How to get the Most from Google Shopping

Google Shopping is the avid online shoppers dream. The ability to browse a range of different products with ease is what online shoppers want. It’s like having your own department store in your own home.

However, while it’s great for consumers, someone has to pay for it. Companies can spend thousands on Google Shopping campaigns. But not all of them make a strong return on investment.

Some industries are more competitive than others, but one thing for sure is that overall Google Shopping is becoming a much more competitive market.

Retailers need to stay on top of their Google Shopping management if they want to stay in the game.

Here are some top ways to get the most from your Google Shopping.

We’d all like a bottomless pit of money to work with AdWords. But for just about everyone, this just simply isn’t the case.

If you’re going into a market where you know there are big spenders then you have to be smart.

If you know that you’ve got a limited budget then concentrate that budget on a small number of products. If you try and stretch it out as thinly as possible then you are simply not going to get the traction you need to make a return.

When consumers use Google Shopping they traditionally click on an ad more than once before they buy. So if you have a constrained budget then a consumer may click on your ad then click away, then try to find you again, but your ad won’t show because you’ve exceeded your budget.

For example, having a product inventory of 20,000 products with a £20 a day budget simply isn’t going to cut the mustard. If you have a £20 a day budget then you’re much better off just focusing on as low as one product.

With Text ads you can add sitelinks and extensions to make your advert much more prominent. As you can see Nike is using; Callout Extensions, Sitelinks and Ratings Extensions. This makes the add bigger and more eye catching.

With Google Shopping you don’t have the same level of extensions to make your ads stand out. What you do have is ‘Promotions’. This is a great way to give your ad a little extra to stand out from the crowd.

With Google Shopping you don’t have the same level of extensions to make your ads stand out. What you do have is ‘Promotions’. This is a great way to give your ad a little extra to stand out from the crowd.

By clicking on the ad you can see that they are running an offer for free headphones when you spend over £89. They also provide a code that you need to enter at the checkout.

This is a great way of showing that you’re offering just a little bit more than your competitors.

Google Shopping Best practices involves splitting up your campaigns in a similar way to your website. This is a great way to easily measure strongly performing areas.

If you break up your products into similar products then you can set your budget and bids accordingly.

For example if you were a sport shop; then you would separate your sports into campaigns. For example Football; Tennis and Rugby. You would then split these campaigns further e.g. in the football campaign you may have ad groups for football boots, footballs, accessories etc.

The more you break it down the, the easier it is to see which areas are more successful than others. If you know that Nike Football boots are a big seller then you could create a Nike Football boots campaign and create separate ad groups for different colours.

It’s a lot of work splitting up Shopping campaigns. But it’s incredibly important so you can accurately measure results.

Often an over looked aspect of Google Shopping is your data feed. This is how you tell Google what your products actually are.

You wouldn’t just throw in some keywords that you haven’t really thought about into a search campaign. So don’t do it with your Shopping data feed.

Your title is arguably the most important part of a shopping ad. This is what the consumer see’s and engages with.

You need to make your product title search friendly. This means that you need to include key information:

• Brand
• Size
• Colour
• Attributes
• Model

These are things that people will be specifically looking for.

As you can see from this product title:

• Brand – Nike
• Model – Magista Onda II Dynamic Fit Firm
• Attribute – Ground Football Boot
• Colour – Black

It’s also important to remember that the most important terms such as brand and model should be on the left hand side of the description as this has the most weight when it comes to the Google algorithm.

As well as using keywords in your title, you also need to add keywords in your description.

You can use the Search Terms Report in AdWords to see what search terms your ads are appearing for. It’s good to continually review how your ads are appearing. This is an ongoing process, you have to experiment to find what works best for you.

Don’t see this a chore and just blanket your entire product range with one google product category. You’ll be surprised at how specific the Google Taxonomy can go. It’s worth taking the time to make sure that your products are being attributed to the most relevant category.

It may seem like just a basic way of categorising your products but if you tie in this with all the other factors I’ve mentioned; then you’ll find yourself with one impressive Google Shopping Campaign.

For more information on Google Shopping optimisation please visit our site Zelst. Keep up to date with all Digital Marketing news with our Blog. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate you Contact Us.