How to Create a Profitable Google Shopping Ads Campaign [2021]
10 Min. Read
Google has taken many steps to help new startups and entrepreneurs to adapt to the rapidly changing retail market online. Indeed, Google has come up with search algorithms and cut costs for services such as Google Shopping Ads to help online merchants to be found.
Google Shopping Ads is one medium by which Google helps merchants to get desired results. Merchants and the eCommerce industry in general are leaving behind the initial setbacks suffered during the early months of the Covid19 pandemic, and emerging stronger than ever. Many opportunities have been created for online retailers that are quick to adapt.
Signs of COVID-19 Adaptation
To boost the retail industry and to provide a chance to emerging online retailers, Google announced that they have removed all commission from its ads platform. In addition Google has also decided to make product listings free for eCommerce stores.
Of course all of the above is helping eCommerce adaptation and recovery. Furthermore, online retailers will also get the latest Google platform for eCommerce business, “Surface.” As per a study conducted in this field, 38.7 million online shoppers picked up one grocery or online delivery order during the first 30 days of Covid19. It was down from 45.6 million in June but then up to 37.5 million in August, showing a moderate bounce back.
If you are based in the US, then you have an additional advantage because Google has made the ‘ Surface across Google’ program free in the US. Consequently now is the most opportune time for online retailers to take their small businesses to greater heights, and here Google Shopping Campaigns is the best way to ride the wave of recovery.
Below you will find a few basics about creating a profitable Google Shopping Campaign in 2021 and how to make your business successful.
Table of Contents
Basics about Google Shopping Campaigns
What are Google Shopping Ads Campaigns?
To begin with, online retailers need to understand what Google Shopping Ads Campaigns are.
It is a search engine marketing platform based upon Googles Search Engine, that helps eCommerce stores. Using this platform, various brand ads are displayed to users looking for items, those products or services sold by the brand.
Based on the brand’s search query and product listing, Google algorithms show only relevant businesses as product ads and it is here where Google Shopping Ads can be used.
These ads contain information about the product in the form of its image, merchant name, and price. The ads are created as per the information available on the product or service submitted by the retailer in the Merchant Center data feed.
Benefits of Google Shopping Ads Campaigns
1. Can get Highly-Targeted Traffic
Online retailers or entrepreneurs must strive hard to improve the leads’ overall quality. If the deals and product information is listed along with the ads, it helps the online buyers to make a well-informed buying decision.
The chances of purchase from the store site (ie a Shopify store) also increase. The online retailers can also float retail-centric campaigns that are not dependent on keywords and will be more dependent on the Merchant Center data feed. It enhances highly targeted traffic to the site.
2. High Potential Customer Reach
Google Shopping ads help online retailers to register a robust and wider online presence. This is possible because multiple relevant Google shopping business ads are displayed to the users at a time for them to choose between.
3. High ROAS
The Google Shopping ads also help in getting a higher return on ad spend. This is possible with highly targeted ads which although they cost more, do get better results. As the brands’ overall performance is enhance, it also helps in increasing bids.
Consequently it does have a direct impact on the return on ad spend and, retailers can look forward to seeing much higher conversion rates.
4. Can Manage and Optimize easily
It is prudent to note here that most of the Google Shopping Ads behavior seen, is from the product feed and the Merchant Center. Just as websites need to be SEO optimized for effective Google Search results, store data also needs to be properly organized because certain algorithms are used by Google that values highly structured and quality data.
This shopping ad platform has pertinent features that take care of ad optimization. Thus, the merchant must link the ads as soon as they are created with the Merchant Center. The same must be reused in multiple campaigns. This way, the issue of duplicate ads is reduced.
5. Better Data and Reporting
Google Shopping Ads also help in the generation of high-quality competitive data. The retailers can check the performance of their ads and data at the granular level. With this you can augment your own Shopify Google analytics data, track your Google and Facebook campaigns through Conversific, in one holistic analytics dashboard.
Thus, if they wish to know how many clicks were received by their product, they will have to ensure the product filter view. They can also check their competition by creating benchmarking data.
