google shopping ads
Do you sell something online with a fixed price? Then consider starting a campaign with Google Shopping Ads.
Using Google Merchant Centre you can easily set up an account that shows the ads, and if you’re willing to do some tedious work to the product/s inventory and database, it’s quite easy to port it all from your website, to the platform. Best of all: you probably also qualify for some free Shopping Ads – not all of them have to be paid for ads.
Topic number five:
google shopping ads
Google Shopping Ads enable you to easily complement your existing Google Ads account with some shopping ads. Of course, you may not have a Google Ads account, and so then you can just start with Google Merchant Centre and launch your first campaign there. However, I’d wager you should first start with ‘Google Search Ads’, and then add Shopping Ads. Read my first article in this series if you’re confused.
Having a business strategy in place will inform all of this, of course, but if you don’t have one, then start there. After that, create a marketing strategy, and then you should build out your online strategy based off of that. So imagine the Russian Doll as an analogy: Big, first Russian Doll is “Business”, then “Marketing”, and then “Online Marketing”, and finally you get to “Google Ads”, with its child being “Shopping Ads”. Work out which campaigns to add, do the necessary grunt work setting them all up, and see your products displayed online, and very often in a visually appealing manner right at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (the SERP’s).
from the frying pan, into the fire
Getting into Google Shopping Ads is a no-brainer for most businesses that sell online. I am sure there are exceptions, but this isn’t the place to list them. Consider the image adjacent here, of the search results for a casual “frying pan” search. Those Shopping Ads appear first, and as they’re 60% visual, they are enticing. A world that spends 60% of its time online, glued to their phone, results in folks being very drawn to visual cues, and unable to read beyond about 50 words of text. It’s a shame, and in fact, if you’ve read all this way: well done!
In case it wasn’t obvious, these Shopping Ads are not appearing mid way down the page, or on page 7, or on your toaster while you wait for it to get golden brown (that’s coming soon, no doubt). They are appearing FIRST! Wow, that is what SEO is all about, so it’s why I earlier said it’s a ‘no-brainer’ – because they are right there at the top. Secondly, they’re super visual. Thirdly, they display a price, which is almost always the biggest factor in considering to purchase. Fourthly, time is limited, and folks just want to be “trigger happy” clickers, so you’re likely to get a click pronto, if the image you pair with your advert is half-decent.
Lastly, and maybe most vitally in this article, Shopping Ads can be super cheap to run! Not always, it will always depend on the product, the brand, the competition, the region you’re advertising, the time of day, etc etc. But in general, they are well worth experimenting with. Unsure if they are? Well, thankfully Google Analytics will tell you – or within Google Ads itself – it’s very, very easy to see how many leads and/or sales come from all of your complementary campaigns. At month end, or quarterly, just review. If you spent $500 each on a) a search campaign, b) display ads, c) Shopping Ads, and d) other (Facebook?) – then just work out which gave you both the best return in terms of revenue, and the best CPA, aka. the best cost per conversion.
I’ve helped a few businesses with Shopping Ads, and done a fair bit of e-commerce in my time, with truly newsworthy results.
including…
“Mike is a fantastic digital strategist, who has particular expertise in search engine optimization and search advertising. We worked together on a project and I’ve never seen anything like the resultant acquisition analytics, in the research sector. A lot of folks would be really interested in whatever magic he’s working to have such a huge return from paid search.”
Joe, Fountain Digital Consulting
If you would like to see similar results and grow both your visitor numbers and conversions, then please do get in touch.