21 Nov Step By Step Guide To Shopping Ads
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Step By Step Guide To Shopping Ads.
If you have ever looked up a product or performed any query on Google, there is a high chance that you have come across Google Shopping Ads without even knowing it. Your search results might have a number of products arranged horizontally at the top of the results page. These products that you see are pulled out of what we call Google Shopping.
For those who operate in the e-commerce sector, having a working knowledge of paid ads is a mandatory requirement. This is one of the most powerful tools you can use to overcome competition.
Google shopping ads allow shoppers the chance to browse a variety of products depending on their query. Similarly, retailers can benefit from it, given that customers are brought closer to the retailer to make a purchase.
Having your products featured at the top the world’s number one search engine is a big plus. As a seller, it inserts you early into the life of the buyer.
Any serious business person out there is already advertising their products through Google Shopping. If you are yet to begin doing so, you are missing out. The essence of this guide is to provide you with an easy way to get started. Read to the end to learn all that is required to navigate this platform like a pro.
What are google shopping ads?
Google Shopping ads are a feature that captures crucial information about the products that you sell. It may be referred to as Product Shopping ads if it features only one product. If several related products are featured, the appropriate name to use is Showcase Shopping ads.
Shopping ads are normally shown in two main places: Google Shopping (previously known as Google Product Search), and the top of search results when a user executes a query. The ads may also be shown in image search results.
Consider the image below:
(Not all countries have been enrolled with Showcase Shopping ads. The ones currently enjoying this feature are listed below:
- Singapore
- Taiwan
- Hong Kong
- Germany
- India
- Indonesia
- US
- UK
- United Arab Emirates
- Canada
- South Africa
- Ireland
- France
- Malaysia
- Australia
- Brazil
- Sweden
- The Philippine
- New Zealand
Shopping ads should not be confused with keyword-based searches. The former are normally bid on at the product level and rely on product feeds as posted in Google Merchant Center.
The need for shopping ads.
If you are wondering whether or not you should continue learning Shopping ads, you can be sure the time spent on them is worth it. They mean a lot when it comes to growth and exposure. This is a major strategy that merchants in-the-know follow to increase brand awareness and outdo competitors.
The most important benefit that you are sure to get from this tool is placing your products in the Google Shopping spotlight. All kinds of businesses, big or small, would like to have their products listed at the top of search engine result pages (SERPS). This makes sure that you can reach those customers who aren’t aware of your products since your offerings will be displayed right in front of their eyes.
Most retailers are gradually relocating their marketing budget to Shopping ads. Why is this so? The answer is simple – these kinds of ads have been proven to work much better than text-based ads. They have a high conversion rate, with studies showing that they generate 26% higher conversion rates. Every business always focusses on a better ROI when marketing and advertising are involved.
When you provide vital product information to Google, the search engine rewards you by improving the quality of your leads. Every shopper wants to make an informed decision before buying anything. Shopping ads provide potential buyers with relevant information that is sure to guide their purchasing decision.
There are many more benefits you can gain from Google Shopping Ads, from simplicity in use to a broader reach.
Now that you appreciate the necessity of this tool in the success of your business, we can go ahead and learn how to get it set up.
“Our knowledgeable team has what it takes to make your shopping ad campaign a roaring success.”
Launching your google shopping ads campaign.
Before you can begin setting up your campaign, it is important to understand that there are a set of requirements which need to be satisfied.
- Google Accounts – Make sure that you have set up accounts with Google Merchant Center and Google Ads, and that these are linked together. Most people might have a challenge in doing so. If you do, get in touch with us, and we shall handle it for you.
- Policies – Understand Google’s Shopping policies. Follow this link to learn more about these from Google’s main site. All promotions, the type of business, website, and products must satisfy the requirements before you can launch the campaign.
- Product Data – You are required to provide updated product data every 30 days at least. The data provided must comply with Google’s standards of data quality. The essence of such standards is to give shoppers an enjoyable experience while looking for products.
Once these are taken care of, you are set to begin one of the most exciting journeys your business will ever make.
Follow the below steps to set up your campaign:
#1: Log in to your Google Ads account and click on Campaigns from the left.
