How to Create a Profitable Google Shopping Campaign in 2020
Ecommerce is definitely a booming industry. It has grown by leaps and bounds. In the upcoming years, this industry is bound to reach as much as 3 trillion USD. This gives ambitious business owners to try their luck online. However, everything about e-commerce development has changed in the past few days.
This can be attributed to the global pandemic, COVID-19. Today, more and more people are looking for ways of buying online. This means, your campaigns need to be more professional and focused. And, Google Shopping Ads can help you with this. This is a free platform for promoting your business.
What are Google Shopping Ads?
By definition, Google Shopping ads are rich with information. This includes critical pieces of information like merchant names, images, prices, and so on. The kind of information presented by the business in the merchant center decides on what will be displayed during a search. Also, the data from your product feed is required when the shopping ads are displayed. This is why you need to be extremely careful with the kind of information you share.
Fortunately, much of the logic behind Google Shopping ads is automated by the mighty search engine. This means, you only need to focus on the accuracy, and quality of the content you enter in the product feed. Once relevant pieces of information are entered, Google would take care of the campaigns, and the process of displaying your ads during searches.
Benefits of Google Shopping Ads
Can get Highly-Targeted Traffic
With the help of Google Shopping Ads, you will be able to create targeted advertisements. This means, your brand will only be shown to people who are shopping for the products you host!
High Potential Customer Reach
Your brand is likely to be displayed during multiple searches. And, whenever a search related to your store is being executed, your products will be shown. This means you receive a broader presence online.
High Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
This is one of the key benefits of Google Marketing Solutions. When compared to traditional advertisements, Google Shopping Ads tend to perform better. This is because an optimized campaign translates to reduced Cost Per Clicks (CPCs) and better rates of conversion. These are equivalent to higher, and more optimized ROAS.
Can Manage and Optimize easily
When it comes to choosing the right keywords and optimizing your campaign – things will become messy and complicated. With Google Shopping Ads, the search engine has sophisticated algorithms to take care of the comparisons and keyword hunts. All that you need to do is enter an accurate product feed.
Better Data and Reporting
Google is famous for its analytics tools. When you choose to make use of its shopping ads, you are bound to leverage these tools. The reporting tools will help you with details like product views, growth opportunities, and even the number of clicks your products received.
Google Shopping Ad Types
1. Product Shopping Ads
These are advertisements Google creates with plenty of product information. The information is extracted from the Merchant Center Account.
2. Showcase Shopping Ads
These advertisements are shown to real-time customers, even before they decide on a product. The ads are often handpicked using CPE algorithms. If a customer chooses to expand the ad, it’s level of engagement is increased.
3. Local Catalog Ads (LCAs)
These ads are meant for both online, and offline sales. These also depend on the data you enter in the product feed. The details are carefully highlighted and redirected to products in your store.
4. TrueView for Shopping (YouTube)
The role of trueview is to increase the interactivity and intuitive nature of your video ads. They are often an integral part of video marketing campaigns.
5. Smart Shopping Campaigns
This is a combination of both automated bidding and simplified campaign management. The role of these campaigns is to boost expansion and the conversion rates of your business. Smart shopping ads are found in numerous platforms, ranging from Gmail to YouTube to conventional searches. The global site tag has to be enabled on your store, to leverage the perks of smart shopping campaigns.
How to Create a Profitable Google Shopping Campaign
1. Make Product Photos and Listings up to the mark.
First things first, your store needs to be designed upon high quality. Ensure that the data you enter in the google merchant center product feed is accurate, and it matches with the “Actual” listing on your site.
Many times, Google’s algorithms draw information from your images. This is why you need to avoid watermarks, logos, and even borders from the images. Always ensure that your product images are of pristine quality!
Tip: The image should not deviate from the actual product. They should match at least 99.9% of the time!
2. Make sure your store compiles all requirements & Policies for google shopping ads.
Google is often recognized for its standard, and well-defined policies. This holds good for Google Shopping Ads too! When you build an e-commerce store, ensure that you go through the terms and conditions of Google. Why? More than 90% of the world’s population searches for products using this search engine. And, you cannot afford to mess with its standards.
When your store meets and exceeds the standards of Google, the chances of your products appearing in the end search results is high.
Tip: Before your ad campaign goes live, ensure that you run through the Google policies and your standards.
3. Create and Set up Your Google Merchant Center Account
The talk about Google Shopping Ads will be incomplete without the Merchant Center. This would be the heart and soul of any campaign. Mainly because required pieces of information are extracted from the Merchant Center.
If the merchant center is created without any flaws, the process of extraction and hosting your ads becomes simpler. This is why all your data feed in the merchant center has to be double-checked. The feeds need to be filled with both primary and secondary keywords. If possible, include long-tail keywords in your product feed too.
Tip: Manage the merchant center, much before you host the Google Shopping Ads Campaign.
4. Create your Product Feeds
By now, you should be aware of the crucial role played by the Product Feed. A poorly designed product feed will not meet the standards of Google. And, this means your brand would not find a stable position in the search results. Also, it can cost you lots of money. This is why you need to understand more about the parameters, and kind of data Google is looking for in your product feed.
Tip: Before you create the product feed, spend some time, and read through the Google Shopping Guide. This has all the specifics you need to know.