Google Shopping Campaign Types
There are several types of Google Shopping types. Depending on the product or services the online retailer wishes to sell and the campaign’s results, a suitable ad type must be chosen.
1. Product Shopping Campaigns
Product shopping ads are defined as ads where retailers can create an ad campaign with a proper title, image, price, and details about the business or store. Thus, this ad has all the required information on the product available for sale.
It is important to note that every product needs a separate ad. Therefore, every product available in the eCommerce store will have a different ad displayed by Google during the user searches.
2. Showcase Shopping Campaigns
These ads provide a cornucopia of information. It is where several products are shown with more generalized searches to the users instead of a specific product-based ad. These ads are predominantly used for advertising a brand or a unique product range.
It also helps in introducing a store with a particular product range. Many times, these ads are created along with shopping campaigns. These appear on Google Search, Google Search Partners, and Google Shopping Results.
3. Local Catalog Ads (LCAs)
Also referred to as the Local Inventory Advertisements, the LCAs are used to display product and store information to customers in proximity using Google to search for a store or a product.
As soon as the buyer clicks on the ad, it gets redirected to the host page created for the store within Google. It can be considered as the ‘Local Storefront.’ It is used to view more details about store hours, product details, and even a map directing the customers to the physical store.
4. TrueView for Shopping (YouTube)
YouTube or the TrueView for Shopping helps retailers leverage the videos and acceptability. The retailers can develop interactive video ads that help connect with prospective product viewers with services and products.
These videos use only pertinent information that enables the enhancement of conversion rates.
5. Smart Shopping Campaigns
The designing of these campaigns is done to ensure it expands the online store’s reach. It also helps to increase the conversion rate. These campaigns are created as the Standard Shopping Experience.
It also plays a vital role in remarketing campaigns. These campaigns use automated bidding while also focusing on the placement of the ads.
How to Create a Profitable Google Shopping Campaign
Step#1 – Make Product Listings up to the mark
It is important to note that online buyers rely on what they see to make decisions. For this reason, businesses need to be very careful with the images they choose for their products and post. Following image conditions must be met for Google Shopping Ads-
- No watermarks on the image.
- A clear background to ensure a clearer image.
- High-quality images.
- Explicit images to be used.
- Multiple thumbnail images to be captured describing every angle of the product.
- No brand data on the image.
Step#2 – Make Product Photos up to the mark
Product photos must be clicked, therefore every detail of the product should be visible to the potential buyer. This facilitates quick decision making. The quality of photos must be high and should have no watermarks on the images.
Step#3 – Make sure your store meets all requirements of google shopping Campaigns
When designing and creating Google Shopping Ads, the online retailer must ensure that the ad is in sync with the policies and requirements for Google Shopping Campaigns. If the ad is not in line with these requirements, it may lose its chance to get displayed on the search engine results page.
It may result in online retailers missing out on many customers. Thus, before making your ad go live, cross-check Google requirements, and consider every aspect from content quality to structure.
Step#4 – Create and Set up Your Google Merchant Center Account
It is a very simple and straightforward process to create a Google Merchant Center Account. The retailer needs to enter business information and pertinent details on where to look for the products. It is a kind of official eCommerce store for the retailer.
Next, details like email preferences and management platforms need to be shared. Once this information is entered, the Google Merchant Center is created. The next task is to create ads for which the retailer needs to follow the ‘Growth’ option in the Merchant Center and click on ‘Manage Programs.’
Here, enter details about the product, shipping data, tax information, Google Shopping Ads account, and store details. Link Google ads account with the Google Merchant Center.
Step#5 - Create your Product Feeds
The next step is to create product feeds, a simple file with a product list from the store. It is created by bringing several attributes of the product together. These qualities help in defining a product being sold uniquely.
These defined products are added into a primary or supplemental feed in the Merchant Data Center. As soon as the feed is created, it can be used multiple times in several Google Ads Campaigns. Attributes of a product that needs to be added are availability, condition, description, and title.