#2: Click on the 
then choose New Campaign.
#3: Select Shopping as the campaign type and click on Next.
#4: The new page you are taken to requires you to choose the advertising preferences. These are as follows:
- Campaign Name
- Merchant
- Country of Sale
- Inventory Filter
- Bidding
- Daily Budget
- Campaign Priority
- Networks
- Devices
- Locations
- Local Inventory Ads
#5: When all these are done, click save and continue.
#6: Select the type of ad group you would like to create. There two types, Product Shopping Ad and Showcase Shopping Ad. Use the first option if this is your first time using Shopping. It entails individual product ads. On the other hand, Showcase Shopping Ad involves grouping several related products in a single ad. Creating such an ad will require you to follow a few extra steps.
#7: Provide a few pieces of information to create the first ad group:
- Ad Group Name – Carefully think about the name chosen as you will need it later on when looking for the ad group. As your campaign grows, you are likely to have more of such. Therefore, make sure that each name reflects the kind of campaign being executed. It is possible to edit the name even after the campaign has been created.
- Bid – Input the bid for your ad group. Similar to the ad group name, the bid can be changed after creating your campaign.
#8: Save, and you are set. The products group page on which you are redirected has the All Products group which hosts all products in the campaign.
Pay attention to the product imagery.
On the Internet, people buy what they see. If they are not impressed by the images of your products, they will not bother to purchase from you. For that reason, you must make sure that you have top-quality images that are catchy.
While setting up the campaign, you might have noticed that at no point are you asked to upload the product image. That is because Google pulls the featured image from the respective merchant website. For that reason, you need to optimise your product imagery on your website before setting up the Google Shopping campaign.
A large percentage of the success of Google Shopping depends on visuals. We can’t emphasise enough the importance of maintaining the quality of your product photos. Besides pricing and appearing at the top of SERPs, this may actually be the main reason your products are purchased. Google is very much aware of this. In order to enhance the shopping experience of its users, it may decline Shopping campaigns for ads that have low-quality images.
Do not think about cutting corners on this. The search engine performs regular checks on image quality and will not hesitate to suspend Shopping accounts found to have violated its strict quality standards.
Some quick tips regarding imagery:
- Background – Recommended white, gray, or light-coloured
- Lighting – Clear and even
- .jpeg additions – This is the preferred format for most websites
Using negative keywords to segment your campaign.
Every retailer wants to maximise the exposure of their most profitable products. This is done while placing a cap on the unprofitable ones. This is what we call segmenting. It ensures that your campaign gets the maximum ROI.
As you run the ad campaign, you might find it necessary to divide the campaigns and use product groupings to achieve more control over bids, listings, and priorities.
Leverage negative keywords and priority settings to provide more resources for aggressive bids and high-value searches with the aim of maximising your impression share.
Campaign segmentation is a useful trick that Google Shopping advertisers can use to determine the search queries for which their products show up. It is also an effective way to isolate and allocate budget to queries that are historically known to convert.
Adjust bids when necessary.
As you launch your campaign and begin getting impressions, clicks, as well as sales, you might want to take a deeper look into your data. This kind of analysis will empower you to optimise your Google Shopping campaign. Doing so is both an art and a science. Whereas it is advisable to stick by the general rules, sometimes breaking these rules is what might get you selling.
For instance, there are those who believe that you should never change anything until you get about 100 clicks. There are those who will begin changing things around when they get the first ten clicks.
At the end of the day, you are in charge of your campaign, and you will act based on what your gut tells you. Just make sure that you have enough data to make a more conclusive decision regarding the proposed changes.
There are a number of rules to keep in mind as you go about the changes. For starters, filter the high-performing products. You might want to pay more attention to the products where the ROI is four times the ad spend, and there are at least two conversions.
For the winning products, feel free to up the bid to get more impressions. Lower the bid for products where the returns are low.
edirect is here for you
We understand how challenging it can be to set up a Google Shopping Ad. Since this is something that not many retailers understand. Doing it on your own could see you make costly mistakes. At edirect, we have a dedicated and experienced team that knows how to navigate around this.
Contact us today, and we will be glad to show you our diverse portfolio.