5. Link Merchant Center Account to Google Ads
Once the merchant center is created, and if you have pulled together a comprehensive Product feed – you can go ahead and link the merchant center with your advertisement. This might seem like a “million-dollar” move. Why? Because it brings to light your Google Shopping Ads campaign.
With the help of the merchant center, the process of linking ads is no longer a hassle. You have a separate “merchant toolbox” to help you find all the related accounts. Here, you can choose to add the new campaign you are ought to host.
Tip: Navigate to the “Google Ads” tab in your Merchant Center Account. Here, you can add the new Google Shopping Ad.
6. Google Shopping Campaign Settings
As a part of setting up your Google Shopping Campaign, there are a few essential parameters you need to choose. These parameters will bring your ads a step closer to potential buyers.
1. Country of Sale
This is a part of geo-targeting. The locations of the countries in which your products need to be shown have to be selected. Thus, any country that is omitted will not feature your Shopping Ads. But, if a country is listed in the campaign settings, you must be allowed to ship, and sell goods there. This setting cannot be altered after the campaign is created successfully.
2. Inventory Filter
A major reason behind the effectiveness of Google Shopping Ads would be segmentation. Google has exquisite algorithms to match search results, against the data you enter in your merchant center. Even if your merchant center is not fully prepared, you can use the inventory filter as an alternative.
The inventory filter helps users filter, and amend the actual number of products you enroll in the Google Shopping Campaign. Hence, when a user executes a search, Google would only look at these products. The inventory filter can be edited even after you create the campaign.
3. Bidding
At the campaign level, it is possible to choose a unique type of bidding. There are two common types of bidding methods: manual CPC bidding, or smart bidding. In the manual CPC method, you need to choose the maximum CPC for your advertisements. And, in smart bidding, Google would take care of the values based on target CPA, maximization of clicks, and better ROAS.
4. Daily Budget
Many times, you might be operating your business on a tight budget. If this is true, you will need to create a daily budget for the Google Shopping Ads Campaign. The daily budget helps the search engine understand how much you are willing to spend every day on the campaign.
Once the daily budget is reached, Google will not take into consideration the shopping ads. There are no limits on how big or small your daily budget needs to be. Often, brands begin with humble budgets that are improved with time.
5. Campaign Priority
The priority of your campaign plays an integral role in the actual Google Shopping campaigns. It helps businesses understand which of their products are taking a bigger budget. Also, it helps brands gain better insight into the high performing ads. Most of the time, there will be overlaps. In such cases, you need to rank the ads campaigns, under three priorities: low, medium, or high.
6. Networks and Devices
Google Shopping Ads are carefully customized based on the devices, and platforms used to search for them. The campaigns are shown on many platforms, ranging from Google Discover to YouTube to the traditional search.
Google Shopping Ads has options where you can choose when and where the ads have to be displayed. This theory holds good for devices too. For instance, you can limit certain ads only to desktop machines and skip mobile devices.
7. Locations & Local Inventory Ads
Just like device limitations, you can limit the location in which you display the ads. The local inventory ads are all about displaying your brand, even when the customer chooses to go offline. These ads are often displayed with the actual, physical address of your store.
7. Success your Google shopping ads are live now
With the above strategies, you will be able to build and host a Google Shopping Ads Campaign successfully. Now, your store is prepared to engage in online business.
Optimizing Your Google Shopping Ads
Products with High Clicks, Low Conversions
When you introduce keywords in your Google Shopping Ads, ensure that these are terms your product will be ranked for. The keyword needs to describe the actual subject of your business. This is why you should not stick to volume alone. Leverage the perks of long-tail keywords tools. These can drive target audiences into your business.
Products with High Impressions, Low Clicks
Most of the time, customers don’t click and learn more about products when the description doesn’t meet their requirements. Even if your product has a high impression, the user will not venture deep in the description or title. This is when the click rate drops drastically.
Always incorporate an effective title and description to all your products. This will improve the CTR of your brand greatly. After all, most people judge a book based on its cover. This holds true for your Google Shopping Ads campaign too.
Products with No Impressions
If your products show zero signs of engagement, you need to incorporate day-parting adjustments. Try to change the bids, and data based on the time and day. Also, you need to make use of geo-targeting bids. These will boost your product in places where they are likely to perform.
Meanwhile, you can also choose to break the product into smaller units. When a handful of products are performing better than the rest, split them apart. But, try to give the lower performers a unique edge. Incorporate the tips you learned from the high performers.
Develop on these strategies, keywords, and bids for the low performing products too. Many times, products that are more “specialized” and less “general” tend to drive results.
Conclusion
COVID-19 might have changed the business model for many. But, tools like the Google Shopping Ads campaign are here to lend you a hand of help. These marketing tools will ensure that your brand reaches its target audiences, without many obstacles. Also, it will help you work upon better and bigger bids – which directly translated to return on investment.
Author Bio
AdNabu helps improve sales in Google Ads for eCommerce companies. If you are running the search, google shopping, or display campaigns in Google Ads, This software will be able to increase your sales.
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This blog post is about:
- How to Create a Profitable Google Shopping Campaign in 2020
- Google Shopping Campaigns
- Ecommerce