Step#6 – Link Merchant Center Account to Google Campaigns
As mentioned earlier, the retailer needs to link the Merchant Center Account and Google Shopping Ads. The linking of these platforms helps leverage the advantages of a retail-centric campaign created by Google, besides the Merchant Center’s data-centric abilities.
This linking helps in several ways like a seamless flow of data between both accounts, removal or addition of new information in the merchant center by conventional account holders and admins, and choosing to remove ads from the campaign easily. The Merchant Data Center controls everything from a centralized location.
Step#7 – Set up your Google Shopping Campaign Settings
1. Country of Sale
When setting up a Google Shopping Campaign, select the country of sale where the business would operate and sell its products. The ads will be filtered and then displayed to the customers living in these countries or locations.
The data were chosen from the Merchant Center while advertising must be available in the selected regions.
2. Inventory Filter
The retailer can also limit the products that can be shown in the campaign. This option can be activated by deciding on specific product criteria that need to be satisfied. When this criterion is met, the product is showcased in the ad. The settings can be altered easily after the campaign is created.
3. Bidding
This setting helps in creating a bid to be used along with the campaign. Different types of bids are available to make a choice. It is used just like an investment filter where parameters can be altered after creation.
Bids are decided as per conversion tracking focus, boosting brand awareness, generating traffic and organic leads, boost interaction, and more.
4. Daily Budget
Set a daily budget that tells the search engines about the amount the retailer is ready to spend on the Google Shopping Campaign. This amount or budget can be shared daily or as a whole.
5. Campaign Priority
The retailer also needs to set the campaign priority. This option is open to modifications, whether planning to advertise several campaigns or a single product. It helps in understanding which budget will be spent on which product. It helps in case of products overlap.
6. Networks and Devices
Setting a default network helps in driving more traffic towards products, which results in higher conversion rates. Retailers can also choose to exclude certain products by unchecking a box from a specific network.
The exclusion of these products is across platforms like Google Discover/Gmail, Google Search Partners, and Google search network. This setting can also be changed after the creation of the campaign.
7. Locations & Local Inventory Campaigns
Change the settings if the retailer also has products sold in physical stores. They can only advertise local products when the right mix of product data is entered into the merchant feed. They need to select the option of enabling ads for products sold in local stores.
Step#8 – Final step
When all these settings are complete, the Google Shopping Ads are live. Select on ‘save’ and continue with the ad. The retailer can also alter information pieces in Google Ad Groups later.
Optimizing Your Google Shopping Campaigns
a. Products with Low Conversions but High Clicks
What causes this? – When creating Google Shopping Ads, it is important to keep in mind using keywords that are not too popular. Instead, it should be relevant. The major cause behind high clicks and low conversions is high-volume query ranking resulting in high CTR and low conversions.
What to do?- Use relevant keywords rather than popular keywords in Google Shopping Campaigns.
b. Products with Low Clicks but High Impressions
What causes this? – There are several reasons behind ads getting high impressions and low clicks. It can be due to changed ad sets, changed keyword strategy, seasonality, new better ads by the competitors, early ad spend, etc.
What to do? – You can change the ads while keeping a few older ones running. Also, focus on increasing your quality scores. Make your ads seasonality-proof.
c. Products with No Impressions
What causes this? – The major cause behind products with no impressions is a low keyword or ad relevance, low bids, and narrow targeting.
What to do? – Manually increase the default bid, check if the product page is optimized, and check if the campaign’s products are eligible for advertising and more to solve this problem.
Conclusion
The steps above will assist you to build impressive and impactful Google Shopping Ads and Campaigns in 2021. Check out other resources like a guide to eCommerce Analytics or these other beginner’s guide, tutorials on troubleshooting, and optimization to enhance your knowledge and create a winnable Google campaigns.
Make your business grow in 2021 with Google Shopping Ads by leveraging Conversific data insights to make better data driven marketing decisions.
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Guest Post Contribution from AdNabu
AdNabu helps improve sales in Google Ads for shopify stores. If you are running google search, Google shopping, or display campaigns in Google Ads, Their apps help to increase your sales.
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