Google AdWords is a widely used tool by millions of advertisers to promote their products online to potential customers. Google has multiple campaign types which advertisers can use as per their needs. Shopping ads is one of the campaign types that is suitable for retailers who want to advertise their local and online inventory. Google Adwords Shopping ads allows shoppers to browse a range of different products based on their search queries. Retailers can gain qualified leads that have a high potential to convert, through shopping ads.
Shopping ads, unlike text ads, show the users a photo of your product along with a title, price, store name, and more information. These ads help your users get a good sense of your products before they get to your website, which can help you get qualified leads. In this article, we will discuss all aspects of Google Shopping Ads to help you create a successful campaign.
What are Google Shopping Ads?
Shopping ads are ads that contain product information, like price, product image, and merchant name. These ads are created by using product information that is submitted to the Merchant Center and is displayed to the audience who are looking for the type of products that you advertise. It enables you to customize your ad content, set the budget that you want, and help you monitor and track the results of your campaigns through advanced reporting tools.
Your product data is the most important part of your Shopping campaigns. You can easily browse your products and organize them. Through the campaign insights, you can make better decisions about your Shopping ads and optimize them.
Why do you need Google Shopping?
If you are a retailer, then Google Shopping ads are a great way for you to showcase your products to a wider group of audiences looking for the kind of products you sell. Here are some of the reasons why you need to use Google Shopping ads.
Qualified Leads
Shopping ads can help you increase the number of qualified leads you get by giving the product information upfront in your ads. Shoppers can see the product image, price, and other relevant information they need before they click on your ad. They can also compare your product to other products. By the time they click on your ad they have all the information they need and are most likely going to purchase your product.
Dynamic Remarketing
Dynamic remarketing can enable you to target users who previously visited your website but left without buying. Remarketing lists help you connect with these customers when they continue looking for what they want on Google. With Shopping remarketing lists you can segment these users who have interacted with your site. You can also customise your bids based on these groups of users who have engaged previously. For example, you can segment those visitors who have added an item to the cart but later abandoned the cart without making a purchase.
Increase your presence
Google can show more than one ad for a given search. If your ads are relevant, then your Shopping and text ads can appear together at the same time. This can help you double your reach for a single search. Your shopping ads appear on Google Search, Google Display Network which includes YouTube, Gmail, Google Discover as well as other partner websites.
Tracking and Reporting
You can easily track different aspects of your ads and get the data on which products are getting more clicks. Google AdWords has various tools that can help you track the performance of your ad campaigns and make improvements where needed.
Now, let’s take a look at how you can create your Google Shopping campaign.
How to Set Up a Google Shopping Campaign?
Set up your Google Merchant Center account
The very first step is to create your Google Merchant Center account, as your Google Shopping ads use the product information that you determine here. Google Merchant Center includes all the data regarding your products. It is easy to set up and navigate.
Create your product data feed
Once you have your Merchant Center set up, you can go ahead and create your product data feed. The product data feed gives your product information to Google. Google uses product data feed to find and display your products when people use the relevant search query. To create successful ads and unpaid product listings for your products, you need to make sure that you submit your product data in the correct format.
To create your product feed, go to Products > Feeds and click on the blue “+” icon. Enter your country and language, to target the right demographic that will see your products. Then name your product feed and choose how you want to input your product information. When you start entering your product information these are the product attributes that are required to create your Google Shopping ads.
id – This is your product’s unique identifier. Use a unique value for each product and use products’ SKU where required. Keep the id the same if you update your data.
title – This should accurately describe your product and match the title on your landing page. Do not include any promotional text or special characters here.
description – description should further describe your product and it should match the description on your landing page. Only include information about your product, don’t include any promotions, links to your store, or details about other products here.
link – Place the URL of your final landing page here.
availability – Your products’ availability. Should match the availability on the landing page.
price – This includes the price of your product, similar to that on the landing page.
image_link – For the image URL. Link to the main image of your product.
Use quality product images
Google Shopping uses product feed data when displaying ads, but it uses featured images from your website. Hence, it is important to upload good quality images on your website before using them in your Shopping ads. Your product image is the most important part of your ad. Users are going to make decisions based on how your product looks. Google will not accept images that are of low quality.
Here are some guidelines you can follow while posting your images:
- Use a white, or light-colored background
- Show the product clearly
- Show product at the appropriate scale without being too big or small
- Do not use any blurry or pixelated images
Use clear and crisp images that can present your products in the best way to your customers.
Link your Google AdWords account
Product feed data has all the information that you want Google to present to your customers. To allow Google Shopping to use this information in your ads you need to link it to Google AdWords account. You will find the Account Linking option in your Google Merchant Center on the top right corner. Click on the three vertical dots to find this option.
Create your Shopping campaign
One way to create your Shopping campaign is through Google Merchant Center itself after you have linked it with Google AdWords. Simply click Create Shopping Campaign and enter your campaign name, country of sale, and daily budget. Another way is to create the campaign through Google AdWords. Log in to your Google AdWords account and choose Campaigns, then click on the “+” icon to create a new campaign. Choose a campaign goal and the type of campaign you want to create.
Following are the settings you need to complete to create your Shopping campaign:
- Add a campaign name. It can be changed later
- The country of sale setting defines which products from your Merchant Center inventory are advertised in this particular campaign. It uses products relevant to the target country.
- Set your maximum cost-per-click bid as a limit to how much you want to pay for a click on your ad. You can change this bid anytime later on.
- Enter your daily budget to limit how much you want to spend in a day for a specific campaign. You can also edit this setting later after creating the campaign.
Complete these settings and any other additional ones to finish setting up your campaign.
Set your Bidding Strategy
Your bid strategy determines how you pay for people who view, click, and interact with your Shopping ads. Select your bid strategy whether manual or automated. In manual CPC you set the CPC bid or max CPC. There is no recommended bid amount that works. You can set your amount depending on what suits your business the best. You can also select automated bid strategies to help you optimize your advertising spend.
Automated bidding includes strategies like Maximize Clicks, Enhanced CPC, Target ROAS, and Maximise Conversion Value. Automated bidding helps you monitor your campaign’s performance and set a bid to help you reach your goals.
After setting up your bidding, you also need to choose your campaign budget. This is the amount you want to spend on a daily basis. Google does not charge you on a daily basis but on a monthly basis. However, this amount will not exceed the daily budget times the number of days in a month.
Landing Page
The landing page is the destination page users will end up on after clicking on your Shopping ads. If a landing page does not match your ad or unpaid listing, users might leave your website without buying. Google has some minimum requirements for landing pages. Not meeting them will result in your product or account being disapproved. Here are some of those requirements.
Ensure that your landing page has all the key elements of the product which also match with the product feed data you have submitted in the Merchant Center. These elements are id, title, description, image, price, currency, availability, and a CTA or Call to Action button. Title, image, and description need not always be exactly identical to the product data, but it has to refer to the same product.
The products in product feed need to be prominently featured in the linked landing page. This landing page should not include a variety of products or similar products. The focus of that landing page should be to give information about that particular product.
Lastly, the price of the product must be mentioned clearly on the landing page. It should be easy to see and match the product data.
Shopping ads can help you present your product to your target audience and help you increase your sales. These ads need to be implemented as per Google’s requirements or it would not give you the desired results. Keep in mind that these ads don’t use keywords to show up in search results. Instead, they use the product data from your Merchant Center account to show up for a particular product based on the search query. Make sure to put the correct information and do not skip the required fields. Following Google’s requirements can make your ads successful and help you get the most out of them.
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