s a little more cumbersome. You will need a data feed management system, a merchant center account, and dedicated time to monitoring and optimizing. The platform is not keyword based and therefore Google Shopping optimization is not the same as text ads. Optimizations include negative keywords, title updates, product description updates and strong images. Success and efficiency with these campaigns ultimately requires a streamlined workflow and consistent updates. Nothing worth doing is easy.
Not sure how to get your products on Google Shopping? That’s what we are here for!
